Read Online Poetic Justice by Amanda Cross - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Amanda Cross
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Reed, she was happy. The campus looked peaceful, benign, perhaps falsely so, but “when was peace or its concomitant smile the worse for being undeserved?” Perhaps, she thought, Reed will be ready early.
She was surprised, though only mildly so, to find McQuire waiting for her at the bus stop.
“More propositions?” Kate asked.
“I am Frogmore’s pander. I promised him I would try to bring you over to the Club for a conversation. We’ve heard the English Senior Faculty Committee meeting is Monday, and we’d like a word in your ear before then.”
“I have only just been at the Club,” Kate said; “inferior lunch, superior quotations. I never even expected to be here Saturday when I took up this line of work.”
“Come back to the Club with me now. I faithfully promise this will be the last time I abduct you.”
“By the way,” Kate said, as they walked toward the Faculty Club, “what’s your great interest in the University College? Surely there aren’t enough beautiful young things to be worth all this bother.”
“Well—the University College these days is an extraordinarily vital place, while the College, let’s face it, is catering first to a lot of boys fed up with work in prep schools whose only ambition for their college years is to get confronted and laid, preferably on alternate days, and second to the college alumni who want Alma Mater to go on unchanged, supporting the same prejudices and enthusiasms they remember, or think they do, from their undergraduate days. As an economist, I’m interested in the economically viable, and in the long run I think that’s an adult undergraduate school. Certainly in New York City. I mean, it may be lovely to go and gambol by the Charles, but the river in this city is not a river but an estuary of the ocean, and it follows the tides of the ocean. I think we should stop trying to be Harvardor Yale and find our own pattern. I ought to add that St. Jude is my favorite saint: he of the lost causes—or has the Church demoted him along with the others?”
“All causes are lost causes, as e.e. cummings used to say; otherwise, they’re effects.”
Frogmore greeted Kate with all the exuberance of a hostess who had not really expected the guest of honor to appear. “Never mind how goody-good he comes on,” McQuire had said. “It’s no doubt due to an oppressive upbringing. I’ve actually heard him use four-letter words, when driven. I don’t know why University College should be a personal matter to him, but I think he would do almost anything for the sheer joy of seeing Cudlipp’s face when the Board of Governors announce that they have voted to let University College continue.” Today Frogmore (“Call me Vivian,” he said to Kate, who was astonished; it seemed to her that any man named Vivian would stick to last names as a mere matter of survival) did not come on goody-good very long. “You’ll never guess what that son-of-a—I beg your pardon, Kate—has done,” he said. “Managed to get one of his pals in as Dean of the College.”
“From the English Department? Do I know him? Or is his name unmentionable?”
“His name’s O’Toole,” Frogmore said. “Robert J. O’Toole. Ring a bell?”
“I don’t believe it,” Kate said. “Why should Robert O’Toole take a job like that? He’s already a full professor and a leader of what I believe is known as the New York intellectual community, with influence even in certain parts of Connecticut and New Jersey. Why should he take …?”
“Cudlipp has managed it. Of course, O’Toole’s acceptable to the faculty because he’s a name, and has a lot of university and extra-university weight to throw around. The only members of the College faculty who might have objected are those who can’t stand O’Toole’s guts, or those who don’t think he’s quite as good as he thinks he is …”
“Which is impossible on the face of it, from all I hear,” McQuire interjected.
“And
She was surprised, though only mildly so, to find McQuire waiting for her at the bus stop.
“More propositions?” Kate asked.
“I am Frogmore’s pander. I promised him I would try to bring you over to the Club for a conversation. We’ve heard the English Senior Faculty Committee meeting is Monday, and we’d like a word in your ear before then.”
“I have only just been at the Club,” Kate said; “inferior lunch, superior quotations. I never even expected to be here Saturday when I took up this line of work.”
“Come back to the Club with me now. I faithfully promise this will be the last time I abduct you.”
“By the way,” Kate said, as they walked toward the Faculty Club, “what’s your great interest in the University College? Surely there aren’t enough beautiful young things to be worth all this bother.”
“Well—the University College these days is an extraordinarily vital place, while the College, let’s face it, is catering first to a lot of boys fed up with work in prep schools whose only ambition for their college years is to get confronted and laid, preferably on alternate days, and second to the college alumni who want Alma Mater to go on unchanged, supporting the same prejudices and enthusiasms they remember, or think they do, from their undergraduate days. As an economist, I’m interested in the economically viable, and in the long run I think that’s an adult undergraduate school. Certainly in New York City. I mean, it may be lovely to go and gambol by the Charles, but the river in this city is not a river but an estuary of the ocean, and it follows the tides of the ocean. I think we should stop trying to be Harvardor Yale and find our own pattern. I ought to add that St. Jude is my favorite saint: he of the lost causes—or has the Church demoted him along with the others?”
“All causes are lost causes, as e.e. cummings used to say; otherwise, they’re effects.”
Frogmore greeted Kate with all the exuberance of a hostess who had not really expected the guest of honor to appear. “Never mind how goody-good he comes on,” McQuire had said. “It’s no doubt due to an oppressive upbringing. I’ve actually heard him use four-letter words, when driven. I don’t know why University College should be a personal matter to him, but I think he would do almost anything for the sheer joy of seeing Cudlipp’s face when the Board of Governors announce that they have voted to let University College continue.” Today Frogmore (“Call me Vivian,” he said to Kate, who was astonished; it seemed to her that any man named Vivian would stick to last names as a mere matter of survival) did not come on goody-good very long. “You’ll never guess what that son-of-a—I beg your pardon, Kate—has done,” he said. “Managed to get one of his pals in as Dean of the College.”
“From the English Department? Do I know him? Or is his name unmentionable?”
“His name’s O’Toole,” Frogmore said. “Robert J. O’Toole. Ring a bell?”
“I don’t believe it,” Kate said. “Why should Robert O’Toole take a job like that? He’s already a full professor and a leader of what I believe is known as the New York intellectual community, with influence even in certain parts of Connecticut and New Jersey. Why should he take …?”
“Cudlipp has managed it. Of course, O’Toole’s acceptable to the faculty because he’s a name, and has a lot of university and extra-university weight to throw around. The only members of the College faculty who might have objected are those who can’t stand O’Toole’s guts, or those who don’t think he’s quite as good as he thinks he is …”
“Which is impossible on the face of it, from all I hear,” McQuire interjected.
“And
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