Wheatleigh's Golden Goose. Georgia St. Claire

to go over before I can hand off the syllabi and let you start planning your classes for tomorrow morning.” He returned them to the main space and started walking towards the back. “The stairway is used by the public, but there is a small elevator in the back here for our use. It provides a good separation for our private living quarters since access to the third floor is deliberately made unobtrusive and students are strictly forbidden to go up there. There is a second staircase available for emergency use, but it is extremely narrow and steep.” He looked over his shoulder and saw that she was lagging behind. “Audrey? Do you have a question?”

      “I don’t want to seem touchy after I just said that I didn’t mind your speech patterns issue, but aren’t you assuming quite a bit when you say we’ll have to discuss things over dinner sometime?”

      “I guess that wasn’t made clear to you. We’re both living here together. I just assumed that we would inevitably share some mealtimes, who wants to eat alone all the time? Certainly John and I used to trade off on the cooking.”

      She threw up her hands and stepped back. “Whoa there! I don’t cook. I may be traditional in many things, but don’t assume that because I’m a woman that you’ve suddenly got yourself a live in cook. And what the dickens do you mean, we’ll be living together?”

      He reached out, grabbed her arm and got her moving again. “Do you always stop walking when you talk? Please try to keep up. I’ll explain if you will just give me a chance.”

      He interrupted himself to explain the operation of the elevator, which was rather antiquated, and then resumed once they reached the second floor. “This building’s living space was modeled after the British university house system. We each have our private rooms, and then we both have use of shared space, most notably, the kitchen, which is on this floor. It’s a bit inconvenient for us at times, although I suppose it is like many private homes where the kitchen is downstairs from the bedrooms; but having the kitchen on this floor works very well when the department has events and refreshments are served. The main problem is that it is not our, yours and mine, private space. Our offices are on this floor, as are some conference and study rooms, which means that students are frequently wandering around the second floor during the day. They are not banned from the kitchen; in fact some of the more serious senior history majors like to eat their lunch here rather than traipse across campus to the dining hall. So I warn you now, keep any private foods that you are not willing to share, hidden, disguised or clearly labeled. You know how hungry students always seem to be, and a box of cookies or a container of ice cream will not survive the munchies when they go looking for something to nibble on. All alcohol should remain upstairs where the students won’t have any possibility of access.” He opened the refrigerator to show her the labeled food, did a double take and started rummaging, although there wasn’t much in there, “Aw, hell! My piece of cake that I brought home from the restaurant the other night is gone. Man, I hate that! I even wrote ‘Death to thieves’ on the box.”

      He sighed as he straightened up, “Well, proves my point, I guess. Come on, I’ll give you a quick peek at your office and then take you upstairs so you can unpack and settle in.”

      Their offices were on opposite sides of the floor, each with an adjacent small meeting room. There were a couple of the work space cubicles prized by students, to finish out the floor plan along the sides and the kitchen, on the center back wall, was flanked by two larger conference rooms.

      “I’ve left you all the materials you need for a quick jump start for teaching tomorrow in those folders on your desk, along with the textbooks John used. You can explore the filing cabinets for more in-depth information once you get a chance to catch your breath. The official story is that John left for personal reasons. Please do your best to squash any speculation that he was fired or that there was any misconduct. The poor guy is going to find getting a new job tough enough as it is without those kinds of rumors floating around. And, as Boxford said, although I think you had zoned out by then, there is to be absolutely no mention of the financial aspects of your employment. Remember, we want to stay under the radar.” He pointed to a stack of packing boxes. “I spent my weekend sorting through everything, figuring out what belongs to the department and what needs to be sent on to John, once I know where he is. I’ll have Maintenance move them into storage upstairs tomorrow to get them out of your way.’’

      “He left without clearing out his office?” Her eyes were wide as she looked around. “No wonder you were asking me if he was okay.”

      “He taught his Friday morning classes and went upstairs. I heard him use the elevator a little later, I’m guessing that’s when he took his suitcases out, but I didn’t see or talk to him. I found his keys and a note when I went looking for him to see if he wanted to go shoot some pool, a frequent Friday night activity for us.”

      “There’s a pool table?” She looked around like she expected to see it hiding in the shadows.

      Rich laughed. “We’ve got a nice set-up here, but it doesn’t run to that! We used to shoot pool at a place in town.” He gestured for her to step out of the office and pulled out his keys to lock the door. “Your keys are upstairs. I have a master key that lets me into your office. You do not have access to mine, but your key will open everything else.” They headed for the elevator.

      “My key, singular, will open everything except your office, and my keys, plural, are upstairs?”

      ‘You only need the one key for Abernathy Hall, we had everything re-keyed a few years back to simplify things; but, as a faculty member, you also have some keys to various other places on campus. They should be labeled.”

      The elevator doors opened and they stepped out into a short hallway, which delivered them to a slightly shabby, and obviously well used, living room, located in the center of the building over the space that was open on the first and second floors. It had large windows on the front of the building looking out over the quad and doors on each of the other walls.

      Rich gestured, “We went with the obvious set-up for practicality. Your rooms are over your office, which is over your classrooms. That way, when you are working, no one is clumping around overhead. My rooms are on the other side with the same set-up, and there is a set of rooms there,” he pointed to the rear of the building, “over the kitchen, for visiting lecturers or scholars. Or,” he sighed, “for another professor, if the department should ever grow.”

      “You don’t sound very optimistic about that possibility.”

      “Wheatleigh has a stated intention of remaining its current size, to focus on maintaining the high standard for students accepted here and increasing its exclusivity. While it makes a nod towards the traditional liberal arts, Wheatleigh’s focus shifted towards the physical sciences a few decades back. It continues to pour a lot of capital into keeping on the cutting edge in certain sciences. It is starting to have quite a reputation in computer sciences and heavily computer dependent sciences like genetics. The number of history majors is very small and the History Department will not see a penny of any funds that result from your employment here. But hopefully, they won’t come looking to raid our budget anymore.”

      He turned the knob and threw open the door to Audrey’s rooms. “You have a bedroom, a small sitting room and an en suite bathroom. I forgot to point out that there’s a small bathroom in the back hallway by the elevator for visitors to the common space living room, so you don’t have to worry about sharing access to your bathroom with anyone if there is a party or something. I put fresh linens on the bed and towels in the bathroom. We don’t have any housekeeping up here. They clean the first two floors, but stay out of our private living space, so we are on our own. Obviously the situation was unusual surrounding your hiring, so we haven’t had a chance to do any painting or anything, but new hires are entitled to a small re-decorating budget. Just let me know what you want and I will make sure that Boxford makes it happen.”

      “I thought we were staying under the radar.”

      He grinned, “Honey, you are the goose that is going to lay the golden egg for Wheatleigh. I’ll make it clear to our fearless leader that we want to keep you happy with your surroundings. But you are right, so decide