The girl in the yellow slicker was standing at the end of the walk, talking to a girl in an Angel Flight uniform. She hobbled toward them with her head down, trying to hurry, listening for the sound of Tupper’s bike.
“He asked about you,” Tib said, and Elizabeth looked up.
She didn’t look at all the way Elizabeth remembered her. She was a little overweight and not very pretty, the kind of girl who wouldn’t have been able to get a date for the dance. Her short hair made her round face look even plumper. She looked hopeful and a little worried.
Don’t worry, Elizabeth thought. I’m here. She didn’t look at herself. She concentrated on getting up even with them at the right time.
“I told him you were living in the Alpha Phi house,” Tib said.
“Oh,” she heard her own voice, and under it the hum of a bicycle.
“I’m dating this guy in ROTC. He’s absolutely gorgeous!”
There was a pause, and then Elizabeth’s voice said, “Thanks a lot,” and Elizabeth pushed the rubber end of her crutch against a patch of ice and went down.
For a minute she couldn’t see anything for the pain. “I’ve broken it,” she thought, and clenched her fists to keep from screaming.
“Are you all right?” Tib said, kneeling in front of her so she couldn’t see anything. No, not you! Not you! For a minute she was afraid that it hadn’t worked, that the girl had turned and walked away. But after all, this was not a stranger but only herself, who was too kind to let a worm drown. She had only gone around to Elizabeth’s other side, where she couldn’t see her. “Did she break it?” she said. “Should I go call an ambulance or something?”
No. “No,” Elizabeth said. “I’m fine. If you could just help me up.”
The girl who had been Elizabeth Wilson put her books down on the cement bench and came and knelt down by Elizabeth. “I hope we don’t collapse in a heap,” she said, and smiled at Elizabeth. She was a pretty girl. I didn’t know that either, Elizabeth thought, even when Tupper told me. She took hold of Elizabeth’s arm and Tib took hold of the other.
“Tripping innocent passersby again, I see. How many times have I told you not to do that?” And here, finally, was Tupper. He had laid his bike flat in the grass and put his bag of Tupperware beside it.
Tib and the girl that had been herself let go and stepped back and he knelt beside her. “They’re not bad girls, really. They just like to play practical jokes. But banana peels is going too far, girls,” he said, so close she could feel his warm breath on her cheek. She turned to look at him, suddenly afraid that he would be different, too, but it was only Tupper, who she had loved all these years. He put his arm around her. “Now just put your arm around my neck, sweetheart. That’s right. Elizabeth, come over here and atone for your sins by helping this pretty lady up.”
She had already picked her books up and was holding them against her chest, looking angry and eager to get away. She looked at Tib, but Tib was picking up the crutches, stooping down in her high heels because she couldn’t bend over in her Angel Flight skirt.
She put her books down again and came around to Elizabeth’s other side to take hold of her arm, and Elizabeth grabbed for her hand instead and held it tightly so she couldn’t get away. “I took her to the dance because she helped with the Tupperware party. I told her I owed her a favor,” he said, and Elizabeth turned and looked at him.
He was not looking at her really. He was looking past her at the other Elizabeth, who would not answer the phone, who would not come to the window, but he seemed to be looking at her, and on his young remembered face there was a look of such naked, vulnerable love that it was like a blow.
“I told you so,” Tib said. She laid the crutches against the bench.
“I’m sure this lady doesn’t want to hear this,” Elizabeth said.
“I was going to tell you at the party, but that idiot Sharon Oberhausen …”
Tib brought over the crutches. “After I asked him, I thought, ‘What if she thinks I’m trying to steal her boyfriend?’ and I got so worried I was afraid to tell you. I really only asked him to get out of weekend duty. I mean, I don’t like him or anything.”
Tupper grinned at Elizabeth. “I try to pay my debts, and this is the thanks I get. You wouldn’t get mad at me if I took your roommate to a dance, would you?”
“I might,” Elizabeth said. It was cold sitting on the cement. She was starting to shiver. “But I’d forgive you.”
“You see that?” he said.
“I see,” Elizabeth said disgustedly, but she was smiling at him now. “Don’t you think we’d better get this innocent passerby up off the sidewalk before she freezes to death?”
“Upsy-daisy, sweetheart,” Tupper said, and in one easy motion she was up and sitting on the stone bench.
“Thank you,” she said. Her teeth were chattering with the cold.
Tupper knelt in front of her and examined her ankle. “It looks pretty swollen,” he said. “Do you want us to call somebody?”
“No, my husband will be along any minute. I’ll just sit here till he comes.”
Tib fished Elizabeth’s application out of the puddle. “I’m afraid it’s ruined,” she said.
“It doesn’t matter.”
Tupper picked up his bag of bowls. “Say,” he said, “you wouldn’t be interested in having a Tupperware party? As hostess, you could earn valuable points toward …”
“Tupper!” Tib said.
“Will you leave this poor lady alone?” Elizabeth said.
He held up the sack. “Only if you’ll go with me to deliver my lettuce crispers to the Sigma Chi house.”
“I’ll go,” Tib said. “There’s this darling Sigma Chi I’ve been wanting to meet.”
“And I’ll go,” Elizabeth said, putting her arm around Tib. “I don’t trust the kind of boyfriend you find on your own. Jim Scates is a real creep. Didn’t Sharon tell you what he did to Marilyn Reed?”
Tupper handed Elizabeth the sack of bowls while he stood his bike up. Elizabeth handed them to Tib.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Tupper said. “It’s cold out here. You could wait for your husband in the student union.”
She wished she could put her hand on his cheek just once. “I’ll be fine,” she said.
The three of them went down the walk toward Frasier, Tupper pushing the bike. When they got even with Carter Hall, they cut across the grass toward Frasier. She watched them until she couldn’t see them anymore, and then sat there a while longer on the cold bench. She had hoped that something might happen, some sign that she had rescued them, but nothing happened. Her ankle didn’t hurt anymore. It had stopped the minute Tupper touched it.
She continued to sit there. It seemed to her to be getting colder, though she had stopped shivering, and after a while she got up and walked home, leaving the crutches where they were.
It was cold in the house. Elizabeth turned the thermostat up and sat down at the kitchen table, still in her coat, waiting for the heat to come on. When it didn’t, she remembered that Paul had turned the furnace off, and she went and got a blanket and wrapped up in it on the couch. Her ankle did not hurt at all, though it felt cold. When the phone rang, she could hardly move it. It took her several rings to make it to the phone.
“I thought you weren’t going to answer,” Paul said. “I made an appointment with a Dr. Jamieson for you this afternoon at three. He’s a psychiatrist.”
“Paul,” she said. She was so cold it was hard to talk. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s a little late for that, isn’t it?” he said. “I told Dr. Brubaker you were on muscle relaxants for your ankle. I don’t know whether he bought it or not.” He hung up.
“Too late,” Elizabeth said. She hung up the phone. The back of her hand was covered with ice crystals. “Paul,” she tried to say, but her lips were stiff with cold, and no sound came out.
THESE ARE THE BEST AND WORST OF TIMES FOR WRITING comedy. On the one hand, there’s
plenty of material out there. If you don’t believe me, tune in Oprah-Sally-Phil-Geraldo for a few days. (Last week they had strippers who’d been separated at birth, Elvis’s diet specialist, and women whose husbands don’t listen to them.) On the other hand, nobody has a sense of humor.
You’re not supposed to laugh at global warming or low self-esteem or cholesterol. This is the age of political correctness, a movement devoted to the stamping out of “inappropriate laughter,” and the battle cry of every anti-(choose one: smoking, animal research, logging, abortion, Columbus) activist seems to be, “That’s not funny. These are serious issues.”
Of course, seriousness and self-importance are what comedy is all about—tragedy, too. Does the word “hubris” ring a bell?—and I feel it’s my bounden duty to laugh at them. Besides, it’s fun sitting up here on the fence taking potshots at Newspeak and predators and faculty teas. As Jane Austen (a regular Annie Oakley when it comes to fancy shooting) says, “For what do we live, but to make sport of our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?”
And it’s either that, or cry. Or scream.
IN THE LATE CRETACEOUS
“It was in the late Cretaceous that predators reached their full flowering,” Dr. Othniel said. “Of course, carnivorous dinosaurs were present from the Middle Triassic on, but it was in the Late Cretaceous, with the arrival of the albertosaurus, the velociraptor, the deinonychus, and of course, the tyrannosaurus rex, that the predatory dinosaur reached its full strength, speed, and sophistication.”
Dr. Othniel wrote “LATE CRETACEOUS-PREDATORS” on the board. He suffered from arthritis and a tendency to stoop, and the combination made him write only on the lower third of the chalkboard. He wrote “ALBERTOSAURUS, COELOPHYSIS, VELOCIRAPTOR, DEINONYCHUS, TYRANNOSAURUS REX,” in a column under “LATE CRETACEOUS—PREDATORS,” which put “TYRANNOSAURUS REX” just above the chalk tray.
“Of all these,” Dr. Othniel said, “tyrannosaurus rex is the most famous, and deservedly so.”
Dr. Othniel’s students wrote in their notebooks “#1 LC. predator TRX” or “No predators in the Late Cretaceous” or “I have a new roommate. Her name is Traci. Signed, Deanna.” One of them composed a lengthy letter protesting the unfairness of his parking tickets.
“This flowering of the predators was partly due to the unprecedented abundance of prey. Herbivores such as the triceratops, the chasmosaurus, and the duck-billed hadrosaur roamed the continents in enormous herds.”
He had to move an eraser so he could write “PREY—HADROSAURS” under “TYRANNOSAURUS REX.” His students wrote “Pray—duck-billed platypus,” and “My new roommate Traci has an absolutely wow boyfriend named Todd,” and “If you think I’m going to pay this ticket, you’re crazy!”
“The hadrosaurs were easy prey. They had no horns or bony frills like the triceratops,” he said. “They did, however, have large bony crests, which may have been used to trumpet warnings to each other or to hear or smell the presence of predators.” He squeezed “HOLLOW BONY CREST” in under “HADROSAURS” and raised his head, as if he had heard something.
One of his sophomores, who was writing “I don’t even have a car,” glanced toward the door, but there wasn’t anyone there.
Dr. Othniel straightened, vertebra by vertebra, until the top of his bald head was nearly even with the top of the blackboard. He lifted his chin, as if he were sniffing the air, and then bent over again, frowning. “Warnings, however, were not enough against the fifty-foot-tall tyrannosaurus rex, with his five-foot-long jaws and seven-inch-long teeth,” he said. He wrote “JAWS—5 FT, TEETH—7 IN.” down among the erasers.
His students wrote “The Parking Authority is run by a bunch of Nazis,” and “Deanna + Todd,” and “TRX had five feet.”
After her Advanced Antecedents class, Dr. Sarah Wright collected her mail and took it to her office. There was a manila envelope from the State Department of Education, a letter from the Campus Parking Authority marked “Third Notice: Pay Your Outstanding Tickets Immediately,” and a formal-looking square envelope from the dean’s office, none of which she wanted to open.
She had no outstanding parking tickets, the legislature was going to cut state funding of universities by another eighteen percent, and the letter from the dean was probably notifying her that the entire amount was going to come out of Paleontology’s hide.
There was also a stapled brochure from a flight school she had written to during spring break after she had graded 143 papers, none of which had gotten off the ground. The brochure had an eagle, some clouds, and the header “Do you ever just want to get away from it all?”
She pried the staple free and opened it. “Do you ever get, like, fed up with your job and want to blow it off?” it read. “Do you ever feel like you just want to bag everything and do something really neat instead?”
It went on in this vein, which reminded her of her students’ papers, for several illustrated paragraphs before it got down to hard facts, which were that the Lindbergh Flight Academy charged three thousand dollars for their course, “including private, commercial, instrument, CFI, CFII, written tests, and flight tests. Lodging extra. Not responsible for injuries, fatalities, or other accidents.”
She wondered if the “other accidents” covered budget cuts from the legislature.
Her TA, Chuck, came in, eating a Twinkie and waving a formal-looking square envelope. “Did you get one of these?” he asked.
“Yes,” Sarah said, picking up hers. “I was just going to open it. What is it, an invitation to a slaughter?”
“No, a reception for some guy. The dean’s having it this afternoon. In the Faculty Library.”
Sarah looked at the invitation suspiciously. “I thought the dean was at an educational conference.”
“She’s back.”
Sarah tore open the envelope and pulled out the invitation. “The dean cordially invites you to a reception for Dr. Jerry King,” she muttered. “Dr. Jerry King?” She opened the manila envelope and scanned through the legislature report, looking for his name. “Who is he, do you know?”
“Nope.”
At least he wasn’t one of the budget-cut supporters. His name wasn’t on the list. “Did the rest of the department get these?”
“I don’t know. Othniel got one. I saw it in his box,” Chuck said. “I don’t think he can reach it. His box is on the top row.”
Dr. Robert Walker came in, waving a piece of paper. “Look at this! Another ticket for not having a parking sticker! I have a parking sticker! I have two parking stickers! One on the bumper and one on the windshield. Why can’t they see them?”
“Did you get one of these, Robert?” Sarah asked, showing him the invitation. “The dean’s having a reception this afternoon. Is it about the funding cuts?”
“I don’t know,” Robert said. “They’re right there in plain sight. I even drew an arrow in Magic Marker to the one on the bumper.”
“The legislature’s cut our funding again,” Sarah said. “I’ll bet you anything the dean’s going to eliminate a position. She was over here last week looking at our enrollment figures.”
“The whole university’s enrollment is down,” Robert said, going over to the window and looking out. “Nobody can afford to go to college anymore, especially when it costs eighty dollars a semester for a parking sticker. Not that the stickers do any good. You still get parking tickets.”
“We’ve got to fight this,” Sarah said. “If she eliminates one of our positions, we’ll be the smallest department on campus, and the next thing you know, we’ll have been merged with Geology. We’ve got to organize the department and put up a fight. Do you have any ideas, Robert?”
“You know,” Robert said, still looking out the window, “maybe if I posted someone out by my car—”
“Your car?”
“Yeah. I could hire a student to sit on the back bumper, and when the Parking Authority comes by, he could point to the sticker. It would cost a lot, but—Stop that!” he shoute
d suddenly. He wrenched the window open and leaned out. “You can’t give me a parking ticket!” he shouted down at the parking lot. “I have two stickers! What are you, blind?” He pulled his head in and bolted out of the office and down the stairs, yelling, “They just gave me another ticket! Can you believe that?”
“No,” Sarah said. She picked up the flight-school brochure and looked longingly at the picture of the eagle.
“Do you think they’ll have food?” Chuck said. He was looking at the dean’s invitation.
“I hope not,” Sarah said.
“Why not?”
“Grazing,” she said. “The big predators always attack when the hadrosaurs are grazing.”
“If they do have food, what kind do you think they’ll have?” Chuck asked wistfully.
“It depends,” Sarah said, turning the brochure over. “Tea and cookies, usually.”
“Homemade?”
“Not unless there’s bad news. Cheese and crackers means somebody’s getting the ax. Liver pâté means a budget cut. Of course, if the budget cut’s big enough, there won’t be any money for refreshments.”
On the back of the brochure it said in italics “Become Upwardly Mobile,” and underneath, in boldface:
FAA-APPROVED
TUITION WAIVERS AVAILABLE
FREE PARKING
• • •
“There have been radical changes in our knowledge of the dinosaurs over the past few years,” Dr. Albertson said, holding the micropaleontology textbook up, “so radical that what came before is obsolete.” He opened the book to the front. “Turn to the introduction.”
His students opened their books, which had cost $64.95.
“Have you all turned to the introduction?” Dr. Albertson asked, taking hold of the top corner of the first page. “Good. Now tear it out.” He ripped out the page. “It’s useless, completely archaic.”
Actually, although there had been some recent revisions in theories regarding dinosaur behavior and physiology, particularly in the larger predators, there hadn’t been any at all at the microscopic level. But Dr. Albertson had seen Robin Williams do this in a movie and been very impressed.