Blameless

Prologue I'm just saying he's not everything you think he is, that's all." Alexis sighed and closed her eyes. Why did she allow Lucy to pull her into these conversations? "And how would you know what I think he is?" Lucy sat at her desk, primly tapping at her keyboard, her lips compressed into the tight, holier-than-thou stamp of disapproval that inevitably made Alexis want to throw something. She stared at Lucy for a long time, long enough that she finally decided the conversation was over. She should have known better. As she turned toward her office door, Lucy said, "I'm only thinking of you, Dr. Hartnett." Alexis turned slowly to face Lucy. "What's that supposed to mean?"Tap, tap, tap."Oh, just...you know. This campus is like a small town. People talk." "And what do they say?" "Now, don't get all upset" "I asked you a question." "I'm just the messenger, Dr. Hartnett." "Fine. What's the message?" In the silence that followed, Alexis could hear the ticking of the second hand on the wall clock behind Lucy's desk. Despite herself, she began to count the ticks. She was up to twelve when Lucy gave her a guilty look and cleared her throat with a noise that sounded to Alexis like an actual "ahem." "It's just...some people in the departments... That is, I've heard..." "Lucy, why don't you just tell me what you've got against Dr. Barnes?" Lucy looked at her, and for an instant, Alexis could have sworn she saw something like anger in her administrative assistant's eyes. "Dr. Hartnett, everybody knows the university is in a budget crunch. And you've missed the last two deadlines from the provost for your final allocation requests. You have a lot to think about these days, and I think you ought to ask yourself if you're really focused on the College of Arts and Humanities, or...or something else." So. There it was, out in the open. Or as close to the open as Lucy was likely to venture. Lucy was efficient, reliable, punctual, responsible...and, at times, thoroughly irritating. For some reason, Alexis habitually thought of her as olderfrom a previous generation, eventhough Alexis knew Lucy was probably about her age. She had been the dean's administrative assistant before Alexis had occupied this position. As far as she could see, Lucy appeared from nowhere each morning and disappeared the same way each evening after work. Alexis had never heard her mention friends, family, co-workersnone of the normal small talk that usually oiled the wheels of days and weeks spent in the same working space. Lucy was the master of the emotional Trojan horse. You got mad at yourself because you didn't know how to get mad at her; she gave you no fingerholds. Alexis now asked herself,wasshe thinking about something else? Did Lucy, in fact, have a point? Did Lucy suspect that in Alexis's more self-aware moments, she had noticed she was thinking of Joe Barnes in those little, out-of-the-way instants scattered randomly in her life, like the corners in her house that accumulated dust, unnoticed until a mother-in-law's visit? Drinking her juice in the morning, Alexis would catch herself wondering what he was having for breakfast. Or in the middle of a committee meeting, she would think of him in his classroom, trying, in that kind, nonblaming way he had, to inch his students toward knowledge. And anytime she ran across a passage froLemmons, Thom is the author of 'Blameless ', published 2007 under ISBN 9781400071746 and ISBN 1400071747.