A Spring Break Carol: A Short Ghost Story Read online



  A Spring Break Carol

  A Short Ghost Story

  By Benita Huffman

  Copyright © 2015 by Benita Huffman Muth

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold.  If you would like to share this book with another person, please do. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  “They’re destroying the department Maynard built, and you’re letting them do it!”

  Kate Allen’s face and neck blotched red when she hurled into my office. The door knob thudded against the paneling, leaving a fingernail-shaped dent in the expensive polish.

  I placed my computer tablet beside a stack of precisely-aligned forms. “Kate, please sit down. You’re upset.”

  The art instructor (lecturer, not professor) had clearly heard the news: the College’s permanent replacement for her recently-deceased husband wasn’t Nicole Douglas, the nearly-finished Ph.D. who had stepped in to teach the Fall classes Dr. Maynard Allen had so unadvisedly begun, despite doctors’ warnings that his cancer was aggressive and he wouldn’t last the semester.

  Dr. Maynard Allen, Professor of English, had died at a convenient moment for the College. I had dealt with the loss: notified the faculty with regret and gravity, arranged the memorial service in the College Chapel, informed alumni of the giving opportunity in his memory. Then I continued the business of saving the College without Maynard, my greatest obstacle, or at least the symbolic representation of it.

  If a small, private college doesn’t have a faculty member like Maynard Allen, he must be invented: genial; prematurely gray, if possible; sharply witty in the classroom and at cocktail parties, but socially befuddled otherwise; no groundbreaking scholarship, yet hailed as a genius. Students love him. Alumni rave about him. An image of him encircled by enthralled students under a russet oak features prominently on the college’s web site.

  And a Dean is stuck with him. If he’d been young, I’d have weeded him out after his third-year review. As he was tenured and ten years from retirement, he must stay, crusade against declining academic standards, and at best provide a figurehead for the Copingham College Experience.

  I had no unpleasant feelings toward Maynard. He had performed that role adequately. His tragic illness was brief enough to draw faculty, students, and community together, yet short enough he didn’t become a suffering fixture on disability leave. Maynard would now settle into a new role: the legendary professor, dearly remembered, soon to recede into the College’s historic color.

  Kate paced. “Nicole was perfect for Maynard’s job. She’s committed to this college, she loves it, she understands it. She uprooted herself to come here and help us because she’d been Maynard’s student, because she loved this school. And to be passed over for this Will Kraynack person, with his dissertation on digital Literary Darwinism? What even is that, Literary Darwinism, of all things, and digital? How does this decision make sense?”

  No one can say I don’t handle the messiness of less-disciplined egos with delicacy. A dean is like a diplomatic military governor, and nothing cries for governing more than a group of outdated liberal professors, who prattle about “the way the college used to be,” not appreciating the strategy and sacrifice needed to ensure a college’s survival in the current economic situation.

  I steered her to the two black chairs angled in a conversation area across from my desk and took her hands as she lowered into one. “Nicole would certainly have been an asset, but the English department feels it’s working for the good of the school. Will is a fine young man, dynamic, finishing a degree from an excellent institution. If the job market weren’t so tight, we’d never get him, considering our teaching load. He’ll bring the 21st-century perspective we need to keep the humanities relevant.”

  “I know this decision wasn’t unanimous.”

  I returned to my desk, letting her see me examine her fierce red eyes, her faded hair, her slightly sagging jaw. “I’ll tell you a few things in confidence, Kate. There were some concerns among the junior faculty members about Nicole’s work. It’s very traditional. They’re also not sure she’d be a congenial colleague.”

  Those fiery assistant professors, two of my recent hires who – with Maynard gone – had swept the others along, would be suitably rewarded for their loyalty.

  “Not congenial? Nicole? And traditional? What do they mean by that?”

  “She is reserved, and her dissertation . . . it’s solid, of course, but not distinguished. Perhaps it’s not fair, but that’s the way the academic world works. If you don’t present yourself well, refuse to cultivate those who make hiring decisions. . . .”

  Kate’s eyes narrowed. “So this new boy knows how to cultivate people? And that’s a good thing? If he’s that political and too good for us, what is this school for him besides a stepping stone? He’ll be gone in two years.”

  “We’re lucky to get him. We need faculty with his kind of vision.”

  “Copingham College is no more than a rung on the ladder for you, too, isn’t it? Maynard said –”

  “Kate, I valued Maynard. Yes, we held different opinions, but I respected his contribution to the college, as I value yours.”

  Kate didn’t have a Ph.D. She’d gained her MFA in art only after her son entered middle school, and she’d been given a position when the college was run like a mom-and-pop operation, because her husband was well-liked. True, her position was long-standing and reasonably secure, but it wasn’t tenured, and without a strong economy and a yearly crop of baby boomer children, art departments were being cut across the country. She no longer had a husband’s income, and security should matter more now. Times had changed, and she needed to remember that.

  Kate didn’t take the hint. “The final decision was yours. You could have vetoed the department. Nicole’s credentials and scholarship are as good as his, and this man does not have her history with this institution, he doesn’t have her proven teaching record, and he does not fit the ideological bent of the department. Why did you not hire Nicole?”

  “Would it have benefited Nicole to hire her when she wasn’t the first choice?”

  “As she’s now unemployed, yes, it would.”

  “Kate, you know how much I value –”

  “If you value me and my husband as much as you claim to, you will tell me why this decision was made.”

  Allowances must be made for grief, but they needed to be made quickly. I was meeting with a trustee in barely an hour. The president was sure to pop in just before, and Kate looked like a crazed protester, ready to chain herself to my desk.

  I could cultivate people better than Will Kraynack. He was still an amateur.

  “All right, Kate. But this must remain private. I hope you don’t think I’m crazy. When Chuck told me what the English department had decided, I was stunned. As you say, Nicole did appear such a natural fit for this job. I knew I couldn’t pass that recommendation to the president, but I told Chuck I’d sleep on it.

  “I was up half the night, pacing and worrying. The last thing I heard was the tower bell chiming fiv
e. Then,” and here I looked straight into her brown eyes, “then I had a dream. I can’t explain it, but I saw Maynard. He was there, right in my bedroom. I know it isn’t logical, but he was there.”

  Perched on my hard black chair, Kate didn’t breathe and her eyes turned glassy.

  “I saw Maynard.” The words lingered between us. “He talked to me. He told me Will was the one to fill his shoes, that Will was like himself as a young man, and that Nicole had a different destiny.”

  Kate’s head shook. “I don’t know what to say to you. You’re either crazy or cruel or both.”

  “Or I had a vision. Don‘t dismiss it.” Returning to the chair beside her, I took her hand and pressed my thumb over her rough knuckles. She smelled of turpentine. “The next day, I called Chuck and approved Will’s hire. Kate, haven’t you ever had an experience you couldn’t defend logically, but knew was utterly real? Something happened that night.”

  I stood. “Thank you. I feel better for telling someone. You do believe me, don’t you?”

  Kate, dazed, mirrored my actions and stood, too. She shook her head, but with little force.

  “Kate, you’ve got our support. It’s only been five months. We all miss him.”

  I steered her out the door and returned to my leather desk chair with that satisfaction one feels after eating precisely enough of a well-prepared meal.

  As predicted, the college president dropped in. We met with the rich trustee, who was suddenly disturbed about extended visiting hours in the women’s dormitory, a policy implemented twenty years ago. I handled both trustee and president, went home, ate grilled salmon and steamed vegetables with a nice wine, and chatted with my wife. I slept well that night, as I normally do.

  That was Friday. Maynard returned on Monday.