Page 15 of Wish I Were Here
I tell her, and she checks the clipboard one more time, muttering under her breath as she scans the page. After a moment she looks up, shaking her head. “I’m sorry, I don’t have you listed as an attendee at the orientation today.”
My mouth drops open. “But… I signed up weeks ago. I—” Holding up a finger on one hand, I fumble in my bag with the other. “I have the email confirmation right here.” Ipull out my phone and open my brand-new university email, scrolling past announcements about back-to-school sales at the bookstore and the mathematics faculty luncheon Dr. Gupta is hosting at the University Club later this afternoon. Finally, I find the email confirming that Idid, in fact, sign up for orientation today and stating that human resources will begin processing my paperwork shortly. “It’s right here.” I wave the phone at her.
“Hmmmm.” Helen taps her lip with her pen. “It does confirm that you signed up. However, that’s a form email that’s automatically generated when you submit your information in the portal. I wonder if you didn’t make the list for the program today because there was a problem with your paperwork.”
“A problem? With my paperwork?” My heart stutters because my love for sticking to schedules is only eclipsed in intensity by my hatred for problems with paperwork. “What sort of problem?”
Helen waves her hand. “Oh, it could be anything. Maybe you didn’t submit a form that you needed to, for example.”
“I’m certain I submitted everything.” My words are loud, echoing in the empty room. I clear my throat. “I mean”—I lower my voice—“is there a way to check?” I say it, but deep down I know it’s just a formality. As soon as she opens her file, she’ll see it’s all there. My tax forms, copies of my driver’s license and birth certificate, bank information for direct deposit. I’m positive I submitted everything on the day I got the email. Just like I always do.
“Sure. Let’s…” She glances at her watch and then into the orientation room. “Let’s quickly pop into my office.” Ifeel a surge of empathy for her. It’s five after nine, and the program was supposed to start five minutes ago. This delay is throwing off this poor woman’s entire schedule. It would leave me flustered. But she gives me a reassuring smile, and I appreciate her kindness.
I follow her down the hallway into a small office, where she leans over the desk and taps on a keyboard. “Catherine Lipton,” she mutters, typing something into the field on the top of her screen. “Hmmmm,” she says again, with that same ambiguous murmur from earlier that has my nerves buzzing. I lean forward to get a better look, but she’s moving too quickly, clicking from form to form, and I can’t decipher what I’m seeing.
“It’s all there, right? ID? Social Security number? Tax forms?”
“Well,” Helen says, clicking between forms again. “I can see youdidsubmit the forms on the day you registered for orientation.”
Of course I did.I beam at her, grateful we cleared that up. “Wonderful. Should I take my seat in the orientation room?” If we hurry, maybe we can get this meeting back on track. She seems like the type of capable and efficient person who would have built in extra time for contingencies.
“Actually…”
I stand up straighter. “What’s the problem now?”
“Well, I can see that you submitted the paperwork, but it appears that the system rejected it.”
“Rejected it?” Why on earth would the system reject it? I gave them exactly what they asked for.
But then my spine stiffens as I remember standing out onthe lawn with Dr. Gupta and Dad a couple of weeks ago. I’ve gone over and over that day in my head ever since, and I’ve managed to convince myself that Dr. Gupta didn’t find the interaction as strange as I suspected he did. Maybe he barely even registered it at all. Dr. Gupta meets hundreds of new people every fall: all the new students coming in, visiting professors, support staff. My dad is wacky, but this is a university. There are a lot of unusual characters. In the last few days, I’d managed to put the entire interaction out of my head and focus on all the work I have to do.
But now, as I stand here in this office, paperwork rejected, I can’t help but wonder if maybe Dr. Gupta really was more put off by Dad than I imagined. What if he was the one who rejected my paperwork because my family is too strange? What if he thinks I won’t be a proper representative of the mathematics department? He did send me to his graduate assistant instead of answering my questions himself.
My heart taps like Helen’s fingers on the keyboard.
What if he’s decided that he no longer wants me as a member of the mathematics faculty?
Can he do that? Can he simply reject me based on a five-minute conversation with my father on the lawn? My stomach churns. Dad might be wacky, but he was perfectly nice to Dr. Gupta, and I don’t deserve this. By now I’m shaking, clutching the desk chair so hard my fingers have gone white. “Does it say the reason for the rejection?”
Oblivious to my distress, Helen clicks around with her mouse, muttering that same “Hmmmm.”
The sound is a fire alarm to me now. All it means is that something has gone terribly wrong.
“Will you excuse me a moment?” Helen hurries out into the hall, and I hear her whispering to another person. The person whispers back. I strain to hear what she’s saying, but I can’t decipher it. A moment later, she’s back.
“Ms. Lipton—”
“Doctor.” I correct her automatically.
She blinks. “Yes. Of course.Dr.Lipton,” she agrees, but the warmth in her voice is gone, replaced by a deep skepticism. “Youdidsubmit your paperwork correctly and on time. However, when we tried to connect it with your government records for tax purposes and to run our standard background checks, it seems there’s no evidence of you in the system.”
I press my hands to my temples. “Of course there’s no evidence of me in the university’s system.” I say it slowly, as if that might help her to understand. “I’ve never worked here before.” Maybe she’s not as competent as I initially thought. After all, isn’t it her job to put me in the system?
“No.” Helen shakes her head. “Not the university’s system. There’s no record of you in thegovernment’ssystem.” Her eyes slide to mine, cold and detached. “There’s no record that you exist at all.”
I—” I stare at Helen with my mouth hanging open. “Of course Iexist. I’m standing right here in front of you.”
Helen’s eyebrows rise and lips purse, but ever the professional, she calmly says, “Unfortunately, your physical presence doesn’t constitute proof of identity. Your name and Social Security number didn’t show up in any of the government records when we ran our checks.”
