Page 45 of The Botanist's Assistant
She disposed of the mouse carcass, fed the cat the remainder of the tuna (an expense that would only get worse if she bought canned food, which, according to her research, was the most nutritional choice for domesticated cats) and again bowed to its demands and let it outside. As it leapt from the porch, she issued a stern warning to not kill anything more, unless he came across the gopher that, yesterday, had attacked two of her red torch gingers, felling them like an underground lumberjack.
The cat had sauntered off.
So far this experiment in mutual dependency was yielding conflicting data.
This news, however, was worse than bad luck. It was devastating, research-ending luck.
What the guide’s email had actually said was that he had only been collecting the leaves as a favor to Dr. Deaver’s wife, whom he’d known since college, and that with the dangerous nature of the job and the fact that Veronica Ann Deaver’s husband had tried to divorce her, he had no interest in continuing the work. Unless, he noted, he was paid approximately fifty dollars per leaf and, even then, that he would collect no more than thirty leaves at a time.
“Do you realize what you’ve done?” she asks the room, the air, whatever energy belonging to the divorcing Dr. Deaver might have lingered after his death.
“You’re right and, yes, I do,” comes Calvin’s voice.
Margaret startles. She’s been so wrapped up in bad news, she didn’t hear him come in.
He stands a few feet inside the door. His shoulders slump and his skin has a bluish, skim-milk tinge to it.
“I know I shouldn’t have signed it,” he says. “But I just got so mixed up with everything, and I was coming off this horrible panic attack so I wasn’t thinking clearly. Also, I haven’t slept in two days and all I’ve been able to eat is saltine crackers and, oh lord, what have I done?”
Margaret knows better than to tell Calvin to calm down. That would be like pouring water on a grease fire.
“Clarity, please, Calvin,” she says.
“The dean. He asked me to come into his office and Dr. Blackstone was there and they said if I didn’t sign a statement with these things you supposedly did, then I’d be gone. They had my termination form right there, Margaret. It was like looking into the void. I think I might throw up.”
“Deep breaths. Go stand by the window and take deep breaths.”
Calvin does as Margaret says. After a few minutes, color returns to his skin, although technically, there is not much color to return. Calvin is chronically pale, which has prompted Margaret to suggest more than a few times that he take at least one of his smoke breaks out in the sun instead of huddling beneath the limbs of several coast live oaks (Quercus agrifolia), where he and others are allowed to pursue their destructive habit. Vitamin D deficiencies are nothing to mess with.
“Better now?” Margaret asks after a few minutes.
“Whew, for a minute there—”
“No need to go into details, Calvin. What’s this statement you’re talking about?”
A shudder runs through Calvin’s thick frame. “It’s a witness statement saying that you violated safety practices when it came to chemical storage and also failed to supervise the lab properly, causing an explosion that resulted in permanent trauma to an undergrad.”
“Emily wasn’t even there when it happened.”
Calvin groans. “I know. I know. And, also, that you wantonly disobeyed orders from superiors. ‘Wantonly’ was their word, not mine. I told them you always say that scientists are not sheep to be herded but are independent-minded beings whose discoveries are rooted in freedom of thought.”
That is, indeed, what Margaret often said.
“And what did they say to that?”
Calvin hangs his head. “That Dr. Deaver gave you too much freedom of thought and that you’d gone rogue.”
“Rogue” is not a word Margaret associates with herself, but she knows where this is leading. She is about to be shoved out academia’s door once again.
“It was the dean’s idea,” Calvin says. “He said Dr. Blackstone was confident he could continue Dr. Deaver’s work and that research assistants were a dime a dozen. Again, his words not mine. He’s also got this molecular biologist he’s trying to bring to the college. Apparently, the guy’s brother owns a venture capital company or something and could be a big donor.” Calvin groans. “I don’t know, it all happened so fast. I’m sorry, Margaret. I didn’t mean…” His voice trails off.
“Calvin, I want you to go to the café and order pancakes and eggs—carbohydrates for energy and protein for thebrain—anddrink several glasses of water. Then come back and we’ll see what we need to do next.”
“OK. Yeah. I’ll do that. Should I take another Xanax? It might help.”
“Try the breakfast first.”
“Got it,” Calvin says and heads for the door, stopping at the threshold. “And, Margaret?”
