Page 76 of The Botanist's Assistant
“Beth always had a chip on her shoulder,” her brother, Michael, said after Joe found him working as a mechanic in Los Angeles. “She needed to prove she was better than everybody else, and lord help anyone who crossed her. She’d go after you.”
When Joe wrote that Purdy’s ex-husband had died several years earlier after a mysterious hit-and-run accident while he was jogging with his second wife, the Dallas Police had opened an investigation.
Joe lifts the wine bottle. “Anyone for more? I brought another bottle.”
Margaret waves him off but Calvin gestures for a refill.
“It’s going to take at least three glasses to get me on that driveway again,” he says.
Joe pours. “It wasn’t so bad.” He’d driven Calvin to the party in his pickup.
“Oh no? I think mountain goats would get nervous on that road. My life flashed before my eyes the whole way up.” He turns to Margaret. “I don’t know how you do it every day. If I were you, I would have let them fire me and then suedthem for wrongful termination so I wouldn’t have to risk life and limb on a regular basis.”
When Joe asked the dean about why he’d ordered Margaret to falsify information for the Cameron Foundation grant, then tried to fire her when she wouldn’t, he’d mumbled somethingabout collaboration being the hallmark of Roosevelt University, then claimed some important appointment and told Joe he needed to leave.
Apparently, the “important appointment” involved him hurrying across campus to Human Resources and snatching Margaret’s unprocessed termination papers from a startled Anita Allshouse. He then emailed the Cameron Foundation asking to withdraw the application he’d sent, placing the blame on Purdy for what he claimed had been a clerical error, then trying to erase the incriminating emails he’d sent to Margaret.
For a man of science, he turned out to be incredibly inept at technology and Joe easily traced the fraudulent application back to him.
As soon as Joe’s article was published, the dean put in for early retirement for “health reasons,” a request that was quickly granted by the provost.
“Dean Harold McDonald was a valued member of our community but, unfortunately, like many people who mustdeal with the budget constraints of today’s universities and the pressure to continually provide an outstanding learning experience for our students, he succumbed to the scourge of academic burnout,” the provost wrote in a statement to Joe. “We wish the former dean well and we are doing all we can to address stress-related issues with faculty and staff.”
Margaret takes a last sip of her wine and leans back in her chair.
“I come to work every day because what we do is important,” she tells Calvin. “I come to work because I believe in science and the process of discovery and, besides, what else would I do?”
“Our new boss doesn’t scare you?” Calvin asks.
Margaret shakes her head.
“Not even a little bit?”
Margaret supposes Veronica Ann Deaver’s drive and intensity might intimidate some people, but she likes how the woman has taken charge, hiring an additional postdoc and securing a collaboration with the medicinal chemist from Florida, which helped her win a three-year, three-million-dollar Cameron Foundation grant.
The provost claimed the idea of Veronica Ann taking over the lab had been considered by him even before the grant and that he hadn’t known about the fraudulent grant application, two assertations Joe could neither prove nor disprove. Levi Blackstone, meanwhile, quit his post and got a job with a biotechnology start-up run by an infamous Silicon Valley entrepreneur. Margaret didn’t begrudge him. A shark should swim with sharks.
“What about that sign she put up in the lab?No Shorts. No Sandals. No Science,” Calvin says.
“Wise advice for those who work with chemicals,” Margaret says.
“I asked to be grandfathered in, but she said dressing for success brings success,” Calvin says. “I guess I can’t argue with her.”
“She’s a very smart woman,” Margaret says.
The day is cooling. It won’t be long before the rains arrive. Margaret hopes it will be a good year, both for the forest and for her garden. Veronica Ann has promised her a raise. Perhaps she will order a load of gravel for the spot in her driveway where the seasonal spring runs.
A blue jay squawks and the trio turns to see Tom step from the forest, ignoring the bird the way one would pay no attention to a car alarm in the city. A veterinarian had to remove the feline’s badly damaged eye, but the cat has put on weight and his coat is shiny. He crosses the garden and sits in a patch of sunlight.
“That cat doesn’t know how good he’s got it,” Calvin says.
“Oh, I think he does,” Joe says.
Margaret stands. “I’ve got dessert.”
“Please tell me it isn’t carrot cake,” Calvin says.
“Apple cobbler,” Margaret says. “I don’t think any of us will be eating cake for a while.”
