'You know, I did go to a pretty good college,' I said.
'According to who, U.S. News and World Reports? Please.
They know as much about academia as I know about horticulture. Most Ivy Leaguers are the kind of students who work twenty hours a day to make a three-point-eight, then get hit by a bus on your first day of work because you don't have enough common sense to know that red means 'stop.''
'I've never been hit by a bus,' I replied.
'Right. You just got shot.'
She had me there.
Amanda had taken a class with Trimble, Professor of the
Humanities, Professor of nineteenth-century American Cultural History, during her junior year. She claimed Trimble was brilliant, slightly loony, but if you wanted to know anything that took place between Maine and California between eighteen hundred and nineteen hundred, you could be sure it was rattling around in her brain.
Hopefully we could jar something loose, because aside from my employer losing ground to the print princess of darkness, three people had been killed and a murderer was still on the loose.
I'll let them know what bad means.
It was early May, and Trimble had just finished up finals week. According to Amanda, she was spending her final days in the city packing up the office before heading off to Malibu for the summer. I wanted to ask more about this Malibu trip, but Amanda shushed me.
'Better you don't know,' she said. 'Let's just say her favorite movie is Point Break. '
I hadn't been back to NYU since several people had wanted me for murder. That coincided with how I met
Amanda. Needless to say, the school held some memories for me. Traded pain for pleasure, took a bullet in the leg in exchange for a lover at night. Fair deal, but if the bullet had been a few inches higher I wouldn't be thinking that.
The NYU College of Arts and Sciences had a storied history, and what was now known as the Brown Building was formerly known as the Asch Building. The Asch Building was the site of the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. The blaze, which occurred on March 25th, 1911, began on the eighth floor and quickly spread. Due to cramped working conditions and a lack of exits (including one that had been locked ostensibly to prevent workers from stealing), the fire killed a hundred and forty-six workers before it was put out.
It was purchased by real estate magnate Fredrick Brown, who donated it to the University where it became the Brown
Building of Science. I didn't want to ask Amanda about it, but I don't know how I would have felt taking classes in a building where nearly a hundred and fifty people had died.
'Ah, home sweet home.' Amanda sighed as we entered the
CAS building. Despite the fact that summer was nearing and most sane students would have fled the campus weeks ago, there was a line twenty people deep waiting for an elevator that looked like it'd been erected by people who still wore shirtwaists. Amanda, though, seemed completely unsurprised.
'It's always like this,' she said. 'The elevator goes about a floor an hour. It's an excuse for students to be late to class.
Professors can always tell who the serious students are because they're the ones who are panting and sweating when the bell rings. Come on, let's take the stairs.'
Agnes Trimble's office was on the third floor. I was hardly panting when we arrived. I felt a small amount of pride at that. Then I felt ashamed for being proud of walking up two flights of stairs.
I followed Amanda down a whitewashed hall. Most of the doors were closed, the faculty having all adjourned for the summer, the corkboards adjacent to them holding naked staples and thumbtacks and occasional notices whose posters had neglected to take them down.
As we turned down one corridor, I heard loud noise coming from the end of the hall. As we got closer, I could hear the strains of the Grateful Dead's 'Casey Jones' playing at full blast.
'That'd be her,' Amanda said without an ounce of irony.
'She's a huge deadhead.'
We followed the music and came to an open doorway whose nameplate read Professor Agnes Trimble. And immediately my expectations were blown to hell.
Agnes Trimble was a small woman, sitting down I guessed about five foot three and a hundred ten pounds. She looked to be in her late fifties, with hair dyed so red I was surprised a horde of bulls weren't stampeding around the office. Her hair was done up in what I could best describe as a bird's nest, pretty much clumped together and held there with a brown scrunchy and a few terrorized bobby pins. On her ears rested a pair of horn-rimmed glasses, which I suppose helped her enjoy the two lava lamps in either corner. On her computer, a felt monkey dangled from a small American flag, its Velcro hands fastened to the top of the Stars and Stripes. Taped to one shelf looked to be an actual ticket stub from the original Woodstock, complete with authentic-looking mud stain. Her shelves were covered in books whose staid titles must have been hideously embarrassed by the rest of the decor. I debated relaying the information that the Partridge Family bus had left the parking lot a long time ago.
And resting among these hipster-drenched relics were dozens of toy guns. All makes and models. Rifles, cannons, small arms and enough tanks to blow the hell out of the Indian in the Cupboard.
And somehow I was not surprised to see pictures of various male celebrities, many of them sans shirts or other commonly worn articles of clothing, taped to a corkboard behind her desk. I suppose reporting while staring at the nipples of
Orlando Bloom and George Clooney had to happen sometime.
'Amanda, baby!' Agnes leapt up, leaned over the desk and wrapped her arms around Amanda, who leaned in awkwardly to reach the small woman. Agnes squeezed her eyes shut, sucked in a breath, and for a moment I worried she might be trying to inhale Amanda's soul.
When they separated, Amanda gestured to me and said,
'Professor Trimble, this is who I was telling you about, Henry
Parker. He's a reporter for the Gazette. ' I held out my hand to shake hers. She eyed me, squinted slightly.
'He your…boyfriend?' she asked, a sly smile on her lips.
'Uh…' I said.
'Actually, yes,' Amanda said. 'I didn't realize we were wearing name tags.'
Agnes sat back down, reached into her desk and pulled out a candy cane. She unwrapped it and popped the whole thing in her mouth. Through a mouthful of peppermint, she said,
'You didn't need name tags. Eighty-thirty in the morning, both of you dressed and showered, Henry wearing matching socks and the whole nine. Henry here is a reporter…no guy
I've ever met under the age of thirty is dressed well and showered this early unless they're going to work, going to a funeral, or going somewhere with the person they sleep with.
Do you have a funeral this afternoon?'
My cheeks grew warm, and Amanda's looked like they could catch fire at any moment. 'Not that I know of,' I said.
'Then you're boyfriend and girlfriend,' Agnes said.
'That's lovely. Please, sit. Candy cane?'
'No, thanks,' we echoed.
Agnes shrugged as if she couldn't believe how anyone could say no to such a scrumptious treat at this time of day.
In the meantime, Agnes seemed to have noticed me staring at the photos behind her desk. I'd also noticed that she wore a wedding ring.
'You never had pictures taped to your locker?' she asked.
'I did,' I said, 'back in high school.' I glanced at her wedding ring. 'How does your husband feel about them?'
'What are you, ten years old?' she asked. 'He knows I'm not sleeping with Brad Pitt, and as long as that stays the case he could care less if I have pictures of him or Stephen
