“Nathaniel was expelled this afternoon,” she says, her face grave.
I just stare at her, trying to process this news.
“Johnston?” I finally ask.
“Yes,” she confirms.
“Nathaniel Johnston was expelled,” I say, putting it all together in one sentence.
I have to be getting something wrong here. There must be some other Nathaniel that she’s talking about besides the guy on my work-study project with me.
Nathaniel is… nice? Quiet? Responsible?
Whatever he is, he’s not the kind of person who gets expelled from college.
“I’m afraid that’s right,” she says.
“What?” I sputter. “Why? How? He’s got all the citations on the neurolinguistics paper, if I have to redo those it’ll take me weeks —”
I stop talking, because I realize I’m missing the point.
“The committee made its decision this afternoon,” she says. “Ethical misconduct.”
“Ethical misconduct,” I echo, still trying to wrap my brain around it. “Plagiarism? Was he taking money to write papers?”
That, at least, makes a little bit of sense. Writing papers for money is big business and college students always need money, even the ones on full scholarship.
I’ve been offered money to write a paper. I know Harper and Victoria have been, too.
But Dr. Castellano shakes her head.
“I’m afraid it was behavioral,” she says, lips still tight. “I’m not at liberty to discuss much more, but I wanted you to hear it from me, rather than the rumor mill, since the two of you worked together.”
I have no idea what behavioral misconduct even means in the context of getting expelled from college, and I really can’t imagine quiet, respectful, polite Nathaniel participating in any such thing.
He was a nice guy. Smiled at puns. Showed me a picture of his parents’ dog once. Seemed to drink mostly tea.
“Thank you,” I finally manage to say. “I appreciate the heads up.”
She sighs, then nods.
“I’m sorry to tell you like this, right before you meet Dr. Rossi,” she says. “Please understand that this sort of extreme punishment is quite rare in the Scholars program. In fact, to be honest I can’t think of another case quite like this one where…”
As she’s talking, there’s a slow trickle of people walking past us and into the building. Most look like students. Some I recognize, some I don’t, and I’m nodding absentmindedly and I’m trying to figure out what the hell Nathaniel did.
Behavioral. What does that even mean? Did he get into a bar fight? Threaten someone?
Doing drugs? Dealing drugs? Does that count as behavioral, or —
Someone walks around the corner, and instantly, my attention shifts. Before I can even see who it is, my attention shifts. It’s like on some subconscious, cellular level, I already know.
It’s Caleb, of course. Dr. Loveless. Whatever I’m supposed to call him.
In a dark gray suit with a skinny black tie. Glasses. Hair tamed, face clean-shaven, suit well-tailored. Even though I’ve had two weeks to get used to seeing him, I am unprepared.
My heart speeds up. I blush. I do my damnedest not to smile, but by the time he’s walking past us, I’ve failed at that.
He smiles back, nods once. I nod back. That’s all.
Then he’s gone, into the building, and Dr. Castellano is reaching out and patting me on the shoulder.
“In short, you’ve got nothing to worry about,” she says with an encouraging smile. “Now, let’s go back inside so I can introduce you to Dr. Rossi.”Chapter ElevenCalebI turn to the young man seated next to me at the banquet, because now that dinner’s over, it’s time to attempt a conversation again.
“What sort of creative writing will you be focusing on?” I ask.
“Fiction,” he says.
I wait another moment, just in case he’d like to put some effort into the conversation.
He wouldn’t.
“What authors do you particularly admire?” I ask.
This is making me feel like a nagging aunt at Thanksgiving — what are you majoring in? What are you going to do with that? Can you get a job with a mathematics major? What about econ, there’s always business.
The young man — I think his name is Aidan, but I can’t even remember any more — shrugs.
“Denis Johnson,” he says. “Raymond Carver. Richard Ford.”
“What have they written?” I ask, because they all sound medium-familiar, like I’ve read them and forgotten the name.
“Short stories mostly,” he says, and then goes quiet and blank again.
“Anything I might have read?”
He shrugs, which seems to be his only body language.
“Probably not,” he says.
It’s like talking to a rock, but an uninteresting rock. This is at least my third attempt tonight to lure him into conversation, and it’s also my third failure.
Behind me, a table breaks into laughter. Without turning, I can’t tell which one, but I focus in sharply on the fork in my hand, on the floral bouquet in front of me, and I banish the thought that I can hear Thalia’s laughter.
Suddenly, that’s all I can take.
“Excuse me,” I say, and stand, pushing my chair away from the table. The undergrads on either side of me look up at me briefly, then nod, go back to what they were doing: on one side, talking about fancy airplane travel; on the other, an apparently deep contemplation of the basket of dinner rolls.