Death Spiral by Janie Chodosh

Author:Janie Chodosh
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
Published: 2014-01-15T05:00:00+00:00

Fourteen

“Remind me again why we’re here,” Jesse says thirty minutes later when we’re walking down the hall to Dr. Monroe’s office.

I stop in front of the computer lab where a lone student, armed with a supersized caffeinated beverage, hunches over a keyboard. “Because when I talked to her the other day, she said there was probably an underlying illness. Maybe she’ll know what idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis is and if there’s any way it could be connected to the treatment.”

I’m too anxious to wait for his response. I continue down the hall until I get to Dr. Monroe’s office, where I find a poster tacked to her door that wasn’t there yesterday. I skim the poster while I wait for her to answer: The American Society for Human Genetics annual meeting next week at the Convention Center. I knock a second time.

“Screw it, she’s not here,” I say when still nobody answers. “Let’s go.”

It’s impossible to compete with the “why” and “how” and “who” questions firing in my brain, so I don’t say anything as we retrace our steps back through the genetics department. We’ve just passed the big lecture hall next to the stairs when the sound of Dr. Monroe’s voice penetrates my mental disarray.

I stop walking and glance down the hall where I see her camouflaged in a forest of corduroy, tweed, and khaki.

“My tenure review meeting is in two weeks,” I hear her tell the group.

“With these budget cuts anyone’s lucky to get tenure anymore,” one of the tweeds sighs.

“Adjunct professors are cheaper,” a corduroy says.

The other tweed agrees. “They don’t want to pay for tenure-track positions. All the classes in chemistry are being taught by TAs.”

The lone blue jacket pitches in. “At the regents meeting last night they talked about the possibility of twenty positions being cut. Even tenured professors.”

“You’ll be fine, Kayla,” the first tweed says, turning to Dr. Monroe, whose face has gone pale. “You have a good publishing record. RNA 120 speaks for itself. They can’t completely gut the department, can they?”

“I don’t know,” Dr. Monroe answers. She is dressed in a tan skirt and brown blazer. “I’m not sure about the NIH grant. And Bickwell’s lab is publishing a paper about their own antisense treatment. I just found out. An adjunct could cover my classes, and without money, who knows what will happen to my research.” She looks up when she says this. Even though she totally sees me, she goes back to talking.

The group stands around contemplating their situation until one of the tweeds looks at her watch and says she has a class to go teach. The departure of one tweed causes a chain reaction, and soon the group breaks apart. Dr. Monroe lingers for a minute, as if unable to face whatever task comes next, then starts slowly down the hall in our direction. She stops when she reaches Jesse and me.

“Hi, Faith,” she says in a voice that’s polite, but not exactly welcoming. “If you’re here to see me, I really don’t have time.

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