Summer Hours by Amy Mason Doan

Author:Amy Mason Doan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Graydon House Books
Published: 2019-03-26T13:27:36+00:00

29

Scoop

June 15, 1997

Fe|Co was not a dull marketing initiative for a cat food company.

It stood for Feline Collective. It had started in the ’80s, when a lit professor, one of the top five living experts on T. S. Eliot, had an affair with an art grad student. He’d been married with three kids and a nice wife in another department.

“Some people say the wife was in history and some say poli sci, but that part doesn’t really matter,” Serra explained.

“Go on,” I said. “The student started it.”

“Yes. She broke it off with the professor. Fell in love with someone else.”

“And the professor murdered her? And your feline gang is out to get justice...”

“Sorry to disappoint you, Becc, but nobody killed anybody. She dumped him. But...” She paused for effect.

“Come on, what?” I asked.

“Stop milking it,” Maggie said, laughing.

“But then she lost a fellowship, and a teaching job she was supposed to get after graduation. He went around smearing her, quietly making her life hell. While his career was totally unscathed.”

“Was her art any good?” I asked.

“Yes. I’ve seen it.” Serra waited for me to catch up.

“Yvonne.”

She nodded. “After she got her life back together, she got the tattoo. To remember, she says. To remind herself... Oh. It’s like that Eliot line you wouldn’t stop quoting sophomore year, Becc. When you made the T. S. Eliot connection so you were positive some disgruntled theater geek was behind it? Because they didn’t get a part in Cats?”

I recited: “My ineffable, effable name.”

I’d repeated the line in my head, pounding the clay stadium track, trying to puzzle out why the graffiti had such a hold on me. Ineffable, effable. Effinaneffable. It perfectly matched my running stride.

Serra went on. “Yes. The cat knows its real name, it knows itself, the good, the bad. And nobody else’s words can take it away. That’s the general idea.

“Anyway, the asshole professor had died by then, but she started this group, with a couple friends, to go after men who were abusing their power on campus. We send an anonymous letter, then, if they don’t resign, the graffiti. To put them on notice.”

“Why not just go to the media?” I asked.

“Useless, it’s been tried. Sorry, Becc. They wouldn’t cover the OB in the health center who ‘forgets’ his gloves, either, because the girls’ parents had second thoughts and decided to keep it quiet. Plenty of other delightful stories like that. Our method is...surprisingly effective. Two profs have resigned so far. We’re going after this repulsive lecturer in the econ department now, a real piece of work, this tech gajillionaire who plays at teaching.”

I knew it before I asked. Those wanton, lashless eyes on my blouse. “Derrek Schwinn?”

“Yeah, how’d—?”

“I’ll tell you later. What’s he done?”

“He offers letters of rec and jobs if students blow him. But pretends it’s a joke.

“He’s tricky because he sits on the museum board with Yvonne and he’s loaded,” Serra said. “We have to be careful.”

“Does everyone have the tattoo?” Maggie asked.

“Whiskers optional.”

“Where do you meet?” I asked.

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