The Measure of a Man

When this unsolicited offer had arrived out of the blue, asking him to come down to the university to apply for the position that began at something higher than minimum wage, he’d taken it only because of the money. There had been no joy in it, no secret setting down of goals for himself to achieve anything beyond what he was offered.

He was seriously convinced that, for him, there was no joy left in anything. Being accused of something he had not done and verbally convicted without being allowed to defend himself had killed his spirit.

So he did his work, making sure that he was never remiss, never in a position to be found lacking by anyone ever again.

But today, his mind had wandered. Just before beginning his round of small, tedious chores, he’d seen a landscaping truck go by. The truck’s logo proclaimed it to belong to a local family company that had been in business for the past fifteen years. Seeing it had momentarily catapulted him into the past.

That had been his goal once. To have a business of his own. Something where he was his own master, making his own hours, responsible for his own success. Evaluated and held to high standards by his own measure, not whimsically made to live up to someone else’s, someone who might, for whatever reason, find him lacking through no fault of his own but because of something they themselves were dealing with.

The truck had driven around the corner and disappeared. Just as his dreams had.

He’d returned to his chores in a dark frame of mind. Even so, he went through the paces, giving a hundred percent, no more, no less.

He’d spent most of the morning dealing with a clogged drain incapacitating the university’s indoor pool. The smell of stagnant water was still in his head if not physically with him and admittedly he wasn’t exactly in the best frame of mind, even though he was tackling a far lesser problem.

So he hadn’t been paying attention when he set up the ladder and worked the defunct bulb out of the socket in the ceiling. He’d only used the ladder instead of the extension pole he normally employed because someone had apparently made off with the pole.

Even the hallowed halls of Saunders saw theft, he’d thought.

It seemed ironic, given that was the offense he’d been accused of all those many years ago. Theft. When he discovered that the pole, an inexpensive thirty-dollar item, was missing, he couldn’t help wondering if this would somehow come back to haunt him. Would the head of the maintenance department think he’d taken it for some obscure reason?

Once a thief…

Except that he hadn’t been. Not even that one time he’d been accused by that pompous, self-centered jerk, Jacob Weber.

Smith looked down now at Jane Jackson’s face, biting back a stinging retort that was born of defensiveness and the less-than-stellar mood he was in. She was right, he’d been careless, which made his mood even darker.

Still, he couldn’t just bite her head off, not if she didn’t deserve it. That wouldn’t be right and he’d made a point of always abiding by what was right, by walking the straight and narrow path even when others veered away from it.

He always had.

Which made that accusation that had ruined his life that much more bitterly ironic.

So he blew out a breath, and with it the words that had sprung to his tongue, if not his lips. Instead, after a beat, Smith grudgingly nodded his head. “You’re right. My fault.”

Since he’d just admitted it was his mistake and not hers, the anger Jane had felt heat up so quickly within her died back. Leaving her feeling awkward.

She looked up at Smith—he had to be almost a foot taller than she was—a little ruefully, the way she did each time their paths crossed. She remembered him. With his dirty-blond hair, magnetic brown eyes and chiseled good looks, he would have been a hard man to forget.

Smith Parker had been in one of her English classes when she’d attended the university. The one taught by Professor Harrison. Back then, she’d had a bit of a crush on Smith. Maybe more than just a bit. She’d been trying to work up the courage to say something to him, when suddenly, just like that, he was gone.

The rumor was he’d been caught stealing things from one of the girls’ dorms, forcing the university to take away his scholarship. She’d heard that his grades dropped right after that. And then he was gone.

Shortly thereafter, she went on to meet and then to marry Drew.

She hadn’t thought about Smith in years until one day, not that long ago, she’d seen him hunkered down against a wall in one of the classrooms, working on what appeared to be a faulty outlet.

Standing there that day, looking at him, she couldn’t help wondering if he remembered her. But the brown eyes that she recalled as being so vivid had appeared almost dead as they’d turned to look at her. Like two blinds pulled down, barring access to a view she’d once believed was there. There was no recognition to be found when he looked at her.

Or through her, which was how it had felt.

Still, because of the incident in his past, because of the shame that was attached to it, she was never comfortable around Smith. Because she knew about it, it was as if she’d been privy to some dirty, little, dark secret of his. She found pretending not to know him the easier way to go.

She cleared her throat as he stood beside the ladder, looking at her. “Are you all right?”

He half shrugged at the question. “Yeah, thanks to your quick hands.”

Something shivered through her as he said that, although she had no idea why. A smattering of those old feelings she’d once secretly harbored about him struggled to the surface.

Jane pushed them back. She wasn’t that girl anymore. Wasn’t a girl at all, really. A great deal of time had gone by since then and she’d discovered that the world was really a hard, cold, disagreeable place. If it wasn’t, then people like the professor could go on about their chosen professions, professions they loved, until they ceased to draw breath.

And if the world wasn’t such a disagreeable place, she wouldn’t have made such an awful mistake, wouldn’t have allowed herself to fall so hard for a student two years ahead of her. Wouldn’t have impulsively married him instead of thinking things through.

She shrugged, that same awkward feeling she always felt around Smith returning to claim her. “I’ve got a five-year-old.”

Smith looked at her blankly as he moved the ladder a good foot away from the path of the door. He hadn’t really been around any kids since he’d been one himself. The explanation she’d given him created no impression in its wake.

“I don’t follow.”

She smiled. No, she didn’t suppose he did. She’d nosed around a little and discovered that Smith was very much alone these days. No children, no wife, no attachments whatsoever. The world she lived in, even without the constant demand of bills that needed paying, was probably foreign to him.

“Danny is a little hyper.” She considered her words, then amended them. “Actually, he’s a lot hyper.”

Smith moved his head from side to side slowly. “I still don’t—”

He really didn’t know anything about kids, did he? “Okay, let me put it to you this way. Danny never really took his first step. He took his first leap—off a coffee table.”

She remembered how her heart had stopped in the middle of her throat. One minute her son had been crawling on the floor beside the table and she’d looked away for a split second. The very next minute he’d clambered up not only to his feet but to the top of the coffee table where he proceeded to take a fearless half-gainer on wobbly, chubby legs while gleefully laughing.

“I was just lucky enough to be there to catch him.” She’d all but sprained her ankle getting there in time to keep him from making ignoble contact with the floor. A smile curved her lips as she remembered another incident. All incidents involving Danny fared far better when they were relived than during the original go-round.

“And last year, during the holiday season, I was walking through a department store with Danny, holding his hand. Which left his other hand free to grab the branch of one of the trees they had just finished putting up. He got hold of a string of lights and if my mother’s radar hadn’t kicked in, the tree would have gone over, flattening another customer.” She’d swung around just in time to right the tree. The shoe department manager, whose area it had been, hadn’t looked very happy about the matter, despite the smile pasted on his lips.

Smith tried not to notice the way her smile seemed to light up her face. And curl into his system. “Sounds like you have your hands full.”

And her life, she thought. “Keeps me on my toes, that’s for sure.”

He knew she worked full time. Did five-year-olds attend school? He’d never had a reason to know before. He hadn’t one now, he reminded himself. This was just conversation and now that he thought of it, he was having it more or less against his will.

Still, he heard himself asking, “Who watches Danny when you’re here?”

Kindergarten would be starting for Danny soon. Another hurdle and rite of passage all rolled into one to go through, she mused. But for now, he was still her little boy and she was hanging on to that for as long as possible.

“Some very exhausted day-care center people.” The cost of which, she added silently, ate huge chunks out of her weekly paycheck. But it was a good day-care center and Danny seemed to be thriving in the environment, which was all that mattered. She couldn’t ask for anything better than that.

Except, maybe, a father for the boy. But that wasn’t ever going to happen. For Danny to get a father, she would have to start dating again. Have to put herself out there emotionally again. After the mega-disaster that was her marriage, she had come to the conclusion that she and love had nothing in common.

Unless, of course, she was thinking of love for her son. Or the professor.

Smith caught himself studying Jane. Minding his own business to a fault, he knew very little about the lives of the people around him. He’d never pictured Jane with a son. Hadn’t really thought of her as married, either. But that was because she still used the same last name she’d had when they were students in English class together. He’d been aware of her from the first day of class. The cute little redhead with the pale green eyes, soft voice and perfect shape. He’d even come close to asking her out. Back then, he’d thought anything was possible.

But that was before he learned that it wasn’t. Not for him.

Smith glanced down at her hand and didn’t see a wedding ring. Was she one of those independent women who didn’t care for outward signs of commitment? Or hadn’t acquiring a husband along with a son been part of her plan?

“Don’t you miss him?” he asked.

She wondered if Smith had always been this abrupt or if getting caught and then having to leave the university had done this to him. What was he doing here, anyway? If something that traumatic had happened to her, she certainly wouldn’t have come back, asking for a job. She would have starved first.

Maybe that was what he was faced with, she suddenly thought. Compassion flooded through her. “Miss him?” She didn’t quite understand what he was driving at. “I see Danny every morning and evening.”

Smith shook his head. His own mother had stayed home to raise him, returning to the work force only after he entered middle school. “No, I meant, wouldn’t you rather stay home and take care of him?”

A soft smile flirted with the corners of her mouth. “In a perfect world, yes.” And then she laughed shortly. The world was so far from perfect, it was staggering. “But if I stayed home, the cupboard would get bare incredibly fast.”

“Your husband doesn’t work?”

Smith had no idea where that question even came from. For that matter, he didn’t even know why he was talking to her. Ordinarily he didn’t exchange more than a barely audible grunt with people he passed in the hall. Especially the ones he recognized from his initial years as a student. Those he avoided whenever possible.

Only Professor Harrison was the exception. But that was because the man seemed to insist on taking an interest in him. Long ago, he’d decided that the professor, like his parents, was one of the few good people that were scattered sparingly through the earth.

He noticed that Jane stiffened when he mentioned the word “husband.” Obviously he must have hit a nerve.

“I have no idea what my husband does. And he’s my ex, actually.”

The very thought of Drew brought with it a wealth of silent recriminations. Looking back now, she had no idea why she had been so stupid, not just to put up with his infidelities, which he’d never really made much of an effort to hide, but with his abuse, as well. A self-respecting woman would have never stood for any of that, especially the latter.

Smith saw her jaw harden. Time to back away. He hadn’t meant to get into any kind of verbal exchange with Jane, much less wander into personal terrain. In general he’d found that the less he interacted with people, the better he liked it.

He imagined from her tone that she felt the same way, at least in this case. It probably embarrassed her, sharing something so personal with a maintenance man. He doubted very much if she even remembered him. Or would remember him ten minutes from now.

After all, in his present capacity, he was one of the invisible ones. One of the people that others looked right past, or through, without having their presence actually register on any kind of a conscious level. People, like bus drivers, waitresses, hotel workers and gardeners, who were there to serve and make life a little easier for the people who felt themselves above them.

Hell, he’d been guilty of that himself once. Filled with high-powered dreams and drive, he’d seen only his own goals, not the people who toiled around him. Working just the way he did now.

“Sorry,” he apologized, his voice monotoned. “Didn’t mean to sound like I was prying. None of my business, really.”

Because of all the baggage her marriage had created, not the least of which was Drew’s vanishing act and with it, her alimony and child support payments, Smith had hit a very raw spot. She hated being reminded that she had been such a fool. And that because of her poor choice, Danny wouldn’t be able to have the things that his friends did. Right now, he didn’t notice, but soon, he would. And that was all her fault.

“No,” she snapped, “it’s not.”

Embarrassed, afraid that he might say something else, Jane abruptly turned on her heel and hurried down the still-darkened hallway. The sound of her three inch heels clicked against the vinyl until they finally faded out of earshot.

For a second Smith thought of following her and repeating his apology, but then he shrugged to himself. If he did that, he’d risk getting involved, however peripherally. It was the last thing he wanted or needed. Right now, it was hard enough just getting through the day.

Whistling under his breath, he got back up the ladder and finally attended to the bulb that he had originally set out to change.

As Smith began to climb back down, he saw Professor Harrison opening his door very slowly and peering out. Unlike the first time, the door completely cleared the space without coming in contact with the ladder. If Jane hadn’t come out like gangbusters, Smith thought, she wouldn’t have rocked his ladder and there would have been no need for any kind of verbal exchange to have taken place.

And he wouldn’t have noticed how pale and beautiful her eyes still were.

The professor looked up at him, as if startled to see him there. He shifted the files he was carrying to his other side. “Oh, Smith, I almost didn’t see you.”

“A lot of that happening lately,” Smith murmured nearly under his breath.

Gilbert looked up toward the ceiling and saw the new bulb. He shaded his eyes and smiled broadly. “Ah, illumination again. I knew I could count on you, Smith.”

The professor made it sound as if he’d just slain a dragon for him, or, at the very least, solved some kind of complicated mathematical equation that had eluded completion up until now.

Smith frowned. “It’s just a bulb, professor. No big deal.”

The expression on the professor’s face said he knew better. The old man was getting eccentric, Smith thought. The next words out of the man’s mouth seemed to underscore his feelings.

“Better to light one candle, Smith, than to curse the dark.”

That was probably a quote from somewhere, Smith thought. What it had to do with the situation was beyond him, but he didn’t have the time or the inclination to discuss it. He’d had enough conversation for one day. For a week, really.

“Yeah, well, I’ve got to be going…” Taking the two sides of the ladder, he pulled them together, then tilted it until it was all the way over to the side. It was easier to carry that way, although by no means easy. He silently cursed whoever had taken the extension pole. “I’ve got another ‘candle to light’ over on the third floor in the science building.”

About to leave, he felt the professor’s hand on his arm.

“Something else I can do for you, professor?”

Gilbert looked at the young man for a long moment. There was a time when Smith Parker had been one of his more promising students. He’d been like some bright, burning light, capable of so much. And then, just like that, the light had been extinguished. His pride wounded, Smith had dropped out of Saunders after those charges had been leveled against him, charges he could never get himself to believe were true. But Smith had left before he’d had the chance to try to talk to him, to see about making things right again.

“Smith, have you given any thought to your future?”

It wasn’t what he’d expected the professor to say. And it certainly wasn’t anything that he wanted to get into a discussion about. “Yeah, I have. Right after I replace the other bulb, I’m having lunch,” Smith replied crisply. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

The professor dropped his hand from Smith’s arm.

Before there could be any further conversation, Smith hefted the ladder beneath his arm and made his way down the hall.

Chapter Three

Just as Smith managed to clear the corner without hitting anything with the unwieldy ladder, he realized that he’d left behind the box of light bulbs. Most likely, it was still on the floor in the hall next to Professor Harrison’s office.

Stifling a curse born of an impatience he couldn’t quite seem to put a lid on today, Smith put the ladder down, leaning it against the wall as best as possible. He was pretty certain that no one would walk into it where it was. Even if the school year were under way now, this area of the building saw very little foot traffic.

Smith paused to wipe the sweat from his brow, stuffed his handkerchief into his back pocket and doubled back to the professor’s office. Just as he walked into that part of the hallway, he stopped in his tracks.

The professor was across the hall from his office and juxtaposed to Jane’s. He was unlocking the door to a storage room that was tucked between the door that led to the stairwell and east wall of the building. It was a room that saw, as far as Smith knew, next to no activity at all. For all intents and purposes, it was a forgotten room, an appendage no one paid any attention to. He hadn’t even been given a key to the room when Thom Dolan, the head of the maintenance department, had given him the sets for all the buildings that had been assigned to his care.

“Nobody ever uses that room,” Dolan had informed him on the first day while giving him a tour of the building. The heavyset man had lowered his voice before continuing, as if what he was about to say was a dark secret. But then, he’d noted that Dolan was given to drama. “Rumor has it that this place was built on the site of a boys’ reformatory. This was one of the original buildings. During that time, the people who ran this place used to stick the kids who gave them the most trouble into that room. It’s small, boxlike, with no windows. As far as I know, there’s only junk being stored in there now. No need for you to have a key to it. Hell, I’m not even sure there is a key for that room.”

Well, the professor obviously had a key to it, Smith thought now. He had no idea what prompted him to step back and keep his presence from being detected. Granted, by nature, he was no longer the type to call out a greeting when encountering someone he knew. That had been the teenager, not the man. Besides, he and the professor had just spoken. If he called out to him, the professor would undoubtedly pick up where he’d left off, asking about his “future.” There was no such animal and he had no desire to discuss it.

Still, stepping back so that he wasn’t readily seen by the professor made him feel as if he were skulking. That didn’t exactly sit well with him.

But there was just something almost suspicious, for lack of a better word, Smith thought, about the professor’s behavior right now. Before putting the key into the lock, the older man had looked over his shoulder toward Jane’s office, as if to make sure that the door was still closed and that no one saw him.

Why?

Smith thought for a moment, waiting for the professor to go into the room.

Maybe the old man was losing it. Maybe all those long hours he’d kept, sitting in his office amid dust that was never quite removed, just regularly disturbed by halfhearted attempts on the part of the cleaning crew to live up to its name. Baskets were emptied regularly and what could be seen of the worn beige carpet between the stacks of files and books haphazardly scattered around the professor’s office was vacuumed on a weekly basis, but the dust remained as permanent a resident as the books on the shelves.

That kind of thing had to eventually affect a man’s lungs, Smith decided. And who was to say that what the professor had breathed in hadn’t finally left its mark on the man’s mind, as well?

Still, the professor did seem to be more or less all right whenever they did run into each other. Harrison always had a good word for him, whether he wanted to hear it or not. When you came right down to it, of all the people on the faculty, only Professor Harrison seemed to see him, to treat him as a person rather than a tool or a lackey to be told what to do and then disregarded. Granted, the man had become a great deal sadder in these last eight months than he’d normally been, but he hadn’t withdrawn from life, hadn’t used it as an excuse to be curt or mean in his dealings.

For a second Smith debated saying something to let the professor know that he wasn’t alone in the hallway. He did feel somewhat deceptive about standing in the shadows like this.

But then he decided that none of this was really any of his business and the professor obviously wanted whatever he was doing to be kept secret. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have looked around so furtively before unlocking the door.

So he waited until the professor disappeared inside the room before moving out into the hallway. Picking up the box of light bulbs he’d returned for in the first place, Smith walked away before the professor emerged out of the room.

For the first time in a long while, Smith found that his curiosity had been aroused. He figured a stiff drink or two after work this evening would effectively take care of that.

The Sandwich Bar had been more crowded than Jane had anticipated today. A lot of the returning students were on campus to purchase new books for the coming semester, or just to settle back into their dorms in anticipation of the routine that was to come. A quick ten-minute venture had turned into half an hour.

She hurried to the professor’s office and dropped his order on his desk. He wasn’t around, but she assumed that he’d just stepped out for the moment and would be back shortly. Leaving his office, she hurried across the hall to her own.