The Measure of a Man

“Can I help you?”

The woman turned around. Jane felt a little foolish, thinking that this was a stranger. Not that they were exactly friends, but they knew one another. They’d both been at Saunders the same year and had had some classes together. Their lives, however, had gone on to take completely different paths.

For some reason Sandra was in her office, obviously waiting for her. Jane tried to think if there was anything remotely newsworthy going on. Sandra was a journalist for a neighborhood newspaper in Boston’s North End, given to writing human interest stories and short, entertaining articles about up-coming local functions. Sandra was also the wife of one-time Saunders University jock, David Westport. Jane remembered that the two had been college sweethearts around the same time that she and Drew had gotten together. Theirs was a match thought to be made in heaven, or at least a successful Hollywood romance movie.

Nice to know some marriages actually worked, Jane thought.

Still looking at Sandra, she put down the bag with her sandwich and her tall container of soda, the caffeine in which she hoped would see her through the long afternoon. Danny’d had nightmares last night. Twice. The second time he’d come running into her room, she’d taken him back to his and then stayed up with him until long past when he’d settled back to sleep. She estimated that since Danny had been born, she’d averaged roughly five hours of sleep a night—if she was lucky.

Without a doubt, she was going to need more than one hit of caffeine. After she found out what the ex-cheerleader was doing here.

Sandra moved away from the window she’d been looking out of. “I certainly hope you can help.”

Jane’s eyebrows pulled together thoughtfully. She had absolutely no idea what she could possibly do to help someone like Sandra. At first glance—and twelfth—Sandra seemed to have it all: beauty, a job she liked and, most important of all, a loving husband.

But Jane was nothing if not game. Sticking a straw through the small hole in the soda container’s lid, she took a long, refreshing sip, then looked up at the other woman in the room.

“Okay, I’m listening.”

“Please, go ahead and have your lunch,” Sandra told her, waving at the brown bag with its whimsical logo of a college student devouring a three-foot sandwich. “I promise this won’t take too long.”

Now Sandra really had her intrigued. Despite the fact that marriage to Drew had made her always expect the worst, no matter what the turn of events, Jane was struggling hard to break that habit.

But it wasn’t easy. Especially when Sandra’s pretty heart-shaped face looked so tense, despite the smile she’d so obviously forced to her lips.

“And ‘this’ would be?” Jane prompted, taking out her sandwich.

Sandra sank onto the chair that was directly against the side of the desk and looked at Jane. “I’m sure by now you know that the board is trying to get rid of Professor Harrison.”

Jane wasn’t thrilled with Sandra’s imperious tone. “Yes, I’m aware of what’s happening,” she said coolly. She waited for Sandra to continue.

Sandra flushed. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to sound as if I’ve got some kind of inside track. If anyone does, it’s you. Which is why I’m here.” She took a breath, then launched into the heart of the matter. “The professor called on a few people—David, Nate Williams and a couple of others—asking them to come and speak to the board on his behalf.” Sandra’s mouth curved into a smile that seemed to Jane to be more sad than happy. “I guess he thought if he could show off some of his success stories, they wouldn’t come down so hard on his ‘old-fashioned’ methods.”

Jane was well aware of the professor’s plan. He’d had her scan the Internet for phone numbers of a handful of his former students who had gone on to make something of themselves so that he could get in touch with them.

She’d noted that although she and the professor were close and she worked with him every day, the professor hadn’t asked her to address the board on his behalf. She supposed he might have thought it was putting her on the spot. Nothing could have been further from the truth. She had every intention of speaking up for him.

Granted she wasn’t a shining example of what one could achieve given the advantages of an education at Saunders and the benefit of having sat in one of Professor Harrison’s classes. But it didn’t matter that her personal life was in a state of flux and upheaval. That was certainly no fault of the professor’s. After her parents’ death, if it hadn’t been for the professor, she wouldn’t have found the courage to complete her education. Coupled with the mysterious bequest that had taken the financial burden off her shoulders, she’d been able to graduate and receive her diploma. But she wouldn’t have been able to do it on just money alone. The state of her emotions had been an equal if not more important factor in her attaining her diploma. The professor had helped her to believe in herself.

She wasn’t sure just how much of an impact she would have, pleading the professor’s case. After all, she wasn’t some high-powered doctor, or famous lawyer, or internationally known model like the people he’d contacted. She was just an administrative assistant, which in her case was a glorified euphemism for secretary.

Still, that didn’t take away from the fact that Professor Harrison had left a tremendous, lasting impression on her life, one for which she would be forever grateful. To her way of thinking, he should be allowed to do the same for the students of the classes that were to come.

Jane nodded in response to Sandra’s words. “That sounds just like the way the professor thinks,” she agreed.

Eager to get started, Sandra continued, “I’ve discovered that Alex Broadstreet intends to humiliate the professor, to twist things around and accuse him of improper behavior.”

Jane looked at her, stunned. She’d almost dropped the sandwich she was unwrapping. Of all the absurd things she’d ever heard in her life, this had to take the prize. “Improper behavior? That’s ridiculous. Professor Harrison is the epitome of a gentleman. He’s—”

Sandra held up her hand, realizing the confusion. “No, I don’t mean harassment. Improper things like grade tampering.”

Jane’s eyes widened. “Cheating? He’s going to accuse the professor of cheating? To what end?”

Sandra shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. Maybe for money?”

Jane felt as if she’d been insulted herself. Indignation for the professor’s honor swelled in her chest. “That is the most mean-spirited, awful thing I have ever, ever heard—”

“I totally agree,” Sandra quickly interrupted. She shook her head at the half sandwich Jane offered her. “Thanks, but I already ate.” She blew out a breath, addressing the reason she was here. “But protesting how heinous the accusation is isn’t enough. By all accounts, Alex Broadstreet is a very, very clever man. He wants to bring Saunders University into the twenty-first century, to shed the ‘quaint’ aura and turn Saunders into a college that all the moneyed captains of industry want their children to attend. The professor isn’t fast-tracked enough for him, so he has to go. And Broadstreet undoubtedly feels he’s just the man to make him do that.”

Broadstreet could “feel” that all he wanted to, but that still didn’t change the fact that Gilbert Harrison was the most principled man June had ever met. “I still don’t see how—”

Sandra smiled at her. Whether the journalist was aware of it or not, she was also guilty of delivering a slight, almost-derogatory shake of the head, as well, as if to say that Sandra thought her to be naive. She might be a lot of things, Jane thought, but naive was no longer one of them. Not after Drew.

She raised her chin defensively as her eyes narrowed. “He can’t do anything honestly.”

Sandra laughed shortly. “I don’t think Broadstreet troubles himself with things like strict honesty. It’s all in the phrasing.”

“Phrasing?”

“You know,” Sandra urged, “It’s like saying, ‘So when did you stop beating your wife, Professor Harrison?’ When the person protests that he didn’t stop, it doesn’t really matter that he didn’t stop because he’d never started, the implication that he beat his wife is there, in the mind of the listener. The seed has been planted. And Broadstreet will be the first with a shovel in his hand to add some nice, warm dirt so that it can thrive.” She looked at Jane pointedly. “We need to make sure that there isn’t any ‘dirt’ he can use.” Sandra relaxed a little, now that she’d gotten rolling. “In addition, there’s that urban legend—”

She really needed to get more sleep, Jane thought. She was having trouble following Sandra as the former cheerleader leaped from one thing to another. “Legend? What legend?”

“You know.” Everyone in their graduating class had heard talk about it. About one of their own being on the receiving end of some scholarship or bequest of money that no one had ever heard about before. “About the mysterious benefactor.” Since Jane said nothing, Sandra continued to elaborate. “Money that suddenly appears to help a financially strapped student—” She stopped abruptly when she saw Jane’s face go pale. “What’s the matter?”

Jane had never really paid much attention to rumors and campus gossip about the so-called benefactor who anonymously gave all kinds of aid to students in need. When the money had first turned up, she’d made a few attempts to track down the source of her sudden windfall, but quickly came to a dead end each time. She’d finally just come to think of it as her own personal miracle. No one she knew had that kind of money to lavish on a newly orphaned student and there was no family, however far flung, to have come to her rescue. That qualified it as a miracle.

Until now.

“It’s not a legend,” she told Sandra. “I had money placed into an account for me when I was attending Saunders.”

Sandra stared at her. The reporter in her was making copious mental notes. “It just suddenly appeared one day?”

Hearing Sandra say it, it sounded almost ludicrously unbelievable. But truth had a way of being stranger than fiction.

“Basically, yes. There was a letter saying the money was to pay for the remainder of my tuition. Whatever was left over was to be used for housing and books. I got a job waiting tables off campus and the earnings plus the ‘gift’ was enough for me to stay on at Saunders and get my diploma.”

Sandra could barely contain her excitement. Maybe they could show that the professor somehow had a hand in this, maybe through quietly soliciting donations from charitable foundations for deserving students. The wheels in her head began whirling.

First things first, she warned herself. “Who was the letter from?”

“The administrative office.” Jane could still recall how stunned she’d been, opening the letter and holding it in her hands. She’d thought she was dreaming. She remembered weeping for a long time.

Sandra leaped to the logical conclusion. “So it was a school scholarship—”

But Jane shook her head. “No, that’s just it. It wasn’t. Not the way the letter was worded.”

Sandra looked at her intently, as if willing her to have total recollection of the event. “And just how was it worded? Exactly.”