The Art of Romance (35 page)

D
ylan stood in the wide aisle between the front and back sections of the main floor of Rutherford auditorium and studied the set pieces and backdrop on the stage.

“Good job, Malique.” Dylan extended his hand to the graduate student.

The scenic designer—born in the Caribbean and raised by adoptive parents in Minnesota—grinned and pumped Dylan’s hand up and down. “Thanks. Your input was so valuable, Mr. Bradley.”

Dylan still couldn’t get over how formal everything at Robertson was. But it had given him more of a sense of authority over the students—many of whom were within a few years of his age—that he hadn’t always felt at Watts-Maxwell where, because of his familiarity and camaraderie with the students, even the faculty hadn’t afforded him the respect due a professor.

Malique jogged up to the stage to make a few changes to locations of smaller props, and Dylan turned to leave. Even though he didn’t teach on Thursdays, he’d started coming up to campus almost every day of the week—at first to help with painting the backdrops and set pieces, but then simply because he realized how much he missed being on a university campus. Maybe he should take Tyler’s suggestion and start working on a PhD if he didn’t have a full-time job offer soon.

His phone beeped—a timer reminding him of a meeting with one of the students from his portraiture studio. He jogged over to Sumner Hall and up to the third-floor studio. Instead of having a portfolio, the student had brought his small netbook on which he showed Dylan every piece of art he’d created, and Dylan helped him choose the pieces for his collection for the seniors’ art show, which opened in April.

Oh yeah—the graphic designer should be sending him the catalog to proof today. He pulled out his phone and put a note-to-self memo in his calendar to follow up with an e-mail if nothing came by the end of the day.

With the student’s fears over his showpieces alleviated, he tucked the minicomputer into his bag and hurried off to meet up with a study group. Dylan sat a few minutes longer, checking e-mail on his phone just to see if the catalog for Mother’s auction had arrived—it hadn’t. Still laughing over a series of crazy photos Spencer had forwarded to his brothers, Dylan tucked his phone in his pocket and decided to head home. If he had an office here where he could keep his painting supplies, he could use one of the individual studio rooms to work on his new piece.

“Mr. Bradley?” Dr. Holtz’s secretary rushed down the hall after him.

He turned at the top of the stairs. “Hi, Joyce.”

“I’m so glad I caught you—I had just picked up the phone to call you when I saw you go past the door. Dr. Holtz would like a word, if you have a minute.” The forty something woman led him back to her office and motioned him to sit in the guest chair beside the hall door while she stuck her head into the dean’s office.

“Come on in, Dylan,” Dr. Holtz called.

Joyce gave Dylan a furtive glance as he stood aside for her to exit the inner office. Uh-oh. That didn’t look good. And she’d asked him if he had a
minute
. That was about how long it took to tell someone he wasn’t being offered a job he wanted.

“Close the door behind you, will you?” Dr. Holtz closed a manila folder and set it down on top of a stack.

Yep. That looked like a pile of rejections. Dylan turned his back on the dean to close the door—and compose himself so he wouldn’t betray his disappointment when Dr. Holtz broke the bad news to him. He wanted to stay here, to make Nashville his home again…to see if he had any kind of chance at building a relationship with a certain statuesque redhead. But he needed a full-time job, and since none of the other colleges and universities in the area had any openings for full-time art faculty, it meant looking elsewhere and moving away again.

With what he hoped was a neutral expression, he sank into the chair across the desk from the art department dean. Why hadn’t he worn something other than paint-stained jeans and a long-sleeved, black T-shirt with a hockey team logo on it to the drama workshop today?

Dr. Holtz pulled another file out of his desk and opened it—with it angled so that Dylan couldn’t see anything in it. Of course, he didn’t need to see the piece of paper on top to know it was the thanks-but-no-thanks letter. Though Dylan hadn’t used Rhonda as a professional reference, every ounce of his being told him Rhonda carried enough influence with everyone else in the department that they’d all given him sketchy, if not outright bad, letters of recommendation.

“I’m glad you were here so that I could tell you in person. After reviewing all of the applicants’ qualifications, interviews, and teaching sessions, the committee has decided to offer you the position of assistant professor of art to begin in the fall semester.”

Maybe if he found a job in southern Kentucky or northern Alabama it wouldn’t be—”Excuse me, sir?” Dylan noticed Dr. Holtz had extended his right hand over his desk. “You’re offering me the job?”

Dr. Holtz laughed. “Yes. You’re just the kind of young, energetic professor we’re looking for. Don’t tell me you’ve decided you don’t want it.”

“No! No sir. I definitely want it.” He thrust his arm out and pumped the dean’s hand a little more vigorously than necessary.

After setting up a time to come back and find out everything the job offer entailed, Dylan fairly skipped out of the dean’s office. Joyce congratulated him and told him she’d have a packet of paperwork for him to fill out when he came back to meet with Dr. Holtz.

Outside, the chill air held a faint hint of spring—or was that his imagination? He shrugged into his jacket and pulled out his phone. He had to tell someone—and walking across the quad gave him time to make one quick phone call.

But Pax’s voice mail picked up. He left a message for his brother to call when time allowed. Dylan tucked the phone back in his pocket just as he reached the top of the stairs in Davidson Hall. He turned left—and Caylor’s office door stood shut.

A yellow piece of paper hung at eye level—well, the average person’s eye level, but Dylan’s chin level—over several other things on the door. He bent his head to read it more easily:

How could she not be here when he wanted—needed—to see her?

He hoped she wasn’t sick. But no, wait. She’d said something to Pax at Sassy’s birthday lunch Sunday about going to New York to help her friend Zarah shop for a wedding dress. Was that this weekend?

Feeling somewhat deflated, he exited the back of the office building and headed to his car.

He’d be teaching at Robertson full-time starting in August. After believing for months he’d never be able to secure another professorship anywhere, he’d been offered a job at the place he’d come to love in such a short time.

Take that, Rhonda.

All her predictions that he’d never work in academia again came rushing back in—idle threats. He’d believed her delusions of grandeur, her self-aggrandizing claims that she held vast sway over the deans of university art departments all over the country.

And he was the one in therapy.

Oh, he needed to remember to write down his reactions, his emotions in his feelings journal so he could tell Ken all about it in their session tomorrow.

He pulled up his SUV under the hickory tree, but instead of going into the carriage house, he went straight to Gramps and Perty’s kitchen door and entered without knocking. They’d apparently just sat down to lunch at the small table in the alcove, as they had big bowls of soup and sandwiches only partially eaten in front of them.

“You look like the cow that jumped over the moon.” Perty stood. “Can I make you a sandwich and bowl of soup?”

“No, I’ll grab something at my place.” He might still have a pack of ramen noodles over there. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

He waited until Perty regained her seat before taking the same chair he’d sat in two months ago when they’d reviewed the living arrangement agreement with him.

Had it really been two months already? Well, in some ways, it seemed even longer than that—because he felt as if he’d known Caylor for years.

“I can tell it’s something good by the way your eyes are gleaming. What’s going on, Dylan?” Perty tore a corner off her sandwich and dipped it in her soup before eating it.

“I just came from Dr. Holtz’s office. Starting in August, I’ll be teaching full-time at James Robertson University.” He chewed the corner of his bottom lip and looked from Perty to Gramps.

Perty beamed—though didn’t look as excited as she probably should have.

Gramps, always hard to read, smiled and nodded his head. “Well done.”

“Well, it shouldn’t have been a surprise. You were the top candidate—” Perty clamped her lips together.

Caylor’s absence had begun the leak in the balloon of his excitement; Perty’s statement popped it altogether. “Perty—did you…? You didn’t interfere, did you?” He closed his eyes and covered them with both hands. “Please tell me you didn’t intervene on my behalf as the former president of the university and encourage Dr. Holtz to hire me.”

He couldn’t go through this again. He couldn’t allow someone else—a female authority figure in his life—to arrange things, make things happen for him without allowing him the chance to succeed or fail on his own. If that’s what had happened, he’d call Dr. Holtz immediately and turn down the offer.

“Helen?” An edge of surprise laced Gramps’s voice.

Dylan dropped his hands, shocked at his grandfather’s betrayal of his true feelings.

“Of course I didn’t.” Perty pressed her open palms on the place mat under her soup bowl.

“Then how did you know Dylan was the top candidate? You talked to someone, didn’t you?” Now the judge facade had come back, masking Gramps’s emotions again.

“I didn’t do anything to influence the decision. I had lunch with the school president and a few key alumni from my time to discuss an endowment. Leonard Holtz happened to be at the same restaurant. I simply asked him how the search was going.” Perty’s cheeks turned almost magenta. “I admit, I was planning to put in a good word for you, Dylan. Not because I don’t feel like you have the qualifications to get the job on your own, but because I wanted to…well, to support my grandson. But Leonard offered the information that you were their top candidate by far and he was fairly certain the entire committee felt that way.”

“And then what did you say?” Beads of perspiration tickled the back of his neck. He hated that he got all sweaty when he was nervous. “What did you tell him about me?”

Perty reached across the table and patted his clenched hands. “I promise you, I didn’t say anything else. I wished him all the best with the search and returned to my group. Dylan,
you
got the job for yourself. You can be assured that you were hired based on your own merits.”

Shaking, but feeling better—and not like he wanted to call Dr. Holtz and turn down the job anymore—Dylan excused himself and returned to the carriage house. He needed to paint to clear his head.

Using his wireless headset when Pax called him back, Dylan managed to finish most of the background details of the large painting while telling his brother everything—even his accusing Perty of arranging it for him.

“Have you told Mother and Dad yet?” Pax asked.

Dylan put a finishing touch on the medieval Italian castle in the background. “No. I thought I’d save that for lunch on Sunday.”

“Better make sure Perty and Gramps know not to say anything.”

He swirled his brush in the small jar of turpentine and then cleaned it thoroughly. His earpiece beeped, and he wiped his hands and pulled the phone out of his back pocket. “I have another call coming in. I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

As soon as Pax was gone, Dylan answered the incoming call.

“Dylan? This is Ems Bernard. I’m the event planner for your mother’s campaign. We met last weekend.”

Right. As if he could forget someone like Emerson Bernard. “Yes, I remember. Is everything okay? I haven’t seen the auction catalog to proof yet. I sent the designer an e-mail earlier.”

“Oh, that’s not why I’m calling—but I did talk to her earlier, and she said it’ll be later this evening before she can get that over to you. Sorry about the short turnaround on that.”

He put his brushes on a rack to dry then washed his hands in the utility sink. “That’s okay. I have time to give it the immediate attention it needs.”

“Why I am calling is because my brother-in-law got two tickets from work to the hockey game Saturday night. But he forgot that it’s their anniversary, so needless to say, he can’t use the tickets. He gave them to me, and I remember how disappointed you were that you couldn’t go to the game on Tuesday. I thought I’d see if you’d like to go with me. They’re fifth row up from the rink.”

Tuesday night, as he’d walked around correcting the five elderly ladies’ brush techniques, he’d been able to clearly visualize himself at the game. Except he hadn’t been in the luxury suite with Mother and Dad and the publicist and Emerson. He’d been in a seat near the ice, and a tall redhead had been at his side.

Well, one out of two would have to do. It had been far too long since he’d been to a hockey game—as that was yet another of the things Rhonda had tried to change about him. “I’d enjoy that. Is there a good place where I can meet you at the arena?”

“Oh—I hadn’t thought about that. Um…why don’t we meet at the base of the sign out in front of the arena? The pillar closest to the building. The game starts at seven—but the doors open at five thirty, according to the tickets. Want to meet around six fifteen? We can grab hot dogs or something at the concession stand for supper. I have to admit I have a secret addiction to concession stand food at sporting events.” Emerson’s laugh tinkled through the phone, a high-pitched sound that, while not loud, did grate a bit on Dylan’s nerves. Though after everything else he’d been through today, that could be more a reflection on the state of his nerves and have nothing to do with Emerson.