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young.”
    “Are you always this suspicious of people?”
    “I read them. She has a crush on you.”
    I stared for a moment too long, then moved to the coffeepot I kept at the ready on my bookshelf and punched the Brew button. Vivienne sat opposite my desk and crossed her legs. She had long, slender legs for a person of perhaps five feet five inches, and the red light on the coffeemaker seemed a silent alarm to stay focused. “So what questions haven’t we covered?”
    “Claridge ousted Professor Elliot Emerson for being a gay man.”
    I exhaled, my reaction completely unrelated to the topic and merely in response to her physical presence. Why is the gay topic popping up in every conversation? First my father warning of gays in the church, then Jude appearing out of nowhere, now this woman asking why we ousted a gay professor.
    “I’m not a board member and wasn’t privy to the reasons for firing him.”“I’m told he had many God-fearing friends here.” The way she enunciated “God-fearing” tinged the idea with lunacy. “How is it that he was fired without a whimper and left in the dark of night?” Her face was steeling up.
    “You would have to take that up with Dr. Hightower or with Elliot himself.”
    “Elliot Emerson committed suicide in Argentina.”
    “I’m very sorry. He was obviously troubled, maybe even so much so that he couldn’t help himself, much less those who seek so much from their priests and ministers.”
    “So flawed people don’t make good priests?”
    “All people are flawed.”
    “Perhaps a flawed person, like Emerson, knew the truth and couldn’t stand the pain and pressure, or the stupidity around him, and fighting it simply wore him out and he gave up.”
    “Was he a friend of yours?”
    “He interned with me years ago. I admired him because he stood for who he was and didn’t knuckle under.”
    A voice in my head said this was going in a bad direction. Mere words couldn’t alter her belief that her friend had been ousted unfairly, and my trying seemed to anger her.
    “I’m sorry he’s no longer in your life,” I said, and let a few moments of silence float on the frigid air.
    Vivienne must have realized her tone was combative because she suddenly took a deep breath and started over, changing the subject, chatting about mundane things, inquiring about our student programs, and laughing easily. I liked this beautiful, intense woman poking into my business, despite her sidebar into the world of her friend Emerson.
    “Could I offer you lunch?”
    She smiled that incredible smile and said she had to be going. As she thanked me for the time I’d spent with her, she shook my hand. Her touch sent a shiver across my chest and I wished that we were friends.
    I wished I had her home number and I could call and simply ask what she was doing or even who she was verbally crucifying today. While I was lost in those thoughts, Vivienne Wilde disappeared out of my office and most certainly out of my world.
    * * *

    It was Wednesday morning and I was sitting in my office just after sunup reading the local news events on my laptop when the electronic headline leapt off the computer screen at me. Dateline Claridge: FuTure chancellOr says suicide naTural selecTiOn FOr gay PriesTs. Byline: Vivienne Wilde. My heart raced and I felt dizzy just as the phone rang.
    Eleonor Washington’s voice stage-whispered across the phone line.
    “Girl, have you seen the paper? What the heck did you say to that woman? Hightower is about to shoot out through his own head, and he wants to see you before he does it.”
    I had no sooner hung up than my phone rang again. My father’s voice boomed into my ear. “A very risky but calculated move guaranteed to gain you the support of the right wing.”
    “I was misquoted.”
    “Don’t say you were misquoted—sounds namby-pamby. The brilliant part is the headline positioned you for the chancellorship without your having to say a word. It’s actually right