Chapter 15

Emergency meeting. Isabel’s office. Now.

The text comes from Jordan when Piper is on their way to the library on Thursday morning. They change course immediately, a feeling of dread pooling in their stomach, adrenaline spurring them to walk faster. This close to grad open house, an emergency meeting can’t be good.

Isabel and Jordan and Sarah and Fatima are crowded into Isabel’s office when Piper arrives. Katie is there too, and Phoebe comes up behind them, breathless, a second later.

“Antonio’s teaching,” Katie says. “I’ll fill him in.”

Isabel nods at the door. Phoebe shuts it behind her.

“Elena Gutierrez has declined her admission to Schenley.” Jordan says it quietly, grimly.

“Oh, fuck,” Katie says. “But I thought—”    

“She was all set to come to open house. I’d invited her to that dance performance downtown that you’d suggested, Katie, and the three of us were supposed to go.”

“Was it UCLA?” Piper asks.

Jordan exchanges a glance with Isabel. “We don’t know. It’s possible, but…she’d promised she would attend our open house before making a decision.”

“UCLA may have upped their offer,” Isabel says. “But there was something about the tone of her email that concerned me.”

Isabel’s mouth is set in a worried line. She has, Piper notices, shadows under her eyes. Her messy hair is messier than usual. They feel a flicker of protectiveness and guilt. They should have been more present for her this last week. Phoebe and Antonio are finishing this year, and they and Katie are done the next—and Lu should have been too—this is an important year for grad admissions, and Isabel’s been shouldering so much of it.

“What did her email say?” Piper asks.

“It’s not what it said, exactly.” Jordan clears his throat. “It’s that it was so formal. Impersonal. She’d been very friendly before, excited, even—she was up front about the lure of UCLA but said she’d love to be at Schenley if it felt like Pittsburgh could offer the kind of arts scene she was looking for, and if funding worked out…And then in this email, she just—no apologies, no regrets. Just, ‘I wanted to let you know that I will be unable to attend open house, and that I have decided not to accept Schenley’s offer of admission. Thank you for all your time and advice.”

Katie frowns. Piper can tell she’s itching to pace, but Isabel’s office is cramped, all the chairs taken and the rest of them leaning against the walls. “I talked to her a bunch. That doesn’t sound like her at all.”

“No,” Isabel says. “It doesn’t.” She and Jordan exchange a look. “We just wanted to make sure…to ask you all what your communications with her have been like. Is it possible that somebody—well, let slip something about the situation in the department?”

Alarm courses through Piper. Katie and Phoebe both look startled, heads flying up to look at Isabel, at Jordan and Sarah and Fatima.

“No,” Katie says. “No, definitely not. I was super positive about everything.”

“I haven’t talked to her,” says Phoebe. “I—sorry, I was planning to email her, but—”

Isabel nods. “Okay. Piper?”

They shake their head. “I added a little note to one of Katie’s emails, just to say hi, but that was all. I swear.”

The fluttering worry in their stomach relaxes a little as Isabel nods. “Okay. Just wanted to make sure.”

“Antonio didn’t either,” Katie says. “I saw his email to her.”

“Okay. Good. Just remember, this year’s grad admissions season is critical. Don’t say or do anything without checking with us first.”

They all nod. Isabel runs a hand through her hair and sighs. “Well. Maybe it was UCLA. They do make more sense for her than us in a lot of ways. They have more money, and L.A. offers a dance scene that Pittsburgh just doesn’t. Not to mention a robust Latinx community.”

“We knew all that, though,” says Jordan. “She knew all that, when she agreed to come to open house.”

Fatima clears her throat. “Surely it could have been because of what happened to Jack?”

They all fall silent. Piper can tell from everyone’s faces that all of them—Piper themself included—had forgotten that this, of course, is by far the most obvious possibility.

“Ah,” says Isabel. “Well. That’s…you’re right, Fatima. I hadn’t considered that. Since the case was wrapped up so quickly, I assumed…”

She goes quiet. Piper feels as though they are a military council who has just received bad news from the commander about an upcoming battle. The troops from the North aren’t coming. Our support is dwindling.

“Um,” Phoebe says hesitantly, after a long silence. “I—if you need me to stay, I can, but—I left a student in my office hours—sorry—”

Isabel sighs again. “No, no. Go to your student. All of you, thank you for coming. I don’t need to tell you that in light of this, recruitment of any other admits who have even the hint of potential is critical for the continued success of this program. We’ll talk more soon about strategies for open house.”

Piper, Katie, and Phoebe file out. Sarah and Fatima leave, too, murmuring to each other as they head down the hall. The door shuts on Isabel and Jordan, whose heads are bent together, faces grim.

Piper goes back to their office and stares at the wall. Anxiety gnaws at their stomach. It’s as if everything is conspiring to make this the worst grad admissions season possible—Lu, and then Jack’s murder, and now this.

Why? they wonder. Did Elena Gutierrez decline because of the murder? Of course it’s possible. More than possible. It even makes sense.

Piper huffs out a sigh. On an impulse, they dig their laptop out of their bag and do a quick internet search for Schenley University English department. Maybe it’s been getting bad press since what happened to Jack.

Piper has to take several deep breaths when the headlines about Jack’s murder pop up on the screen. They shut their eyes and try to banish the image of Jack’s bloody body. After a few deep breaths, they make themself read the search results. The news articles about Jack dominate on first glance. Piper’s heart sinks, realizing just how much of an effect this might have on the department’s reputation. Although it’s not just bad for the presentists; it’ll screw up everyone’s recruitment this year. Maybe things will balance out.

Feeling slightly ashamed of this thought, Piper keeps scrolling to see if anything else of interest appears. The department website; a couple of other results from the university at large; a link to the undergrad English Majors’ Organization Twitter account—and then a couple of forums meant for prospective students.

Piper mentally smacks their head. Of course. They click on one of the forums, scanning to see what interested grad students might be saying about the department.

Among the usual results—anyone heard back about the English dept waitlist yet? and is this is a good place for medieval studies? and is Pittsburgh as shitty as I think it is?—is a different sort of entry.

So I got a weird email the other day, the thread starts. Piper clicks.

Just thought I should post this here. Not to spread rumors or anything, but this gives me really bad vibes and this is such an important decision I wanted everyone to have this info. -queerdancer12, Los Angeles

Underneath is a screenshot of an email. First, there is an image of bathroom graffiti, stark and black against the pale green color Piper recognizes from Schenley’s bathrooms:

someone should say it publicly: the english department is f—ed up.

TRUTH.

why??? omg I love it here. what’s wrong???

—>ask a grad student lol

And below the photograph, a message:

Dear [name blacked out],

I know you’ve been admitted to Schenley’s PhD program. I felt really bad about sending this email, because I know you’d be a great addition to the department, but it just doesn’t feel right not to warn you. This department is really messed up. This is what’s written in one of the stalls in the department’s main bathroom. We don’t talk about it and we try to hush it up at conferences, but it’s true. The professors just DO NOT get along. They can’t agree on anything and department meetings always devolve into arguments. It just makes it difficult to do anything. You have to constantly navigate faculty politics when putting together your committee. And it makes some of the grad students really nasty to each other. I really hate saying this but…your work is amazing and so many people leave after a year or two—you can look that up. If you have other options I’d consider those really seriously. Honestly, best of luck.

It was signed, a concerned grad student.

Piper sits back, staring at the screen. Holy shit.

Their heart is pounding. This is really, really, really bad. This could spiral way beyond Elena, way beyond grad admissions. This could get picked up by some academic blog or newsletter—it could go viral, holy shit. The department walks such a fine line already at conferences and in the public eye. Everyone, Isabel’s people and Francis’ alike, keep a tight lid on the extent of the conflict boiling under the surface. The official line is that they exist in productive disagreement, challenging each other to attain higher levels of rigor. Not everyone agrees with each other, but in the end it makes their work better.

This could blow that lie wide open.

Piper reaches for their phone, already selecting Isabel’s number. But then—oh, fuck.

They stare at the message. Your work is amazing. You’d be a great addition to the department. What if—what if Katie or Phoebe or Antonio wrote this email?

Piper’s mind immediately fixates on Katie. She’s the one whose work overlaps most with Elena’s; they both do queer dance. She’s the one who would most want to ensure Elena’s work doesn’t get tripped up by Schenley’s politics.

But she’s also the one who’d most want Elena to come. Katie has one more year in the program, and it would be so good for her to have someone else doing similar work for that last year. And Katie seemed genuinely dismayed to hear of Elena’s defection.

Piper swallows. They have to tell Isabel. Even if that does mean one of their friends is to blame. There’s no other option—this is too important.

They text Isabel the link.

A minute later, a text comes back: Piper, do you have any idea who did this?