Page 19 of Here in My Heart (Here Together #2)

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Sylvie steadied her breath and rushed into the meeting room. Juggling everything was doing her punctuality no favors. Every seat was already taken, so she pulled a chair from the back and forced her way between a smirking Isa and a sullen Professor Laurier.

Paul opened with a state-of-the-nation style monologue, and Sylvie switched off, tuning in for the rousing finale where he told everyone to work hard and enjoy themselves. She scanned the next items on the agenda: a call for papers for the annual conference, a trip to Paris, and staff well-being.

“Let’s move onto the next item. The call for papers,” Paul said. “And volunteers to attend the Paris convention.”

Sylvie held her hand at shoulder height, aiming for somewhere north of confident but south of desperate.

“Sylvie?” Paul looked in her direction. “Would you be happy to represent the faculty in Paris this year?”

“Absolutely.” Her heart raced. A decent speaking opportunity was just what she needed to raise her academic profile.

“Excellent. You’ll need to work up a paper in the next couple of weeks.”

“No problem at all. I’ll have something with you in the next few days.” Sylvie sat back, satisfied with the outcome of that item.

Paul scanned the room. “We usually send two people. Any other takers?”

Sylvie poked Isa’s thigh sharply. She didn’t want one of the elder professors volunteering.

“I’ll go with Sylvie,” Isa said, rubbing her leg before she glared at Sylvie.

“That settles it. Thank you both. Let’s move on. I’m looking for a volunteer to take the lead on the university’s well-being program for new staff. The chancellor’s team is all over it, and they need a rep from each faculty. Any offers?”

Every tweed jacket in the room visibly shrank into their chairs.

“It wouldn’t be too much work for anyone to take on. A couple of corporate meetings and a few follow-up actions, I’m sure.” Paul searched for eye contact around the table and landed on an aging lecturer to his left. “Professor Gaultier?”

The slumbering giant made no attempt to reply.

“Antoine?” Paul asked, tapping his enamel pen.

The professor lifted his lidded eyes, his frown creasing further with the disturbance. “I cannot possibly take on any additional duties, Paul. My timetable is creaking with obligations.”

Sylvie tsked under her breath. Something’s creaking, but it’s not your timetable. Most of these over-the-hill professors hadn’t taught a full week of lectures in their academic lives.

“Sylvie? How about you?” Paul raised his eyebrows. “It would complement the work you’re doing with the internationals really nicely.”

She counted the male colleagues around the table. Not one of them had been forced to take on additional duties this term. They leaned back into their seats, enjoying the privilege of their position without further expectation or burden.

“Paul, I just took on the Paris convention, and we agreed that my priority should be publishing,” she said with as much finality as she could muster, given the audience.

Most of her colleagues were past their best, in her opinion, but she was still their junior.

She didn’t want to attract any criticism or skepticism that she wasn’t worthy of her position in the department, and despite the smoke that Paul had blown up her ass last week, there was still a whole crew of the old guard who would rather not have her type around the table.

Paul scratched his receding hairline, clearly clutching at straws and desperate to move onto the next agenda item.

“Of course. We did.” He braved one more look around the table, with every single pair of eyes averted.

Everyone clearly had very important papers to read.

“Isabelle, perhaps you and I can discuss your timetable commitments when we next meet? I don’t want us to be the only faculty who cannot field anyone. It wouldn’t look good.”

“Who for?” Isa added, sitting up a little straighter.

“Let’s move on,” Paul said, his whole demeanor sinking beneath the threat of the encounter.

The remaining items passed while Sylvie and Isa seethed between them. When the last call for business came and went, they stomped to Isa’s office for a debrief.

“What a dick.” Isa threw her hands into the air. “I despair of this place. If you and I weren’t here, they’d get nothing done.”

“I can’t believe Paul asked me to take even more on when we’d explicitly talked about reducing my timetable. It’s like we’d never had that conversation.” Sylvie folded her arms in defiance. “I should’ve told him to go fuck himself.”

“You did. Kind of.” Isa giggled. “It was pretty clear that you weren’t going to roll over.”

“What makes me so mad is that those stuffy old guys sit daydreaming, waiting to put their feet up and light cigars.” Sylvie stamped her foot. “I’m so sick of us making the only intelligent contribution in those meetings and them taking the credit.”

“You know old Gaultier is in a bit of trouble this year,” Isa said.

“What do you mean?” Sylvie hadn’t heard a sniff of any gossip, but she liked to stay out of the rumor mill.

“His new assistant has made a complaint. Inappropriate behavior.” Isa rolled her makeup-heavy eyes. “So predictable. If you give an aging professor a pretty, youthful assistant, of course he’s going to leer all over her.” She made a vomiting gesture.

Sylvie’s stomach churned.

“And you know, they can’t ignore stuff like that anymore. It’s a major power play. ”

Sylvie’s eyes darted across Isa’s face, searching for more meaning than what she’d been given. “I don’t get it.”

“He’s in a major position of power as her de facto supervisor. The woman is saying she had no choice but to go along with it. He invited her to drinks, and she couldn’t say no. He asked her to stay late, and she felt obliged. You know the drill.”

“I do.” A clamminess came over Sylvie. Could Isa see the sweat beading on her top lip?

The kernel of dread grew inside her mind, sprouting leaves of worry until they bloomed into a fully articulated spiky thought.

Had she put Ade in a similar position? Did Ade feel pressured to spend time with her?

Sylvie ran through the list of their encounters, most of them social, or at least extra-curricular.

Merde . Could she be accused of something inappropriate just like Professor Gaultier?

“Are you okay? You look like you’ve swallowed an ashtray.” Isa lifted the lid to her laptop.

Sylvie shook her head. There was no way that she could confide in Isa about her concerns; she was disgusted enough about Gaultier. “What do you think constitutes a power differential in a relationship?” she asked, dreading the answer but desperate to rationalize her actions.

“Gaultier and his assistant aren’t in a relationship. He pulled rank, and she thought she’d lose her position over it.”

“Yeah, I get that. But from a feminist theory perspective, I think this is kind of an interesting topic area.” Sylvie fudged. “What is it about power? Is it an age gap? Is it a gender thing? I’m intrigued, academically.”

Isa took the bait, turning in her swivel chair.

“Okay, Professor Girl Power, you want my view? I think age and gender are, without doubt, differentials. But there are plenty of healthy, consensual relationships with that at play. The red flags are when there’s one party in control of all the cards.

They have a senior position at the workplace, for example. Or they hold some influence.”

That didn’t make Sylvie feel any better .

“What’s going on here? Are you trying to defend Gaultier?”

Sylvie strained every muscle in her face trying to create an impression of ambivalence. “I don’t care one way or another what happens to Gaultier or any of the other relics of misogyny still cluttering up the payroll of this institution.”

“I completely agree. It’s the assistant I feel for. Maybe I should’ve taken that well-being role and given corporate my honest take on it. We need to advocate for each other.”

Relieved to have put Isa off the scent, Sylvie’s inner turmoil simmered.

She was losing her mind for no reason. Gaultier must have thirty-five years on his young assistant.

There was just ten years or so between her and Ade.

Plus, she hadn’t done anything inappropriate.

Bumping into someone and having drinks was hardly a crime.

Okay, the optics of staying overnight at Ade’s studio weren’t great.

But Ade was scared and had no one else to turn to.

Maybe Sylvie should’ve reported the incident to Paul, or to someone. “I need to tell you something.”

“This better be good, because I’m late for a date,” Isa said, retouching her lipstick in the black screen of her phone.

Sylvie doubted herself. “A couple of weeks ago, Ade called me in a bit of a crisis. There’d been an attempted break-in at her apartment. I took her to the police to report it.”

“Jesus, I hope she’s okay. Sounds scary, poor thing.”

Sylvie rubbed her clammy palms on her slacks. “It was unsettling, and she didn’t feel comfortable, so she called me.”

Isa plucked a glob of clotted mascara from her eyelid. “So you helped translate with the police?”

Sylvie swallowed. “I ended up staying the night.”

Isa’s freshly painted lashes widened. “I wasn’t expecting that, Sylvie.”

“I mean. I didn’t stay the night. Nothing happened. But after what you said about Gaultier, I wanted to tell you. I don’t want it to come out later and look like something untoward might have been happening. ”

Isa laughed. “And you’re certain nothing ‘untoward’ happened?”

“No.” Sylvie raised her hands in defense. “She couldn’t settle on her own, and I stayed. Before I knew it, the sun was rising. We were both fully clothed.”

Isa smirked. “Were you disappointed?”

“Are you serious? We’ve literally just been talking about the creepy age gap between Gaultier and his assistant. I’m worried that it might look weird that I’ve been for a couple of drinks with Ade.”

“And stayed in her bed.” Isa nudged her in the ribs.

“Don’t. I already feel bad enough.”

“You’re hardly three times her age though. And she’s not some frail wallflower. I get the impression if Ade didn’t want to keep company with you, you’d already know about it.”

Sylvie frowned. Was she comparing Gaultier’s apples with her pears? Nothing had actually happened between them.

“I’m more intrigued than ever though.” Isa tilted her head, glowing with curiosity. “I didn’t see this little friendship blossoming between you.”

“It’s not like that at all. She’s a colleague who doesn’t know anyone in town.” The urge to defend Ade’s personality rose as hard as the heat to Sylvie’s cheeks. “And she’s pretty talkative, when she’s relaxed.”

Isa laughed. “So you’ve spent some time together then? Other than the sleepover?”

“You’re making fun of me.” Sylvie slapped her lightly on the arm. “We’ve had a couple of drinks, that’s all. We don’t live that far apart, so we’ve bumped into each other. Plus, I have to see her for supervision and things.”

“Ah, yeah. Because you’re her ‘supervisor.’” Isa chuckled. “Is that why you’ve been acting like you’ve got ants crawling in your pants since I mentioned Gaultier’s investigation?”

Sylvie looked at her shoes. “Maybe. I’m overthinking it.”

“You sure are. For someone who has simply been welcoming an international colleague. There are no rules around socializing with colleagues. Look at us: we’ve become the best of friends this past year.”

“I know. I guess I’m worried that someone might look at our circumstances and jump to conclusions.”

“Not if there aren’t any conclusions to jump to.” Isa raised her eyebrow. “Unless you’ve been jumping in her panties.”

“You’re terrible.” Sylvie stood. “Aren’t you late for a date?”

“This is much more fun.”

“I doubt that.” Sylvie closed the door behind her, shutting out Isa’s cackling laughter.

She smiled, despite the uneasiness about the situation.

Maybe she needed to give Ade some space for a few days.

Their paths wouldn’t cross unless she made an effort to see her.

And why would she do that if they were just colleagues?

Because that’s all they were. That’s all they’d ever be.