Chapter 17: Nothing Asked

He waited his turn.

The girl ahead of him took her paperback and left.

Then Geoffrey was at the desk with a thick grey book on the counter.

The title was Markets and Moral Hazard, and the spine was cracked.

"One book," he said. "Two weeks."

"Library card?"

He held it out.

It was the visitor's card they had issued him two weeks ago.

In the photo, he looked smooth and untouched by any real trouble.

I scanned it and stamped the slip without looking at his face.

"I'm not here to ask you for anything," he said.

"Okay."

"I'm here to borrow a book. If you want, I'll go."

"You're blocking the line."

"There's no line."

I looked past him.

He was right.

Everyone had gone back to their tables, and a few of them were pretending very hard to read.

"The dean called you in this morning," I said.

"Yes."

"What happened?"

"I told her what I'd put in the email. She's reviewing it."

"What email?"

He didn't answer right away, and I knew that pause.

I had learned it in his kitchen.

"The one I sent to her on Sunday night," he said. "And one to Chicago."

"What did you say to Chicago?"

"That I'm withdrawing from the department chair."

I put the stamp down.

"The job you wanted."

"The job I worked eleven years for," Geoffrey said. "I couldn't take it under a review. It wasn't fair to them."

"You did that without telling me."

"Yes."

"You sent a dean a story about me, and you didn't ask if I wanted to be in it."

"I told her you were never my student," he said. "I told her nothing began until the unit ended. It's all true."

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