Chapter 23: The Dean's Office

The dean of students saw us at ten on Monday, in a corner office on the third floor of the administration building.

Dee came with me, in her leather jacket, carrying two coffees and a manila folder.

"I've never been in trouble in my whole life," she said in the elevator. "I'm going to enjoy this."

"We're not in trouble."

"I know. That's why I'm going to enjoy it."

The dean was a gray-haired woman in a cardigan, and she did not smile when we came in.

Two of my thesis committee sat on the couch behind her, both professors who had signed my recommendation letters.

One of them looked at his hands.

"Ms. McGovern," the dean said. "Thank you for coming in. I've read your email."

"Thank you for seeing me."

"I'm told there's been a misunderstanding about a medical withdrawal."

"There hasn't been a misunderstanding," I said. "There's been a forgery."

I took out my phone and set it on her desk.

I played her what I had.

It was the vigil, first, three minutes of it, the quad and the candles and Santino at the microphone.

Then the café video, from Dee's phone, with his hands flat on the counter.

Then the last thing, the one I had saved for the end.

It was a photograph of the withdrawal form, taken from the registrar's own email.

Next to the phone I laid a café napkin with my real signature on it.

The two were not alike.

The signature on the form leaned the wrong way, and the W was rounded where mine was sharp.

"I was at my grandmother's lake house two hours north on Tuesday," I said.

"A neighbor there can tell you what I ate for lunch."

Dee leaned in.

"I'd also like it on the record that she works beside me at the café," she said. "And that she was hiding from her boyfriend."

"Ex-boyfriend," I said.

"Ex-boyfriend."

The dean said nothing for a moment.

The older professor on the couch cleared his throat.

"Ms. McGovern," he said. "I'm sorry. We had no idea. He was very convincing."

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