The Jinx

“Okay.” She seemed to make up her mind. “Sara’s been getting these strange letters.”

“Letters?”

“Yes. Like love letters, but sort of sinister. I mean, they’re all flowery and gushy and go on and on about how beautiful she is. But they’re never signed, and there’s no return address or even a stamp or postmark on the envelopes, and they show up in the weirdest places—not just her mailbox at school, but slipped into her bag or a notebook. She once even found one on her bed.”

“Creepy,” I said.

“And invasive. I mean, the letters seem harmless enough—really badly written, but harmless. But when they show up in her personal space, it’s really disturbing. I know it sounds like a cliché, but it’s like she’s being stalked.”

“Does she have any idea who might be sending them?”

“No. Not a clue. We’ve been over and over it, but we just can’t come up with any likely suspects. It would be hard to imagine any of the guys at school writing anything like them, much less giving them to her.”

“But it must be someone who has access to the school—otherwise, how could he get the letters to her? How could he get into your dorm?”

“Well, it’s not like security is that tight. Anyone who looked like he could belong on campus could probably walk around without too much difficulty. And people are always letting people into the dorm, even though they shouldn’t.”

“What about Grant Crocker?” I asked, remembering the odd, proprietary way in which he’d spoken of Sara earlier that morning.

“Sara told you about Grant?”

“Yes. And I knew him from when he worked at Winslow, Brown. He was at the memorial service this morning, and he was asking me if I had seen Sara.” It would be a great way to deflect suspicion from himself, I thought—acting like he was perplexed not to see her at the church, even if he knew exactly why she wasn’t there. My distaste for him made me more than willing to cast him as a creepy violent stalker.

“We talked about it maybe being Grant, but it’s hard to picture. If you could see the letters—they’re not a Grant Crocker type production. I mean, he’s an ex-marine and a fanatical weight lifter—he even takes those weird supplements that build muscle or whatever. But this stuff is really lovey-dovey, and also sort of pretentious with all of these esoteric quotes from various poets. We just couldn’t imagine that Grant had it in him. He’s been a total pain since Sara broke things off with him—he still calls all the time. In fact, he called last night when you guys were having dinner, and he practically had a jealous fit on the phone. But these letters—they’re just not his style.”

“Do the police know about the letters? Did you tell anyone about them? Did Sara?”

“Actually, she did. Just yesterday. I’d been urging her to go to campus security, but she was worried that she’d be overreacting. And the letters weren’t threatening, really, except for being anonymous and showing up in strange places. So she decided to show them to her section leader and get his advice.”

The business school class was divided into sections of about ninety students each. During the first year, students took all of their classes with their sections. It was an interesting arrangement. On the one hand, it allowed students to become comfortable with their peers and thus, in theory at least, more willing to put forth unconventional opinions. On the other hand, by the end of the first year you could pretty much guess what any one of your section-mates would say in answer to any question before he opened his mouth, and you spent a lot of time hoping he wouldn’t open his mouth. A professor was assigned to each section as its leader, acting as an ombudsman of sorts.

“That’s good. What did he say?”

“Professor Beasley said he would take a look and help her figure out whether she should report the letters to campus security.”

“Professor Beasley? Is he new?” The name sounded familiar, but I couldn’t remember a Professor Beasley.

“I think he’s been around for a couple of years.”

“Well, given what happened this morning, it seems like he should definitely tell the police.”

“I think so, too. I was going to go see him later, but I don’t want to leave Sara right now. I called and left a message but he was in class.”

“I’ll tell you what,” I said. “Why don’t I go talk to Professor Beasley?”

“Would you do that? I’d feel so much better if I knew somebody was looking into it, but for all I know, he doesn’t even know what’s happened to Sara yet.”

“Well, I’ll make sure he knows.”

“That would be great,” Edie said, visibly relieved. “I’d just hate to leave before Sara wakes up.”

We exchanged cell-phone numbers so I could call her after I’d spoken to Professor Beasley and she could let me know when Sara awakened.

I called Cecelia back at the hotel as I left UHS, explaining what had happened. It was just after noon, and interviews wouldn’t resume until two o’clock. I hoped that I could get to Professor Beasley’s office, talk to him and make it back to the Charles in time for the afternoon’s interview schedule. I also tried Peter’s cell phone again.

He picked up this time, but he sounded harried.

“Hi, it’s me.”

“Oh, hi, Rachel. What’s up?” His greeting was warm but rushed.

Just as I was about to relate the morning’s events, it occurred to me that given how busy he was, and how stressed, unloading on him right now was probably not the most considerate thing a supportive girlfriend could do. “Nothing,” I said lamely. “Just wanted to say hello.”

“Great. Hi.” I heard a voice in the background, and a trill of female laughter. “Listen, I’m sort of in the middle of something right now. Abigail and I are at her hotel, refining our proposal for this pitch. Things are really heating up. Could I give you a call back later?”

“Um, sure,” I said.

“Okay. Talk to you later.”

I started to ask him about our dinner plans, but he’d already hung up.

I know it was irrational, but I felt annoyed, even while recognizing that there were plenty of times when Peter called me and I couldn’t talk. But the laughter I heard tapped into some well of insecurity in my heart, and the thought of Peter and Abigail working closely together in a hotel room wasn’t a particularly welcome one.

Stop it, I told myself. It’s Peter. You have nothing to worry about. He’s just busy.

With his gazellelike business associate, a mean little voice in my head reminded me. In a private place with a big bed. I shushed the voice, but not before registering a flash of jealousy so intense it made my stomach churn.

I’d reached the river and was passing the boathouse once more. There were only a couple of police cars left now, but the yellow crime-scene tape was still up. I crossed the bridge, leaning into the wind coming off the water and burrowing my hands in my pockets. I tried to take my mind off Peter and Abigail, and instead imagined what Professor Beasley would be like.

Old, I decided. Very old. With a walking stick, bow tie and lockjaw, like the professor in The Paper Chase. But imagining the decrepit Professor Beasley did little to quell the anxiety that my truncated conversation with Peter had stirred. I crossed Storrow Drive to Harvard Street and then took a left onto the business school campus, still wrapped in insecurity and fretting about Peter’s strangely distant tone.

The grounds of the business school looked more Harvard than the college campus on the other side of the river. Here there was even more red brick, and more ivy, with patches of green grass broken by stone paths. A large endowment from corporate donors and successful alumni ensured that everything was maintained beautifully, and every time I came here a new building had risen, doubtless graced with the name of one of those donors. A couple of students walked by me, dressed in suits and overcoats. Judging by their clothes and serious expressions, they were on their way to interviews at the Charles.

I mounted the stone stairs to Morgan Hall, which housed most of the faculty offices, checking the directory in the foyer for Professor Beasley’s office and quickly finding the listing—Beasley, J.—on the third floor. I heard the swoosh of the elevator doors opening behind me and dashed to catch it.

And collided, head-on, with the love of my life.

Seven

“Oof,” I said.

The impact sent me sprawling, and I lost my grip on my shoulder bag. Its contents spilled out to surround me on the cold stone floor. My Blackberry ricocheted off a wall, and a lipstick rolled into a distant corner, but my first thought was of my nose, which felt like it had suffered some serious damage from its run-in with the man’s chest. He must have been made of steel—either that or he was wearing a bulletproof vest.

“Are you all right?” The voice was rich and deep and it sent a shock of recognition down my spine. Along with a delicious tingle that made me promptly forget about any need for an emergency rhinoplasty. The man knelt down beside me, and with a strange sense of destiny I looked up and into Jonathan Beasley’s blue, blue eyes.

Suddenly I was eighteen all over again, sitting across from Jonathan in English 10 (A Survey of English Literature from Chaucer to Beckett) and wondering how such perfection was possible in one human being.

I had worshipped him for the better part of a year. He was a senior when I was a freshman. He was brilliant. He was beautiful. He played varsity ice hockey. He was the Ryan O’Neal to my Ali MacGraw. Except that he never actually spoke to me, and if he had, I would have been tongue-tied, completely unable to conjure up a comment that managed to be both clever and alluring at once. Then he graduated, and I never saw him again. I went on to form other unhealthy and unacted-upon crushes from afar, but Jonathan had been my first, and on some level I’d never forgotten him.