The Square Root of Murder (Professor Sophie Knowles)

me a fresh bottle of sparkling water. “You’re next for a promotion,” she said.
    “Could be,” I said, casting my eyes down in fake modesty.
    “I’ll take care of the cake that day. I can see it now. ‘PROFESSOR KNOWLES’ in lavender icing, all caps,” Rachel said.
    If I knew birthdays, Rachel knew everyone’s color preferences.
    In fact, I’d already allowed myself the fantasy of hearing my own name mentioned in the rolls of faculty promotions this year: Dr. Sophie Knowles from associate professor to full professor , I fantasized. After yesterday’s meeting with Dean Underwood I wondered if the dream would become reality. I might be able to manage to keep the noise level down at Franklin Hall parties, but who knew what else stood in the way of my promotion. I was never any good at academic politics. All I knew was that if I wanted to reach the next level of recognition in my field, I couldn’t spend another year as an associate professor.
    “Where’s Keith?” Fran asked me.
    I heard, “Who cares?” from someone in a nearby cluster of students. Rachel?
    It hadn’t been lost on me that Keith was missing from the festivities. Maybe a higher power (I pictured an exponent in the sky) had heeded my wish, that Keith Appleton be banished from Franklin Hall.
    “We haven’t seen him at all today, but his Beemer’s here,” Pam said, gesturing toward the parking lot next to the tennis courts.
    “Apep is probably upstairs being antisocial as usual,” Casey Tremel said. She folded her bracelet-laden hands, prayerlike. “Gazing at that new Fellow award on his wall.” Casey had her own problems with Keith. She was a scholarship student, the one with the neon green “Used” sticker on all her texts. She needed a B to keep her standing; a looming D in organic chemistry could derail the funding for her education.
    “Maybe he ran out of rude comments about Dr. Bartholomew,” said Liz.
    “Who wants him at a party anyway?” Rachel’s voice. No doubt this time.
    I pulled Rachel aside, unobtrusively, I hoped. “This is not like you at all, Rachel. You need to dial it back. We’re at a gathering of the Franklin Hall family and that kind of disrespect is not appropriate.”
    “Everyone’s insulting him, not just me,” Rachel said, with a slight pout that was unbecoming a teaching assistant.
    “These are undergraduates. You’re supposed to be modeling professional behavior, among other things. It’s one thing to complain to me, but I can’t support this lack of self-control.”
    I knew I sounded like a scolding parent or a grade school teacher, but I didn’t see another way to get through to Rachel.
    Rachel looked contrite. “I’m really sorry, Dr. Knowles. You’re totally right.”
    “Did someone say ‘Dr. Bartholomew?’ I like the sound of that,” Gil said, giving her husband a kiss on his cheek.
    I was glad she’d found a way to diffuse the awkwardness of Rachel’s incivility, as well as all the other anti-Appleton remarks.
    I glanced around the room. Fran had maintained a neutral expression, notwithstanding her beef with Keith over the set of amended bylaws he’d proposed for Distinguished Professor status. Robert and Judith also behaved themselves, as befitted department chairs, though I knew them to have been overpowered and outvoted more than once by Keith. Lucy Bronson, a new instructor hired for one chemistry class this summer, with a full load in the fall, looked from one to the other of us, understandably distressed, apparently unprepared for the invective that disrupted the party atmosphere. She was too new to have been crushed by Apep .
    Much to my relief, all the other faculty who were present refrained from joining in on the heckling of the absent chemistry professor, and it soon came to a halt. I was especially conscious of returning to good behavior so Lucy wouldn’t regret her decision to come to Henley College.
    I found myself feeling sorry for Keith and forced myself to remember something good about him. I came up with an occasion last winter when he rushed to my rescue with jumper cables to start my car. So what if he chose that moment to point out my inadequacies, and those of all women, as mechanics.
    “What if I take a piece of cake and a drink up to him?” Rachel whispered to me, not needing to specify who “him” was.
    I was proud of her for coming around so quickly. “Very good idea,” I said, giving her a thumbs-up.
    Anything to keep him upstairs , I