The Weird Sisters - Eleanor Brown [71]
But the idea of shame was worse. And the thought of what Rose might think of her if she told . . . she couldn’t face that.
Our mother was right. Something would turn up. Something had to turn up. Soon. The alternative was unthinkable.
Rose walked into town to the pharmacy to pick up our mother’s prescription. We’d asked Cordy to get it on the way home from work the day before, but she had, shockingly, forgotten. After Rose paid, she wandered the aisles, not wanting to go back out into the heat, letting the cold air chill the sweat on her skin as her eyes tripped over the shelves.
“Dr. Andreas?”
Rose looked up from the battery display. She still started a little when someone called her by our father’s name, even though she had earned her own Ph.D. and therefore the title.
“Oh, Dr. Kelly!” Rose said, and walked over to the woman standing by the door. Dr. Kelly had been Rose’s favorite math professor in college, and was now the head of the math department. “It’s so nice to see you. How have you been?”
“Excellent. We just got back from a lovely cruise in Greece with the family.”
“Greece. Wow. Grandchildren and everything?”
“Grandchildren and everything. Carl and I were celebrating our fortieth anniversary, and we thought it would be nice to have everyone along.”
“It sounds wonderful. Greece is supposed to be gorgeous.”
“It is. You and Jonathan must go someday. Maybe for your honeymoon?”
“Maybe.”
“How’s your mother?”
“Mixed. She’s recovering okay from the surgery, but they found cancer in some of the lymph nodes they removed, so she’s in for some radiation and maybe another course of chemotherapy.”
“I am sorry,” Dr. Kelly said. “What can we do to help?”
“She’d like some company, I’m sure. Other than us, that is.”
“I’ll give a call and see how she’s feeling someday, then. The thing is, Rose, I was actually thinking about giving you a call.”
“Oh?” Rose asked. She shifted, crossed her arms. The prescription bag crinkled under her arm.
“I’m retiring after this year. Carl’s been retired for a while, as you know, and he’d like to move. Be closer to the family.”
A little spark of hope lit up inside Rose, and her heart beat faster. This could be the answer to her prayers. She’d always wanted a job at Barney, and now that her current university wasn’t going to renew her contract, the timing was perfect.
“So we’ll have a tenure-track position open. One of the current faculty will move up to department head. Are you still interested?”
“Are you kidding? Of course I’m interested.”
“I thought maybe with Jonathan abroad, you might be joining him.”
“In England?” Rose laughed. “No, you know me. I’m a homebody. I’d be thrilled to join the Barnwell faculty.”
Dr. Kelly tilted her head slightly, looking at Rose, who was beaming so brightly she could have lit up the whole store. “Then you’d better start getting your application packet together. We’ll announce the opening in the fall. And Rose, I wouldn’t go repeating this, but your name was the first one to come up when we began to discuss candidates. I’m fairly sure the job would be yours if you want it.”
“Oh, thank you, Dr. Kelly!” Rose said. She hugged her tightly, surprising even herself, and ran out the door. “Come by anytime,” she called over her back.
She ran nearly all the way home. When we were little, Bean liked to have fashion shows, Cordy liked tea parties, and Rose liked to play school—she always got to be the teacher, of course. But it was never an elementary school classroom where she saw herself when Bean and Cordy would cooperate long enough to play. It was always one of the classrooms at Barnwell. When our father took us to work with him, she’d wander into one of the empty rooms and sketch on the board, delivering a lecture to an imaginary class until some actual college student came along and burst her bubble.
And now it was happening. She ran inside, dropping