Page 7 of And I Love Her

Chapter 2

“The appointment was at four.” Callie frowned at the calendar on her phone. First, an elevator mishap earlier that day, and now a plumbing snafu. She glanced up at her mother. “What was his excuse?”

“He had to deal with an emergency, something about a burst pipe.” Eleanor Prescott set napkins beside the plates at the kitchen table. “We rescheduled.”

“Why didn’t the plumbing company send a replacement?”

“Honey, it’s not a big deal.” Eleanor straightened and eyed her daughter with exasperated affection. “I can live with a leaky faucet for another week. I promise you there are more pressing issues to worry about.”

“Sure. Today a leaking faucet, tomorrow a flooded basement.” Callie made a mental note to lodge a complaint with the plumbing company.

“Believe it or not, I have handled multiple leaky faucets and plumbing appointments in my time.” Eleanor ran a hand over her short, blond hair and reached back to unfasten her apron. “I promise you I’m an adult capable of taking care of my house repairs.”

“So when is the plumber coming now?”

“Friday at nine.”

Callie inputted the appointment into her phone. “Oh, I meant to tell you, I switched phone companies and have a much better deal. We can also do a family sharing plan and get you a better phone.”

She picked up her mother’s cell to check the stats. Before she could unlock the screen, Eleanor grabbed the phone from her hands.

“Callie, my phone is just fine.”

“Okay, but let me know when you’re ready for an upgrade.”

Callie picked up a bottle of wine she’d brought and started opening it. She had formally established Wednesday as the designated “dinner night” at her mother’s house, but she’d gotten into the habit of bringing over meals several times during the week. A few months ago, when her mother had been going through a diagnosis and eventual surgery for a precancerous lump in her breast, Callie had thought meal planning was at least one of the things she could do to keep their lives predictable.

Though Eleanor had received a relatively clean bill of health—that she had a low-grade condition with little chance of reoccurrence—the frightening ordeal had stirred up the pain of Gordon Prescott’s death all over again. Callie had since made a point of stopping by more often. Aside from wanting to check on her mother, returning to the little house where she grew up, with its cozy kitchen, flowered curtains, and worn, comfortable furniture, always allowed her to take a deep breath during a stressful work week.

“How was your meeting with the stuffy old tribunal of your department?” Eleanor took three wineglasses from the oak cupboard.

Speaking of stressful…

“It was okay.” Callie pulled the cork out with unnecessary force and tossed it aside.

After she had left the library that afternoon, she’d texted the Classics department chairman about the elevator incident and explained that she was on her way. She’d also had to stop at the restroom to tidy up, the further delay making her half an hour late.

Despite her explanation, the six male professors, all of whom would vote at the end of the month whether or not she deserved tenure, had been waiting with evident disapproval and impatience when she’d hurried into the conference room.

Not the impression she’d wanted to make, especially when she was still fighting to be taken seriously as a young, female professor in an academic discipline that had long been a bastion of male superiority.

“Your father would be so proud of you.” Her mother approached and rested a hand on Callie’s arm.

An ache of love nudged at Callie’s heart. Her father had been a tenured professor of Greek and Latin at the University of California, Santa Cruz for many years. But rather than languages, it had been his passion for mythology that sparked Callie’s own career path. Some of her favorite childhood memories were of her father telling her about Zeus, Hera, Apollo, Demeter…the gods, goddesses, and mortals whose exciting stories still resonated through time.

“You’ll be awarded tenure, honey.” Eleanor patted her daughter’s arm with certainty.

Callie wasn’t convinced. She was only thirty-two, had just reached the six years of teaching required to even be considered for tenure, and she didn’t have a huge body of research yet like so many of the older professors.

But Professor Farnsworth, her mentor who had retired the previous year, had encouraged her to apply on the basis of her outstanding credentials, promise, and teaching skills. Despite her strictness, her students always gave her overwhelmingly excellent evaluations, and several grad students had asked her to advise their thesis and dissertation topics.

So Callie had taken her mentor’s advice and applied—though now that the department was less than a month away from the vote, she was second-guessing her decision at every turn.

Her proposal for a book on Greek goddesses and heroines was under consideration with an editor at Cambridge Press’s new Fire imprint. If the prestigious publisher accepted it, she’d have much more leverage with the tenure board.

But if it was rejected…

The department was sure to turn down her tenure application and deny promoting her to full professor. She’d be out of a job and need to look for a position elsewhere. Which also meant she’d likely need to leave Bliss Cove—a concept she couldn’t even fully grasp. She’d grown up here, commuted to Stanford for her undergrad work, and aside from a few years at Harvard earning her PhD, she’d never lived anywhere else.

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