As they worked, he glanced over at her. Her eyes were a bit red-rimmed now, her face paler than when she’d arrived that morning. And just a minute or two ago, she’d been fighting tears again, slumped and mournful for reasons he hadn’t yet discovered.
They could both use distraction, then. He would provide it.
“About your Frankenstein IsNotthe Monster Initiative…” The top two corners secured, he began to make loops of tape for the bottom of the poster. “I’ve been meaning to discuss it with you. I think it could use some retooling.”
Immediate, livid color filled her cheeks. Her eyes snapped to his, narrowed and sharp. “Is that so?”
It was more a warning than a question, and one he deliberately failed to heed. Their evening in the emergency room had taught him well.
“I think a convincing argument could be made that Victor Frankensteinisa monster. More so than his creation, in many ways.” He quirked a brow at her before applying tape to the bottom of the poster and smoothing it against the wall. “There you go. All done.”
“Thank you.” The words were clearly begrudging, but she said them. She thought for a few moments before continuing to speak. “As far as my Frankenstein initiative… you may have a valid point.” Then she pointed an accusing finger at him, her continued annoyance clear. “That said, you’ve deliberately misinterpreted the mission of the initiative, which is to stop students and certain intransigent faculty members from calling the misbegotten creature Frankenstein.”
“Bycertain intransigent faculty members, you mean Mildred,” he guessed.
Her nostrils flared. “I mean Mildred. The scourge of the art department.”
Last Halloween, even after Candy’s initiative, Mildred had assigned her students to make collage portraits of Frankenstein. And byFrankenstein, she meant the creature, not the scientist.
He had no idea whether Mildred was deliberately rattling her colleague’s chain or was merely oblivious. Either way, the day Candy found out about the collage assignment, alien life forms in distant galaxies surely heard her infuriated howl and ran for cover.
All that week, she kept declaring, “There was a puppet show. Apuppet show.”
All that week, he had to duck into his classroom to stifle his hilarity, even as he sympathized with her frustration.
“If accurate identification of Victor Frankenstein is your primary goal, then maybe you should rename the initiative.” He scratched his jaw again, dimly aware that he should either shave off his facial hair or care for it a little better. “I suggest something along the lines of: Victor Frankenstein May Be a Monster, But He’s NottheMonster.”
“I’ll take that under advisement.” Her baleful glare eased. “I’ve been considering whether I should clarify a few more matters about the creature next time. The misconceptions about him are maddening.”
To her, he imagined they were. Candy did not suffer wrongness gladly. Or at all.
It was a wonder she could manage to spend any time on the internet, considering. If she ever came across the comments section beneath a YouTube video, she might literally explode on the spot.Another victim of Acute Factual Outrage Syndrome, the doctor would announce, shaking their head.Such a shame.
“You want everyone to know he’s yellow in the book, rather than green?” An obvious guess, but the best one he had.
“Yes!” She gave a near-violent wave of her good arm. “Thank you. And he didn’t have bolts in his neck either!”
Her awful sadness had disappeared, washed away by the intensity of her passion. Good.
“Well, you have plenty of time to rethink your initiative before it comes around again. By then, maybe Mildred will have retired.”
Candy’s lip curled. “Only the good retire young.”
“I’m not sure anyone could describe Mildred asyounganymore,” he noted.
“Methuselah would.” The corners of her eyes crinkled. “But only if he were lying.”
He leaned into the wall, ready for further entertainment. “As long as we’re discussing important literary and linguistic matters, I hear you tell your students not to split infinitives or leave dangling prepositions.”
She sucked in a breath through her teeth, immediately on the defensive. “As it happens, I do tell them that. Your point, Mr. Conover?”
“People have been breaking those rules since English came into existence as a language.”
She tilted her head so she could look down her nose at him. “People have done a lot of incorrect things since that time. I repeat: Your point, Mr. Conover?”
“Those rules made sense for the Romans, since sentences in Latin don’t end with prepositions, and infinitives are one word. You literally can’t split them.” When her mouth opened, he raised his hand. “As I’m certain you’re already aware. However, you may not realize how those strictures transferred to English.”
Another glimpse of that faint, smug smile. “Because snobbish neoclassicists thought English should follow the same grammatical rules as Latin.”
