A Butterfly in Flame by Nicholas Kilmer Page A

ambitious round of whiskey sours. “She sometimes sleeps in the director’s cottage—here,” Peter put an X on one of the rectangles drawn along the shore, not far from what must represent Stillton Hall, the admissions building and the other classroom building Fred was aware of. Printmaking was blocks away, in its own little world as someone had said. And the academy owned other buildings here and there.
    “Three or four nights a week she’ll sleep in town. But she’s Boston. So, but, anyway, the questions you threw at her. I liked those.”
    “I’ll bet,” Fred said.
    “She wants us to call it the presidential manse,” Peter said. “Has the kids clean it for her. Do her presidential dishes and toilets, everything. And then won’t stop complaining that it’s never right. Throws cocktail parties for her friends there and marks the bottles. You know. The most they can do is maybe switch the Chivas for Seagram’s Seven. As long as she has the Chivas bottle and the liquid matches the mark…”
    “She invites faculty?”
    “You’re kidding. She’s got them paralyzed. She’ll fire anyone she wants to, and they know it.”
    The presence of so many witnesses, Meg Harrison’s brooding figures, fostered a sense of almost random conspiracy, and Peter dropped his voice. “Everyone’s afraid. Even the ones who hate each other hate her worse. And they can’t fight back, because nobody’s contract is worth shit, and Harmony makes it clear she doesn’t value a one of them. You’re not happy? Leave. See if you can find another job teaching art. Economy like this one.”
    “Peter, how much did you hear this morning?”
    “See, what it sounds like, nobody has a contract. Or. Well, everyone has a one-year contract that is worth shit. Harmony can renew it or not if she wants to, or if she wants to fire somebody’s ass, she will, and let them sue. Good luck finding money to pay a lawyer to get the rest of your year’s pay. Do you see what I mean?”
    “You’re third year, right?” Fred said. “No. Scratch that. What I mean to say, you’ve been here all this time? Since first year?”
    Peter said, “The people you should talk to are Rodney Somerfest. The director until they fired him. He might talk. Forget the faculty. Even if you got them drunk they’re all so scared…Rodney might talk to you. But who I’d try is Lillian. No question about it.”
    “Lillian,” Fred said.
    “She did admissions. Also reception. That’s her chair I’m in before class, and after until five-thirty; sometimes at lunch. Unless it’s Tom. Or there’s another…”
    “Where do I find Rodney? He’s still in town? Or Lillian? She’s around? What’s her last name?”
    “They paid Rodney off to take a hike. He’s not here, obviously. Before he was canned he was in the director’s cottage, before it turned into the presidential manse. A manse is like a house. You probably know. I didn’t.
    “Listen. I want to graduate. I want my diploma to be worth something. In fact, I want my diploma to be a degree. I can’t afford to start again. I wouldn’t have started here in the first place except—well, that’s a long story. Half the kids…well, hell, they’re young.”
    Fred said, “How do I locate these people?”
    Peter hunched closer and whispered, “Everyone’s running scared. She’ll do anything she wants to. It makes no difference to her. She’s a volunteer. She’s willing to fire the whole faculty. I’ve heard her say so. You think she won’t expel a work-study student if she thinks I’ll make trouble for her?”
    “Let’s walk,” Fred suggested.
    “Then, scared as they are, she gets the faculty in to talk to her one at a time,” Peter said, rising and rolling the map he had been making. “She whispers and looks around behind her and makes everyone think she knows something. She’s—we’ll go through the back.” He started leading the way through the far side of the building. Once in the rain