“There goes the Ice Queen again,” Andy Wilkinson said.
Andy was perched on the radiator—the twist of metallic tubes that served as heater here in the old psychology building at Northland University—and looking sidelong out the window with his mug of coffee dangling from one hand. Marian hated when he sat like that. It was like he was posing.
“Excuse me?” she asked. During her first two months here at Northland, she’d been hearing that term a lot: “Ice Queen.” Marian was more than aware of her own social strangeness, and had assumed the term referred to her. She’d begun to feel personally attacked.
“Ice Queen,” Andy said. He gestured out the window with the hand holding the mug. “You know, that Dr. Rosenthal lady. I just saw her crossing the quad.”
“Oh.”
“Why? Who did you think I meant?”
“Never mind.”
On the long lab table before her, Marian watched as a rat tried to navigate its way through maze #19. It had had a larger-than-normal dose of amphetamines. There did seem to be an improvement to his speed, but that could’ve been an effect of training. This particular subject had already completed a dozen—
“You know why they call her ‘The Ice Queen,’ don’t you?”
“What?” Marian looked up, vexed at having been interrupted in her work.
“Two words for you,” Andy said. “Department. Head. That’s a sought after title in a big department like this one. Lots of power, not to mention a pay increase for whichever prof wins the position.”
“So?”
“So, it was Dr. Pressler’s job until just a few months ago. He was good at it. Then Dr. Rosenthal comes along, decides she wants the job. And Rosenthal is like Lola in that old song: whatever Rosenthal wants, Rosenthal gets. She waited until the two of them were alone on a conference trip together. Adjoining hotel rooms. Then she manufactures this massive scandal, saying Pressler was behaving inappropriately. If the guy hadn’t been tenured, he would have completely lost his job! As it was, he got demoted from department head to regular old professor. Then Rosenthal got to take over. Talk about ruthless!”
Marian said, “isn’t it possible that Pressler was being inappropriate?”
Andy made an ugly, scoffing noise. Rolled his eyes at her. “Man, you don’t know Rosenthal. You been here, what? Couple of months? You don’t know the way she is. Won’t change a grade or give an extension, even if a student comes to her with extenuating circumstances—dead grandma or whatever. Makes Dr. Eggers and Dr. Kline share lab space, even though they are both full profs and entitled to their own. She really is something. Even her own assistant—the department admin—hates her.”
Marian thought of saying how none of that proved anything—that Rosenthal could be the most cold-hearted woman in the world, and her allegations about Pressler could still be true—then thought better of it. You couldn’t convince someone like Andy of something like that. Not when his mind was made up.
She turned back to her work table. On it, the stimulant-infused rat had reached the wall adjacent the room with the food pellet. A dead end. The rat sniffed at the wall, exploring the edges with his twitching snout, before taking off in the other direction.
Meanwhile, Andy had left his radiator perch by the window. He stood beside her now, looming, clearing his throat, trying to continue the argument.
Marian ignored him. Finally, he made a scoffing noise and left the room. Off to pose in some other window, Marian thought. Off to bother some other girl. Maybe Liz, in the cognition lab. Liz would probably even welcome it.
Marian rolled her eyes. People. Did anyone really understand them?
She watched as Mr. Rat finally reached his food pellet. He sat back on his haunches at the maze’s end, turning the pellet in his clever hands, admiring it, finally munching on it.
When he’d finished, she returned him to his cage. Then she stood, feeling the discs realign in her lower back.
It was time for a walk. Time “to call it a day,” any normal person would have said, but Marian knew herself better than that. She rarely “called it a day.” She would get food and go for a short stroll. But she would be back later. Compiling data. Grading papers. Tidying up while the rats slept in their little cages. She would be back, because Marian herself slept only rarely. And when she wasn’t sleeping, she preferred to work.
“See you later, guys,” she said as she flipped the lights off in the little lab.
The rats, of course, said nothing.
