The email from the department chair arrived two days after the coffee with Dale, subject line brief enough to be alarming in its brevity: Quick conversation — my office, when you have a moment.
He knew, walking down the hallway toward Eleanor Voss's office, that "when you have a moment" from a department chair meant now, and he knew, with the specific dread of a man whose careful restructuring plan had not yet cleared any formal approval, that this conversation was arriving faster than he'd hoped for and probably not for a reason he was going to enjoy.
Eleanor was seated behind her desk when he arrived, reading glasses pushed up into gray hair, an expression that gave nothing away one way or the other, which he'd learned over the years was itself a data point — Eleanor's neutral face was
