A Skeleton in the Family Read Online Free

specialized in the Pax Britannica, 1815 to 1914, so naturally he ended up teaching courses for every era and country but that. Having to divide his time between two different campuses made it even more annoying, but sometimes it was the only way for an adjunct to get a full course load. I’d had to do the same one long year.
    â€œI’ve got composition,” I said. “Again.”
    â€œI’m sure you’ll teach it admirably. Have you been made aware of our customs here at McQuaid?”
    â€œI just got here.”
    â€œThen please, let me assist you. Obviously, these are our mailboxes. If you don’t have a label of your own, I would be happy to provide one.”
    â€œI think Mrs. Speed from the English Department is planning to take care of that right away.”
    He raised one eyebrow.
    â€œI know. As if. A label would be great.”
    Charles said, “The coatrack is reasonably secure for coats and hats, but I would hesitate to leave anything more than that. Umbrellas tend to disappear.”
    â€œThanks for the warning.”
    â€œNow let us proceed into our humble abode. Emphasis on humble, I’m afraid.”
    As Charles and I went inside, the noise level rose to alarming levels. Inside the large room were rows of desks of differing vintages, either scarred wood, dented metal, or chipped Formica. There was a hodgepodge of chairs, trashcans, and other office furnishings, and I estimated that the walls hadn’t been painted in ten years. About half of the thirty desks were currently occupied with people working on their laptops, talking on cell phones, or grading papers. One poor guy was trying to meet with a student in the back corner.
    Having a desk of one’s own is in the mid-range for adjunct treatment. The best schools provide private offices, even if they’re tiny. One step down is two or three adjuncts to an office. A step below the assigned desk at McQuaid would be a shared office with unassigned tables recycled from the cafeteria, in which one would have to arm wrestle for work space, and bribery would be needed to get an outlet for a laptop.
    Sadly that isn’t even the bottom rung. One school hadn’t provided me with any kind of office space, which forced me to work in a corner of the library.
    Charles said, “The desk chart is here. Feel free to claim any empty square.”
    On the wall was a white board with a shaky floor plan of the office on it, which I suspected was drawn by somebody other than an adjunct from the Art Department. Names were scrawled on most of the blocks representing desks, but I saw three empty spots. “Any advice?” I asked Charles.
    â€œHmm . . .” He put his hand on his chin. “I wouldn’t recommend the one in the back. The instructors to either side have rather strong voices.”
    In other words, they were loud enough to disrupt my work.
    He went on. “The one in the center has a tendency to be encroached upon.” He didn’t need to tell me that people had been known to expand their areas an inch at a time in order to grab a little extra real estate. “I’d choose this one. It’s next to the wall, giving you a modicum of privacy, and the desk is in decent shape. The chair isn’t, but if you trade with the chair from the desk in the back, it should be adequate.”
    â€œSounds good,” I said, and found a marker to put my name on the grid. “I’m surprised somebody hasn’t moved up to it. Looks like a prime location.”
    â€œAh, yes, well . . .” He looked significantly at a brunette with shoulder-length hair sitting in the desk in front of the one I’d just picked. Charles rarely says something negative about another adjunct, so his silence said all I needed to know. The woman—Sara Weiss, according to the desk grid—was not going to be an ideal neighbor.
    I lowered my voice. “What’s the