The Proviso

13: Contrived Ignorance

January 2006

" ... changed my focus and didn't get a chance to copy the new text list ... "

Unlike the rest of the class, Justice didn't have any reason to groan at this news. She never bought textbooks until she knew what was absolutely necessary to her success in a class, so she had no books to exchange.

Her constitutional law professor droned on and she glanced down at the sheet of paper, scanning it to calculate an approximate cost. Her eyes widened in shock at one particular author's name and she swallowed heavily, blinked, looked again. No, that couldn't be. He would have told her ...

Wouldn't he?

Juell Pope, SJD, PhD, author of half the textbooks on the list in her hand.

" ... Dr. Pope's constitutional theories more in-depth this semester ... "

The lecture went on, but Justice barely heard it for the buzzing in her ears and the blurring of the titles in front of her.

" ... country lawyer up in River Glen, just north of Chouteau City, but died about six years ago. One of the greatest legal minds of the twentieth century. Ms McKinley, something wrong?"

She looked up slowly at her professor as if in a daze. "No," she croaked, cleared her throat. "No, I'm fine."

But she wasn't. Deep betrayal cut through her soul. Why had she had to go to law school to find out her grandfather had been such a well-respected scholar?

Snatches of her grandfather's lectures flitted through her mind. When her professor asked her a question meant to stump her, she answered it by rote, only vaguely aware of the semi-tense silence her answer had garnered.

Then, "Ms McKinley, how did you know that?"

Justice panicked, trying to think of an answer that didn't include because Juell Pope is my grandfather and he drilled this into me in my hayloft. "Um, I— I don't know. I, uh—" She cleared her throat. "I happened to have read that for an assignment last semester, is all."

"Really! Stay after class, please. I'd love to talk to you about it."

"Um. Sure. Okay. Uh, no problem."

Her after-class interview with her professor went more smoothly than she had expected, given her state of total shock and her instinct to keep her identity and accomplishments separate from her grandfather's. The professor seemed impressed with Justice's answers and requested that she email that particular assignment to her as soon as possible. With a lump in her throat, Justice agreed, though the assignment didn't exist and it was just another fire to put out, albeit more emergent than the rest: Around campus, where everyone had laptops and every square inch was hot, ASAP meant by the time I get back to my office.

She did have a marginally related paper she'd written long ago under her grand­father's direction. He'd decreed it adequate but certainly not up to her capabilities.

It would have to do.

Justice trudged out into the bitter January air in the direction of the student union to eat and get the books on her list. She drew wary glances and whispers as she passed clusters of law students here and there, but no one spoke to her. Mindful of the attention, she clutched her backpack straps more closely in front of her and pretended not to see.

At least no one mocked her to her face as Sherry had and the whispers she'd caught here and there contained no ridicule of her.

It was almost as if people were ... afraid ... to speak to her, but she had no idea why. Justice wasn't particularly shy; she spoke in class, but took care not to dominate the discussions. She didn't sit on the front row and she made sure to make herself as inconspicuously conspicuous as possible. She thought she successfully projected the image of ambitious law student without being completely obnoxious about it.