“What do you mean?” Sylvie hadn’t heard a sniff of any gossip, but she liked to stay out of the rumor mill.
“His new assistant has made a complaint. Inappropriate behavior.” Isa rolled her makeup-heavy eyes. “So predictable. If you give an aging professor a pretty, youthful assistant, of course he’s going to leer all over her.” She made a vomiting gesture.
Sylvie’s stomach churned.
“And you know, they can’t ignore stuff like that anymore. It’s a major power play.”
Sylvie’s eyes darted across Isa’s face, searching for more meaning than what she’d been given. “I don’t get it.”
“He’s in a major position of power as her de facto supervisor. The woman is saying she had no choice but to go along with it. He invited her to drinks, and she couldn’t say no. He asked her to stay late, and she felt obliged. You know the drill.”
“I do.” A clamminess came over Sylvie. Could Isa see the sweat beading on her top lip? The kernel of dread grew inside her mind, sprouting leaves of worry until they bloomed into a fully articulated spiky thought. Had she put Ade in a similar position? Did Ade feel pressured to spend time with her? Sylvie ran through the list of their encounters, most of them social, or at least extra-curricular.Merde. Could she be accused of something inappropriate just like Professor Gaultier?
“Are you okay? You look like you’ve swallowed an ashtray.” Isa lifted the lid to her laptop.
Sylvie shook her head. There was no way that she could confide in Isa about her concerns; she was disgusted enough about Gaultier. “What do you think constitutes a power differential in a relationship?” she asked, dreading the answer but desperate to rationalize her actions.
“Gaultier and his assistant aren’t in a relationship. He pulled rank, and she thought she’d lose her position over it.”
“Yeah, I get that. But from a feminist theory perspective, I think this is kind of an interesting topic area.” Sylvie fudged. “What is it about power? Is it an age gap? Is it a gender thing? I’m intrigued, academically.”
Isa took the bait, turning in her swivel chair. “Okay, Professor Girl Power, you want my view? I think age and gender are, without doubt, differentials. But there are plenty of healthy, consensual relationships with that at play. The red flags are when there’s one party in control of all the cards. They have a senior position at the workplace, for example. Or they hold some influence.”
That didn’t make Sylvie feel any better.
“What’s going on here? Are you trying to defend Gaultier?”
Sylvie strained every muscle in her face trying to create an impression of ambivalence. “I don’t care one way or another what happens to Gaultier or any of the other relics of misogyny still cluttering up the payroll of this institution.”
“I completely agree. It’s the assistant I feel for. Maybe I should’ve taken that well-being role and given corporate my honest take on it. We need to advocate for each other.”
Relieved to have put Isa off the scent, Sylvie’s inner turmoil simmered. She was losing her mind for no reason. Gaultier must have thirty-five years on his young assistant. There was just ten years or so between her and Ade. Plus, she hadn’t done anything inappropriate. Bumping into someone and having drinks was hardly a crime. Okay, the optics of staying overnight at Ade’s studio weren’t great. But Ade was scared and had no one else to turn to. Maybe Sylvie should’ve reported the incident to Paul, or to someone. “I need to tell you something.”
“This better be good, because I’m late for a date,” Isa said, retouching her lipstick in the black screen of her phone.
Sylvie doubted herself. “A couple of weeks ago, Ade called me in a bit of a crisis. There’d been an attempted break-in at her apartment. I took her to the police to report it.”
“Jesus, I hope she’s okay. Sounds scary, poor thing.”
Sylvie rubbed her clammy palms on her slacks. “It was unsettling, and she didn’t feel comfortable, so she called me.”
Isa plucked a glob of clotted mascara from her eyelid. “So you helped translate with the police?”
Sylvie swallowed. “I ended up staying the night.”
Isa’s freshly painted lashes widened. “I wasn’t expecting that, Sylvie.”
“I mean. I didn’tstaythe night. Nothing happened. But after what you said about Gaultier, I wanted to tell you. I don’t want it to come out later and look like something untoward might have been happening.”
Isa laughed. “And you’re certain nothing ‘untoward’ happened?”
“No.” Sylvie raised her hands in defense. “She couldn’t settle on her own, and I stayed. Before I knew it, the sun was rising. We were both fully clothed.”
Isa smirked. “Were you disappointed?”
“Are you serious? We’ve literally just been talking about the creepy age gap between Gaultier and his assistant. I’m worried that it might look weird that I’ve been for a couple of drinks with Ade.”
“And stayed in her bed.” Isa nudged her in the ribs.
