The Interview

Chapter Twenty-Three

Glinda looked up from the letter to Tibbett, then read the letter once again.

"Why didn't you tell us that you were planning on studying again?" her flatmate asked.

She couldn't' quite discern whether he was angry or disappointed.

"Because I wasn't," she replied, shaking her head. Feeling a little dizzy, she grabbed the backrest of the sofa to steady herself. "I never applied for this scholarship. It was offered to me at the conference I told you about, but I never ended up contacting that woman."

"This doesn't make any sense," Tibbett scoffed.

Glinda cast him a fleeting glace in an effort to gauge whether he believed her or not. He was scowling, but whether it was at the mystery of the unexpected letter or her perceived lie, she couldn't tell.

"It doesn't make any sense whatsoever," she agreed with him. Restless, she shifted her weight from one foot to the other. If she hadn't felt so faint, she might have fled the room, but still clinging to the sofa for support, she had nowhere to go. "You still believe me right?"

Tibbett pursed his lips for a moment, then shrugged.

"There really is no reason for you to invent any stories about this sort of thing, is there? If you really wanted to go to Gillikin to further your education—good on ya. I can't imagine you would have any cause to hide it from us?"

"Well, there are several good reasons not to go to Shiz," Glinda told him, "but you're right. If I had decided to go, you two would be the last people I would have hidden it from. I know that most of those reasons I have in mind do not concern you too much."

"Oh? Who did you plan on hiding it from then?" Tibbett challenged.

"No one," Glinda replied sharply, rolling her eyes. "I considered it for a few hours, then completely banished the notion from my head." She saw no need to mention Elphaba's crucial part in this decision-making process. "Elphaba already knew about the proposal, so there wouldn't have been any hiding it from her. Let it suffice to say, she would have been the strongest opponent of the idea."

"Huh. I always thought she was so academically inclined? Why wouldn't she encourage you to go back to uni?"

She arched a brow at him, and he made a face of sudden understanding.

"Ooh, right! She doesn't want you to leave the city. That's understandable."

Glinda sighed inwardly, but nodded anyway. Bless the boy's oblivious heart.

"Maybe," she said quietly. At least she hoped that this would have been a reason if Shiz itself hadn't been so unacceptable to Elphaba.

"So what are you going to do?"

A lump formed in her throat, and the hand holding the letter clenched, wrinkling the expensive paper.

"Ignore it?" she ventured, risking a doubtful look at the letter.

Really, she should have destroyed it, ripped it to pieces. Instead, she rigidly folded it back together and forced it into the envelope from whence it had emerged. She flashed Tibbett a nervous smile before letting go of the sofa and disappearing into her bedroom.

She crossed the room, hurrying towards the overflowing dresser. She found the most crowded drawer and pulled it wide open so she could bury the letter at the very bottom in the very back. Then, she slammed it shut.

The concealment and sealing away of the letter brought but little relief. The enigma of its arrival continued to nag on her mind all the same. Perhaps she shouldn't have been so surprised, that a government official was able to track her down so quickly with only her name to go by. Surely, Morrible would have had several means on hand to do so. What was significantly more puzzling, was the question of why she'd go to such lengths in the first place. It was hard to imagine her that desperate for recruits.