Melissa's euphoric feeling of relief lasted all of about thirty seconds. That was the length of time between the moment she walked into Dean Eleanor Taylor's office and saw her lost purse miraculously sitting there on the desk, and the moment where the dean's secretary closed the door behind her and locked it tightly. She had just enough time to squeal out, "My purse!", but not enough time to get out any questions about where it was found or whether her wallet was still inside before she heard the sinister clicking sound of the key turning in the lock behind her. Melissa turned around, reaching out to turn the handle, but it only rattled uselessly.
Eleanor coughed meaningfully. "If you could please take a seat," she said as Melissa turned back to face her, gesturing pointedly to the chair on the other side of her desk. She didn't look like she was happy to be reuniting Melissa with her lost possessions. Her face was gravely serious, a far cry from the chipper Caucasian woman with the round, smiling cheeks that greeted the students every morning on the TV screen as they entered the halls of Kinnaird Community College for their daily classes. She looked like she was upset with Melissa over something... but apart from forgetting her purse in the student union, the younger woman couldn't think what she might have done.
Eleanor rested her manicured fingernails on the brown leather surface of the handbag. "You're absolutely sure that this is your purse, then?" she asked, her voice every bit as serious as her expression. "You're not confusing it with another one that might look similar, or one that belongs to a friend?" Melissa felt a momentary twinge of apprehension--it almost sounded like Dean Taylor was giving her a chance to retract her statement for some reason. Was someone else saying it was their purse? Were they trying to claim that she stole it and put her stuff in it? It made no sense, but then neither did being called into the Dean's office for something as simple as a lost item.
But even if there was a problem, Melissa couldn't afford to pretend that the purse wasn't hers. It had her student ID in it, her phone, all her cash (hopefully), her temporarily suspended debit card, her driver's license, the tube of flamingo pink lipstick she bought last week that went with the dress she was planning to wear on Friday night's date with Shamika... she decided to press on gamely, figuring that she could always resolve any ownership questions with the truth. "I know it's mine," she said. "There's a little scrape just below the clasp where it smacked into the wall last month when I was running to get to class. I'd recognize it anywhere."
Eleanor's frown deepened. "I see," she said. She opened up the bag and took out a small plastic bottle filled with little pink pills. They had a slightly pearlescent sheen to them under the fluorescent lighting, making them look almost like some kind of hard candy. She set them on the desk in front of Melissa, and they made an accusatory rattle as the bottle struck the hard wooden surface. "You are aware, Miss Keane, that we have a zero tolerance policy for illegal drug use here at Kinnaird? Unless you can come up with some explanation for this, I'm afraid your academic career with us is over."
For a long moment, the sound of her heartbeat rushing through her ears was so loud that Melissa couldn't hear herself think. She felt like she'd been dropped into some sort of bizarre prank show, as if at any moment some Z-list celebrity was going to come out and tell her that she'd been chumped or something. She couldn't begin to even process the actual words that Dean Taylor had just uttered, let alone produce a coherent response. Illegal drugs? Expulsion? Her head spun trying to fit the concepts into her brain.
Finally, with a sickening awareness of just how unconvincing she sounded, Melissa managed to stammer out, "I, I've never seen those before. S-someone must have put them in my purse after I left it in the commissary." It was ludicrous even to her--Melissa had no idea how much illegal drugs cost or even what this particular substance was, but there had to be at least thirty of the pink pills in that bottle. Nobody was going to just walk into a public place, see an abandoned handbag sitting next to an empty chair, and decide to plant something in it just for funsies. Even if they were the kind of sadist who enjoyed making a stranger's life miserable, it would be too expensive to be worth it.
The irritated look on Eleanor's face confirmed Melissa's worst fears. "Is that seriously the best you can manage, young woman?" she asked, her face flushing with consternation as she pinned Melissa into the chair with her cold stare. "You admit that you recognize the purse, you admit that it's yours, but you 'don't remember' leaving a whole bottle of Jubilees in there? I very much think you'll need to do better than that, Miss Keane. If not for me, then for the campus police at least. If you can't name a supplier--"
"I, I don't have a supplier!" A part of Melissa cringed at the thought of interrupting the dean, but at this point she couldn't imagine that she had much to lose by being rude. "I don't know where those pills came from, I--I didn't even know they were called Jujubes until you told me!" She couldn't shake the creeping disorientation that stole over her simply from being suddenly trapped in this absurd, impossible situation; her mind's eye kept adding a Dutch angle to the room, and she gripped the arms of the chair tightly for fear that she'd simply tumble out of her seat.
Eleanor snorted disdainfully. "Jubilees," she corrected. "As if you didn't know. It's becoming a depressingly common problem on campus--girls like you chasing the new high, trying to find something to get you buzzed when weed isn't enough anymore. How many pills do you need to take now to get that click back, Melissa? How much of this bottle do you have to have just to get one night of happiness anymore?" She leaned back in her chair, shaking her head. "I see all the signs, Melissa. The nervous sweat, the flushed cheeks, the trembling. The way you're clawing at the chair. You're jonesing for another fix, aren't you?"
