Sofie
“…belly-flopping into the leaves, swimming through the chlorophyll.”
That’s my classmate, Richard. He’s somewhere behind me, still making that goddamn comment after almost every class. I hope he gets a laugh someday.
I’m still the same student as when I first heard that joke. I still have that reputation for sitting in the front of the class and furiously recording notes.
Truthfully, I can glean all the details of a Botany lecture and retain that shit like a motherfucker—and without notes—but since this is already my life’s work, it’s not like I’m going to risk forgetting something.
Today, I have all the lecture notes on my phone, along with a full-length audio recording, because who knows when that’ll come in handy. While the other students teeter out of class and the professor makes herself scarce, I stay in my seat long enough to watch everything upload to backup servers on my phone screen.
“Who is it? Is he hot?”
The teaching assistant still here, and she’s hovering over my desk.
She’s trying to be amiable, or something, and she thinks I’m texting.
And we do talk to each other like that, sometimes.
"Yeah, Shirley, he's a real hottie,” I reply, still staring at my phone.
"Ooh, a hottie,” Shirley chirps, with a touch of irony. “What’s his name?”
“Christen.”
“That sounds promising. Christen what? Does he go to school here?”
“I don’t think so. Christen Raunkiaer.”
I watch the files finish uploading before I finally look up to see Shirley’s face squishing as she starts to realize the joke.
“Wait, you mean that Danish plant ecologist? Didn’t he die like eighty years ago? I don’t remember that lecture...”
“Somewhere around then, yeah.”
“Oh, I hope you’re not texting with him. Now, that would be scary.”
I slip my phone into my purse’s outer pocket. I kind of know Shirley as a fellow student, much less so as a TA, and I have no clue why she’s talking to me after everyone’s gone.
“So, that’s the wit that lands you a sweet TA job, huh.”
“That and a willingness to sacrifice all your time, plus any chance of a social life, all for a couple lines on your resume.”
I nod, smiling a little. Shirley’s stalling, if she has anything to tell me at all.
“What’s up, Shirl?” I stand up and start moving towards the exit. She better make this quick.
“What? I was joking around about the texting…”
I’m practically out the door, and Shirley’s not following. I’m almost home free, but I glance back. “What else?”
“…and the dean wants to see you.”
My shoes squeak on the floor when I stop short just outside the lecture hall door.
“The dean?”
“Dean Kent Hughes, the one and only.”
“That’s the dean of the entire university!”
“I know. Try not to yell that at him like you just did at me. On second thought, he might like that.”
“But, how? When? Why?”
I look back into the lecture hall, Shirley does not look like she’s messing around.
“I’ll start with how: I get emails from admins all the time, usually not from the dean requesting to see a student immediately, but…”
“Immediately?”
“That answers when, I guess.”
“But, why?”
“I’m getting to that: I have no earthly clue. Only one way to find out. Good luck, kid, maybe you’re getting an awesome job or something.”
Well, first, I have an awesome job already. Second, I don’t think that’s it, although I don’t have the foggiest fucking notion why I would possibly be summoned to the Dean’s office.
Maybe I’m getting his job. I chuckle to myself, letting that thought carry me across campus so don’t I fly into a panic on my way to the main administrative building.
The path to the administrative building is crowded with students and random locals wandering in from the neighborhood. Nobody I recognize, though.
It’s not like Lucas is going show up out of the blue again.
There are heaps of important research occurring on this campus all the time, though. I’d love to have a job somewhere high on the food chain at this Ivy League someday.
Heck, maybe word is getting around about BioKin. Maybe not about me specifically, but my involvement may have triggered this audience with the dean somehow.
I would turn down any job offers for sure, however. I’m way too happy in my current situation.
My nervousness starts coming back with a vengeance when the administrative building is in sight, and I start getting close to the entrance.
Is Shirley for real? Approaching the dean’s office seems like a bad idea, although I’m not sure why.
There are also a lot of people hanging out in front of the administrative building. Most of them are students dawdling between classes, taking the chance to socialize and get some fresh air, but something feels off.
I’m staying with my plan and taking Shirley’s word, but I feel my stomach tightening as I approach the hefty wood doors to the old building that houses the dean’s office.
It’s like there’s a force field keeping most of the students a few yards away from the entrance, except for one figure I catch out of the corner of my eye, loitering on a bench just outside the door...
Now I know why I’m starting to feel ill: Greg is perched on the bench, by himself, watching me as I walk in. My stomach must’ve known he was there before I even saw him.
Greg doesn’t say a word, and neither do I. I try to remember if there’s another way I can leave the building later.
I push through the entrance and tread through the huge, old front hall, heavy with the smells of old oak and marble, every step I take echoing heavily.
I’ve never been to the dean’s office, but my instinct leads me right up the grand marble staircase and down the spookily quiet corridor.
“Miss Carson.”
The office door is open, standing on the other side of a small abandoned reception area. I can see why the walk up here is so intimidating that he doesn’t even need a staff member.
“Dean Hughes,” I manage, sounding confident.
“Please, come in and have a seat.”
I walk through the reception area, which feels haunted, like everything else in this part of the building. I sit on a small wooden chair set up across from the desk.
The dean’s desk is lovingly disorganized—it’s oddly reassuring. The dean himself is far from disorganized, projecting an air of supreme self-assurance.
“What is this about, Dean Hughes?” I’m getting ahead of myself, but I’m not a fan of suspense.
“Did you know I was a chemistry student when I first started here?” he asks me.
“Yes,” I reply, not sure if I did know that.
“I thought science was my future, but then I broadened my perspective. I fell in love with academia—this old place especially.”
Fuck, is he going to offer me a job? I don’t even know how to respond.
“There’s nowhere else like it,” I add uselessly.
“Of course, not—and you were one of our best, from the very beginning. From your application on, you impressed everybody.”
Wait, were one of our best?
“I’m very passionate.” I’m trying to hide my anxiety, but I’m ready for him to get to the point soon.
He lets out a little sigh and taps his desk a couple times like he’s thinking about what to say next.
“You have no place here anymore.”
“Why is that?” I just say it, very calmly, before what the dean says actually hits me and the room starts closing in.
The dean levels his eyes at me. If he seemed hesitant before, he’s showing no qualms about it now.
“This is one of the top schools in the country—the world,” he rumbles, “and BioKin is still an impossible nut to crack for our alumni, not to mention our students.”
“I have an internship there. Is that a bad thing?”
“How did you get it?” Dean Hughes is nearly barking. “No, don’t answer. I know: you auctioned yourself off.”
I shake my head in disbelief.
“That’s a weird, misleading way of putting it. I did an auction for charity.”
“You did an auction? Okay. What was being auctioned?”
“I’m involved with Fostering Angels.” My voice sounds a thousand miles away. The rising anger I feel is so overwhelming I can hardly move. “You know why the charity has special meaning for me, right?”
“Don’t obfuscate.” The dean’s face is reddening, but his voice is controlled. “You auctioned yourself off...”
“It was for a date!”
“Precisely. You auctioned yourself off for a date…”
“It was for foster children.” My voice sounds so small against the tide of outrage and disgust that keeps swelling with everything the dean says.
“It was for an internship, Miss Carson. At BioKin.”
“First of all, that’s wrong,” I state flatly, unwilling and unable to show any more emotion. “That wasn’t my motivation for doing the auction, and it had nothing to do with my studies here. I disclosed the internship to my professors, but that’s completely separate from the auction and from the charity.”
Dean Hughes stands up from his seat, using his desk to help push himself up.
“Who won the auction?” He walks to the door while asking the question, not facing me.
“None of your damn business,” I spit back at him.
The dean gestures towards the reception area through the door.
“Our business is done here, Miss Carson. From now on, you are welcome on campus as a visitor. Please turn in your student ID downstairs and exit the building immediately.”