what it would be like to run into people frommy time here, three years ago. So many ghosts.
“Job? What are you to do?” His homeland’s accent c omes through, the words rolling off his tongue l i ke a melody. I always loved to hear Eric talk in lecture class.
He loved to just be with me. I friend-zoned him, though, and he wouldn’t dare date a student. T he time we’d spent hanging out for a semester carried with it a weird air. Unrequited feelingssuck. They suck when you’re the one carrying a torch for someone else.
I think it’s even worse when you’re the object of the unwanted affection.
Eric’s look of anticipation makes my stomach flip, and not in a good way. He walk s up the small set of stairs to the main doors. I cut left, and he follows.
“This is the dean’s wing, Carrie. Are you working...” His voice fades out and his eyes growwide. “Aye, no. He didn’t.”
I stop. Acid runs through me, quick and edgy, making my blood boil and bubble. I feel my face flush. M y knee feels like pins are pricking it.
“He what ?”
“Are you the new program coordinator in the dean’s office?” Eric whispers. His face spreads with ten different emotions in ten seconds. I react with a cold shutdown of every emotion I can.
I succeed, but barely.Watching him, I pretend this is a field study . I’m just observing him. A watcher doesn’t react. A watcher just sees.
“It’s Dean Landau now, you know,” Eric says in a tight voice. He pulls the cuffs of his shirt down to poke out from under his jacket. Hs eyes have changed. Closed off. Gone dark. H e won’t catch my eye.
Uh-oh.
“I heard yesterday. I didn’t know until then,” I tell Eric.
He doesn’tseem to know what to do with that information, his mouth opening and closing three times before he snaps it shut, like a trap door.
And then emotion flickers in his eyes. “Good luck, Carrie,” he says, turning to a small stairwell that leads up, I know, to the Latin American Studies department’s offices.
That emotion. I know it well.
It’s pity.
You see pity in enough eyes and you come to detectit before your mind knows.
Shake it off , I tell myself. Great. Now I’m using pop music to guide my inner emotional state.
It could be worse.
A s he walks up the stairs I search the hallway for a women’s room. Aha! There it is. I remember now. There’s one on every floor, to the right of the stairwell.
I go in, pushing the heavy, windowless oak door. A radiator hisses. In August? I chuckle.Good old Yates. Dad always told me Facilities was the department that received the least funding and the most responsibility. The job never ended, which was good for him. He got plenty of work. I frown at the memory.
Fat lot of good it did him.
One look in the mirror and I groan. My hair is a tangled mess with grass in it. My knee looks like I got checked in roller derby by someone named HellbrawnaKnockyersocksoff. A smudge of dirt rims my right eye socket, like a football player wearing under-eye grease.
And my skirt makes me look like a whore. One more inch and not only would people se e my panties, they’d be able to tell whether I waxed down there.
No time to head home. I check my phone. Hell. I’m late already! With the handful of things in my purse that might help, I scramble to lookpresentable, washing off the dirt, blotting the worst of the blood up and ignoring the run on my panty hose.
On ever-wobbly ankles, I make my way to the dean’s office. With a trembling hand I open the outer door and walk up to an empty reception desk.
Mine. That’s where I will soon sit.
And then a woman stands from behind the counter and her eyes meet mine.
Definitely not filled with pity.
Chapter Ten
“ No way,” Claudia Landau hisses as our eyes meet. In high school we called her The Claw, and if looks could kill, I’d be dead nine times over right now.
Her fingers fist in her hand, the bright-red nails curling in so hard her nickname r i ng s in
“Job? What are you to do?” His homeland’s accent c omes through, the words rolling off his tongue l i ke a melody. I always loved to hear Eric talk in lecture class.
He loved to just be with me. I friend-zoned him, though, and he wouldn’t dare date a student. T he time we’d spent hanging out for a semester carried with it a weird air. Unrequited feelingssuck. They suck when you’re the one carrying a torch for someone else.
I think it’s even worse when you’re the object of the unwanted affection.
Eric’s look of anticipation makes my stomach flip, and not in a good way. He walk s up the small set of stairs to the main doors. I cut left, and he follows.
“This is the dean’s wing, Carrie. Are you working...” His voice fades out and his eyes growwide. “Aye, no. He didn’t.”
I stop. Acid runs through me, quick and edgy, making my blood boil and bubble. I feel my face flush. M y knee feels like pins are pricking it.
“He what ?”
“Are you the new program coordinator in the dean’s office?” Eric whispers. His face spreads with ten different emotions in ten seconds. I react with a cold shutdown of every emotion I can.
I succeed, but barely.Watching him, I pretend this is a field study . I’m just observing him. A watcher doesn’t react. A watcher just sees.
“It’s Dean Landau now, you know,” Eric says in a tight voice. He pulls the cuffs of his shirt down to poke out from under his jacket. Hs eyes have changed. Closed off. Gone dark. H e won’t catch my eye.
Uh-oh.
“I heard yesterday. I didn’t know until then,” I tell Eric.
He doesn’tseem to know what to do with that information, his mouth opening and closing three times before he snaps it shut, like a trap door.
And then emotion flickers in his eyes. “Good luck, Carrie,” he says, turning to a small stairwell that leads up, I know, to the Latin American Studies department’s offices.
That emotion. I know it well.
It’s pity.
You see pity in enough eyes and you come to detectit before your mind knows.
Shake it off , I tell myself. Great. Now I’m using pop music to guide my inner emotional state.
It could be worse.
A s he walks up the stairs I search the hallway for a women’s room. Aha! There it is. I remember now. There’s one on every floor, to the right of the stairwell.
I go in, pushing the heavy, windowless oak door. A radiator hisses. In August? I chuckle.Good old Yates. Dad always told me Facilities was the department that received the least funding and the most responsibility. The job never ended, which was good for him. He got plenty of work. I frown at the memory.
Fat lot of good it did him.
One look in the mirror and I groan. My hair is a tangled mess with grass in it. My knee looks like I got checked in roller derby by someone named HellbrawnaKnockyersocksoff. A smudge of dirt rims my right eye socket, like a football player wearing under-eye grease.
And my skirt makes me look like a whore. One more inch and not only would people se e my panties, they’d be able to tell whether I waxed down there.
No time to head home. I check my phone. Hell. I’m late already! With the handful of things in my purse that might help, I scramble to lookpresentable, washing off the dirt, blotting the worst of the blood up and ignoring the run on my panty hose.
On ever-wobbly ankles, I make my way to the dean’s office. With a trembling hand I open the outer door and walk up to an empty reception desk.
Mine. That’s where I will soon sit.
And then a woman stands from behind the counter and her eyes meet mine.
Definitely not filled with pity.
Chapter Ten
“ No way,” Claudia Landau hisses as our eyes meet. In high school we called her The Claw, and if looks could kill, I’d be dead nine times over right now.
Her fingers fist in her hand, the bright-red nails curling in so hard her nickname r i ng s in
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