Lying in bed later that night, trying to sleep and wishing I could hear the sounds that Jane and Lily usually made in the other side of the suite, I wondered if Diandra Scott, or Billy Montrose’s sister, had ever felt such fear as I had standing in front of a rack of boots?
No, probably not.
Chapter8
Monday and Tuesdaythere were only brief texts from Montrose and I thought that maybe I’d lost him.
Not that I’d ever “had” him, in whatever context that meant. But maybe he’d had some second thought about just how involved he wanted me to be after the whole Rachel/Esme thing Sunday.
I worked during the day at the admin building, and at other places around campus, helping with the testing of the new system.
Not that I was a techie or anything—far from it. But we students weren’t really testing that part, we were just entering mock data, like grades and stuff, in a “sandbox” environment (that’s what the tech guys called it when they’d trained us) at various points across campus to see if the new system worked.
We were doing that all week. Then the tech team would look for errors, work them out, and then they’d do a conversion of all real data to the new system in the “live” environment, and then we’d spend the next week testing that.
I think some of the students who stayed to work (most of them were international students who didn’t want to make the treks home) were hoping they’d be able to break the new system or something. There was an awful lot of consultants and technical people (student workers included) who were big time into this project.
I was just happy for the full workweeks for the next three weeks and what it would do for my bank account.
Well, almost full workweeks. We had Wednesday afternoon off for Christmas Eve, and Christmas day off. And the same schedule the following week, too, for New Year’s.
So, I didn’t even get to Montrose’s office until after five both Monday and Tuesday.
I told myself that was the reason he just briefly texted to see if I had any questions each night.
I thought about making up a bogus question just so he’d call and I could hear his voice. It was amazing how much I missed hearing him after only a few days. Well, I had grown accustomed to his lecturing to me several times a week. Except, I didn’t seem to miss my other profs.
But, I didn’t give him a reason to call. If I’d pissed him off about the Salinger’s Esme thing, then he had every right not to want my opinion on anything else. Resolving myself to just do the job asked of me, and not offer any extra curricular thoughts, I plowed through three more boxes during the two evenings I was there.
As it turned out, I was doing testing from Snyder Hall on Wednesday, so when my shift was over, I only had to walk down to the first floor to Montrose’s office. Two more boxes were tackled, and I now had six very distinct piles going along the top of the credenza, which spanned one entire wall of his office. And only three more boxes to get to.
I was looking through the piles, debating whether to start transcribing each pile here in the office, or wait until I’d gone through the boxes in his apartment and do all the transcribing at once, when my phone dinged with Montrose’s text tone. (Yes, I’d given him his own tone. Like, the second after he texted me the first time.)
You at home?
Not yet. Still in the office.
My office?
It wasn’t like I had an office of my own.Yes, your office. Will be going home in another hour or so.I wanted to catch the caf before it closed. They were doing an earlier dinner for Christmas Eve, then not open at all tomorrow.
Taking the bus? Or train?He asked.
To my dorm? Neither. Just walking.I wasn’t getting what he was asking.
By “home” I meant New York.
Oh.I meant my dorm room.
Not going home until tomorrow morning?
Not at all. I told you I was staying here over break. That’s why I was able to get so much done so far.
Well, yeah, but I figured you’d go home for Christmas at least. And maybe New Year’s.
Nope.
There was nothing from him for a full minute and I was both hoping and dreading that he’d forego the texting and call me. I desperately wanted to hear his throaty voice, but I couldn’t bear to hear any pity in it because I would be alone on the holiday.
