“Sure.” I fumble with the bag I’ve held in my lap, knowing I’ve got to take it from here. Hiltunen is sufficiently starstruck, but I’ve got to smooth the way. “Sorry for the interruption, Professor. I’m showing Alex around while he’s in town.” I hand Alex the wallet, and for a half second he only stares down at it. He is comically bad at subterfuge. I look back at Hiltunen, ready to do some more way-smoothing, but he speaks before I can.
“I’m doing a charity auction for a scholarship program we have here.” He’s speaking only to Alex now. “Collecting pieces from artists in the area and beyond. I don’tsuppose you’d—”
“I can donate something.” I can tell by the way he’s said it he expects this to be over now. He wants out of this office, and my stomach is sinking in dread. If this triggers another panic attack for him, I will need more than the skirt-shirt combo. I will need undergarments. A face mask. Aside from my own disappointment in myself at needing a save, this is exactly why I was afraid to ask for help. I wasn’t just afraid of what itwould cost me.
I was afraid of what itwould cost him.
“You know,” Hiltunen says, rubbing a hand over his beard in a very “cool prof” way, “if you’re going to be around for a few days, maybe I could convince you to visit my documentary photography class? I could put an honorarium together quickly. It’d be a real—”
“Maybe,” Alex says, and when I look up at him, I can see he’s letting the set of his shoulders do the talking. He’s letting his position in relation to me do the talking. This is a negotiation, not a sure thing. He looks at Hiltunen long enough that it’s as though he’s castinga spell on him.
The professor sits down in his chair, which is not shaped like an internal organ. “Now, Greer,” he says, and my fingers clutch the coffee cup Alex brought, ignoring the patronizing tone. Whatever Hiltunen thinks of me personally, the spell from Alex isworking. “Youdidneglect to takethe fine arts—”
“Sounds like you went over that point already,” Alex says, and I look up at him sharply, a warning he takes seriously, tucking my wallet in his back pocket in a move that looks like retreat. Even if I have asked him for help, I don’t need to be the meat in a patronizing sandwich. I focus back on Hiltunen.
“I’m sorry,”I say. “Go on.”
“I’m doing a five-week adult education course on digital photography right now. It’s Thursday nights from six to nine—”
“I can do that.” Maybe that was a little too eager. Hiltunen gives me a long-suffering look, and I think I can smell a fresh puff of testosterone waft off of Alex.
“You’ve already missed the first week, everything about mechanics and camera function and some basics on manipulating light. But perhaps you could still participate. And if you do well—” He pauses dramatically, strokes his beard again, and I really hope this isn’t what his lecture style is like, or I’m going to hate all twelve remaining hours of this class. “If you doverywell, I’ll write a letter of support to the exception committee.”
“I’ll do well. I’ll do my absolute best. Thank you.” I’m clutching my bag again, ready to stand and get out of here before he can change his mind.
But the professor clears his throat, looks up briefly at Alex before returninghis eyes to me.
“The students in this course participate in a public showcase in one month.” Dramatic pause. “Not all that long, I suppose, before your planned graduation.” He saysplannedwith a slight but pointed emphasis.
“Public showcase, sure.I can do that.”
“Student work, faculty work, and—ah. Some guest artist work, when we can find it. In past years, we’ve had local guest artists present. It can really raise our profile, especially if the artist makes—uh—himself available leading up to it. Interviews around town, help curating the showcase. Thatkind of thing.”
There’s a thick pause in the air, Alex still and tense beside me. Both of us know what Hiltunen is insinuating here. Onemonth? Talk about an obligation. Donating the photograph is the work of a few minutes; he doesn’t even really need to be in town to send one in. The heavily hinted visit to a class is maybe a half day’s work later this week.
But one month? Part of me expects Alex to simply disappear into the air at this moment. He’ll never do it, never. And the stony silence from beside me tells me so. I pushed my luck, I guess. If this is the professor’s condition, I can forget about walking across that stage. I think of Dennise this morning, leaving me in that elevator, her face briefly concerned before she smiled at me, all the confidence in me that’s made me feel, for the first time in my life, like I could really and truly be on my own. I think about my family, when I break the news. I know just what they’ll say.
Well, Greer, you expected so much of yourself
It’s not the first time you’ve dealt witha little delay
You have to be careful aboutpushing so hard
Hiltunen covers the awkward silence by rustling papers he pulls from a drawer in his desk, handing a few packets over. Great, more paperwork. His tone has changed after his obvious volley was met with silence, and now he halfheartedly explains to me the enrollment forms and the additional fees, the printout of his lecture from the first week. When he urges me to “review the course expectations on my own time,” I can tell he’s trying to get rid of me, to forget that he offered me what’s probably a vaguely unethical solution to my problem in hopes that he could solve one of his. My confidence in his commitment to writing that letter of exception takes another steep, sad plunge.
“I don’t really know if you’ll be able to catch up from the first class you missed. It’s a lot to take on,” he says.
“I’ll catch her up,” Alex says, even before Hiltunen’s finished speaking. I look up at him, see his chest rise as he takes a silent breath through his nose. With his free hand he reaches into the front pocket of his pants, taking out his phone. From a thin sleeve on the back of its case he slides a steel-gray business card out, using only his thumb. A white knight unsheathing his sword.
For the first time since Alex entered the room, I feel more kinship with the professor than I do with him. It’s as though we’re both waiting to see what Alex will do with that sharp, deadly weapon. When he slides his phone back into his pocket and extends the card to Hiltunen, his arm, his hand, everything about him is steady. But I see the way his jaw clenches before he speaks. I see the way the skin around the collar of his T-shirt is flushed slightly. I see that whatever he’s about to say, it won’t be easy, and that tremor of fear—what this means for me, what this means for him—rattles through my body.
Talk about adramatic pause.
“I’ll stay forthe showcase.”
Chapter 4
Alex
