1
QUINN
EARLY APRIL — FOUR WEEKS UNTIL SUMMER BREAK
All roads lead to Rome.Except this one, which leads to hell and is paved with my friend’s good intentions.
The brick building looms in front of me like a harbinger of doom, even though it’s usually one of my favorite buildings on campus. It’s where I do some of my best work and normally fills me with a sense of purpose and confidence. But today, the library is enemy territory.
“I can’t believe you talked me into this,” I mutter to my friend, who’s taking her own steadying breaths by my side.
“I stand by the idea,” Inez says, shaking out her arms. “You’re our only hope.”
I side-eye her. “Stop trying to take advantage of my lifelong Princess Leia obsession. Those powers should only be used for good, not evil.”
Also, if I’m the only hope for the Billings staff, we’re fucked, but she doesn’t need to hear that. Again.
I love my job at Billings College. The students are enthusiastic, the campus is in the heart of Boston, and the other staffmembers have become my own little family over the past eight years.
But one part of it blows. An unspoken war on campus. A toxic, never-ending battle at the heart of every interaction.
On one side is the staff. The good, brilliant, and kind employees of Billings College who work tirelessly to help students grow and develop. We’re the student activities folks, helping them find a community on campus. The housing people who, quite literally, give them a home away from home. And of course, the crème de la crème—the career counselors like me, who make sure students have an actual future after college.
On the other side is the faculty. The evil, condescending professors of Billings College. They’re the worst of the worst. Business professors who give students opposite advice about resumes, despite our telling them what we’re hearing from employers. Architecture professors who think they can design a better internship program than the person with a literal degree in it (read: me). English professors who look down their noses at my super fun romance novels because they’re notliterature.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Billings professor in possession of a tenured position must look down on the staff.
No, I’mnotbiased, or “projecting past hurt” from my parents, as my ex-therapist liked to say.
“I’m just saying, this could work,” Inez says. “You can be really charming when you want to be.”
I narrow my eyes at her. “I’m pretty sure there was an insult in there.”
My friend, who is normally so sweet she’ll give you a cavity, mimes locking her lips.
“You can do this,” she says, giving my hand a squeeze. “Wecan do this. But if you really don’t want to, we’ll walk right now. Selfishly, I want you in Rome with me this summer, but at the end of the day, I just want what’s best for you. You’re my priority.”
There’s a decade of support to back up this claim, even if I’m doubting her love for me now. Because this woman, who’s adamant she wants what’s best for me, is making me lay myself bare in front of the enemy in the hope we can come to a ceasefire.
At the beginning of this year, we started hearing whispers that the professors were making moves to change the landscape of Billings forever. Apparently, they’re over our “interruptions and interference in classes.” Yes, I can see how our coming into class to present on different opportunities could mess up their lesson plans, but we bring value, too.
Instead of actually talking to us, they’ve decided to be petty and write in the university bylaws that staff are not allowed to be involved in academics. A complete hard-line separation of church and state, even if the years of study and expertise we each bring to our areas could complement their classes. With the vote happening at the beginning of the next academic year, this is our last chance to stop it.
Because, much to the faculty’s chagrin, they need me.
Those same bylaws they’re planning on using to screw us have screwed them first. Dr. Lewis, who was supposed to teach an internship class in the Rome program this summer—the class thatIdesigned, BTW—backed out at the last minute. Every other business professor already has summer plans lined up, and those pesky bylaws require any professor at Billings to have a master’s degree and relevant experience on the subject.
You know who fits that bill? Me. The assistant director of internships, who they think should have “no involvement in the classroom.”
I shake out my arms, bouncing up and down on my heels—ones I almost never wear but put on today like the extra inches will make them actually see me—and push through the front door. I blindly follow Inez down to the front of the presentation room, running through my arguments in my head on repeat. Shegoes straight to the computer to get us set up, while I look out at the stadium seating.
Billings has been around for almost two hundred years, and most of the buildings reflect that. Beautiful brick exteriors and heavy wood paneling inside. Warm classrooms and a cozy library with plenty of places to sneak away with a good book when life is driving you up a wall. But this is one of the more recently renovated rooms—white walls with white tile floors, light gray desks and dark gray seats. Cold, figuratively and literally. If this isn’t a sign of things to come, I don’t know what is.
I groan into the echoing space, planting my hands on my wide hips and letting the fabric of my pencil skirt ground me. “This is such a bad idea. The faculty won’t cave. They guard the academics like they’re the last Roman legion and we’re the barbarian forces looking to bring about the downfall of Western civilization.”
“Those barbarian forces successfully invaded, and so will we.” She punctuates the last few words with a slap on the flimsy presentation podium that tips precariously with each hit.
I drop my head to the cold surface, but she grabs me by the shoulders and yanks me until I stand straight, hunching down so our faces are level.
