"Professor Hart?"
She peered hesitantly around the doorframe. The professor sat at his desk, on the phone. Without interrupting his conversation, he nodded at her, pointed to one of the chairs in front of his desk and gestured for her to close the door behind her. She sat, staring aimlessly around the room while he finished his conversation.
It was the end of only her first semester of college, and things had not gone very well. Or, rather, that is to say, they had not gone very well academically. Socially, it had been the best four months of her life, but between the weekday frat parties and weekend-long benders, somehow her previously-sterling work ethic had fallen behind. On top of this, since she depended on her athletic scholarship to even be able to attend the prestigious school, what free time she had was dedicated to volleyball games and practices. Unfortunately, this scholarship also required she maintain a minimum 3.0 GPA.
Which is what brought her to Professor Hart's office. It was the last day of the term, and he was the fourth professor she had visited that day. So far, she had begged, pleaded, and compromised her way into passing grades for all of her failing classes. Professor Hart's class, Intro to Poetry, was the last on the list.
While it was probably her least favorite class, she had saved it for last because she knew it would be the easiest to wrangle a better grade in. Professor Hart was the very definition of the bumbling, bookish type. He was nice, but an obvious pushover, and would stumble and prattle through his lectures even after half of the class had fallen asleep.
He finished his conversation with a series of polite pleasantries and hung up the phone. He turned to her and smiled.
"Miss Taylor. What can I do for you?"
She put her gameface on: a serious, sad pout. "Well, Professor, it's about my grade."
"Ah yes." He turned to his computer. "Let me pull up your scores, but if I recall, they are not good, are they?"
"No...." She looked down at her legs, pressed together at the knees and crossed demurely at the ankles. She drooped her shoulders slightly, adding to the appearance of a bedraggled, helpless student. Such an act had worked on every other teacher so far, and while she figured this would be an easy kill, there was no need to get cocky. "I mean, you see...I don't know, this semester hasn't gone well for me overall...."
"Mmm," Professor Hart murmured noncommittally, still looking at his screen.
"I mean, the stress of moving to school, across the country, I've never been away from home for so long and—"
"Really? You didn't go to boarding school?"
She stumbled, surprised to have her sob story interrupted. "Um...no...? Why?"
"Ah." He inclined his head in her direction. "Well, your preferred outfit would suggest otherwise. I mean I can't imagine why else anyone would own so many different short plaid skirts."
She looked at her outfit, self-consciously tugging her hemline slightly further down. "Oh, well I just like them, is all."
"You like them, or you like the reactions they get from men?"
She blinked at him, unsure how to respond. He didn't seem to expect an answer, though, and turned back to the computer screen. A few more clicks, then he reached up to turn the monitor around. "Here are my records for all of the scores on your papers for the term. These are the same ones you can access through the website. I haven't submitted the overall grade to the registrar's office for the final academic record, but at this point this is how it stands. Do you think that there is a discrepancy?"
Now that the conversation was back on the track she was expecting, she slid back into her vulnerable waif act. "Oh, no, I'm...I mean, I checked all the scores, and they're right, but I...I was wondering...."
"Yes?" She couldn't gauge his expression, but it had lost a lot of the warmth it had shown when she walked into the office, warmth that she was used to receiving from him. Unnerved, she still continued.
"I was wondering if I might discuss...adjusting the scores?" She blinked at him slowly through liquid-filled eyes.
He remained silent, just sitting there watching her. At this point, most of the previous professors had reacted to her obvious distress, asking her what was wrong, giving her the opportunity to launch into fabricated stories about troubles at home and deaths of grandparents.
But by watching her cooly, he was refusing to establish an emotional connection. She decided she would have to broach the topic herself. "My...dad, he's been sick, and we're really close, and being so far from home.... I tried to go back and visit as much as I could, on weekends when I didn't have games, and during the week I had practice, so with all of that I just haven't had a lot of time to do my homework this semester."
He continued to watch her, chin resting on folded hands. "Why didn't you mention this earlier in the semester?"
She already had an established answer for this. "I was worried about the team finding out. You know Coach Bufkin; he's a jackass. If he even thought that there was a chance of me taking the rest of the semester off to go home and be with my dad, he might bench me so that one of the other girls could get more practice in my place."
Professor Hart nodded, still showing no emotion. Wordlessly, he got up and walked over to one of the many bookshelves lining the entire wall. While most of the shelves held leaning piles of books, one of the shelves at eye-level showcased an assortment of plaques and odd-sized crystal objects, all apparently teaching awards and objects proclaiming his membership in various literary societies. He idly started to dust off the objects, his back to her.
"When was the last time you visited your father?" he asked suddenly, without turning around.
She jumped slightly at his clipped question. "Oh, uh...Thanksgiving."
"Ah. The entire break?"
"Well, yes, I wanted to spend as much time with him as possible."
"Mmm." He turned around, arms folded, and leaned nonchalantly back against the bookshelf. His body language was relaxed, which didn't match the harshness of his next statement. "Then how, exactly, Miss Taylor, were you able to come back to campus in time to stumble half-naked out of the Kappa Delta house at 7 am Friday morning,
immediately after
Thanksgiving?"
She gaped at him. "What...? No, that couldn't have been—wait, why would you know that?"
"You forget, Miss Taylor, that I am an on-campus faculty resident. I was out for a run, and saw you--with your trademark short skirt and barely-a-shirt—leaving the KD house, ostensibly headed in the direction of your dorm."
Scared that she was doomed, she still tried to protest. "Maybe there was a school-girl party at the KD house! It could have been anyone leaving at that hour!"
"Oh, believe me, it was you. You were too drunk to notice me, but I was close enough to you to see not only your face, but your obvious lack of undergarments as well."
