she said, and was off.
I watched her weave through the crowd of students until she disappeared out of sight. I headed in the opposite direction, back toward my shared office where I’d stored some clothes suitable for hanging out with the real professors.
Chapter 28
PROFESSOR CHASE BALDWYN
“Mr. Baldwyn. May I see you in my office?”
Everyone in the bullpen I shared with adjuncts like myself turned to see who’d beckoned me.
Shit. Just as I’d feared. It was the head of the French department. This could mean very good news or very bad news. It was unlikely to be anything in between.
I grabbed the clothes I’d come for and followed her to her office, steeling myself for the worst.
“Have a seat, please,” she said.
I was already sitting. Guess I should have waited. I still sucked at academic protocol. Actually I sucked at pretty much all protocol. When you grew up bouncing around from one foster home to another, you didn’t learn a lot about life’s pleasantries.
“Mr. Baldwyn, I’m afraid we won’t be able to keep you for next semester—”
My stomach dropped, the warm feeling from just having hung out with Senna quickly disappearing.
Fuck. I knew it. These universities and their budget woes. Fortunately, I’d been thinking about my next move, and Jamie seemed like he was serious about opening a bar, so I didn’t need to jump into panic mode. Yet.
“I see,” I said calmly.
“However,” she said, “if you think you can finish that translation you’ve been working on for me, we might be able to work something out.”
Huh? Was she extorting me?
How was it that the head of a major university’s French program had such a lousy knowledge of the very language she was supposed to teach? It blew my mind. And yet she got to stick around the place, thanks to tenure. Well, that and coercing adjunct teachers to do the hard work of writing for her.
I’d heard that back when the school was establishing a French program, she’d come on board first, before anyone knew she was about as unqualified as they came. She’d squeaked by for years, undiscovered. Shit, the university administration probably still didn’t know she couldn’t write in French. The truth was, she’d write in English and get some poor sap to translate it. And none of the folks who ran the school knew any better. She’d somehow gotten everyone to keep their mouths shut.
By offering them jobs. Real jobs.
“Oh, hey, I’m about halfway done with that,” I lied.
It was a boring slog, translating her crappy publication about some obscure mayor during the French revolution. Did she really think anyone would ever be interested in that?
That was the problem with academics. You were pressured to write about obscure topics that no one really cared about, just for the exercise. Just to say you’d done it. Paid your dues.
It was how the game was played, apparently. And I was getting my first taste of it.
“When do you need it, Professor Miller?” Every other professor I’d met at the university went by their first name among other instructors. But the first time I called this one ‘Rebecca,’ it was like I’d called her the C-word.
She broke out in a smile, smug in the satisfaction that she was pulling another one over on the school. “End of the month?” she cooed.
She could go fuck herself.
But I smiled. “Sounds good. It will be in your hands by then. Or in your email.”
She laughed gleefully, satisfied she’d fooled everyone around her for another day.
“Chase, I saw you looking at Senna today in the fitness center,” Jamie teased. “She’s something, isn’t she?”
I sat back in my chair, surveying the faculty club crowd, which was mostly a bunch of old farts overly impressed with themselves. The younger academics were out spending time with students, trying to make a difference.
But I didn’t mind going once in a while. I got a kick out of it. I supposed it was old hat for someone like Jamie, though, who’d grown up with money and apparently still had plenty.
I looked around the room for Benno. He was always late. Always.
“Did you get to hang with Senna after she got off work?” Jamie asked.
I nodded as I sucked down my second beer. “Yeah. She’s adjusting to her first foreign language class. It helps if you know how to approach it. Gave her some study practices.”
“Uh, yeah,” Jamie said. “I barely made it through high school Spanish. My parents actually had to hire me a tutor.”
“It’s not for everyone. I,