is open but instead of him, I come face to face with a woman with short gray hair and a birth mark on her left cheek. She is sitting behind the only desk in the room. She looks up over her glasses, startled. “Can I help you?”
“I’m… I’m looking for—” I don’t know who I am looking for. I don’t even know his name. “This is your office?”
“Yes. And you are?”
“There was a…” I am stuttering. I can’t put words together to form a coherent sentence anymore. I try again. “I was at Professor Bashki’s retirement party last night.”
“And?”
“I’m looking for a man. He has a beard and green eyes.”
She frowns, giving a small impatient shake of the head, understandably. She makes me feel like a schoolgirl tracking down the boy she kissed last night. Except I am almost forty years old.
She returns to her task. “I have no idea who you’re talking about, I’m sorry. Try Admin down the hall.”
“Okay. Thank you. My mistake.” I walk back out, surreptitiously scanning the floor on the way out in case I left anything behind last night. Like my bra. Or my self-respect. I walk briskly in the direction she pointed me to and after a couple of wrong turns, I spot the sign that says Student Services – Administration.
The door is open and immediately I see the back of him. He is bending slightly at the water cooler. He turns around at my approach, a cup of water in one hand, and a grin spreads over his face.
“Well, hello there,” he says, with a slight sneer that makes a shudder run down my spine, and not in a good way. He runs a hand through his hair. “It’s nice to see you. You ran off very quickly last night.”
My eyes dart around the room to see who might be listening. “Can I talk to you for a moment?” Two women at opposite desks look up.
“Sure.”
I motion for him to follow me out until we’re safely out of earshot. I stop, put my hand out. “Do you have your phone with you?”
He cocks his head and gives me a small smile. “My phone?”
“You know…” We’re alone but I check my surroundings anyway. Then I lean closer. “You took a photo of me last night,” I whisper. My stomach churns just saying the words.
“I did.”
“I need you to delete it please.”
He lifts his chin and stares at me for a moment. “And what if I don’t?”
My heart races. “You have to. I never gave you permission.” As if that ever meant anything to anyone.
“Maybe I like to look at it.” He winks. “Maybe I—”
But I’m very close to him now, so angry that my nostrils are flaring. “You’d better delete that photo right now. I wasn’t kidding when I said I never gave you permission. There are laws. I’ll have you arrested or fired or whatever it takes.”
He raises both hands in surrender. “Okay! Wow! Hold your horses there, lady! I was just kidding!”
“And I can’t take a joke, so give me your phone.”
He turns around and walks back in the direction of the admin office. For a moment I think he’s just left me there, abandoned the conversation. My heart is pounding as I try to figure out what my next move is. But as I get to the door, I see him rummaging through a backpack on a chair by his desk. He pulls out his phone, taps the screen and walks back to where I am standing. I am so relieved it makes my legs wobble.
“Ryan?”
He turns around. A woman standing at the photocopier makes a face. “It’s stuck, can you take a look?”
“Sure, give me a sec.”
When he returns he holds up the screen to show me. “Done.”
I narrow my eyes at him and reach for the phone. He hands it over. I flick through the camera roll. The last few pictures are of a dog in a park, a golden retriever with a red bandanna tied loosely around its neck. I scroll down quickly, my hands shaking. There’s a blur of people, an older couple in a restaurant, him with his arm around a woman, a red-haired girl, both of them grinning, more pictures of the dog, sun setting in a park that looks vaguely familiar. Him—Ryan—with his arm around an older man’s shoulders. A family resemblance. His dad, I suspect. After I’ve scrolled all the way up to the beginning, photos dated from over a year ago,