Unfaithful - Natalie Barelli Page 0,3

long I suspect they’re false. Being sexy shouldn’t be a disadvantage in this job, but I think it is. I’d never dress like that for a business meeting. What was it Luis said this morning? You look conservative. I catch Mila looking at me looking at her and I quickly return to my laptop, my finger poised over the keyboard.

“Since you’re here, will you take minutes, Anna?”

“Sure, happy to.” I always take minutes. I may as well have it tattooed on my forehead. Team player, no job too small or too menial. Then Geoff adds, “I know I always ask you, but you’re the only one I can trust to do it right.”

I smile. Then I think I’m blushing. Am I blushing? I sure hope not. “It’s no problem,” I stress. Of course, it’s not really my job to take minutes. He could have asked June, the department secretary, to sit in, but the truth is, I am the only one who can be trusted to do it right. That’s one thing everyone always says about me: I am dependable. I will always step in and help, and often make things right. Which is probably why I’m always in meetings. When I’m not teaching, I mean. I seem to always put my hand up for things: committees, student support, fundraising, grant applications, acquittals. Sometimes I end up on committees I don’t remember signing up for. But, if the work needs to be done, I am ready. I rally when the going gets tough. I’m a rallier.

“Ideas,” Geoff says now. “Let’s hear them. Anyone?”

At the top of my document, I type: “New Funding Opportunities—Staff Suggestions” and bold it.

Mila takes the pencil she’s chewing out of her mouth. “We could contact our alumni? Organize a fundraising dinner?”

“Good. Thank you, Mila.”

Geoff writes down Mila’s suggestion on the board, like it’s a very valid one and I’m thinking, Really? Is that the best you can do? Then he says, “Anna, will you organize it?”

I blink. I’m about to say, Why doesn’t Mila organize it? It’s her idea. But being a team player, a rallier, I just nod. Although I do ask: “Don’t we do that already?”

“No, we don’t. So let’s.”

“Okay.” Anyway, as a member of the teaching staff, I don’t think he actually means for me to organize it. I make a note to mention it to June.

“Let’s not beat around the bush here, people,” Geoff continues. “This faculty will not get bailed out again by the executive. At this rate, we’ll be lucky if we make it to the end of next year. We are in early talks with a number of philanthropic institutions—June and I are handling that—but I’ll be blunt, it doesn’t look good. So if you have any bright ideas… What’s going on, Anna?”

I look up.

“Nothing, why?”

“You’re smiling.”

I plaster on my most innocent face. Puzzled, sincere. If I could, I wouldn’t just say it out loud, I would scream it from the top of my lungs. Because when I suggested this committee, I didn’t know that Alex—my Alex, my PhD student—was about to prove one of mathematics’ most important conjectures. And once Alex and I publish our paper, donors will be falling over themselves to throw money at us. That’s how important this paper is. It’s groundbreaking, and marvelous, and it’s the best thing to come out of Locke Weidman University, ever. And while it’s absolutely Alex’s work, as Alex’s advisor, I can say I am responsible, in my own small way, for that achievement. I imagine Geoff’s face when he finds out that I am co-author of a groundbreaking paper that is going to bring googolplexes of dollars to our university. I mean, let’s face it, the last time I published anything was a comment on a working moms’ Facebook group about a one-pot recipe: My whole family loved it! 5 stars!

I shake my head. “Nope, all good, as you were.”

He winks at me and turns back to the board. “Okay then.”

Alex had come to study at this little university because of me, he said. He had stumbled upon a paper I had published a million years ago, back when I was a grad student myself, and had walked into my office brandishing a copy of a now-defunct mathematics journal. He wanted me to supervise his thesis which, at the time, was on theta and zeta functions. He’d had offers from other universities, some certainly more prestigious than ours, but: “I must do it here, with you,” he’d argued.

My