Tales of the Otherworld (14 page)

“I have an appointment in twenty minutes.”

He glanced at the clock. “I’ll keep you for fifteen, then.”

“It’s way over in the Koffler Center. At the bookstore.”

“You can buy your texts later.”

“It’s for a job interview.”

He lowered the paper. “What the hell do you need a job for?”

“Excuse me?” As soon as I said it I regretted my tone. Well, kind of.

“College is for learning. If you work during school, sure, maybe you’ll be able to afford a few extra drinks at the pub, but your grades will suffer.”

I pried my jaws open enough to speak. “While I appreciate your concern,
sir
, I’m afraid I don’t have much choice. If I don’t work, I don’t go to school.”

“Your parents won’t pay for it?”

“My parents are dead.”

The moment the words left my mouth, I wished I could suck them back in. I braced for the inevitable “I’m sorry” or “That’s too bad.”

He just nodded. “Well, I guess you would need to work, then.”

“So, may I leave?”

“Come back when you’re done.”

The interview did not go well. I couldn’t even blame it on Professor Danvers. By the time I’d walked across campus, my initial outrage had worn off and I realized he probably didn’t mean to be rude. Some people just say whatever comes to mind, bypassing the propriety filter.

The problem with the interview had nothing to do with my mood, but rather with my lack of experience. I knew my way around books, and I could be as courteous and helpful as any nervous first-year student could want, but when it came to sales and cash handling, my résumé boasted only a single summer job at a ballpark concession stand. I could tell that this wasn’t enough.

So it was back to Ms. Purple Polyester and her gardening tips. Not for long, though. After calling back the bookstore yesterday, I’d felt rather silly for having struggled with the decision and resolved to work for that classified ad rag only until something better came along.

This time when I arrived at Danvers’s office, I had a chance to knock. As my knuckles grazed the wood, the door creaked open. I called a hello, then peeked inside. The office was empty. Not very safe, leaving the door
ajar, though I suppose there was nothing in the office worth stealing—not unless there was a black market in dog-eared, coffee-stained copies of
Anthropological Quarterly.

From the door, I could see my paper on a stack of papers. There was a note on it. I slipped inside and picked it up.

Two words.
Elena
and
wait.

“Woof,” I said.

I looked at the note again. At the bottom was a letter. C. It took me a moment before I remembered his given name. Clayton.

Wasn’t that an odd way to sign a note for a student? I reminded myself that, given his age, this was likely his first teaching gig. He probably wasn’t used to calling himself “Professor Danvers” or “Dr. Danvers.” And for a guy who considered a single-word command an appropriate mode of correspondence, signing with a letter was probably more a matter of economics than of familiarity.

The real question was: Would I do as he’d asked—or demanded? My first reaction was to get my back up. Yet when I thought it through, I simmered down. This wasn’t a personal slight. Rude, yes. Condescending, maybe. Yet from what I’d seen in the classroom, no more rude or condescending than he’d be to anyone else.

My next class wasn’t until after lunch. No reason why I couldn’t pull out a textbook and study here for ten, fifteen minutes. If he didn’t show up by then, I’d leave a note and go.

I’d only read two pages when the door banged open, hitting the wall so loudly I jumped.

“Good,” he grunted, seeing me there. He tossed an armful of books onto the desk, sending an avalanche of paper to the floor. “You get the job?”

“It was just an interview.”

He gave me a look, as if this didn’t answer his question. Not much experience with the job market, I guess.

“I don’t know yet,” I said. “They’ll call.”

His eyes studied mine. “But you don’t think you got it?”

I shrugged. “Probably not. Now, about—”

“Forget the bookstore,” he said, thumping down into his desk chair. “I have a job for you.”

I hesitated, not sure I’d heard right. “Uh, thank you, but—”

“I need a TA.”

I stopped, mouth still open. A teaching assistant position had always been my dream job—good pay, work on campus, flexible hours….

My brain slammed up a big stop sign. A teaching assistant? In anthropology? I was a journalism major. And an undergrad at that.

Maybe I’m too suspicious, but after years of dealing with abusive foster daddies and brothers, I’ve earned the right to be. When a guy offers me something that doesn’t sound kosher, my brain automatically jumps to one conclusion: He wants sex.

In this case, I dismissed it, even felt a little silly for thinking it. Clayton Danvers didn’t need to offer teaching positions to get sex. From the way he’d brushed off those girls yesterday, bedding coeds was
not
on his agenda. He probably had a girlfriend or fiancée at home—some gorgeous neurosurgeon or physicist who modeled for Victoria’s Secret in her spare time. Might even have a picture of her for his desk…once he found it under that blanket of papers.

“I’m not an anthropology student,” I said slowly, in case he’d forgotten.

“So?”

“I need to be in this discipline to be a teaching assistant. Isn’t that a requirement?”

He brushed my words aside with a wave. “The school wouldn’t be hiring you. I would. I’m a temp, so that’s how it works. They hire me, and I hire an assistant if I need one.”

I’d never heard that, but it sounded logical.

“What about grading papers?” I said. “I’m not qualified for that. And I sure can’t teach your classes if you’re off sick.”

Another wave. “I never get sick. And you won’t need to grade essays. I’ll just give you the multiple-choice parts of tests. That and…uh, administrative work.”

“What kind of administrative work?”

“You know…departmental…stuff. Whatever I need done.”

I cast a pointed look at his desk. “Like filing?”

“Sure. Filing. More important, though, I need research—”

A tentative knock at the door cut him short. His nostrils flared, then
his mouth set in a hard line. He made no move to stand. Another rap. I arched my brows. He shook his head. We stayed quiet until footsteps tapped away down the hall.

“That’s another thing you can do,” he said. “Handle my office hours. Talk to students.”

“They probably want to speak to
you.
Especially if they’re having problems with the course.”

“Oh. Right.”

He looked so disappointed that I felt a glimmer of empathy.

“I suppose I could screen student visits,” I said. “If it’s taking papers or answering easy questions, I can handle it. Otherwise, I could have them make appointments, maybe discourage the ones that don’t seem too serious.”

He smiled then, his eyes lighting up like a kid’s. “That’d be great.”

My cheeks heated. “Uh, and research. You were saying something—”

“Right. That’s really what I need. I’m working on a paper, and I need someone to do the legwork for me, track down articles, print them up, maybe do some extra digging. You cover all that in journalism, right? Research?”

“Right up my alley.”

“Good. We’re all set, then. You can start—”

“Wait,” I said. “Can I think about it? I should hear what the bookstore says first.”

He rapped his pen against the edge of the desk, then leveled it at me.

“What’s the pay?” he said.

“Huh?”

“The bookstore. What are they offering to pay you?”

“Uh, minimum…well, slightly above.”

From his expression, that didn’t answer his question.

“Five dollars an hour,” I said.

“How the hell do you live on that? I’ll pay you eight.”

“That’s very generous. But wages aren’t the only thing I need to consider. Hours are another factor, and you might only need me for five, six hours a week—”

“Hours are negotiable. I need help with this paper, and I want to work on another one after that. How many hours would you need?”

I calculated quickly. “Fifteen, if you’re paying eight dollars. That would leave me plenty of time to study.”

“Fifteen it is, then. When you’re busy with school, take less. When things are slow, take more. I’m not running a nine-to-five business. As long as the work gets done, I’m in no hurry.”

That sounded damn close to the most perfect school job I could imagine, which had me wondering what the catch was. Well, I suppose the catch was that I had to work with
him
, but I could handle an abrasive boss.

Next question: Why me? He could hire a hundred students who were better qualified. Maybe part of that was just dumb luck. I’d mentioned that I needed work, and that had reminded him that he needed a TA, so he offered me the job.

As a future employee, I wasn’t
that
bad of a choice. I clearly wanted to work—a quality that could be hard to come by in students. Plus, I wouldn’t sit and moon over him, and I suspected that was a major qualification. I also knew his work better than most students.

Anyone could grade multiple-choice tests, file his papers, and shield him from students. And if he needed a researcher, a journalism student was a good fit. Why me? Why
not
me?

“Does this mean I get to sit in your class until I get a spot?”

“Huh?” He frowned. “Oh, right. The class. Hell, yeah. You’re in.”

I smiled. “Good. About the job, then…when can I start?”

E
LENA WAS DUE TO ARRIVE FOR WORK IN FIVE
minutes, and I still had no idea what
work
I was going to ask her to do. I didn’t need a TA. Now, here I was, having volunteered not only to spend at least fifteen hours each week cooped up in this tiny office with a human, but paying her for the privilege.

I blamed temporary insanity, a new symptom of my fall moods. I could tell myself that I’d offered her a job because I’d been flattered that she’d picked my thesis for her term paper. Or that I’d been struck by a sudden wave of generosity, compelled to help a stranger in need. And if either of those explanations was right, then my fall moods weren’t just making me moody, they were fucking up my entire personality.

I knew only that the moment she’d said her interview hadn’t gone well, the idea had jumped into my brain and out my mouth before I could stop it. Every hurdle she’d raised had only made me more determined. When I’d succeeded, it felt like pulling down a buck single-handedly—a thrill of victory that had lasted right up until ten minutes ago, when I’d fully comprehended what I’d done.

Maybe I could tell her I’d made a mistake, that I’d reevaluated my workload and decided I didn’t need a TA after all. Even as I considered that, a lick of shame ran through me. I pride myself on being fair in my dealings with humans. Sure, my idea of fairness and theirs may not always coincide, but I was never intentionally cruel to anyone who hadn’t earned it. Elena had done nothing to earn it.

I’d hired her, so I’d have to find work for her to do…preferably someplace else. She could do research in the library or—

Footsteps sounded in the hall. The soft slap of sneakers. I inhaled and caught the faintest touch of her scent coming through the half-open door. My pulse revved up, as if I’d scented an intruder…and yet not like that at all.

She paused outside the door. Hesitating? Why was she hesitating? Had she changed—

A knock. A
tentative
knock, as if hoping it wouldn’t be answered. She
had
changed her mind about the job.

Wait, that’s what I wanted, wasn’t it?

I yanked open the door to see her turning away.

“Elena!”

She spun. I mentally kicked myself for yelling at her. Was I
trying
to scare her off?

“Come in,” I said. “We have a lot to do.”

She stepped inside, shucked off her backpack, and looked around for a place to put it.

“Just toss it wherever,” I said.

Another nod, and she tucked it into the corner, under the empty coatrack. My heart was galloping like a spooked stag. Something was wrong. She was
too
quiet. Not that she was usually noisy, but she was giving off palpable waves of distraction, as if she really didn’t want to be here.

She was going to quit. The bookstore had called to give her the job, and she didn’t quite trust my offer—

“Is this okay?” she said, tugging at her short-sleeved blouse to straighten it. “I wasn’t sure if there was, you know, a dress code or something—”

“There isn’t. Wear what you like.”

She looked around. When her gaze skated past mine, I noticed purplish half-moons under her eyes. She’d slept poorly. Nightmares? Anxiety?

My gaze slid to a faint reddish blotch, the size of a fingerprint, on the side of her throat. A bruise? A lover’s kiss?

Did she have a lover? My gut clenched. I shook it off. She was young, pretty. Why wouldn’t she have a boyfriend?

“Do you, uh, want me to start filing?” she asked.

She turned toward the desk, and the light illuminated the mark on
her throat. Not a bruise or a kiss, but a birthmark or an old, long-healed burn.

“Filing?” she said again. “Should I start—”

“No. Not today. Today we have to talk.”

Her blue eyes clouded. “Is something wrong?”

“No, no. We just need to talk about—”
About you. Tell me about yourself. Do you have a boyfriend? What kept you up last night? Is something bothering you? Is it me?
“—your paper. We didn’t get time to discuss that yesterday, so I wanted to spend a few minutes on it today.”

“Sure.” She moved the spare chair over to the desk, sat down, then looked up at me with a faint smile. “So, how badly did I mangle your theory?”

Elena had only been scheduled to work for two hours that day, and we spent the whole time talking, first about her paper, then shifting into the more general area of my work, my interests, theories, past and current projects. As happy as I’d have been to segue our next discussion into her own life, I knew I wouldn’t get away with it.