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I lifted my eyebrows and nodded.
“Good,” was all he said before grabbing his leather briefcase bag and moving past me through the door, locking it on the way out. “By lunch tomorrow!”
I watched him saunter off after locking his office door behind us, and felt like my entire world had just imploded in that tiny room.
Once he was gone though, it was easier to breathe, and when I got some oxygen into my brain, I was able to finally convince myself of how idiotic my little instant crush was. Not only was my professor likely ‘over the hill’ and in his forties, but he was going to be my boss. Because yeah, I was getting the darn job, and no amount of coffee stained shirts were going to get in my way.
Shutting off the blood flow to my little love button, I stuffed the shirt into my backpack and hurried to my next class. Math. Yuck.
“Mom,” I cried into the phone, “how do I get coffee out of a white shirt?”
“Slow down,” she said with a chuckle. “What happened?”
“There’s coffee on this white shirt and I’ve been scrubbing it for an hour but it’s not coming all the way out!”
“Well, sweetie, you can try using dish soap and vinegar. That works for a lot of stains.”
I panicked as I looked around, hoping I had those two ingredients around. Seeing as I was in a dorm room and I didn’t make more than raman or mac and cheese in my room, I didn’t have vinegar.
“Darn it!” I called again, which made Mom laugh.
“Bring it to the dry cleaners,” she finally said.
The thought sparked as inspirationally brilliant in my ears, and I was out the door before even saying thank you to my mother.
“You’re a genius!” I told her, already out of breath from going down my two flights of stairs.
There was a dry cleaner just down the street, and they were going to save the day.
“Are you sure you’re ok?” she asked me, listening to me panting into the phone.
“Yeah, it’s just kind of an emergency. I need this shirt perfect by tomorrow afternoon.”
Something in my stomach refused to admit that this was my ticket to the TA position. I wanted to earn it, but this wasn’t exactly how I’d planned on wowing Professor Harlo
Mom and Dad were crossing their fingers for me to get the position because they knew how much it meant to me, but this felt a little too much like luck, and that curdled my guts a little.
“Ok sweetie. Let me know if you need anything else. Are you still planning on coming for the weekend?”
“Of course,” I blurted. “I gotta go, Mom! See you Saturday!”
I clicked off the phone as she said goodbye and stumbled into the drycleaners.
“I need this stain out,” I gasped out, shoving the shirt at the attendant behind the counter.
They looked at me like I was crazy, but simply shrugged.
“We can have it ready by Saturday morning,” they said, blinking at me.
I just blinked back.
“I need it by tomorrow afternoon.”
“Sorry, we’re too busy. We’re backed up for a few days. Until Saturday, exactly.”
“Dang it,” I grumbled, snatching the shirt back from them.
What was I going to do?
