I stare at the bags and the message they display for several long moments.
And then I laugh.
Chapter 15
Holly
Iexpect the proverbial shit to hit the fan early on Thursday.
After all, one does not merely steal the soil samples of the university’s most prestigious researcher and replace them with Miracle Grow.
Worst-case scenario, I expect Clive to call, furious, to yell at me. Maybe he’ll even make the hike over to the Blocker building to yell at me in person.
Okay, I guess the actual worst-case scenario is that the police will come arrest me. But I have trouble imagining that happening. After all, I didn’t commit mail fraud. I waited until after the samples had been accepted by a qualified member of the department. And then I stole them. Or, as I like to think of it, “removed them to an alternate storage location” for the greater good.
Though, I suspect Max might disagree with my use of the phrase “greater good.”
But I don’t think he’ll tell on me. It’s not his style.
Besides, he doesn’t seem to like Clive any more than I do. So he won’t want to get him involved. And he won’t want to report it to anyone other than Clive because he won’t want anyone knowing I got the better of him.
So I wait all day to feel the aftershocks of my prank.
When they don’t come, I leave campus at three, just like I always do on Thursdays.
Texas University is one of the biggest universities in the country.
And while it’s a state school, it’s very prestigious. Particularly in science and engineering, but every department has a superstar or two. Most days, you can’t throw a cell phone without hitting an overinflated ego. And that’s just the professors. That’s doesn’t include the students who need hand-holding and a sympathetic ear.
Yes, I love my job. I love working with the students, even when they’re difficult. I like most of my colleagues. I don’t even mind my tiny office—which, sometimes I think they installed a false wall in, because I swear my office is smaller than every other office in the building.
Or maybe it just feels that way. The pressure of living in academia when I am not an academic can feel very Death Star trash compactor-y.
Which is why my favorite part of every week is Thursday afternoon when I leave campus in early afternoon and drive literally and figuratively across the train tracks to Bryan High School.
Texas University is located in the small town of Hillsdale. Due east is Bryan, Hillsdale’s blue-collar, rough-and-tumble older brother—home of a meat packing plant, a community college, and housing cheap enough for the poorer students and the university’s maintenance staff.
All of the professors live in Hillsdale. Breeding plus mere proximity to greatness meant Hillsdale High School had one of the highest college acceptance rates in the country. Bryan High School . . . not so much.
Most faculty and staff never think about it. Me, on the other hand?
I’m obsessed with evening the odds.
Clive described the weekly after-school class I taught for economically disadvantaged girls as part of my “quixotic obsession with nurturing.” Our marriage counselor had agreed. Of course, then he’d slept with a colleague, we’d gotten a divorce and, six months later, he’d slept with our marriage counselor, too. So I may have a quixotic obsession with nurturing, but I was inclined to think it was a healthier way of coping than his sleeping around.
Of course, what he saw as quixotic, I saw as survivor’s guilt. Well, maybe not guilt. Maybe obligation.
I’d gone to a high school like that. I’d been poor like that. I had had a lot of odds stacked against me, but these girls had even more.
I have the life I have now because I’d been lucky. I’d gotten a small scholarship to a small college because I’d been in the right place at the right time.
The college prep class I taught was my way of giving back.
“College prep” was a generous way to describe it. There were ten girls in the class. While all of them were smart enough to go to college, they were all miles away from having the social skills to prepare them to get into a college and actually attend it.
We covered everything from how to fill out college applications, to how to write an essay, to how to register to take the SATs, and how to fill out the financial aid paperwork that they would all certainly need.
Some of them would actually go to college—probably only the local community college, but still. Some of them wouldn’t. But I figured they all needed someone who believed theycouldgo to college. That kind of faith is important.
