“Layna said she’ll babysit all night if I need her to,” I said.
In the adjacent lab room, the mass spectrometer loomed like an oversized copy machine with a robot head and arms. Gucci placed a single drop of liver sample into a tube and inserted it via an airlock. With the machine running, Gucci switched off the lights. “I don’t want to draw attention to the fact that we’re—” She stopped mid-sentence. “Do you hear that?”
Footsteps. The rattle of a doorknob.
Gucci’s eyes went wide and she gestured for me to hide. So much for introducing me as her hot aunt.
We crouched behind a lab bench as the intruders entered the next room. A man who clearly had a chub for the sound of his own voice was saying, “You’re a talented girl, Chloe. I don’t think you know how talented.”
Next to me Gucci mimed a gagging motion.
“Thank you,” Chloe said. She sounded young, but was definitely a full-grown woman—nota girl.
“I’m excited to write your recommendation for the PhD program at Penn State,” the blowhard continued. “I even have a friend there on the scholarship committee. I can give him a call.”
“Do you think I’ll be ready, Professor Bidelspach?” Chloe said. Her lack of confidence made me want to add watchingAlien,Moana, andMad Max: Fury Roadto her homework for the semester.
“I think I can get you there,” Professor Bidelspach said.
“I haven’t even mastered bacterial oral decomposition,” she said.
“Oh, I can help you master oral, all right,” Professor Bidelspach said.
There is no grosser sound than a slurping, predatory kiss. Gucci and I stared at each other in horror. An eternal second passed. For the sake of my future and my children’s future, I needed to stay silent during this grotesque abuse of power. But one day Phoebe and Alice might be grad students too. I needed to do this for them.
Enough streetlamp light came in through the window for Gucci to see me wrap my hand around the base of a wheeled lab cart. I asked permission with my eyes. She gave a little nod.
The cart sailed through the door and slammed against a lab bench. Professor Bidelspach let out a high-pitched shriek.
As fluorescents flooded the room, Professor Bidelspach skuttled away from Chloe like a cockroach in a midnight kitchen. In his younger years, he might’ve been handsome, but now his blooming nose andsizeable paunch suggested a liver the size of a watermelon. Meanwhile, Chloe looked as mortified as a teen whose parents have arrived at a keg party wearing matching sweatshirts that read:We love our chess champion daughter!
I stood up. “Professor Bidelspach,” I said sternly.
“We were just— I was just giving Chloe a tour of—” As he took in my puffy coat, sweatpants, and messy topknot, he seemed to regain his confidence. “Who are you and why are you in my lab?”
“I’m the new acting provost of the graduate college,” I said in the most regal voice I could muster. “Here to do an after-hours tour of campus with my assistant.”
From the other room, Gucci cleared her throat and rattled a lab stand to underline the fact of an additional witness. Professor Bidelspach wilted.
“Chloe?” I said, gently. “If an older man with power over your career tells you that you’re special and then tries to get in your pants, he doesn’t care about you. But that doesn’t mean you aren’t special. He’s right about that part, even if he doesn’t know it. Why don’t you go on home?”
Chloe gave a teary nod and fled, the lab door slamming in her wake.
I glowered at the squirming professor. I’d heard of support groups where strangers act out the role of your family members to allow you to heal old traumas. Right now, as far as my psyche was concerned, Professor Bidelskeeze was a stand-in for Mickey Larynx.
“Professor Bidelspach,” I continued, “I expect you to turn in a write-up of what happened here to the dean. Tomorrow at eight a.m. Two copies, please, because I’ll be reading it too. No obfuscations. No lies. I saw it. My assistant saw and heard it. And I want Chloe’s name redacted from the matter. Do you understand? Just a history of these encounters and your part. You can call her ‘my master’s student Jane Doe.’”
He looked sick.
“Unless? Chloe is an—”
“Undergrad,” he replied miserably. But then the swagger of anuntouchable tenured professor returned. “I don’t think you understand. That girl seduced me. I’m the victim here.”
I puffed up like an offended dragon queen. “Don’t bullshit me, Professor Bidelspach,” I said. “I recorded an MP3 of your promises and flattery followed by your advances.” I pulled my phone from my pocket and pretended to type away on it. “There! Emailed to the dean, who’ll be quite interested to hear you’re offering rec letters and special tutoring in exchange for oral sex. So I expect your honest account in the dean’s mailbox by eight a.m. tomorrow.” I pointed at the door of the lab with a trembling finger. “Now go!”
Professor Bidelspach let out a sad little muffled sound and scurried out the door. I held my breath as his trundling steps dissolved down the hallway.
“He’s gone!” I said, hurrying into the next room.
