Page 48 of Beautiful Place By the Sea

“I’m a little worried about you, Laur.”

She raises her eyes to mine, then looks down again to blow air across her nails. “Why’s that?”

“You know why.”

She shakes her head indignantly. “I really don’t.”

“Okay,” I begin. “How about because you showed up to the bookstore today looking like you just rolled out of bed? Which you know I am more than fine with, but you never go anywhere unless you’ve primped for at least an hour.”

She scowls at me, but I barrel on. “Or how about because you simply couldn’t bear to pull yourself away from your dissertation, then, suddenly, you had to drop everything in the middle of the day to arrange a bizarre night out between us and my coworker? Or⁠—”

Laurel cuts me off. “He’s more than your coworker.”

“He isn’t,” I snap.

She examines her nails. “Whatever. But he’s a friend-type person that you can talk to tonight, so I don’t see the harm.”

I’m not understanding what’s going on with her. “No harm,” I continue a bit more gently. “Although the Cruella de Vil quote was a bit of a head-scratcher.”

“I’m nothing if not whimsical,” Laurel says with a grin.

“Be that as it may⁠—”

“Oh, it may.”

I laugh in spite of myself. “Yes, fine. You’re very whimsical. But you also seemed more than a little insane today.” She looks like she’s about to protest, but she looks down in silence. “Can you tell me what’s going on?

Laurel examines her nails so intensely, I wonder if she’s forgotten our conversation entirely.

“Laur?”

Finally, she sighs and looks up. “I got a call from my advisor today.”

“About your draft?”

She inclines her head ever so slightly.

“And?”

Her eyes fill with tears. “She hates it.”

If you’d given me a thousand guesses, I never would have imagined that Laurel, always a teacher’s pet to an extent that was, frankly, extremely irritating, would displease her PhD advisor.

“Are you sure?” I put my arm around her shoulders and squeeze her toward me. “There must be some kind of mistake, right?”

Laurel shakes her head back and forth despondently. “No. No, there isn’t. She says my conclusions are ‘subpar’ and ‘irredeemably derivative.’ And she wants to meet with me in person as soon as possible to go over next steps.”

My jaw drops. “Next steps?”

Her chin wavers. “If I can’t get things back on track, I may get kicked out of the program.”

“What?” I explode. “But you’re their best student! The university practically begged you to enroll after the way you crushed your Master’s thesis. They can’t just do that!”

“Oh, but they can,” she says ruefully. “And unfortunately, I have to shape my draft to Dr. Spillinger’s whims, because she’s my advisor, and she’s the one who has to talk me up to the other profs when it’s time to defend this bad boy next spring.”

“I just don’t understand. You’ve been working so hard. And you’re so goddamn smart. What’s not to like?”

Laurel refuses to meet my eyes. “It’s possible this is actually just about my draft. But also…there may have been…an incident. At school, last April.”