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She shoved the list of names into her bag and made her way to the registrar building to sign up for classes. That involved several hours in line. By the time she’d finished, she needed lunch. Then she went to buy books. It wasn’t until she got back to the motel and moved the most valuable things out of her car that she even remembered the list.
She called her parents, knowing they’d be out, and left a cheerful but vague message, promising to call again when she was more settled. She’d lie to them if she had to, but she’d rather put off telling them anything for as long as possible. She certainly wasn’t going to tell them about this motel, about the overflow situation in student housing, or about how she’d spent all that cash they’d slipped her on textbooks in one fell swoop. And she wasn’t going to tell them about feeling totally, helplessly adrift.
She’d made this life, these choices, and she wasn’t going to give up in the first week. It couldn’t be any harder than moving out of her parents’ house the first time or the weeks of endless training at the CIA, no harder than being in a foreign country with a fake name and a list of impossible goals.
While she ran a hot bath, she dug the list out of her bag, smoothing the wrinkles on the narrow desk. There were only about twelve names on it, and she quickly realized that there were only two female names. Something about moving into the house of a male stranger just seemed untenable.
One of the names included a phone number. The other gave only a faculty office number and office hours. That simplified the matter. She’d call the first number in the morning, and if that didn’t pan out, she’d stake out the office of this Professor Helen Everton and see what she could find.
Chapter 2
The professor who had answeredthe phone number attached to Annie’s Hail-Mary list apologized and said the room was already occupied. So that was that. As Annie made her way onto campus, she read the list of names again and tried to decide which of the men sounded the least threatening.
Michael R. Darby.
As long as he didn’t go by Mike.
Neal Halfon.
She crossed that one out with her chewed-up pen. The man could be Santa Claus or Jesus Christ or Patrick Swayze, but she could never have a normal conversation with someone named Neal.
Someone brushed against her, and she looked up. She’d wandered into some sort of new-student orientation fair. Tables were set up displaying banners of different clubs and departments. It seemed to be aimed at undergraduates because there were a fair number of parents escorting their wide-eyed teenage children.
Someone at a table beckoned her to come over and check out something called Bliss and Wisdom International.
She looked down at what she was wearing: jeans, sandals, and a pink T-shirt. Oh God, she looked like an undergrad. She veered away to avoid the girl at the table and looked again at the campus map that she’d stapled to her list.
Everton’s office was in the criminal justice building, which meant she taught in that department. Annie paused at the foot of a busy staircase and considered. Did she even want to bother? Would one of her prospective professors even let herrent a room? But Annie didn’t remember signing up for a class taught by anyone named Everton, and maybe she was nothing more than an adjunct professor. Tenure-track professors usually didn’t need to rent out rooms in their houses.
Beggars couldn’t be choosers, and time was ticking down. She had to at least scope this woman out or she might end up living with—she glanced at the list—Aaron L. Panofsky. She’d dated a boy named Aaron once. She crossed that name out too.
Everton might not even be in her office, Annie reminded herself. Classes didn’t officially start until next Monday. She’d already shaken a second voucher out of Paul, but she wasn’t going to get another one, and she was ready to get out of the motel. Plus, she couldn’t avoid calling her parents forever.
She stopped to consult her map and then, leaning against a low wall under the shade of a tree, peered down at the row of buildings. There weren’t many people going in and out of Everton’s building, though plenty of people were walking by. Since all her classes were going to be in this building, she decided to go in and do a little recon. She could walk around until she found the professor’s office.
The dry heat seeped into her like an oven, despite the shade of the tree. She was used to the swampy summers of the Midwest and DC, but the intensity of the California heat was something else entirely. The building beckoned her with the promise of centralized air conditioning.
The first couple of floors were classrooms, and she quickly found the ones where she’d be attending classes. When she climbed the stairs to the third floor, the atmosphere changed. The closed doors were identified with placards. She looked around until she found the room she was looking for at the end of the hall.
H. Everton-323
Compared to the size of the classrooms on the floors below, Everton’s office didn’t look bigger than a glorified closet, barely big enough to hold a desk, two chairs and maybe a filing cabinet, if she was lucky. The office door had no window, so she couldn’t see whether it was light or dark inside, but it sure didn’t sound like anyone was in there. She twisted the doorknob gently. It was locked.
It would be hard to stake this spot out inconspicuously, so she went back the way she’d come in. She had passed a room earlier that seemed to be the department office, and when she passed by again, a woman was sitting at the front desk.
Annie plastered a smile on her face. “Hi.”
The woman glanced up and smiled in return. She wore a shapeless sweater complemented by a frumpy haircut. “Do you need some help, hon?” she asked.
“I sure do,” Annie said in the gushy, saccharine voice she used for church and her mother’s crochet circle. “I’m starting classes here on Monday, and I was just wondering if the faculty start their office hours this week or next.” She leaned in conspiratorially. “I’m not from around here. I’m just trying to get my bearings.”
“Well,” said the woman, “not until next week officially, but most of them will pop in at some point this week.”
“That’s good to hear. I’m Annie, by the way.”
“I’m Deb Larson,” the woman replied. “I’m sure we’ll get to know each other very well over the next few years.”
