scheduled for this afternoon. You should drop by. They probably won’t remember you after all these years though, huh?”
“Oh,” Brooke said with a rueful laugh, “I think Professor Rutkin might.”
B rooke bolstered her confidence with a five-minute pep talk in the ladies’ room mirror before finally mustering the courage to approach Professor Rutkin’s office door. The physics department was buried in the basement of Thurwell’s science building, and the total absence of natural light, combined with scuffed green floor tiles and academic posters detailing student research projects, gave the hallway an atmosphere of cold, clinical detachment.
Abandon hope, all ye who enter here
.
Departmental office hours notwithstanding, the area appeared deserted. Brooke could hear the hum of the fluorescent lights and the low drone of a vacuum running somewhere near the stairwell. She stepped back from theoffice door and reevaluated the wisdom of this plan. Why humiliate herself this way? She could call another contractor. Read a few books. Professor Rutkin probably wasn’t even here.
“How many blondes does it take to change a lightbulb?”
Brooke curled her soft, manicured fingers into a fist and rapped on the door.
For a moment, she heard nothing. She exhaled in relief. Now she could go home free of guilt, secure in the knowledge that she’d performed what Arden would call “due diligence.” Then a voice emanated from the other side of the door: “Come in.”
Brooke turned the knob and pushed, revealing the interior of a typical faculty office: dusty chalkboard scrawled with indecipherable equations, framed posters of a geodesic dome and Marie Curie, and a desktop cluttered with papers, textbooks, and a potted green plant, which—given the absence of sunlight—had to be fake.
A regal, willowy woman with short blond hair and impeccable posture sat behind the desk, red pen in hand. She wore a navy cashmere turtleneck, a single gold bangle, and an air of implicit authority. When she glanced up from her grading, Brooke started stammering.
“Hi, I’m so sorry to interrupt. I saw that you were having office hours this afternoon, and even though I’m not a student—well, I was, once upon a time, but now I work here, in the alumni affairs office.”
Dr. Cassandra Rutkin put down her pen and peered at Brooke over the top of her reading glasses. “How may I help you?”
“I enrolled in your Intro to Physics course about twelveyears ago.” Brooke’s entire face felt as though it was about to burst into flames.
“Brooke Asplind. Ah yes, I remember you.”
Brooke closed her eyes for a second and prayed for a quick, merciful death. “You do?”
“More to the point, I remember your midterm exam. A teacher encounters that sort of thing only once in a career.”
Brooke had known from the very beginning that Introductory Physics was going to be trouble. Symbolic logic and abstract spatial relationships had never been her forte, but Thurwell College required students to take a certain number of “distribution courses” to ensure their education included all aspects of the liberal arts, and that included the physical sciences. So Brooke had signed up for physics, hoping that she could squeak through and maintain her place on the dean’s list with a little luck, a lot of hard work, and her God-given gift for using a smoke screen of fancy words to obscure the fact that she wasn’t saying anything of substance.
Then came the midterm. Dr. Rutkin’s teaching assistant had held a pre-exam review session, during which he let slip that the essay portion of the exam would require a thorough explanation of the laws of thermodynamics. Brooke devoted the forty-eight hours before the test to memorizing everything she could about the history and application of each law, along with the corresponding equations.
The moment she had the midterm in hand, Brooke had flipped to the final page, ready to disgorge all her knowledge
“Oh,” Brooke said with a rueful laugh, “I think Professor Rutkin might.”
B rooke bolstered her confidence with a five-minute pep talk in the ladies’ room mirror before finally mustering the courage to approach Professor Rutkin’s office door. The physics department was buried in the basement of Thurwell’s science building, and the total absence of natural light, combined with scuffed green floor tiles and academic posters detailing student research projects, gave the hallway an atmosphere of cold, clinical detachment.
Abandon hope, all ye who enter here
.
Departmental office hours notwithstanding, the area appeared deserted. Brooke could hear the hum of the fluorescent lights and the low drone of a vacuum running somewhere near the stairwell. She stepped back from theoffice door and reevaluated the wisdom of this plan. Why humiliate herself this way? She could call another contractor. Read a few books. Professor Rutkin probably wasn’t even here.
“How many blondes does it take to change a lightbulb?”
Brooke curled her soft, manicured fingers into a fist and rapped on the door.
For a moment, she heard nothing. She exhaled in relief. Now she could go home free of guilt, secure in the knowledge that she’d performed what Arden would call “due diligence.” Then a voice emanated from the other side of the door: “Come in.”
Brooke turned the knob and pushed, revealing the interior of a typical faculty office: dusty chalkboard scrawled with indecipherable equations, framed posters of a geodesic dome and Marie Curie, and a desktop cluttered with papers, textbooks, and a potted green plant, which—given the absence of sunlight—had to be fake.
A regal, willowy woman with short blond hair and impeccable posture sat behind the desk, red pen in hand. She wore a navy cashmere turtleneck, a single gold bangle, and an air of implicit authority. When she glanced up from her grading, Brooke started stammering.
“Hi, I’m so sorry to interrupt. I saw that you were having office hours this afternoon, and even though I’m not a student—well, I was, once upon a time, but now I work here, in the alumni affairs office.”
Dr. Cassandra Rutkin put down her pen and peered at Brooke over the top of her reading glasses. “How may I help you?”
“I enrolled in your Intro to Physics course about twelveyears ago.” Brooke’s entire face felt as though it was about to burst into flames.
“Brooke Asplind. Ah yes, I remember you.”
Brooke closed her eyes for a second and prayed for a quick, merciful death. “You do?”
“More to the point, I remember your midterm exam. A teacher encounters that sort of thing only once in a career.”
Brooke had known from the very beginning that Introductory Physics was going to be trouble. Symbolic logic and abstract spatial relationships had never been her forte, but Thurwell College required students to take a certain number of “distribution courses” to ensure their education included all aspects of the liberal arts, and that included the physical sciences. So Brooke had signed up for physics, hoping that she could squeak through and maintain her place on the dean’s list with a little luck, a lot of hard work, and her God-given gift for using a smoke screen of fancy words to obscure the fact that she wasn’t saying anything of substance.
Then came the midterm. Dr. Rutkin’s teaching assistant had held a pre-exam review session, during which he let slip that the essay portion of the exam would require a thorough explanation of the laws of thermodynamics. Brooke devoted the forty-eight hours before the test to memorizing everything she could about the history and application of each law, along with the corresponding equations.
The moment she had the midterm in hand, Brooke had flipped to the final page, ready to disgorge all her knowledge
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