“Yes.”
“I’m his TA. Well, for his labs anyway. You’ll probably be in my section.”
Great. Now not only did Dr. Klaxon hate me, but I’d made a fool of myself in front of his teaching assistant. A teaching assistant who was going to be teaching my lab section.
“Oh, cool,” I said nonchalantly. “Well, I was just turning in this paper for him.” I glanced down at it. The paper didn’t look so hot. It was a little bit crumpled, and a few patches of dirt had collected on the top, near my title. I tried to brush them off, but it didn’t work. They just smudged.
“Oh, I didn’t know Dr. Klaxton had assigned a paper.” Carter smiled at me. He had a nice smile. It was very comforting. I wondered how he could stand to be around Dr. Klaxton all the time. And then I realized that I was desperate to sign myself up for the same fate -- if by some miracle I did end up with one of these research assistant jobs, I was going to have to be around Dr. Klaxton all the time, too.
“It was for the research assistant position,” I said.
“I thought that was already due.”
“Yeah, well.” I sighed. “I was late to class that day, and so I wasn’t able to turn it in.”
Carter smiled and rolled his eyes. “And let me guess, he wouldn’t take it?
Probably humiliated you in front of everyone?”
“Yes!” I said. “How’d you know?”
“Because he did the same thing to me my freshman year.”
“You were late too?”
“No.” He shook his head. “I hadn’t done the reading, and when Dr. Klaxton called on me, I didn’t have the answer. I’d been sick with pneumonia, was basically wheezing my way through class. Anyone could tell I was sick, but did Dr. Klaxton care?
Nope. He told me if I hadn’t done the reading, then I wasn’t welcome in his class. And he kicked me out in front of everyone.”
“Wow. How’d you get back on his good side?”
He scratched his chin and thought about it. Then he shrugged. “By not giving up.
Accepting that I needed to play by his rules, even if I thought they were unfair.”
I looked down at my paper, and then said, “Do you think Dr. Klaxton would think it was psycho that I brought him this paper?”
He hesitated. I could tell he did think it was kind of psycho, but that he didn’t want to disappoint me. He reached over and gently took the paper from me. “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “How about if I give this to Dr. Klaxton? I’ll tell him that I came in and found it, and that it showed promise and that he should read it.”
“You’d do that for me? But you haven’t even read it yet.”
He shrugged again. “So what? I’m sure it’s good. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t believe in it.”
“It is good.”
For some reason, Justin’s voice echoed through my brain at that moment. I could hear him saying that no guy was nice to you just to be nice, that they always had an ulterior motive. But that was crazy. Not every guy was walking around like a sex-crazed maniac. And besides, something about Carter was soothing. He’d been in my position before, and he’d survived. Maybe it was because he was out of undergrad, but he made it seem like the things I was going through weren’t a big deal, that they could be fixed. It was reassuring, and I liked it.
“You just, uh, might want to print out a fresh copy first,” he said tactfully.
“Oh! Yes, definitely. Um, I’ll just go down to the computer lab. I have a copy on my email.”
“You can do it here,” he said. “There’s a staff computer in the other room.”
“Are you sure? I don’t want to get you in trouble.”
“You won’t get me in trouble,” he said. “I’ll be back in Dr. K’s office. Just bring it to me when you’re done, okay?”
“Okay.” I headed through the door he pointed out to me, and sat down at the computer. I signed into my email and printed out a fresh copy of my paper. The printer in the corner whirred to life. I picked up the crisp papers and made sure they were all there and in the right order. And then I spent like five minutes checking and double-checking that I was signed out of my email account. The last thing I needed was Dr.
Klaxton or his staff having access to my personal emails.
I brought the paper back to Carter. “Here you go,” I said. He was in Dr.
Klaxton’s office, typing something on the computer.
“Cool,” he said, not looking up. “I’ll give it to Dr. K and put in a good word for you.”
I liked how he kept calling him Dr. K. It made it seem like Dr. Klaxton was someone you could joke around with, the kind of person who had funny nicknames.
“Thanks. I really appreciate it.”
I started to walk to the door, feeling better. I’d taken a risk and it had paid off.
“Lindsay?”
I turned around. “Yeah?”
Now he was looking at me. “I’ll see you in lab this week?”
“Yup. See you in lab.”
He smiled at me again and his eyes sparkled. “I’m looking forward to it.”
JUSTIN