"Can I help you?" I asked.
She looked at me with red and tear-filled eyes. Even so I found myself wondering again if I had never seen as beautiful a woman in my life.
"I hope to God you can," she said between sniffles. "I only took the class because I thought it would be fun, now it's gonna drag down my GPA to the point that I loose my scholarship." At the word 'scholarship' her voice cracked and the tears began to flow.
"Whoa now," I said. Take it easy. I got up from behind my desk and came around to the front where she stood. I pulled a chair up for her and I sat on the desk. I have always felt more comfortable with my students when the desk wasn't between us. I struggled briefly for her name, than remembered it. "Megan, your not doing that badly - and a strong midterm could really turn things around for you."
She looked at me as if I had just said something insane. "I really don't that's going to happen. I'm just not getting this. It's so much harder than I thought it would be." She took a tissue out of her small hand bag and wiped the tears from her cheeks. "And without that scholarship... I'm... I'm... through here."
"It's not going to come to that," I assured her, lying a hand on her shoulder. Touching a student is always an iffy thing. But it's has always been my style especially with the student in or near tears, and anyway you can always tell when the gesture isn't appreciated. More times than not I find it's welcomed. As I discovered now.
"Thank you." She said, looking at my hand. "But what am I going to do?" She asked looking at me with such hopelessness that I almost felt like welling up myself.
I checked my watch. 8:55 AM. "Megan I know just were you are coming from, because believe it or not - I was just like you. I never got this stuff the first time I heard it myself. And it's hard when you're in a class of twenty-five and you don't want to sound like the only one who's not getting it? Am I right?"
She nodded wordlessly. Thunder rumbled outside.
"So all you need is a little bit of help. Do you have a study partner that can bring you up to speed?"
"I tried that, all it did was make it worse. Confused me all the more."
I inwardly sighed knowing the novel that I had been trying work on over my lunch breaks - over the past four years - would have to wait for me again. "Megan, helping you is very important to me. I have a meeting at 9:00 AM that I can't miss, but I have an hour free at lunch. Can you meet me back here at noon, and I'll go over it all with you again?"
She shook her head, slowly and with great regret. "No, I work at the student cafeteria from 11 till 1, and if I miss one more day there I'll loose that too." Then she seemed to be considering something. She bit her lower lip. Adorable. I already had the feeling that what ever she wanted, I was probably going to wind up being more than accommodating. "But once ever thing is set up, after about noon," she said, "all I do is sit around. If we could meet there, instead - it would be perfect."
I weighed it in my mind. The student cafeteria - 'blah' - but she was still gnawing at her lower lip and I was smitten. "Perfect!" I said lying. "We can trash it out over lunch." Then letting my sense of humor get the best of me I added; "Do they still have that world famous meatloaf?"
Megan threw her arms around me before I even saw it coming. "Oh, thank you - thank you so very much." I felt her breasts pressing against my chest and I briefly caught the whiff-of-heaven scent of her hair. I felt a heated flush rushing to my face.
"Why think nothing of it," I said. "Rescuing damsels in distress is my sideline." I don't know why, but the dumbest things always come out of my mouth when I am flustered.
"I'll see you at noon then." She said rushing out of the class room. I didn't have time to even raise my hand in return.
I put my materials away in my bag and pulled out my umbrella. The East Coast was being lashed by the remnants of the latest hurricane to thrash its way up the country. We had been spared the brunt of the storm, but there were still three inches of standing water in the streets. Fortunately the 9:00 was in the building just next door. Even so I was nearly drowned in the storm. I couldn't remember ever seeing a rain as hard. As far as protection went, my little umbrella turned out to be woefully inadequate.
I was late, as is my trademark, but I made it to the cafeteria by twelve-ten. The smell that assailed me was exactly the same one stored magically and somehow electronically into the memory cells of my mind, for the past twenty years. It had not changed at all. Not since I was a student on campus at this college. Revolting.
Upon seeing me the relieve on Megan's face was plain. "I thought you had forgotten about me." She said.
The smile that spread across my face was both immediate and sincere. "Hardly." I said.
Over lunch (I passed on the meatloaf) I slowly and thoroughly went over the concepts that had been escaping Meagan over the first half semester. She was by no means stupid, quite far from it. Her grasp of things once defined to her, was as fine as any I had ever seen. She reminded me a lot of when I was a student. A lot. It neared one O'clock and I was just about to make my final point and wrap it all up for her in one dramatic flare of inspired teaching, when the roof fell in.
By that I don't mean that my teaching failed to make impact, but quite literally the roof fell in. It seems that the three inches of water lying in the streets was also lying atop the flat roof of the cafeteria. The current thunder burst was more than the old roof could take. A huge section of the ceiling fell in just over the kitchen area. A ton of water hit the blackened grill in a flash of steam and sudden noise. A scream went up from several of the female students, some of the guys shouted in surprise. Fortunately no one was hurt, but my inspired instruction came to an unexpected end. Or so I believed.
