A short meeting about my lab grade with the TA had devolved from general concern about doing well to total panic about graduation. It wasn't her fault. I'd put off the lab requirement years longer than I should have. I had just realized my first chance at the lab was also going to be my last—unless I wanted to graduate yet another semester late.
"Cole, don't worry about your grade," the lab TA said in her lilting mezzo voice. "You don't get points for extra tension. Act on what's in front of you." Her accent, though hard to place, was posh, polished and authoritative. She seemed confident in me. Or maybe she didn't give a fuck. My graduation was definitely not her problem, and I knew it.
Her long black hair was pulled up into a loose knot, but a single lock had strayed across her temple. Her cramped desk was scattered with smudged data sheets and reams of journal articles with scattered highlighting. She looked tired.
She continued. "What you should do is, go home and make a plan. Do all the basic stuff: Flash cards. Review old quizzes. You might even glance at the textbook." Her black eyes glittered as she teased me. "Whatever you're going to do, do it now, while you're motivated. Don't put it off all weekend."
"I will," I promised. "I definitely will."
Gathering my things, I made an awkward exit and walked straight off campus. I was oblivious, turning left and right by muscle memory, ruminating on bullshit. My bus stop was crowded with university workers and other students, but I stood by myself. People tend to give me a wide berth. Standing there next to the trash can, I was tempted as hell to take off my backpack and throw the whole damn thing in the trash—lab manual, notebooks and all.
I could just walk away from everything. Quit school, again. Be that much worse than my sister, again. I'd spent the past few years fighting for every hundredth of a point in my GPA, and now my own idiot inability to get a decent grade in the required fucking lab course was going to burn my GPA to the ground.
I already had a plan, and the plan was simple: it was that I definitely would not do it now. The TA was right. Too much tension. Somewhere, in the back of my head, I knew I was catastrophizing.
I'd built up this course in my head for too long. I dragged my feet to the last day of registration, which was how I got stuck with an 8 AM section led by an Indian graduate student with a daunting last name.
All that turned out to be a blessing in disguise. At 8 AM, the lab was clean and organized. If I grabbed a half-hour in the gym and some coffee, I was fine. The TA was open and friendly; she had all the student call her by her first name, Esha. She was not only incredibly smart, but she had a clear way of demonstrating the material—Esha was easily the best TA in the course, if not the department.
I stopped and drank from my water bottle, and followed that by closing my eyes and taking a few slow breaths. The bus stop stank like cigarette smoke, fast food and garbage.
I wanted a drink. I wanted to get drunk in a bar alone, stagger home and cut class tomorrow. Take a day to calm down, think, run some numbers on my grade, and maybe even read the fucking textbook.
There was this fake Irish place not far away that skewed a bit older. I'd been in there on game days once or twice, but none of my friends went there regularly. The bartender scanned my ID carefully and handed it back with a bottle of beer and a shot; I paid cash, tipped well and went as far back as I could go, away from the TVs, where I could read English, August in peace until the lines blurred together.
I found a long wooden table, hidden behind a disused pool table, and settled down in a chair. The afternoon sunlight shone off distant traffic, through the dark, drawn blinds, and left me a world away. The shot was gone immediately, and before I knew it the beer was gone too.
A posh, mezzo voice broke into my reverie. "So, mister," she said. I looked up to see Esha standing there in a bright blue blouse and jeans, holding a glass of cola. She was only a head taller than me when I was sitting down. "I assume you're waiting for your study group to get here?"
"I was just—I mean, I—"
Esha dismissed my embarrassment with a wave of her hand; a half a dozen thin silvery bangles sang like bells on her wrist. "No need to explain. I'll leave you to your book. I just thought I'd tease you a little."
"Wait—maybe we could talk a little more about lab?"
She wrinkled her nose slightly at the suggestion and glanced at my empty drinks. "I don't think that would be appropriate. Come see me in office hours. Next week."
"I definitely will," I said, repeating myself weakly.
Esha didn't disagree. She just smiled politely, and walked to another table.
* * *
Tripping over myself in the bar was the push I needed to make me prove what I was capable of. I was far enough along in my degree that all my other classes were fairly routine, so my real attention was focused totally on the lab midterm.
Every minute of my time was consumed by this one credit hour. I even missed Esha's last office hour before the test because I was studying too hard—I jogged up to her office a half-hour late. By then, there were three zit-faced sophomores lined up outside the door, mumbling over their crumpled notes.
Esha glanced up briefly and acknowledged me, but didn't miss a word with the student in her office, explaining something I'd already been over a hundred times on my own.
There was no chance she'd be get to me by the end of the hour. I ambled back to the library, and stayed until my stomach growled so loudly I got a surprised look from the girl at the next table.
The midterm came back with nothing on it but "100" in teal ink on the front page. My adrenaline spiked; I felt like I could leap over every building on campus. A perfect grade was enough to bump my grade up to an A-minus, and that meant I was still in range of graduating with honors.
Heading home on the bus, I kept glancing at the returned test, and those three looping little sky blue numbers. Why didn't it say, A+ or Nice job? Why not, I knew you could do it, Best in the class or Impressive?
Impressive. That was it. I was trying to impress Esha. Good grades alone were not enough.
My gut was somersaulting, as if I was running toward the end zone with the wind at my back and no one to stop me and the crowd roaring in my ears. I wanted Esha to—cheer. To clap hands and shout, to lose control and jump up, to moan with excitement and shout, scream and stop to catch her breath.
I wanted her.
* * *
How long had this been going on? The physical attraction was certainly instant. Almost literally my feet dragged to the first week of lab; it was the dead of winter, but even slogging through the ice and dirty slush it shouldn't have taken an hour to get to class.
Every bench was filled except one right up front with a mousy ginger girl who smelled like oranges. My main goal in life was to avoid looking like a dumb, and there I was in baggy cargo shorts and a big puffy parka, lumbering in ten minutes late.
For a moment, I fantasized about turning right around and going straight back to my girlfriend's apartment, climbing into her toasty warm bed and having sex with her until we both fell asleep.
And then I heard a polished feminine voice call my name from the roster. And then I saw her, Esha, for the first time.
She had shoulder-length black hair, pulled back into a short ponytail, and her eyes were just as dark, and rimmed with a thin line of black eyeliner. Large silver hoop earrings dangled at the bottom of a row of three or four glittering studs on each of her ears.
She wore a hip-length collarless turquoise shirt that only had buttons partway down. The sleeves had been pushed to ride up her forearms, and she had thin silver bangles on her slender wrists. The shirt was open several buttons where a silver pendant hung across her mocha skin, and it fit her tightly down to her waist, lifting and outlining her modest but prominent bust. I couldn't help but imagining her flat belly.
Because I came in late, Esha introduced herself to me, directly to me, and when we shook hands, I think she noticed how I lingered a little touching her soft hands. She gave me a syllabus and resumed speaking to the class. She was quite short, shorter than my girlfriend, even though she was wearing boots with a little bit of heel, and her round bottom and shapely thighs curved along perfectly in her form-fitting blue jeans.
