Off Limits, Professor

Chapter Five: Maya Has Theories

Maya Torres had exactly one volume setting, loud, and she used it liberally at seven in the morning while making instant coffee in their shared kitchen.

“You’ve been weird for like two weeks,” she announced, not looking up from the kettle. “I’m not imagining it. Weird-happy, not weird-sad. Which is somehow worse, because at least when you’re sad I know what snacks to buy.”

Elena, cross-legged on the counter with her laptop balanced on her knees, didn’t look up either. “I’m not weird. I’m tired. There’s a difference.”

“There is a difference, and you are exhibiting exactly zero symptoms of tired. Tired people don’t hum. You’ve been humming. I heard you humming in the shower yesterday, which, first of all, gross, thin walls, and second of all, you don’t hum. You’ve never once hummed in the two years we’ve lived together.”

“I don’t hum.”

“You hummed something that sounded suspiciously like a Fleetwood Mac song, and I would like an explanation.”

Elena finally looked up, mostly to glare, which only made Maya grin wider, the particular grin of a roommate who had already correctly diagnosed the situation and was simply waiting for a confession.

“It’s nothing,” Elena said.

“It’s very much a something. Somethings don’t make people hum Fleetwood Mac at seven a.m. Nothings make people stare blankly at cereal boxes, which, incidentally, is also something you’ve been doing.” Maya poured the water, added way too much sugar to her mug, the way she always did, and leaned against the counter with the specific patience of someone who had all morning and no intention of dropping this. “Is it a boy?”

“No.”

“That was a fast no. Suspiciously fast.”

“It’s not a boy.” This was, Elena reasoned, technically true. He wasn’t a boy. He was a twenty-eight-year-old literature professor with a jaw that should be illegal and a habit of asking questions that took the top of her head off, but he was very much not a boy.

“Okay, so it’s a man, then. We’ve upgraded from boy to man. Interesting. This is progress, Elena. I’m proud of you.”

“I didn’t say that either.”

“You didn’t have to, sweetie, your face did it for you.” Maya took a triumphant sip of her too-sweet coffee. “Fine. Keep your secrets. I’ll figure it out eventually, I always do. Remember when you tried to hide that you failed your driving test twice?”

“That was different.”

“Was it? Because you also went bright red and changed the subject both times, which is exactly what you’re doing right now. It’s like a tell. You should never play poker.”

“I’m not playing poker, I’m trying to eat breakfast in peace.”

“You’re not eating breakfast, you’re staring at a laptop that’s been on the same screen for ten minutes. I timed it.” Maya held up her phone as evidence, and Elena had the distinct, familiar feeling of losing an argument she hadn’t agreed to have.

“I have to go,” Elena said, closing the laptop with more force than necessary, mostly so she’d have somewhere else to look that wasn’t Maya’s entirely-too-perceptive face. “I have office hours.”

“With who?”

“A professor.”

“Wow, incredible detail, truly journalistic. Front page material.” Maya set her mug down and crossed her arms, the universal roommate posture for I am not letting this go. “Which professor?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“It matters enough that you’re being cagey about it, which, again, tells me everything.” Maya’s eyes went wide with sudden, delighted realization, the kind of look she got right before she said something that made Elena want to sink into the floor. “Oh my god. Is it the hot one? The one Priya won’t shut up about? Professor Cole?”

Elena’s stomach dropped somewhere around her shoes. “Everyone thinks he’s hot, that doesn’t mean anything.”

“I didn’t say you thought he was hot. I said Priya thinks he’s hot. You’re the one who just confirmed it.”

“I didn’t confirm anything.”

“Babe. You’re holding your laptop like a shield right now. I’ve seen you hold textbooks less defensively during finals week, and that was the semester you thought you were going to fail statistics.”

Elena set the laptop down, deliberately, refusing to give Maya the satisfaction of watching her fidget with it any further. “It’s a professional relationship. He gives good feedback on my writing. That’s it. That’s the whole story.”

“Uh huh.” Maya did not look remotely convinced, which was fair, because Elena wasn’t remotely convincing herself either, not even a little. “You know what’s funny? I saw him last week. In the faculty parking lot, after my evening class.”

Elena’s whole body went very still, a stillness she hoped read as disinterest and probably didn’t. “So?”

“So, nothing, except he was getting out of this car that I’m pretty sure cost more than our entire building, our whole lease, maybe our entire block, and there was a guy in a suit standing there like he was actually waiting for him, holding the door open and everything, very chauffeur energy. I thought it was weird for a professor, but I figured maybe it was somebody else’s car, or he was getting a ride from a rich friend or something, or maybe he just really likes nice cars and has terrible financial priorities.” Maya shrugged, entirely unbothered, already moving on to pouring cereal into a bowl that had definitely not been washed properly. “Anyway. Random detail. Doesn’t matter.”

It mattered. Elena filed it away somewhere she’d examine later, alone, without Maya’s radar picking up on the fact that it mattered, the way you tucked something dangerous into a drawer and told yourself you’d deal with it eventually.

“Weird,” Elena said, aiming for casual and probably missing by a mile, judging by the way Maya’s eyes narrowed slightly.

“Very weird. Anyway.” Maya pointed her spoon accusingly across the kitchen. “This conversation is not over. I want a full report. Names, dates, whether he’s a good hugger, everything. I have a right to know these things, I’m your emergency contact.”

“There’s nothing to report because there’s nothing happening.”

“Sure, Jan.”

“My name isn’t Jan, and I’m serious, Maya. Nothing is happening.”

“So was I, when I said you hummed Fleetwood Mac in the shower, and look how that turned out.” Maya grabbed her bowl and headed toward the couch, clearly satisfied she’d extracted as much as she was going to for one morning, though the look on her face said this particular investigation was far from closed, more paused than abandoned. “I have an eight a.m., so I have to go pretend to care about macroeconomics for an hour. But we’re finishing this conversation tonight. I’m buying wine.”

“You’re twenty-one, you shouldn’t be buying wine.”

“I’m twenty-one and resourceful, there’s a difference, and also my cousin works at the store on Fifth.” Maya paused at the door, backpack half on one shoulder, and looked back with an expression that had gone, just for a second, genuinely warm instead of teasing. “For real though. I’m glad you’re humming again. Even if you won’t tell me why. You’ve had kind of a rough couple years, and it’s nice seeing you like this. Whatever this is.”

The door shut behind her before Elena could figure out how to respond to that, which was probably for the best, because she didn’t have an answer that wouldn’t have given everything away, and some part of her wasn’t ready to examine why Maya’s small, sincere comment had hit harder than all the teasing combined.

She sat alone in the kitchen for another minute, staring at the space where Maya had been standing, cereal going soft and forgotten in its bowl, and let herself think, properly think, about the car in the parking lot. A professor’s salary didn’t usually stretch to a car that made Maya, who noticed nothing about vehicles beyond whether they had cup holders and decent gas mileage, actually comment on it unprompted. And a driver. Professors didn’t have drivers. TAs didn’t have drivers. Nobody she knew had drivers, except in movies, or in the kind of families that made the news for reasons that had nothing to do with academics.

She told herself it was nothing. A rental, maybe, or a family thing, a friend with money, one of those situations where appearances lied more often than they told the truth. She had exactly zero evidence of anything beyond a mildly nice car and an overactive imagination that had already spent altogether too much time this week thinking about Professor Adrian Cole in general, so it wasn’t exactly a surprise that her brain had latched onto one more detail to turn over.

Still. She filed it away, the way you filed away a loose thread on a sweater, the kind you told yourself you’d deal with later, knowing perfectly well you’d end up pulling on it eventually, and knowing perfectly well it might unravel something you weren’t ready to see unravel.

By the time she got to campus, the morning had turned properly cold, the kind of late-autumn chill that made everyone walk faster than they needed to. She stopped by the little coffee cart outside the library, mostly out of habit, and found herself standing in line behind Brianna Cho, who she recognized instantly by the sheer volume of her voice on the phone.

“No, I already emailed him twice,” Brianna was saying, clearly irritated, to whoever was on the other end. “I don’t understand why he hasn’t gotten back to me about the thesis committee. I was supposed to be his first pick.” She caught sight of Elena in line behind her and lowered her voice slightly, though not enough to actually be discreet. “I’ll call you back.”

“Morning,” Elena offered, mostly out of politeness.

“Hi.” Brianna’s smile didn’t reach her eyes, the kind of smile people gave when they’d already decided you were a problem before you’d done anything. “You’re in Cole’s seminar, right? Advanced Lit?”

“Yeah.”

“He mentioned your paper in office hours. To me. Like an example.” Brianna said it lightly, but there was an edge under it, sharp enough that Elena felt it land somewhere uncomfortable. “Must be nice. I’ve been trying to get him to look at my thesis proposal for three weeks.”

“I’m sure he will,” Elena said, unsure what else to say, unsure why she suddenly felt like she’d stumbled into a conversation with rules she hadn’t been told.

“Sure.” Brianna’s smile flattened out even further, and she stepped up to order her coffee without saying anything else, though the look she threw over her shoulder on her way out stayed with Elena longer than she wanted it to.