The meeting with university counsel took place in a conference room Josh had never had reason to enter before, third floor of the administration building, the kind of room with a table too large for the four people seated around it and art on the walls chosen for neutrality rather than character.
Eleanor sat to his left. Across the table, a woman named Patricia Reyes, introduced as senior counsel for academic affairs, had a folder open in front of her that Josh recognized, with a small jolt, as his own restructuring proposal — printed, annotated, someone's handwriting visible in the margins in a hand he didn't recognize.
"I'll start by saying this is a well-constructed proposal," Patricia said, without preamble, the specific efficiency of someone who dealt in scarce time and didn't waste
