Sylvie stifled a groan. “You’re here studying in France, my dear. A prerequisite is a working knowledge of French.”
“Well, yeah, but it’s so much harder here. There are just so many more words. Back home, I understand French.”
Sylvie turned on her heel, intrigued. “Who taught you French?”
“Mr. Clarkson.”
“Et voilà, ma chérie. You’ve learned French from a non-native, what do you expect?” Sylvie held a stack of textbooks to her chest. “No one is going to slow down for you just because you’re American.” She entered her office, assuming the young student would take the hint and rejoin her friends, but her footsteps followed her all the way to the desk.
“Ma’am, I really need to complete that assignment for next week, and I can’t get it done without my library access.”
Sylvie found a space on her cluttered desk for the heavy pile of books and collapsed into her chair. She was lurching from one problem to another, troubleshooting for everyone else except herself. This particular drama was Ade’s to solve, but she’d been off campus since their boat trip on Monday. “Why isn’t Ade helping you with this?”
“I tried to message her, but Scott said she has a lab shift today,and she’ll have her phone on silent, so she doesn’t disturb the animals.”
Sylvie nodded. Always putting the animals first.
“Could you like, put a call in to someone, or write me a pass?” Madison flicked her long blond hair away from her shoulder, as if she had better things to do than hang out in Sylvie’s office begging for access to the library.
“Trust me, Madison, I have more pressing items on my list today.” She bit her cheek. But the quickest way to get rid of this particular nuisance was simply to deal with it, so she fired off an email to the head of libraries and printed Madison a copy. “Take this to the front desk. Tell them I have given you special dispensation. But no repeat offences. Do you understand?”
“Absolutely. Thank you, I really am so grateful.” Madison stuffed the paper in her bag and ran for the door.
“And hit that deadline.”
“Will do.”
Sylvie took a long breath. She had a mountain of work to do before the day was out. There was a disturbance outside her classroom, and Madison called out another apology.
“Knock, knock. May I come in?” Paul came in without waiting for an invitation. “I didn’t realize you had student hours today?”
“I don’t. That’s one of the internationals with another rescue mission.”
Paul frowned. How could he understand? He was so far away from the day-to-day running of the faculty, he had no idea about the reality of juggling a teaching post with the demands of academia. He also hardly ever came looking for her. If she wanted to talk about something, usually the prospect of her unlikely promotion, she had to hunt him down. “What’s going on, stranger?”
“Well, I’m glad you brought it up.” Paul nodded.
“I didn’t,” she said.
He chuckled at the joke she hadn’t made. “Come on, Sylvie. You’ve been a little aloof with me since the start of the year.” Hepulled a chair to her desk and sat. “I had a call from your editor on Monday. She’s been trying to get hold of you.”
Sylvie stiffened in her seat, her mind racing with the reasons she’d been avoiding this conversation with both Paul and her editor. “Yeah, Monday took an unexpected turn.”
“Of what kind?”
She didn’t want to drop Ade in it. But Paul’s stern look wasn’t going to soften anytime soon without a decent reason. “If you must know, I was called to supervise the California group with a marine expedition.”
Paul laced his fingers together, resting his elbows on the desk. “Let me just get this straight. My up-and-coming professor of European Feminism missed a career-defining deadline to go on a sea safari?”
Sylvie laughed, despite the growing tension between them. “Number one, it was all work and no play, I promise. Second, I had to attend otherwise they’d have been short for their ratios, and it would’ve been called off. And third, Paul, you insisted I supervise this group, so it’s down to you if I have to juggle this role and the book.” She sat back, bubbling with her defense. “Another thing: that deadline wasn’t ‘career-defining.’ I don’t get the sense that anything I could do would propel me anywhere other than sideways at the moment. I’m like a pinball in a rigged machine.”
Paul regarded her, his bushy eyebrows coming together in a wistful judgment. “You’re wrong. You’re on the rise, Professor Boucher. But only if you keep going, and you’re the only driver in your car.”
“Your complicated analogies aren’t helpful.” She folded her arms. She needed more support than this from her own manager. “What do you want me to do? I have a full timetable, a bunch of teenagers with a calamitous pastoral supervisor, and a book to edit. Something’s got to give.”
“We all have to make dynamic choices. Particularly in leadership roles.”
“You think the stuffy old guard are making dynamic choices? They’re topping up their gold-plated pensions while rereading dusty philosophy and sipping cognac.” She rose from her chair, energy pulsing through her calves. “I’m doing more than my fair share in this department. I’m probably doing more hours than they’re all doing put together. It’s a shame they don’t clock in and out, otherwise you’d see for yourself.”
