Office Hours

by Katrina Jackson

  He rushed to the student union with the goofiest grin on his face. As soon as he stepped into Go Brews! to grab an espresso before the meeting, he saw Deja. She was last in line, her cell phone in her hands, fingers flying across the screen, looking stressed. Deja always looked stressed. Now that he was around her more, he realized that she tended to fill every down moment with work. She woke up early some mornings to grade even if she hadn’t gotten enough sleep the night before or she never went to sleep at all, she worked through weekends until they had plans together, and she responded to student emails while waiting in line for coffee and all he wanted to tell her is that she could just…not. She could let an email sit in her inbox for an hour, or two, or twenty-four if it wasn’t urgent. He wanted to tell her that it was okay to prioritize her mental health and give herself some slack, but she was pre-tenure and sensitive about any feedback on her job performance or ability to cope with the demands of the job, even though she knew the demands were sometimes outrageous. And Alejandro had been struggling to find the right balance between concern and overbearing or to figure out the best way to support her the way he wanted.

  He rushed into line behind her. He wanted to wrap his arms and kiss her, but she’d hate that, and he’d promised to keep his hands to himself after last month. They’d agreed to be discreet while on campus, yet another reason why it had been difficult to spend time together.

  He looked around to make sure that he didn’t see anyone that he readily recognized before clasping his hands behind his back and leaning over her shoulder.

  “Te extrañé,” he whispered into her ear and felt her shiver.

  She turned to him with wide eyes, and it made his blood rush. It had only been a month, and that wasn’t enough time for the excitement at finally being able to flirt with her the way he wanted to fade, even if he still couldn’t touch her in public.

  “I don’t know what that means,” she whispered.

  “It means I missed you.”

  She bit her bottom lip to try and hide her smile. It didn’t work. “Someone might see us,” she mumbled.

  He stood up straight and shrugged innocently. “We’re just talking.”

  She bit down on her lip and he had to look away or else they would just be talking. “Line’s moving,” he coughed.

  It took Deja a second to register his words, and when she did, she ducked her head and stepped forward. Alejandro snaked his arm around her side and squeezed her waist quickly. He hoped he’d moved fast enough that no one had seen, but if they had...touching Deja would always be worth it.

  “Let me buy you coffee,” he said as the line inched forward.

  She shook her head.

  He rolled his eyes. “Colleagues buy each other coffees and lunches all the time. No one will think twice about it.”

  “But…”

  He raised his eyebrows at her, and she smiled shyly.

  She chewed her bottom lip for a few more seconds. “Fine.”

  “Doc,” someone said. “Excuse me, doc.”

  Alejandro and Deja turned to see Jerome Miles standing next to them in line.

  “Oh, hey, Dr. Mendoza, what’s up?”

  “You two know each other?” Deja asked.

  “Yeah, I’ve been to a couple LSU discussion forums as the BSU rep,” Jerome said.

  “Jerome always has great contributions,” Alejandro said and watched as the student smiled and ducked his head. “How do you two know each other?”

  Jerome’s entire face lit up. “Doc’s my advisor. She’s the best.”

  Alejandro looked down at Deja. “Yeah, she is,” he said, unable to keep the wistful notes from his voice.

  “Next,” the cashier called.

  “That’s us,” Deja said, clearly desperate to change the subject, as she always was when there was too much attention on her.

  “I got you,” he said. “You and Jerome go ahead and talk.”

  “Alright, bet,” Jerome said.

  Deja frowned at Jerome. “Boy, what now?”

  Alejandro shook his head and laughed as he walked away to order, but he turned back to see Deja, her entire demeanor changed.

  She’d crossed her arms in front of her chest and was looking up at Jerome with skeptical eyes. Her demeanor was stern but playful as she gave her student her full attention. Alejandro wished Deja could see herself the way he and her students did.

  ***

  Deja wasn’t nervous so much as freaking the absolute fuck out as she and Alejandro walked across campus to Founders Hall. Together. If it weren’t for Jerome talking her ear off and giving her something to focus on, her legs might have just stopped moving. They’d been…doing something for a few weeks, and she was too nervous to name it even in her own brain, but she knew that just being near him made her heart race. Under normal circumstances — i.e., not on the campus of the university where they worked or in the college town where they lived alongside their colleagues and students — kind of dating a man who made her heart race would be a great thing, but it wasn’t. Every time she saw him, she had to bury the urge to touch him the way she wanted or even look at him for too long just in case someone else might see desire written all over his face. Or maybe it was that Deja’s fatalistic personality wouldn’t let dating Alejandro be a great thing because she couldn’t let herself be happy, as Toni had suggested. Either way, Deja felt like every eye on the University Oval was on her as they walked to Founders and it was nerve wracking.

  Thank god for Jerome.

  “So, what if I did a double major in Sociology and Statistics and a minor in Communications?” he asked her after a very long preamble that she hadn’t heard this time but assumed was the same as the other major-minor configurations he’d presented to her for comment. Lots of sophomores struggled with their academic path and Deja’s job was to help gently guide them toward a decision and then to the Administrative building to submit the paperwork. Usually, she wanted to tear her hair out when confronted with students who hadn’t given their majors or minors much thought and just expected her to tell them what to do with the rest of their college careers and sometimes their lives. That wasn’t her job and she didn’t want that kind of responsibility ever.

  Jerome also made Deja want to snatch herself bald but because he was giving his majors and minors too much thought. She hadn’t even known that was possible, but it seemed he was in her office every other week with the idea of picking up another major or two minors or a certificate program and on and on and on, and asking Deja to run through the next two years of class schedules and helping him research post-graduate career paths. It was frustrating and inspiring. Deja knew Jerome wanted to make the most of his time in college. He didn’t want to miss a thing, and she wanted to make sure he didn’t, but she also wanted him to settle on a major second major or minor or whatever so he could finish his prerequisites and not add another semester or year to his time there. She also wanted him to leave her alone about this, but she couldn’t say that.

  “Stats will add another year of math,” she reminded him. “You can take some of them over the summer at a community college, so this might affect your ability to work when you go home. Also, you need to rest as much as you can between semesters. I keep telling you this.”

  “I know, Doc, but I gotta save money for books and stuff,” he said, his face scrunching in concentration as he tried to figure out how to process this new information.

  They walked in silence for a bit. Deja understood where Jerome's position well. Like him, she’d been a first-generation college student. She’d worked a part-time job during the semester and a few part-time jobs in the summer to save money. She’d spent all her free time in the library reading her assigned work and more because she was terrified that one day in class her professors would make a reference to something – a book, an author, a concept – that she didn’t know but all of her classmates would and she’d be crushed by the weight of her inadequacy. She understood Jerome’s impulse to take every class, d
o everything, read everything, see everything, but she also knew what would happen if he spent the next three, five, or ten years with that kind of frenetic desire.

  He’d turn into her.

  And even though he thought she was amazing, she felt anything but. She missed the kind of passion for her work Jerome was still cultivating. She missed feeling like she was learning things that would help the people she cared about and the communities she lived in. She missed when she didn’t need a pot of coffee to feel as if her brain was firing on almost all cylinders. She missed not having to pay extra to thin her glasses lenses. She missed not feeling tired all the time. She missed feeling like herself, whoever that was these days. And if she only did one useful thing this academic year, she wanted to save him from a fate like hers, but he wasn’t making it easy. After months of trying to explain why he needed to dial back and make time to rest because those things were important — maybe even more important — than choosing the perfect combination of majors and minors, she was still struggling to get through to him.

  “What do you want to do when you graduate?” Alejandro asked.

  Jerome looked sheepishly at Deja and shrugged.

  “He’s not sure yet,” Deja answered for him.

  “Good,” Alejandro said, and Deja and Jerome turned to him in shock.

  He smiled and shrugged. Jerome’s shrug had made Deja think of her nephew, the way he shrugged when his parents asked him if he understood why he was in trouble. But Alejandro’s was from a completely different realm, his movements were languid and unpretentious, and the smile on his face was effortlessly charming.

  Oh, she thought to herself, this is way more than a crush.

  Alejandro smiled at Jerome for a brief second before his entire demeanor shifted from affable colleague to professor.

  “The minute you get here, we tell you that you have to have the next four years planned out and two years after that would be even better. It’s not really fair, but if we’re being honest…”

  He leaned across Deja toward Jerome, and she felt like a small child since they were both nearly half a foot taller than her. She rolled her eyes and shook her head.

  “You can’t tell anyone I said this,” Alejandro continued, “but it’s really not necessary to be that prepared. Take whatever classes you want. You can change your major as many times as you want too. There’s no penalty. But you want to have a plan. Declare a major, look at your degree audit, see what classes you still need, and if you won’t have room for the things that matter to you like BSU or your work schedule or study abroad, if you want to do that, then maybe that’s not the degree path for you.” And then he smiled at Jerome again, “It’s actually not a secret, you can tell all your friends.”

  “That’s what Doc’s been saying,” Jerome said, even though he was nodding his head and looking at Alejandro as if he’d never heard any of this before.

  “Glad to know you’ve been listening to me,” she mumbled.

  “I listen,” Jerome said with a sheepish grin, “but it’s just hard not to feel like I’m wasting time and not doing enough, you know.”

  Oh, Deja could relate to every part of that sentence. She felt her face scrunching with concentration.

  “The thing to remember about college is that this isn’t your entire life, it’s just one phase of many,” Alejandro said. “You’re here to learn as much as you can and not just in the classroom. Sometimes the thing you need to learn is balance. You can take all the classes and double, even triple-major if you want to, but when you’re burnt out at graduation and can’t even enjoy all the things you’ve accomplished, you’ll regret it.”

  “So, what do I do?” Jerome asked.

  “Give yourself the rest of the academic year. Don’t make any decisions until the summer. Until then, take classes in your prereqs with majors you might like without commitment. Then, when the year is over, and you’re back home and resting,” he said, his eyes flicking mischievously to Deja, “then you can decide what you want your majors and minors to be.”

  Deja had said some version of this to Jerome before, and she held her breath, waiting to see if this time it would stick. She watched Jerome’s face scrunch again. They were almost at Founders Hall, and they really needed to get into the auditorium to get good seats, but if Alejandro echoing advice she’d been giving Jerome almost weekly was enough to make it stick, Deja would be late. Happily.

  In front of Founders, Deja stepped onto the first step so she could almost be almost at eye level with Jerome and Alejandro.

  “What do you think, Doc?” Jerome asked.

  There was a part of Deja that just wanted to mother her students, especially her Black students who had no idea how to navigate the university. She wanted to wrap them in a blanket and fight all their battles, but she couldn’t do that. Most of them had mothers to do that and, most crucially, mothering wasn’t her area of expertise. Her job was to advise them and prepare them as best she could for the world off-campus, which meant she couldn’t make decisions for them. She could support them in making these decisions for themselves, but no more, and sometimes it was hard to keep that boundary.

  “I think,” she said and then took a calm breath, “that Dr. Mendoza and I have a meeting right now, and you have to get to the Writing Lab.”

  Jerome checked his watch and his eyes widened, but he didn’t rush away. Instead, he looked back at Deja as if waiting for her to dismiss him. He looked so amazingly young in that moment.

  “How about you think about what Dr. Mendoza recommended, and then come to my office hours next week to talk,” she said, otherwise Jerome would be at her office hours the next day with a pros and cons list.

  He smiled at her and nodded. “Alright, I can do that. I’ve got a paper to write this weekend, anyway.”

  Deja smiled, “Good. Now go, before you’re late.”

  “Bye, Doc,” he said, already turning. “Bye, Dr. Mendoza.”

  “Bye,” Alejandro called after him.

  “Put a hat on,” Deja yelled, shivering as the wind blew and flurries started to fall. Okay, maybe she could give them a little mothering.

  Jerome didn’t turn around, but Deja watched as he dug his beanie from the pocket of his winter coat and shoved it onto his head.

  She sighed in relief and then turned to find Alejandro watching her.

  “You’re good at this. You know that, right?” he said.

  Deja shook her head and started up the steps. “This is the job,” she said, deflecting.

  Alejandro chuckled and jogged up the steps to open the door for her. “We both know that not everyone would care what Jerome majored in or about his mental health. This is the job, but not everyone’s doing it.”

  Deja avoided his eyes as she walked through the door. She knew he was right, but she couldn’t accept it — she couldn’t accept the compliment — because at the end of the day, she was worried that it wouldn’t be enough, no one would care that she cared about Jerome’s sleep schedule and if he wore a hat or about all the hours she spent career planning with him or her other sixty advisees. They both knew that Deja could be the best academic advisor and teacher — she wasn’t, but she could be — and the university could still deny her tenure, because she hadn’t published nearly enough articles. Teaching and advising and service were most of her job but not enough to guarantee that she could keep it, and that incongruity was at least eighty per cent of her stress.

  A part of her wanted to round on Alejandro and tell him that this wasn’t the pep talk she needed. As much as she enjoyed Jerome, her colleagues would argue that she should spend less time mentoring and more time writing, as if it was that easy. She wanted to tell him that she needed to hear that she was a good academic, not a good mentor, but she didn’t, because none of this was his fault, certainly not her inability to write. But she also kept her mouth shut because she was terrified that if she exposed her anxieties to him and exposed how overworked and unproductive, she was – and how much anxiet
y it was causing her - he wouldn’t be able to give her the pep talk she needed. It was one thing to see pity in Toni or Marie’s eyes, but it would undo her to see it in Alejandro’s. Deja knew herself, and she knew that if she saw even a flicker of pity in his eyes, that one look would overwrite all the other flirtatious and dirty looks he gave her, and she wasn’t ready to lose that.

  So, she kept her mouth shut as they walked up to the auditorium. They snatched their name tags from the table by the door and walked toward the seating area. They weren’t as early as Deja liked, but there were still a few seats in the top tier. She tried to find three seats together that she could grab for herself, Toni, and Marie when Alejandro’s hand cupped her elbow.

  “Mike saved us seats, come on,” he whispered to her.

  She felt that whisper and his touch through all her layers of clothes and her winter coat in the warm room, and it slowed her response. By the time she could think to remind him that she always sat with Toni and Marie, he was already pulling a seat out for her.

  “I… um… maybe I shouldn’t,” she mumbled.

  He was pulling his winter coat off, and the movement made his tight button-down shirt pull taut over his abs. Abs, she remembered in that moment, she still hadn’t traced with her tongue.

  She had to look away quickly before she did something reckless. She started searching the crowd for her friends, thinking maybe she could slink off to sit with them before the meeting started.

  She spotted Toni’s big braided bun bobbing through the crowd and then saw Marie trailing behind her. She watched as they snagged the last two seats across the auditorium on the highest tier and they pulled their coats off. Deja willed them to look up at her, and then Marie did. Deja watched as Marie whispered to Toni, who looked up, searching the crowd before she her eyes met Deja’s briefly. Her gaze slid to Deja’s left where Alejandro was just sitting down, chatting with Mike. Deja watched as Toni smiled mischievously and then turned back to Marie, speaking quickly.