To Max’s surprise, even though the boy was wilting under Dani’s questioning about the thesis he supposedly had all worked out—it didn’t seem he had actually read the book, which sounded like it was meant to be The Great Gatsby—she suddenly granted him a forty-eight-hour extension and abruptly dismissed him. “Happy holidays,” she said so flatly she might as well have been saying, “Good riddance.”

It was such an unexpected turnabout that Max, who had been lounging against the wall, stood up straight, startled.

“Are there any more students out there?” she asked the boy as he was on his way out.

“Students . . . no,” the boy said, making brief eye contact with Max as he breezed by in possession of an extension he did not deserve.

When Max stuck his head into Dani’s office, it was to find her peeling off a blue blazer to reveal a dress that looked like it belonged on Bettie Page instead of a literature professor.

“Oh!” She jumped.

“My apologies. I didn’t mean to startle you. I’m merely here to ask for an extension.”

She rolled her eyes in lieu of greeting him, sat at her desk, and pulled a small mirror out of a drawer. “You’re early,” she said to her reflection.

“My thesis is all ready to go.” He sat on the guest chair and, as she started applying a deep burgundy lipstick, revised his previous assertion that he could appreciate Dani’s hotness from a purely intellectual perspective. “Care to hear it?”

“I guarantee you I already have.”

“None of the characters in The Great Gatsby have any inner life to speak of, making what is admittedly a masterfully written book into a mere melodrama.”

She glanced at him with one lip painted. The contrast between the brick red of the finished lip and the pinky-beige of the natural one certainly was . . . something. “An interesting line of thought.”

He thought she was going to say more, but when she merely returned to her task, he asked, “Why did you give that boy an extension? He was clearly feeding you lies. Does he know you at all?”

One eyebrow rose, though she was still looking at her reflection. “Do you know me at all?”

“I’m thinking the way to get an extension from Professor Martinez is to level with her. Own the fact that you erred—with time management or laziness or what have you—present a plan for ameliorating your error, and state your terms.”

Ah, that cracked her. She put the mirror down and truly looked at him. Almost looked as though she might smile. “Did you hear the student before him?”

“No.”

“She asked for a twenty-four-hour extension because she works two part-time jobs and she fell asleep at her computer last night.”

“Did you grant it?”

“Yes. I told her to go home and take a nap and to take another week with the paper.”