Victoria balled up the remainder of her sandwich and tossed it in a nearby wastebasket. “Yes, Ken. How many students have we acquired?” she asked in a dry voice.

He glared at her before shuffling through papers. “It appears we have five new prospects, all of whom would like to work with you, Dr. Reese. They’ve expressed interest in African American Literature.”

As terrible a meeting as it was, a hopeful smile pulled at Victoria’s lips. There were new converts because of her. And Williams couldn’t take that away from her. She made a difference. “I’m glad to hear it,” she said with a humble nod. “It’s a great benefit for the whole department.”

“Yes, well...” Kenneth trailed off with a perturbed expression. “Please remind them there are other facets of the program to explore.”

“Of course,” Victoria said. “I’ll let them know to register for Children’s Literature. Jennifer, do you still have that awesome unit on representation in picture books?”

Jennifer’s lips quirked into a lopsided smile. “I sure do. Send them my way.”

“And Alison,” Victoria added. “I think your Victorian survey will pair nicely with my Post-Colonial Lit course.”

Alison glanced between the two women before smiling. “Of course. We can give them the before and after of the British Empire.”

Victoria faced Kenneth with a cheery smile. “There you go, Ken. Jennifer, Alison, and I will show the five new majors the ropes of the program.”

Seeing the storm clouds in his face almost made up for the fact that he and his boys’ club screwed her and her colleagues out of their fair share of courses. Almost.

Victoria was exhausted.

And her day was not finished. Her usual drive home was replaced with a drive to the public library. The job-shadowing with John had nestled in the back of her mind all day. More specifically, their text exchange continued to nag at her. He was perfectly professional during their short interaction, employing that same humor, so why did she feel guilty? After blowing through her house like a hurricane, searching high and low for that book, she’d collapsed in her bed and wrote the email. She didn’t know what prompted her to do something like that. She wasn’t normally driven to pen late-night emails. Part of her didn’t want John to think he’d ruffled her feathers. The other part of her had simply wanted to talk to him.