The soft knock at his door made his heart jump into his throat. As John swiveled in his office chair, he tried to keep his pulse in check. Victoria stood there, purse in hand, hesitant to cross the threshold. She wore something similar to the outfit from Tuesday night: a heather gray pencil skirt that settled just above her knees and a light pink button-down blouse. Her pale pink pumps were crossed at the ankle as she leaned against the door frame. The fact that she looked more like a librarian than he, aroused him immensely. “Hello,” she said in a bright voice.

He cleared his throat and stood. “Dr. Reese,” he said, gesturing for her to take a seat. “Thank you for coming.” As soon as he said it, he cringed inwardly at the wording.

Victoria didn’t appear to notice as she sat down at his desk. She gave a cursory glance at the mess that still covered its surface before flashing a smile. Something about the smile felt a little forced, but John tried his best to ignore it. “Of course.”

When he sat down, he shuffled a few papers around, making space for nothing in particular. He just wanted to appear in control of the clutter. “About the other night...” he started.

“Before we get to that, can I tell you something?” she asked, but didn’t give him time to respond. She dropped her purse on the floor and leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “I got into an email battle with someone from Admissions, who wants me to join the Diversity and Inclusion Taskforce. Which at Pembroke means all the faculty of color get photographed several times so we can be featured on the website. The most that this taskforce will do is make me and one other brown professor, Dr. Reddy, work hard to create some kind of projected goals document that will ultimately be ignored.”

Boom.

John was about to open his mouth to reply, but she went on.