And while she waited at the small table, two bites of the scone already gone, she marveled at how much better the coffee tasted there than the cheap stuff she bought in a giant can at the grocery store. She bought the same brand her grandparents used to drink, and she worried she’d made a huge mistake by indulging in the good stuff at Troy’s. She might never be able to go back to drinking the crap in her apartment.

Hoffman showed up fifteen minutes late, his messenger bag slung over his shoulder. He waved to her, a smile affixed to his face, and he went and placed an order at the counter, chatting with the barista as if he had all the time in the world. When it was ready, he carried the drink over to the table and sat down across from Madeline.

“I’m so sorry I’m late,” he said. “A couple of students came by. Freshmen. And they think they’re going to fail my class. Which they are. Anyway, they delayed me. But I’m here now.”

“That’s okay,” Madeline said because what could she say? Should she scold her sixty-year-old professor for being late? Reach across the table and slap his hand like the nuns who had taught her grandmother? She’d given Hoffman the beginning chapters of her thesis. She hoped he wasn’t going to bring the party up. Madeline wanted to forget about it, not have it linger in her life. Sophia was already pissed, and they were probably no longer friends. She didn’t need any other trouble, especially at school. “I’ve just been enjoying my coffee. I don’t let myself do this too much.”

“It’s tough on a student budget, isn’t it? Of course, they don’t pay the professors much more these days. We’re living in austere, draconian times.”

They made more small talk after that. Hoffman lamented the political climate in the country—and on campus. And he claimed he must have been born in the wrong time because he longed for an era when things on campus were looser and freer.

“No one is engaged these days,” he said. “Not the students. Not even the faculty.”

Madeline listened. She’d learned it was best to let him go on and on during a one-on-one meeting. At some point, sometimes after thirty minutes or so, he slowed down his verbal waterfall and let her say something.

And many times Hoffman even said something interesting. He once told her a story about driving across the country with a group of friends the summer he finished high school. He made the trip sound so romantic, so adventurous, and as Madeline listened, she became aware of how rarely she’d traveled, of how little of the world she’d seen. Somehow it seemed as though her professors had all done so much and traveled so far. Europe. Asia. Australia.