Common sense might have led another department to protect Deja, mentor her even. If she stayed, received tenure, and excelled, the university could reward them with another tenure track line and their department — small and overtaxed — might rehabilitate their position in the College. But as her mama always said, common sense ain’t common.

Instead of supporting her, her department didn’t mentor her in her new position, even though she came directly from graduate school and had no idea how to be a faculty member and had no time to learn while running from class to class to meeting. Her colleagues didn’t consider keeping her workload regular and manageable; they didn’t give any consideration to what it was like for her to be the only woman of color in their unit. And worst of all, more than one of her senior colleagues had reminded her that just because she was new, with a higher teaching load than any of them had had when they were at her level, had more service and was still fledgling in her career didn’t mean they would cut her any slack when it came time to vote on her tenure dossier. The honesty was useful and completely demoralizing. It didn’t matter that the last time they’d voted on a candidate, the university was still recovering from the Y2K scare; all that mattered was that Deja work harder and longer than they did without any recognition for it.

The overwork allowed Deja to avoid confronting the loneliness, and her crush on Alejandro had allowed her to imagine there might be a time when she wouldn’t feel so lonely, and her job wouldn’t rule her life. Something about him reminded her that she wasn’t just harried assistant professor Dr. Evans, she was also Deja: young, single, and very much horny.

But when she looked at him now, looking at her with a face full of contrition, it seemed to open the lid on all the sadness and loneliness she’d been avoiding, because she felt as if he could see it too. Now that they weren’t sitting on opposite ends of the auditorium, he was closer; he’d gotten closer, and she had to fight the urge to push him away like she had on Wednesday. But it also felt nice to see him seeing her. She’d assumed that she’d have to explain to Alejandro why Wednesday was such a huge mistake because she’d expected that he would be like her colleagues, not fully understanding the stakes she was up against. But he saw her, and the force of the relief she felt made her want to cry.

“Thank you,” Deja replied after a too-long pause. “Thank you.”