Her smile faded. “I’m working for my MBA, using the MHD program as the subject for a business analysis.” Suddenly she burst into laughter. “Maybe I should switch to electrical engineering and figure out what’s wrong with my damned car!”

Jacob Ross’s Office

JACOB ROSS’S OFFICE

Jake spent the afternoon in his office, listening to students’ problems and complaints. This must be what it’s like for a priest when he hears confession, he thought. My mother was sick and I couldn’t get to class all week. My computer crashed. I just can’t seem to get the hang of the math, Dr. Ross; calculus is like a foreign language to me.

Jake had heard the same sad stories, the same excuses, time and again. He half expected one of the students to claim that his dog ate his homework.

Finally he closed his office door and leaned his back against it, as if afraid another distressed student would try to break in. Visiting hours are finished, he said to himself. The doctor is out.

The phone on his desk rang. Wearily he went over to it and picked it up as he sank into his wheeled chair.

Dr. Cardwell’s voice said cheerfully, “Just reminding you that Alice and I are expecting you for dinner at seven tonight.”

Relieved, Jake said, “I’ll be there.”

It was almost ten minutes before seven when Jake pressed the doorbell at Cardwell’s snug little cottage. Lev and his wife had lived there for ages; the place always looked spanking new, as if it’d just been repainted. Colorful flower beds along the edges of the neatly trimmed lawn. Graceful shady linden tree leaning protectively over the gray slate roof.

Mrs. Cardwell opened the door and beamed at Jake. She was a tiny woman, with a charming smile and sparkling blue eyes. She had been a clothing model in her youth, and still looked strikingly lovely even though her hair had gone gray. She refused to color it, saying laughingly that she was too vain to try to hide her age. Her first name was Alice, and Lev often hummed the refrain of some old song about an Alice blue gown. Strange, Jake thought, that he could easily call Dr. Cardwell Lev, but he could never address Mrs. Cardwell by her first name.

“I know I’m early, Mrs. Cee,” he began.

“Of course you are,” she said cheerily. “You’ve never been late in all the years we’ve known you.”