Professor P. waves me in and gestures to the seat in front of his desk. “Yes, please have a seat.” He shuffles through open books and folders splayed across his desk. “Where did I put that packet?” he asks one of the stacks.

My knee bounces while I wait for him to tell me what the hell this meeting is about.

“Was there something wrong with my project paper?”

“Wrong?” The shuffling stops and my absent-minded professor looks up at me, confused. “Whatever would give you that idea?”

I hold up the report and point to the three bold exclamation points at the end of his See me.

“Oh, that.” He waves it away. “No. Your report was unique, ambitious and innovative. You’ll receive an A, of course.”

Okay, now I’m confused. “Then why—”

“Ah, here it is,” he exclaims. “What are your plans after graduation, Ms. Allen?”

My head is spinning and it takes a minute to understand his question, much less find an answer. “Jessie,” I say to buy time. “Everyone calls me Jessie.”

“Jessie.” Professor P. smiles. “What are your plans for the future?”

“Grad school, get an MBA and work for the family business,” I utter, like it’s my death sentence.

“Hmmm.” He ponders my answer. “What would you think about running a state program to revitalize small businesses instead?”

I stare at him, dumbfounded.

“Are you aware I’m the head of a government think tank on economic growth, Ms. Allen?”

“No, I wasn’t.”

He hands me a thick folder. “I have a pool of funding at my disposal and every year I keep an eye out for promising students with practical ideas. I have to say, your project caught my eye. It is exactly the type of thinking that could help stimulate our state’s economy and build a strong small business base.”

My mouth drops open. “Your think tank wants to hire me to do more business evaluation?”

“Not quite. I want to give you a grant to work with failing small businesses across the state over the next three to five years to save them from going under.” He points to the folder in my hands that I haven’t looked at. “That is a grant application package. A formality for the approval, really, but you’d have to provide me with a scope of how many businesses you think you could help in a five-year period along with a set budget for your salary to include travel expenses, any staff or infrastructure you’d need, publicity for the program and, of course, the budget for improvements to each business.”

“Holy crap,” I swear under my breath.

“Holy crap indeed.” Professor P. chuckles.

“Sorry.” I flip through the thirty-page grant application, overwhelmed and yet simmering with excitement at the possibilities. “There has to be someone more qualified to do this.”