Page 68 of Second Chance

“Sure.” The bakery’s across the street, and he and Daniel often go on weekend mornings. “I love their quiche.”

“Quiche is not a breakfast food.”

He shrugs.

She stays where she is in the doorway.

“I’m not changing my order.”

She laughs, which is nice to hear. “No, no, sorry. I’ve never watched this process before. I hadn’t imagined it being so involved.”

“That’s probably the real reason Daniel never grew a beard.” Tony snaps his fingers in realization. “Can’t use three in one on a beard.” Probably Daniel would try, but it would be awful.

Colette’s smile dims a little. “That does sound like him.”

“He’ll be fine.” Tony wishes his voice didn’t crack on the words. “Right?”

“I hope so.” Colette sounds as helpless as Tony feels.

It doesn’t comfort either of them.

Neither, it turns out, does the third cup of coffee or the flaky pastry filled with cheese and spinach. Although Tony takes any excuse to eat it otherwise, this morning, it tastes of nothing. Food is only another way to kill time.

After breakfast, they try Lily again. Still no response. Fortified with what must be her fourth coffee, Colette calls Sean again and asks if he’s heard from Lily. He hasn’t. With all of their avenues of research exhausted, short of doing something Taylor would probably arrest them for, they have nothing left to do but wait.

They don’t talk much. Tony’s thankful Colette takes at face value that they will stay here, together, to wait this out. She makes no attempt to return to her own apartment. Instead, they fuck around on their phones as if anything on there could calm the buzzing of Tony’s nerves. He toggles between the same three apps, scrolling blindly and not taking in anything he sees.

“Look at this,” Colette demands, turning her phone screen toward him. The black-and-white website has blocks of color down the left side, denoting different scores, and the bold letters R M P at the top.

Amelia Lawrence’s name jumps out at him immediately.

“What is this?”

“Rate my professor.”

Tony blinks. “What.”

Colette grimaces, mouth pulling wide and tight. “I know, I know. It’s essentially word of mouth, but for the digital age. Anonymous users leave reviews of their college and their professors, possibly to help students decide which courses to take.”

“Hm.” Tony peers at the screen. “And the categories are—‘for credit, would take again, grade, and textbook’? What does ‘textbook’ mean?”

“Whether the class requires you to buy a textbook. This website does not use a scientific metric.” Colette makes another face. “They used to allot little pepper symbols along with academic quality to indicate physical attractiveness.”

Tony snorts. “It’s nice to hear about students objectifying professors instead of the opposite for a change. So, what am I looking at here?”

“Amelia Lawrence’s page.”

There are five ratings on the page with a combined score of 2.0, which, based on the fact that it’s colored red, is not a good thing. Three of the ratings score her as a 1.0 or a 1.5, while the other two situate her at a 4.0.

The three low ratings all appear to be for the same class: Psych 218. Research Methods, apparently. The first one reads:Professor Lawrence only cares about her Zebrafish. She wouldn’t lift a finger for a student if they were drowning in a lake. I hope someone teaches her a lesson on research ethics.The listed grade is “NA.”

“Sounds like a threat,” Tony says.

Colette nods. “My thoughts exactly.”

Just to check, Tony scrolls to the positive reviews. They rate different classes and offer fairly generic praise, saying Amelia Lawrence was good at her job, friendly, and helpful.

“So…where does this leave us?” Tony asks.

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