Page 7 of Mostly My Boss
Turner. Economics 10A.
It was all he’d written. His name and the class.
“Everyone go to the following website and download the syllabus,” he said even as he jotted down the web address under his name.
A few clicks on the school’s free Wi-Fi and I had the syllabus on my laptop. My excitement was nearly uncontainable. This was it. I was learning. I was about to be taught by a professor at Harvard University. My mind was about to be blown up and challenged in ways no teacher I’d had in high school had ever come close to doing.
I held my breath.
“Everyone see the first assignment listed?” he asked the room.
I nodded even as I was typing in everything he was saying as he was saying it. My keyboard skills were exceptional.
“Good.” He opened his briefcase, pulled out a thick, heavy-looking hardback book, and held it up.Economics in a New World Economy. Buy it. Read it. We’ll discuss the first three chapters next week.”
I opened Amazon on my browser to check it out.
Fuck. The used copy went for almost thirty-two dollars.
And it wasn’t lost on me that the book had been written by Professor Turner.
I sucked in my breath. I was prepared for this. Knew what it was going to mean to be at Harvard. Knew I was simply going to have to work harder at everything, both in school and out of it.
“Any questions,” he continued in a droning tone, “don’t ask them today. I’m hungover and not really in the mood. Thursday, we’ll start. Class dismissed.”
The professor tossed the book back in his briefcase and made his way up the center aisle. I could hear most of the students getting up and following him.
I slumped in my seat. That was entirely anticlimactic for my first class.
OCD Boy was packing up his stuff, too, but giving me the side-eye as he did it.
“What?” I finally asked him.
“Nothing. I just noticed that you literally typed every word he said.”
I shrugged, shutting my laptop as if to hide the evidence. “So?”
“No, it’s good. You’re a really fast typist.”
I tossed my laptop in the canvas satchel I was using as a book bag. It was a farewell present given to me by my mom and brothers. I looped it over my shoulder and waited as he pulled together his stuff.
And waited. And waited.
He was having a hard time finding the armhole for his coat, mostly because he was still looking at me.
“What?” I asked, exasperated.
“You’re an economics major?”
“Yes,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest, ready to get defensive if I had to.
“You’ve probably got Statistics 10 and Math1A on your schedule.”
I did. “So?”
He smiled then, as if he’d made a discovery. “I have a proposition for you.”
This ought to be good.
