Page 16 of Prosecco with My Professor
I quickly lean over to my far right and bump into Vincente.
“What are you doing?” he hisses at me with an elbow nudge.
“Nothing, sorry,” I mutter.
I saw a face.Herface.
That can’t be right.
Several excruciating minutes later and multiple admonishments from Vincente, I still haven’t seen her face again. We’ve been playing a game of hide-and-seek, and I’m pretty sure the person she’s hiding behind is getting concerned by the way I’m staring at them. They have slunk down in their seat. At first, she slunk down, too, but now she’s holding a spiral notebook up in front of her face as if she’s reading.
I grind my teeth together.
I thought—no, assumed—that she was visiting on holiday. When I picked her up at the bar, I was thinking I’d be a one-night-stand, some fond memory she’d have of her trip to Rome, a story she could brag about to her girlfriends later. “Remember that Italian man I slept with in Rome?” she’d say.
Of course, after she ran out, the story changed.
“Remember that Italian man who took me to his place and did something so unspeakable I had to run out in panic?”
And after today it’s, “Remember that Italian man who tried to make me come, and now I’m going to see him around campus all the time?”
Oh god. It’s my turn to sink down in my chair. What have I done?
“…have a fantastic first week getting to know the university and your fellow students. Thank you for your attention, and I’ll be seeing you this afternoon,” Director Greco finishes.
I dart to my feet, but I’m too slow. Emma—if that is Emma—is ducking down and hiding behind her colleagues as they shuffle out the door toward the break-out rooms where they will meet to begin their tours.
I’m not leading a tour, but Vincente is. Assigned to an activity room, I meet with students, shake hands, explain the facilities, and welcome them to the university.
All morning, I keep an eye out for Emma, but I don’t see her. You would think that as tall as she is, as remarkable as her gray hair is, I’d easily find her, but in a crowd of a hundred students filtering in and out, it’s hard to spot her.
Especially if she’s avoiding me.
Vincente and I grab a quick lunch, then have a faculty meeting, followed by a few one-on-one meetings with students I’ll be advising.
When I catch a break, there’s a knock on the cracked open door, and Director Greco steps in.
I stand. It’s been a few weeks since he joined, just in time for the start of the full-time program, and we’ve seen a lot of each other, but not one-on-one yet.
We shake hands and I offer him the seat across the desk and settle back into my own once he sits.
The new director doesn’t waste time. “I was impressed to see your name on the list of faculty here,” he says, folding his hands in his lap. “I was a big admirer of your father’s.”
“Thank you,” I say because people don’t like it when I say anything else. They don’t want to know that, in addition to being one of the richest men in Italy, my father was a tough man. Even beyond his aspersions for my career: my father was an adulterer.
“His acquisition of MDK Shipping in the seventies really gave Italy a foothold in the US, and his early adoption of sports team sponsorships was brilliant foresight.”
“Yes, it was.” Sure, that’s when my father was brilliant. Not when I suggested investing in cars in the eighties or mobile technologies in the nineties.
Do I sound bitter? I shouldn’t be. I made those investments myself and they did very well.
“It makes sense that his son would be a leadership expert. You learned it at home.” He smiles and I hold in a sigh. “Do you still do any work for Offredi?”
“I never did any work there,” I correct. “And as you know, it’s owned by a private equity firm now, and I have never had anything to do with them.”
“I see.” He nods, more serious now. “And how was your first day of the FTMBA program?”
Fine, fine. The woman I tasted last weekend and spent the entire week fantasizing about is in the program. How does that sound, director?
