Chapter 5 Lila
Lila
Can I trust Jace Strickland? I wondered while sitting in my office.
“I just don’t, like, care that much right now,” the student across from me said with a casual toss of her hair. “I’m, like, doing a lot of activities with Phi Beta Zeta.”
I was an Assistant Professor, which was the lowest rung on the University ladder.
If I was good at my job for six or seven years, I could undergo a tenure review and become an Associate Professor.
After many more years of teaching and making other contributions to the University, I could become a Full Professor.
But for now, I was a lowly Assistant Professor. That meant I had a whole host of other responsibilities in addition to teaching classes, like conducting research in my field and publishing articles into peer-reviewed journals.
And, most annoyingly of all, I had to act as an academic advisor to about a dozen students.
I had four of them scheduled this hour, one every fifteen minutes.
I didn’t mind advising students who showed a real passion for their schoolwork.
I loved helping guide young men and women toward their degrees.
But most of the time I was advising someone like Theresa, the sorority girl sitting across from me who had zero interest in her classes and just wanted to party with her Phi Beta Zeta sisters.
“Twelve credits per semester is the minimum amount required to be considered a full-time student,” I explained patiently.
For the second time this meeting. “If you drop one of your gen-ed classes, you’ll only be considered a part-time student.
Which might affect any scholarships or student loans you have, many of which are contingent on you being a student full-time. ”
“That’s, like, not a problem at all,” she said cheerfully. “My dad is Jeff Harper.” She paused to see if I recognized the name. “From Harper Ford and Honda? The car dealerships? We own, like, a dozen of them all over Tennessee.”
I forced a smile. “Be that as it may…”
I eventually convinced Theresa not to drop her class, but she looked annoyed by it. The next advising appointment was a little better, but not by much. The kid stared at me like I was speaking a foreign language, and only mumbled a few words during the entire meeting.
The appointment after that, though…
“Camden Keene,” I said as he stepped into my office. “Hacker extraordinaire.”
He winced. “I’m not a hacker. I just… bent the rules a little. To help you out, I might add.”
“Relax, I was just teasing you. Take a seat and we’ll look at your schedule.”
According to his profile, Cam had just turned twenty-one, but he was only a sophomore. He’d gotten a late start, for whatever reason. He was making up for lost time by taking eighteen credits, the maximum allowed.
“I like to keep busy,” he said. “I can handle the workload.”
He’d taken eighteen credits last fall, too, and got all A’s and B’s. Not bad.
“Everything looks great,” I explained. “My only suggestion is that you might want to take Criminology 303 over the summer. There’s only one professor teaching it in the fall, and it fills up fast. It’s a prerequisite for three other courses, so it’s better to knock it out in the summer if you can.
Otherwise, you’ll have to push those other three classes out to next spring, which might get crowded. ”
“That might get in the way of mountain biking season,” he replied.
“I wouldn’t have taken you for a mountain biker.”
“I’m not.” He grinned. “I guess I can’t fool you. I’ll take the class in the summer. Is that everything?”
We still had a few minutes, and something he’d said after class was still bothering me. “Yesterday, when I realized you had hacked into the faculty Wi-Fi network, you made a comment about a judge. What’s up with that?”
“I don’t recall saying anything about a judge,” Cam said, but his cheeks instantly reddened.
“Cam. Come on. You said if the judge finds out…” I gestured at his folder open on my desk. “I’m your advisor. Help me advise you.”
He let out a long sigh, then shook his head. “It’s not a big deal. Really. When I was a senior in high school, I got caught hacking into the superintendent’s computer.”
“I thought you said you weren’t a hacker.”
“Ha ha, good job, you really turned it around on me. I painted a fence once, does that make me a fence painter?”
“Maybe. Did you go to jail? None of this is in your file.”
He narrowed his eyes, which were green. And sharp. “I did a year of community service. It was all expunged from my record.”
“Really?” I couldn’t hide the surprise in my voice. “The judge was lenient?”
“I was put in a diversion program for troubled youths,” Cam explained. “Even though I’m not troubled. Not like the others. Besides, he probably went easy on me because I was hacking for good.”
“For good?”
“Well…” He leaned over the armrest and cocked his head to the side.
“I can’t discuss any of it. But let’s just say the reason I hacked into the superintendent’s computer was because I knew he was embezzling funds from the school district.
I collected all the evidence and turned it over to the cops.
He got jail time, while I got community service. ”
“Evidence obtained illegally cannot be used in court,” I said. “You’ll learn about the Fruit from the Poisonous Tree Doctrine this semester.”
“Right, it can’t be used in court,” Cam agreed. He leaned forward, brushing hair away from his eyes. “But they used my evidence to get him to take a plea deal. Either way, I don’t regret a thing. Don’t tell the judge that, though. I had to read a whole statement of remorse in court.”
Hacking for good. How about that. I suddenly saw Cam in a different light than before. “Well, don’t get caught again, no matter what your motives may be.”
“You got it, Professor.” He stood up and gave a sloppy salute. “Anything else?”
I chuckled. “Nope. That’s everything.”
“What’s so funny?”
“You just remind me of someone, is all.”
“You can’t tease me like that and withhold the details. Who do I remind you of? Come on.”
“I don’t know why, but… Han Solo. From Star Wars.”
His eyes widened, and his smile faded. “Professor. As a self-avowed nerd, you just gave me the best possible compliment on the planet. Do you want to get dinner with me tonight?”
“I… what? No. Of course not. You’re my student. Why?”
He shrugged and that easy smile returned. “Figured I might as well shoot my shot. Thanks again for the advising. Now, I need to go deal with a basketball player.”
Before I could ask what that meant, he’d opened the door and was gone.
And then, in a flash of insight, I realized why he looked familiar.
He reminded me of a boy I knew a long time ago, when I was a teenage girl.
Alex Holland.
My first crush. He sat in front of me in Geometry, and he was in the same gym class.
One day, while we were playing dodgeball, we both tripped while reaching for the same ball and tumbled to the floor together—with him on top.
Over a decade later, I could still remember the way his weight felt on top of me, and the smile he wore as he got up and offered me a hand.
Cam was a dead ringer for him. Except older and more mature.
What had Cam meant about dealing with a basketball player? He’d said it like it was a chore. Or, strangely, like a parent who needed to reprimand their child for shoving another kid.
I didn’t have long to wonder about it, because there was another student waiting outside my office. And it was someone else I knew.
“Hey, Lila,” Jace said, striding into my office with a knowing smile. “I’m here for your office hours.”