2 Birdie
BIRDIE
“Hi, can I help you?” A perky underclassman with a long, blonde ponytail peers up at me over the bursar’s office reception desk.
“Uhh . . . yeah.” Shuffling my messenger bag to my feet, I set my water bottle and keys down on the counter and slip my phone from my pocket. Pulling up my last email, I show her the screen. “I just got this ominous email about my tuition status, and I wanted to ask someone about it.”
Her eyes narrow on the screen. Then she spins away in her swivel chair. “Name?”
I shift my weight in my worn Doc Martens. “Birdie Rhodes. Well—I’m probably in the system as Virginia.”
Her fingers tap the keyboard before she glances up, clearly taking in my messy braid, my black, thick-rimmed glasses, the tattoos, the piercings. “Do you have your student ID?”
“Oh—yeah.” Ducking down for my bag, I fish out my wallet, handing her my Winthrop University ID card. “Listen, if this is about that unpaid parking ticket from last semester, that wasn’t even my car. And the cop said he waived it as a first-time offense—”
“Parking office handles tickets,” she says over me. “Bursar’s office handles tuition and fees, financial aid, that kind of thing. Okay . . . Virginia Rhodes, doctoral student, history department?”
“That’s me.”
“Yeah, it looks like you owe summer tuition, but we don’t have anything on file for how you mean to pay.”
My heart drops. “Summer what?” Slapping both hands down on the desk, I lean over to try and see the screen. “That’s definitely a mistake. I won one of my department’s summer teaching fellowships. That should secure my tuition and housing and gives me a stipend of twenty-five hundred bucks.”
She just shrugs, handing me back my ID. “I’d contact your department then. Maybe it’s a delay on their end with processing the fellowship. On our end, there’s nothing we can do.”
“Yeah, okay, I’ll go over there right now.
” I grab my bag from the floor, wrapping the strap across my chest. Then I swipe my keys and water bottle off the counter.
Before I turn away, I find myself saying, “Hey, just curious . . . without the fellowship, how much do I owe to stay enrolled for the summer?”
“Current summer tuition rates at Winthrop are eight hundred and fifty dollars per credit hour. Grad students are expected to take, like, six credit hours, right? And summer housing on campus goes for, like, two thousand dollars. So . . .”
I stand there, quickly crunching the numbers. “Seven thousand?” I say on a breath. “My outstanding bill is seven thousand dollars?”
She glances back at her screen. “Here it says seven thousand four hundred and fifty.”
Perfect. If I can’t get this sorted, I’ll officially owe my university seven thousand dollars just to stay enrolled. Easy fix . . . except I currently have only sixty-two dollars to my name.
“Professor Abbott?” I say for the third time, knocking louder. Her office is on the fourth floor of the history building, tucked in a corner with a view of the ivy-covered quad. Her door is ajar and the music is blasting, something instrumental and upbeat.
I push on the door, widening it until I see her standing on a teetering stack of books, reaching for the top shelf.
Her loudly patterned skirt clashes with her plaid blazer.
I’m sure her frizzy hair is tangled up in her dangly earrings too.
I peer around her office. There are piles of books on the floor, boxes stuffed in various states of fullness, art stacked by the window.
“Professor Abbott, are you leaving?”
She shrieks, attempting a ballerina spin atop the tottering pile of books. “Sweet heavens—Birdie, honey—you scared me half to death.” She clutches her chest as she heaves an exaggerated breath.
“Are you leaving?”
There’s a radio perched on the windowsill. Hurrying over to it, she turns the music down. “What, dear?”
“I said, are you leaving?”
“Oh, yes!” She gestures around at all the packing chaos. “Hadn’t you heard? Alfonso was offered a department chair position overseas. We’re packing our bags for a merry little adventure. You’re never too old for a new start, right?”
Alfonso Olivera is her husband over in the anthropology department. He’s some big name in forensics, traveling the world doing symposiums on crime scene investigations.
I step fully into the room. “But you’re still teaching your class this summer, right? Maybe online?”
She laughs, waving her hand dismissively. The wooden bangles on her wrist clack. “Oh, no. We decided to leave a couple months early to do some traveling. That’s so sweet of you to come say goodbye.”
I try to keep the frustration from my voice. “Yeah, only we were supposed to be teaching together this summer, remember? The Medieval World?”
She blinks at me from behind her thick glasses. “Oh . . . well, surely another professor in the department could use a TA this summer?”
My heart sinks to the lowest point it’s been all afternoon. “There are only three fellowships, Professor Abbott. I won one. The other two are already spoken for.”
Collecting a few books off a lower shelf, she tips them haphazardly into a box. “Hmm . . . a research position then, perhaps? I’m sure a colleague—”
“Research fellowships don’t come with housing,” I say before she can even finish the thought. “Not to get too heavy here, but without a housing stipend, I’ll be homeless this summer.”
She gives me a pitying look that makes me want to scream. “Well, I’d offer you the use of our row house, but we’ve already sublet it.” She places a hand on my shoulder. “Tell you what, let me contact the department chair. We’ll get this sorted for you, okay?”
“Okay,” I reply.
What else can I say?
“I don’t want you to fret,” she adds, giving my shoulder a maternal pat. “You’re a good student, Birdie. A fine historian in the making. I don’t want this to disrupt your progress in the program.”
“Thank you, professor.” I may be smiling, but inside I’m shattered. This isn’t the first time I’ve been passed over or ignored in this program. God, I really don’t want to be homeless again. I mean, I’ll manage. I always do. But this really sucks. With another nod, I turn to leave.
“Hey,” she calls after me. “Are you looking for ways to earn a little extra pocket money?”
I stop with one hand on the door. I already know what she’s about to ask. And I already know my response. I glance over my shoulder. “What did you have in mind?”
She flashes me a smile, gesturing around at the mess. “If you help me pack the rest of these boxes, I promise to make it worth your while.”
With a sigh, I let my hand drop to my side. “Sure, professor. Happy to help.”