4. Mentor Allocation #2
Greta picked up her phone and checked the Scortare app for notifications, though she wasn’t sure why.
Closing the app she put the phone down. A photo remained on the illuminated screen; Muriel on their honeymoon in The Maldives.
Her face sun kissed, with freckles across the bridge of her nose.
Her fingers were pinched around the straw in a cocktail that she was holding to her pouted, glossed lips.
Strands of her auburn curls had escaped her loose ponytail and drifted across her forehead in the breeze that Greta remembered never cooled the air.
Greta stared at her until her eyes felt scorched and the screen went black.
She had stopped using images of Muriel as her phone wallpaper months ago, but she’d felt so strange lately she changed it back, thinking it would help. It hadn’t.
With a mountain of work to face, she slid off her stool and headed to the office.
The room wasn’t large, but a huge window overlooking the city bathed the space in light.
Against the exposed brick, shelves groaned under the weight of journals, files, textbooks, and her own research.
A nineties trip-hop playlist drifted quietly through the speakers, setting a low melancholic beat as she opened her university inbox.
Her gaze immediately fell to an email she would have preferred not to have received.
The email subject read: Mentor Program Allocation.
Sometime ago, in a moment of madness, Greta had offered to be a university mentor, forgetting about it completely.
Tapping the mouse with more force than perhaps necessary, Greta closed the email. ‘Fucking brilliant,’ she sighed.
It wasn’t possible for her to feel excited about having even less time to do everything she needed to.
The email sat among a dozen other more important tasks she’d planned to finish over the weekend—a head start, or at least an attempt to catch up from the week and find a more even footing by Monday.
Sitting back in her office chair, she hugged one leg to her chest, pressing her foot into the soft brown leather and sipped her coffee.
Staring out of the window at the view, she watched the people far below, milling around like ants on the pavement.
The bright sun illuminated the skyline, glinting off the city’s mix of towering glass buildings and industrial architecture.
The busy traffic made the city pulse with life, even the low hum of urban noise was an instant comfort.
She loved this city. Manchester was home.
She’d been born here, and she’d probably never leave.
Champagne-induced fatigue tugged heavily at her concentration while she tried to work.
In a bid to silence her thoughts, her restless fingers kept returning to the Scortare app, thumbs poised to book another meeting with Remi.
Fuck. Why was this happening? Why was her resolve so weak?
This wasn’t who she was. She was Greta fucking Vincent, for fuck’s sake.
Attraction and romantic emotions were completely off the table.
Sex was all she wanted and entirely on her terms. Opening the app only to promptly flick it closed, she tossed the phone into the desk drawer, slammed it shut, and turned the key to lock away the temptation.
***
Wednesday arrived with no booking from Margot, leaving Dylan in a state of ever-growing disappointment.
Their Friday routine was usually set by Sunday night, or Monday morning at the latest, but the app remained silent, and Dylan still couldn’t shake the memory of their last meeting.
The shift in the air, the raw emotion and the way Margot had acted.
Between a second dissertation within a year, her mum’s care and securing enough agency work to pay the bills, Dylan’s focus was gone and she was stretched almost to breaking point.
As she prepared herself for a gym session, she thought back to the promise she had made to her mum.
Before Margaret had lost her ability to speak, she made Dylan promise to always take special care of the one thing Margaret loved the most; that thing happened to be Dylan.
Staying physically strong was not just a matter of pride and promise, it helped her to cope.
But the days where she was barely keeping her nose above water often merged into one, and they were taking their toll.
Driven by a desperate need for extra support, enrolment in the university's mentor program seemed the only way to find focus for her pending ten-thousand words.
In the quiet of her study, she opened her university inbox, her interest piquing at the third email down.
Subject: Mentor Program Allocation. She clicked it open.
Dear Dylan,
You have been allocated a mentor and are expected to reach out to them as your schedule allows.
Your mentor is Dr Greta Vincent. Oncology Consultant at The Pankhurst Cancer Institute, Manchester.
Dr Vincent is a medical oncologist specialising Teenage and Young Adult (TYA) oncology.
She is very research active and the Principal Investigator of numerous Oncological clinical trials open and recruiting in Manchester.
Dr Vincent is also an honorary lecturer at The University of Manchester.
As you can appreciate, Dr Vincent’s schedule is very full, so please think ahead and book a date to see her as soon as possible.
Dr Vincent and her sec are copied into this thread, so please contact her or her secretary directly.
Regards,
Dr Tess McClure.
Faculty lead
Clinical Research Masters Program.
Billowing her cheeks, Dylan allowed a breath to bleed out slowly, filled with the relief of finally discussing her dissertation with someone qualified in her chosen specialism.
The mental images Dylan conjured of Dr Vincent had her as a studious, grey, older woman.
Kind, hopefully, and capable of pointing her toward the first lines of chapter one or, at the very least, formulating the ever-elusive title.
After closing her email she leaned back, the chair bouncing with the momentum of her body.
With her fingers steepled at her lips, she listened to the noise of her mum’s nurse laughing drifting up from downstairs.
Clamping a hand over her restless leg to stop it from bouncing, she let out a heavy sigh.
Leaning forward, she brought both elbows to the desk and dragged her hands slowly over her face.
An abrasive vibration against the surface startled her.
She snatched the phone up, heart immediately racing for Margot, but the screen showed a different name.
No Margot Grenson; instead, it was a housewife in Alderley Edge, booking her usual slot for next week.
It was the same routine every time—firefighter trousers, braces, and a theatrical, incredibly loud, fuck.
After abandoning her phone in her study where she couldn't incessantly check it, Dylan made her way downstairs to her gym.