Kat and the Professor first.

You grab your phone and decide to give the list a good old college try. First up is Kat, you dial her number and wait to see if she answers. If you remember the schedule right, she's due in work at 3 but that girl is addicted to sleeping worse than you are. You hang on the line and sure enough on ring three, you are dumped to voicemail.

"Hi, you've reached Kat. If it's morning, I'm probably hungover and still sleeping. If it's afternoon, I'm working and the boss is a bitch about personal phone calls. Evening? Probably working or partying. Leave a message, I check them at least once a week!" Beep!

"Hey. I should have known better than to call you this early. Pop me a text later and let me know when to call!"

You hang up and follow up with a text just in case. It's probably better this way. You should check the site and see when the castings are anyway before you two chat. You don't think she's ever slipped up and gotten caught so you aren't too worried about that part. So it'll likely be down to making sure she aces the casting. To be honest, you're not sure you can fail one if you're willing to have sex on camera and Kat isn't a shy girl at all. After all, you know for a fact at least a few guys have taken cell video of her sucking them off. At least she used to joke about it occasionally.

Then you get back on the laptop. How to approach Professor Edwards? Your instincts tell you he's itching to get you alone. The question is whether this is a push to make that happen or if he's trying to find a way to keep you around on the off chance that situation presents itself? Not that you really want to be cornered alone, but it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. There's always a chance you're reading him and this pitch wrong too. So how do I not screw this email up? You muse to yourself for a moment. When in doubt, tiptoe around is a good way to start. You hit reply.

*Hi Professor!

I'm sorry to hit you with the bad news in an email. I usually try to be upfront and face to face with this type of stuff but I'm really loading myself up with lots of part-time work and gigs. I wish I saw a good alternative. I'll really miss reading lines in class, it was a zen moment of peace for me at times. I do really appreciate the offer of help but even if we work something out, Finaid demands at least half a semester course load and that'd require at least one additional class. I just don't know how I'd work all that out.

Thanks for everything, Professor. Perhaps in a year or two, I'll be able to wander back and polish up my stage career!

So long and thanks for all the fish,

Simone*

Let's see, you think. Damsel in distress? Check. Really miss his class with goofy philosophical claptrap thrown in? Check. Quote from one of his favorite books? Check. It's whimsical enough that you figure even if his girlfriend read it, there's no way it could be seen as a come-on or quid pro quo. She'd probably think you were a ditzy airhead, you decide you could live with that. Of course, guys have a tendency to read things a bit differently because they tunnel vision some where women are involved. Oh well, you hit send. You decide you'll see how he answers. At worst, you can always follow through with the original plan.

Then you plug the USB stick in the laptop and head to the company email. Sure enough, Walker's message is waiting with the casting site page link. You surf over there and see it's short and sweet. He's holding castings all day Saturday at the bookstore. Of course, there's no more info than that. When you were cast, he said the shoplifting videos were the ones they were short on at that time but there were a couple of categories they do for these things. Now you wish you could remember what the other types were.

You head back to the company mail site and pull Brett's address up in the To field. Walker did say talking to him was fine. No, you shake your head and close the program. Asking him lots of questions about this weekend's casting could lead to counter questions that might not help Kat or could get you into something messy. Brett appears to be a bit on the shady side and he seems buddy buddy with Jack. With Schaffer involved even tangentially, it's probably best not to open that door unless you really need to. You decide to slow your roll on this until you talk to her. If she says no, why have Brett involved at all?

You decide to leave the withdrawal thing for tomorrow. That'll give the professor a chance to fish or cut bait. It's not like another day will drive your debt up too far. Of course, the car will be picked up by then so it'd be Uber or the bus. But waiting means you can curl up on the loveseat and watch some more TV shows while you wait for the messages to come in. That sounds like a great way to spend part of a Tuesday!