Marsha talks and Simone gets nervous. . .

As soon as you exit the apartment building, you see the red four-door idling in the parking lot. As you walk up to it, the passenger door opens and you can see a brunette in the driver's seat. She's wearing a pair of jeans and a fuzzy pink turtleneck sweater. You climb inside, pull the door shut behind you, and belt in. She just nods and starts driving.

"You must be Simone. Feel free to call me Marsha."

"Ummm thanks for the ride, Marsha. The buses running this late are awful."

"I bet they are. Don't worry whatever you two decide tonight, I'll make sure you get home."

You look over at her quizically. "That's a particular thing to say like there's some sort of difficult negotiation going on here. The professor implied he had the details figured out. It was just a simple shuffling of classes and everything would be kosher," you dig a bit, hoping to get her to bite.

She laughs, "You are a smart one! Trey told me you were. That makes me feel a bit better about tonight, to be honest. I was so afraid you were going to be an airhead like that Brenda girl. Gods was I glad to get her out of my shop!"

You laugh. Brenda is the 'looker' in class. . . long blonde hair, short skirts, and big breasts. Every class has one after all. That one girl all the guys drool over and the rest of the girls are happy to have around unless your boyfriend has wandering eyes anyway. She's rarely a smart one but enough homework offers are made that she breezes through school. Still, Brenda has always been nice at least.

"Brenda isn't the brightest girl in class" you offer, "but she has a heart of gold."

"No one sweetheart, Trey included, was paying a lot of attention to her heart. You seem a bit swifter upstairs. You know he isn't having car problems. I just insisted on meeting you before any arrangements were made. That last girl really didn't work out well at all."

You tilt your head to the side as you carefully watch the brunette's face.

"Color me a bit nervous now. It sounds like the two of you are buying a puppy or adopting a child. Is this a good time to point out I'm a 23-year-old woman?"

The car stops at a red light and she shakes her head.

"Oh no, Simone. I've probably spoken too much as it is. If I had my way, we would have this hashed out before we even get out of the car. I'm afraid Trey is going to make a mess of the whole thing. Still, this is his project, I just write the checks. Now I'm going to be a good girl and zip my lip," she offers a sly smile and takes a moment to text something really quickly. When the light changes green, the car moves and she concentrates on driving for the rest of the trip.

You sit back and think about the conversation as the car heads toward campus. This is a lot more complicated than you originally thought. You're still picking through it ten minutes later when you pull into a parking spot at the Arts Building. Marsha gets out first and you follow suit. When both doors are shut, she hits the key fob button to lock them. You hear the car beep and she walks toward the building. You shrug and follow. There's nothing left but to see where this leads, you think.

She takes you up to the second floor and straight back toward the professor's office. You're a bit surprised since you expected to meet in the first-floor classroom. She walks you straight into the waiting room.

The room is 12' by 12' with a threadbare brown rug, blue walls, and a copy machine shoved in the corner. Four doors to the offices are present, two on the wall across from the way you entered and one each to the right and left. There is a receptionist's desk between you and the two far offices but the lady left hours ago. You can see a cluster of wooden chairs in the middle of the room for people who need to wait but Marsha doesn't plan to. She walks straight to the door on the right, opens it, and turns the light on.

The professor's office is small, 6' by 6' is your guess with the same ratty old rugs and wall coloring. He has a small bookcase on the right wall overflowing with old books and a small wooden desk a few feet from the door. You look at Marsha.

"There's no way we're all squeezing in here to talk right?"

"Agreed," she says as she grabs a shiny black leather briefcase from behind the desk. "We're going to meet him at the coffeehouse now."

You give her a sour look.

"Why the heck did we come here then? The shop is in the other direction."

She locks the office door behind you and walks to the stairs.

"Because if I didn't like you, he'd be here to offer you a bit of help rearranging your schedule. It would have been a tough slog, but doable. Since I decided I like you, we can explore this further. That's better done at the shop. So I texted him to meet us there."

You follow, "And the briefcase?"

"It's mine. I left it here earlier and knew he wouldn't think to grab it. Well, hurry along little butterfly," she says as she leads you down the stairs, out the door, and into the car.

She doesn't say another word as she shifts the car into drive and heads in the direction of the coffeehouse. You just sit back and think some more. This is not what you expected, not at all. . . not even a little bit.