Page 1 of Dear British Professor
1
WILLA
What started as a regular Friday night hanging with my three best friends—Maren, Lucy, and Cassidy—has quickly turned into a venting session asking ourselves why we are all still single.
“What I want to know is why we are all here, staying in on a Friday night?” Maren asks, refilling everyone’s margarita glasses. “I mean, I know why I don’t have a life, but we are all smart, funny, beautiful women. We should have guys lining up down the block for us.” She turns on the sofa to glance out the window, down at the street below. “It’s empty.”
We all have our reasons for being single. Maren is a workaholic, who I’m pretty sure she’s in love with her boss. Why else would she put up with the hours he makes her work. Lucy is painfully shy around anyone with a Y chromosome. I've seen her first hand lose complete motor function of her mouth when some hot guy at the table next to us asks if he could use one of our chairs. Cassidy admitted to me one drunken night senior year in college that she was in love with her brother’s best friend, even though he never looked at her like anything other than a sister to him. But sadly, she’s still waiting for him to wake up and finally not see her as the awkward teenager with headgear she was in high school.
As for me, I’m trying to focus on furthering my education in grad school, but that’s been a lot harder to do since Professor Waller-Jones walked into the auditorium classroom at the beginning of the semester. I’d heard some rumblings on campus about the hot new British professor, but I had no idea until he walked in that I realized the gossip wasn’t doing him justice. He’s got a square jaw sharp enough to cut glass, dark soulful eyes, and an accent that can make a girl forget her own name. Somehow looking and sounding like he does, he seems to have no interest in any of the attention that his undergrad students throw his way. I would have thought he might have been gay if I didn't see him a couple of weeks ago out on a date with a woman.
As we each sip on our margaritas, we move down the line on the sectional sofa admitting our reasons we are still single. I spill the beans about Professor Waller-Jones. Cassidy pulls out her phone, does a quick search, and finds his picture on the college website. They all agree he's hot and swoon even more when I tell them he's British. Lucy goes next, reminding us again about her crush on the bad boy that lives next door to her. Then Cassidy finally admits to the rest of the group about how she’s been pining for her brother’s best friend for so long that no other guy she’s ever tried to date lives up to the fantasy of him in her head. After she’s done, it takes a little prodding, but eventually, we get Maren to admit that she has a thing for her boss. I knew there was no way that she put up with him and the hours he makes her work for just the love of her job.
“So, what are we saying here?” Maren says, standing up from the sofa and turning to look at each of us. “Are we all going to sit here every Friday night, lusting after our secret crushes until we are old spinsters?”
“What are you suggesting?” Cassidy asks.
“We’ve got to tell the guys in our lives how we feel so we can move on. We can’t keep holding onto a hope that they might one day wake up and see us differently. There are guys out there waiting for us.” She points out the window towards the city skyline. “And we are too busy hiding behind our unrequited love to go out and meet them.”
“How are we supposed to tell them?” Lucy asks, her cheeks flushing. “I can barely get the courage to speak complete sentences around him, let alone admit how I feel.”
Maren looks unsure for a moment.
“Here.” She runs over and grabs a stationary box off the shelf. “We will each write out a letter. We don’t have to send them, but maybe, by putting down on paper how we feel, we can finally move on and meet someone new.”
“It’s not the craziest idea you’ve ever had,” I say.
Not that I ever plan to send out my letter, but maybe just getting my feelings out will actually help me move on. I’m tired of Professor Waller-Jones looking through me in class. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t even know my name.
Cassidy shrugs. “I don’t see why it wouldn’t hurt to try it.”
We all turn to Lucy. She has a look of determination in her expression that we don't usually see on her timid face.
“Are you in, Lucy?” Maren asks.
Her smile spreads from ear to ear. “Let’s do it.”
Maren hands us each some paper and an envelope. I grab a thick magazine off the coffee table and pull my knees up to my chest and start writing. It’s crazy how the words just flow from me onto the paper. I can already feel the weight of my unrequited feelings begin to lift off my shoulders. This is going to be so good for me.
2
SIMON
“Have you figured out who you’re going to ask to help you with the research for your next book?” My friend and fellow professor Jack Campbell asks as he sits on the sofa in my office.
I finish typing out the last of my email responses to one of my students. News of my need for a research assistant seems to have spread like wildfire across the campus. I’ve even got requests for the position from students that aren’t even in my classes. My email inbox fills up as quickly as I'm sending out my responses, declining their offers. I wish I could just set up an automatic response that politely tells everyone inquiring that I’ve already chosen who I want to be my research assistant. The Dean will be happy to know that I’ve finally made my decision. They are eager for me to get my book completed, seeing how well my last book did.
There is no question about which of my students I plan to ask to help with the research for my next book. Not only is Willa Munro my hardest working student, but she doesn’t seem to get caught up in the nonsense her peers seem to be lost in trying to live out their wild American university experience.
I don’t need the distraction, wondering if they are doing everything that is required of them.
“I’ve made my decision,” I tell Jack.
He stops poking through the pile of mail I tossed on the sofa that I picked up on my way in. My email responses have kept me from getting any real work done.
“You’re going to have a lot of broken hearts on your hands.” He links his fingers behind his head and smiles like a kid that’s just come down the stairs and seen what Father Christmas left them under the tree.
I roll my eyes. “I’m not sure what it is that has the students here circling me like a bunch of hyenas circling their prey.”
