Page 31 of Falling for Mindy

“Yeah, we have a running joke that she has her phone glued to her hand. When she’s not at work, she’s a TikTok junkie because it’s fun and distracting. She tries the hairstyles and stuff, says it’s cheap entertainment,” I said with a smile. I really needed her to be okay. I felt my stomach cramp in worry.

“Do you have her file with you?” my supervisor asked.

“Yeah, here’s her address. Do you want me to call it in?” I inquired.

“You call social services, and I’ll call the cops. Be sure to give them all the info you have including her cell number. And don’t go giving out your personal number again,” Adeline chided, though gently.

I dialed the number she showed me and gave them all the information I had on Alicia including where she worked and that she rode the bus and that she wasn’t answering her phone. Then when I’d completed the report and assured them that my supervisor was informing law enforcement, I was told they would follow up with police and the women’s center administration. They thanked me and hung up.

I felt jittery, like I should do more. I needed to know that she was okay, and I was veering over from worried into downright scared. I started chewing my thumbnail.

When Adeline was finished with the call, she turned to me. “I explained our reasons for concern, and they’re going to perform a welfare check. Legally, that’s where we’re at. She doesn’t live at the shelter, and even if she did, we don’t track our clients or make them check in with us about their whereabouts. So, we’ll have to wait to hear from the police. If she messages you, please let me know.”

“I will,” I said ruefully. “Nothing yet. I have more appointments. I should go take care of that. Please let me know if you hear anything, okay?”

“I’ll let you know, Mindy. You know, it’s wonderful that you care so much for the clients you work with. This is the kind of rough situation you have to get used to dealing with in the field, and I give you a lot of credit for coming to me and going through the proper channels to check up on Alicia.”

“Thank you, Adeline,” I said, and went back to the computer lab to work with my next client.

The next couple of hours were tense. I checked my phone hundreds of times even though I didn’t hear an alert. I hadn’t heard from Alicia. Part of me, a foolish, hopeful part, expected her to come rushing in and say she was so sorry she’s late. That there was a normal kind of delay, something inconvenient but not dangerous—she missed the bus and realized she forgot her wallet and had to go back home, or she ate cheap takeout and got sick from it. I ran a lot of reasonable excuses through my head, but she never walked in.

After I completed the report on my shift, I shouldered my bag and went to face Professor Quinn. And that was the very last thing I felt like I was emotionally prepared to do after worrying about Alicia all day and practically jumping out of my skin every time someone else’s phone dinged in the computer lab. I was going to have to discuss what had happened with Alicia not showing up to her appointment. I would have to tell Professor Quinn I was worried. Even if I didn’t have the guts to bring it up, I knew he’d ask.

He asked about her thoughtfully at every meeting since he had helped me fill out the notice of concern about her. That had been the night we slept together. I couldn’t even begin to face that fact or discuss it like a rational adult. Not while I was so preoccupied with worrying about what could have happened to Alicia.

I made my way across campus to the building where his office was. I hung back in the hallway for a minute, chewing my thumbnail. I wanted to talk to him about this—in fact he was the person who’d understand how I was feeling and could give me advice or encouragement. I just felt like it was awkward because I had gotten personally involved with Alicia’s case by considering her a friend of mine, and also because my brilliant and sympathetic professor happened to be the most sinfully sexy man I’d ever known.

CHAPTER 18

KYLE

Dread was a strong word. But it described exactly what I was feeling in the time leading up to meeting with Mindy about her internship. I had all my paperwork up to date, and she was doing well with the field experience at the job center and writing sensible and caring reflection statements after her shifts. The only problem here was that I couldn’t’ help the way I felt about her. It was deeply frustrating to know that I, a man who had set out to make the world a better, more just and fairer place had breached this rule and gotten involved with a student. We hadn’t just hooked up once. There was something there, some feeling underneath the heady attraction between us.

She was going to come into this office and say a lot of words and be enthusiastic and concerned and smart and funny and I was going to stay on my side of the desk, eating my heart out. Wishing she’d be dull and brief and businesslike so I could get her out of the room and not be so consumed by her. In fact, I was consumed by the fact I wanted to see her and hear her voice when it was torment to do either. I kept thinking of old-fashioned words like ‘enthralled’ and ‘bewitched’, but neither one was quite right. Oh, I felt enthralled, but the word seemed to suggest that she had put a spell on me or in some way taken away my free will. That wasn’t it at all. It was more a situation that matched that energy, but I had tossed my free will at her feet almost by accident.

Considering the way Mindy has been acting in class, it seemed like she might have some regrets about what happened between us. Specifically, she was doing what she had always done. She sat right down front in the crowded class and took notes doggedly and raised her hand whenever I asked a question. I didn’t call on her. In part because I didn’t want my preference for her to be obvious, and in part because I had an irrational belief that she might say something incriminating instead of giving me the answer to a question about women’s studies.

I knew I would never confess to it. Everyone made mistakes, which is a tired aphorism, but it was relevant just the same. Throwing away my academic career and any possible success for my upcoming books by airing my dirty laundry for the administration in some misguided attempt to gain forgiveness was short-sighted and stupid. Not only would it drag Mindy’s name through the mud and taint her future career, but it would also deprive my students of the instruction I could provide them. One misstep didn’t take away the value of my teaching expertise, at least that’s what I tried to tell myself. The truth was I missed Mindy and most of my shame was over the fact that I didn’t regret being with her. I regretted the timing, the fact we hadn’t waited until she was no longer in my class.

She didn’t acknowledge what had happened between us. It might be for the best that we put it behind us, but I’d be lying if I said that didn’t hurt. Because it was nothing I could forget easily, or perhaps ever. It was impossible. If I was very lucky, she’d wait for me. We’d be together eight weeks from now, and we could start over then. We’d have a chance at something real. Certainly, if she wanted to leave it in the past, she was more sensible than I was myself. Because that night had become a major life event for me, one that changed everything. My rigid, black and white views of right and wrong had come up against the agency of a fully grown woman who had chosen to go to bed with me. Should I have refused her agency and claimed I knew better what was good for her because I was a man? Because I was older?

I was stuck in my head about the situation between Mindy and myself when she walked in right on time. I nodded my head in a formal greeting and glanced at my notes. When I looked at her, she was sitting stiffly on the edge of her chair, hands knotted together. She looked guarded, and it hit me that I made her feel like she had to be on her guard. That look on her face made me sorrier than any ethical debate could do. It was possible I’d put that expression on her face, made her feel and appear mistrustful and anxious. I felt moved to apologize, but I held back, because I didn’t want to refer to anything personal that had happened between us and make her more uncomfortable.

When she didn’t speak, I began with my planned questions, the same ones I would ask her counterpart in the internship the next day.

“How did things go on your shift today?” I asked.

“Not good. Really not good,” she said, staring at her hands.

“Please elaborate,” I said.

“Alicia, the one I told you about, the woman I gave my cell number to…”

“We made a report on her to the director so they could give her safety suggestions, I remember,” I prompted.

“She didn't show up for her appointment with me today. We were going to discuss her new job and check in on any paperwork or documentation she still needed, check on transportation and clothing and shoes. There were things in the professional dress closet I had pulled in her size because I thought they’d work for her, and I was excited to hear how things were going. I’d had a couple of texts from her that she had a bad feeling and thought her ex might have found her. Then when she didn’t turn up for her appointment, I got worried.”

“Did you tell Adeline?”

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