© Christina Hadfield
FRESHMEN YEAR
For nearly an entire semester, Tess Stanford managed to avoid all contact with Dr. Morgan. This was somewhat of an amazing feat, considering Tess was in Dr. Morgan’s class. Well, it was a bit more complicated than that. Yes, Dr. Morgan was listed as her professor, but it was a freshmen general chemistry lab that was only run by teaching assistants. Dr. Morgan organized the lab and gave out the final grades, but she was never around during lab time, leaving all the work to the graduate teaching assistants.
Tess, like most of her fellow classmates, had never seen Dr. Morgan in the building at lab time. This was because the professor avoided freshmen like the plague. And yes, Dr. Morgan would argue, there was statistically significant data to suggest that freshmen did indeed carry more diseases than the average upperclassman. But everyone—despite not everyone seeing her in person—knew of Dr. Morgan. She carried a notorious reputation on campus, which is how it came to be that on the very night of freshmen move-in, everyone on Tess’s dorm floor learned everything there was to know about the mysterious professor. They heard it from their RA right after their first-floor meeting.
“So that about sums up the agenda for the next several days,” their RA concluded. “What classes does everyone have so we can plan out our tour route Sunday? So, everyone knows where they’re going come Monday.”
“I’ve got intro to sociology,” someone stated.
“And you’re the only humanities major here. I have economics,” another answered.
“And you’re the only econ major here. I’ve got biology,” another retorted.
From that came a chorus of “Me too!” as the majority of the floor was pre-med. Tess did not fall into that category, as the thought of becoming a doctor was horribly disgusting, but she was a biology major and extremely interested in research work. She, just like all the pre-med students, was taking both intro gen bio and intro gen chem.
“Where’s the chem building?” was the question that further confirmed this.
“Oh… you all have gen chem lab too then, huh?” their RA stated. “I am so, so sorry.”
“Is it hard?”
“Yes, no, well… I wouldn’t say it’s hard if you just take the time to listen in lecture and learn the chemistry, but well… they just do everything in their power to keep you from getting an A.”
“How so?”
“It’s Dr. Morgan. She’s the devil in disguise. She’s just the lab coordinator though, so hopefully you can avoid her. She’s never around lab. TA’s run it. But she’s… well don’t tell anyone that I said this, but she’s got a real stick up her ass. You’ll lose points for the dumbest of things, like if you accidentally cross something out with two lines instead of one, or you don’t date your error when you cross it out. If you break anything, no matter if it’s something inconsequential, they kick you out of lab and it’s an automatic zero. You don’t get any missed labs either, unless you have a valid excuse and turn in all this paperwork. And you can’t make up a lab.”
All of the pre-med students were stunned to silence, their hearts hammering in fear for their GPA. But, the econ kid said, “Well I don’t have to worry about all that.” He didn’t say anything else after that, however, because all the pre-med kids looked like they might kill him in his sleep.
“No, no, it’s okay, really!” their RA quickly said, not trying to scare them all so silly before their first day. “Tons of freshmen survive that class every year and move on with only a few extra grey hairs! Just… make a real effort to never actually run into Dr. Morgan. I know at least four people who had to get her to sign their disabilities paperwork, and every one of them dropped out. Luckily you pre-meds don’t have to take any advanced chemistry labs, so you’ll be fine. Me, on the other hand, I put off taking that lab, but next semester I heard Dr. Morgan’s the only one teaching it, so that means I have to take it with her! I’m thinking about transferring my last semester just to avoid her!”
Tess looked to her roommate—who was pre-med—and shrugged. “She can’t be that bad, right?” Tess whispered.
Her roommate looked terribly pale.
Two weeks later, Tess saw Dr. Morgan for the first time. Tess was walking back from class with her roommate and a new friend named Kai, who also happened to be pre-med. Kai reached out and grabbed both Tess and her roommate, stopping them all abruptly.
“Oh my gosh, that’s her!” Kai stated.
“Who?” the roommate asked.
“Yeah, who are you talking about?” Tess questioned.
“Dr. Morgan!” Kai pointed off across campus to a woman, yards away from them and on an entirely different sidewalk. She was stalking along, carrying a large box. Her hair was a dark brunette, pulled up into a tight bun, and she wore a dark woman’s suit. Sure, she looked professional and perhaps a bit intimidating, but Tess was more surprised than anything.
“You meant that’s Dr. Morgan?” Tess asked with full disbelief. Even though the woman was far away, and Tess could not make out subtler details, it was very evident to her that Dr. Morgan was not at all what she had pictured. The notorious professor was young, and striking, in both her looks and the way she carried herself, not an old ugly disgruntled woman as Tess had originally pictured. Tess stammered out her observation, stating, “But she’s so… so young! And—and hot!”
Both her roommate and Kai stared at her curiously.
“Come on! Don’t look at me like that!” Tess protested. “I know all the rumors, but you can’t deny that she’s good looking!”
Kai looked back towards Dr. Morgan for a good several moments. Finally, she conceited, “I can see it, I suppose. But I wouldn’t dare risk my life trying to compliment her. I mean, look!”
Tess looked back towards Dr. Morgan. The woman was coming up on a student walking towards her down the pathway. The sidewalk they were on was narrow, though more than wide enough for two people side by side. However, it wasn’t wide enough for Dr. Morgan and another person side by side. The professor glared down at the student from over top the box she was carrying and the boy, suddenly taking note of who he was approaching, stopped abruptly, his knees shaking. Quickly, he spun on his feet and sprinted away in the opposite direction. His abrupt leave alerted several others to Dr. Morgan’s presence and everyone began to change their trajectories to avoid her. The once stuffed sidewalks, full of bustling students through campus, parted around Dr. Morgan and she walked past with clear passage.
“God she’s terrifying,” Tess’s roommate said with a shudder.
“She’s… bewildering,” Tess muttered, still trying to process what she had just witnessed.
“You’re treading on dangerous water,” Kai stated, pulling Tess’s attention away from Dr. Morgan. “Yes, she’s young—I heard it’s because she skipped several grades, got her Ph.D. early—and yes, she’s got a good figure, but the things I’ve heard about her… even a simple conversation with her is not worth it.”
“What all have you been hearing exactly?” Tess questioned.
“The bio and chem department—because she’s bio-chem, right—scheduled their weekly department meetings around Dr. Morgan without telling her, hoping that she wouldn’t notice and would never show up,” Kai replied.
“I heard Dr. Glower switched departments because his office was right next to hers and he kept bumping into her in the hall,” the roommate added.
“She’s basically down to only teaching grad students because no one would sign up for her classes,” Kai continued. “You heard our RA. She’d rather transfer schools than take a class with Dr. Morgan. Poor grad students just don’t know what they’re getting into until it’s too late.”
“Well none of this makes any sense,” Tess huffed. “If she’s such a bad professor and everyone hates her guts, how come she’s still got her job?”
“Tenure stuff,” Tess’s roommate muttered.
“Yeah, she’s a crazy genius,” Kai confirmed. “She’s discovered all sorts of stuff… brings in good funding and good rep for the school. That’s the only reason they’re keeping her around.”
“I find it hard to believe that she got so far in life being an absolutely horrid person,” Tess stated.
“Well that might be, but she’s a horrid person now,” Kai concluded. “And you’re going to leave it as is, because there’s no way you’re going to go talk to her, right?”
“Yeah, she’s a really terrible, nasty person, Tess,” the roommate added. “Haven’t you heard all the terrible experiences people have had with her? It’s just not worth it.”
“No, of course, I’d never willingly talk to her,” Tess finally decided, though she could not help but look back over her shoulder once more in hopes of seeing Dr. Morgan again. She did not, of course, as Dr. Morgan was long gone.
And so, Tess avoided Dr. Morgan for almost an entire semester.
One day in winter, however, Tess’s luck ran out when she ran into Dr. Morgan completely unintentionally. She walked through the science quad, going from bio class to chem class, and stumbled upon a horrid exchange.
Out of nowhere, Dr. Morgan came from around the corner of the physics building and she ran straight into a boy. When they collided, the boy got knocked sideways and fell right into the snow, spilling his papers and textbooks every which way.
Dr. Morgan shouted, “Watch where you’re going, you blind imbecile!”
The boy struggled to stand and collect himself, Tess frozen in place just a few yards away. Dr. Morgan stood there, doing absolutely nothing to help, and she huffed as if the collision had inconvenienced her more than the poor boy. Then she turned and found Tess staring at her, the girl’s mouth agape in shock.
“What are you staring at?” Dr. Morgan demanded.
Tess came to her senses, shaking her head slightly, and she stepped back as Dr. Morgan shoved past her, hurrying away.
Once the devil was gone, Tess quickly went over and helped the boy up. He shook from head to toe, muttering out his thanks before he grabbed his things from Tess and ran off. After he was gone, Tess continued to stare in the direction Dr. Morgan had bolted, and she thought to herself, what a horrid, horrid, woman.
The following Spring semester, things were going just about as good as they possibly could be. Tess was doing decently well in her classes and she could confirm that yes, gen chem lab was just as terrible as all the upperclassmen made it out to be.
It was just that they were so strict about pointless things, anal things really. Tess thought Dr. Morgan must really get off on failing people, on ruining their hopes and dreams and aspirations like some ridiculous sadist. In lab, you were forbidden from asking your TA any questions—which Tess found particularly silly because they were there to learn and allowing questions to be asked probably would have avoided at least two chemical burns and one minor fire that year. Everything was made up to feel like a high-risk test. Students had to work alone and were forbidden to talk to anyone else, and when time was up, done or not, you had to be cleaned up and out the door, because you lost a grade letter on your lab for every minute you stayed late.
But Tess was getting by. She had a solid A in lab, better than her chem lecture grade even, which most upperclassmen claimed was impossible. And despite all the warnings about losing points, she still asked her TA for help and her TA, miraculously being a nice human being and not some power hungry professor stroking their ego—Dr. Morgan—they were willing to help and not take off points. The actual grading of the lab—all the calculations and loss of points for failed experiments—was different though, because Dr. Morgan reviewed all the TA’s grading and gave out the final grades. And she… well she had a stick up her ass. Every week Tess would be bitter about losing points for stupid things, but every week she learned more about Dr. Morgan’s particular wants and catered to the woman’s ideals. Every week… her lab grade improved.
One week was different, however. On one week, right before lab, Tess stopped in the hall by a girl who was hysterically crying. Their TA wouldn’t let her into lab because her pre-lab was incomplete—which meant an automatic zero since they did not have a dropped lab. Tess had half the thought to just mind her own business, but she overheard what the girl was wailing to the TA about and she couldn’t not do anything. The girl’s mother had recently died, and she couldn’t miss lab because it was all rather sudden and she didn’t get the paperwork filled out ahead of time, so Dr. Morgan wouldn’t let her miss. However, she’d missed nearly two weeks of lecture and was behind on the material so she couldn’t figure out all of the questions on the pre-lab. The TA clearly felt horrid, but he hadn’t a choice: he had to turn her away least he lose his own job.
Tess, however, felt quite horrid and didn’t have a TA job to lose, so she pulled the girl back down the hall.
“Hey, hey, I’ll help you out,” Tess stated, trying to calm the girl enough to get her to listen. “What haven’t you got done yet? We’ve got about five minutes until lab starts. I’ll walk you through it.”
“I can’t get this one problem done,” the girl sniffled. “The math just isn’t working out and I can’t do the lab without that measurement.”
Tess nodded, doing her best to talk through the problem quickly as the girl frantically scribbled down notes. They were running out of time, but they were going to make it, Tess was so hopeful. But… that was when Dr. Morgan rounded the corner.
“My, my, what have we here?” the professor stated. Tess jumped slightly and the girl beside her visibly shrunk. Dr. Morgan walked up to them and yanked the girl’s pre-lab from her hands. She looked down at the paper, shaking her head slightly. “Copying homework in the hallway… cheating… academic dishonesty…” She paused to take in the girl’s name. “An automatic zero…” Then, without further preamble, Dr. Morgan tore the pre-lab straight in half, throwing the pieces back in the girl’s face. Before Tess could react, Dr. Morgan was gone, her final words ringing out, “That’s going on your student record… the university takes academic dishonesty very seriously.”
Alone now in the hall, the girl began crying even harder, falling to her knees as she struggled to collect all the pieces of her pre-lab. “I’m going to get expelled!” she wailed. “I’m going to fail lab and get expelled and my mother’s gone and I… I can’t…”
“Hey, fuck her,” Tess declared suddenly, and the strength of her words caused the girl to choke back her sob. “She can’t just… bully us like that! We weren’t even doing anything wrong! And we certainly weren’t cheating!”
“Girls… lab is starting,” their TA called from the doorway to lab.
Tess nodded slightly, turning to the girl. “Hey, look, listen… go home and get some rest, calm down, and don’t worry about lab,” she stated. “After lab, I’m going to go find Dr. Morgan and give her a piece of my mind.”
“You… you… you have a death wish.”
“Maybe, but it’s not right what she did. I don’t care about her reputation. This isn’t right.”
The girl wiped her nose on her sleeve, standing more firmly. “You… you should just let it go,” she stammered. “You’re just going to make things worse for yourself.”
“I can’t just sit around and watch you get kicked out without saying anything.”
“Girls! Tess! Lab!” their TA called again.
“I… thank you,” the girl answered. Then Tess nodded, darting off to lab, and the girl collected up her things.
After lab, Tess did exactly as she said she was going to do. She cleaned off her bench top, packed away her lab papers for her post-lab write up, and then she marched right down to Dr. Morgan’s office. As always, Dr. Morgan’s office door was shut tight, but there was a window on the door that the professors were not allowed to cover, so Tess could see inside. She noted for one that the light was on, so the office was occupied, and she further noted that she could see Dr. Morgan sitting at her desk working on some papers.
Tess took a deep breath, then with determination, she knocked firmly on the door.
Dr. Morgan glanced up, made eye contact with Tess, and then she held up her arm and tapped on her wrist as if to alert her interruption to the time. However, Tess did not care. She knocked harder, refusing to stop. With a huff, the professor stood and walked to the door, opening it an inch.
“My office hours are over for today,” Dr. Morgan stated simply. Then, she immediately slammed the door in the girl’s face.
Despite this, Tess did not leave and continued to knock on the door. Dr. Morgan ignored her, returning to her work. This did not stop Tess, however, as she continued her firm knocking. She did not have anything else for the rest of the day and was perfectly content to stand there and knock until Dr. Morgan had to leave her office to go home. But as she expected, she did not have to wait that long, because five minutes later Dr. Morgan was beginning to lose her composure.
“Go away,” Dr. Morgan shouted, her voice hardly muffled by the shut door. “I have office hours again tomorrow.”
“I need to talk to you now,” Tess answered.
“That’s unfortunate. Send me an email.”
“I’m here now. If you’d just talk to me, I’d be done and gone by now.”
Again, Dr. Morgan ignored her. Tess could see her working her jaw, however, and she didn’t figure it would take much more before the woman broke entirely. She was right, as several minutes later—with continued nonstop knocking—Dr. Morgan let out a dramatic huff, stood, and pulled open the door.
“Fine!” she snapped. “You’re incessant and annoying! But fine! Come in, speak your mind, and then get the hell out of my office.”
Again, Dr. Morgan turned away from Tess, going straight back to her desk. Tess was too angry to sit, so she simply stood across from the professor.
“Look, it’s about what happened in the hall—” Tess began, but Dr. Morgan cut her off.
“Yes, you were an accomplice to cheating. I’m not so dense that I’d forget your face in the matter of a few hours. You’re right in coming here though.”
“I am?”
“Yes. It seems I forgot to take down your name to report you for academic dishonesty too.”
Tess nearly scowled, but she took a minute to compose herself. “No, listen, we weren’t cheating,” she stated, trying to keep her voice level. “You simply jumped to conclusions and—”
“I think I know academic dishonesty when I see it.”
“Her mother just died!” Tess suddenly snapped without preamble, losing her cool. Her anger only further erupted when she noted the near sinister grin that grew across Dr. Morgan’s face. It was clear she was simply pushing buttons, waiting for Tess to lose her cool so she would have an upper hand. But Tess wasn’t going to let that happen. She took another deep breath and focused her thoughts.
Much calmer, she continued. “It’s simply absurd all the hoops you have to jump through in this class just to miss a single lab. Her mother just died; it was sudden. She’s missed weeks of lecture, so she’s already behind, and the only reason she came in today was because you were going to give her a zero for incomplete paperwork… paperwork that doesn’t allow for emergencies. All she needed was a little help on one of the pre-lab questions—because she’s missed so much lecture—and I was just explaining the concepts to her so she could finish the problem and get into lab. Just… have a little mercy and drop the lab for her?”
Dr. Morgan exhaled, still looking at Tess as if she were prey. Then, she asked, “What’s your name?”
“Tess,” Tess answered. “Tess Stanford.” And she knew, as she said it, that she very well might be sealing her fate to a zero on her own lab. But she wouldn’t lie, and she wouldn’t cower before her enemy.
“Well, Miss Stanford,” Dr. Morgan stated, “your gall is perhaps a bit admirable, but you’re a fool. Rules and procedures are set in place for a good reason. You think we’ve never had a student lose a loved one during the semester? But policy is policy and collaborative homework is a strict no-no, regardless of the circumstances.”
Tess clenched her fists at her side. “I refuse to believe it,” she muttered.
Dr. Morgan nearly laughed. “Refuse to believe that rules are steadfast, and you aren’t immune of the consequences? How idiotic you freshmen are, I—”
“No,” Tess stated forcefully, cutting Dr. Morgan off, and the woman seemed entirely shocked that the girl had the guts to do such a thing. “I refuse to believe all the rumors I hear about you. I’m sure you’ve heard them too. I can’t go a full day on this campus without someone talking about how awful of a person you are. But I refuse to believe those rumors. You can’t be that coldhearted and ruthless. I don’t believe it. I refuse to believe you’re as evil as they say.”
Dr. Morgan cocked a skeptical eyebrow. “Some rumors are true, Miss Stanford.”
“No,” Tess further protested. “You’re better than that. I refuse to believe that anyone who teaches is that coldhearted. To be an educator requires some level of compassion for others. You’re so smart… you could surely have any job you wanted, but you’re here, running an intro lab, and I—”
“I think it’s time you leave.”
Tess blinked several times, nearly chilled straight through by the ice in Dr. Morgan’s voice. Still, she held her ground, and declared confidently, “You should drop her lab.”
“Get out. Now.”
Tess nodded once, then she promptly turned and left Dr. Morgan’s office with the intense desire to cry. Maybe some rumors really were true…
“Look at my grade!”
Tess was rustled from her thoughts in her chem lecture by someone tapping on her shoulder. She turned, realizing it was the girl from lab that she tried to help the week before. She was holding her laptop out for Tess to see. Slowly, Tess leaned in, looking at the girl’s gradebook. Next to last week’s lab, where a big fat zero should have sat—since Dr. Morgan tore up her lab—she instead had an A for the class… and a dropped lab.
“And… and I haven’t got anything on my student record about academic dishonesty either!” the girl hurriedly continued. “I don’t know what you said to her, but… you’re a godsend! Whatever you did, it worked! Thank you!”
For the rest of the day, Tess found she could only think about one thing, and that was Dr. Morgan. She felt their conversation had gone horribly. She was filled with such a crushed sense of self afterwards that she understood all the kids who dropped out after having unfortunate encounters with the woman. She finally understood her RA, who’d rather switch schools than take Dr. Morgan’s class, and she understood how serious the warnings were to avoid direct contact with Dr. Morgan at all times.
But… Tess survived. She didn’t drop out, and didn’t cry herself to sleep every night, and what was more… Dr. Morgan actually listened to her. The devil incarnate had done something nice. Or, it was reasonable, but it wasn’t evil and that was what really mattered. Tess accomplished what she set out to do. She helped that girl, and she would leave it at that. There was no reason to push her luck.
Except that as the week rolled on, Tess couldn’t stop thinking about it. In all her time at school, she only ever heard negative things about Dr. Morgan. The rumors were always complaints about her strictness, or her being unfair, and even just her rudeness, but there was never anything nice said about the woman. Sure, people tended to dwell on bad things, but if Dr. Morgan was even just sometimes nice, surely there would have been at least one teacher’s pet who would have stood up for her. But there wasn’t. And Tess was very thorough to discover how others felt about Dr. Morgan, because the woman was confusing her. It was unanimous though. No one liked Dr. Morgan, didn’t like anything about her, and she most certainly never did anything nice for anyone ever.
It would have been better if Tess just let it go. She knew this; she knew pushing the woman wouldn’t lead her anywhere good. She wasn’t going to say anything else, wasn’t going to push her luck.
That week, after lab, she packed up her things and headed downstairs. She finished early, thanks to not butchering one step that had kept the entire rest of the class behind, and so she was alone in the halls. Outside, the weather was nice, and she was eager to escape to freedom. But as she tracked down the hall, she noted the light was on in Dr. Morgan’s office and she slowed, noting the woman sitting at her desk. Still, she kept walking. The door to the outside was just around the corner. She could take a walk, go for a jog, get some food, take a nap—
Tess turned around and went back to Dr. Morgan’s office. She stopped, contemplated once more, before she reached up and knocked.
Dr. Morgan glanced up at the sound, but she immediately glanced away, paying Tess no mind. Tess, expecting as much, knocked again, more firmly. After about a minute or so of incessant knocking, Dr. Morgan called out, “My office hours are over for today. I suggest you leave.”
Tess had half the mind to keep knocking, but she stilled her hand, lying her palm flat against the wooden door. She looked down at her feet, took a deep breath, then she looked back into Dr. Morgan’s office.
“I just… I wanted to say thanks,” Tess stated. This was enough to get Dr. Morgan to look up at her, but then she looked away again without another word. Tess just stood there, watching Dr. Morgan. She watched the way the professor flipped through papers, the way she held her pen, the posture in which she sat.
After a couple of minutes, Tess called out, “Why?” Dr. Morgan stilled what she was doing, so Tess continued. “Just… why? Why did you listen to what I said?”
After a beat of silence, in which Tess thought she was going to have to leave without an answer, Dr. Morgan stood and walked to the door. She opened it a crack, so it was unlocked, but then returned to her seat. It was an invitation though, and Tess slowly pushed the door open further, stepping inside. She stood across from Dr. Morgan, watching as she shuffled through her papers.
“You’re irritating,” Dr. Morgan stated simply, her back turned to Tess. “I figured if I didn’t listen to you, you’d be the type to come bang on my door every day for hours until I listened. Really, I did it selfishly, so you’d leave me alone.”
Tess slowly smirked, taking in her words. “It worked really well, huh, considering I’m here right now.”
Tentatively, almost, Dr. Morgan turned to face Tess. “Yes, well… it was to be expected that you’d want answers,” she replied.
Tess looked at Dr. Morgan good and hard. She had always found Dr. Morgan attractive, from afar, but the energy she radiated across campus was nothing compared to being up close to her. She was even more alluring with the glint currently shining in her eyes, a near playfulness that Tess had never expected. She wasn’t so intimidating anymore, not now that Tess knew she was capable of good.
Dr. Morgan turned away, going back to shuffling things around. It was dismissive, but Tess was hardly paying attention to such things, too swept up in her new revelations about the woman before her.
“I knew they were wrong about you,” Tess whispered. Dr. Morgan made no indication that she was listening, but Tess knew she was. “I think you like intimidating people… it’s a way you can protect yourself, avoid being vulnerable. But I knew there had to be more to you. I knew you weren’t all bad.”
“You’re jumping to a lot of conclusions right now with minimal evidence to support your claims,” Dr. Morgan retorted, but her comment lacked her usual bite.
Tess nearly beamed. “I think you’re pretty great, Dr. Morgan.”
Dr. Morgan turned, sitting down at her desk. She looked to Tess with a slight shake of her head. “And I think it’s time you leave. It’s not, after all, my office hours’ time.”
Tess slipped away with a shy grin on her face. The last thing she noticed as she pulled the door closed behind her was that Dr. Morgan did not wear a band on her left ring finger.
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