I watched her chat with him like a machine, plugging in all the courtesies that were due and precisely working her way up from the personal to the academic to the brass tacks of her mission. It was cold, it was clinical, it was all bullshit, but it was bullshit that Stephanie used like a precision instrument. I wouldn't have been surprised if he'd given her the internship on the spot. Instead, they made a lunch date with another professor and would take it from there.

And then, before my eyes, someone else she knew - a professor or near enough to it - appeared down the hall and I...