You dodge around a knot of faculty in the hall. "Wouldn't I do better to focus on the work I already have to do?"
Dr. Ellison takes the stairs to the ground floor two at a time. "I have the utmost confidence in your ability to juggle competing priorities."
You're glad someone does.
"Besides," she says, "you won't be working by yourself."
You enter the small conference room. At its round faux-wood table, Darcy looks up from a tiny notebook filled with her cramped handwriting.
Oh Come On
"Really?" both you and Darcy say in unison. It's like a rom-com meet-cute, or whatever the opposite of a meet-cute is. Meet-disdain.
Darcy recovers first. "I didn't know you'd be helping me with the symposium." She appears unruffled, but then she runs a hand nervously through her sandy blond hair, ruining the illusion.
"The two of you will be working together," Dr. Ellison says, with a slight emphasis on "together." You love her for correcting Darcy. "Co-chairs."
"Of course," Darcy says, as if you hadn't used the luncheon as an excuse to skip out on her not two hours ago.
"It won't just be you two," Dr. Ellison says. "As the sponsor, Repro's sending someone to help."
"Who?" you ask.
"Ah, excellent timing," Dr. Ellison says as someone else enters the conference room. "I was about to mention you, Dr. Coleman."
"That's lucky, then," he says.
The More, The Merrier, I Guess