I spent almost an hour in the shower. I washed my hair twice, scrubbed my face thoroughly, and even lathered up my pubic hair. Another ten minutes slipped into the mirror, as I carefully brushed and arranged the part in my hair. Perhaps I’m going a little overboard, I thought, as I trimmed a few of the longer hairs in my beard.
Though I hadn’t left my door all that day, I put on a fresh pair of clothes. You’re trying too hard, I told myself as  searched my closet for a clean and unwrinkled pair of pants.”It’s just a conference, after all,” I said aloud, as I pulled my arms through the sleeves of a black dress shirt that I layered over my tee shirt. Regardless, I felt there was some subtle, unmentioned scrutiny that would take place. I rolled up my sleeves, trying to give the impression that I was still dressing casually, with the right level of unconcern.
I looked at the time as I headed out, and I realized I had more than half an hour before her hours started. It would take me, at most, ten minutes to get to campus buildings, and I didn’t want to seem too eager – especially if the meeting was going to be struck on a sour note. I’ll just wait around somewhere, I told myself, in a gait down my building’s stairs.

Outside, I realized the stupidity of my dressing. While the days in L.A. were rather mild, the evenings arguably reached into the realm of what could be considered cold. Where my breath didn’t come out in white swirls, and there wouldn’t be frost on the rooftops in the morning, it could at least be said that wearing a jacket would be a wise decision. I buttoned up my thin over-shirt, and grudgingly unrolled the sleeves.
I wound in the café, where it was pleasantly warm. I told the barista to make it a small one, and I took a stool facing the building’s large glass window. I sipped leisurely, focusing my sight and thoughts on the reaches of the café to either side of me, and avoiding the worries and idle fantasies that pervaded my head. A pair of girls studying, the designs on the walls, one employee’s nonconformity amongst her two coworkers in her lacking of a uniform visor; I wanted  to think of anything but my professors reprimanding voice and gorgeous legs, which, frankly, I found equally attractive.
As six o’ clock rounded, I found my drink not yet finished. I decided to sip slowly, whiling my time, which would allow me the several-minute unpunctuality of being “fashionably late”. What the hell was I thinking She hadn’t given a specific time, just a two hour window in which I should show up, and stay for an indefinite amount of time. I dropped the cup, with its last splashes of coffee, in the garbage and pushed open the café’s large door.

I approached the professors’ hall, feeling the anticipatory tug at my throat. As I neared her open door, I felt uneasy. I saw two vacant desks where other teachers resided, and my own unknown fate, in the form of an oddly frightening, and oddly attractive educator, alone in the room. I hesitated outside the opening, until she noticed me and I restrained my “fight or flight” instinct.
“Come on in.” I hardly dared to enter more than a few inched past the doorway. She instructed me to sit, and I obeyed, trying to appear unfettered and nonchalant. I saw my essay on her desk, and I felt my heart beating deeply in my chest. It was too late for me to turn around.
“How are you?” she asked, breaking the ice that was a hundred times colder than the weather outside. I mumbled something with half my throat. I feigned a cough, and found my voice.
“I’m fine, yourself?”
“I’m good, thank you.” I smiled weakly. I noticed, as this was my first good, up-close view of the woman, how pretty her eyes were behind her thin-rimmed glasses. There was definitely shadow applied to her lids, a meager deep blue smear, but her eyes, which hinted at subtle traces of the orient, could have stood on their own.
“So,” she began, picking up my paper. My breath stifled, and I hoped the color hadn’t left my face. She flipped through the pages, and returned to the first, her eyes starting from the very top. She read aloud the title I had felt so clever typing and now so foolish having left on my paper.