Office hours.  Two words that fill every teaching assistant with dread.  Making yourself available for one-on-one sessions with the malcontents who sweat you for every grade point?  No thanks.  I want less face time with my students, not more.  Even the best and brightest are a downer, expecting me to be some kind of bookish demigod who shares their enthusiasm for KNOWLEDGE in booming all-caps – an enthusiasm I’ve never had and never will.  Don’t stack books in front of me and expect a blissful pursuit of knowledge for knowledge’s sake.  My enthusiasm is the get-the-hell-outta-Dodge kind.  Point me at the next hoop of flaming bullshit and stand aside.

This is finals week, which means office hours are a zoo.  Stacked up in the doorway are students who don’t have an ambitious bone in their bodies, suddenly asking if it’s too late for extra credit assignments.  Midterms and research papers are dropped on my desk and argued over – as if I’m going to regrade them and give extra points now.  And there’s always the utter stranger or three, just names on my section attendance list who never showed up, never turned in a paper or took the midterm.  Invariably they want to know if they can somehow pass “Introduction to European History” by some academic miracle, like acing the final exam.  I just throw back my head and belly-laugh.  Welcome to an F, dumbasses.

My cellphone lies on the desk and silent-rings incessantly, vibrating and bouncing around.  Normally I’m reachable via phone during office hours, but the student in your face always takes priority over the student in your ear.  I don’t bother answering until the caller ID reports FARID AND NASRIN NIZRA– with the last name truncated in the display.  Hmmm.  Nooshin must be back from her temp gig already.  This week she’s helping a company get ready for its national sales meeting.  I wonder if her early return is good news, or bad news. 

“I need to take this,” I tell the deflated fratboy sitting across from me.  “We’re done here anyway.  You’ll get a B- if you nail the final, a C of some kind if you don’t.  Study hard!”  I kick the door shut behind him, provoking yowls from the students in line.

“Hey you,” I growl into the phone.

“Hello?  Nick Roberts?”  The voice is female, but Nooshin doesn’t speak with an accent.  “Is this Nick Roberts?”  A thick, angry, strained accent.

“Yeah, I’m Nick.  Who’s this?”

“This is Nooshin’s family.  Put her on the phone.  Right now.”

“Uh, sorry.  She’s not with me.”  I wait for comprehension to click in my head.  It doesn’t.  “She’s staying with her sister in San Diego.  Nasrin, is that you?  She’s, uh…she’s supposed to be with you.”

“Stop this lying! We know she’s with you!”

I briefly hold the cellphone away from my ear.  What the…?  “Listen, Nasrin or whoever you are.  She isn’t with me.  Are you calling because she’s – ”  I feel a jolt of alarm.  “ – she’s missing?”

“If she’s missing, it’s your fault!  You took her away from her marriage, away from her family.  You seduced her into this sin and shame.  Who knows what she’ll do now?  We’ll call the police if we can’t find her.  We’ll call the police!”

The cops?  I don’t need that kind of drama, and I bet Nooshin doesn’t either.  “Whoa!  Just calm down, would you?  I’m guessing you don’t have her new cellphone number.  Am I right?”

There’s a pause.  “She has a new cellphone?”

“I’ll give you her new number.  But that’s all I can do.  She’s not with me, you understand?”

The voice relaxes slightly, the accent fading into better English.  She copies the number down, then reads it back to me.  “You must never contact Nooshin again, or let her contact you.  You’ve done enough harm to all of us already.  You have no place in her life.”

Next thing I know, I’m listening to the hollow buzz of static.  I put the cellphone away with hands that don’t seem connected to the rest of me.  Eventually my disorientation fades and I return to this grubby TA’s office.  I’m left wondering what the hell just happened.  Wondering what the hell has been happening all along.  What really transpired between Nooshin and her husband?  Why did she lie to me about staying with her sister?  Where is Nooshin actually staying?  And what help – or harm – did I just render by giving her number to Nasrin?

Dull thuds are pulsing through my hiking boot and up my leg.  Students, almost knocking the door down.  “Hold your fucking horses!” I snarl, and pinch my eyes closed.