Pool_1

"Dr. Straussman, please listen, please. I can't carry these projects through the summer. I can't. Don't go running off. You need to find a replacement for me," he droned, as he had reminded her so frequently. "No, no, you'll do fine," she said dropping her feigned leaving to give him an arms length hug with her hands on his shoulders. "I can't replace you," looking him square in the eyes, squinting her brow, and tremoring her frowned face side to side. "Oh, the face shake! Dr. Straussman, wake up! Next September, the bursar is going to be asking me, my family, for money that I won't have! I need to get a job. I need money!" "This is about money?" she asked with an air of disappointment, as if he told her he was a cannibal. "You know damn well that I need money! My college survival depends on it. Have you seen any money trucks around here? I haven't. I can't just conjure it up." "But, I can," the professor stated flatly as she went about her tasks in the lab. "But, I can't," Marcus again asserted, "I need a summer job. I can't stay here." "You can if I pay you." "You can't. You can't pay me. It isn't allowed." "I can't pay you to do student research, but I CAN pay you to do personal work for me. Who's to know the difference?" "Me," a purely reflexive Jazz Man indoctrination, although he said it with his mom's spaghetti catechism facial expression. He could almost feel Father Joe nudging him with a wild card pulled from his pants. She could see that do-you-want-me-to-cheat look on his face.