New Beginnings

“Please, just let me in --”

It was a desperate plea, followed by an angry jostle of the door handle. The lock refused to give, even with another four swipes of an ID card and mashing the numbers that should serve as the passcode into the keypad.

This new job as a professor at Columbia was not going well. Laura tapped her forehead against the frame of the door in frustration; they had told her everything would work! She would be fine, even if it's an eight-a.m. university writing course all the way over in Barnard Hall! She could handle it!

She scoffed at herself, trying to hold back tears. 

“Do - do you need a hand?”

The soft-spoken question caused her to jump, startled.

Laura bit at the inside of her cheek to will away the tears that nearly spilled before turning to the source of the voice. She could not be perceived like this, not on her first day.

An older man, much taller than her in a black turtleneck, cradled what appeared to be a well-loved coffee mug as he took a few steps closer.

“Did the professor not get clearance for your ID?” he asked, gesturing at the door and the cause of her frustration with his mug.

“I am the professor,” Laura grimaced, not wanting to make eye contact.

“Here, let me get that for you then --” the kind stranger said, balancing the act of carrying his coffee mug and unlocking the room with his own ID and passcode. “I didn’t realize Herbet’s position had been filled!”

“I, uh, thank you? But I’m not in the…” she paused, gathering her belongings from the floor where she had dropped them, “I’m from the English department.”

He held the door for her, watching as she stumbled towards the lectern. “Oh! University Writing, then?”

She nodded, the anxiety from earlier starting to disappear the longer this man spoke to her. “Laura Moran, hi - uh, thank you again, Professor - ?” Laura thrust her hand out awkwardly as she introduced herself, remembering some semblance of social skills.

“Otto, Otto Octavius. Please, Laura, you’re not one of my students. Though I am deeply sorry for mistaking you for a graduate assistant.” He smiled warmly as his free hand met hers.

“Otto, thank you,” she says softly, trying not to linger too long on the handshake. His hand was large and warm and he definitely had a good twenty years on her thirty. “Everything just seems to keep going wrong on my first day.”

Otto raised an eyebrow at the admission. “Take a deep breath, and let me make you something to drink.” He didn’t see any cup or travel mug in the belongings she was sorting through on the table. “My office is just around the corner. You’ve got some time before your class starts.”

Laura shook her head, pulling a laptop from her backpack. Her chest tightened as she tried to speak, fumbling over her words. “I haven’t got much time, I need to make sure my login works - it didn’t yesterday, and - well, I’m not entirely sure how --”

“Laura, breathe. Can you do that for me?” He asked, putting the coffee mug down before crossing to stand beside her.

“Yeah, yeah I - I can.” Tears pricked at the corner of her eyes as she avoided looking up at her new peer. She took a shallow breath, then another, and another. 

“That’s it, slow down,” Otto hummed, a hand gently touching her shoulder. “It’s just my hand on your shoulder - focus on it, breathe in --”

He remembers his own first day of teaching at Columbia, even if it felt like a lifetime ago. Walking into the first classroom he lectured in was terrifying, and that was with peers from the physics department helping him through the day. The poor woman in front of him had none of that; he’d almost say that the department was hazing her for shits and giggles by the sound of things.

“Breathe out, nice and slow,” he said softly, feeling her tremble beneath his fingertips on the exhale. “Everything will work out. Look at me, Laura - everything will work out.”

Laura finally made eye contact with Otto, focusing on the feeling of his thumb tracing a circle into her shoulder. Her eyes searched his face as he leaned over her, slowly being anchored in the moment.

“Everything will work out,” she repeated, unprompted. It caused Otto to smile faintly, nodding in response.

Good girl.

“Exactly, see?” He refrained from any further physical contact and straightened up, watching her deep brown eyes follow him. “Come make a cup of tea with me, get in the zone before your first section, and then I’ll make sure you get settled. Did you need any copies made?”

Laura nodded sheepishly, taking out the one copy of her syllabus that she was able to print at home. Her hands trembled as she tried to keep herself in the present.

“I’ll take care of that too. You’re gonna do great today, promise.”

And Otto held true to that promise.

For the next twenty minutes, she sat quietly in his office with a cup of green tea in her hands as the copy machine whirred next door. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad if she could make friends in the Barnard building. Otto seemed nice enough, and he was in the building as early as she was. Laura scanned the room as she took in the small space; papers scattered everywhere along with academic journals stacked in neat piles. A few small models sat on a shelf behind the desk, though she could not make out what they were. Not like she would know, anyway - the last time she took a physics class was nearly a decade prior to finish out her undergraduate science requirements.

Otto hummed as he slipped back into his office, a warm stack of syllabus copies in his hands. “108 copies of the syllabus for today’s classes, all ready.”

“Thank you,” Laura smiled, sipping from the faded Columbia University mug. 

“Take the mug with you,” Otto chirped, watching as she tried to go for a much larger gulp of tea. “Let’s go get you logged in and ready for your first section.”

The new professor looked so much more composed than when he found her earlier this morning; she sounded calm and ready to meet her first classes. She practically leaped out of the chair, ponytail swinging behind her. 

In that moment, he finally let himself take a good, long look at the woman. Sure, he saw the big, brown eyes behind her glasses earlier, but he was more concerned about talking her down than noticing the freckles across the bridge of her nose or the way her hair had hints of silver and purple he could only see in the lighting of his office.

As they walked side-by-side down the hallway, Otto made a mental note to have a conversation with his peers in the physics department. He needed to make sure she felt welcome at Columbia at the start of her career - something everyone else had been afforded. The English department head also needed --

“Otto? I can take those.”

Laura jolted him from the thoughts of a stern conversation as she tried to take the stack of copies. 

“Right, right, let me get the computer going --” he smiled, handing the still-warm copies over.

Only five minutes passed before a student knocked at the door while Otto was in the middle of an explanation of the projector system. Laura was next to him, almost too close as she watched what each little knob and button did.

“Good luck,” he whispered, nudging her arm with his elbow. That was his cue. “Find me when you’re done for the day.”

She was more than capable - all of Columbia University would learn that quickly.

Doctor Otto Octavius was sure of it.