Chapter 55: 55. Maya’s Boyfriend Wanted To Meet Me, and He Sounds Chill (Need A Plan)

The economics seminar on Wednesday morning focused on applied trade policy. It was engaging enough that Mike devoted more than his usual one-third of attention to it, largely because the professor exuded the expertise of someone who had practical experience in the field before transitioning to teaching. He also had strong opinions about the disconnect between theory and practice.

Maya sat three seats to Mike’s left, her phone positioned in a way that was technically discreet yet clearly capturing the room. He noticed the angle twice: first when she tilted it slightly upward to capture a wider frame and again when she lowered it during a heated exchange between two students discussing tariff structures, only to raise it again once the debate concluded.

She was excellent at it. The recording was nearly invisible unless you were looking for it.

After the seminar, she caught up with him in the corridor.

"Mike!" Maya waved at him, and then Mike stopped just to look at her.

"Yo."

"You were paying attention today," she said.

"I pay attention every day," Mike said.

"More than usual," she said. "Your note-taking pattern changed."

She glanced at the notebook he was carrying. "Yesterday you wrote in shorthand, but today... you wrote out full sentences for three sections."

"You were watching my notes, huh?"

"I was in the peripheral of your notes," she said. "There’s a difference."

"Like the difference between curiosity and inventory?" Mike said.

She smiled at that, displaying the same sharp and appreciative expression she had shown at the transit stop. "Exactly like that."

She walked alongside him toward the building exit. The corridor was buzzing with the post-seminar activity of people—bags being zipped, small conversations sparking to life, and the distinct energy of a room that had just been held together by someone else’s structure now beginning to disperse.

"The professor was good today," she said.

"He was," Mike agreed. "He doesn’t like the models."

"He likes what the models describe," Maya said. "He just doesn’t trust them to describe it accurately."

"That’s a useful distinction."

"Most useful distinctions are annoying," she said. "That’s how you know they’re real."

"You record in every seminar?" Mike said.

She glanced at him sideways. "You noticed?"

"The angle of your phone was different from someone checking messages," Mike said. "And you raised it again right when the exchange between the two students resolved."

"You wanted the conclusion, not just the argument."

She was quiet for a moment. She was not caught off guard; instead, she was quiet like someone recalibrating their estimate of a person.

"I don’t always record," she said. "Only when something’s worth capturing, and I could say that today was worth it."

"What made it worth it?"

"Genuine disagreement," she said. "Real disagreement, not just people taking opposite positions to sound interesting."

"Those two actually believed what they were saying. That’s rarer than it should be in a postgraduate seminar."

"People usually perform disagreement," Mike said.

"Exactly," she said. "They know the right things to push back on."

"They know how to sound rigorous, but they’re not actually worried they might be wrong." She tilted her head. "You never perform it, and I’ve been watching."

"Three days of watching," Mike said.

"I told you," she said. "I pay attention."

She held his gaze for a beat. "You said one thing in today’s seminar. One. And the professor paused for four seconds before answering."

"The guy next to him started writing it down."

"What’s your point?"

"My point is that you know exactly how much to say and when to say it," Maya said. "That’s not something you learn in a program because that’s from somewhere else."

"You ask many questions for someone who says she’s not taking inventory," Mike said.

"I ask many questions because I’m interested," she said. "There’s still a difference."

They were at the building exit. She had her phone out again, the ring light off, looking at something rather than recording it.

"Marc wants to know if you’re free Saturday," she said. "He’s been building a theory about postgraduate programs and wants to test it on someone new."

"What kind of theory?"

"The kind where he talks for forty minutes and then realizes he’s actually asking a question," Maya said. "He’s working through it. It’s the process."

"What’s the question?"

"He thinks the people who choose postgraduate study in international fields in their late twenties fall into two categories," she said. "He wants to know which one you are before he tells me what the categories are."

"He won’t tell you either?"

"He says I already know which one I am, and it would bias the data."

Mike looked at her. "And which one are you?"

She smiled. "He hasn’t told me the categories yet."

"But you have a guess."

"I have a very specific guess," she said. "I’m choosing not to share it yet because if I’m right, it’s more satisfying to wait, and if I’m wrong, I’d rather not have said it."

"Careful thinker," Mike said.

"Careful about some things," she said. "Not everything."

"What are you not careful about?"

She regarded him intently for a moment, and he sensed the familiar analytical quality in her gaze—the same one he’d noticed during their initial conversation, which made him feel as though she were deciphering layers of information that had not been directly requested.

"Topics I’ve already thought through," she said. "I can afford to be faster there because the work is done."

"And you’ve thought me through?" Mike said.

"I’m working on it," she said. "You’re slower going than most."

"Is that a problem?"

"No," she said. "It’s actually interesting."

"Most people are predictable within the first conversation. With you I’m still revising." She pocketed the phone. "Marc will like that. He doesn’t get to revise often."

"Because he meets predictable people?"

"Because he’s very good at reading them quickly," she said. "It’s actually a bit of a problem for him."

"He figures people out and then gets bored. He’s been doing that since we were nineteen." She said it without frustration, just as a fact she had organized around. "I’m the exception, which is why we work."

"Because you’re... slower going?"

"Because I keep surprising him," she said. "Not on purpose."

"Just because I’m actually different from what he initially expects." She glanced at him. "You’d probably do the same to him. Keep him guessing longer than most."

"I’ll take that as a reason to come Saturday," Mike said.

"Good." She typed something on her phone. "He’ll send the address."

"We’re in District 6, about twenty minutes from campus."

"I know District 6," Mike said.

She looked up from the phone briefly. "Do you? You’ve been here two weeks."

"I walk a lot," Mike said. "New city, so it’s useful to know the geography."

"Most people use maps for that."

"I do," Mike said. "After the walk."

She looked at him with the expression that kept appearing whenever he said something she found interesting and hadn’t expected.

"You confirm your own observations," she said. "You walk it first and then check the map to see if you were right."

"Usually I am," Mike said.

"That’s either very confident or very practiced."

"Both," Mike said.

She almost smiled. "Marc is going to have a field day with you."

"Is that good or bad?"

"Good," she said. "He’s at his best when he’s challenged."

"Gets a bit complacent otherwise." She shouldered her bag. "Saturday, seven."

"Don’t eat beforehand. Marc cooks when he’s in a theory mode. It’s the best cooking he does."

"What does he make?"

"Depends on the theory," she said. "Last time it was a long one about infrastructure economics, and he made a whole Moroccan spread."

"The time before, a short theory, just pasta," she considered. "I’m guessing you’re engaged in a lengthy conversation, so it is likely about something ambitious."

"No pressure," Mike said.

"You don’t seem like someone who finds pressure difficult," she said.

"What do I seem like?" Mike said.

She looked at him for a moment, and it was the direct, considering look rather than the peripheral one. "Hmmmmm..."

"Someone who decides very early on how a situation is going to go," she said, "and then just waits for everyone else to catch up."

Mike held her gaze. "Is that what I’m doing right now?"

"I don’t know," she said. "That’s the part I’m still revising."

"Alright, make sure to not forget the plan." She turned toward the path that led to the next building. "Saturday. Seven."

"I’ll be there," Mike said.

She raised a hand over her shoulder in a brief wave without turning around, which was a gesture he had now seen her make twice, and which was apparently just how she said goodbye when she had somewhere to be and considered the conversation properly finished.

He watched her go for exactly the length of time it took her to turn the corner.

Then he pocketed his hands and started toward the library.

[DESIRE LEVEL: MAYA LAURENT — 9/100]

Six points from two corridor conversations. Mike noted it and put the phone away.

Maya was going to be slow. Not because she was uninterested—she was interested, the way a careful person is interested in something they haven’t finished evaluating yet.

She was still running the assessment. Still revising.

That was fine.

He had time. And Saturday was going to be interesting.