by Toby Tucker Hecht

The admin aide who handed me the empty cardboard box said, “I’m sure you’ll find something soon, Julia. Much better than this job.” And then under her breath, “Sons of bitches!” I had only a few personal items, none with much sentimental meaning, but I tossed them in the box anyway and took the elevator to the garage. It was 2:00 pm. I had no idea what to do next. I could go home, open a bottle of wine, and binge-watch a series I’d been meaning to stream if only I had the time. Well, now I did.

I wasn’t fired exactly, I kept telling myself. The company was downsizing and, since I was forty and earning more than some of the younger employees, it made sense (to the sons of bitches) that I should be one of the chosen who got the boot. At least I didn’t have a family to support, and my savings and severance pay should last me at least several months—plenty of time to land something substantial. And possibly exciting. I should have been celebrating.

I did nothing for the first week. I slept nine hours a night, never got out of my pajamas, ate directly out of containers from the refrigerator, and watched British mysteries on television. I spoke to no one. My cell phone accumulated voicemail until the mailbox was full. I couldn’t bring myself to talk to anyone, to tell them that I was out of a job, that I was not the success I tried to project.

Many people, even those who are content, are always looking for their next job, networking constantly, and checking LinkedIn every day. Not me. I did my work silently and ate lunch at my desk, happy enough without all that socializing. The thought of trying to sell myself to employers with an elevator pitch was appalling. Which was funny considering my title was Communication Specialist. I wrote content for the company’s website and produced a newsletter boasting about the products the company manufactured. I was a good writer, and all my pep and enthusiasm went into these endeavors. But my out-of-office life was pep-less.

On the afternoon that my apartment mailbox was stuffed with bills, including a hefty insurance invoice that needed to be paid within thirty days, I knew my lethargy was becoming depression. It was time to start revving up for re-entering the job market. I could look for a position that was identical or similar to the one I lost, or I could try out something completely new. Although I hated the idea, I began thinking about ways to sell myself.

*

The university in my town had a bulletin board in the student union. I thought if I put up a sign for writing and editing, one of the departments might hire me, at least temporarily, to do some website or blog work until I found something more suitable. I loved walking through the campus, particularly the library, which was a place of comfort and tranquility with exceptionally gorgeous architecture. Townspeople were allowed access; we could apply for a special card that permitted us to read there but not borrow books.

I designed a professional-looking ad with my cell phone number and email address, posted it on the board and waited. In the meantime, I scoured company websites, both close and distant, for their HR directors and sent out my resume. Then I waited.

In a few days, I received an email from a student who saw my ad and wished to speak in person. We arranged to meet at a coffee shop not far from campus. I got there first, ordered a cappuccino, and a short time later, a young man in jeans and a hoodie sat down at my table. He looked around, checking out who was there, and said, “My name is Josh. And yours?” There was something about his shifty entrance and sheepish grin that made me concoct a false name.

“Alice Adams,” I said, giving the name of a writer from the past whom I greatly admired.

“Well, Ms. Adams,” he said, lowering his voice, “I want to hire you to write a senior thesis for me—for my American literature class. I can’t do it because my mother’s having chemotherapy for breast cancer and she needs me to do errands and take her to her infusions.”

I had not expected this. “That’s cheating,” I said. “Could you take an incomplete in the course until your mother finishes her treatment? And then work on it yourself?”

“I can’t,” he said. “I need to graduate in June. I’d have to spend an extra semester at school and, more important, I was offered a job on the condition that I graduate this year. It will help pay for my mother’s medical bills. They’re really piling up.”

“I understand the stress you must be under,” I said, “but that’s not what I was advertising.”

“I’m desperate—an only child of a single mother,” he said. “I’ve never done anything like this before and I’m ashamed I have to. You’re a writer. I’m willing to pay two thousand dollars for the work—it’s what I saved from summer jobs. I did get started on the project and have notes, but you’d have to use the library to do additional research.”

“You know, for a price, there are internet sites and artificial intelligence platforms that provide the exact service you want—and very quickly.”

“I know, but it leaves a trail and it’s easy to get caught. I’d rather have a real person I could pay in cash and actually talk to. Besides, they gouge you.”

“So, you’ve checked that out and it’s more than two thousand dollars?”

“Way more. As I said, I’m helping with the bills.”

“What’s the topic and when would you need it?” I felt myself veering in a direction I didn’t want to go. It was akin to prostitution, selling myself, but I couldn’t help asking more questions.

“It’s on the writer John Cheever—how his life as a suburbanite, an alcoholic, a depressive, and a bisexual informed his writing. It’s due in six weeks.” He pulled out several books and notes from his backpack and handed them to me, as though the deal was done. “I’ll pay you a thousand now and the rest when you deliver the goods—printed out and ready to hand in—about 15,000 words. As part of the agreement, you can’t tell anyone what you’re doing. No one—not your best friend, lover, or parents.”

I’d read and loved John Cheever’s fiction and knew about his life—so much of it a pretense—through a memoir written by his daughter and through his own journals. It wouldn’t take six weeks to do this, not if I worked on it full time.

“How do you know I’d do a good job? What if you got a B or a C?”

“I’d still graduate—which is the most important thing.”

I had not put any conditions on the deal, and I knew I should; it wasn’t wise to accept things right off. “For six weeks, it would have to be twenty-five hundred dollars. I have rent and bills of my own to pay, and this would take most of my time.”

Josh looked a bit shaken. “I’ll have to get back to you about that.”

“Fine, but I have other prospects so I might be taken if we don’t sew it up soon. Besides, time is fleeting. You can still give me the initial amount and the rest when you receive the finished product.” The tables had turned. “Two days to mull it over and no guarantees on my part. I assume no written contract so there must be some thread of trust between us, or this won’t work,”

“All right,” he said. “I agree to the terms. I’ll make it work.”

We shook hands and he took an envelope from his jacket and handed it to me. I didn’t open it. But I did take the books and notes and left the café.

*

It was wonderful to feel like a student again. I ditched my suits and wore jeans, sweaters, and sneakers and camped out in the library. Josh’s notes were useless; there were lines copied from short stories, but they had not been put in the context of what he was trying to prove. I started from scratch. I judged fifteen thousand words to be about sixty pages. That would mean dividing the thesis up into four parts of about fifteen pages each dedicated to understanding the influence of one part of Cheever’s life on his writing. Fifteen pages a week; four weeks tops. I dove right in.

Two weeks later, I got a text message from another student, a friend of Josh’s. We met on the steps of the library. I could tell she was in a terrible state; her eyes were bloodshot, and her nose was red and sounded stuffed.

“I’ve been sick for over a week with a massive sinus infection,” she said. “I can’t sleep, eat, or think and I have a history paper due in five days.” She had a hard time looking at me; she focused on the concrete lions that stood on each side of the steps.

“My advice to you is to take some decongestants, maybe an antibiotic, get a good night sleep and work on it,” I said.

“I can’t do it.” Her face scrunched up as though she were about to cry. “I can’t concentrate. Too many other things are going on in my life—horrible things I can’t talk about. I need help with this project. It’s mostly done, but I need an introduction and a conclusion.” She handed me a copy of what she’d already done. “I can pay you three hundred dollars to do it.”

I scanned the ten-page draft. It was awful. My 6th-grade niece could’ve done better.

“Okay,” I said. “But it’ll have to be five hundred dollars because of the rush. I’ll have it in four days.”

I remembered my mother telling me as a young child that it’s hardest the first time you do something you know is wrong—like lying or stealing. After that, the flood gate opens. Now I saw what she meant. I had little hesitation taking this new assignment. In the moment I made the decision, I thought I was doing it out of compassion, but really, it was just getting easier to say yes to something that was in fact a crime.

I took the essay home, used the internet to fill in some of the gaping holes in her facts and persuasive statements, fixed the grammar and sentence structure, and wrote a solid beginning and ending. As I read it over, I thought, this at least makes sense. I printed it out and even put the assignment in a colorful folder. The next day I went back to working on the Cheever opus.

Within a week, there were three others who texted me to do their assignments. They all called me Alice. Some lived far from town and went to schools out of state. All the students were frantic, and all had money to spare and could transfer it to me by Venmo. I polished these off quickly. Then I called Josh. “What the fuck, Josh? I can’t tell anyone, but you can? It’s like you put a For Sale sign on my back. Where are these people coming from and why are they so desperate?”

“Jeez. I thought I was doing you a favor,” he said. “So how is my thesis coming along?”

I was nearly finished, but I didn’t want him to know that it didn’t take as long as I said it would. “I’ll have it in time. Don’t worry,” I said. “How is your mother doing?”

There was a long pause and for a second I thought he was going to tell me that his mother died. But then I wondered if he was astonished that I would ask such a question, which led me to doubt whether his mother was sick at all, or if he even had a mother. Were all the sob stories made up? Why bother with lies? Why not say you’re a lazy kid trying to get a degree you didn’t earn?

*

I’d stopped looking for a real job. There was enough money coming in now with short-term projects I zipped off and overcharged for. And the end of the semester was a little over a month away. I would start my search in the summer.

In the meantime, I tried to rationalize my new dark career. For one thing, I was learning a great deal about subjects I never studied when I was in college or read about as an adult. For another thing, I imagined what I was doing was akin to employing a housecleaner. You could do it yourself, but if you were busy or hated to vacuum, and could afford it, why not hire someone who needs a job?

I prided myself on factual and polished writing. Perhaps because of this, the professor might guess that the work was not written by the student, especially if what was turned in previously was garbage. But that wasn’t my problem. Or was it?

A few of my colleagues from my former job called, wanting to get together for dinner. Apparently, the downsizing resulted in a knowledge desert. No one left seemed to know what they were doing.

“They made a big mistake letting you go,” one of them said. “I think if you applied, you’d get your job back.”

“It’s humiliating to do that,” I said. “I’d need an apology and a substantial raise before I’d set foot in that place again.” But even as the words came out of my mouth, I understood it was something I might have to resort to.

*

With one month to go until school ended, I received a phone call from a man who said he was Mr. Jones. I laughed and asked if that was his real name. I’d become suspicious of everyone and everything. Mr. Jones didn’t answer me, but he suggested we meet, as he had a business proposition he’d like me to consider. I told him to be at the coffee shop near the college the next day at ten.

Mr. Jones looked nothing like the sinister character I imagined from his phone voice. He was a short, chubby, middle-aged man with curly red hair. He had a friendly smile. After getting a cup of coffee, he introduced himself as Walter Heinz.

“Mr. Jones is my boss,” he said. “He apologizes for not making today’s contact himself, but he is in California this week.”

“This all sounds a bit cryptic,” I said. “How did you get my name and what is the proposal?”

“Word gets around, Alice. We know what you’re doing and how much you’re doing it for.”

“And what might that be?”

He smiled. “You are in the business of writing papers for students.”

“Not exactly. I’ve tutored a few students on the art and method of writing academic essays and I do get paid for my services.”

“If you want to call it that, missy,” he said. “Let’s put it this way, we are in the same business and would rather have you working for Mr. Jones than you out there on your own.”

“Well, you’ll be happy to know that within a short time I’ll be out of what you call the business,” I said. “Summer is around the corner. All the work will dry up.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” he said. “All the kids who have failed will have to attend summer school. They don’t want to fail again, so voila—work to be done!”

“I’m not interested.”

“Hear me out. It would be much easier for you with us. We find the business, send it on to you, and based on our standard charges you get sixty percent when you deliver the final product.”

“That doesn’t sound too enticing,” I said. “Finding business is not worth a loss of forty percent. They find me easily enough.”

“Aha,” he said. “I forgot to mention that we charge at least a hundred percent more than you do.”

“No, I’m done. I’ll be looking for different work soon.”

“Mr. Jones is very persistent,” he said. “He really wants you to work for his syndicate. I hope you won’t be sorry.”

“That sounds like a threat.”

“Not at all. But you won’t find another offer this lucrative.” At that point, Walter Heinz stood up and left.

I ordered another latte and sat watching the clock. I waited for thirty minutes to go by, fearing that Mr. Heinz might follow me home to report back to Mr. Jones where I lived. It would be easy to find out my real name and do some serious damage. I knew one could buy term reports through the internet, but I had no idea that a national academic paper mafia existed and that I would be considered a risk to the organization. The cloaked warning could mean that I would be exposed for doing the student’s work, but wouldn’t that also expose them? I was terribly confused.

Instead of heading home, I walked to the student union. My advertisement was still tacked on the bulletin board, so I removed it. Then I sat down on one of the benches, ripped up the ad into tiny pieces and tossed them into a garbage bin. As I walked back to the bench, I heard someone say, “Julia, is that you?” I was shocked to hear my true name because I had been called, and thought of myself, as Alice for a while now. I looked around and a woman my age was walking towards me. She seemed familiar and then I remembered her—Claudia, a friend from college, many years before, with whom I’d kept in touch for a while after graduation. She reached toward me with outstretched arms and gave me a quick hug.

“Fancy seeing you here,” she said. “Still working at Getter and Hahn?”

“No,” I said. “I left a few months ago after what seemed like a lifetime. Buyout issues. And you? Do you work at the university?”

“I do. Associate Professor in the English Department. I teach a course in American Literature. So, what brings you to the campus?”

“I’m looking for a new job,” I said. “My expertise is in communications and editing.”

“Come with me to my office,” she said. “I’ll give you the name of someone to contact.”

It was a lovely spring day and the stroll across campus brought back memories from college—the freedom, the pursuit of knowledge, and the friends I once had. As we walked and chatted, I saw Josh in my peripheral vision. I turned to get a better view. He was drinking from a paper cup and when he saw me, he started to choke. That’s when I realized that Claudia must be his professor, the one who assigned the thesis topic. I wondered if he thought, seeing the two of us together, that I was snitching on him.

Claudia’s office was large but cozy and I could tell from the size and number of windows that she must be a promising faculty member with a great future. She told me that the Communications Department was looking for someone to design and direct the University’s social media output and also to be a liaison to the students, to work with them to improve their writing. She handed me the name of the Department Chair and said that she would put in a good word for me if I was interested.

“I am,” I said, “and very grateful. I owe you. I really need to work again. Wonderful to see you. Let’s stay in touch.”

“That’ll be easy,” she said, “with you at the school.” She smiled and said she had to get back to work. She gestured to the table, loaded with senior theses. Then she said, “You know, I don’t have time to read all of these before grades are due. You can do me a huge favor. I wonder if you might read this one, let me know if it’s any good, and suggest a grade. It would have to be sub rosa. I have some discretionary funds. We can call it a consultation.”

She handed me Josh’s oeuvre—the one I did from start to finish that focused on Cheever’s inner life that was only revealed through his writing.

“This student is a bit of a slimeball—he tried to tell me his father had a heart attack and couldn’t hand in the midterm paper on time. I sensed he was lying, and sure enough, I saw him with his parents on campus a few days later. He introduced me and it turns out they came to say goodbye before they went off on a Caribbean cruise. No shame at all.” She laughed and shook her head as though it was all in a day’s work. “But he did manage to get his final project completed in time. See what you think. Oh, and here’s his midterm paper for a comparison of the writing. Hard to trust a person like that.”

Or anyone, it seemed.

In the moments between my taking the manuscript I had written and her handing me Josh’s midterm project I saw the absurdity of a future that stretched out in my imagination: writing assignments for lazy rich students and then grading the same ones for overworked teachers. What would I do—give Josh an A? Or a C? And what would the ultimate benefit be for him, for any student? I couldn’t answer my own questions, but I could shut all this down right now—at least the part I’d been playing.

“I won’t be able to do this for you,” I said, handing the documents back to Claudia. “It’s not that I don’t have the time. It’s just that I have been tutoring Josh and it’s a conflict of interest.”

“You should have said something before I went on about him,” she said, her face enflamed. I knew the recommendation and therefore the job she talked about was now off the table, but I didn’t care. I was a writer, and I’d use my skills to work on a book about the cheating that had taken place, that was still ongoing, and, as penitence, my own role in the fraudulence. And for this, I thought, I’d use the pseudonym, Alice Adams.