My father had once suggested, as an experiment, that I should nod every time a professor looked in my direction. I would find, he said, the professors looking my way more and more often, helpless as Pavlov’s dogs. Dad may have had an agenda. The only way your absence was likely to be noticed in a class of a hundred or more was if your professor had been carefully conditioned to look for you. Dr. Sosa and I had a silent rapport. My father was a crafty man.
