There was something reassuring about taking the monumental step but then immediately falling back into pace with the rest of life. It reaffirmed what I’d told Hanna all along: The us beneath it all didn’t have to change. We could still be exactly who we were before. Married folk definitely lazed around in their underwear on a Saturday afternoon.
“I’m fine waiting.” I kissed her nose, pulling her closer. “As long as you don’t tack on any more interview trips in the meantime.”
Our rescheduled honeymoon was already booked for a little over a month after the wedding—late October—with a job-interview-free week beforehand to pack, finish up anything important in the lab, and hold any critical meetings. I wanted as much time with Hanna at home as possible.
I felt her response to this in her tiny hesitation? saw it in her small wince. “Hanna?”
“Not even for Caltech?” she asked sweetly.
What an odd feeling: to be fed up, to want to roll my eyes when my wife—holy fuck, my wife—received an interview request from Cal-fucking-tech.
“And when would it be?” I asked.
“Late October? We would still have a few days to get ready for the trip.” Her smile was so sweet, so genuinely hopeful, how could I possibly tell her no?
How would I, anyway? This was her career, her dream. Hanna was being courted by academic institutions all over the world. Her first interviews had been local: Princeton, Harvard, MIT, Johns Hopkins. But then the invitations had spread: Cal, Stanford. Max Planck in Germany. Oxford in the UK. And now, Caltech.
The thing was, we hadn’t really talked about how it would be if she wanted to move. We were in a holding pattern, stuck in a conversation on pause.
I kissed her nose again in answer.
“Does that mean yes?” she asked, studying me with a little smile.
“It means I would never tell you no, Plum. I think you should visit the universities you want to consider.” Kissing her mouth, I asked, “Do you feel like you have a favorite yet?”
She scrunched her nose at this. “I mean, not really?”
I watched her blink a few times, the tiny panic a little flutter in her breath. This process was a daunting one. I remembered being at that point myself: out of my post-doc and ready to tackle the next phase of my career, yet unable to believe, no matter how good my publications were, or how many job interviews I got, that I’d be able to hack it day in and day out running a lab. Research is scary. Academic research is cutthroat.
It’s one of the reasons I went into industry: I trusted my ability to determine whether a technology could be profitable and how to get it there more than I trusted my ability to come up with something innovative in its own right.
Likewise, Hanna knew her own strengths: her technical creativity was nearly limitless, and she had a rare ability to easily integrate everything she read into the broader scientific context. She would make an amazing professor. I simply worried it would take more out of her than she anticipated.
Best to cross that bridge when we come to it.
She took a deep breath, looking past me up at the ceiling. “The head of the department at Caltech sounds amazing. She seems really happy. I sort of imagined this department full of old, awkward nerd dudes, but apparently it isn’t like that at all.”
“No?”
“Well, at least not primarily. I’m sure there are still plenty of awkward nerd dudes.” Shaking her head, she continued, “Her name is Linda Albert. She made me feel like I would have time for things outside of the lab, which I never hear on these calls. She asked about you, about your job and how you’re taking this whole interview process.”
“She did?”
Hanna nodded, sipping from her mug of tea before stretching to return it to the coffee table. She snuggled back into my arms. “I told her you were amazing. I told her you’re the most competent man I know.”
I pulled away, gazing down at her. A smile tugged at my mouth. “Did you say it like that?”
Hanna shook her head, confused. “Like what?”
“Like there are categories of competence, and a competent man is a lesser category.”
She laughed, holding up her hands. “No, no, I—”
I bent, tickling her waist, and she fell back on the couch. “As in, I’m not a bad driver . . . for a dog.”
Laughing harder, she wrestled against my invading, tickling fingers.
“Basically, you told the head of biotech at Caltech that your husband is a water-skiing squirrel.”
She grinned up at me, and I slowed my assault, bending instead to kiss her, to slide my lips on top of hers, feel her closed mouth opening against mine.
I moved my hand up from her waist, resting my first two fingers just above her collarbone, feeling her pulse there.
“Love you,” she murmured lazily, eyes closed.
“I love you, too.”
I watched her relax on our couch, listened to the sounds of cars and people outside. The early autumn breeze slid in through the window, cooling as night approached.
“It’s so good in the quiet,” Hanna said.
“It’s always good.” I smiled, absently humming a song I knew she liked lately, listening to the rhythm of her breath.
The pad of her finger traced the plum tattoo on my arm, and slid lower, to the black H on my hip, her favorite.