“Why? Afraid you’re next?”
“Of course. Monica’s terrifying.”
I laugh. There’s nothing Jack can do to make me look unhirable now. We’re just two friendly archenemies chatting at a party. No one’s paying attention to us, which feels oddly nice. Isolating but restful. Because Jack expects nothing from me.
“Are you and Andrea dating?” I ask, because I can and I’m curious.
“No.” He seems surprised. “Why?”
I shrug. “I see you together a lot.” That’s who he was chatting with while Volkov soapboxed about competitive duck herding.
“We’re friends, we collaborate, we’re the only two faculty members under thirty-five.” He takes a sip of his beer. “I don’t date much.”
Right. That’s what Greg said, too. What bugs me is—I’m positive that Andrea, an otherwise brilliant woman, thinks Jack’s a nice guy. And that Michi thinks he’s a good mentor, judging by how comfortable she feels interacting with him via meltdowns. About anyone else, these would be green flags, but I know better.
“So,” I say, “your nematics experiments are going poorly?”
“Indeed. How did you know? Oh, right. You were there when Volkov announced my repeated failures to obtain decent results to a three-hundred-person auditorium.” The self-deprecating smile is back, and so is the dimple. I don’t want to laugh again, but . . . it’s hard. I’ve had a long day.
“I kind of liked it. In fact, I think I had an orgasm when it happened.”
“I bet.” His eyes darken around the blue wedge.
“On a scale from taking a CrossFit class to writing parody articles as a form of activism, how mad are you that someone suggested you use a model of mine?”
“What’s a CrossFit, and why would I be mad? My lab discussed the application of your model in our meeting today.”
I lean back to search his eyes. “What?”
“Michi bragged to everyone that you guys are friends. She followed you on Twitter, I think.”
“I don’t have Twitter.”
“I did tell her you probably aren’t @SmexyElsie69—”
“Wait, are you serious? Are you really going to apply my model?”
“Of course.”
“But it’s a purely theoretical model.”
He shrugs. “We’ve been stuck for months. And it’s brilliant. And like I told you multiple times, I’ve always incorporated theoretical models and collaborated with—”
“Stop.” I turn to face him directly and get half-wedged under his arm. We look like we’re about to embrace. In a Game of Thrones, stab-you-while-I-hug-you way. “Listen, I . . . Stop this, please. I don’t know what you want from me. I’ve been adjuncting for a year, and it sucks so much—so, so much. I just want a job in a good department to continue with my research.”
“You deserve it,” he says quietly. I feel the words for irony. Find no trace.
“Stop it,” I repeat. “I don’t know what game you’re playing, but—”
“Game?” He scowls. “I just said that I hope you get the opportunity to continue your work, because you clearly are one of the great minds of our generation.”
I tense. “I don’t need your condescending praises.”
“I—” He shakes his head. His hand comes up to my chin, straightens my face to better study me. Which he does, for endless seconds, before asking, “What happened to you, Elsie?”
“Excuse me?” I feel flayed alive when he looks at me like that. Stripped to my bones.
“Every time I mention that I admire your work, you become dismissive and combative.”
No, I don’t. Or do I? “Maybe if you didn’t spend half your time reminding me that I’m on par with a skanky villain from a mid-2000s CW show, I—”
“I am able to multitask.” He sounds . . . not upset, but on his way. Not his usual detached self. “I can admire you as a scientist and at the same time resent what you’re doing to my brother.”
“Allegedly doing to your brother. And . . .” Am I being needlessly antagonistic? No. No, Jack and I are antagonists. Insulin and glucagon. Rey and Kylo Ren. Galileo and the entire Catholic Church, circa 1615. “It’s hard to believe that you respect me when all I know you for is dissing the very people who do my job and advocating for George to be hired.”
“That has nothing to do with you, and everything with George—who you know nothing about.”
“Right. Maybe if I met him and heard all about his one and a half publications, I’d withdraw my application in cowed admiration.”
Jack’s eyes widen. “What?” He bites the inside of his cheek. “Elsie. You’re operating on some pretty big assumptions—”
“Elsie. Here you are.” Monica crosses the cowhide toward us. She looks at me. Then at Jack. Then at me again. “I thought you might need some saving,” she murmurs in my ear. Judging from his half smile, Jack heard, too.
“I was just making sure she still wants to work with us after Christos put his hand down his waistband while trying to convince her that cereal is technically soup.” Jack’s tone is once again amused. Relaxed.
“He does make some valid points,” I interject before Monica field-dresses Jack on the cowhide. “Monica, this evening has been so lovely. Thank you so much for having me in your beautiful home.”
“But of course. Have you met my family?”
“Your husband, yes. His research is fascinating.” He’s an evolutionary biologist. We teared up together over the tawny frogmouths, who mate for life and let themselves starve by the body of their dead partner. Good times.
“What about Austin, my son? He just got home. He’s staying with us—currently between . . . careers. Looks like spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to major in golf management was not a good investment.” Her smile is tight. “Did you know Jack and Austin hang out?”
“Oh.” I look between Jack and Monica, who seem to find the fact, respectively, amusing and teeth-grind worthy.
“We play basketball at the same gym,” Jack explains. His voice vibrates through me, like he’s very close.
“On Sunday nights. Right during our family dinner—which Austin hasn’t attended in weeks.”
“Maybe you should install a hoop in your living room.” He points at the wall. “Right there, between those two fossils?”
“Maybe you should install a hoop up your—oh, there he is. Austin, dear, let me introduce you to our guest of honor.”
A tall man resentfully stops staring at his phone to come to us. He’s handsome in a common, forgettable kind of way, and initially I think that’s why he looks vaguely familiar. But as I watch him exchange a friendly handshake with Jack, I realize it’s more than that. I’m positive that I’ve seen him before. Where, though? I cannot place him. One of my students? No. He must be in his late twenties.
Then it hits me. When Monica says, “Austin, this is a future potential colleague, Dr. Elsie Hannaway.”
Because Austin’s response is to give me the once-over, snort, and then say, “No, she’s not.”
And that’s when it occurs to me that the last time I met Austin Salt, he offered me seventy dollars to have sex with him.
9
ESCAPE VELOCITY
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
It was my fifth or sixth date through Faux, four years ago, and Francesca, the app manager, was scrambling to find someone last minute. “The client doesn’t even want a preliminary meeting,” she told me over the phone. I was running across campus, from an astroparticle seminar to an Intro to Physics TA meeting, frantically dodging gaggles of undergrads. “All he needs is ‘arm candy’—his words. It’s the formal inauguration of a new golf course, and he wants to impress his boss. If someone asks, you met through friends a couple of months ago and work in insurance. Background check’s good, and he’ll pay extra for short notice—you in?”
Rent was due in a week, and I had a grand total of two rotten bananas in the fridge. So I wore one of the three cheap cocktail dresses Cece and I had gone halfsies on, watched a winged eyeliner tutorial, and in the cab ride to the suburbs, got myself carsick editing a fellowship application due the following day.
Austin had gelled-back hair and answered the phone with “Talk to me.” Not a bad client as much as an absentee one. “Arm candy” seemed to be code for pretty wallpaper, which meant that my job was to sit at our table, smile widely when he introduced me as Lizzie, and wonder why the fancy asparagus crepes were decorated with strawberries. There was lots of downtime, which I used to do some grading, phone hidden under the expensive linen tablecloth. At the end of the night he gave me a ride. We chatted about the hows and whys of golf till we got downtown, at which point he offered me seventy bucks to have sex with him. I said no.