I sigh. “UMass has open instructor slots, and so does—”
“No. Listen, I don’t want you to do that. I’ve been thinking about this, and . . . I think I can swing it.” Her earnest, heartfelt look is only slightly undercut by the waving of a caesar crouton. “Kirk is giving me a job. He said he’ll need me at least twice a week, and he wants to pay me like an employee. His team is actually drawing up a contract.”
I frown. Why does Kirk crop up so much in conversation? And above all: “Where does Kirk get the money?”
“He’s a scientist.”
“As a scientist myself, let me ask you once again: Where does Kirk get the money?” A spine-chilling thought occurs to me. “Please tell me he’s not Elon Musk.”
“You monster. Take that back.”
“He’s the only rich scientist I can think of!”
“Kirk is Kirk, I promise! He’d never write petulant tweets about how the world is unfair to poor billionaires. To be honest, I doubt he knows what Twitter is. He’s like . . .” Her eyes shine a little. “A total nerd, Elsie. In grad school he created this material that everyone wants, then he built a company around it with his friend who has an MBA. But the company is huge now, as in, ridiculously big. It has stocks and stuff.” Cece’s getting animated. Croutons fly all over the room. Hedgie has noticed. “So now he has all these functions and meetings he needs to go to, and he hates them, but he says that if I’m there, they’re more bearable, even though I know nothing about science or money—”
“Hang on.” I frown. “What’s the name of the material?”
“I keep forgetting. Some kind of resistant blah synthetic blah fiber blah blah.” She taps her lips with the chopsticks. “Taurus, maybe?”
I wish I were drinking, because this deserves a spit take. “Cece, are you fake-girlfriending the dude who invented Tauron?”
“Oh, yeah. That’s what it’s called.”
“Tauron is literally everywhere.” I blink. “He must be a millionaire.”
“I think he is. And that’s why you don’t have to teach sixty-nine classes next year.”
She gives me an expectant look till I sigh and mutter, “Nice.”
“Thank you. Anyway, I’ll cover rent. So you can work a reasonable amount. One or two classes. And the rest of the time you can stay home and do your research about sparkles.”
“Crystals.”
“Crystals. And we can spend our nights eating Gruyère and ranking Wong Kar-wai’s movies from most to least cinematographically poignant.”
Does she know how much you like Twilight?
I smile, trying to remember one single Wong Kar-wai movie. Pretty sure we did a two-day marathon three years ago, which I spent solving equations on my mind’s blackboard while Cece was in full Stendhal syndrome. “2046 would win.”
She smiles dreamily. “Probably.”
I don’t like Kirk. No—I don’t like the way Cece looks when she talks about him, because I’ve seen her act like that only about foreign movies, or Sapir-Whorf, or hedgehogs. It just doesn’t seem like a good idea to like one’s fake boyfriend that much. But I don’t have a chance to say it, because Cece is standing again, rummaging in the cupboard for wonton strips. And because my phone is buzzing with a text—the first I’ve ever gotten from this number:
Are you free tomorrow night?
17
DISPLACEMENT
I wear black jeans.
A cute sweater.
Ankle boots.
I leave my hair down. Then I pull it up in a bun. Then I let it down again. Then I braid it.
Then I leave it down.
I haven’t told Cece where I’m going, because she’s not home, and I’m physically unable to send her a text explaining that:
I.
Am.
Going.
Out.
WithJackSmithTurner.
Maybe. I’m still not positive that the reason he wants to see me is not to stealthily substitute my insulin with Frappuccino. Maybe I should make a safety call—make the investigators’ job easier when they find my corpse in a swamp. But the car is already there when I get downstairs, and I simply slip into the passenger seat.
The cabin smells like leather, Jack, and bad ideas. I should say something. Hi, how are you? Did you have a good week? Favorite Teletubby? Off-year elections thoughts? I’ve done this a million times—gone out with people. A million fake dates. Then why? Why? Why can’t I . . . Why?
“I think,” he drawls, “I just heard your head explode.”
I turn to him. He’s handsome in a near-painful way, and my head is still in mid-explosion.
“Want to go back up?” The smile. Uneven. Amused. All-knowing. “Try this another day?”
I shake my head before I change my mind. “I want to do this now.” I swallow. Face straight ahead. “I think.”
He starts the engine. “Look at you.”
“Look at me?”
He puts his hand on the headrest of the seat to back out of the spot. His fingers brush against my hair, soft, distracted.
“Yeah. Look at you, telling the truth.”
* * *
? ? ?
“Two friends are in town for a conference,” he tells me, “and another friend is hosting a small get-together. I figured with witnesses you’d be more . . . relaxed.”
He’s probably right, but also: “I don’t want to intrude.”
“I’d love for you to meet them.”
Is it a good idea, hanging out when his friends are around? I’m probably very lame in comparison. I’m just not that entertaining—not at my best, and definitely not with Jack, who so far has gotten my worst. “Are all your friends scientists?” I ask.
“Some.” A pause. “Jesus. I can’t think of one who isn’t.”
I nod. It’s truly hard to expand one’s social circle. Academics become friends, hang out, and above all sleep almost exclusively with other academics. Because academia is a bit like the Olympic Village—sans opening ceremony with condom distribution.
We park in front of a narrow brownstone, and after ringing the bell at a yellow door, he turns to me. “Hey.”
I turn, too. Under his coat he’s wearing jeans and a dark henley, and he’s big and attractive, and it occurs to me for the first time in years that nights in which people go out together—not all nights, but some nights, maybe several nights—don’t just end with a hug and good night.
I shiver.
“Honesty,” he reminds me. “You don’t need to impress anyone. No need for the usual party tricks.”
I smile. “I was going to carve a recorder out of a carrot and play it for your friends.”
He gives me a long look, like I’m the single most charming person he’s ever met. “Not gonna lie, that’d be pretty cool.”
Even before I knew about his mother, Jack always seemed to me like a lone wolf, set apart from the rest of the Smiths. It’s instantly clear, though, that his friend group is his chosen family. There are over fifteen people in the house, and not only are they all delighted to see him, they welcome me just as warmly. The single exception: Andrea, Jack’s MIT colleague. She stares at me like a vaguely displeased gargoyle, probably feeling awkward about the fact that I didn’t get the job.
“Beer?” Sunny, the engineer who owns the house, asks. She’s a dark-haired ball of energy. “Wine?”
I’m ready to spend the rest of the night holding a drink I don’t want just to avoid looking out of place, but Jack says, “I’ll have one. Elsie doesn’t drink.”
I never told him, but of course he knows. “Anything else, then? Water? Soda? OJ? Maple syrup?” Sunny frowns into her fridge. “Milk?”
“Whole?” Jack asks.
“Two percent.”
“Keep your white water.”
“You spoiled little Smith brat, raised with unpasteurized emu tit juice.” She punches his arm. “Remember when Caitie was pumping and kept her bottles in the fridge of the student lounge?”
“And Kroll used it.”
“For his coffee.” Sunny shakes her head. “Good times.”
Jack has friends, inside jokes that go back a decade, and a whole group of smart, kind people who tease him because they care about him, and . . . I’m not sure what to do with this piece of information, aside from being mind-numbingly fascinated. I briefly wonder if they know about the article Jack wrote, whether they support him, what their opinion of theoretical physics is, and then force my brain to shut up for once. I should learn how to have fun at some point in my life.
One of the people visiting town is a biologist from Stanford. He’s as tall as Jack—an impossibility, I thought, especially within the nerd community.
“This is Adam,” Jack says after they shake hands warmly, in that affectionate but understated way of men who like each other a lot but will probably never openly admit it. Adam looks like he might be a few years older. Dark. Frowny. Intimidating, though the beautiful girl next to him looks anything but intimidated. “And this is—”
She takes a step forward and enfolds Jack in a tight hug. “Jack!”
He hugs her back with a smile. “Hey, Ol. Nice to see you’re still putting up with this guy—thank you for your service. Elsie, this is Olive Smith—no relation to my terrible family, lucky her. She’s Adam’s . . . Adam, is she still your fiancée?”
Adam nods with a mildly irritated expression.