“But?”

“I cannot give a talk. I can’t talk.”

“You’re talking right now, Olive.”

“Not in front of people.”

“I am people.”

“You’re not many people. Dr. Aslan, I can’t talk in front of a lot of people. Not about science.”

“Why?”

“Because.” Because my throat will dry up and my brain will shut down and I will be so bad that someone from the audience will take out a crossbow and shoot me in the kneecap. “I’m not ready. To speak. In public.”

“Of course you are. You’re a good public speaker.”

“I’m not. I stammer. I blush. I meander. A lot. Especially in front of large crowds, and—”

“Olive,” Dr. Aslan interrupted her with a stern tone. “What do I always tell you?”

“Um . . . ‘Don’t misplace the multichannel pipette’?”

“The other thing.”

She sighed. “ ‘Carry yourself with the confidence of a mediocre white man.’ ”

“More than that, if possible. Since there is absolutely nothing mediocre about you.”

Olive closed her eyes and took enough deep breaths to pull back from the verge of a panic attack. When she opened them, her adviser was smiling encouragingly.

“Dr. Aslan.” Olive grimaced. “I really don’t think I can do this.”

“I know you don’t.” There was some sadness in her expression. “But you can. And we’ll work together until you feel up to the task.” This time, she put both her hands on Olive’s shoulders. Olive was still hugging her laptop to her chest, like she would a life buoy in the open sea, but the touch was oddly comforting. “Don’t worry. We have a couple of weeks to get you ready.”

You say that. You say “we,” but I’ll be the one to speak in front of hundreds of people, and when someone asks a three-minute-long question meant to get me to admit that deep down my work is poorly structured and useless, I’ll be the one to crap her pants. “Right.” Olive had to force her head into an up-and-down motion and take a deep breath. She exhaled slowly. “Okay.”

“Why don’t you put together a draft? You could practice during the next lab meeting.” Another reassuring smile, and Olive was nodding again, not feeling reassured in the least. “And if you have any questions, I’m always here. Oh, I am so disappointed that I won’t get to see your talk. You must promise to record it for me. It will be just as if I was there.”

Except that you won’t be there, and I’ll be alone, she thought bitterly while closing the door of Dr. Aslan’s office behind her. She slumped against the wall and squeezed her eyes shut, trying to quiet the agitated mess of thoughts fluttering inside her head. And then she opened them again when she heard her name in Malcolm’s voice. He was standing in front of her with Anh, studying her with a half-amused, half-worried expression. They were holding Starbucks cups. The smell of caramel and peppermint wafted over, making her stomach churn.

“Hey.”

Anh took a sip of her drink. “Why are you taking a standing nap next to your adviser’s office?”

“I . . .” Olive pushed away from the wall and walked a few steps away from Dr. Aslan’s door, rubbing her nose with the back of her hand. “My abstract got accepted. The SBD one.”

“Congrats!” Anh smiled. “But that was pretty much a given, right?”

“It was accepted as a talk.”

For a few seconds, two pairs of eyes just stared at her in silence. Olive thought that Malcolm might be wincing, but when she turned to check, there was just a vague smile pasted on his face. “That’s . . . awesome?”

“Yeah.” Anh’s eyes darted to Malcolm and back to Olive. “That’s, um, great.”

“It’s a disaster of epic proportions.”

Anh and Malcolm exchanged a worried glance. They knew very well how Olive felt about public speaking.

“What is Dr. Aslan saying about it?”

“The usual.” She rubbed her eyes. “That it will be fine. That we’ll work on it together.”

“I think she’s right,” Anh said. “I’ll help you practice. We’ll make sure you know it by heart. And it will be fine.”

“Yeah.” Or it won’t. “Also, the conference is in less than two weeks. We should book the hotel—or are we doing Airbnb?”

Something odd happened the moment she asked the question. Not with Anh—she was still peacefully sipping on her coffee—but Malcolm’s cup froze halfway to his mouth, and he bit his lip while studying the sleeve of his sweater.

“About that . . . ,” he began.

Olive frowned. “What?”

“Well.” Malcolm shuffled his feet a little, and maybe it was accidental, the way he seemed to be drifting away from Olive—but she didn’t think so. “We already have.”

“You already booked something?”

Anh nodded cheerfully. “Yes.” She didn’t appear to notice that Malcolm was about to have a stroke. “The conference hotel.”

“Oh. Okay. Let me know what I owe you then, since—”

“The thing is . . .” Malcolm seemed to move even farther away.

“What thing?”

“Well.” He fidgeted with the cardboard holder of his cup, and his eyes darted to Anh, who seemed blissfully oblivious to his discomfort. “Jeremy’s hotel room is paid for because of that fellowship he’s on, and he asked Anh to stay with him. And then Jess, Cole, and Hikaru offered for me to stay with them.”

“What?” Olive glanced at Anh. “Seriously?”

“It will save all of us a lot of money. And it will be my first trip with Jeremy,” Anh interjected distractedly. She was typing something on her phone. “Oh my God, guys, I think I found it! A location for the Boston event for BIPOC women in STEM! I think I’ve got it!”

“That’s great,” Olive said weakly. “But I thought . . . I thought we’d room together.”

Anh glanced up, looking contrite. “Yeah, I know. That’s what I told Jeremy, but he pointed out that you . . . you know.” Olive tilted her head, confused, and Anh continued, “I mean, why would you want to spend money on a room when you could stay with Carlsen?”

Oh. “Because.” Because. Because, because, because. “I . . .”

“I’ll miss you, but it’s not as if we’ll be in the rooms for anything other than sleeping.”

“Right. . . .” She pressed her lips together, and added, “Sure.”

Anh’s grin made her want to groan. “Awesome. We’ll get meals together and hang out for poster sessions. And at night, of course.”

“Of course.” It was all Olive could do not to sound bitter. “I look forward to it,” she added with as good a smile as she could muster.

“Okay. Great. I gotta go—the Women in Science outreach committee is meeting in five. But let’s get together this weekend to plan fun activities for Boston. Jeremy said something about a ghost tour!”

Olive waited until Anh was out of earshot before turning to face Malcolm. He was already raising his hands defensively.

“First of all, Anh came up with this plan while I was monitoring that twenty-four-hour experiment—worst day of my life, I cannot graduate soon enough. And after that—what was I supposed to do? Inform her that you’re not going to stay with Carlsen because you’re fake-dating? Oh, but wait—now that you’ve got a huge crush on him maybe it’s sort of real—”

“Okay, I get it.” Her stomach was starting to ache. “You still could have told me.”

“I was going to. And then I dumped Neuro Jude and he went crazy and egged my car. And after that my dad called me to say hi and asked me about how my projects are going, which devolved into him grilling me on why I’m not using a C. elegans model, and, Ol, you know how incredibly nosy and micromanaging he can be, which led to us having an argument and my mom got involved and—” He stopped and took a deep breath. “Well, you were there. You heard the screams. Bottom line is, it totally slipped my mind, and I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine.” She scratched her temple. “I’m going to have to find someplace to stay.”

“I’ll help you,” Malcolm told her eagerly. “We can look online tonight.”