“It’s my word against the word of the guy with a decade-long agenda against theorists, after all.”

He shrugs. “Maybe. Or maybe it’s a physicist’s word against a librarian’s.”

I scoff and stalk to the entrance, suddenly confident in my stilt shoes, determined not to be in his presence a second longer. But when I reach the door, something ticks inside me. I whip my head back to Jack, who’s standing there like K2, studying me with an interested frown, like I’m an exotic caterpillar about to pupate.

God, I hope he has itchy, purulent ass acne for the rest of his natural life. “I know you have despised me since the very first moment we met,” I spit out.

He bites the inside of his cheek. “You do?”

“Yes. And you know what? It doesn’t matter if you hated me at first sight, because I’ve hated you long before we ever met. I hated you the first time I heard your name. I hated you when I was twelve and read what you’d done in Scientific American. I’ve hated you harder, I’ve hated you longer, and I’ve hated you for better reasons.”

Jack doesn’t look so amused anymore. This is new to me—talking to others like the me I really am. It’s new and different and weird, and I freaking love it.

“I’m really good at hating you, Jack, so here’s what I’m going to do: not only am I going to get this job, but when we’re colleagues at MIT, I’m going to make sure that you have to look at me every day and wish that I were George. I’m going to make you regret every single little jab. And I’m going to single-handedly make your life so hard that you’ll regret taking on me, and Monica, and theoretical physics, until you cry in your office every morning and finally apologize to the scientific community for what you did.”

He is really not amused now. “Is that so?” he asks. Cold. Cutting.

This time I’m the one to smile. “You bet, Jonathan.”

I open the door. Leave the restroom.

And I don’t glance at him for the rest of the evening.

OceanofPDF.com

So. Just to get this straight. You, Elsie ‘I’m allergic to peanuts but I still ate Mrs. Tuttle’s homemade brittle because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, have you seen my EpiPen?’ Hannaway—you told Jack Smith . . . all that?”

I’ve kicked off the red dress, and I’m neurotically pacing in the glory of my thigh highs, striped cotton underwear, and insulin pod. I should be cold, but my anger burns toasty from within, like the plasma core of the sun. “It’s a minor allergy, Mrs. Tuttle is very elderly and our landlady, and yes, I did—because Jack deserved it.”

“I don’t doubt it.” Cece lies back on the couch, watching like my meltdown is the apotheosis of entertainment. Hedgie lounges in her lap with a schadenfreudey, demonic gleam, clearly getting a serotonin boost from my impending demise. “That article he wrote was such a huge deal, every academic field still talks about it. Even linguistics. How did you not know what he looked like?”

I rub my eyes. My fingers come back soot black. “I was engaging in an academic boycott.”

“Maybe not your most fortunate idea.”

“If someone wrote a hoax paper saying that adjectives suck, you’d boycott them, too.”

“I’d straight up murder them. And I’m proud of you for finally yelling at someone—a most pleasing moment in your career. But my question is, how are you going to do”—she waves her hand inchoately—“all that?”

“Do what?”

“Hatch out of the yolky egg of adjuncthood. Get the job. Make Jack rue the day he was born. What’s the plan here?”

“Right. Yeah.” I stop pacing. Massage my temples. “I have none.”

“I see no flaws in that.”

The only response I can think of involves kicking the top part of the credenza. I do just that, then proceed to limp around with a swollen pinky toe.

“I’ve never seen you like this, Elsie.”

“I’ve never felt like this.” I’m a Large Hadron Collider: atomic particles smash angrily about my body, building up the energy to burn Jack to a crisp. Or at least cook him well done. I can’t remember the last time I experienced so many negative emotions. “I should have known. I always had a bad feeling about him, and last night—that’s why he’s so good at Go. He was a physicist all along, that—that piece of Uranus—”

“Science insult. Nice.”

“I bet he thinks in Fahrenheit—”

“Ooh, sick burn.”

“—and spends his free time flying to Westminster Abbey to dance on Stephen Hawking’s grave—”

“Hawking’s dead?”

“—and won’t even bother calling Greg to ask for an explanation, because he’s a sadistic, egotistical, ignorant black hole of sh—”

“Elsie, babe, do you need us here for this, or should we go to our room to mourn Stephen?”

I stop pacing. Cece and Hedgie are staring, heads tilted at the same angle. “Sorry,” I say sheepishly.

“Not gonna lie, it’s kinda fun to see you soapbox it all out, geyser-style. I’m sure there are some serious health benefits to this. But before you pull a machete out of your butt crack and begin the rampage, let me point out, this Smith-Turner dude? He cannot touch you.”

“He may not be able to knee me in the groin or poison my tea with a vial of measles, but—”

“He also cannot interfere with your interview.”

“If Jack tells Volkov or Monica, I—”

“Pff.” She waves her hand. “He won’t.”

“He won’t?” I squint at Cece. Is she placating me? I wouldn’t know—I never need placating.

“First, admitting that he knows you from a nonacademic setting would create a sizable conflict of interest. They’d force him to recuse himself from the search committee. He’d lose the ability to influence the other members.”

“Oh.” I nod. First slowly, then not. “You’re right.”

“Plus, you’re not contrabanding cigars or organizing illegal cockfights. You told a small, irrelevant lie about your personal life to a passing acquaintance. For all Jack knows, you’re in the witness protection program. Or you misspoke when you were first introduced. Or you and Greg have a role-play kink you expand out of the bedroom: you pretend to be a librarian at his grandma’s birthday, he spanks you with Billy the IKEA bookcase, orgasms are had. Consensual, Swedish, and above all: private.”

“That’s . . . intense.”

“I’ve been watching HBO with Mrs. Tuttle’s password. Point is, Jack’s not telling anyone shit. Can you imagine if he went to Monica and brought up random details of your romantic relationships that he thinks should be disqualifying? HR would have a field day. Don’t you watch the harassment-prevention webinars?”

“I—they’re mandatory.”

Cece’s eyes narrow. “Yes, but do you watch them, or do you let them play while you do integral calculus and browse cheese porn on Pinterest?” I flush and look away, and she sighs. “Here’s a recap: Jack can’t ask you about your personal life.”

“He already has.”

“But he can’t tell others. It would be, as the kids say, a bad look. And, as the lawyers say, illegal. Plus, Monica the badass chair would kick him in the nuts. She seems nicely predisposed to nut kicking.”

I exhale. “You’re right.” I celebrate my relief by rolling down my thigh highs. Small miracle: no holes yet. “So he’s bluffing. Posturing. Just like I am.”

“Yup.” Cece bites into her lip, suddenly pained. “With one minor difference.”

“Which is?”

“If his posturing doesn’t work, he’s still an MIT professor. If yours doesn’t . . .”

I groan and drop onto the lazy chair. “If mine doesn’t, it’s one more year in the adjunct pit.” No research time. Students calling me Mom and insisting their dogs ate their computers. Rationed insulin. And, of course, the longer I spend without a tenure-track job, the less appealing a candidate I’ll be. I hate vicious cycles, and academic ones are the most vicious of all.