It comes out with no pauses or intonation, just a bunch of sounds smooshed together. Which Jack, judging by the knot between his brows, did not understand.

I clear my throat. Take a deep breath. “If you still want to. And if it’s okay with Greg. You can take me out.”

Jack just stares, motionless, reactionless, for way too long. “Take you out . . . in the mob way?”

“No. No! That’s not at all what I—” I blush. I’m cold and tired and my head hurts and I have no idea what I’m doing and why won’t he understand? “I can come to your place. I can take you out.”

He nods. Slowly. “In the mob way.”

“No, I—” I notice it, the amused gleam in his eyes, like he knows exactly what I’m trying to say. I press my lips together, because I don’t want to encourage him, I don’t want to smile, but I’m about to. “I hate you.”

“Sure you do.”

“Why is everything so difficult with you?”

“I like to keep you on your toes.”

“Listen—let’s hang out,” I say. This feels foolhardy. Ill advised. Exciting. “Just . . . try. See what happens. Would that be okay?”

“It would,” he says after a brief pause. “Under one condition.”

I frown. “Making demands already?”

“Always.” His mouth twitches, but he’s back to his opaque self. “If we do this . . . when you’re with me, I need you to be honest. No pretending you’re someone else. No trying to be whatever you think it is that I want. You say what you think. And when you can’t, at least let yourself think it. No lies, Elsie.” His jaw sets. “Just you.”

I nod. And then I realize that I have no idea how to do that, and I laugh, a little sad, a lot terrified. “I can try.”

He nods. “That’s enough for now.”

“You should be honest, too,” I add. “No lies on your end, either.”

“I don’t lie often,” he says simply. Hearing it makes me think of what Millicent said about his past, and my heart clenches. I’ve seen Jack being brutally, needlessly honest. Lying, not so much. “And I can’t see myself lying to you.”

“You don’t even know me.”

“I don’t,” he admits. He studies my face for several moments, like he cannot stop on the cover or the first page, like he needs to read the whole book every time. Then he leans into me, and the icy chill of the morning melts away in his heat. My eyes catch on his cheekbones. The line of his jaw, so sharp it could cut a heart. His lips are full and upturned, a start of that lopsided smile of his that makes me angry and weak-kneed, and . . .

He bends to murmur in the shell of my ear, “I’d like to, though.” My hairs rise, my spine coils like a silent bowstring, and for the first time in my entire life I’m thinking of kisses, of skin, of waking with Jack this morning, of his hand between my shoulder blades, of the ink on his arm, of his lips, which look full and soft, and he hasn’t shaved in a while and he smells good and—

A click. Behind me. Jack straightens and pulls the passenger door open. That tension inside me is still buzzing. I feel almost dizzy.

“Get in,” he orders, low and hoarse and maybe not really to me.

I slide into the seat, and it sinks in that this might be real. Happening outside my head.

Me, taking a shot at being myself.

OceanofPDF.com

From: [email protected]

Subject: Thermo 201

Hiya! I haven’t come to class this semester because I can’t find the room. Where do we meet, again? Could you draw me a map? Thx.

“Egregious.”

Dr. L. says the word with soft g’s and mysterious vowels, like English is a French language that the Americans are just borrowing. I’d find it amusing, but it’s our first meeting since relaying my job news and I can’t feel anything but anxiety. He asked me to come over, and I really didn’t want to, what with the snow and the crock of shit that’s my schedule. And yet here I am.

“Egregious, that they’d choose another candidate,” he repeats. “Perhaps an appeal is in order.”

“Knowing who the winning candidate is, I doubt there are grounds.”

“Georgina Sepulveda, you said?”

I nod.

“And who would that be?”

I’m taken aback that any living physicist wouldn’t know of her work. But Dr. L. can be narrow minded when it comes to experimentalists. Maybe rightfully so?

“She’s behind the Sepulveda model. A brilliant particle physicist. And she was a Burke fellow years ago.” I look down at my knees. Then back up to Dr. L.’s deep scowl. “I’m sorry, Dr. Laurendeau. I know this is disappointing, but—”

“I wonder if Smith-Turner influenced the search, after all.”

My hand grips the armrest of the green chair. “He . . . I doubt it.”

“We cannot put it past him, can we?”

I clear my throat. “I’m convinced that he did not—”

“Elise, you want Smith-Turner to get his comeuppance just as much as I do, don’t you?”

My stomach sinks and I lower my eyes, mortified. Dr. L. spent the last six years counseling me, and here I am. A screwup. Cavorting with the asshole who nearly ruined his career.

Not being the Elsie he wants.

I need to go back to it. To Elise—hardworking, undeterred, laser focused. “This is a huge setback, but I’m . . . regrouping,” I say, trying to sound optimistic. “In terms of finding a job for next year, I—”

“But you have a job. Several, in fact.”

“Yes. Absolutely.” I take a deep breath. “But these adjunct gigs are time consuming and leave me little time for research. And I really want to finish developing my—”

“There is always time for research. One must want to find it.”

I close my eyes, because this one hurts like hell. The Elsie he wants almost slips away, but I hold strong. “You’re right.”

“Could you not simply teach fewer classes?”

I breathe slowly. In and out. “Financially, that’s not a possibility.”

“I see. Well, sometimes money must take second place.”

I grip the armrest, feeling a gust of frustration that he’d think me greedy for wanting to buy insulin and live in a place without mutant moths. It’s immediately swallowed by guilt. This is Dr. L. I wouldn’t even know the Nielsen-Ninomiya theorem if it weren’t for him.

I take a deep breath, forcing myself to mention the idea that’s been swelling in my head since my morning at Jack’s. While there is no dimension in which me working for him would be feasible or appropriate, maybe there is some promise in what he said. “Someone recommended that I consider a postdoctoral fellowship or another research-only position.”

Dr. L. looks at me, alarmed for a split second, and then sighs. “We have been over this, Elise.”

“Right. But we talked about theorists. Maybe some experimentalists might be interested in—”

“Unfortunately, no. I asked widely, and I am very sorry, but no suitable physicist was interested in hiring you as a researcher,” he says, and my stomach sinks even more.

I lower my eyes to my jeans. God, I’m an idiot. A total fucking idiot.

“Elise,” he continues, tone softer, “I know how you feel.” He circles his desk, coming to stand in front of me. “Remember when you started your doctorate? How helpless you felt? How I guided you through developing your algorithms, publishing your manuscripts, making a name for yourself within the physics community? I can help you now, too.”

I think about all the things he’s done for me. All the things I owe to him. I wonder where I’d be without him, and come up empty.

“Do you trust me?”

I nod.

•   •   •

I don’t get a formal rejection from MIT till Wednesday night.

I’m in the middle of what’s rapidly becoming a semesterly endeavor: relearning Noether’s theorem to be able to teach it to a mostly snoring classroom at eight a.m., only to forget it once again by the time my nine thirty thermo lecture comes around.