AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“It can wait.”
“No, no.” Tina smiles. “This is way better than stressing myself out. Are you going to answer? How long have you been not-texting this physicist anyway?”
“Some months,” I say vaguely, counting back.
Tina, however, has detected blood in the water. Her eyebrow goes up at this evasiveness. “Some months, huh?” Her fingers tap on the kitchen counter. “Would that be a few months? A couple of months? A half-dozen months?”
Crap. Busted.
“Nineteen months.” I give her a brief glare, pick up my phone, and type.
I didn’t realize that physicists cured cancer, I say. Isn’t that more of a medical thing?
“You’ve been talking to him for nineteen months and you don’t know his name?”
“It’s not like that.” I flip my phone around and hand it to Tina. “We’re talking about his grant proposal. It’s all totally science. I consult him about physics problems and in exchange, I console him about how much time he spends at work. There’s nothing to see here.”
Nothing I know how to examine, that is.
As I’m talking his reply appears. You know how all science is either physics or stamp-collecting?
“Oh, he’s one of those.” Tina rolls her eyes.
In grant proposals, A. continues, there are really only two choices. Either it’s MOAR CANCER, ARR, RADIATION FOR EVERYONE. Or you’re saving the world from those of us who irradiate everything.
“Maria,” Tina says slowly, “are you flirting with this poor boy about radiation?”
“Would I do that?”
Actual Physicist has no idea the conversation is being observed, because he continues.
And then there’s the supreme dunderheaded confidence required to write the requisite papers: MY COMPLETE FAILURE OF A PROJECT PROVIDES IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT SCIENTIFIC FAILURE, PART 19.
“He’s cute,” Tina says. “I feel weird eavesdropping.” She hands my phone back to me.
I shake my head. I don’t get the impression you fail often, Actual Physicist.
No. But that just makes the pressure worse. Inevitable reversion to the mean = I’m cruisin’ for a bruisin’.
“You’re not eavesdropping,” I say. “Seriously. Look. Reversion to the mean. We talk statistics.”
She shakes her head. “Maria, that is not talking about statistics. That is using the language of statistics to talk about life. You know that’s not the same thing, right?”
I wave my hand airily. “If I can’t lie to my best friend, who can I lie to?”
“How long has this guy been low-key flirting with you using math?”
I bite my lip. “Maybe...eighteen of the last nineteen months?”
“And how long have you been flirting back?”
“About the same.”
“And he’s never asked your name? Never wanted to see a picture? Never suggested you webcam?”
“He said his family is weird and kind of Googleable, and he prefers pseudonyms.”
Tina looks at me, and I feel my cheeks heat.
“And I’m fine not giving out personal information to—”
“To someone who flirts with you for a year and a half?” She shakes her head. “Have you considered the possibility that he’s catfishing you?”
“How?” I throw up my arms. “He hasn’t given me a name. Or a photo or a Facebook page. You can’t catfish someone if you never tell them anything.”
Tina sighs.
“Or are you thinking that he’s maybe not a man?” I ask this more pointedly.
“I didn’t say that.”
“Good,” I say. “Because I asked his pronouns when we first started chatting, and a, he didn’t think it was a weird question, and b, he said he/him. That’s good enough for me. If it turns out that reality is more complicated than that, I can cope with complicated.”
“Fair enough.” She shakes her head apologetically. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have interrupted your dorky flirtation. I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
I stick out my tongue at her. “You can’t get hurt if you don’t know anything.”
She raises one eyebrow. Neither of us believe that. But she doesn’t push the matter. “I’ll let you get back to it.”
She leaves. The kitchen seems larger without her, and maybe a little colder. Yeah. I look back at my phone and feel a fluttering in my stomach. Shit.
Sorry, I type slowly. My housemate caught me smiling at the phone, and she accused me of flirting with math.
Oh, god. Why did I hit send? Why isn’t there a take-back button on this app? Flirting is one thing. Labeling my dorky flirtation as flirtation is another. The label strips the entire conversation of plausible deniability. Up until now, I could pretend. What, me? I just like math jokes.
But I just made it real. Reality makes me vulnerable. My hands feel cold; I try not to stare at my screen, waiting for his response.
Nonsense, A. types. My heart sinks. You weren’t flirting with math. You were flirting with statistics.
I exhale slowly. That you… It feels very singular. Almost exclusionary. We would have been fine. You makes me feel like I’m all alone in this.
Hell, maybe I am. I shake my head and try not to sound bothered. Hate to break it to you, but statistics are a form of math.
Do we live in the days of Gauss? he writes back. What is the point of treating interdisciplinary study as a lesser endeavor if we don’t separate our disciplines?
Here’s the thing: Admitting I’m flirting is a big step for me. I don’t want to be ignored. It hurts, like I’m being told that it’s just me. That I’m flirting, and he’s just handing out equations.
But if it’s a big step for me, it probably is for him as well. If he doesn’t want to give what we do a label, fine.
I exhale. I see. You’re a purist.
I’m a physicist, he responds. I’m pure as the driven snow. But you can corrupt me with biology if you want.
I stare at those words, my nose wrinkling. He doesn’t have to tell me his name. Or send a picture. Or friend me on Facebook. But I do have limits. He can’t flirt and pretend it’s only me doing it.
Corrupt your own damned self, I suggest. The rest of us have work to do. I slap my phone down.
7
JAY
November
Rain is falling in slashing fits, and the backsplash against the pavement is soaking my ankles. Even though we’re high up in the Berkeley Hills, the clouds obscure any hint of a view. Beside me, Rachel, my postdoc, is swathed in a giant blue nylon raincoat, huddling under my umbrella. None of this helps. By the time we make it from the parking lot to the building a few hundred yards away, we’re soaked.
The rain seemed like an annoyance down on campus; up here in the hills where the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is nestled, water lashes down with nothing to stop it.
It’s six o’clock, and the clouds outside make the cement hallways gloomy. But Gabe’s office on the third floor—one he shares with a grad student and another postdoc—is warm and smells like something savory.
I’m suddenly starving. Cold and starving.
“Hey,” Gabriel greets me as I come in. “Thanks for coming by. I know you had to run after my practice job talk, and I appreciate your taking time to talk this through.”
“Dude. It’s what I’m here for.” I set my umbrella outside the hall. “This is Rachel. I told you about her.”
“Yeah.” Gabe reaches out and shakes her hand. “Rachel. You’re on the market next year, right?”
Rachel shakes out her giant raincoat and nods. “I read your slides. And your paper.”
Gabe nods. “Okay. So I was thinking that everyone keeps asking me about quantum coherence. And—”
“Seriously?” says a voice behind us. “Gabe. I’m sitting right here.”
I haven’t seen Maria Lopez in almost two months. I still recognize her voice. I feel the hair on the back of my neck stand on end as
I turn around.
She’s seated in an oversized armchair, probably donated to the office when some previous occupant moved across country a decade ago. She’s wearing a skirt with sparkly patterns and a light blue blouse. There’s no evidence that she even knows about the rain outdoors; she’s dry, and her hair is blown perfectly straight.
I bet the rain doesn’t dare fall on her. Gold hoop earrings sparkle in the fluorescent lights. The way she’s sitting makes me think she could sell that chair in any magazine.
She has a pile of paper on her lap, and she’s frowning at me. At all of us.
“What?” asks her brother.
“First, they’re dripping wet. At least offer them… I don’t know, a towel or something.”
Gabe looks at her with a frown. “I don’t have a towel. Do you, um…” He looks around the room wildly. “Do you want some Kleenex? Or a napkin?”
Maria looks at me. I can tell she is thinking about the time we ran into each other out on the plaza. About the shit I said to her. Her jaw works. Then she sets her papers aside, stands, and pulls a black bag out from under a desk.
“Here.” I hear the noise of a zipper; she brandishes a bright yellow towel. “Unused. I didn’t get to the gym today.”
