Page 1 of Fundamentals of Chemistry

Chapter 1

Champagne News

“Dad,” I began, “Mom. I have some news.”

My parents looked at me across the wide dinner table as if they had forgotten I was there. And maybe they had. It had been months since I last made the three-hour train ride to Hartford, and I had barely spoken since arriving tonight. Mom took a sip from her chardonnay, and Dad patted his lips with his linen napkin.

“You’re pregnant,” Mom guessed in a flat voice. Her eyes were on the pale-yellow wine as she swirled it in her glass.

My brain misfired, and my heart jumped into my throat. “What? No!” I said. “It’s about a job.”

“Excellent,” Dad said. “You’re finally accepting my offer.”

I sat up a little straighter in my chair, palms pressed flat on the table. I hoped I looked calm and in control, but the slight narrowing of Dad’s eyes told me he could tell I wasn’t.

“You know I appreciate the opportunity to join Burke Limited,” I said carefully, “but I have to decline. I’ve accepted another offer.”

The only indication that Dad heard me was the subtle tightening of his jaw. I held my breath while I waited for the axe to fall.

“And what might that be?” Mom asked.

“I’m going back to Newbury Academy this fall,” I announced with all the confidence I could muster. “Teaching chemistry.”

There. I said it. Schrödinger’s box was open. Unfortunately, it looked like the cat was dead.

My parents stared at me with their already thin lips pressed into even thinner lines.

“You’re really going to teach high school?” Mom asked. Her face pinched as if she had just sucked on a lemon. “I didn’t think you were serious.”

“Why wouldn’t I be serious?” I asked. “I just spent the last four years at Columbia getting a chemistry degree and teaching certificate.”

Dad cleared his throat. “And of course we supported your… little hobby, but you’re twenty-eight years old. It already took you embarrassingly long to start your higher education. You’re overdue to fulfill your responsibilities to this family.”

“I’m old enough,” I said as calmly as I could in spite of the agitation building in my chest, “to make my own choices.”

“But teaching.” Dad spoke with the disdain of someone who found a cockroach in his cappuccino.

“Teaching at Newbury,” I said. “If the school is good enough to attend and patronize, then—”

“Education is a service industry. It's a dead-end job, not to mention, beneath you. At Burke, you would lead your own division.”

The room felt stifling. Beige walls closed in on me from all sides. My eyes were locked with my father’s. It was nearly painful to sit under the weight of his derision, his disappointment, but I couldn’t break.

“I don’t want a division,” I snapped. “I want to teach chemistry, and I’m starting next week.”

“Enough.” His fist fell on the table, rattling the china and silver. “I will not continue to support—”

“Good, because I don’t want your money!”

My chest felt impossibly tight. I hadn’t meant to say that, but once the words were out of my mouth, they felt right. I couldn’t deny my privilege, but I was done using it as a crutch. Righteous excitement bubbled in me like a shaken champagne bottle.

Across the table, Mom refilled her wine glass from a cut crystal decanter. “Matthew, what’s the harm in letting her dabble a little longer?”

“My career isn’t dabbling,” I insisted at the same time my father said, “She’s been dabbling for ten years already.”

Mom shrugged and took a sip of wine. “So, what’s another year?”

Her nonchalance hurt even more than Dad’s disdain.