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At the sink I splash water on my face and dab at my eyes. I recover myself enough to go back to my office, only for Geoff to stick his head round the door a moment later.
“Ah. Anna, can I have a word?”
“Is this about Mila? Because I think it’s great, really great. Wonderful news.”
“Yes, good, so you know.”
“Yes, couldn’t be happier for her.”
“Okay. Good. Oh, by the way, did you type those minutes?”
“In your inbox.”
“Well done, good stuff.”
I want to go home and curl up in my bed, go to sleep for a year or two, but I can’t because I have a class. Maybe I could say I’m sick, ask June to get a replacement teacher for the afternoon. One of the post docs.
No. Mila will know it’s because of her, and then she’ll think I’m upset and she’ll be making cooey noises at me:Oh! Youareupset, Anna. I’m so, so sorry.I wonder if Mila will offload some of her classes on me now. Of course she will.
Then I remember I am supposed to go and see Alex. Good. This is what I need to focus on: Alex and the Pentti-Stone conjecture. It sounds like a children’s book title:Alex and the Pentti-Stone Conjecture.I blow my nose, picturing Geoff’s face—and Mila’s—when they find out our paper got published. I imagine Geoff realizing he backed the wrong applicant. Mila’s words echo in my mind:It should have been you.
Damn right it should.
I think back to the phone call from Alex. What is he up to? He sounded…upset? Not exactly. Intense? Yes. Definitely. Should I brace myself for more bad news? Has he found an error? Will he say we can’t submit yet? It would be a setback, certainly, but we’d had those before. Maybe this one is much more serious. But I know the work and I know the paper, and I know it’s ready. Unless I’ve missed something, and considering it was only this morning that I was quietly confident I’d find out any day now that I got the professorship, and I didn’t even twig that Mila was in the running, let alone that she’d beat me to it, maybe I shouldn’t trust my own judgment.
But I need this paper. This is my opportunity to prove them wrong, to laugh in their face, to quit the job and get a better one elsewhere—maybe move the family to Boston so I could teach at MIT.
I grab my bag and snatch my jacket from the back of my chair. I don’t care what Alex’s problem is right now, I’ll sort it out. I don’t care what it takes, either. I just want to see the look on Mila’s face when our paper gets published. I want to get to tap her on the shoulder and say,I think theydidmake a mistake after all, Mila.
Four
I’ve been to Alex’s apartment a few times before and I park around the corner, turn off the ignition and take a moment. I need to be calm and reassuring. Alex has a tendency to over-react and god knows he can get himself into a state of despair over the smallest thing. He’s twenty-seven years old but sometimes he may as well be twelve. But, he is the genius behind our work and my future depends on how well I can manage him, as I remind myself as I make my way up the stairs.
His apartment is very nice, certainly not what you’d expect a student to live in. It’s roomy, with a big flat screen on one wall of the living room and beige, glass and chrome furnishing that would look great in an office, or a showroom. He shares it with another student who from memory is studying journalism. But Alex doesn’t need the rent his roommate brings in. His parents are paying, and he joked once he’d only got someone to move in so he’d have someone to talk to.
I knock and he opens the door immediately, shirtless, his pupils dilated, and it occurs to me suddenly that he could be on something, some kind of amphetamines. By the looks of him he must have been abusing them for a while and I chide myself for not checking in with him sooner.
“Where’s your roommate?” I ask, taking my jacket off and laying it on the arm of the sofa. “What’s his name again?”
“Vernon. He’s out. Do you have the notebooks?”
“Oh, shit! Sorry.”
“Anna! Did you forget?”
“Sorry, I did. Lots going on this morning.”
He breathes out loudly through his nose, but then seems to relax again. “You want a coffee? I’m about to have one.”
“Sure.”
He does a double take. “You’ve been crying?”
“No.”
“Your eyes are all puffy.”
“I said no.”
