4. Metabolism Overview and Enzymes #2
I considered for a moment. My interaction with Andreas earlier today flashed through my mind.
I knew Dmitry didn’t mean to be offensive nor did I take his comment about me looking terrible that way.
He was simply painfully direct and didn’t have any interest in me as woman.
Neither of us were interested in messing around with colleagues or orgasming where we ate.
Eventually, I nodded. “Something like that.”
He raised his eyebrows, waiting for elaboration, but I was not about to unspool my entire morning with Andreas Kristiansen and his offer of transactional matrimony and baby making, or my body’s completely bizzarro overreaction to seeing him again.
Instead, I focused on the safer, nerdier topics.
“Ever just ... get the feeling your work is completely pointless?” I asked.
Dmitry sipped his coffee, then shrugged. “All the time. Especially when I see the latest paper from the MIT group. They are always three months ahead, no matter what I do.”
“Those nerds.” I punched the palm of my hand with a fist. “They clobber us in innovation, but we could totally take them in a fistfight.”
He laughed, then softened. “If it makes you feel better, Nieminen will probably be suspended before your dissertation defense. I don’t think he even understands what the postdocs do in his lab and I’ve heard murmurs from the grants oversight department that there’s a problem with his expense reports. ”
“That does make me feel better, actually. Thanks.” Perpetually turning down an assistant professor’s romantic overtures was almost as dangerous as dating one. If Nieminen were suspended, then I’d breathe easier.
Dmitry’s phone vibrated. He checked it, face going neutral. “My PI needs me. Don’t let Nieminen bully you into going to the party. In fact, say you have a boyfriend. He might back off.”
“Will you pretend to be my boyfriend, Dmitry?” I flapped my eyelashes at him.
“No,” he said, and promptly disappeared, leaving behind a faint aroma of cigarette smoke.
I looked back at my notes, but the ability to focus had completely deserted me. Despite my best efforts, my brain continued replaying the morning’s meeting with Andreas on a loop, refusing to let me rest.
Andreas Kristiansen wanted to marry me.
No. Correction, Andreas Kristiansen wanted to marry me and have a baby with me and then .
.. ? He clearly had no idea and hadn’t thought about what would happen next.
The entire plan was so diabolically nonsensical.
I would have to ask Kaitlyn if her uber-rich husband had ever proposed something as diabolically nonsensical. Why are rich people so weird?
Even worse, a not-insignificant, totally mortifying part of me—likely the part that hadn’t gotten laid in over a year—was curious about what would happen if I said yes.
Would we actually get married? Would he move in?
Would we have to cohabitate and share a bathroom?
Or would it be like a one-night stand, only with way more paperwork and the potential for a trust fund baby?
Even worser, that same part of me did not hate the idea of a one-night stand with Andreas. I was a living, breathing, straight woman after all.
Thankfully, a much larger part shied away from the idea like a teenage virgin faced with her first erection.
Andreas felt ... scary. To me. His presence in my life felt volatile, like two bacteria competing with each other via pathogen signals.
I wasn’t afraid of Andreas. I knew he’d never hurt me on purpose and cared about me deeply, even now.
But I also was afraid of Andreas, because he’d never hurt me on purpose and apparently cared about me deeply, even now. And how did any of that make sense?
Or maybe he doesn’t care deeply about you at all. Maybe he cares about injustice, and this is all just about righting a wrong ... ?
Ugh. I wished I’d gotten more sleep last night.
Regardless, I made a mental note to do an internet search for “Who is currently the best chess player in the world?” For now, I had to escape this lab before Nieminen returned with his weird tiny fingers, or before I fell asleep on my desk.
Grabbing my notes, I headed for the lockers, determined to spend the rest of the day doing something other than staring at my laptop.
Maybe I’d go to the library and peruse the new fiction titles, pretending I had time to read them.
Or maybe the bagel shop down the street.
Or maybe a sensory deprivation tank, if I could sneak into the psychology building undetected.
Anything to stop thinking about the reprehensible Kristiansens.
And anything to avoid thinking about Andreas Kristiansen, and why I couldn’t stop thinking about him.
* * *
I took the long way home, which is to say, I walked an extra ten minutes in the opposite direction of my apartment, just for the pleasure of existing outside in the cold.
The sun had started to set, painting the sky directly overhead in orange and pink.
It had been too long since I’d been outside at this hour.
The wind was up, and the temperature had dropped ten degrees since I’d last stepped outside, but I kept my hands out of my pockets. My lungs felt clean, my brain less so, but at least this was an improvement over the emotional whiplash of the morning.
The usual route home took me past two coffee shops, a gym I’d never entered, a boarded-up candy store, and my favorite corner bodega.
There was something almost poetic about the consistency of New York bodegas.
They all had subtle differences, sure. But no matter the time, weather, or global mood, their neon signs always flickered in the window, and the same sullen old man always seemed to be running the register.
I told myself I’d walk right past, but a sign in the window caught my eye: “H?AGEN-DAZS 2-FOR-1, ALL FLAVORS.” I froze, then backtracked, because sometimes you had to let fate call the shots.
I’d been attacked by the memories of my past this morning and now I deserved some sweet, creamy compensation.
Inside, I grabbed two pints of coffee ice cream (the only valid flavor, as far as I was concerned) and cruised through the aisles, just in case there were any new flavors of ramen.
When I stepped up to the counter, the sullen old man gave me his standard look of profound disappointment, then rang up my purchase without a word. I pulled out my credit card, mentally calculated the “I’ve been good, I deserve this” justification, and tapped.
Declined.
I blinked, then tried again. Still declined.
The sullen old man raised a single world-weary eyebrow. “You got another one?”
I did, but I knew better. The other card was for emergencies only, and if I started treating a H?agen-Dazs craving as an emergency, there was no coming back.
“Uh, hang on,” I said, stalling while I fumbled for cash.
I found a five crumpled in my coat pocket, plus some dimes. I slid them across the counter, and the man made no comment, just handed me the bag and muttered, “Receipt?”
“No, thanks.” I tucked the ice cream under my arm and hustled outside, cheeks burning in the cold and from embarrassment.
Maybe I’d been pushing my luck with the recent takeout splurges, but it wasn’t like I’d bought anything extravagant in the past month unless you counted genetic sequencing kits (I’d already maxed out the allowable number specified by my PhD’s grant for the fiscal year, sadly) and the commemorative T-shirt from Kaitlyn’s baby shower.
Outside, I did what any self-respecting grown woman would do. I sat on a stoop, opened the pint, and began eating the ice cream with the plastic spoon the bodega man had thrown in the bag. I didn’t care if it was almost freezing outside. Ice cream, in my opinion, is an anytime food.
It was good, and I hated myself for needing it so badly.
After a few bites, I propped my phone on my knee and logged into my banking app, more out of morbid curiosity than anything else. The interface took an eternity to load, as if it knew what horrors awaited me.
Current balance: $303.46
Next, I checked my credit card. Maxed out, and—oh, great—a missed payment from last month.
I stared at the screen, then at my ice cream, then at the screen again.
How had I let this happen? My cheeks burning hotter, I checked my savings account, just to see how close to the red zone I was.
As it turns out, I was very close to the red zone.
I’d have enough to cover rent, maybe, but not if I kept treating ice cream as therapy.
I scooped out another bite, letting the sweet bitterness of the coffee offset my quickly souring mood. If nothing else, the day had at least given me the clarity to see that I needed to change course, stat. No more takeout. No more fancy coffee. No more lunches out with colleagues.
I set the half-eaten pint on the step, wiped my hands on my jeans, and told myself it would be okay. I’d survived worse. I could definitely survive a few weeks or more of extreme austerity.