Chapter 3 Chain Reaction
CHAIN REACTION
I blink stupidly—one, two, seven times.
Then I blink again, for good measure.
Why is Jack here, brushing snow off his parka, shrinking the entrance to half its size with his overgrown shoulders? Is it keto night at Miel? Did he get lost on his way to a calisthenics convention?
I’m debating whether to ignore him or briefly wave at him when Monica says, “You’re late.” She sounds chiding. And she looks a lot like she’s talking to Jack, who checks his wristwatch (a wristwatch, in this year of our lord) and calmly replies, “I was in the lab. Must have lost track of time.”
“I had to pry him off the optical tweezers,” the blonde next to him—Andrea?—butts in.
Monica all but rolls her eyes. I glance back and forth between them, disoriented. Does Jack know Monica? Are they SoulCycle buddies? What’s he late for?
“Since you’re finally gracing us with your presence, this is Dr. Elsie Hannaway, one of the candidates for the faculty position. Elsie, this is Dr. Andrea Albritton, an associate professor in the department. And Dr. Jonathan Smith-Turner, the head of the MIT Physics Institute.”
I almost look around. I almost scan the restaurant in search of the elusive Jonathan Smith-Turner. But then I don’t, because Jack is staring down at me, looking exactly how I feel.
Confused. Puzzled. Concerned for Monica’s mental health.
“You’ve got it wrong,” he tells her with that good voice he has, shaking his head, amused. “Elsie’s not a . . .”
He trails off, and his demeanor switches: the amusement dissolves. Something twitches in his ridiculous superhero jaw. The frown between his eyes deepens into a W—for What the everloving fuck? I can only assume.
Jack Smith’s always stubbornly, peculiarly unreadable, but right now I can safely guess that he’s pissed. He wants to curse me. Slaughter me. Feast on the tender marrow of my bones.
Though he does none of that. His expression switches again, this time to a polite blank as he offers his hand. I have no choice but to shake it.
“Dr. Hannaway,” he says, voice rich and disturbingly familiar. His skin is Boston-in-January-with-no-gloves cold. Calloused. Scary. “Thank you for your interest in MIT.”
“Dr. Turner,” I manage around the catch in my throat.
“Smith-Turner.” The correction is a punch in the sternum. This can’t be. Jack Smith and Jonathan Smith-Turner cannot be—
“But call me Jack.”
—the same person.
“Dr. Hannaway goes by Elsie, Jonathan,” Monica says archly.
Jack ignores her tone. “Elsie,” he says, like he’s trying it out for the first time. Like he didn’t use my name just last night, over the sole game of Go I haven’t won in years.
Shit.
I wait for one of us to acknowledge that we already know each other—in vain. My mouth remains closed. His, too. Brown eyes stay on mine, and I feel as pinned as an exotic dragonfly.
This is wrong. Jack Smith is a PE teacher. Greg told me so when we met at that coffee shop to plan our backstory. Right?
“And I have a brother. Older. Three years,” Greg says, setting down his mug. “I won’t tell him that I hired you, but he’s great, unlike . . . well, my other relatives.”
I nod, typing Brother in my Notes app. Close, I add. “May I have his name and something about him?”
“Something about Jack?”
“That I can bring up when we meet? Something like ‘Greg talks about you all the time. You’re a hippotherapist, right? And you love soap carving! How lovely that you met your spouse while climbing Machu Picchu.’ ”
Greg shakes his head. “Jack’s not married.”
“Any partners?”
“No. He doesn’t really date.”
My eyebrow lifts at Greg, who immediately shakes his head.
“Not like me. He . . . has friends, women that he . . . But he’s very clear about not being interested in relationships.”
I nod. Type Stud? Yikes. “Your mother doesn’t hound him about settling down like she does you?”
“It’s complicated.” Greg’s expression is almost guilty.
“But no. Mom doesn’t really care what he does.
Let’s see, something about Jack.” He drums his fingers.
“He comes across as a bit rough around the edges, like he doesn’t care about anything but his job, but—he’s nice.
Kind. For instance, he was the only person who showed up for my Jesus Christ Superstar recital back in high school. ” He sighs. “I played Peter.”
“The only person in your family?”
“The only person in the audience. Did lots of clapping.” Greg shrugs. “And he’s freakishly smart. Likes board games. Recently moved back to Boston from California.”
“What’s his job?”
“He teaches. Phys—”
A loud sound from a nearby table makes us start. A toddler, slamming her fist on the table, yelling at her mom, “Not banana—cookie!”
“Sweetie, you’ve been sick.”
“I’m not sick. I—” Suddenly, there’s a puddle of vomit on the front of her shirt.
Greg and I exchange a look before he continues, “Also, um . . . he plays sports with his friends. Stuff like that.”
I nod and write down, PE teacher. Monopoly? Gym bro? Not the target. Nonissue.
Until now.
Suddenly, Jonathan Jack Jesus Christ Superstar Smith-Turner, who plays board games and teaches something that starts with phys- and is most definitely not physical education, is a big fucking issue.
Impossible. Insane. I must be on Punk’d. General relativity was right: I’ve time-traveled back to the early 2000s. A camera crew and Uncle Paul are hiding behind that pretentious potted fern in the corner. The interview was a setup. My entire life is a joke.
“Hey, Jack,” Volkov asks from behind me, all sharp, eastern European sounds, “with great power comes . . . ?”
“Great current squared times resistance,” Jack murmurs, eyes planted on me.
I shiver hot and cold while everyone else laughs.
As usual, Jack is inaccessible; I have no idea what’s happening in his brain.
As usual, I feel like he’s skinning me like a clementine, seeing all my squishy, secret, hidden bits.
How hard will Cece murder me if I puke all over her dress?
“MIT party?” The hostess smiles. “Let me show you to your table.”
I turn around clumsily, as if wading through water.
My brain won’t stop flipping its fins. So Jack’s a physicist—bad.
An experimentalist—bad. The experimentalist—bad.
He wants to hire some George dude—bad. He knows me as a librarian his brother’s dating—bad.
He never liked me—bad. He thinks I made up my Ph.D.
—badder—and am conning MIT into hiring me—baddest.
“Don’t let him get to you,” Monica whispers in my ear.
“W-what?”
“The way Jonathan was looking at you, like you’re trying to smuggle a full bottle of shampoo through TSA—definitely one of his power plays. Ignore him.”
Shit—what if he narcs me out to Monica? To Volkov?
Oh God, am I going to have to explain to my future colleagues about my side gig?
About Faux? I bet filet mignon goes great with anecdotes of that debt collector who threatened to shatter my kneecaps.
“Okay.” I smile weakly. I’m in deep shit—ten feet under, I estimate.
No, fifteen. Rapidly digging when Monica notices that I’m sitting far from Volkov and says, “There’s a terrible draft here. Can someone switch with me? Elsie, would you mind?”
Musical chairs ensue. She maneuvers until I’m between her and Volkov. Excellent. Less excellent? Jack, right across from me. He’s folding himself in his chair, twice as broad as the experimentalist riffling through the menu next to him. He stares like he’s about to deseed me like a pomegranate.
I try to think about a single way this interview could have started less auspiciously, and come up empty-handed. Maybe if Godzilla stepped into Miel and started grazing on the orchid centerpiece.
I glance toward the entrance. Is Godzilla about to—
“Where are you currently, Elsie?”
I whip my head to Jack. His gaze is on me and only me, like we’re alone in the restaurant. In Boston. In the Virgo galaxy supercluster. “I . . . don’t understand the question.”
“Your workplace. If you currently work.”
My cheeks heat. “I teach at UMass Boston, Emerson, and Boston University.”
“Ah.” He stuffs entire worlds in that single sound—none of which I care to visit. “Remind me, is UMass ranked as a Research One institution?”
My nostrils flare. I remember what my mom always says (You look like a piglet when you do that) and make a conscious effort to relax. “Research Two.”
Jack nods like he didn’t already know and takes a carefree sip of his water. I wonder what would happen if I kicked him under the table.
“You really must move to a Research One institution, Dr. Hannaway.” Volkov gives me a look of fatherly concern. “There’s simply no comparison. More resources. More funds.”
You don’t say. “Yes, Dr. Volkov.”
“And are you on tenure track, Elsie?” Jack asks.
“An adjunct.” I am totally going to kick him. In the nuts. It’s the only acceptable use of my foot.
“I am so jealous of adjuncts,” Volkov murmurs distractedly, staring at the entrée page. “They have mobility. Flexibility. Keeps you young at heart.”
I paste a smile on my face. “So much flexibility.” Offering to forward him the biweekly op-eds the Atlantic runs on how we are the underclass of academia seems rude, so I silently wish him an unpassable kidney stone.
“And where did you get your Ph.D.?” Jack asks.
“Northeastern.”
“Northeastern, huh?” He nods, pensive. “Great school. A friend used to be there.”
“Oh. In the Physics Department?”
“No. Library Science.”
A rush of heat sweeps over me. Does he mean—
“Jonathan, I emailed you Dr. Hannaway’s CV and several of her publications,” Monica says sweetly. “Did you not receive them?”
“Perhaps they got flagged as spam.” He doesn’t take his eyes off me.
“My apologies, Dr. Hannaway.” He crosses his arms over his chest and leans back, preparing to study me at his leisure.
He’s wearing a dark-green henley in this fancy-ass restaurant.
Underdressed, again, like his entire brand is Instagram lumbersexual and he can’t risk being spotted wearing business casual. “Do you have any siblings?”