Chapter 2
JANE
The classical violin music resounds through my entire lab, beautifully accompanying my every move as my fingers type in the exact same rhythm. It is impossible for me to work without music; it keeps the structure and my mind in perfect order.
I am alone in my lab. Not just any lab, but the one I built from scratch for my groundbreaking research in creating a predictive model for criminal behavior and intervention.
I am a neuroscientist. But I am also a behavioral expert who has a degree in computer science. My life runs on routine, perfection, and a drive to become the best possible version of myself.
Perfection, prediction, and order are the most important elements to achieve greatness. The greatness my parents expected of me, and I, of course, have to exceed their expectations—which is still a work in progress, because my mother’s standards are higher than my own.
But I exceeded everyone’s expectations, which is why I received the MacArthur Fellowship and, three years ago, an offer from Columbia University to teach Behavioral Neuroscience at the mere age of thirty.
Some say I am too young to be a professor, but I know I have earned my place. While others went partying, I studied. I jumped several classes, graduated from high school at 14, and earned my first undergraduate degree before I turned 17.
I am gifted. I work hard. And I may be the youngest professor at Columbia, but I am motivated and bring knowledge that not many have gained.
Teaching is something I enjoy most of the time. It is an interesting change to explain to outsiders what is happening inside my mind.
Right now, I am working on an update for the predictive model, which is, in its core, a statistical equation that fills an entire board, but I am experimenting with an AI that develops parts of its code itself.
Suddenly, a loud bang rips me from my thoughts, and I spin around.
My eyes find the door with the frosted glass, and I see a person standing behind it. My heart beats faster, and it’s hard for me to catch my breath.
Without thinking twice, I grab my phone to call campus security.
“It’s me, Jane. He’s back. At my lab,” I tell the man on the phone, as the man outside the door starts banging at the glass.
“I’ll get you one day,” the man shouts through the glass. “You are mine.”
I get up from my desk and retreat to the back of the room.
Security tells me they’re on their way, and just when the man starts shouting, he is grabbed and taken. One of the security guards opens the door with his keycard and asks me if I am alright.
I stand in the corner of the lab, my hands and arms in front of me like a T. rex with fists clenching and trembling. It’s what I do. Whenever stressed out, T. rex arms it is.
But it’s not just my hands. My entire body is trembling. I am not a person who does well with threats, let alone when it breaks my routine.
“Slow breaths,” says the guard, and holds out his arm at a distance from me.
They all know me and know I dislike being touched.
It is not the first incident with that man.
He has been following me a while now and randomly appears wherever I am, shouting at me that I am a bitch who just wants to be fucked by him and carry his child.
I roll back my shoulder and shudder, just thinking of it. From a behavioral perspective, I know I must be sick, and yet, it’s hard to separate the emotional impact it has on me.
I dislike men in general, but this man is a threat.
I breathe in and out and look at the security guard. He is a known face. Routine. Control. Predictability.
“I’ll be okay,” I say and try to shake off the sensation in me.
“How could he even get in here?” I ask the guard. Because my lab is on a closed floor, no one gets in here without a key card.
“We don’t know, but we will find out and make sure he won’t appear again,” he says.
I scoff half-heartedly, because last time they said the very same, and it happened again.
I already had exactly six encounters with the man, the first after I won the fellowship and my name was circulated publicly.
Since my appointment here, he appeared irregularly, and as far as I have been told, he escaped from a mental facility.
“Do you need anything?” asks the guard, but I shake my head.
“Just make sure he’s gone,” I say, and the man leaves. After he locks the door, I get back to my desk.
I try to focus back on my work, but my otherwise very structured mind won’t let me, so I pack my bag after half an hour of trying and writing exactly nothing and call it a day.
I extra check my surroundings and don’t use my noise-canceling headphones, just to be sure.
I take the subway for four stops to my Upper West Side apartment. Routine, as always.
When I open the door to my apartment, my cat is already waiting for me. More or less, because I am the one providing food. She sat on my windowsill one day, all skin and bones, so I fed her. She came back and stayed.
I named her Black Matter, because she is the blackest void and impossible to see without light pointed directly at her. She dislikes being touched or cuddled in any way, so we’re the perfect match. Our life is a mutual coexistence, with the requirement that I feed her on time.
“Closed the door,” I tell myself as I close it behind me and lock it. “Locked it.”
I put my bag into its designated space on the spindle table by the door.
“I think I’m hungry,” I say. I narrate my entire life. It helps me structure everything, and with all the dialogue in my mind, all the thoughts and equations, it is a tool so I don’t forget bodily needs.
I walk into my meticulously organized kitchen and get a yogurt from the fridge. I eat the same things every day for a certain amount of time. It’s been a yogurt in the morning and evening, and a broccoli-rice bowl with chicken for the past few months.
I eat the yogurt, feed Black Matter, put the spoons in their designated spot in the dishwasher, and start my evening routine.
Now that I am in my own home, had my comfort food, and am back into my routine, the stress from what happened falls from me.
Tomorrow will be the first day with the new students, and I am excited and frightened to meet them. Social situations are always exhausting for me to navigate, but I have met some curious minds over the years, which is something I look forward to. With that thought, I get to bed.
The next morning comes, and I find myself standing in front of eighty new faces for one of the two courses I teach, An Introduction to Behavioral Neuroscience.
I create a mental map of all their faces before I start speaking. There is one young woman with long brown hair who stares at me with an intensity that irritates me. I dislike staring, so I try to ignore her by starting the lecture and avoiding the spot where she sits.
“Welcome, everyone,” I begin. “I hope you had great introductory weeks and got accustomed to the new chapter in your life. I am Professor Jane McKenzie, and we’ll dive into the neuroscience of behavior in this course.”
I watch them all closely to identify the overachievers, the disinterested, the troublemakers, and the silent ones. I stack all the information in my mind map.
One young man in the back is on his laptop, not listening to a word I am saying.
In the first row sits a woman reading every word from my lips as if I were a god.
She reminds me of myself when I studied.
I annoyed every single one of my professors, but I rather enjoy excitement, drive, and perfectionism.
Two rows behind her, the young woman with the intense gaze is still staring at me—now with her chin resting high on her praying hands, with her elbows on the desk.
Something about her feels superior, as if everything here is beneath her.
If I had to make a guess, from the way she looks, behaves, dresses, I’d say very wealthy parents, no boundaries set, ever.
She is distracting me more than I’d like to acknowledge, and because she does, I get nervous.
She reminds me of my childhood bully. Just thinking about Melissa Rogan, the rich girl who pushed me down a staircase because I was in her way, makes me shudder internally.
I am so distracted that I lost what I wanted to say. It makes me flatten my blouse because my t-rex hands and arms can’t show in front of the students.
Breathe in, breathe out, I tell myself.
Whispering. I hear whispering. Suddenly, I am back in school where I had to present in front of the other students, all of them three to four years older than me, and Melissa Rogan whispered with the others. Everyone laughed. Ignored me. Made me feel less.
Remember who you are, I tell myself.
You’re Jane McKenzie.
Youngest professor ever appointed at Columbia.
An Ivy League Institution.
You got the fellowship.
You solved equations your teachers couldn’t before you even turned 10.
Melissa Rogan is stuck in her marriage and has never become anything.
You are gifted. You are good. You are a renowned name in your area.
With that, I switch back into myself and ignore the woman entirely as I start my lecture. At least I try to. Somehow, I am not on top of my game today.
“Alright, everyone. Behavioral Neuroscience. Within this course, we’ll dive—simply put—into the relationships between the brain and behavior.
More complex, behavioral neuroscience is the center of otherwise isolated scientific disciplines, such as Psychiatry, Neurology, Physiology, Biochemistry, and even reaches into Computer Science, Anthropology, Molecular Biology, and Paleontology. ”
I draw up a map to show the wide spectrum.
“What does that mean for you?” I continue. “At the end of this course, you will be able to understand how the brain and behavior are inherently connected and influence each other reciprocally. The human mind and body are a system that works in connection.”
I glance at the students and check in on who is following and who isn’t.
It is when I see the staring woman has her hand up. Almost provocative.
“A question?” I ask her.
“Yes,” she says in a self-sufficient tone.
“Please, Miss—?“ I say
“Miss Degard,” she says. “I was wondering, if we look at the body-mind relationship, isn’t it essential to also include the environment?”
I am pleasantly surprised. I had almost expected her to challenge me. And it makes me hesitate for a moment.
Me, the behavioral expert, who misread her so much?
Why was I intimidated?
Because she looked at me like a ghost from my past, I tell myself. I should know better. I projected. I was biased. She seems to be genuinely interested.
So I answer in a very different tone.
“Absolutely right,” I say. “We always have to include environmental factors. The environment can activate genes, change perception, and cause physiological differences. There is very interesting research made on exactly those environmental impacts—“ I say, and a deep dive into my favorite topic.
My body relaxes, as I am finally back in the safe waters I know how to navigate.