Chapter Twenty-One
Lewis’s notebook remains missing. After checking with Regina again and dipping into the remaining seminar rooms that were locked earlier today, we give up on our search, trudging back from campus in silence.
Lewis heads off to dinner with his brother, and I try to keep myself distracted for the rest of the evening by reading through all the emails that came in over the weekend and doing laundry.
On the way back from the laundromat, I pick up a salad for dinner and a tub of vegan Van Leeuwen ice cream.
I don’t even fight my impulse to text Lewis a picture. It’s only been a few hours since we saw each other at the conference, but I don’t want to waste any time we still have together. Want to come over and tell me how it went with Ben?
As disconcerting as the butterflies in my stomach are, they’re better company than the nervous turmoil that arises whenever I remember our charade is this close to blowing up in our faces.
Lewis’s reply blinks on my phone a half hour later.
On my way. He appears on my doorstep another thirty minutes later, hair tousled like he’s run his fingers through it.
I drag two cushions and a blanket out to the fire escape, and we share the peanut butter chocolate chip ice cream, avoiding any mention of the notebook.
I can tell we both need to get it out of our minds for a while.
Instead, Lewis tells me about his evening; the stilted conversation at dinner that flowed smoother the more wine he and Ben had.
At some point, Lewis licks the last of the ice cream off my lips and curls his fingers into the hem of my shirt—his college tee that I’ve been wearing every night to sleep since he lent it to me last Tuesday.
“I was wondering when you’d give this back to me,” he murmurs into my shoulder.
“I’ve gotten kind of attached,” I tell him. “You better take it off before it’s too late.”
We stumble inside, and he pulls off the shirt, making us forget all about our worries, if only for an evening.
They’re back in full force the next day, though.
Notebook still nowhere to be found, we make it through the morning lectures, jittery and tense, until the break when Lewis leaves to check with central campus security.
As I join the line for lunch, I survey the room and can’t help but question everyone’s glances.
Someone says my name and I find Vivienne two steps ahead, throwing me a worried look as she grabs a clean plate. She’s wearing a cream silk blouse and black slacks today, her hair pinned back with a golden clip.
“Sorry. What?”
“Is everything okay?” She picks up a napkin. The woman ahead of me motions me forward, and I slide in next to Vivienne. “You seem distracted.”
“I guess I am a little,” I admit, tongue thick in my mouth. I could be wrong, but she strikes me as the type of person who’d come right out with it if she found the notebook. Still, it feels like it’s only a matter of time before somebody uncovers our act.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing, just…” I trail off.
Just what?
Just the potential of my career imploding right here because I panicked and confirmed her misconception that I was dating Lewis?
Just the at-once nauseating and exhilarating feeling of falling for a person I shouldn’t even be considering, especially not now as my future is so out in the open?
Just the confidence-shaking news of a failed grant?
Take your pick.
I go for the last one. I shouldn’t—not if I want Jacob to continue living under the illusion that I have my life together, but at this point, what I want even less is to end up unemployed once my funding expires.
“I had another grant rejected. I got the news this past Friday.”
“That’s terrible.” Vivienne’s eyebrows draw together in empathy. “The worst kind of feeling, really. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, it’s been hard,” I admit with a sigh.
She touches my forearm and offers me a small smile. “Those teaching positions I told you about—they’re still available. If that helps.”
A teaching position might be able to tide me over to whatever is next, but it’s not ideal. Not only would my research have to take a step back, but I’d have to move all the way here and then to wherever I found a job next. Still, it’s nice of her to want to help.
“Thank you.”
“I’ll let you know if I hear anything else,” she says, and I’m racking my head for a way to kindly and not condescendingly recommend her to make an application herself so she doesn’t have to rely on Jacob’s funding anymore when I remember.
Amidst the debacle with the notebook, I forgot about my lunch meeting with Rosanna Alderkamp.
Shit.
“I’m so sorry, but I completely forgot I’ve got to run. Thank you, though!” I toss my paper plate onto the table and race outside, where Rosanna is wrapping up a phone call and doesn’t seem bothered about my lateness.
All throughout lunch at a coffee place on Broadway, Rosanna asks questions about the virtual environment I run my experiments in, and seeing her this invested makes me hopeful.
But hopeful doesn’t pay the bills.
As she empties three sachets of sugar into her latte, I watch the tiny crystals melt into the foam in her mug and wait until she picks up her spoon.
“I’m glad you’re so interested in my code, and that you see potential for applications in it.
The thing is,” I say, then pause. I don’t want to outright beg for a position in her lab, but I also need her to know how available I am.
Rosanna guides her cup to her lips and nods for me to go on.
“My funding runs out at the beginning of October.”
Her smile turns tense. “I’m sorry to hear that. Have you applied for any more funding?”
“I have, but none of the grants have come through. I had this idea to use the design of my last study, which was more of a proof of concept, really, and apply it to detect signals of memory reactivation.”
She nods slowly. “That’s very interesting,” she says and pulls her curls back into a knot. “What about a rebuttal, for the rejected grant?”
I thought about this, too. After rejections to grants or papers, it’s an option to contest the jury’s decision, to argue against their comments and hope for a change of mind, but it’s rarely successful.
I shake my head. “I don’t think I have a convincing angle.”
“I see,” she says, pressing her lips together.
“I will try again, I will figure it out, but in the meantime…” I let out a long breath and push the worries about someone unmasking Lewis’s and my charade aside.
“I know it’s a long shot, but I am looking for open positions now.
Postdocs, lectureships, anything. If any funding becomes available in your lab, I would be interested in working with you.
” I go on to tell her how I’ve thought about reanalyzing some of her old data from a different angle.
It would be partially out of curiosity, and partially because any publication with her name next to mine would bolster my CV and jump-start my citation index, which might, in turn, increase my chances for future grant applications.
I don’t say it out loud, but we both know it. It’s the nature of the game.
“I can’t give you a definitive answer,” Rosanna tells me once we’re out on the sidewalk. “But it looks like we might have funding coming in. I’ll see what I can do. We’ll keep in touch, okay?”
My heart jumps into somersaults. “Thank you.”
I watch as Rosanna heads to the subway before my hand finds my phone in my tote bag, and I’ve already scrolled to Lewis’s number when my conscience catches up with my lizard brain.
Is it really such a good idea to share my joy with him?
Friday looms ahead, the day Lewis will fly back to Germany.
I hadn’t thought I’d dread it this much, but after the intimacy of the last days, the pending deadline knots my gut into a tight ball of nerves.
Even though I should be occupied with the chase for the missing notebook, my mind also keeps slipping into pictures of the future.
Pictures of us, situations where we continue to be a we.
Detailed answers to What if we didn’t stop things right here?
Weekends spent hunkered down in bed trying to watch movies but getting distracted by each other.
Grilled cheese sandwiches after bouldering, warming my fingers on Lewis’s skin after a bike ride out in the cold.
Eating stacks of pancakes while we discuss some new paper, our legs tangled on the couch.
They’re not going to happen, but a girl can dream, right?
I navigate to Karo’s name in my contacts instead.
“What’s holding you back from telling him?” she asks me as I trudge back across campus. A brown shape on the side of the path makes me halt in my tracks, but it’s just trash. A napkin.
I hoist the strap of my tote higher on my shoulder. “Telling him what?”
“You know what I mean,” she says. “You’ve got it bad.”
“I already told you what’s holding me back.”
“You’re colleagues, and you can’t risk dating one of those again,” Karo rattles off.
“Um, yes,” I concur. “Plus, I don’t even know where I’ll be a few months from now.
I’ve been talking to people from labs all over.
Japan, Australia, Canada.” All possible, although only if they don’t find out about the ridiculous scheme Lewis and I came up with.
“Starting a relationship when we’re in cities separated by a seven-hour train ride is already ridiculous, given how short a time we’ve known each other.
But time zones and flights? It’s insane, nothing less. You know how much I hate flying.”
“Please don’t tell me you’re considering moving that far away again.” Karo sounds a little desperate. “I love you and I know you love your job, but isn’t it a bit much? Moving to yet another continent for your career?”