CHAPTER 7
“Yes, I’ll be there,” she said to her sister on the phone as she put her laptop into her bag.
“What are you doing right now?” Aggie asked.
“Packing my bag. Harlow’s on her way.”
“On her way where? Isn’t she staying with you again?”
“Yes, she’s on her way home from work.”
“Home?”
“Yes. Why?”
“It’s not her home, Larissa. It’s your home.”
“Where she’s staying, so it’s her home, too, for the time being.”
She closed her bag.
“Why are you packing your bag?”
“We’re going to work on the book I told you about.”
“The book? Shouldn’t you be–”
“Yes, I’m aware. Not all of us get our doctorates in no time, Aggie.”
“I worked exclusively on it for years, so it wasn’t in no time. You just keep putting obstacles in your way. Life does that enough for people. You don’t have to add more of your own shit to deal with. It seems there’s now also a book, and there’s always Harlow.”
“How is Harlow in my way? She’s constantly nagging me to focus on school.”
“Which, I’m sure, is so easy with her there all the time.”
“It is. She works full-time, Aggie. It’s not like she’s here lying on my couch all day, distracting me. She has a job.”
“I know. I just want you to be done already,” her sister replied. “We had plans, Larissa. You were supposed to work here with me, and not as a Ph.D. candidate.”
“I know. And I will. I just can’t get this book thing out of my head right now. It’s distracting me and preventing me from focusing on my dissertation.”
“How are you taking your paper on the effects of cortisol on love and making it a book, exactly? For the masses, I mean, because a dissertation is already a damn book basically.”
“I’m not. Well, I might. I don’t know. First, I’m interviewing people who are currently in love and asking them to tell me about it; the feelings, the circumstances in their lives around the time they met, things like that.
What’s interesting is that a few days ago, we interviewed a really young couple, and they had a lot of issues at first because they were in high school and had to come out.
The interview went great, but yesterday, I sent them some follow-up questions specifically focusing on stress, and they sent their answers back already.
The stress absolutely impacted their developing–”
“You know that’s not a real study, right? No one would take that seriously. How can you verify their stress hormone levels if you’re dealing with them months or even years later? You–”
“Hey, I’m here. Sorry, I’m a bit late. Traffic,” Harlow said when she walked through the front door. “You ready?”
“Yeah. Say hi to Aggie. She’s giving me a hard time.”
She passed her phone to Harlow.
“Oh, okay.” Harlow put the device to her ear and said, “Hey, Aggie.” Then, she paused, listened to Agatha for a few seconds, and replied, “Yeah, we’re about to leave for the office I rented for her, so maybe you and I can gang up on her to do school stuff later.”
Larissa rolled her eyes, slung her bag over her shoulder, and took in Harlow, who was still dressed for work in a pair of dark-gray slacks with light-gray pinstripes, a white shirt that buttoned down and tucked into the pants, and a pair of black boots.
Harlow’s company didn’t allow casual wear, but business casual was okay, so it always surprised her how Harlow chose to dress up a little more than that when she chose comfortable clothes to exist in otherwise.
Larissa tilted her head while Harlow was still on the phone because Harlow looked good.
Her short, dark hair was slicked back a little, as if she’d actually tried with it today instead of letting it fall around her face, considering it was just below her ears now, and she’d probably be getting it cut soon.
“Here you go. I got her to hang up, but she’s not done telling you that you need to work on your damn paper and not some book. For what it’s worth, I agree with her.”
Larissa took her phone back and said, “Let’s go. You’re both annoying.”
“How much money do you pay to this school to not work on your paper?”
“None. My parents do. Yes, they’re telling me to finish soon, too.
I pay for some stuff myself, but my tuition is being paid by them, just like my sister’s was.
They have this belief that if they brought us into this world, they should pay for our education.
I don’t take advantage of it, Harlow. I’ve been working on my research all day, I swear.
This is the first time I’ll be focusing on the book today. ”
“I believe you,” Harlow replied. “And I know you don’t take advantage of them. I think they’re just hoping you’ll pay them back in a husband and grandkids, and we both know that’s not happening.”
“They’re fine with me being gay, and Aggie has already given them two. How many more do they need?”
“Can you drive today?” Harlow asked and held out the keys. “I have some work emails I’d like to return while we’re driving there so that I can be done with work for the night.”
“Sure. No problem. Let’s go.”
Twenty minutes later, they were parked and inside the building.
Larissa would’ve said hello to Samantha this time, too, but she wasn’t at the desk, so they walked through the members-only door and into the room they had been able to reserve for their second interview, which was with another young couple.
It hadn’t been planned, but it had worked out that they’d been available the soonest, so she’d tailored her questions a little for a couple who hadn’t been together all that long and waited for Jessie and Gloria to arrive.
Neither of the two was still in high school, and one of them was thirty years old while the other was twenty, and according to their application, they’d only been together for a year.
“Hey, this is interesting,” Harlow said once she sat down.
“What is?”
“According to the answers they gave, they kind of met how we did,” Harlow replied and looked up from her phone, where, it appeared, she was reading their application. “Gloria is a Ph.D. student, like you.”
“Yeah, she is. Not psychology, though.”
“But she was a TA to Jessie her freshman year, and now, they’re together.”
“That’s a pretty big age difference for those two ages, don’t you think? Thirty and twenty? Jessie can’t even get into bars yet.”
Harlow laughed and said, “Yeah, but it’s nice.”
“What is?”
“They met the same way as us.” Harlow smiled over at Larissa, who wondered where she was going with that. “I just think it’s nice. We’re not the only ones.”
Before Larissa could point out that they weren’t a couple like Jessie and Gloria, the conference room door opened.
“Are you Harlow Madden?” a young-looking guy asked.
“That’s me.”
“You have two guests out front. They said they have an appointment.”
“Oh, yeah. Can they come back on their own, or do I have to get them?”
“They can come on back. I’ll let them through.”
“Thanks,” Harlow said and put her phone away. “Don’t forget to record this time,” she added to Larissa.
Larissa just stared at her a moment longer, smiled, and pulled out her own phone.
A woman that, she guessed, was Gloria, because she looked older, opened the door and held it open for Jessie, who walked in first and introduced herself.
Gloria shook Larissa’s hand and then Harlow’s before they both sat down.
“Do you mind if I record our conversation just for my records?” she asked.
Jessie looked over at Gloria.
“Sure,” Gloria replied. “So, Ph.D.?”
“Working on it,” Larissa replied. “But this isn’t for my dissertation or an academic paper. If I decide to reference it for that, I’ll notify and ask permission of all participants, and there would be anonymity, of course.”
“No problem,” Gloria replied with a small smile.
Jessie placed her hand on the back of Gloria’s chair and seemed a little quiet.
“So, I’d like to start by having you tell me how you met,” Larissa began. “In particular, I’m looking for specific feelings, thoughts, and events. The more specific you can be, the better, but you don’t have to share anything you don’t want to and can decline to answer any question.”
She pressed record on her app and set the phone down at the center of the table.
“Um… Well, I’m in college,” Jessie said. “I’m a sophomore now, but I was a freshman when we met. Gloria was my TA. She taught the Tuesday section for my class, and after the first class, I went to her office hours because I was having trouble finding the course book that was required.”
“She says that like I believe her.” Gloria laughed.
“It’s true, though. She thinks I was into her right away, but I wasn’t. I mean, I did think she was hot, and she is hot, but it wasn’t about that. I just went to tell her that the campus bookstore was out of copies. I had a reading due for the next class.”
“And what happened then?”
“She told me she would let the bookstore know that they needed more copies and lent me hers for the week until they came in,” Jessie replied.
“How did it feel when you met for the first time?”
“In class?”
“I assume the class was more intro to the course?”
“Yeah.”
“So, office hours, then,” Larissa said and made a note.
“We just talked about the course book that time, technically, but her fingers kind of brushed mine when she was handing me her copy.” Jessie smiled, and Larissa found herself smiling, too, as she noted the smile in her notebook.
“I felt static electricity. I know that’s all it was, but I looked into her eyes, and she seemed surprised, too.
We laugh about it now because we know it’s silly, but we both think that’s the moment we first felt it. ”
“It?” Harlow asked. “Can you describe it?”
“Interest?” Gloria asked more than said. “I knew it was wrong; trust me. I’d never slept with a student in my class any of the semesters I was a TA. But Jessie was different. I felt it in that moment.”
“And how did you feel about that, given that you were responsible for her grade?” Larissa asked.