9. Liv
Polly
Liv, my book club is meeting Thursday evening, and we’d love to have you join us!
I would love to, but I have a work thing I need to prep for. Maybe next time? Book club sounds fun.
Way better than what I’m stuck doing.
Oops, didn’t mean to send that.
Oh, dear.
I’ll be at Portland State for some fall job fair slash festival. I love this sort of thing usually, but my boss sprang it on me super last minute and I have to do it the first couple of hours by myself. Outreach is what I really hoped to be doing so it’s great but I’m also unprepared!
Ah, sorry for the monologuing. Have fun at book club!
I will, thank you. I hope you have fun as well. Perhaps it will be better than you think.
A mental image of Ash attending Polly’s book club meetings popped in my head.
Enormous Ash surrounded by fragile little old ladies with their China teacups and bodice rippers.
Thanking him through Polly had been cowardly, but I didn’t know how to face him again after what he’d done for me.
Somehow, not talking to him was worse, but now too much time elapsed to reach out. And what would I even say?
As nice as it would be to ditch work and hang out with my new best friend, Polly’s encouragement boosted me just enough not to call in sick.
Maybe it would be better than I expected.
I really loved reaching out to kids interested in STEM, and I was excited to network with some professors, too.
When I found out about the job fair, I sent emails to staff in all the related departments but meeting them in person would be so much better.
Lofty goals of finding interns and giving out scholarships floated through my mind, though Hurst Labs currently had no means to start such a hefty undertaking.
Still, I was impatient to get it finished.
Though I saw little of PSU’s campus on my walk from the car to the booth, I would’ve loved to explore if I had time.
But I barely had time to appreciate the vivid yellows and reds of the fall foliage as I raced to find the South Park Blocks after losing my way twice trying to find parking.
A pang shot through me at the vibrant colors in the drizzly chill.
It was so perfectly autumnal, like the set of Gilmore Girls, even if this was the wrong coast.
Whoever set up the festival tables put mine at the furthest end of the greenspace, and I lugged a cart full of heavy boxes of swag and signs, regretting every fucking layer of thermal wear I’d frantically thrown on.
Each step was a push through syrup with the extra leggings under my jeans constricting movement.
Putting together an aesthetically pleasing table was beyond my skill set, particularly with the provided materials of mismatched dusty brochures, a truly horrifying amount of branded Ping-pong balls of all things—probably Brad’s doing, and a handful of can holders, plastic cups and pens, the standard job fair shit.
At least I’d dropped in Costco for snacks and drinks.
Nothing drew college kids in like free food.
I was placing the finishing touches on a pyramid of white plastic balls and setting up a line of cups when students began trickling out of the buildings, heading to late classes or the food court.
My table sat at the end of the row, and watching students stop at nearby tables for an average of seven seconds to pick up mini candy bars and free pens was oddly entertaining and disheartening at the same time.
I’d prepared a whole speech and song and dance routine for the job fair, but this was more like a festival, with booths of games and food.
Several other businesses and local industry types scattered between the entertainment and food, but my box of snacks and dumb swag didn’t measure up.
There were puppies. How could I compete with puppies?
The speech I’d prepared wouldn’t fly here.
Rolling a ball between my frigid fingers—I’d forgotten gloves in my last-minute hurrying—gave me an idea.
Quickly, I rearranged the cups, and the first backpack carrying twenty-year olds were a few yards away when I began casually taking balls off the mountain and bouncing them off the table and sinking them into the cups.
Physics might not be my specialty, but I learned this trick a long time ago.
Beer pong was all about physics, getting correct angles and speed and force, and, well, college hadn’t changed much since I was an undergrad.
The cups drew them in, and I spoke casually about my job, making jokes about the products and instruments.
Talking about lube, even machine lube, with these students was laughable, but it got their attention, laughing about the penetrometer and handing out chips and Coke like it was my job.
And it was fun . It gave me a sense of what I missed when I was their age.
I was less than a decade older than most of them, but damn they made me seem ancient.
And all the fun blew away when Brad ambled up behind a couple of young women inexplicably wearing enormous jackets and teeny shorts. Shit, he spotted me, or I would’ve ducked under the table to evade him.
“Livy, I’m here!”
Steeling myself for all of the Brad-ness coming toward me, I had to blink away the stinging sensation caused by the shiny material of his puffer jacket reflecting the late-afternoon sun.
“Hello, there.” My voice was stiff, buried under a scarf as I ducked away from his outstretched arms. But clunky winter boots tripped me up as I attempted to maneuver sideways.
Brad came to my unwanted rescue, grabbing me, stepping in too close.
“This is great, right?” Brad’s cheeks already glowed red and not from the cold; a whiff of alcohol wafted from him.
Apparently, he’d pre-gamed for a tailgate party not a job fair, and I mentally berated myself for not having done the same. Then I berated myself further. For fuck’s sake, pull your shit together and do your job.
Irritation crackled like the static in my hair as Brad continued holding the arm he’d grabbed, pointing around at all the various booths as if I hadn’t been there the past hour.
“On this side is a cider tasting, but over there is the cocoa competition. What do you say we shut down early and do both?” He edged closer and closer as he spoke, eventually dropping an arm over my shoulders, drowning me in the scent of deodorant and another of his expensive, disgusting colognes.
This one reminded me of rotting vegetation and rum.
Or maybe I smelled rum because he’d been drinking it.
“We’re supposed to be working.” The line of interested students and professors, which had been about four deep before my least favorite coworker appeared, dwindled with Brad’s lack of attention.
I waved a few stragglers down and passed out snacks and stickers, but this might be the beginning of the end for our booth.
“It’s fine, Livy. Hurst won’t care. Come on, let’s go find some trouble.
Ew, was he serious? And did his hand drift lower? Why the fuck did he still have his arm on me anyway?
It definitely got lower, hovering about an inch above my breast. I sucked down a lungful of frigid, cocoa-and apple-scented air. “Look at this.” I distracted him with my beer pong party trick and convinced him to stay while I found a bathroom. Let him take over while I took a few moments of peace.
The oversaturated, apple-scented air and Brad’s alcohol miasma made me nauseous.
Was there food at this festival? I found a bathroom then took a few extra minutes to dawdle among the other booths, trying not to let impostor syndrome settle between my shoulder blades at the bigger, better, brighter booths other companies set up.
Why was I even involved with this sad attempt?
I knew I needed to be more of a team player if I planned to run the lab when Dr. Hurst retired.
Which, based on his age, should be soon, but one never knew with those things.
And doing events like these would certainly look good on my resume.
Again, those ideas of doing something good with all my years of hard work floated behind my eyes, dreams dancing out of reach.
If I were in charge of a lab, I could start my own program, do better than this half-assed attempt at drawing in STEM students to careers in industry.
A weird sensation spread through my body, a sort of prickling settling in the tips of my fingers.
It was the cold, I told myself. Instincts weren’t scientific.
Logic and reason, those are what I can count on .
Except when I looked up, I found Dr. Hurst at the booth I set up and left for fifteen minutes, talking to Brad, clapping him on the shoulder like he’d done an amazing job.
Seething would get me nowhere, so I pushed between an art booth and the AAPI student association table to sneak back to my own section. I greeted Dr. Hurst, trying to subtly gauge if he thought Brad was the one who put in all the work for our booth.
“It sure is nice to see you two working together so well. Nothing like someone taking a little joke out of proportion to make a hostile work environment,” Dr. Hurst said, nodding approvingly as Brad stepped into my space again.
Hostile work environment? What the—he did not mean I made work hostile? After this blond-haired idiot who seemed more at home drinking on a college campus than in a lab with potentially volatile materials tried to kiss me in public?
“Maybe the two of you should spend more time together outside of work.” After dropping his bombshell, our boss said his goodbyes and wandered off, disappearing beyond an impromptu cornhole game.
“We should go out sometime!” Brad’s gaze slid over me, and I was grateful for the extra layers hiding my shape.
“I don’t like to go out with colleagues.
” I looked away to keep my eyes from skewering him with a death glare as I spoke, looking instead at a local pet rescue.
A playpen full of joyful puppies rolled over each other, chewing on ears and smacking tails in furry faces.
All except one off to the side, snarling when another got too close.
“Hard relate, buddy,” I muttered. Turning back to Brad, I said, “Let’s pack up. We’re out of almost everything.”
“We can go out now?” God, why wouldn’t he give up ? He’d been relentless since the hockey game, too often in my space or asking me out for a drink after work. And he kept “joking” about me not wanting to kiss him.
Brad seemed the sort of dude to date girls who wore actual diamonds, not girls like me with enamel earrings of DNA strands and helicase zippers.
And Brad certainly wasn’t my type either.
Actually, I wasn’t sure I had a type, but images flooded my mind as I packed boxes back into the cart for Brad to take back to the lab.
Someone tall, with black hair and blacker eyes, and muscular but not with muscles just for show.
Strong. Strong enough to throw you against a wall and pin you there while they— oops— I dropped a box on Brad’s foot.
Only one person came to mind who might hoist me up against a wall.
And it was like I cast the image of him in my head onto the street because there he was .