Max looks at me pensively. “Maybe you could get an intern.”
I laugh. That seems absurd.
I look up from under my lashes, helpless girl style. “After this afternoon you need a job,” I point out.
He harrumphs, but I keep going. “And I just found out I have a multimillion-dollar dating empire.”#slightexaggeration. “What do you say, would you work for me for a little while until you find a new lab or until I get my feet under me?”
Max starts laughing. Where the sun hits his face, his skin looks almost like copper and his eyes are bright and warm. He’s beautiful. I should be putting him on the app, not hiring him.
“Umm, Mia, have you met me? I can do gene sequencing all day, but helping other people find love? You just witnessed the disaster of my latest relationship. I’m not the person you should turn to here. Not to mention I don’t care about dating in general.”
At the lab he’d been all self-righteous, but for just a flash, I can tell that his supposed indifference is a defense mechanism. He might understand the nervous system, but he doesn’t understand women and he knows it. He just doesn’t wantmeto know it.
“You don’t have to set anyone up. You could just help me figure out the business end of things. Plus, this might be a good learning opportunity. Maybe figure out what makes women tick…”
“And what makes you think I don’t already know? I can basically get any woman I want.”
“But can you keep them? What was your longest relationship?”
His face falls. “I thought Fay was going to be ‘the one.’ We were together for a year before she dumped me.”
“Do you know why?”
“Not really? I thought we were perfect. We were going to be a power couple of the academic world, maybe run a lab together and win a Nobel Prize.”
“Maybe you got caught up in your fantasies more than in Fay herself?” I suggest.
He shakes his head. “Nope. We want the same things. We’re both high achievers motivated by our search for the truth.”
He needs my help as much as I need his. I say, “I’ll pay you, and it sounds like you could use a romance internship more than another class about brains.”
He laughs as if it’s the funniest offer he’s ever received. “No way, but that’s sweet.”
“I’m going to take that as a ‘no, but I’ll think about it.’ ”
While I wait for Max to change his mind—he totally will—I look down at my phone and see another Instagram notification. Ugh. I’m no longer getting the little happy shot of endorphins you’re supposed to get from banners and red badges. Likes and comments last as long as the satisfaction I get from eating a Big Mac, after my insides are coated with french fry grease but before the regret sets in. (Mmm. I was definitely a meat eater at one point.)
It’s a message from an official representative of Instagram:
Dear @Mia4Realz, Instagram looked into your concern and has concluded that no hacking has occurred. The post which you referred to was prescheduled by you on May 31,two weeks ago. Please let us know if you have any other concerns. If you need help posting on Instagram, please visit the Instagram help center at help.instagram.com.
This is so much worse than being hacked.
“Max, Instagram got back to me. You know that ‘Announcement Coming Soon’ post? It was prescheduled.” I say it like I just lost my trial and have been convicted of something bad, like murder in the first degree or tax fraud.
After thinking for a second, he says, “Do you have any more scheduled posts? Maybe the actual announcement is in there too.”
That’s a great idea. My fingers know the way to the prescheduled posts, and I see one queued up to appear tomorrow at noon. Is this it?
“Anything?” Max asks.
It’s hard to describe out loud what it is. It’s like my pre-amnesia self is taunting my post-amnesia self. “It’s a photo of me in a hot-air balloon that’s about to take off.” I’m with the same girl from the yacht. Apparently she and I had a fun day yachting and ballooning in cute outfits. My heart-shaped glasses and crop top are the height of hipster fashion. It’s captioned:#GuessWhat? #GoldRushGirls.
Max blinks a couple times as he processes the photo.
“Don’t ask me.” I shrug. “Maybe I had too many hot-air-ballooning photos earlier and I was trying to spread them out?”
Max draws his eyebrows together as if he’s deeply considering my hot-air balloon pic. “Do you think this is the actual announcement?”
