Scratch my earlier evaluation of him. He’s prickly, and much worse in person. I cross my arms in front of my chest, bumping my elbow into his side.
“How are things going? Are we making any progress here?” At the quippy tone, our heads whip around. The flight attendant is back, waving a paper flyer in Lewis’s direction. “I thought you might need the info for the in-flight Wi-Fi.”
“It’s going swimmingly. Thank you so much.” He beams at her, and in the blink of an eye, friendly Lewis is back.
“We’re going to serve the food soon. Do you maybe want yours later? After your deadline?”
Once he’s assured her thatyes, he’ll let her know if he has a problem logging into the Wi-Fi, andyes, we would be grateful if they’d serve our food last, the flight attendant flutters her fingers at him and walks away.
“If you need someone to type for you, she’d probably be happy to help,” I comment as soon as she’s out of earshot.
He throws me an icy look. “I’ll be okay,” he says and turns to his laptop, lowering the contrast all the way down so I can’t make out anything on the screen.
Pulling on my headphones, I navigate through the in-flight entertainment system and settle on a movie about a linguist saving the world from an alien invasion.
But my focus drifts to Lewis’s movements.
So this is what he looked like while typing out snide remarks about my choice of statistical test. Shoulders a little hunched, mouth tucked up like he’s fully aware of his own ingenuity. Even his stupid hair, and that wayward curl in his forehead, is a majorflex. After being confronted with the finished products of this laser focus for so many years, it’s strange to see him in action. His fingers bounce off the keys, hitting the space bar with a little flourish that sends a spike of anger down my nerves.
“Shouldn’t you be deleting words, not adding them?” I ask him drily, but he ignores me.
As I watch him, I get mad all over again. At him, at myself, and how naive I’d been, four years ago, when I mistook our email exchange as a discussion between like-minded colleagues and didn’t understand it for what it really was: a competitor looking out for himself, grabbing for those valuable publications that would increase his chances for future grants and eventually a professorship. I should’ve known better—it wasn’t the first time this happened to me, after all.
The cooped-up space of the airplane is like a catalyzer for my anger and humiliation, and my nerve endings feel jittery, my face hot.
I jump up, eager to not let it overwhelm me. “Can you let me through?”
Lewis drags his thumb over his trackpad before he closes his laptop and gets up.
Slowly.
I swear this man breathes to provoke me.
Once I make it into the microscopic bathroom of the airplane, I splash my face with cold water. I’m not sure if it’s the unflattering light in here or my tiredness, but I look washed-out. Frizzy white-blond hair in tight curls that would corkscrew down to my elbows if it weren’t piled into a messy bun atop my head, gray eyes underlined by deep circles, and a tiny muscle in my left eyebrow that spasms every so often. Without my morning touch of mascara, my lashes are practically invisible, and my cheeks have lost their usual rosiness, leaving my face as pale as the rest of my body.
I look like the ghost of a mad scientist—if mad scientists were ever portrayed as female, that is.
As I stand there, a wobble underfoot has me grip the sink and reminds me of how far away I am from my tried and tested methods to calm my nerves. Some laps at the community pool, a few sets at the climbing gym. When I get this frazzled, anything that makes me feel the edges of my body helps, but up here, with Lewis out there, the Sawyer’s ahead, and the reunion with Jacob looming, I need to steel my nerves some other way. I take deep breaths and try to focus on the reason I’m on this plane in the first place.
The Sawyer’s Summer Seminars is a yearly event spanning all the scientific topics under the rainbow. It’s organized by scientists for scientists, and with talks that are at the forefront of the field and networking events that bring together researchers across all generations, it’s the type of academic gathering leading researchers look forward to even after decades of attending conferences—at least that’s what the website says. There seems to be a grain of truth to it: I’ve seen colleagues return from previous installments not only with an enviable gleam of inspiration in their eyes, but also newly formed collaborations or invitations to job interviews.
The Sawyer’s gets hosted by a different university every year, with topics varying according to the location. In my more than ten years of studying and then working as an academic, the Sawyer’s has edged around my research interest, with topics that were adjacent but never close enough to my own focus to warrant an application. So when the email announcing a seminar on the neuroscience of memory as one of this summer’s topics landed in my inbox before Christmas, it was like a dream come true. I had to close and open it twice, but when I finally believed my eyes, they registered the catch—Jacob was organizing it. It set up a whole new cycle of rereading the emailand hoping I’d gotten something wrong. Because as much as I wanted to avoid Jacob, I knew I had to risk a shot at one of the limited spaces. A talk at the Sawyer’s meant new ideas and having all these high-profile scientists from my field to network with. I couldn’t pass it by.
As I rifle through my bag for eye drops, then lip balm, I try to remind myself of the resolve I felt when first applying. I yank the scrunchie out of my hair and pile my curls into a fresh bun, giving myself a little pep talk along the way. It’s not that I’ve never dealt with asshole colleagues in my life, it’s just that they’ve never been able to push all my buttons the wayhedoes.
Back in our row, as I squeeze past him, Lewis hovers his hand over my shoulder, stress written all over his face.
“What?” When I scowl at him, his gaze darts away.
“I could actually use some help,” he admits with a sigh. “Your help.”
Huh. So much for laser focus.
“You’re not afraid it will end up being too flashy?”
He frowns, as if those weren’t literally the words he used to describe my work in his last review. Yet another quip I try to breathe through.
“As long as it’s within the word limit,” he tells me.
