“Come here,” Lewis murmurs after we clean ourselves up, tugging me down next to him. I starfish out on the sheets, my whole body wrung out, the heat in my veins simmered down to a comforting warmth. With his arms around me, I squeeze my eyes shut and will my neurons to hard-wire the moment into the architecture of my memory.
When I open my eyes again, affection softens the curve of Lewis’s smile.
“I’m scared it won’t work,” I tell him, remembering all the ways we said we made space in each other’s life. The cooking sessions, the academic discussions, the wake-up calls. I want them to be my reality. I want them to be enough.
He’s silent for a moment and I watch the rise and fall of his chest. “I think it’s like when we plan our experiments. We can obsess over experimental designs and control groups, run a million pilot studies. But discovery always takes a leap of faith.”
“We won’t know until we try,” I echo and nestle into the bracket of his arm. “Spoken like a true empiricist.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
On the last day of the Sawyer’s, a big summer picnic for all specializations is held on campus. That morning, when Lewis and I arrive, the grass smells freshly cut, and workers string lights above the paths and drag fold-out tables and chairs to different corners of the green. Still tipsy from the intensity of our confessions last night, I give my data blitz presentation, and though it’s not one of the contested full-hour lecture slots but a quick twenty-minute talk, I’m glad I get to talk about my models and how they help me gain a better understanding of memory principles in the human brain.
Afterward, Lewis moderates the discussion round that wraps up the academic program, and Jacob comes to shake his hand at the lectern. As their hands meet, he leans in to murmur something, something that makes Lewis’s smile tense, but the handshake passes, the attendees applaud, and the lecture hall begins to empty.
Lewis rushes off immediately to pack his bags for his flight that leaves early tomorrow morning. Rosanna catches me in the corridor on the way out, asking if I could get to the festivalearly. “I have some exciting news,” she gushes, handing me a piece of paper with a phone number in blue ink. “If we don’t run into each other, call me.”
Back home, I pull on a flowy gray jumpsuit, text Lewis to meet me there, and head back to the Morningside campus.
The greasy smell of fried food hangs heavy in the air as I weave down the paths packed with carts selling German sausages, huge slices of pizza, Korean fried chicken, and crispy tacos. I spot Vivienne and Jacob waiting at a stand selling funnel cake, but before I can make a decision whether to say hello or duck out of sight, someone else calls my name.
“Frances!Hoi!”
Rosanna motions me over to where she waits in line for drinks, clad in a purple tie-dye dress. She stands close to a petite woman with deep bronzed skin and dark hair cropped into a stylish pixie cut.
Rosanna touches my elbow lightly when I draw up next to them. “Frances, this is my wife, Maria. Maria, this is Frances, the postdoc I’ve been telling you about.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” I greet Maria.
“Oh, you’re the promising programmer,” Maria exclaims as she shakes my hand, her grip firm and confident.
I grimace. “I don’t think there’s consensus on that.”
“She’s just gotten a grant rejection,” Rosanna supplies.
“Fun,” Maria says in a tone that promises the opposite. “I don’t miss those days.”
“You work in academia, too?”
Though before she can answer, we make it to the top of the line and Rosanna starts rattling off an order. “Here, what would you like?” she asks me. Once the bartender slides our three plastic cups over the counter—watermelon margarita for me, Moscow mules for Rosanna and Maria—we make our wayto one of the sit-down areas where Maria manages to snatch a table. Above us, the evening sunlight makes the roofs of the surrounding campus buildings glow.
“I used to. Work in academia, I mean,” Maria continues our conversation. “I have a PhD in bioinformatics, but I quit a few years into my postdoc. The environment wasn’t for me. I’m not as patient as she is.” Maria inclines her head toward her wife.
“And much more pragmatic,” Rosanna quips in.
“So what do you do now?”
“I run a small e-learning company.” Maria prods the ice cubes in her drink with her straw. “We launched an app a year ago that teaches people how to program and think algorithmically in a playful way. For now, it’s aimed at adults, but my goal is to make a module for teenagers.”
“Wow. That’s really cool.” Not that I’m surprised Rosanna would be married to another brilliant woman. I’ve just never closely met anyone who’s made the switch into industry and founded their own company, let alone one that has such a meaningful purpose. “How did you get the idea? And the courage? And themoney? Sorry if that was too forward.”
Both of them laugh, then Rosanna says, “You’re talking to Dutchies. You need to try harder if you want something to be too forward.”
“When I was still working at uni, I used to teach all sorts of introductory programming classes,” Maria goes on. “In computer science and engineering, most students were fine with it. But I noticed that the people in the biology department didn’t share those skills, particularly the older faculty. I helped a few people, put together some exercises. Word got around, and soon people from social science and psychology were emailing me for resources.”
“I was one of them,” Rosanna interrupts.
“She was one of my worst students.” Maria laughs, and squeezes Rosanna’s hand. “Anyway, at some point I realized that I wasn’t that interested in disease modeling anymore. I spent more and more hours of my work trying to optimize instructions and teach people how to express their thoughts in code. It was much more rewarding to me, seeing people make progress. I felt like I had a bigger impact this way, giving people the confidence and skills for their research. Regarding the money, it’s not so different from asking for grants. You prepare, you pitch, and sometimes you’re lucky.”
