Rosanna taps Maria’s forearm. “You’re being too modest.” Then, directed at me, she continues, “You should see her pitches. She’s a mean presenter.”
“Oh, it’s mostly luck,” Maria waves her off and tucks her hair behind her ear. “So, I heard about the virtual environment you’ve programmed, and it sounds pretty neat. If you ever decide that the politics of academia is not for you anymore, here’s where you can find me.”
With that, she slides something across the table. A business card. On white cardstock, a techy-looking font announces Maria Benita, founder and chief executive officer, underneath a bright blue company logo that readsCodify.
“Thanks.” It’s only when I pick up the card that her words fully hit me. I’m not used to being wooed for my skills. I’ve occasionally wondered what working in industry would be like, but I’ve never seriously considered that I could make a contribution to the world outside of academia. “Thank you so much. This is unexpected.”
Maria shows off a little gap between her front teeth when she smiles widely at me. “I know, but I’m being serious. Think about it.”
“Don’t poach her from me,” Rosanna chides.
Her wife shrugs. “You, my darling, haven’t even offered heranything. And I’m just saying,” she continues, studying me. “You have skills that we’d value and… Well, our working conditions are a little better, too.”
“Don’t listen to her, she’s overly negative about academia. And speaking of jobs,” Rosanna says, a little more serious now. “This is what I wanted to talk to you about. It looks like we do have funds to hire a postdoc in the lab. We hadn’t quite planned on this, but the person who was meant to start with us in October got his own funding, and we have money left to open another position.”
It takes me a beat to parse her words, and I need to rewind them again to assure myself I heard right. Is it appropriate to pinch myself, right in front of these two incredibly smart women?
“You’d mostly contribute to one of the grant projects,” she adds, “but I’m sure there’d be some time for your ideas, too. Like the reanalysis we talked about the other day.”
A chance to work with Rosanna Alderkamp—it’s a dream come true. A sure way of making a difference, even if it’s not with my own grant. Her research is so close to my own, but much more refined and there’s so much I can learn from her that it wouldn’t feel like working for someone else’s goals while putting mine on the back burner.
“Stunned into silence.” Maria chuckles.
“Sorry, I…” I blink at Rosanna.
“Take some time to think about it,” she reassures me. “I also thought about what you said you wanted to do with your grant, about the model you built and the potential this would have to bridge the gap between neuroimaging research and electrophysiology.”
I nod, the familiar vocabulary of science pulling me back to reality. “We could use the 7T scanner in your lab, use a fast acquisition rate and…”
Behind the two women, a familiar shape pushes down the path, and I wave him over. I need to share the news with Lewis immediately, but as he weaves through the chairs and tables, there’s an unexpected tightness to his features.
“I saved you a seat,” I tell him when he reaches our table. “Lewis, this is—”
Maria jumps out of her chair once she spots him over her shoulder. The chair topples, and Lewis catches it with a laugh as she draws him in for a hug.
“Lewis! I heard you might be coming over for dinner more often soon,” Maria says, and the words make as little sense as her overly enthusiastic way of greeting him. “Gefeliciteerd!Congratulations on your grant.”
I know something’s up before I understand it, like when I pull together all the data after a new experiment but can’t figure out the pattern yet. Time slows down as my brain loops through the last two minutes and tags all the outliers in our conversation.
The odd familiarity between Lewis and Maria.
The funding for a postdoc position that magically has become available.
Lewis winning a grant.
Which grant?
My pulse thunders in my ears, my mouth suddenly dry. I blink up at Lewis, Maria’s arm still on his shoulder, his eyes transfixed on me.
“The Dutch Young Investigators Starting Grant,” Rosanna says to my right. I must’ve asked my question out loud.
An unreadable expression tints the blue of Lewis’s irises. He reminds me of an animal caught in the headlights,frozen and uncomfortable, two things he has absolutely no right to be.
After all, he’s the one who knew. He’s the one who watched me cry over the rejection of a grant and consoled me through it, all without telling me that he, in fact, did get that funding. From a grant I didn’t even know we were competing for. For a project in Amsterdam. To collaborate with Rosanna Alderkamp.
No, no, no.
There’s that lurching feeling again, the world tipping sideways, my chest clenching in pain. But anger catches me and plants me back on my feet.
