I’ve forgotten how much New York feels like home. But just like back then, the city welcomes me in a hot and humid embrace. After I drop off my luggage at the studio I rented in Morningside Heights, I head to Broadway and queue at one of the bagel places that kept me fed throughout grad school. Equipped with an iced coffee and a bagel, I walk around the neighborhood, sun-dried tomato cream cheese melting onto my hands as the sights, scents, and sounds bring me back to being an underpaid grad student in one of the most expensive cities in the world.
Five years. I’ve been gone nearly as long as I lived here, but suddenly the time away feels like the blink of an eye.
There’s the building that I had my first apartment viewing in, only to realize that I wasn’t earning enough to even be considered for the lease. The musty smell coming from the street drain reminds me of the summer I wrote my first publication, sucking on ice cubes and frozen raspberries to cool down. The bar where I had my first date in the city has been replaced by an Italian restaurant, though the laundromat where I cried for a full wash-and-dry cycle after my breakup with Jacob still exists.
So many things have changed, and yet one thing is the same. I’m still fending for myself and flailing to find a lab I can stay in permanently. Constantly surrounded by the politics of academia and now with memories of Jacob sprouting up, it’s hard to remind myself of all the progress I’ve made: ideas and what-ifs that were a faraway dream when I left five years ago, now implemented into neat experiments and algorithms that have gotten me—and the research community—a fraction of a step closer to understanding human memory.
It should be enough. In an ideal world, one where I’d have a secure position, I’d continue plugging away at the question that lies at the core of it all and be happy about each tiny grain of knowledge, but in reality? I spend a lot of time fighting forthe money that is necessary to make leaps in understanding. In the hierarchy of academia, some people, like Jacob, end up at the top, with tenure and a name that almost guarantees getting more funding to finance their research in the future, but as much as I code and solve and explain, my name is far from being recognizable. Which means that job security is still far out of reach.
With my pending grant and the opportunity that participating in the Sawyer’s brings, I’m hoping to level up soon. I just need Dr. Theodore L. North to stay out of my way.
I pick up groceries on the way home, then spend the rest of the day unpacking and catching up with emails I missed in the lead-up to Karo’s wedding until jet lag knocks me to sleep. The next day, a Sunday, I prepare my materials for the workshop I’m giving at the Sawyer’s and unwind with a long rock-climbing session before I head to attendee registration at Columbia. My rental is only a few blocks away from the Morningside campus, but when I arrive, the sun has drawn sweat to my skin. The campus is busy, white tents with registration booths for the students pebbling the green and flocks of Sawyer’s students milling down the paths. As I walk between the imposing buildings, I rein in my mind from dousing itself in memories from my time here. But motor memory kicks in and guides me to Schermerhorn Hall, home of the psychology department. Empty corridors and closed doors greet me at the department, including the one readingProf. Dr. Jacob Bellingham.
Of course, he’s not here. He wouldn’t lower himself to do the work of his secretary. Relieved to have one more day to pump my confidence before seeing him, I try the secretary’s door at the end of the corridor again. It’s locked, despite theemail on my phone saying attendee registration would be open from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Resigned to wait, I slump against the wall and open social media. It’s been a few days since I logged on, with Karo’s wedding keeping me busy and the surprise encounter with Dr. North—Lewis, whatever—making me avoid my phone. I couldn’t stomach scrolling through the platform and seeing another cheerfulhappy to share our new paper on effects of brain stimulation on spatial navigation skills, cementing the point that everyone around me is Discovering Things and Proudly Contributing to Science.
Given my inactivity, the quantity of notifications surprises me. But then I see who they’re from; the profile picture of a mountain landscape with a man facing away from the camera and the username @theoretically. Just as he informed me on the flight, Lewis has mentioned me in a post, uploaded two days ago.
I’m puzzling through his arguments against the implications I drew in my last paper when a shadow falls over my screen. Gray suede sneakers with a green stripe at the edge of my view, an inconveniently pleasant pine scent.
“Dr. Silberstein.”
“Dr. North,” I murmur without looking up. “You’ve had, what, five hours to sign up and yet you show up when I’m here. Did you miss me?”
“So much. I’ve been dying to see your scowl ever since we got off the plane yesterday,” he shoots back as he looms over me and my phone. A smirk appears on his face when he registers what I’ve been reading. “Don’t let me interrupt you.”
“You’re good. I was just standing here, being unimpressed.”
He steps around me and props his shoulder against the wall, his hair, once again, falling perfectly. “You don’t look unimpressed. You look angry.”
I glare at him. “I do, because you’re putting words into my mouth. All this text, and it’s just random pieces of information that supposedly provide evidence against statements I supposedly made in the paper.”
“Supposedly, huh?” he echoes. It’s only been a day since we arrived, but his accent is thicker now, all vowels leaning intoas. “Sounds like you’re not very good at taking criticism.”
I’m not, but that’s not the point.
“If it was actual criticism, then fine. But you’re arguing against things I never wrote. I don’t know where you got this from.” I zoom in and highlight the sentence that gave my pulse a jump start. “Here. Would you please enlighten me on where I claim that we found evidence for memory replay using fMRI?”
“Gladly.” His voice is infuriatingly unfazed as he pulls his phone out of the pocket of his navy shorts. How can he stay so calm? After seeing him blush over the smallest things on the plane yesterday, this surprises me. Is it only me who gets worked up when discussing science, or is he simply better at not showing it?
After a moment of tapping around on his screen, he zooms in on something and says, “Thisis what I mean.” He turns the phone around for me to see and I reach for it, but he lets go too soon, and it slides out of his fingers. I lower my hand in a desperate attempt to stop it from shattering on the ground.
“Got it,” I yelp. But it seems he has, too, because his hand is suddenly wrapped around mine. We both freeze. The calluses on the pads of his fingers and the strength of his grip transport me back to yesterday. The flight, turbulence shaking us, his skin warm on mine. I lift my gaze to find him looking back at me, the sharp focus in his eyes replaced by something else. Something softer. Something that makes my throat so parched that I need to swallow. He tracks the movement as his hand tightensaround mine, and it sends prickles shooting up my arm and blooming in my rib cage.
“I—” I start without knowing where this sentence is supposed to lead.
What were we talking about again? My phonological loop has been swept empty. The corridor, the Sawyer’s sign-up, and whatever we were arguing about retreat to the background, put on standby by the blue of his eyes, and the memory of whispered words of kindness on a transatlantic flight.
I’m still looking into his eyes when the stab of heels echoing farther down the corridor yanks me back to reality. “Hi there! I’m so sorry you had to wait.” The voice is high pitched and has a slight accent that I can’t pinpoint. I manage to drag my gaze away from Lewis and spot a slender woman wearing a dark green satin skirt and white blouse. About half a head shorter than me, she has curly black hair that is swept back and pinned at the nape of her neck. As she comes to a stop in front of us, her dark brown eyes dance over me, then Lewis, and finally come to rest on our clasped hands.
Her eyebrows inch up in surprise. “Ah, but at least you didn’t have to wait alone,” she notes, the smile on her face deepening.
Lewis seems to regain control of his body first, and pushes off the wall, then drops my hand as a blush creeps up his cheeks.
Even then, my fingers still tingle from his touch, but I shove the sensation aside. I smile at the unknown woman, ready to tell her that the hand-holding was a consequence of trying to save his phone. “Hi, I’m—”
“You’re Frances!” she exclaims, and foregoes my outstretched hand, pulling me in to kiss the air next to my right and left cheeks. Awkwardly, I pat her shoulder. Who is she? Was she in my grad school cohort? I don’t remember anybody dressed so elegantly, except for that one computer scientist who’d come in wearing suits. The rest of us traded personal stylefor maximum comfort: hoodies, flip-flops, leggings, washed-out tees, oversize shirts. Anything that was loose enough to not remind us of our bodies while we got into the workflow.
