SWNOVELS : Chapter 8
FUN FACT: DR. Curie’s BFF was an engineer.
Seems unlikely, huh? I sit across from the best and brightest of Levi’s team—total Cockcluster™, naturally—and think: Who would voluntarily spend time with the engineering ilk? And yet it’s true, like turkey-flavored candy corn, pimple-popping videos, and many other unlikely things.
It’s painful even to think about it, but here goes my least favorite Marie fact: after Pierre died, she started seeing a strapping young physicist named Paul Langevin. Honestly, it’s what she deserved. My girl was a young widow who spent most of her time stomping on uranium ore like it was wine grapes. We can all agree that if she wanted to get laid, the only adequate response should have been: “Where would you like your mattress placed, Madame Curie?” Right?
Wrong.
The press got ahold of the gossip and crucified her for it. They treated her like she’d boarded a train to Sarajevo and assassinated Franz Ferdinand herself. They whined about the lamest things: Madame Curie is a home-wrecker (Paul had separated from his wife ages before); Madame Curie is tarnishing Pierre’s good name (Pierre was probably high-fiving her from physics heaven, which is full of atheist scientists and apple trees for Newton and his buddies to sit under); Madame Curie is five years older than almost-forty-year-old Paul (gasp!) and therefore a cradle-robber (double-gasp!!). If there is one thing men hate more than a smart woman, it’s a smart woman who makes her own choices when it comes to her own sex life. It was a whole thing: lots of sexist, antiSemitic crap was written, pistol duels were held, the words “Polish scum” were used, and Dr. Curie plunged into a deep depression.
But that’s where the engineer BFF comes in.
Her name was Hertha Ayrton and she was a bit of a polymath. Think of your high school friend who always got straight A’s but was also the captain of the soccer team, did lights for the drama club, and moonlighted as a suffragette leader. Hertha’s famous for studying electric arcs—lightning, but way cooler. I like to fantasize about her using her scientific knowledge to burn Marie’s enemies to a crisp, Zeus-style, but the truth is that their mutual love and support mostly translated into vacationing together to escape the French press.
Sometimes friendship is made of quiet little moments and doesn’t involve lethal lightning bolts. Disappointing, I know. Then again, other times friendship is made of betrayal, and heartache, and spending two years trying to forget that you blocked the number of someone whose take-out orders you used to have memorized.
Anyway. The moral of this particular story is, I believe, that engineers are not all bad. But the ones I’m attempting to collaborate with are often stabable. Like now, for example. I have Mark, the materials guy on BLINK, looking me in the eye and telling me for the third time in two minutes: “Impossible.”
Okay. Let’s try again. “If we don’t move the output channels farther apart—”
“Impossible.”
Four. Four times in . . . Welp. Still two minutes.
I take a deep breath, remembering a technique my old therapist used. I saw her for a short time after Tim and I broke up, when my self-confidence was six feet under, partying it up with disgruntled grubs and Mesozoic fossils. She taught me the importance of letting go of what I cannot control (others) and focusing on what I can (my reactions). She’d often do this crafty little thing: reframe my own statements to help me achieve self-realization.
Time to therapize Mark the Material Engineer.
“I understand that I’m asking you to do something that is currently impossible, given the inner shell of the helmet.” I smile encouragingly. “But maybe, if I explain what needs to be done from a neuroscience perspective, we can find a way to achieve a middle ground—”
“Impossible.”
I don’t head-desk, but only because Levi happens to enter the room right at that moment, nodding his good morning in our general direction and rolling up the sleeves of his Henley. His forearms are strong and insanely attractive—and why the hell am I even noticing them? Aargh. Kaylee let us know he’d be late because of something at Penny’s school. Which, I guess, is the name of his daughter. Because Levi has a daughter. I promise I’ll stop repeating this fact as soon as it becomes less shocking to me (i.e., never).
Everyone greets him, and I feel a jolt to my stomach. We’ve been emailing, but we haven’t talked in person since yesterday, when I gave him official permission to abhor me—as long as he’s professional about it. I’m curious to see how he’ll play. In deference to his tender sensibilities I’m wearing my tiniest septum ring and the single Ann Taylor dress I own. It’s an olive branch; he damn better appreciate it.
“I see what you’re saying,” I tell Mark. “There are physical impossibilities inherent to the materials, but we might be able to—”
He repeats the only word he knows. “Impossible.”
“—find a solution that—”
“No.”
I’m about to praise the sudden variety in his vocabulary when Levi interjects. “Let her finish, Mark.” He takes a seat next to me. “What were you saying, Bee?”
Huh? What’s happening? “The . . . um, the issue is the outputs placement. They need to be positioned differently if we want to stimulate the intended region.”
Levi nods. “Like the angular gyrus?”
I flush. Come on, I apologized for that! I glare at him for shading me in front of his team, but I notice an odd gleam in his eyes, as though he . . . Wait. It’s not possible. He’s not teasing me, is he?
“Y-yes,” I stammer, lost. “Like the angular gyrus. And other brain regions, too.”
“And what I told her,” Mark says with all the petulance of a six-year-old who’s too short for the roller coaster, “is that given the property of the Kevlar blend we’re using for the inner shell, the distance between outputs needs to stay the way it is.”
Actually, what he told me was “Impossible.” I’m about to point that out when Levi says, “Then we change the Kevlar blend.” It seems to me like a perfectly reasonable avenue to explore, but the other five people at the table seem to think it’s as controversial as the concept of gluten in the twenty-first century. Murmurs rise. Tongues cluck. A guy whose name might be Fred gasps.
“That would be a significant change,” Mark whines.
“It’s unavoidable. We need to do proper neurostimulation with the helmets.”
“But that’s not what the Sullivan prototype calls for.”
This is the second time I’ve heard the Sullivan prototype mentioned, and the second time a dense silence ensues when it’s brought up. The difference today is that I’m in the room, and I can see how everyone looks to Levi uneasily. Is he the main author of the prototype? Can’t be, since he’s new to BLINK. Sullivan is the name of the Discovery Institute, so maybe that’s where it’s from? I want to ask Guy, but he’s off setting up equipment with Rocío and Kaylee this morning.
“We’ll be as faithful as possible to the Sullivan prototype, but it was always meant to be a vehicle for the neuroscience,” Levi says, firm and final as usual, with that competent, big-dick calm of his, and everyone nods somberly, more so than one would expect from a bunch of dudes who throttle one another over donuts and come into work in their pajamas. There’s clearly something I don’t know. What is this place, Twin Peaks? Why’s everyone so full of secrets?
We hammer out details for a couple more hours, deciding that for the next weeks I’ll focus on mapping the individual brains of the first batch of astronauts while engineering refines the shell. With Levi present, his team tends to agree to my suggestions more quickly—a phenomenon known as Sausage Referencing™. Well, to Annie and me, at least. In Cockcluster™ or WurstFest™ situations, having a man vouch for you will help you be taken seriously—the better-regarded the man, the higher his Sausage Referencing™ power.
Notable example: Dr. Curie was not originally included in the Nobel Prize nomination for the radioactivity theory she had come up with, until Gösta Mittag-Leffler, a Swedish mathematician dude, interceded for her with the all-male award committee. Less notable example: halfway through my meeting with the engineers, when I point out that we won’t be able to stimulate deep into the temporal lobe, Maybe Fred tells me, “Actually, we can. I took a neuroscience class in undergrad.” Oh, boy. That was probably two weeks ago. “I’m pretty sure they stimulated the medial temporal lobe.”
I sigh. On the inside. “Who?”
“Something . . . Welch? In Chicago?”
“Jack Walsh? Northwestern?”
“Yeah.”
I nod and smile. Though maybe I shouldn’t smile. Maybe the reason I have to deal with this crap is that I smile too much. “Jack did not stimulate the hippocampus directly—he stimulated occipital areas connected to it.”
“But in the paper—”
“Fred,” Levi says. He’s sitting back in his chair, dwarfing it, holding a half-eaten apple in his right hand. “I think we can take the word of a Ph.D.-trained neuroscientist with dozens of publications on this,” he adds, calm but authoritative. Then he takes another bite of his apple, and that’s the end of the conversation.
See? Sausage Referencing™. Works every time. And every time it makes me want to flip a table, but I just move on to the next topic. What can I say? I’m tired.
And now I crave an apple.
My stomach growls when I slip out to fill my water bottle. I’m thinking wistfully of the Lean Cuisine currently unthawing at my desk when I hear it.
“Meow.”
I recognize the chirpy quality of it immediately. It’s my calico—well, the calico—peeking at me from behind the water fountain.
“Hey, sweetie.” I go down on my knees to pet her. “Where did you go the other day?”
Chirp, meow. Some purrs.
“What are you doing all alone?”
A headbutt.
“Are you hunting mice? Do you work as c-law enforcement?” I laugh at my own pun. The cat gives me a scathing look and wanders away. “Oh, come on, it was a good joke. It was hiss-terical!”
One last indignant glare, and she turns the corner. I giggle, then hear steps coming up behind me. I don’t look back. I don’t need to, since I already know who it is. “There was a cat,” I say weakly.
Levi walks past me to fill his water bottle. He’s so tall, he needs to hunch over the fountain. His biceps shift under the cotton of his shirt. Was he this big in grad school? Or did I get even shorter? Maybe it’s the stress. Maybe early onset osteoporosis is kicking in. Gotta buy some calcium-set tofu. “Right,” he says, noncommittal. His eyes are on the water.
“No, for real.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’m serious. She went that way.” I point to my right. Levi looks in that direction with a polite nod and then walks back inside the room, sipping his water.
I stay on my knees in the dead middle of the hallway and sigh. I don’t care if Levi Wardass believes me.
He probably hates cats anyway.
“EQUIPMENT’S READY. AND Guy set up our computers,” Rocío says as we walk back to our apartments.
I smile into the soupy afternoon air. “Awesome. How was working with Guy and Kaylee?”
“How was working with your lifelong sworn archfoe?”
I give her the stink eye. “Ro.” My time with her is perfect practice for the adolescent daughter I might never have.
“It was fine,” she mutters. I frown at her tone.
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
“It doesn’t sound fine. Is there a problem?”
“Yes. Several. Global warming, systemic racism, the overpopulation of ecological niches, the unnecessary American remake of Swedish romantic horror masterpiece Let the Right One In—”
“Rocío.” I stop on the sidewalk. “If there’s something off in the way you’re being treated, if Guy’s making you uncomfortable, please feel free to—”
“Have you seen Guy?” she scoffs. “He looks like the harmless love child of a meerkat and an altar boy.”
“That is very rude and”—I blink—“disturbingly accurate, but it sounds like you had an unpleasant day, so if there’s anything that bothers you, I—” She mutters something I can’t hear. I lean closer. “What did you say?”
Another mumbled reply.
“What? I can’t—”
“I said, I hate Kaylee.” She screams it so loud, a man pushing a stroller on the other side of the street turns to look at us.
“You hate . . . Kaylee?”
She whirls around and starts walking. “I said what I said.” I hurry after her.
“Wait—are you serious?”
“I’m always serious.”
She’s not. “Did she do something to you?”
“Yes.”
“Then tell me, please.” I put my hand on her shoulder, trying to be reassuring. “I’m here for you, whatever it is—”
“Her stupid curls,” Rocío spits out. “They look like a damn Fibonacci spiral. They’re logarithmic, and their growth factor is the golden ratio—not to mention that they even look like spun gold. Is she Cinderella? Is this Disneyland Paris?”
I blink. “Ro, are you—”
“And what self-respecting person wears that much glitter? Unironically?”
“I like glitter—”
“No, you don’t,” she growls. I can only nod. Okay. Don’t like glitter anymore. “And earlier she dropped something and you know what she said?”
“Oops?”
“ ‘Lordy.’ She said, ‘Oh, Lordy!’—do you understand why I cannot work with her?”
I nod to buy time. This is . . . interesting. At the very least. “I, um, understand that you two are very different and might never be friends, but I need you to overcome your . . . revulsion for sequins—”
“Pink sequins.”
“—for pink sequins, and to get along with her.”
“Impossible. I quit.”
“Listen, none of these things are grounds for a formal complaint. We can’t police our coworkers’ sense of fashion.”
Rocío frowns. “What if I told you that she had a lollipop? The kind with gum inside?”
“Still no.” I smile. “Wanna know something? Everything you feel about Kaylee, Levi feels about me.”
“What do you mean?”
“He hates my hair. My piercings. My clothes. I’m pretty sure he thinks my face is on par with a splatterpunk movie.”
“Splatterpunk movies are the best.”
“Somehow I don’t think he’d agree. But he ignores the fact that I’m a total swamp hag so we can collaborate. And you should do the same.”
Rocío resumes walking, morose. “Does he really hate the way you look?”
“Yep. Always did.”
“It’s strange, then.”
“What’s strange?”
“He stares at you. Plenty.”
“Oh, no.” I laugh. “He puts a lot of effort into not staring at me. It’s his CrossFit.”
“It’s the opposite. At least when you’re not looking.” I’m about to ask her if she’s high, but she shrugs. “Whatever. If you won’t support me in my hatred for Kaylee I have no choice but to call Alex and rage at him while I listen to Norwegian death metal.”
I pat her back. “Sounds like the loveliest of evenings.”
At home, I just want to stuff my face with peanut butter cups and send twelve @WhatWouldMarieDo tweets about the injustice of Sausage Referencing™, but I limit myself to checking my DMs. I smile when I find one from Shmac:
SHMAC: How are things?
MARIE: Weirdly, much better.
SHMAC: Did camel dick burst into flames?
MARIE: Lol, no. I do think he might be less of a camel dick than I thought. Still a dick, don’t get me wrong. But maybe not camel. Maybe he’s like, idk, a duck dick?
SHMAC: Have you ever seen a duck dick?
MARIE: No? But they’re small and cute, right?
I watch the wheel spin as the picture he sends me loads. I initially think it’s a corkscrew. Then I realize that it’s attached to a little feathered body and—
MARIE: OMG WHAT IS THAT ABOMINATION
SHMAC: Your colleague.
MARIE: I take it back! I un-demote him! He’s a camel dick again!
MARIE: How’s your girlfriend?
SHMAC: Yet again: I wish.
MARIE: How are things with her?
There’s a long pause after, in which I decide to act like the motivated adult that I’m not and put on running shorts and my Marie Curie & The Isotopes—European Tour 1911 T-shirt.
SHMAC: A mess.
MARIE: How come?
SHMAC: I fucked things up.
MARIE: Beyond repair?
SHMAC: I think so. There’s a lot of history here.
MARIE: Want to tell me?
The three dots at the base of the screen bounce for a while, so I check my Couch-to-5K app. Looks like today I need to run five minutes, walk one minute, and then run five more minutes. Sounds feasible.
Oh, who am I kidding? It sounds harrowing.
SHMAC: It’s complicated. Part of it is that I first met her when I was younger.
MARIE: Please don’t tell me you have a secret stemlord past.
SHMAC: I have an asshole past.
MARIE: How many ladies have you harassed on the internet?
SHMAC: Zero. But I did grow up in a hostile, uncommunicative environment. I was an uncommunicative person before I realized that I couldn’t spend the rest of my life like that. I got therapy, which helped me figure out how to deal with feelings that are . . . overwhelming. Except every time I talk to her my brain blanks and I become the person I used to be.
MARIE: Ouch.
SHMAC: I never suspected how some of my actions came across, but in hindsight they make complete sense. Still, something she said makes me wonder if her husband told her some lies that aggravated the situation.
MARIE: You should tell her. If it were me, I’d want to know.
SHMAC: In the end it doesn’t matter. She’s happy with him.
I take a deep breath.
MARIE: Okay, listen. For years I thought that I was happy in a relationship with someone who turned out to be a chronic liar. And in my experience relationships that are based on lies can’t last. Not in the long term. You’d be doing her a favor, if you came clean.
I don’t mention to him that all relationships can’t last. People tend to get defensive when I do. They have to figure it out on their own.
SHMAC: I’m sorry that happened to you.
MARIE: I’m sorry this is happening to you.
SHMAC: Look at us. Two sorry scientists.
MARIE: Is there any other kind?
SHMAC: Not that I know of.
My heart hurts for Shmac as I put on my sneakers. I can’t even imagine how awful it must be, to be in love with a married person. Heartbreaking situations like this vindicate the corporate mission of Bee, Inc.: keep up the Bee-fence. Never, ever fall for someone. If my heart gets broken again, neuroscience will be the one. It’s sure to do a much cleaner job than stupid Tim, anyway. Doctor Curie would support me in this decision, I’m positive.
I spring up from the couch and venture out into the soup-like Houston air for my run.
IF I RUN at the Space Center, someone I know might see me crawl my way about, and I wouldn’t wish that sight upon an innocent bystander. Google comes to my aid: there’s a little cemetery about five minutes away. Reading baby names like Alford or Brockholst on gravestones might be a nice distraction from the gut-wrenching torment of exercising. I slip in my AirPods, start an Alanis Morissette album, and head that way. It’s 6:43, which means that I can be home and showered in time to watch Love Island.
Don’t judge. It’s an underrated show.
Disappointingly, sitting on the couch thinking about working out has not improved my aerobic fitness. I realize it on minute three of my run, when I collapse in front of the tombstone of Noah F. Moore (surprisingly fitting), 1834–1902. I lie in the grass drenched in sweat, listening to my heart pound in my ears. Or maybe it’s just Alanis screaming.
I’m not meant for this. And by “this” I mean using my body for anything more strenuous than reaching for my treat cupboard. Which, incidentally, is all my cupboards. Yes, okay: Dr. Curie bonded with her husband over their shared love of cycling and nature walks, but we can’t all be like her: gentlewoman, scholar, and athlete.
When I notice that the sun is setting, I scrape myself off the ground, bid farewell to Noah, and start hobbling home. I’m almost back at the entrance when I notice something: there is no entrance. The tall gates I ran through on my way here are now closed. I try to shake them open, but no dice. I look around. The walls are too high for me to climb—because I’m five feet tall and everything is too high for me to climb.
I take a deep breath. This is okay. It’s fine. I’m not stuck in here. If I follow the walls I’ll find a shorter segment I can easily climb over.
Or not. I definitely haven’t found one fifteen minutes later, when Houston’s firmly in dusk territory and I have to turn on my flashlight app to see a few feet away from me. I sum up the situation in my head: I’m alone (sorry, Noah, you don’t count), stuck in a cemetery after sundown, and my phone is at 20 percent. Oops.
I feel a wave of panic swell and immediately leash it. No. Down. Bad panic. No treats for you. I need to engage in some goal-oriented problem-solving before I can wallow in despair. What can I do?
I could yell and hope someone hears me, but what could they do? Build a makeshift rope with their belts? Hmm. Seems like a traumatic brain injury waiting to happen. Pass.
I could call 911, then. Though 911 is probably busy saving people who actually deserve to be saved. People who didn’t moronically get themselves locked inside a cemetery at night. Calling someone I know would be better. I could ask someone to bring me a ladder. Yes, that sounds good.
I have the phone numbers of two people who currently live in Houston. The second doesn’t count, because I’ll sleep cradled by the slimy arms of Noah’s skeleton before calling it. But that’s okay, because the first is Rocío, who could ask the super for a ladder and drive here in our rental. Let’s be real: cemeteries at night are her natural habitat. She’ll love this immensely.
If only she bothered to answer her phone. I call her once, twice. Seven times. Then I remember that Gen Zs would rather roll around in nettles than talk on the phone, and I text her. No answer. My stupid battery is at 18 percent, mosquitos are sucking blood out of my shins, and Rocío is probably having Skype sex to a band called Thorr’s Hammer.
Who else can I call? How long would it take Reike to fly here? Is it too late to ask her for the number of nose-tongue guy? What are the chances that Shmac secretly lives in Houston? Should I email Guy? But he has a kid. He might not check his email at night.
My phone is at 12 percent, and my eyes fall on the 832 number in my incoming call log. I haven’t even bothered saving it. Because I thought I’d never use it.
I can’t. I can’t. I can’t call Levi. He’s probably at home, having a Stepford dinner with his wife, playing with his dog, helping his daughter with math homework. Penny of the black curls. No. I can’t. He’d hate me even more. And the humiliation. He’s already saved me once.
Nine percent, the world is pitch black, and I hate myself. There’s no alternative. I have successfully defended a Ph.D. dissertation, overcome a depressive episode, gotten my chuncha fully waxed every month for years, and yet tapping once on Levi’s number feels like the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Maybe I should just settle in for the night. Maybe a pack of bobcats will let me snuggle in their pile. Maybe—
“Yes?”
Oh, shit. He answered. Why did he answer? He’s a millennial; we also hate talking on the—
“Hello?”
“Um, sorry. This is Bee. Königswasser. We, um, work together? At NASA?”
A pause. “I know who you are, Bee.”
“Right. Yes. So . . .” I close my eyes. “I am having a bit of a problem and I was wondering if you could—”
He doesn’t hesitate. “Where are you?”
“See, I’m in this little cemetery by the Space Center. Greenwood?”
“Greenforest. Are you locked in?”
“I— How do you know?”
“You’re calling me from a cemetery after sundown. Cemeteries close at sundown.”
That would have been a useful piece of information forty-five minutes ago. “Yeah, so . . . the walls are sort of tall, and my phone is sort of dying, and I’m sort of—”
“Go stand by the gates. Turn off the flashlight if you have it on. Don’t talk to anyone you don’t know. I’ll be there in ten minutes.” A beat. “I’ve got you. Don’t worry, okay?”
He hangs up before I can tell him to bring a ladder. And, come to think of it, before I can ask him to come rescue me.