Love, Theoretically

In hindsight,” Cece muses while nibbling pensively on a piece of gouda, “we should have seen this coming. Boston’s population is seven hundred thousand. Say half are men, and half of that twenty-one to forty—Faux’s target demo. Now, Faux’s not cheap, and the masses are getting poorer while Jeff Bezos ruthlessly profits off my desperate need for one-day shipping of dill-pickle lip balm. So maybe only a fourth of the dudes can afford to hire us. And of that fourth, half is either in a happily committed relationship or . . . has morals. Now, consider that we’ve been doing this for about four years, fake-girlfriending an average of two clients a month. If we crunch the numbers . . .” She looks at me expectantly. I consider pretending I’m not a human calculator, then give up.

“Ninety-six men.” I sigh. “And their family and friends. In a pool of twenty-one thousand.”

Cece holds a carrot to Hedgie, who takes a delicate nibble. “Which makes the probability of us coming across someone we met through Faux in our private lives . . . ? Time to nerd out, nerd queen.”

“Bayesian probability? Or frequentist?”

Cece’s grin is my favorite of hers, with the tongue sticking out of her teeth. “Doesn’t matter. The point is, it’s possible that in our quixotic quest to make enough money to pay our taxes—something Jeff Dill Pickle Bezos is not asked to do, by the way—we . . .”

“Fucked up?”

“A good assessment.”

I let my forehead slide to the table. It’s cold, and sticky with something that might not be Hedgie’s urine. “What if Austin tells his mother that I’m some kind of con woman who tricks her clients into . . . into . . .”

“Into not fucking her? Did he look like he might want to talk to Monica?”

“I . . .” Once Jack was done with him, he just looked scared. Shitless, one might add. But also angry, and angry people do angry, stupid things. Like climbing on top of a toilet in the men’s restroom with Jack Smith-Turner’s hands pressed into their waist. Or forgetting to monitor their glucose levels. God, what a shit show of an interview. At least the most disgraceful moments happened behind the scenes—yay for semiprivate humiliation. “I don’t know.”

“Either way, as a mother myself,” Cece says with a meaningful glance at Hedgie, “if my douchebag kid came to me whining that the rising star of theoretical physics denied him an eighty—”

“Seventy.”

“—seventy-dollar hand job—the audacity of that bitch—I’d exclusively be angry at my douchebag kid.”

I straighten and sigh again. The gouda’s predictably gone, so I pick up the carrot and take a small bite, avoiding Hedgie’s corner. Though, why, really? How bad could toxoplasmosis be? Not nearly as painful as the way Jack stared at me after everything. Like he could break me down into the smallest diatomic molecules with a look and a handful of words.

Better take my chances with the salmonella.

“I need to talk to Jack. Explain what Austin said.”

Cece scoffs. “You don’t owe him anything.”

“He helped me, though. Without him I—”

“He stood up for you when some shit-faced manboy verbally harassed you—Elsie, it’s the bare minimum. The bar’s so low, you could pick it up and beat him with it.”

Okay. So maybe I don’t need to talk to Jack. I want to, though. I want to explain to him that . . .

That what? Really, what? He must have put together that what I’m doing with Greg is similar to what I did with Austin. And if he hasn’t . . . didn’t I decide two days ago that I don’t care what he thinks of me? That he’s a lost cause anyway? If I don’t get the MIT job, I’m never going to meet Jack again. And if I do . . . we’ll be cordial, distant enemies. He’s still the nutsack who turned seventeen and decided to declare war on an entire discipline—my discipline. So he’s the one guy I can’t read, the one person who can’t be APE’d. All the more reason to never voluntarily interact with him again.

I just don’t know why it’s scorched into my stupid brain, that last glance he gave me as I stepped out of Monica’s home. And the earlier one, when he grabbed my chin and studied me like I’m something unique. My own Cartesian coordinates.

What happened to you, Elsie?

I square my shoulders. “You’re right. Greg’s the one I need to talk to.” Warn him that Jack might ask questions. Give him time to prepare answers. Greg’s the reason I was keeping secrets all along. He’s the one who deserves protecting. “In the meantime, no more Faux.” I look at Cece. “Should you quit, too? You’ll be on the job market once you’re done with your thesis—what if this happens to you, too?”

“It won’t be until next year. We might be dead by then.”

“Would be nice, wouldn’t it?”

We exchange smiles. “I must say, the situation is making me reconsider Faux. Then again, the number of dollars in my bank account is making me reconsider my reconsiderations.” She taps her chin. “It’s a good reason to keep working with Kirk.”

I frown. “Kirk?”

“Yeah, that guy who—”

“I know who Kirk is. I just thought . . . You’ve been talking about him a lot. And you refer to him by his first name.”

“How else should I refer to him?”

“Historically, your clients have been, you know . . . Big Nostrils Jim. Not Anderson Cooper. Doomsday Prepper Pete. Anchovy Breath One. Anchovy Breath Two. Deep V-Neck. Anchovy Breath Three—”

“I get the gist.”

“Kirk is always just Kirk, which has me wondering if . . .”

“Whoa.” Her eyes widen dramatically. “Am I being attacked? In my own home?”

“No. I just—”

“At my own table?”

I shake my head. “No, I—”

“On my own chair that I retrieved from the curbside and that used to have bedbugs and maybe still does?”

“No! I didn’t mean to—” I notice Cece’s sly smile. “You’re evil.”

She laughs. “Is Greg still on that hippie retreat where you pay to weed their flower beds? When’s he coming back? And when is the search committee voting on the candidates?”

Is she trying to change the topic? “I have no idea. I don’t even know if George has already been interviewed. Greg should be back by the weekend, but he’ll have tons of messages, and . . .”

“And he’ll see a million texts from you. He’ll call the second he turns on his phone. You’ll calmly explain what happened, and you’ll come up with a plan together. Don’t worry about it, okay?”

I nod.

As it turns out, Cece is right—I do get a call from Greg the moment he comes back to civilized society. But she’s also wrong, because things don’t go the way she predicted. Not at all.

Not even a little bit.

•   •   •

My first thought when I read Unknown Boston Number is that I’m going to be offered the job. It must be the sheer depth of my desperation making an optimist and a fool out of me. For a moment, I see myself holding back tears as I accept an appointment letter. I would like to thank the Academy, my roommate, and the girl who runs the WhatWouldMarieDo account—my rocks during the harrowing years of grad school. I owe this to you.

It makes the fall back to reality that much harder.

“Do you know someone named Gregory Smith?” Whoever’s on the other end of the line sounds so angry, I briefly forget how to talk.

“Um—”

“I sure hope so, because there are forty unread texts from you on his phone. And if you’re his stalker . . . you’ll still do. He was brought here an hour ago for emergency dental surgery, and we need someone to come pick him up.”

“Pick him . . . up?”

“Yes. It means that you come here. Get him. Then take him where he lives.” She’s speaking very slowly. If I told her about my doctoral degree, she would not believe me. “With a vehicle such as a car. Or a wheelbarrow, for all I care.”

“I—I don’t own a car. And I don’t know where he lives. Can’t you call him an Uber and—”

“Honey, he’s drugged out of his mind. I cannot let him walk out of here alone—he just mumbled something about walking into the Charles River to hang out with Aquaman.”

I close my eyes. Then I open them. I glance at the lecture I’ve been preparing, then at the time (6:42 p.m.), then at Hedgie glaring at me from the kitchen counter.

I sigh and hear myself ask, “Where are you located?”