Love, Theoretically

My main sentiment going into lunch with Greg is fear—closely followed by self-loathing, guilt, and an uncontrollable impulse to run back home and feed myself to Hedgie. Does he hate me? Does he hold me responsible for outing him? Does he want his money back? He deserves it. I’ll sell a cornea. Or a foot. Whatever goes for highest.

As it turns out, I shouldn’t have worried. Because Greg grins widely the moment he sees me, and then asks suggestively, “You and my brother, huh?”

“Oh, no. No, I . . .”

We’re at our usual café, but even though today I could use some diversions, there are no screaming toddlers or projectile vomiting or tragic mishearings. Just the barista in a “Breathe If You Hate Tom Brady” shirt, me, and Greg’s winky face. I silently wish for a tectonic earthquake, to no avail.

“We—Jack and I are just . . . hanging out.”

There was dinner last Thursday, of course, which ended when he drove me home and answered my “Do you want to do this again?” with an infuriating “Do you?” And then the Saturday afternoon spent hunting down the Murder, She Wrote novelization for Millicent and bickering about the validity of string theory. (“It has produced no testable experimental predictions.” “We are working on the math!” “Work away, but until you come to me with a substantial breakthrough, the multiverse is as scientific as the Great Pumpkin.”) And last night, of course, when he drove me to a Northeastern lecture I was going to attend anyway. (“Or you can take the subway and we can meet there, if you enjoy watching people masturbate to Tropicana ads.”) Afterward we spent one hour in his car, trash-talking the speaker for saying that the gravitational-wave experiment was a waste of money.

It’s Tuesday now, and yes, I’ve seen Jack three times in the past week, but if I told Greg, he’d assume that we’re a couple, which we aren’t. We haven’t even held hands, unless one counts that time I was complaining about the militarization of science and almost got run over by a Honda Civic. He’d grabbed my wrist and pulled me back and hadn’t let go until he’d gotten me safely to the other side of the road. Plus half a block.

Whatever this is, it’s slow—static, some would say. I may have found myself thinking about kissing. I may have found myself thinking about whether Jack is thinking about kissing. I may have been pitting seemingly conflicting things he’s said—You and I won’t be having sex; The girl I liked; Really beautiful; It’ll go away—against each other in a March Madness–like bracket, trying to figure out how exactly he feels about me.

I guess I could ask. I will. Once I’m ready.

“It’s not serious. We’re just . . . getting to know each other, and—” Greg’s eyebrow lifts, and I crumple. Spiritually. “I don’t know. Maybe?”

He grins. “I had a feeling.”

“A feeling?”

“He asked lots of questions about you. I thought he was just being his usual needlessly protective older brother self, but when we got into ‘Does Elsie prefer winter or summer?’ territory, I realized it was something else.”

I scratch my temple. “You did mention that.”

“I did?”

“The tooth. When you . . .”

“Oh. Yeah.” He sighs. “You know, I actually had fun that night. Maybe I should incorporate more recreational drugs into my lifestyle.”

“Greg, I feel like I unwittingly precipitated you having to come out to Jack, and I’m really sorry.”

He shakes his head. “What’s funny is, back at Woodacre, before the tooth decided to rot me from within, I had the thought that it was time for me to just ask Mom to leave me alone. Besides, I could have octuplets and Grandma would probably still leave everything to Monsanto just for spite. And Jack was never the issue. I’d been meaning to tell him for a long time, and it’s nice that now he knows and doesn’t treat me any different. Nothing’s changed, except that he was torn up about not researching the aro/ace spec before and very, very apologetic for lusting after my ‘girlfriend.’ ” He air-quotes the last part and then laughs a little. I want to spray about like a morning mist and disappear into nothingness.

“Greg, I . . .” Honesty. “I get it, I think. How you feel about relationships. Because I also am not quite sure what I want. And . . . I’d love to continue being friends.”

“Good. Because now that I almost peed on you, we’re bound for life.” He grins. “Oh my God. You know what I just realized?”

“What?”

“That if you and Jack work out, Uncle Paul’s going to ask you guys for threesomes till the day he dies.”

I close my eyes. I might just be the one projectile-vomiting this time around.

•   •   •

Lunch with George is a totally different beast. I have one hour between classes at UMass, and she agrees to meet me outside the building where I teach. Not sure why, then, I find her inside my lecture hall one minute before my eleven a.m. Intro to Physics is dismissed.

“Your essays on modern cosmology are due by—” I stumble when she slips inside, her purple coat a flash of color in the dull room. “By the end of the week. Two pages.”

“Double spaced?” someone asks from the huddle of warm bodies that is the last row. Not sure why everyone seems to be willing to sell their soul to sit there, since I don’t call on students, and as long as they’re reasonably quiet, I pretend not to see when they’re doing something else. I once had a guy hem curtains through Analytical Mechanics and never batted an eye.

He got an A-minus. Good for him, and for his windows.

“Single spaced. Twelve point.” Groans arise. “Please do not insult my intelligence by using Algerian as a font. And do not set the margins to one point three inches hoping I won’t realize, because I will check.”

I will not check. In fact, I will barely skim the essays for keywords while Cece puts on some Noah Baumbach that is, unfortunately, not Madagascar 3. My students would find me so pathetic if they knew how desperately I hustle to give them all an A.

“And remember: in-text citations only from scholarly sources.”

Raised hand. “What if my uncle—”

“Like I mentioned, while I’m very happy that your uncle minored in biology at the University of Delaware twenty-three years ago, I will not accept his Thanksgiving hot takes as a scholarly source. See you all next week.”

“This looks like a fun way to spend your time on God’s green earth,” George tells me after joining me on the podium. “How many of these classes do you teach per week?”

“Oh, only four, five thousand?” She laughs, and I instantly feel guilty. I should be grateful that I have a job. The alternative is hypnotizing my pancreas into thinking it can make insulin and living off Wendy’s ketchup packets. “But it’s not that bad. The students are great, and—”

“Dr. Hannaway?” A sophomore runs toward me, sweater pulled down on her shoulder. “Could you check if this is just a pimple or—”

“We’ve been over it, Selina. I’m not that kind of doctor.”

“Ah, right. My bad.”

“No problem. Get it checked out at Student Health, okay?” I smile—externally. Internally, it’s a bloodbath. “Please, don’t say anything,” I beg George.

“Let’s go.” She closes her hand around my elbow. “You deserve a twelve-course meal.”

She takes me to a Turkish café near campus. “Very well,” she says between dolmas. “I think we both know the reason I asked you here.”

“Do we?”

“Of course.” She leans forward, hands steepled, eyes burning into mine. “Jack’s my closest friend. Hurt him, and I’m going full Tonya Harding. Though you’re probably not as attached to your knees as Nancy was, so I’ll do it on the knuckles. You won’t be able to pick up chalk without experiencing agonizing pain. You’ll have to hold it between your teeth, and all that hydrous magnesium silicate will fuck up your bowel movements forever.” My blood drains. I’m planning to flee to a remote Latvian village, alter my fingertips with a cheese grater, dye my hair black, then blond, then back to brown again just to throw people off—when George bursts out laughing. “Oh my God, your face.”

I blink at her.

“I’m sorry, that was so inappropriate. I just couldn’t pass it up.”

I blink again. “So you didn’t want to meet because—”

“Nope, nothing to do with Jack. You can pull his heart out of his chest, grill it, and eat it with a side of creamed corn if you want. I mean, I am fond of him, but relationships are like assholes. Shouldn’t go around and smell other people’s, yada yada.” Her smile is mischievous. “Sorry?”

I sip on my ayran. “It’s okay. Just . . . Nancy Kerrigan is my cousin. And my father was diagnosed with chalk-induced lung disease.”

She pales. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to . . . I feel horrible about—” She notices my small smile. “You just made that up, didn’t you?”

I shrug, stealing one of her dolmas.

“Not only are you perfect for Jack, I think I might like you more than he does, and that’s a lot. Anyway—this is why I asked you to meet.” She moves my drink to the side. Then sets down a piece of paper.

She sips her water as I read and read—without understanding a single word. Mrs. Whitecotton from second grade would be so disappointed.

“Is this a . . . ?”

She nods.

“It’s not . . . I didn’t interview.”

“But you did get to the final round of an MIT interview. Somebody who will remain nameless—let’s just call them Jack—told me that over three hundred candidates applied. I’m going to trust that your credentials checked out and that you didn’t try to spin an associate degree from Bible college into a physics doctorate.”

“You . . . you are offering me a job? In your lab?”

“As a postdoc. There are two specific liquid crystals projects I’d have you work on.”

“Jack put you up to this,” I say. A little accusing.

“Nope. In my relationship with Jack, usually, and by ‘usually’ I mean always, I harass him into doing what I want.”

She must be lying. “Listen, thank you. This is kind. But I already told him no. And now that he and I are kind of . . . It wouldn’t be a good idea to—”

“Wait.” She frowns. “What do you mean, you already told him no?”

“He already offered me the position.”

“He what?” George explodes. The waiter and about fifteen other patrons turn to us. “Jack offered you a job?”

“You . . . didn’t know?”

“That is so inappropriate.” She is face-palming. Hard. “You don’t offer a job to your brother’s ex, whom you’ve been gone over for months.” The face-palming graduates to both hands. “God. Men. Even the good ones are just—”

“Are you saying you didn’t know?”

“Nope. And I didn’t tell him I was planning to offer you a job. The funds come from my grants—this is completely separate from my work with him.” She sighs heavily. “Listen, I’ll be real: I didn’t know who you were till last week. Aside from the girl Jack talks about when he gets drunk. But I looked up your stuff. Your work is good, and I could really use someone like you on my team. And before you ask—yes, so could Jack. But I’m better.” She leans forward and points at a line in the contract. “It’s a three-year position. I can pay you one point five times the NIH salary. Liquid crystals are a side project for me, so you’d be leading. First author on all publications. I know you don’t have applied experience, but we need someone who knows the theory like the back of their hand. No teaching, no Algerian font—just research. Though if you want to keep pretending that you enjoy it, I’m sure we could find you a class.”

What is up with all these people calling me on my bullshit lately? Am I suddenly giving off main character vibes? “And Jack, in all of this . . . ?”

“Is a nonentity. Don’t get me wrong. I’m happy for you guys. Well, for him. He was starting to look miserable. All that broody, horny, guilty pining.”

I clear my throat. “Would there be health insurance?”

“You don’t have health insurance now?” I shake my head and she rolls her eyes. “Adjuncthood is the fucking eleventh plague of Egypt. Yes, of course, health insurance. You won’t have to do this weird fake-dating thing.”

Dignity: disintegrated. “Jack told you about that?”

“Oh.” She winces. “Um . . . No. I could . . . read it in your face?”

Now I’m the one face-palming.

“Listen, he had to. Because I knew you as a librarian. But believe me, there’s no judgment here—I put myself through my master’s by working as a PA for one of Elon Musk’s cronies. And to go back to the job—the most important thing is, three MIT theorists are going to retire within the next five years. You’d be first in line to replace them.”

“There is no guarantee that—”

“There is no guarantee that we won’t be suctioned off the surface of the earth by a demonically possessed vacuum cleaner.” She hesitates for a second, as if deciding whether to add something. “Elsie, I know it can’t be easy, accepting a job from someone who stole the one you wanted. But you got your Ph.D. less than a year ago. You’re young to be competing for faculty positions. Honestly, I’m surprised you’re adjuncting—research is your strong suit, and you should be focusing on building your CV, not checking students’ zits.”

It makes sense, and I want what she’s offering—enough money to not worry about money, an office to neatly line up my Funko Pops, three years of peace of mind. But.

“Could I talk it through with my mentor?”

“Sure. Who are they?”

“Dr. Laurendeau at Northeastern.”

It’s a black cloud moment: one second George is all confident determination; the next she physically recoils, elbow knocking against the back of her chair. “Christophe Laurendeau? Does Jack know?”

“Yes. Why?”

“I . . . Nothing.” She shakes her head. The light in her eyes has dimmed. “But you don’t need to ask for his permission. This is your future. Your career. Your decision.”

My career, yes. But I only have one because Dr. L. dragged me out of the pile. “When do you need an answer by?”

“I can wait for two, three weeks tops. After that, I’ll have to start looking around to fill the position. Okay?”

I nod. Just take the job, a greedy, tired voice inside me insists. It craves those parmesan crisps that are five bucks a pop and is sick of reminding students to stop circling the Scantron bubble instead of filling it in. Steal an ink cartridge from the Boston University printer and get yourself fired. Then you’ll have no choice but to go work for George. Dr. L. will deal with the decision.

“So,” she asks, “aside from offering you a job, what other outrageous and utterly inappropriate things has Jack proposed to you? Marriage ceremony during faculty meeting? Retroactive hyphenation to Hannaway-Smith-Turner for all your academic publications? Naked cuddles in the MIT library?”

I almost spit my ayran all over her. But it’s okay because she totally deserves it.