Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 69877 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69877 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
“Hold on, back up a second,” Daphne says with a frown, walking her fingers backward as though reversing the conversation. “This was the worst moment of your life?”
“Um. Yeah,” I say with feeling.
“More than the Dan breakup?”
“Absolutely.” I’m not sure what it says about my romantic history that I don’t even have to pause to think about it. Probably nothing good.
Daniel Dixon was my longest—and most serious—boyfriend to date. Dan is a kind and brilliant computer engineer I’d met while getting my second doctorate, and we fell into an easy, satisfying, stable relationship. He’s the kind of guy who doesn’t mind when you have to work late, or that you make the same slightly dry roast chicken every single Sunday. The kind who always says thank you when you hand him a Tupperware on Monday with leftovers, just like you did last Monday, and the Monday before that.
In other words, Daniel and I had an understanding that fiery passion was overrated compared to quiet compatibility. In fact, we were so compatible that our last Christmas together, we’d gone ring shopping. We hadn’t found the one. Which was good.
Because it turns out Daniel hadn’t been the one.
Just before New Year’s that same year, he’d been offered a job at Google’s corporate headquarters in Mountain View, California.
A job offer he’d accepted without so much as a word to me.
That part had hurt. Daniel may not have set my insides aflutter, but I’d thought we were partners. And partners do not make decisions that take them across the country without telling the other person.
By February, Daniel had moved out of our place with, get this: a handshake.
And you know what? It had been fine. I’d been fine. I’d spent Valentine’s Day with Daphne the way I always did, not missing Daniel in the least. We’d had fudge sundaes with good ice cream, the kind that costs like ten bucks for a tiny carton, and we’d gotten two cartons. We’d followed up the ice cream with lobster rolls, because you know what? A single grown-ass woman can eat in whatever order she wants to while watching Thor.
(Generally speaking, I’m not much of a movie buff. And definitely not a superhero person. But even I had a hard time resisting a film in which Natalie Portman plays an astrophysicist.)
The point is, Daniel’s cool dismissal of our relationship dented my heart a little, but compared to this?
My entire career being upended?
That was nothing, and I tell my aunt and best friend as much after my aunt goes to retrieve the cheese plate from inside.
“Well, that’s because that Daniel wasn’t right for you,” Aunt Lillian says, rejoining us on the patio and setting a more-lavish-than-usual charcuterie board in the center of the table.
“What time does the entire neighborhood arrive?” I say, gesturing at the overflowing platter.
She pats my knee as she sits beside me and lights her cigarillo. “Still just us girls. I call this comfort cheese. Making your way through a variety of cheese types can help speed up the stages of grief. At least it did for me when I lost Harold.
“For example,” she continues, gesturing at a soft cheese in the corner. “Still in denial? Try this nice triple crème.”
“Nope, I’m solidly in the anger phase,” I say, though I scoop some of the triple crème onto a cracker anyway.
“As you should be. Icing you out because you shined more brightly than them.” My aunt sniffs in disdain.
“Well, they didn’t phrase it quite like that,” I say, smiling in thanks at Daphne as she tops off my sauvignon blanc.
“How did they phrase it?” Daphne asks, trying to subtly hit the record button on her phone again. Apparently she’s very committed to her revenge spell.
“Well.” I swallow my cheese and crackers. “I was mostly in shock, so I only caught the highlights, but the general gist is that my ‘fixation on science pop culture’—their words—isn’t in alignment with the university’s or department’s goals.”
“I didn’t realize science pop culture was a thing,” Lillian muses.
“It’s not!” I say with feeling. “And they seem to have forgotten that it was the university that urged me to accept all those TV spots on Good Morning America, and it was the head of the tenure board himself who opted to put that picture of me hosting Jeopardy! on the Physics Department website. Only to decide now that all of that ‘distracts from the sanctity of science.’ ”
I add air quotes to signal my disgust.
Daphne makes an angry hissing sound. “So, to translate it to nonbullshit terms: you’re a hot wunderkind, and they can’t handle being in your shadow.”
Lillian nods and points her cigarillo at Daphne. “Exactly.” Then she frowns at her empty glass. “Would one of you be a doll and get me a fresh bottle of sherry? This one seems to have evaporated.”