Page 13 of Inventing Mr Darcy

Please tell me it’s not another note about prohibited activities in the lab.

As I get closer, I can see that beneath my makeshift name plate, someone has added another strip of paper. This one reads: G. Winkworth, Team Co-Leader. It’s computer printed, not hand-written.

Heat flares in my chest. A joke? I certainly hope so.

But definitely not funny.

I’m so focused on Geoff’s name, wondering whether there’s any way Pedersen might have decided to promote him early, it takes me a while to notice that the topmost sign is also new. O.W.E.N.-C., it reads. The rest (Digital Humanities / J. Pedersen, Director) is unchanged.

Now I’m sure it’s all a practical joke. There’s a small but persistent group of dude-bros on campus who regard something that’s only for or about women as “sexist,” and I suppose they think they’re being clever, changing out a famous woman’s name for something that sounds like a man’s.

I reach up to pull all of it off the wall, only to discover that the new sign about the database is plastic like the old one and actually held in place with screws. I guess those idiots were really dedicated to their prank. No matter. For reasons I’ve never known, there’s a screwdriver in my desk.

I lower my fingers toward the handle, then hesitate. What if … what if the electronic lock doesn’t recognize me? It’s silly, but what happened Friday night, combined with these stupid signs, has me genuinely unsettled.

I’ll come back later and take care of it, I promise myself, and head to the library instead.

I claim a table in the alcove off the main lobby, where it’s quiet but I can still people-watch. I pry the lid off my tea so it can cool, prop my feet on the seat of the chair across from me, and grab my phone to check BeeSocial.

One measly reaction to my post? And it’s from my mom? Maybe others lost internet this weekend too. Or maybe … oh, wait. I see what I’ve done. I posted to my personal page, which I almost never use, rather than the group.

But when I try to fix my mistake, Plainly Jane is no longer on my list of pinned groups. Ugh. Is nothing working right?

I stuff my phone in my pocket, then bend and fish through my bag for a spiral-bound notebook and a pen. Time to go old school. A dissertation is a lot longer than an essay, but the principle is the same: one word after another.

Some indeterminate time later, a shadow falls across a page half-covered with doodles. When I look up, Fisher is frowning down.

He waggles his index finger in the vicinity of his own mouth. “You’ve got … foam.”

Mortified, I drop my feet to the floor, sit up straighter, and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. He lowers his backpack to the floor, pulls out the chair opposite me, and sits down, uninvited. “So, um, how’s it going?”

“Great,” I deadpan, eyeing him across the table. He’s wearing a cream-colored wool sweater in a fisherman’s knit pattern, slightly unraveled at the bottom of one sleeve, like he’s had it for years. It’s a little strange, seeing him twice in a row without one of his ridiculous t-shirts. But it’s chilly today, and anyway, it’s no real loss.

His broad shoulders fill the sweater out pretty nicely too.

He slides a silver flash drive across the table toward me, the kind you get at the campus bookstore, with the college logo—a buff cartoon eagle wearing a GC sweatshirt—stamped on the side. “Here are your files,” he says. “Just a word of warning though. Some of your metadata seems to have been corrupted.” That sounds awful, but before I have a chance to express alarm, he concludes, with a hint of a smile, “So the file names may be, um, wonky.”

In mild disbelief that he’s showing a sense of humor about this—and also that he’s made a sly reference to Friday night—I’m still trying to come up with a retort when his expression turns serious again and he shakes his head. “Unfortunately, there’s no saving your laptop. Given its age and, uh, condition, I’m not even sure the power surge during the geomagnetic storm was responsible. Looked to me like it just decided it had had enough.”

I’m not shocked, exactly, but my shoulders sag. A new laptop definitely isn’t in the budget, but I guess that’s what credit cards are for. Or maybe Mom and Dad will float me a loan at something less than twenty-nine percent interest.

He stands, then reaches into his backpack, pulls out a laptop, and sets it on the table beside the flash drive. “IT keeps a supply of loaners, for emergencies. I thought maybe you’d want to borrow one? I went ahead and set it up with your campus login, just in case.”

“Thank you,” I say, because really, what else can I say? “Again. Er, again-again.”

One shoulder rises and falls. “Just doing my job.”

I’m not sure what kind of reassurance I was looking for, but I definitely don’t want to be a job, some unpleasant task he can’t avoid.

Before I can say anything more, he walks away, ostensibly leaving me to work in peace. But my focus and determination, such as they were, have fled.

After wrestling the strap of my bag free from the arm of the chair next to me, and in the process almost tipping the chair over, I scoop up my things, stuff them inside, and hurry toward the door, my movements so frenetic I have to drag my feet to avoid another run-in with Fisher in the library vestibule.

The walk back to my apartment gives a little time for the sting of his words to cool, though not enough. I’m kind of glad Cassie’s not home so I can slam things and stomp around without having to explain myself, though the noise makes the cat puff up his tail and hide.

Eventually, though, I get to the point of unpacking my bag, and the sight of that loaner laptop gives me pause. Fisher can be an unbelievably arrogant ass sometimes. But he remembered what I said about needing to work on my dissertation, so I guess maybe his heart—if in fact he has one—is in the right place.

I open the laptop and turn it on. It’s not new, by any means, but it’s a lot better than nothing at all. I don’t think I realized how sluggish and unresponsive my old computer had gotten until I catch myself sitting and waiting for this one to load the Grantham College homepage and realize it’s already done. I pop in the flash drive and click on the folder labeled Elle.