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Rena lifts a shoulder, pulling my attention to the curve of her bare skin. “Pretty in Pinkis about class and its effects on American teenagers.Buellerpits a larger-than-life narcissist and his insecure, pissed-off best friend against their parents and Chicago. How could youchoose?”
The tiny, juvenile part of me that watched from a recliner as I did my doctorate wakes up from a four-year nap. I drop the pole, straightening to my fullheight.
I knew she was attractive and confident. That she’s seen my favorite movies is invigorating and disturbing at once. It’s taking things that independently pique your interest—like shag carpet, aliens, Winona Ryder—and putting them together in a way that shouldn’t work butdoes.
“I didn’t realize the way to impress you was through movie trivia,” she says as the train slows, the curve of her lipssmug.
I hold her gaze. “I didn’t realize you were trying to impressme.”
The smugness is gone in an instant. With a flash of her eyes, she’s off the train, starting up the steps without waiting forme.
Reaching for the knot of my tie, I slide it back into place. Despite the blood pumping through my veins, I’m not here to rehash my high-school days of staring at pretty girls. Or to argue over the ending of theBreakfast Club. This is business, and today we’re both on the samepage.
Because you’d be totally unaffected if she kissed youagain.
Brain, I did not authorize this futile use of yourfaculties.
By the time we get above ground, the sun is beaming down. I lead the way the few blocks to my ten-storybuilding.
Right outside, Rena pulls up. “Wait a second. This is Jake’sbuilding.”
“Jake’s on ten. There’s a commercial lab onthree.”
In some ways, Jake Prince has been the most fortuitous encounter since I returned to New York. Not only did he drag me to the gym at the club, he helped me find commercial lab space when I needed somewhere to continue my research program while I was out of an academicjob.
Now, I have access to a fixed number of technician hours to support my research, plus an office for ten hours aweek.
On my floor, I swipe my ID by the first door and make my way down the hall. On either side are labs, most of which have big windows to watch from. A row of offices sits at the back. I stop by one window, peering in at the people in lab coats and glasses manning their stations. It’s nearly five in the afternoon, but they work in shifts. I know there will be technical staff here until late into the evening—not only because I know the schedules, but because that’s typically when I’mhere.
Rena presses her hands against the glass. “It looks so… clinical. What are theydoing?”
She has no idea what a dangerous question that is. I could talk all day about research, scientific methods, genetics andepigenetics.
I fucking love science. Have since I was akid.
My relationship with biology spans space and time in a way that’s literally epic, like thatOutlandershow my mom’s been binge-watching.
As an only child of parents who worked a lot to support us, I got used to entertainingmyself.
The day I went searching the library for my fifth-grade book report on Columbus and ended up neck-deep in kids’ science magazines learning how to extract DNA from a strawberry, I washooked.
From then on, our small kitchen in Rutherford was transformed each weekend into a lab. My mom often was on call at the vet clinic, and my dad spent the hours he wasn’t in his precious library at school in his office, so neither of themminded.
Not that they would haveobjected.
When I got my first microscope for my twelfth birthday, I was convinced life could not getbetter.
Until I looked at samples of the gutter water from outside our house under thelens.
Because holy shit. Life was everywhere, with colors and patterns and movement my twelve-year-old eyes could never haveimagined.
The older I got, the more I came to appreciate the true beauty of science—that it has the power to explain everything in our world, to make the unknowableknown.
Rena’s still waiting for me to talk. I debate where to start. “How all this began was I was doing research on environmental versus genetic factors for cancer. My sample included a large number of married couples. I found out—rather incidentally—that genes in the married couples tended to be more dissimilar in couples that were married a longtime.”
“What does that have to do with cancer?” sheasks.
“Nothing. But sometimes in research, you find things you weren’t lookingfor.”
