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“Hot chocolate,” he says gently, as though I’m a skittish kitten.
It smells delicious, of sugar and comfort and heat. I watch a handful of marshmallows float happily around the top, and my mouth waters.
“Do you know,” I start, then shake my head and fall silent.
Food can be such an ordeal when your pancreatic cells have left the chat. I remember my last year of middle school, at Chloe Sampson’s birthday party—the mostamazingsheet cake with buttercream frosting. Before eating a slice, the diabetes-havers (i.e., me) needed to know exactly what was in it, to counteract it with the appropriate dose of insulin. But who knows what’s in a slice of Costcocake? Not me. And not Mrs. Sampson. And not the Costco website or the customer service hotline, which Mrs. Sampson called while fifteen starving teenage girls glared at me for holding up the party, and...
Well. The point is, I’ve learned to say no to unexpected sugar, no matter how tasty looking. People don’t like nuisances.
“Thank you, but I’m not thirsty.”
“You need the carb count?” Jack sets the package with the nutritional info beside it. “To adjust your bolus?”
I tilt my head. “Did you just use the wordbolus?”
“Sure did.” He takes a seat right across from me. Even the chairs inhishouse look too small for him.
“How?”
“I went to school. I know words.” He seems amused.
“You went to school for words likecentripetalandbrittlenessandRosseland optical depth. The only people who know stuff about basal insulin and bolus are doctors.”
“How fortunate, then.”
“Medicaldoctors. And people with diabetes.”
He stares for a moment. Then says, “I’m sure others do, too. Families of people with diabetes. Friends. Partners.” His voice is deep and rich, and I need to look away from the way he’s studying me.
So I take out my phone and quickly check my insulin, pretending I can’t feel his eyes on me. I lift my T-shirt to make sure that the pod didn’t get dislodged in the single act of exercise I engaged in during the last decade, and... Honestly, I can’t remember the last time I did this in front of someone who isn’t Cece. I want to ask Jack if he read up on diabetes after finding out about mine, but it’s possibly the most self-centered thought I’ve ever had.
I have about forty new notifications across five apps. All from Cece.
CECE:Where are you?
CECE:We’re going to the Starbucks across from the theater to wait for you guys to come back.
CECE:Pls, let me know you’re okay. I know this sucks but I’m with you. We can do this. We’ll move into a basement. I’ll pick up more Faux dates, you’ll be my sugar baby.
CECE:Jack texted George and told her you’re okay. She seems to think he’s trustworthy but idk. He looks like an oak tree on steroids with a six-foot-eight wingspan. Is he even human?
CECE:Elsie?
I answer with a quickI’m fine. With Jack. Go home, please.When I look up, Jack is staring.
I clear my throat. “Bad-faith interview. What does it mean?”
His expression darkens. “That would be any interview in which the outcome is, for whatever reason, predecided. Like positions that are advertised as open when they’re meant for a specific candidate.”
“The MIT position was created for Georgina?” I feel a pang in my chest.
“More complicated than that. The position was originally left vacant when James Bickart—an experimentalist—retired two years ago. He was, I believe, three million years old.”
I chuckle despite myself. “Sounds about right.”
“You know the type. Lots of tweed. Lots of distrust toward computers, lots of opinions on girls who wear nail polish despite the distraction of their male peers. I was still at Caltech, but I heard some stories. The position should have been refilled immediately, but there were issues with the budget. Then my grants and I moved here.” He pushes the forgotten mug closer. I’m impatient to hear more, but I take a sip to please him. The warmth spreading into my stomach is delicious. “I offered to help fund the position to hire another experimentalist—not out of some deep hatred for theorists, if you can believe it. I was hired by MIT to beef up their experimental output. Experimentalists are currently outnumbered, and we were filling a specific position. I mentioned the opening to George, and she told me she was interested in applying. She’s at Harvard right now, and physics academia is an old boys’ club everywhere, but... Harvard’sbad. So she sent in her materials, and... You said you’re familiar with her work. As you can imagine, everyone knew it was going to be her from the start.”
I can imagine it very well. Her thesis experiments were stepping stones to massive advancements in particle physics. Georgina is the epitome of inspiring.
