“Who the…”
That asshole. He walks away before I can finish my sentence.
Pick me up at eight. Work for them. Asshole.
“Hey, Sasha,” Mike, my office-mate, says as he walks up the stairs. He stops on the landing in front of me. “What are you doing?”
I let out a breath and mutter, “Nothing.”
“You OK? You sound stressed. And your face is all wet. Didn’t you use your umbrella?” He looks down at it on the floor. “You never get stressed. So the world must be upside down right now.”
I paint on my trademark smile. “I’m fine, just thinking about my orals today. How about you? Are you ready for them?”
“I took mine yesterday.”
“What?”
“Yeah, I’m skipping town for winter break, going to see some family in Europe, so they let me take them early.”
I pick up my umbrella and we start walking up the stairs towards our office on the top floor. “How’d you do?”
“Passed.” He grins. Mike is average-looking in all ways but one—that smile. He’s got a nice smile and I’ve been lucky to be sharing an office with someone so upbeat for two years. “So I get to spend all next semester interning for Professor Ling in Montana.”
“That’s wonderful!” I say it enthusiastically, but I’m ready to explode with jealousy. I wanted that internship. I figured I had it in the bag.
“You’re not mad, are you? That I got it?”
“Oh, no,” I say, patting him on the shoulder like friends do. “Congrats, really. You deserve it.”
“Thanks. I know you’ll get a good one too. Probably that dig site in Utah everyone’s been scrambling for.”
We get to the office door and I throw my bag down on my desk and start pulling out my computer. I have some last-minute work to get my class grades in on time, and then the rest of the day is going over notes for the oral examination later this afternoon. “Yeah, one can hope.” I smile at him, and then his phone rings and his face lights up. Must be his girlfriend. He walks out of the office, chatting happily about his promising future.
I drop into my crappy desk chair and despair over mine.
And then I remember Agent Jax and my anger is back. Kissed me! Said we’re going on a date tonight! Said I lost my game!
I have game, dammit. I’ve got more game than anyone. I’m like a game master. I just stopped playing a long time ago. That game ended and this one began. I’m in a new game.
The only problem with this new game is that I’m really not a VIP player. And it sucks to admit it, but grad school is not as easy as my mom made it sound. She got a master’s in psychology. In a foreign country, for fuck’s sake. Speaking a whole other language.
But I’m here in the US, speaking English, and everything I do seems to be average.
I sigh. This has been my life for two years. I like teaching. I like the dig sites I get to go to in the summer and over breaks. But I don’t have an internship lined up for this break. In fact, this is the first year in a very long time that I won’t be off doing something over Christmas. Usually I go with my parents to New Zealand and we stay for a few weeks if I don’t have academic plans.
And now I’ve got nothing, because they aren’t going to New Zealand this year. The show my dad was producing ended last spring. They’re not even staying home, so I can’t go visit. They’re taking my little genius of a brother, Five, to look at colleges. He’s ten. Ten, for fuck’s sake. And he’s probably gonna have that PhD before I do.
“Ugh.” I pull up my faculty account and start checking messages before I get started. Professor Brown wants to see me in her office at three. Probably to give me encouragement before my orals. Other than that, I’ve got nothing. Finals for undergrads ended last week, so the campus is nearly dead. Only us lowly grad students and work-study people are left.
I get busy on finalizing the grades for my classes. Mike comes back and does the same, interrupted by many, many, many annoying calls from fellow students and faculty members congratulating him on his success.
I’m happy for him. He’s a total anthropology nerd. He deserves all this, he really does.
But I’m jealous. I can’t help it. I’m a nerd. I like anthropology. I love dinosaurs more. But you can’t major in dinosaurs. That was a real bummer when I figured that out. Which is why I got a practical undergraduate degree in geological engineering. I figured that would look really good on a resume. Especially coming from The School of Mines.
But I was wrong about that. Mike has a BS in human evolution. That’s the ticket to anthropology success. Because no one cares about dinosaurs. No one over the age of twelve, anyway. They all go fangirl over human shit.
I could spend my whole life with ancient reptile bones and be happy. But those internships are few and far between. That one I had last summer in Peru was the only thing scheduled for years.
I sigh. Which is why I will be spending this Christmas alone. Shut up in my fortress. Trying to forget about my past and be hopeful about my future.
But I don’t feel very hopeful right now. And I know it’s just nerves before my orals. I can’t wait for those to be over. Once I finish those, I will officially start my research.
Only a few more years, Sasha, I tell myself. Then you can go forth and conquer your passion for dinosaurs with academic support.
It seems so far away though.
“Ugh.” Back to work. I finish up the final grades for my class, send them to the registrar’s office, and then pack my stuff up to go see Professor Brown.
The temperature has dropped since I came in this morning, and the rain is just starting to turn to sleet when I open my umbrella and head out the door. Professor Brown’s office is a few buildings over, so I jog there, trying not to slip in the slush that has accumulated over the day. When I finally pull open the door of the administrative offices, my stomach does all kinds of tumbling. Orals are a big deal. It’s normal to be nervous. Once this is over I will feel so much better. I can start planning my research and really begin moving towards this goal I’ve had since I was a kid.
Professor Brown’s door is open when I get there. I knock politely, just to let her know I’m coming in. “Hey!” I say, cheerfully.
“Sasha.” She smiles. She’s only in her mid-forties, so she is beautiful in a way that says sophisticated and smart. Her blonde hair is styled into a fashionable bob, her makeup is perfect but not overdone, and her eyes are always bright with wonder about the world around her. She’s brilliant and I’m very lucky she agreed to mentor me. “Come in and close the door behind you.”
“Ut-oh,” I laugh, closing the door as she asked. “I feel like I’m in trouble.” I say it jokingly, but when I turn to take a seat in front of her large mahogany desk, she has a frown on her face. “What?” My anxiety starts creeping out.
She takes off her glasses and that’s when I realize I really am in trouble. “Sasha, we’ve cancelled your orals for today. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier, but I thought this was a conversation that deserved a face-to-face meeting.”
“What?” Oh my God. What’s happening?
“We don’t think you’re ready to commit to your candidacy. You are a smart girl…”
It goes on like that for twenty minutes. I feel the sting of tears. She comforts me. Tells me I’m brilliant. But if I was brilliant, then why are they insisting I take a semester off?
I walk out of her office stunned.
I’ve been ordered to think about my future. What do I really want out of this degree? Why do I want this degree?
What the hell?
Why the fuck does she think I want this degree? I want to study bones! It’s not rocket science! You need a PhD to get grants, and dig sites, and authorization from local governments. You need academic backing and to get backing you have to have a degree!
Of course, I didn’t say that. I told her what she wanted me to say. That I have a passion for anthropology. And it’s a not a lie. I like it. But it’s just a stepping stone to dinosaurs.
I stopped mentioning dinosaurs years ago once I figured out no one would take me seriously. So yeah, this program is not about dinosaurs. This program is about all kinds of old stuff. Fossils and human evolution and all that shit. What I’m doing is not so out of the ordinary. People use degrees to get other places all the time.
But this university, and specifically this program, does not want to be used as a stepping stone. And even though I never used those words in our conversation, she’s on to me.
I push through the doors of the museum so I can go upstairs and collect my things.
Collect my things! I’ve been ousted. I don’t even get to prove myself!
I am so glad Mike left for the day once I get upstairs. How humiliating it would be to have to pack up and walk out knowing he just got the dream assignment.
When I get to my desk I realize I have very few things to collect. Some office supplies in my desk drawer. Some notebooks with my lab results. And my dinosaur Chia Pet.
All my samples can stay in the freezers until I come back, Professor Brown said. If I choose to come back. She actually said that.
I slump down into my chair and struggle with this very unexpected ending to a day that was supposed to plant my feet firmly on the ground. I feel… defeated. And small. Insignificant.
But beyond that, I feel… cheated.
And, if I’m being perfectly honest with myself, outed.
I’m a fraud. And she knows it.
I put my head on my desk and close my eyes. How many years have I painted this fake smile on my face, just trying to fit into this world? Ten years, that’s how long. Ten long years of pretending that I am normal. And what good has it done me? I’m on the cusp of success. I have the golden ticket in my sights, and it’s all pulled away in an instant because they know.
I’m not normal.
I’m a liar.
I’m a killer.
And even though she didn’t say any of that, that’s how I took it. Because it’s all true. I’ve been deceiving these people. Pretending that I’m one of them when I’m not. I’m damaged. And no amount of studying, no college education or PhD degree or fake smiles painted on my face, can change that.
I was never Sasha Aston. She doesn’t exist.
I was born, and have always been, Sasha Cherlin. Company kid. Daughter to a traitor. Child assassin.