Chapter 9
Monday 8:17 a.m.
“Morning, Andrea! How are you?” I say as I step into the entry area, shaking away the cold. The institute hall is brightly lit, a strong contrast to the cloudy gray outside.
“Morning, Jane, I’m good, thank you. And you?”
“On track. Where’s Linda?” I stop and lean against the reception desk.
“She’s on sick leave.”
“Oh, no. What happened?”
“It’s not her, it’s Jeffrey. High fever for two days already.”
“Oh, no!” I look down for a moment. “Well,” I say, looking up, “if you talk to her, please give them my best, okay?”
“Of course. The door is open,” she says and points to the glass door.
“Thanks, Andrea,” I say, putting my ID badge back into my handbag.
I walk to the first elevator and press the button. The ground floor is all quiet; further down, a radio is playing quietly.
In the back of my mind, I see Sam. He hasn’t left me since yesterday evening. Even after he said good night. In my mind, he is still there.
And there’s nothing I can do about it.
The entrance door clicks open again and I turn around to check who just came in.
“Buongiorno!”
“Good morning, Frank!”
“Wow, something made your day.”
“Ah, what . . . what makes you say that?”
“I don’t know,” he says, looking at me. “You have this vague, happy, won’t-go-away smile.”
I do? Oh, no—this is bad. I can’t be so obvious! I need a diversion. “Oh, I don’t know. I guess I’m just looking forward to . . . Christmas. Yes!”
“Oh, me too! I’m going to Miya’s family’s this year.
“Oh, that’s nice. How come you’re not with your parents?”
“They already left for Italy a week ago, and it’s too long of a trip for me to go just for one week. So Miya’s parents invited me.”
“I’m sure they are eager to meet you,” I say as the elevator door opens.
“I know, I know . . .” He steps in behind me and presses the button for the fourth floor, then pushes his glasses up his nose. “I’m just . . . a little bit anxious about all this.”
“Hey, don’t worry! You’ll be great. Just be yourself.”
“I guess,” he says distractedly, looking up at the floor lights. “Still, it’s the first time, you know, and . . .” He takes a deep breath. “It just makes me a bit anxious, that’s all.”
I smile and tap him on the shoulder. “Here’s some insider info for you: they are already your fans.”
“Really? They are?” He glances at me.
I nod. “Just enjoy it, all right?”
The elevator opens on the fourth floor, and just as we exit, we run into Kevin, from HR, who was about to get in.
“Morning, guys! How’s everything?” he says, turning toward us to chat.
“Yeah, okay . . .” I try to pretend indifference, though my stomach feels all bubbly.
Frank is holding the door of the elevator for him, but Kevin waves at him. “Thanks, Frank! No need to. I’ll walk.”
Frank looks at me, then shrugs and pulls his hand away. The door closes.
There are few seconds of weird silence, then Frank says, “Listen, guys, I have to go. I booked the microscope room starting at eight, so I’m late already. See you for lunch?” He points both index fingers at us in a question.
“Sure thing,” says Kevin.
I put my thumb up as an answer.
Frank nods and leaves.
“So, Jane, how was your weekend?” Kevin unconsciously strokes his blond, firmly gelled hair as he walks with me to my office.
A flood of images fill my mind—all of them Sam—and I take a moment before I respond. “It was . . . nice. And yours?”
“Great! I met up with Frank and Chris Saturday night. We watched the latest Star Wars. You should have come, you really missed something!”
No, actually, I didn’t. I was exactly where I needed to be. “You can tell me all about it during lunch break, okay? But no spoilers!”
“You bet!” he says. “Um, by the way, you know that new James Bond is coming up. Perhaps you are, you know, interested in seeing it?”
Oh, boy… A secret agent movie . . . I barely refrain from rolling my eyes. “Yes, um . . . let me think about it, okay?”
“Of course, Jane. I can send you a link to the summary, if you want.”
“Sure, Kevin.”
“Great! See you in”—he looks at his watch—“three hours and thirty-two minutes.”
“Okay!” I wave, then turn and enter my office. I leave my jacket on my chair and slowly put my bag on the floor, thinking about what Frank had said.
A vague smile that won’t go away.
I really need to pull myself together. I can’t be running around like a headless chicken. I should be in control, not infatuated by a mysterious man with dazzling blue eyes and perfect lips and captivating—
No-no! Just shush! Stop with that. I furrow my brows, trying to chase the thought of Sam from my mind. I need to focus on important things—things that will lead me to becoming the head of a laboratory. Not Sam’s smile, or his words, or the way my whole body comes alive when he’s next to me . . .
Ah.
I close my eyes and sigh.
I can tell this is going to be difficult.
Fine. Small steps. Let’s tell David about the results first.
I take the staircase to David’s office.
The top floor has the offices of all the lab heads and the director of the institute, as well as the HR and finance departments. All the doors except the director’s are wide open, and I can hear muffled talking as I rush down the hall to the last office.
I’m just about to knock on David’s half-open door when I realize he’s on the phone, so I stop next to the door and wait for him to finish.
“. . . their own project at the moment. I already have my best person working on a related topic. I could transfer her—”
There is a pause as a muffled male voice says something on the phone.
David interjects, “Science doesn’t work like that! It takes time—”
The man interrupts him again. David sighs.
There is a silence now on both sides, and I wonder if the call is already finished. Then a person on the phone talks again. David says, “I’m—I’m sorry. I didn’t know we had someone else on the line.”
After hearing the answer, his voice sounds a bit higher and more attentive. “Oh! I’m so glad I finally have a chance to talk to you, Mr. Su—”
David falls silent for a long time, listening to the other person talk.
I look to the floor. I think this is officially called eavesdropping.
I can’t stay here. I turn to walk away, but then I hear David say, “Yes, I am aware of that. Dr. Rosenberg shared that information with me.”
Dr. Rosenberg?
Then I hear David take a sharp intake of breath. “Are you . . . are you serious?”
I instinctively turn to David’s door, but then a moment later, I turn around and walk away. That really was eavesdropping, Jane! You shouldn’t have stayed as long as you did!
Twenty feet away, I stop next to a wall displaying a gallery of photographs of all the people in the institute. They changed the arrangement recently, and I need to search to find mine. I tilt my head to the side, looking at my picture. I should have it renewed. This doesn’t look like me anymore. In four years my hair has grown long, and I’ve lost that chubby look I had in my face when I started.
Not that I’m anywhere close to thin now, but still . . . at least there’s been some benefit from my frequent Sunday walks.
I wonder who’s responsible for keeping the photos up to date. Maybe HR? I should talk to Kevin.
Then I remember I was here for a reason, and it wasn’t to look at my four-year-old photo.
I look back to David’s half-open door, checking if he’s still on the phone. I don’t hear anything anymore, so I walk back and knock on his door.
“Yes?” he says.
When I enter, David turns around from his computer, head bent as he looks at me over his glasses. “Good morning, Jane! Have a good weekend?”
“Excellent!”
His mustache twists and I know he’s smiling underneath. “Okay. Anything I should know about?” He turns his chair now completely toward me, away from his computer.
“You know that blocking reagent I’ve been trying to develop for the last few months?”
“Of course . . .”
“And in the last step, I changed a bit of the genetic sequence to adapt the binding site better?”
“Yes?”
“And I also introduced the stability sequence so it works with lower concentrations?”
“Yes?” Both of his hands are pressing on the armrests, as if he’s just about to stand up, his eyes wide open as he’s looking at me.
“It. Worked.”
He takes off his glasses and puts them on his computer keyboard. “You’re joking!”
I shake my head. “No. It worked. I checked the experiment yesterday. Two concentrations of the reagents against the negative control. It worked beautifully.”
“Show me!” He stands and heads for the door.
I follow him, almost having to run to catch up.
“Did it work with the lower concentration too?”
“Yes.”
“And how high was the negative control?”
“As high as it goes. It’s a classic plateau phase after twenty-four hours of growth.”
“Good. Very good.”
He takes the stairs down, skipping every second step. I follow, trying to keep up. He initiated this project a few months back, but I didn’t know he was so interested in the results. Jeez!
He swings the fourth-floor staircase door open, and I walk into the breeze he creates with it.
We enter the lab. “Where are the readouts?” he asks.
“In my lab book.” I pass him by and walk to my bench, picking up the notebook and opening it to the last entry with the readout paper stapled in.
David looks at the notebook. “Is this the OD of the medium?”
“No, that’s the experiment. Lower concentration.” I point to the number underneath. “This is the optical density of the medium.”
“The results are the same!”
“I know!” I have a ridiculous smile on my face as I look at him.
He turns to look at me. Then he looks at the readouts again. “This is brilliant, Jane! Brilliant!”
He puts the lab book down and begins to walk in circles, stroking his mustache with his thumb and index finger like he always does when he’s thinking. He’s quiet for several moments.
“I will of course repeat the experiment,” I add quickly, “but I think we have everything we need to start preparing for the paper. What do you think?”
“What?” He looks at me. “Yes. Later. We need to do something else first.”
“All right,” I say slowly and wait for him to continue, but when he doesn’t, I ask. “You mean, another set of data for the paper?”
“No, no. Not that. We’ll get to the paper later. There’s something else we have to do. Um, is Francesco here?”
“Yes . . . he’s in the microscope room, I think.”
He glances at his watch. “Good. Good.” He turns to leave.
“What about the paper?” I call after him.
“Later, Jane. Later.” He waves his hand as he walks out. “And—well done, Jane, you’re a star.” And he disappears into the corridor.
“Thanks, boss,” I say quietly.
I turn around and rest my palm on the sanded glass surface of my lab bench.
Well, that was strange . . .
I thought the first thing he’d want to do would be to sit down and plan how we’re going to prepare our scientific paper, maybe discuss which journals to submit it to. But no—he wants to talk to Francesco.
I sigh and shake my head.
Weird.
Just weird.