Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 69877 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69877 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
“I’m on it,” Daphne says, standing. “Miranda, you need anything while I’m inside?”
“Tenure?” I ask hopefully.
“More wine, coming up,” she says with a cheeky grin before heading across the small patio toward Lillian’s home.
It’s cool for April, but the three of us prefer our Friday hangouts alfresco as often as we possibly can. But since the sun is setting, I pull my aunt’s blanket from the back of her chair and tuck it around her legs.
As I’m leaning over her, my aunt cups my cheeks, her chunky, assorted rings pressing pleasantly against my face. “I’m sorry, dear,” she says, a wistful expression on her face. “Knowing their reasons are bullshit doesn’t make it any easier.”
“It’s fine,” I say, even though it’s far from fine. “Being here helps. I always feel… peaceful in this place.”
She gestures toward her small garden area. “It’s the little fairies. They keep the aphids off my rosebushes and they sprinkle good vibes.”
“Do the fairies wear red?” I ask, taking a sip of my wine.
“Some of them,” Lillian says in all seriousness.
“Those aren’t fairies. They’re Coccinellidae.”
“Sweetie, just say ladybugs,” Daphne chimes in, coming back with a bottle of sherry in one hand and a bottle of white wine in the other.
She’s reapplied her trademark orange-red lipstick, though as always, it looks just imperfectly perfectly mussed. That’s Daphne’s whole thing; her dark blond hair is always just a little tousled, her bangs just a tad too long. Her style is a compelling assemblance. She’s cool French-girl chic, beachy surfer girl, and mischievous witch rolled into one tall, skinny package. She looks like she could steal your man, become your best friend, and cast a spell all in the same day.
Of course, Daphne would never steal anyone’s man.
But the best friend part? Absolutely.
And maybe the witchy part, too.
Lillian calls Daphne and me the odd couple, and it’s an apt title. By comparison, I’m shorter, quieter, almost always dress in slim-fitted black turtlenecks, and have exactly one persona, one facet to my personality:
Brainy.
One does not look at Dr. Miranda Reed and think, “Gosh, now there’s a multifaceted woman with an air of mystery!”
They think, “Now there’s someone who could help my daughter with her calculus homework.”
Now, don’t get me wrong, I love being a scientist. I love science. But I’ll confess there are times when I envy how well rounded Daphne seems to be. And there are days when I stand in front of a classroom explaining the indisputable fact that one day, billions of years from now, our sun will die, our solar system will cease to exist, and I wonder if I’m missing something.
Or worse, I’ll wonder if I’m doing my students a disfavor by distilling our incredible universe into a pile of facts.
Maybe that’s why I’m “fixated on science pop culture,” as the tenure board believes. Perhaps it’s my attempt to infuse some meaning into it all, even if I’m still struggling to figure out that meaning myself.
“Ladybirds,” Lillian says, apparently still thinking about her red garden fairies as she snaps her gnarled fingers in recollection. “That’s what he called them.”
“That’s what who called what?” Daphne asks, because my aunt’s conversational trails can be difficult to follow even before she starts in on her sherry.
“My darling Harold. He was from England originally, and he always called ladybugs ladybirds.”
“See?” I gesture to my aunt as I turn to Daphne in triumph. “This is one of the reasons I use the scientific name.”
Daf props her chin on her hand and gazes at me. “Possibly also one of the reasons you’re still single, babe.”
Lillian lets out a small snort, and I give them each a mock glare.
“Okay, sorry,” Daphne says. “Let’s get back down to business.”
“What business?” I ask. “The cheese?”
“That,” Lillian says. “And figuring out our next steps.”
I smile at her choice of “we” and “our.” Rationally, I know there’s not much my very non-science-minded aunt can do to help me navigate a perilous career crossroads, but it’s because she’s so far out of the world of academia that her support means so much.
To say that Lillian is the black sheep of the Reed family would be like saying the sun is hot. She’s my father’s older sister, and a self-proclaimed black sheep. I’m still not quite sure I have the full story of her life, but the version she likes to tell is that she escaped her family’s stifling “Bostonian clutches” to visit Manhattan when she was in her twenties. She met a wealthy New Yorker—the aforementioned darling Harold—and married him within a week.
He’d passed away suddenly just before I was born, but the free-spirited Lillian opted to stay here in the Cottage rather than return to the uptight Reeds in New England.
“Yeah, what happens next?” Daphne asks. “Or is it too soon to tackle that?”
“Honestly, I don’t have a ton of choices,” I say, lifting my shoulder.