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)
“Could be the fact that I can actually sleep through the night on Friday nights now that I’m not living on a college campus?” I say, rising to my elbows and looking over at her. “Or perhaps the fact that I’ve been eating something other than turkey sandwiches from the school cafeteria for the first time in a decade? Or—”
“Fluidity,” she says, snapping her fingers. “That’s what I’m seeing.”
I pull down my sunglasses to give her a bemused look. “What?”
“Ever since you started your academic march toward tenure, you’ve been so rigid. Always heading in one single direction, never looking side to side. Now you’re more… Relaxed isn’t the right word; that’s too temporary of a state. But there’s a lovely calm about you now. I wonder where that’s stemming from.” Her fingers drum the chair’s arm as she considers this, rings tapping.
“I told you, sleep. Good food. No deadlines.”
“Maybe,” she says, mostly to herself. “Maybe. How are the Buzzes?”
“They’re good,” I say, startled by the sudden change in subject. “Great, actually. I moved them down to the greenhouse for a couple weeks there, but I took them back up to the roof. They seem happier there.”
Her smile is smug.
“I know, I know.” I flick my sunglasses back onto my nose. “You told me they liked the roof. I should have listened.”
Her smugness only seems to increase, and I have the distinct impression that I’m missing something, but that’s pretty much par for the course with my aunt.
She leans forward and pats my foot fondly, then stands. “We need some nice iced tea. Then I’m going to give Judith a call about the bridge meeting tonight. I’ll tell her to add an extra chair for you.”
“Oh, please don’t,” I beg. “I have no idea how to play bridge.”
“That big brain of yours? You’ll pick it up.”
I shake my head, resigned, because since I’ve been here, Lillian has declared that my “big brain” would make it easy for me to dominate at golf, pickleball, bunco, and bingo.
Needless to say, my “genius” status does very little to help me in physical activity or games built primarily on luck.
“Not Belinda,” I hear Lillian say loudly from inside her kitchen. “Miranda. Like the lawyer from Sex and the City with the orange hair. Orange! Hair! Miranda’s coming to bridge… bridge! Where’s your hearing aid?”
I smile to myself as I reach over to pick up my buzzing phone. I expect it to be Daphne checking in, but I sit upright when I see the caller ID.
Stanford University.
I’ve been expecting this call—hoping for it? Dreading it? But now that it’s here, I feel more confounded than ever.
Heart pounding, I take a deep breath, then answer. “Dr. Miranda Reed.”
This used to be a title I used several times a day with pride. It’s been months since I’ve been anything other than Miranda, and I feel a little pang of regret that soon I’ll have to wear the full doctorate mantle again.
“Miranda, I’m so glad I caught you. This is Dr. Samuel Belmont. I’m the head of the Physics Department here at Stanford.”
Here we go.
“What an honor to hear from you,” I say in a crisp, modulated tone. It’s harder than I expected to slip back into professor mode, and even though that was my persona for years, it feels a little foreign. Uncomfortable.
Probably just rusty, I reassure myself.
“I hope it’s not too gushing to say how much I enjoyed your paper on topological quantum computing last year,” I continue.
“Gush away; that one nearly killed me to get right,” he says with a laugh that’s not quite fake, but practiced. As though he’s used that exact line a thousand times in the past.
“So, Dr. Reed,” he says, his voice turning a bit more serious, but still kind. “I’d love to have a conversation about you joining us here at Stanford.”
“I—wow.” I struggle for the correct response. Knowing from Jamie that this opening was coming and actually hearing it are two very different things.
“I’m honored,” I say truthfully. “But before the conversation goes any further, I need to make sure you understand—”
“I heard about the tenure board’s decision at your current school. But I can also say it doesn’t make the least bit of sense to me,” he says. “I’ve read your work. I’ve seen your work. Your student assessments tell me you’re the most universally adored professor I’ve seen in STEM in a long time. You’re exactly the sort of associate professor I want in my department, and though I obviously can’t guarantee the future, I think you’ll find the tenure board here has different… values from your current university.”
It’s not a promise of tenure. I know that. But it’s as close to one as I’m ever going to get, and to hear it coming from someone as respected as Dr. Belmont, from a school as revered as Stanford…