Page 50 of Conspiracies and Chemistry

“I know. Intellectually, I know.”

Her smile was tight. “He’d be proud of you for the work you’re doing.”

“I know that too. Still, I miss him.”

She rubbed my arm, and I put my hand over hers. I stared deep into her eyes. They were the color of a salt pond, deep and clear. I could see straight through them to the kindness she tried to conceal underneath her scientific exterior. I could love this woman.

Like she read the thought on my face, she slipped her hand from under mine and stood. “I should go.”

I rose too. We were close enough that I could’ve counted the freckles scattered across her nose and cheeks. For a second, I considered closing the distance to kiss her again. To give her what her wide pupils said she wanted.

She wanted what was easy. Something we didn’t have to make public, a fling she could walk away from. But I was starting to think I’d never walk away from Tessa Wright.

So I stepped back, away from the temptation of the freckles I wanted to count everywhere. “Can we do this again?”

One side of her mouth turned up. “Okay, I’ll let you cook for me again.”

If that was what she could give, I’d take it.

24

Messages in the Corn

From Barry Wright’s manifesto:

Crop circles are messages from extraterrestrials.

TESSA

When I pushed the cart into Oliver’s lab on a Friday in late February, I could feel the difference in the vibe. Even a couple days ago, people had bent over microscopes, furrowing their brows, pausing only to scribble a note on their lab tablets. The space had felt tense. Of course it had. Everyone knew the stakes. But today, people leaned against the tables, their goggles pushed up on their heads or folded neatly into pockets, smiling and patting each other on the back. Someone had ripped down the poster, which read,9 days.We didn’t need it anymore. There was joy even in my jaded, dusty heart.

“Tessa!” Sadie scurried to my side, her lab coat flapping open in a way Oliver wouldn’t have approved. “It’s the lab techs’ job to bring in and put away the supplies.”

“Not these supplies.” I untucked the flaps of the beaker carton to reveal my prize.

“Champagne?” she squealed.

“We all earned it by getting both tests into clinical trials nine days early.” I pulled a sleeve of clear plastic cups from the box. “Let’s get this party started.”

As the team popped the corks and poured the bubbly, I held back a smile. How long would it take Oliver to realize what was going on and try to spoil the fun? It served him right after the sexual frustration he’d put me through over the past three weeks. Dinners at his place with his sleeves rolled up to reveal his sexy forearms, watching the action movies we discovered we both loved while I cuddled up to his side on his sofa, his arm around me and his warm, solid body full of promise.

And not a single kiss.

I imagined his face when he found us drinking in his lab, puzzled with that little line between his eyebrows. Then his lips would turn down, and his forehead would furrow. That adorable long piece of hair would flop down over it and then he’d growl my name in the tone that made me shiver.

Shiver? I stood straighter. I was a grown woman. I didn’tshiver.Not for any man—or woman—and certainly not for Oliver, who was my goddamn coworker. Because I knew how it would turn out. Humiliation, heartbreak, and all the work I’d done here wasted.

Though, would it really be wasted? We’d sent the ovarian cancer test to clinical trials this morning. Maybe someone else’s mother could get a diagnosis before it was too late. She’d recover and go back to her job as a teacher or an architect or an ambassador. Some other daughter, some other husband, wouldn’t lose their mother and wife and be irreparably broken.

More selfishly, I was proud that we were on track to send the endometriosis test to clinical trials next week. If it did well in the trial, as I was certain it would, I’d have made a difference to all the people out there who could get diagnosed and treated. Who could get relief. And I didn’t need credit or recognition for that. I’d know in my heart what I’d contributed to people like me.

But right now, I wanted to be called out for bringing a case of champagne into the lab, where food and drink were forbidden. For starting a dance party. I’d take the blame for it even though it wasn’t my speaker that was blasting out hip-hop. I blinked away from Yujun, who was doing the Running Man.

Where the fuck was Oliver?

I tapped Aanya’s shoulder and leaned in close to whisper, “Where’s Oliver?”

She shrugged. “Haven’t seen him all afternoon. But he should be here! Want me to find him?”

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