Page 22 of Love, Theoretically
God, I hope he has itchy, purulent ass acne for the rest of his natural life. “I know you have despised me since the very first moment we met,” I spit out.
He bites the inside of his cheek. “You do?”
“Yes. And you know what? It doesn’t matter if you hated me at first sight, because I’ve hated you long before we ever met. I hated you the first time I heard your name. I hated you when I was twelve and read what you’d done inScientific American. I’ve hated you harder, I’ve hated you longer, and I’ve hated you for better reasons.”
Jack doesn’t look so amused anymore. This is new to me—talking to others like themeI really am. It’s new and different and weird, and I freakingloveit.
“I’m really good at hating you, Jack, so here’s what I’m going to do: not only am I going to get this job, but when we’re colleagues at MIT, I’m going to make sure that you have to look at me every day and wish that I were George. I’m going to make you regret every single little jab. And I’m going to single-handedly make your life so hard that you’ll regret taking on me, and Monica, and theoretical physics, until you cry in your office every morning and finally apologize to the scientific community for what you did.”
He isreallynot amused now. “Is that so?” he asks. Cold. Cutting.
This time I’m the one to smile. “You bet,Jonathan.”
I open the door. Leave the restroom.
And I don’t glance at him for the rest of the evening.
4
ENTROPY
So. Just to get this straight. You, Elsie ‘I’m allergic to peanuts but I still ate Mrs. Tuttle’s homemade brittle because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, have you seen my EpiPen?’ Hannaway—you told Jack Smith... allthat?”
I’ve kicked off the red dress, and I’m neurotically pacing in the glory of my thigh highs, striped cotton underwear, and insulin pod. I should be cold, but my anger burns toasty from within, like the plasma core of the sun. “It’s a minor allergy, Mrs. Tuttle is very elderlyandour landlady, and yes, I did—because Jackdeserved it.”
“I don’t doubt it.” Cece lies back on the couch, watching like my meltdown is the apotheosis of entertainment. Hedgie lounges in her lap with a schadenfreudey, demonic gleam, clearly getting a serotonin boost from my impending demise. “That article he wrote was such a huge deal, every academic field still talks about it. Even linguistics. How didyounot know what he looked like?”
I rub my eyes. My fingers come back soot black. “I was engaging in an academic boycott.”
“Maybe not your most fortunate idea.”
“If someone wrote a hoax paper saying that adjectives suck, you’d boycott them, too.”
“I’d straight up murder them. And I’m proud of you for finally yelling at someone—a most pleasing moment in your career. But my question is, how are you going to do”—she waves her hand inchoately—“all that?”
“Do what?”
“Hatch out of the yolky egg of adjuncthood. Get the job. Make Jack rue the day he was born. What’s the plan here?”
“Right. Yeah.” I stop pacing. Massage my temples. “I have none.”
“I see no flaws in that.”
The only response I can think of involves kicking the top part of the credenza. I do just that, then proceed to limp around with a swollen pinky toe.
“I’ve never seen you like this, Elsie.”
“I’ve neverfeltlike this.” I’m a Large Hadron Collider: atomic particles smash angrily about my body, building up the energy to burn Jack to a crisp. Or at least cook him well done. I can’t remember the last time I experienced so many negative emotions. “I should have known. I always had a bad feeling about him, and last night—that’s why he’s so good at Go. He was a physicist all along, that—thatpiece of Uranus—”
“Science insult. Nice.”
“I bet he thinks inFahrenheit—”
“Ooh, sick burn.”
“—and spends his free time flying to Westminster Abbey to dance on Stephen Hawking’s grave—”
“Hawking’sdead?”