Lessons in Chemistry(24)

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—

And yet about a month later, her boss, Dr. Donatti, accused her of exactly that. “You’re overreaching, Miss Zott,” he said, pausing to squeeze the top of her shoulder. “Abiogenesis is more of a PhD-university-this-topic-is-so-boring-no-one-cares sort of thing. And don’t take this the wrong way, but it exceeds your intellectual grasp.”

“And exactly what way am I supposed to take that?” She shrugged his hand off.

“What happened here?” he said, ignoring her tone as he took her bandaged fingers in his hands. “If you’re struggling with the lab equipment, you know you can ask one of the fellas to help you.”

“I’m learning to row,” she said, snatching her fingers back. Despite her recent gains, the next several rows had been complete failures.

“Rowing, eh?” Donatti said, rolling his eyes. Evans.



* * *



—

Donatti had been a rower too, and at Harvard, no less, where he’d had the incredible misfortune to row just once against Evans and his precious Cambridge boat at the fucking Henley. Their catastrophic loss (seven boat lengths), witnessed only by a handful of people who’d managed to glimpse it over a sea of impossibly big hats, was carefully blamed on some fish and chips they’d ingested the night before, instead of the tonnage of beer that had washed it down.

In other words, they were all still drunk at the start.

After the race, their coach had told them to go over and congratulate the la-di-dah Cambridge crew. That’s when Donatti had first learned one of the Cambridge boys was an American—an American who held some sort of grudge against Harvard. As he shook Evans’s hand, Donatti managed “Good row,” but instead of responding in kind, Evans said, “Jesus, are you drunk?”

Donatti took an instant dislike to him, a dislike that tripled when he found out that Evans was not only studying chemistry as he was, but he was that Evans—Calvin Evans—the guy who’d already made a major mark in the chemistry world.

Was it any surprise that, years later, when Evans accepted the incredibly insulting Hastings offer Donatti himself had crafted, Donatti wasn’t overly enthusiastic? First, Evans didn’t remember him—rude. Second, Evans appeared to have maintained his fitness—annoying. Third, Evans told Chemistry Today that he took the position, not based on Hastings’s sterling reputation, but because he liked the fucking weather. Seriously—the man was an asshole. However, there was one consolation. He, Donatti, was director of Chemistry, and not just because his father played golf with the CEO, or because he happened to be the man’s godson, and certainly not because he’d married the man’s daughter. Bottom line, the great Evans would be reporting to him.

To enforce that pecking order, he called a meeting with the blowhard, then purposely showed up twenty minutes late. Unfortunately, to an empty conference room, because Evans hadn’t shown up at all. “Sorry, Dino,” Evans later informed him. “I don’t really like meetings.”

“It’s Donatti.”



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—

And now? Elizabeth Zott. He didn’t like Zott. She was pushy, smart, opinionated. Worse, she had terrible taste in men. Unlike so many others, though, he did not find Zott attractive. He glanced down at a silver-framed photograph of his family: three big-eared boys bracketed by the sharp-beaked Edith and himself. He and Edith were a team the way couples were meant to be a team—not by sharing hobbies like rowing for fuck’s sake—but in the way their sexes deemed socially and physically appropriate. He brought home the bacon; she pumped out the babies. It was a normal, productive, God-approved marriage. Did he sleep with other women? What a question. Didn’t everyone?

“—my underlying hypothesis—” Zott was saying.

Underlying hypothesis his ass. This was the other thing he hated about Zott: she was tireless. Stiff. Didn’t know when to quit. Standard rower attributes, now that he thought about it. He hadn’t rowed in years. Was there really a women’s team in town? Obviously, she couldn’t possibly be rowing with Evans. An elite rower like Evans would never deign to get in a boat with a novice, even if they were sleeping together. Scratch that; especially if they were sleeping together. Evans probably signed her up for some beginner crew, and Zott, wanting to prove that she could hold her own—per usual—went along with it. He shuddered at the thought of a bunch of struggling rowers, their blades hitting the water like out-of-control spatulas.

“—I’m determined to see this through, Dr. Donatti—” Zott asserted.

Yes, yes, there it was. Women like her always used the word “determined.” Well, he was determined, too. Just last night he’d come up with a new way to deal with Zott. He was going to steal her away from Evans. What better way to fix the big man’s wagon? Then, once he’d made the Evans-Zott romance a crash scene with no survivors, he’d dump her and return to his once-again pregnant housewife and impossibly loud children, no harm done.

His plan was simple: first, attack Zott’s self-esteem. Women were so easily crushed.

“Like I said,” Donatti emphasized as he stood, sucking in his gut as he shooed her toward the door. “You’re just not smart enough.”