Real Life(63)

He majored in chemistry at a small undergraduate institution in Alabama. His undergraduate research was in organic adduct reactions, trying to understand how and why molecules merge, become other molecules, within the specific context of environmental chemistry. His adviser, a tall, wiry man with a long, sloping step and a mild tremor, was a respected if minor researcher in the field of acid rain. His work described a process, the slow accumulation of particles in the air that when combined become toxic or acidic, washing out of the sky into rivers and cities, destroying buildings and homes. Wallace’s job in those days was to watch as his professor mixed various solutions in a slender capillary tube and stuck it in a machine to measure its spectra.

It was beyond Wallace to understand such things then, but he was good at memorization, and he took detailed notes. He was interested enough in science, enough to know that it was his way out of the South for good. That day during orientation, when the tour guide told them about the Texas carbon, Wallace blinked slowly, dumbly. He had never heard of such a thing. The drawings from which he had learned chemistry had left no room for jokes or humor. It had never occurred to him that there could be five bonds on a carbon, even sarcastically. He had learned chemistry the way one learns French in school: too properly, too much by rote and routine, by memorizing all the rules, which of course is no way to learn a language that one intends to use.

The lab door is already open, and Wallace drops his bags at his desk. An email waits for him—from Simone. He doesn’t have to answer it. He doesn’t have to read it. But he does, doesn’t he? It’s only a matter of time. Besides, if he doesn’t answer this one, it will be followed by another and another and another, a hail of emails falling down on him like knives until eventually he must.

Beyond the window, the birds are gone. He bites the corner of his lip, opens the email, skims it. Among the responses to his last progress report, flagged in red, two lines leap out at him: Let’s talk. I’m worried.

Wallace immediately closes the email. His gut tightens. He squeezes his eyes closed. Simone’s face blooms in the dark of his mind, her intelligent blue eyes gazing at him, impassive, knowing. What will she say in that immaculate office of hers, with its delicate pieces of Danish carvings and line drawings? What does it mean, worried? Wallace has had enough of other people’s worry, enough of their concern. It’s been following him around since Friday like a persistent, hacking cough.

“Hey, Wallace,” someone says from his left. It’s Katie, coming along his bench with a look of fierce determination on her face. “I wanted to check in with you about these results. What’s the status?”

“Oh, Katie,” he says. “I’m on damage control. Trying to recover the strain as best I can, you know.” He hates the wavering uncertainty in his voice, the tremulousness of it. He shrugs.

“Okay, but where are we, I guess, in the big picture?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand the question,” he says with a sense of sharpening dread. Katie’s patience is dwindling already, her small features narrowing. She presses a hip to the bench and folds her arms.

“You were going to do some staining experiments, right?” Wallace nods. “Okay, so what I’m asking is, where do you see those fitting into this project? I’m trying to wrap up some stuff for this paper, and I’m just realizing I actually don’t know what the hell you’re even doing.”

“The staining is supposed to recapitulate the previous results,” he says after a moment, slowly, thinking his way through it as best he can, trying to remember why he had even begun this in the first place. “From your work last year. We needed to repeat it, so I was doing that . . . repeating it.”

“And that has taken a month.”

“Yes, Katie. It’s taken a month.”

“I just feel like I could do it myself, faster, instead of waiting around.”

“Well, yes, you could, but it’s my project.”

“But it’s not your name, Wallace, on the paper, is it? It’s not your thesis.”

“My name is on the paper.”

“As third author.”

“Yeah, well, it’s still my name. It’s still my work.”

“But you don’t really . . . you aren’t really . . .” Katie isn’t exactly frowning at him. She isn’t exactly glaring at him. Wallace knows she is trying merely to get to the heart of something that is confusing to her, that she cannot understand. It’s the look of someone sifting through their thoughts, turning things over. What she wants to say, he can tell, is that he isn’t working hard enough, that his dedication is lacking in some way. She is trying, in her own way, to say this as gently and kindly as possible.

“It’s my work,” he says. “It’s my work, Katie. And I’m doing my best. And if that isn’t fast enough for you, then I’m sorry.”

“Right, that’s fine, but you can’t just take your time when other people’s work is on the line, Wallace.”

“I’m not taking my time. I’m doing my work,” he says. “I’m doing what I can.”

“Well, I think sometimes you have to step aside when your best isn’t enough. Like, objectively, if you aren’t cutting it, then it’s selfish to stay in the way.”

“Am I in your way, Katie? Is that how you feel?”