Love, Theoretically

From: [email protected]

Subject: Macbeth reflection paper

Dr. Hannaday,

I’m focusing my paper on Lady Macbeth as the fourth witch. Some parts of the text support this interpretation—do you mind taking a look at what I have so far? The file is attached.

Sincerely,

Cam

From: [email protected]

Subject: who is cute

U doc u cute u really cute u sooooo cute

From: [email protected]

Subject: Please disregard

Dr. Hannaway,

My roommate accidentally ate the wrong batch of brownies and locked himself in the bathroom with my phone. Please ignore any emails I might have sent.

Cheers,

Ashton

From: [email protected]

Subject: Thermo paper

Extension plz.

The following week is soul-crushingly busy, with both the run-of-the-mill grind of adjuncthood and catching up on the work I missed during the interview. No worries, though: in between proctoring exams and teaching the wonders of the Fraunhofer diffraction, I still carve out opportunities to agonize over whether I got the job, when I’ll know whether I got the job, how I’ll know whether I got the job, and who’ll tell me whether I got the job. See? Excellent multitasking skills. Almost as though I’m not a human disaster juggling several subclinical mood disorders at any given time.

The iTwat becomes my faithful companion, lest I miss a call, an email, a text message, a Vatican smoke signal informing me that my days of pain are gone:

Welcome to MIT, Elsie, says Monica’s disembodied voice, ready to groom me as her successor.

You’re now part-icle of the Physics Department, Volkov guffaws, hands on his belly.

I hear you stole George’s job, Jack tells me, clucking his tongue from a whole foot above me, smiling only with those beautiful, genetically improbable eyes of his. You and I should really learn to get along.

It’s all in vain. Whenever I pick up, it’s telemarketers. Phishing scams reminding me to pay a warranty on the car I do not own. Lucas, calling to bitch about Lance. Lance, calling to bitch about Lucas. Mom, calling to bitch about Lucas and Lance. On one memorable occasion, Dana calling to ask my opinion on whether my brothers would agree to have sex with her at the same time. “Why’s everyone so into threesomes all of a sudden?” I ask, and then hastily walk away when the secretary of the UMass Biophysics Department looks up from the exams she’s archiving.

I try to call Greg, but he doesn’t pick up or answer my texts, which sends me into an additional spiral of anxiety: I’ve ruined his life. He’ll hate me forever. But I can’t force him to accept my apology, so I sublimate the nervous energy into refreshing my email: a beloved, if fruitless, hobby. No mit.edu address appears in my inbox—just students on the verge of mental breakdowns at 11:34 on a Wednesday night because they forgot whether chapter 8 will be covered on the test (Pls pls pls say no, Dr. H.). Because it’s grad school application season, a few even make it to office hours to ask for recommendation letters. When I point out to a Boston University senior that he failed my class, he blinks confusedly and asks, “Is that a no?”

On Thursday night, halfway through loading the dishwasher, Cece catches me trying to unlock the home screen with my elbow.

“That’s it.” She picks up the iTwat and slides it in her pocket. “I’m confiscating this till tomorrow.”

“No. No, please! I really need it.” I sound defensive and whiny. What a combination. “It’s my Linus blankie.”

“You’ve developed a transitional object in your late twenties?”

“A what?”

“Security blankets, teddy bears, you know. That stuff kids latch on to when they’re anxious, they’re called transitional objects.”

“Where do they transition you to?”

She gives me a consternated look. “The merciless ravages of adulthood.”

It actually helps, not being able to stalk the social media of the entire MIT search committee for one evening. Monica posts only about the papers her grads publish, anyway. Volkov hasn’t been active since 2017, when he retweeted a “Thank God Newton wasn’t under a coconut tree” meme. George, if that’s his real account, is all about pics of his lunches (which look annoyingly delicious). Jack, of course, is not on social media.

Which is fine. Because he’s in my head—plenty. Not that I know why. First, I’m not sure I believe anything he said. Second, I’m almost sure I don’t believe anything he said. Third, he’s still the guy who wrote that hoax paper, and fourth, he wants another candidate to get the job. Fifth: no. Just no. Sixth, if I believed anything he said, three, four, and five would still be valid.

“No. I didn’t see him during the rest of my interview,” I tell Dr. L. when I visit him in his office.

He smiles, pleased. His turtleneck is the same dark gray as his hair. “Very well, Elise. And what about your talk? Did you change it like I told you?”

Dr. L.’s feedback can sometimes be a tad out of touch. For instance, I don’t think that writing the entire history of liquid crystals research on a slide in 8.5-point font is a good idea, but:

“I did,” I lie. When he smiles again, I savor knowing that I pleased him, but the moment I step out of his office, guilt sweeps over me. For deceiving him. Or maybe . . . maybe for having admitted to myself that I find Jack, who ruined my mentor’s career, attractive—viscerally attractive, in a way I didn’t think I was able to notice.

It occurs to me on Friday night that the attraction has little to do with him being tall or handsome, and everything to do with how perceptive he is.

Jack sees me—a puppet who maybe, just maybe, is a real girl after all.

And because he sees me, I cannot interact with him safely. And that’s why I’m not willing to think about the things he said to me. The way he looked. The dimple. His hand sliding up the inside of my thigh, warm, inexorable. Elsie. You know what I want to do to you? I shake my head. I’ll spare you the graphic details. I’m sure you can imagine.

Okay—yes, there have been dreams. A dream. Graphic. Detailed. A little sweaty. But no, nope, no. I have other things to get an ulcer over. Time’s arrow. Climate change. The lack of government accountability and transparency. My professional future. I can choose what to stress about, and Jack’s not it.

That’s what I tell myself until Saturday night, when it all comes to a head.

•   •   •

“Sometimes I wonder why I wasn’t born in the early seventeenth century, which really hinders my ability to wear a ruff in public and practice leech-based medicine. Or in ancient Rome, where I could have spent my days in a socially acceptable cycle of reclining, eating, puking. But then I experience wonders like this in IMAX, and I know, I just know, that I was meant to be alive in this day and age. My reward for an upright, leechless existence.”

I blink at Cece, eyes still bleary from three hours in the theater. When we walked inside, the sun was up and the last week’s worth of snow had finally melted. Now it’s pitch black, and Cece’s catching a whole new batch of flakes with her tongue, like the Florida-born dork she is.

I do love her. Quite a bit. And that’s why I sacrificed my precious Saturday afternoon to the gods of Faking It and spent it watching the original version of the famed 1968 Kubrick masterpiece, 2001: A Space Odyssey. One hundred and sixty excruciating minutes of solar system screen saver pics set to . . . Vivaldi, maybe?

With movies like this, who needs waterboarding?

“Wasn’t it amazing?” She beams.

“It sure was lots of things.”

Cece is not too high on the cinematography to notice my tone. “You didn’t like it?” She frowns. “I do agree that the ‘Dawn of Man’ scene where the ape looks at the bone was dearly missed.”

“Um, yeah. That’s it.”

She steps in front of me, cocking her head. Bundled up in her red maxi coat, she looks about sixteen. “You didn’t enjoy the movie?”

It’s easier like that, isn’t it? Never showing anyone who you really are . . . When you’re yourself, that’s when you’re exposed.

For a split second, what Jack told me flashes through my head, a too-catchy tune earworming around. It’s nothing I hadn’t known, but once put into words, it got harder to ignore—a brusque shift from procedural to semantic knowledge.

Say I considered it. Cece, after all, is my closest friend. I could smile, slide my arm under hers, pull her toward the T station, and say conversationally, I didn’t like the movie. I have no idea what even happened. My favorite character was the evil computer, and twenty minutes in I was on the verge of letting out the piercing shriek of a million Brood Ten cicadas. Also I’d love to never again watch the director’s cut of literally anything—in fact, I’d rather spend an afternoon staring at my student loan portal, the one that makes me burst into tears once a month. And since we’re at it, the other day I caught your hedgehog defecating on my pillow. My tea is next.

The thought of admitting any of this makes my right side ache. That ulcer, probably.

I still slide my arm under Cece’s, but what I say is, “It was sublime. The journey of man’s consciousness into the universe. The eventual passage of that consciousness onto a new level.” It’s a line from Roger Ebert’s 1997 review of the movie. I memorized it this morning.

“Unparalleled.” She beams, then squints. “It’s the job—that’s why you’re blergh.”

“I’m not blergh. Am I blergh?”

“Yes. Are you worried about the job?”

“No.”

“No?”

“Well,” I concede, “yes.”

She stops me in the middle of the sidewalk. “You’ll get it. You did great.”

“I’m . . .” Cece’s in a good mood from watching slo-mo space ballet, and I don’t want to spoil it. I smile. “Very optimistic.”

“Maybe we should watch another movie when we get home.” She tugs at my sleeve. “Something light and funny. Modern Times? Or The Great Dictator? Laughter is the best medicine.”

“I think antibiotics are the best medicine. Unless it’s a viral infection, in which case—” I stop because someone behind me is saying my name.

The worst thing is, I know exactly whose voice it is, because it’s burned into my auditory cortex in a way that signifies certain neural damage. But I turn around anyway, and there he is.

Jack.

In his black North Face coat, which is familiar by now. With his broad shoulders and light hair and inexplicable, gut-felt presence. Taking up more room than he should on the sidewalk, looking at me as though I’m the ghost of Nikola Tesla and meeting me by chance in downtown Boston is unforeseen but very welcome.

“Oh,” I croak. Shit. Shit? Shit. Why is he here? “Um . . .”

“It’s hi.” God, his voice. That lopsided smile. “That’s what you say when you meet someone, Elsie.”

“Right.” I swallow. “Hi.”

My first thought is that I’ve conjured him. By thinking about him forty times a day—up to and including seconds ago.

The second: I must be cursed. All I want is to excise Jack from my life, but I’m just like the Australopithecus afarensis in 2001: trying to frolic in the prehistoric veldt, forever doomed to be hunted by an alien monolith. (I think? I dozed off.)

The third: he’s not alone. There’s a tall woman by his side, with long braided hair and deep-red lips. They were clearly in the middle of laughing about something. When Jack stopped to talk to me, she bumped against him and never moved away.

He’s on a date.

With someone else.

Jack’s out on a date with someone, and it feels like a stone in my belly.

“One of your grads?” the woman asks, entertained. Her dark skin is immaculate, and she looks familiar in the way very beautiful people often do.

“No.” Jack has yet to look away from me. “Not quite.”

“Hi.” Cece interrupts with her most charming grin. “Clearly Elsie is experiencing a breakdown in the social pragmatic skills necessary to introduce us, so . . . what’s your name, tall gentleman?”

“Jack.”

“Nice to meet you, Jack.” She thrusts out her hand, which disappears inside his. I stare, half-paralyzed. “I’m Celeste, Elsie’s most favorite person in the whole world.”

“Are you?” His eyes slide to mine. “Must be nice.” He’s still half smiling, like this is making his Saturday night.

“Well, you know, it’s hard work. Lots of cheese sharing. And I did just take her to watch 2001, which she loved.”

“Oh my God!” The Most Beautiful Woman in the World is delighted. “We were in there, too.”

“Stunning, right?”

“A masterpiece. Despite Jack’s commentary on the predictability of the ‘evil space Siri’s’ arc.”

He lifts one eyebrow. “I got bored.”

“You always get bored at the movies.” She presses her shoulder against his. “I have to confiscate his phone and poke him awake.”

“Because you always take me to see boring movies.”

She pinches his arm through the coat. “If it were up to you, we’d only watch Jackass.”

“It was once.”

“Once too many.”

He shrugs, unbothered. I cannot stop looking at the two of them framed by the snowflakes. The easy banter. Jack’s obvious affection. The woman’s fingers, still around his sleeve. Something slimy and cold presses behind my sternum.

“So,” Cece butts in, “how do you guys know Elsie?”

“I don’t, actually,” the woman says with a curious look at Jack. “How do you know Elsie, Jack?”

His eyes are fixed on me again. “She dated my brother. Among . . . other things.”

The atmosphere changes instantly. The air was already icy, dense with the promise of snowstorms, but the temperature drops colder as people parse the meaning of Jack’s words.

First there’s Cece, who knows that I don’t date, not for real, and is putting together where she last heard the name Jack. She scowls and takes a protective step closer, ready to defend me against my most recent archenemy, kitten-hissing-at-a-bison style.

And then there’s the woman. Her expression morphs, too, into something knowing and intrigued. “You’re Greg’s girlfriend. That Elsie.” She looks between me and Jack once, twice, and then holds her hand out to me. “I’ve heard so much about you. It’s really nice to meet you. I’m George.”

My brain halts.

“Well, Georgina. Sepulveda. But please, call me George.” Her smile is warm and welcoming, as though I’m a dear friend of Jack’s whom she’s been dying to meet.

“Georgina Sepulveda,” I mouth, barely audible. The name unlocks a drawer in my brain, full of scientific papers, TED Talks, conference addresses. Georgina Sepulveda, young physics hotshot. I’m a fan of her work. She doesn’t look familiar—she is.

“Yup, that’s me.” Her hand is still outstretched. I should take it. “I work with Jack.”

“George,” Jack warns.

“Okay, technically not yet. But I’ll start at MIT next year. What? Come on, Jack. I got the formal offer, sent back the signed contract this morning. I can tell people.” She gives me a conspiratorial look. My stomach churns. “You’re a librarian, right? I love libraries.”

Next to me, Cece sucks in a breath. Meanwhile, I nod. It must be an automatic reaction, because all my neural cells are busy, sluggishly processing what I just heard.

Georgina.

George.

MIT.

Formal offer.

No. No, no, no. There is lead in my belly. Blood thumps in my ears, and—

I take a step back, and for a split second my mind skitters to a place far away: my apartment. The computer I left on the bed. The half-written manuscript on it—the one I was finally going to finish when I got the MIT job.

But I didn’t get it. George did, George who’s with Jack, and it’s over.

I gave it my all, and it wasn’t enough.

“Elsie,” Jack starts. He must have moved, because George and Cece have disappeared behind him. His throat bobs. “Unsuccessful candidates are not notified until all paperwork is complete.”

I shake my head and he falls silent. His eyes are full of compassion, of sincere, heartbreaking sorrow. I cannot bear to watch it.

I turn around slowly. Step away just as slowly, barely taking in the sidewalk. The man walking his husky. The group of students feigning excitement for an upcoming Truffaut retrospective. I walk past them and I walk some more, unhurried, like everything’s going to be fine.

Everything will be all right.

I’m at the red crosswalk light when I hear, “Elsie?”

It’s Cece, calling from where I left her behind. I ignore her.

“Is everything okay?” George. “Shit, did I do something?”

Cece doesn’t answer her. “Elsie, let’s . . . let’s just go home.”

Silence. Then Jack: “Elsie. Come back, please.” He sounds like his eyes looked, and it’s simply intolerable.

The crossing light turns green. I take a deep breath, let the cold air fill my lungs, and start running.