by Fox, Kim
Angie smiled. “I wish you all the best.”
She walked back to the Accelerator and noted down the data points that the machine was spewing out. Interesting. There was a slight variation on the previous tests. How exciting. The numbers varied by 0.00000005%.
Angie glanced at Betsy and shook her head, feeling sorry for her. She was going to miss all of this when her baby came.
“We’re going to the pub to celebrate,” Sara said to her as the rest of her team left. Angie was team leader on the project. “Want to come? I’m going to buy Betsy a shot of apple juice.” She chuckled at her bad joke.
“No,” Angie said. “I’m going to finish this up.”
Sara leaned forward, looking at her faded reflection in the stainless steel Graphene Quantum Dots Accelerator. She pulled out a stick of red lipstick from her pocket and puckered her lips.
“There’s going to be men there,” she said, slathering it on her lips. “You have to leave here once in a while. Go on a date.” She placed the lipstick back in her pocket and turned to Angie. She had a smudge of lipstick on her teeth.
“When was the last time that you had any fun?” Sara asked.
Angie sighed. It had been over a month. She went kayaking in New Hampshire with her friends Becca and Grace. A wild storm separated her from the group and she ended up staying the night in an abandoned cabin with a huge bear shifter named Sidney. He was a know-it-all and frustrating as all hell but she had a lot of fun with him. They played games and got drunk and then he fucked her brains out. All in all a great night. But she didn’t have time for that now. Her career was exploding and she had no time for anything else.
“I have fun,” Angie lied. She marked down a number on her clipboard.
Sara snatched it from her hands. “This is not fun. Come have a drink. The mysteries of the universe will still be here tomorrow waiting for you.”
Angie grabbed the clipboard back and shook her head. “Maybe next time,” she said, turning back to the readings on the machine.
“Alright, suit yourself,” Sara said, getting up, fixing her blond hair in the reflection of the machine. “One day you’re going to wake up and be ninety and all you’re going to have is a shelf full of studies and awards to love.”
Angie rolled her eyes as Sara left to catch up to the others. They just didn’t understand. If she nailed this project she might get asked to work at the Hadron Collider in Switzerland. The major leagues of Quantum Physics.
Then she would be happy.
Angie flipped off the light switch of the lab and locked the door. She rubbed her eyes and looked at her watch. It was almost one o’clock in the morning.
Her stomach growled as she headed for the elevator. She had forgotten to eat since lunch. Again.
The elevator binged as the doors opened and she walked inside. She leaned against the elevator wall and closed her eyes. Sidney’s large arms and massive chest thrust into her thoughts. She remembered the way he lifted her onto his strong shoulders and made her feel so girly. The way he made her pulse speed up in a way that it never had before. The way it felt when he pushed up inside her.
The door binged open and the image vanished from her mind. She shook the distracting thoughts out of her head and walked out. Her mind always came back to him when she was tired and unable to focus on not thinking about him.
“Another late night Angie?” Gary the overnight security guard, asked from his little booth.
“Einstein never went to bed early,” she said as she passed him.
The cool evening breeze hit her as she walked outside. She breathed in the thick, foggy air of downtown Manhattan and glanced up at the night sky. No stars. You couldn’t see any stars in the city with all of the light pollution. She remembered the blanket of stars in the sky in New Hampshire when she spent the night with Sidney. He pointed out the constellations to her but was wrong on every one. He actually tried to convince her that there was a constellation called Captain Crunch.
She loved the stars. Her first choice was to become an Astrophysicist but her parents had convinced her to go into Quantum Electricity instead because it was an emerging field with lots of potential for recognition. Her parents were always hard on her, putting unrealistic expectations on her ever since kindergarten. The curse of the only child. She always had to be better and smarter than everybody else and it still never seemed to be enough for them.
Angie walked past the pub. She stopped and glanced in the window to see if her team was still there. Not to join them but to see if they were going to be hung over tomorrow. She needed them on their A-games.
Men flirted with dressed up women at the bar. Hands were on arms, fingers twirled in curls of hair, chests were puffed out (from both men and women) and smiles came fast and frequent. She felt a pang of envy and then shook the thought out of her head. She was destined for bigger things than family and a long string of unfulfilling relationships. She was going to be the best Quantum Electrochemist on the planet.
She couldn’t see any members of her team so she hailed a cab and went home. It was a fifteen minute ride. She paid the cabbie and went up to her apartment.
She flicked on the light to her small, one bedroom apartment and headed for the fridge. When was the last time I did groceries? She opened the door and sighed at the pitiful selection. Condiments lined the inside of the door and one package of yogurt sat alone on the top shelf. She pulled it out and glanced at the expiry date.
“Yuck,” she said, as she tossed it in the garbage.
She opened her cupboard and pulled out a box of Special K cereal. She filled a bowl and headed for her balcony, stopping at her large bookshelf, situated where most apartments would have a TV. Ooohhhh. I haven’t read this one in years. She pulled out a thick, heavy book: Advanced Multiscale Modeling of Electrochemical Systems and stepped onto her balcony.
She was thirteen stories up in the Upper East Side. She would’ve had an amazing view if there wasn’t another apartment building in front of her, right across the street.
She sat down at the small table and laid the book out in front of her. A flickering candle in one of the apartments across from her caught her eye. There was a couple her age talking at the table holding hands and gazing into each other’s eyes. The candles on the table were on their last breaths, dangerously close to the candle stick holders. They both laughed at something the man said. Their eyes never left each other. They looked completely in love.
Angie groaned and turned back to her book. The third chapter was her favorite: Applications of Electronic Structure to Geometric Properties. She decided to treat herself and flip forward to it.
Her eye wandered up as she flipped the pages and another couple in another apartment caught her eye. They were cuddled up together on the couch watching a movie. The woman’s legs were wrapped around her boyfriends’ and her face was cuddled up on his chest. He had his arm around her, stroking her hair.
Angie turned back to her book and shook her head. What a waste of time, she told herself. They could be learning something interesting and advancing their careers but instead they spend hours cuddling and watching romantic comedies.
She turned back to her book but she couldn’t concentrate. She kept glancing back at the two couples and picturing herself doing the same things with Sidney. She slammed the book shut and stormed back into her apartment, ripping the curtains closed. Thoughts like that are not going to help you win a Nobel Prize.
Angie dumped her bowl onto the pile of dirty dishes in the sink. She cursed at her dishwasher as she passed it. The stupid thing had been broken for months.
She got ready for bed, still upset at her weakness. Your career is the important thing. Becoming the best in your field is what is truly going to make you happy. She repeated this to the reflection in the mirror as she brushed her teeth harder than necessary.
She slipped on her pjs and slid into bed, bringing her cell phone with her. Four missed calls today. All from him. All from Sidney.
Her thumb hovered over the call button but she stopped herself like she did every other night. She didn’t have time for a relationship. It would just get in the way of her true goals. It would distract her and she desperately needed to keep her head in the game. She was about to have a huge breakthrough and then the job in Geneva, Switzerland would be hers. She didn’t have time for fun and she definitely didn’t have time for boys.
Her fingertip navigated through the phone before she could stop herself and the picture of the three couples popped up on her screen. She zoomed in on Sidney and her, both of their lower faces covered in poison ivy. She was sitting on his shoulders, smiling and looking like a doll next to his massive body.
She turned the phone off, hit the light and curled up in the middle of her cold, empty bed.
What you’re doing is more meaningful than a lousy relationship, she tried to convince herself. You’re going to be a leader in your field. That takes sacrifice. It will be all worth it someday.
She pulled her arms and legs into her body, hugging herself, as another night of insomnia kicked in.
two
Sidney stopped on the last stair of the exit to the train and took a deep breath. He slipped his sunglasses over his eyes with a black sharpie between his fingers, ready for the onslaught of fans and paparazzi to surround him.
“Let’s go dude,” the guy behind him complained. “Move.”
It’s go time.
Sidney stepped off the train into Grand Central Station with his arms out like Christ on the cross and his chin raised high.
The line-up of commuters rushed out of the train grumbling and cursing under their breaths as they passed him.
Where were all of his fans? Surely the paparazzi got tipped off that he was coming back to New York City.
Ahh. Here’s a fan coming now.
Sidney’s fan shuffled over with a dirty, ripped up coat drooping over his hunched over shoulders. His hair was gray with patches of black, that looked more like clumps of dirt than dark hair. He was holding out an empty coffee cup in front of him.
He wasn’t Sidney’s average fan, of the younger, cooler demographic, but who was Sidney to turn down a fan? He was a celebrity. Adored by millions. He embraced all of the many fans who loved him.
The old man walked up and shook his empty cup at Sidney.
“That’s right,” he called out. “Sidney Watts is back in the big apple!” He snatched the paper coffee cup out of the man’s hands, put the sharpie cap between his teeth and popped it off.
“Who am I autographing it to?” he asked, holding the cap between his teeth.
The old man’s body shook. He opened his mouth and only a wheeze came out.
Sidney smiled and nodded knowingly. This man was such a big fan that he was speechless. “Don’t worry my friend,” he said, signing the cup. “I’ll write: To my biggest fan.”
He handed the cup back to the man and looked past him at the rushing commuters passing by. “Anymore people?” He put the cap back on the sharpie. The word must not have gotten around yet.
The old man was looking inside the cup with a frown. “M…m…m…money,” he whispered, shaking the cup.
“That’s right,” Sidney said, patting him on the shoulder as he walked past him. “That autograph is worth a ton of money.”
Sidney picked up his bag and headed out of the train station. He was in New York City and he was off to see his mate, Angie. He hadn’t seen her since she spent the night with him a month ago. He decided to surprise her at her work.
Angie was going to be thrilled to see him. She had lost her phone or something because she hadn’t returned any of his calls. This was going to be the greatest surprise of her life.
He stepped onto the sidewalk and smirked to himself when another fan recognized him. It was a taxi driver. He was standing in front of his car pointing at the hood, saying something unintelligible in his severely accented English.
“Ride, ride, ride,” he was saying over and over again as he waved Sidney over.
It sounded like ride but Sidney knew that he was saying “write.” It was the first time that Sidney had autographed a car but he was back in New York and up for anything. He pulled out his sharpie and wrote Sidney Watts in huge letters across the hood of the taxi.
“You’re welcome,” he said, as he picked up his bag and walked away.
The man was so excited that he was jumping up and down and yelling something in his native tongue.
Sidney slipped into an alley and put on a baseball cap. He pulled it down low to cover his face. Sure it was fun to be recognized by his beloved fans but he had more important things to do.
He had to surprise his mate.
Angie’s team was circled around her as she read out the new data points. They hung on her every word. This new finding may take them in a new direction. And it was all because she stayed and worked late and didn’t spend all of her time in a bar like they did.
There was a large banging on the door. “Angie,” a muffled voice called out from the hall.
Angie lowered the paper and stared at the door with an open mouth. It can’t be.
The door flung open and Sidney walked in dragging two security guards that were clutching onto his thick forearms. Their faces were contorted as they tried to pull him back with all of their might.
He locked eyes on her and she couldn’t breathe.
“Angie,” he said, with a big, dumb smile on his face. “I’m here.”
“Why?” she asked, finally finding her voice.
“See?” he asked, looking at the grown men hanging like children off of his massive forearms. “I’m with her. Like I told you.”
The lanky security guard looked at Angie. “I’m sorry Miss Hawkins,” he said. “This man doesn’t have any security clearance.”
She wanted to crawl under the Accelerator and hide. Instead she rushed over to them. “It’s fine,” she said, grabbing a pad of paper off a nearby desk. She filled out the security clearance pass, scribbling furiously, and stuffed it into the guard’s hand.
They let go of Sidney, looking thankful that they didn’t have to try to stop this house-sized man anymore. She apologized as they left.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
He grabbed the top of her arms and smiled. “I came to surprise you. Isn’t that great?”
She clenched her jaw and glanced back at her team. All eyes were on her.
“You look so surprised,” he said, his face lighting up.
“I’m in the middle of something,” she said. “We’re on the verge of a breakthrough and we…”
“A breakthrough,” he said, dropping his hands. “Maybe I can help.”
“No…I…”
But it was too late. He walked past her to the group of scientists. He grabbed a white lab coat off a hook on the wall and slipped it on. It was way too small and it shredded as he pulled it up his muscular arms. He looked like the Hulk with Bruce Banner’s ripped clothes hanging from his body.
“What are we working on?” he asked, approaching the machine. The team backed away, staring at the enormous man in shock. “Yes,” he said, nodding as he inspected the machine. “I’ve used one of these before.”
“No you haven’t,” Angie said.
“Yeah,” he said, nodding. “I definitely have. I took a science class once.”
“This is a Graphene Quantum Dots Accelerator on loan from Japan,” Angie said, with her arms crossed. “There is only one of them on the planet.”
Sidney frowned. “Japan must have lent it to my science class first.”
He lifted his hand to touch the display pad and Angie lunged forward. She grabbed his wrist and pulled him back towards the exit. She dragged him into the hallway and closed the door.
“I really wish you would’ve consulted me first before showing up,” she said.
“I tried to call you,” he said. “You never answered.”
She exhaled hard. She didn’
t have time for this. Her team was waiting.
“I just…” she said, trailing off. “I have to go.” She put her hand on the door knob.
“But I came all this way to see you,” he said.
She looked at the cheap, green carpet on the floor. “I’m busy.”
“Well when can I see you?” he asked. “Lunch? Dinner?”
“I’m working late.”
“I waited a month to see you. I can wait a few more hours.”
She shuffled her weight from foot to foot and sighed. He did come all this way. They could grab a slice of pizza or something and then she could explain to him that she didn’t have time for a relationship.
“Alright,” she said, opening the door. “But I don’t know what time I’ll be done.”
He stood up straight and smiled. “No problem,” he said, his voice light and happy. “I’ll just wait outside.”
He kissed her on the cheek, ran down the hallway and burst through the doors to the stairs, all before she could tell him that he’d be waiting for more than ten hours.
Angie touched the spot on her cheek where he kissed her and tried to hide her smile. She bit her lip and shook her head. I don’t have time for this.
She took a deep breath and headed back into the lab.
Sidney sat on the bench on the sidewalk and stared at the front door. He had been sitting there for nine hours and thirty six minutes.
He could wait for her forever. And it looked like he might have to.
His bear had been purring happily since he saw his mate Angie. It was nighttime now but there were so many lights that the city was lit up like it was the middle of the afternoon.
An older Asian couple walked by holding a map and matching Starbucks cups. They stopped in front of him and pointed. “So big, so big,” the man said in broken English while pointing at him.
Sidney smiled and waved his hand. “Yes. I am a big star,” he said, pretending to be modest.
The man held up his camera and raised his eyebrows.
“Sure you can take a picture,” Sidney said. He scooched over on the bench and the man sat down smiling and bowing his head, while the wife took the picture.