Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood

            Not one person was interested in hiring me. And when no tenure-track professorship was available, either . . .

            “I used my connections to find you your current jobs, Elise,” he tells me, eyes full of concern. “Are you having issues with them?”

            I’m instantly swimming in guilt. Dr. L. pulled strings. He called up old colleagues—reached out to people who turned their backs to him after the Smith-Turner censure. Swallowed his pride for me. “No! The commute between different campuses is time consuming, but . . .” I start biting into my cuticles, then remember that I stopped three years ago. With the help of Cece and a spray bottle. “But nice. The variety.” I smile.

            He smiles back, pleased, and I feel a heady sense of relief and affection. Dr. L. is my one ally in the Red Riding Hood forest of academia. If it weren’t for him, I’d never have gotten into grad school to begin with. My heart squeezes as I remember senior year of college. My low grades. My mediocre GRE scores blinking on the screen, and the knowledge that I couldn’t afford to retake it. J.J.’s careless “Hey, what’s up?” whenever we crossed paths.

            I remember the sense of dread I felt compiling my applications and sending them to fourteen—fourteen—schools, and then, over the following weeks, the weight sinking in my stomach, centimeter after centimeter. Other students were being flown out for on-campus interviews, and my email pinged with nothing but spam and Mom’s requests that I take care of my brothers.

            It was the shortest winter of my life, and yet it crawled at a snail’s pace till the end of February, when I finally knew that it just wouldn’t happen. Becoming a physicist was the only thing I ever wanted, and it would never come true because of a stupid mistake.

            Until Christophe Laurendeau contacted me.

            “I was going through some . . . personal issues,” I told him during our first meeting, hoping to explain the dip in my grades. “Just relationship stuff.”

            “I see.” He assessed me, inscrutable. “I trust that everything is resolved.”

            “It is. For good.” No more relationships, I hoped he would read between the lines, and when he nodded with a pleased smile, I thought maybe he had.

            “Theoretical physics, if pursued seriously, is hardly compatible with . . . personal issues.”

            It sounded good to me. Ever since learning that the universe is subject to rules that can be described and understood, I’d had one dream. One constant, throughout the iterations of Elsies I carefully constructed for others. If it weren’t for Dr. L., I’d be left without it, and that’s why I’ll forever trust him.

            But paying for insulin out of pocket for one more year . . .

            “Elise, it is my responsibility to look out for you,” he’s saying, voice full of worry. “You deserve better than to work with Jonathan Smith-Turner—”

            “He’s not in the Physics Department,” I blurt out. It is, technically, the truth.

            Dr. L. squints. “What do you mean?”

            “Ja—he’s the head of the Physics Institute. He’s . . . barely part of the search. I might never meet him again.” I wrap a hand around a green armrest. Okay, this one’s a lie. But small. A lielet.

            “I see.” He nods silently, fingers stroking his chin. “In that case . . .”

            I’ll forever trust Laurendeau with my career, but his salary is six figures. He hasn’t taken a bus since the late eighties, and I bet the credenzas in his house are all neatly assembled.

            “Do not withdraw, then. But be careful. You know what that man did,” he admonishes. The Smith-Turner Affair is, surprisingly, not a taboo topic. Laurendeau is nothing but open about his contempt. “If I hadn’t been tenured, I would have lost my faculty position. And he nearly destroyed my reputation. If it hadn’t been for him, I would have been awarded grants in the past sixteen years. I would have had the funds to keep you here, working with me.”

            One more reason to hate Jack. My jaw sets. “I know.”

            “Very well, Elise,” Laurendeau says, holding my eyes a little too intensely. “Now that I think about it, you winning the position over his handpicked candidate might be an opportunity in disguise.”