“I’m free.”
“Great. You, Adam?”
Olive froze. And so did Adam, for about a second, before pointing out, “I don’t think I should be present, if you’re about to interview her—”
“Oh, it’s not an interview. Just an informal chat to see if Olive’s and my research match. You’ll want to know if your girlfriend is moving to Boston for a year, right? Come on.” He motioned for them to follow him and then stepped inside the Starbucks.
Olive and Adam exchanged a silent look that somehow managed to speak volumes. It said, What the hell do we do? and How the hell would I know? and This is going to be weird, and No, it’s going to be plain bad. Then Adam sighed, put on a resigned face, and headed inside. Olive followed him, regretting her life choices.
“Aslan’s retiring, huh?” Tom asked after they’d found a secluded table in the back. Olive had no choice but to sit across from him—and on Adam’s left. Like a good “girlfriend,” she supposed. Her “boyfriend,” in the meantime, was sullenly sipping his chamomile tea next to her. I should snap a picture, she reflected. He’d make for an excellent viral meme.
“In the next few years,” Olive confirmed. She loved her adviser, who had always been supportive and encouraging. Since the very beginning she had given Olive the freedom to develop her own research program, which was almost unheard of for Ph.D. students. Having a hands-off mentor was great when it came to pursuing her interests, but . . .
“If Aslan’s retiring soon, she’s not applying for grants anymore—understandable, since she won’t be around long enough to see the projects through—which means that your lab is not exactly flush with cash right now,” Tom summarized perfectly. “Okay, tell me about your project. What’s cool about it?”
“I . . . ,” Olive began—she scrambled to collect her thoughts. “So, it’s—” Another pause. Longer this time, and more painfully awkward. “Um . . .”
This, precisely, was her problem. Olive knew that she was an excellent scientist, that she had the discipline and the critical-thinking skills to produce good work in the lab. Unfortunately succeeding in academia also required the ability to pitch one’s work, sell it to strangers, present it in public, and . . . that was not something she enjoyed or excelled at. It made her feel panicky and judged, as though pinned to a microscope slide, and her ability to produce syntactically coherent sentences invariably leaked out of her brain.
Like right now. Olive felt her cheeks heat and her tongue tie and—
“What kind of question is that?” Adam interjected.
When she glanced at him, he was scowling at Tom, who just shrugged.
“What’s cool about your project?” Adam repeated back.
“Yeah. Cool. You know what I mean.”
“I don’t think I do, and maybe neither does Olive.”
Tom huffed. “Fine, what would you ask?”
Adam turned to Olive. His knee brushed her leg, warm and oddly reassuring through her jeans. “What issues does your project target? Why do you think it’s significant? What gaps in the literature does it fill? What techniques are you using? What challenges do you foresee?”
Tom huffed. “Right, sure. Consider all those long, boring questions asked, Olive.”
She glanced at Adam, finding that he was studying her with a calm, encouraging expression. The way he’d formulated the questions helped her reorganize her thoughts, and realizing that she had answers for each one melted most of her panic. It probably hadn’t been intentional on Adam’s part, but he’d done her a solid.
Olive was reminded of that guy from the bathroom, from years ago. I have no idea if you’re good enough, he’d told her. What matters is whether your reason to be in academia is good enough. He’d said that Olive’s reason was the best one, and therefore, she could do this. She needed to do this.