“Tragic.” She scattered a handful of suds toward Ethan, who popped a bubble out of the air. “Tell Martina about the time your new manager smuggled your team into the wind tunnel to fly kites.”
“I can neither confirm nor deny that I flew Dr. Ndlovu’s daughter’s kite in the Unitary Plan Wind Tunnel. But if I had…”
Smiling while he recounted the story of what he might or might not have done in the NASA Ames tunnel, Erin reached for their cast iron pan and began to scrape out the egg residue. She missed working with him on the Department of Energy’s quantum gravity project, but his relaxed sprawl in a dining chair among the boxes of the life they were building together was worth much more than her regret for the hiatus of their professional relationship and their scooter races to the cafeteria.
She would’ve given up anything for his laughter.
Easily.
Besides, she liked her replacement collaborator from the Quantum Mechanics group: a transfer from Jefferson Lab, brilliant in her field and eager to support SVLAC’s summer program to broaden the participation of young women in STEM—where Leah Haddad had agreed to talk about her experience at the lab. The former intern shadowed their quantum gravity work in the West Experimental Hall every other week (they’d installed an electromagnet in the MEC hutch and their first attempt at recreating the University of Amsterdam’s event horizon model with ultracold atoms was slated for next Wednesday), and she and Erin met for lunch at the Coupa Cafe outside Stanford’s Green Library on Saturdays once a month. Sometimes Erin’s new colleague, Sandra O’Connor-Young, or even Nadine—slowing down on her weekends now to sip a smoothie and to assess how the lab’s women werereallydoing—joined them; the occasional social meal was just as important as time in the experimental halls.
A network of known allies invested in each other’s success was so much more powerful than an anonymous collective. Only look at STEMinist Online! Once SnarkyQuark64 had formally identified herself as Dr. Erin Monaghan and laid out the details of Kramer’s failure to sabotage her career—highlighting his weakness in being compelled to issue a retraction for his lies about her data, holding him accountable for possibly the first time—the floodgates had opened. Non-disclosure agreements were investigated and deemed fraudulent by legal advisors, since only National Labs could compel NDAs, not rogue supervisors, and the comments under her post had swelled with threads of relief and profanity—and proof. One call toScientific American, and an exposé was in the works.
She hoped that Kramer wouldn’t resign before the article went to press, before he could be recalled from CERN and fired from SVLAC. Blacklisted.Squashed, like a parasite. Soon, everyone would knowexactlywhat he was. Because what good was a whisper network if no one acted on its information?
SVLAC’s grapevine had been right about her and Ethan.
The two of them had been wrong about the award results of the annual Eischer-Langhoff Grant in Physics, however. Neither had received funding; a cohort of physicists developing teleportation technology for the quantum internet at Fermilab had secured the award. So maybe it was for the best that they weren’t collaborating professionally right now, because despite their mutual support for a new and better work–life balance, they would’ve inevitably spent several weeks griping to each other about the outcome in SVLAC’s kitchenette, in their living room, in their studio… and in the shower, where, even more than on Ethan’s desk, there were interesting applications of physics and leverage to explore—
Heat swooped through her stomach. She barely managed not to drop the pan.
But anyhow, there was a strong likelihood that she wouldn’t be returning to the Hawking radiation signals in her LIGO data or requiring additional funds for the interferometer in the next year. Though she hadn’t presented even preliminary quantum gravity findings for peer review yet, the Department of Energy’s investment in the project and SVLAC’s own high profile in the field meant that her inbox was already full of requests for interviews, partnerships, and a solicitation to speak at the International Conference on Physics in Kyoto…
“—the headwind in the tunnel broke the kite’s cross spar, so we had to stop, but now Dr. Ndlovu has plans to swap in a new spar made of scrap material from the welding shop. It might be too heavy to fly, though.”
“Not in a gravity-free zone,” Martina reminded Ethan. “The crew could have the first—”
“—kite-flying spacewalk?” He rocked his chair back on two legs, sloshing his coffee, laughing again.
No, she didn’t regret the Eischer-Langhoff loss. Wishing the Fermilab scientists well, Erin extracted herself out from under Bunsen’s weight and returned to the call.
“You should see what happens to a frisbee next time you’re hypothetically in the tunnel,” she told Ethan, wrapping her damp arms around his shoulders and resting her chin on his head, inhaling the warm, familiar musk of his aftershave. “You could get clearance for Bunsen, now that he has his service vest and a registration with NASA’s Human Resources department. Maybe Tomasz, too—but without the vest. Aren’t you meeting him later today for a pick-up game?”
“Damn.I was supposed to confirm the time this morning.” He fumbled for his phone.
“How can it be a pick-up game if they’re planning it?” Martina asked Erin over thethunkof Ethan’s chair settling back onto the floor.
“At least they’ve finally figured out that they’re friends. It took me long enough to realize that I was the problem with Kai and Ashley—they were actually trying to include me in brunches and movie nights, but I always thought I had something more important to do. Besides,” she carried her own phone and the oat milk carton back to the kitchen, “he’d better get used to it. Wes and Adrian have plans for him.”
“Say hello to those gorgeous men for me.”
“Gross—and always. See you next weekend.”
While Ethan and Tomasz fixed a frisbee time, she ransacked one of the kitchen boxes for a drying rack—Ethan had labeled each carton with its contents—and finished their dishes, then snapped a picture of Bunsen with a dab of leftover egg balanced on his nose, which she sent to the Monaghan family thread.
Erin
Bunsen says hello to Cassie and wants her to know that he’s a very good boy who sits nicely for his treats. (Though he does counter-surf.)
Lori Monaghan’s ellipsis bubbled onto her screen.
Mom
Cassie is looking forward to meeting him at Christmas. I’ll put the treat jar up. Tell Ethan that we all say hello too, sweetheart.
Erin
I will.
