Dragon Dreams

by Chris A. Jackson

  "I…uh…" She looked up at him, trying to figure out if he was serious or just trying to manipulate her like Dr. Oliver, promising to help only to get work out of her. It certainly wouldn't hurt to hear him out. She bit her lip, promising herself that she wouldn't get seduced into another project with no light at the end of the tunnel. "Okay. I'll listen."

  "Great. Let me grab my coat and we'll hit Buckminster's." As he retrieved a long black coat from a rack behind the door, she peeked into his office. He wasn't lying about one thing, anyway; the place was a train wreck. He shrugged into his coat and locked the door. "Besides, I'm a sucker for their apple Danish, and it's way past time for second breakfast!"

  "Second breakfast?" She followed him down the hall toward the stairs.

  "Sure! One of the seven meals: breakfast, second breakfast, elevenses, lunch, tea, supper and dinner." He looked at her for a response, but she just shook her head. "Don't tell me you never read The Lord of the Rings."

  "Oh. No. Sorry, I've never been much for make-believe."

  "That's okay." He rounded the first landing and smiled back at her. "I've never been much for reality, so we should balance each other out nicely."

  She didn't know what to make of that but forced a weak smile. He was so different than Dr. Oliver, so casual and friendly. A niggling suspicion twisted her insides as she followed him down the steps and out into the bitter cold Cambridge winter. Why was he being so nice to her? He must want something.

  Thirty minutes later, her head buzzing with her second Cuban Blend coffee, Aleksi knew exactly what Dr. Hutchinson wanted. He needed someone who could read and transcribe Russian fluently, had expertise in paleontology, and specifically archival research of previously mislabeled or poorly categorized samples. Her parents were immigrants, and she spoke Russian as well as English, and she'd spent a third of her life in the archives of museums.

  Dr. Hutchinson intended to examine and re-categorize of a number of Ursus species samples taken from a bone bed in northeast of Siberia in the early 1900's. Due to the state of unrest in Russia at the time, the samples were sent to the US in a freighter and found a home at the Harvard MCZ. Some were cleaned and displayed, but of the four original samples, two were stored. The bone bed included a number of species, and many supposed Ursus samples. He wanted to do morphological and, if possible, DNA analysis of the samples and compare the results with those the Knapp group had published years ago in Molecular Ecology. There were four possible projects involved in the bone bed samples, and she could choose which she wanted.

  And he was taking possession of the samples in less than a week.

  "The transfer's already lined up." He downed the last of his coffee with a shrug. "I'm working with Quinton Neilson. He said he knew you."

  "I didn't know he…um. Yeah. We've met." Aleksi had met the curator of the MCZ during a trip to Cambridge when she was in college. She'd been doing work study with the American Museum of Natural History, in Manhattan, and helped with a transfer of some samples. In fact, Quinton had suggested she apply to Harvard for graduate studies.

  "He said I should look you up. Problem is, the holidays. If you were planning to go home to Brooklyn for Christmas, you probably won't be here for the transfer."

  This was all moving so fast, her head was spinning. She hadn't even agreed to take on the project, and he was asking about her holiday schedule. "I was planning to go home for the holidays, but…" She dreaded going home, not because her parents wouldn't be delighted to see her, but she knew how the visit would end up. Yelling, accusations, ridicule, and tears. Then she realized what Dr. Hutchinson had just said. "You know I'm from Brooklyn?"

  "I told you I was planning to contact you about this anyway. I did my homework on you; Suma Cum Laude at NYU, senior project in vertebrate paleontology archival and repository systems, published in the Journal of Paleontology. You finished your undergrad in three years, cleping out of most of your freshman requirements, and got college credit in high school for work study at the AMNH. You also carried a twenty plus credit hour load every semester. You're fluent in Russian; your parents are immigrants who came over right after the wall came down. You were born in the states, in Brooklyn, where your parents live and have a jewelry shop. Oh, and you've managed to escape New York without a discernible accent, which is commendable." His tone made the last bit a joke, but she was already blushing and examining her coffee cup, uncomfortable with the list of her dubious accomplishments.

  "Don't take this offer lightly, Aleksi," he said, suddenly serious. "I need someone with me on this, and I searched the entire graduate program for the right skill set. You're so far ahead of anyone else that there was no choice involved. It's either you, or I have to hire a translator and probably two technicians, and stand over their shoulders throughout the process. But I need an answer."

  She looked up at him, but then shied away from the intensity of his stare. She let her eyes roam over the virtually empty café, the sterile white décor, all angles and recessed lighting. It felt stark, hard and unfriendly, and she found herself thinking of Dr. Oliver. If she changed advisors, what would the repercussions be? Would Oliver insist to the graduate coordinator that she teach lectures to fulfill her requirement? The teaching requirement had to be fulfilled by the end of second year, and she was already slated to teach a lab, two now, this spring.

  "Can I…" She looked back at him and faltered again, looking down at her empty cup. Clenching her hands under the table she forced herself to speak. "I need to think about this. There could be…problems."

  "If you're worried about Oliver…"

  "I am, but it's not just that. I just need a little time." She lifted her eyes furtively. "Would…could I give my answer tomorrow morning? It's just such a big decision, and so sudden, I need to think."

  "Tomorrow's fine, Aleksi. I work out at Malkin from six to seven, then hit Peet's Coffee for breakfast. We can meet there, or you can just email if you prefer."

  "I'll…um…email you in the morning. With the weather, I'm on foot, and Peet's is on the other side of the square from my apartment." She cringed; she didn't want to appear lazy, unwilling to walk an extra five blocks.

  "That's fine, Aleksi. Good." He downed the rest of his coffee and stood. She lunged to her feet, her chair making a horrible screech on the floor. She flinched but he seemed not to notice. "I'll look forward to your answer. Thanks for listening."

  He held out his hand.

  "Oh! Sure," she stammered, hesitating only a heartbeat before shaking his hand. His grasp was firm and steady, whereas hers was probably trembling and sweaty. "No problem. I'll email you first thing."

  "Great." He released her hand and grinned. "Well, I better get back to the grindstone. Still going over final exams."

  "Okay. And thanks, Dr. Hutchinson, for the offer, I mean." She stuffed her hands in her pockets and clenched them.

  "I hope we can work together, Aleksi. I think it'd be good for both of us." He smiled again as he donned his coat and then turned to the door.

  She followed him out, fingers fumbling to button her coat against the blast of arctic air that greeted them. Outside, he said goodbye and started off toward the NWS building. She stood there for a moment, her head still buzzing from caffeine and the surprising offer. She shivered and looked around the stark, white and gray landscape, the ruddy brick buildings of the MCZ, the Hoffman Lab, and the pillared edifice of the Mallinckrodt building. She remembered her first day here, how daunting it had all seemed, how fearful she'd been, so out of her element. Now it was familiar.

  Things change with time, she thought. Perceptions, architecture, even species evolve; but people pretty much stay the same. She had no doubt that if she stayed with Oliver, she would continue to pile on extra work and ignore Aleksi's research, stringing her along as someone she could manipulate. But would working with Dr. Hutchinson be any different? He seemed nice, honest, and he certainly needed her help, but she could have said the same about Dr. Oliver when they first
met.

  She needed to think.

  Aleksi started back toward the MCZ, thinking to go back to the repository and her drawer of Therapsid specimens, but stopped. If she did change advisors, the project she'd planned would go by the wayside. That was almost a semester of tedious research that would be useless. She cringed again and decided to walk home. If she went back to the MCZ, she'd get caught up and not think about Dr. Hutchinson's offer. She fished her hat and gloves out of her coat pockets and pulled them on, heading north on Oxford, easing into her accustomed long-legged pace that would take her home in twenty minutes.

  2

  Julie?" Aleksi nudged open the door, already ajar, and peered into the apartment. "Julie, you here?"

  "Oh, shit! Lex?" Julie's tousled blond mop of hair poked out from her bedroom door, and she grinned. "Sorry! Thought you were working on campus all day!"

  "I was, but I—" She froze as Julie ducked back into her room and slammed the door. She heard some scuffling and a male voice. Heat flushed to her face and she turned away. "Sorry!" She closed the door and hurried into their little kitchen.

  This wasn't the first time she'd interrupted Julie with a man; at least this time they were in her bedroom, not on the sofa. She fiddled in the kitchen, starting to make coffee out of reflex then realizing that more caffeine was the last thing she needed. She poured a glass of orange juice and almost dropped the glass as Julie popped around the corner.

  "Didn't mean to leave my door open, Lex. Sorry about that." She finger-combed her hair and straightened her sweater; red cashmere that hugged her like a glove.

  "I thought you were leaving for the holidays this morning." Aleksi tried to ignore her vivacious roommate. She liked Julie, but they were complete opposites.

  "I was, but then Vic came over to say goodbye, and we um…well, one thing led to another."

  "What dear Julie is trying so eloquently to say," Vic appeared behind Julie and wrapping his arms around her waist, "is that she lured me into her boudoir and proceeded to honor me with a little farewell fuck."

  "Vic!" Julie slapped at his hands as they quested under her sweater. "Stop it!"

  Aleksi turned away and busied herself exploring the cupboard, hating her shaking hands and the blush that warmed her cheeks.

  "Why?" Vic laughed, clearly enjoying Aleksi's discomfort as much as Julie's protests.

  "Because I said so!" Julie turned and gave him a shove, apparently honestly irritated with his juvenile behavior. "I'm sorry, Lex."

  "Don't worry about it." Aleksi shrugged and continued rummaging through the cabinet, deciding on an early lunch more out of the necessity to occupy herself than any real hunger. "Just close the front door next time, please."

  "Oh, did it not latch?" Julie cringed and glared at Vic, who just shrugged. "Sorry about that."

  Aleksi settled on peanut butter and jelly and began slathering bread with both. Julie took the hint, long used to her unease with such situations and usually considerate. She urged Vic back, and Aleksi heard the bedroom door close. She finished making her sandwich, grabbed her glass of orange juice, and retreated to the farthest corner of the apartment so she wouldn't have to listen to the two having sex.

  She plopped down on the couch near the bay window, took off her boots, and stared out at the wintery landscape. She took a bite of her thoroughly unappetizing sandwich and tried to focus on Hutchinson's offer. Was it genuine, or did he just need a workhorse to whip?

  Iggy rattled his cage, having smelled the food, and she reached down to unlatch the door. She kept the iguana's cage near the radiator because he liked the heat and got some sun through the window. The two-foot-long green lizard hopped up to the cage door and climbed up her arm, his long, curved claws finding easy purchase on her sweater. He hopped off her shoulder to the armrest of the couch and started for her sandwich where it sat on a folded paper towel.

  "Iggy, be good!" She snatched the sandwich out of the iguana's reach. "You'll get some, but only if you're a good lizard, understand?" She dabbed a little jelly on a finger and let him lick it off. He settled down on the armrest and waited for his next treat, content to be spoiled rotten. They shared the sandwich, Aleksi eating the bread and peanut butter, Iggy concentrating on the jam. This was grape, his favorite.

  While they ate, Aleksi watched the winter winds knock snow and ice from the trees and thought about her morning. If she changed advisors, how would that look on her record? Would Oliver make her life a living hell? Would it delay her progress toward her PhD, or actually hasten it in the long run? She was already halfway through her second year and still without a firm dissertation project, mostly due to Oliver's continued rejection of one proposal after another. That, too, might be one of Oliver's tactics, and one of the reasons she had a poor record of retaining graduate students.

  When the sandwich was gone, she lifted Iggy and took the empty glass and soiled paper towel back to the kitchen. Iggy squirmed, knowing all too well that this was the room where food came from, but she kept a firm hold on him and risked a tiptoe dash past Julie's door to her own room. She retrieved her laptop and hurried back to the front room, trying to ignore the noises coming from behind Julie's door. Evidently, Vic was receiving quite a farewell, but knowing they were doing it in there only made Aleksi uncomfortable and acutely aware of her own nonexistent social life.

  She took her lizard and her computer, both of which she related to better than most people, back to the couch and reclined. Placing Iggy on her chest and the laptop on her legs, she patted the iguana while the computer booted up. In no time Iggy was warm and happily torpid, and she was busy researching her prospective new advisor.

  Initially, she didn't learn anything new; his curriculum vitae was impressive enough. Dwayne Hutchinson, Associate Professor of Paleontology, PhD in Evolutionary Biology from Princeton in 1998, and an M.Phil in Molecular Biology from SUNY Stonybrook. He was from Seattle originally, and got his bachelor from Washington State. Some students thought he was some kind of tree-hugging activist, but his reputation was solid. He had an impressive publication record, six papers in just the last two years—three of those published with his own graduate students as first authors—and worked with other university departments all over the world. He was currently involved in the litigation over a pipeline project as an expert witness and had defended half a dozen previous cases that tended toward environmental protection. Dr. Hutchinson was the epitome of a Harvard professor: brilliant, multi-disciplinary, prolific, active, and professional.

  But Dr. Oliver would have fit those categories as well.

  For the rest, Google provided a huge number of hits when she tagged his degree onto his name. There was plenty of negative press associated with his environmental protection standpoint. He was being sued by one of the contractors associated with the pipeline project, though it looked like a pressure tactic. He'd pissed off a few corporate big-wigs in the past few years. Deeper, about five pages deeper, she found that he'd divorced a couple of years ago. Not that it interested her, but she found herself wondering why. Things like this sent red flags up in her mind, though she knew plenty of "happily married" couples who were a mess. Case in point: her parents.

  She glanced up from the screen when the front door closed.

  Julie came into the front room looking a little sheepish.

  "Hey, Lex. Sorry about before." She sat on the other end of the couch and smiled.

  "Don't worry about it." Aleksi smiled back; she couldn't be mad at Julie for having a little fun, and Vic was her latest fun thing. She checked the time on her computer. "You going home today, then?"

  "Yeah, I was gonna take off in a bit, but I just wanted to apologize first. Vic can be a real dick sometimes. I just wanted to make sure we're okay before I take off."

  "We're okay."

  "So why are you back from campus so early?" Julie asked in one of her usual spur of the moment changes of subject. "I thought you were gonna to be gone all day. You're lucky we weren't doing it in the
kitchen or something."

  "Please don't do it in the kitchen, Julie! I have to eat in there."

  "Oh, I'm kidding. So, what's up? You look a little 'deer in the headlights'."

  "Do I?" After rooming together a year and a half, Julie noticed these things more than most people, but it still bothered Aleksi that she somehow looked upset. "Well, something happened this morning that could be good, but I have to figure it out."

  "Find something good in the repository?" Julie's honest interest in the details of Aleksi's life was one thing that made her over-the-top perkiness tolerable. At least she'd stopped trying to set her up with men, and when that failed, women.

  "No. Oliver called me in and dumped a January at GSAS session on me, then told me she's giving me a freshman Bio lab, too."

  "You are fucking kidding me! Lexi, you can't teach two labs, GSAS, finish your proposal, and take your quals all in one semester!"

  "Well, I might not have to." She turned her computer so Julie could see. "After Oliver took off, Dr. Hutchinson asked me if I'd like to change advisors. His office is right across the hall, and he heard the whole thing. He's got a project that's got my name written all over it, and he promised me a finished proposal by mid semester if I do it."

  "No way!" Julie peered at the screen and her manicured eyebrows arched. "Oooo, yummy! Maybe I'll change advisors!"

  "Julie!" Julie just laughed, so Aleksi let the comment slide. "Anyway, he's got some samples from Siberia that he's transferring from the MCZ, and he needs someone to transcribe the notes and work up the find. He said he'd get me out of the January seminar and maybe even the freshman bio lab."

  "That's awesome!" Julie sat back and knitted her eyebrows. "So, what's the problem?"

  "I just don't know if I should do it." She bit her lip and patted Iggy on the head. "I mean, I'm a year and a half in with Oliver, and jumping ship now might look bad."