Tall, five ten at least, with the mixed features of an Irish, Polish, German, and African-American heritage, Lea prided herself on not belonging to one race but held allegiance to her individuality and intelligence. Her grandparents had survived the Dust Bowl, and maybe those genetics had allowed Lea to escape from Cabrini–Green, a public housing project near downtown Chicago known for murder, drugs, gangs, and misery.
Her research interests in risk taking and decision-making matched my own. We’d been working together for a year to expand the research I used for the MOOC and also for TRI. She had both energy and ambition, and she had published over ten journal articles—a phenomenal number for someone who’d finished her PhD a year ago. She’d been considered for the Early Impact Award from the Federation of Associations in Behavioral & Brain Science (FABBS) and this year had won the Hillel Einhorn New Investigator Award from The Society for Judgment and Decision-Making.
Plus, she’d experienced and survived an impoverished childhood. That experience growing up in Cabrini–Green, and not the awards, is what got Lea the job with North Carolina University at Wilmington. Childhood experiences like hers didn’t normally transition to an academic setting. If individuals like Lea could succeed, logic highlighted that poverty could become obsolete. Now I was eager for a longer discussion around my idea of conscientiousness as the meme that could serve the poor, if I could catch my breath to speak.
Lea’s quick grin of welcome that made her friendliness contagious faltered.
“So,” I said, stalling for time to gather oxygen and my thoughts from petty squabbles, “how long have I been standing here staring at you?”
“Just a few seconds, Dr. Sommers.”
She smiled as if that were the most natural thing, even though we both knew it wasn’t. In academe, we’re all independent of one another, but try to reach above your means and the rest will reach up to pull you back down. Add the few professors who forget to take their meds, and no wonder things become unstable. Much is tolerated under the glamour of supposed brilliance in this environment.
Probably several minutes then. Now I was positive she’d want to run TRI’s online presence and work with me if I could convince the Raindrops to take TRI online. No one else would have confidence in an absent-minded, elderly, out-of-shape professor.
“Dr. Eggers told me he parked his car at the library yesterday and locked it. When he came out two hours later, the car was still running,” she said.
How sweet to try and put a positive spin on my forgetfulness.
“Someday,” I said, “we’ll go over to the math building and watch the professors think about where they parked their cars that morning.” I didn’t add that sometimes the same thing happened to me, because she seemed pleased to anticipate that joint excursion.
“What can I do for you, Lea?”
That light of pleasure on her face evaporated. I’d come across as abrupt when all I wanted was not to waste her time or my own. People thought me emotionally remote. That wasn’t true, although I did have a hard time expressing my feelings.
My father hadn’t liked jubilant behavior or expressions. He tended to make fun of them, so I had repressed much of my natural exuberance. In the five years since his death, I’d regressed a bit, but much of the repression was now ingrained. Who I could have been was not what I had become.
“If you tell me how I can help you, Lea, I can answer, then go to my office and hyperventilate in private.” I expelled what little air I had, to take more in and give my oxygen-deficient lungs some relief.
She laughed and the awkwardness eased between us.
“My paper was accepted,” she said. “The one that posits good decision-making doesn’t rely on high levels of fluid intelligence or abstract reasoning.”
I frowned. “I’m not sure I understand.”
“This outdated thinking, that people of high intellect are best at decision-making, has constrained human potential and influenced our policies, government, welfare practices—everything in our society.” She threw her hands wide to illustrate everything. “We’re wrong to think that way. As long as a person understands risks, that individual can make informed decisions. That data has tons of implications for poverty, for The Raindrop Institute, for the MOOC.”
I frowned because tossing aside accepted memes like high intelligence equals good decisions wouldn’t be easy.
“People who make bad decisions don’t understand the risks involved. If we improve risk literacy and couple that with adaptive technology like computerized tutors, decision-making improves, regardless of intellect.”
I thought of an Illinois neighbor who sold his farm for four hundred thousand dollars and lost all that money in eight minutes of gambling when he went on vacation to Las Vegas. A lifetime of work and heritage wiped out because he hadn’t fully understood the risks in his decision to gamble. Once again, I found breathing difficult as I lost myself in the enormity of change the concept presented. We’d put the U.S. economy at risk with its lottery, sports gambling, and casinos if we overturned that meme.
Lea nodded and smiled. “Intellect has always been tied to better decision-making, and we’ve been wrong. This study said intellect didn’t matter.”
Our whole society, how we provide aid to people in this country and overseas, all of it is based on an acceptance that high intellect is needed. If Lea was right, what made a difference was understanding risks and considering risks involved in making decisions, and anyone, high intellect or average intellect, could be taught to do that.
If we could slow down the unconscious decision making, but I didn’t pay that errant thought much attention.
Add conscientiousness to the mix, and TRI had another tool to use in the fight against poverty. I needed Lea to develop assessments that helped people evaluate and be aware of the risks involved in decisions about money.
“Lea,” I reached for her hand with both of mine, “the dean has approved a link to TRI on the college website.” We’d never had any social media presence before. “Can you build that website for us? I’d like to put your risk assessment quiz on the site, we can profile your research, and we can let our followers know that with training, visual aids, and diverse programs, people can climb out from under the consequences of bad decisions.”
I told her about the charity that had gone into Africa filled with good intentions and how the charity urged the local inhabitants there to plant tomatoes on a verdant field by the river. The locals said it couldn’t be done, but the charity didn’t agree and soon the tomato plants they planted were red with fruit. They were feeling quite good about the crop when the hippos came up from the nearby river and trampled everything into a pulpy mess.
“The lesson learned was to listen to the people they are helping. That’s what they’re doing with further efforts to improve lives in that area.”
“We should do that with the poor in this country,” Lea said. “They have ideas as to how to improve their lives and charities— volunteers and government officials should listen to them, not preach to them.”
“Could we incorporate The Doomsday Clock into that risk assessment?”
“Inciting dread doesn’t lead people to action.” Lea frowned at me as if she thought I should know that. “Comprehending the risks involved in decisions leads to positive action.”
She had a point. “We have one resource to tap, and it’s not our emotions,” I said.
“The brain,” Lea said, the amusement bubbling through her thoughts, “the same resource that’s conceptualized the Doomsday Clock.”
“Ironic, isn’t it?”
She laughed.
“Did you know that for the first time in a century, over half of the population lives in cities. That’s going to put enormous strain on infrastructure and resources in those urban areas.”
“Speaking of disaster,” Lea said, “that’s why I caught up with you. Dr. Hendrix . . ..”
Uh oh. Hendrix had never been a fan of mine because my i
magined slights against her had grown fossilized over time. I don’t think she ever forgave me for having the temerity to disagree with her decision and that of Catherine Alvarez, who had left the university after she served as the chair of the promotion and tenure committee, to not grant me promotion to associate professor or tenure. That had been five years ago, and my ideas and the recognition they received, plus the credit that got me a full professorship the following year after I went up for associate, hadn’t helped quell her dislike. If anything, that promotion had intensified her aversion.
“What about Hendrix?” I wasn’t smiling when I said those words.
Lea looked a bit frightened, but she managed to say, “She asked me to write a chapter with her for that new book from Harvard on brain theory, but I’d rather write with you, Dr. Sommers. What we’ve been discussing interests me.”
“Dr. Hendrix won’t be happy if you write with me.”
“You hired me, but I’m not hers, or yours, or anyone’s—whatever it is you all think I am.”
I’d felt that way once in my long career. At a conference in Salzburg, Austria. Class, race, religion, good looks, money, my father’s disappointments, his expectations, and all the other data measurements I used to evaluate myself faded to nothing while I was there.
Maybe that was why I wanted to go back. I’d grown so much during that week, stretched my thinking, that I came back to NCUW a different person, at least intellectually. Although I don’t know for sure, I’m certain that The Raindrop Institute had its beginnings in that overseas adventure. I’d been forced to focus on decision-making and, oh, how I wanted to go back someday, to share who I’d become, where my research had brought me, my successes. And I’d take Lea with me, if they accepted my intention to host a symposium on world poverty and conscientiousness, what I’d been daydreaming about when the Sentinel saved me from falling off the ladder.
But that was in the future, and Lea had a problem in the now. “Hendrix will vote on your tenure and promotion bid, if you are selected for the assistant professor position we have available. Did you submit your vita for the position?”
“I did, but if I have to align myself with someone, I’m on your side, not hers. I want to collaborate with you.”
“Then tell Hendrix that you’ve already agreed to work with me on a chapter and that we are exploring the theory that the brain’s role is to coordinate body movement.”
Lea’s beautiful sea-green eyes narrowed as her pupils widened. “That’s very controversial.”
Increased pupil size indicated engagement. Good, I had her attention.
“Keep in mind, that’s not Hendrix’s area of research. She can’t piggyback on our efforts if we write about this theory. Conducting research on how the brain coordinates or doesn’t coordinate movement might be of interest to a lot of people. Remember? I sat next to you at the last faculty meeting when you shared your sister’s experience lifting the car off her puppy.”
I didn’t tell her the other reason I was interested. The research might explain why I’d stood so long gazing at a pattern of white, purple, and green dots. Or why the patterns of light and dark highlighting Lea’s hair at this moment challenged my own sense of rightness. I clenched my fist to stop the urge to touch her hair. That didn’t lessen the compulsion to follow those shades of light into dark and dark into light.
“My sister shouldn’t have been able to lift that car, but Sadie did. I still don’t know how she managed to save her puppy.” Lea ran her hands through her tousled chestnut and blond hair, evidence of the genetic war inside her pitting Irish curls against African texture. She wore it loose today, a change from her preferred braids.
The gesture rippled the patterns of light and dark, and my compulsion to capture the light grew stronger. When my hand involuntarily lifted, I clenched my fist tighter and brought the involuntary movement under control. It wasn’t easy.
I knew better than to touch a student. I never did except for a hug at graduation, which was fine in that time and place. Nor did hair fascinate me, although I have to admit, hair fascinates a lot of the students at this university. They spend excessive amounts of time and money on hair products and tools.
The pattern of light and dark that played about in Lea’s hair drew me just as the pattern of dots had kept me standing, staring down at purple, white, and green. She shifted to stand in the shadows, and the patterns vanished. My entrancement disappeared, the compulsion eased, and my fist unclenched.
Bewilderment was on her face. I noticed because I could think again. What had we been talking about? Had she noticed my restraint? My half-lifted hand?
I remembered. We’d been talking about her sister. “Was she hurt?”
“A jammed finger,” Lea said.
“I’m going to use that for next week’s lecture in the MOOC.”
Because I too had had a similar experience of the Sentinel chemically hijacking my body. I’d been standing at the foot of the stairs watching my nephew Robbie come down the stairs with his father when he twisted out of David’s grasp, tucked, and started to roll. Before he’d tumbled down four steps, I’d thrown myself up the flight of stairs to pin his fifteen-month-old body against the wall. He’d been laughing when my shoulder slammed into his stomach. The wonder of that? He was okay, and I had a jammed finger to show for my rescue act. None of what I had done was a conscious decision.
“The brain hijacks the body,” she said.
“The unconscious, actually,” I said.
“And you find yourself doing something without any conscious effort to take that action.”
“Thinking is not the brain’s primary function. Survival is.” And unlike movement theory, there was plenty of research to back up that claim.
“But that doesn’t explain why Sadie risked her life or injury to save Nico.” At my smile, she stopped trying to explain what I couldn’t say. “So that’s what I tell Dr. Hendrix, that we’re interested in a theory of motion as the primary function of the brain.”
“That’s what you tell her.” Relief that Lea understood eased into a smile. “She’ll dump you as fast as I was breathing earlier. Kathleen’s take on neuroscience research is that the brain is all about thought, not action. That bias of hers won’t tolerate any deviation.”
“Will this hurt me when it comes time for promotion and tenure—if I get the job, that is?”
“Not if your annual reviews are good for every year you are here. She can say anything about you that she wants, but those annual reviews, those are the documents that matter.”
“Then I would be honored to write that chapter with you, Dr. Sommers, on the brain and movement, with a concentration on how the unconscious can hijack the body”—and I thought, and the mind—“and I’ll collaborate with you to build the online presence of The Raindrop Institute.”
Lea held out her hand, and I shook it, the bargain sealed.
“If we are going to collaborate with one another, call me Dart. Our deadline is just a short month from now for that chapter. There’s a wonderful TED talk about our topic. View it, take some notes, and we’ll start fleshing out the pros and cons tomorrow. Does that work for you?”
Lea hurried away to get started on the research we needed.
That’s when I saw that, two doors down the hallway, Hendrix’s door stood half open, and I’d bet a thousand hours of library research she was inside listening, her mouth tight with displeasure. Lea had gone the opposite direction, back to her office. That was good, but I had better confront the fire ant in her office before she spread stinging rumors neither Lea nor I needed.
Before I could argue with myself as to other options, I rapped my knuckles on the half-open door, then pushed open the door and leaned against the door jamb, trying to convey the impression that this was a friendly visit. I should have known better.
Scribbling words on the margin of a student’s paper with enough emphasis to make my jaw hurt, the woman who lived to make my professional life miserable
looked up at me, but only after she’d finished her comments. That poor student. He or she wouldn’t get any pleasure out of those red marks.
“Stay away from her, Dart.” Hendrix put the pen down with precise movements. Despite her bulk she moved with grace. That straight, short gray hair framed a wide face with small brown eyes made smaller by drooping eyelids. The sun hadn’t been kind to her.
“Stay away?” I asked. What did that mean? To be prudent, I remained standing just inside the doorway.
“You don’t remember?” Scorn coated every consonant and vowel as she looked up at me without a smile of welcome on her face.
I didn’t remember.
She grew impatient with my ignorance. “Rosa.”
Rosa. Why Rosa?
The only Rosa I knew was Rosa Gonzales, who had come to work in Stratton College for one semester three years ago and then had jumped to Harvard when they offered her a job the following semester.
“You drove her away.”
“Lea’s still here.”
“Rosa.” Her jaw clenched so tight she couldn’t get the words out. “Rosa Gonzales.”
I stopped leaning on the door jamb. If Kathleen decided to attack me, I had to get out of her way before she got around the desk because if she reached me, she’d take me to the ground as she weighed twice what I did.
“You drove Rosa away.”
“Ah, you were the one. . . .” The clicks fell into place. I knew now what had never made sense before. I’d been hurt that a colleague I’d made every effort to be friendly toward had lied about me, but Rosa hadn’t done the lying. Hendrix’s lie was what Ash had believed when he’d called me into his office, the dean’s office, three years ago and chewed on me for unbecoming conduct toward a colleague.
Nor had he apologized when I showed him my calendar for the semester Rosa had been with us. I hadn’t been in the office that much because I’d been on sabbatical and traveling for interviews and meeting with business leaders and K–12 educators about The Raindrop Institute. My jaunts had paid off, but I’d always felt a bit guilty that I hadn’t interacted with my new colleague, although we’d become friendlier after she left.
Bring the Rain Page 4
