Beginner's Luck

by Kate Clayborn

  I know Beaumont Materials—anyone who works in my field, who does any kind of work at all in materials science, knows about a company that manufactures everything from pipelines to jet engines to those little plastic thingamajigs you can use to hang pictures without nails. But some additional thread of familiarity tugs at my brain. I generally have a good memory, but probably this guy’s jerk-hotness has scrambled it. I decide not to try and sort it, and head instead over to the steel storage cabinet where we keep supplies, putting some distance between me and my new visitor. “Go on,” I say, appreciating the opportunity to look busy. “I just need to start packing up here.”

  “We’ve reached out to you recently, Ms. Averin, regarding the article you and your coauthors published in Metallurgy International.”

  Oh. Oh, fuck, I do remember now what that tug of memory is, and my palms go a little more sweaty beneath my latex gloves. “Ah. Yes. I saw a couple of emails. I don’t remember seeing your name, though.”

  “I wasn’t part of the original contact team,” he says, stepping farther into the room. “But I read your paper, and I decided I had to meet you, and talk to you about the opportunities Beaumont could offer you for your research.”

  “I don’t want any opportunities from Beaumont,” I say, more quickly, more defensively than I intend. I’m immediately grateful for the fact that I’m here alone today—just as I don’t want anyone here knowing about the lottery, I don’t want them catching wind of Beaumont trying to contact me. When those emails had come in, I’d deleted them almost right away, same as I did with any message from potential employers. I’m happy here, and I don’t even want there to be a suggestion to anyone around that I’m otherwise.

  He smiles again, and—ugh. I need to get this guy out of here; he is terrible for my self-preservation. “I think we got that message from your silence,” he says, “but I’m afraid we couldn’t let this go without having the chance to tell you what exactly it is we are willing to do for you.” He looks around the lab as he says this, and I suppress a wince—all right, so it may be super clean in here, but it is far from state-of-the art, and to a guy coming from Beaumont Materials, it probably looks budget as all get-out. Even after ten years of being here, Dr. Singh was still the most recent faculty hire, and he’d inherited this, the oldest lab, on a side of the building where the HVAC was unreliable and the floors had never been replaced.

  “I’ve got everything I need here,” I say, but at that exact moment yet another handle from the already-dilapidated steel cabinet falls off, clattering on the peeling, faded linoleum. “I mean except for functional handles.”

  Hell. That dimple. “We could take care of that.”

  “I’m sure you could,” I say, hooking a finger through the hole left by the wayward handle and pulling open the cabinet.

  “As I’m sure you know, state-of-the-art equipment is the least of what we’d be willing to do to have you on board. Beaumont is working on alloy technologies that relate directly to your research, and we think we could make a real difference working together.”

  I let out an unladylike snort at this, this cookie-cutter pitch he’s giving me. And anyways, I know what alloy technology Beaumont’s been pouring most of its money into in the last five years—big oil and big guns—and I want no part of either. My work’s always been about figuring out weaknesses in old materials, studying bridge or pipeline failures, figuring out how to make what’s already here work better. “I’m not looking to make that kind of difference,” I say, setting the jug of ethanol back in its place.

  “Many of the scientists we work with have that reaction initially, I can assure you. But Beaumont’s packages are very attractive—we’re talking a great deal of funding sources for your work. Let me take you to lunch and tell you—”

  I cut him off here, bored with everything he has to say, and that’s in spite of the fact that I’m pretty sure I could look at him for a good, long time. “Tell me about the nondisclosure agreement you’re going to make me sign, so I can’t publish research that might hurt your bottom line? Tell me about the devil’s bargain this will turn out to be, when Beaumont uses my research to make some product that is horrible for the environment, or that you put on some weapon that you sell to the government at huge cost? Tell me about all the fine print that says you can terminate my contract if I’m not producing patentable material in the next two years? Listen, no offense to you, Ben, but there’s a reason I’ve avoided private funding in the work I do. There’s a reason I work here.”

  “Two of your colleagues here are backed with corporate funding.” Don’t I know it. Dr. Harroway and Dr. Wagner both have massive corporate support, and there’s no kind of fifty-plus years of dirt on any of their equipment. If my lottery money would have made any kind of dent in what we’d need to match corporate funding, I would’ve donated it all. “And the College of Engineering is exploring avenues for long-term partnerships with industry.”

  I can feel my eyes narrow at him. This kind of guy was the reason academic research was becoming—was already—a patsy for big money. “Let me ask you something about that Metallurgy International article,” I say, rising to my full—not very full, frankly—height. “What did you think of the technique I used to prepare samples for heat treatment in step three of my experiments?”

  It’s fleeting, but I catch it, I think: a flash of something near surprise in his eyes, but he so quickly arranges his features into a sly, I’m-not-ashamed-that-you-caught-me devilishness that I suspect Ben Tucker never really lets himself get taken off guard. To this, I shrug my shoulders casually. “I don’t really blame you, actually. I didn’t write it with a corporate audience—with someone like you—in mind. But this is why I’m not interested in working for your company. I enjoy working with people who really know what it is that I do, and more importantly, with people who know what I really want to do with it.”

  He lowers his eyes for a moment, looking down to where the cabinet handle rests on the floor. Damn, he has long eyelashes, a dark contrast to his light hair, which is actually unacceptable for me to be noticing at this time.

  He looks back up and smiles at me. “I like you,” he says, and I stiffen in surprise and a fair bit of anger.

  Because this is also unacceptable. What does he think, that I’ll roll right over and show him my belly, in gratitude for a little male attention? I’ve known guys like this. I’d taken notes all through general chemistry for a guy like this in my first year of college, stupidly not realizing that for him, the notes were all that I was good for.

  “Oh, is this the part where you skate right over the fact that you didn’t actually read my paper, and instead tell me I’ve got ‘spunk,’ that I’m exactly what Beaumont needs?”

  “No. That’s me telling you. Independent of Beaumont.” He says this firmly, with more conviction than he’s said anything else so far.

  “Well. I know your type, and flattery isn’t going to work, either.”

  “My type?”

  I feel it, right here, that I’m losing a little control over the conversation, but I’m stuck with it, so I barrel on. “Oh, sure. You come in here, with your”—I pause here, to gesture vaguely in the direction of his body—“your suit. And your face, and…” I swallow the rest of it. I want him out of here. I’m afraid someone will come in, Dr. Singh, or any one of the faculty or graduate students who would probably wet their pants at meeting a Beaumont executive who seems to be handing out jobs. “Listen, it’s very kind of you to come all this way. But I did read those emails, so I know something about what you’re offering. I’m just really, really not interested. And I do, actually, have an appointment.”

  He takes a deep breath and nods. His skin is golden-brown, a light tan, but I think I see flags of color on his cheeks. This is his fault, coming in here sleek but unprepared, but suddenly I feel a little guilty for being so dismissive. Before I can say anything, though, he s
peaks again. “I understand. I’m…” he trails off, long enough to run a hand through his hair, before continuing, “…sorry to have wasted your time.”

  He steps forward a little, holding out his hand. I catch a little scent of something—pine, maybe. Whatever it is, it’s not what I’m expecting. With the suit he’s wearing, I’d expected some upmarket version of that heinous body spray I sometimes get a whiff of when one of the undergrads is trying to compensate for not-very-clean-laundry. Ben, though, he smells—clean. Natural.

  Male.

  I take his hand and shake it, forgetting the glove I still have on. He looks down and chuckles a little at the contact, and I try not to be ashamed of the little shiver that chases down my spine at the sound of that.

  “It was very nice to meet you, Ms. Averin,” he says, and then he turns and leaves the room, as quietly as he’d come in.

  For a minute, I stare after him, a little confused, thrown off. I’ve been recruited before, especially back when I was finishing up my thesis, but never quite that way, never by someone that looked like him. One thing about it was the same, though—that quick-shot feeling of fear that would go through me at the very idea of having to pick up and leave here, start all over again. I can’t do that anymore. I’ve had my fill of it.

  I strip off my gloves and shrug out of my lab coat, cast my eyes up at the clock. There’s no time for me to be distracted by Ben Tucker or by my disproportionate reaction to his offer. If there’s any day when I don’t need to feel threatened by an upheaval, it’s today.

  Today, I’ve got millionaire dreams to make come true.

  * * * *

  “It’s like a four,” Zoe says, peering out the back window to the small, overgrown yard, “on a scale of shithole to ten.”

  It’s Saturday morning, and I’ve been a homeowner now for less than a full twenty-four hours. I’d spent most of yesterday afternoon at the closing, signing a stack of documents that Satan obviously prepared, and then had made my way over, alone, to take it all in and drop off a few boxes—but also, I guess, to get prepared for this, the morning I was showing my two best friends my new place for the first time.

  When I’d first started looking for a place, Zoe and Greer had gone with me to dozens of open houses, had helped me scour real estate websites for prospects. They each had their own opinions about where I belonged—condo, Zoe had said, lobbying especially hard for her own posh downtown building, while Greer said she pictured me somewhere with a big yard, a place to spread out a little.

  Of course I valued their opinions. For the last few years, since the night we’d all literally, hilariously, run into each other outside of the entrance to my apartment—Greer walking home from the pet store with a plastic bag filled with water and a single goldfish, Zoe yelling into her phone outside of the yoga studio next door to Betty’s, and me, trying to wave a bat outside of the doorway with an old hairbrush—Greer and Zoe had been my confidantes, my cheerleaders, my companions. They were family. But buying this house was so important, so personal to me that I was afraid I’d lose my own voice somewhere in the shuffle, and more than that, I’d known almost since I first moved to Barden and drove through its most historic district that I wanted to live in this neighborhood, on this medium-sized city’s southern edge, someday. I think I was stalling, really, until I saw one of the Queen Anne style row houses come available, and when one did, I’d gone on my own to the first showing, fully intending to call them, to have them see it another time, once I’d checked it out.

  But the house was in rough shape—lots to be done, lots of people to be hired, lots of planning and patience required. I was afraid they’d talk me out of it, and so I’d made an offer that first day, had held off, despite their pleading protests, on showing it to them before today—moving day, when the truck was outside, unloading the boxes that had been picked up from my old apartment this morning.

  So if my friends are a little skeptical, it may be because I’ve made them that way. And also because this house—it probably is a four.

  Greer tsks, nudging Zoe in the back. “Kit, it’s beautiful, really. And don’t listen to Zoe. Her mother called this morning and you know what that means.”

  Zoe waves a hand dismissively. “I’m fine. It’s just that my garlic necklace doesn’t work through the phone. Anyways, Kit-Kat, I’m totally kidding. This is a great house.”

  I smile at their gentle approval, but I need, today, to press for more. There’s two dudes carrying my mattress upstairs, after all. I am in this thing. “You really think so?”

  It’s a little tough, standing in this kitchen, trying to recapture the calm, joyful feeling I’d had when I’d first seen the house. Then, I’d taken in the flaws, understood the need for many renovations—but I’d somehow known. I’d felt a certainty unlike anything else, except for maybe the first time I’d solved a thermodynamics equation. Now, though, I only see the mismatched cabinets, some painted so many times the doors won’t shut, the peeling laminate countertop, the floor covered in stick-on tiles. It’s like the lab, but worse.

  Zoe wraps her arms around me, gives me a smacking kiss on my head before pulling away and heading into the dining room, where Greer and I follow. “I really think so. It’s perfect for you. You can make it exactly what you want.”

  “I can see it now,” Greer says, turning in a slow circle around the room. “The light coming in through all these windows, the fireplace in the front room, all this woodwork cleaned up and repainted. You could put this place in a magazine once it’s all done.”

  That idea—it does not appeal, not in any way. This is going to be my safe place, for me and the people I love. Watching Zoe and Greer move through these rooms, pausing over the big, gorgeous bay window at the front of the house, I feel suddenly choked up. I’ve really done it, I think. I’ve got a home.

  I lived in sixteen different apartments from the time I was born to when I left home at eighteen. They were all, every one, varying degrees of awful. The first one I remember had no heat, and some nights my older brother, Alex, would light a small campfire grill he’d found in a dumpster and we’d huddle around it, falling asleep leaning against each other. Six of them had communal showers; when I’d go down the hall, clutching a bar of soap and a towel to my chest, Alex would walk behind me, standing outside the door until I’d finished, not letting anyone in. For my entire thirteenth year, I had bed bugs that were impossible to get rid of, no matter what we did. For six months when I was sixteen, we lived next to a mentally ill man who would knock on the door at all hours of the night, shouting that he hoped my father went blind, that he knew I was a whore, that Alex worked as a spy for the Russian government.

  The easiest moves were the ones that kept me in the same school district, the same few-mile radius. By the time I started high school, Alex was working, and he could do more to control where we went—but for most of my childhood, I learned to anticipate the upheaval of meeting a new teacher mid-year, a new set of students, a new route to school, everything. My teachers praised me, complimenting me on my adaptability, or, on the occasions when I’d come in having learned more than where the current class was, on how patiently I waited for other kids to grasp concepts I’d mastered.

  With each move, my father, stinking of booze and cigarettes, would make promises, telling us this would be the last time. But for the most part, we were mostly invisible to him, especially me—a living reminder only of that desperate time after his first wife, Alex’s mom, had died, and he’d tried to recreate the love he’d had for her with a young, quiet waitress he’d met on a riverboat casino.

  Good free counseling services in college helped, but it was moving here—working with Dr. Singh, meeting Zoe and Greer, falling in love with this town—that made me feel as if I’d found my stopping place, the place where maybe I wouldn’t always have to work so hard at staying put, the place where I could stop obsessively counting sidewalk cracks betwe
en my bus stop and whatever crappy apartment building I was sleeping in. To be here, in my own home—to me, it’s a miracle.

  “God, you’re so lucky,” Zoe says as one of the movers comes in, hauling another two boxes upstairs. “You’re going to have hot contractors here all the time. Can I come over? I could hang out while you’re at work. I could supervise.”

  I laugh at the way she waggles her eyebrows up and down. “No. You’re not going to sexually harass my contractors.”

  “Spoilsport,” she says, watching as another mover climbs the stairs.

  “My favorite thing about this,” Greer says, leaning against the bay window’s ledge, “is that it’ll give you something to focus on other than work.”

  “Yes!” Zoe exclaims, clapping her hands together.

  “I’m still going to work, you guys.” This is a common refrain, the concern about my working too much. I don’t think either of them really thinks I’ll ever change, but I suspect it’s turned into a sort of shorthand for us all, them expressing affection for me this way, and me secretly relishing their concern. Meeting Zoe and Greer, keeping up with the traditions we’d built over the years we’ve known each other, probably protected me from what might have been a worrying inclination to work too hard, to let my research consume me. I’d seen the single-minded focus that had overtaken some of my peers, had seen the way work had dictated the lives of many of my professors. One of the reasons I’d made the choices I had—to stay small, to stay on as a lab tech—had been to avoid that fate. Of course, there’d been other reasons too, reasons like the ones I’d told Ben Tucker yesterday.

  Unexpectedly, I feel my face heat at the thought of him. That dimple. Those eyelashes for days.

  I clear my throat, ignoring these stray, unwanted thoughts. “I am going to do some of this myself, though,” I say. “Easy stuff, maybe some of the yard work. And working with the contractors is sort of a job in itself.”