It's complicated

“That doesn’t look like data! What are you up to, Laurie?”

“Waiting for my samples to incubate, Kim, and looking at houses.”

Laurie was sitting at a computer looking at a list of houses for sale. She had dirty blond, wavy unruly hair, wire-rimmed glasses and was wearing a skirt and sweater. Kim was looking over her shoulder, grinning, her soft brown ringlets bouncing as she tossed her head. Her eyes gleamed with mischief.

“Houses, eh? For you and Brian?” Kim asked.

Laurie was skimming the descriptions of houses. She hesitated before answering, pretending to be distracted, because she could hear the unspoken words ‘but you’re not even married’. “Just browsing,” she finally said, closing the website.

She got up from the desk, headed over to the lab bench, opened the cover on the incubator, peered inside and then walked over to her station and picked up the timer. Twenty-nine more minutes. She knew it wasn’t time to end the reaction, but was trying to look busy to head off the conversation with Kim. Nobody understood her relationship with Brian. It was complicated. She wanted their approval, but how could they possibly understand? On the surface, it was too crazy. Admit it, she thought, it’s not just crazy on the surface.

She got out her notebook, picked up her pen and let her mind wander. It slipped back over the past year and a half. They had met in the lab, working side by side, and had gotten to be friends. She couldn’t help but smile at the memory of the first time she’d seen him. Oh, no. She almost laughed out loud. That had been the second time…. Yes, that’s right. The first time had been at colloquium, the weekly presentation by graduate students. She hadn’t even known his name then. She’d walked into the room, one of many students and faculty, and noticed the only person in the room that wasn’t eating the free pizza.

‘What’s with that guy?’ she thought. She looked him over, noting his handsome, clean-cut face, his collared shirt and twill pants. He was eating carrots from a ziploc bag. She summed him up immediately. Arrogant. Too good for free pizza.

She wouldn’t have thought much of him, but during the presentation, he kept interrupting, offering explanations when peple asked questions. ‘Oh my gosh!’ she thought. ‘Who does this guy think he is?’ Well, it was pretty clear he thought he was a real hotshot. Her opinion was different. A jerk. No doubt about it.

She smiled as she remembered. Yes, that had been the first time she’d ever seen him. A while later, maybe three months later, she’d been invited to a party. She was still trying to decide which lab to join for her research project and Kim had suggested this lab.

“You should join our lab,” she’d said. “John throws a great party! In fact, he’s having one next week. Why don’t you come?”

So, she’d come over for the party and to check out the lab, which was in one of the old sections of the college, down a long hallway and up a rickety flight of stairs. It felt more like she was going into an old Victorian house than a molecular biology lab. She knew she was headed in the right direction, though, because she could hear the music and din of voices.

She’d walked through the doorway, looking around at all the people, searching for familiar faces, when she’d seen him, straight ahead, playing air guitar. She stopped dead in her tracks. Could it be the same guy? Mister “I’m too good to eat pizza and I wear nice clothes when everyone else is in T-shirts and jeans?” She couldn’t believe it! Well, maybe she’d been wrong about him.

She’d been introduced to everyone by Kim. It was a very nice group of people, and John, the lab head, was the consummate host. He seemed more like a Duke or Earl than principal investigator of a lab. Very cultured. Eventually, she’d been introduced to Brian – the well-dressed, handsome, air-guitar man. They’d said hello and then talked. They talked and talked about anything and everything. She couldn’t even remember what they’d talked about, but it seemed like they were in a world of their own. He was nothing like she had first thought. He wasn’t arrogant, just the opposite. She had asked him straight out.

“What’s with you? You don’t like pizza? How come you were eating carrots at colloquium?”

“I’m not part of the department, so I didn’t think I should eat the food they provided. I brought my own lunch,” he said.

“You’re not part of the department? What do you mean.”

“Well, John, the PI, the lab head I mean, has a joint appointment. He’s in the biochem department and the physiology department, but I was hired through the physiology department. I was only at colloquium because JoAnn was presenting and I’ve worked with her on her project.” That explained everything. He’d interjected comments during the question and answer period, because he was on the project. Yes, first impressions could be very misleading.

That had been about two years ago. Since then, she’d joined the lab, made pretty good progress on her research project and gotten to be friends with Brian. He already had his doctorate and was working in the lab as an extension of his training. He was a post-doctoral fellow, postdoc for short. He was a very smart perfectionist and, at the time, married.

Yeah, that had been disappointing, but it didn’t matter. Even though her first impression had been wrong, Laurie didn’t think he was her type. She remembered thinking he was too good looking and too clean cut. She was attracted to more adventurous men. If they had an accent, whew, that really made them interesting. During those early days in the lab, she’d been flirting a lot with a guy from Venezuela. She could hardly think when he was around and she loved to talk about him to her lab mates; where she’d seen him, where he might be next weekend, how good he smelled.

She continued musing, remembering the day that had changed everything. She’d gotten to the lab around 8 am, like she usually did. She was an older graduate student and had been a high school teacher before this, so she was used to getting up and getting to work. A lot of the students, and some professors, tended to work a later shift, something like 10 am to 8 pm, but Julie was an 8 am to 6 pm kind of person. The lab had been pretty quiet. The two technicians were there, setting things up for the day, and Brian and been in his office. After a few hours, she’d gone into his office to ask a question and noticed that he looked terrible.

“Are you OK?” she’d asked. “You look upset.”

He’d looked up from his desk, emotions playing across his face. He looked hurt, conflicted, and surprised she’d asked. “I’m OK,” he said.

“No you’re not. You look like somebody died. What’s the matter?” she’d insisted.

He’d looked out through his office door, looked back at her and started talking. It was like a dam had burst. He told her that his wife had just called. They lived out in the country, quite a long way from the university, and had a lot of animals. One of their cats had been sick for a while and had just died. His wife was upset about it and had told him to come home and bury the cat. He’d protested, saying that he was at work and couldn’t just leave. She got hysterical, screamed at him, told him he’d better come home ‘or else’. “She treats me like I’m her servant,” he said. “I liked the cat, too, but I’m at work. What am I supposed to do? I’ll bury it when I get home tonight.”

It had been a very short conversation, but somehow it had created a connection between them. That afternoon, after he’d left a little early, Laurie had mentioned to one of the technicians how upset he’d been. She had been feeling sorry for him and wanted to share the emotion.

“Oh, I’m not surprised,” Diana said. “He and his wife have had lots of problems. She doesn’t treat him right.”

“Really?” Laurie said “but he’s such a nice guy.”

“I know,” said Diana. “He tries so hard to please her and she just walks all over him.”

‘Really……’ thought Laurie. ‘How interesting.’ As soon as the thought formed, her conscience spoke up and knocked it down. ‘What are you thinking? Oh my Gosh! He’s married for goodness sake.’

Too true. What had she been thinking? Laurie came out of her reverie and realized that her timer was chirping away, telling her that the reaction in the incubator was finished. It was time to take out the samples, mix them, spin them down quickly in the little centrifuge and tick them in the freezer. Time to go home.