[Context: read the previous part or start at the beginning. TW: bad amateur fiction!]
For the first time since the fall, Gerald walked around the inside of his lab. Even at a snail’s pace, it didn’t take him long to go up one side and down the other, past the freezers, fridge, HPLC, and spectrophotometer, past the pipetting stations, past the pair of desks. The room had been dark for, what was it now, five months? Was this a venue in decline, or was it just lying fallow before the next surge of productivity?
Gerald wasn’t sure, but it was almost time to advertise summer and fall research opportunities for students. Given the large number of biology majors who wanted to pursue lab research, he felt obligated to make some project available to somebody, rather than forcing his colleagues to do all of the mentoring. But what kind of mentor would he be if he was not invested in making progress?
Well, he thought, he still had his collaborator’s V-series inhibitors that could be tested against the Plasmodium and human acetyltransferases. Or were they aminotransferases? He would have to check. Anyway, he could probably squeeze a thesis project out of that if he had to…. And he could probably exploit his department chair’s sympathy to postpone such decisions for a bit longer…
His thoughts returned to Cissy. He started constructing an email to her, revising it and re-revising it until it had just the right breezy, dashed-off tone: Hey, how’s that econ rap coming along? Let me know if I can be of assistance. 🙂
He still needed a cute subject header. Mic-ro-economics? No, she might not recognize “mic” as meaning “microphone.” How about Hip-Hop-onomics? That seemed safer, but that second hyphen had to go. OK, Hip-Hoponomics. Done!
Her response arrived later that morning: Having trouble finding good rhymes for “Keynesian.” May need to enlist a “feat.” collaborator. You available?
He immediately set to work on a response, now aiming for a gentle ramp-up: Katy Perry is on my case to help her out with her next single — some sort of anthem about a skin-tight lab coat, I think — but I can probably fit you in as well. Shall we meet at Cafe Nation to discuss? 4pm most days would work for me, or anytime on Thursdays.
He forced himself to wait an hour before sending it.
An hour after that, he had her response: Tomorrow at 4 would be great.
He thought YES! — followed shortly by What am I doing? These days that question was popping up with alarming frequency. In this instance, though, he thought he might have a good start on an answer.
[Update: the story continues with part 21.]
My Track Record 
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