Page 13 of Kept By the Loan Shark

Chapter Four

“So, as we dig deeper into this topic, you’ll begin to understand how much of a profound impact these nonlinear dispersions have on the propagation of wave packets,” Dr. Symonds said as she wrapped up her lecture. “I think we’ll stop here today. If there are no questions?” She paused and waited for anyone in the lecture hall to raise their hand. “Okay. Feel free to email me or come by the office if you need some help.”

The small class erupted into movement all around me. People started packing away their laptops and notebooks while chatting. I did the same, tucking my notebook into my well-loved backpack and hefting the straps onto my shoulders.

“Cassie? Do you have time to walk with me?” Dr. Symonds called from the front of the class.

“Yes, ma’am.” I squeezed through the wall of much taller bodies blocking the stairs and worked my way down to the front of the lecture hall to meet with my mentor.

“Did you have any problems following the lecture?” Dr. Symonds asked as she picked up her worn leather messenger bag and travel mug. “You seemed to be the only face in here not frowning or looking back at me in a panic.”

“I did the reading over the weekend and took some time to work through the examples.”

“Smart girl,” she said with an approving smile. Gesturing toward the side entrance, she indicated we should walk. As I fell into step beside her, she said, “Have you given any more thought to your grad school picks?”

“Yes. I finalized my list yesterday.”

“And?”

“CalTech, Stanford, Princeton and MIT,” I listed off my top choices. Staying here at Rice was my backup plan, as she well knew.

“What was your verbal score?”

“162.”

“And your quant?”

“166.”

“And writing?”

“5.”

She tallied up the GRE score. “333 is a strong score. With the right essays and recommendation letters, you’ll get some really strong offers.”

“I hope so,” I said, letting worry seep into my voice. “I really want this, and it’s so scary to think I might not have what it takes to make it at CalTech or Stanford.”

“You have exactly what it takes,” Dr. Symonds assured me. “You’re smart, yes, but you’re tenacious. You’re a hard worker. You aren’t afraid to make sacrifices. You are going to do great things someday very soon in astronautics and space engineering. Believe in yourself the way I believe in you.”

Her pep talk hit me right in the feels. “I will.”

“Good. Now, come see me later this week, and we’ll start working on your list for recommendation letters. You also need to schedule a meeting with the grad school advising office to practice your interviews. You want to nail those. Make a great impression. Make them want you in their programs.”

“I’ll get right on that.”

She patted my back, and we separated, her heading into her office and me toward the lab where I worked part-time. I had been extremely lucky to snag a spot in the lab as a sophomore. Dr. Symonds had recommended me, and I had started off as nothing more than a glorified gofer. After a while, I had earned my place and learned so much about black holes, magnetars and pulsars. I was able to observe laser-driven plasmas, and now helped collect, input and refine data on dark matter detection. The work I did wasn’t very exciting, but it was vitally important to the research being done in this lab.

While I worked, I pushed all thoughts from my mind and concentrated on what was right in front of me. Even though I had a million things on my seemingly never-ending to-do list, my focus remained on the scads of data and the modeling I had been tasked with creating. Dark matter had always intrigued me. It was a peculiar thing, something that the scientific community had only just started to study in any depth and puzzle out with the help of computers. The implications behind dark matter—about what it was and the purpose it served—were just as mysterious as its name. I hoped that someday my work here in the lab, no matter how boring, would lead to some of the answers we all wanted.

The alarm on my watch buzzed, and I wrapped up my work, saving and closing my files and straightening my workstation. I grabbed my backpack, waved to my supervising grad student and hurried off to my afternoon class. I found my usual seat in the middle of the small classroom and checked my phone since I had a few extra minutes.

Hagen:I’ll be home late. Do you want me to grab dinner?

Me:I’ll cook.

Hagen:OK.

Me:I’m stopping by my place to do a mini purge and declutter. Cut down on the number of boxes I’ll need.

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