Page 7 of Love and the Laws of Motion
“You did.”Livie bit back a smile.“Did you want to talk about the undergrad lab assignments?”
That had to be it, even if she’d forgotten.
“Undergrad labs?Yes...ah, yes.”She sifted through the papers on her desk and came up with a spreadsheet, peering closely at it.“Section two.Tuesday evenings.Does that suit you?”
“Of course.Whatever you think is best.”
“Section two is the good one,” she said, finally coming fully back to Earth and all its mundane concerns.“The Monday night sessions are always overcrowded and no one shows up for the Friday night ones.That Friday night slot is a waste of a perfectly good graduate student.”
“Then section two is perfect.Have you checked your email yet?”
Again, Janet glanced down at her desk, as if she’d just remembered email existed.“Not yet.I got a little sidetracked this morning.”
Janet’s “sidetrack” could possibly end up changing human beings’ understanding of time and space, so Livie was happy to overlook the small annoyances.
“I emailed you an initial purchasing proposal.Let me know what you think.”
Again, Janet briefly returned to Earth.“Oh, wonderful.I’d love to get started on purchasing equipment as soon as possible.”
Livie took a deep breath before mentioning her other bit of good news.“And I may have found someone to write our program.”
Finch looked up in surprise.Her wide, pale blue eyes were magnified by her oversized tortoiseshell glasses.With her tiny willowy frame and the dandelion fluff hair, she sometimes looked like a baby bird in a nest.But it was a mistake to underestimate the razor-sharp intelligence hiding behind her unassuming appearance.
“Someone in the computer department?”
Livie scoffed.“No, that was a dead end.If I wanted a first-person shooter game developed, they’d have been perfect, but analyzing Hubble data?Not a chance.”
“First-person shooter?”
“Never mind.Anyway, I asked this guy to come in tomorrow during your office hours to meet with you.I hope that’s okay?”She skated right past Nick’s unconventional résumé, hoping that he would so impress Finch at their meeting that she wouldn’t care about his qualifications.Or his police record.
“Of course, of course.”Janet’s attention had been snagged by something in a report she’d unearthed from her desk, which meant the useful conversation was over for today.
“Okay, I’m taking off.”
“Good, good.Nice to have you back, Livie,” she muttered, already lost in the sheet of numbers she was examining.
Livie paused at the door, glancing back at Janet, absorbed in the universe inside her head.Her advisor was going to be laser-focused during tomorrow’s meeting with Nick, though.He’d better be able to withstand the scrutiny.
Chapter Four
With her undergrad lab assignment sorted, Livie’s next stop was the department office to get her office assignment.After two years of storing all her stuff in a tiny little grad carrel no bigger than a closet, she was finally getting a real office.With a desk.And a chair.
“These kids,” Anita sighed when the scrum of frantic undergrads finally cleared out.“I tell them they gotta talk to the professor to add a class, but do they listen?No, they come in here and insist on telling me all their sad stories.Bet you weren’t like that in undergrad, were you, Livie?”
“Hmm, not exactly.”She was always first off the mark at registration, completing it before most other students had even logged on.Not getting into a class she wanted wasn’t something that happened to her very often.
“How was your summer, Livie?”
She’d worked straight through her brief summer hiatus, plowing through all the published research she didn’t have time for during the school year.“Nothing special.How was yours?”
“We redid the kitchen this summer, so it was hell on earth.You’re here for your office assignment?”
“Are they ready?”
Anita fished through a drawer in her desk.“They are, and I made sure you got a good one.”She handed over a set of keys.“406.It’s closest to the copier and farthest from the lecture halls.Nice and quiet.”She leaned forward, her voice dropping to a whisper.“This one has awindow.”
“Thanks, Anita.”
