Page 319 of How to Kiss a Hawthorne Brother
“You’ll figure something out,” Lucy says. “Even if you lose your funding, you can still teach.”
“For a while. But a PhD with no research is like a doctor with no patients. The university won’t tolerate it for long.”
I think of the grad students I’ve worked with over the past few years. And the friends I’ve made at the forest service research lab. Carolina Southern has been leasing access to the lab so I have a home base formyresearch, and the forest rangers who work there have become good friends. It was one of them who first tipped me off about white squirrels in Polk County in the first place.
If I lose my funding, I’ll lose them too.
A silence settles across the table, but I can tell by my sisters’ starry-eyed expressions that they’re still thinking about Flint and not my potential job woes.
“I still can’t believe you actually touched him,” Lucy says with a sigh. “I would have been a complete wreck.”
“I would have cried,” Summer says. “Big, fat, genuine tears. Either that, or I would have wet my pants.”
I push my empty plate away and let out a tiny laugh. “It wasn’t that big a deal. He seemed pretty normal, honestly.”
“Ha! Normal,” Summer says. “That’s funny.”
“I wish you’d been wearing something different,” Lucy says, sitting up a little taller in her chair. Apparently, we’re going to talk about Flint and only Flint for the rest of eternity. “Or at least had on a little bit of makeup.”
I tense the slightest bit but quickly shake it off, giving my shoulders an easy roll. “Why? What would it have mattered? I wasn’t there for him. I was there for the squirrels.”
“Still. Stranger things have happened,” Lucy says. “He’s young, single…”
This makes Summer giggle. “Can you imagine? Flint Hawthorne asking outAudrey?”
I frown, hating that even with my earlier efforts to avoid the subject, we still wind up here. “Gee. Thanks.”
“I mean, come on,” Summer says. “I’m not saying that to insult you. You’re gorgeous and brilliant and any man—even a movie star—would be lucky to be with you. But you hate movies. And you don’t exactly dress like a woman hoping to catch a man’s attention.”
I’m momentarily stunned by the generosity of Summer’s assessment. She thinks I’m gorgeous? But then my brain catches up with the rest of her words, and I glance down at my T-shirt. “What’s wrong with my clothes?”
“Audrey,” Lucy says, her tone level. “Most days, you dress like you’re preparing for guerilla warfare, and we haven’t seen you wear makeup in years.”
“Since your PhD hooding ceremony,” Summer adds unhelpfully.
“Guerilla warfare?” I scoff. “I dress to protect myself when I’m in the woods. There are any number of things that could hurt me. Copperheads, mosquitos, Toxicodendron radicans—”
“Toxico what?” Lucy asks.
I furrow my eyebrows. “Poison ivy.”
“Then why didn’t you just say poison ivy?”
“Because she’s Audrey,” Summer says to Lucy. “That’s not how her brain works.”
She does not say this like it’s an insult because it isn’t one. My sistersdoknow how my brain works. They might have gotten a larger share of fashion sense than I did, and they definitely gotallthe social awareness, but they grew up in the same brainy family, and their SAT scores were just as high as mine.
If our parents taught us anything, it was to appreciate the brains in our heads and use them to the best of our abilities. Summer and Lucy know better than to ever make fun of me for using mine.
Still, their observations about my wardrobe sting a little. Which is stupid. Idon’tdress to catch a man’s attention. Butbeinghopeless and knowingtheythink I’m hopeless aren’t the same thing.
Summer leans forward and rubs her hands together. “Okay. So I’m thinking we find a few projects to do around the yard, ones that would require trips to the Feed ’n Seed, then we spend every Saturday there to see if Flint shows up again.”
I stand and carry my plate to the sink. “Very funny.”
“I’m not being funny,” Summer says. “I’m totally serious. And I’m offering free manual labor, so I think you should take me upon it. I’m sure you can think ofsomethingyou want to…” She hesitates because Summer spends as much time outside as I do at the mall. She’s a brilliant attorney, but the only biology she knows is what she learned for the AP exam her junior year of high school. “Plant?” she finally finishes.
“You want to plant something, huh?” I purse my lips. “Like what?”
