Page 57 of Flirtasaurus
“Calliope. Every woman on earth has had mishaps and misfortunes when it comes to eyebrow grooming. After over a decade of my generation plucking and thinning incessantly, do you know how incensed I was when we were told that now to be considered beautiful, we needed full and bushy brows like those caterpillars that have landed on your face ?”
“It was a natural microblading situation without the blade” I mumble sheepishly. They should be fading in about a week.”
“I don’t care one bit about your grooming habits, Miss FitzGerald. What I do care about are your interactions with your team, with your fellow museum staff, and with yourself. I will not tolerate hearing you call one of our female employees featherbrained again. Do you understand me?”
“I do. I understand, and I apologize for that.”
“We women scientists have to work together. Lift one another up.”
“We do?”
“You disagree?”
“No! No, I agree completely. I just didn’t knowyouagreed.”
“Why on earth not?”
“Well, you’ve been… You’ve been pretty…”
“Pretty what?”
“Hard on me.”
“I absolutely have. A life in science isn’t easy for any woman. I want to train you to be prepared and to be strong and steady for the realities of that. However, I do not want you to be combative or unnecessarily harsh or argumentative. That won’t help you find your footing. It won’t help you build a career full of exciting challenges and discoveries. And I get the sense that’s the kind of career you’re looking to have. Am I right?”
“Completely right, yes.”
“The problem I was referencing has nothing to do with your eyebrow grooming practices and everything to do with your eyebrow communication.”
“Sorry, what? I mean, fuck you, what? Sorry! Dr. Knowles, I am so sorry for that! I was—”
“Using sorry as a filler.”
“Yes!” How did she know?
“We women need to stop doing that immediately.”
“Yes! You get it! I guess I just haven’t found a replacement for sorry yet, so fuck you comes out.” Apparently, I am a woman of extremes.
“I can understand that, but you absolutely have to get your language under control. At least in the workplace.”
“I do. Yes. You are one hundred percent right about that. And most things. Obviously.”
“Calliope, let me ask you something.”
“Shoot.”
“When you walked in here a few minutes ago and looked at my face, what did you feel?”
“Abject terror?”
“Alright.”
“Intimidated?”
“Sure.”
“Out of my league?”
