Kendra recognized the linoleum tile of the floor of her lab at the same instant that she panicked because she was falling toward it. She put her hands out just in time to keep her head from striking the edge of the ancient black top of her lab bench (really it was more like a counter, but tradition deemed long ago that such things should be called “benches” when in labs). On top of the bench were the mountains of university-supplied electronics that her research required. No way could she afford to break any of that stuff.
These thoughts flashed through her mind for less than a second, and then, just as Kendra wished that her hands would stretch down to fend off the rapidly approaching floor, but long before she could make that happen, her knees crashed into the linoleum. She grunted in pain as momentum rolled her to one side. She came to a stop near the door to her lab.
“Geesh,” she moaned softly, allowing herself a moment of self pity. “Why can’t I have a nice soft landing once in a while?”
“Ms. Tanagawa,” said a stern male voice, “nice of you to drop in.”
Oh no, the department chairman. Had she forgotten a meeting? Impossible--she booked appointments in three media--digital, virtual and mechanical, each with an alarm.
Kendra did her best to ignore the pain in her knees, and hauled herself to her feet. Both of her legs did straighten, if somewhat shakily, so she assumed that she had not broken either kneecap. “Good evening, sir.”
Kendra extended her hand smartly, she thought.
Professor Healy, head of one of the two best physics departments in the United States, did not shake her hand. Instead, he withdrew a neatly folded white handkerchief from an inside pocket of his suit jacket. Heaven forbid that he should use the blue silk kerchief, three corners sticking up evenly for show, in the outside breast pocket. Its shade of blue matched the fine pinstripe of his dark gray suit. Kendra couldn’t help herself, she leaned forward, and squinted at his suit just to be sure.
“Ah hem,” Healy cleared his throat, and took a step back, white handkerchief held to his nose. “Is that vomit on your shoes, Ms. Tanagawa?”
Damn. “I can explain, sir--”
“Please don’t bother. You’ve been drinking. I can smell the booze.” The august physicist edged around his youngest doctoral candidate, and then shuffled sideways toward the door.
He looked like a snooty, yet awkward teen. How had she never noticed how gangly he was? Kendra stifled a giggle.
“I am here without an appointment,” he lowered his hankie and boomed, as if he were aware that he must seem foolish holding a kerchief to his nose, “because there have been complaints about you showing up at your lab intoxicated. I hadn’t wanted to believe it,” the handkerchief flew to his nose again as he neared the door, “but obviously it’s true. You can’t even stay on your feet.” His hanky luffed with each spoken word. “I will assemble,” he snapped “the disciplinary committee.”
Healy yanked the door open, but had to step back an awkward half-step to allow it to swing open. Kendra smothered another laugh, though she felt despair bubble up from her chest--disciplinary committee?
Healy turned in the doorway. “You will present yourself, sober and well kempt,” he waved the handkerchief indignantly, caught himself, and stuffed it hurriedly inside his jacket, “or find yourself summarily dismissed,” he boomed once more. The door to her lab slammed, and he was gone.
Kendra stared at it for a moment. “I didn’t come in through that door,” she whispered. “Did you even notice?”
Dejected, Kendra shuffled into the hall, and toward the stairs. She cast baleful glances at the doors of her colleagues’ labs as she passed them, each open just enough to permit the occupant to eavesdrop on happenings outside. Normally all the lab doors were closed, and such a universal departure from the norm led Kendra to believe that every PhD candidate except her had known not only that Professor Healy planned to chew her out, but also when it would occur. So much for confidentiality.
Did her footsteps always sound so loud in the hall, or had the mixture of embarrassment and indignation that she felt made her self-conscious? Kendra reached the stairs, and pulled open the heavy fire door. The many injustices of the evening hit her then, and she cried out against them all, in the person of her colleagues. “Arrogant ignoramuses!”
As the metal door closed behind her, she heard scattered laughter. “Useless old pretenders,” she muttered to the rails and angles of the stairway. Angry tears blurred her vision, but she didn’t need to see the stairs. Kendra had climbed them several times a day every day since she’d started the program nearly three years earlier, the week before she turned sixteen.
Heaven forbid there should be a women’s room on each floor of the physics building. No, she walked down two flights to the first floor, the only floor that had been peopled by women, all of them secretaries in the 1950s, when the building had been erected.
When Kendra reached the sanctity of the women’s room, she bent to be sure there were no feet under any of the stall doors. She was alone. A sob escaped her then. What would her future hold if she was thrown out of the PhD program? Her mind trotted out its customary punishing response: an image of herself, barefoot and pregnant in some hillbilly shack, with three bawling, snotty toddlers clinging to her ankles as she dragged herself from a rusty wood-burning stove to a cast iron sink that overflowed with dirty dishes.
“No!” she pounded the granite sink top in the women’s room, then promptly opened her hand to shake off the pain. “I’ll show them, damn it! This will all go away, or I’ll kill the Little Bitch myself.” Calm once more, she wet a paper towel, then slipped off her flats and knee-hi stockings to wash away that creature’s puke.
Two minutes later, with cooled feet in neat footwear, she regarded her reflection in the mirror. “The best part,” she murmured calmly as she reapplied the bold shade of lipstick she wore in defiance of the geeky image physicists generally projected, “is that no one at the university will remember this bit.” She winked at herself in the mirror.
“Remember, darlin’, they’re the geeks. You’re the rock star.”
