“Not the line you found in an interview prep book. Why do you want a Ph.D.?”
“It’s true,” she insisted, a bit weakly. “I want to sharpen my research abilities—”
“Is it because you don’t know what else to do?”
“No.”
“Because you didn’t get an industry position?”
“No—I didn’t even apply for industry.”
“Ah.” He moved, a large, blurry figure stepping next to her to pour something down the sink. Olive could smell a whiff of eugenol, and laundry detergent, and clean, male skin. An oddly nice combination.
“I need more freedom than industry can offer.”
“You won’t have much freedom in academia.” His voice was closer, like he hadn’t stepped back yet. “You’ll have to fund your work through ludicrously competitive research grants. You’d make better money in a nine-to-five job that actually allows you to entertain the concept of weekends.”
Olive scowled. “Are you trying to get me to decline my offer? Is this some kind of anti–expired-contacts-wearers campaign?”
“Nah.”
She could hear his smile.
“I’ll go ahead and trust that it was just a misstep.”
“I wear them all the time, and they almost never—”
“In a long line of missteps, clearly.” He sighed. “Here’s the deal: I have no idea if you’re good enough, but that’s not what you should be asking yourself. Academia’s a lot of bucks for very little bang. What matters is whether your reason to be in academia is good enough. So, why the Ph.D., Olive?”
She thought about it, and thought, and thought even more. And then she spoke carefully. “I have a question. A specific research question. Something that I want to find out.” There. Done. This was the answer. “Something I’m afraid no one else will discover if I don’t.”
“A question?”
She felt the air shift and realized that he was now leaning against the sink.
“Yes.” Her mouth felt dry. “Something that’s important to me. And—I don’t trust anyone else to do it. Because they haven’t so far. Because . . .” Because something bad happened. Because I want to do my part so that it won’t happen again.
Heavy thoughts to have in the presence of a stranger, in the darkness of her closed eyelids. So she cracked them open; her vision was still blurry, but the burning was mostly gone. The Guy was looking at her. Fuzzy around the edges, perhaps, but so very there, waiting patiently for her to continue.
“It’s important to me,” she repeated. “The research that I want to do.” Olive was twenty-three and alone in the world. She didn’t want weekends, or a decent salary. She wanted to go back in time. She wanted to be less lonely. But since that was impossible, she’d settle for fixing what she could.
He nodded but said nothing as he straightened and took a few steps toward the door. Clearly leaving.
“Is mine a good enough reason to go to grad school?” she called after him, hating how eager for approval she sounded. It was possible that she was in the midst of some sort of existential crisis.
He paused and looked back at her. “It’s the best one.”
He was smiling, she thought. Or something like it.
“Good luck on your interview, Olive.”
“Thanks.”
He was almost out the door already.
“Maybe I’ll see you next year,” she babbled, flushing a little. “If I get in. And if you haven’t graduated.”
“Maybe,” she heard him say.
With that, The Guy was gone. And Olive never got his name. But a few weeks later, when the Stanford biology department extended her an offer, she accepted it. Without hesitating.