Work Text:
Jordan gathered the test papers as the students shuffled out of the classroom. The page on top had three obvious errors, and that was one of the better students.
This was not what she had expected to be doing with her life.
Not that she was bitter. Not even disappointed, although sometimes she wondered if perhaps she should be, since all her friends had gone on to careers in prestigious universities and profitable industries, and she was teaching basic science at Beech Grove Community College. Although it could be worse, because she could be teaching student beauticians, and at least she had some time for her research even if a cell phone had more computing power than her office computer; she did most of her work at home anyway, and all her papers had found publication in reasonably good journals....
"Dr. Cochran?"
The woman in the doorway was not one of Jordan's students. True, several students were women in their fifties, but none of them looked as quietly polished as this woman, or had such pale hair. Although she did look vaguely familiar.... "Have we met?"
"Briefly, over a field of popcorn."
Click. Sherry Nugil Hollyfeld. Her picture had been in Nature a few years ago, in the article about her late husband. "Mrs. Hollyfeld. Can I help you with something?"
"Most certainly. You can tell me the best place for you and I to discuss a business proposition."
A what? "What kind of business proposition?"
Sherry's voice dropped. "A highly confidential proposition. Sometime tonight would be preferable."
The paint in the living room should be dry by now, and she'd have time to vaccuum the remaining dust from installing the skylights. "My house.. Eight o'clock? Will you need dinner?"
"Eight would be perfect, and I'll have eaten. Until tonight, Dr. Cochran."
At eight, Sherry was on Jordan's doorstep, a bottle of wine under her arm.
"I'm afraid I can't drink," Jordan said as she let Sherry in, "but I hope it's one you like."
"It is." Sherry turned around, looking about the room. "The inside of this house looks nothing like the exterior would lead you to expect."
"I don't sleep much, so I keep busy by tinkering with the house." And really, the ceiling had been hardly any trouble to rip out and renovate; the metallic bobbin lace canopy over the entrance had taken more time and swearing, and even the DNA carved on the fireplace mantel had been more work.
"It's lovely." Sherry sat down on the chair that Jordan had reupholstered last week and took a cookie from the tray. "Do you ever hear from Mitch?"
"He emails me every couple months." Long, chatty missives about his work and his projects and Cathy's newest book and isn't baby Brionne adorable and look at what little Chris just drew, isn't that just the perfect little rendition of a Mayan glyph through four-year-old eyes. Jordan was able to read them if she spread the paragraphs out over two days.
"Lazlo had said you two were once close, but...am I treading on tender ground?"
"There's nothing to tell. He went to MIT, he met an art historian, and they married. They seem very happy together." They had been brilliantly happy at their wedding, and Jordan had found that sometime during the months since Mitch had announced their engagement, she had gained the ability to shut up after one sentence, even if she still thought at the same speed as ever.
"I'm glad to hear he's well. And Dr. Ikagami is in charge of that bioengineering team in Prague, and Dr. Torokvei is apparently high in the ranks of...I can never remember their name, they've been bought out so often. And Chris." Sherry sighed. "Poor Chris."
Jordan said, "It was a sad event." Sadder for Mitch than for herself; she'd admired Chris Knight's mind, but he'd always looked past her, and she had finally learned to reciprocate.
"I should have known that if anyone would die in a tragic laboratory explosion, he would. At least he was happy in his short life. As was Lazlo." Sherry looked at Jordan. "And you are here. Why?"
"Why? Because I got my doctorate from a third-tier university. Because I suck at departmental politics. Because I went through four advisors before I finally got someone who'd read my whole dissertation, and God forbid they actually recommend me to anywhere. Because I graduated the year that there was a simultaneous glut in graduating laser physicists and theoreticians and materials science engineers. Because I looked funny at the wrong person. Because I don't know who to suck up to. Because I can publish fifty papers a year but I can't present a paper at a conference without falling apart." Clearly, Jordan realized, she had not entirely conquered her glossalia. "I don't know why."
Sherry finished her drink before replying. "Let me tell you why I'm here."
"If you're offering me a job, I'll take it as long as the benefits and the salary are at least as good as this one."
Sherry smiled. "How perceptive." She set down the glass and moved over to the sofa. "How much did Mitch tell you about me?"
"That you'd once tried to seduce him, and he said no." Because he'd wanted to, but not with her.... It should not still sting, seven years after his marriage. "I always wondered what a grown woman would have seen in a fifteen-year-old."
"The same thing you saw, I would think."
Jordan looked into her apple juice. "That he was sweet and kind and actually talked to me like I was a person and not a weirdo?"
A snort. "Perhaps not the same thing, then." Sherry leaned her arm against the back of the sofa and faced Jordan. "When I was a girl, I was fascinated by science. I think I read every non-fiction essay Isaac Asimov had written before 1970."
The smell of library books filled Jordan's memory. "I loved those. I always wished I could explain things that succinctly."
"But by the time I was in college, I realized that unless I was brilliant, I'd never make it out of university, let alone into the field. And I knew that I wasn't brilliant, not that way. So, I thought, if I can't be a scientist myself, the next best thing would be to marry a scientist and support him in his work. But not just any scientist; I was going to marry the best."
Now Jordan understood. "You wanted Mitch for his brains instead of his body."
Sherry laughed. "I read newspapers and conference proceedings and top-ten lists, and I determined who the top ten minds in America were as of 1983. And I eventually slept with nine of them."
What was Jordan supposed to say to that? Congratulations? You beat my record by eight, not to mention my total list of anyone I've slept with? "And Lazlo Hollyfeld was the last."
"Yes. And the best."
Jordan had not seen someone smile like that since Mitch and Cathy's wedding. "Maybe we could get to the details about this job...."
Sherry put her finger on Jordan's lips, and Jordan fell silent. Sherry returned her hand to the sofa back. "It's not as much of a tangent as it sounds. We went to live in Wyoming, at a little place I have there; Lazlo wrote his papers and thought about everything, and at night we talked about what he was doing. I took care of the business end -- I don't think he ever realized how many patents were in his name -- and we've done very well. He was a wonderful man.
"And then, two years after we married, our daughter was born. And I looked into her little face, and suddenly I realized that in searching for the finest mind in the country, I'd ignored half the population."
Shock, Jordan discovered, could almost still her brain, and certainly stilled her tongue.
"That was my excuse for being in this part of the country, by the way. Evike's a sophomore at the university. When she was small I was too busy to investigate, and then Lazlo was ill for so long, and afterward it proved remarkably challenging to track down the data. I looked at papers, I looked at who cited what, I ran blinded abstracts by Lazlo and by other people. I looked at the informally published articles as well as the big journals. And now I know that I've found Number One."
Sherry's hand was suddenly on Jordan's shoulder, and Jordan's stomach was dropping through the floor.
"This is my offer," Sherry said. "My skills -- and believe me, I do know where my talents lie -- to support your genius, to take the products of your brilliance and get them out into the world where people can benefit from them. You will want for nothing, whether it be money or tools or uninterrupted time. All I ask in return is to live in your company so that I can enjoy your mind."
Jordan swallowed, and swallowed again, and tried to convert any of the rushing stream of data into words. At last, she blurted out, "I'm not gay."
"Neither am I," said Sherry, and kissed her.
She tasted and smelled entirely unlike Mitch, and it was undoubtedly the weirdest thing that had happened to Jordan in years, and perhaps it would be better to back off except that it really was quite pleasant, more than pleasant, just what she'd always imagined hope must feel like.