Authors: Miranda Powers
At this, Olivia allowed herself another glance at Levi, who now had a glint in his eye to match the flash of his smile. She enjoyed nothing better than to see a student's face lit up with understanding and appreciation of a thought--especially when the student looked like Levi. Finishing the lecture and cutting off the Photos app of her tablet, she hit the remote control for the lighting in the room and brought the lights up bright.
Stepping out from behind the lectern, she finished, "So I ask you again: Are you an alien? Look at the person to your left and your right. Are they extraterrestrials? Are we all?" The students, including Levi, did as she asked, and a tinkle of laughter rolled across the auditorium. A few people pointed at a few other people and made a few joking insinuations, and the tinkle of laughter rose a bit until Olivia raised her hands to quiet things down, asking for a chance to finish. "If panspermia is correct," she said, "and I think there's a very good case to be made for it...there may really be no such thing at all as an Earthling."
And the tinkle of laughter broke out again at the peal of the bell. With the class rising from their seats, Olivia called out, "For the next class, I want you all to have read the chapter explaining the theory in more detail and be ready to discuss it further. All right, out with you."
Chapter 2
Remember, you're 36 and he's 20. Okay, that doesn't matter. Then remember, he's a student at this University and you're his Professor.
Walking through the quad along the rows of palm trees and the manicured lawns to her office and looking into the earnest and painfully handsome face of Levi Adams, Olivia did her best to keep her attention on what he was saying rather than how totally mouth-watering he looked, until she snapped to alertness when he said...
"So I really think I want to do it, Professor Monroe."
She blinked, startled, hoping she did not look as flushed as she felt. His looks and his body were so distracting; what was he talking about again? Finding her voice and her composure, she replied, "Excuse me, you really want to…?"
"Switch majors. From Pre-Law to Astronomy. I think it's what I really want. I know it'll mean more time as an Undergrad and my Dad almost went off like a nuke when I told him. But sitting in your class and hearing you talk about all those ideas and what they're about, and doing the reading...it makes me realize how much I like science. I've always liked science. Especially astronomy. I love the stars, Professor. You've taught me that."
"Really?" she couldn't help but smile at the boy walking beside her, so sincere, so interested...so bloody
gorgeous
. As a science educator she always liked knowing that she could light a fire of inspiration in a student and put him on a path to wonderful discoveries. It was doubly satisfying when the student looked like this. "So do you think your father might come around?"
"He wasn't hearing it at first," said Levi. "He really had my heart set on my being a lawyer. He wanted me to sign on with a big, prestigious firm like he did and move up to partner. He wanted to see me with the best office and the best wife and the best car and the best vacations and the best summer home, all the stuff he had. And I don't mind all that; I was brought up with it and all. And I like the law. But...there's just something about the stars that calls out to me. You know how it is."
"Yes, I know exactly how it is," Olivia answered. This boy was
such
a kindred spirit. He was describing all the things she had felt all her life. She envied him his sense of discovery of the universe, the thing that had lit up in her when she was a little girl. Perhaps if she were to help him transfer to another school, they could visit back and forth and... She suddenly caught herself:
Oh Lord, what am I THINKING! He is a BOY! A very beautiful, very smart boy, but a boy! And he's GOT to have a girlfriend.
Thankfully, Levi was so intent on telling her about his decision that he didn't seem to notice the embers that he was stirring inside her. "So anyway," he went on, "I looked up the career stats for astronomers online, and I printed them out for my Dad to see. And I pointed out to him that some astronomers, the really good ones, might make $100,000 a year. Senior partners at the big law firms make more than that, but I wanted Dad to see I wasn't just throwing my future away on something that would make me a deadbeat. Astronomy isn't just some crap, worthless thing; it's important and you can make a good living at it. And that calmed him down a bit."
"I'm glad. And I'm happy for you if this is really your decision."
They reached the brick and glass building of the Science Department where Olivia's office was, and paused at the door. "Professor," said Levi, looking into her eyes in the way that only a young boy can look when he's seeking the approval of someone older, "do you think I can be one of the good astronomers? I mean, one of the
really
good ones?"
She looked up into Levi's face and saw the need for encouragement there, and wanted to wrap her arms around him and hold him. And take him into her office with her, and peel off his clothes, and plop him down on the sofa, and dive down between his... Never mind. "Judging by your interest and your enthusiasm--and your grades this semester, young man," she answered with her warmest smile, "I absolutely think you can. One of the best."
Levi burst into a smile like the Sun coming over a mountain. He did a fist-pump in the air and half-shouted, "I knew it! I just wanted to hear you say it! Thank you, Professor! I'm gonna tell my Dad I'm doing it! Yes!"
Olivia carefully, very carefully in the interest of appropriateness, touched him on his arm. His wonderfully large and muscular arm. "Good. And I'll see you in class in a couple of days."
Still beaming, Levi said, almost jumping for joy, "You bet, Professor! See you!" And he spun around and sped off across the lawn of the quad. Olivia watched him go, her heart melting at the sight of an excited boy knowing what he wanted to do with his life--and what, under different circumstances, she would have loved to have the boy do with her. 36 and 20...it wasn't
such
a difference after all, really. Was it?
Chapter 3
"The papers are done, Professor."
Bruce set the pile of graded papers on top of Olivia's desk. Sitting on the opposite side, Olivia noticed that Levi Adams's was on top--and marked with an A.
Good,
she thought, holding at bay the thought of what she would not have minded Levi himself being on top of, and how little she would like him to be wearing there. She had read some of Levi's papers--the ones the grading of which she had not delegated to Bruce Foster, her teaching assistant. She knew from his class assignments that Levi was well on his way to being as good as he wanted to be. She was pleased to see that Bruce had given Levi the grade he most likely deserved.
With his waves of dark hair, smoldering good looks, and tight body with hairy forearms that so tantalizingly filled the T-shirts that he always wore, Bruce put the lie to the myth of science students being all geeks and nerds with the physical attractiveness of something growing in a petri dish. And as she looked up at him from her seat, Olivia grew curious at his smile, the smile that invited--no, begged the question she put to him: "So what's going on?"
The teaching assistant reached into his pocket and pulled out a felt-covered box, which he opened to reveal a very sparkly, antique ring. A woman's ring. Olivia immediately understood and grinned in the empathetic way that a woman grins when she knows what is in store for another woman. "Really? You're going to ask your girlfriend?"
Bruce nodded, containing his excitement. "Yep. Tonight at dinner. Down on one knee with my Grandma's ring, the works. I want to set the date for right after my last semester of Grad School. What do you think?"
Olivia leapt up from her seat and crossed around the table, giggling like a teenager. "What do I think? I think I know what
she's
going to think! Oh Bruce, this is wonderful!" She threw her arms around him and they hugged. She kissed him softly on the cheek and said, "She's getting herself a great husband."
"Thanks, Professor. I'd better go home and change now; I just wanted to get those papers to you before I, you know, changed my life."
"And hers! So get out of here and change it, already. And congratulations to both of you."
Olivia watched him cross the room and could feel the excitement in his steps. At the door, he smiled back at her before ducking out. She stood there for a moment, imagining the elated young man racing down the hall to his destiny. She envied him the way he felt, and envied his soon-to-be fiancee the way she was about to feel. It was not so long ago Olivia felt the same way. Which reminded her of the next item on her agenda for today.
Might as well get it over with,
she thought, returning to her seat at the desk, tapping on her computer, and exhaling with a huff. Once, not long ago, she would never have thought of doing what she was about to do as "getting it over with." Once, just the idea of sitting down at her computer, as she was now doing, and calling him up on her video chat app, as per her appointment with him, would have made her heart race for an entirely different reason than it was racing now. Once, knowing that she was about see Clive's face was the most wonderful thing in the world. That was then.
From three thousand miles away, his face came up on Olivia's screen. A year and a half ago, Clive Shea had moved to New York to take a position in upper management of Crescent Enterprises. He was now "just under the CEO," poised to make millions. He had short dark hair, hazel eyes, a
Gentlemen's Quarterly
model face, and a gym-toned body, and looked as much at home in jeans and a flannel shirt as he did in the business suit he was presently sporting. And, as Olivia was at times pained to remember, he was like the ignition of a protostar in bed. They had fallen in love while Clive was working in middle management at the Southern California division of the high-tech Crescent Corporation--and administering the grants that funded Olivia's research. Having himself transferred to avoid the conflict of interest of sleeping with the person he was funding, he came upon an opportunity for advancement--all the way to New York--and, after much discussion, he had accepted it.
In that year and a half, Olivia set herself to the challenge of conducting a relationship with the man she loved from opposite sides of the continent, and to a life of racking up Frequent Flyer miles to be together until she could work out a new living arrangement for herself, possibly a new teaching position at a college or university on the East Coast, perhaps a position at an observatory over there. And then life changed her plans with a plan of its own. Her name was Elena, and she lived in New York, where Clive lived and Olivia did not. And before Olivia knew what was happening, Clive and Elena, as Bruce and his intended would soon do, had set a wedding date of their own.
"It's serious," Bruce had told her. He had actually--
actually
described his relationship with Elena as "serious." He had actually used the word for his relationship with this other woman that had applied to his relationship with Olivia, or so Olivia had assumed. Olivia felt utterly betrayed, and rightly so. The angry words that she shouted at him could have carried across three thousand miles without benefit of a wireless hookup. It was the greatest, most painful outpouring of emotion that she had ever allowed herself to vent in her life, and the memory of it still stung her even through a computer screen from a continent away. With a mighty effort, Olivia thought of her work, which was all there had been in her life since then, and the fact that Clive's company still held the purse strings to it, and summoned all of her civility and cordiality to speak to him.
"How's it going, Olivia?" asked Clive from his plush office in a Manhattan skyscraper.
Oh,
Olivia thought,
I'm still single and surrounded by hot young boys who if I paid them the wrong kind of attention would get me fired for morals and harassment, how about you?
But she said, "Things are going fine. I've got the samples that the
Phaethon
space probe brought back from Comet Roth-Kulkins in the isolation room and I'm ready to start examining them."
"That's good," Clive said. "I'm anxious to know what you find out, especially about that one sample you were mentioning."
"I'll be putting that one in the MRI first," Olivia said, in her most strictly businesslike tone. "There's another paper in this one at least."
"Probably a series of papers. And this will get you bigger grants, I know."
"Probably will," she agreed, reflecting back on what had been the most basic difference between them all along. To Clive everything had a dollar value. To Olivia, the value of her work was that of pure discovery, the value of a richness of thought and knowledge that made life more worth living. Their relationship had always been one of pair bonding, but not peer bonding. It never seemed to matter as much then as it did now. She felt more than just a continent between her and Clive now.
"I know how excited you've been about this project, Olivia. And I know it's going to bring you something good. That's what I really want for you." Clive sounded sincere, and Olivia knew he meant what he was saying, but it sounded hollow to her.
"Thank you, Clive," she said, simply. And she thought,
Well, it's not like I have anything else important going on in my life right now. Or anyone that's as important to me as work.
"I really mean it," he went on. "You know I've always been your biggest supporter with the Crescent Grant Endowment advisory board, with everything. I'll always support anything you want to do. You know that, right?"
"I know, Clive," she replied, flatly, drained of any feeling.
Yes, aren't you just my biggest fan?
She could feel the complete absence of any smile on her face or any warmth in her voice. She felt as cold as space. Her voice was every bit as flat and chilled as she felt inside as she asked, "How is everything over there...with you?”