with close-cropped hair and a bright smile. "Hi. I'm Jenn Washington.”
“Daphne Shipley.”
“Oh! You're the transfer? We're all very curious about you.”
Lovely. “Yes. I’m the transfer student.” And thanks for making this awkward. I feel my smile tighten up on my face. They probably think I couldn't hack it at Harkness, and that stings.
"Welcome," she says brightly. "Any relation to the Shipleys who make that cider?"
"That's my brother."
"Really?" she squeaks. "It's so yummy."
“Yeah, that's his thing,” I babble. “He has a degree in organic chemistry. We're science people.” Oh my God. Could I sound any more defensive right how? Get a grip, Shipley.
"Feel free to bring us samples,” she says.
“Yeah, I get that a lot.” I force another smile on my face. And when Karim continues the tour a moment later, I feel nothing but relief.
The last stop is the departmental library. "It's small, as you can see," Karim waves an arm around the room full of books. "The University has done a great job of digitizing our core research materials, and you’ve got Lexis/Nexis access under your new ID. But hard copies of the best reference books are kept in here. They also keep print copies of all the journal articles produced by professors and research fellows in this building. If I’m lucky, I’ll have something on the shelf eventually.”
“Oh, wow,” I say in the same hushed, fangirl voice. One wall is full of peer-reviewed research publications. Karim and I have the same dream, apparently. I pull a copy of the Journal of American Public Health off the shelf. Sure enough, there's an article by my new boss and advisor, Vi Drummond, entitled Modeling the Probability of Arsenic in New England Groundwater for Risk Assessment.
“Do these books circulate? I’d love to check a few out,” I ask Karim.
“Sure. Go ahead. That was Dr. Drummond’s first piece about arsenic.”
“I know. But it’s been a while since I read it. What else should I read if I want to understand the core specialties of the people who run this place?”
He blinks. Then he eyes the massive wall of documents. “Well… Don't forget that I'm new here. But I guess I'd read the latest stuff on birthweight versus educational outcomes. And food insecurity as a factor in hospital admissions.”
I spend the next fifteen minutes collecting ten more journals and checking them out under my ID number. “You can stop now,” Karim says. “Before you make the rest of us look like slackers.”
My hand freezes on a volume of Environmental Health Perspectives. “I just need to get up to speed here. It has nothing to do with you.”
“Kidding,” he says a little stiffly. “I was kidding.”
Ten bucks says he wasn’t. But that isn’t my problem. If I do good work, he’ll tolerate me in time. He doesn’t have to like me.
“Oh, there you are.”
We both turn to find Dr. Vi Drummond in the doorway. “Welcome, Daphne. I know it’s almost time for you to leave. But I was hoping we could have a quick chat in my office.”
“Of course.” I turn to Karim. “Thank you very much for the tour. I look forward to working with you.”
He has already regained his smile. “Same here. See you next week, Daphne. We’ll get started properly.”
Clutching my stack of journals, I follow Dr. Drummond into her office. She shuts the door and takes a seat behind her desk. “I’m really pleased that you are able to come into town once a week during the summer. It will be nice for you to settle in before you take on a full course load.”
“Not as pleased as I am,” I say, sitting ramrod straight in the visitor’s chair, my lap full of books. “I feel lucky to have found a place here, and I can’t wait to get started.”
She picks up a paper clip on her desk and rotates it absently. Dr. Drummond is a white woman in her mid-fifties, with salt-and-pepper hair. She’s a little more glamorous than you usually see in academia, in her elegant silk blouse and interesting silver earrings. “Your transcript is impeccable. Very few young women can manage a dual BS/MA program. And your recommendations were all glowing.”
“That’s nice to hear,” I say neutrally. But my heart begins to pound the way it does any time I think about the mess I left behind at Harkness. If the truth got out, those recommendations would not glow. Not even a little.
Someday I’ll make it right, I promise myself for the millionth time. I don’t want