Olive,

Your project sounds good. I’ll be visiting Stanford in about two weeks. Why don’t we chat then?

Cheers, TB

Tom Benton, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

Department of Biological Sciences, Harvard University Her heart skipped a beat. Then it started galloping. Then it slowed down to a crawl. And then she felt her blood pulsate in her eyelids, which couldn’t be healthy, but— Yes. Yes! She had a taker. Almost. Probably? Maybe.

Definitely maybe. Tom Benton had said “good.” He had said that it sounded

“good.” It had to be a “good” sign, right?

She frowned, scrolling down to reread the email she’d sent him several weeks earlier.

July 7, 8:19 a.m.

FROM: Olive-Smith@stanford.edu

TO: Tom-Benton@harvard.edu

SUBJECT: Pancreatic Cancer Screening Project

Dr. Benton,

My name is Olive Smith, and I am a Ph.D. student in the biology department of Stanford University. My research focuses on pancreatic cancer, in particular on finding noninvasive, affordable detection tools that could lead to early treatment and increase survival rates. I have been working on blood biomarkers, with promising results. (You can read about my preliminary work in the peer-reviewed paper I have attached. I have also submitted more recent, unpublished findings to this year’s Society for Biological Discovery conference; acceptance is pending but see the attached

abstract.) The next step would be to carry out additional studies to determine the feasibility of my test kit.

Unfortunately my current lab (Dr. Aysegul Aslan’s, who is retiring in two years) does not have the funding or the equipment to allow me to proceed. She is encouraging me to find a larger cancer research lab where I could spend the next academic year to collect the data I need. Then I would return to Stanford to analyze and write up the data. I am a huge fan of the work you have published on pancreatic cancer, and I was wondering whether there might be a possibility to carry out my work in your lab at Harvard.

I am happy to talk more in detail about my project if you are interested.

Sincerely, Olive

Olive Smith

Ph.D. Candidate

Biology Department, Stanford University

If Tom Benton, cancer researcher extraordinaire, came to Stanford and gave Olive ten minutes of his time, she could convince him to help her out with her research predicament!

Well . . . maybe.

Olive was much better at actually doing research than at selling its importance to others. Science communication and public speaking of any sort were definitely her big weaknesses. But she had a chance to show Benton how promising her results were. She could list the clinical benefits of her work, and she could explain how little she required to turn her project into a huge success. All she needed was a quiet bench in a corner of his lab, a couple hundred of his lab mice, and unlimited access to his twentymillion-dollar electron microscope. Benton wouldn’t even notice her.

Olive headed for the break room, mentally writing an impassioned speech on how she was willing to use his facilities only at night and limit her oxygen consumption to less than five breaths per minute. She poured herself a cup of stale coffee and turned around to find someone scowling right behind her.

She startled so hard that she almost burned herself.

“Jesus!” She clutched her chest, took a deep breath, and held tighter onto her Scooby-Doo mug. “Anh. You scared the shit out of me.”

“Olive.”

It was a bad sign. Anh never called her Olive—never, unless she was reprimanding her for biting her nails to the quick or for having vitamin gummies for dinner.

“Hey! How was your—”

“The other night.”

Dammit. “—weekend?”

“Dr. Carlsen.”

Dammit, dammit, dammit. “What about him?”

“I saw the two of you together.”

“Oh. Really?” Olive’s surprise sounded painfully playacted, even to her own ears. Maybe she should have signed up for drama club in high school instead of playing every single sport available.

“Yes. Here, in the department.”

“Oh. Cool. Um, I didn’t see you, or I’d have said hi.”

Anh frowned. “Ol. I saw you. I saw you with Carlsen. You know that I saw you, and I know that you know that I saw you, because you’ve been avoiding me.”

“I have not.”

Anh gave her one of her formidable no-bullshit looks. It was probably the one she used as president of the student senate, as head of the Stanford Women in Science Association, as director of outreach for the Organization of BIPOC Scientists. There was no fight Anh couldn’t win. She was fearsome and indomitable, and Olive loved this about her—but not right now.

“You haven’t answered any of my messages for the past two days. We usually text every hour.”

They did. Multiple times. Olive switched the mug to her left hand, for no reason other than to buy some time. “I’ve been . . . busy?” “Busy?” Anh’s eyebrow shot up. “Busy kissing Carlsen?”

“Oh. Oh, that. That was just . . .”

Anh nodded, as if to encourage her to finish the sentence. When it became obvious that Olive couldn’t, Anh continued for her.

“That was—no offense, Ol—but that was the most bizarre kiss I have ever seen.”

Calm. Stay calm. She doesn’t know. She cannot know. “I doubt that,”

Olive retorted weakly. “Take that upside-down Spider-Man kiss. That was way more bizarre than—”

“Ol, you said you were on a date that night. You’re not dating Carlsen, are you?” She twisted her face in a grimace.