Beer and Wine, Feline Fine: Day 19, and 34,111 Words

I am almost 70% done! Hurray!

Today went by a lot easier because I had an idea of what I wanted to happen in this part of my novel. I'm not too sure about what will happen beyond this, but hopefully my characters will inspire me.

“When they said ‘hot girl summer,’ I wish that there had been less of an emphasis on hot,” Nora said, breathing heavily. She had so been looking forward to a season of women being apologetically them, making sure that she was having a good-ass time, hyping up adulation for herself, and not giving a damn about what anyone else has to say about it. Instead, she just found herself reaching for her prescription deodorant every morning.

“Do you remember when that job came up at the University of British Columbia?” Shalini asked, attempting to sound nonchalant. “Back in January?” Shalini and Nora were walking around Trinity Bellwoods Park, one of Toronto’s largest downtown greenspaces. They were walking Shalini’s lovable mutt Wendel, who looked like a small beagle.

“Yeah,” Nora replied. “You mentioned it when we were getting lunch at Fresh on Bloor. You said something about metal cycles or something.”

“I did not,” Shalini huffed. “I said that I study metal catalyzed cyclization reactions typically involving enamine derivatives as nucleophiles.”

“Is that not what I said?” Nora said as she bent down to pat little Wendel on the head.

“It isn’t. But anyway, they were looking for someone to run a lab that is basically what I am doing currently at Toronto. I figured I would apply, see what happened.”

“So,” Nora asked. “What did happen?”

As Shalini opened her mouth to respond, a group of adults dressed as cats started dancing all around them. It appeared to be some kind of flash marketing campaign for the upcoming “Cats” film adaptation. At least, Nora hoped that it was. The overall effect of the dancing in cat costumes and make-up was incredibly far from pleasing.

“I think I’m feline queasy,” Nora said disapprovingly as she looked at the dancers. She did not approve of the Andrew Lloyd Webber classic, nor any adaptations, particularly this one.

“I am after having listened to that joke,” Shalini shot back. They shuffled off awkwardly, partly not wanting to look away but partly not feeling like it was possible not to look.

“If you are waiting for an apology, you will be waiting for a long time.”

“Would you send my apology to Vancouver?” Shalini let her question hang in the hopelessly hot and humid air.

“What?” Nora said as if she was dunked into ice water.

“I heard from the search committee this morning. They offered me the job.”

“You didn’t tell me that you got an in-person interview! When was that?”

“I flew out to Vancouver last Thursday. I didn’t say anything because I wasn’t sure if I was going to take the job at all, but I figured it would be a good negotiating tool to get a higher salary and more funding for my lab. Well, I thought that, until I went to the campus and I loved it. The campus tour really is their secret weapon.”

“Tell me about it,” Nora said emphatically. Shalini looked back at her. “No, seriously, tell me about it. No one has ever tried to give me a job in Vancouver.”

“I knew a bunch of the researchers there beforehand, of course, from conferences and the like.”
“Of course.”

“When I gave my job talk they seemed really excited about my research. Putting it together gave me a lot of ideas about what I want to do going forward, in a way that I couldn’t have known if I hadn’t gone through this whole exercise. When I was flying back after getting dropped off by one of the new assistant professors at the airport, I just had this feeling that they were going to offer me the job. I started to feel excited in a different way than I had anticipated.”

“That sounds really great, Shalini,” Nora said, and truly meant it. "I would hate to see you leave Toronto, but if this is something that makes you feel this good, you should do it. I didn’t realize that you were on the job market. I kind of assumed that professors at U of T don’t go on the job market.”

“There are cities in Canada that aren’t Toronto,” Shalini joked.

“News to me.”

“You might feel differently if you saw the view from the offices in the chemistry building.”

“I’ve heard that Vancouver has some nice views. Mostly from Vancouverites, who never shut up about it.”
“It must be hard being that happy all the time.”

“At least they have a terrible hockey team to keep them down to earth.”

Shalini smiled. “Would you come visit?”

“Of course, I would. It really sounds like you want to take the job.”

“I haven’t decided. It just surprises me a lot when I think about how much I want to. I really didn’t anticipate that at all, especially in light of everything that’s going on right now.”

“Did you talk to your parents about it?”

“Yeah. I phoned them this morning. They had been asking about the interview and they were really proud of me that I got the offer. My mom doesn’t want me to stay on her account. She feels strong and healthy and doesn’t want me to keep treating her like a sick person.” (Note: Shalini's mom was diagnosed with breast cancer while she was a doctoral student, prompting her to move back to Scarborough to finish her dissertation. She is currently in remission!)

“I can understand that. She has a lot of wonderful years ahead of her, and she knows that you do too and doesn’t want you to spend them worrying about her.”

“You sound exactly like her.”

“We text sometimes.”

“Of course my mom texts you.”

Nora shrugged. “She’s been getting really into emojis lately. It’s very cute.”

“Don’t even get me started on my parents’ emoji use,” Shalini said, resigned but smiling. “I bet my parents would just move to Vancouver anyway.”

“Speaking of moving to Vancouver,” Nora interjected. “I hate to bring this up since we are having a conversation, between the two of us, that so far hasn’t mentioned men at all.”

“Rare for us these days,” Shalini said, knowing exactly what Nora was going to say before she even said it.

“With you getting into repeated arguments with two men, and then phoning me to make sure you weren’t excessively mean or rude to them, we haven’t exactly been passing the Bechdel test.”

“I’ve been feeling guilty about that too. I’ve not been so excited about all of the weird arguments that I’ve been having with Wynn and Oliver. And brian j. Pickles, who keeps telling me how hungry he is as if the answer isn’t staring him directly in the face. With all of the time that we spend obsessing over all of our interactions with men, that vary to an incredible degree in their success, it just kills me how little time they are probably spending worrying about the impact of their words and actions. But, I guess it’s the cross we bear until men figure out what the hell is going on,” Nora said sadly.

“So, never?” Shalini teased.

“And, I should say thank you for listening to my Pride and Prejudice real-life theories. I guess I’ve just been spending too much time on my screenplay or something. One man is rude to me, another man likes you—which, obviously he does!—and then another guy was upset with the first guy and I assumed that I was Elizabeth Bennet?”

“That’s very flattering to yourself. Are you sure you aren’t more of a Lydia Bennet?”

“I have always feared that someone would say that,” Nora lamented. “Have you told Noah that you are thinking about moving to Vancouver?”

Shalini looked at the ground. “Not yet.”

“What do you think you’ll say?”

“There’s things that I would like to say, and things that I will probably actually say.”

“So what is it that you would say, if you could say anything?”

“I would say that I know it’s rationally too early to factor him into my decision-making on life events, but he is still on my mind and I want to figure out if there’s a way that we can still be together if I move across the country with a three hour time difference.”

“And you think that you can’t say that?” Nora queried gently.

“You know that I can’t.”

“So what will you say instead?”

“I’ll probably tell him that I got a job offer that I’m not sure that I’ll take, but it’s in Vancouver. And then I’ll drop a number of fishing questions to see how much he likes British Columbia, and then maybe for good measure I’ll mention how much I still love Toronto. That might leave him an opening to think about visiting me in BC or maybe even moving there.”

“What if he thinks your job is for Tourism Canada?”

“I’ll just try to make it believable, I guess.”