Landslide

It was obvious to me and Charlie and everyone who knew both Megan and Larry that he was falling hard for her and she was not going to say no to him if he asked her out. It was up to me, however, to convince Larry to go ahead and propose a date. The only way to do that was to phrase it in terms he would understand. So came game theory: A great risk was more likely to yield a great gain.

Larry risked, and we all gained.

Except for me.

I should have learned.

Taking that job at Harvard would have been one of the biggest risks of my life. It was obvious to everyone except me that I'd have been an idiot not to take it. Prestigious university. Immeasurable lecture opportunities. The chance to publish in top journals. It also would have meant moving thousands of miles from everyone I was close to in the math and astrophysics community, giving up the chance to work with the FBI, and having to deal with a long-distance…whatever it was I had with Charlie at the time, or that he wanted, or what could have been. I played a lot of mindless games of solitaire as I turned these thoughts over, card by card, option by option. In the end I ignored everything I knew about the ratio of risk to gain and decided to stay at CalSci.

Now I can only reap the small gain I sowed: students who still call me Amita instead of Professor Ramanujan…

"You know how she passed her orals, right?"

A giggle. "Yeah. She was totally oralling Professor Eppes."

…faculty who know I work hard and possess the knowledge necessary for my position but have difficulty treating me as a peer rather than a student…

"Someone really needs to point Ramanujan in the direction of Ann Taylor, because clearly she's missing it on her way to the reject rack at Forever 21."

"Maybe she was too busy retying her pigtails to notice."

…and the constant feeling that Charlie and I are under a microscope, that the other professors can't give up the idea that we are no longer student and teacher.

"She should have listened to Fleinhardt. He all but told her to take that job at Harvard. Guess that's what happens when you're more interested in what your cute, popular thesis advisor says than what a tenured professor who, granted, is a little strange but really knows what he's talking about, says."

"Ramanujan's a fool for staying. Everyone knows that except her and Eppes. Maybe the next time she gets offered a position she'll act with a little more wisdom."

I love my job and I love CalSci, but there are days when I feel that by not taking the biggest risk of my life I suffered the greatest loss of my life.

On the days when Charlie has classes to teach and I don't I get in my car and drive north and sing along with Fleetwood Mac: climbed a mountain and I turned around… I've been afraid of changing 'cause I've built my life around you. Stevie Nicks sings about the mountain like she knows what I'm going through with Charlie: There is love but also so much uncertainty and the regret over past decisions that weighs on everything I do with him. Our relationship has its peaks and valleys, and while the climb is difficult in some places those climbs are often rewarded with spectacular beauty.

I just wish the climb to those peaks it wasn't so arduous.

There are long days at my laptop with tenured professors giving me the evil eye and students who snicker if Charlie's in my office when they come by to ask about their assignments. As I calculate and solve and program and calculate again I think not without an ounce of bitterness that Charlie's had to do no work at all to gain such amazing love and respect and I'm the one they look at and think nice girl, pretty smart, got where she is because of Eppes, though. I don't want anything anyone else thinks to get in the way of what I have with Charlie but…

No, that's not right. I don't want anything anyone else thinks to get in the way of me. Charlie is just along for the compromising ride, though that doesn't make me immune to his lectures.

"I don't want you working with the FBI anymore."

"Isn't this just you passing on what Don's been saying all along?"

"How's that?"

"Don resisted bringing you into his world and you went anyway and you stayed because the work became meaningful to you. Then I--"

Oh God.

In that moment I almost said, "Then I became a part of your world and I stayed because the work became meaningful to me," and that just makes me sound like the crazed stalker the CalSci faculty already thinks I am. Just thinking about it makes me nauseous.

Is this just more of what I gave up?

I know at this point the chance to take back what I said to Harvard is long gone, never to be recovered. My acceptance of that, however, doesn't seem to be enough to sate the CalSci faculty's love of gossip. Respect, like love, is another mountain for me to climb, and despite Charlie and Larry's faith in what I do and how well I can do it I feel like it is insurmountable. The one person that can best vouch for my abilities is the reason I lost so much respect in the first place.

There. I said it. I lost respect. I hear it in the halls and the library and the courtyards.

"I like Amita, I mean, Professor Ramanujan, don't get me wrong. But I don't know. I don't think I'd want her as my advisor. I mean, we all know how she passed her thesis, right? I'm just… She should be better than that, you know?"

"I was so embarrassed. I just, like, rolled out of bed and went to class and I had on the same shirt as Professor Ramanujan. Only I'm not sure if I'm more embarrassed for me or for her."

"It's cool that she does all that forensics stuff with math but it's also kind of a pain in the ass because she's supposed to be helping me with a paper but she's never in her office when she says she's going to be. She's always off with Professor Eppes somewhere. It's like, why do I even bother?"

Charlie.

He's impossible not to love, with that sweet smile and the way he wants everyone to find the satisfaction in math that he does. Fewer people in the world, I think, are as pure of heart and intention. But if for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, then for Charlie's every altruistic action there is an equal reaction of naïveté that has nearly destroyed our relationship for one reason or another.

I was as naïve in my actions as Charlie has been in his. I worked damn hard to convince him that I stayed at CalSci because of what I could accomplish here. In fact, I worked so hard that I not only made him believe me, I believed me, too.

Until I open the day's mail.

The stack of envelopes and packages on my desk doesn't look like anything out of the ordinary. There's the new American Journal of Mathematics and a desk copy of a book I asked for. I grin when I open the box from Amazon. It's my birthday present to myself: the seven-season box set of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I'm planning a night on my couch in fuzzy pajamas with Buffy, Angel, Xander, and the most important men in my life aside from Charlie and my father: Ben & Jerry. Then a cream-colored business-size envelope slips out from beneath a pile of publishers' postcards. And it's not just addressed to Amita Ramanujan, it's addressed to Doctor Amita Ramanujan.

It's postmarked Cambridge, Massachusetts.

I rip it open.

Dear Doctor Ramanujan…

…tenure-track position available in our astrophysics department…

…consider joining our esteemed faculty…

…diverse and impressive body of work…

…asset to our school…

…Dean of the Faculty, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"Oh my God."

I'm regretting that venti double latte I let Charlie bring me this morning. It's bubbling like my stomach is a cauldron, burning my throat. I swallow and read the last line of the letter again.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"Oh my God."

"Oh my God."

I can't decide if I want to cry, or laugh, or dance around my office. Maybe all three at the same time. My thoughts come in a flood. MIT. CalSci. Larry's new project. Charlie. MIT. The FBI. Charlie. MIT. What am I going to tell Millie? Charlie.

MIT!

I don't stop to think for a second that I might not take this job.

Larry likes to say that both metaphorically and scientifically due to the way we perceive light and darkness, the sky is always darkest before dawn. I don't think I really believed him until this moment, when I was near ready to crack from the whispering and the constant feeling that as much as I loved my career I was starting to hate my job. I had my opportunities here, but I would have more at MIT. More importantly, at MIT I would not have the rumors and the comments about my wardrobe and the raised eyebrows from former peers.

But how to break it to Charlie?

I tell MIT yes and then make a dinner date with Charlie. No waffling this time, no telling him I've had an offer and that maybe I'll take it, maybe I won't, I don't know. No. This decision is made and I am taking charge. Charlie doesn't get the chance to set the stage tonight. I am the one who picks him up and takes him for sushi. The letter from MIT in my purse might as well be made of lead. We order food but I don't remember eating any of it. Charlie eats enough for the both of us and when the last of the spider roll is gone, I draw a breath.

"Charlie, there's something I have to ask you."

I'd say it was a question that could change our lives, but I'm not asking any questions. I'm telling. I'm telling Charlie that I love him, that being with him makes me feel fulfilled and safe and intellectually stimulated. And that I like his hair. I am telling him…

"Wait, no. I…" The words crash and burn in my mind.

"What's wrong, Amita?"

"Nothing's wrong."

"You've just seemed really nervous the whole evening. Is there something you want to talk about?"

The minute Charlie asks me if I want to talk, my throat closes. If I try to talk I'm going to cry. I take one of his hands across the table, and with my other hand I pull MIT's letter from my purse.

"What's this?" He needs both hands to open the letter. As he reads I sip my sake. To hell with all of Larry's logic and his answer that time always passes at the same rate regardless of what you're experiencing; these are the longest thirty seconds of my life. "Oh…wow. Amita, this…this is incredible. MIT." Charlie looks up. "What are you going to tell them?"

I breathe in and the air quivers on its way into my lungs. "I've…already…told them yes."

He's speechless. His eyes widen.

"Charlie, please understand something. This decision, it…"

I can't say it has nothing to do with him. It has everything to do with him, with the repercussions of our relationship on my career. "It's one I should have made a long time ago. I'm not fitting in at CalSci. I have to do this for me."

"You're moving three thousand miles from here and I…I didn't even know MIT had offered you a job. I… I could go to MIT with you. Guest lecture or write another book or see if Harvard has an opening. I could sell the house back to Dad; maybe he'll have Don move in. It's okay. This could be a great opportunity to--"

"No, Charlie." Damn it. I feel my eyes burning and I know I'm seconds from losing control. "This is something I need to do on my own." The tears start and I wipe my cheek, frowning when I see the tissue streaked with mascara.

The waiter walks by our table and Charlie signals for the check. "On your own? But you're doing so well here."

"I'm not." Only it sounds like "Mnt."

"What?"

I grab the check when the waiter brings it and slide my credit card into the folder. "Charlie, I… Do you know how many people at CalSci think I got to where I am because I was sleeping with you while you were my thesis advisor?"

"But you weren't--"

"They don't care!"

He seems shocked that I would be so harsh. That's Charlie for you, though. Numbers can't calculate humanity. "Listen, Charlie, you know the truth and I know the truth but you don't know what it's like for me from day to day. No one else cares that I really didn't sleep with you until after I got my PhD. That's not how they see things and I'm too tired at this point to try to change their minds. I need a fresh start. I need to go someplace where I wasn't your grad student, then a professor, then your girlfriend. Do you understand?"

Pulling on his jacket, he nods. He opens my coat for me and I slide into it, warmed by his arms around my shoulders. As he leads me by the arm out of the restaurant, he says, "I know what it's like to have to pursue your mind's desire, to want to do great things in math and want to be in the place where you can best pursue that desire."

"So you understand."

"I understand. But Amita…I don't think I like it."

I don't tell him that I don't think I care if he likes it or not.

Millie gives me a hug when I go into her office the next morning and tell her I've accepted the position.

"You have more promise than half the professors in this school put together. I confess I'll miss your talents, but you're making the right decision," she tells me, pouring me a cup of tea to celebrate. "You are going to discover a whole new side to yourself at MIT, just watch."

I'm momentarily stunned when her speech is so positive. "I… thank you. Your faith means a lot."

"Faith isn't what made me send your name to MIT's headhunter."

"You…what?"

"You heard me. Amita, I know you and I have had our differences when it comes to your career but at the end of the day, I respect your talents and you are going to go on to do great things. And I think we both know what it's going to take for you to accomplish those great things."

There are two obvious answers to that statement but only one of them is appropriate for discussion in this office. I fear that if I respond, this conversation will just devolve into a fight. So I nod, and sip my tea, and thank her again when I leave.

The news about my accepting the position at MIT can't stay a secret for long. The rumor mill of academia grinds slowly but exceeding fine and it whispers in the halls.

"MIT. Good for her. It'll be a nice change."

"You don't think she got in there the same way she got in here?"

"As questionable as the acquisition of her PhD was, no. She does good work and maybe now she'll be able to build a career on her own merits rather than Eppes's."

For the first time in years I can let the comment about my PhD wash over me. I know I earned that degree fairly and MIT knows it, too.

"I'll kind of miss Professor R. She's pretty cool."

"I'll miss her too…especially if they pick someone ugly to replace her."

Later that day, as the afternoon settles into twilight, Charlie takes me for a walk on the beach. I'll miss this, the cool breezes and the surfers and the sun setting into the ocean.

"I've been doing a lot of thinking," he tells me, "and I'm sorry if it seemed like I wasn't supportive enough of you about this MIT thing. I do support you. You know that, right?"

I nod and watch the waves peak and valley, another set of mountains I've scaled.

"I've been looking into airfares and they're really not too terrible from LA to Boston if you stay over a weekend," he continues. "And I'm thinking about signing up for one of those credit cards that gives you frequent flyer miles and…hey, I could let you take me shopping for a winter coat. We could have winter vacation with real snow. Think about it. Two people who are really good at physics in a snowball fight."

"Perhaps. But Charlie, please, you have to understand. I love you; don't doubt that for a second." My grip on his hand tightens. "Right now, though, I can't make you the center of my world. If we're going to make this relationship work I have to be as happy with me as I am with you." To emphasize my point, I pivot in the sand so we're face to face. "And for me, being happy means taking this position at MIT and putting everything I am into it. I'm not saying you can't visit, of course, because I am going to kick your ass in that snowball fight."

He can't help but laugh as he sidesteps me, pulling me along. "Oh, you think so, huh? Well, maybe if you're lucky I'll let you win. As your prize, I'll warm you up when we come in from the snow."

"You don't have to let me win. I can beat you all by myself. And when I do, I like those little marshmallows in my hot chocolate. But…Charlie, listen. I can't think about that until I've taken some other steps first."

Then he stops walking and sits, pulling me down with him by my hand. "I'm sorry. You're right. I… Those are plans that can wait. And along the way, I will do whatever I can to help you because, you know, I want you to be happy and I want to be there for you. In the meantime,carpe diem," he says, leaning in to kiss me.

When we break from the kiss I reach forward and tuck a lock of hair behind his ear.

I can't tell Charlie that although I'd like for us to stay together it's entirely possible that we won't last past the end of my first semester. There's no sense in breaking his heart more than once in twenty-four hours.

Charlie puts his arm around me. I relax against his chest, but despite his kissing the top of my head and running his thumb over the back of my wrist, I continue to stare straight ahead into the thrilling, uncertain future.