Chapter 18

After the upheaval of the past few months it was nice to settle into a routine again. Most of my time was taken up with work, of course - the department still had more than its share of projects going with Keith's sabbatical, and though it wasn't impossible to keep them all running it was a very precise juggling job to make sure nothing came crashing down. What free time I had I spent at the gym or with friends, including what were becoming more-or-less regular sailing sessions with Alex and drinks every week or so with Mike.

My two newest acquaintances were both interesting, though albeit in very different ways. My friendship with Mike was turning out to be surprisingly enjoyable; he was funny, attentive, and interesting - basically a great guy, and I found myself wishing on more than one occasion I was in any way attracted to him, since the alternative was just a waste.

Alex was a different matter again. I'm not ageist by nature - if anything, a good number of my friends tended a little younger than me these days simply due to the nature of my field. That being said, it wasn't usual for me to be so drawn to the personality of someone fresh out of their PhD - my previous assistant, Keira, had been older than Alex and with an extra degree, but she hadn't had the same depth of personality or character, not by a long way - and I knew this wasn't merely the bitterness talking.

Perhaps it was due to her 'lack of focus' - something which I could tell she had hesitated disclosing to her boss but had come out toward the end of one of our post-sailing drives home. Alex was plagued, it seemed, by a worry that she was too much of a generalist to work in Academia, and too much of an academic to work anywhere else. She was pretty self-deprecatory about the whole thing to the point where I found myself almost arguing with her over the choices she'd made. I did wonder, though, whether that lack of the drive to specialise - the time she'd taken out between degrees to work and travel and volunteer, the various places she'd lived or studied, her catholic tastes in literature and cinema - were what made her significantly more interesting company than anyone under thirty I'd ever met - and a good few folk over thirty for that matter.

Soon our sailing days graduated to other occasions - a drink after work, working lunches that were more lunch than work, grabbing dinner on the way home from the marina. I had never socialized so often with an assistant before, and I could tell certain people in the office were, well, surprised, if we're putting it nicely. It didn't bother me much; I was well used to gossip going on behind my back... at least I was in control of this round.

We'd even managed to graduate beyond that initial 'work and hobbies' chat and onto our lives - or mine, at least. I found to my mild surprise that Alex was a good audience for my complaining about the horrors of middle-aged online dating. I tried not to whinge too much, especially since my desire to find a replacement for Keith had died down considerably, but she was more than sympathetic to the stories I shared with her about the various arseholes I had met in the course of my search. Eventually I began inquiring into her lovelife, though she was reluctant to share as openly as I had done at first.

I couldn't understand why until one evening when, on the third instance of her checking her watch I couldn't help but take one more shot at getting beneath the surface of her private life.

"You know," I told her, picking up my half-full glass of pinot grigio and swirling it thoughtfully, "if you have somewhere you need to be you're welcome to go. Wouldn't want to keep your date waiting."

She glanced back up guiltily. "Oh, it's not a date," she said quickly. "At least..." She made a face. "I think we're still figuring that part out," she said eventually, looking at once reluctant to go on and just a little desperate to talk to someone.

"Ah," I said knowingly. "New acquaintance or old friend?"

"Newish something-or-other," she replied vaguely.

"Does this newish something-or-other have a name?" I pressed, driven more by her evasive manner than an all-encompassing curiousity.

That slightly tight smile that I always got when I pried - she was about to shut down again. But then she didn't, clearing her throat. "Debbie," she said.

I may have looked surprised for a split second, though again, this wasn't something I was unused to, being in the field that I'm in. "And so which not-date is this?" I asked, raising my eyebrows.

Apparently relieved there hadn't been some minor explosion (which disappointed me a little - I mean, who did she think I was?) she shrugged."Hard to say, really. We met shortly after I moved."

"Well, at least things are going better for you than they did for me. What's she like?"

"Nice," Alex said, in a somewhat defensive tone, although I recognised it well enough to know that it was no longer her revelation that was making her feel that way. "She's really nice. We have loads to talk about. And she's smart, and pretty." Ah. So it seemed Alex had a 'Mike' too. I wondered if Debbie knew it. Or if Alex did.

"She sounds lovely. What are you two up to tonight?"

"A late dinner at her place. I'm really okay for time," she added, "I didn't mean to make you feel rushed."

"Oh, don't worry about me. I've been abandoned before," I joked. "I know how to deal with it." I didn't really want Alex to leave - I was having a nice time - but I also didn't want her to resent me right after she had opened up to me.

"Yeah, no, it's really okay. I need to leave in..." - she checked her watch again - "...about half an hour, give or take. We're good." This last pronouncement was in a particularly decisive tone, and I got the impression that she wasn't just talking about the time.

"Well in that case, you can tell me what you thought of that article I forwarded you - anything you can incorporate into your protocol?"

 

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