Thanks to Lilalocket for her constructive criticism.
*****
It all started at a mining conference.
I was six years out of my Ph.D. in geology, and after six years of dead-end postdoctoral fellowships and contract lab tech jobs and being turned down for every faculty position at every university in my field for which I was qualified for, I had finally given up the dream of being a tenured professor. Sure, I knew the odds going in were against it, but I loved research, and I kept following every path I could find in search of a key to the ivory tower without success. Finally, a few weeks past my thirtieth birthday, my slowly dying relationship with my long-term girlfriend Carolyn finally ended when she left me, and a quarter-life crisis hit me like a ton of, well, rocks. Jobless, single for the first time in forever, and with no prospects for my future, I started looking for jobs outside of the ivory tower that might actually use my degree.
It felt like admitting I was a failure, but sure enough, after a few months of searching I landed a job with a Vancouver investment bank. The mining industry is populated with literally hundreds of small companies with stakes in properties all over the world, and each and every one of them wants an investor with money to come and buy out their claim, make them rich, and then build a mine to develop it. My firm worked like venture capital - it was my job to read through hundreds of identical company profiles, meet the geologists in charge, examine their core samples, and make the decision to invest in a few of them that looked promising.
Nearly a year into the job, I had surprised myself. I had backed a couple of winners early on (including one company run by an old buddy from my undergrad), and the sizable bonus cheque they cut me shortly after New Year's was literally more money than I had ever held in my life. In one go, I was able to pay off the rest of my student loans, buy a new car, and feel, for the first time, like a real grown-up with a real income. Failure had never tasted that good!
In early March, the mining industry gathers in Toronto for the big Prospectors & Developers Conference - the largest such conference in the world. Every year, literally hundreds and hundreds of hopeful companies set up shop in the investor's exchange looking for sugar daddies, and it was my job to pick winners. I had four days to make or break my upcoming summer, and show that my first year's success wasn't just beginner's luck.
After an uneventful first day, Day 2 of the conference dawned early for me as I began trolling the aisles of the show, and it was there she spotted me.
"Oh my goodness, Phil! How have you been?"
I was suddenly blindsided and enveloped in a tight hug from a young businesswoman in a form-fitting, but still professional, black dress and matching heels. As she pulled back and I caught her face, I recognized her.
"Kate Morgan, how long has it been?"
Kate had been one of my undergrad students when was doing my Ph.D. I was her TA in three different classes, and I had always had something of a crush on her, though I never would have admitted it to anyone (if nothing else, I could have gotten in serious trouble, both with the university and with my girlfriend at the time). Kate would have been a typical "All-American" girl next door type had she been American, but the maple leaf tattooed on her shoulder blade gave her away. She had been a varsity swimmer for our university and had been good enough to make Canada's Olympic trials, though she never qualified to go all the way. As I looked at her for the first time in six years, I could see she still had the swimmer's body. She was tall for a woman, maybe a few inches shorter than my 5'11", and still strong, athletic and lean, with long arms and legs and skin with a natural complexion that made her look permanently tanned. Her wavy hair was auburn and pulled back into a simple ponytail, and as we made eye contact, I was reminded again of her best feature. Her eyes were the purest shade of icy blue I've ever seen, lively and mischievous, and after six years I nearly stumbled catching sight of them again. Hot damn.
We fell into an easy rhythm catching up on each other's lives in the middle of the trade show. She had graduated with her B.Sc. the same year I finished my doctorate, and then as I moved into postdoc hell, she gone on to do a Master's degree in economic geochemistry at a school in Ontario. After graduation she had landed a job with a junior mining company, as many new grads in the industry did. She was still an apprentice with the company, but her boss liked her, and in a company that consisted of only five people (her, two senior geos, an accounting and finance guy and a secretary) she was getting a ton of useful experience not just in geology but also in running a business.
As I filled her in on the details of my job, the perfect blue eyes narrowed.
"You mean you're one of the investors? All we get here all day are people trying to sell us stuff and university kids looking for summer jobs. I need to introduce you to my boss, and then I'm going to convince him we need to have dinner afterwards on my expense account so I can convince you our project is worth it."
I was quickly manhandled and dragged by the hand to an older, nerdy-looking bald guy in a dark suit, who introduced himself as Brian Davies, President and CEO of Flagstone Minerals.
"Let me tell you about our chromite project, assay results..." Blah, blah, blah... As he schmoozed impossibly upbeat and promising stories I'd heard a hundred times before, I kept stealing glances at Kate, who was standing to the side quietly and taking in her boss's pitch. She hardly looked different from the undergrad I remembered, the one who would drop by my office in form-fitting clothes, whose muscular curves I'd secretly ogle as I taught her how to evaluate a thin section through a microscope. As I stood there, not really listening to all the highly interesting chromite talk, I remembered more about her.
She had been studious and came to my office hours often, one of the few students that did, and had gotten the grades to show for it, but I also occasionally heard gossip about her wild side. Of course it's no secret that varsity athletes party hard, and I'd heard stories from other grad students that she had a taste for booze and had slept around a fair bit in university, though I never got the impression she was wanton about it, she just knew what she liked and didn't fear judgment.
As her TA I had envied her effortless sociability and likability and the way she'd managed to fit in both with the jocks on the swim team and the mineral nerds. Most of the guys in her year had a crush on her; she was the kind of effortlessly likeable and bubbly girl who easily attracts suitors. But she was way out of my league, she never seemed to want to be tied down in a relationship, plus I was in a power relationship to her and I took my Ph.D. too seriously to ever consider making a move. That is, even if I hadn't been a completely hopeless geek and also taken.
In some ways, she had the university career I had secretly wanted but never had. I had been the nerd who spent my weekends drinking and playing Dungeons and Dragons with my buddies in undergrad. In grad school I hung out with my labmates and talked about research a lot. She partied, fucked around, swam competitively, was a social butterfly, and still got grades comparable to mine. She played the field; I spent my twenties with a fear of being alone and holding on to my high school relationship at all costs. It should have ended with being long distance six weeks into university like so many others, but instead we had lasted until I was 30. Fucking Carolyn...
Oh shit. Silence. What was that CEO's name again? Barry? He's looking at me. Better say something...
"Of course I'm really pleased you've hired Kate, she was one of my best students when I taught her", I stammered.
Was that a non-sequitur? Fuck.
"I'm looking forward to catching up with her as equals tonight and I'm sure she'll have the time to tell me all about the chromite stake you've got up north". The guy grinned.
Good. Saved it.
"Kate's been with us for two years and she's been a great hire", said Basil or whatever. "She works hard, she's great in the field, never complains about living in tents for a month, and her assay work and core-logging is better than some I've worked with that are twice her age". Kate grinned in pleasure.
Oh right, the perfect teeth... god, her smile is still intoxicating.
"I'm happy to let Kate have you, Phil. I hope you two have a productive dinner!" With that, he turned and walked away.
Kate and I quickly traded cell phone numbers, and agreed to meet up at 6:00 when the conference closed for the day.
At 6:00 I met up with Kate again near one of the escalators on the way out of the convention centre, and we walked the short distance to one of downtown Toronto's many restaurants catering to people on an expense account. Over a Thai dinner we caught up on our lives and mutual friends, her Masters and my struggles in finding a place in academia. We also got into our personal lives a little bit; I told her the short version of my long, sordid history with Carolyn, and she told me she had a new boyfriend, dating less than a month, in Kendall Falls, the tiny mining town up north where she was living. She'd been with Kenny only a short time, but thought "it had promise" considering the fact she was in a small town with less than a thousand people living there and wasn't into country music, hunting or incest.
She also tried to sell me on their project in detail, which sounded promising even without the personal connection. I took notes and put them on my "strong maybe" list. After dinner, we eventually wound up at the Royal York Hotel for hospitality suites put on by the big companies, where we continued to avail ourselves of all the free food and booze the industry wanted to throw at us. By 10:00 we were both tipsy and sick of rock talk, so we found our way to a mediocre chain restaurant nearby, where we ordered wings and continued polishing away the beer, while talking more in depth about our relationships and personal lives. And throughout the evening, I had no inkling whatsoever of what was about to come - our friendship remained as professional and friendly as it always had been, just two old acquaintances catching up.
Late in the evening I was finishing another pint of Steam Whistle and listening to Kate telling a field camp story when all of a sudden she stopped herself and bolted upright, startled. "What time is it?"
I looked at my watch. "Just after midnight, why?"
"Shit!" She looked panicked and immediately started gathering her purse and coat. "Where are we? Maybe I can still make it. We haven't paid yet, have we?" She tipped her head back and downed the last third of her pint in one smooth gulp. I tried to stifle looking too impressed.
