Author's note:
This is my submission for the "On the Job" story event 2020. This story involves an Indian woman and a white man-if that's not the kind of interracial you're into, I encourage you to find a different story. Otherwise, enjoy!
***
Brandon cracked open a can of energy drink and took a hesitant first sip. The flavor was "Birthday Cake Bash" and it tasted like vanilla cake frosting, in bubbly liquid form. Not bad, compared to others, but he wasn't drinking it for its taste. It was 6:30 p.m. and he was preparing to stay up all night long.
He had pulled all-nighters before, usually to study for important college exams. But this situation was a little different, although it was still related to education, in a way. It was summer and he had been accepted into an REU program—Research Experiences for Undergraduates. Basically, it was a way for him to spend the summer at a different university (one with a better research program than his own) and do scientific research. His housing was paid for and he got decent paychecks. It was an internship, basically. So, it was technically school, but it felt more like a job.
He had applied to work in the lab of Dr. Michael Newman at the University of Kansas because he did research on colon cancer. So, Brandon had arrived at the beginning of summer bright eyed and eager to cure cancer for good. How wrong he had been.
It turned out that scientific research was tedious, repetitive, frustrating, and unrewarding. The lab grew cancer cells in little flasks, treated them with various potential drugs, and looked at the effects the drugs had on the cells. It sounded simple enough, but there had to be variations in the concentration of the drug, the stage of growth of the cells, the conditions in which they were grown, the buffers and additives that were combined with the drug, and so on and so on.
Furthermore, he had spent most of the summer not even doing any of this himself, instead reading scientific journal articles or watching other members of the lab do these procedures. He had been assigned to be the lackey of a 6th year PhD student named Asha Mukherjee, so he spent the vast majority of his time with her. She was a short, round-faced young woman from India. She was only a handful of years older than Brandon and, at first, he had found her quite attractive due to her cute face, her full lips and a bust that not even her very conservative blouses could hide. These feelings didn't last long though—her stern attitude and intimidating intellect made him put aside any sexual thoughts he might have had about her.
With him, she was pretty much all business. Despite spending 40 hour weeks with her for the past two months, he knew very little about her personal life.
All of this brought him to his current situation. He and Asha were doing a timepoint experiment. Cells had been treated in the morning (at 8:00 a.m. precisely) and samples had to be taken every hour, on the hour, for a full 24 hours. Thus, the all-nighter.
The day had gone by easily enough, so far. He had assisted Asha with the 10 timepoints they had done so far. Only 14 more to go...
Brandon rested the half-full can on the table outside of the lab (because food or drink was not allowed inside) and walked back in. The main lab area had shelves, sinks or large pieces of equipment along all its walls, but the primary work spaces consisted of several long benches that ran most of the length of the room, parallel to one another. There were desk areas with office chairs at the ends of the benches that abutted the wall, but most of the bench was at a greater height, meant to be stood at. Asha had a desk at the bench along the far wall. Brandon wasn't important enough to have his own desk, so he sat somewhat awkwardly at a stool at her bench area.
The lab was finally starting to clear out for the evening. This was one of the many things that had shocked Brandon about research—the grad student work ethic. He was able to work about 9-5, on most days, but the grad students were almost always in the lab before him and almost always left after him. They even worked on weekends. So, this evening was actually the first time he would be the last one to leave. Well, him and Asha.
As it approached 7:00 p.m., they made their way to the side room of the lab that housed the tissue culture hoods and incubators. Brandon did his, now routine, part in things as they harvested the cells for later analysis. The whole procedure took about 30 minutes. When they returned to the main lab area, they were the only ones left.
"Well, looks like it's down to just us two," Asha remarked. That statement, in and of itself, was a little weird to Brandon—she rarely made innocuous comments like that.
As he assumed his seat on the stool at the bench, she beckoned for him to sit at the desk opposite her's instead.
"Tadashi won't mind," she explained with a wave of her hand. "Just don't mess with his computer."
So Brandon cautiously sat in the office chair of the other grad student, turning away from the computer and keyboard to face Asha.
"So, what's your story?" she asked him casually.
Brandon stifled a laugh.
"Wait, we've been working together all summer and NOW you want to make small talk?"
She shrugged as she leaned back in her chair.
"Well, maybe I've been saving it for a time like this. You gotta help me stay awake all night long." Her tone was uncharacteristically playful. As if she had become a completely different person, outside of the presence of all her co-workers. She toyed with her hair, long and black and done up in a single tight braid. "So, where are you from? What are your hobbies? What are gonna do when you graduate?"
Brandon chuckled at the absurdity of it all, but proceeded to go through his abbreviated biography. He was born and raised in Ohio and was in between his sophomore and junior year of college at a small private university in that state. He rowed crew and played League of Legends. He had always intended to go to med school after he got his bachelor's degree, but the MCAT was starting to scare him. Grad school had been his back up plan, but now he wasn't sure about that.
Before he knew it, the timer beeped for 7:55 p.m. and they prepared themselves for the 8:00 p.m. timepoint. When they finished and headed back to their seats, Brandon found the gumption to turn the tables.
"So, what about *you*?" he asked as they sat. "What's your life story?"
With a smile, Asha went through much of the same bullet points that Brandon had. Several of the details intrigued him. She was from Bangalore, a city that Brandon was only vaguely familiar with, although she politely explained that it was one of the biggest cities in the world—smaller than New York but bigger than Chicago.
She had done her undergrad work at Texas Tech, so she had been in the States for a whole decade at this point. That explained her accent, which was somehow smoother than that of other international students he had met from India. She was also much more adept with American slang and idioms.
She enjoyed bar trivia and reading romance novels: "the dirtier the better", had been her exact words, which she had said with a sly grin. This had made Brandon wonder if she was hitting on him. The possibility had been unthinkable earlier that day, but now he didn't know what to think.
She was on track to finish her PhD the coming academic year and planned to go back to India to do a post-doctoral fellowship there.
"I like the States well enough, but there's no place like home," she had explained wistfully. "Plus, my family has got a husband waiting for me, so it would be hard to skip out on that."
That last point was a bit of a shock to Brandon. So much for being hit on... He had several follow up questions related to that, but just then the timer beeped for them to get ready for their 9:00 p.m. timepoint.
They were all business as they went about their work but their conversation resumed as soon as they got back to the benches.
"So, you're engaged?" Brandon asked, trying to not sound as astounded as he was.
Asha chuckled amicably.
