Author's note:
Thanks for your support for my last two stories.
This one is in the same vein, longer on story and character, so if you're looking for a quick fix, this might not be it.
Please remember to vote if you like it, and even if you don't.
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I've always been fascinated by that moment, the transition when one thing becomes something else. The moment the magic happens.
Take baking soda. You know what happens when you mix it with vinegar, or any other acid - you wind up with water, a salt like sodium acetate, carbon dioxide bubbling out, and a little heat. We've known that for centuries, and we've been using it in cooking and industry for almost as long. But that's just the before and the after. What's really happening in the moment, in the intricate dance of atoms and electrons? Until a few decades ago, we didn't have any idea, and we still don't know some of the details. That's what I study, what I've made a career out of - finding out what's really going on in chemical reactions, at the level of individual atoms, using computer simulations and femtosecond laser pulses and all sorts of neat tricks.
There are all kinds of other moments like that happening around us all the time, on various time scales. Carbon-14 decaying into Nitrogen; a stem cell differentiating into a neuron; a seed germinating; a tectonic fault shearing under stress; sperm fertilizing an egg. Those are almost as fascinating, but I need to focus, so I focus on chemistry.
Life is really just a series of moments, too, if you think about it. We spend a lot of time just being, going with the flow, but most of the stuff that really matters happens in those brief moments: ideas and decisions; meeting someone new; moving away from home; losing family and friends; falling in love. Those I don't understand at all. I just try to recognize them when they happen, and to be grateful for the good ones.
The fascination started early - when I was three or four, I'd stare at a pot of boiling water, much to my mother's horror, or get yelled at for opening the freezer door way too often to peek at ice cubes freezing in the tray. How does a liquid turn solid, or vanish into the air? I would ask my parents, but neither of them had much interest in science, so they couldn't really help after I was about five. My dad could and did teach me everything there was to know about cars, but that's all practical. Theoretical chemistry and physics were outside his skill set. They did take me to the Museum of Science, right on the Charles River, which was about my favorite place in the world. I probably bored them to tears, but they indulged me, even when my little brother cried in his stroller. They bought me a chemistry set for Christmas when I was nine, and I was hooked.
So my trajectory was set, at least through college. I studied hard in school, got good grades and did very well on the SAT. I had a credible application to Harvard or MIT, which would have been amazing, but when I considered everything, including cost, UMass Amherst seemed like the best place for me to go. The academics were very good, and with in-state tuition and a few minor scholarships, I would be able to get out without mind-boggling student loans. I've always believed the most important thing in a college education is the effort you put into it yourself. Plus, it was about the right distance from home - not quite two hours when the roads are clear. Far enough to get away and be independent, but close enough to visit when I needed to.
My first year was great, academically, apart from the dreaded freshman English that everybody has to take. I squeaked through with a pair of C's, the worst grades of my life. The highlight, of course, was Honors Chemistry. In the lab section, they gave each student a different recipe, using some known reagents and a few mystery ingredients. We had three weeks to follow the recipe, and then nine weeks to analyze the result to determine what we had made. It was the coolest possible way to teach a class of motivated chemistry geeks.
Socially, though, things were not so good. I was always kind of awkward, and being away from my family for the first time was terribly lonely. I made friends fairly easily - mostly nerdy guys - but few of them were close. I had a couple of crushes in high school, but I was painfully shy, and I was always insecure about my looks, with my wispy blonde hair, glasses, skinny body and small boobs. So my crushes stayed crushes, admired from afar, and the boys never knew. Looking back, I probably could have had something more if I just asked. I suspect they were as scared of me as I was of them.
College was the same as high school - I knew everybody in the dorm by name, and all they knew me, but I went to class alone and usually ate alone. I did play board games with a group of guys on Tuesday nights, mostly CS majors, and I watched the late comedy shows with the regular crowd in the lounge most nights.
I had two roommates my freshman year, and we were cordial, but I didn't really connect with either one. Jamie was an English major with a swimsuit model body, gorgeous and outgoing and funny in all the ways I was not. She seemed a lot more interested in her social life than her schoolwork, and spent most of her time with boys. That made for a lot of quiet study time for me, but some social interaction would have been nice. She moved in with her friend Alice after a semester. My second roommate was Ellie, who was majoring in history or political science or something. She was bouncy and perky and friendly with everyone. She was around a little more, and sometimes I had lunch with her and some other people from the dorm on the weekends, but she disappeared after freshman year. I think she left school; I don't really know for sure.
I would have been happy to find friends among my fellow chemistry majors, or other science students, but during that first year, I don't think there was a single student with whom I shared more than one class.
~~~
I went back to school my sophomore year after a summer of drudgery at a retail job, excited about my classes but with low social expectations. I was playing the roommate lottery yet again, and all I had was a name: Anne Griffin. It sounded vaguely familiar, like somebody from one of my classes, but I couldn't remember her, and since I went to college before everyone lived their lives entirely online, I couldn't look her up.
My mood improved considerably when I walked into the room and saw her. I remembered her from calculus - we were both quiet little mice sitting in the back row - and I knew we were going to get along. She was pretty, with dark eyes, dark hair and a warm smile. Jamie and Ellie were both obvious, in different ways, instantly capturing the attention of any nearby male. Anne was subtle and elegant. I think she looked the way I wanted to look when I grew up.
I got her attention by setting my crate full of books on the floor, and then introduced myself. "Hi. I'm Allison Kendall."
