A Symptom of Love (GERI Labs #1)

11. The Harrington Lab

11

The Harrington Lab

T he big day is finally here. Eleanor spent the first day of the new year bonding with her new roommate, eating some of Alannah’s homemade—and surprisingly delicious for a carnivore like herself—vegan cooking, hearing the backstories of her plant babies, and chatting with family over video, all of whom wanted to wish her good luck on her first day at her new scientific home. The place where she’s planning to spend every possible minute of her time—GERI, which stands for Gene and Epigenetic Research Institute—the prestigious spot where scientists gather from all over the world to engage in cutting edge, well-funded, scientific research.

Eleanor wakes up before her alarm clock for a change, extremely rare for her night-owl, totally-not-a-morning-person self. Excitement is running through her veins.

“Good luck on your first day!” is the first text message that welcomes her when she glances at her phone.

Aiden… Yes, he’s still in her head, still on her lock screen. Still the one to blame for that pleasant stir in the pit of her stomach. And he remembered it’s her first day, even though she probably only mentioned it once, several days ago. What is she going to do with him?

Or rather—to him?

It might be her wishful thinking, but maybe things will sort themselves out once she can finally put on a lab coat and gloves, align her microcentrifuge tubes in a row, shove a pipette into her hand—hopefully made by Gilson, her PhD lab was never able to afford that kind of luxury—and get back to her science in its totality.

But for now, she sends Aiden back a thank you with a smiley face, showers, gets dressed, annihilates Alannah’s homemade nutritious breakfast—not because she likes scrambled tofu but because she is grateful for this roommate. And also wants to make a good impression on her first day at work—a grumbling stomach could be counterproductive. And yeah, alright, it actually tastes good.

It's a short walk to the metro alongside Alannah. The wintery morning is still freezing. But now that she’s equipped with the winter gear Aiden picked out for her, walking outside becomes bearable, maybe even fun. Full disclosure though—it does bring uncalled for memories of this man. And unfortunately for her, as she’s trying for a nonchalant fa?ade, these memories now include all five senses.

Sigh.

“Excited?” Alannah asks, warm foggy clouds coming from her mouth as she exhales into the cool air.

“VERY! Ecstatic! Can’t wait to meet people face to face, see my new spot at the lab. I wonder if they’ll want me to sit in Professor Harrington’s lab or Professor Kowalski’s.“

They remain quiet on the packed train, separated by the crowd, each in her own head.

“That’s our stop.” Alannah gestures toward the door of their metro car after a pretty short ride. A vast mass of people quickly walks out. Looks like the GERI stop is quite popular. “Sorry, you were saying?” Alannah reminds her of their earlier conversation, but as the GERI front gate comes into view, Eleanor loses her train of thought.

“Wow, this place is huge!” she observes. Larger than she expected.

“That’s just the entry, wait until we get in,” Alannah laughs. “You’ll need to enter from there.” She points to a small building by the gate. “Get a temporary daily pass until you’re done with the paperwork. Once you have your permanent badge, you’ll just scan it and go through the gate,” she explains.

“Sounds good! Don’t wait for me, see you at the lab later.” Eleanor waves and then turns back to face the serious-looking security guy by the front door. She does a little happy dance, then chirps “Hello,” in his direction.

“Good morning,” he answers politely, looking a little overwhelmed by Eleanor’s energy level at this early time of morning on the second day of the new year. “ID please.”

“Thank goodness for my roommate!” Eleanor says excitedly and digs it out from her backpack. Alannah made her go back to their apartment when they were already by the elevator to grab her passport and GERI acceptance letter, ‘ just in case.’

“First day?” The security guy eyes her suspiciously.

“Yes!” she confirms. Even his party-pooper expression can’t wipe that big smile off her face.

“Can I see your invitation?”

“Here you go.” She shoves the printed paper with Professor Kowalski’s signature on it into his hand.

“Professor Kowalski’s lab?” he asks warily. Gosh, people must find this guy’s attitude so intimidating. “Let me just confirm this with him,” he mutters, stepping aside to an old fashioned-looking phone and dials the number that’s printed next to Professor Kowalski’s signature.

Is all this formality really necessary?

“Professor Kowalski?” she hears the guy say. “I have Dr. Eleanor Benjamin here at the gate, are you expecting someone by this name?” Then he turns quiet, listening attentively. “Yes, very well professor. No it’s just that…” He lowers his voice, turning his back to her. “It’s just my impression, but she may have had a drink or two before showing up here today, I…”

Wow… Can’t a girl be happy on her first day of work?

“No, of course not, I do apologize Professor Kowalski, I didn’t mean to—” the security guy says, then looks into the phone, contrite. Go Professor Kowalski! Then turns back to face the gloating Eleanor. “You may enter through this gate now, Professor Kowalski is expecting you,” he finally says, gesturing for her to proceed.

“Thank you!” she says. Then with a big smile spread across her face she adds, “I am not drunk, just high on life.” Then turns and walks away.

The best place to have meaningful work conversations, learn important details about future coworkers and bosses, and make new friends is of course—drum-roll—the lunch room.

It takes Eleanor about ten minutes to find her new building—building twenty-three, which sensibly enough is located just next to building two (the cafeteria building). The rationale behind GERI’s numbering convention is top-notch. Another big ‘thank you’ goes to Alannah, who gave Eleanor a much-needed heads up that getting through security and around campus for the first time might take a while.

Eleanor stops by the coffee machine to send her a quick thank you text. “The security guy at the entrance thought I was drunk.”

This wins her a laughing-crying emoji from Alannah. “Do you think it’s the mouth wash or the kombucha?”

“You must be Dr. Benjamin!” a pleasant, jolly voice attacks her ears.

Eleanor looks up from her phone to see a colorfully dressed woman, possibly in her sixties. “Please call me Eleanor,” she says, happy to finally see someone who can match her energy level.

The woman looks back at her, as if completing an in-depth assessment of her qualities. “I’m Mrs. Jones,” she finally says, and her smile indicates that Eleanor has passed a character test of sorts. “And although Professor Kowalski insists everyone here stays on last-name basis, you can call me Tara, but that’s just because I can already say—I like you.”

“Nice to meet you, Tara.” Eleanor shakes her hand. “I’m so happy to see a smiling face here. The security guard thought I was drunk,” she laughs. Something about Mrs. Tara Jones’ now-friendly face reminds her how much she misses home.

“Oh, of course, they can’t see why people should be happy on the first day back to work after the break. Please forgive him, post-holiday blues.” Tara smiles broadly. “And I should apologize to you,” she says, patting her arm gently.

“Apologize, why?”

“For mistaking your last name with your first, which inevitably made Professor Harrington believe you were a male scientist.”

“No harm done, it happens to me a lot, actually. In middle school I was put in an all-boy classroom because my counselor thought I was a boy named Benjamin Eleanor.”

Which was actually kind of fun, so no complaints there…

“Well, I feel bad now. Had I known I would like you so much I wouldn’t…” She trails off. “Well, I would have double-checked your name. But this may very well be the first and last chance to get a female postdoc into the old man’s lab. And it was so easy for him to assume you’re a guy named Benjamin, you know? People tend to hear what they want to hear, see what they want to see, believe what they want to believe.”

Hmmm… Sounds like this was a calculated mistake.

“It’s time for Professor Harrington to realize that women can do everything just as well as—if not better than—men,” Tara adds with conviction.

“Why do you think he’s not aware?” Eleanor’s curiosity gets the better of her.

“Honey, I’ve been working as Professor Harrington’s admin for forty years. Believe me when I tell you—he isn’t.”

“But there are rules against gender discrimination at GERI, I’m sure.”

“Of course, he’s just been able to somehow avoid hiring females. He’s quite… evasive. The esteemed Professor Harrington goes by the motto that to be successful you must be willing to sacrifice everything, including nights, weekends, holidays, family… Life, pretty much.” Tara rolls her eyes, hands vividly making her point. “And he had been practicing what he preaches to an extensive amount. Until he turned seventy-five and his doctor ordered him to slow down. It just never occurred to him that women can do it too.”

“Well then, intended or not, I’m proud to be his first female postdoc. I’ll be more than happy to take an active part in the re-education efforts and help guide him through his journey from the eighteenth century to our modern-day times,” Eleanor says, and the two of them shake on their newly formed alliance. “Now, what can you tell me about Professor Kowalski? Does he also share these dinosaur-age opinions?”

“Oh, Professor Grumpy? Nah, he’s broody but he doesn’t discriminate; he’s his same crabby self toward everyone. He is very much in support of women’s rights. In fact, he was quite pleased when he found out about the inevitable… mistake that led Professor Harrington to hire—the unthinkable—a woman. He is a brilliant young man. Just recently received his tenure. Handsome too. Just too serious and always deep in thoughts. And he likes formality for some reason, go figure.” Tara scratches her head. “But believe me when I tell you, he has a heart of gold. And he could really use a significant other to brighten up his life a little, you know? I tell him that all the time, but of course he wouldn’t listen. Although I must say,” Tara halts for a second, then lowers her voice, “he’s been smiling all morning today. I don’t think I’ve ever seen his beautiful teeth before, so it might just be your lucky day.”

“Thanks for the insider information.” Eleanor grins, although not as broadly as earlier. Maybe she should have opted for a video interview before accepting her postdoc appointment.

She only had to choose one or two mentors for her postdoctoral fellowship. And apparently, one is a well-known chauvinist, the other a broody grump. Oh well, too late to beat herself up now.

“You are very welcome honey. Professor Kowalski’s office is inside the last lab on the right.” Tara points her out of the lunch room and into a long corridor. “And Harrington’s office is in the same direction, two floors up. Good luck and stay blessed.” She gives her a jovial smile. “I’m sure you’ll get along with those two gentlemen just fine.”

Hoping her very first in-person meeting with Professor Harrington will go a bit better than her current state of lowered expectations (hashtag optimism-forever), Eleanor takes the stairs to the fifth floor and down the hall to Professor Harrington’s office, following Mrs. Tara Jones’ instructions. It’s kind of convenient to have both of her mentors in the same building, just a couple floors and a long hallway away from each other.

“You’re our new postdoc?” A voice catches up to her as she’s about to knock on the door.

“I am!” She turns around.

“I’m Mano!” An outwardly friendly guy with a suspicion-laced smile—a very disappointing combination—stands before her. She is not the tallest of girls, but this guy is at least a head shorter. Yet he stretches his neck like a peacock, inflates his broad chest as if to demonstrate superiority, and gives her an unfocused look that turns into a slow uncomfortable once-over. It takes a special talent to do all that in a span of a second, and he’s certainly nailed the move. A dubious achievement. “I’m the Professor Harrington’s right-hand person.” He holds out his hand.

Creepy is the potential definition for the vibe he’s exuding.

Is that the result of working too long in an all-male-no-female-ever lab?

And why would he be presenting himself as the Professor Harrington’s sidekick? Shouldn’t he have a role of his own?

“Nice to meet you, Mano,” she says and takes his hand, manners getting the best of her. Wrongful first impression? Hopefully, though unlikely.

“ Very nice to meet you, Dr. Benjamin.” He has an arrogant vibe about him, yet he considers himself someone’s sidekick.

“Please call me Eleanor.”

What is it with the formality in this place?

“Okay, Eleanor. Have you seen the lab yet?” A cocky smile.

“No, actually I haven’t.” Despite the creepiness, someone is finally willing to give her a tour. “I’ll just pop in to say hello to Professor Harrington,” she says, about to knock on the door.

“You might want to email him first,” Mano says apprehensively. “He doesn’t like to be disturbed when his office door is closed.”

Seriously? Even on her first day?

“Does he ever leave his door open?”

“Nope.”

“Ah. So what do you do when you need to speak with him?”

“I email him, or call,” Mano smiles contently.

An unapproachable professor—that’s nothing to smile about.

“But he’s right here…”

“Yes, that’s the way he prefers.” Mano shrugs.

“What if it’s urgent?”

“Still the way he prefers.”

“Got it,” she says, taking a step closer to the door. “But it’s not the way I prefer.”

“Oh… If you want, I can show you where your new office is and help you set up your computer and you could email him.”

“That’s very kind of you, Mano. I’d love to do it later, but first I’ll go in and introduce myself.” And with that she knocks once, and without waiting for a response, opens the door and peeks in. Call it fearless, call it cultural differences, call it Eleanor Benjamin. Mano winces in the background.

“Good morning, Professor Harrington! I’m Eleanor Benjamin,” she announces in a celebratory tone. Because yeah, it’s an exciting day.

“Oh, Dr. Benjamin, come on in.” A friendly old guy, with tousled white hair and heavy framed glasses gets up from his chair slowly and walks toward her to shake her hand. He’s dressed formally, in an old-fashioned style, under an open lab coat. His high levels of energy make up for his slight, frail appearance, and his smile is warm. He doesn’t at all seem to mind the interruption. And despite some potential prejudice she expects to uncover, and certain future disagreements, he’s surprisingly a very likable person.

“I’m sorry Professor Harrington,” Mano interrupts from the doorframe as Eleanor lets herself into the office. “I tried to warn her that you do not like to be disturbed.”

“Thank you, Mano, that will be all,” Professor Harrington says, signaling for Mano to leave and shut the door. Mano’s face screams disappointment. This is going to be interesting.

“I’m very pleased to finally meet you Dr. Benjamin,” Professor Harrington says as he steps back slowly into his chair.

“The feeling is mutual,” she says. “Please call me Eleanor.”

“Very well, Eleanor. Please,” He gestures to a chair facing his desk. “I trust that you’ll meet Professor Kowalski later?”

“Yes.” She nods. “That’s my next destination.”

“I have to be honest, when I first read your CV, I thought you were a male scientist.”

“Because of my last name, that’s totally fine, I’m used to that.” She smiles politely.

“Not just your last name,” he admits openly. “The caliber. Your resume is impressive; first in your class, your publications, military service.” Professor Harrington may have been better off omitting the additional information. She’s not sure whether she should be flattered or offended for the sake of all the female scientists out there. This is so high on the scale of non-politically correct. But his eyes are bright, almost naive, his voice so enthusiastic. And it occurs to Eleanor that Professor Harrington is not trying to be hurtful or make a sexist comment. It’s just the voice of someone who unfortunately got stuck some few centuries behind. So she decides to take it as a compliment.

“You know, army service is compulsory in Israel,” she says calmly. “Luckily women don’t need to wear corsets anymore, would have made that part quite uncomfortable.”

This makes him smile fondly. “I like your sense of humor,” he says. “You may not know it, but in the fifty years I’ve worked at GERI, I’ve never had a female work in my lab. Aside, of course, for my administrative team.”

“I gathered that,” she says, not wanting to throw Tara under the bus. “May I ask why not?”

“I thought they might not have what it takes to become good scientists,” he says. “Not because they’re not smart enough, just because they have so many other things on their minds—relationships, starting a family, raising children. They are inherently bound to being distracted.”

Hah!

Despite the content of his striking little speech there, she’s surprised by his honesty. This gives her something to work with.

“You are surely aware of the multiple women who’ve made incredible scientific discoveries throughout the years?” She treads carefully, wanting to keep the conversation to a friendly level. Raising antagonism would not be the ideal approach to get through to him. And as long as he’s smiling—she has a chance to open his mind a bit.

“Of course,” is his simple response.

“And nowadays, men have all of those things on their minds as well,” she grins.

“Some of them, of course, which is why not everyone succeeds,” the old professor says. Somehow, to her surprise, his thoughts and statements don’t provoke her. There’s something immature and adorable in the way he sees the world, despite having been in it for like eighty years.

“And yet you decided to bring me on,” she says triumphantly.

“Yes. Well, first, as I said, I thought you were a man. But then when I realized you were not, I looked again at your accomplishments, which are remarkable. A woman who has achieved all that—I realized you must be extraordinary. And with your military training, I figured you must have been trained to eliminate distractions and focus on your target.”

She might want to skip the part where she tells him she had an office job in her military service.

He stops for a short second to assess her reaction. Seeing as his words did not cause perturbation, he smiles contently and proudly adds, “So I decided that if the world is progressing, perhaps it’s time for me to join the revolution.”

He may be a few years late for that revolution, but she’ll go with it.

“I’m glad you chose me for the task,” she decides to say. Proudly—because along with Tara, she may be the catalyst that will make Professor Harrington join the twenty-first century. Now it’s her job to show him that she can do better than many of the male scientists that came through his lab over the years, maybe even make him regret he waited fifty years to hire a female scientist.

“So am I.” He smiles. Something in this surprising naivety he possesses makes him so likable. At least in her eyes. “How do you like GERI so far?” He leans back in his chair.

“I haven’t seen much of it yet, but so far I like it a lot.”

“Perhaps we could start with a tour then,” he offers and slowly rises.

“Mano promised a tour later.” She tries to save him the trouble but he waves the idea off and opens the door for her. “It would be my pleasure to show you around.” He smiles fondly.

They walk down the hallway. The Harrington lab is split into several smaller rooms across the entire corridor. Each has a space for maybe one or two fellows and hosts both their benches and desks, but most are loaded with instruments. Not ideal for cross-contamination and certainly not for coffee-while-reading habits like hers, but certainly ideal for the loud-music-when-pipetting. Once upon a time, this used to be her thing. Although the past few days may have been part of a new—Aiden no-idea-what’s-his-last-name era, so she’ll have to see about that.

“You’ve met Mano already,” Professor Harrington gestures to the lab closest to his office. “And this is Dr. Antoine Martin.” He points to a guy who shuffles through the hallway with a large gel apparatus, “he is a postdoc here, from France. And Dr. Benjamin is from Israel.” Origins seem to be very important to Professor Harrington, apparently. Or maybe he’s trying to emphasize the diversity? Now having added a female to his staff—he’s certainly on a roll.

“Very nice to meet you Dr. Benjamin,” Antoine says in a cute French accent and gives her a friendly wink. “I’ll put this thing in the cold room and come back to shake your hand,” he says apologetically.

“It’s Eleanor, and take your time,” she grins.

They proceed to the last room in the hallway. “And this is your very own lab,” Professor Harrington cordially announces, opening the heavy metal door to a tiny old lab with no windows, letting her in first. Eleanor lets her eyes adjust while taking in the small, stuffy space. It has two lab benches, two desks and a chemical hood.

Her own hood is undoubtedly a positive part, if one insists on looking at the bright side. And she does. But, on the other hand, if one isn’t particularly keen on positivity, the place looks like a small, disorganized warehouse, probably used to store anything and everything that no one needs, with reagent bottles and kit boxes that may have expired some years ago, ten at a minimum. It doesn’t look like anyone has worked in this room since… ummm… the sixties maybe. A dungeon might be a more suitable description for the place. She’s going to need a moving company to help clear out the amount of boxes. Some of them could even be blocking a potential window, hopefully. Or a secret passageway. She also might need a biohazard suit for the clean-up task.

But hey, positive thinking, right?

“Did you say my ‘ very own lab? ’ No lab-mates?” She points to the desk opposite them that houses stacks of old dusty science books and a computer from the time when monochrome screens existed.

“I wanted to give you peace and quiet to focus, and avoid… interruptions,” Professor Harrington says uncomfortably. “Up until today, this has always been an-all boys’ lab, the boys here get distracted easily.”

He talks about these highly-educated scientists as if it’s a kindergarten group…

“Might get a little lonely in here,” she says. “Is there another space I could use? I saw Mano has a spare desk.”

“I had a very large lab with many students, but unfortunately, over the last few years parts of it have been re-allocated, in favor of other, younger professors,” he says wistfully. “There are several rooms with various instruments, and you can use any of them when you run your experiments. But as far as a dedicated space with your own lab bench and desk—it’s really just this room. It’s a little… unorganized… but I’m positive that with some magic touch it will be very nice.”

Thank God he didn’t say ‘female touch’ because there’s only so much patience her feminist mind can muster.

Okay then. Looks like she’ll just venture out of her dungeon whenever she wants company. Or spend extra time at the Kowalski lab. Hopefully there’s a nicer spot there for her.

They walk back to the door, where Mano is caught snooping. “Mano,” Professor Harrington gives him a stern—albeit unsurprised—look. “Can you please show Dr. Benjamin our break room?”

“Of course!” Mano gives her a part-suspicious, part-sleazy smile.

Fabulous.

“After you,” he gestures to Eleanor as their professor retreats back into his cave. “It’s a great room, me and the guys like to have lunch there, or just hang out sometimes.”

Did he put an emphasize on the word ‘guys’ just now? Or was she imagining?

And while Professor Harrington can get away with these things in his cute, old-school, graceful way, Mano definitely can’t. He’s also not old enough to enjoy the benefit of the doubt.