Chapter Text
Jin rubbed her arm as she listened to the wall clock tick away. The bruise was already fully formed, its tender blue and violet boundaries blooming past the wrapped gauze around the crook of her elbow. It didn't hurt—or at least it didn't hurt nearly as much as what had caused it—but she avoided moving her arm anyways. She had a knack for making anything worse.
Professor Pearce had only a wisp of white hair beneath his woolen flat cap, and Jin could hear his grunts of effort across the classroom whenever he hauled himself to the whiteboard, so she should've expected his office to be of the few at the university to boast an analog clock. It filled the deathly silence inside the room, at least. She wouldn't be stuck with the thoughts that had built up all those hours in the donation chair.
Ignoring the clock like the stupid zoomer she was, she took a glimpse at her phone, a momentary sense of dread when she saw the time: 5:55 PM. She'd only have five minutes to get to work, and she'd end up late anyways and get scolded by her manager. That job was gone, which meant she wouldn't be late to anything, which made her feel worse. Perhaps that was why there was so much apprehension boiling in her stomach as she sat idly in the one chair set beside the L-shaped corner desk, stained more with coffee than actual paint; at this time her body was used to the hustle and bustle of overdue shoppers, a burst of life in the fluorescent lit aisles before the doors closed and the eerie darkness took over. That was her favorite part, actually, just her and the endless boxes to unload onto the shelves.
Now, for those late night hours, she had nothing. Every second of her current existence was another cent drained from her meager savings. If her professor did not come, her grades would do the same.
The second hand ticked over to 6, and Jin considered that Professor Pearce's brains had finally melted out of his ears and he'd forgotten his posted office hours. She shivered. She hadn't brought a jacket, and the campus insisted on spending half their donations on overclocked air conditioning. Presumably, the other half went to the football team.
Jin was just about to give up, call it a night, and hole herself up in bed to either cry herself to sleep or scroll dead-eyed through her nightly gauntlet of nudes she had yet to delete at her ex's request, when she heard footsteps approach the closed office door. They were obviously not Professor Pearce's plodding, pained limp(Jin was exaggerating a bit) so Jin looked over to see who was coming to bother him.
Whoever-it-was knocked on the door. Jin's mouth opened, but she did not answer.
"Terry?" The voice was muffled. A woman's voice, one seeking the same man who was not in his office. She knocked again.
The door opened, revealing the intruder.
"Hello? Apologies for the delay. I got stuck—" The intruder's eyes locked to Jin, where she was seated in the otherwise empty office. "You're not Terry."
Before Jin could form an answer, the intruder invited herself in. She had a stern look to her, an indisputable aloofness that did not at all match her voice—in fact, if Jin had not heard it before she entered, she would've assumed she was male.
The intruder was dressed sharply, far better than anyone on campus could ever dream; she practically looked as if she was from a different time and place. She was in formal-wear, but not the kind Jin typically saw on women: colored pantsuits and heels that assured passersby that one was taking the whole being-a-woman thing seriously. Instead, it was as if she'd walked straight out of a bachelor's dinner. She didn't look like an impostor. She was the showpiece.
There was not a single wrinkle on her black suit jacket, nor her single-breasted waistcoat(green, like moss), nor the white oxfords over which they laid. Her pressed collar was a sharp contrast to the burgeoning streaks of gray at the nape of her neck and temples. The rest of her hair was wavy and dark, slicked back and styled with pomade that smelled of citrus, tousled some from a long day's work.
The intruder's gaze turreted about the room, her posture steady on her polished black shoes. Professor Pearce was a hoarder, and he'd brought those tendencies to work. Manila folders and unlabeled binders spewed from the bookshelves at the opposite wall. More papers were scattered on the stained carpet, run over with shoe-prints. There was a mishmash of trinkets piled in a corner. Three chairs lingered, in various states of disrepair; the fourth one was sagging where the professor had sat for decades, and the fifth was the gray folding chair on which Jin had whiled away close to an hour.
The intruder's lips pressed together.
"You wouldn't happen to know where your instructor has wandered off to, would you, Jin?"
Her own name struck her like a needle.
"How do you…"
"You don't remember me?"
Jin shook her head. A smile tugged at one corner of the intruder's lips, but the rest of her expression was unreadable. "I proctored a couple exams for Astronomy 1 a year back. You were a pain in my neck."
The woman saw the bewildered expression on Jin's face and, again, did a little half smile that she hoped was amusement.
"I kid." She set the stapled packet on Professor Pearce's desk and turned to her, arms crossed over her chest as if judging the ripeness of a pallet of bananas. "I don't fault any student for not recognizing me. It's a big hall, and I'm not a regular visitor."
Despite the woman's understanding, Jin wracked her brain for any scrap of memory, anything about the class she'd spent a whole semester agonizing through, hoping to save face at least once this night. The woman did not allow her the pleasure.
"Dr. Beauregard was what you saw on the student portal, most likely." She extended a gloved hand. Jin shook it. Dr. Beauregard's grip was firm. Jin could almost feel the individual bones and tendons moving beneath the leather. "I don't believe we ever spoke, though at some point we did breathe the same air. How go your studies?"
Jin swallowed. She didn't know why she was nervous. Dr. Beauregard seemed perfectly friendly, if rigid. Her mind managed to scrounge up some old memories of that class, beyond the many days she'd forgotten all of her pencils. Astronomy 1's professor had the attention span of a goldfish, so she tended to forget class was even happening at all. Dr. Beauregard had been her replacement enough times that Jin should've recalled her easily.
"They're well," she said, lying. She'd rather not tell a research associate of astronomy that she was completely bombing what was her passion. Now that she thought of it, maybe she'd had such a hard time remembering her because "Beauregard" was such a strange name for someone who looked like her.
"I'm not surprised." Dr. Beauregard leaned back against the desk, palms to the edge. "You were the brightest in that entire course."
Jin studied the woman some more. It had been more obvious in the lecture hall's lighting, but Dr. Beauregard's complexion was that of silt, as if at some point her skin had been stripped of all vibrancy, leaving her only the deepest layers of brown showing through what was the facial equivalent of translucent cellophane.
"That's a nasty bruise." Dr. Beauregard motioned towards Jin's left elbow. "Should I take you to the clinic?"
"Oh." Jin reflexively scratched her arm again. "I donated plasma earlier. It took them a long time to find my veins."
Dr. Beauregard winced empathetically.
"Young people these days don't drink enough water." Jin would've drank a gallon this morning if she'd known the nurse would be wiggling a 16 gauge needle in her arm while she tried not to pass out. "But I commend your generosity."
Before she could stop herself, Jin blurted, "It was for money."
"Money?"
"They take your blood and spin it around and then give you a couple hundred. I just needed some quick."
"I am aware of the process to donation, but there must be a less painful method to acquiring funds, no?"
"I got sacked from Albertsons." Jin's face was flush with either excitement or embarrassment; she didn't know why, but the way Dr. Beauregard's eyes bore into her scalp made every word possible spill from her mouth. "My scholarship covers tuition, but lodging and food's on loans, and I've maxed those out."
Dr. Beauregard's jaw worked.
"That's unfortunate. Your parents…?"
"Why do you think I'm here?" she snapped, without thinking, "One's half dead from early onset dementia, one's working day labor 'till he dies of heat stroke. If I could beg them for cash, I would."
Dr. Beauregard was silent for a while, giving Jin enough time to regret her oversharing. Before she could apologize, Dr. Beauregard stood up and straightened her tie.
"I don't believe Terry will be back any time soon, do you?" She did not let her answer. "You must be starving. Blood donation sucks the life out of anyone. Does dinner sound good?"
Jin's heart jumped in her chest, but she did not know why.
"Dr. Beauregard—"
"No need. I use my mother's first. Dr. Mariam. 'Mariam' is easier."
"I can't," She shook her head, bewildered as to why that mattered. "I'll just go home. I have another class tomorrow."
"How do you expect to keep up running on fumes?" Mariam made some strange amused noise at Jin's expression. "Come on. I'll pay. We must catch up. I like getting to know the smart ones."
Jin wanted to ask how Mariam could possibly know about anything about how she was doing, or if she'd be disappointed upon finding out how Jin had squandered the one chance to be the first in her family to truly make a life in America, despite what praise she apparently had for her past performance.
Maybe the past performance could come back. If not that, then this was a professional connection, one that Mariam seemed intent on establishing. Jin would be a complete idiot not to accept.
"I gave you my name, could you at least do me the favor of not starving to death?"
The tone and strength of Mariam's voice clearly communicated what I want gets done, but Jin had already decided she could get something out of this too.
"Thank you," Jin said. "I appreciate it."
The entire walk through the darkening paths skewering the sprawling campus, Jin wondered how stupid it was to follow who was essentially a complete stranger. She kept trailing her anyways, even when it became clear they weren't heading to the hall or any of the cafes scattered across campus. Mariam's even strides were much longer than her little legs could manage, so Jin had to do some half-walk half-run to catch up. Mariam easily had a foot over her, and Jin knew by heart that she was five foot even. In spite of the cutting winds which came with the approaching sunset, she was already breaking into a sweat by the time they reached the parking lot. Mariam opened the passenger side door to the black SUV, and Jin trotted as quick as she could to make the wait a little less awkward.
"You can turn the heat up if you'd like." Mariam adjusted her seat. Jin did not touch any of the dials. There was a silver crucifix dangling on a chain from the center mirror. It jumped when she started up the engine. Jin didn't know if it made her feel more at ease, but again, she was hungry, and whatever was in her fridge sounded unappetizing at the moment.
Mariam waited for her to buckle her seatbelt before she began reversing out of the parking spot. Jin clutched her bruised elbow. This was really stupid. But she was really hungry. And surely a woman didn't become a research associate by being an axe murderer, or a serial kidnapper, or whatever else Mariam could be beyond someone who just wanted to get a student a hot meal, so Jin could excuse her lack of caution.
"Where are we going?" The majority of restaurants here were either crappy diners or overpriced chalets intent on attracting legacy students who had money burning through their pockets.
"Someplace I think you'll like. Nobody knows it. At least, not this area's typical demographic."
Mariam gave Jin a knowing look, then turned back to the road. The rest of the ride went by in silence, Mariam's oxfords working at the pedals without a sound. Despite her questions in Professor Pearce's office, Mariam didn't seem the type to attempt filling awkward silences with whatever was on her mind. Jin looked out the window, watching the city shine below as the car drove down the hillside. She'd seen the same view a few times here and there; she had her license but didn't have a car, so it was from the back of the campus busses, scuffed up book half-flattened on her lap. It was rarely to do anything fun, either, besides buy necessities that were far too expensive on campus.
Jin was again grateful that Mariam was apparently not the John Wayne Gacy type, because when a bump woke her, she realized she'd fallen asleep halfway through the drive. She blinked the gunk from her eyes and glanced around. They were in a narrow alley, the downtown's lights casting their reflections on the windshield. Mariam glanced over at her, then squinted down the street. There was a cracked open door spilling piss-yellow light onto the broken asphalt and nothing else.
"Where are we?" Jin asked.
"Xiang's," said Mariam, which was not much help. "I found this place years ago when I was killing for anything other than smashburgers and fish tacos." She did that slick little glance at Jin again. "They know me."
There was a stout, scraggly man half-concealed in shadows smoking a cigarette, his apron smeared with grease. He saw the SUV approaching, ground the smoldering butt into a split in the road, and began back inside, propping the door open with a plastic kiddie chair that did not do its job well.
Mariam expertly parallel-parked half-way on the curb, just enough to allow one more car through, if someone really wanted to drive into the cockroach filled void past the restaurant's entrance. Jin stepped from the car and came to Mariam's side, where she was waiting, holding open the door.
"Thank you," Jin murmured as she shuffled through. The insides were sweltering, claustrophobic, the ceiling tiles low and peppered with water stains. A lone fan hung from the ceiling, but it did not spin, and the piss-lights turned out to be from a series of incandescents dangling in broken lantern enclosures. The stench of oil and broth practically oozed from the scuffed up carpet.
Against the far wall a weaselly woman leaned, scrolling on her phone. Alerted by the door squeaking shut, she looked up past Jin. Her voice was mucusy thick as she shouted something in Mandarin towards the half-open aluminum swinging doors. The man responded from the kitchen, irritation sanding down the harsh intonations. He cut himself off with a throaty cough, and the woman put away her phone to motion impatiently around the room.
"Same?" she asked. Mariam nodded. The woman began walking to the kitchen. "Sit anywhere."
Silent, Mariam set her hand on Jin's back—the glove shielded her from an icy palm, but still she nearly jumped out of her skin—and guided her to a table that liked to rock from one side to the other. She sat and watched Mariam bring a chair of her own. She watched more intently as Mariam shrugged off her suit jacket, exposing fully the buttoned vest beneath.
"It's specially made," Mariam said as she draped the jacket over the back of her chair. Jin realized she had noticed her staring and became suddenly enamored by a burn on the corner of the table. "One of those things where until you've got it, you don't realize how much you've been missing. Tailored clothes and good chalk."
Mariam removed her gloves. Her hands looked as they'd felt: stiff, bony, the individual tendons and joints and veins visible beneath her skin. There was a thick callous on the side of her right middle finger, from holding a pen.
"Air conditioning, too."
This time, Jin became very interested in her own hands, because Mariam loosened the sleeve of her button-down, rolling them up her lean forearms. She let go of a heavy breath and sat down across from Jin.
"I don't think they've fixed that damn thing since I first found this place."
There was some noise in the kitchen: frantic voices, rolling carts, the grating sound of a blade drawn against a honing steel.
Jin looked up again. Mariam was studying her like she was a lizard in a tank. Her eyes had a sort of void-like darkness that seemed to suck all of Jin's confidence away upon looking at them. Jin hoped the heat of the room could disguise the warmth in her own face.
"You don't talk very much, do you?" Mariam said, matter-of-factly. Jin had to resist the urge to tell her that as a child it was nearly impossible to get her to stop talking. "Being the quiet type suited me well enough until I began my doctorate. Better learn earlier than I did—at some point, you must learn to speak up. Nothing will go your way otherwise."
"I'm sorry. I've never really met someone like you around here. Nervous. I guess." Jin said. Then, without knowing why, she said, honestly, "I don't know what you want out of me. Being here."
"No need to be nervous, though I'd fault nobody for their own uncontrollable reactions." Mariam clasped her hands together. "If I may confess, though our encounter today was entirely by chance, I do remember you well from the scant time we spent in the vicinity of each other. Not that the other students are dimwits, but, well, we're rather rare around here."
She said that last part humorously, and Jin, as expected, did not answer, but deep down, she completely understood.
"Considering your desired path, I wished to reach out to you earlier for the sake of guidance, but, as usual, I became inundated with countless work responsibilities that delayed our meeting indefinitely."
The woman from before set two glasses of ice water in front of them. She complained some more to the kitchen. Jin began tracing her finger on the condensation. Mariam pivoted.
"Why choose such an isolating place? Surely you were accepted somewhere equal in academics and, dare I say, superior in community."
Jin knew she wasn't speaking in a physical sense—the university itself sprawled across acres of forest, but below was a thriving college town with plenty to do. Jin had accepted early on that she simply wasn't invited.
She shrugged, too anxious to form a lie. "It gave me the most financial aid. Had the best scholarship." She couldn't imagine how much worse for her wallet it would've been if she'd gone to the many more prestigious institutions to which she'd been accepted. She'd had the application strength to have a choice of schools, but not quite enough for them to give her money to do so.
"What about you?" Jin asked. "Why are you here?"
Mariam's face twitched, as if trying to suppress a smile. She looked less faded in the warm light of the restaurant's lamps, but her complexion was still unsettlingly washed out. It seemed only natural for the sort of people who spent all their time staring at screens and who subsisted on ready meals, but Mariam didn't seem that type.
"Five hundred grand down goes a lot further compared to Los Angeles." If she noticed Jin's momentary awe, she did not show it. She took a sip of her water. Jin watched the smoothness of it easing down her throat with the intensity she stared at textbooks during all-nighters. "And believe me. I understand having limited options. Tenure is difficult to acquire, especially when you'd gotten sick of wrangling undergrads and prefer a transition to research."
"It's tough out here," she continued. The way Mariam talked was strange. She had the vocabulary and intonation of both a young adult who bar hopped on weekday nights and a 19th century style gentleman scientist that entertained visitors only twice a year. "You'd think in the era of colorful diversity brochures and begging overseas students to come over, being some sort of minority on campus would be at least tolerable."
Jin smiled, feeling an unexpected warmth growing in her chest, an unwanted crack in her previously stony barriers. This was the most serene she'd ever been in this godforsaken town, and it was with a woman who'd only known her from proctoring her exams.
Mariam was, more obviously to Jin now, a regular, because the lady never provided a menu or took their orders, and instead returned swiftly with two steaming bowls, setting them down on the table in front of no particular person and scurrying off to hunch over her phone again.
"Shaved noodles." Mariam scooted one bowl towards her. "Quite uncommon even outside this wretched town. Truly a hidden treasure."
It did look good, simple, a pale broth rich with meat and marrow, hilariously sparse in the vegetable department except for chopped scallions atop the mound of roughly cubed beef, sinew still clinging to the flesh. The noodles were large and thin, shaved with a knife rather than cut or pulled.
"And you managed to find it?"
"As I said." Mariam split her wooden chopsticks and rubbed them together to smooth the splinters. "I was craving something different. You don't know the lengths you'll go for something you desire until it's out of your reach."
They ate in silence, to Jin's relief. As with a lot of relief, however, it proved ultimately detrimental. Whenever Jin dared to look up, she found Mariam looking back at her. She could feel herself being observed—not tapping the tank, just watching—and it served to muddle her brain into a stew. Given only the room's stuffy heat and the whir of some unknown machine, interrupted occasionally by clanging in the kitchen and a stray cough, Jin was trapped in the heat with her own thoughts.
"It's not good," she said, when there was only a shallow puddle of cloudy broth left in the bowl. There was nothing for a while. She looked up again. Mariam was at full attention.
"Come again?"
Jin cleared her throat.
"My studies. They're not doing well." She began picking at the paper chopstick packaging. "I didn't want to get into it back in the office. I thought—"
She really had no explanation. That didn't stop Mariam from waiting patiently for her to continue. In that moment, Jin understood why suspects would confess to triple homicide just to fill the silence of an interrogation room.
"It was good at first. Back when I was in your class. Then I stopped studying. Or I stopped studying well, maybe. I don't know."
"4.5 as a high school graduate. 3.18 now." Mariam's face had a tint of emotion to it, something close to concern. "What happened?"
Without thinking, Jin asked, "Why do you care?"
She regretted it the instant she said the words, not because Mariam's expression showed any sign of a changing temper, but because it sounded so accusatory to someone who was treating her to dinner that very moment and hadn't even initiated this conversation.
"I care about all my students."
It shouldn't have mattered. Jin barely knew her. She'd never even been her student. The extent of their interactions were, at most, suspicious stray glances during an exam as Dr. Mariam marched down the rows of desks. Jin should've been able to tell her that she assassinated JFK and walked off without a second thought. Yet Mariam's eyes were not accusatory, nor hostile, nor angry. It was just the way she spoke. Or, it had to be. Her question seemed to be coming from a genuine place. She'd sensed something wrong with Jin from the first time she set eyes on her. Jin was overthinking it.
"Don't be mad."
"I'm not mad." Mariam's lip twitched, as if attempting to work out a compassionate smile. "I wouldn't be here if I hadn't seen what you were capable of before."
Jin folded the paper in half, then in half again, then in half again. Seven was the maximum, even if you had a sheet of paper the size of a warehouse.
"I didn't bring you to dinner to break you." Mariam chuckled, as if she'd just told a joke. "I believe you can get out of this. I believe you can retrieve what you'd had before. You're not in a horrible position. It's not hopeless. I can help."
Jin began tearing the paper at the creases.
"You probably were curious about the 500k down I mentioned earlier, no?" Mariam did not wait for an answer, even though she likely already knew it. "Beauregard is my father's family name. Frenchman, or the closest thing you can get to it after decades in America. Had a fortune from his family outright and used it to travel as much as he could. In Kerala he met my mother."
Mariam waited, allowing the words to simmer.
"She left her family to be with him. They shared their abundance. They were wed in America and had their ceremony at a chapel in southern France. I came along. My father passed away when I was in elementary school. Ruptured aneurysm, painless, took him instantly. He left us all he had, which was a whole hell of a lot. Millions. I'd say half of that went into my own, shall we say, self developments, but it'd be a gross underestimate."
Jin smiled a little, though she vaguely recalled someone citing a "mere" ten grand for their top surgery.
"My mother taught me to be useful, to in turn share my abundance, to not be complacent with the knowledge I could live the rest of my life in comfort without a day's worth of work."
"Is that the only reason why you became an academic?"
"Of course not. I have a passion for knowledge, as do you."
Jin was already shaking her head.
"If I had a passion for knowledge, I wouldn't be this much of a fuck-up."
"I don't think that's true." Mariam leaned closer, wiry fingers laced together tight. "You've been through a lot. I can tell. I won't pry. Nor will I lie and tell you it'll be easy. You've got a long, hard road ahead of you if you want to succeed. It won't be fun. You will be happy when it's over, but you may not be happy now, though I'll do my best to ease the path. But I believe, with my support, you can achieve things beyond your wildest dreams."
Mariam dug into a pocket for her wallet, one of those rigid card-holders that could not take a single quarter without bulging. She eased out a credit card and beckoned over the server to pay.
"I can split the check," Jin said, though she didn't mean it, and Mariam seemed to know that.
"Whatever speech you've got prepared about earning your keep—I won't hear it. I will help at no cost to you."
The waitress returned to set down the card and receipt. Jin caught a glance of the embossed name on the platinum American Express just as Mariam picked it back up.
"'Marie-Claire Beauregard?'"
"Sneaky." Mariam slid the card back into her wallet. "That was my birth name. I still use all of it on my legal forms. Dr. Mariam if someone is interesting enough. Otherwise, it's a hassle to get it changed."
Jin didn't how how anything could be a pain for someone with a doctorate in astronomy.
"Back when I was younger, I insisted on Marc. When you're a kid you're ready to make all sorts of drastic decisions. I was ready to emancipate myself, abscond from my parents' estate with a bindle stuffed with hard cheeses, and change it all to 'Marc Mariam.' Nowadays…"
Mariam left the last part unsaid. She signed the receipt. She left a 50% tip and, oddly, a little smiley face. The mouth curled up beyond the dot eyes.
"Certain people get to use it."
"Do I?"
Mariam laughed, a true, honest to god laugh. It was a lovely sound, but Jin's face still warmed in embarrassment.
"Listen, if you can get As for every one of your classes, you can use it all you want. Promise."
"I'll see if I'll want to by then."
Jin kept her voice light, but Mariam's stare was steely. This time, Jin found comfort in her intensity.
"Do you want it?" She waited for Jin to look back at her. "Do you want to do this?"
At that point, Jin could've accepted that this was a dream. This woman was the only person one would consider as the lynchpin of the entire astronomy department. The fact that she noticed Jin at all was unthinkable, short of a miracle. There was only one response possible.
"Yes," Jin said. More than anything else in the world. She could almost see her own reflection in Mariam's dark eyes, tiny and vulnerable and resolute. "Yes. I do."