Dr. Harding is a lot of things: my friend Mara’s Ph.D. mentor; one of the most celebrated environmental scientists of the twenty-first century; a generally crabby human being; and, last but not least, my Water Resources Engineering professor.
It is, quite honestly, an all-around shitty class: mandatory; irrelevant to my academic, professional, or personal interests; and highly focused on the intersection of the hydrologic cycle and the design of urban storm-sewer systems. For the most part, I spend the lectures wishing I were anywhere else: in line at the DMV, at the market buying magic beans, taking Analytical Transonic and Supersonic Aerodynamics. I do the least I can to pull a low B—which, in the unjust scam of graduate school, is the minimum passing grade—until week three or four of classes, when Dr. Harding introduces a new, cruel assignment that has fuck all to do with water.
“Find someone who has the engineering job you want at the end of your Ph.D. and do an informational interview with them,” she tells us. “Then write a report about it. Due by the end of the semester. Don’t come to me bitching about it during office hours, because I will call security to escort you out.” I have a feeling that she’s looking at me while saying it. It’s probably just my guilty conscience.
“Honestly, I’m just going to ask Helena if I can interview her. But if you want, I think I have a cousin or something at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab,” Mara says offhandedly later that day, while we’re sitting on the steps outside the Beckman Auditorium having a quick lunch before heading back to our labs.
I wouldn’t say that we’re close, but I’ve decided that I like her. A lot. At this point, my grad school attitude is some mild variant of I did not come here to make friends: I don’t feel in competition with the rest of the program, but neither am I particularly invested in anything that isn’t my work in the aeronautics lab, including getting acquainted with other students, or, you know... learning their names. I’m fairly sure that my lack of interest is strongly broadcasted, but either Mara didn’t pick up the transmission, or she’s gleefully ignoring it. She and Sadie found each other in the first couple of days, and then, for reasons I don’t fully understand, decided to find me.
Hence Mara sitting next to me, telling me about her JPL contacts.
“A cousin or something?” I ask, curious. It seems a bit sketchy. “You think?”
“Yeah, I’m not sure.” She shrugs and continues to make her way through a Tupperware of broccoli, an apple, and approximately two fucktons of Cheez-Its. “I don’t really know much about him. His parents divorced, then people in my family had arguments and stopped talking to each other. There was a lot of prime Floyd dysfunction happening, so I haven’t actually spoken to him in years. But I heard from one of my other cousins that he was working on that thing that landed on Mars back when we were in high school. It was called something like... Contingency, or Carpentry, or Crudity—”
“The Curiosity rover?”
“Yes! Maybe?”
I put my sandwich down. Swallow my bite. Clear my throat. “Your cousin or something was on the Curiosity rover team.”
“I think so. Do the dates add up? Maybe it was some kind of summer internship? But honestly, it might just be Floyd family lore. I have an aunt who insists that we’re related to the Finnish royals, and according to Wikipedia there are no Finnish royals. So.” She shrugs and pops another handful of Cheez-Its in her mouth. “Would you like me to ask around, though? For the assignment?”
I nod. And I don’t think much about it until a month or so later. By then, through means that I am still unable to divine, Mara and Sadie have managed to worm their way into my heart, causing me to amend my previous I did not come here to make friends stance to a slightly altered I did not come here to make friends, but hurt my weird Cheez-It friend or my other weird soccer friend and I will beat you up with a lead pipe till you piss blood for the rest of your life. Truculent? Perhaps. I feel little, but surprisingly deeply.
“By the way, I sent you my cousin-or-something’s contact info a while ago,” Mara tells me one night. We’re at the cheapest grad bar we’ve been able to find. She’s on her second Midori sour of the night. “Did you get it?”
I raise my eyebrow. “Is that the random string of numbers you emailed me three days ago? With no subject line, no text, no explanations? The one I figured was just you tracking your lottery dream numbers?”
“Sounds like it, yeah.”
Sadie and I exchange a long look.
“Hey, you ungrateful goblin, I had to call about fifteen people I’d sworn never to talk to again to get Ian’s number. And, I had to have my evil great-aunt Delphina promise to blackmail him into saying yes once you reach out to ask for a meeting. So you better use that number, and you better play the Mega Millions.”
“If you win,” Sadie added, “we split three ways.”
“Of course.” I hide my smile in my glass. “What’s he like, anyway?”
“Who?”
“The cousin-or-something. Ian, you said?”
“Yup. Ian Floyd.” Mara thinks about it for a second. “Can’t really say, because I’ve met him at like, two Thanksgivings fifteen years ago, before his parents split. Then his mom moved him to Canada and... I don’t even know, honestly. The only thing I remember is that he was tall. But he was also a few years older than me? So maybe he’s actually three feet. Oh, also, his hair is more brown? Which is kind of rare for a Floyd. I know it’s scientifically unsound, but our brand of ginger is not recessive.”
Great-Aunt Delphina’s emotional manipulation game is clearly on point, because when my assignment’s deadline approaches and I text Ian Floyd in a panic, asking for an informational interview—whatever the hell that is—he replies within hours with an enthusiastic:
Ian: Sure.
Hannah: Thanks. I’m assuming you’re in Houston. Should we do virtual? Skype? Zoom? FaceTime?
Ian: I’m in Pasadena at JPL for the next three days, but virtual works.
The Jet Propulsion Lab. Hmm.
I drum my fingers on my mattress, pondering. Virtual would be so much easier. And it would be shorter. But as much as I hate the idea of writing a report for Helena’s class, I do want to ask this guy a million questions about Curiosity. Plus, he’s Mara’s mysterious relative, and my curiosity is piqued.
No pun intended.