Julia

First story i have written in a long time. I have no idea where it's going and it is not even close to finished.

 Julia

The clap of thunder was so loud it set off car alarms up and down the block, and the sudden onset of down pouring rain was nearly as startling. Julia pushed her long brown hair out of her eyes, and gave up trying to coax Bullet, the black kitten out from under her bed. with the amount of noise from the storm, she would be lucky if she saw the cat before morning. "Fine, 'fraidy-cat. Just stay under there," she told him. "But if you do, you won't get any snuggles from Jared. Which might be a good thing. Emily will have one less reason to be jealous." She rolled herself back into position and went back to not working on her paper.

The cursor at the top of the blank white "paper" on her computer screen blinked patiently at her. "I can sit here all day, "it seemed to be saying. The bed, except for a Julia shaped space on one side was covered with papers: highlighted copies of scientific articles and her own notes, mostly, with a few take-out menus thrown in for good measure. She had conscientiously begun working on the paper weeks before and had all of her research together in plenty of time, she thought, to not have to rush the actual writing. Yet, here she was again, three weeks before the due date, and every draft she had started had fizzled out in a few sentences. Every time she sat down to write, the sheer futility of the exercise overwhelmed her. Another six pages summarizing someone else's work, nothing original or fresh about it. Even the professor knew what the class' papers were going to say. After all, she had read them all last year.

"And to think," Julia grumbled to herself, "I thought grad school would be interesting."

She rolled onto her back to check the time, not caring that her movement started a small avalanche of paper that was likely to give Bullet a little kitten heart attack. Six o'clock. She might as well quit for the night. Everyone would be over soon for the weekly Rock Band and Beer night. Most of the attendees, however, still referred to it as their "weekly study session", which is how the group originally started out. They seemed to think that "Rock Band and Beer night" was a little undignified for Harvard graduate students.

In the living room, Julia flipped on the TV for background noise and started clearing piles of junk off the coffee table. Julia and her roommate Samantha used the coffee table as everything from a workspace to a dinner table, and by the time it came to be cleared off every Tuesday night, it was usually covered with drifts of unopened mail, coffee cups, bottles of nail polish, paperback books and other sundry items common in an all female household. Julia sorted Samantha's stuff out of the pile and dumped it in the basket Samantha kept by her door for this express purpose. Samantha worked as a waitress in the evenings so she was never around for the "Study Session". It didn't really matter though. She was an English major.

                Julia was standing in the hallway, contemplating the merits of changing her shirt when the buzzer sounded. That would be Jared, who, as he said, "suffered from chronic early-itis," and his girlfriend. "C'mon up," Julia said into the intercom as she hit the button to unlock the downstairs door. Jared came in alone, lugging two bottles of soda.

 "Where's Emily?" A tightening around Jared's jaw gave her the answer. "Well, never mind," Julia said, giving Jared a quick hug, "she was a crappy drummer anyway."

                "Thanks, Jules," Jared said, returning the hug. "Got anything to eat?"

 "Nope, it's Cara's turn for snacks and she's not here yet."

                "Damn, who's on beer tonight?"

                "Pete. And don't worry," she said, at Jared's stricken look, "He knows not to bring any weird flavors." Six weeks ago, Pete had arrived with blueberry flavored beer. It did not go over well with the rest of the crowd. "I'm pretty sure you will get your Guinness or Boston Lager."

                Jared breathed a comical sigh of relief and went to set up the game console. In short order, the other five members of the group arrived, Pete with twelve packs of some obscure micro-brew (thank fully "beer-flavored" as Jared put it), and Cara with chips and salsa, oreos, and chocolate ice-cream.  

By the time the snacks were set out, the ice cream was in the freezer, and Jules had managed to track down the menu for the sushi place, Jared, Sunny and Pete had taken up their positions around the TV, Dave was lounging on the couch (well into his first beer "which didn't totally suck") and Miguel and Cara were discussing some esoteric point covered in their genomics class earlier in the day.

Usually, at least some studying was done during these gatherings. It was the only time in the week they were all in the same place, so they all saved up their questions and those who were not involved in the game actually DID study. Since only four people could play at a time there were always at least three available for studying.

 "Hey," Sunny called from the living room, "we need a singer in here." Jules and Cara usually shared the singing, though if Miguel got drunk enough, he could be induced to take the mike. The others all took turns on guitar, bass and drums.

"Coming!" Jules yelled back, grabbing a pad, pen and the sushi menu from the table and handing them off to Miguel on her way by."Start taking orders, okay? Jared's starving."

"When is Jared NOT starving?"

                Jules snagged the mike from the coffee table, took her place between Jared and Pete (guitar and bass, respectively) and the game began.

*****

                Four hours later, everyone had departed for home except for Cara, who was helping Jules clean up the kitchen. Jules liked to have the apartment back in order before Samantha came home. It made for less tension in the household. Someone always stayed to help, even though Jules insisted it wasn't necessary.

"We always have study group at your place, Jules. It's not fair that you should have to do the cleaning up all by yourself," was the reply she always got, and she couldn't really argue with the logic. So, once a week, she got some alone time with one of her friends.

Cara was rinsing glasses out in the sink. "Too bad about Jared and Emily, huh?" she said.

"Not really," Jules said. "Emily wasn't good enough for Jared."

"You say that about anyone one of us dates."

"And so far, I've been right and you all have eventually figured that out for yourselves. When one of you dates someone who is good enough for you, I won't say it."

Cara shook her head, smiling a little. "Okay, mom," she said.

"How's your epidemiology paper going?"

"It's not. I just can't seem to make myself write the damn thing."

"What do you mean?"

"It's pointless. Any paper I write will have been written a hundred and fifty times before. If i can't generate any interest in writing it, how can I expect it to be interesting to read? And what's the point in writing it if no one is interested in reading it?"

"Well, I hope Dr. Keenan is interested in reading it. She assigned it."

 "Oh, please. Dr. Keenan isn't going to read any of them. Poor Kerry will read and summarize them and Dr. Keenan will base grades on what Kerry says." Kerry was Dr. Keenan's teaching assistant. Dr. Keenan's very attractive teaching assistant. In fact, Kerry was so precisely Jules' image of the perfect woman it was distracting to be in the same room with her.

Cara gave Jules a knowing smile. She knew exactly what Jules was thinking. "You should just ask her out already. You've had a thing for her for months."

"I can't ask her out. She's the T.A. It'd be like a conflict of interest or something. Besides, she's probably straight and there is nothing more embarrassing than asking out a straight girl. They look at you like you just tried to feed them a spider. Or they get offended. I'm not sure which is worse."

"You're just making excuses. Invite her to study session. We'll all pretend you don't have a crush on her."

"Right. Because Sunny is Captain Subtlety."

"Fine then. I'll invite her."

"Don't you dare! I can handle my own love life, thank you very much."

"Ummm... no. You can't. Nobody can."

"Just wash the glasses, okay?"

*****

At that precise moment, "poor Kerry" was busy cursing her own stupidity. Having absentmindedly attempted to pick up a hot dish, she had managed to burn both of her index fingers and her thumbs. This had made it incredibly difficult to get the child safe cap off the burn ointment. It also made typing practically impossible."I guess it's another exciting night of TV watching," she thought, "since I've now basically crippled myself for the time being."

After fishing a bag of frozen peas out of the freezer to use as a make-shift ice pack (for some reason her ice tray was always empty), Kerry settled down on the couch in front of the still dark TV. She glanced at the screen of the sleek cell phone on the coffee table. Still no messages. "She's not going to call," Kerry thought. "Let it go. Stick the stupid phone in a drawer, or, better yet, toss it in the river. It's not like you're going to miss it."

She had asked Lara out four days ago. Four days! And not a word in response. Things had seemed to be going along so well. Lara was sexy as hell and there was undeniably chemistry between them. That kiss on Thanksgiving couldn't possibly have been just the alcohol. Plus, whenever they were in the same place, Lara always seemed to go out of her way to hang out with Kerry. This past weekend, they had run into each other in a bar and Lara had dragged her entire group of friends over to Kerry's table for the evening, at least, for as long as Kerry was able to stay. "And wasn't that a little uncomfortable for me," Kerry thought. "All those artists and musicians, and me with nothing to say to them. I mean, I agree with them on most of the political stuff they were talking about, but I have so much going on with finishing my degree that I am completely out of the loop. It feels disingenuous to chime in, when I haven't been able to do anything besides form an opinion." She picked up the remote and began flipping through channels. "Maybe she finally figured out how boring i really am. Scientist to the core. Nothing but a grind. I don't fit in with her crowd."  There was a loud clap of thunder and the TV flickered and went to an error message screen. The wind had messed up the feed from the dish. With even the weather conspiring against her, Kerry went to bed. 

Chapter 2

"I had a brilliant idea last night." Julia exclaimed jubilantly when she saw Cara the following day in the science center lobby.

"And so modest, too." Cara said with a wink. "Up late 'thinking' were you?"

"I was working on epidemiology."

"Sure you were."

"I'm serious. I know what to do the stupid paper on, now, and it's something no one will have done before. And, totally practical since we are only supposed to design a theoretical experiment

anyway."

"What is it then?" Cara sighed. She had been hearing about the epidemiology paper for weeks and was ready to be done with it.

"Rock Band!" said Jules, triumphantly.

"I'm afraid I'm going to need you to expand on that," said Cara.

"Rock Band. I could design a cohort study based on Rock Band. Say, I don't know, that it improves reading skills or something like that. I could use reading speed as my test point. I'm sure there is some literature on other reading studies I can reference. If I take the next two weeks to research, I can write it in plenty of time before the due date. Some of my original research will still work because it was mostly on experimental design."

"Clever. It will definitely be something different. Shows a little creativity."

"Thanks. I already wrote two pages. I just want the damn thing to be done." The two girls reached an intersection in the hall where they would part ways, Jules to her epidemiology lab and Cara to bioinformatics.

Just as Jules was about to turn down her hallway, Cara said, "But Jules, you haven't answered the most important research question yet."

" Oh, yeah? what's that?"

"Whether or not it will get Kerry to notice you."

Jules blushed. "You know, if you weren't my best friend, I would kill you where you stand."

"You know, in a few weeks she won't be the T.A. any more. You won't have an excuse then." Cara turned down her own hall way. "Have a good class!"

"You suck, dude!"

*****

Kerry was setting out supplies for the epidemiology lab. "At least," she thought, "I have gotten the babies beyond the point where I have to explain how to work basic lab equipment. How doesanyone make it out of high school without learning how to use a micropipette? But.....I'm being unfair. Some of them have some lab skills, and one or two could teach me a thing or two." She found herself, for once, grateful that nitrile gloves were a lab safety requirement. They were at least a thin layer of protection for her damaged fingers. Plus, covered as they were, it was far less likely anyone would notice and comment. It's always good when you can keep your stupidity to yourself. At least this would be less embarrassing than the time she sprained her ankle after losing a fight with a vicious beetle.

The babies would be there soon. She needed coffee, but there was no time and no drinks allowed in the lab. That was okay. She was meeting Grace when the lab was done. She promised herself a giant frozen mocha, even though it was freezing outside.

Only a few weeks until Christmas. Then only a few weeks after that to the new semester. The babies were assembling. This week's lab would be interesting for them, she thought. The students would be studying the spread of ebola in Africa and predicting possible transmission patterns and patient zero locations based on hypothetical data. There was also a truly gruesome video to start the class. It would be a good afternoon.

*****

"That video was disgusting!" Jules' lab partner, Andrew, said in her ear, on the way out of the lab.

"It's a flesh eating virus, Andrew. What did you think it would be like?" Jules said, laughing at him a little. Andrew was a lab scientist. He liked his biology neat and clean. Jules was made of sterner stuff. "Doctors are not going to find a vaccine or a cure. We have to do it." 

"Whatever. It was still disgusting...listen, I'm going to the movies with a couple of friends tonight.  Want to come along?"

"Ummmm...Let me think..." Jules, quickly thought through her pending assignments. She was currently on top of everything, now that she had a handle on the paper. "Sure. Sounds like a good time."

"Excellent. Meet you at the theater around nine?" 

"See you then."

*****

Grace stared incredulously at Kerry over their frozen mochas. "What do you mean you aren't going out tonight? We always go out on Wednesday."

"Not this Wednesday." Kerry said repressively. 

"Why not?"

"Because Lara might be there, and I don't want to see her. I'm embarrassed enough as it is."

"Oh, honey, if I didn't go places because I might run into some girl who blew me off, I would never leave the house. Besides, I doubt she will be there, and if she is, just ignore her."

"Easy for you to say."

"Come on. It will be fine."

"I highly doubt that." Grace was pouting across the table. Kerry sighed. "Fine. But understand it is under protest and only because I love you."

"I know. You're the best. What would I do without you?"

"Go to bars alone, probably."

*****

Cara stared incredulously at Jules over their coffees. "What do you mean you are going to the movies with Andrew?"

"I told you, he asked me after lab today."

"Jules," Cara said patiently, "You have a date tonight. With a boy."

"Don't be silly. He said it was with him and a couple of friends."

"Yeessss......that is what we straight people call a double date."

"That can't be right. He knows I'm gay. Everyone does. And lesbians go on double dates too, you know."

"How would he know you're gay? Your personal lives come up often in epidemiology lab? And before you answer, remember that we met in genetics lab and I know for a fact that when it comes to lab work, you are all business."

"It's not a date."

"Maybe not for you, but I promise that it is for him."

Chapter 3

Kerry was not having a good night. Not only was Lara at the bar, her band was performing. Grace had abandoned her five minutes after they walked through the door, chasing the drama she couldn't seem to live without. Every week there was some new girl for her, it seemed, and if there wasn't a new girl there was always plenty of drama to be dredged up with a past fling. Kerry adored Grace as a friend, be she was really glad she did not find Grace attractive. Grace would have broken Kerry's heart a dozen times over by now. 

The worst thing was that Lara's band was actually good. Better than the usual bands that played the girl bar. 

 

Author's Note

"Julia" is a working title only. I intend to change it when i have a better idea what the story is about.