slowing down is fighting back

“I mean—I mean, no, Ilyukhina brought it up, but. Apparently lots of people think this.”

Stratt sighed. “Is there a problem with your coworkers, Dr. Grace?”

“They think I’m sleeping with you!” It felt irrational to be getting worked up about this—oh no, your coworkers think you’re sexually active and sleeping with the most powerful woman in the world, the horror. But now I was also getting worked up about Stratt not being particularly worked up about it too.

“Have people been saying things to you about this?” she asked, still extremely not worked up about it.

“I mean,” I said. “Uh. Mostly no. I only learned about it today.”

“Was anyone pressuring you, making uninvited or invasive comments, distracting you or themselves from your jobs?”

“Well, Ilyukhina made a joke,” I said. “But that’s just how she is.”

“I can have a talk with her, then,” Stratt said, and returned to the invoices.

“I think she felt a little bad because she did drop it,” I added, feeling like I needed to defend Ilyukhina’s honor. “It’s not—it’s that lots of people think this.”

“You’ve said,” Stratt said, clearly exasperated. “So what’s the problem?”

“What do you want me to say? People think I’m having sex with you!”

“Yes!” she snapped. “People think that. And I’m asking you what part of that is making you so upset. Are they concerned because they think I’m taking advantage of you?”

“What? No! No—or, jeez, I don’t think so. Not that anyone said.”

“Are they accusing you of taking advantage of me?”

“No!”

“Are you interested in another woman on the project and you’re concerned she’ll think you’re already taken?”

“No!” Why was every suggestion Stratt came up with such a nightmare?

“Are you interested in a man on the project, and you’re concerned he’ll think you’re straight?”

“What?”

“I am trying to determine what the problem here is,” Stratt said. “If nobody is bothering you, nobody is making accusations of sexual coercion, and it’s not interfering with any actual sexual interests you have—then why are you being so insistent? What do you want me to say?”

“I…” I didn’t know. I guess I wanted her to commiserate, maybe. Acknowledge that it was stupid and wrong and they were stupid and wrong for thinking it.

She stared at me for a few seconds, then sighed, put down her papers, and rubbed her eyes. “Dr. Grace, are you trying to ask if I want to have sex with you? Is that what this is about?”

“No!” I whined. “That is—that is not what this is about.”

“Then what is it about?”

I stared fixedly at the titanium reports. “I don’t know,” I eventually mumbled. “Just, it doesn’t bother you? That people think that?”

“Dr. Grace, if I let it bother me what people think about me, I would not be able to make this project happen.” She paused, and waited for me to look up at her. I was regretting ever raising the topic, but when I met her eyes again, she didn’t look annoyed anymore. Just tired. “People will think what they want. I thought you, of all people, would know how to handle people thinking unfair things about you.”

It’s not like I haven’t given myself this pep talk before, or had conversations like this with students before. It’s not like I didn’t know this. And it’s not like people thinking I was… with… Stratt changed anything about my life. But it still felt like something deeply weird and wrong that I was desperate to correct.

“It doesn’t hurt at least a little, though?” I asked. “When people are just… really convinced they’re right, like they know who you are better than you do and you’re just lying about yourself for no reason?”

“Lots of things hurt,” Stratt said. “And people think unhelpful things all the time. But until it interferes with what they actually do, then they’re just thoughts, and all you can do in response is write it off as their own problem to deal with and refuse to dwell on it.”

“Inspirational.”

“The world is dying. It’s the only way to get through the day.”

I managed a halfhearted grimace. “That does put it in perspective.”

“Mm.” Stratt took a sip of her coffee, which I knew was not decaf and definitely was not healthy this late at night. “If it helps at all,” she added, “I know we’re not…” Her lips twitched into what was almost a smile. “…‘together.’ And I’m entirely happy to keep it the way it is.”