“She’s not lazy,” said Lydia.
“You and that BlackBerry are enabling her. Look, Mom, what time is Lydia’s show tomorrow?” asked Anna.
“I don’t know. That’s why I asked her,” said Alice.
“She told you the answer twice, Mom. Can you try to remember what she said?”
“Anna, stop quizzing her,” said Tom.
“I was going to enter it in my BlackBerry, but you interrupted me.”
“I’m not asking you to look it up in your BlackBerry. I’m asking you to remember the time she said.”
“Well, I didn’t try to remember the time, because I was going to punch it in.”
“Mom, just think for a second. What time is Lydia’s show tomorrow?”
She didn’t know the answer, but she knew that poor Anna needed to be put in her place.
“Lydia, what time is your show tomorrow?” asked Alice.
“Eight o’clock.”
“It’s at eight o’clock, Anna.”
FIVE MINUTES BEFORE EIGHT O’CLOCK, they settled in their seats, second row center. The Monomoy Theatre was an intimate venue, with only a hundred seats and a stage floor just a few feet from the first row.
Alice couldn’t wait for the lights to go down. She’d read this play and talked about it extensively with Lydia. She’d even helped her run lines. Lydia was playing Catherine, daughter of her mathematical genius-gone-mad father. Alice couldn’t wait to see these characters come alive right in front of her.
From the very first scene, the acting was nuanced, honest, and multidimensional, and Alice became easily and completely absorbed in the imaginary world the actors created. Catherine claimed she’d written a groundbreaking proof, but neither her love interest nor her estranged sister believed her, and they both questioned her mental stability. She tortured herself with the fear that, like her genius father, she might be going crazy. Alice experienced her pain, betrayal, and fear right along with her. She was mesmerizing from beginning to end.
Afterward, the actors came out into the audience. Catherine beamed. John gave her flowers and a huge, emphatic hug.
“You were amazing, absolutely incredible!” said John.
“Thank you so much! Isn’t it such a great play?”
The others hugged and kissed and praised her, too.
“You were brilliant, beautiful to watch,” said Alice.
“Thank you.”
“Will we get to see you in anything else this summer?” asked Alice.
She looked at Alice for an uncomfortably long time before she answered.
“No, this is my only role for the summer.”
“Are you here for just the summer season?”
The question seemed to make her sad as she considered it. Her eyes welled with tears.
“Yes, I’m moving back to L.A. at the end of August, but I’ll be back this way a lot to visit with my family.”
“Mom, that’s Lydia, your daughter,” said Anna.
The well-being of a neuron depends on its ability to communicate with other neurons. Studies have shown that electrical and chemical stimulation from both a neuron’s inputs and its targets support vital cellular processes. Neurons unable to connect effectively with other neurons atrophy. Useless, an abandoned neuron will die.
SEPTEMBER 2004
Although it was officially the beginning of fall semester at Harvard, the weather was steadfastly adhering to the rules according to the Roman calendar. It was a sticky eighty degrees that summer morning in September as Alice began her commute to Harvard Yard. In the days just before and following matriculation each year, it always amused her to see the first-year students who weren’t from New England. Fall in Cambridge evoked images of vibrant leaves, apple picking, football games, and wool sweaters with scarves. While it wouldn’t be unusual to wake up on a late September morning in Cambridge to find frost on the pumpkin, the days, especially in early September, were still filled with the sounds of window air conditioners tirelessly groaning and fevered, pathologically optimistic discussions about the Red Sox. Yet each year there they were, these newly transplanted students, moving with the uncertainty of unseasoned tourists along the sidewalks of Harvard Square, always burdened by too many layers of wool and fleece and an excess of shopping bags from the Harvard Coop packed with all the necessary desk gear and sweatshirts bearing the HARVARD brand. The poor sweaty things.
Even in her sleeveless white cotton T-shirt and ankle-length black rayon skirt, Alice felt uncomfortably damp by the time she reached Eric Wellman’s office. Directly above hers, his was the same size, with the same furniture and the same view of the Charles River and Boston, but somehow his seemed more impressive and imposing. She always felt like a student whenever she was in his office, and that feeling hovered especially present today, as she’d been called in by him “to talk for a minute.”
“How was your summer?” asked Eric.
“Very relaxing. How was yours?”
“Good, it went by too fast. We all missed seeing you at the conference in June.”
“I know, I missed being there.”
“Well, Alice, I wanted to talk with you about your course evaluations from last semester before classes begin.”
“Oh, I haven’t even had a chance to look at them yet.”
An elastic-bound stack of evaluations from her motivation and emotion course sat somewhere in her office, unopened. Harvard’s student evaluation responses were entirely anonymous and seen only by the instructor of the course and the chair of the department. In the past, she’d read them purely as a vanity check. She knew she was a great teacher, and her students’ evaluations had always nodded in unwavering agreement. But Eric had never asked her to review them with him. She feared, for the very first time in her career, that she wouldn’t like the image of herself she saw reflected in them.
“Here, take a few minutes and look them over now.”
He handed her his copy of the stack with the summary page on top.
On a scale from one, disagree strongly, to five, agree strongly: The instructor held students to a high standard of performance.
All fours and fives.
Class meetings enhanced an understanding of the material.
Fours, threes, and twos.
The instructor helped me to understand difficult concepts and complex ideas.
Again, fours, threes, and twos.