Gifted and Talented by Holden Wendy

Author:Holden, Wendy [Holden, Wendy]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, General, Contemporary Women
ISBN: 9780755385256
Google: J2jiQC9JCnIC
Amazon: B00GU2RDK2
Barnesnoble: B00GU2RDK2
Goodreads: 13765779
Publisher: Headline
Published: 2012-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Richard was in the labs. It was the end of the day and outside the metal-framed, thirties windows the sun was setting. Great glowing salmon streaks of light were painted over a duck-egg blue sky. It had been a beautiful day, glowing, golden and warm, although admittedly he hadn’t seen much of it. He had been crouched over his experiments, making up for the time lost in all the endless development meetings of late.

The most recent had been called by Flora because of what was apparently being referred to in the development office as ‘the Bursar’s breakthrough’.

Working his reluctant way through his section of the alumni list, the college financial controller had desultorily dialled a former student in New York. He had had an unexpectedly electric effect.

An American modern languages graduate from 1968 called Mary-Beth Baumengartner had, it seemed, gone on to forge a successful career in the haulage business and marry multiple times, latterly and most recently to a hugely wealthy businessman called Chuck Snodgrass III. Mary-Beth seemed surprised and amazed to hear from her old college and a cheque was apparently in the post. The Bursar was triumphant.

Richard now got to his feet and began pacing about the labs. He stopped at the noticeboard to read the laminated set of laboratory rules he had put up there himself. Number four: ‘Never assume that your work can be completed in the bare minimum of hours required by the faculty. Successful careers in neuroscience demand at least double this commitment and in many cases even more.’ He had told it like it was, Richard reflected. No point beating about the bush. After all, he wasn’t asking anything of them that he wasn’t willing to do himself – had done himself, for that matter, and for many years too.

The large, strip-lit room was empty, nonetheless. For all the double commitment required of them, most of his research colleagues had by now gone home. It was Saturday night, after all; even science nerds had places to go and things to do. As had Richard, although the place he had to go and the thing he had to do was a prospect that filled him with terror.

Tonight was his date with Diana and the first time he had dated a woman in years. What had possessed him to ask her out? It had been completely unnecessary and over the top, a mere apology for his behaviour would have done. No doubt she thought he was mad; perhaps he was.

Richard returned to his own experiment. The wall at his end of the room was covered entirely with a great many illuminated Perspex boxes, all fitted closely together in a way that had stretched the department’s maintenance staff to their limits, accustomed as they were to unusual requests. From a distance, as Richard approached, it looked like a contemporary art installation, glowing rectangles of red and blue with a number of worms in each one.

He stopped and stared at them, almost fondly. The worms had definitely got with the programme now.

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