Recipe for a Charmed Life by Rachel Linden

Author:Rachel Linden [Linden, Rachel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2024-01-09T00:00:00+00:00

24

To her surprise, Cole jammed his hands in his pockets and said, “You asked what I’m still doing here? Hiding, I guess.”

“Hiding from what?”

“Success. Failure. The biggest mistake of my life.” He sounded morose. They passed the darkened grocery store and a tiny, tidy park with flowers in the center of the town.

Intrigued, Georgia waited.

Cole sighed. “I told you about how I grew up, right? Dreaming of being Captain Planet.” Georgia nodded and Cole continued. “Aunt Justine always supported those dreams, even though they seemed far-fetched for the kid of a single mom who struggled month to month just to get by. But I had two things going for me. I was smart, really smart, and I was persistent. I knew how to work hard against long odds. I’d seen my mom do it my whole life. After high school, I got a full scholarship to the University of Arizona. I double majored in environmental science and applied biotechnology.”

“Smarty-pants,” Georgia murmured, impressed. They stepped onto the long wooden pier that jutted out into the dark water of the marina, wandering past a half dozen good-sized yachts. Most were dark and quiet. Light spilled from a few others. Through the glass sliding back door of one she saw a paunchy man doing a crossword puzzle at a table. The wooden planks creaked under their footfalls, and the slap of the water against the hulls of the boats was the only other sound.

Cole looked a little embarrassed by her praise. “It was Aunt Justine who fostered a love for nature and care for the earth in me. At school I was naturally good at what I chose to study, and I was also motivated. I really wanted to make a difference in the world. By twenty-six, I was on track to a career that would make Captain Planet proud. I got my master’s degree at UCLA and my PhD from Berkeley. While I was doing my research for my PhD, I traveled to Europe and Asia—France, Korea, Japan. And I uncovered some really exciting scientific data during those research trips that no one else had stumbled on yet. It was potentially a huge breakthrough in the area of biotechnology and clean energy. It got me a lot of job offers, but more significantly, it brought me an angel investor. A tech billionaire named Bruce Hannigan wanted to back my research. He told me to assemble a team and gave me free rein to continue my work down in San Diego where there is a lot of algae and biofuel research already going on. It was a dream come true.”

“Sounds like it,” Georgia said. She knew nothing about his area of research, but it sounded impressive. They passed a sleek red sailboat, and a black Lab barked a greeting at them from the deck, tail wagging.

“My research had the potential to change how we use biofuels, to develop new ecologically responsible biofuel technology that could change the landscape of energy,” Cole explained. “We were working on developing a new kind of clean energy.

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