Choosing Cleo: When A Sci-Fi Alien Falls For A Woman Of Science Read online

  Of course, I fell asleep mid-way though mentally assessing my upcoming day. I was then woken by my phone ringing beside the bed. I reached for it, saw the name on the screen and elected not to answer. I would call back when I hadn’t just woken up. Just woke up voice is hard to disguise and not at all professional. What time was it anyway?

  Oh no, I thought. I am late. I had to be in the lecture hall in ten minutes. How had I overslept when I woke up so many hours ago? Oh no! I thought, oh no no no! I rushed to throw clothes on and fuss about my hair, finally grabbing the dry hair shampoo I kept for these occasions and running it through my hair, ensuring I rubbed it in as I went. After taking a deep breath as I checked my appearance in a mirror I kept in my bedroom I grabbed my professor suit case and rushed out the door. I ran across the park lands that sat behind campus - the park lands that sat between my home and the campus - and rushed to the building I was supposed to be lecturing in. I got myself to the lecture hall a few moments late, but stopped before I reached the hall and strode in with confidence. Yes, I meant this I thought as I walked in and faced my class. I had meant to be late, I had just been so busy doing professor things that I didn’t arrive on time. Yes I thought to myself as I tried to bolster my own confidence, I must have gotten held up doing important professor things. I would never ever be late because I slept in like someone who was not a real professional would do. That just wasn’t me. Nope, I was not that person. I was the always on time, always professional who was just too busy to be on time today. My time was in demand, because I was that good.

  There was just over two hundred eager young faces staring down at me when I entered. Yep, I was ready. I reached into my briefcase and took out the USB I had the lecture notes on before logging into the computer. I looked up and saw the computer loading on the projector with my log in details and reached for one of the portable microphones they give us. I spoke into the microphone and greeted the class. My confidence was returning as my mind finally woke up. This was truly a fake it until you make it situation I observed as I checked my breathing, too fast. Too fast for the appearance I was trying to keep up. I was sure my heart beat would also be too fast. I was happy that no-one could know that though.

  As my mind was waking though, I noticed something strange about the room. Weren’t the chairs green in this room every other time this term when I had come to give a lecture for this class? And, where were the students who normally sat at the front? They must be running late. But, all of them? I had about a dozen students who made themselves known to me, probably future honors and PhD candidates. Was I actually early despite having to run across campus to be here? Had I managed to arrive on time even after waking so late? No, that made no sense.

  Then a noise to my left drew my attention and a familiar face came in. A professor from the accounting department. I saw him around a lot, but, this wasn’t the right place for him to be right now.

  “Hello professor.” He greeted me, a question in his voice.

  “Hello.” I said, my mind still a little foggy with sleep.

  He looked up at my loaded home screen, now projected onto the wall, then back at me. It was slowly dawning on me as I stood there in silence with him looking from me to the screen then back again, the same question that had been in his voice now written all over his face.

  “This is your class?” I asked politely.

  The accounting professor nodded. I felt a knot forming in my stomach. I must have run up the wrong set of stairs again. What was I doing? I knew the building had weird floor numbering. This was the only building on campus - or anywhere, I think - that had two ground floors then a first floor, and didn’t differentiate between the two ground floors. Really, one should be titled ‘basement’ in the buildings plans and elevators and the other should be ground. Or maybe ground 1 and ground 2 if they thought they had to both be ground floors. Not making any differentiation though was just asking for trouble.

  “My apologies.” I said to him before reaching for the computer and logging out, embarrassed. Some of the students were laughing. The accounting professor was telling them off for being so rude. At least he was enough of a professional to have that sort of grace I told myself as it took longer to extract myself from this situation than I wanted it to.

  “It just shows that anyone can make a mistake.” He was instructing them, his tone suddenly authoritative. I was glad in that moment he hadn’t used that tone on me. Too much authority, I would have shrunk into myself if I heard that voice when I already felt this small.

  I logged out and rushed out of the room quickly. I barely had time to say anything else before I was consulting my map and the room numbers. I knew where I had gone wrong and felt more embarrassed than ever. As I rushed off to my classroom, ready to make another attempt at a nonchalant entrance, I checked the time on my phone. Ugh. I was going to be late enough that some of the sloppier kids in the class would have already left. This would definitely get back to the university. Great, just what I needed.

  I rushed up the corridor and towards the class. When I reached the door and tried to enter nonchalantly again though, I was greeted by something I didn’t expect.

  Chapter Two

  It wasn’t so much what was waiting for me there, but who. When I walked into the lecture theater, I came face-to-face with a man who I hadn’t seen before. He was tall and gorgeous, with striking blue eyes and a nice smile - all white teeth, and completely disarming - He stood over six foot tall with strong arms and shoulders, a straight back and clothes that told me he was not a student. He was wearing a blue shirt covered by a black blazer and jeans. Casual, but work-casual. The kind of clothes that said, ‘I am a professional, but I am also the fun, charming guy who everyone at work likes’.

  Not only would he be that guy who everyone at work was friends with, but he was also gorgeous in that sort of ‘every woman in the room is watching him’ kind of way. Even though I was confused and a little bemused about why there was a man in front of my class playing hanged man on the white board, I knew I should be mad, I knew I should be taking back control of the class right away. Normally I would, too. Such is the power of beautiful people. They stop you from behaving in any negative way towards them just by being so damn gorgeous that you don’t want to disappoint them or give them any reason to dislike you.

  That desire to please pretty people - and this guy was pretty, both on the outside but also had that glow from within that really draws others in - that same desire is a real weakness of mine. Perhaps the kind of weakness I don’t ever want to address.

  “Hello.” He greeted me warmly, and I melted a little as his deep blue eyes bore into mine. Bastard. I reminded myself that he was in my classroom, and he shouldn’t be. Don’t let his gorgeousness take away from that I told myself. Take back control of the class. Do your job.

  “And who might you be?” I asked in what I hoped was a questioning tone, but what probably came off as a bit too soft for that. Beautiful people never have to deal with the harshness of life because of reactions like mine.

  “I am William. You are Cleo?” He asked, the hint of an accent on his lips. European, I decided quickly.

  “William…” I said, the name ruminating on my tongue.

  “Yes, I am William.” He told me, “I am supposed to be learning from you.”

  I looked at him like a puppy looks at a human, with my head cocked to the side and a confused expression on my face. He was supposed to be learning from me? But William wasn’t a student, William was a -

  “Professor. From Sweden. Yes, I remember.” I told him quickly. “You wanted to know about Australian ecology and climate change impacts over the past, twenty years or whatever.” I said, realizing far too quickly that ‘whatever’ was a really dismissive way to talk about my own work, also that there was a whole lecture hall full of people watching us. There was just as many students as I had expected - over two hundred - with the familiar dozen or so sitting in the front row. Those same kids I had thought of
when I walked into the wrong room and didn’t see them. Thinking of this, I looked at them and smiled. Unsure what to do now this gorgeous hunk of a man was standing in front of me smiling at students made me feel even dumber than I was sure I was acting. Feeling like a teenage girl who has to tell the guy she likes who is also so damn beautiful what to do, and doesn’t really know how. Maybe she forgot while looking into his beautiful eyes. You know, because it would be easy to forget anything when gazing into those eyes. I was sure I could forget my name if I gazed for too long.

  “Perhaps you should take a seat?” I found myself asking, I wanted my tone to be much more authoritative. I wanted to tell him to leave. I felt so embarrassed by being late, and also by how his gorgeousness was making me behave, it seemed to have knocked me off my axis and I felt like I was spinning around impotently. At the same time I wanted him here, too. He was just so gorgeous that I could look at him all day. I felt my mouth water, then forced myself to look away from him. I looked at the hanged man on the board for a long moment before moving to remove it then signing on to the computer and loading the presentation, this time in front of the correct class. I was going to take control, even if I had to do it quietly, so as not to offend the beautiful man.

  I cleared my throat, grabbed the microphone and began my lecture. I was telling these students about a few fairly basic concepts as it was their first year of study, and they were smiling and nodding along between taking notes. I threw in a few antidotes from my own research and random bits and pieces that I had read in popular science publications that pretty much every geek - and most of my class - would read.

  By the time the class was done, the students all filed out with their brains now full of new information, or at least that was what I hoped they had gained from this lecture. I had the next two hours free. Normally I used that time to respond to emails and get on top of the busy work I had as it often wasn’t enough to do anything significant with in terms of research or even going over the latest scientific journal articles of interest. Instead I turned to the oh-so-hot Swede, who had taken a back seat to me after initially minding my class. I asked him if he would like to grab a coffee and have a chat about our work. He smiled, agreed, then followed me out of the lecture theater.

  Chapter Three

  Because our campus was in Melbourne, which had to be the coffee drinking capital of the world, there were at least half a dozen coffee places on campus, and a bunch more that surrounded campus. There were more coffee places than there were actual eateries. We chose the one coffee place that had a big indoor dining area. It wasn’t exactly a quiet place to have a coffee and catch up with a colleague, but it was out of the cold and that was enough for me.

  We ordered our coffee and sat down. Before we had a chance to settle in, the coffee arrived.

  “They are quick here.” He told me in that sexy accent. I tried to suppress my grin.

  “Yes, they are quick. The quickest on campus, I think.” I told him.

  He nodded. “Impressive.” Before using his spoon to mix in some sugar - a lot of sugar - I didn’t say anything as I wondered to myself about how he had such wonderful white teeth when he took so much sugar in his coffee.

  I picked up my own cappuccino and took a sip. I sighed involuntarily as I thought about how wonderful it would feel when that caffeine hit my system. I hardly knew how I had made it through that lecture without having had my morning coffee.

  When He was finished with adding sugar - or out of sugar to add, I am not sure which - William and I started chatting. For some reason, there was this ease between us like we had always been friends. We talked about our research, yes, but we also talked about our mutual love for old records and black and white cinema.

  Of course, William liked even older movies than I did. At least the movies I enjoyed were from the ‘golden age of Hollywood’, when movies where black and white and actors were all movie stars signed to a particular studio to produce a billion movies, the best of which were still with us today. This was quite a contrast to William’s taste. His favorite movies were ones that did not even have sound. There was an art to silent movies for sure, but I couldn’t quite connect with them the same way he seemed to.

  Our mutual love for old things did extend into our work, as the planet was old and many of the systems that had been in place and were working - even those that weren’t working as well as they should due to human disturbance - were old.

  We both thoroughly enjoyed one another's company and he even ordered us more coffees after the first ones were gone. Our two hours was almost up though I realized with a bit of frustration.

  “I’m sorry.” I said, and meant it. “I have another class in about fifteen minutes time. I will need to head back to my office and get a few things for this class.” I told him.

  “Oh.” He said, “I am not coming?”

  “Um,” I said, feeling startled and a little confused. Initially when I had been told by the university that I would have a visiting professor to entertain, I had thought it would be like all the other visiting professors. I had thought it would be a case of I would have him sit in on maybe one class maximum but mostly he was just here using desk space and communicating with other professors in his field while here. These sorts of unofficial residencies were something universities around the world were keen to do. All they had to do was give someone desk space and the professor would bring their expertise and ideas with them. Often they could help local professors find the answers to problems they had been grappling with for a long time with their outside perspective. Often too they would take classes in exchange for the desk space, something which meant the university didn’t have to pay local professors. Universities did rather like getting free stuff, just like everyone else.

  I hadn’t really enjoyed having William in my class that morning because I had found him distracting. But then I found myself agreeing to have him sit in my class over coffee, regretting my choice as soon as the words were leaving my mouth. Pretty privilege indeed.

  “Sure, you can come and sit in on the class.” I agreed, wishing I could just bite off my tongue as I said it. What was I thinking? I tried not to let my feelings show on my face so as not to offend him as we both stood up and gathered our things. I made my way towards the counter to pay and the staff waved me away.

  “It’s all been taken care of, Cleo!” They called.

  What were they talking about? I was sure neither of us had paid a cent. When I looked confused though, William said from beside me, “Oh no, I got it before. I hope that is okay.”

  “You, got it before?” I asked, confused.

  He nodded.

  I narrowed my eyes, suspicious as only a scientist can be. “What do you mean, you got it? I didn’t see you. When did you pay?”

  “Before.” He told me vaguely.

  “I don’t remember seeing you pay.” I told him honestly.

  “You don’t?” He asked, his tone intentional nonchalant. There was something odd about it. Something that made me feel much more uncomfortable than it should.

  Unsure what to do about my uncomfortable feeling though, I turned towards the door without another word and strode through it. William followed half a step behind. As odd as that was, I pushed it from my mind. I would double check with the girls tomorrow if they had made a mistake and pay them then. I didn’t have time today to convince them to take my money while William stood beside me and swore that he had paid for our coffee despite having never gotten up from his chair the entire time we were in the cafe.

  Instead, I strode towards my office and told William about the next class as we walked.

  “This is another undergraduate class. They are in the third and final year of their degree. There is only twenty-one of them in the class.” I told him.

  “That is a lot fewer than this morning.” He told me.

  “Yes.” I agreed. “There are fewer of them, but they work harder and are more engaged. These courses have a high drop out rate unfor
tunately.”

  “Why is that?” He asked me.

  “I think because the students are only at university because their families, schools, and communities push them to be here. They are maybe not as interested in science as other subjects. So they start the course because they’re hard working enough to have earned their place, then they see what it is really like - that no-one here is forcing them to be here like they have been forced to do things for their entire lives up until this point - and they leave.” I told him.

  “Don’t some of them want to be scientists?” He asked me.

  I shrugged. “A lot of them don’t know what they want. That is what university is about for them, time to figure that out.” I told him.

  “And they figure out that they are not scientists?” He asked me.

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  “Okay.” He told me, “That is fair.”

  “Doesn’t this happen in Sweden?” I asked, looking over at William as we reached my office space’s external door. It seemed odd that this could all be news to him, as I was sure this happened all over the world. When I looked at him though his face looked a bit surprised, like he hadn’t expected the question. It threw me off for a second as the question seemed pretty predictable, but then he answered and we were walking through the door. So I didn’t have time to be thrown off or over think anything for too long.

  “I guess it does.” He told me. “It happens everywhere.”