Hello, everyone! And a special welcome to new subscribers. You’re in the right place for the lovely interviews with nature writers or NatureStack’s bi-monthly curation of the best of Substack’s nature writing; the occasional essay on architecture, wonder, or <waves arms around> all this; and this serial novel, FLUX. Wherever you are on this path — if you’re brimming with wonder or weary with grief — you belong here. Together, let’s return to our deep connection with the world and find hope again.
This is the first official weekend of summer in the Northern Hemisphere. Perfect time to crack open a novel like FLUX. . . Start here at the T.O.C.
⬅️ Previous chapter
Mid-September 2009
Grace pauses at the closed door to trace the brass engraved letters spelling out Evans Lab. Her lab. She wrestles the door open against the negative pressure of the ventilation. Instead of the thick flush of early morning quiet, she’s greeted by Barbara’s Karaoke voice belting out, “We can be sexy and powerful,” along with Shania Twain.
At first, Grace was grateful to Barbara for coming in extra early. How does she deserve such a dedicated assistant? But now she misses being alone in her lab with the cast of low sunlight across the benches, the glassware gleaming, the clean metallic aura. She’s been in bio labs that smelled like barf or week-old shit from decaying plants and bacteria, chem labs that made her eyes water and burned her nose hair. At least her methane is naturally odorless.
Even with all the new equipment and furniture, it’s a modest space. Four long benches extend into the room from four tall windows overlooking the old quad. Black countertops rest on metal cabinets. Equipment and glassware are neatly aligned on the bench or shelved just above for easy access.
In an ironic gesture, Barbara taped the United Energy ad to the concrete wall beside the door and drew a mustache on Grace’s face in black sharpie. During the photo shoot against a green screen, the marketing team treated Grace like a mannequin. They coached the specific angle of her body, arch of eyebrows, set of mouth. Too haughty. Too angry. Be approachable. Look over here. No, over here. Gaze into the future. That’s good. Perfect. The hairdresser wasted over an hour massing her hair into an “updo”—despite her insistence that no self-respecting scientist would wear it that way, not even at their own wedding. She found pins in it for days afterwards. The photographer kept hitting on her. By the end, she was too disgusted with it all to try him. Plus, he was old.
“Brought you some pizza.” Grace tosses a slice wrapped in wax paper on Barbara’s desk. “Courtesy of Dragonfly Farm.”
“Thanks. How was it?” Barbara unwraps it to take a sniff.
“The pizza? Best I’ve ever had.” Grace heaves her backpack onto a chair. “The day was a total waste. We built a cob oven. I know, I know, not a sentence you ever expected to hear me utter.”
Barbara closes her eyes and takes an exploratory bite.
“They fired up a whole other oven to cook that. Takes hours to get it hot enough.”
“How many cob ovens does a person need?”
“Truth.”
“I’ve always wanted one, though.”
How did Barbara know what a cob oven is, but she didn’t?
“Another reason for a backyard.” Barbara sets the slice down on the paper. “You should build one at your mom’s place.”
“Sure, in my copious spare time.”
“All you do is, invite a dozen people over for a workshop, charge them forty bucks each, and they’ll do it for you.”
Grace tunes out Barbara’s latest update on her search for a house on acreage in horse and golf country north of the city. No doubt where her fiancé grew up. She lives with him in a three-bedroom, two-level penthouse near campus, his compromise for Barbara’s long hours. He’s a Baltimore boy from a well-known family. Works in finance. First time they met, he asked Grace where she went to school. After she humble-bragged about Harvard, Cornell, and Princeton, he yawned and mansplained that, in Baltimore, the question means high school. Barbara had chimed in that he captained both soccer and baseball at one of the private boy’s schools. “Brett’s a natural athlete,” Barbara had actually said while squeezing his considerable bicep. “He’s too modest to say, but he was Salutatorian of his class.” Big deal, he came in second.
Barbara finishes the pizza. “How could you bring me just one slice?”
“Right? I ate the others in the car.” Grace pulls a manila folder out of her backpack and drops it on the bench. “Bad news. They wouldn’t sign.”
“Why not?”
Grace shakes her head and sighs. “At first I thought they believed they could isolate from the world on their precious two hundred acres.” She settles on a stool and opens her laptop. “Barbara, they lit their kitchen sink on fire. It was so fucked up.”
“For the workshop?” Barbara looks shocked.
Grace laughs. “No way. Flaming water is a big, shameful secret, like it’s somehow their fault. United Energy fouled their water, so now this organic farm has a storage shed full of carboys for the animals and pallets of bottled water for the people.”
“I still don’t get why they wouldn’t sign.”
“I guess they’re in a legal battle with the company and don’t want more hassle.” She doesn’t add that Caroline said they can’t trust her. Barbara is already touchy about being in bed with industry, as she puts it.
“What if we offer to test their water? We could isolate the isotopes, link the contamination to fugitive methane. That should be a no-brainer, help with their case—”
“I already said no to water.”
Barbara’s face morphs from shock to disappointment and settles on a scowl. “Why on earth? Water expands funding sources. You’re talking both livestock and human health. The local blogs are full of horror stories—”
“You don’t have enough to do, now you’re reading those stupid blogs?” In Grace’s first post-doc at Princeton, her advisor gave her too much free rein. Then, when she had enough on her plate for three careers’ worth of research, he came down on her for mission creep. He said nobody would take her seriously, because she was a mile wide and an inch deep. “All this data isn’t going to analyze itself. And now I’m running up there weekly to fix the equipment.”
“Not to mention, you fired two of our research assistants.” She doesn’t bother to hide her bitterness.
“Oh, come on, they were costing more time than they saved.”
Barbara waves a dismissive hand. “We’re talking EPA, HHS, CDC, NSF, NIH, and that’s just the Feds. I can think of three state agencies and six foundations off the top of my head. Water is huge.”
“Stop. We’re air. Air, not water.”
“That’s my point. We’re missing the bigger picture here. Your air map . . .It’s too. . . esoteric. People can’t relate.”
“What people? Is this your man-on-the-street thing again?” Barbara’s a great assistant but she’s got a dangerous activist streak. Not a good look for a scientist.
“I just think we’d get more traction with water. The real change-agents—”
Grace holds up a hand. “Just stop.” She pops open the boom box to remove Barbara’s mix tape. She resents having to negotiate just to listen to her own music in her own lab. At least they agree about the 90s, but Barbara favors sappy, pining love ballads and anthems—Britney, Mariah, Selena, Christina, Céline. Grace needs edgier stuff—Mary J, 2Pac, Dr Dre, Lauryn, Missy. True, they can both jam on “U.N.I.T.Y,” “Torn,” “Bittersweet Symphony,” and “Zombie.” Even Will Smith in a pinch.
Barbara teases Grace about her only-child self-centeredness, but she grew up as the youngest of four in a leafy suburb, loved by two stable parents and shepherded to a solid, middle-class state school. Every fellowship and post-doc fell into her lap, from what Grace can tell. Barbara will never understand the fierce, possessive pride that Grace feels for her lab. Her lab that she’s fought for her whole life.
“Hell, even the USDA has money for this,” Barbara says, scrolling her laptop. “Why don’t I look into it—”
“What the hell, Barbara? I’m out here, killing myself on those filthy sites, my asthma is acting up, they’re hell on earth, and you sit here reading blogs and researching irrelevant funding. No means no.”
“Maybe you should stop going up there if it’s so bad for your health. I could go. Or we can send Erin or Steve.”
Grace studies her. What is her angle? She’s never brought up concern for Grace’s health before. “No way, not those two. They can barely tie their own shoes.” And Barbara doesn’t have time to take over the field visits either, so why even suggest it? Grace’s insides hollow out with the sudden thought that Barbara is not to be trusted. But that’s ridiculous. Barbara is indispensable. Grace can’t hold this project together without her logistical talents. And no one works harder and smarter under a deadline.
“Grace, why do you do this work?” Barbara asks.
What an aggressive question. Grace doesn’t dignify it with an answer.
Barbara presses her. “Every successful person knows their why.”
Grace refuses to be shamed. “That’s bullshit. Most people are just trying to pay their bills and get through the day, make sure their kid doesn’t end up a drug addict living under a bridge.”
“You don’t really believe that.” It’s a challenge, not a question.
“It’s the objective truth. Not a matter of belief.”
“I disagree. Look at the dean. He’s—”
“—in it for the power.”
“You just proved my point.”
“Are we in the same conversation? You said your why can’t be trivial. Power isn’t, like, deep or meaningful.” Grace doesn’t know why she said that. Power is anything but trivial.
“I never said that.” Barbara pushes back from her laptop and stretches. “Anyway, I think his why includes educating young minds and launching the next generation of scientists to solve the world’s wicked problems.”
Grace laughs. “Okay, and why does he do that?”
“Because . . . education is a public good. Or science is . . .”
“Wrong. He does it because he’s addicted to power.”
“Enough stalling. What about you? What’s your why?”
“I have class.”
Grace lives far enough from campus that she bikes to school. She lets people think she’s that committed to the environment when really, she can’t afford a campus parking pass. She learned the hard way that the parking department doesn’t play. Her first week last summer, she double-parked, flashers on, to move boxes into her lab. Okay, maybe she forgot the flashers, but was that any reason for an eighty-five-dollar ticket? She ignored it on principle. They left another one two days later when she was running late for her welcome meeting with the dean. She’s convinced that her car is now on their hit list.
She tells people the bike is better than a gym membership (which she also can’t afford). She does enjoy the freedom, despite the two kinds of Baltimore drivers: oblivious and hostile. She tries to tap the nostalgia of being a kid on Holland Island, with its slow pace of no cars, only bikes and golf carts, but being squeezed between a city bus and the sudden opening of a driver’s door makes that impossible. Barbara gave her a hazard-orange t-shirt with bold black lettering on the back: I’m not blocking traffic. I am traffic. It hasn’t helped.
The storm grates, with their parallel, wide-spaced bars, are notorious tire-eaters that force sudden swerves away from the curb. Add in the cracked pavement and potholes; she’s had countless hairy close calls. She passes two ghost bikes on her regular route, grim reminders of her fragile mortality. One of them has a dusty plastic bouquet of flowers in the handlebar basket. She made Barbara promise not to chain one of those creepy, white-painted bicycles to a street sign for her, if it comes to that.
Barbara’s again in the lab when Grace arrives. “Great news.” Her voice is far too perky for the early hour. “Our paper was accepted to the AGS conference.”
“Okay, good,” Grace says with studied casualness. It makes no logical sense to feel guarded around Barbara, but she can’t show how much she cares.
“They always pick such prestige locations. I mean, Cleveland? At least the dean has money for registration and travel.”
“Not for me he doesn’t. Conferences come out of my budget.” Which had been a line item before Grace moved it into more new equipment. She feels like a gambler going all in at the roulette table.
“Huh,” Barbara says. “Maybe that’s only for fellows?”
Grace snorts. “Have you seen the way he looks at you?”
“Gross. Is everything about sex with you?”
“How was he, then?”
“Not funny. He’s like, a million years old. You of all people. . .” She trails off, shaking her head, and returns to her work.
Grace knows it’s petty to tease Barbara about the dean. It’s not like Grace hasn’t been in similar situations, so who is she to judge? She did have a fling or two, always consensual. But she advanced on her own merits. And so can Barbara, she knows that. Barbara is smarter than the lot of them.
“I’ve been thinking,” Barbara says. “Your map is cool—”
“That map is what got us accepted.”
“Possibly. But think about it. Can you picture that map on the evening news? Or in a Dateline segment?”
Not this again. The one red flag in Barbara’s resume was that she’d signed on to Science for Humanity’s Declaration of Something-or-Other. Window dressing for tenure review committees. “Nope. I’m too comfy in my ivory tower to worry about mainstream news.”
“That’s your problem. What are we doing all this for, if not to benefit the greater good?”
“I’m not going to be pushed into the latest social media trend. I’m playing the long game.”
“Uh huh. Just hope it’s not too long.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Forget it.” Barbara scrolls through the acceptance email. “What are we doing about this disclosure clause?”
“Ignore it.”
“ ‘Final confirmation is contingent upon—’ ”
“ ‘—completion of the Funding Sources Affidavit.’ I know. I saw it when we submitted. Nobody bothers with that. It’s pro forma. We’re fine.”
Barbara shifts in her chair. “Then why not disclose?”
“We’ve been over this. No apologies, no groveling.” She’ll understand when her name is on the door and the weight is on her shoulders to keep the mouths fed and the lights on and the gas in the car.
“I never said to apologize. They’re just asking for transparency.” Barbara’s tone is defensive.
The truth is, Grace meant to pull together the reports for disclosure, but she’s behind on grading and slammed with back-to-back committee meetings. Without asking, the dean assigned her to the Curriculum Committee, which she cares about less than zero, and the Campus Senate, which is chaired by a guy who teaches 15th century English Lit and relishes power like the Reeve in Canterbury Tales. A month ago, she was appointed faculty advisor to a student club with three members that conducts mock UN Climate Summits. She told the dean there should be a threshold number of members before wasting faculty time, but he was not amused.
“Sometimes, I wonder how I ended up here,” Barbara says. “One day I’m tromping through swamps and forests in northern Peru, next I’m holed up in a lab in Baltimore, isolating CH4 isotopes, and arguing over who’s better, 2Pac or Whitney.”
“First, 2Pac, obviously. But, yeah, they don’t tell you how repetitive and tedious this work can be. It’s easy to get lost in the details.” Grace never gets lost, but maybe Barbara needs a pep talk. It’s hard to read her lately. “You always say everything’s connected. Maybe by isolating CH4 here, you’re also measuring mixed palm swamp dry season methane flux in some parallel reality.”
Barbara laughs. “I wouldn’t waste a parallel reality on work.”
“Good point. My parallel reality is watching the sunset on a Jamaican beach with Taye Diggs.”
“Baby got Back” comes on. They leave their stools to dance in the aisles and belt out, “Shake that healthy butt, real thick and juicy.”
The only other adornment on the bare concrete walls is a vintage Hang in there, baby cat poster, signed by the photographer. A gift from an old boyfriend. Or maybe she took it, she can’t remember. The cat’s eyes are so wildly crazed and toes splayed with such manic energy, Grace smiles every time she sees it. She’s had more days like that than she can count.
The song finishes and Jay Z comes on with “Empire State of Mind.” “How’s this for weird?” Grace says. “James Cowan, the VP at United Energy—”
“Our sugar daddy?”
“Yeah, that guy. He’s been bugging me to bring this whole operation in-house.”
“Like, in his house? At United Energy Holdings?” Barbara frowns.
“Yup. New York City, baby. Concrete jungle where dreams are made of. Apparently, their lab occupies half a floor in their Park Avenue headquarters. James said we could take over the whole floor. Set it up however we want.”
Barbara laughs. “Who is this ‘we’?”
Grace regrets mentioning it. She’s barely given his crazy proposal a second thought. That’s a lie. The idea barges in whenever she looks at her calendar crammed with bullshit meetings and classes.
“You can’t be serious.” Barbara sits back in her chair and folds her arms. “You’re not serious. Are you?”
“Of course not,” Grace says with a wave of her hand. “Am I flattered? Sure. Tempted? Maybe a little.” She hates chasing money. Barbara has no idea that, even with James’ funding, Grace is operating on a razor’s edge. It doesn’t help that the university takes such a huge cut. She has nightmares of teaching middle school science in a classroom beside her mother’s. “A girl can dream. No more bored undergrads or know-it-all grad students.”
“Or grabby advisors.”
“Exactly.”
“Sure is an obvious way to bury the whole thing,” Barbara says. “He knows their well casings are leaking, so why not keep his enemies close?”
“Yeah, but James isn’t like that. He’s on a tear to improve operations, even developing ways to filter and reuse fracking water more than once. We could broaden our scope, include your water studies.”
“No thanks. I’ve worked too hard to whore myself out to industry.”
Ouch. So that’s what Barbara thinks of her. She’d be out on her ass without their money. “Yeah, better to do it here in safe, cozy academia.”
Barbara laughs. “Touché.” She stands and stretches, then resettles to open a new file on her computer. “Maybe you’re right about staying focused on air. Let someone else deal with water.”
Grace should be relieved at this reversal, but instead feels uneasy. “Yeah, fuck James and his Machiavellian bullshit. You and me. We’ll show what a disaster this gas boom is. Bridge to the future, my ass. Add up all the emissions from these sites—including diesel truck exhaust, flaring, and methane flux—and I’ll bet my house this boondoggle is worse for climate than mining and burning coal.”
“If you had a house.” Barbara says from behind her computer screen. “Then what?”
“Then, the industry cleans up their act,” Grace says. “I’m a scientist, not an engineer. Maybe your brother can figure that out.” Grace has been eyeing the brother for a while. An engineering genius who’s also a body builder.
“His PhD is in aeronautics,” Barbara says. “I doubt that translates. But you’re right. Methane will be very good for your career.” The singsong way she says it, the small evil smile. It’s unnerving. Until now, Grace assumed they were in this together. Now, she’s not so sure.
Grace’s lab is in the earth and planetary sciences building, looming on the western edge of campus over a wooded hillside that slopes down to a stream. Named for a former trustee of the university who invented the plastic shotgun casing, it’s where academics study natural systems while ironically embodying their fraught relationship with such places.
Sometimes she climbs down the ravine and imagines what it was like in the 1980s before her building came long. She likes to be in this wild place in the heart of the city, to sit in delicious intimacy with a fallen log by the water. One day, the water sounds the thoughtful percussive notes of hollow bamboo. Another, after a night of rain, it gurgles and splooshes impatience. She means to return some night to share the silver sound by moonlight with a lover. Or someone like Ned. He gets it.
As Grace listens to the songs of the runnels and rivulets, her breathing slows and muscles relax. The stream narrates the story: One day, bulldozers and dump trucks arrived. They uprooted trees and shoved the earth into new shapes designed by engineers. They poured many cubic yards of concrete. Once that hardened enough to support weight, they loaded four levels of steel, brick, glass, ceramic, plastic, copper, vinyl, and fiberglass on the foundation.
For the finale, men poured an asphalt skin over the earth around the building. To this day, the oil and antifreeze from parked cars mix with rain, forming an unholy brew that slides down the ravine to make rainbows in the struggling stream.
Sacrificed to the improvement schemes of their self-appointed human stewards, the birds, mycelium, foxes, and all other disrupted residents of that place have done their best to cope. Many didn’t make it. Others now contend with vines that invade edges newly opened to sunlight. The remaining trees miss the old grandfather oaks and grandmother poplars who once stood there. Grace whispers apologies to them.
Next chapter ➡️
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Grace and Barbara are both complex and bright women. I love that I can’t pick sides. Sometimes Barbara makes a ton of sense, and her youthful optimism leaves me hopeful, but Grace feels the pain of past and future and is grounded in that sight. You write their inner worlds so well through dialog!
The dialogue between Grace and Barbara is so expertly done in this chapter. I was right there in the lab with them.