The Queen

Chapter One

Chapter One

Penny

The pile of textbooks in my small room grows and grows.

I live in a small room beneath the main floor, right next to the kitchens of a hotel. When the chef replaces their old-world chopping block with high-density polyethylene, I claim one of the slabs of wood from the discard pile. It’s heavy enough that I need help to carry it to my room, turning it sideways through the door.

We put it on the textbooks, five stacks I’ve made to match in height. I use it as my desk, finding differentials over the scarred surface, solving proofs with the faint smell of cleaning solution and cilantro the wood can’t quite relinquish.

With all these books, it’s easy to think they have everything figured out. That only a few unsolvable problems remain in the realm of mathematics, a few edge cases to keep the modern academics engaged. Before I collect them I learn how limited they are.

Dr. Stanhope is my first professor at Smith College, relatively young for his tenure, with soft brown eyes and an uneven shave. He comes to class with ink staining his square-tipped fingers, which then become covered in white chalk. He’s unlike any man I’ve known before, more of an alien creature than human, which makes him that much more relatable to me.

“Do we know all the math there is to know?” he asks on the first day. “Have we seen every arrangement of numbers there is to see? Have we seen every painting that will be painted?”

Because math, he explains, is more than just a discovery of natural laws. It’s a creative endeavor, requiring basic knowledge but also ingenuity, curiosity, and an unquenchable search for new patterns in the real and abstract universe. It wakes in me a new understanding of myself—less of a machine, more of a woman with a heart. That my heart prefers order is maybe a result of my DNA or maybe a result of my chaotic childhood.

The class I take with him is the History of Mathematics, one of the only advanced-level courses available to me over the summer. I take that alongside Introduction to Calculus and Sociology 101, unable to wait for the fall semester to begin.

I couldn’t wait to be lost in numbers, but it’s the people who capture me instead. Euler’s feverish religious beliefs and his legendary “proof” of God. Turing’s grand successes and subsequent persecution for his homosexuality, including a now banned hormonal treatment. Ada Lovelace, the only legitimate child of Lord Byron, who was the first person to recognize the potential of computers as more than pure calculation.

She described her approach as poetical science, which to me sounds perfect.

As the years pass I find more interest in literature and art than I ever had, as if the discovery of mathematics as a creative pursuit has given me permission. The numbers still call to me, as does Dr. Stanhope. He becomes my undergraduate advisor as I head into my junior year, both a mentor and a friend. A secret and painful crush, the kind of yearning for a life free from crime.

“Have you thought anymore about the research position?” he asks me in our weekly meeting, a cup of coffee in his hand, a book open on his lap as if he might dive into it at any point in our conversation. He c***s his head, the only sign that he’s waiting for a response, his gaze trained on the book.

When we started meeting, we did so in his outer office, an ancient wood table with dusty cloth-covered chairs. The same place he would hold small tutoring sessions or where his research assistants might work. Later we moved to his inner office, him behind the imposing desk stacked high with books and loose paper, and me in the swivel chair in front of him.

Now we sit side by side on the plaid couch, more comfortable for the occasional academic debates we engage in. That’s not a euphemism for anything, despite the images that sometimes invade my dreams. “I need to talk to my dad,” I say, strangely reluctant to decide.

There is no future in a mathematics degree. It needs something practical to sit on top—engineering or computer programming. By itself it’s about as useful as an art degree in terms of securing actual employment. Most everyone goes on to get their doctorate, which is what Dr. Stanhope expects me to do.

He even has a research position reserved for me, something both flattering and alarming. “Imagine how far you could go,” he muses, looking at the bookshelves on the far end of the office, as if he can see the distance in his mind. He so rarely looks at me, directly at me, which has made it a comfort to talk to him. I still remember the direct silver gaze of a man intent on possessing me, consuming me; this abstract interest is so much safer.

“Of course I would love to,” I say, anxious not to insult him. “The opportunity to work with you in-depth is incredible. And your last paper on quantitative bounds has so many possibilities for further research.”

He smiles faintly. “Yes, I rather thought you would like that.”

His particular focus is Ramsey problems, a rule concerning what price a monopolist should set in order to maximize social welfare. It’s a unique intersection of human interest and mathematics, and something that makes him that much more honorable.

I fumble with my notebook, flipping to one of the last pages, my handwriting sharp in pen. “What you said about elasticity being unconstant, it made me think about the lower bounds. That there might be new methods to form them. I have this—well, it’s only the beginning. But I think it’s opened up a whole new door.”

He takes the notebook from me and studies the numbers, that familiar little line of concentration between his eyes. “God, this is brilliant. I only sent you the final copy two days ago. You did this yesterday?”

“I could spend a lifetime on them,” I say shyly.

He looks at me sideways. “Could you?”

“It’s always been my dream to study. Not as a means to an end, as the end itself. But it’s tricky with my home situation. I don’t know whether I can afford to spend more time here.”

A wave of his hand dismisses money as a concern. “A smart girl like you should never be barred from learning. I’m sure we can work something out.”

Old worries wake up, cracking their eyes open as if from a long slumber. Memories of what men asked me to do at the seedy diner if I needed money. “Like what?”

“The usual. Grants. Financial aid. The research position pays a small amount, and should you be unable to cover the rest…” He closes the book with a snap that makes me jump. “I would be happy to help you myself.”

A blush steals over my cheeks. “I don’t think that would be appropriate.”

He shrugs. “It’s a flawed system, education. Favoring those who have money over those who have talent. I’m glad you found your way to Smith College, however it came about.”

The oblique reference to my father’s profession makes my cheeks turn hotter. He asked me once about my family, about what my father did for a living. I stammered something about how he worked for a businessman in Tanglewood, how I don’t know exactly what he does.

Not a lie, precisely.

Damon Scott is a businessman, one who deals in flesh and crime.

And my father does work for him, in the way of some old-fashioned indentured servant, one unable to leave. What sort of work he actually does has always been secret, one I’ve never wanted to know, because it pays for my tuition here at school.

“I’m so glad, too,” I say softly, because it’s here that I became a woman.

I may have felt older than my years before, pretending I stood a chance in the urban jungle that was Tanglewood, lifting my chin to the black jaguar that was Damon Scott. Only coming here showed me what a wide world waits outside the city limits.

Only here did I learn that not every man wants you as his prey.

“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable,” he says, turning slightly toward me, and his words have the immediate opposite effect. I like him distracted and academic. I like him focused on something else. When he turns to look at me directly, it makes the air rush from my lungs. “But I do feel like I should say this before you make a decision. I see you as more than a student, Penny. Even more than a research assistant.”

My lips form a shocked O, but I’m unable to speak.

“You’re an uncommonly smart girl.” He makes a wry expression, waving his hand at the books, some of which he’s authored, at the proofs and calculations strewn around the office. “And I’ve made something of a life search for the singular and unique in this world, at least in the confines of dusty shelves. I think perhaps you’re the best find I’ve ever had.”

My heart pounds, hard and fierce, a drum of warning. But I can’t help but be warmed by his words—I think perhaps you’re the best find I’ve ever had. Coming from a man with multiple academic papers and accolades, and even a few patents to his name, it’s a wild compliment.

“I’m not sure what to say.”

He moves as if to touch my knee. It’s something he’s done before, but it takes on a new meaning as he reaches now. But he seems to catch himself, his hand hovering instead. “Only think about it,” he says finally. “I know you’re young. Younger than most students in your position.”

It’s been three years since I left Tanglewood for the first time. I’m nineteen now, but I feel more young than when I left. More aware of all the things I don’t know. All the things I haven’t done. Things like s*x.

“I think of you as more than a professor,” I tell him.

And like before, it’s not quite a lie.

I do think of him in a s****l way, these strange and feverish thoughts that come to me at night. I think of him, having become a woman. I was just a child when Damon Scott visited me in my bedroom, when he held himself away from me. When he gave me my first kiss.

Professor Stanhope gives me a crooked smile, and I have a glimpse of the playboy he could have been had he a less focused mind. Handsome and intelligent and kind.

You’d be safe with me, that smile seems to say.

But I’m not sure I’m ready to resign myself to his dusty shelves, more an intricate proof than a partner, a cherished volume that he would run ink-stained fingers across. I would never go back to Tanglewood. There would be nothing left to hold me there. The thought brings a strange ache to my chest, as if I’ve lost something I can never get back.