Pascal's Wager by Nancy Rue Read Free Book Online

frizzy mop of chocolate brown hair and flipped open her calendar. I attempted to edge past her, but she actually put out a hand to stop me.
    â€œIt’s the one before the seminar on wavelets or something. Doesn’t matter, I don’t know 90 percent of what they’re talking about at those things anyway.”
    Deb had a point there. Guest speakers came in to give seminars on a fairly frequent basis. Hence, the “tea”—a tray of bank cookies, a loaf of sourdough bread or two, a little fruit and a hunk of cheese—which grad students took turns setting up beforehand. The speakers were so specialized that you practically had to be a specialist yourself in the topic field or most of it was likely to blow by you. But everybody knew that was the case. I could never see why Deb claimed it made her feel like an illiterate moron.
    â€œI’ll pick up some cookies,” I said. “This is not the inaugural banquet, Deb. Relax.”
    â€œOkay, okay, you’re such a calming influence. Nothing bothers you. How do you do that?”
    I shrugged and started up the steps again.
    â€œWhere are you going?” she said. “I thought you had a class this morning.”
    â€œI have to see Nigel.”
    â€œWhat a way to start the day. I hope you’ve had at least three cups of coffee.”
    Actually, I didn’t usually drink coffee. Jacoboni called me an “oddity” there, too, because I didn’t kick off every day on a caffeinehigh. I definitely didn’t need it for a chat with Nigel. We had a great relationship: I did the work, he approved it, we both looked good. I didn’t see how cappuccino could improve on that.
    His office door was open, and he was standing up at the dry-erase board on the wall, tapping his chin with a marker. Most of the time I saw him behind his desk, so when I did come upon him standing up, it always struck me how big he actually was, which was probably part of the reason most undergraduates in his classes found him intimidating. He was definitely rotund, but in a distinguished way. At least he had the good taste to go to a bigger size than he’d worn in his forties, rather than let his shirts gape open at the buttons or his belly hang over his belt.
    I tapped lightly on the door. “Dr. Frost?”
    He turned and looked quizzically over his half-glasses, then gave me a brisk nod. I’d noticed my first year there that the gray fringe that was left on his balding head matched his moustache exactly in content as well as color.
    â€œCome in,” he said, slipping the half-glasses into his shirt pocket. He headed in his typical unhurried fashion toward his desk. We were going into advisor-student mode. It was a safe bet he was going to bug me again about doing a teaching seminar.
    â€œI got your note,” I said. “Did you want to talk about—”
    â€œSit down,” he said. “There’s something you need to read.”
    The half-glasses went back on, and he scanned his neatly organized desktop with his eyes. Jacoboni could have taken a few lessons from him in office decorum. Heck, maybe Nigel was going to assign me a new officemate.
    â€œTake a look at this.” He produced a copy of
K-Theory
, which I recognized as one of about three hundred journals published monthly for math fanatics. “Page twelve,” he said. “It’s marked.”
    â€œMore background reading?” I asked. “I thought I’d covered all that already.” Covered it—ha. I’d read my eyes into an almost permanent bloodshot state my third year before I’d started my own research.
    â€œJust read it,” he said.
    His face was, as usual, impassive as he rocked back in his chair and crossed his legs. You could never read him, which was probably another thing that intimidated his undergrads. Tabitha would have complete cardiac arrest if she ever got into one of Nigel’s classes.
    I flipped