The Love Hypothesis

Despite how romantic comedies usually go, there are two beds in the hotel room. Olive claims the free bed and thinks through her schedule. Her talk is later that day, and after that, she’ll hang out with her friends. It’s likely she’ll be asleep by the time Adam gets back to the room, and the next morning, she can pretend to sleep if he’s getting ready. All in all, the arrangement is far better than she feared and probably won’t “make things worse than they currently were” (219).

Adam arrives in the room and, for a moment, can only stare at Olive in her black dress and heels. She is similarly hypnotized by the sight of him in a suit jacket. After a few awkward moments, Olive asks if he’s still coming to her talk, adding she hopes it will be mostly deserted since it overlaps with the keynote address. The moment after she says this, she notices Adam’s ID badge, which lists him as the keynote speaker. Adam won’t be able to come to her talk, after all. They wish each other luck before he leaves the hotel room.

Olive’s talk goes well, and she makes plans with her friends to get drinks after dropping her stuff back in her hotel room. While she gathers up her things, Tom starts up a conversation about next year and tries to force himself on her. Olive pushes him away, and Tom laughs. He insults her by telling her he didn’t accept her research because she’s a good scientist. Rather, he’s sure she had sex with Adam to get into his good graces, adding “We both know you’re going to fuck me for the same reason” (229).

Olive threatens to tell Adam about Tom. Tom shrugs this off, certain Adam will believe him over Olive. Olive says she won’t come to work at his lab either, but Tom shrugs this off, too. He was the only person who responded to Olive’s request for a lab placement. Even more, Olive sent him all her research information, so he could duplicate her work and pass it off as his own. Olive runs from the room.

Back in the hotel room, Olive’s been crying for 20 minutes when Adam arrives. She makes up a story about people from the audience at her talk saying she only got on the panel because she’s Adam’s girlfriend. Tom’s words and threats keep her from telling the truth. Adam gets quietly angry. Olive tells him she doesn’t care what people think, and Adam homes in on that as Olive’s problem. She does care because she believes what they say, adding that she needs to forget whoever said these things because their words speak “nothing of you and a whole lot of them” (235).

Overwhelmed by his kind steadiness, Olive embraces him and cries. He holds her until she stops. Instead of going to the Stanford department social, they go get Olive some alcohol elsewhere.