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Sasha went on.
    “You know, all of it really, quantum optics, semiconductors and dielectrics…”
    “So not a big cookery fan, then?”
    “Cookery?”
    “That was a joke.” Georgia looked at her new friend with a combination of admiration and pity. Clearly she was going to have to introduce Sasha to the concept of fun. “Look, I get it. You’re Einstein.”
    “Oh, no.” Sasha was mortified. “I didn’t mean to imply…I’m nothing special. Certainly not by Cambridge standards.”
    “Bollocks to Cambridge standards,” said Georgia robustly. “You’re obviously an evil genius or you wouldn’t be here. You’ve probably got a
laser
in your room.
Do you have a laser, Scott?
” She put on her best Dr. Evil voice but it went right over Sasha’s head. “Never mind. The point is, we’re at St. Michael’s now.” Grabbing Sasha’s hand, she dragged her over to the window. Outside, the college’s picture-postcard courts and bridges lay spread out below them like a wonderland. “Our mission is to have the time of our fucking lives,” said Georgia. “Are you with me?”
    Somehow Sasha knew instinctively that this was a rhetorical question. Georgia Frobisher was a force of nature. Sasha was with her whether she liked it or not.
    From that day on the two girls were inseparable. The outgoing, flirtatious blonde and the quiet, mysterious brunette were the talk of freshers week. Party invitations flooded into Georgia’s and Sasha’s mail slots—all the third-year Casanovas had bets on who would be the first to get one of them into bed—but even Georgia found that she had less time for partying than she’d hoped, what with all the paperwork and reading lists, seminars, supervisions—which were one-on-one meetings with professors—and of course, exploring Cambridge itself.
    “It’s an architect’s paradise,” sighed Georgia, wandering from college to college, where exquisite Gothic buildings huddled cheek by jowl with some truly stunning modern architecture. Treasure troves that they were, there was more to Cambridge than the colleges. There was Kettle’s Yard Gallery and centuries-old pubs like the Pickerel with its low beams and roaring log fire.There were the grand museums on Downing Street, and Parker’s Piece, and the teashop at Grantchester that let you moor punts in the garden. There were quaint cobbled alleys, magnificent churches, precious pink-painted cottages, and outrageous neoclassical mansions. And it was
theirs
. It was all
theirs
.
    For Sasha, the highlight of her first week was the tour of the Cavendish laboratory. Possibly the ugliest building in England, and certainly the ugliest in Cambridge, to Sasha Miller it was the most mesmerizing thing she had ever seen. This was where the magic happened! This was the Emerald City of Oz. The third-year physicist from Magdalene who showed her around didn’t appear to share Sasha’s enthusiasm. A skinny, greasy-haired boy with a Birmingham accent and acne so severe that he was more spot than face, he led Sasha from room to room with a look of pained ennui.
Doesn’t he realize that we’re standing on the frontier of experimental physics? That we’re walking in the shadows of the great Cavendish professors, of Maxwell and Thompson, Bragg and Mott?
Sasha couldn’t wait to call Will tonight and tell him all about it.
    They emerged into the daylight—to Sasha’s regret and her guide’s relief, the tour was over—and Sasha noticed an extraordinarily good-looking blond man surrounded by an admiring throng of female undergraduates.
    “Who’s that?”
    “Professor Dexter.” The boy’s Brummie accent made him sound even more bored. “Fancy him, do yow?”
    Sasha blushed. “Don’t be so ridiculous. I wondered what the fuss was about, that’s all. The man’s being mobbed.”
    “Well. You’ll find out for yerself soon enough, won’t yow?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “You’re at St. Michael’s?”
    Sasha nodded.
    “So’s he. Physics