She’s at Cal Sci with her parents on a campus tour when she glances at a notice board and happens to see that he’s got a lecture in fifteen minutes. She’s a huge fan of his work on the Eppes Convergence, so she convinces her parents to take a long lunch while she attends.

She expects Professor Eppes to be a modern-day Einstein, old and wrinkled with electric-shock hair. The man who walks on stage can’t be older than twenty, and he’s gorgeous, with curly brown hair and a smile that lights up the whole auditorium. For a moment, Amita thinks he’s a TA who’s there for introductions, but then he introduces himself as Professor Charles Eppes and she has to fight to keep her jaw from dropping.

And Professor Eppes isn’t just a pretty face. Amita’s struck anew by the elegance of the math on the board, and by the enthusiasm on the professor’s face as he talks about his work. Before the talk is over, she’s decided.

Cal Sci has always been her dream school, and Amita’s just found her dream man.

*******

A second dream of Amita’s comes true when Professor Eppes agrees to be her thesis advisor. 

Working with him is amazing, and not just because of his soft curls or those big brown eyes or that delectable ass.  Amita’s grown up surrounded by smart people, but Professor Eppes- Charlie- has them all beat even on his worst days. It’s beautiful to watch, the way his mind just- moves, even if she knows that she’ll never be as good as he is. Amita’s Dad once told her that everything beautiful in this world- art, music, dance- owes something to math, and watching Charlie fly across his boards, she can believe it. Unlike her peers, she doesn’t dread meetings with her advisor- they can go on for hours, bouncing ideas and math off each other, and in those moments Amita feels like an artist, with Charlie as her muse.

Granted, Charlie drives her crazy sometimes, with his disorganization and his absentmindedness and his tendency to not remember the most basic social courtesies when in the grip of math- but even as she struggles to understand the math, she’s conscious of how lucky she is to be on the cutting edge of genius.

*******

Amita has to read the letter twice before it registers.

Harvard.

Harvard wants her to teach there.

As far as dreams go, this is a big one. And it’s just come true. 

She knows she’s not as smart as Charlie- who is, really?- but she is a genius in her own right, has been doing groundbreaking work for the better part of a decade. And now she has objective proof.

Amita reads the letter once again. There it is in black and white, heavy cream paper and official letterhead. Dear Dr. Ramanujan, we would like to offer you a job as a professor in our Computer Science department...

This is more than a job offer. It’s vindication of years of hard work and personal sacrifice, and there’s a rather large part of Amita that wants to throw this in her father’s face, in the face of every madisaar-mallipoo-maami who asked her when she was going to stop all this degree nonsense and find a nice boy.

Thing is, though, she actually has gone and found a nice boy. 

And now she has to choose between letting a decade-old dream go or passing up the chance of a lifetime.

*******

Amita stews over her choices for days, making lists, pondering what-ifs until her head hurts. Harvard is the chance of a lifetime, a chance to break away, see if she really is worth something out of Charlie’s shadow. She knows the rumours, knows what people say. And yet, she can’t choose.

Finally she calls up her Patti, one of the few people in her life she’s always been able to count on for support and honest advice.

She tells her the whole story, about how long she’s waited for a chance, and the choice she’s faced with, between love- or the chance of it- and career.

Her Patti is silent for a while, and then she says, “Kutti, you have to decide. Do you want to be Dr Ramanujan, or Mrs Eppes?”

In a flash, Amita’s life flashes in front of her. And she knows that as much as she wants some dreams, as much as she wants that life, she needs to reach out and grab her reality with both hands.

She thanks her Patti for the advice before hanging up and opening her email program. 

Dear Dr. Adams,

I would be delighted to accept your offer...