Wherever the Dandelion Falls Read Online Free

went back to my desk.
    A few days later, I arrived ten minutes early at the coffee shop where Faye Nguyen of The Chronicle and I had planned to meet. When she arrived three minutes late, I was stunned by how beautiful she was. Her hair was perfectly pulled back and her makeup was impeccable. Her blouse was starched and her pencil skirt looked like it had been tailored to her body. She was younger than I thought she would be. Suddenly I was intimidated.
    She looked around the coffee shop for a moment before I raised my hand. When she reached the table, she quickly shook my hand as she reached into her bag and pulling out a long, narrow recording device. She placed it on the table without ceremony and turned it on. "Miss Montgomery, would you state your job for the record?"
    I was taken aback by the lack of introduction on Faye's part. Weren't we supposed to talk about what I was going to say? The direction of the article?
    "I'm an assistant at Turner Research Institute.”
    "And how did you get into that?" she asked.
    It was a dry question with an even dryer answer. I'd liked neuroscience in college and decided to get a Master's in it because I didn't have a plan for after college. It was the answer I'd given at every social gathering I'd attended for the last three years and I was tired of it. So this time I answered the question differently.
    "I was in an elevator and I said the right thing," I responded.
    She looked up for the first time in our conversation. "Said the right thing to whom?"
    "To my professor."
    "Okay..." she said, looking down at her notes again with a shake of her head. "What would you say is the most exciting part of your job?"
    In all honesty, I wanted to say payday. It was the day I paid off my credit card and picked up a gourmet salad for lunch instead of my pre-packed sandwich or leftover lasagna. But that, again, was a boring answer.
    "Probably this interview," I said.
    She looked up at me again. She paused, as if she wanted to ask more questions, but in the end she stuck to her original script. "Can you give me some insight into what it's like to be a woman in a male-dominated field?"
    I tried not to roll my eyes at the question. "No better than you can."
    She took her notes out of her lap, pursing her lips in frustration. "Do you want to do this interview or not?"
    I hadn't realized I'd be so bristly. "I do. But it seems like these questions are something I could have answered over email." I paused, taking a risk. "Do you want to do this interview?"
    She looked at the recording device and its flashing red light. After a moment she clicked it off and lowered her voice from her journalistic façade. "Look, I get it," she said. "I know these interest pieces suck. I was assigned to this column because I'm a woman and the newspaper is doing a feature on sexism in the workplace. So please... just answer the questions so we can get out of here."
    I was surprised by her candidness. Although she was still bristly, she was at least honest. That made me like her more.
    "Okay," I said, nodding towards the recording device.
    She gave me a relieved sigh and clicked it on. "So Miss Montgomery, what's it like to be a woman in a male-dominated field?"
    I thought for a second before I began to speak.
    "When most people ask this question, they want to hear one of two things: that it's not a big deal and I'm just doing what I love, or that I've hit the glass ceiling and will spend the rest of my life pushing against it. But neither of those scenarios is interesting. Being a woman in my field is no different from being a woman in most fields. The strangest thing to me is when someone gives me a pat on the back for the kind of work I do, as if I'm somehow genetically different from other women for liking science. It's like having a vagina precludes me from liking certain things."
    She gave me a look of surprise and pleasant curiosity at my genuine response. "Do you get asked that a lot?"
    "If having a vagina precludes me