Her office was small and narrow, with barely enough room for her desk. Because she was new, she was assigned to Bascom Hall at the top of Bascom Hill, a building that had been around for most of the university's history. The Hall's historic walls didn't accommodate new technology, so the university made certain she had a fancy desk with a built-in screen. The problem with that was that when she did extensive research, as she was doing now, she had to look down. She often downloaded information to her palmtop or worked at home. Working in her office, in the thin light provided by the ancient fluorescents and the dirty meshed window, gave her a headache.
But she was nearly done. Tomorrow, she would take the students from the horrors of trench warfare to the first steps toward US involvement. The bulk of the lecture, though, would focus on isolationism--a potent force in both world wars.
A knock on her door brought her to the twenty-first century. She rubbed the bridge of her nose impatiently. She wasn't holding office hours. She hated it when students failed to read the signs.
"Yes?" she asked.
"Professor Cross?"
"Yes?"
"May I have a moment of your time?"
The voice was male and didn't sound terribly young, but many of her students were older.
"A moment," she said, using her desktop to unlock the door. "I'm not having office hours."
The knob turned and a man came inside. He wasn't very tall, and he was thin--a runner's build. It wasn't until he turned toward her, though, that she let out a groan.
"Professor Franke."
He held up a hand. "I'm sorry to disturb you--"
"You should be," she said. "I purposely didn't answer your message."
"I figured. Please. Just give me a few moments."
She shook her head. "I'm not interested in being the subject of any study. I don't have time."
"Is it the time? Or is it the fact that the study has to do with Millennium Babies?" His look was sharp.
"Both."
"I can promise you that you'll be well compensated. And if you'll just listen to me for a moment, you might reconsider--"
"Professor Franke," she said, "I'm not interested."
"But you're a key to the study."
"Why?" she asked. "Because of my mother's lawsuits?"
"Yes," he said.
She felt the air leave her body. She had to remind herself to breathe. The feeling was familiar. It had always been familiar. Whenever anyone talked about Millennium Babies, she had this feeling in her stomach.
Millennium Babies. No one had expected the craze, but it had become apparent by March of 1999. Prospective parents were timing the conception of their children as part of a race to see if their child could be the first born in 2000--the New Millennium, as the pundits of the day inaccurately called it. There was a more-or-less informal international contest, but in the United States, the competition was quite heavy. There were other races in every developed country, and in every city. And in most of those places, the winning parent got a lot of money, and a lot of products, and some, those with the cutest babies, or the pushiest parents, got endorsements as well.
"Oh, goodie," Brooke said, filling her voice with all the sarcasm she could muster. "My mother was upset that I didn't get exploited enough as a child so you're here to fill the gap."
His back straightened. "It's not like that."
"Really? How is it then?" She regretted the words the moment she spoke them. She was giving Franke the opening he wanted.
"We've chosen our candidates with care," he said. "We are not taking babies born randomly on January 1 of 2000. We're taking children whose birth was planned, whose parents made public statements about the birth, and whose parents hoped to get a piece of the pie."
"Wonderful," she said. "You're studying children with dysfunctional families."
"Are we?" he asked.
"Well, if you study me, you are," she said and stood. "Now, I'd like it if you'd leave."
"You haven't let me finish."
"Why should I?"
"Because this study might help you, Professor Cross."'
"I'm doing fine without your help."
"But you never talk about your Millennium Baby status."
"And how often do you discuss the day you were born, Professor?"
"My birthday is rather unremarkable," he said. "Unlike yours."
She crossed her arms. "Get out."
"Remember that I study human potential," he said. "And you all have the same beginnings. All of you come from parents who had the same goal--parents who were driven to achieve something unusual."
"Parents who were greedy," she said.
"Some of them," he said. "And some of them planned to have children anyway, and thought it might be fun to try to join the contest."
"I don't see how our beginnings are relevant."
He smiled, and she cursed under her breath. As long as she talked to him, as long as she asked thinly veiled questions, he had her and they both knew it.
)
It is thirty years since the turn of the second millennium, and University of Wisconsin professor Brooke Cross is approached by a colleague in the sociology department to participate in his study of successful--and unsuccessful--Millennium Babies. Brooke was one of the unsuccessful ones. She was born at five minutes past midnight 2000, and the extra four minutes cost her mother the fame and fortune of having the first baby of the new millenium--and has never let her forget it. As Brooke progresses through the unorthodox tests and meetings, she is forced to confront the bitter relationship she has with her mother, and the overpowering sense of failure that has haunted her since childhood.
