by Nancy Werlin
Why not do it today? Didn’t it concern me, too? In fact, this morning at the nursing home, I had actually wondered what would happen if I showed my mother a picture of Dr. Wyatt. What if, next week—
No.
I took a deep breath. Okay, Viv wasn’t around. My father was out of the question. More exercise was probably my best choice. I could go running for real, ten miles or more, as fast as I could. I could take a kayak out on the river. I could go to the YMCA and do a weight circuit.
Instead I sat down abruptly on a bench at a Central Square bus stop, pulled out my cell phone, and called information. And I should have been surprised, but somehow I wasn’t, when I discovered that Dr. Quincy Wyatt had a listed Cambridge phone number.
The phone company was already connecting me. If I was going to hang up, now was the time—now, before it rang.
I didn’t hang up. I felt my sweaty fingers clutching the phone as it rang once. Twice.
He answered.
“It’s Eli Samuels, Dr. Wyatt,” I blurted. “I’m wondering if you’re available—that is, if you’d like to meet me this afternoon to talk? Maybe in Harvard Square? We could have coffee or something.”
A pause. I could visualize Judith Ryan’s sneer, and was filled with shame at my presumption. I was asking Dr. Wyatt to hang out with me as if he were a kid like me.
But then he replied, warmly, “Hello, Eli. What a coincidence. I was just thinking about you. In fact, would you like to come over for dinner tonight? I have a young friend visiting whom I think you should meet.”
I almost dropped my phone. I was astonished—and incredibly pleased. And sorry. “Oh, no, I can’t. I have a date with my girlfriend tonight. Viv, you know. But maybe another time—”
Dr. Wyatt interrupted. “All right, then why don’t you come on over to my house now? It’s a few streets north of Harvard Square. Let me give you directions.”
CHAPTER 13
DR. WYATT’S DIRECTIONS took me to a large, meticulously restored yellow-and-green wooden Victorian house on Avon Hill—one of the most exclusive neighborhoods in Cambridge. Even in the days when my mother was earning a full salary as an economics professor at the Harvard Business School, we - couldn’t have afforded to live in a place like this.
Well, few could. The house was the kind of gracious, enormous old building that, all over the city, had been gutted and renovated into four or five separate condominiums. Buying an apartment in such a house would cost six or seven hundred thousand dollars. A whole house—I couldn’t imagine. Millions?
It was the kind of thing Viv might know. I would describe the house to her tonight.
I shouldn’t have been so shocked. Dr. Wyatt was world-famous ; he ran a large, profitable corporation. And for all I knew, he might have a private fortune besides; there was something so sophisticated about him, he probably had a wealthy background. It was just—I groped—the contrast to Dr. Wyatt’s small cramped office at work. I’d assumed that he wouldn’t care about his surroundings. That he’d live in some apartment more or less like ours, regardless of what he could afford.
The house even had grounds, sort of: a large, lush green lawn and flower beds, surrounded by a decorative iron fence. Land surrounding a residence was scarce in Cambridge; most houses were lucky to have handkerchief-size yards. This, by contrast, was the kind of place that Viv’s employers at the garden center got seasonal contracts to keep beautiful.
My initial shame at having telephoned Dr. Wyatt today came back even more strongly. He wasn’t some teenager to hang out with to stave off boredom! I stood on the sidewalk before the house and swallowed hard. It occurred to me that I didn’t even know if Dr. Wyatt was married. I’d assumed he was not—something about him had made me assume that—but maybe he lived here with a wife and children, even grandchildren.
I hadn’t even thought to shower and change before coming. Just because Dr. Wyatt had said “now” didn’t mean I - couldn’t have said I’d come in an hour. I was only wearing a plain T-shirt and shorts and sneakers—and, worse, anyone would be able to smell the dried sweat from my just having played basketball. I was tempted to pull out my cell phone again, call Dr. Wyatt, and make some excuse.
Just then, the front door of his house opened and a vision—a fairy princess in a white tennis dress—stepped firmly out onto the wraparound porch.
Long slender legs and arms extended smoothly from her minuscule dress. Silky brown hair cascaded gently to her waist. She reached up with one tanned bare arm and hand, pulled off a pair of sunglasses, and, cocking her head to the left, called to me. “Hey! We want to know if you’re going to stand out there all day, or if you’ll come in.”
I got the eeriest sense of familiarity from her—as if I had seen her before in some dream. Then Dr. Wyatt appeared behind her, waving me toward the porch.
I had no memory of unlatching the iron gate and moving up the walk. Suddenly I was simply on the porch with them, being introduced, hoping that the vision didn’t notice that I had to surreptitiously wipe my palm on my shorts before I could shake hands with her.
“Kayla Matheson,” Dr. Wyatt was saying. “The young friend I mentioned on the phone. Her parents—old friends—have entrusted her to me for the summer while she does an internship at a Boston publisher.”
I’d always thought those photos of models in magazines were airbrushed, but Kayla was living proof that they weren’t necessarily a lie. I thought dizzily of a fawn . . . of an Arabian pony . . . some beautiful animal of fragile appearance, yet strong, leggy, vibrantly alive. Up close, I could see that she had the most amazing eyes: wide set, almost amber in color.
I had to say something to her or she’d think I was an idiot. “Publishing?” I asked. Why hadn’t I showered before coming, why?
“I might want to be an editor,” she said. “It’s a possibility. Right now, though, I’m just an English major. I’ll do the internship this summer and see what I think. Also, I’m going to be helping Q with his new book manuscript.”
She called Dr. Wyatt Q? Weirdly, hearing that brought me back to myself a little. I turned to him. “You’re working on a new book, Dr. Wyatt?”
“Yes. Not my usual university press sort of book. This is more popular science. I’m hoping to interest a wider audience, an intelligent educated readership—which is why Kayla will make the perfect assistant. She can tell me when I get too obscure or detailed. I wouldn’t mind talking to you about it sometime, too, Eli. I think you’d be interested. The working title is Genetics and Self-Control. There are some relationships to the things we were discussing at dinner the other night.”
I nodded. “Sure. I’d be flattered.”
He smiled. “Good. That’s a bonus. I have to admit that when you called a little while ago, my first thought was simply that you’d make good company for Kayla this summer. She only arrived a couple of days ago, and is already a little restless, I can tell.”
“I’ve been wishing for someone to play tennis with,” Kayla said. “Do you play?”
I had to look at her again, and the moment I did, I was lost. “Uh, yeah,” I managed.
“Do you run?” she demanded next.
“Yeah.”
“Excellent!” Kayla twirled toward Dr. Wyatt. “Q, you were right.”
I glanced at Dr. Wyatt and found him looking straight back at me, an expression of contentment and approval on his face. “Well, shall we go inside?” he said. “I believe I promised Eli some iced coffee.”
Just then, Kayla tossed her head and some delicious scent wafted toward me from her hair. Ice, I thought. Yes. Please.
The house’s interior was everything its exterior had promised. Kayla showed me around while Dr. Wyatt talked to someone named Raquel about the coffee. As a way to combat the effect Kayla was having on me, I tried to focus on the details of the house. Large rooms, opening gracefully off a big central foyer with a staircase. Shining wood floors, even in the kitchen. Walls painted strong colors: navy blue, bloodred. Tall bookcases
built in everywhere, and crammed with books. Big airy open windows that ran almost floor to ceiling. Heavy wide sofas and chairs that were slipcovered in cotton, and solid-looking tables of mahogany and oak. Oriental rugs.
Everything gleamed.
Kayla paused halfway up the wide staircase in the foyer. From where I stood at the bottom of the stairs, I could see a cushioned window seat beneath an oval abstract stained glass window on the landing above. “Don’t you want to see Q’s office and the bedrooms?” she asked.
I was curious to see if Dr. Wyatt’s home office would be as messy as his one at work, or if it would be pristine, like this house. The two images, so different, still jarred me. But it was more important that I not see Kayla near any bed. “Not right now,” I said. “I need to duck into the bathroom here.” I turned my back to her. I felt huge relief the second I closed the door and was alone.
When I didn’t have to look at Kayla, her effect lessened. I - could remember that fifteen minutes ago, she hadn’t been in the world at all, as far as I was concerned. I reminded myself that I had a girlfriend, and that I preferred to run alone. And that I’d wanted to talk to Dr. Wyatt, to tell him about my week. That I’d wanted him to be my friend. How could I talk to Dr. Wyatt in front of her? It would be better, far better, if Kayla weren’t here.
As I assembled this defensive edifice, I whipped off my T-shirt, grabbed the soap, and washed up in the sink as well and as quickly as I could. Only when I was done did I realize that the soap was scented and that I now smelled like a floral arrangement.
I stared into the mirror. Viv thought I was good-looking. Hot. Was I really?
There was a soft rap at the bathroom door. “Eli?” Kayla’s voice. “We’re in the sunporch. Just through the kitchen?”
“Okay,” I called. “Be right there.” I realized that I still - didn’t know who else might be in this house. It was still a possibility that Dr. Wyatt had a wife and children.
But I didn’t think so.
I looked again at my face in the mirror. I took a deep breath.
Then I went out to have iced coffee with Dr. Wyatt and Kayla Matheson.
CHAPTER 14
IT WASN’T THAT I forgot about my date with Viv that night. How could I forget? I had done all kinds of planning. I had gotten a reservation at The Top of the Hub, one of the most elegant restaurants in Boston. I had bought a nice linen jacket that actually fit, and had carefully tucked two hundred dollars in cash into my wallet. And Viv had told me four times about her new short black silk tank dress. “I’ve never worn anything like this before,” she’d warned. “You’ll die!”
There was no way I could have forgotten. I just . . . stood her up. Viv waited alone at the restaurant, all dressed up and perfumed, for two hours, from seven o’clock to nine o’clock that evening, and I never came.
I don’t have an excuse, or an explanation that makes sense. I know my behavior was—unbelievable. Cruel. Or Viv’s word: unforgivable. But it was just . . . it was that . . .
It was that, as afternoon faded into evening and I sat talking with Dr. Wyatt and Kayla Matheson on the sunporch, I was somehow unable to leave. I couldn’t get enough of watching—surreptitiously—how the light from the sunset created a reddish shimmer around Kayla’s hair. And the conversation flowed so easily between the three of us—Dr. Wyatt dominating, of course.
Was consciousness, self-awareness, something that really existed, or was it only the by-product of the operation of a certain type of computer, the human mind? And what about emotions? How did they come to exist?
And: “Eli, sit down. You can’t leave yet,” Dr. Wyatt said commandingly, the couple of times I made have-to-leave-now noises.
I didn’t want to be rude to him. Or to Kayla.
And I thought that there was plenty of time. I lost track somehow. At first, it was still afternoon, and I wasn’t supposed to meet Viv at the restaurant until seven. And she’d said, too, that she would probably be at least fifteen minutes late, that it would take her a while to get ready after a day spent mucking around with people’s gardens and lawns.
If only I had arranged to pick her up at her home. At least she wouldn’t have had to wait so publicly. But she had thought that I needed to be at the restaurant exactly on time to ensure we wouldn’t lose our reservation.
So. What happened is that suddenly it was seven-thirty, and Dr. Wyatt was ushering Kayla and me through the house, saying the cook had prepared a lasagna and we’d be eating in the dining room. It was a special occasion, after all, with both of us young people there.
He just assumed I was staying for dinner. Even though I had mentioned to him earlier that I was busy, he had forgotten. But that didn’t matter. It was my fault. My fault, because I didn’t do anything. I didn’t say a word to Dr. Wyatt. I sat down at the dining room table and listened, and ate, and talked.
What was I thinking? Oh, any number of asinine things. That it would be rude to Dr. Wyatt and Kayla to turn on my cell phone—even though somewhere in me I knew Viv would be calling frantically. That I couldn’t reach Viv if I tried, because she didn’t carry a cell phone. Mostly, though, I was thinking that I’d just make it right with her later. I’d abase myself. Apologize. Make some excuse. This was Viv, after all. She’d understand about my not wanting to be rude to Dr. Wyatt. Viv always understood. She had not, after all, even said a single word about her disappointment when she hadn’t met my parents at graduation. We’d gone on, since then, with things between us just the same as they had always been.
She’d figured out, I thought, that it was best not to rock the boat. Not to push Serious Discussions on me about abstract things like honesty and openness and trust that I didn’t want to talk about.
And maybe, also, for a little while that evening, as I listened to Dr. Wyatt, as I stole glances at Kayla—maybe I did forget about Viv. Maybe I just really forgot.
This was Dr. Quincy Wyatt, after all. I was in his home. I was his guest.
And Kayla.
And then there was the conversation. Okay, it was more lecture than conversation. But that didn’t matter; it was a lecture by Dr. Wyatt on the topics he planned to address in his new book, and I was privileged to hear it.
“Decades ago, Linus Pauling contended that scientists are obliged, in good conscience, to take an active part in forming public opinion in matters to do with science. I’ve come to see his wisdom on this point. We can’t sit back and leave important science policy in the hands of politicians and pundits or”—there was the slightest glance at me—“alarmist writers of science fiction. Face it, most people are unbelievable idiots. They hear one poorly researched, supposedly balanced story on National Public Radio—on stem-cell research, for example—and they’re arrogant enough to think they’re now capable of making decisions that will influence the rest of humanity. Hogwash! They have no training in these areas. Their opinions simply should not matter.”
Kayla prompted, “So, in your book . . .”
“In my book, I hope, I will convince the reading public that they ought to consult and trust scientists’ opinions in many difficult scientific matters. And I hope, also, that I will convince my fellow scientists to eschew so-called ‘political correctness’ and speak openly those truths that they—that we—know are truths. To speak their consciences.”
He went on, articulate, eloquent, and if I didn’t quite understand what he was driving at when he spoke about politics and public policy—though Kayla seemed to—I didn’t care. And one thing he said that night struck me so forcefully that I knew I would always remember it.
“Of course, it’s impossible to work in biotechnology without being haunted by those famous words of Maurice Wilkins. ‘DNA, you know, is Midas’s gold. Everybody who touches it goes mad.’ ” He stopped talking for a moment, then repeated it, gravely, thoughtfully. “Midas’s gold. Dangerous stuff, in short. And even an advocate such as I cannot deny that it behooves us to be careful, indeed.”
When I left, and got
into the cab that Dr. Wyatt had called for me, it was after ten o’clock. But I knew there was no way I could have left earlier. I couldn’t have. I had been meant to be at Dr. Wyatt’s house tonight. It was fate. I could go out with Viv anytime, after all.
But I would go see her now. I would apologize, and she would forgive me, and we would reschedule our dinner, and it would be no big deal.
I gave the cab driver Viv’s address, and pulled out my cell phone to call her. But she wasn’t at home. Only Viv’s mother was there, at first relieved to hear from me . . . and suddenly screaming, exploding with how worried she and Viv had been—where had I been anyway?—and then, finally, answering my question and telling me where I would find Viv now.
At my apartment. With my father.
Mrs. Fadiman was going to call them right now and tell them to expect me.
CHAPTER 15
“I THOUGHT SOMETHING terrible must have happened to you!” Viv was wearing the little black silk dress that she had told me about, and she’d been right: It looked cute and sexy on her, even now, even though it was creased and sweaty. Nevertheless, Viv was a wreck. Her hair was crushed on one side; her mascara had smeared around her eyes. And suddenly—because of Kayla’s perfection?—I could see all the little flaws. The askew mouth. The short waist. The uncared-for nails.
Guilt—and, shamefully, impatience—geysered up inside me.
“I’m sorry,” I said for the umpteenth time. Of course she was entitled to hours of apologies, but I hadn’t been permitted to say anything but “sorry, sorry, sorry” since I’d come in. For some reason this wasn’t going as easily as I had thought it would.
Viv stood in the exact middle of our living room. She was clutching her arms in front of herself, cupping her elbows, glaring at me. Her mouth was trembling. “I’m sorry,” I repeated to my father, who was leaning against the wall near the kitchen. The silence that followed let me think that I finally would be allowed to speak. “I didn’t mean anyone to worry,” I said. “It was—it was . . .” I discovered that I didn’t, after all, have much to say. The excuses I’d been sure would occur to me when I needed them did not materialize. I found myself shrugging. “Something came up,” I said, and I could hear the edge in my voice. So, I knew, could they.