Megan found some cash in her bag and left it on the table. “Sorry but... erm... yeah. I kinda do.”
“Go get ‘em, cowgirl!” Della said in her best, laughably off-key, Egyptian-Texan accent. Then she was all business. “Hey! Who does a sexy, single nurse have to screw to get a drink around here?”
***
“You don’t think it was too short? Too much happening in too little time?” Tom asked.
They were relaxing over a drink at one of the few pubs in Boston which wasn’t packed to the rafters with celebrating students. “Well, when there’s basically only one person in the story, it’s easy to imagine it slowing down too much.”
Tom nodded thoughtfully. For Megan, it was great to see him so relaxed, only a week after the crushing anxiety, however brief, of Andrea’s disappearance. Tom was also intensely busy almost every day of the week, she knew. Megan marvelled that he had found the time to watch a movie with her, and had shushed his apologies for parting her from her student friends on what was a big night for them all.
“I liked the slowness, though,” Megan explained. “When Sandra Bullock finally reaches the space station and takes off the suit, there’s that long scene of just her spinning in zero-g and it looks like the most complete relief a person could feel.”
Tom mimed the slow rotation with his hands. “I know exactly what you mean,” he said. “Complete... peace.”
“Very restful,” Megan said, imagining the sensations.
“I’ve thought a thousand times of buying one of those zero-g plane rides, you know the ones?”
Megan giggled. “Isn’t there a good reason they call it the ‘vomit comet’?”
“Sure,” he said, “but I’d still like to give it a try. I think I could manage it if you came with me.”
Megan’s lips pursed, her head shaking vehemently. “I don’t know what you’d need to pay me to go on one of those things. I’d be terrified.”
“Of what?” Tom asked.
Megan thought for a moment, sipping her gin and tonic. “Of losing my bearings. No up, no down. No floor to stand on.”
Tom leaned back, steepled his hands. “That’s what I’d be looking forward to,” he explained. “All the boundaries would melt away. It would just be me, and the universe.”
Megan nodded reflectively. “That’s pretty deep.”
“You wouldn’t want to feel that way? Liberated from all of this?” he asked, glancing around the bar.
“I’m happy to achieve liberation in more traditional ways,” Megan replied, clinking her glass against his pint of Sam Adams.
Tom noticed it was nearly empty. “Can I offer you a refill?” he asked, standing.
“That would be most kind.”
Tom grinned and headed to the bar. Of the many things to admire about Megan, he let himself think as he waited, her peaceable, gentle manner was high on his personal list. He’d scarcely ever seen her become ruffled or upset by something inconsequential. Such level-headedness was prized in business, but Tom found that he gravitated towards just such people in his personal life, too. Mary, he remembered fondly, was not one for yelling or losing her temper; she had taught him equanimity, that special and hard-won ability to ‘keep your head while all around are losing theirs,” as Kipling put it.
Alone at the table, Megan checked her phone and replied to the most recent of three texts from Erica asking how the ‘date’ was going.
Saw ‘Gravity’ and loved it. At the pub. Won’t be late.
She barely had time to spot Tom waiting for his new pint to be poured at the bar before Erica’s reply came in.
Awesome! Wouldn’t it be great to be stuck in space with Tom? All that time and nothing to do...
Megan rolled her eyes and fired back a quick reply.
I’d spend it figuring out how to persuade you to give me a friggin’ break!
“There you go,” Tom said, setting down her glass and taking a seat. “You know, there was one thing I didn’t find convincing about Gravity.”
Megan had expected this. “I know, I know, someone said the orbits were wrong, or whatever, and you’re a space nerd. You were always bound to notice things like that.”
Tom sipped from his pint and shook his head. “No, I ignored that stuff. It was convincing enough, and that’s more than you normally get from Hollywood.”
“So, what then?”
“When she decided to vent all the air and commit suicide. I just didn’t get it. Why not wait until she might be rescued?”
“I guess she’d given up,” Megan reasoned. “Wouldn’t you?”
“I would not,” he said flatly. “There’s always a way. You never know how things are going to turn out.”
Suddenly, Megan realized that Tom might not have been talking about the film. “True,” she said cautiously.
“Do you think it was just her fear of being alone up there?” Tom asked. His warm, interesting, brown eyes met Megan’s in a steady, soft gaze.
“No-one wants to feel cut off, separated from humanity,” she shrugged. ”It’s in our nature.”
It was a simple statement but Tom’s line of thought seemed to go deeper. “We all fear being alone,” he continued. “It goes against our genetics, our culture.” And then, cryptically, he said, “We’re made to be together.”
Megan’s heart leaped high in her chest. Did he just say...?
“I mean, humans...” he said, clarifying his thoughts with a ready smile. “Humans are meant to be in groups, in families. In couples, sure. Without them we’re lost.”
Tread carefully, Megan. There’s a lot of hurt – a whole ocean of it – behind these words. She let the silence last longer than she would have with anyone else. Then, she matched his smile and, almost afraid to meet his eyes with hers, said, “Tom, is this your way of pitying me because of how much it sucks to be single?”
Tom laughed easily, dispelling the heaviness which had briefly settled over them both. “Well, doesn’t it?”
Megan sipped gin as she answered. “Mmm hm.”
“That’s what I can’t believe,” Tom said. “All those nice young doctors and nurses, and none of them worth dating?”
“Oh, God,” Megan said, her annoyance merely a pretence. “Now you’re beginning to sound like Della, and Erica and... Oh, just about everyone I know.”
“Maybe they’re right,” Tom argued.
“They might be right,” Megan conceded, “but what about Mister Right?”
He laughed, but deep down, Tom felt an unpleasant jolt, as if rejected from the pool of men who might, one day, share Megan’s life. The more time they spent together, he didn’t mind admitting to himself, the more he saw what had been in front of him – of them both – for many months now.
He had loved Mary with all his heart and soul, both of which had needed a great deal of time to repair after the brutal pain of her passing. It had been so sudden and so crushingly unfair, coming close to robbing him of his faith in the goodness of the world. That, too, would return in time, and all the quicker with a compassionate, loving guide with whom he could share the journey.
Tom saw that Megan was finishing her drink. “Hey,” he offered, determined to keep the mood light. “What do you say we grab a coffee at my place?”
“Sure,” Megan replied brightly. “But no more talk about my pathetic love life, OK?
“I promise,” Tom said, hand on heart.
“You said that once before, and yet, within minutes, you were making me set up a match.com profile, as I remember.”
“Just looking out for you,” Tom smiled down at her as he held the door open.
Just like you always have, for Andrea. And for me.
***
The town car Tom ordered took them through an unusually crowded and boisterous Kenmore Square, where students had virtually taken over, roaming in cheering bands and delaying traffic. Once they were through the square, Beacon Street was clearer and within a few minutes, they were at Tom’s house in the plush,
green neighborhood of Brookline.
“I’d love to live around here,” Megan commented enviously. “Maybe once I land the perfect job.”
Tom found his keys and let them both in. The house, set back from a quiet street by a small but expertly kept garden and swooping driveway, was a late 19th-century family home, arguably far too large for just Tom and Andrea. Broad windows let in plenty of light, while the generous downstairs rooms included a large dining room where Andrea’s piano occupied much of one wall. There were paintings – nothing Megan recognized, but certainly nothing cheap, either – and a beautiful portrait of Mary, just off center, above the piano. Her kind eyes and almost alabaster complexion gave the room a serenity, but also an unavoidable sadness. Twenty-nine, Megan thought sadly. Another reminder to live every day as though it’s your last.
“I couldn’t even guess,” Tom was saying. “We bought the place in an estate sale after an elderly woman had lived here on her own for nearly forty years.”
Megan was surprised. “All of this, for one person? Sounds unbelievably lonely.”
There was a voice from the top of the stairs. “Mr. McMahon?”
“Hey, Sophia. Everything OK?”
Andrea’s regular sitter – she rejected absolutely the notion of a ‘baby’ sitter – was a plump, pleasant exchange student from Ecuador. “Yes, Mr. McMahon. She’s sleeping. I read her the story about the dragon again. She loves that one.”
Megan knew the one, and smiled at the memory of Andrea playing the parts both of the imperilled princess, and of the handsome young knight slays the giant creature before it had the chance to incinerate his beloved.
“Thanks, Sophia. You can go, if you’re ready. Here,” he said, paying cash for her evening’s work.
“Thank you, Sir,” she said politely. “Oh, hello Megan.”
“Good to see you, Sophia. Thanks for looking after her tonight.”
Megan walked her out while Tom found coffee in the kitchen and began working on the espresso machine. “It is a big place, just for us,” Tom agreed. “I had the same thought, when Mary died. It was strange. Time and again, I heard people using the same funny expression, telling me they hated the thought of me ‘rattling around’ in this big, old place, all on my own. I tried to tell them that I have Andrea, but I guess they were thinking further down the line.”
Tom wasn’t yet thirty-five, and even in the months after Mary’s death, with friends and neighbors doing their best to tread carefully, there had been the natural assumption that he would re-marry at some point.
“You’ll always have her,” Megan assured him. “I’ve never seen a closer family.”
Tom prompted an impressive gush of steam from the espresso maker. “That reminds me. How’s your Dad doing?”
Megan sighed. “There are good days and bad days. Last time I called was a bad day. I’ve offered to go out there and stay with him, but he says that having Harriet there is ‘trouble enough for one old man’.”
“How old is he now? Not yet sixty, right?”
Megan’s sister had promised to take care of their father as he continued his slide into dementia. ‘Early onset senility’ was one of the terms for it, an especially cruel fate for a man so sharp and active in his prime; no sooner had he retired to the more comfortable climate in California, it seemed, than the first signs had become obvious. “Fifty-eight, next birthday,” Megan confirmed. “He’s adamant that I stay over here and get along in my nursing career. I just hope he recognizes me when next I go to Oakland and see them all.”
Tom handed her a fine china cup half-filled with an expertly-produced espresso, and gestured her through to the living room. “You know, Megan, there’s some amazing work going on now with Alzheimer’s and the other degenerative ailments. I’m no expert, but I’m in touch with some people...”
“Thanks, Tom,” Megan said genuinely. “Harriet’s been unstoppable in chasing down every researcher, every lead or drug trial or alternative treatment. She’s got him doing puzzles, taking some Chinese herbal preparation, you name it.”
“Don’t give up hope,” he cautioned, his hand on her knee, warm through her skinny jeans. “With Mary, there was never going to be time, but your Dad has years for something to be discovered.”
Megan took a deep breath and nodded, calmed by Tom’s soft, caring touch. “They always told me I was an optimist, you know, those personality tests?”
Tom nodded. “And I was always the ‘logical-spatial-kinetic’ type, whatever the hell that meant. It’s a good thing to hold on to, you know. Optimism. A cheery view of the world, despite it all.”
Strong coffee and a change of subject brightened their mood. “So,” Megan asked, “it’s not you who’s going into space, but some invention of yours?”
Tom brightened immediately, his inner geek bubbling to the surface at the least provocation. “OK. Remember in the movie when the solar panels on the space station get hit, they just shatter into a billion pieces?”
“Yeah. Looked absolutely lethal.”
“They are,” he confirmed. “Any collision or fracturing and they would become a cloud of razor-sharp fragments traveling at seventeen thousand miles an hour.”
“Bad news.”
“So, NASA decided that they never wanted to risk an astronaut in a space suit for a repair. Instead, they asked us to build a robot which would carry out the work, all on its own, with no risk to the crew.”
“Fascinating. Can a robot really be that independent?”
“With the right software, sure,” Tom assured her, and went into the specifics just enough to stay clear of impenetrable technicalities.
“When my engineers first drafted their design,” he explained, quickly picking up where they’d left off, “it looked like a Roomba or something from a high school science project.”
Megan laughed lightly, taking a seat next to him. “Was the second draft any better?”
“No, not at all. But the fifth and sixth were pretty good. It’s an exhausting process,” Tom confided. “Plus, no-one’s ever designed a machine for cleaning in space.”
“You’re kidding,” Megan said. “How does something in space get dirty?”
Tom’s hand went to her knee as if to help correct her misunderstanding. “Not dirty,” he explained carefully, “dusty”.
“I see.”
Tom was thoroughly in his element now. “There’s dust everywhere,” he said. “If the panels get coated with it, their efficiency drops and that’s when we need the little cleaning robot to come out of its bay,” he said, gentle fingers on Megan’s thigh mapping the machine’s movements, “and slide along the solar array, vacuuming up all the dust.” By the time his demonstration was finished, his fingertips were doing a pretty good impression of stroking Megan’s upper thigh.
The combination of Tom’s factual science and his slow, arousing thigh massage was almost too much to bear, but Megan decided to play along. It’s even sexier if we don’t talk about it, she thought to herself. Her mouth went dry. In complete contrast to the sensation she was beginning to feel between her legs.
“So, how long are these arrays? They looked huge in the movie.” Their coffees sat, forgotten, on the table.
Tom nodded, his fingers drawing slowly outward from the center of Megan’s thigh. “The main modules are all in the center here, and the arrays are in sets which radiate outward.” Pairs of fingers traced out towards her knee. “On both sides of the station.” Tom returned to the center and then drew the arrays, in sequence, first those nearest him, which finished at Megan’s hip bone, and then those further away. Closer to her growing warmth.
There was a plaintive wail from upstairs. Tom had covered the dozen steps before Megan even realized he had moved. She followed, and saw Tom cradling his daughter, her face twisted with the pain of her latest nightmare.
“Only a dream, sport,” Tom found himself saying, again and again. “You want to come for a ride with Megan and me? Just to her place, and back?”<
br />
It was a hastily conceived distraction but it seemed to do the trick. Strapped into the back seat, Andrea had Boston’s night-time lights and traffic to occupy her, staring out of the windows as if driving through a movie version of their town. Megan frequently glanced back to check she was OK.
“Erica’s got drinks on standby,” she said, putting away her phone. “I’ve still got enough energy to celebrate Finals Friday a little while longer.”
“You’ve earned it,” Tom offered. “Have yourself a great time, and... Well, I’d like to do this again soon,” Tom said. “If you’d like to?”
Megan could think of nothing else in the world she wanted more. Since settling into the passenger seat of Tom’s comfortable Mercedes, she had let her mind wander into the territory of what might have been, had Andrea not woken up. Or if they had been at her place. Alone. They were exciting, reckless, almost forbidden thoughts, and all the more enticing for it. What’s going on? I spent all this time thinking nothing would ever happen between Tom and I, and now I’m not resisting when it is starting to happen?
“Tomorrow night?” Megan asked, feeling brazen.
Tom smiled, glanced around, checking his mental calendar. “You know, that might work quite well.”
“An early bite?” Megan offered.
“Perfect. I’ll let Sophia know.” The Mercedes pulled up outside Megan’s place and she leaned over to kiss Tom’s cheek. He turned, letting his face press gently against hers for a precious moment.
“Tomorrow, then?” Tom nodded and Megan glanced to the back seat. “Goodnight, munchkin,” she said, but Andrea was fast asleep.
The scheming, needy part of her brain lit up. Andrea won’t see, if you kiss him again. Why not?
But her hand was already opening the door. Go back, and kiss that gorgeous man. Her legs swung out of the car. What are you doing? But she was already waving from the door and on her way upstairs.
The rest of the evening was divided between drinking to celebrate the end of her exams and repeatedly pushing Erica away from her favorite subject: Megan’s love life. By midnight she found herself tired but sleepless, laying in the dark. Her thoughts wouldn’t obey her tired mind, only her restless body, journeying solely where her arousal directed them.
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