Tiona_a sequel to Vaz

by Laurence Dahners

  For a few moments he considered just giving up, but then, remembering the stories about his father’s persistent pursuit of Nolan’s mother, he resolved to keep trying. So far, he hadn’t gone to anything like the lengths his father had.

  Tiona sat staring sightlessly at her experimental set up, her mind running in circles. Nolan’s membranes didn’t move when she applied her current, but she realized she had no idea what that meant. The fact that hers moved, but his stayed stationary even at very high currents, didn’t actually help her understand why hers were moving.

  Nolan said, “Tiona?”

  “Uh-huh,” she said, not looking up, but feeling a little irritated at the interruption.

  “My family puts on a big feed for Thanksgiving. We’d love it if you came over Thursday afternoon.”

  As she was so distracted, it took Tiona a moment to process the request. He’s trying to feed me again! she thought. She turned to look at him, “Um, thank you for the invitation, but I’m going to be spending Thanksgiving with my family in Raleigh.” Realizing with some amusement that she’d eaten most of the apple he’d given her, she tossed the core into the trash.

  “Oh, okay. Maybe some other time.” Nolan turned back to his desk, leaving Tiona wondering what was going on with him. Handsome, steady, stable, nice friendly generous, just the kind of guy Mom would think I should marry. Bland, boring, unexciting, just the kind of guy I could never fall in love with.

  ***

  Lisanne looked around the room at the family members who had gathered for Thanksgiving. Lisanne’s dad and her brother were watching football on the big screen. Vaz’s dad had passed a couple of years ago or he would have been sitting in there watching the game as well. Lisanne’s sister-in-law, her mom and Vaz’s mom were in the kitchen with her, each making different parts of the big meal. Dante and his fiancée sat in the breakfast nook talking seriously about their wedding plans. Tiona and her cousins were up in her room where they had gathered when they were kids.

  Unsurprisingly, Vaz became more and more fidgety with all the people in the house and eventually said he needed to check on something in his lab down in the basement. Lisanne suspected her husband wouldn’t be back out of the basement until she called him for dinner. Vaz did this every year at Thanksgiving though, so no one really even noticed it anymore. In the past she’d tried to get him to stay up in the middle of a big social situation like this, but eventually he just froze up. This way, the respite from the crowd would restore him enough so that at dinner he would be able to carry on a few stilted conversations rather than sitting there woodenly. Guiltily, Lisanne found it easier to entertain when she didn’t have to look out for him as well.

  Lisanne’s mom nudged her, “I think everything’s ready.”

  “Okay,” Lisanne turned toward the family room, “I’ll start rounding them up.”

  Eventually they had all taken their seats at the big table in the dining room. Lisanne had learned not to put Vaz at the end of the table with unfamiliar people on either side of him. Instead he was sitting a couple of seats from her with their daughter Tiona next to him. As everyone passed food around and began talking she kept an eye on Vaz to be sure he wasn’t getting too stressed out.

  Lisanne’s father and brother were cheerfully complaining about how they were missing the big game, though she knew they didn’t really care that much. Dante and his fiancée were seated to Lisanne’s left, so she took advantage of this opportunity to find out what was going on in their life. “Dante, how’s the new job?”

  He smiled and winked at Lisanne with the eye his fiancée couldn’t see. “Things are good so far, but I’m going to need a bunch of promotions if I want to keep Linda in the lifestyle she’s accustomed to.”

  Linda grinned at her mother-in-law to be, “He’s so full of it. Between his new salary and mine I’ll be thinking I’m living high on the hog.”

  Lisanne smiled back at the young woman. She said, “I’m glad to hear that.” To Lisanne, Linda seemed very pleasant and down to earth. Dante had always been very careful not to let anyone know how much money his family had. The fact that they still lived on the same street, in the same house they’d always lived in, made that pretense pretty easy to keep up. He’d told his mother that Linda had no idea how much money they had. Actually, virtually no one knew how much money the Gettnors had. Vaz was perfectly happy in their small house, and not liking change, wouldn’t want to move even if Lisanne did want a nicer place. Vaz didn’t like to travel and actually didn’t enjoy any of the typical expensive lifestyle avocations, so to the rest of the world, they certainly didn’t appear wealthy. Dante planned to keep the money Vaz had given him, as well as the larger sum that he would someday inherit, a secret to surprise Linda with someday.

  Linda turned the topic to her current favorite. “After dinner, I’m hoping you’ll have time to look at the guest list for our wedding?”

  “Of course. How many people are you thinking you’ll invite?” She turned to check on Vaz and make sure he was doing okay in this big group. She saw his eyebrows were up in startlement as he stared at his daughter. Distracted, she wondered whether Tiona had given him some bad news. Transferring her attention to her husband, she heard him say, “How much current?” and a few seconds later, “Are you sure?!” They’re talking physics! she thought to herself in irritation, and dragged her attention back to her daughter-in-law. “I’m sorry, how many people did you say?”

  Vaz closed his eyes for a moment in an attempt to shut out distractions. When he opened them Tiona was looking at him with concern.

  “It’s okay Dad,” she said. “My wiggly membranes haven’t superconducted anyway. I’m going to have to keep trying other possibilities and if I do find a doping scheme that works, it probably won’t be in a membrane that moves anyway. I only mentioned it because I thought it was kind of interesting and I’ve been frustrated ’cause I can’t explain it so far.”

  “Nooooo!” Vaz said, horrified. “An unexplained phenomenon like the movement you’re describing could be more important than the superconduction you’re trying to develop! You need to follow this up!” He frowned, “Are you sure one of the membranes didn’t separate from the others and stay in the bottom of the dish? Then, it could have been electrostatic forces that pushed the others up away from it.”

  Tiona narrowed her eyes at him as she thought, “No. Remember, when I reversed the circuit, all the membranes seemed to push down into the dish. Electrostatic forces wouldn’t do that.”

  Vaz closed his eyes, thinking. “Maybe somehow you managed to apply negative charges on one side of the stack of membranes and positive charges on the other? Then they would pull together.”

  “No, they’re hooked up to the edges of the membranes with electrode clips. They should apply the same current to the top membrane as the bottom one.”

  “Direct-current?”

  “No, I’ve been using gigahertz alternating current. Dr. Eisner’s theory is that graphene superconductors, being very thin, will be able to conduct current at extremely high frequencies.”

  Vaz rocked back in his chair, astonished.

  Although it was weird, Tiona did not feel much surprise when her dad pretty much shut down after their little conversation. He sat motionless at the table, his fork in hand and his eyes unseeingly on the centerpiece. At one point, she nudged him in an effort to get him to eat with everyone else, but he didn’t react. Tiona’s mother looked over at him and raised a questioning eyebrow at Tiona, but she didn’t even make an effort to get Vaz back on track.

  When her dad had first asked her about her research, she’d enjoyed talking to him about it, but having him go practically catatonic about her wiggly membranes was a little bizarre even for Vaz. Of course, most interactions with her dad were at least a little bit odd. She glanced around the table and noticed that, though many of the family occasionally glanced at her father, most of them were accustomed enough to his eccentric behavior that they didn’t seem to be both
ered.

  Tiona went back to talking to her cousins.

  About ten minutes later, Vaz suddenly started moving again. It almost seemed like he gasped, as if he’d come up for air after being underwater. He immediately turned to Tiona and said, “What did you dope the membranes with?”

  Tiona put a hand on his arm, “Eat your dinner Dad. They’re going to be bringing out dessert pretty soon. We can talk some more after that.”

  “But…!”

  Tiona leaned towards him and said quietly, “Eat! Before mom gets pissed.”

  Vaz glanced at Lisanne, then down at his plate. He started shoveling in his food like a job he had to get done, rather than something to be enjoyed.

  As soon as Vaz had finished most of the food on his plate, he turned back to Tiona ready to ask more questions. However, she was getting up to go help her mother serve the pumpkin and pecan pie. Tiona could tell that he was practically gnashing his teeth, but he did manage to sit back and wait patiently.

  When dessert was done, Vaz again wanted to talk physics, but Tiona began helping with clearing the table and loading the dishwasher. He pitched in and helped on that in an effort to speed it along. His compulsiveness made him good at such tasks anyway.

  Then people started to leave and all the hugs and goodbyes kept them from resuming their talk about Tiona’s membranes. Tiona was amused to realize he was practically dancing from one foot to another. He couldn’t wait for everyone to be gone.

  When they’d seen the last of the guests off—except for the grandparents who were staying there in the Gettnor’s house—Vaz stood on tenterhooks right behind Tiona. Grinning she turned and said, “You wanting to talk about my experiment some more?”

  He nodded sharply, reminding Tiona of a panting and excited dog that wanted to go on a walk. “What did you dope your membranes with?”

  “Lithium and copper.”

  Vaz got a distant look in his eyes, stopping motionless like a robot with a short-circuit. Tiona watched him for a moment, thinking that she should go speak to her grandmother. Just as she was about to turn away, he suddenly said, “You should try attaching your membranes to a rigid substrate. Put some strain gauges on the substrate and mount the whole thing on a load cell. Then you’ll be able to tell if the membranes are deforming within themselves or moving through space.” He’d had a distant look in his eyes as he said this, but now his eyes suddenly focused on Tiona. “Would you be able to give me a couple of samples to test myself?” He had a hopeful look on his face like a child who’d just asked for a treat.

  Tiona laughed, “Sure, I’ll bring you some the next time I come home.” She blinked and tilted her head, “What do you mean, ‘moving through space?’”

  With an intense stare he said, “If they’re reacting to an electrostatic or electromagnetic field, the entire membrane would be trying to move through space.” He’d flattened his palm and moved his hand up in the air to demonstrate. “If the currents are just deforming the membrane, they would only twist around their attachment point.” This time he wriggled and twisted his hand in one spot.

  “But I tested for electromagnetic fields, there aren’t any.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know! Some other kind of field then. Something completely new!”

  Tiona frowned, “What other kind of field?”

  “I don’t know! I don’t know… that’s what’s so exciting! That’s why you’ve got to follow this up!” He closed his eyes and when he opened them again he seemed calmer. “Probably, the membranes are just deforming for some reason.” Then his eyes gleamed, “But if they’re trying to move through space… That would really be something,” he said dreamily.

  “Okay, okay,” Tiona laughed, “I’ll investigate this a little further and I’ll bring you some membranes next time I come home.”

  Vaz shifted uneasily, “When will you come home again?”

  “I don’t know,” Tiona said musingly. “At least for Christmas, sometime around the twentieth.”

  Vaz’s eyes widened a little bit and he looked distressed. After a moment he said, “Could I… come and get some?”

  This time Tiona’s eyes widened. “You’d come to Chapel Hill? I thought you hated traveling?”

  “Uh, I do. But my car’s AI should take me right to the front of your building, right?”

  Tiona nodded, trying not to look amused at her father’s obvious discomfort.

  He said hopefully, “Then you could meet me outside?”

  “Sure. I can even take you on a tour of the campus.”

  Vaz looked startled, “Well… I’d like to see your lab…”

  ***

  Nolan looked up as Tiona came into the lab Monday morning. She had on a baggy sweatshirt with the number 011235813 on the front of it. He was stumped for a moment, thinking it was a foreign phone number; then he recognized Fibonacci’s sequence. “Hey Tiona, did you have a nice Thanksgiving?”

  “Uh-huh,” she said, setting down her bag. She stood for a moment, looking uncomfortable; then said, “Um, my dad’s coming by to look at the lab this morning.”

  She seemed embarrassed about it which surprised Nolan. Like many teenagers he’d been embarrassed by his parents, but he got over it by the time he’d gotten through his undergraduate years. Trying to reassure her, he said, “That’s great! I’d like to meet him.”

  She fidgeted a little, “He’s a little… different. Nice but…”

  Nolan said, “Everybody thinks their own parents are weird. Don’t worry about it.”

  Tiona snorted a little laugh, “You’ll see. My dad really is weird. But in a good way.” She turned back to her desk. A minute later her music started playing and she began working on her experimental set up again.

  Nolan wondered if her dad was homeless too.

  Focused on his own project, Nolan hardly noticed when Tiona left the lab. He did notice a few minutes later that her music had stopped. When he turned he saw that she was gone and thought that was odd as he had thought that her father was coming.

  He looked at his watch, seeing that it was nearly 11. I could have sworn she said he was coming in the morning, he thought, but then shrugged and turned back to his own bench.

  The lab door opened and Nolan glanced over curiously. Tiona stepped in followed by a bald man. Nolan tilted his head, wondering if this could be her father. The man’s complexion was darker than hers, but Nolan couldn’t compare their hair coloration, the man didn’t even have eyebrows! Their features did seem to have something in common and their clothing certainly did. The man wore clothes that were even baggier than Tiona’s!

  Nolan stood up, “Hello, you must be Tiona’s dad?”

  The man stopped as if startled. After a moment he nodded. Tiona introduced him as her father Vaz Gettnor. The whole time Nolan had the feeling that Gettnor was only listening to be polite. It was as if he knew that he was supposed to, so he did it even though he didn’t want to. Nolan shook Gettnor’s hand which seemed hard and calloused though Gettnor’s grip was weak and wimpy. As soon as the handshake was completed, Gettnor started looking around the lab as if he’d completely lost interest in Nolan. I’m less interesting than the equipment, Nolan realized.

  Tiona guided her father over to her lab bench and Nolan got the feeling they’d both completely forgotten he was even there. She wasn’t kidding when she said her dad was different, he thought to himself. He turned back to his own project, but kept an eye on Tiona and her dad. They spoke quietly enough that Nolan couldn’t hear what they were saying, but evidently Tiona was showing him some of the electrical properties of her doped graphene membranes.

  Though Nolan couldn’t understand their conversation, he could tell it had its ups and downs. Frequently it seemed like Tiona’s father was very excited, making muted exclamations. Tiona, on the other hand, often seemed frustrated. Nolan felt a little jealous. He knew that if he brought his own father in to look at his research, his dad would ooh and ahh, but wouldn’t really understand any of it. Nolan had t
he feeling that Tiona’s dad, peculiar as he was, kind of had some idea what she was doing. Nolan’s own father might not be weird, but he couldn’t help thinking that he might be willing to have some weirdness in exchange for a parent who liked physics like he did. Of course, I also like having a parent with enough money that I don’t have to eat at the homeless shelter, he thought to himself, glancing back at Mr. Gettnor and wondering about the man’s finances. Gettnor’s clothing looked cheap and old, though clean. If the man’s smart enough to understand the physics of Tiona’s experiment, why can’t he get a job good enough to help pay her way through school? Mental illness?

  A little bit after noon, the Gettnors got up and started shuffling around as if they were about to leave. Nolan had just finished a test run, so he stood as well. Having a thought he turned to the Gettnors and said, “Hey, how about lunch? I’d be happy to buy.”

  The Gettnors looked at one another and Nolan could have sworn that neither of them looked happy about it, but that they had completely different reasons for not wanting to go to lunch with him. However, a second later Tiona pursed her lips and said, “Sure, that’d be fun. Dad, you don’t have anywhere you have to be, right?”

  Gettnor looked flummoxed.

  Gettnor opened his mouth and Nolan would have sworn he was about to claim he had something to do but Tiona interrupted him with a little grin, “Nope, I saw your schedule. No reason you can’t eat lunch with us.” She turned to Nolan, “Where were you thinking we should eat?”

  They walked to the Cosmic Cantina. Cheap food, but good and lots of it. Nolan felt pretty surprised. He’d invited Tiona to lunch several times as well as to other social events and she’d always turned him down. Though he’d made the offer, he’d never expected that the first time they would go out on some kind of social, non-work event; it would be with one of her parents. As they walked he turned to Tiona’s dad, “What do you do Mr. Gettnor?”