Emmy didn’t say anything.
Ryan said, “Haven’t you ever felt it?”
“Felt what?”
“Well, love, I guess,” Ryan said. “When I was little and we went to church, there were always a few seconds when I could feel God’s presence. I guess that’s what I mean. Doesn’t there have to be something? Something else? Something more?”
“Yes and no, respectively.”
“What?” Ryan asked.
“Yes, I feel love,” Emmy said. “And no, there doesn’t have to be something else. The physical universe is plenty.”
“Then what is love? Where does it come from? And what was that little boy feeling?”
“Ryan, listen carefully.” She sat up straight and spoke in her lecturing voice. “Love is a verb. It’s something that we do, and when it becomes a noun, it dies. Feelings, like wanting to curl up in your arms and never look away from you, are acts of love. But when we stop loving, then it’s a noun and it’s over.” She tapped his nose with the nail of one finger. “Is the significance of these feelings changed by the realization that they arise from an incredibly complex combination of chemical reactions that evolved to encourage people to make love and reproduce and do what all the other mammals do? Isn’t that mysterious enough?”
Ryan sighed, nodding to her and then to the stars. “A verb, yeah. Love is an action. You’re a pretty smart chick.” He lifted her onto his lap and, with his hands tight on her hips, gave her a deep vigorous kiss and said, “I can think of a few more chemical reactions we might enjoy.”
Emmy slid her hands under his shirt, kissed him on the neck, and said, “It’s time for you to go home.”
“But I don’t want to go home.”
“That’s just evolution talking.”
“No—it’s magic!”
“That might work on some girls…”
She untangled herself from him. They got in the car, and she drove him out to the parking lot where, in the dark, his old Probe looked like the sports car it had once pretended to be. He prayed that it would start.
He asked, “If consciousness isn’t something like a metaphysical spark, if everything is purely physical, if there’s nothing in here, if it’s all out there, then what happens when we die?”
“Would you rather live with certain knowledge that you’d never die? Isn’t it precisely the threat of having it all end that makes life sweet? Ryan, part of what feels so warm and wonderful when I inhale the smell of your neck—”
“I knew I should have put on some cologne!”
Emmy reached up and held his chin. “Part of what feels so good is the lack of control, the threat that I could be wrong, the risk that it’s all a lie, that all you want is for me to meet with those idiots and get you your money and, what the hell, you get a piece of ass too.”
“You don’t think that, do you?”
“Risk and uncertainty are the thrill of being alive. The knowledge, every day, every instant, that this breath might be our last is what makes life full of wonder. Having a ghost who keeps score and assigns reason to our existence makes it less wonderful. Religion decreases significance.”
Ryan rested his chin on her head and stared across the horizon. “Hmmm, I believe in something more, something special. I think that love and emotion have something like an energy of their own. Something that connects us to whatever it is that made something from nothing. Something that can violate that rule of yours: neither created nor destroyed.”
Emmy pried herself away, reached up, and brushed his lips with her fingers. “Good night, Ryan.”
Ryan set the pizza box on a patch of well-manicured grass under a marine-blue sky—the perfect spot for a picnic. On one side, a cool breeze blew through majestic redwood trees that grew from the banks of a creek, and on the other, a wide stretch of concrete guided students and faculty between buildings on the UC Berkeley campus. Emmy handed Ryan a tiny cup of espresso and sat next to him. They were both wearing jeans and T-shirts. Their crossed legs overlapped, and they leaned close together. A group of young men kicked a hacky sack on the grass a few yards away, and a street musician sat on a bench picking melodies about twenty yards up the path, his open guitar case inviting tips.
Ryan took a sip. “How many packets of honey did you get?”
“Three.”
“Well, I get them all,” Ryan said.
Emmy nudged him with her elbow. “Silly man.”
Ryan squeezed the honey into his cup. When he finished, Emmy took his hand and kissed the last drop of honey from his fingers. She looked up at him as her tongue lingered on his finger.
He put his other hand on her neck and pulled her toward him for a kiss.
“Ryan!” she said, pushing away with her forearm. “What if my students see me? I can’t just make out in public like a drunk freshman.”
He bit his lip. “You started it.”
She leaned in close, her breasts rubbing his arm. “And I’ll finish it.” Then she sat up straight, wiped her mouth with a napkin, and added, “But please, Mr. McNear, I have a reputation to maintain.”
Ryan sipped his espresso. How long had it been? He fell in love with Linda seventeen years ago. Then he fell in love with her all over again when Sean was born, and again and again.
Emmy was looking at him, waiting, blue eyes twinkling. For an instant, Ryan felt like he was cheating on a memory. And then he surrendered. He felt his eyes go soft and he inhaled Emmy, not just the light flowery smell of her perfume, no, her warmth, her Emmy-ness—he felt like he was melting. It was a little bit scary.
It was their third date. They had met in San Francisco on their second for dinner and the theater. The restaurant had been expensive and loud and the play political and morose. Ryan spent the night treading water in the flood of San Francisco culture. He remembered Emmy’s fingers touching his face as he kissed her good night. She had pulled him down so that she could whisper in his ear, “Be comfortable with me,” before walking through the subway gates.
With the pizza box empty, Ryan leaned back in the sun. Emmy stretched out against him, resting her head on his chest.
Emmy said, “What are you going to do next?”
He started to explain again how he needed money to pay his child support so that he could get joint custody, see his son, clear his record, and resume his life, but she interrupted him: “No, I mean after that.”
He had to think for a minute. The guitarist played a lazy chord progression. Finally, Ryan told her that he wanted to rebuild his career. “My dad used to say that a man should hang his shingle and make it on his own. I’d like to open my own software company—I’ll make a fortune in software souls.”
“Where does Kat fit?”
“Katarina?” He thought some more, listened to the guitar, and ran his fingers through Emmy’s hair.
“Maybe I’ll give her a job—McNear and Sidekick Software Incorporated.”
“Come on, I’m serious.”
“You have to understand,” he said. “Katarina makes it pretty clear that she doesn’t want me playing the role of her father.”
“Have you ever thought that maybe Kat needs you more than your son does?”
This made him sit up. He stared at the grass for a minute. “I don’t want to abandon my son.”
“Your son has a stepfather, right?”
“Yeah, Howard, ancient Howard,” Ryan growled. “Sean and I were really close until he came along. I have to fix it.”
“Katarina has only her mother and you.”
“Her mother told me that she’s going to join her husband as soon as Katarina is ready.”
Emmy sat up on her knees so that her head was level with Ryan’s. “Isn’t he dead?”
Ryan told her how Jane bicycled around Petaluma talking to herself.
“Ryan, listen to me.” Emmy’s brow furrowed. “You’re all Kat has. A girl who grows up without guidance is a time bomb.”
“Naw,” Ryan said, “Katarina is cool, a littl
e rough around the edges, but she’s a good kid, brilliant and healthy, strong. She’s not a time bomb.”
“Katarina is lucky to have you. You’re lucky to have her.” She seemed angry. “Both of you need to realize that before it’s too late.”
“Emmy,” Ryan said and reached over to touch her cheek. “I know. Okay? I do.” Ryan rubbed the furrows out of her brow and pulled her close.
“She needs you to worry about her.”
They settled back on the grass and listened to the guitar for a few minutes. Finally, Ryan said, “Do you want to have kids?”
“I have plenty of kids.” Her fingers traced random curves around his chest and stomach. “Totally. Right now I have, like, five. One just turned twenty—an undergraduate lab rat; I have two in their early twenties, teaching assistants; a new one came in last week; he’ll be a research assistant; and, of course, you know my favorite, Tran. They’re creative, curious, intelligent, and they never need their diapers changed.”
“I don’t believe you.” Ryan reached down and rested his hand just over her belly button.
“I don’t think I’d be a very good mother. I’m kind of impatient. Do you want more children?”
“I’m Catholic.” Ryan laughed. “By rights I should have you squirting them out every other year.”
“Me?” She feigned shock, but her fingers stopped their random circles and tweaked his nipple.
Ryan rolled onto his side to face her. He noticed the students watching and buried his face in her hair, kissing her neck. She turned to face him and ran her tongue along his lips and whispered, “I’ve wanted to do that for a long time. I love how you lick your lips just before you smile. I love it.”
Ryan met her kiss and pulled her hair so that it covered their faces, forming their own little world.
From the concrete path, not ten yards away, Ryan heard a deep voice with some sort of European accent say, “Good afternoon, Dr. Nutter. We missed you at the faculty meeting. I see that you had a pressing engagement.”
Emmy rolled away from Ryan. Her hair fell away and the sun shone in. She was already flushed, but Ryan could tell that she was blushing.
“Hello, Claude,” she said. “Yes, indeed. I’m meeting with a visiting scholar. Ryan McNear, this is Claude Onet, director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.”
“Don’t get up,” Claude said. “I’m late for a meeting with the chancellor.” They could hear him laughing as he walked away.
Emmy blessed Ryan with a warm smile. “Good thing I have tenure.”
Ryan watched him go. The tall bald man in a corduroy jacket tossed a few dollars into the guitar case of the musician and spoke to him. Then the guitarist repositioned himself to face Ryan and Emmy and played the Beatles’ “Here, There and Everywhere.”
Emmy pulled herself onto her feet, dragging Ryan up by his shirt. She caught a couple of chest hairs in the process. With a steamy glare, she said, “My house is five blocks from here.”
Not quite two months after the complaint was filed, the defendant, Creation Energy, requested a private meeting with the plaintiff, Ryan McNear. Dodge arranged a conference room at the Mark Hopkins Hotel in San Francisco.
Emmy was waiting in the lobby when they got there. Dressed in a white lacy blouse, black pants, and a herringbone waistcoat, she looked polished and professional. She greeted Ryan with a hug and complimented him on his suit—coal with salmon pinstripes.
Gripping her by the hips, Ryan held her a few inches away. “Emmy, thank you for coming, but I don’t want you to feel obligated to do this for me.” Their relationship had grown into consistent midweek visits and weekend stay-overs. Ryan had never seen Emmy dressed like this—he knew her as a jeans-and-T-shirt woman.
“Ryan, I’m here to defend the integrity of science.” She straightened his tie and added, “Not that I don’t expect some favors for helping you.”
He pulled her close and whispered in her ear, “I like you dressed like this—let’s play professor scolds the naughty engineer Saturday night…”
She bit his earlobe in reply.
Ryan felt his whole life coming together, as if everything that had happened from the day he’d moved away from Linda and Sean until today had been a bridge from one wonderful life to another. The transition wasn’t over and, no question, it was a bitch, but the lawsuit was going exactly the way Dodge had predicted. If this meeting went well, Creation Energy would settle, and Ryan could get on with his life. An image was coming clear in his heart, the way that abstract art takes shape the longer you look at it: Ryan and Emmy walking in a park holding hands with Katarina and Sean straggling along behind, arguing over their favorite bands or skateboard technicalities or some dumb thing that teenagers are willing to fight over.
His arms around Emmy, his face buried in her neck, he opened his eyes and looked at the world through her hair. Amolie. Even her name was beautiful.
“Break it up!” Dodge yelled from across the lobby, holding the elevator door. “We have twenty minutes to prepare.”
The conference room had a view of the San Francisco skyline. Dodge shut the blinds.
Scowling, but with a spring in his step like a boxer ready to get in the ring, Dodge dimmed the lights and directed Ryan and Emmy to sit at opposite ends of the big glass-and-chrome table. “None of the antagonists will sit next to each other. There will be no private conversations. I’ll sit between their attorney, Blair Keene, and that redneck, Jeb Schonders.”
He went to Ryan’s end of the table. “First thing—you need to make peace with Foster.”
Ryan said, “Last time I saw Foster wasn’t exactly friendly.”
“McNear, who are you kidding? You couldn’t hold a grudge against a serial killer. Just be yourself.” Even when Dodge provided insight, it came out as an affront. “Second, your only goal is for them to admit something, just a starting point, no more.”
Then Dodge walked to Emmy’s side of the table. “Third, Emmy, go after them like a lion on a Christian.” He laughed at his own joke, extra loud, obviously trying to get a laugh from Ryan or Emmy. It didn’t work.
Emmy set the copies of the patents that Tran had marked up in front of her.
Dodge peeked behind the blinds, a con man waiting for his mark.
Ryan watched them both. What a strange new family he had. Despite what Dodge said about this being just a step in the process, hope brewed in his heart. Emmy smiled at him—amazing how that smile transformed her from sophisticated professor to adorable woman. He wanted to bring her back to Massachusetts. He could picture his mother interrogating her, could practically hear Mom ask Emmy naïve but potentially offensive questions about being Jewish and then break out the photo albums and force-feed her the reality of joining an Irish Catholic family.
Finally, they heard a knock on the door. Foster walked in behind his father-in-law, Blair Keene, and his boss, Jeb Schonders. Blair looked like a San Francisco banker in a formfitting black suit. Jeb Schonders wore a bolo tie and a brown suit that showed the wrinkles of having been stowed in checked luggage. Dodge introduced himself and Emmy.
With his shirt sleeves rolled up so you couldn’t miss the monogram and his briefcase stuffed so thick that one of the hinges had already popped, Foster looked like such a goofball—Dodge was right: he couldn’t hold a grudge. Foster was just being Foster. How could you hate the guy?
The only vacant chair was next to Ryan. Foster pursed his lips. He glanced at Ryan from the corners of his eyes. It wasn’t the first time they’d been pissed off at each other and found themselves sitting together at a conference table. The familiarity found a warm spot in Ryan’s heart. He elbowed Foster and whispered, “Just relax, dude.”
Foster raised his briefcase to the table, and Ryan saw the remaining hinge start to give. He grabbed it by the sides, holding it closed, and said, “Foster, I swear to God, you need constant supervision.”
“Thanks,” Foster said. “I really need a bigger briefcase.”
Ryan
could feel everyone’s eyes on the two of them. He wondered if Foster had the balls to drop his indignant air. Foster dug a mechanical pencil out of his briefcase and scribbled on a pad. To the others it might have passed for setting up his notes for the meeting, but Ryan knew from all the other meetings they’d been in together that it was a note meant for him: “You’re on the wrong side of this fight.”
Jeb questioned why they couldn’t sit on opposite sides of the table. “After all,” he said, “that’s how it will be in court.”
Dodge said, “People are adversaries in court, but we’re all on the same side here—we all want justice.” An elastic grin formed on his face. “It’s more important that we get to know each other as people…” His voice trailed off. Then he walked around the table and shook hands with Jeb, Blair, and Foster. He took their hands in both of his, held them, and asked about their families, their hobbies, and health. He even cautioned Jeb not to put too much cream in his coffee: “That’s the real stuff there, Jeb. Don’t clog up your ticker.” Jeb responded with a short diatribe about having to come “way out here to the Left Coast, step over bums, walk past prostitutes, and Lord knows what these San Fran-sickos do to each other at night.”
After appearing to listen carefully, Dodge responded, “We all want to live in peace together and spread love around the world.” Then the capper: “I know that’s why I’m here. The good Lord has given us an opportunity to help a fine man reconnect with his only born son. I think we can all agree that we’re meeting here to help Ryan McNear.”
Jeb replied, “Ryan McNear is a wanted man in my state.”
Dodge took it as a cue to begin the meeting. After reviewing the argument presented in the complaint, that Ryan still owned rights to the patents by virtue of GoldCon violating an implied contract, Dodge added that, as it worked out, Foster had actually been paid in full—he had the boat. He looked at each person in the room emphasizing that Ryan could not legally be “denied his right to the income generated by his talent, originality, and intellectual property.”
Ryan felt a wave of discomfort. The “implied contract” seemed like an absurd technicality; he had signed the patent waiver. Plus, they’d gotten the boat, and Ryan was sure that Foster still thought of it as half his. Besides, the patents were still being developed. There was no income. Then he looked at Emmy. She smiled back and it made him feel worse. She wanted to testify. Dodge had told her that this meeting was preliminary to a lawsuit, that she would get a chance to fight EWU in court. Ryan hadn’t told her that the meeting was designed for them to make an offer to settle, that there would never be a lawsuit. In the time they had spent together, they talked about science and religion, about Sean and Katarina, and Emmy’s students. And they talked about the future. That was the real reason Ryan hadn’t mentioned that the case would never go to court. He wanted that future. His dad would have told him that it was okay, that there is a difference between lying and leaving out the truth, but Grandma wouldn’t go for it; she’d say it was like the difference between clover and shamrock—there might be a difference, but they still looked the same. Dad and Grandma argued in his head for a few seconds. Ryan knew Grandma was right.
The God Patent Page 20