Tony reddened, but she said, “I was thinking you had me pinned like a dead bug.”
“Oh, very romantic. You know how to charm your girlfriends.”
“Well, I meant it as a positive thing,” Tony said, sounding sad.
“Don’t worry. It’s cute. I can think of you as a dead beetle.”
“Right.” Tony gulped a big mouthful of coffee, then grinned.
* * *
Tony didn’t want to stop kissing Sheila as they sat in her Volt in the GHS parking lot. Tony thought she might simply dissolve into a puddle of despair if they ceased to be in physically close. It was time to go to work though.
“What are you going to do today?” Tony asked between kisses.
Sheila responded the same way. “Pick up dry cleaning, go for a bike ride, then to meditation at four.”
Tony stopped and moved her head back to see Sheila’s face. “Wait a second. I thought you meditated at home at your altar.”
“I do. Every day. But I like to go to the meditation center to be in a group too. It’s a different experience to meditate surrounded by other folks who are doing the same. It’s over at five thirty. Want me to pick you up, and we can, you know, eat dinner?” She raised her eyebrows and stroked the top of Tony’s hand with her finger, and Tony had a rush of sex memory in her crotch.
“As lovely as that sounds, I have to go home and take care of my own chores. I made Gordon promise that we’d take Sunday off, and I’d work as long as I needed to the other days.”
“I understand. Well. This was an astonishing, transcendent night, and I hate to leave you, but that’s the way it goes.”
“I’ll call you, I promise, and thank you. For everything.”
Sheila kissed her one more time. “No. Thank you. Now go help Ms Sanders change the world.”
Tony grinned, nodded, and jumped out of the Volt. As she walked to the front door, she remembered she still owed Sheila an answer to her question. They’d been too distracted by sex, but Tony was sure that Sheila would remember the question she asked sometime very soon. What was done was done.
Tony went to her desk and put her bag down and her lab coat on, squaring her shoulders as she buttoned it. She took a swig of water and, by force of will, altered her thought process from focusing on Sheila and delicious sex to thinking of work. She walked to the lab, where Gordon was already buried in the Leonardo with his ever-present screwdriver and penlight.
* * *
At four thirty on Saturday afternoon, Gordon and Tony once more stood shoulder to shoulder in front of Leonardo.
“Here goes,” he said, and flipped the switch. They watched as the robot withdrew the blood sample, dispensed it into the reaction chamber, and then added the reagents. It was an excruciating four minutes as the reaction occurred and then the fluid made its way into the spectrophotometer for its analysis. They both watched as the little printer to the side finally spit out its result.
It looked right. The number was close. Not exactly the amount Tony had spiked the sample with, but nothing is ever exact in lab tests. She showed the printout to Gordon and said, “Eureka. You got it to work, man. You’re a genius.” They high-fived.
“We’re done. I’ll tell Erica first thing Monday. No. I’ll call her. She gave me her cell number.”
“Wait,” Tony said. Gordon stared at her, obviously puzzled.
“Let me into the Tiki room so I can run this sample on the Advia. You guys revamped it to test the correct sample size, yes?”
“Well. Yes, but—”
“We can at least tell if the results agree, you see?”
“No. Not really.”
“I should see almost exactly the same result from Leonardo as we get from the Advia, assuming the Advia is correct, which I’m not a hundred percent sure it is since I haven’t run QC on it or even used it, but we can at least assume that it’s more or less up to speed and can tell us if Leonardo is close. Get it?”
“Oh, sure. Yes.”
“On Monday, we can run Leonardo a bunch more times and determine if the result is repeatable. If it is, that’s great. If not, then you’ll have to tinker some more.”
“Oh, crap. I hope not. I’ve about exhausted all my ideas. I’m hoping that since we’ve established the basic movements, I can modify Leonardo as needed for the Jack and Martha assays.”
“Terrific. Poke your finger, Gordo, and get me some blood. All my fingers are done for. I think I’m permanently scarred. I need a blank sample for the Advia.”
“You got it, Doctor Leung.” Tony didn’t have a PhD, but that was Gordon’s affectionate nickname for her. Tony wanted her fingers to heal from all the blood pricks. She thought of touching Sheila and not having it be painful.
While she was waiting for incubations, first on the Leonardo, then on the Advia, Tony was grateful for the downtime to relive the night she’d spent with Sheila. During her workday, she had been surprised and gratified that, in spite of hardly any sleep, her mind was clear, all her synapses firing. Maybe sex was truly the boon to human existence she’d heard it was.
A half hour later, Tony and Gordon looked at the two printouts side by side as Tony made a quick calculation. They found a two-percent difference.
“That’s acceptable variation,” she said. “We’re golden. Call Erica.”
When he clicked his phone off, he said, “She’s ecstatic and said we ought to go home and get some rest.”
“Wow. She must really be happy.”
Gordon rolled his eyes. “Don’t question what she said. Let’s meet back here Monday morning and do your whatchacallit tests.”
“Repeatablility.”
“That’s the one.”
As Tony gathered her possessions in the office, she hesitated and then called Sheila but got her voice mail. She left a message, recalling that Sheila said she’d be finished meditating at five thirty. She sat at her desk and closed her eyes, glad for some downtime. In between dozing off and waking up, she thought about her night with Sheila. Her cell ringing jolted her.
“Hello there, you.” Sheila’s voice sounded exactly as it had the night before when they were in bed, which made Tony shiver.
“Hi. We’re done. For the moment. Until Monday. I ought to go home but…”
“I have an idea. We can eat dinner, and I’ll take you home.”
“You’ll drive me…” Tony wasn’t sure she understood.
“Yeah. I’ll drive you home just for the pleasure of your company, and maybe, oh, you might invite me to stay over at your house? Maybe?”
“That sounds great.” Tony was surprised at how fast her libido overrode her practical nature. At that moment, nothing was going to interfere with her seeing and touching Sheila.
When Tony and Sheila reluctantly parted Sunday evening, and Sheila went home to prepare for her work week, it was like Tony’s arm was being torn off. Everything between them was perfect. Tony didn’t believe in perfection, but she was ready to say that she had achieved it with Sheila. Their physical compatibility was stunning, but so were their other interactions.
In the past, Tony could possibly have good sex but not especially scintillating conversation, or conversely, she’d made friends but had no sexual chemistry with someone, though she’d tried that route a couple of times. She seemed to have achieved both with Sheila. Sheila was so…easy. Not in the manner Tony had heard that word applied, which implied promiscuity. She was easy in that she never even appeared irritated or bored or distracted. Whatever they did, Sheila took pleasure in it and clearly in Tony’s company.
She hadn’t brought up her question about Leonardo, likely because she was simply patiently waiting for Tony to provide an answer. Tony doubted very much that she’d forgotten. Sheila didn’t forget things. She already knew how Tony liked her coffee and her parents’ names and backgrounds and a dozen other things. She simply had incredible focus and memory.
Tony had no idea what she was going to say. The truth would be best, but that could c
ause Sheila consternation. It had given Tony pause, for sure. She tried and failed to make up some excuse for Erica’s choice to mislead Sheila and her father. Lying was contrary to Tony’s code of ethics, and she was certain it would be to Sheila’s as well. Could Sheila rescind their investment? That was likely out of the question. This was going to make her nuts if she didn’t do something about it soon. It was a matter of trust, Tony concluded. Sheila had been forthcoming with her about the Pacific Partners’ stake in the company.
* * *
“I want to congratulate you both and thank you for your hard work. This is going to be an extraordinary help when I meet with Lycee day after tomorrow,” Erica said on Monday morning.
Gordon and Tony looked at each other. Tony felt it was up to her as the lab scientist to make clear to the boss that they were far from finished.
“Erica?”
Erica said nothing, but her almost-black eyes turned to laser on Tony, and that gaze unnerved her, but she steeled herself to speak. “We have to do some more runs to show that Leonardo will behave consistently. You know. Give the same result every time.”
“I understand, sure. You will need to do that, but right at the moment, I’ve got to have the shipping department prepare the Leonardo for me to take on the plane to France. I’ll bring it back, and you can continue your work. Gordon, please start modifying all the rest of our Leonardos.” Gordon paled. A number of prototype models were sitting around in Disneyworld—their nickname for the engineering lab.
“Um, okay,” Gordon said, glancing at Tony to gauge her reaction.
“All right. If that’s what you need to do,” Tony said, tightly.
“Wonderful, again. Thanks so much to both of you.”
They stood up and left Erica’s office.
“What do you think?” Tony asked Gordon when they returned to Disneyworld.
“I think…that Erica is impatient. She needs to get more investors and more money, and hire more people. We need resources. If this is the way she wants to roll, well, she’s the boss. I know you don’t approve. Neither do I. We have our personal ways of working and what we think is right, but…”
“The fakery bothers me. And her doing things with Leonardo before we’re finished with development. Doesn’t it bother you? She doesn’t listen to what we say or respect our suggestions.”
“Of course, it bothers me,” Gordon said angrily. “But you know what would happen if we objected? We’d be out on our asses in a nanosecond.”
“Right.” Tony knew this was true. She’d heard about some people who had said no in one way or another to Erica. They were gone.
“So, we just need to keep on keepin’ on and let her be the CEO, who pays us to do what we do. She doesn’t need us to argue with her.”
“You’re right,” Tony said. “I know you are.” But did she really believe it? For the time being, she’d go along with that view.
* * *
Tony called Sheila late Monday afternoon. “I have to work late.”
“Looks like that’s going to be a standard thing. Not that I mind. To me, with people like you and Gordon going balls-out all the time, that’s more evidence that GHS is going to be successful. I’m sure Erica needs you two to do what you do.”
“Yep,” Tony said. It was all she could manage. She was a mass of confusion and dread. Her memory, which had been erased it seemed by making love for the first time with Sheila, came flooding back. She still had that question from Sheila to answer.
All day Monday, she and Gordon had spent hours and hours rerunning tests and had had to beg other staff to donate blood because their fingers were shot.
Tony was disappointed and frustrated Leonardo couldn’t render a single result in any consistent way. It was not reproducible, not even for the immunoassay. They had two more tests to perfect, but they ultimately had to develop hundreds. That’s what Erica had said. Leonardo had to be able to do all the standard medical blood assays as well or better than any commercial laboratory.
Worse than that, Tony didn’t know what she could or should say to Sheila about any of this. She didn’t want to create a bad or erroneous impression about the state of GHS to a major investor whom she happened to be sleeping with and could potentially fall in love with. Someone who deserved her honesty.
She had no idea what to do. Sheila was still talking, and Tony had lost track.
“I’m sorry. I’m so tired, I kind of spaced out there. What was the last thing you said?”
“I said, you need a hot tub and a neck massage, and then you need a couple or three orgasms, and you’ll feel much better.”
That was probably true, and it all sounded wonderful. But…none of that was going to soothe Tony’s troubled psyche.
“Are you still there, Tony?” Sheila asked after a moment.
“Yeah. Yeah, sure. Sorry I spaced out again.” Tony felt guiltier than ever.
“Do you want me to come pick you up? Can you leave in a little while?”
“Um. No. I have to stay. And I want to go home tonight. Rain check?”
“Of course. You do whatever you need to. I’ll talk to you soon.” Sheila rang off.
Tony caught the Caltrain home, which, as usual, afforded her far too much time to think. The more she thought, the worse she felt and the less sure of what she ought to do. Sheila noticed everything, and she had certainly picked up when they were talking on the phone that something was awry. Tony had been as talkative as a magpie on their weekend together, and today she was the opposite.
She was going to have to say something to Sheila and risk ending a relationship that had barely begun. She couldn’t abide dishonesty: her own and/or anyone else’s. And that brought up Erica’s behavior and what to make of it.
Tony thought about the phrase “the end justifies the means.” She’d never believed it was true. People always have to make moral choices. On the other hand, she wasn’t certain she possessed all the pertinent information. She had only her own impressions. Gordon appeared to be making some sort of peace with the status quo. Perhaps things weren’t as bad as they seemed. Maybe her moral code was a bit too rigid and ought not to be applied equally to everything and everybody the same way every time.
She wanted to talk to her dad, but something stopped her: his odd warning of a couple months before about Sheila. She decided to go ahead with her plan to talk to Sheila and tell her the truth.
* * *
After the phone call with Tony, Sheila hung up and sat for a moment, assessing her mental and physical state. She was unbalanced because of Tony’s abrupt change of behavior. Something was wrong, but Tony wasn’t ready to discuss it and obviously needed some mental and physical space. Sheila was fairly sure whatever it was had nothing to do with her or with them, but she’d just have to wait. In the meantime, she had more pitch meetings to schedule and other companies to keep an eye on. In Buddhist practice, if something troubled one, one needed to look within oneself for the reason for the disturbance and await more information.
* * *
Sheila was rewarded when Tony called her late in the week and said, “Things have settled down at work, and I hope you have some time to see me.”
“Oh, my dear, I have time, and I would love to see you. Will you come for the weekend?”
Again, she heard a pause, short but perceptible. “I’d like that.”
“Friday at…?” Sheila wanted Tony to establish the time of their meeting.
“Five will be fine.”
When Tony stepped into her car, Sheila leaned forward, and the kiss they shared was suffused with memory and redolent of desire and encouraged her optimism. Tony, though, broke the kiss and backed off with a sad and strange half smile.
“How are you?” Sheila asked.
“I’m hanging in there. You?”
“Very well. Are you hungry, or should we go directly to bed and eat later? First things first and all?” It was a trial shot. Sheila hadn’t any idea of how Tony would react, and it was
good she was prepared, because Tony flinched slightly.
“Sorry. Could we get something to eat and just talk for a while?”
“Absolutely. Mexican okay?”
“Sure.”
They were seated at a table in La Casa and had already given their orders before Tony took a deep breath and said, “I’m sorry for being incommunicado. It’s borderline rude after we had such a great time together last weekend.”
“No need to apologize. I didn’t experience your actions as anything other than you needed some space to deal with something I’m not privy to and would find out about if you choose to share it with me.”
“Wow. Most people would flip out if I was so distant with them after the, er, experience we had. They’d think I was the worst bitch in the world.” Tony paused, then said, “Or that I had a screw loose.”
Sheila smiled slightly. “That’s not how I roll. Torqueing myself into a mass of nerves because you didn’t behave how I expected you to behave wouldn’t help either of us.”
Tony was astonished, though she ought not to be, at Sheila’s equanimity. She hoped it would last through what she was planning to say.
“You are someone unique and unprecedented, at least in my experience.” Tony didn’t bother to hide her awe.
Sheila grinned and raised her water in toast.
They paused as their dinners arrived.
Tony was starting to discover that Sheila’s dearth of words was the essence of her leaving space for Tony to open up. She had concluded that she could do only one thing, and that was to tell Sheila the truth. Sheila had once asked her about what it was like to work at GHS, and she’d answered in one way. The answer to that question had changed. Tony didn’t know very much about romantic relationships, but she was sure she couldn’t be physically close to a woman and not emotionally close. She had to speak her mind, tell the truth. Sheila would respond however she was going to respond, and Tony would have to deal with the consequences.
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