Reprisal ac-5

by F. Paul Wilson

  They'd been talking ever since. They became friends. Sort of. She doubted Will had a true, deep friendship with anyone. He was so secretive about himself. The most she knew about his origins was that he was from "New England." He would tell her his deepest thoughts on life, love, philosophy, religion, politics—and listening to him it was quite apparent to her that he had done a lot of thinking in those areas. He would expound on any subject but Will Ryerson. Which made him all the more intriguing.

  Lisl sensed that he was a lonely man and that she was one of the few people in his life with whom he could communicate on his own level. The other groundskeepers weren't in Will's league, or he wasn't in theirs. He had often complained that as far as his coworkers were concerned, if it wasn't in the sports section or didn't have big breasts, it didn't really matter. So he used his lunchtimes with Lisl to ventilate the thoughts that had accumulated during the time they were apart.

  That was why she couldn't understand why he was being so evasive about the book in his lunch box. She was sure it wasn't The Stranger. But then what was it? Porn? She doubted it. Porn wasn't his style. And even if it were, he'd probably want to discuss it with her.

  Lisl shrugged it off. If he didn't want to tell her, that was his business. He didn't owe her an explanation.

  She watched him tear into his lunch. It was one of those belly-buster subs he favored, where anything within reach was sliced up and piled between two halves of a loaf of Italian bread and splattered with oil and vinegar.

  "I wish I were like you."

  "No you don't," he said.

  "Metabolism-wise, I do. Lunch-wise, at least. Good Lord, look at the size of that sandwich—and I can imagine what you eat for dinner. Yet you don't put on a pound."

  "I don't sit at a desk all day either."

  "True, but your body does a far better job than mine of burning calories."

  "Not as good a job as it used to. I'm nibbling around the edges of fifty now and I can feel the machine slowing down."

  "Maybe, but men age better than women."

  Will was aging pretty well in Lisl's estimation. Maybe it was because he carried his weight so well: very lean and muscular, a good six feet in height, maybe a little more, with broad shoulders and no gut. Maybe it was his long hair and beard, both of which had grown grayer over the past two years, although his clear blue eyes remained mild and gentle—and impenetrable. Will had equipped the windows of his soul with steel storm shutters.

  "Men just don't worry about it as much," he said. "Look at all the guys on the maintenance crew with beer bellies."

  Lisl smiled. "I know what you mean. Some of them look eight months pregnant. And if I put on any more weight, so will I. If only I could shed the pounds like you."

  Will shrugged. "I guess it's just like everything else about us—opposites. What you can't do, I can. What I can't do, you can."

  "You know, Will, you're right. Together you and I make one well-rounded, well-educated person."

  He laughed. "What I said: I know next to nothing about the sciences, and you might well be classified as culturally deprived as far as the humanities go."

  Lisl nodded, agreeing fully. These pastoral lunch hours with Will had made her realize how painfully lopsided her education had been. She had her Ph.D., yes, but it was as if she had gone through high school, college, and graduate school with blinders on. Science and math, math and science—they'd been her whole life, all she'd cared about. Will had shown her how much she'd missed. If she had it all to do over again, she'd do it differently. There was a whole other world out there, rich, colorful, filled with stories, music, art, dance, schools of thought on ethics, morals, politics, and so much more that she'd missed. Missed completely. She still had plenty of time to catch up. And with Will as a guide, she knew it would be fun. Still, the thought of all that wasted time irritated her.

  "Well, thanks to you, I'm certainly less deprived than before we met. Can we keep this up?"

  She sensed his face soften behind the beard. "As long as you want."

  Just then, Lisl spotted someone waving from the base of the knoll. She recognized Adele Connors's stout, compact figure.

  "Yoo-hoo! Lisl! Look, y'all! I found them!" she said in her squeaky voice.

  She trundled up the slope jingling a set of keys in the air.

  "Your keys?" Lisl said. "Oh, good!"

  Adele was one of the stalwarts of the secretarial pool. Lisl had found her wringing her hands and lamenting the loss of her key chain yesterday. Adele had searched most of the afternoon with no luck. Finally, since she couldn't start her own car without her keys, she'd ^sked Lisl to drive her home.

  Which had vaguely annoyed Lisl. Not that she minded doing Adele a favor, it was just that the secretaries tended to treat her like "one of the girls." And Lisl wasn't "one of the girls." Although she wasn't tenured yet, she was an associate professor in the university's mathematics department and wished sometimes they'd treat her as such. But she had herself to blame. Being the only female in the department, perhaps she'd become too chummy with the secretaries when she first arrived. Unaccustomed to being in a position of authority, she'd been oversensitive about coming on as a tight-assed bitch with the secretaries. Plus, a little girl talk had come in handy—she'd got the lowdown on everyone in the department without even asking.

  But still… as useful as the camaraderie had been, there'd been a price to pay. She couldn't help noticing how the secretaries addressed all the other Ph.D.s in the department as "Doctor," while she was always "Lisl." A minor point, but an irritating one.

  "Where'd you find them?" she asked as Adele reached the top of the knoll.

  "Right behind my seat cushion. Isn't that something!"

  "I thought you said you searched the entire area."

  "I did! I did! But I left out one thing. I forgot to ask for the Lord's help."

  Out of the coiner of her eye she saw Will pause in mid bite. She groaned inwardly. Adele was a Born Again. She could go on interminably on the subject of Jesus.

  "That's great, Adele," Lisl said quickly. "By the way, this is Will Ryerson."

  Will and Adele exchanged nods and hellos, but Adele was not to be turned from her favorite subject.

  "But let me tell you how the Lord intervened for me," she said. "After you dropped me off home last night, I got big Dwayne and little Dwayne together and we knelt in the middle of our living room and prayed for the Lord to help me find my keys. We did that twice last night, and once again this morning, just before the school bus came for little Dwayne. And you know what?"

  Lisl waited. Apparently it wasn't a rhetorical question, so she took a wild stab.

  "You found your keys."

  "Praise the Lord, yes! When big Dwayne dropped me off this morning, I went to my desk, sat in my chair, and felt a lump under my cushion. I looked and—Praise the Lord—there they were! It's a little miracle, that's what it is! Because I know they weren't there yesterday. God found them and put them where I was sure to happen across them. I just know he did. Isn't the Lord wondrous in his ways?" She turned and started back down the slope, bubbling and babbling all the way. "I'm spending the whole day just witnessing and praising Him, witnessing and praising my wonderful Lord. Bye, y'all!"

  "Bye, Adele," Lisl said.

  She turned to Will and saw that he was leaning back against the.tree and staring after Adele's retreating figure, the sandwich lying forgotten in his lap.

  "Incredible!" he said.

  "What's the matter?" she asked.

  "People like that make me lose my appetite."

  "Nothing makes you lose your appetite."

  "The Adeles of the world do. I mean, how empty-headed can you get?"

  "She's harmless."

  "Is she? I mean, where's her perspective? God isn't a good luck charm. He's not there to help you find your keys or make it a nice day for the church's Labor Day picnic."

  Lisl sensed the growing heat behind Will's words. He usually avoided the subjec
t of religion—anything else was fair game, but he didn't seem to like to talk about God. This would be good. She let him roll.

  "God helped her find her car keys. Great. Just great. Praise the Lord and pass the mashed potatoes. Where's her head, anyway? We've got thousands—no, hundreds of thousands of people starving in places like Ethiopia. Desperate fathers and mothers kneeling over the bloated bellies of their starving children, crying out to heaven for a little rain so their crops will grow and they can feed their families. But God's not answering them. The whole damn region remains a dust bowl with children and adults alike dropping like flies. Adele, however, sends up a couple of quick Our Fathers and God hops right to it. He locates those lost keys and shoves them under her seat cushion where she's sure to find them first thing in the morning. There's still no rain in Ethiopia, but Adele What's-her-name's got her goddam car keys." He paused for breath, then looked at her. "Is there something wrong with that scenario, or is it just me?"

  Lisl stared at Will in frank shock. In the two years she'd known him she had, never heard him raise his voice or become angry about anything. But Adele obviously had touched a raw nerve. He was seething; the scar on his forehead was turning red.

  She patted his arm.

  "Calm down, Will. It doesn't matter."

  "It does matter. Where does she get off thinking that God's ignoring prayers for rain in the Sudan to go put her car keys where she can find them? It's not fair for her to go around telling everybody that God's answering her ditsy prayers while prayers for things that really matter go unanswered!"

  And suddenly it was clear to Lisl. Suddenly she knew why Will was so angry. Or at least thought she did.

  "What did you pray for, Will? What did you ask for that didn't happen?"

  He looked at her, and for a moment the shutters were open. In that moment she had a glimpse into his soul—

  —and recoiled at the pain, the grief, the agony, the disillusionment that welled up in his eyes. But mostly it was the overriding fear that shook her so.

  Oh, my God! Oh, my poor Will! What happened to you? Where have you been. What have you seen?

  And then the shutters slammed closed and once again she faced a pair of bland blue eyes. Opaque blue eyes.

  "It's nothing like that," he said calmly. "It's just that the childishness and superficiality of that kind of religion gets to me after a while. It's so prevalent around here. You hear of bumper-sticker politics, but it seems to me they've got bumper-sticker religion in these parts."

  Lisl knew from what she had glimpsed in his eyes that it was much more than that, but sensed it would do no good to probe. Will was shut down tight.

  Lisl added another mystery to the mental list she'd been keeping about the enigmatic Will Ryerson.

  "Not just around these parts," she said.

  "Yeah," he sighed. "Ain't that the truth. It's all over the country. Televangelism. God as game show host. A heavenly Wheel ofFortune."

  "Except the money comes from the contestants instead of to them."

  He looked at her. "You've never said much about it, Leese, but I gather you're not very religious."

  "I was raised a Methodist. Sort of. But you can't get too far into higher math and stay very religious."

  "Oh, really?" he said with a smile. "I've looked into some of those journals you bring up here. I'd say it takes quite a leap of faith to get involved in that stuff."

  She laughed. "You're not the first person to feel that way."

  "Speaking of higher math," Will said, "what about that idea you had for a paper? How's it coming?"

  Just thinking about the paper started a buzz of excitement within her.

  "It's going great."

  "Good enough for Palo Alto?"

  She nodded. "I think so. Maybe."

  "No maybes. If you think so, you ought to enter it."

  "But if it gets rejected—"

  "Then you're right back where you started. Nothing lost except the time you spent working on it. And even the time isn't completely lost because you'll no doubt learn something. But if you don't do the paper, and don't submit it, you're betraying your potential. It's bad enough to let other people stifle you. But when you stifle yourself—"

  "I know, I know."

  They'd been over this ground before. Lisl had grown so close to Will over the past couple of years. She'd opened up to him as she had to no man before, more even than to Brian during their marriage. She never would have believed she could be so intimate with a man without sex edging into the picture. But that's the way it was.

  Platonic. She'd heard of platonic affairs but had always thought them fantasies. Now she was living one. Once she had broken through Will's shell, she'd found him warm and accepting. A great talker and a better listener. But she'd remained wary of him. The deep discussions during lunch hours here on the knoll during the week, the long, aimless, languorous drives on weekends… through them all Lisl had stayed on guard, dreading the inevitable moment when Will would put the moves on her.

  And dread really said it. The nightmare of divorcing Brian had been still too fresh in her mind, the wounds had barely stopped bleeding and were a long way from healing. She hadn't wanted another man in her life, no way, no how, especially not someone about twenty years older. And she knew—just knew—that Will was going to want to expand their relationship beyond the purely intellectual to the physical. Lisl didn't want that. It would back her into the position of rebuffing him. And what would that do to their relationship? Wound it, surely. Perhaps even kill it. She couldn't bear that. Shje'd wanted things to stay just as they were.

  So Lisl had faced each of those weekend drives-to-nowhere with growing anxiety, waiting for the inevitable invitation back to Will's place for "a couple of drinks" or where they could "be more comfortable." She waited. And waited.

  But the other shoe never dropped. Will never made that "inevitable" pass.

  Lisl smiled now at the memory of her own reaction when it had finally dawned that Will wasn't going to put the moves on her. She'd been hurt. Hurt! After spending months afraid he'd make a pass, she was wounded when he didn't. There was no winning this game.

  Of course, she'd immediately blamed herself. She was too dumb, too frumpy, too dull, too nerdy to attract him. But then logic reared up and asked, If he truly saw her that way, why would he spend so much time with her?

  Then she blamed Will. Was he gay? But that didn't seem to be the case. As far as she could figure, he had no men friends. No friends at all other than Lisl.

  Asexual? Maybe.

  A lot of maybes. One thing had been certain, though. Will Ryerson was the kindest, gentlest, deepest, weirdest man she had ever known. And despite all his quirks—and there were quite a few of them—she'd wanted to know him better.

  Over the two years, Will gradually had assumed the role of tutor and Dutch uncle, conducting mini seminars on the knoll as he casually guided her through the terra incognita of philosophy and literature. He was a good uncle. He demanded nothing of her. He was always there for her, to give advice when asked for it or merely serve as a sounding board for her problems and ideas. And always encouraging. His opinion of her capabilities was always far more sanguine than hers. Where Lisl saw limits, Will saw endless possibilities.

  Lisl liked to think that their relationship wasn't just a one-way street, that she gave something back. She wasn't sure why or how, but she sensed that Will had benefited almost as much as she from their interaction. He seemed far more at ease with the world and with himself since they'd first met. He'd been a bleak, melancholy, almost tortured man then. Now he could make jokes and even laugh. She hoped that had been at least partly her doing.

  "Go for it," Will said.

  "I don't know, Will. What will Everett think?"

  "He'll think you're making a bid to get tenure in the department, just like he's doing. Nothing wrong with that. And why on earth should you defer to him? You both joined the department the same year. Even if you are younger, yo
u're his equal in seniority, and you're his match—if not his better—in ability. And besides, you're a hell of a lot better-looking."

  Lisl felt herself flushing. "Stop that. That's irrelevant."

  "Of course it is. But no more so than any of those cop-outs you allow to hold you back. Go for it, Leese."

  That was Uncle Will: supremely confident that she could attain any goal she set her sights on. Lisl wished she could buy into his unabashed enthusiasm for her abilities. But he didn't know the truth—that she was a fake. Sure, she'd earned her Ph.D. and managed to be the first woman accepted into Darnell's traditionally all-male department of mathematics, but Lisl was sure that some sort of fluke had let her slip past the review board, some sort of affirmative action thing that had opened the doors for her. She wasn't that good. Really.

  And now Will was pushing her to try to move up in the department. The International Congress of Mathematicians was meeting in Palo Alto next spring. Ev Sanders was submitting a paper for presentation there. If it was accepted, he'd be the fair-haired boy in the department, a shoo-in for tenure. And tenure was getting harder to come by. Darnell had been tightening up on the number of tenured positions the past few years, and now that it was being called "the new Harvard of the South," the situation was sure to become even tighter. But John Manning had left his tenured professorship in the department last month to take, that position at Duke, which meant math had an open spot. If Lisl's paper was also accepted, Everett would no longer have the post position. And if Lisl's paper was accepted instead of Ev's…

  "You really think I should?"

  "No. I just like the sound of my own voice. Do it, dammitr

  "All right! I will!"

  "Good. See? Wasn't that easy?"

  "Yeah. Sure. Easy for you. You don't have to deliver a paper."