Summer Breeze

by Nancy Thayer

  Josh had been happy after that evening. In fact, they’d made love when they went to bed that night, and it had been a long time since that had happened. It had been so heavenly, not just the sex but the cuddling afterward, the nuzzling, the silly endearments they used for each other when they were in especially romantic moods. He really was her darling, with his red hair sticking up like a porcupine’s, and his long legs and torso and arms lightly covered with freckles, and his powerful ribs like the staves of a boat sheltering his warm, beloved beating heart.

  That night she determined to work with him, to ease some of his tension by doing her share and more.

  So here she was, at Judy’s Gym, on a treadmill. She’d seen a couple of posh yummy mummies around. After she’d come here a few times, perhaps she could introduce herself, meet them for coffee, network.

  Right now, next to her, a much older woman labored away on her treadmill. Morgan had noticed the woman when she came in. She was probably around sixty, with an impressive bosom and what clothing manufacturers were now calling a “bold” bottom. She was actually pretty cute in her turquoise tights and her fuchsia tunic, with a matching headband holding back her white hair. Morgan nodded hello to the woman, giving her a big and genuine smile of encouragement. Good for her, Morgan had thought, twenty minutes ago.

  But now she noticed the older woman struggling. Her hands were clamped onto the support bars so tightly her knuckles were white. Her legs were shaking. In fact, her entire body was trembling, and her eyes darted frantically around the room.

  Morgan scanned the room, too. Where was Elise? Where were any of the perky personal trainers? She looked back at the older woman, who was staring at her, mouth open, no words coming out.

  Morgan clicked off her treadmill and jumped onto the floor, hitting hard, her own body lurching from the sudden change.

  “Do you want to stop? Or slow down?” she asked the older woman.

  The older woman nodded. Her face was red, almost purple. Her hairline was soaked with sweat.

  Morgan reached over and moved the speed lever so that the conveyor belt gradually slowed, then stopped. The other woman almost fell onto one of the bars. Morgan stepped on the conveyor belt and grabbed her waist and steadied her.

  “Breath,” the woman gasped, her chest heaving.

  “Okay. Take your time. I’ve got you. You won’t fall. Your breath will come back naturally. We’ll sit down, right here, on the belt.”

  “Faint,” the woman said.

  “Okay, we’ll sit down right now.” This was Morgan’s territory. She’d actually never been with a person who fainted before, but she had the training to deal with it. Besides, anyone knew it would be a much better situation for the woman to fall while sitting than standing. The whole hitting-the-head consequence was lessened. Morgan didn’t have the strength to completely support the woman, but she put her arm around her shoulders and carefully helped her turn away from the control panel until she was facing sideways.

  “Can you put your feet on the floor?” Morgan asked.

  The woman nodded.

  “Try one foot at a time. I’ve got you. Good. Next foot.”

  Once the woman’s feet were firmly on the floor, Morgan stepped down, too. “Now we’re going to sit down. I’ll keep my arm around you.”

  Cautiously, they sat. The older woman nearly folded in half, sagging forward, her torso heaving as she inhaled.

  “I believe my trainer was a bit optimistic about my abilities,” she panted.

  “They can be that way,” Morgan agreed. “How do you feel now?”

  “I’m dizzy. I don’t think it was entirely my trainer’s fault. I told her I wanted to push myself.” After a few moments, she straightened, although her legs still trembled. “It looks like I did.” She laughed creakily.

  “You should drink some water.” Morgan rose, grabbed the bottle of water from the holder on the machine, and handed it to her.

  Suddenly another trainer, a stocky gymnastic type named Shari, rushed up, her ponytail bobbing. “Mrs. Smith! Are you all right? What happened?”

  “I’m fine,” Mrs. Smith replied. “I think perhaps the pace was a bit fast for my first time. This young woman helped me since you weren’t around.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry. I was with another client.” Shari squatted down to face Mrs. Smith. “How do you feel now?”

  Mrs. Smith blurted, “I need to go to the bathroom.”

  “Let me help you.” Shari held out her arms. “Put your hands on my arms and we’ll stand up.”

  Mrs. Smith drew back. “I’m not an invalid.”

  “Of course not. But you are trembling and your color isn’t what it should be.”

  “My color is never what it should be,” Mrs. Smith joked, but she put her hands on Shari’s arms and allowed herself to be heaved to standing. Tilting slightly toward Morgan, she said, “Thank you so much, my dear. I think you saved my life.”

  “You’re welcome,” Morgan replied.

  Slowly Shari and the older woman progressed away from the machines, out of the equipment room, toward the ladies’ restrooms.

  Morgan left Judy’s Gym with a glow on, partly from exercise, partly from performing a good deed. The day was overcast and muggy, and in the lush heat the trees around the lake waved their leaves like a multitude of green banners. After Petey’s nap, Morgan buckled him into his stroller and went out for a brisk walk.

  “Look, Petey.” Morgan bent down to show him. “Daylilies!” On the side of the road, a cluster of wild lilies was opening from candles to a lavish display of orange.

  “Hi, Mrs. O’Keefe!” Their babysitter, Felicity Horton, brought her bike to a halt. “Hi, Petey!”

  Morgan watched as Felicity kicked the bike stand down so she could bend over to talk with Petey.

  “He’s such a doll,” Felicity cooed.

  Petey shrieked with joy and waved his arms.

  Before the thought had cleared her brain, the words spilled out of Morgan’s mouth. “Felicity, how would you like to babysit him for a couple of hours? I just want to run into Amherst to do some errands.”

  “Oooh, I’d love to! Can I take him to my house? Mom is home and she’d love to see him.”

  “Absolutely,” Morgan agreed.

  • • •

  She changed her shirt, combed her hair, put on mascara and lipstick. Kicked her walking shoes into the corner and slipped her feet into some pretty beaded sandals. Jumped into her SUV and drove away, singing.

  She’d seen the outside of Bio-Green Industries, but she’d never been inside, in spite of the fact that labs and technical facilities were her favorite places in the world. Okay, she was weird, but test tubes and lab coats turned her on. She saw a garden center by the side of the road and pulled over, jumped out, found a great bright azalea plant, and bought it. She’d give it to Josh for his office.

  Bio-Green had the same brick-and-glass exterior of many tech businesses along Route 128 near Boston. The access road was landscaped, the grass green, slender newly planted trees blooming profusely. The road curved around to the side, where a parking lot for employees faced more construction at the rear of the large building. Morgan found a slot with the sign Visitor Parking and slipped in. She grabbed up the azalea and headed for the front entrance.

  Glass doors slid open at her approach. The lobby was cool and, not surprisingly, painted and furnished in a pale spring green. Behind a high curved desk a gorgeous young woman in a tight gray suit showed Morgan her snowy teeth.

  “Welcome to Bio-Green. May I help you?”

  “Hi. I’m Morgan O’Keefe. I just want to give this to my husband, Josh. Could you direct me to his office?”

  “Of course, Mrs. O’Keefe. This way.” The receptionist slid out from behind the counter and headed down a corridor to a set of elevators. She pressed a button. “Fifth floor. The top floor, actually! Turn right. Dr. O’Keefe’s office is at the end of the hall.”

  Oh Lord, Morgan thought. She knew t
hat Josh, even though he had a PhD, didn’t like being referred to as “doctor” because he considered it a medical appellation. She’d bet that Ronald Ruoff had instructed the staff to use the word.

  “Thank you.” She stepped onto the elevator and was whisked up.

  The hallway was carpeted in pale beige. The walls were light green here, too. She passed ornately framed pictures of forests, waterfalls, flowers, and polar bears as she headed to the end of the hall and Josh’s office.

  The office wall and its door were glass. Morgan had spoken with Josh’s secretary on the phone before. Her name was Imogene, so Morgan envisioned her as an older woman, precise, efficient, and perhaps a wee bit plump, in a plaid suit.

  But the secretary who saw Morgan and jumped up to open the door was centerfold pretty.

  “You must be Mrs. O’Keefe!” the girl gushed. “I’m Imogene, Dr. O’Keefe’s secretary. I’ve seen your picture on his desk with your cute little boy, Petey. What a gorgeous plant! You are so lucky, Dr. O’Keefe is actually in his office right now. Often he’s down at the labs, you know. Shall I buzz him to let him know you’re here?”

  Overwhelmed by the cascade of words, Morgan took a moment to breathe. “Hi, Imogene. Please call me Morgan. And, yes, I’d be grateful if you’d buzz Dr. O’Keefe to let him know I’m here.”

  Imogene zipped back to her desk. Morgan saw that the rest of the room was paneled in wood. The door to Josh’s office was wooden, thus blocking the interior from sight. As if secrets were hidden inside. Perhaps that was the purpose, to make his office look significantly restricted.

  “Dr. O’Keefe? Your wife is here to see you.”

  Morgan strained to listen; she couldn’t hear his response. So the door and walls were thick. Interesting.

  Josh’s door flew open and he stepped out, a wide smile on his face. “Morgan! What a surprise!”

  “I’ve brought a plant for your office.” Seeing him like this, in his fabulously cut suit, a Ralph Lauren today, in front of his luscious secretary, in this imposing building, Morgan felt suddenly shy, as if she were meeting a stranger, or someone for a first date.

  Josh laughed. “How nice.” He ushered her into the office and shut the door tightly. “Now,” he said. “Where shall we put it?”

  The room was enormous, lavishly equipped with sleek furniture. Behind his desk, behind the sofa, behind the table near the window, were potted plants: a ficus tree, a lemon tree, and a palm tree.

  Why hadn’t she foreseen this? Of course, Bio-Green Industries would have plants in all its offices.

  “Oh dear.” Morgan put her azalea, which was getting heavy, on the end of a table. “I didn’t realize.”

  “I’ll find a place,” Josh assured her. “It’s thoughtful, Morgan.” Coming close, he pulled her to him and kissed her mouth.

  She smiled up at him. “This place is amazing.”

  “I know, right?”

  “This whole building is great. I’d love to see the labs.”

  Josh frowned. “Oh, honey, I’ve got a pile of paperwork to get through and a load of calls to return.”

  “But just a peek—”

  Josh put his finger beneath her chin and tilted her face up so her eyes met his. “Morgan. Think. You? In a lab? Just a peek?”

  She conceded the point. “True. But you’ll show them to me someday, right?”

  “Of course.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “How’s Petey?”

  “He’s fine. I left him with Felicity for a while—”

  He interrupted her. “So everything’s good?”

  He was impatient. His entire body was straining to get back to work. He wanted her to leave. It was irrational, she knew, but her feelings were hurt.

  “Everything’s fine. I just wanted to see you.”

  She stalked across his office, yanked the door open, and exited. She twinkled her fingers at the luscious secretary as she passed her desk.

  “Bye, Imogene.”

  “Bye, Mrs. O’Keefe.” Imogene twinkled her fingers back.

  Morgan made it to the SUV and out of the parking lot before bursting into tears.

  She sat for a while, indulging in a good cry, then got bored with herself, blew her nose, wiped her tears, reapplied her mascara and lipstick, and started up the car.

  The University of Massachusetts at Amherst was nearby; she’d passed it several times when driving along East Pleasant Street, but she’d never spent any time there and was curious about its layout. The university had a vast campus, spread across fourteen hundred and fifty acres of rolling green land. It had over twenty-seven thousand students and over a thousand faculty members. It was a city of student centers, lecture halls, dormitories, libraries, dining halls, and laboratories. The environmental safety office, where she’d work if she ever worked again, was on Campus Center Way; she’d Googled it once, just out of curiosity. She didn’t dare go to the environmental safety office. She knew a position was open there; she knew if she walked in the door, she’d be hooked.

  She knew where the department of chemical engineering was, because after she’d met Ben Barnaby, she’d Googled it, too. The two buildings weren’t far from each other, except for the spaghetti of streets between them. She drove to Draper Hall, which housed the chemical engineering faculty. It was an elegant Victorian brick building, softened by age, with an arched doorway. She drove past it, found the parking lot, searched for an open space, and finally slid into a space marked Staff Only.

  When she’d worked at Weathersfield College, just north of Boston, she’d memorized the campus map, not a difficult feat, because that campus had been so much smaller than the massive U. Mass.–Amherst campus. It had existed in her mind like a hologram so that if there were ever an emergency, she could make her way to it instantly. She’d overseen the installation of OSHA-approved eyewash and deluge showers in several departments and especially the mercury-reduction initiative. Spilled mercury was highly toxic to the central nervous system, hazardous to the ecosystem, and could not be disposed of in the trash. She’d personally supervised the deacquisition of mercury-based instruments—hydrometers, manometers, pyrometers, sphygmomanometers, and so on—and replaced them with nonmercury alternatives. With each step she’d felt a sense of real achievement. People talked about saving the earth; she took action. She couldn’t save the entire world, but she could do her bit.

  “Morgan?”

  The male voice broke into her thoughts so suddenly she almost screamed. She’d rolled her window down for fresh air, and there in the window stood Ben Barnaby. What was he doing here?

  Of course, the question was, What was she doing here?

  “Ben, oh, hello.” She shook her head, emerging from her reverie.

  “Are you okay?”

  He had such clear blue eyes. He seemed so sympathetic.

  “To be honest, no, and you might be one of the few people to understand why. I miss working, Ben! I miss the labs, the computers, the offices, the emergencies. I must sound totally crazy.”

  “No, you don’t. I understand. Look, want me to show you Goessmann Lab?”

  “Oh, Ben, that would be incredible!”

  He laughed. “I hope you’re not disappointed.”

  He stepped back. She opened her door, left the car, beeped it locked, and set off walking with him.

  “Petey’s with a babysitter. Felicity. I was just touring the campus. I guess for me it’s like going to the world’s most fabulous mall.”

  Ben chuckled. “Perhaps an eccentric point of view.” He walked along beside her, going left out of the parking lot onto a sideway. “You’re lucky your husband’s a scientist.”

  Not today I’m not, Morgan thought, but said simply, “True. Although we study different things.”

  They crossed the street and wound past buildings, bike stands, lampposts, trees, and barrels labeled Trash and Recycle.

  “Are you teaching during the summer session?” she asked Ben.

  “One morning class three days a week
. Plus, I’ve got some papers to write and some grants to apply for.”

  “You’re working on bio-oil upgrading?”

  “Correct. A bit like what Josh is doing over at Bio-Green, but different. Everyone’s rushing to find an alternative to oil, or a way to improve its efficiency.” He opened the door into a modern building constructed of what looked like giant real-life LEGOs.

  She followed him down a corridor, past doors with windows in them and numbers on them and people moving back and forth inside them, and then he opened a door and said, “Here we are.”

  His lab was probably thirty by twenty, with high windows at the other end, track lighting in the ceiling, the walls lined with countertops, refrigerators, cupboards, sinks, and fume hoods for proper exhaust and ventilation. In the middle of the room ran a long workbench, covered with computers and microscopes. Two men and one woman sat on stools staring down into the microscopes or tapping at the computers.

  “Hey, everyone,” Ben said. “How’s it going?”

  The three grad students glanced up, smiling. “Hey, Ben.”

  “This is my friend Morgan O’Keefe. She’s a biosafety specialist.”

  The three grad students froze.

  Morgan waved. “I don’t work here,” she assured them. “I’m a stay-at-home mom these days. I just miss seeing labs.”

  “So she’s welcome to come in and visit here anytime, okay?” Ben told them.