A Slow Leap into the Sky

By Jenna MacSwain

Fredrick saw Alexandra as a rare and beautiful bird. For Isabella, Alex was competition for the affections of Isabella’s husband and her children, and yet Isabella couldn’t help loving Alex. For Samantha, Alex was, in turns, a hero and a monster and sister in the struggle. The world can be a rough place for brilliant women to live in, but surviving is the ultimate triumph.

Jenna MacSwain’s debut novel is a smart, steamy love story about love that is obsession, a brutal destructive force, and what keeps us living when nothing else can, set in Silicon Valley in a time when everything seemed possible and a single idea could change the world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 26, 2020
• ISBN: 9781633388819

Book preview

Hypatia’s Simultaneous Equations

Tuesday, April 8, 1986

Hey, Harris!

Alex stopped and turned to look at the brown-skinned man in pajama pants and a Rams T-shirt shackled to the mimosa tree twenty feet away.

Ogden?

You remember me…, he said, flashing a smile.

Who wouldn’t? Captain of the water polo team and one of the most popular seniors on campus. She moved toward him, backtracking between the carp ponds in front of the twin seven-story brownstones of the humanities building and the administration building.

Remembering is my forte. Physics I, section ten, three years ago, she said with the steady voice and confident façade that came with speaking in numbers. But as she stepped along the west-pointing shadow that Ogden’s tree cast in the midmorning April sun, her palms were suddenly sweat slick, and she pressed them against her jeans. Three years ago had been the first and last term that Alex was a teaching assistant to freshmen. For Odgen and his classmates, Jailbait Harris was the kindest name they had for her. Other names referred to her physical deficiencies. For sixteen-year-old Alex, those Thursday afternoons spent explaining electromagnetism to a dozen eighteen-year-old boy-men had been a weekly descent into hell.

You wouldn’t happen to have a smith’s set, would you? Ogden asked. His arms were pulled loosely behind him, held by prison shackles padded by towels to protect Ogden and the tree from unnecessary discomfort. His five-foot eleven frame listed to the side, favoring his left foot. Looking down, Alex noticed that his blue paisley pants were ripped along the seam at the bottom to accommodate a walking cast.

No, Alex said, only feet away from him now. The top of her head rose to his chin. I left it in my desk. This wasn’t true. The campus was rife with self-trained locksmiths, but Alex wasn’t one of them. So they caught you, did they?

Yeah. Too gimpy to run.

That’ll teach you to free-climb the Aeronautics building in the rain…, a familiar voice said from behind.

Hannah! My favorite Mech-E… Ogden looked past Alex.

Save it, Troll, Hannah said. I’m not your girlfriend today. I’m your sworn enemy. Hello, Alex, she added with a quick nod.

Hi, Alex said. Are you the one responsible for his, um, predicament?

Uh uh, Hannah said and shook her head no. Her spiked jet-black hair had magenta cellophanes that reflected the same color as the clumps of blossoms overhead. Hannah was as tall as Ogden, with sinewy bare arms. A white shirt and blue jeans clung to her shapely figure and long legs. Standing next to her, Alex felt like the troll in her baggy jeans and faded extralarge Mariner’s jersey that fit her like a cloak.

His teammates did this to him. Old Oggy must have thought they’d cut him some slack if he slept in on Senior Ditch Day, Hannah explained, then to Ogden she said, No trolls allowed on campus after sunrise.

Hope they’ll send someone to check on him. The grounds crew won’t approve of the way he’ll water their tree, Alex said, smiling back at Hannah. That was a stupid thing to say, Alex chided herself silently.

My thoughts exactly, Ogden said.

Alex stuffed her hands into the front pockets of her jeans and pressed her arms tight against her sides to hide the damp patches at her armpits. She held her breath until Ogden swung his gaze away from her and back to Hannah. Then Alex caught the look on Hannah’s face, a crinkle of the forehead that seemed to say, Forgot you’re one of them now, the administration. Maybe I just got the team in trouble.

Senior ditch-day was a long tradition unsanctioned but tolerated by the Institute. It was a day where the seniors played high-tech pranks on the lower classmen but were subjected to low-tech retaliation if caught. The unspoken rule of the administration was strictly observed: no one gets hurt, and nothing is permanently damaged.

I suppose you’re right, Hannah said and looked Ogden over. Beg me for mercy, Oggy. I love to hear you beg.

Escort me to the john, honey, and I’ll let you hold it for me.

I’ll tie a knot in it, Hannah said. In two strides, she was behind Ogden’s back. Alex thought to take this opportunity to leave. Can we count on you again this year for code breaking help, Alex? Hannah asked, now crouched and examining the lock on the shackles.

Sure, Alex said.

This batch of Trolls’ve laid some heinous traps for us.

Better believe it— Ogden began. Hannah pulled his arms back, interrupting him.

Hold still. I can’t rake these pins into place if you keep moving. Ogden’s face fell into a sheepish look. Hannah said to Alex, I mean, if you have time. You’ve seemed very busy lately. Whenever I drop by your office, you’re underground with your high-powered laser.

Ogden’s shackles snapped open. He rubbed his wrists. Thanks, honey, he said.

Go to the beach like all the other trolls, Hannah said, rising with shackles and towels in her hands. She moved next to Ogden and tossed him the load. He caught it effortlessly and gave her an ‘I know you love me’ grin. And please, Oggy, she continued, don’t tell anyone I sprang you.

He wrapped the shackles and towels together and stuffed them under one arm. Then he gave Hannah a kiss on the lips. I’d think you’d top the list of suspects without a word from me. I’ll see you ladies later. First a look around, then he walked away in the direction of the student parking lot.

Thanks for coming to hear me play last week. Who was the midget with you? Hannah asked. Alex turned to look at her, embarrassed that she had been watching Ogden walk away, skip-limping quickly down the hill to the sidewalk. That little girl’s become your regular date for Friday noon concerts.

Who…Samantha? Was that only a week ago? Alex had been so buried in her work that it seemed ages since she had spirited little Sam away from the faculty day care center to listen to Hannah’s piano recital. And it was only a month ago but seemed like years since Alex had driven with Fredrick and Sam Lund to Disneyland to celebrate the toddler’s second birthday.

Was that Danish Robert Redford’s kid? Hannah asked, using one of Fredrick’s older campus nicknames. I didn’t recognize her. She looked more like him when she was a baby. Seeing him drop her off was the best part of my work-study job freshman year. Ya know, I considered switching majors so I could take Dr. Lund’s class. He’s the reason electrical engineering’s a more popular major than biology for freshmen women. Hannah laughed at her observation, and Alex smiled but didn’t laugh—she worried that it might sound forced.

Well, I won’t be underground with my laser today. Come by my office if you think I can help. Good luck with the traps.

Alex headed toward the physics building. No laser today because David had reassigned it. Like Alex, David was a post-doctoral fellow. Two years ago, when he joined the research group, Alex had gotten along with him, but after she earned her PhD, things changed. Political maneuvering and outright backstabbing became the norm in the shared lab, even from those she had considered friends, and David led the charge. The past eighteen months had been Alex’s most difficult. It was Fredrick who put it all in perspective, telling her that she had transitioned from forbidden fruit to bitter competition. Their friendship was new then, and Fredrick had troubles of his own with a divorce and immigration problems, but his door was always open to her.

It occurred to Alex that senior ditch-day meant that classes were canceled, and talking to Fredrick is just what she needed to get her head in the right place. He would listen to her whine without making her feel that she was whining.

Crossing the threshold of his office, she could see Fredrick sitting at his desk. One week before my deadline and Hitler takes me off the laser. I got the damn thing working in the first place.

Hello, Alex. Fredrick smiled as he looked up from what he was reading.

If David doesn’t tread carefully through his rotation as group leader, more than a little power will swell his head. There are some lovely untraceable poisons… Alex noticed the man sitting on Fredrick’s couch in her usual spot.

Ben, this is Dr. Harris, Fredrick said. A year and a half since she had earned that title and it was still rare to hear anyone use it. Alex’s face felt hot suddenly.

Hello, she said, praying that the thick man in the brown suit wouldn’t offer to shake her sweaty hand. Ben nodded an acknowledgement and turned back to Fredrick and opened his mouth to say something.

I’ll meet up with you in a minute, Fredrick said before the man could speak. I’ll bring these papers with me.

Ben stood and straightened his jacket. They’re waiting for us in the Industrial Relations Office.

We have a few minutes before the meeting. It’s a good idea for you to soften them up first anyway, Fredrick said.

Ben looked at Alex. Okay, but I’ll be a dog without a pony.

Last time we talked about your paper, Alex, you thought you had all the data you needed. Fredrick motioned for her to take a seat.

She settled into the depression that Ben had left in the bradded leather and waited while it rose to equilibrium with her hundred pounds, a heartbeat or two—long enough for Ben to be out of earshot. Please tell me that I didn’t just reveal my homicidal tendencies to your lawyer. She returned his smile, and then a concern caught up with her. I thought the Institute had settled everything with the INS.

No worries, he said, borrowing one of her expressions and misusing it to tease her. Patent business. Glad you stopped by. I was going to call you.

Alex leaned back, feeling more relaxed already. Go ahead.

There’s a conference on Friday—

No. I mean the Samantha story. Before you ask me to stay with her, you always soften me up with a ‘cute kid’ story.

She’s calling me papa. She’s said it clearly now…twice.

Weren’t you teaching the little monkey to speak Spanish? Maybe she’s calling you a potato.

Laughing, he said, It’s bad enough that her first word was chocolate. Now she speaks volumes in three languages but no daddy or the like in any of it. A touch of his accent came through with his feigned suffering.

I’m sure potato is a term of endearment pretty much everywhere. So, a conference on Friday…?

I had planned a day trip to Carmel, but now I have to be there the night before. Mrs. Nelson can’t keep Sam overnight.

Even Marion Nelson has a social life, Alex thought. Her imagination conjured the secret nocturnal activities of Fredrick’s prickly sixty-five-year-old neighbor, cruising the outer reaches of the San Fernando Valley with her motorcycle gang. When Alex didn’t say anything right away, Fredrick added, You can drop Sam off early at the day care center and Mrs. Nelson will pick her up in the afternoon as usual. She watched him search her face for a response. Are you under the gun with your deadline, Alex? My guess was that you’d finished already—but you should talk to Ellery if you really need more data, he said, referring to her adviser.

As usual, he had her pegged. A version of her paper was written with more than what the editors had asked for. Less is never more with research. I wanted to lay out a clear roadmap for verification. Maybe I am obsessing… Alex looked at his chalkboard filled with circuitry. Nonstandard symbols were used to represent the devices that Fredrick or his students had invented. I’m also a little jealous. Carmel, huh? She stood up. I should let you catch up with Ben. At the door, she turned back, and on impulse she said, Samantha and I could drive up the coast with you. I wouldn’t mind missing Friday’s group meeting.

Have things gotten that bad? He looked concerned.

The sniper fire’s been thick now that Nature accepted my paper. But I can handle it. I’ve dealt with David before.

He nodded, and his mouth pulled to the side. She had seen that look before. I’ll call you later, he said.

On the way back to her office, she studied her mental picture of the look on Fredrick’s face and a heaviness settled in the pit of her stomach. She promised that when he called, she would take back what she said and explain that she was only joking.

The first time Fredrick asked Alex to stay with Samantha, Alex had literally run into him on campus, lost in an equation, not watching where she was walking. He explained that he had a faculty party that he couldn’t get out of and his sitter was sick. Then he remembered that Alex was a Postdoc. I’m sorry, he said. You’re probably going to the same party.

No. I was able to get out of it, Alex said. While covering for Hannah, Alex had met Fredrick at the day care center a few days earlier but had heard about him long before. He was the favorite gossip star for the women who worked in the grants accounting department. One of them claimed to have gone out with him. When Alex came to iron out the details of her stipend, her ears were filled with tsk-tsks and concern for the tragic figure, returned from a leave of absence—two of his babies had died and now he must care for the one that lived on his own because his wife had left him.

This feeling in her stomach, as if she had swallowed stones, came weeks later, after her eighteenth birthday and after she had begun regular pilgrimages to find her spot on his couch and his sympathetic ear. He asked her to stay with Samantha but warned that he would be sitting in for the bass player at Barney’s Pub and the last set could end very late. She woke to the smell of coffee and bacon and the sound of Fredrick speaking to Sam in Danish while he changed her diaper in the next room. Alex was in the daybed in his guest room but remembered falling asleep on the couch in the living room. Through breakfast, she was held in the metastable state of wanting to bolt and run home as fast as she could and wanting to find a way to fit in, to feel comfortable at Fredrick’s table. Sam babbled in her high-chair and splashed her cereal with a spoon. Alex chattered incessantly about anything that popped into her head, feeling unwashed and disgusting wearing clothes that she had slept in. Then as if through an out-of-body experience, she heard her voice saying, Do you really plan to sleep with every woman on the Institute’s payroll?

I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t know what I was saying. Alex’s vocal cords had stopped working. Fredrick paused in the middle of handing Sam a teething biscuit. Her little hand stretched to grab it but couldn’t reach. Sam’s complaint unfroze him, then he straightened on his chair and looked at Alex. Even sitting, he would have matched Alex’s height if she were standing next to him. A lock of blond hair fell across his tall forehead, and there was a little puffiness under his eyes from lack of sleep. His mouth pulled to the side, and he ran a hand across the stubble on his chin. The pancakes Alex had eaten turned leaden.

I estimate there’s a hundred, or maybe a hundred twenty-five women on staff… His smile made his ears stick out a little. Are we including faculty? That would bring it to over two hundred. A lot of evenings, Alex. You said you couldn’t fit a permanent babysitting job in with your research. Then he laughed. You should see the look on your face, min pige.

Sometimes my mouth gets disconnected from my brain, Alex said.

I doubt that, he said and then changed the subject. Speaking of jobs, the band is looking for a singer for Friday nights. You should audition.

I’m not a singer.

It’d be easy, and it would get you off campus—

And into a bar.

Okay, so that could be a problem. Won’t hurt to try out. I’ll give you Mark’s number and you can think it over.

A month later, when she got the job, she discovered that it was easy to be in front of an audience. A major fear in her daily life, that everyone was staring at her, was true when she sang with the band, a verifiable fact. It did not matter because she was someone else when she was on stage, and somehow Fredrick had known that she would be. Before the audition, Alex had sung for her father and a handful of other people, but Fredrick wasn’t one of them.

Hannah was waiting in Alex’s office, perched on the corner of her desk. We’re trying to diffuse Ogden’s bomb, Hannah said, holding out half a dozen pages filled with columns of numbers. If we get it wrong, the dining room’s going to smell like vomit for a while. I think these are nuclear magnetic resonance peaks. What do you think?

Alex glanced at the numbers. Seems logical. He’s a chemist, right? Hannah nodded. I think I can dredge up an analytical chemistry reference…, Alex said.

Her office was hardly bigger than a closet. Hannah occupied the only place to sit other than the chair behind the desk, and Alex stood in the only space that was free of books and papers. She squeezed around the desk to search the shelf along the back wall. The realization that the numbers contained a pattern of doubles stopped her, and she reached for Hannah’s papers. Let me see those again. I think Ogden engineered this code for you in particular. She scanned the lists and did a quick calculation. She remembered Hannah at the grand piano in the foyer of the humanities building. Alex sat on a folding chair with Samantha on her lap. Like the rest of the audience, Alex felt exhilarated by the wild Gypsy-inspired phrases of Chopin’s Fantasia Impromptu and marveled at the speed and agility of Hannah’s fingers moving across the keys. Alex also saw the piece in numbers, harmonic frequencies, and reflections of waves off the perfect hyperbolic curve of the acoustically engineered ceiling.

He converted these to inches. Probably thought you’d recognize them in centimeters straight away. They’re wavelengths of the well-tempered scale. Alex pointed to a number that was repeated several times in one column, a twenty-nine and decimal fraction out to eight places. If I did my calculations right, this is A sharp, a half step up from A440.

Hannah’s face lit up with recognition. You’re a genius!

Alex laughed. Aren’t we all…

Now the other part of the code makes sense—they’re note sustain times. We just need to correlate them to the pitches and figure out how his contraption makes noise. Hannah took the papers from Alex and hopped down from the desk as the phone rang. Thanks. See you.

Alex waved at Hannah’s back as she jogged out the door and then reached for the phone.

Alex? Fredrick’s voice. Her heart pounded in her ears.

Fredrick, I’m sorr—

There wasn’t much available, but I’ve got us in a place close to the beach. It’s a short walk to the conference, so you and Sam can use the car while we’re there. Alex sank into her chair and spun to look at the Maui poster she had hung to fool herself into thinking she had a window. He waited a minute for her to say something, and then into her silence, he said, I’ll be counting on your adolescent sensibilities to bring some good road music.

Yes, I understand, she said. Studies show that too much exposure to ‘Honker Ducky Dinger Jamboree’ causes permanent brain damage to middle-aged men.

Fredrick laughed. He was only teasing, but she was glad that he couldn’t see her blush at being called an adolescent. She was halfway through her nineteenth year, but her life felt like it was gridlocked in adolescence.

I’ll pick you up tomorrow at nine?

Sure, she said.

I appreciate this, Alex.

No worries.

They wound up the Pacific Coast Highway, stopping once near Morro Bay to have lunch in a sheltered cove walled in by steep granite cliffs. Brown pelicans flew in formation, skimming above the surface of the water. The sea was calm, and the cool breeze smelled of salt and shore grass. Alex fretted when Sam refused to be carried down the cut stone stairway that led from the parking lot, but clutching Alex’s hand, Sam managed them easily.

Go play, min sǿde, Fredrick said, and let Samantha run off to chase the birds. He was throwing in the towel, unable to get her to eat more than a few bites. Sam was small for her age, but she had hit all her milestones ahead of schedule. She was a triplet born many weeks early. Her brother had died at birth, and her sister had died a few weeks after. Isabella, Fredrick’s ex-wife, had left him before Samantha was released from neonatal intensive care. As their friendship deepened, he told Alex how grief had torn his marriage apart, that Isabella couldn’t let go of her grief and her fear. Alex could see that Fredrick had not let go of his grief either but tried to lose it in the bed of one woman after another. Over the breakfasts that he cooked for her when she stayed the night with Samantha, Alex had confided in him also and told him things about her life that she had not told anyone.

Fredrick reclined onto the blanket spread on the dry sand and took up his sandwich. Resting on one elbow, he appeared relaxed, but Alex knew him well enough to see that he was poised to catch Sam if she strayed too close to the surf. The sunlight caught the angles of his face, and his blue eyes matched the cloudless dome of the sky. Alex had always considered juvenile his campus nicknames that referred to his looks, but in this moment, she could see how he earned them.

This Nature article is going to change a lot of things for you. He glanced at Alex. But you know that. Even though you pretend it’s not a big deal.

Alex sat in a tight knot with her arms wrapped around her knees. Is that my paper? she asked. He had a printout and a notepad next to his elbow. I thought you were preparing for tomorrow. Are you going to talk about your small cell design or your high-speed version?

Why are you changing the subject? Not many get published in such a prestigious journal this early in their career.

The others in my group say it’s the same as the article rejected by Journal of Applied Physics Letters six months ago. David says that the review committee was asleep when it crossed their desk. She watched his forehead furrow. I know what you’re going to say—that it doesn’t matter what David thinks.

Wrong. I was going to ask what Ellery says.

Dropping her gaze from his face, she examined her half-eaten lunch. Dr. Fereau says it’s an important breakthrough.

It is, Alex. He’s right.

Samantha sat down to dig a hole in the sand a few feet away. Now that his daughter was stationary, Fredrick turned the lion’s share of his attention to Alex.

Her knot began to unravel with Fredrick’s expressed approval of her paper. About the equation for instability. What do you think about it?

I can see it in one dimension, he said, but you’re talking about a three-dimensional model.

That’s the beauty of it. She shifted into a crouch and began writing figures in the sand with her finger. Every muscle relaxed now and her voice animated. See this term here? It’s symmetrical in more than three dimensions. The whole thing scales to make even the string theorists happy. Fredrick sat up to better see what she was writing. She looked up from the sand, saying, And if you think of the derivative…

His understanding wasn’t apparent, and so she turned back to write it out for him. She could hear the smile in his voice when he said, Ah…I see…the shape of the field just naturally falls out from there, doesn’t it?

Late in the afternoon, they reached their pink walled and red tile roofed hotel, located three short cypress tree lined blocks from the beach. Samantha was cranky, awakened from a nap when they arrived. Alex stayed with her in the courtyard, fed her a snack, and let her splash in the fountains while Fredrick checked in. He was angry when he came out for them.

They’ve mucked up my reservations, he said. Instead of two rooms, we have a two-room suite. There isn’t anything else. Alex, I’m sorry.

It was rare to see him upset, and she quickly tried to mollify him. That’s okay. Really, Alex said, scooping up Sam who had swung her leg over the side of the fountain to climb in. Alex turned back with toddler in hand and smiled reassuringly at Fredrick. Look, Sam is too wound up to be stuck in the room right now anyway. Why don’t you go up and get ready? I’ll keep her occupied down here for a while.

Alex walked Sam to the beach, while Fredrick cleaned up and dressed for the conference social event scheduled for later in the evening. Then he took them to a linen tablecloth and leather-bound menu restaurant where Alex felt uncomfortable and underdressed in her sandy sweatpants and oversize Institute T-shirt. Fredrick failed to notice the few disapproving looks cast their way. Alex envied how he shrugged off people and their opinions when they didn’t interest him.

I saw you sing at the pub last Friday night, he said. I liked your last song, ‘Sunny Side of the Street.’ You gave it a swing.

In celebration of the first success in his steady campaign to coax Alex out of her idiot-savant cocoon, he was at the center front table at Barney’s her first night singing with the band. He gave her a dozen roses and his congratulations at the break but left before the end of the second set. After that, he always came with a date and usually sat unseen in the back. Like tonight, he would mention later that he liked the dress she had worn or the way she sang a particular song. And Fredrick was never the substitute if their bassist couldn’t play on a Friday night.

Alex returned his smile. That’s my dad’s favorite song, she said. Fredrick was lovely to look at in his fisherman’s sweater and dark wool pants. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched the two women at the next table try to swing his gaze their way, but Samantha and Alex had his undivided attention. She continued, I’d like to do a full two sets of Billy Holiday’s songs some night, but I’m not sure I could convince the guys in the band…

You should start with Mark. If you can wear him down, the others’ll go along, Fredrick said.

Do you think he’d like the idea?

Mark was not only the band’s drummer and manager but a graduate of the Institute in his midtwenties and a civil engineer by day. When Fredrick teased that Mark was sweet on her, Alex was guaranteed to end up flushed and speechless. She was relieved that in this public place Fredrick didn’t continue down that road, and she wondered why he was so wide of the target on this subject. He couldn’t be more wrong about Mark. They play old standards the rest of the week, but Fridays they stick to more contemporary songs to appeal to the undergrads, Fredrick answered. You can convince them that students get the blues too.

After dinner, he dropped Alex and Samantha back at the hotel and left for the mixer. Tonight was his chance to schmooze with the grant committee, but also a chance for him to sample the hors-d’oeuvres of the human variety. Alex didn’t expect him back until morning.

Their suite opened into a large room with two queen beds, a desk, and a sitting area. At the back was the bathroom with a door at both ends. The shared bath served as a pass through to the second smaller bedroom with a balcony view of the ocean. Once Alex had tucked Samantha into one of the beds in the front room, she watched the moon’s waxing crescent sink into the ocean before she took a long hot bath, and read the latest Journal of Applied Physics. Then she left the second bed in front for Fredrick and helped herself to the king-size bed in the back room.

Alex awoke with Fredrick’s warm breath on her forehead. One of her arms threaded under his neck, and her fingers intermingled with his next to his face. Her free hand rested against his chest, and her thigh pressed against him with only the cotton of his boxers between her skin and his full erection. She drew in shock with one sharp breath.

How had she gotten here? What happened? Is this real, or am I dreaming? She was afraid to move. Please don’t let him find me here.

As if hearing her thoughts, he tightened his hold on her hand, and then he opened his eyes, looking straight into hers. She felt him draw his breath as if it were her own. A gasp, and in a heartbeat, he moved out of the bed and away. Grasping reflexively for something to cover himself, his hands found his discarded trousers. He turned his back, crouching to put them on.

Alex closed her eyes and drew herself up on the bed. She didn’t want to watch him hiding and pulling away from her.

I’m sorry. They both spoke at the same time. His voice crackled with unshed sleep. She stammered and could hear the shame in her own voice, and more—her desire, which she didn’t want to admit. She felt the hot tears coming and tried to will them away.

I must’ve mistaken the— he began. I thought you were sleeping with Samantha. He paused, and then in a deeper register, he said, You know I’d never—

Yes. She couldn’t stop the tears then. They felt like a flood across her face. I know you wouldn’t. No one would.

Please, Alex. Don’t cry. He had moved around the bed to kneel beside it next to her. Don’t cry. I would never hurt you.

I know you couldn’t want me like…like that. The words tumbled out of her. If she could die right here, right now, how perfect it would be, not to live through this. But I dream…I mean…sometimes I wish you could pretend I was one of…them. One of your women.

He was so close to her. She could feel his breath on her again. His voice was almost a whisper. Min sǿde… She thought, Please, please just turn away, as he came closer. He wiped her wet cheek with the thumb of one hand and kissed her between the eyes. If we were alone, and I didn’t have to give a talk in an hour. If I wasn’t afraid I’d scare you away and never see you again. There’s nothing I’d like better than to make love to you.

Alex swallowed a sob and tried to breathe. She wondered if she had imagined it or if he had really said it. Leaning in, she forced a smile, opened her eyes, and kissed him in return, a quick brush on the lips. You’re sweet, she said. I know what I am to you, and I love you for being so… She shook her head. I know that you could never…I’m different.

He moved to sit beside her on the bed and put one arm around her. Mercifully, when he spoke again, his voice had the familiar lilt of when they joked or debated. So you think I could never desire you? he asked as if it were a challenge.

Oh, it’s been made clear how desirable I am.

By who? David or one of those other jackasses in your research group? I can imagine the kind of barbs they come up with. Alex, you handle them so skillfully when they attack your work. Surely you don’t let their personal attacks get to you.

She felt scolded by this. So why hasn’t anyone ever been interested in me—not even you? She could hear how childish she sounded and instantly regretted saying it.

He was silent for a moment. Then he tightened his arm around her and pulled her a little closer.

I’m too old for you, Alex.

She released an audible sigh. This was a path to familiar territory, an opening for a friendly debate, some gentle ribbing. Forty-five’s not exactly ancient. I haven’t heard any complaints that you’re past your prime, and she realized she missed her cue when he kissed her on the mouth.

His tongue lightly moved along the inside of her lips. His hand that had pulled her in moved up to hold the back of her neck as his other hand touched her cheek and moved slowly down to the base of her neck, stopping just above her chest. He breathed in deeply when he pulled back, as if to be sure he breathed her breath, to take her in.

He spoke and the lilt was gone, that familiarity and distance, leaving the weight of his words to press in upon her. I dream of you too. None of the women I see compare to you.

As quickly as he moved in, he was gone again. He had pulled away, or he pushed her away. She felt as if there was nothing under her. She didn’t know what to do with this. It was her grand be careful what you wish for moment, and she looked up at him towering over her. He offered his hand. She reached for it, and he pulled her off the bed, but she wanted to turn back. They were crossing a line.

Come, my young scientist, he said. It’s time for some unbiased observations.

He led her into the bathroom and stopped before the mirror. They were both silent through several heartbeats, listening for sleeping Samantha.

You know how brilliant you are. So why is it so hard to get through to you how beautiful you are? Look at yourself, Alex.

She saw Fredrick behind her in his rumpled pants, the top of her head at the middle of his sternum. Her hair stood in all directions, and her eyes were red and swollen. A shapeless green sweatshirt fell to the top of her thighs to cover her underwear.

You shine like the sun, he said and bent to bury his face in her hair and then moved down to brush against her cheek, turning his face toward hers to protect her from his stubble. Your golden eyes. They match the color of your hair. He