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Authors: Nicky Penttila
Tags: Romance, Literature & Fiction, Contemporary, Short Stories, Contemporary Fiction, Short Stories & Anthologies, Single Authors
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THE SCIENCE OF SECOND CHANCES
Romance on the Go
Nicky Penttila
Copyright © 2013
When the email flashed into her inbox that Tuesday, Samantha Dobler had no way of knowing the trouble it was about to cause. If she'd recognized the sender's name, she would never have opened it.
“MGreen” sounded like the leader's name of a protest against tidal channel monitoring that her department had funded. She opened it without thinking, without girding her heart.
Matthew Greenleaf. Even after eighteen years, just reading his name made her eyes sting. Middle name Barry, for his grandfather. Likes chocolate, baseball, and statistics (see: baseball). Could not keep his fly zipped even after proposing to his high-school sweetheart.
The words on the screen blurred. Sam stood up to clear her head, but too fast – she swayed and nearly fainted. Stupid low blood pressure . She gripped the edge of her desk and cast her gaze around the room, a book-strewn middle manager’s cubby high up in the maze of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency in Washington, DC. Doctoral certificate from William & Mary. Photos of her diving with fellow marine biologists off Mexico, off Australia, off places she couldn’t name anymore. She knew who she was; she knew what she stood for. She was saving the world, starting with its biggest, wettest part.
Her heart stopped pounding; her breaths stopped rushing past her inner ears. It was just an email, not a stingray. It could n't hurt her. She should stop drinking so much coffee.
Gingerly, she sat down again in the regulation swivel chair and leaned over to pick up her little fleecy blanket. The air conditioning here was so frigid she often needed to put on a sweater, tuck the blanket around her legs, wear fingerless gloves to type. Quite a contrast to the steamy April heat wave outside. Surprising it didn’t rain in the building’s entryway, the two atmospheres colliding.
She realized she was dwelling on the weather to avoid reading the email. She hated procrastination. People should just decide and do a thing. Like me, now. Settling her shoulders back and taking a deep breath, she looked at the screen.
“ Sam:
I’m in your town for a couple of days this week. Meet me at the Natural History Museum tomorrow noon?”
She pushed back from the screen, rolling the chair off the plastic carpet-protector. No, twenty-four hours’ notice wouldn't prepare her to slice open a wound that had been neatly sutured eighteen years ago. Besides, she had a meeting scheduled for lunch tomorrow. It would be rude to the other researchers to reschedule it. Who was he to drop her an email and expect her to jump?
She unfolded her arms from around her chest and shook her head. The question wasn’t whether she’d jump, but how high. She could never say no to him. Well, except for the one time, and hadn’t that gone well?
He h eld a power over her she'd never been able to define. Pheromones? Voodoo? Even when she’d been eighteen and thought she knew everything. Now at thirty-six, she realized nothing had changed.
S he dashed off a reply.
“Noon by the elephant? How will I recognize you? I’ll be wearing a paisley skirt.”
The reply came almost immediately.
“Sounds good. You won’t be able to miss us.”
Us? He wasn’t alone? Sam smacked her forehead hard with the base of her palm. Always ask the follow-up question . Now she would have to see the wife, too.
He'd always done this to her, leading her to believe one thing and then flipping the chessboard. “Scientific thinking, it gets you in trouble every time,” he’d tell her, but really it was him. He avoided confrontation by simply not mentioning the fine detail, like the potentially explosive device for physics class he’d had in the trunk of the car when they went to the drive-in one summer night.
He hadn’t changed.
Well, neither had she. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard, ready to recant. She hit reply and started to
Romance on the Go
Nicky Penttila
Copyright © 2013
When the email flashed into her inbox that Tuesday, Samantha Dobler had no way of knowing the trouble it was about to cause. If she'd recognized the sender's name, she would never have opened it.
“MGreen” sounded like the leader's name of a protest against tidal channel monitoring that her department had funded. She opened it without thinking, without girding her heart.
Matthew Greenleaf. Even after eighteen years, just reading his name made her eyes sting. Middle name Barry, for his grandfather. Likes chocolate, baseball, and statistics (see: baseball). Could not keep his fly zipped even after proposing to his high-school sweetheart.
The words on the screen blurred. Sam stood up to clear her head, but too fast – she swayed and nearly fainted. Stupid low blood pressure . She gripped the edge of her desk and cast her gaze around the room, a book-strewn middle manager’s cubby high up in the maze of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency in Washington, DC. Doctoral certificate from William & Mary. Photos of her diving with fellow marine biologists off Mexico, off Australia, off places she couldn’t name anymore. She knew who she was; she knew what she stood for. She was saving the world, starting with its biggest, wettest part.
Her heart stopped pounding; her breaths stopped rushing past her inner ears. It was just an email, not a stingray. It could n't hurt her. She should stop drinking so much coffee.
Gingerly, she sat down again in the regulation swivel chair and leaned over to pick up her little fleecy blanket. The air conditioning here was so frigid she often needed to put on a sweater, tuck the blanket around her legs, wear fingerless gloves to type. Quite a contrast to the steamy April heat wave outside. Surprising it didn’t rain in the building’s entryway, the two atmospheres colliding.
She realized she was dwelling on the weather to avoid reading the email. She hated procrastination. People should just decide and do a thing. Like me, now. Settling her shoulders back and taking a deep breath, she looked at the screen.
“ Sam:
I’m in your town for a couple of days this week. Meet me at the Natural History Museum tomorrow noon?”
She pushed back from the screen, rolling the chair off the plastic carpet-protector. No, twenty-four hours’ notice wouldn't prepare her to slice open a wound that had been neatly sutured eighteen years ago. Besides, she had a meeting scheduled for lunch tomorrow. It would be rude to the other researchers to reschedule it. Who was he to drop her an email and expect her to jump?
She unfolded her arms from around her chest and shook her head. The question wasn’t whether she’d jump, but how high. She could never say no to him. Well, except for the one time, and hadn’t that gone well?
He h eld a power over her she'd never been able to define. Pheromones? Voodoo? Even when she’d been eighteen and thought she knew everything. Now at thirty-six, she realized nothing had changed.
S he dashed off a reply.
“Noon by the elephant? How will I recognize you? I’ll be wearing a paisley skirt.”
The reply came almost immediately.
“Sounds good. You won’t be able to miss us.”
Us? He wasn’t alone? Sam smacked her forehead hard with the base of her palm. Always ask the follow-up question . Now she would have to see the wife, too.
He'd always done this to her, leading her to believe one thing and then flipping the chessboard. “Scientific thinking, it gets you in trouble every time,” he’d tell her, but really it was him. He avoided confrontation by simply not mentioning the fine detail, like the potentially explosive device for physics class he’d had in the trunk of the car when they went to the drive-in one summer night.
He hadn’t changed.
Well, neither had she. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard, ready to recant. She hit reply and started to
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