a
lot
of boyfriends. Or a lot of first dates, at least. Sometimes even second dates. Her father had no business giving up on her like that.
Besides, she was only twenty-nine years old. There was plenty of time to find a husband! Provided she even wanted one, and she was not so sure that she did.
Out on the playground on Friday afternoon, aimlessly kicking a bottle cap across the hard-packed earth, she tortured herself by rehashing all that her father had said to her. He liked the fellow, he’d said. As if that were sufficient reason to marry his daughter off to him! And then the part about how Pyotr’s leaving the project would be such a loss to mankind. Her father didn’t care the least little bit about mankind. That project had become an end in itself. To all intents and purposes, it had no end. It just went on and on, generating its own spinoffs and detours and switchbacks, and no one except other scientists even knew what it was, exactly. Recently, Kate had begun to wonder whether even other scientists knew. It seemed possible that his sponsors had forgotten he existed; that they continued funding him purely from force of habit. He’d been phased out of teaching long ago (she could just picture what kind of teacher he’d made) and stuck away in that series of steadily shrinking and peregrinating laboratories, and when Johns Hopkins established a dedicated autoimmune research center he had not been invited to join. Or maybe he had refused to join; she wasn’t entirely sure. In any case, he just went on working away by himself without, apparently, anyone’s bothering to investigate whether he was making any progress. Though who knew? Perhaps he was making all kinds of progress. But at this particular moment, Kate couldn’t invent a single result that would justify sacrificing his firstborn.
She mistakenly kicked a tuft of grass instead of the bottle cap, and a child waiting for his turn at the swings looked startled.
Natalie might be succeeding in winning Adam’s affections. She looked so pretty and poetic, crouching to console a little girl with a scraped elbow, and Adam stood next to her watching sympathetically. “Why don’t you take her inside for a Band-Aid?” he asked. “I’ll supervise the seesaws,” and Natalie said, “Oh, would you? Thank you, Adam,” and she rose in one graceful motion and shepherded the child toward the building. She was wearing a dress today, which was unusual among the assistants. It swished around her calves seductively, and Adam gazed after her longer than he needed to, it seemed to Kate.
Once, a couple of months ago, Kate had tried wearing a skirt to school herself. Not that it was swishy or anything; actually it was a denim skirt with rivets and a front zip, but she had thought it might make her seem…softer. The older teachers had turned all knowing and glinty. “
Somebody’s
making a big effort today!” Mrs. Bower had said, and Kate had said, “What, this? It was the only thing not in the wash, is all.” But Adam hadn’t seemed to register its existence. Anyhow, it had proved impractical—hard to climb a jungle gym in—and she couldn’t shake the image of the reflection she had glimpsed in the faculty restroom’s full-length mirror. “Mutton dressed as lamb” was the phrase that had come to mind, although she knew she wasn’t really mutton; not yet. The next day, she had gone back to Levi’s.
Now Adam sauntered over to her and said, “Have you ever noticed that certain days are injury days?”
“Injury days?”
“That kid just now, with her elbow; and then this morning one of my boys sharpened his index finger in the pencil sharpener—”
“Ooh!” she said, wincing.
“—and just before lunch Tommy Bass knocked his front tooth out and we had to call his mother to come get him—”
“Ooh, that
is
an injury day,” Kate said. “Did you put the tooth in milk?”
“In milk.”
“You put it in a cup of milk and it has a chance of being
lot
of boyfriends. Or a lot of first dates, at least. Sometimes even second dates. Her father had no business giving up on her like that.
Besides, she was only twenty-nine years old. There was plenty of time to find a husband! Provided she even wanted one, and she was not so sure that she did.
Out on the playground on Friday afternoon, aimlessly kicking a bottle cap across the hard-packed earth, she tortured herself by rehashing all that her father had said to her. He liked the fellow, he’d said. As if that were sufficient reason to marry his daughter off to him! And then the part about how Pyotr’s leaving the project would be such a loss to mankind. Her father didn’t care the least little bit about mankind. That project had become an end in itself. To all intents and purposes, it had no end. It just went on and on, generating its own spinoffs and detours and switchbacks, and no one except other scientists even knew what it was, exactly. Recently, Kate had begun to wonder whether even other scientists knew. It seemed possible that his sponsors had forgotten he existed; that they continued funding him purely from force of habit. He’d been phased out of teaching long ago (she could just picture what kind of teacher he’d made) and stuck away in that series of steadily shrinking and peregrinating laboratories, and when Johns Hopkins established a dedicated autoimmune research center he had not been invited to join. Or maybe he had refused to join; she wasn’t entirely sure. In any case, he just went on working away by himself without, apparently, anyone’s bothering to investigate whether he was making any progress. Though who knew? Perhaps he was making all kinds of progress. But at this particular moment, Kate couldn’t invent a single result that would justify sacrificing his firstborn.
She mistakenly kicked a tuft of grass instead of the bottle cap, and a child waiting for his turn at the swings looked startled.
Natalie might be succeeding in winning Adam’s affections. She looked so pretty and poetic, crouching to console a little girl with a scraped elbow, and Adam stood next to her watching sympathetically. “Why don’t you take her inside for a Band-Aid?” he asked. “I’ll supervise the seesaws,” and Natalie said, “Oh, would you? Thank you, Adam,” and she rose in one graceful motion and shepherded the child toward the building. She was wearing a dress today, which was unusual among the assistants. It swished around her calves seductively, and Adam gazed after her longer than he needed to, it seemed to Kate.
Once, a couple of months ago, Kate had tried wearing a skirt to school herself. Not that it was swishy or anything; actually it was a denim skirt with rivets and a front zip, but she had thought it might make her seem…softer. The older teachers had turned all knowing and glinty. “
Somebody’s
making a big effort today!” Mrs. Bower had said, and Kate had said, “What, this? It was the only thing not in the wash, is all.” But Adam hadn’t seemed to register its existence. Anyhow, it had proved impractical—hard to climb a jungle gym in—and she couldn’t shake the image of the reflection she had glimpsed in the faculty restroom’s full-length mirror. “Mutton dressed as lamb” was the phrase that had come to mind, although she knew she wasn’t really mutton; not yet. The next day, she had gone back to Levi’s.
Now Adam sauntered over to her and said, “Have you ever noticed that certain days are injury days?”
“Injury days?”
“That kid just now, with her elbow; and then this morning one of my boys sharpened his index finger in the pencil sharpener—”
“Ooh!” she said, wincing.
“—and just before lunch Tommy Bass knocked his front tooth out and we had to call his mother to come get him—”
“Ooh, that
is
an injury day,” Kate said. “Did you put the tooth in milk?”
“In milk.”
“You put it in a cup of milk and it has a chance of being
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