“Do you want me to go in with you?”
“Thanks, but no, Jack. I have to do this myself.”
He leaned against the scarlet Mustang and watched her approach the double front doors. Because of the problem with AllComs they were now locked with old-fashioned keys. Framed by the antique copper carriage lamps she had chosen in what seemed the distant past, Nell took a key from her handbag, squared her shoulders and inserted it in the lock.
One small step for womankind.
She opened the door and went in.
22
Bud Moriarty was disappointed that Jack had not suggested he invest in the River Valley Transportation Service. The business obviously was expanding. Lacey Strawbridge was even more disappointed. “I thought you and Jack were partners! How could he cut you out like that?”
“He didn’t cut me out of anything, it’s a separate business entirely. Besides, it doesn’t belong to him.”
“Are you sure? I’ll bet he has a finger in it, a silent partnership maybe. Jack’s always had an eye for the main chance and those two are friends of his.”
“That doesn’t mean they’re joined at the hip. Don’t worry about it, Lace, we’re doing all right, aren’t we?”
“We’d do a lot better if you had more gumption. The tire business isn’t nearly as good as it was at first because there are so few cars on the road—so the garage is failing too.”
“It isn’t failing,” he assured her. “I still have my tools and I’m doing more repair work than I ever did. Most anything that comes apart gets brought to me.”
“Mending the handles of pots and pans. What sort of work is that?”
“Damned good work, Lace, and I’m glad to have it. People aren’t throwing things away anymore, and it’s not just pots and pans. Frank Auerbach was mighty happy I could repair his typewriters, that’s where I got the advertising posters I put up in Friendly Foods. They’ve brought in a lot of business. We could have had more if you’d taken some posters to Goettinger’s.”
She was appalled. “I used to model for Goettinger’s!”
“There’s nothing to be ashamed of about putting up posters.”
“I’m not ashamed of anything—except that I was fool enough to give up a modeling career for this.”
Your modeling career gave you up, Bud thought, but did not say.
Jack took Nell home after every meeting of the Wednesday Club, and always allowed enough time at the end of the evening to enjoy a brief tussle with Sheila and Rocky. The setters adored him. His scarlet Mustang continued to provide reliable transportation; he subjected it to an exhaustive examination morning and evening. He even broke up the cement floor in Bea’s garage and dug a mechanic’s pit so he could get at the undercarriage. Bud Moriarty had long since replaced the few vulnerable items in the classic car with substitutions of his own devising. “If I could just get my hands on an old Model T…” he said.
But no one was selling antique cars.
Nell enjoyed riding in the convertible with the top down; it reminded her of the brief, carefree time before her marriage. She brought a silk scarf to keep in the car’s glove compartment and wound it around her head and throat to keep her hair from blowing.
“You look like Grace Kelly,” Jack told her.
“Who was she?”
“A movie star years ago. She married a prince.”
No matter how late the hour Nell’s children were always waiting up for her—a development Jack had not anticipated. They would not go to bed until they knew she was in the house. Colin still suffered from terrible nightmares. Jessamyn sucked her thumb in her sleep.
“It breaks my heart to see her do that,” Nell confided to Jack.
“She’ll outgrow it, give her time.”
“What if there are psychological problems that haven’t surfaced yet? After all they’ve been through there could be serious damage. How do I protect my children?”
You can’t, he thought privately. Nell, so gentle otherwise, became a tigress where her children were involved. She refused to accept any advice from a man who had no children of his own.
There were other elements of Jack’s relationship with Nell that he tiptoed around. Sex was one. Or the lack of sex, to be accurate. Under the circumstances it did not happen very often.
On the few occasions when they did manage to be intimate he discovered to his delight the playful sensuality hidden beneath her reserved exterior. When he made the mistake of comparing her to a kid in a candy store she was embarrassed. “How could you say that? Oh, Jack, am I—”
He laid a restraining finger across her lips. “Absolutely perfect for me? Yes, you are.”
Gerry Delmonico prepared rigorously for the next meeting of the Wednesday Club, even searching through college textbooks that had survived the problems with ink. He explained to Gloria, “I keep hoping to find a clue to the Change, one that’s been overlooked.”
“Do you think there is one? Surely by now the other scientists have—”
“Scientists are only human, Muffin; they find what they expect to see. Jack Reece once said something that’s stuck in my mind ever since. He said, ‘The man in the street might be better than a panel of experts.’ So I’m trying to look at the problem like that man, with no presuppositions. Random violence is increasing because of the stress we’re all under and I want to offer our friends a ray of hope. If not hope of a solution to the Change, at least hope of understanding it. I’ve even jotted down some notes and tucked them in my shirt pocket, just in case. Jack’s bound to have questions.”
“Doesn’t he always?”
That evening Gerry waited until the others arrived and drinks had been ordered before he asked, “What do any of you know about quantum physics?”
That got their attention.
“I have a layman’s acquaintance with theoretical physics,” Jack offered. “E equals mc squared?”
“Einstein’s famous equation, that’s right. But what does it mean?”
“Energy is equivalent to mass?”
“Basically, yes, but there’s more to it than that,” said Gerry. “Mass is congealed energy. Energy has inertia, which is the defining feature of mass. When something like plastic dissolves there can be a mass-to-energy conversion. That’s what happens in nuclear fission. Less than one gram of mass was converted to energy in the explosion at Hiroshima, which will give you an idea of what powerful forces we’re dealing with here. For over a year we’ve been seeing the Change release the energy from apparently solid objects. Why? Where in hell is all that energy going?”
Gerry swept the room with his eyes. He had a rapt audience. “Take a step back. That equation is E equals mc squared. Energy equals mass plus the square of the speed of light. That’s the c squared part, which is a constant of proportionality linking energy and mass. Every time energy is released there is some decrease in mass. Conversely, every time energy is gained there is some increase in mass, though I don’t see how that could apply here.”
Lila Ragland leaned forward. “Is the Change some huge experiment?”
“I’m not saying that, but the possibilities are—”
“Frightening,” Gloria interrupted.
“Not necessarily. It could indicate that a very powerful mind is at work here, which means the Change is not uncontrollable but being controlled. If so that’s the good news. Maybe.” Gerry waited for a response.
“You referred to quantum physics,” said Jack. “That’s a lot more complicated than what you just outlined.”
“It is, but it begins with the tiniest known particles, because they’re the building blocks of the universe.”