“Like?”
“Me, perhaps?”
I felt my cheeks redden.
“My dear,” she said with a sigh. “It’s rather obvious, isn’t it? You’re falling in love with me!”
I sighed. Alice could be so disarming.
“But this discussion will have to wait for another time. Tomorrow I’m off to the Twelfth International Conference on Astrophysics. I’ll be gone a week.”
I looked around the room. I’d only moved my things the month before and wasn’t sure how she’d feel about my being here alone.
“You can stay, of course,” she said. Only one thing I insist on: don’t open the closet. With me being gone for days, the temptation might become too great.”
“Why not?” I asked. “I’d love nothing more than to study the black hole.”
“I’m sure you would,” she said. “But without me to guide you-well, the thing is rather dangerous. If you were to get too close …”
“I promise I’ll be careful.”
“I insist,” she said. “I’d never forgive myself if something were to happen to you.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
One week turned into two, two into three, three into four-and I grew concerned. I called her cell phone several times, but she never answered. I rang up the physics department and inquired as to her whereabouts. I was told she’d attended a conference in northern Chile, but that they weren’t aware of her plans afterwards. Her classes were finished for the semester so they weren’t concerned. I was about to call the police to report Alice missing when I wandered into the living room one morning after breakfast and found her sitting on the sofa thumbing through a magazine, her suitcase on the floor.
“When did you get back?” I stammered. “I was worried sick.”
“The conference went on longer that I expected,” she replied. “Sorry about that.”
And that’s the way life went-for the next several months. There were more conferences and what she said were critically important observing sessions at Palomar and Lick. I asked for details on the latter, but they were not forthcoming. “Boring, scientific measurements,” she said with a shrug. How she equated critical observing sessions with boring measurements was beyond me.
I spent hours reading up on linguistic theory in Alice’s apartment (she’d managed to convince me to apply for re-admittance to graduate school) as well as my astronomical readings
(I’d finished On the Origins of the Universeand now was engrossed in Black Holes, Quasars, and Other Astronomical Odditiesby the same author). That and a part-time job shelving books at
Columbia’s health sciences library consumed all my time.
Our six-month anniversary arrived but Alice was gone. I can’t remember the name of the conference, but I recall her telling me she had an important paper to deliver. Alice must have been to a half-dozen conferences in the past six months, yet I’d never seen registration materials or even conference proceedings. She’d never asked me to take a look at one of her papers nor had she practiced any of her talks in my presence. True, I was a layman and probably wouldn’t have understood much; still, I was a former linguistics major and could have offered advice on sentence construction and even critiqued her manner of presentation. I had no reason to question her activities, but I began to wonder: just what was my scientific partner up to?
That evening I called her cell phone, but she didn’t answer. I was slouched on the couch in the living room in front of a roaring fire. Already on my third drink, I was mildly inebriated. It occurred to me that Alice rarely answered when I called. I couldn’t forgive her this time: today was a special occasion!
I went see Dr. Ned Whistle, a clinical psychologist who had expertise in marital conundrums.
“The black hole is the key,” he said, stroking his dark goatee. “Her life seems to revolve around it. It would be wise to confront the issue.”
“She made me promise not to look at it,” I said.
Dr. Whistle sighed. “Has it occurred to you that she said that because she wants you to do precisely the opposite?”
“I took her at her word,” I said. “I’ve never had reason to doubt her.”
“You’ve much to learn about women,” he replied. “My advice is to open the closet door when you get home. I think you’ll see what it is she wants you to see.” He paused, then added, “But if you want my opinion the only thing you’ll see is a sixty-watt bulb.”
It was then I realized the man had been amusing himself at my expense. I left the room in a huff, shooting his secretary an angry look as I exited the lobby.
When I got back to the empty apartment, I fixed dinner and headed up to bed. It had been an exhausting day. The only conclusion I’d come to was that I needed to come to a conclusion- and soon. The stress of our relationship was tearing me apart.
When I opened the bedroom door, I was shocked to find Alice inside. She was standing in front of the closet, unpacking her suitcase. When she saw me, she smiled.
“Alice?”
“Sweetheart!”
“When did you get back?”
“Just now.”
I frowned. “I’ve been downstairs. I didn’t see you come in.”
“Then it must have been a while ago. It’s been an exhausting trip. I’ve lost all track of time!”
I paused. She looked white. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.” It was a subtle movement: a backward flick of a right heel. To shut the closet door.
Alice told me the visit to Palomar had gone well. Her group’s research into galactic superclusters was yielding results none of them had anticipated. They’d asked her to stay an extra week and she could hardly say no. Caught up in the excitement, she’d forgotten to call and let me know she’d be late.
All well and good, except that Alice had told me she’d be delivering a paper at the Third
Annual Conference on Galactic Superstructures at Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, not doing research at Palomar Observatory in sunny California.
She smiled. “Forgiven?”
Before I had a chance to reply, I heard squeaking noises coming from the closet. Short, staccato bursts. “What’s that?” I asked.
She didn’t miss a beat. “It was a surprise, but …” She opened the door and pulled out a metal cage. Inside was the oddest-looking rodent I’d ever seen. It was about the size of an opossum, with a sleek coat of jet-black fur, enormous pink ears, and a long fluffy-white tail. “A South American spiny rat,” she said. “One of my collaborators presented it to me at the conference. Evidently, they’re quite valuable.”