Sometimes, even just hearing the name Santa Monica brought pain. He had hoped that would change when Luke was born, that they could start living their lives forwards again, instead of always being in the shadow of the past. But now, with Dr Rosengarten’s pronouncement, even their hopes for a new beginning were in a mess.
Christ, what the hell have I got us into?
Deep in thought, he entered the four-storey building and took the elevator up to the third floor, where the department of cognitive sciences was housed. Several students were milling around in the corridor as he emerged, familiar faces, but only a couple he could put a name to. It was lunch time. Ordinarily he’d be taking a break now, instead of arriving to start his day.
A pretty Chinese-American girl suddenly blocked his path. ‘Hey, Dr Klaesson – could I talk to you for a moment? I have a real problem with something you said in your lecture last Thursday about Neural Darwinism, and I need to-’
‘Could we do this later, Mei-Ling?’
‘Sure – shall I stop by your office?’
‘About four – would that work for you?’ He had no idea of his schedule this afternoon, but he just didn’t want to talk to anyone right now. He needed some time alone.
To think.
To get hold of Dr Leo Dettore.
‘Four’s good,’ she said.
‘Terrific.’ He walked on, down a shiny linoleum corridor lined on one side with grey metal filing cabinets and on the other with closed doors.
The last door on the left opened onto a room of ten computer workstations, four of which were occupied by some of his graduate and postdoctoral fellows. One was sitting back, semi-comatose, a can of Coke in his hand. Another was hunched over the screen in deep contemplation. His young postdoc, Sarah Neri, her head a mass of tangled red hair, had her face inches from her screen, studying some graph. John tiptoed past into the sanctuary of his office, and closed the door behind him.
It was a decent, if soulless office, a generous size, with bland modern furnishings and a window, set a little high, with a view out over a quadrangle onto two other campus buildings. There was paperwork strewn over every flat surface in the room, including the visitor chairs and much of the floor, a Mac monitor and keyboard, and a whiteboard on the wall that was covered in scrawled algorithms and a barely legible diagram from an illustration he had made for a student.
Without removing his jacket he sat at his desk, pulled his laptop out of the bag and downloaded the files he had been working on last night at home, then checked his agenda for the afternoon.
‘Shit!’ he said out loud.
There was a six o’clock appointment he had completely forgotten about. A journalist from USA Today wanted to do a piece about his department. Normally it would have been handled by Saul Haranchek, who had taken over as head of the unit after Bruce Katzenberg’s departure, but Saul was out of town and had asked him to take the interview. John didn’t need this, not today of all days when he wanted to get home early, back to Naomi.
He tried Dettore’s number, but again got the answering machine. Then he rang Naomi at the production office.
She sounded low. ‘Did you try Dettore?’
‘Yes, I’m going to keep trying.’
‘What about a second opinion?’
‘Let me talk to him first. I’m afraid I’m going to be a little late back, I have to do an interview.’
‘It’s OK, I have to go to a screening I’d forgotten all about. Need it like a hole in the head. I won’t be back till at least nine. What do you want to do about food tonight?’
‘Want to go out? Have a Mexican somewhere?’
‘I’m not sure I could handle Mexican at the moment. Shall we see how we feel later?’
‘Sure,’ John said. ‘Love you.’
‘Love you, too.’
He hung up with a heavy heart, then opened his email inbox.
He had Dettore’s email address, and typed out a curt email, stating Dr Rosengarten’s diagnosis and asking him to phone him as a matter of great urgency.
He sent the email, then walked over to the window. Despite the cold wind and the spats of rain, quite a few people were out there. Some sitting on benches eating their lunches, some in groups, talking. One or two smoking. Students. No longer kids, but not yet adults. Their whole lives in front of them. Did they know what was coming up behind them?
He looked at one particularly hip group standing in their baggy clothes, with their topiaried heads, laughing, fooling around, so goddamn carefree. None of their parents had messed with their genes. But when their turn came, what would they do?
Did they know they were the last generation of kids left to chance? Did they realize that however smart they might think they were, they were going to grow up to find themselves a genetic underclass? That they were going to be faced with the chance to make their own kids infinitely smarter, stronger, healthier than they themselves could ever be?
What choices would they make?
Then he turned away from the window, afraid. Rosengarten could have made a mistake, sure, but if he hadn’t? If it was Dettore who had made the mistake, just how many other mistakes had he made?
Twelve weeks. You could abort right up until how long? Sixteen weeks? Or was it eighteen?
At half past four, he rang Dr Dettore’s number again, and left a second message, a considerably more assertive one than before. He also rang Dr Rosengarten, and left word with his secretary that he wanted to speak to him urgently.
By six o’clock there had been no response from either Dettore or Rosengarten. He rang Naomi’s office, but was told she was in a meeting. He looked at his watch. If Dettore was on board his offshore clinic, he would be on Atlantic time, three hours ahead of Pacific time. Nine o’clock in the evening. Angry now, he was about to pick up the phone to dial again when it rang. He snatched it off the cradle, but it wasn’t Dettore.
It was the reporter from USA Today, a breezy-sounding young woman called Sally Kimberly. She was held up in traffic on the 101 and would be with him in fifteen minutes. Had the photographer arrived yet?
‘I didn’t realize there was a photographer coming,’ he said.
‘He’ll be very quick – just a couple of shots in case we need them.’
It was another thirty-five minutes before she knocked on his door. The photographer had arrived and was busy rearranging his office.
Dettore had still not called back and nor had Dr Rosengarten.
17
It was cocktail hour, which meant the lights in the hotel bar were dimmed and an endless loop of Chopin played from the speakers, giving the impression that in some alcove behind one of the banks of potted palms lurked a pianist. The air conditioning was too cold, but the tables and chairs were well spaced out, making it a good place to talk – although John’s real reason for bringing the reporter here was because it was one of the few places in walking distance from the campus that served alcohol.
He followed Sally Kimberly in through the revolving door. She was a polite, quiet-spoken young woman in her early thirties, and dressed in a conservative suit. Her body was a little plump, but her face was attractive, and she had a pleasant, caring manner about her, unlike some reporters he had encountered.
He glanced at her hands, looking for an engagement or wedding ring. There were a couple of plain bands, but not on the marriage finger. It was a strange instinct men had, he thought, some reproductive dynamic that was hardwired into the species. He could never help it himself – one of the first things he looked for was always the wedding-ring finger.
She picked a corner table at the far end of the room from the bar, and not directly beneath a speaker, so her recorder wouldn’t be muffled by the music, she explained. She ordered a Chardonnay, and he ordered a large beer for himself. He needed some alcohol to steady his nerves, already shot to hell and back by the day’s news and made worse by the prospect of this interview.