"You're a good sport, Jeff," Sean said as he parked the wagon in the driveway. "Sorry it turned out to be a bad idea."
Jeff nodded curtly. A good sport-what a thing to say! It was as good as admitting that the whole thing was a prank. Once you get into Sean's shallowness, there's almost no end to it, he thought, and then he nearly laughed out loud at the contradiction. Geor gianne came out of the kitchen when she heard them at the front door.
"Hi there," she said brightly. "How was it?"
"I'm no runner," Jeff replied with a genuine smile. She looked terrific, as usual, although she was dressed only in faded denims and a gray sweatshirt. "I'm just going to wash up," he told her as he headed for the bathroom.
"Beautiful morning," he heard Sean say.
As he stepped through the bathroom doorway, Jeff caught a glimpse of Sean making a gesture with his finger in his mouth, not quite as exaggerated as Joan Rivers, but just as obvious and tasteless. Son of a bitch, he thought, furious again. That was totally unnecessary. He shut the bathroom door, found a bottle of mouthwash, and gargled for a full minute. Telling Georgianne was uncalled for, telling her in such a crude fashion was totally unforgivable. Sean had had his fun with Jeff; the least he could have done was keep it between the two of them. But no, that was the whole point. He had to let Georgianne know, so that Mr. Computer Wizard from the West Coast would be cut down to size. Jeff spat out the mouthwash and rinsed his face with cold water. He felt calm, cool, full of hate. In other words, just fine.
"You okay?" Georgianne asked when he walked into the kitchen a minute later.
"Yeah, sure." Jeff sat down at the table, which was set for breakfast. He ignored Sean, smiled at Georgianne. "I am, really," he added tightly, since she looked unconvinced.
"Think you can eat any breakfast?" Sean asked in an even tone.
"As a matter of fact, I'm starved," Jeff replied. He knew he wasn't sick, so he had no fear that he'd throw up again. "And I know I have room for it." He forced his expression into a broad smile, and held it.
"How do you like your eggs?" Georgianne asked.
"Any way you serve them," he said. "You know, the next time, I think I'll go swimming with you and leave Sean to his running around in the woods." He gave Georgianne a deliberate wink.
"You got a date," she responded cheerfully.
"How's that Union Carbide business coming?" Sean asked. "Are you going to be back here at any time in the near future?"
There was nothing remarkable about the way Sean put these questions, but his feelings were clear to Jeff, who wished he could come up with an answer that would leave the other man in a state of private torment. But what could he say? He knew it would be a mistake to carry the Union Carbide charade too far.
"You know how it is with an outfit that big," he said. "They have a lot of people to rope into line before they actually commit themselves to anything. We'll see how it turns out. Dealing with them makes me glad I've got my own company, though. It's just the right size, a good team, and if we want to do something, explore this or that line of research, we go ahead and get on with it."
Bonnie stumbled into the room, eyes half-closed, hair tousled. She wore a boy's white shirt, definitely too small to be one of Sean's castoffs. The cut of the shirttail gave a brief glimpse of bikini briefs and fanny. Georgianne rolled her eyes and sighed disapprovingly at this display.
"We've got company for breakfast, you know," she reminded her daughter.
Bonnie sat down at the table. "Oh, hi," she said to Jeff with a sleepy smile.
"Good morning."
It was difficult for. him not to keep glancing at Bonnie, she was such a beautiful girl. A window on the past. He could look at her now and see what Georgianne looked like first thing in the morning, right out of bed, half awake and sensual. It was a distracting sight.
"When is your flight?"
This came from Georgianne, and Jeff noted sadly that they were already adjusting to his departure. Life would soon return to normal, and he and she would forget about each other until the next time-if there ever was a next time. People live by the routines, and the Corcorans were anticipating the resumption of theirs. The excitement of the reunion was fading fast. Life goes on-like a small death, Jeff thought. But he hadn't forgotten about Georgianne in all this time, and he wouldn't start now.
"I don't know," he said. "I may stay overnight in New York and fly out sometime tomorrow. I haven't seen the city in ages. Or I may decide to fly out this evening. Either way, I'm driving down this afternoon."
Georgianne served mounds of scrambled eggs, bacon, and a plate of toast. The coffee perked like a drum roll, and they all started eating.
"Even if this Union Carbide business goes through," Jeff suddenly volunteered, on a whim, "it's not that big a deal, to tell you the truth."
"No?"
"Well, it'll be very nice, of course," he continued. "But our main work, our most important work, is with a couple of other large companies, on the West Coast." Georgianne and Bonnie looked interested, but Sean's expression said he couldn't care less. Jeff thought, I'll change that. "I'd appreciate it very much if you'd keep this to yourselves," he went on. "The fact is, we're working on an important aspect of the SDI."
Georgianne didn't get it, but Bonnie's eyebrows went up, and Sean understood. He looked as if he didn't know whether or not to believe Jeff.
"Star Wars," Bonnie exclaimed. "Wow!"
Georgianne nodded in recognition now.
"Are they spending money on that already?" Sean asked.
"The money, well ... money is always there," Jeff said with a condescending smile. "Several companies have been working on various parts of what will be the SDI package for years now. That's how it goes. This project is irresistible. And once private work and research get to a certain point, everything else falls in place, and the government money starts pouring init's on the way now. Of course, it's a great project, and absolutely necessary. There's no future in building only more warheads. We've done that trip."
"What's your part of it?" Bonnie asked. "I mean, if it's not a state secret." She was genuinely interested, which pleased Jeff.
"It's incredibly complex," he told her. "And I can't go into any kind of detail. But, basically, we're trying to develop a preliminary set of sensor signature codes for the computer banks. So they can tell the difference between a missile being launched and, say, a natural-gas flare-off, or a truck exploding in an accident ... anything like that."
"I don't know," Sean said gloomily. "Why don't they save a lot of time and money and just dismantle all those nuclear weapons everywhere?"
Again Jeff smiled at the other man's naivete. "Right up the street from me in Santa Susana," he said, "North American Rockwell has the world's largest land-based laser, and it's fully operational. You can't stop research. These things have a life of their own. Once you say A, you must say B."
"Oh, really?" Sean had a look of cool cynicism on his face, as if he finally understood Jeff.
But Jeff was paying no attention to Sean. He had been addressing his remarks to Georgianne and Bonnie, and now he realized that the teenager was a potential ally. He should have seen it sooner. It was hard not to think of her as just a sexy little high school kid, but she was a brilliant student on her way to Harvard. Bonnie was the only one here who could understand the significance of his work. She looked impressed.
"I may have a job for you in a few years," he told the girl. "The other really exciting frontier we're working on is the marriage between molecular biology and supercomputers."
Bonnie's eyes widened, and then she grinned and said, "I'm interested, I'm very interested."
`Okay. Do well at Harvard and you can write your own ticket. The possibilities are infinite."
Sean wore his gloomy expression again. Jeff stopped talking, satisfied that he had achieved his purpose. It wasn't at all like him to tell others about himself or his work, but it had been necessary this morning, and he felt he had regained the stature he might have lost by emptying his belly at the Gorge. Now, whenever they heard Star Wars mentioned, they'd think of him. He had evened things up with Sean somewhat, although he still disliked the man intensely.