“This is a semi-private question,” Denise said.
Finch swallowed with difficulty — maybe self-consciousness, maybe insufficient chewing. “Yeah?”
Denise and Gary introduced themselves and Denise mentioned the letter that Alfred had been sent.
“I had to eat something,” Finch explained, shoveling up lentils. “I think Joe was the one who wrote to your father. I’m assuming we’re all square there now. He’d be happy to talk to you if you still had questions.”
“Our question is more for you,” Denise said.
“Sorry. One more bite here.” Finch chewed her salmon with labored jawstrokes, swallowed again, and dropped her napkin on the plate. “As far as that patent goes, I’ll tell you frankly, we considered just infringing. That’s what everybody else does. But Curly’s an inventor himself. He wanted to do the right thing.”
“Frankly,” Gary said, “the right thing might have been to offer more.”
Finch’s tongue was probing beneath her upper lip like a cat beneath blankets. “You may have a somewhat inflated idea of your father’s achievement,” she said. “A lot of researchers were studying those gels in the sixties. The discovery of electrical anisotropy is generally, I believe, credited to a team at Cornell. Plus I understand from Joe that the wording of that patent is unspecific. It doesn’t even refer to the brain; it’s just ‘human tissues.’ Justice is the right of the stronger, when it comes to patent law. I think our offer was rather generous.”
Gary made his I’m-a-jerk face and looked at the dais, where Daffy Anderson was being mobbed by well-wishers and supplicants.
“Our father was fine with the offer,” Denise assured Finch. “And he’ll be happy to know what you guys are doing.”
Female bonding, the making of nice, faintly nauseated Gary.
“I forget which hospital he’s with,” Finch said.
“He’s not,” Denise said. “He was a railroad engineer. He had a lab in our basement.”
Finch was surprised. “He did that work as an amateur?”
Gary didn’t know which version of Alfred made him angrier: the spiteful old tyrant who’d made a brilliant discovery in the basement and cheated himself out of a fortune, or the clueless basement amateur who’d unwittingly replicated the work of real chemists, spent scarce family money to file and maintain a vaguely worded patent, and was now being tossed a scrap from the table of Earl Eberle. Both versions incensed him.
Perhaps it was best, after all, that the old man had ignored Gary’s advice and taken the money.
“My dad has Parkinson’s,” Denise said.
“Oh, I’m very sorry.”
“Well, and we were wondering if you might include him in the testing of your — product.”
“Conceivably,” Finch said. “We’d have to ask Curly. I do like the human-interest aspect. Does your dad live around here?”
“He’s in St. Jude.”
Finch frowned. “It won’t work if you can’t get him to Schwenksville twice a week for at least six months.”
“Not a problem,” Denise said, turning to Gary. “Right?”
Gary was hating everything about this conversation. Health health, female female, nice nice, easy easy. He didn’t answer.
“How is he mentally?” Finch said.
Denise opened her mouth, but at first no words came out.
“He’s fine,” she said, rallying. “Just — fine.”
“No dementia?”
Denise pursed her lips and shook her head. “No. He gets a little confused sometimes, but — no.”
“The confusion could be from his meds,” Finch said, “in which case it’s fixable. But Lewy-body dementia is beyond the purview of Phase Two testing. So is Alzheimer’s.”
“He’s pretty sharp,” Denise said.
“Well, if he’s able to follow basic instructions, and he’s willing to travel east in January, Curly might try to include him. It would make a good story.”
Finch produced a business card, warmly shook Denise’s hand, less warmly shook Gary’s, and moved into the mob surrounding Daffy Anderson.
Gary followed her and caught her by the elbow. She turned around, startled.
“Listen, Merilee,” he said in a low voice, as if to say, Let’s be realistic now, we adults can dispense with the nicey-nice crap. “I’m glad you think my dad’s a ‘good story.’ And it’s very generous of you to give him five thousand dollars. But I believe you need us more than we need you.”
Finch waved to somebody and held up one finger; she would be there in one second. “Actually,” she said to Gary, “we don’t need you at all. So I’m not sure what you’re saying.”
“My family wants to buy five thousand shares of your offering.”
Finch laughed like an executive with an eighty-hour work week. “So does everybody in this room,” she said. “That’s why we have investment bankers. If you’ll excuse me—”
She broke free and got away. Gary, in the crush of bodies, was having trouble breathing. He was furious with himself for having begged, furious for having let Denise attend this road show, furious for being a Lambert. He strode toward the nearest exit without waiting for Denise, who hurried after him.
Between the Four Seasons and the neighboring office tower was a corporate courtyard so lavishly planted and flawlessly maintained that it might have been pixels in a cybershopping paradise. The two Lamberts were crossing the courtyard when Gary’s anger found a fault through which to vent itself. He said, “I don’t know where the hell you think Dad’s going to stay if he comes out here.”
“Partly with you, partly with me,” Denise said.
“You’re never home,” he said. “And Dad’s on record as not wanting to be at my house for more than forty-eight hours.”
“This wouldn’t be like last Christmas,” Denise said. “Trust me. The impression I got on Saturday—”
“Plus how’s he going to get out to Schwenksville twice a week?”
“Gary, what are you saying? Do you not want this to happen?”
Two office workers, seeing angry parties bearing down, stood up and vacated a marble bench. Denise perched on the bench and folded her arms intransigently. Gary paced in a tight circle, his hands on his hips.
“For the last ten years,” he said, “Dad has done nothing to take care of himself. He’s sat in that fucking blue chair and wallowed in self-pity. I don’t know why you think he’s suddenly going to start—”
“Well, but if he thought there might actually be a cure—”
“What, so he can be depressed for an extra five years and die miserable at eighty-five instead of eighty? That’s going to make all the difference?”
“Maybe he’s depressed because he’s sick.”
“I’m sorry, but that is bullshit, Denise. That is a crock. The man has been depressed since before he even retired. He was depressed when he was still in perfect health.”
A low fountain was murmuring nearby, generating medium-strength privacy. A small unaffiliated cloud had wandered into the quadrant of private-sphere sky defined by the encompassing rooflines. The light was coastal and diffuse.
“What would you do,” Denise said, “if you had Mom nagging you seven days a week, telling you to get out of the house, watching every move you make, and acting like the kind of chair you sit in is a moral issue? The more she tells him to get up, the more he sits there. The more he sits there, the more she—”
“Denise, you’re living in fantasyland.”
She looked at Gary with hatred. “Don’t patronize me. It’s just as much a fantasy to act like Dad’s some worn-out old machine. He’s a person, Gary. He has an interior life. And he’s nice to me, at least—”