Fencing is the same and it is not the same. Tom’s patterns are clearer now each time I fence with him, but my pattern slides in and out of focus. My attention wavers. Will Marjory come outside? Will she fence? What are she and Lucia saying about the consent packet? When I concentrate, I can make touches on him, but then I lose track of where he is in his pattern and he makes touches on me. It is three touches to five when Marjory and Lucia come out, and Tom and I have just stopped for breath. Even though it is a cool night, we are sweaty.
“Well,” Lucia says. I wait. She says nothing more.
“It looks dangerous to me,” Marjory says. “Mucking about with neural reabsorption and then regeneration. But I haven’t read the original research.”
“Too many places it can go wrong,” Lucia says. “Viral insertion of genetic material, that’s old hat, a proven technology. Nanotech cartilage repair, blood vessel maintenance, inflammation management, fine. Programmable chips for spinal cord injuries, okay. But tinkering with gene switches — they haven’t got all the bugs out of that yet. That mess with marrow in bone regeneration — of course that’s not nerves and it was in children, but still.”
I do not know what she is talking about, but I do not want another reason to be scared.
“What bothers me most is that it’s all in-house with your employer, an incestuous mess if ever I saw one. Anything goes wrong, you have no patient advocate to speak up for you. Your Legal Aid person doesn’t have the medical expertise… But it’s your decision.”
“Yes,” I say. I look at Marjory. I cannot help it.
“Lou…” Then she shakes her head, and I know she is not going to say what she was going to say. “Want to fence?” she asks.
I do not want to fence. I want to sit with her. I want to touch her. I want to eat dinner with her and lie in bed with her. But that is something I cannot do, not yet. I stand up and put on my mask.
What I feel when her blade touches mine I cannot describe. It is stronger than before. I feel my body tightening, reacting, in a way that is not appropriate but is wonderful. I want this to go on and I want to stop and grab her. I slow down, so that I do not make a touch too quickly, and so that this will last.
I could still ask her if she will have dinner with me. I could do it before or after treatment. Maybe.
Thursday morning. It is chilly, windy, with gray clouds scudding across the sky. I am hearing Beethoven’s Mass in C. The light looks heavy and slow, though the wind is moving fast. Dale, Bailey, and Eric are already here — or their cars are. Linda’s car is not in place yet; neither is Chuy’s. As I walk from the parking lot to the building, the wind blows my slacks against my legs; I can feel the rippling of the fabric against my skin; it feels like many little fingers. I remember begging my mother to cut the tags out of my T-shirts when I was little, until I was old enough to do it myself. Will I still notice that afterward?
I hear a car behind me and turn. It is Linda’s car. She parks in her usual place. She gets out without looking at me.
At the door, I insert my card, put my thumb on the plate, and the door lock clicks and clunks to release. I push the door open and wait for Linda. She has opened her car’s trunk and is taking out a box. It is like the box Mr. Crenshaw had, but it has no markings on the side.
I did not think to bring a box to put things in. I wonder if I can find a box during lunch hour. I wonder if Linda bringing a box means she has decided to take the treatment.
She holds the box under one arm. She walks fast, the wind blowing her hair back. She usually has it tied up; I did not know it would ripple like that in the wind. Her face looks different, uncluttered and spare, as if it were a carving without any fear or worry.
She walks past me holding the box and I follow her inside. I remember to touch the screen for two people entering on one card. Bailey is in the hall.
“You have a box,” he says to Linda.
“I thought someone might need it,” Linda says. “I brought it in case.
“I will bring a box tomorrow,” Bailey says. “Lou, are you leaving today or tomorrow?”
“Today,” I say. Linda looks at me and holds the box. “I could use the box,” I say, and she hands it to me without meeting my eyes.
I go into my office. It looks strange already, like someone else’s office. If I left it alone, would it look strange like this when I come back afterward? But since it looks strange now, does that mean that already I am living partly in afterward?
I move the little fan that makes the spin spirals and whirligigs turn, and then I move it back. I sit in my chair and look again. It is the same office. I am not the same person.
I look in the drawers of my desk and see nothing but the same old stack of manuals. Down at the bottom — though I have not looked at it in a long time — is the Employees’ Manual. On top are the different system upgrade manuals. These are not supposed to be printed out, but it is still easier to read things on paper where the letters are absolutely still. Everyone uses my manuals. I do not want to leave these illicit copies here while I am in treatment. I pull them all out and turn the stack upside down so the Employees’ Manual is on top. I do not know what to do with them.
In the bottom drawer is an old mobile that I used to have hanging here until the biggest fish got bent. Now the shiny surface of the fishes has little black spots. I pull it out, wincing at the jingly noise it makes, and rub at one of the black spots. It doesn’t come off. It looks sick. I put it in the wastebasket, wincing again at the noise.
In the flat drawer above the kneehole I keep colored pens and a little plastic container with some change for the soda machine. I put the container in my pocket and put the pens on top of the desk. I look at the shelving. All that is project information, files, things the company owns. I do not have to clean off the shelves. I take down the spin spirals that are not my favorites first, the yellow and silver and the orange and red.
I hear Mr. Aldrin’s voice in the hall, speaking to someone. He opens my door.
“Lou — I forgot to remind everyone not to take any project work off-campus. If you want to store any project-related materials, you can stack them with a label explaining that they must go in secured storage.”
“Yes, Mr. Aldrin,” I say. I feel uneasy about those system update printouts in the box, but they are not project-related.
“Will you be on-campus at all tomorrow?”
“I do not think so,” I say. “I do not want to start something and leave it unfinished, and I will have everything cleared out today.”
“Fine. You did get my list of recommended preparations?”
“Yes,” I say.
“Good, then. I—” He looks back over his shoulder and then comes into my office and shuts the door. I feel myself tensing; my stomach churns. “Lou—” He hesitates, clears his throat, and looks away. “Lou, I — I want to tell you I’m sorry this all happened.”
I do not know what answer he expects. I do not say anything.
“I never wanted… if it had been up to me, things wouldn’t have changed—”
He is wrong. Things would have changed. Don would still have been angry with me. I would still have fallen in love with Marjory. I am not sure why he is saying this; he must know that things do change, whether people want them to or not. A man can lie beside the pool for weeks, for years, thinking about the angel coming down, before someone stops to ask him if he wants to be healed.
The look on Mr. Aldrin’s face reminds me of how I have felt so often. He is scared, I realize. He is usually scared of something. It hurts to be scared for a long time; I know that hurt. I wish he did not have that look, because it makes me feel I should do something about it and I do not know what to do.