“Have to be prepared for every eventuality.” His sentences always got shorter when she was out of breath, as if he could make hers shorter, too.
“Including the final one. How was the funeral?”
“Lightly attended. And I found out my father, and by extension me, isn’t descended from the great Tesla at all.”
“All those years of ‘do better, you’re a Tesla’ have come to naught?” She didn’t sound as shocked as he felt.
“My father’s last name was Smith. I looked it up online, and I think I might be descended from Tesla’s pigeon keeper.”
Tinkles of laughter came down the phone line, followed by coughs.
Joe glanced over at a sign that read eppie’s shoeshine & repair. The little man on the sign was poised to drive a nail into a giant shoe to fix it. If only it would be so easy to fix Celeste.
“What the hell did you say to her?” That wasn’t Celeste. It was her brother, Leandro. Joe and Leandro had been friends for years, but he’d become distant since Joe moved into the family house underneath Grand Central, taking possession of the place Leandro used for annual parties.
“Is Celeste all right?” Joe asked. She gasped out something in the background. He felt guilty for making Celeste waste her breath on him. She had so little to spare. Doctors still had no idea if her ALS would kill her in a matter of months, or if she might linger for years, like Stephen Hawking. They did know that she would never get better.
“It’ll take her a minute to catch her breath,” Leandro said. “You shouldn’t make her laugh like that. It’s not good for her.”
Laughter, not the best medicine. “It wasn’t a laugh line.”
“Two laugh lines: not a Tesla and pigeon keeper,” Leandro chuckled. “Just when you think the mighty can’t fall any further.”
Joe wasn’t sure how to take that, but any way he looked at it, it counted as an insult.
Celeste came back on. “Sorry, darling, that was too funny.”
“Don’t go letting the tragedy of my life’s circumstances cause you to work yourself into a state.”
“Now you’re angry.” She cleared her throat. “But your ancestry is irrelevant. No less an august paper than The New York Times called you ‘the reclusive genius who revolutionized law enforcement.’ You are who you are and whether your great-great-whatever-uncle was a famous inventor or not, you’ve left your legacy.”
“That makes it sound like I’m already dead.”
“Aren’t we all?” She coughed again.
“I have a surprise for you,” Joe said.
“Tell me.”
“Can you look out your window?” He’d already written the code to hack the smart lighting fixtures installed in the office building across from her apartment. The security on them was practically nonexistent.
Leandro came on the line. “I’m moving her. It’s not easy, so this better be damn good.”
“I’m at the window,” Celeste said.
Joe pressed a button on his phone. It should run the code he’d set up a week ago.
“Oh.” Celeste sounded surprised. “A heart.”
He’d turned off every light on her side of the building, then turned on only the ones that would form a heart. He’d been saving it for some night, but Celeste often went to bed before the sun went down these days.
“That’s lovely.” He heard the smile in her voice. “A little sappy.”
“I thought you’d say that.” He pressed another button to change to a different set of lights.
Celeste laughed again and then went into another coughing fit.
Was it too much? He didn’t want her to hurt herself.
Leandro’s voice again, and he was laughing, too. “Damn fine work, Joe. You showed my sister a heart, then flipped her off.”
It had worked. Joe tapped another key to restore the building to its original lighting. “She knows what I mean.”
“Thanks, dude.” For the first time in a long time, it sounded like Leandro meant it, but before Joe could say anything else, he hung up.
Edison leaned against his leg and thumped his tail once (cyan). The dog knew he was upset, but how could he not be when he thought about Celeste? She was an incredible, vibrant woman — tough, reckless, and phenomenally talented. Although she’d never needed to work a day in her life, she’d struggled to become an admired artist. Painting was one of the first things the disease had taken from her.
Just as his condition took her from him. They’d dated years before, but he had not been exciting enough for her, and she’d moved on. Now that they both were crippled, they’d become closer than ever, at least emotionally. But physically they would never meet again — she couldn’t leave her penthouse apartment, and he couldn’t get to it. He’d checked all the city plans, and her building was too modern to have steam-tunnel or subway access.
Edison nudged him, and he stood. No point in dwelling on all that he couldn’t have. He should be grateful for what he did. Celeste on the phone was better than no Celeste at all.
“Good dog.” He palmed a treat for Edison.
They walked out through the concourse and down to the Oyster Bar. Joe admired the vaulted ceilings in the restaurant, so different from the rest of Grand Central’s architecture. They’d been state of the art when built, but they looked medieval. He liked that.
Giovanni hurried over. His wavy black hair was artfully disheveled, and his face was flushed. “Mr. Tesla! We have your corner table prepared. I will take you there!”
Joe followed him. He liked to sit in the corner so Edison could lie down next to the wall and be out of everyone’s way. He didn’t want anyone stepping on his dog.
Giovanni tapped a white dog dish on the floor, full of water. “It’s such a hot day! Maybe Edison would like a drink, too? Nice and cold for him.”
Joe thanked him, and Edison gave him a tail wag before ducking his head over the bowl.
Joe listened to the lapping sound of Edison drinking and the clinking of glass and silverware on plates. A low rumble of conversation drifted across the room, and Joe sipped the ice-cold water Giovanni brought him. He felt comfortable here, safe and easy.
He let his phone connect to the network, then answered a few emails from work. He’d had trouble concentrating after the funeral, and emails had piled up. His inbox was a giant conveyor belt. Stacks of messages just kept coming.
His mother was late, of course. He’d learned long ago that she was on time only for her performances. For everything else, the world could wait for her.
But he didn’t want to wait. He wanted to ask her about his father. He picked up his spoon and stared at his big-nosed reflection — a face he must have inherited from the Smiths. So what if he was a Smith instead of a Tesla?
Did it matter?
It mattered. All Joe’s life, his father had pressed and pushed him to be smarter, cleverer, quicker — to be a Tesla. His father’s Tesla obsession had driven his parents apart, and it turns out they were never Teslas to begin with.
Joe was ten years old and sitting in the tiny booth at the front of the trailer. At night, the table leg folded to the floor and the tabletop folded down until it was level with the seats. His mother would take the bedding from its storage bin under the right booth and put it on the tabletop and seats, and Joe would sleep there.
During the day his bed turned back into a table where the family ate dinner and where he sat to do his homework. He always had a lot of homework — his father made sure of it.
Today he was supposed to draw the periodic table from memory using a blue pencil. He had to put in each element name, its symbol, and its atomic number. He drew the grid—18 columns (cyan, purple) and 7 (slate) plus 2 (blue) rows below. He knew the edges — the alkali metals on the left and the noble gases on the right — but then he had to slow down to think of the others.