Lessons in Chemistry(19)

Elizabeth sat back hard.



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—

“Game, set, match!” crowed one of the geologists. “Box is back in the pocket!”



* * *



—

Calvin sat fuming. It had already been a tough day. Just that morning, he’d gotten a bunch of new crank letters, most from people purporting to be long-lost relatives. This wasn’t unusual; ever since he’d gotten a little famous, the flimflam artists wrote en masse. A “great uncle” wanted Calvin to invest in his alchemy scheme; a “sad mother” claimed she was his biological mother and wanted to give him money; a so-called cousin needed cash. There were also two letters from women claiming they’d had his baby and he needed to pay up now. This was despite the fact that the only woman he’d ever slept with was Elizabeth Zott. Would this ever end?

“Elizabeth,” he implored, as he raked his fingers through his hair. “Please understand. I want us to be a family— a real family. It’s important to me, maybe because I lost my family— I don’t know. What I do know is that ever since I met you, I’ve felt there should be three of us. You, me, and a…a…”

Elizabeth’s eyes grew wide in horror. “Calvin,” she said in alarm, “I thought we agreed about that, too.”

“Well. We’ve never really talked about it.”

“No, we have,” she pressed. “We definitely have.”

“Just that once,” he said, “and it wasn’t really a talk. Not really.”

“I don’t know how you can say that,” she said, panicked. “We absolutely agreed: no children. I can’t believe you’re talking like this. What’s happened to you?”

“Right, but I was thinking we could—”

“I was clear—”

“I know,” he interrupted, “but I was thinking—”

“You can’t just change your mind on this one.”

“For Pete’s sake, Elizabeth,” he said, getting mad. “If you’d just let me finish—”

“Go ahead,” she snapped. “Finish!”

He looked at her, frustrated.

“I was only thinking that we could get a dog.”

Relief flooded her face. “A dog?” she said. “A dog!”



* * *



—

“Goddammit,” Frask commented quietly as Calvin leaned over to kiss Elizabeth. The entire cafeteria instantly echoed her sentiment. From every direction, silverware fell to trays in resigned clatters, chairs were kicked back in moody defeat, napkins were wadded in dirty little balls. It was the noxious noise of profound jealousy, the kind that never results in a happy ending.





Chapter 7



Six-Thirty

Many people go to breeders to find a dog, and others to the pound, but sometimes, especially when it’s really meant to be, the right dog finds you.

It was a Saturday evening, about a month later, and Elizabeth had run down to the local deli to get something for dinner. As she left the store, her arms laden with a large salami and a bag of groceries, a mangy, smelly dog, hidden in the shadows of the alley, watched her walk by. Although the dog hadn’t moved in five hours, he took one look at her, pulled himself up, and followed.

Calvin happened to be at the window when he saw Elizabeth strolling toward the house, a dog following a respectful five paces behind, and as he watched her walk, a strange shudder swept through his body. “Elizabeth Zott, you’re going to change the world,” he heard himself say. And the moment he said it, he knew it was true. She was going to do something so revolutionary, so necessary, that her name—despite a never-ending legion of naysayers—would be immortalized. And as if to prove that point, today she had her first follower.

“Who’s your friend?” he called out to her, shaking off the odd feeling.

“It’s six thirty,” she called back after glancing at her wrist.



* * *



—

Six-Thirty was badly in need of a bath. Tall, gray, thin, and covered with barbed-wire-like fur that made him look as if he’d barely survived electrocution, he stood very still as they shampooed him, his gaze fixed on Elizabeth.

“I guess we should try to find his owner,” Elizabeth said reluctantly. “I’m sure someone is worried to death.”

“This dog doesn’t have an owner,” Calvin assured her, and he was right. Later calls to the pound and listings in the newspaper’s lost and found column turned up nothing. But even if it had, Six-Thirty had already made his intentions clear: to stay.

In fact, “stay” was the first word he learned, although within weeks, he also learned at least five others. That was what surprised Elizabeth most—Six-Thirty’s ability to learn.

“Do you think he’s unusual?” she asked Calvin more than once. “He seems to pick things up so quickly.”

“He’s grateful,” Calvin said. “He wants to please us.”

But Elizabeth was right: Six-Thirty had been trained to pick things up quickly.

Bombs, specifically.



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