Lost and Wanted(110)

“You do?”

“I still live in Pasadena, Helen, remember? Before school we pack lunches, argue about clothing, and then sit in traffic for forty minutes gnawing on toaster waffles.”

I laughed. There was a shuffle of papers in the background. Maybe Amy had been grading when I called.

“I think I know what the Swedish flag means,” my sister said.

“I think it was just random.”

“Charlie wants you to win the Nobel Prize. Wanted, I mean.”

“Yeah, right. You know who is going to win the Nobel?” I didn’t wait for her to guess. “Neel.”

“Neel Jonnal? Really?”

“Not him, specifically—but the chief scientists on his project.”

“Seriously?” Amy said. “Wow!” Then she tried to modulate her tone: “That’s really something. I read some of the press about the detection, but I didn’t know it was that big a deal.”

“Yep.”

“What are you working on these days?”

“Neel and I are thinking of starting a new project together. It would be a way of using Advanced LIGO—the same detectors, with the improvements Neel’s team is working on now—to investigate gravity at regular, Earth-sized distances. Meters and kilometers. We’d use these rotors—dynamic field generators, we call them—small, incredibly dense machines that turn around and around. The universe doesn’t usually make very small, very heavy things.”

“I don’t get it.”

“General Relativity is a perfect description of reality when you’re talking about very large masses—stars and black holes. And quantum mechanics describes the tiniest pieces of matter equally well. It’s the middle that’s tricky. But LIGO could be used to test gravity at those shorter, familiar distances, with much greater precision than we’ve ever done before. We could actually find deviations from General Relativity—modifications.”

“That’s really exciting.”

I thought Amy knew me well enough to guess how I was feeling, and that she was enthusiastic about the new project for that reason, more than any genuine interest. It disappointed me for a second, until I realized it was the whole reason I had called my sister.

    “I’m going to be so sad when they leave,” I told her.

“I know you are,” Amy said.





12.


They left three days after school let out. Simmi came up that morning to say goodbye to us. She was dressed in her leopard-print leggings, a black hoodie—airplane clothes—and there was an almost manic excitement about her. She repeated information I already knew from Terrence: that they were in contract for an apartment five minutes from the beach; that they would stay with her uncle Ray until it was ready; that she was having a sleepover with her best friend, Clover, the night after they got back.

Jack didn’t understand that her behavior could be defensive, and so he was hurt by it. He said “bye” in a small voice, and remained inert while Simmi hugged him.

I bent down to give Simmi a hug. She smelled like whatever she put in her hair, a little like sunscreen. Her mother had always been delicate, bony almost, but Simmi felt solid and healthy in my arms. I told her I hoped we could come visit soon.

“Yes, come! We can go to Disneyland,” she said. She glanced back at Jack, a question on her face. “Are you afraid of roller coasters?”

Jack looked offended. “No.”

“Good—me neither!” Then she pounded down the carpeted stairs the way Jack does, making enough noise for someone twice her weight. Her father came out of the apartment.

“The car’s here in three minutes,” he told her.

“I’ll watch for it,” Simmi said. She went out the front door without looking back. Terrence was locking the apartment door. I went down, but Jack stayed on the landing.

“It’s clean,” Terrence said. “You could show it anytime.”

“I’m sure.” I tried to keep my voice even. “I hope you guys have an easy trip.”

Terrence had knelt down and was binding the suitcase’s zippers with a miniature padlock, something my father always encouraged me to do.

    He straightened up. I realized we’d never hugged or kissed each other casually in any kind of greeting. There was nothing casual about the way I felt while we were doing it now. My arms were around his neck, his around my waist, and for just one second I was in that other world, the reflection. Then I pulled away. I didn’t know what Terrence was feeling; he didn’t meet my eyes. Instead he looked up at Jack, who was watching us steadily.

“Hey—you want to come down here?”

Jack shook his head.

Terrence nodded. “Yeah, I hear you. I hate this goodbye stuff, too.”

He lifted the larger of the two suitcases, and I started to open the door for him, but Simmi was standing right outside. “Let me do it,” she said. She held the door while Terrence came back for the other suitcase.

“Take it easy, little man,” he said to Jack. “See you soon, okay?”

Simmi smiled unexpectedly at me and mouthed something so her father couldn’t hear. Then she closed the door.

Only then did Jack come down the stairs. He leaned back against me, and allowed me to put my arms around his chest. We watched Terrence and Simmi get into the waiting car. Their shapes were distorted by the mottled stained-glass panel in the door.