Lost and Wanted(51)

GRAVITY





1.


I looked at the phone immediately upon waking; the action was there before I was fully conscious, even if I’d taken ten milligrams of melatonin before bed. I’d read about psychological dependence on technology, and I thought that might be my problem. I turned the sounds off at night, but it was as if the pinging mechanism was inside my body. Someone was plucking my guts as I slept.

I reached for it Thursday morning, and was disappointed to see an empty home screen. When I checked email to be sure, there was nothing from Charlie’s address. I was scrolling through the rest—an update from Vincenzo, a few newsletters, my cell phone bill—when I saw the unfamiliar address: [email protected]. It only took me a second to identify it:

dear helen—i’m SO thrilled to have the chance to write you, finally. i’be been looking forward to meeting you for so long. i think—hope!—N has told you how muhc I admire your books—i’ve listened to him go on & on about LIGO and GW in general, but honestly it wasn’t until i read YOU on black holes that it clicked. Am writing this in the airport, mad rush before we get on the plane—but wanted to let you knowa bout a get together we’re having in cambridge, w idea of meeting each other’s east-coast based friends before the wedding—do say you’ll come? we’ve rented a space—belly @ kendall sq., 7pm on 12/11. Hope to see yousoon! xx roxy



I read that seven or eight times, then put the phone down on the unused side of the bed. I could hear Jack playing downstairs. Each time he dumped a box of Legos on the wood floor, it sounded like a catastrophe. December eleventh was a week from tomorrow, and Belly was the fanciest bar in the vicinity of MIT. I thought that the idea of “renting a space” would be anathema to Neel. I couldn’t even imagine him saying those words. He had written that he had an idea to discuss with me, and I realized as I lay there that I had actually imagined this exchange occurring in a specific place, at the Muddy Charles, in the summer, with plastic cups of beer in front of us, the view of the river the only luxury—not that any luxury was necessary when you were talking about the most profound descriptions we have of our universe with a person you’d once passionately loved. But it was the beginning of winter, and the only place I was likely to hear what Neel had to tell me was at the engagement party his fiancée had organized.





2.


It didn’t occur to me to make up an excuse. I knew that I wanted to go, and also that I couldn’t go alone. I briefly considered Marshall, but we hadn’t spoken in months, and arriving with an ex felt desperate. I probably knew a good portion of the people Neel was planning to invite; all I had to do was treat it like a work event and find someone else who was going. I texted Sonja at LIGO, who was brilliant and especially sociable for a physicist, also possibly an alcoholic; I thought that if I stuck by her, it would seem as if I were having a good time no matter what. Sonja wrote back to say absolutely—she was so curious about Neel’s fiancée that there was no way she’d miss it.

I dislike choosing clothing, and have trouble determining what goes with what or what is flattering. Charlie used to say that the “clothing node” hadn’t been activated in my brain. When I have a stubborn wardrobe question (this happened more often before Jack, when I was doing the publicity for my books), I go to my sister. Amy is hardly an expert, but she’s better than I am; more important, she’s willing to be patient with the whole neurotic process. In this case she suggested a dark blue lace dress that she’d helped me select for the wedding of our horrible cousin Janine.

“Is it too dressy for this?”

“How did she describe it, exactly?”

“A party so they could meet each other’s ‘East Coast–based friends.’?”

“But not an official wedding event.”

“I don’t know.”

“Are you going to the wedding? Because maybe you should save the blue dress for that.”

“It’s in India.”

“Jack could come stay with us.”

    “It’s in February—I will have just gotten back from Geneva.”

“Is that why you’re going to Geneva?”

“No! I have to go to P?llau for my paperback’s reissue. And I’m stopping in Geneva at CERN on the way home.”

“Uh huh. I just think the wedding might give you closure.”

“Nothing’s open.”

Amy laughed. “Okay. The blue dress for this, then.”



* * *



—

I was already wearing the dress when Sonja texted me, at ten minutes past six on the night of the party. She was coming down with the flu and she had a conference the following week. She thought she had to take some Tylenol Cold and go to bed. She hoped I “wasn’t going to kill her.” That remains one of my least favorite locutions, presuming your disappointment, allowing you no way out—but Sonja at least was perfectly correct in the way she wrote even casual communication. She used appropriate punctuation, and clearly reread before sending. The way Roxy’s email was written was more intimidating: the combination of haste and guileless friendliness, along with the distinguished address from Médecins Sans Frontières. She was so busy saving lives, and becoming Neel’s wife, that typos were inevitable.