Lost and Wanted(54)

    I stopped myself; Terrence wouldn’t be interested in my relationship with Neel.

“What’s a model?” he said.

“It’s a sort of guess about the way something works—subatomic particles and forces, in this case. A way things could be.”

“Like an alternate reality,” Terrence suggested. There were so many people that we had to stand very close to hear each other; he put his hand on my elbow, moving me out of the path of a boisterous man carrying drinks.

“More like an explanation of a part of this reality that we don’t understand yet.”

For some reason, Terrence nodded eagerly at this. “I think about that a lot.”

I might have been more focused on this comment if Neel hadn’t been making his way toward us, having done his duty with Roxy’s relatives. Or, it occurred to me, maybe it wasn’t a duty; maybe he genuinely enjoyed Roxy’s family, who seemed to lead fascinating lives in Mumbai.

“I’m going to get another soda,” Terrence said. I almost asked him to wait—I didn’t want to be alone with Neel—but I saw on his face that he didn’t want to talk to a stranger who’d known Charlie. I let him go, and then Neel was there. He gave me a hug that smelled like his old apartment: tobacco and Dr. Bronner’s. His sweater was cold, and I knew he’d been outside, smoking.

“Congratulations,” I said.

“Thanks. But it’s a weird thing to get congratulated on. Maybe in twenty years someone should congratulate us—but now?”

It was such a perfectly Neel type of comment.

“Well, then, on the events at LIGO I’m not supposed to know about.”

“That,” he said. “That deserves congratulations. But I’m not supposed to talk about physics tonight—I promised Roxy.”

“We just met. She’s terrific.”

“She is.” Neel had a habit of closing his eyes when he was uncomfortable. I only remembered it now.

“Is it strange to be back?”

“Not really. I’m on TeamSpeak with these guys every day. I’m going to be working with Martina on frequency dependent squeezing.”

    From the bar across the room Terrence met my eyes and lifted his glass, asking if I wanted another. I felt a rush of gratitude, not only for the drink. I nodded yes.

“Is that guy—?”

“That’s Terrence.”

“Terrence—Charlie’s Terrence?”

“He’s here for a bit, with his daughter. They’re staying with Charlie’s parents.”

Neel seemed to search for what he wanted to say. “I keep thinking about this one night we hung out together.”

“You mean the three of us?”

“No. Just me and Charlie—maybe the only time we did that. At the Plough and Stars.”

It wasn’t a place I’d known either of them to go. “When was that?”

“Senior year—I just ran into her. I was taking Jazz, remember?”

“Of course—with Graeme Boone. You were so into that class.”

Neel nodded. “My TF’s trio was playing that night, and so I went. I asked Charlie if she’d come to hear them, and she said, no—she didn’t know anything about jazz. I said she should take the elective—I was always proselytizing about it—and she said she would take it if she were me, but she just couldn’t stand the idea of being a black girl learning jazz history from a white professor at Harvard.”

“I can see that,” I said. I was almost sure that Charlie had never mentioned anything about that extremely popular jazz elective to me. “Are you sure she was by herself?”

Neel nodded. “Absolutely. We ended up getting a bunch of drinks.”

“Because normally she had a thing about not sitting by herself in restaurants. I think that’s why she liked meeting me places—I’m always on time.”

“But she’d been there by herself for a while, that time,” Neel said. “I had to drink fast to catch up.”

I looked for Terrence, who had gotten the bartender’s attention. She was young and blond, leaning in to ask him something—in spite of the crowd of scientists eager to be served. Terrence seemed to answer her courteously, but with little interest.

    “How’s he doing?” Neel asked.

“Okay, I think, given everything. He’s moving into my downstairs apartment.”

Neel turned to me. “In your house?”

“Our kids are friends, and they needed something temporary. And my tenants wanted out.”

“That was nice of you.”

“They’re paying rent.”

“Maybe ‘nice’ isn’t the right word—involved. That’s involved of you.”

What did he mean by that? That I wasn’t involved in other people’s lives in general? That I was selfish or cold? I couldn’t keep the defensiveness out of my voice: “I miss her.”

“Yeah.”

He asked about Jack, and I told him how interested my son was in science now. I mentioned his ant farm, and also the snap circuits kit. I said that he was still playing soccer, and wanted to try out for the travel team. I didn’t say anything about his carelessness with homework, which I sometimes think is because the work is too easy, and other times worry signals academic struggles ahead. Nor did I mention the conversation we’d had in the bathtub, about my failure to provide him with a father.