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Desert Chemistry

By: Salish



Author's note

This is a direct sequel to A Chemical Moment, and the narrator and main character is the same. Anne, who appears in this story, also features in A Chemical Moment and (later in time) in The Broken Mirror.

There are significant lesbian elements to the story, so if that doesn't interest you, move along. It's quite long, and the sex is not particularly explicit.

As always, I welcome your comments and your votes. Thank you for your support.

~~~

David walked into our little shared office, set an icy plastic cup down on the desk next to me, and then sat down at his own desk. The office is just a corner of our lab, walled off with bookcases and whiteboards, but that's all we really need. The important stuff mostly happens in the lab anyway.

"Hey," he said in his warm baritone.

"Hey," I replied with a smile. "Thanks for the chai."

"I'm glad you and Cate came yesterday," he said. "My nieces were really happy to have somebody who would go swimming with them."

"Thanks for inviting us," I said, stretching my arms as best I could in the cramped space. "Your house is lovely, and I had a lot of fun. Swimming in April is awesome - I'm starting to really like living here."

"I'll remind you of that in a couple of months when you're bitching about the Arizona heat," he replied. His tone was sardonic, but his smile was warm and genuine.

"I don't think your fiancée likes me very much," I added. "She seemed grumpy whenever I was around."

His shoulders drooped and he shook his head, resigned to another minor disappointment. "I'm sorry, Allison," he said. "I hope she wasn't too rude."

He paused for a while, considering whether he wanted to continue. I waited. "I love Melanie like crazy," he said, "but she gets jealous sometimes. Most weeks I spend more time with you than I do with her, and she doesn't like that. 'Your little office wife,' she calls you. She was a lot happier when Brian was my research partner."

"Seriously?" I asked, more amused than annoyed. "What part of 'I'm a lesbian' does she not understand?"

"That's what I keep telling her," he replied, laughing softly. "Cate was very ... affectionate as you guys were leaving. I think maybe Melanie finally got the message ..."

Cate was drunk, though the outward effect was the same, and she spent the whole drive home complaining about how dorky David and his friends were. But he didn't need to know that.

"I hope so," I said. "Melanie does seem nice, and I don't want to make your life difficult."

He shrugged. It seemed like he was used to it.

We sat in a comfortable silence for a while, getting through the morning email and news. The lab was always a place I could relax and breathe, whatever was going on in my personal life. Reading through stuff with my brain on autopilot, I contemplated being the object of Melanie's jealousy. I just couldn't make sense of it. David was the most honorable, devoted guy I had ever met. I couldn't imagine he would ever think of cheating on Melanie, let alone do anything about it, even if a girl stripped naked and sat in his lap. Melanie was an idiot if she couldn't see that.

For my part, I hadn't had the slightest romantic interest in David, or any other man. After Anne, men just sort of blended together, all sharp angles, hard surfaces, and aggression. Women, with their soft flesh, soulful eyes, and sweet voices, stood out.

David was a great scientist, and he knew more about catabolic enzymes than almost anyone alive. With my focus on the physical chemistry of the enzymes' active sites, we made a great research team. He was also very sweet, and nice enough to look at, I guess, if you like men. He had a muscular grace that occasionally peeked out through the nerdy, boyish exterior. He was a wonderful coworker, and maybe a friend, but nothing more.

After about ten minutes, I got up and pulled my white lab coat over my tee shirt and jeans. "Ready to do some science?" I asked.

"You go," he replied. "I gave a quiz today, and I won't be able to focus until it's graded. I'll be out in like an hour."

"Okay," I said, walking out into the lab. "Take your time."

I grabbed my lab goggles, glad I had finally switched to contact lenses after years of glasses, put on some latex gloves, and then went into one of the storage drawers for some fungus. Lots of peroxidases to catalog and analyze. Hopefully, one of them would provide some inspiration for a synthetic catalyst. This was going to be fun.

The lab was in Wexler Hall, the oldest wing of the physical sciences complex, and it looked it. The building opened in 1977, and the cabinets, lab benches, and most of the plumbing went back to the beginning. The equipment was newer, installed piece by piece over the years, giving everything an organic, cobbled-together feel. I loved the place - it had everything we needed, and it reminded me of my chem labs back in Amherst and Boston, where most of the buildings are much older.

Leo stopped by that afternoon. Professor Leo Harding was officially in charge of our research, but he let David run the project pretty much on his own. Leo may not look like much, with his scraggly gray hair and beard, old bowling shirts, and sandals with white socks, but Leo is a very big deal in applied chemistry, and not just at ASU. His work on organic photovoltaics gets written up in the mainstream press pretty regularly, and it's already improving efficiency in the real world.

I chatted with him about the current batch of candidate enzymes for a while. David finished up with a student and then joined us for the tail end of the conversation. 

After Leo left, I thought to myself, yet again, how lucky I was. Pretty much all of the other job offers I got after getting my PhD read something like "We need a physical chemist to do X," where X was the most boring, routine part of the work, with no room for growth. I would have been an overeducated, underpaid lab tech. I had a few friends who were doing jobs like that, and they hated their lives.

~~~

I was expecting a fight when I got home. Cate was still asleep when I left, and I don't doubt that she woke up with a hangover. I was still mad at her for the way she behaved at David's house, and she was probably still mad at me for giving her a hard time about it. She wasn't my girlfriend, exactly, and she could do what she wanted to when she was out by herself, but when we were together, she needed to be more considerate.

What I actually found when I walked in the door was a peace offering. The table was set for dinner, with three candles providing the only light outside the kitchen, and they had the desired effect. My little apartment was as nice a place as I could afford, homey enough, but cramped and a little run-down. I had decorated as best I could, with impressionist prints on the walls and the few plants I could keep alive, but that only went so far. The low, warm light of the candles and the setting sun outside made the place look comfortable, inviting, and even romantic.

Cate was in shorts and a snug white tank top, splattered red here and there from cooking. She had made spaghetti, a salad, and garlic bread. I was amazed that she cooked at all. She had never done that in the two and a half months we had lived together.

"Welcome home, Allison," she said from the kitchen. "I was a total jerk last night, and I wanted to do something nice for you."

I didn't know what to say. I was used to the impulsive, selfish Cate who had moved in with me after her sister kicked her out.

"What got into you today?" I asked. It was an honest question, and I made sure to keep my voice teasing and not hostile.

"Well, you know," she said. "I've been such a fuck-up and you've been so patient with me. I realized today while you were at work that whatever was wrong in my life, it wasn't you. I guess I just decided to grow up a little."

Cate finished putting dinner on the table and we sat down to eat.

"This is really good, Cate," I said after a bite of spaghetti. "I thought you didn't know how to cook."

"I don't really, so I tried to keep it simple," she said. "The sauce is from a jar, just basic tomato sauce, and I cooked up some onions and Italian sausage to add."

"Well," I replied, "whatever you did, it works. It was really nice of you to make dinner."

Cate looked bashfully at her plate but didn't say anything. After a while, I got up to pour myself another glass of wine. I offered Cate some as well, but she demurred. "One's enough for me."

"How were your classes today?" I asked.

"A fucking nightmare," she replied, stabbing at her spaghetti with her fork. "I don't have a clue what's going on. I've spent the past few months being pissed at the world and ignoring school, and now I'm way behind. I don't know if I have time to catch up and salvage this semester."

I knew she wasn't doing well in school, or in the rest of her life, but I hadn't realized quite how bad it was. I could see in her face how hard it was to admit the full extent of her problems. I reached across the table to hold her hand.

"How can I be a nurse if I can't even fucking take care of myself?" she asked, almost crying. "And why do you put up with all my bullshit? You didn't even know me when Melissa drove me over here and helped me move in, but you let me live here. You charge me less than half the rent, and you cook for both of us and don't make me pay for groceries."

At that, she really did start crying. "Before today, it never occurred to me to ask why. Why are you so nice to a fucked-up loser like me?"

I smiled at her, a warm, friendly smile that made her cry even harder. "You're not a loser. Life threw some really messed up stuff at you, and you didn't react well. That doesn't make you a bad person. Melissa's a friend, and she asked me to help you, so I did. You didn't really have anybody else."

I had another reason for taking her in, a personal one, but it was something she would never know.

"Everything is going to be okay," I said after she calmed down a little. "There's nothing wrong with your life that you can't fix, though it may not be easy. You're strong, and you can get through this. And I'm sure your family will come around. A lot of my friends' families freaked when they came out, but they all accepted it, eventually, even the crazy religious ones."

A little later, I quietly added, "Well, almost all."

She wiped the tears away and managed a weak smile. "You can be really infuriating, you know," she said. "Here I am having this major life crisis and you're just sitting there, serene as the Buddha, telling me it's going to be okay. Somehow, though, I think I believe you."

I smiled back and we finished dinner. When I got up to clear the table, she told me to sit, and then went to the fridge and got out two bowls of strawberries for dessert. After that, she did the dishes, despite my protest, while I sat on the couch with my tablet and read.

I flipped through the table of contents of an applied chem journal and found a paper about a new approach to decontaminating a broad spectrum of industrial pollution. It was interesting stuff, even if the platinum-based catalyst was totally impractical. If the results held after further study, someone would likely find a cobalt or iron-based replacement in a few years. That's how science works.

Cate sat down next to me just as I finished the paper and turned on the TV. She liked to watch Dancing with the Stars. It's not my thing, but she got really into it, and I found myself liking it in spite of myself. How could I not cheer for Danica McKellar? An actual, academically published mathematician, who writes books like Math Doesn't Suck! And she's gorgeous too. Yes, please.

During a commercial, Cate asked, "Allison, honey, can you help me with school? It may already be too late to fix this semester, but I do want to try."

"Absolutely," I replied. "I'm not sure about your psych or nursing classes, but I can definitely help with bio and chem."

"Thank you," she said, and snuggled her head into my shoulder.

Cate slept in my bed that night, and for the first time since she moved in, I had no reservations about having her there. It had always felt a little bit wrong before, especially when we had sex, but I let her in anyway. I could never say no to Cate. That night, though, it felt good and it felt right. I did love her, in a way, even if she wasn't the love of my life. Spending the night together, just holding each other and feeling the closeness of another human, was something we both needed.

~~~

Cate worked harder over the next two weeks than she ever had in her life, but it wasn't enough. When she checked with her teachers, she found out that she had missed or failed enough assignments and exams up to that point that there was no way she could pass half her classes. When I got home that day, she handed me her wallet and fake ID and told me to hide them somewhere safe so she wouldn't give in to temptation and drink herself into oblivion.

I made lasagna. It was my favorite comfort food, and I knew from experience that it would make her feel better too. We did not have wine.

"I talked to Dean Healy," she said after we sat down to eat, shoulders drooping in resignation. "I told her my whole sob story, and I think maybe she's going to let me drop out for the semester and defer until fall. I hope so, anyway."

"Oh, sweetie, I'm so sorry it came to that," I replied and reached across the table to hold her hand, "but I think it's the best thing for you. You don't get many do-overs in life, and you really need one right now."

"She said she'd give me her decision the day after tomorrow," she said. "She might call you - I told her how wonderful you've been to me."

"Whatever you need," I said.

We watched Dancing with the Stars after dinner, but Danica McKellar had been eliminated, so it wasn't the same, at least for me. Cate didn't really pay attention.

"Allison, honey, if I get a job, can I stay here until fall?" she asked after she turned off the TV. "I know you said it was only for the semester, but I'm not sure I have a place to go home to."

"Of course you can, sweetie," I replied, "but you really should call your parents. You've told me how bad it was when you came out to your family, but time has a way of helping people sort things out. I think they'll surprise you."

She sighed, a heavy sound full of misery. She looked like an eight year old told to clean her room. "Yeah, I probably should," she said, "but I'm not as hopeful as you are."

In bed that night, I massaged her whole body, from her scalp to her toes, working the hard-won knots out of her shoulders and turning her to jelly. Her face was dreamy and unfocused when she rolled over, and she smiled absently at me when I slid into bed. She perked up as I kissed her, and her dark, smoky eyes gleamed with mischief. When she made love to me - and that night, it really was making love - a white-hot fire shot through me, the kind I had forgotten was even possible.

~~~

Dean Healy called me the next day. I gave David the signal that it was a personal call, and he slipped a pair of headphones over his ears and turned on his music. He was an unfailingly courteous officemate - he said it was the only way to share such a small space without killing each other. Whatever he was listening to had a heavy, insistent beat that made his legs bounce in rhythm, and it took him to a place that blocked out the rest of the world.

I talked to the dean for about ten minutes, going over what I knew of Cate's home life and personal issues. She had a lot of sympathy for Cate, but seemed reluctant to make an exception for her. Finally, she asked me, "Do you think this girl can turn her life around?"

"She's already started to," I replied. "She just needs some more time."

"Well, if Leo Harding trusts you, I guess that's good enough for me," she said, sounding relieved to have made up her mind. "You can tell Cate that I'll approve her deferral. Make sure I don't regret it."

"You won't," I said, hoping it was true.

I hung up the phone and stared at my screen for a while, not really focusing. Cate was getting another chance at school, but that was only part of the problem. There was still her family...

A knock on the whiteboard at the entrance to our makeshift office brought me back to reality. A slim, pretty girl of no more than twenty was standing there, in short shorts and a tank top. It was typical Arizona attire, but it still got my attention. Her skin was a healthy tan, and her fine, straight brown hair stretched all the way down to the waistband of those very distracting shorts. Her large, round glasses made her big brown eyes look even bigger. "Doctor Allison?" she asked, looking past me.

You'd think that after working with David for two years and sharing an office for one, I'd be used to it, but it still trips me up, especially when I'm distracted. I sat there stupidly for a moment, said "uh," and then finally turned my chair around to tap David on the shoulder. The only real problem I have working with Dr. David Allison is the confusion between our names.

David pulled off his headphones, turned around in his chair and greeted the pretty girl. "Oh, hey, Wendy," he said, "What can I help you with?"

Wendy sat down in the chair next to his desk and pulled out her notebook, almost knocking over the collection of family photographs on David's desk. The office was a little cramped with just the two of us; when David was helping a student, we were basically sardines. Wendy apologized and then proceeded to ask David a series of fairly basic questions about redox reactions and electrochemistry. He explained everything patiently and she listened attentively, smiling at him and touching his hand.

"Seriously?" I asked David after she left.

"What?" he asked, looking confused.

"That girl did not need you to clear up her confusion about electrochemistry," I said. "She already knew everything you told her."

"She just needed some reassurance," he replied. "A lot of my students come to office hours to go over what they already know, just to make sure they've got everything right."

"Have you ever noticed that almost all of those students are girls?" I asked. "Somehow I don't think your chem 116 sections are exclusively female."

"Never thought about it," he replied. "Maybe girls just don't have as much confidence in science classes. Not everyone can be a smart-ass genius like you."

His cluelessness was actually kind of cute. "Wendy wasn't here for chemistry help," I said, batting my eyelashes and trying my hardest to imitate a schoolgirl crush. "She was here because she thinks you're dreamy."

David looked at me like I was from another planet. "Whatever," he said, laughing, and turned back to his computer.

~~~

I gave Cate the news from Dean Healy, and she called her parents the next day. I wasn't there for the conversation, but when I got home, I could tell from her puffy eyes that it involved crying. I hoped the tears were happy ones, but she didn't say anything when I came in. She cooked again that night, a chicken stir-fry over rice. I sat at the counter and watched, giving her a few tips as she went.

Dinner was fairly tasty, and I commended her effort in the kitchen. We talked about random things while we ate. She didn't bring up her family, and neither did I. She would tell me when she was ready.

Later, cuddling in bed together, she rolled over to look me in the face and took a breath, collecting herself to speak. She stared at my forehead for a while, not quite making eye contact, and her brow furrowed and relaxed. "Dad says I can come home," she said. "I can have my old room back and work at the feed store until next fall."

I was thrilled for her. Maybe that terrible self-loathing would finally end and she could get on with her life.


Desert Chemistry



"... if I behave myself," she added a moment later.

"What does that mean?" I asked, a little knot of worry tightening in my stomach.

"I can't drink," she replied, looking me in the eye, "which is probably better for me anyway. I can't stay out late, and I can't bring anyone home overnight."

"But they're okay with you being gay?" I asked, worry easing a little.

"I think so," she said, "as long as I don't rub their faces in it."

I let out a breath. That wasn't as certain as I would have liked, but it was good enough.

She looked away again, up at the ceiling, and her voice got small. "My family wasn't the real problem anyway," she said. "I was."

I took her hand in mine. "You can tell me about it," I said gently. "You don't have to."

"My parents did freak out a little when I came out to them," she said, eyes fixed upward, "but I think it was more shock than anything else. Looking back, I don't really think they were angry; just sad and confused."

Her eyes gleamed with half-formed tears, and she took a few deep breaths before continuing. "I heard all these terrible things about gay people at church, and I believed them. I mean, I really believed them. If I was gay, that meant I had to be a terrible person too, so I started acting like one. I was a horrible bitch to my sister. I don't blame her for finally kicking me out. I blew off school, I went out drinking every night, and I fucked any girl who looked at me the right way."

The desperation in her voice turned to acid. I let her continue, folding her hand into both of mine. "Some boys too," she said. "I thought maybe if I fucked a few guys, I could fix myself, make myself straight and normal again."

The tears finally spilled out, her voice got lighter, and she laughed quietly. "It didn't work."

I laughed with her. "No, it didn't."

She turned to look at me, face suddenly tender and serious. "You knew the horrible stuff I'd done, a lot of it at least, and you took me in anyway. You didn't think I was a terrible person, and eventually I started to believe maybe you were right."

I kissed her hand.

"I'll always be ashamed about some of the things I did," she said, "but I think I can face my family again, mostly because of you. I think they can accept who I am and forgive the way I acted."

I hugged her tight and kissed the top of her head. "I told you everything would be okay," I said. We fell asleep holding each other.

Cate planned to go home the next weekend. I helped her pack on Saturday, and I took her to her favorite burger place for dinner. There was nothing good on TV that night, so we sat on the couch together and read. I don't know what Cate was reading, but the expression on her face while she sat there was the most contented I had ever seen.

We made love that night, slowly and softly, trying to make each second count. I don't know what Cate was thinking about, but I was remembering another night, seven years before. Cate wasn't Anne, and I didn't love her to aching the way I had loved Anne. But she was the first not-Anne who could make me feel even a pale echo of that all-encompassing glow I had with Anne, and now I was losing her too.

~~~

We got on the road early, wanting to get out of the valley before the worst of the midday sun. The first thirty or forty miles were all city - the Phoenix sprawl seems to go on forever, and it only gets worse with time. North of the Carefree Highway, though, it's still mostly empty desert, widely spaced sage and creosote in sandy gray soil, punctuated by the occasional ocotillo or saguaro.

We stopped for breakfast at the Rock Springs Café, an island of honest Old West kitsch in the modern world. We both got pancakes, and they were exactly what we expected - big, fluffy, and filling. The place is famous for pie, so I got a piece of pecan pie to take home with me. Pie and ice cream can't fill an empty apartment, but they can make it a little more bearable.

The big climb into the mountains starts a little ways north of the café, and I was glad to be in my little Honda. It doesn't have a lot of power, but it can get up the hill without overheating, even with the air conditioning going at full blast. The old clunker that I drove in college, an eighties Chrysler that my dad and I worked on together, would have given up after just a few miles.

Driving uphill, the desert scrub gradually gives way to chaparral, with dry grasses and small stands of piñon. Somewhere around the Bloody Basin exit, Cate pointed out the window to the top of a ridge on the right hand side of the road. "That's the last saguaro," she said, "the last one you can see from the freeway anyway. When I was a kid and we were driving back home from Phoenix, my sister and I would always look for that saguaro. Whoever spotted it first would win."

She laughed to herself. "Kids are easily amused, I guess."

Cordes Junction and the turnoff to Prescott came up soon after that, and forty minutes later we pulled into Cate's parents' driveway. It looked like a nice place, nestling into the hills southeast of town, with a corral and three or four horses out back. The air smelled different up there, cleaner. There was a touch of wood smoke from the wildfire outside town, but the dust and city pollution of the valley were gone.

Cate's father came out the front door, looking like an extra from an old western in leather boots, blue jeans, and a plaid shirt. I could see where Cate got that hair that I loved so much - he had the same dark, lustrous hair, almost black, though his was gray at the temples, cut short and parted on the left. His face was hard and set, weathered from years in the Arizona sun, but his eyes showed a kindness I hadn't expected.

Cate stood tentatively by my car, searching for some sign in her father's face. Apparently she found it, and she ran over to hug him.

"Go on inside, Cathy," he said after a short but genuine embrace. "Your mother's just putting lunch on the table, and she'll want to see you."

Cate dashed into the house, leaving me alone outside with her father. He walked up to me, smiled slightly and extended his right hand. I returned the gesture, with the firm grip I had learned from my own father.

"Thank you for bringing my Cathy home and keeping her safe," he said. "She's told me how much you've done for her. That was awfully Christian of you, and we all appreciate it."

"Cate is important to me," I replied, "and I want to make sure she's okay."

I smiled and kept my voice warm and friendly, but my tone was firm enough that there could be no mistaking what I said next. "If you can't accept her for who she is, I'll happily get in the car and take her back to Tempe."

"There'll be no need for that," he said, his smile turning warmer. "Cathy may still have some growing up to do, but she's my daughter, and she'll always be welcome in this house. So will whoever it is she loves."

We looked each other in the eye, each weighing the other's words and intentions. His expression was firm, a father protecting his daughter, but I could find no sign of disgust or hate. Cate would be safe there, and she would be loved.

"Alright, then," I said, smiling and releasing his hand. "Let's get her stuff inside."

He opened the garage door and we lugged Cate's duffels and crates into the house. After two more loads, I followed him into the kitchen, where Cate and her mother were talking. The house felt like a time warp. The appliances and fixtures were all modern, but the furniture was from an earlier age, when the state was nothing but cattle ranches and copper mines.

"... just got up and walked out, right in the middle of service," Cate's mother said, and Cate's eyes went wide in surprise.

"We're going to a different church now," her father added, "one where they don't preach love and hate in the same breath."

Cate may have gotten her hair and her coloration from her father, but the rest came from her mother, a small woman with a round hips, a kind, pretty face, and twinkling green eyes.

I stayed for lunch, a thick, meaty ham sandwich with stone-ground mustard and sharp white cheddar, and then got back on the road. Cate kissed me goodbye as I left, right on the lips. Her father averted his eyes, bashful but not disapproving. Her mother smiled.

~~~

I paid attention to the left side of the freeway after getting back on I-17 at Cordes Junction, and I saw that same saguaro, now the first on the return journey. The rest of the trip down to the valley was hot, the air conditioner just barely keeping up, but otherwise uneventful. Sunday afternoon traffic was heavy, and I got home about twenty minutes later than I expected.

I put my slice of pie in the fridge and then took a shower to wash off the travel. I was standing in the bedroom drying off when it hit me: the bed that I had shared with Cate was empty. The room was as small and cramped as always, bookcases and a dresser crowding each other along the walls and my grandmother's quilt folded at the foot of the bed, but it felt bigger, and just as empty as the bed. It was the first time I had come home with that familiar presence missing, and it felt strange, as if I had lost something important and knew I would never find it again.

Work held everything back for a while. I had a pile of calculations to get through, so I pulled out my laptop and got crunching. A few hours later, the pile was down to a few cases with weird or bad data that could wait until morning. The work hadn't produced any particularly useful results, but at least I knew that my current approach wasn't going to succeed. Negative results are still information, and they still move the research forward.

I decided it was time for dinner, but I couldn't figure out what I wanted to eat. I was vaguely hungry, and I could feel my body slowing down as it ran low on fuel, but nothing really appealed. I found a container of leftover vegetable curry and some rice in the fridge and decided that was good enough. Beyond that, all I had was fruit, pickles, drinks, and that piece of pie. I put the curry in the microwave to warm while I poured myself a cold glass of wine. It was a cheap white of some sort from Trader Joe's. I never drank wine growing up, and I still can't really tell the difference. I grabbed my tablet to read news while I ate, and I didn't taste the food.

After dinner, I went into the fridge for that piece of pie I had been looking forward to all day. It hadn't suffered from the trip, still a perfect wedge of sweet, gooey custard topped with pecans, but it suddenly looked like some alien thing, not fit to eat. I put it back in the fridge.

There was nothing much on TV, so I went into my DVD drawer looking for something easy to watch. I came out with Speed. It was as much fun as I remembered, and Sandra Bullock was adorable.

That night was one of the longest of my life. I laid awake for hours, often thrashing about, trying to find a comfortable position. Nothing felt right, and I didn't know why. My mind wasn't racing, like it sometimes did after a good day at work. I wasn't really upset about losing Cate. She was never mine to lose. I was happy that she had found some peace, and that she was going to get her life back on track. I missed the company a little, having someone to love and hold and take care of, but that wasn't enough to keep me awake and fill my belly with dread.

I looked up at the clock on the dresser, glowing 3:52 am, and I finally figured it out. The person I was missing wasn't Cate, but it was someone who looked a lot like her. I hadn't cried when Anne and I moved out of our college apartment, seven years before. There was too much to do, moving back home, starting a new summer job, and all the rest. Now that Cate was gone, it all came back, and this time I let it wash over me. I still remembered Anne the way she was on graduation night, as clearly as if it were yesterday, and I missed her. Her laugh, the way her hair smelled in the morning, the trickle of sweat between her breasts after working out, or after sex. 

I did cry this time, for the three beautiful years we had together and for the seven we didn't. I ached all over by the time I finally fell asleep. I don't know what time that was.

~~~

"Dammit!" I muttered as I dumped out the second ruined sample. I had measured very carefully, but I had mixed up the numbers. This time, it was too much hydrochloric acid. David put his hand on my shoulder.

"That's it," he said firmly. "Out of the lab."

I stared at him blankly for a second, unable to focus my eyes, and then nodded. He headed back to our office and I followed.

"What's with you this morning?" he asked after we sat down.

"I didn't sleep much last night," I said.

"I can see that," he replied. The sternness in his expression melted a little. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Cate moved out yesterday," I said. I tried to elaborate, but I didn't have much else to say.

"I'm so sorry Allison," he said, his voice genuine. "Are you okay? Is there anything I can do?"

I just sat there and stared at him for a while. He sat patiently looking back at me, his blue-green eyes steady and reassuring. I should have felt vulnerable and exposed under his gaze. Instead, I felt safe.

"It's okay," I said. "Really. I just . . . Cate leaving stirred up some old memories, that's all. I'll be fine."

"Well, you're staying out of the lab for the rest of the day," he replied. "Safety first. You're still sleep-deprived, even if you've banished whatever ghosts were haunting you. Go home and take a nap."

"Nah," I replied. "If I sleep now, I won't sleep tonight."

I blinked a few times, trying to perk myself up. "I'll update the models with last week's data and do another run. I doubt anything will turn up, but we should know for sure."

"Whatever works," he said. "Just don't hurt yourself when your head hits the keyboard."

I stuck my tongue out at him and turned to my computer.

Classes and office hours kept David busy for most of the rest of the afternoon. I kept working, though not as efficiently as I would have liked. When the final student of the day finished asking him silly questions, David turned his chair toward me and put his feet up on a filing cabinet.

"So," he said, "is your friend Maggie taking you out tonight?"

"Why would she?" I asked, confused.

"Post-breakup consolation," he said. "After a breakup, you go out with a good friend, get a little drunk and complain about your ex." I looked at him strangely. This was not part of my experience.

"That's just what people do," he said in response to my look, and then smiled mischievously. "If it's a bad breakup, you get very drunk."

"Well," I replied, "Maggie has two kids and nobody else to help raise them, so she doesn't go out at night. We are having lunch tomorrow, though."

"Okay then," he said. "Do you have any other girlfriends ..." I cut him off with a look.

"Sorry, bad choice of words," he said in response to my glare. "Anyway, do you have any other platonic, non-romantic female friends who will take you out for a friendly drink tonight? It really does help."

I thought about it for a while and came up empty. I had friends, female and male, with whom I shared interests and parts of my life, but outside my family in Boston, there was nobody who would take care of me when I needed it. There hadn't been since Anne. I didn't lean on other people; other people leaned on me.

David noted my silence. "Right, then," he said. "I'm taking you out tonight. There's a nice, quiet little British pub not far away. Well, I hope it'll be quiet on a Monday night, if there's no soccer on the TV. I'll drive."

"I don't want to go to a bar and drink," I said. "Besides, Cate wasn't really my girlfriend, so we didn't really break up."

"You were living together?" he asked. "And sleeping together?"

I nodded to both.

"Then it's a breakup," he said. "We can do something else if you want. A movie, mini-golf, ..."

"What am I, twelve?" I asked teasingly.

He ignored the interruption and continued. "... a hike in the mountain preserve, a strip club, ..."

"A strip club?" I asked, mildly surprised.

"Well, I assume you like naked women ..." he replied.

"Fair point," I said. "I always thought those places were full of horny guys." I tried to keep the judgment out of my voice. I was honestly curious, and maybe even a little intrigued.

"Mostly," he agreed, trying to suppress a goofy grin, "but I've seen a few female customers too, when I've been. They looked like they were having fun."

I didn't respond, wondering exactly how familiar he was with strip clubs.

He shrugged. "Thirteen bachelor parties in the last eight years, between family and high school buddies," he explained in response to my curious look. "I wouldn't go on my own, but I won't deny enjoying it."

"And one more in September, for your own wedding?" I asked.

"Yeah, probably," he replied with that same goofy grin and a slight blush. "Eddie's planning everything. I don't really know what he has up his sleeve."

"Should be pretty wild, then," I said. "Eddie doesn't seem the type to do anything halfway."

"Melanie made him promise to keep it sane," he said, blushing further. "We'll see ..."

I didn't want to make David any more uncomfortable, so I shut up and considered my options while David's face returned to its normal color. "Lemme check on movie times," I said.

I only found one movie that held much interest for me, and the only show nearby was at eleven in the morning. No luck there. Any thoughts of a strip club vanished at the idea of seeing a naked, dark haired beauty who would remind me of Cate and Anne.

"How about mini-golf?" I suggested.

"So I guess you really are twelve," he replied, smiling. "Seriously, though, whatever you want. I can leave in about forty five minutes."

"Works for me," I said. "Thank you, David. I really appreciate this."

He smiled and turned back to his computer to finish up work for the day. I did the same.

~~~

I went to the ladies room to change into shorts and sandals before we left. I always wear jeans and closed shoes for protection in the lab, even in the heat of summer. When I got back, I saw that David had changed as well, into shorts and a blue polo shirt.

After gathering our stuff, we walked out to his car and drove off. Traffic was slow out of campus, but it moved well enough on the freeways. We got off the Superstition freeway about twenty five minutes later, not too bad for rush hour on a Monday night.

In the middle of the drive, I remembered my manners. "What about Melanie?" I asked. "Will spending the evening with me cause you any problems at home? I really don't want to ..."

David held up his hand to silence me while he changed lanes, and then he looked over at me and smiled. "Melanie," he said, "is in Wisconsin, visiting her parents. She left this morning."

For just a moment, I thought he looked like a teenager up to no good when his parents went away for the first time. An instant later, though, he was the same easygoing, dependable David. It was probably just my imagination.

"Oh," I said awkwardly. "Okay." I didn't really know what else to say.

I hadn't been mini-golfing in years, and I'd never been to this place before, so I just followed David. It was a big entertainment complex, more than just mini-golf, and I was glad he knew where he was going. He paid for everything and picked up our clubs and scorecard. We had our choice of brightly colored, beat-up golf balls on the way out of the entry office. David reached in and grabbed one, not caring about the color. He came out with orange. I spent some time looking at the various shades and picked purple as the least offensive.

There were three courses to choose from. Two had fairly generic fantasy themes, knights and damsels and the like, but the third had some actual personality. It was called The Lost Dutchman, named for the Arizona gold mine that legend claims is hidden somewhere in the Superstition Mountains. It also looked like the most difficult of the three courses, at least based on the description on the score card.




Desert Chemistry



The crowd that night was mostly obnoxious teenagers, in groups of five or so. It was fun watching the boys trying to impress the girls with exaggerated acts of supposed manliness. I could tell by the looks in their eyes which of the girls were the smart ones, playing along and humoring the boys, and which ones were dumb enough to be impressed by all the silliness. I was quite pleased that that former outnumbered the latter.

The sun had just gone down, turning the sky a blazing orange and painting the wispy clouds with strange pinks and purples. I still hadn't gotten used to sunset in the desert. It looked more like a Technicolor backdrop for a Hollywood movie than something that could actually happen in real life. The late April air was still hot, close to ninety degrees, but bone dry. Light sweat evaporates before you even know it's there, leaving a faint, gritty trace of salt on your skin.

David offered to go first when we got on the course. "The second player has an advantage," he explained with appropriate seriousness, "because he can get an idea of the hole from the first player."

The first hole was a fairly simple par three. No gimmicks, just a gently curved green, shaped like the letter J, with the hole around the bend. David looked the whole thing over, placed his ball on the rubber strip that served as a tee, and got a very serious look on his face as he prepared to take his first shot.

It all seemed so ridiculous, two adults, both with PhDs in chemistry, playing mini-golf, surrounded by a pack of hormonal high school kids. I couldn't help but smile. I needed this distraction more than I had let on to David, and it was very sweet of him to give up his evening of freedom and spend it with me. As he stood there, completely absorbed by the process of hitting a little ball around a patch of fake grass, I looked at him, really looked. I had never done that before, not when we first met, not when we started working together, and not once in the year since then.

I knew he was thirty two, but my mind just could not make that number fit. On the outside, he still looked about twenty, with his shaggy, sandy blonde hair and a touch of baby fat rounding out his handsome face. Barely an adult. His eyes were even more confusing. Right then they were fixed on that little orange golf ball, with the absolute concentration of an eight year old, the kind most adults lose when they grow up. Earlier in the day, though, when he pulled me out of the lab and sat me down, those same blue-green eyes bored right through me, and they made him seem like the oldest, wisest person I knew.

David finally took his shot, banking it off the concrete curbs around the green, and the ball rolled to a stop a few inches from the hole. It didn't look like he was going to take it easy on me and let me win to make me feel better.

I took my turn, bouncing the ball off the concrete borders and getting it in the general vicinity of the hole. David made the easy putt for a birdie. I took two more shots to make par.

The next hole was more interesting, a par four with some obstacles in the way of a straight shot. We both managed par. David was graceful; I was lucky. After that, we caught up to the group of six teenagers in front of us on the course. That meant waiting a little at each hole, which was fine with me. I wasn't in any hurry to finish.

"So what, exactly, was the deal with you and Cate?" David asked while we waited.

"It's complicated."

"We've got plenty of time for you to explain, if you want to."

I didn't really, and I'm sure David wouldn't have pushed if I decided not to explain, but the rest of the evening would have been long and awkward. And part of me needed to tell somebody about it, I think. David was there, and he was willing to listen.

Then it was our turn at the third hole, another par four, with an old timber hung as a pendulum. David made another birdie. My ball got knocked off the green by the timber, and I wound up with a bogey.

"The whole story starts with Melissa, I guess," I said, waiting for the fourth hole.

"Okay?"

"I knew her from the ASU fencing club. She got into a huge fight with a roommate and needed a place to stay. I had the extra bedroom, so I offered. It was just for a couple of months last spring, but we became pretty good friends."

"Just friends?"

"Yeah, just friends. She moved out in the spring when school ended, and she's doing great. The next August, right after school started back up, Lakesha found me and asked me if I still had the extra bedroom. She had just come out to her family, and it didn't go well."

"Seems to be a recurring thing with you..."

"Yeah. I guess after Melissa, word got around, even on this huge campus. I somehow became the helpful lesbian big sister type or something. I honestly don't mind. I like the company, a little help with the rent is always good, and I get to help girls like me through a tough part of their lives . . . Anyway, Lakesha made up with her family after a while, and she moved out in November."

"And then Cate?"

"Yup. Ooh, Looks like we're up again."

Par three. A curved, downward sloping green with a secret passage near the tee. David made it into the secret passage first, and his ball landed near the hole for an easy birdie putt. I did the same, and it dropped right in the cup for a hole in one. Yes! 

"So what was different about Cate?" David asked while we walked to the next hole.

"Melissa and Lakesha were getting away from bad situations, other people. Cate was too, I guess, but mostly she was running from herself."

"That's not what I'm asking. Melissa and Lakesha were both nice, pretty, level-headed girls, and they slept in their own beds. Cate was a disaster, and you knew that going in, but you fell for her anyway, and you fell hard." His voice was concerned rather than judgmental, but the implication was plain. "Do you have a thing for bad girls or something?"

I walked up to the next tee as the kids in front of us finished, glad of the excuse. Par five, with an uphill slope and lots of rocks for obstacles. I went first, and my ball hit a rock and came rolling right back to me. Same thing on the next shot. I wound up giving up and taking the six. David managed par after missing an easy putt.

I sat down on a bench by the next hole. This wasn't going to be easy. "Cate was just different," I said. "Not because she was messed up - I didn't like that at all. I tried as hard as I could not to get sucked into her crazy BS."

David sat patiently, waiting for me to continue. I struggled for a while, trying to find the right words, until I realized there were no right words. "I fell for Cate because she looked like Anne," I said. "Anne was my college roommate, and I loved her so much it hurt. She was the first person I ever kissed, the first person I ever slept with.

I've missed Anne so much, and when Cate moved in and looked at me with those dark, smoky eyes, I just couldn't resist. I knew it was a bad idea, getting mixed up with a girl like that, but I couldn't help myself. She came to bed with me the first night we lived together, and I could never manage to say no to her after that."

I started crying a little, and David put his arm around me. "It's okay, Allison. You're a wonderful person, and you'll find somebody else who's right for you someday." I leaned into him and rested my head on his shoulder. The solid bulk of his chest was comforting and made me feel safe.

"So were you still the helpful big sister type for Cate, despite being crazy for her?" he asked after I relaxed a little.

"Yeah," I replied. "Cate's going to be okay. She's back with her family, and her life is back on track."

"Well, that's good," he said. "That means all the hurt you're going through now was worth something."

I don't know why, but somehow hearing him say that made me feel better.

The mood was lighter as we finished out the course. We chatted about random, silly things - his niece Sophie's recent Pokémon obsession; how much useable energy could be extracted from the pounds and pounds of lemons that came off the tree in his back yard every year; how spectacularly awful a blind date between my friend Maggie and his friend Eddie would be - and generally goofed around. David did keep score - he had the scientist's compulsion to record data, whether it matters or not - but there was never even a hint of winning or losing. He cheered every time I did well, as I did for him. He didn't tell me the final score, and I didn't ask.

~~~

"Hungry?" David asked as we walked back to the parking lot, stopping for a few rounds of Miss Pac Man and Galaga on the way.

"Famished," I replied.

"You like Mexican?" he asked.

"Not really," I said. "I grew up in Boston, where most of it was pretty bad. I'm sure there's great Mexican food in this town, but I've never gone looking for it."

"Then you're in for a treat," he said. "The tortillas where we're going are some of the best anywhere, and everything else is really good too."

David drove us up the 101 and into old town Scottsdale, and he parked in a municipal garage at the edge of the big outdoor civic center mall. The place, called Los Olivos, was right next door to the garage, in a building that was going on a hundred years old. That's not a big deal where I grew up, but it's practically ancient history in Arizona.

"I've been coming here for birthdays and family stuff since I was like three," David said as we walked in. "You're going to love it." I envied the roots he had in this town. I really missed my family and friends back in Boston.

Dinner was amazing. The elements all seemed familiar, the same as the lifeless stuff of fast food burrito places and Cinco de Mayo parties, but there was no comparison. The margarita had the right notes of salt and smoky tequila, but mostly it tasted of real, honest lime, bright and bursting with life. It was like drinking sunshine and August rain in the orchards of Michoacán. The guacamole we ate with our chips was light as air, buttery avocado brightened by that same wonderful lime.

The waitress, a short, grumpy woman who looked about a hundred years old, dropped off the dinner plates without a word, and we started in. David had promised me that the red chili burro wouldn't completely burn out my taste buds. I was skeptical, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt. He poured a long stripe of hot sauce on top of his burro and smiled at me. The stuff looked like it was basically just ground chilies with enough water to thin it out. I shuddered.

The burro filling was spicy, but not so much I couldn't taste anything else. It was smoky and earthy, and the meat was falling-apart tender. The real magic, though, was the tortilla. It was thin, stretchy, chewy, pillowy soft, and generally perfect. A real flour tortilla, like a French croissant or a Southern buttermilk biscuit, is culinary alchemical magic. Knowing the chemistry of the fat, starch and gluten doesn't diminish the wonder even a little.

My one margarita turned into three over dinner (or was it four?), and the food sank to the bottom of my stomach. I was feeling warm and drowsy when we walked out to the car.

As David was driving back to Tempe, I felt my judgment, my inhibitions, and my good sense slipping away. "Can I ask you a question?" I asked before I could stop myself. "It might be kinda personal."

"Sure," he replied. "You've spilled your guts to me tonight. I can do the same if it'll help."

"What's the deal with guys getting turned on by lesbians?" I asked, surprised at my boldness. I could never have done that sober. "I never understood that. We are, pretty much by definition, not interested."

David's face turned bright red, and he didn't answer for a while. I waited for him to figure out what to say.

"I don't know, really. I think for most guys it's a male power fantasy. Like both of you are just waiting for the right man to come along, and when he shows up you'll fall all over each other trying to satisfy him."

"That's sick and disgusting."

"You asked."

"I guess I did." I sighed. Men.

A while later, crossing the Rural Road bridge over the Tempe Town Lake, I tried again. I really wanted to know what he thought for himself. "What about you?" I asked. "What do you think about what Cate and I do . . . did in bed?"

"I try very hard NOT to think about it," David replied, turning even redder and pounding the steering wheel to emphasize the point. "It's like . . . I have nieces, you know, so I can figure out that my baby sister has had sex at least twice in her life. I'm glad she has a happy marriage and a good sex life, but I don't want any of the details. Ever."

I smiled. His discomfort was adorable. I probably should have felt guilty about it, but I'm going to blame the margaritas and move on. He still hadn't answered my question, though, and I really wanted to know. "Okay, then, what about lesbians in general?" 

"You're not making this easy, are you?" He paused for a while. "I totally get why you'd fall in love with a woman. I'm honestly surprised that more of you don't. It's hard enough to find somebody who makes you happy in the world. If two women are good together, in bed or elsewhere, then I think that's wonderful."

He turned the corner onto Apache to drop me off at my apartment. "And yes, being totally honest, I think women having sex are pretty hot, even when it has nothing at all to do with me." The red turned almost purple. I smiled and put my hand on his shoulder.

He pulled into the parking lot of my apartment complex. "I think that's more than enough sharing for one day," he said, not quite looking at me.

I was suddenly very aware that I was going home to an empty apartment, an empty bed. I desperately wanted to be anywhere else in the world. 

"I really don't want to be alone tonight," I said, mostly to myself, but it came out wrong, and David didn't miss the implication.

He turned off the engine and looked me straight in the eye, his face completely serious. "I can't give you what you think you need tonight, Allison, for all kinds of reasons, and I wouldn't even if I could," he said, his expression gentle but firm. "Nobody can. Cate's gone, and you need to deal with that for yourself."

I nodded guiltily and then stared down at my lap. He was right. He had been so nice to me the whole night, and I was acting like an idiot, saying things I shouldn't. "I'm sorry," I said. "I really didn't mean . . ." I let my voice trail off, not knowing how to finish.

"It's okay. Whatever you meant, it doesn't matter," he replied. "People say all kinds of things when they're hurting."

We sat there for a while, neither quite knowing what to say.

"If your apartment's too much," he said, breaking the silence, "you can stay in my guest bedroom for a night or two."

A huge wave of relief washed over me. I couldn't say how I reacted physically, but my expression must have been pretty amusing, because David's face cracked into a wide, toothy grin. "Maybe if you get some actual sleep, you won't burn down the lab tomorrow," he said.

"Oh, thank you," I said, suppressing the urge to giggle. "Lemme run inside and get some stuff."

I packed an overnight bag and came back to the car, and David drove us over to his house.

"I hope you don't mind a twin bed and lots of pink," he said as he opened the guest room door. "Sophie and Lisa stay overnight sometimes, so this room is mostly for them."

"It's fine," I said. "Anything is fine. Thank you so much."

David showed me where everything was and then left me alone. It wasn't particularly late, but I was exhausted and a little drunk. I changed into my nightshirt, brushed my teeth, and collapsed into bed. I was out as soon as my head hit the pillow.

~~~

I woke to something cold and wet pressing into my cheek. "Come on, Lucie," I head David call, "Allison is not going to take you out for a walk this morning."

I opened my eyes to see David's adorable yellow Labrador turn around and obediently pad out of the room, tail wagging happily. I dragged myself out of bed, sluggish and still tired but fortunately not hung over. I found David drinking a cup of coffee in the kitchen after I showered. "I picked up a couple of bagels at Chompie's," he said. "I thought you might want some breakfast."

I didn't think I'd ever be hungry again after dinner the night before, but a rumble in my belly told me otherwise. I sliced a sesame bagel in half and David dropped it in the toaster for me. He then made me a cup of tea and set it in front of me. Earl Gray, my favorite. The aroma perked me up, and the warm liquid slipping into my stomach made the day seem a little brighter.

"I had some in the cabinet," he said with a friendly shrug. "You look like you really need the caffeine."

"Thanks," I said. "Thank you for everything."

I had the strangest feeling riding into work with David. This is how normal, middle class adults live. They have morning bagels in their kitchens with their wives or husbands, and then they drive from their nice houses to their normal jobs. Maybe drop the kids off at school on the way. After years of shabby college student apartments and temporary academic jobs, I felt like an alien visiting America for the first time.

The morning went by pretty quickly. David had a class to teach, and I got through all of the previous day's failed lab work in a few hours. It's amazing how much a good night's sleep can help.

I met Maggie at 12:40 by a café in the Memorial Union. She was in a gray and blue sundress, which was about the least dressy thing I had ever seen her wear to work. Her short, sensible brown hair framed an angular, intense face, with sharp brown eyes and ready smile.

Most of the places to eat in the MU are the standard fast food brands, but the place we got lunch is a little more upscale and a lot tastier and healthier. I had a tomato and mozzarella salad, with actual real tomatoes, and Maggie had a grilled veggie sandwich.

Maggie had already known Cate was moving out, but I hadn't told her about my evening with David yet. I filled her in, and she gave me a knowing look. I shook my head at her. "He's taken," I said, "and he's not my type. Much too ... not-female for me."

"Suit yourself," she replied, but the look in her eye didn't go away entirely. "Sounds like a really nice evening," she said, a little more seriously.

"Yeah," I replied. "I needed the distraction. It was really nice of him to do that for me."

Maggie regaled me with tales of her children's fort-building and swimming lessons in her soothing, throaty voice, exaggerating now and then to get a laugh. I half-listened, grateful for a chunk of normality in my life.

Right before we got up to leave, Maggie asked, "You know I was just teasing about David, right?"

"Yeah," I replied. "I know."

"I've been all alone since Clark ... well, since the accident," she said. "I guess I was just a little jealous of you, getting to spend an evening with a nice man, especially one who looks like David."

I pulled her into a hug. "I know how much you miss him, sweetie," I said. "Hang in there."

"Thanks," she replied.

The rest of the week was uneventful. With finals rapidly approaching, David spent a lot of time helping students, so I was alone in the lab most of the time. The work was not very exciting, which was fine with me. We were just about done cataloging a batch of enzymes, and none of them had turned out to be very useful for our purposes. I was running follow-up tests on a few that hadn't come out right in the initial research. We'd contribute any new discoveries to the PeroxiBase database and move on at the end of the week.

It was still hard going home and missing Cate. I got more sleep at night, but I woke up every morning feeling groggy, stiff and depressed.




Desert Chemistry



I had lunch with Maggie again that Friday. She got a worried look on her face as soon as she saw me.

"I just haven't been sleeping well," I said. "I'll be okay."

She looked back at me but didn't say anything more. We bought lunch and went outside to eat. It was beastly hot, but it was quiet outside, and the heat was bearable in the shade. Maggie once again did all the talking, with more tales of her kids. I was happy to listen, and she was happy to have an audience who wouldn't completely tune her out. Eventually, she ran out of stories and went quiet. We finished our lunches in silence, watching the little sparrows hopping around, looking for crumbs.

"It's the bed," she said after a while.

"What?" I had no idea what she was talking about.

"That may be why you can't sleep," she said. "After the accident, I couldn't sleep. What little rest I got was on the couch or in one of the kids' rooms. Being alone in the bed that we had shared was just too much. I went out and bought a new bed a week later, and after that I could make it through the night more often than not. I didn't change anything else in the house - I still want to remember him - but the new bed made a huge difference. So at least go buy yourself some new sheets."

"Okay," I said. "I'll try that."

This time she hugged me as we left.

I followed her advice and went shopping on Saturday. I splurged a little and got a whole new set of bed linens, with pillows and a light summer comforter. The sheets were a soft, dark gray jersey cotton. I slept peacefully until noon on Sunday. Maggie was right.

~~~

Things got exciting in the lab over the next few weeks. We were looking at a new group of enzymes, and David got a crazy gleam in his eye when the first results came in. He wouldn't say anything, but I could tell he was really excited. This was the part of our research where David excelled. I looked up the fungus that had produced the enzymes that had so piqued his interest, and I found they all came from the dryad's saddle mushroom. I love that name. The enzymes were all pretty average in the wild, similar to those produced by most other mushrooms, but David had a feeling they would be easy to work with.

Our research project was about finding a way to break down lignin. It's the stuff that, along with cellulose, gives woody plants their structure. Cellulose is fairly difficult to digest, but there are a lot of animals that manage the trick, from ruminants like cows (actually their gut bacteria) to tiny little crustaceans called gribbles. There are already test projects out there that make the process work economically at industrial scale, or close to it.

Lignin is much tougher. Out in nature, almost nothing can digest it. Animals can't and bacteria can't. The only thing that can is fungus. So we were studying every kind of fungus that grows on wood, looking for the enzymes they use. Once we found one we could work with, the plan was to study its activity and see if we could make something synthetic that does the same job. It's an unusual approach. Most scientists would just try to transfer the genes into a bacterium like E. Coli, which would make the enzyme in larger quantities, but that comes with its own set of problems.

The result, if we could make it work, would clear one of the biggest obstacles to producing useable biofuels from generic plant matter. That's a big deal. The world's transport system is going to need liquid hydrocarbons for a long time, especially in airplanes, but we've already dumped too much carbon into the atmosphere. Biofuels done right (NOT ethanol from corn) are the best bet for providing the fuel without adding to the carbon load.

So David and I settled in for a few months of great science, and that part of my life was really good. Other parts, though, were not so good.

~~~

I was used to being alone. After graduation, when Anne and I moved away from each other, I lived alone more often than not. I dated a little, even had a semi-serious relationship with a brilliant, manic Chinese girl going for her MS in civil engineering at MIT. Xiaomei, her name was. We lasted four intense months. When it was over, and I was alone again, that was fine. Alone was okay. In the depths of my dissertation research, when I was literally watching paint dry in the name of science, I could go a week without really talking to anyone. Human contact was always welcome, but it was never essential.

But after Cate, something changed. Alone was not okay anymore. I needed to see the spark of attraction in another pair of eyes. I needed to talk and to touch and to hold. I needed to feel a woman's soft breasts pressing into my back and her hot breath on my neck. I needed.

Most weeks, I go to the student recreation complex after work two or three nights to work out and then head home. One Wednesday toward the end of May, after all the madness of graduation was over, I decided to go out after exercising instead of going home. I worked myself to exhaustion, using pretty much the same routine I'd been doing since college, and then hit the showers.

After cleaning up, I put on my going-out clothes, a navy miniskirt and a tailored white cotton shirt. I looked in the mirror, and I actually liked what I saw. I had never much liked my body growing up, but I had come to understand that women's bodies come in all shapes and sizes. I was tall, skinny, and strong, and that was good. That was the way I was supposed to be.

My hair had faded from golden to silvery blonde under the desert sun and in chlorinated swimming pools, and the loose curls had relaxed into waves without the east coast humidity to sustain them. I decided to let my hair grow out when I moved to Arizona, and it was already well past the collar of my shirt. I pulled back and pinned the hair on top into a barrette to keep it out of my face, but I let the rest hang loose.

I walked to the campus light rail stop, trying to stay in the shade as much as I could, and caught a train into central Phoenix. Forty minutes later, I got off and started walking the mile or so to my destination. The sun had gone down, and the furnace blast of Phoenix heat had mellowed enough to be tolerable. There aren't a lot of gay bars in Phoenix, and none at all that are just women, at least that I know about. I'd been to Stacy's a couple of times with friends and been happy enough, and the online reviews say it's the nicest of the lot, so that's where I went.

The place was quite nice inside, all dark wood and low, warm light. It reminded me of a series of the little chapels attached to old European churches. There was a pretty good crowd for a Wednesday. I didn't see a lot of women who were obviously available - most of the patrons were either gay guys, straight couples or mixed groups - but I spotted a few here and there. I got some sort of silly, girly drink I don't remember and claimed a tiny table for myself. Halfway through my drink, the music changed, and a bunch of women gathered on one corner of the dance floor. I waded into the crowd to join them.

I found myself surrounded by a mass of writhing, slithering femininity, and then I became part of it. The music was obviously for the guys, with a heavy dance beat and a staccato male singer I didn't recognize, but the women somehow made it their own. I was swimming in in a blur of hair and arms and hips, and then one figure came into focus.

Her short, shockingly orange hair was moussed up into spikes, tipped with purple. Her makeup matched her hair, heavy and unsubtle, and there were at least three piercings on her face. Then she was right in front of me, her belly sliding against my hips, arms above her head, swaying with the beat. We danced like that, the two of us alone in the crowd, until the DJ slowed the tempo and dimmed the lights. Her arms wrapped around my waist, and mine went around her shoulders.

"I'm Julie," she said.

"Allison," I replied.

When the song ended, she fetched her drink from its place on the bar and followed me back to my little table. She sat down across from me. There were a few minutes of awkward small talk, and then she asked me if I wanted to go home with her.

"God yes!" I replied.

We were out the door and in her apartment, kissing insistently as clothes flew in every direction. I felt her lips on my neck, her hands on the small of my back, her teeth on my collarbone. And then we were in the bedroom and she was laying me down on the bed, her breath warm and moist on my skin . . . 

"Allison? Hello," I heard her say. "Are you okay?"

I shook myself back to reality. We were still sitting at that little table in the bar, and she was looking at me very strangely.

"Yeah," I said. "I'm fine. Just a little distracted."

"Okay," she said, looking like she didn't quite believe me.

She handed my phone back to me. "Here you go," she said. "You have my number. Text me, okay?"

"I will," I said. "It was really good to meet you."

She smiled at me and then disappeared into a group of her friends, who walked out the front door together.

What the hell was that? I thought to myself after she was gone. I'd had erotic dreams, some of them really good, but I'd never lost myself like that before.

~~~

I did text Julie the next day, and we made a date to go hiking in Piestawa Peak Park on Sunday. I got up ridiculously early, grumbling to myself about the idiocy of doing anything at eight in the morning. Unfortunately, getting out early is the only practical way of doing anything outdoors in Phoenix in the summer, which lasts roughly from April to October. We met in the parking lot, already almost full, and exchanged hellos and a quick hug. Without the heavy makeup, hair gel and face metal, Julie looked like a whole different person. A more interesting one.

Piestawa Peak tears a hole in the city's orderly street grid, just north and east of downtown. It's a huge oasis of nature in the middle of the city, like Central Park in Manhattan, but it's all raw, untamed desert. The terrain is mostly rock, from big black boulders to little flakes of sandstone, with coarse, gray-beige soil filling in the gaps. The vegetation is sparse, each bush claiming as much land as it can, burrowing down deep to harvest the scant moisture. A wide variety of cacti sprout in any available spot, even tiny cracks in the rock. There are furry white pincushions, no bigger than a hand, fuzzy teddy bear cholla, and even a few tall, majestic saguaro. There's animal life too, lizards, snakes, chipmunks, and all manner of strange insects. It may look dry and barren, but the place is alive, as much as any New England forest.

The peak, the surrounding park, and the nearby freeway are all named after a Native American who died in Iraq. A lot of the old-timers in the valley still call the place Squaw Peak, but I don't. I wouldn't be at all happy if people travelled over Dyke Pass or fished in Lesbo Lake. I feel like I should extend the same courtesy to Lori Piestawa and the rest of her people.

The summit trail was a long line of people, one behind another. That kind of crowding didn't look like fun, so we chose the circumference trail instead. The hike was lovely, and Julie took me to breakfast afterward. She had an afternoon shift at the hospital - she's a physical therapist - so I went home to clean up and spent the rest of the day inside reading.

We went out a few more times - a Tuesday night movie; Saturday at the Phoenix Art Museum; Chicago deep dish pizza at Oregano's. There was something there, but it took a while to figure out what it was. We spent an intimate evening at my place, kissing and exploring. Julie gave me an amazing massage, and we snuggled together afterwards. In the end, though, we decided not to go to bed. We felt better together as friends. It wasn't everything I needed, but it helped.

~~~

I had a weird feeling walking into the lab one Tuesday morning in June. I was nervous, jittery, and I didn't know why. When I got there, David was in his chair, staring at his computer screen, not really seeing it.

"Hey," I said as I sat down.

He spun around in his chair. "Hey," he said. He looked stunned, like he'd been hit in the head.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"Melanie's pregnant," he replied. His voice was flat, emotionless.

"Congratulations!" I said. I started to stand up to give him a hug, but he seemed to collapse into himself, his face shifting from blank incomprehension to bleak despair. I sat back down.

"It's not mine," he said softly. "It's Eddie's."

I sat still for a moment, letting that sink in.

"As in your best friend since third grade Eddie?" I asked.

"Yeah, that Eddie," he said, his voice still flat. "Melanie told me this morning."

"Oh, God, David," I said. "I'm so sorry." 

I got up and knelt down by his chair to give him a hug. He leaned in and buried his face in my shoulder. There were no tears, but he held on to me like a life raft. "Thanks, Allison," he said after a while.

I sat back in my chair and waited. He never had an easy time talking about personal stuff, even when it wasn't painful.

"She's moving out today," he finally said. "That's why she picked this morning to tell me. It was when she could get the moving truck." His voice got a little bitter as he said it.

I wanted to scream - she decided to destroy his life on a weekday morning because of the goddamn moving truck! - but I kept quiet. This was his crisis, not mine.

"What about Lucie?" I asked.

That jolted him upright. He reached for his phone, started typing, and jabbed the send button with his middle finger. "I don't care about most of the stuff," he said, "but she is NOT taking my dog!"

A minute later, there was a binging noise from his phone. He picked it up to read the text and his face filled with rage. I thought for a second he might fling the phone across the room. "Give it to me," I said firmly, trying to calm him down. Smashing the thing wouldn't do anybody any good.

He relinquished it, and I read the incoming text: keep teh damn dog. i nvr liked it anywy.

I could see why he was so angry, but at least she wasn't going to fight. "Is Lucie in the house now?" I asked. "You should probably call that neighbor girl and see if she can take her for the day."

David took the phone back, flipped through his contacts and dialed, calmer and happy to have something constructive to do. I heard his half of the conversation.

"Hey, Tina.

Yeah, the moving truck is for my house. Melanie's leaving...

No, it's okay. I'm not going anywhere. It's just . . . It's complicated.

Listen, can you do me a favor? I need you to go next door to get Lucie and take her to your house for the day, if that's alright with your parents.

Great, great. Is that her barking? Guess I should've called earlier.

Thanks for doing this, Tina. I'll pay extra - we can figure out what's fair later.

No, no, you deserve it. Lucie will be much happier with you taking care of her.

Okay, Tina. Thanks again.

Bye."

David hung up and heaved a big sigh. "Thanks, Allison," he said. "I hadn't even thought about Lucie. The last thing I need right now is a traumatized dog."

"So what are you going to do now?" I asked.

"Now," he said, "I'm going to get ready for class. Really not looking forward to it, but at least it will be something to do."

"Are you sure you're up to it?" I asked. "You've just had a bomb dropped on your head. Lecturing a bunch of grouchy summer students might not be the best thing for you right now."

"Doesn't matter," he replied. "Summer session is compressed enough that canceling even one class really screws up the syllabus. We have a lot of material, and it's pretty stretched as it is. I'll just have to muddle through."

"I could sub for you today," I suggested, "even the rest of the week if you want. You could stay here analyzing enzymes. Much better distraction for you, and none of the students get traumatized by Angry Zombie Professor David."

"Would you really?" he asked. "That would be such a relief."

He ruffled through the papers on his desk and picked one up. "I've got a pretty good lesson plan for today."

"Great," I said, looking at the sheet he handed me. "I think I can handle this."

"Remember, Allison," he said, "these are not MIT students, and they're not chemistry majors, so go slow. They're engineers, and most of them will get the stuff in this lesson, but you need to explain things thoroughly."

"Got it," I said, and turned to go.

"Just don't burn down the lab, okay?" I added as I left.

Teaching was harder than I remembered. By the end of the two hour class period, I was tired and cranky. I don't know how David managed to do it every day, all summer. I found David in the lab when I got back. I gave him a smile and a thumbs up, and he went back to work.

David was immersed in work all afternoon, with that eight year old boy look of concentration in his eyes. I had to remind him that it was time to finish up for the day.

"So what are you doing tonight?" I asked. I was sure he hadn't thought about it yet.

When the reality of the day washed over him again, the rage returned. "Well," he said, "I'm not fucking going out drinking with my fucking best friend, because he's fucking my fucking fiancée. Ex-best friend now, I guess. Asshole."

He calmed down and his shoulders slumped, like a balloon deflating. "I guess I don't know what I'm doing tonight," he said. "Or tomorrow or the day after that. I had a life with Mel... with her, and now I don't anymore. I have to figure out how to have a life by myself."

"Okay, then," I said. "Here's what we're doing tonight. I'm taking you out, wherever you want. We'll get some food into you first, and then we'll get you very drunk. I assume this qualifies as a bad breakup..."

"Yeah, definitely," he said with a mirthless laugh.

"After that," I said, "you're going to spend the night in my spare bedroom, and you're going to sleep until you feel human again. I already called Tina, and she's thrilled to have Lucie with her overnight."

"Thank you, Allison," he said. "Thank you for always being here."

~~~

David didn't want to think about where to go for dinner, or anything else, so I chose for him: the Cornish Pasty Company, a short drive west on Apache. The place is dark and tiny, just a long bar and a single row of booths behind it, with old pictures of tin miners on the walls. We ordered food, one traditional Cornish pasty apiece, and drinks, soda for me and a strong, locally brewed Scotch ale for him. David had never heard of Cornish pasties, which are basically large, hand-held meat pies, but he was always adventurous with food. He was also famished because he had completely forgotten to eat lunch.

David was quiet, so I babbled at him about all sorts of random things - Julie, my trip to the zoo with Maggie and her kids, a new book I'd been reading about plant genetics. After his second beer, something unclenched inside him and he started to talk. It was slow at first, like each word was struggling to come out. I don't think he had ever talked much about his personal life.

"We met at my friend Doug's wedding," he said. "I was there alone, and she was alone too. She was a friend of one of the bridesmaids, I think. We were seated next to each other at a table full of old people, so we just kind of hung out together. We danced when the music was good, and I asked her out as we left."

"Sounds nice," I replied.

"It was," he said. "She was funny and outgoing, and she was so pretty in that pink dress. Just being around her made me feel like one of the cool kids, something I didn't get much growing up as a nerd."

I could picture her in my head wearing pink chiffon, and I had to admit to myself that she must have been stunning. Even twelve years later, she still looked like a prom queen. David smiled a dreamy smile and drank some more beer. I sympathized with him about not fitting in growing up. I didn't fit in either.




Desert Chemistry



"Our third date was when I think I really fell in love with her," he said. "We sat up late, talking about our lives, what we wanted to do, and I went into this whole long thing about chemistry and solving the world's problems. She got this gleam in her eye, like she was really excited about what I was doing, even if she didn't understand it. That was it. That was when I knew I wanted to be with her."

His voice was still dreamy, but I caught the little hesitation when he said it, like there was something else hiding behind it.

"How could you be with somebody who didn't understand your work?" I asked. "I don't think I could do that."

"Nobody understands our work, Allison," he replied tartly. "If you limit yourself to only dating scientists, especially female scientists, you're going to be very lonely."

"Fair point," I said, "but isn't it important to you to have a partner who's at least close to your intellectual level?"

"Of course it's important," he replied, "but it's not the most important thing. Melanie was wonderful to me, and she made me happy. She was going to be a good mother someday after we got married. It may sound old fashioned, but that was more important, and it was enough."

I pictured David and Melanie as Ward and June Cleaver, and I giggled.

"What?" he asked. He smiled and almost laughed himself.

"Nothing. Sorry," I replied, trying to look serious. I almost giggled again. "Go on."

He told me the rest of the story over two more beers: getting serious; her job in real estate; meeting the families; moving in together; getting engaged. It all sounded wonderful, but every so often, that hesitation would come back.

"I really thought she was the one," he said, shaking his head. "I know she's not perfect, but Lord knows I'm not either. I loved her like crazy, took care of her the best I knew how."

He paused for a moment, and his face turned bright red. "And the sex was amazing," he said. "She knew exactly what she wanted, and she made sure I gave it to her."

"So you don't want to know anything about my sex life," I said, smiling, "but you're okay telling me about yours..."

"Oh, god, Allison," he replied. "I'm sorry. I really didn't mean to..."

I reached across the table to take his hand. "It's okay," I said. "I don't mind. You need to talk to somebody, and I'm here."

David leaned back in his seat, and I let go of his hand. "Thanks," he said, still blushing.

Two different pictures of Melanie had emerged while we talked, one from what he said, and the other from what he didn't say. The first one was a much better person than the second.

That gleam in her eye on their third date was about more than David's love of chemistry. It was also a promise for the future, one that went along with his upper-middle class family. She expected the paycheck that came from a job at a biotech startup or big pharma. She wanted one of the McMansions she showed off to her clients in north Scottsdale, with the five car garage, the gardener, and the nanny to take care of the kids. When she figured out that David was happy in his house in Tempe, teaching at ASU, she crawled into Eddie's bed, hoping his dad's car dealership would get her what she wanted.

At first, I wanted to smack David. How could he have not seen her for what she was? But then I realized he did, and he stayed anyway. He saw all her faults, but he also saw the best in her, and he wouldn't let go of it. And then I wanted to smack her. It's a rare thing to have somebody who loves you like that. It makes you a better person. She just threw him away, and he deserved better.

"It's going to be okay," I said. "It'll hurt like hell for a while, but it'll get better. You know that, don't you?"

"Yeah, I do," he replied. "It still feels awful, though."

"Did she keep the ring?" I asked after a while, already knowing the answer.

David's face filled with rage for an instant, but it was gone just as quickly, and he actually laughed out loud. "Yeah, she did, and that's fine," he replied with a smile. "I hadn't even thought about it, but I feel really good right now about a decision I made."

"Well, I still think it's rude," I replied, "even if you don't."

David drained the last of his beer and explained. "When I proposed, I thought about giving her my grandmother's ring. I think it's beautiful, but I decided she would probably want something bigger and flashier. We went to pick it out together, and she got a kick out of showing it off to everyone. She can keep the damn thing. I still have the ring that really matters, tucked safely away in my box at the bank, ready to give to somebody who will appreciate it."

David waved at the bartender for another beer. He's a big guy - maybe six two and very well built - but even so, after that sixth beer I was surprised by his alcohol tolerance. There was no sign that he was even a tiny bit impaired, other than letting down his guard and talking to me. But then he leaned forward in his seat, and it was like watching a light bulb turn on. His head bobbed, his eyes got a little hazy, and all of a sudden he was quite visibly drunk.

"You okay?" I asked.

"I'm good," he replied, looking as surprised by the sudden change as I was. "Mission accomplished, Allison. You got me drunk."

With that, he decided he'd had enough, so we went back to my apartment. He wasn't too drunk to get around, which was good since he's a lot heavier than I am, but I could tell he was tired and very dizzy. After we got inside, I showed him the bathroom, found a spare (unused) toothbrush for him, and left him alone. It was still somewhat early, so I sat in the living room and read. About fifteen minutes later, I could hear him snoring.

The next morning, I went out early to get some freshly ground coffee and something breakfast-y. He would likely be hungry when he woke up, and he would definitely need caffeine. He was still snoring away when I got back. After rummaging around my kitchen cabinets, I found my barely used coffee maker and set it out. I left him a note, along with my car keys, and then walked to the bus stop to go to work.

~~~

David was in the lab working when I got back from teaching his class. He looked a little tired, but he seemed happy enough, so I let him be. Later in the afternoon, I asked him, "How are you today? Feeling okay?"

"Yeah," he replied. "I was a little hung over, but the coffee you put out this morning fixed me right up. Thank you."

He went back to work for a while, preparing some samples for the mass spec that he'd subjected to various lignin-modifying enzymes. "Thanks again for last night," he said about half an hour later. "It still hurts a lot, but at least I don't fly into a blind rage every time I think about Melanie and Eddie."

"You're welcome," I said. "That's what friends do."

When David went home that night, I went with him for moral support. He hadn't been back since Melanie moved out. There was a brief flash of rage when he walked in the front door and saw the state in which the movers had left everything. Melanie had taken some of David's nicer furniture, including the couch and TV, and the kitchen was a god awful mess. David ignored that and went straight for the dining room, with the beautiful old teak table and chairs his grandparents had left him. When he saw they were still there, he calmed down a little.

"The only thing I really cared about was that table," he said, and let out a tired sigh. 

"Replacing the rest will cost me, but whatever. I guess that's what I get for trusting a pair of snakes," he said bitterly. He was more charitable than I would have been.

I got a good sense of the whole house while looking around with him. It was an old (for Tempe) ranch style house, with two bedrooms at one end and another by the garage that Melanie had used as an office. The kitchen and family room were the center of the house, and I guessed David's grandparents had been remodeled them about fifteen years ago. They went all-out when they did, with heavy wood cabinets, granite countertops, and high-end stainless steel appliances. The original kitchen had been a tiny, galley-style place, but they ripped the walls out and opened up the room into a U shape, with an island in the middle, facing into a big, open area. The dining room and a little den were off to one side, and then the bedrooms. Most of the floors were a reddish-brown ceramic tile, with carpet in the bedrooms. It wasn't especially large or fancy, by modern standards, but it did feel homey, the kind of place to raise a family.

After checking through the house, we walked next door to fetch Lucie. David thanked Tina profusely for taking care of her, and he negotiated a new agreement with Tina and her parents. Tina would feed Lucie every weekday afternoon at four, something Melanie used to do, and she would take Lucie out for afternoon walks when it cooled down in October. David would pay her twenty five dollars a week for the feeding and another twenty five for the walks. Tina was thrilled to be getting paid for something she would enjoy doing; her parents were thrilled that she had a job with some responsibility; and David was thrilled to not have to worry about working late in the evenings. It worked out well for everyone, especially Lucie.

We took Lucie back to the house and ordered a pizza for dinner. "I used to be a pretty good cook," he said while we ate, "but then Melanie took over the kitchen and it was easier to just stay away. Guess I'm going to have to learn again."

I stayed a while afterward to help him clean up some of the mess before I went home.

~~~

David let me fill in for him the rest of the week. He was calm and stoic about everything, but I could tell he was still a wreck on the inside, and working in the lab by himself was easier on his mood than teaching. When Friday came around, I was a little sad it was over. After a rocky start, I felt like I was connecting with the students, and they did well answering questions and working out problems on the board.

That Saturday, David went furniture shopping, and he asked me to tag along. I offered to drive, and when I picked him up in the morning, I was glad I did.

"You look like a walking corpse," I said.

"Thanks," he replied with a rueful grin. "I feel worse. Not sleeping much."

The first stop was an electronics store for a new TV. After that, we went to a very nice furniture shop in Scottsdale to buy a couch, some comfy chairs, end tables and assorted shelving. "Have you thought about a new bed?" I asked David after he had picked out everything else. "That might be the reason you're not sleeping."

The post-breakup rage flooded back into his face instantly, as if he'd been struck by lightning. "Of course," he said, fists clenched and knuckles white. "They were fucking each other in MY bed. I'm sure of it. That's probably why I haven't been sleeping. You are totally right - I need a new bed."

He chose a low, queen-sized maple frame with drawers underneath and one of those cool space age foam mattresses. We got a knowing look from the salesperson as we took turns laying down to test it. It was amusing, and not worth the effort to dispel her assumption.

The couch and chairs he chose were simple and modern, comfortable without being aggressively hip. He asked me to choose the fabric - he was fairly hopeless with colors - and I found a dark green that would look good in his house. The tables and shelving were similarly simple and modern, clean lines of blonde wood and stainless steel.

The furnishings added up to more than I had ever spent on house stuff in my entire life. David just shrugged. "My grandparents left me some money along with the house," he said. "I can live off my salary without a problem, but when things like this come up, I can dip into my savings and not worry about it."

I wondered what that was like.

The woman who rang everything up managed to get the bed, tables and shelving all scheduled for delivery that afternoon. The couch and chairs would take a couple of weeks to upholster. After the furniture store, we went to buy new bedding, and David picked out the same charcoal gray jersey cotton sheets I had. We were both exhausted by then, so we stopped at Los Olivos, that wonderful Mexican place, for lunch and then went home.

"Call me tomorrow," I said to David when I dropped him off at his house. "Just so I know you're okay. Let me know if you need anything."

"Okay," he replied. "Thanks so much, Allison."

I didn't hear from him until three in the afternoon.

~~~

The next week, David was mostly back to his normal self. A little sadder and angrier, perhaps, but still basically David. The big difference was that he had no idea what to do with his time. He still had Lucie and his job, but the rest of the structure that he fit his life into was gone, along with his two best friends.

Leo filled in part of the gap, dragging David to evening lectures around campus. David also had dinner with his sister Joan's family once or twice a week, which his nieces loved. They got to stay up later and play games when Uncle David was around.

Mostly, though, he spent more time with me. When he was with Melanie, he generally kept me at a professional distance. Without her, I was no longer the 'little office wife.' He no longer had any reason to keep away, and he really needed a friend. Since I was just as single as he was, without much of a social life, that was fine with me.

We ate dinner together most nights after work. There's a lot of cheap food around campus, and some of it's even pretty good. I dragged him out for early morning hikes at Piestawa Peak or South Mountain some weekends. He didn't like the hour any more than I did, but it's better than scorching midday heat.

David normally had a guys' night every two weeks or so with some other associate professors, but they hadn't met up for almost two months. Summer travel, family emergencies, and various other things had gotten in the way. Three weeks after the big breakup, they finally managed to plan an evening. David stopped me before I headed out after work to the student rec center. "I'm going out with the guys tomorrow," he said. "You, um, want to come?"

"I'm really not sure you want me to intrude on your guys' night," I replied.

"All we do is drink, shoot pool, and talk about the women in our lives," he said. "Nothing you can't relate to. You'll be fine."

"I guess," I replied. I wasn't sure, but I wasn't doing anything else.

We met the next night at the parking garage nearest the chemistry building. Jonsey was already there, sitting on the walker thing he uses to get around. He's actually kind of handsome, with curly black hair and a matching black beard. He has handicapped plates, which make parking much easier, so he always drives. Craig and Guillermo showed up together just after David and I arrived, one short and skinny, the other big and barrel-chested. I thought they looked a bit like Laurel and Hardy. They're both physicists, and Jonsey is a chemical engineer.

The guys were all in shorts and collared shirts, either polo or button-down with the sleeves rolled up. I was glad I had chosen the same thing, blue shorts and a pink polo. I didn't want to pretend I wasn't a girl, but I didn't want to look too out of place either.

Jonsey drove to a bar just off campus, and we found a booth in the back. I paid for the first round since I was the new girl in the crowd, and I started to relax. None of the guys seemed bothered by my invasion, so why should I worry about it?

Pool was amusing. All five of us could do the calculations for even the most complicated shots without blinking, but only David and Craig had the coordination to pull them off. I acquitted myself rather well in the first couple of games against Guillermo and Jonsey, but Craig wiped the floor with me when his turn came up. I went to the bathroom.

When I came back, I found the guys arguing.

"We need you to break a tie," Jonsey said. "Who's hotter, the blonde in the corner, or the redhead at the bar?"

I looked at all four of them, and I could tell they were serious, in that guys drinking in a bar kind of way. I also knew better than to just choose one of the two of women. These were all very smart guys, despite their current behavior, and if I was going to fit in, I had to show them I could think for myself.

"Her," I said, pointing across the room to an absolutely gorgeous woman just as she turned to talk to the guy sitting next to her, laughing and running her hand through her long raven hair. The guys all turned their heads in unison, and their mouths dropped open.

"Okay," Craig said after a very long pause. "Allison's right. Definitely hotter than either of the other two." At that point, the little, lingering discomfort I felt about hanging out with them vanished.

The rest of the evening went by in a flash. Craig beat David twice in a row at the pool table and declared victory. We ate some bar food - I think I remember potato skins - and talked. The conversation bounced around at light speed, from Lyndon Johnson to space elevators to how hard it was to get an NSF grant these days. I felt right at home.

There was also more guy conversation about the women in the bar, and in our lives, and I was surprised at how easily I joined in. The guys sometimes let their dicks do the talking, like guys everywhere, but underneath the hard male exterior, they were basically decent men. I didn't hear anything I would have minded being said about me, though I might have chosen different language.

To these guys, women were, first and foremost, actual human beings. Some of them, though, were also wondrous, magical creatures that made their heads go a little fuzzy, something I could totally understand. Their admiration was spread broadly, from the obviously hot girls they noticed earlier to the tall, muscular, ebony woman behind the bar and the short, plump fiftyish woman sitting in the corner, whose tight curls formed an airy auburn cloud around her strangely pretty face. I had a fairly cynical view of men and their ideas about women before I went out with the guys, and I was very happy to be proven wrong. They weren't really any different from me.

Craig and David played a final round of pool before we went home. David won, and I cheered a little inside.

"Thanks for inviting me," I said when Jonsey dropped me off at my apartment afterwards.

"Glad you came," he said, smiling.

Walking in my front door, I smiled to myself. Between Maggie, Julie, Melissa, and now these guys, I had a group of friends like I hadn't really had since college. Grad school was great, but it was a pretty solitary existence, except for the brief interlude with Xiaomei. It was good to feel like I fit in again.

And then I thought about David, and how I fit into his life. Since Melanie left, I had filled most of the hole she had left behind, but what was I to him, really? Once I had proven myself in the lab, I had always been an equal partner, despite my precarious status as a post-doc. Outside work, I had become one of the guys, the one with whom he spent most of his time. Maybe even his best friend, at least for a while. But there was also this other side to how he treated me, sweet and a little protective. He walked me to my car at night when I worked late, helped me install my ceiling fans, brought me chai. And of course he took me out and made me feel better after Cate left. It felt kind of like he had adopted me as his little sister.

Whatever I was to him, it was nice. I had a real best friend again, for the first time since Anne.

~~~

The last Monday morning in July, I sat down at my desk and opened the envelope I had found pushed under the door of my apartment. I expected it was probably about HVAC maintenance or something. I skimmed over it, not really paying attention, until I realized what it was really about.