Physics Can Be Fatal (5 page)

     Professor Cake had the complete attention of Edwina and grad students Laura Brenner and Nate Harris.  They were hoping she would elaborate on this tantalizing remark.

     “Alan keeps rather a lot of secret arrows in his quiver,” Professor Cake continued obliquely.  “And he is quite ruthless about using them.  Pick his brain, by all means, children, but keep your distance.  Alan’s moral compass broke a long time ago.” 

     Nate Harris, a first year graduate student, was a wholesome-looking and bright young man.  He reminded Edwina of Huck Finn.

     “It took me a while to get through it, but his paper on dark matter completely blew me away,” Nate said.

     “Didn’t he study with your husband, Professor Cake?” asked Laura Brenner, a second year graduate student. 

     “Indeed, he did.  My husband taught Alan at Oxford before we came to the States.  Alan was one of my husband’s brightest––and laziest––students.  He was a bit of a lad back then, and I doubt much has changed,” the old professor chuckled, draining her champagne.

     The moment of truth had arrived for Seth Dubin.  Nervous as he felt, he was steeling himself to speak to Alan Sidebottom.  Seth discreetly dried his sweaty hands and upper lip on a napkin, and approached Professor Sidebottom.

     Unfortunately Seth’s nerves got the upper hand, and an old nemesis showed up in the form of a childhood stammer.  Seth hovered over Professor Sidebottom with his hand held out, unable to utter a sound.  His lips were frozen around the formation of the letter ‘p’ for ‘professor’.

     Seth’s wife, Sheila, instantly gleaned what was happening.

     “Professor Sidebottom,” she smiled warmly, reaching out her hand. “I’m Sheila Dubin. My husband, Seth, has been talking about nothing else but meeting you.  And now, in all the excitement, the moment has rendered him speechless, I’m afraid.”

     Calmed by his wife’s soothing voice, Seth was able to lower his outreached hand, but was still unable to speak.

     “By god, a good, old-fashioned stammerer!” Alan roared.  “Nothing for it but a good tug––stick out your tongue, man––don’t be shy––I’ll fix you up in no time with a firm yank!”

     Mortified, Seth smiled weakly and shrugged.  Sheila could hardly believe the thoughtlessness of what she had just heard.  She stood frozen to the spot, her face darkening with humiliation and steely hatred for Alan Sidebottom’s cruel treatment of her husband.

     Helen Mann was on the other side of the library struggling with her own feelings of humiliation.  She was straining under the acutely perceived insult of being ignored by the guest of honor.  As the minutes ticked by and Professor Sidebottom failed to seek her out, thank her for the invitation to Cushing, and pay his respects, she grew increasingly affronted.

     To cover her embarrassment at being publicly snubbed, she feverishly held forth to a small group of bewildered students about the possibility of the existence of ice inhabitants on the moons of Jupiter.  The confused students snatched covert glances among themselves, tacitly agreeing not to say anything and not to move, until Helen’s strange, verbal spasm was over. 

     Eventually Helen could bear Alan’s rude and insulting behavior no longer, and––as she often did––resolved to take control of the situation.  She strode across the room and made her way through Alan Sidebottom’s growing coterie of admirers, carelessly pushing aside anyone in her way.

     “Alan, dear boy!” Helen trilled, shoving Seth out of her path. 

     “
There
you are!  You’re going to
adore
staying in our little Carriage House!  It’s been written up in
Architectural Digest
  you know, and
everyone
has stayed there over the years––Faraday, Maxwell, Einstein––.”

     Alan slowly gazed up at Helen, who was wearing a wrap-around dress of lavender faux-suede, and ropes of pearls around her sagging neck.  A heavy application of make-up gave her face a slightly mask-like appearance.

     “Will I be sharing a room with one of the lads, then?” Alan Sidebottom slurred, winking at the group of onlookers.

    
Good God,
Helen thought, fuming,
he doesn’t even remember me!
 

*

     The party sustained a pitched level of collegial conviviality for hours, more or less until the champagne ran out.  When the library began to empty, Edwina introduced herself to Alan Sidebottom, and offered to escort him to the Carriage House.  He stood up shakily.  Fumbling for her hand, he lifted it unsteadily toward his mouth, finally managing a kiss, which turned into more of a lick. 

     “Edwina, you say?  Not
Countess Edwina of Burma
, by chance?” The professor said with an engaging smile.  “What a very pretty Edwina you are!”

     “Did you enjoy the party, professor?” Edwina asked, gently steering him toward the door.  Once outside, she guided him carefully down the front steps of Sanborn House.

     “Indeed, I did. Absolutely delightful. “’Fraid I might have had too much to drink.  I’ll make my apologies tomorrow.”

     The night was mild and warm, more Indian summer than fall.  The lighted path meandered through an alley of dense yew hedges, pruned to perfection over generations.  Stars shone brightly in the black sky.

*

     Helen Mann had slipped out of the party early and retreated upstairs to her office to regain her composure.  From the darkened window she watched as Edwina accompanied an unsteady Alan Sidebottom along the path toward the Carriage House cottage.  She watched as Professor Sidebottom suddenly stopped.  In one remarkably awkward movement, he leaned down as if to embrace Edwina, tripped over his own foot, fell into the hedge, and threw up.  For an encore he passed out.

     Helen stood at the window.  Tears ran down her face.

    
Oh, good Lord!
Edwina thought. 
I can’t wait ‘til I get to delegate these ridiculous tasks to underlings!!

     She has little idea what to do.  Feeling for a pulse, Edwina was vastly relieved to find one.  The carriage house was only twenty yards away, but she couldn’t possibly carry him, and she didn’t dare drag him along the ground.  She fanned his face and lightly patted his face, repeating his name, but to no avail. 

     Two Cushing students came walking toward her along the campus path.  Finding the situation at hand highly entertaining, the obliging students helped Edwina carry Professor Sidebottom the rest of the way to the Carriage House.

     The cottage was unlocked, just as Donald Gaylord had said.  Edwina and her cohorts lifted Professor Sidebottom onto the high, four-poster bed and covered him with a patchwork quilt.  She expressed profuse gratitude to the students before they went on their way. 

    Edwina looked down at Alan Sidebottom’s worn face.  He looked peaceful, she thought.  His was the face of a man who had engaged in a few too many dustups in his time, a face crisscrossed with battle lines.  Edwina wondered how many of these fights he regretted.  She wondered if he could remember what most of these skirmishes had even been about.

     She looked around the quiet bedroom.  A club chair and ottoman upholstered in striped silk suggested an inviting reading spot next to the windows.  There was a dressing table in another corner with an old-fashioned three-paneled mirror on top, and a gathered chintz skirt that fell to the floor.  A wicker, child’s rocking chair sat next to the bedside table, its petite cushion covered in the same silk as the club chair.  Edwina sat on the club chair ottoman, and watched Alan Sidebottom sleep until she was certain she could see his chest moving up and down. 

    On her way out of the Carriage House Edwina took a peek around.  The other rooms were similarly appointed with comfortable, upholstered furniture and expensive antique pieces.  A large, lidded porcelain tureen and a pair of silver candlesticks adorned the fruitwood dining table with twelve surrounding chairs.  A rather grand English walnut desk dominated the study, where glass-front bookcases filled with leather bound volumes lined the walls.  In the foyer a row of five nineteenth century portraits scowled down at Edwina with censorious expressions, castigating her for hanging around like such a curious cat.

     “I’m going!” she laughed over her shoulder on the way out.

*

     Mitchell Fender could not get to sleep that night after his usual bedtime bromide of hot milk and molasses.  He reviewed his performance at the party as he tossed and turned in bed, getting the bedclothes into a miserable twist.

    
I was perfectly charming to Alan!  Didn’t let my real feelings show for a moment!  I promised myself there was no way on God’s green earth I was going to give him the satisfaction of seeing me upset, and by golly I pulled it off!

    
Mitchell looked at the clock.  Three a.m.  Exhausted, he sighed deeply and got up.  After he finished re-making the bed, he sat on top of the covers.

    
No harm in another cup of hot milk,
he thought, padding toward the kitchen in a well-worn pair of slippers his ex-wife had given him. Moonlight illuminated the kitchen, without need for the overhead light.  Mitchell sat at the kitchen table, gazing out the window at the moonlight night, feeling comforted by the hot, sweet milk.

    
But how am I going to be able to pull off this act for the whole semester?

    
Resolve was not Mitchell’s strong suit, but somehow he would come up with a plan.
 
Suddenly he felt very tired and could barely keep his eyes open.  He left the half-full cup of milk on the table and shuffled back to bed. 

Chapter 3

    Edwina lived in a small, rented house set on two acres of mostly overgrown land on Canaan Farm Road, ten minute’s bike ride from campus. A typical Cape built solidly in the 1930s, the symmetrical little house had a white clapboard exterior, a centrally located front door and chimney, black-shuttered sash windows on either side of the front door, and two dormer windows above those.  Edwina lived there alone, and felt very contented with the situation.  Although economical, roommates were a vexed issue.

     Kit McCrumb of the Baltimore McCrumbs was assigned to be Edwina’s roommate their first year at Cushing.  Kit was a shy, retiring girl who wore thick lenses in her glasses and had long, red hair, down to her waist. Edwina remembered thinking at the time that Kit’s shyness might have been a protective response to her inability to see well.

     Their dorm room had a pretty view of the river, and was spacious enough for two beds, two desks, two bookcases, two sizable closets.  Kit’s modesty dictated that she retreat into her closet and close the door every time she wanted to change clothes. Gradually she began spending more and more time in the closet, bringing in a lamp, a chair and her laptop to do homework, even setting up a folding cot for taking naps.  Kit would only speak on the phone from inside her closet. 

     Edwina tried talking to her roommate about her shyness, and tried to engage Kit in social activities with some of the other students, like movies and shopping expeditions. But the shy girl rarely joined in these outings, and eventually started withdrawing to the closet whenever Edwina was in the room.

     Edwina did not fare much better the following year, when her sophomore roommate was Sue Dillman.

     Sue was a charming girl, lively and witty, with a figure like a twig.  She kept a pitcher of bright red fruit punch on her dresser, which she refilled throughout the day as she guzzled the stuff––often instead of eating a meal.  Just before Thanksgiving, the pitcher of fruit punch disappeared, and was replaced by a plastic storage box filled with candy and packages of cookies.  Edwina wondered why Sue allowed herself to put on so much weight over the next few months, until one day when the plastic storage box disappeared and the fruit punch was back.  Within a short period of time Sue was back to being a twig.  And so it went, all year long, back and forth, with frequent late-night vomiting sessions in the bathroom. It was Edwina’s introduction into the world of a bulimic.

     The following year Edwina decided she had had enough of dormitory life.  With a modest legacy from her Uncle Edward, Edwina scoured New Guilford for an affordable apartment, house, caretaker cottage, or cabin to rent, until she finally found her little house on Canaan Farm Road.  Located on land that had once been part of Canaan Farm, the house was owned by an elderly woman named Essie Claxton, who had been born and raised at Canaan Farm, and who had inherited all the land and the old farmhouse and barn, which had fallen derelict from disuse.  Essie Claxton now lived in a condominium in downtown New Guilford.