Deceptions (7 page)

But as she walked to the university, the noise of a crowd cut across her thoughts. It seemed to come from all directions until, turning a comer, Stephanie found herself engulfed in it: the shouts of young people massed together, waving signs and cheering a freckle-faced boy who stood on a truck, yelling hoarsely through a bullhorn. A wall of policemen with linked arms stood between Stephanie and a four-story building whose windows and windowsilk were crowded with shouting, gesturing men and women. Uncertain, she looked about, trying to find an address. She started to ask a policeman, but the noise drowned out her voice. Then, suddenly. Garth was there, his arm around her, walking her quickly past the occupied building and into the one next door.

They rode the elevator to the fourth floor. 'Quite an introduction to my home-sweet-home,' said Garth ruefully. 'If I'd known beforehand, I wouldn't have let you come. But it seems to be a stalemate, so we'll have a quick tour and then get out.'

'I've never been close to a demonstration; Bryn Mawr is so quiet—*

'We've been blessed with them like clockwork. They've almost become part of university life.' He unlocked a door. 'Come into my parlor.'

The laboratory was partitioned down the middle by tall steel cabinets, and as they walked to one side Garth stood back to watch Stephanie's reaction. At first she was puzzled, then disappointed, then intrigued. It was a strange room, with no shiny equipment, no test tubes or flames or bubbling liquids, not even a microscope. Instead, crowded on a long soapstone berch were children's Tinkertoys: constructions of sticks, wires, balls, bits of plastic, string and paper, in all shapes, sizes and colors. On the floor, boxes overflowed with

more material. Photographs of constructions covered the walls, and a large blackboard, gray with erasures, was filled with labeled diagrams of others. In the comer a desk and a battered typewriter were barely visible beneath piles of books and papers.

Garth grinned. 'I am known in these parts as the Tinkertoy man.'

*rm not surprised/ Stephanie said. 'Garth, what is all this?'

He swung his arm to encompass the room. 'My models. Works of art, each made by hand—'

'Garth. Be serious.*

'You know, I am serious. These cockeyed models are my works of art.'

'Tell me.'

He smiled at her serious face. 'Each model is a different kind of molecule. The balls are atoms, the sticks are the forces that hold them in their different arrangements. You do know what molecules are.'

She nodded. 'They have them in Switzerland, too.'

'Sony, was I talking down?'

'A little. But I really don't know very much.'

'Here.' He erased the blackboard and sketched as he talked. 'This is the cell, and inside it, the nucleus. Inside that, these ribbons are the chromosomes, made up of long strands of a particular molecule.' He reached down to pick up a model, but just then a roar surged from the crowd below and he looked impatiently at the window. 'We can come back another time.'

'No, tell me now.' She felt close to him in the silent laboratory; outside there was danger, but inside, with Garth, was safety.

'I'll make it short. The molecule that makes up the chromosomes is DNA. This is a model of it: something like a ladder twisted into a corkscrew. DNA is the molecule that controls heredity. It's a blueprint; the different kinds of rungs on the ladder are organized in special ways that make up a code, with all the information needed for the duplication of life. That's where I come in: uying to understand how this molecule, this ladder, is made/

'And when you do?'

'Then I might learn how to repair it when it's damaged.' He returned the DNA model to the bench. 'Kids are being bom now with diseases we can't cure, because somewhere on their DNA ladder something went wrong with one or more of the rungs. If we knew how—*

He broke off. The shouting was louder; a girl's voice came through the bullhorn. 'There's more to it, but that's the meat and potatoes. We'll get to the rest on a quieter day. Shall we

go?'

As they were leaving Stephanie glanced at the other side of the laboratory. It was more familiar, with microscopes, test tubes, beakers, syringes, a sink. On one wall, beside a large window, dozens of white mice scampered in small cages. Looking over her shoulder, Garth said, 'Bill and I trade information; he's working on inherited diseases in mice.'

Stephanie smiled. 'Tinkertoys and pet mice. Modem science—' Abmptly she screamed as an explosion threw her against him and fragments of glass shattered at their feet.

Garth cursed. 'Don't talk,' he said roughly. 'And try to hold your breath.'

'Why?' she asked, but his arm wa$ muffling her face as he half-carried her into the hall and up a stairway. Suddenly she was violently ill: her eyes stung, tears streamed from under their swollen Uds and her chest felt crushed as harsh gasps tore through her burning throat.

Then there was cool air and sunlight on her face, and Garth's strong arm steadying her. 'I can't stop crying,' she said. 'I can't open my eyes.'

His other arm came up to cradle her. 'You'll be all right in a few minutes. It's only tear gas.'

'Only—!'

'Not permanently damaging. Can you stay here alone? I'll get some water.'

'Where are we?'

'On the roof. Be right back.*

The burning lingered, but within ten minutes Stephanie could open her eyes and look over the parapet at the police dragging coughing, crying students into paddy wagons. 'Why did the police throw one at us?'

'Not exactly at us; somebody had lousy aim. You'd think with all their practice they'd be in better form. Stephanie, I've got to go back and cover that broken window. Do you want to wait here?'

'I'll come with you.'

But in the laboratory she shrank back from his rage. It welled up as he stood in the room, his face rigid, the veins standing out in his neck. 'Bastards.' The word ripped from him. 'Goddamn bastards.' She followed his gaze to the wire cages where, a short time before, she had laughed at the scampering mice. But none scampered now. They lay in limp piles, a breeze from the broken window gently stirring tiieir flat white fur.

With a vicious kick Garth sent the empty tear-gas canister sailing through the air, scattering papers that lay in disarray on the floor. Glass crunched under his feet. 'A year of Bill's work, a year of experiments and study—' His voice rose. 'Remember those kids I told you about, bom with diseases we can't cure? They're at the end of a road that begins here. Do you see what this means? Do you see that tMs university thinks it's more important to clear out a bunch of students than to protect the work of its scientists?'

'I don't think you mean that,' Stephanie said quietly. She was trembling, not from the tear gas but from Garth's anguish, the depth of his caring. He knew what was important; he knew what he wanted and where he was going. His world was far larger than hers.

Kneeling on the floor, she began to pick up the scattered papers, putting them in a box she found cm the desk. Garth studied her bent head, the heavy auburn hair falling forward around her face. Wonderful, calm Stephanie. Wise beyond her years one minute; a young girl the next. Waiting. And who was he to think he could give her what she was waiting for? Beside her, he still felt like a bumpkin.

She stood up. 'I think I've cut myself.'

Blood ran down her hand. 'All that glass,' he said angrily. 'Let me see.'

She held out her hand like a child. Carefully he drew out a long sliver, found a gauze pad in a drawer and pressed it to the cut. She flinched. 'Something still in there/ he said.

It was her turn to look at his bent head as he rummaged in the drawer again and found tweezers. 'All the comforts,' he murmured. 'Always cut yourself in a biologist's lab.' He looked up and caught her watching him. 'Doyou know,' he said conversationally, 'you are probably the only woman in the world who can look beautiful after being tear-gassed? You have just passed the Andersen beauty test. We administer one canister of tear gas, and those whose beauty is only skin deep are transformed immediately into hiccuping toads, ^liy doyou laugh? I am tellingyou that I love you and I want to many you and I think I have found the splinter so if you will hold veiy still I will remove it.'

He bent over her hand and probed in the wound. 'Sorry,* he said when she flinched again. 'I would also like to take you home and make love to you, a desire I have had for several weeks in the less conducive atmosphere of Bryn Mawr. There. Done.' Without looking at her he reached for more gauze and wrapped her hand in a neat bandage. 'Boy Scout training in the wilds of Minnesota. What do you think?'

'About what?* she asked faintly.

'One or both of the above.'

She moved forward confidently, knowing already the shape his body would take in enclosing hers. 'Yes,' she said. 'To both of the above.'

In May the bushes on Bryn Mawr's campus bloom densely pink and white and the ground is a carpet of petals that drop as new ones appear. A hot sun bums away the April rains and birds cluster in ancient trees. It is the season of weddings.

In the courtyard of Thomas Library, Laura stood b^de Stephanie, casting a critical eye on the circular pond with its placid ducks, the neat rows of chairs beside it and the long tables set with food and drink. 'It's not so much a wedding,' she said thoughtfully, 'as a garden party. Didn't you want something more formal, darling?'

'I wanted this,' Stephanie said dreamily, watching her Mends and Garth's gathor in small groups, waiting for the ceremony to begin.

'Stand stilt both of you/ commanded Gordon and clicked his camera.

*And leaving school/ Laura went on. 'Are you sure, Stephanie?'

'Mother, if Garth is in Illinois, how can I stay here?'

*He could have waited two years.'

'No, he couldn't. The job at Midwestern is too good.' She kissed Laura's cheek. 'We'll buy a big house with lots of bedrooms and you'll visit us. You've never been to Evanston, have you? Or Chicago?'

'Neither one.'

'Well, now you will.'

Stephanie saw Sabrina come into the courtyard and join Judge Fairfax and the Cardozos. 'Excuse me,' she said and crossed over to take her hands. 'You look wonderful!'

'No, you're the one ... is it possible to be as happy as you look?'

'When I come to your wedding I'll ask you that.'

Sabrina smiled. 'Judge Fairfax says he bounced us on his knee when we were babies in Washington.'

'And predicted I'd preside at your weddings,' said the judge. 'I'm waiting for Sabrina's to give me an excuse to come to Europe/

Sabrina raised her eyebrows and once again changed the subject. She never talked about herself, Stephanie thought; not even in her letters. She wrote like a good friend, describing her days, asking interested questions, but always a little remote, just as she was last summer when they were in Scotland with their parents. Then she had been quiet and withdrawn, reluctant to let others draw her into conversation, as if she were afraid someone would accuse her of attempting to outshine her sister. Stephanie understood, but she refused to make things easier. It evened things out, she thought, if Sabrina felt awkward for once. She was ashamed of being mean, but she did nothing to make Sabrina feel better and for the whole month neither of them had had a good time.

Once each of us was half of the other, she thought, watching Sabrina talk to the Cardozos. Now I don't know

anything about her - whom she loves or what she dreams about. And she doesn't know me.

'Sabrina/ she said, touching her sister's arm. They walked together, bending their heads to each other. Gordon caught them with his camera - his glorious daughters, identical but elusively more and more different: Sabrina strangely cool and quiet in a slim dress of dusty rose that subtly traced her body, her hair hidden beneath a matching cloche; Stephanie glowing in a white embossed gown edged in embroidered lace, a camellia nestled like carved ivoiy in the dark auburn of her hair. 'I've got to apologize,' she said.

'Don't,* said Sabrina. 'I think I understand.*

'How can you? You left school early so we'd have a few days together, and I've done all the talking; you haven't told me anything about yourself.*

'It doesn't matter. You look so happy; I've never seen you look so happy. Stephanie, I love you. Just enjoy your day.'

'You do like Garth, don't you?'

'Of course I do. He's charming and he's in love with you. Stephanie, I'm happy for you. I'll talk about myself some other time. Not today.*

Stephanie put her hands on Sabrina's shoulders and pressed her cheek to hers. She was glad Sabrina wouldn't talk about herself, that was the terrible truth. She didn't want to discover that behind Sabrina's casual letters was a life more exciting than hers. She had Garth, she didn't need Sabrina. 'Thank you,* she said to Sabrina, then stepped back as Garth came up. 'You two never had a chance to get acquainted.*

Sabrina and Garth exchanged a quick glance. 'I'm sorry,* he said. 'I thought I could get here sooner. Too much to do. The end of the school year, the end of my teaching at Columbia. All that nostalgia to deal with We'll get acquainted later.'

Stephanie shook her head. 'Not unless Sabrina leaves Paris and settles down in Illinois.*

Sabrina smiled involuntarily at the idea, and Garth was struck by the imp that broke through her cool, remote lips. But she snatched it back; the imp disappeared. 'We'll visit,' she said. 'Don't professors come to Europe for research and - whatever else they do?*

•Children,' said Gordon. 'The judge is ready.*

Judge Fairfax stood before a bank of high bushes, Stephanie and Garth before him, with a friend from Columbia on Garth's left and Sabrina on Stephanie's right. As they arranged themselves. Garth whispered in Stephanie's ear. 'She's cold. You're far more alive than she is. And much more beautiful.'

In a sudden moment of illumination, Stephanie saw what her sister had done. Sabrina's weddingpresent, she thought: to diminish her beauty and subdue the vitality that makes her the center of attention. To stand in the shadows and leave the sunlight to me. She felt a wave of love and then of guilt. But I can't help it, she thought, if we're not close and she doesn't confide in me. We're making our own lives; we don't need each other anymore.