Frameshift (8 page)

Pierre and Molly were sitting side by side on his green-and-orange living-room couch, his arm around her. It had reached the point where they were spending almost every night together, as often at his place as at hers. Molly snuggled her back into the crook of his shoulder. Shafts of amber from the setting sun streamed in through the windows. Pierre had actually vacuumed today, the second time since he’d moved in. The low angle of the sunlight highlighted the paths his Hoover had made.

“Pierre,” Molly said, but then fell silent.

“Hmm?”

“Oh, nothing. I— no, nothing.”

“No, go ahead,” Pierre said, eyebrows raised. “What’s on your mind?”

“The question,” said Molly, slowly, “is more what’s on your mind?”

Pierre frowned. “Eh?”

Molly seemed to be wrestling with whether to go on. Then, all at once, she sat up straight on the couch, took Pierre’s arm from her shoulder, and brought it into her lap, intertwining her fingers with his. “Let’s try a little game. Think of a word — any English word — and I’ll try to guess it.”

Pierre smiled. “Anything at all?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

“Now concentrate on the word. Con — it’s ‘aardvark.’ ”

“
C’est vrai
,”said Pierre, shocked. “How’d you do that?”

“Try again,” said Molly.

“Okay — I’ve got one.”

“What’s pie — pie-rim-ih-deen? Is that French?”

“How did you do that?”

“What’s that word mean?”

“Pyrimidine. It’s a type of organic base. How did you do that?”

“Let’s try it again.”

Pierre disengaged his hand from hers. “No. Tell me how you did that.”

Molly looked at him. They were sitting so close together that her gaze kept shifting from his left eye to his right. She opened her mouth as if to say something, closed it, then tried again. “I can…” She shut her eyes.

“God, I thought telling you about my stupid bout with gonorrhea was hard. I’ve
never
told
anyone
this before.” She paused and took a deep breath. “I can read minds, Pierre.”

Pierre tipped his head to one side. His mouth hung slightly open. He clearly didn’t know what to say.

“It’s true,” said Molly. “I’ve been able to do it since I was thirteen.”

“Okay,” Pierre said, his tone betraying that he felt this was all some trick that could be exposed if enough thought were given to it. “Okay, what am I thinking now?”

“It’s in French; I don’t understand French. Voo — lay — voo… coo, something… The word ‘
moi’
 — I know that one.”

“What’s my Canadian Social Insurance number?”

“You’re not thinking about the actual number. I can’t read it unless you’re actually thinking of it.” A pause. “You’re saying the numbers in French.
Cinq
 — that’s five, right?
Huit
 — eight.
Deux
 — two. Um, you’re repeating it to yourself; it’s hard to keep track. Just run through it once.

Cinq huit deux… six un neuf, huit trois neuf
.”

“Reading minds is…” He stopped.

“ ‘Not possible’ is what you were about to say.”

“But how?”

“I don’t know.”

Pierre was quiet for a long time, sitting absolutely still. “Do you have to be in physical contact with the person?” he said at last.

“No. But I do have to be close — the person has to be within what I call my ‘zone,’ no more than about three feet away. It’s been very difficult to do any empirical studies, being both the experimenter and the experimental subject, and without revealing to those I’m with what I’m trying to do, but I’d say the — the
effect
 — is governed by the inverse-square law. If I move twice as far away from you, I only hear — if ‘hear’ is the correct word — your thoughts a quarter as… as ‘loudly,’ so to speak.”

“You say ‘hear.’ You don’t see my thoughts? Don’t pick up mental pictures?”

“That’s right. If all you’d done was conjure up an image of an aardvark, I couldn’t have detected it. But when you concentrated on the word ‘aardvark’ I — well, ‘heard’
is as
good a word as any — I heard it as clearly as if you’d whispered it in my ear.”

“That’s — incredible.‘’

“You thought about saying ‘amazing,’ but changed your mind as the words were coming out.”

Pierre leaned back into the couch, stunned.

“I can detect what I call ‘articulated thoughts’ — words your brain is using,” said Molly. “I can’t detect images. And emotions — thank God, I can’t pick up emotions.”

Pierre was looking at her with a mixture of astonishment and fascination. “It must be overwhelming.”

Molly nodded. “It can be. But I make a conscious effort not to invade people’s privacy. I’ve been called ‘standoffish’ more than a few times in my life, but it’s quite literally true. I
do
tend to stand off — to not be too close to people physically, keeping them out of my zone.”

“Reading minds,” said Pierre again, as if repetition would somehow make the idea more palatable. “
Incroyable
,” He shook his head. “Do other members of your family have this — this ability?”

“No. I questioned my sister Jessica about it once, and she thought I was crazy. And my mom — well, there are nights my mom never would have let me go out if she could have read my mind.”

“Why keep it a secret?”

Molly looked at him for a moment, as if she couldn’t believe the question. “I want to live a normal life — as normal as possible, anyway. I don’t want to be studied, or turned into a sideshow attraction, or God forbid, asked to work for the CIA or anything like that.”

“And you say you’ve never told anyone before?”

She shook her head. “Never.”

“But you’re telling me?”

She sought out his eyes. “Yes.”

Pierre understood the significance. “Thank you,” he said. He smiled at her — but the smile soon faded, and he looked away. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know if I could live with the idea that my thoughts aren’t private.”

She shifted on the couch, tucking one bent leg under her body and taking his other hand. “But that’s just it,” Molly said earnestly. “I can’t read your thoughts —
because you think them in French
.”

“I do?” said Pierre, surprised. “I didn’t really know that I thought in any language. I mean, thoughts are, well,
thoughts
.”

“Most complex thought
is
articulated,” said Molly. “It is formulated in words. Trust me on this; this is my field. You think in French exclusively.”

“So you can hear the words of my thoughts, but not understand them?”

“Yes. I mean, I know a few French words — everyone does.
Bonjour, au
r
evoir, oui, non
, stuff like that. But as long as you continue thinking in French, I won’t be able to read your mind.”

“I don’t know. It’s
such
an invasion of privacy.”

Molly squeezed his hands tightly. “Look, you’ll always know that your thoughts are private when you’re outside my zone — more than three or so feet away.”

Pierre was shaking his head. “It’s like —
mon Dieu
, I don’t know; it’s like discovering your girlfriend is really Wonder Woman.”

Molly laughed. “She has much bigger boobs than me.”

Pierre smiled, then leaned in and gave her a kiss. But after a few seconds, he pulled away. “Did you know I was going to do that?”

She shook her head. “Not really. Maybe a half second before it was obvious.”

Pierre leaned back against the couch again. “It changes things,” he said.

“It doesn’t have to, Pierre. It only changes them if you let it.”

Pierre nodded. “I—”

And Molly heard the words in his mind, the words she had been longing to hear but that had yet to be spoken aloud, the words that meant so much.

She snuggled against Pierre. “I love you, too,” she said.

Pierre held her tight.

After several moments, he said, “So what happens now?”

“We go on,” said Molly. “We try to build a future together.”

Pierre exhaled noisily.

“I’m sorry,” said Molly at once, sitting up again and looking at Pierre.

“I’m pushing again, aren’t I?”

“No,” said Pierre. “It’s not that. It’s just…” He fell silent, but then thought about what Shari Cohen had said to him that afternoon.
Howard
n
ever told me. You shouldn’t keep secrets from someone you love
. Pierre took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “Damn,” he said at last, “this is a night for great revelations, isn’t it? You’re not pushing, Molly. I do want to build a future with you. But, well, it’s just that I may not have much of a future.”

Molly looked at him and blinked. “Pardon?”

Pierre kept his eyes on hers, watching for her reaction. “I may have Huntington’s disease.”

Molly sagged backward a bit. “Really?”

“You know it?”

“Sort of. A man who lived down the street from my mother’s house had it. My God, Pierre. I’m so sorry.”

Pierre bristled slightly. Molly, although dazed, had enough presence of mind to recognize the reaction. Pierre wanted no pity. She squeezed his hand. “I saw what happened to Mr. DeWitt — my mother’s neighbor. But I don’t really know the details. Huntington’s is inherited, right? One of your parents must have had it, too, no?”

Pierre nodded. “My father.”

“I know it causes muscular difficulties.”

“It’s more than that. It also causes mental deterioration.”

Molly looked away. “Oh.”

“Symptoms can appear anytime — in one’s thirties, or forties, or even later. I could have another twenty good years, or I might start to show signs tomorrow. Or, if I’m lucky, I don’t have the gene and won’t get the disease at all.”

Molly felt a stinging in her eyes. The polite thing to do might have been to turn away, to not let Pierre know that she was crying — but it would not have been the honest thing. It wasn’t pity, after all. She looked him full in the face, then leaned in and kissed him.

Once she’d pulled away, there was an extended silence between them.

Finally, Molly reached a hand up to wipe her own cheek, and then used the back of her hand to gently wipe Pierre’s cheek, which was also damp. “My parents,” said Molly slowly, “divorced when I was five.” She blew air out, as if ancient pain were being expelled with it. “These days, five or ten good years together is as much as most people get.”

“You deserve more,” said Pierre. “You deserve better.”

Molly shook her head. “I’ve never had better than this. I — I haven’t had much success with men. Being able to read their thoughts… You’re different.”

“You don’t know that,” said Pierre. “I could be just as bad as the rest of them.”

Molly smiled. “No, you’re not. I’ve seen the way you listen to me, the way you care about my opinions. You’re not a macho ape.”

Pierre smiled slightly. “That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

Molly laughed, but then immediately sobered. “Look, I know this sounds like I’m full of myself, but I know I’m pretty—”

“In point of fact, you are drop-dead gorgeous.”

“I’m not fishing for compliments here. Let me finish. I know I’m pretty — people have told me that ever since I was a little girl. My sister Jessica has done a lot of modeling; my mother still turns heads, too. She used to say the biggest problem with her first marriage was that her husband had only been interested in her looks. Dad is an executive; he’d — wanted a trophy wife — and Mom was not content to be just that. You’re the only man I’ve ever known who has looked beyond my outer appearance to what’s inside. You like me for my mind, for… for…”

“For the content of your character,” said Pierre.

“What?”

“Martin Luther King. Nobel laureates are a hobby of mine, and I’ve always had a fondness for great oratory — even when it’s in English.” Pierre closed his eyes, remembering. ‘“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.’”

He looked at Molly, then shrugged slightly. “Maybe it’s because I might have Huntington’s, but I do try to look beyond simple genetic traits, such as beauty.” He smiled. “Not to say that your beauty doesn’t move me.”

Molly smiled back at him. “I have to ask. What does ‘
joli petit cul’
mean?”

Pierre cleared his throat. “It’s, ah, a bit crude. ‘Nice ass’ is a close approximation. Where did you hear that?”

“In Doe Library, the night we met. It was the first thought of yours I picked up.”

“Oh.”

Molly laughed. “Don’t worry.” She smiled mischievously. “I’m glad you find me physically attractive, so long as it’s not the
only
thing you care about.”

Pierre smiled. “It’s not.” But then his face grew sad. “But I still don’t see what kind of future we can have.”

“I have no idea, either,” said Molly. “But let’s find out together. I do love you, Pierre Tardivel.” She hugged him.

“I love you, too,” he said, at last giving the words voice.

Still embracing each other, with her head resting on his shoulder, Molly said, “I think we should get married.”

“What? Molly, we’ve only known each other a few months.”

“I know that. But I love you, and you love me. And we may not have a lot of time to waste.”

“I can’t marry you,” said Pierre.

“Why not? Is it because I’m not Catholic?”

Pierre laughed out loud. “No, sweetheart, no.” He hugged her again.

“God, I do love you. But I can’t ask you to get into a relationship with me.”

“You’re not asking me. I’m asking you.”

“But—”

“But nothing. I’m going into this with my eyes wide open.”

“But surely—”

“That argument won’t work.”

“What about—”

“I don’t care about that, either.”

“Still, I’d—”

“Oh, come on! You don’t believe that yourself.”

Pierre laughed. “Are all our arguments going to be like this?”