The Atomic Weight of Love (3 page)

“What do you plan to talk about?” Kitty asked over the dinner table.

I reached for the butter dish. “Talk about?”

“Conversation,” Mrs. Hudson piped in.

“I don’t know. Whatever comes up.”

“No no no!” Kitty let out an exasperated sigh. “No wonder you have trouble getting dates.”

“I’m not here to date.”

“You can do both, dear,” Mrs. Hudson said. “Learn and find a husband.”

The lamp behind Kitty turned her frizzy red hair into a thick halo of bright copper wire. She put down her silverware, leaving the gravy on her pork chop to congeal. “You can’t just talk about any old thing, Meri. Knowing you, you’ll end up lecturing him about the composition of eagles’ nests or the migration patterns of some obscure bird species.”

“What’s wrong with that? He’s in my biology class.”

“You have to flatter them,” Mrs. Hudson said, blowing a strand of hair from her forehead. “Pick a topic they know, something they like talking about.”

“Which is biology,” I said with a degree of certainty I hoped would put an end to the conversation. “Why are you two ganging up against me?” I teased and took a bite of carrot.

“Because . . . well . . .” Kitty looked to Mrs. Hudson.

“You could use a little help when it comes to flirting.”

I laughed.

“We’re not joking.”

“Mrs. H is right. You have to ask him about things he knows, let him know you’re interested. To hook him, I mean.”

I closed my eyes briefly.

“Ask him questions you know he can answer—let him think he’s smarter than you,” Mrs. Hudson said, and took a sip from her water glass.

“Yeah, you scare them away with your brains.”

“Oh, honestly.” I wiped my mouth and got ready to push back my chair and retrieve the coffee pot from the stove. “You two want for me to lie, to pretend I’m stupid so that some man will like me? Maybe Jerry likes me precisely because I am smart.”

I saw them exchange another look. “Oh,” Mrs. Hudson said.

“You are intimidating, Meri, whether you know it or not,” Kitty said. “You’re not exactly approachable. Just make sure you prop up Jerry’s ego a bit, that’s all we’re saying.”

“Oh, he’s fine without my building some sort of scaffolding for him,” I said and finally ended things by taking my cup and saucer for a refill.

“Just think about it,” Kitty begged.

ON SATURDAY, I TRADED
my sensible dark wool skirt and scratchy crew-necked sweater for an evening dress, the only one I owned—a brown, cocktail-length dress made of a shiny synthetic material. It was gathered at the waist with a pleated belt that tied into a bow on the side, and there were three fabric-covered buttons that I managed to convince myself elevated the dress to near elegance. I added black pumps, the string of pearls my mother had given me for high school graduation, and a muted red lipstick.

I had a fresh face, a pretty face. I have always been small, my wrists fragile, like fireplace tinder, easy to snap. I have an open, heart-shaped face with high-arching eyebrows, insistent cheekbones, and Scottish skin that blushes and pales like an ever-changing weather map. Genetics have given me a tongue I can roll, unattached earlobes, and the recessive trait of clear, light-blue eyes.

That night, my youth was all the makeup I needed, but looking in the mirror and brushing my dark blonde hair back from my face, I felt so plain, anticipating the stylish coifs of the popular girls. I didn’t own a lace collar that could be attached to different dresses to spice them up. I lacked the crystal-studded pins girls added to their coats or hats, and the clips that held my hair in place were only a facsimile of silver. My plumage was not the kind that would attract a mate, that would let me stand out from the rest of the flock.

Jerome’s breath on my cheek sent shivers along my spine as he pinned a corsage of generous white mums onto my bodice. His fingers were careful, practiced, and I liked the way he tucked the pearlescent head of the pin beneath the greenery of the corsage. I smelled the sharp scent of whatever it was he used to try to dissuade his curls, and the collar of his shirt was starched a perfect, crisp white that made me want to tap it with my fingertips to see if it would sound like the taut head of a drum. Two tiny moles perched just above his collar, on the left side of his neck. Part of a constellation?

The first thing I noticed was the heat of the room. I couldn’t imagine how we could dance for long or how my dress would hold up. Jerome’s suit coat had to be ridiculously hot. He got us each a glass of sweet red punch, pulled a flask from his breast pocket, and poured a splash of amber liquid into the cups. He smiled lopsidedly and shrugged his shoulders.

We touched our glasses. “To victory!” I shouted, and felt the heat magnified as the alcohol spread its warmth across my chest. Shyly, I put the back of my hand to my mouth and smiled. It was my first-ever taste of alcohol, and in that moment I was, at last, part of the true college life. He took the glass from my hand and set it on a nearby table.

“A Pennsylvania girl has got to know how to polka.” He steered me toward the dance floor.

Oh God
, I prayed silently to the God who had never shown his face to me in any kind way.
Don’t make me do this
.

But I did do it. And Jerry was a dream of a dancer, as advertised. We stopped dancing only twice all night—to soak up more punch and later to permit me a trip to the ladies’ room for an assessment of the state of my declining composure. The face in the mirror grinned back at me, despite her awry and wilting hair. Nothing mattered but that I was alive, dancing, at college, with a desirable date. Sorority girls be damned!

At Mrs. Hudson’s door, Jerry leaned in to kiss me. Reflexively, I turned my head to the side at the last moment and he kissed my ear. Later, as I lay awake with the music in my head, cigarette smoke permeating my hair and pillowcase, I wished I’d touched the tip of my tongue to each of those tiny moles, in succession.

“FLIGHT REQUIRES DEFIANCE
OF
gravity and is really, when you think about it, a bold act.”

The professor at the front of the lecture hall paused for dramatic effect, but as far as I could see, I was the only fully engrossed member of the audience. I wasn’t enrolled in the class but had instead taken a seat at another professor’s suggestion. I was enraptured not only because I felt I was looking at a wild man, someone whose long, tousled hair intimated that he had rushed in from a hike along some wind-blown cliff to lecture to a bunch of physics students—but more so because I knew he could explain mysteries to me, decipher Newton and the others and render them comprehensible on a practical level. My expectations were high, and Alden Whetstone met them.

“We think about vertebrate flight as falling into four categories: parachuting, gliding, actual flight, and soaring. If a bird can soar, generally speaking it can also perform the three lower forms of flight.” Alden paced the stage. “Don’t confuse gliding and soaring. To soar, an animal must have evolved to possess specific physiological and morphological adaptations, and soaring birds must know how to use the energy of thermals to maintain altitude.”

Oh, lord, he was speaking my language—a physicist employing Darwin. Professor Matthews had been right to send me here. The smell of wet wool brought about by January snow permeated the room.

“We’ll see, over the course of this and the next several lectures, that the soaring form of flight has been achieved by only a few animals over the entire course of evolution. We’ll examine concepts of drag, thrust, vortices created by the flapping of wings, and the evolution of the flight stroke, without which there is no flight.”

Baggy corduroy pants. A broad red, blue, and white tie of abstract design, loosely tied as if in begrudging compliance with a dress code. Frayed cuffs beneath his suit coat sleeves, and an audacious mustache that was bushier than most men’s entire heads of hair. He was the quintessential absent-minded professor, which thoroughly intrigued me. This was not
Jer!
on the make; the professor’s attire was not calculated to attract, to stand out. This was a wholly intellectual creature barely cognizant of the physical world and its requirements. I felt myself longing to soar along with him in the realm of pure ideas, of complete and total academic isolation.
I bet
he’s
never worn a polka-dot tie
, I thought with smug satisfaction.

There was a loud knocking noise. It persisted. The class grew restless, and the noise was sufficiently distracting so that none of us was listening to the lecture. Alden continued longer than anyone might believe possible given the noisy competition, but finally he returned to earth.

“What’s going on?” He faced his students. “No one knows?”

Feet shuffled, but no one responded.

“It’s coming from upstairs. What are they doing? Moving furniture or something?” Alden left the stage and went out into the hallway, apparently to confront the person or persons who were interrupting his flow of thought. Now, there was outright laughter among the students, all of whom were male. I looked about, trying to understand the joke.

One of the boys caught my eye. “You don’t get it, do you?” he asked me.

“What is there to get?”

“This is the top floor. Whetstone is headed God knows where.”

I was immediately embarrassed for the man who’d been speaking so eloquently. I, too, had believed that someone was dragging furniture across an attic floor overhead.

The classroom door opened, and Alden was back. Although the volume subsided, the laughter remained.

“So, no one wanted to tell me that there is no upper floor?” He stood facing us, his hands on his hips. “Top secret?”

Nothing but nervous silence greeted him. I wondered how long he’d been teaching in this particular room.

“Doesn’t matter,” he said, running a hand through his unruly hair. And then, without missing a beat, he returned to his lecture.

I liked that he was unembarrassed. It bespoke a level of confidence and maturity that I longed to stand beside.

It was known that Alden Whetstone had a reduced teaching load that year because he was working with other scientists on some hush-hush war project. How different Alden was from college boys, how I envied his ability to ignore social convention—or to be so entirely unaware of it so as to have no need to ignore it. Although he was twenty years my senior, he was still young, fired by the practical applications of his hard-earned knowledge and the associations he was forming through his war work with other world-class scientists.

I approached him after that first lecture and accepted an invitation back to his office. After nearly an hour, we left his office to continue talking over coffee. We spoke about what we believed in, what was happening in the world, and what the world might become. It was as though we’d both been starving for that kind of easy conversation and comradeship. When I was with Alden—discussing, listening, leaning across tables and fully animated—life was painted in more vibrant colors; birdsong was more elaborate, rococo.

If I’d played Mrs. Hudson’s recommended fawning, dumb girl’s role, Alden wouldn’t have paid me a moment’s notice. I never once thought about feigning stupidity in Alden’s presence. Rather, I felt called upon to stretch my mind, to show him I could run alongside him.

Still, I kept dating Jerry. Alden was so high above me—he was such pure intensity and demanding, hard work—work I was not afraid of, but work nevertheless. Jerry was someone with whom I could let off steam, laugh, and maybe even be silly.

IN THE SPRING OF
1942,
newsreels that played prior to the start of films at theaters showed us the bravery of our fighting men and touted U.S. victories.
It won’t be long now
, we all thought as we sat in the dark, watching and hopeful, and Jerry squeezed my hand. Mother sent me clippings from the Greensburg paper and filled in details gleaned from her friends at church: Doc, Eddie, Mickey, Dean, Lester, Gabby, Rusty, and Tom Kilgore—Dot’s husband—all of them dead or wounded. Mother told me Lisa Jackson, a friend from Girl Scouts, had married Buck Pemberton, who had joined the navy and was about to ship out.
I signed your name to the card
, Mother said,
and I embroidered a nice pair of pillowcases for them
.

Corregidor fell to the Japanese on May 6, 1942, just as we were finishing final exams. Jerry was horrified by the number of ships sunk by the Japanese, but even more so by the number of ships our navy scuttled or destroyed over the course of just two days, all to keep them out of the hands of the enemy. Corregidor floated just south of Bataan, and we knew that the U.S. had surrendered Bataan about a month earlier.

I could understand numbers—so many dead or captured. I could look at maps, gauge distances, try to contemplate vast oceans or ships’ holds packed with sleepless, sweaty, frightened boys on their way to face death. I could talk with Jerry and other students about the war—the fiery, insane world at war—but I could not
know
. I could never know what it felt like to face mortality.

ALDEN AND I DIDN’T
really date—I think we fooled ourselves into thinking we were just spending time together. I didn’t tell him about Jerry, and while Alden once referred to an ex-wife, I didn’t know if he had a current romantic interest in his life. Nothing so mundane entered our orbit.

I was in awe of Alden. I could only sense the very fringes of concepts that his intellect grasped with such easy, ready fingers. I worshipped his knowledge, his aloof independence and greater world experience. He was my teacher; he led me, and I followed gladly.

We often walked together between or after classes, when Alden wasn’t committed to secret work in his laboratory. I remember an ozone-scented April afternoon when he pulled my hand from my raincoat pocket and held it in his hot, enveloping hands. Abruptly, suddenly aware of his own gesture, he paused in his description of atomic half-life, radioactive decay. We stood on the rain-darkened campus sidewalk, looked at each other, and I used my free hand to tuck a curl of his hair behind his ear. I felt so calm with Alden. Jerry always felt precarious, but Alden gave me sure footing.
He’s solid,
I thought as, wordlessly, we began walking once more.