The Touch (16 page)

“Two micrometers! That's like one tenth of a human hair!” The control room was full of people hugging each other, pounding Jones on the back, congratulating Lara. She found Jones with her eyes and raised her champagne glass in toast to him; he smiled and returned the gesture.

Malcolm was in a flurry of activity, giving instructions to his aides. “I want twenty video copies of this trial overnighted to the top neurosurgeons on our list.”

“The stock'll go through the roof,” the aide said.

“Tell them to block out training time and give us an estimate on when they could attempt the surgery!”

As Malcolm rattled on, Brenda moved up beside Jones. “Not bad,” she said. “For a poet.”

“You're the corporate shrink—right?” Jones asked Brenda.

“Yeah,” Brenda said. “You wanna see my couch?”

The company lawyer appeared beside Jones and said, “We have some paperwork you'll need your attorneys to look over.” Lara stepped out of her crowd of well-wishers and moved toward Jones, reaching him as the lawyer was adding, “We'll have preliminary drafts delivered to your hotel. Once your attorneys get back to us and we've sorted the details—”

“We don't need to sort,” Lara said. “Dr. Jones can name his price.” She said it loudly enough for everyone in the room to hear.

“That's right, Dr. Jones!” one of the techs said. “Who da man? You da man!”

Jones grinned and told the tech, “Hey, good job with those monitor references.”

As the tech held up his hands to the applause of his friend, Lara asked Jones, “What were you looking at there, when you paused?”

“The route you tried through the nerve bundle in the center of the cortex. The aneurism wasn't the same on my Roscoe as on yours.”

Malcolm, who seemed to hear everything everybody ever said within the walls of Blair Bio-Medical, stepped closer and said, “Both replicas are made from the same patient. And we made them identical to the scans. Didn't we?”

“Absolutely,” the lead tech answered. “I checked them myself.”

“Then the scans were made at different times,” Jones said. “Flash 'em up.”

The lead tech punched two scans onto the overhead monitors. Lara moved over and compared them. Suddenly the room had gone quiet.

“He's right,” Lara said into the stillness. “The aneurism on this new scan has deteriorated. Roscoe is too far behind.”

The room was so quiet it was painful. “Hey, cheer up, guys!” Jones said. “Most patients don't deteriorate; until there's a sudden rupture, the anomaly is stable. Once you get production up to speed, keeping your scans up to date will be no problemo!”

Everyone waited for Lara's judgment. She was still staring at the scans . . .

But what she was really looking at was the inner turmoil she always kept from everyone else around. For a long, long moment she did not turn around; when at last she did, she smiled and looked at Jones. “Your Roscoe was even harder than mine. Today is a great victory for the company. I want to celebrate.”

As the clamor around them resumed, she leaned closer and whispered to Jones, “With you.”

* * *

They rode in the backseat of the limo, a respectable distance apart. “So where do you want to go?” Lara asked.

“Where do you celebrate your victories?” Jones asked back.

Lara called to the driver, “George, see what wonders you can work.”

“Yes, ma'am!”

As George raised the privacy screen and went to work with his cell phone, Jones studied Lara. “Are you bothered about the difference in the replicas? Seemed like a big deal to Malcolm.”

“He's head of operations, he's a perfectionist. But there's nothing in life that's perfect, is there?” Lara said this as if she had just come to confront life's flaws for the first time, as if she had let go of something and was ready to move on. “I've looked at scans and surgical trials all my life. It's time to get on with it.”

“Get on with . . . ?”

“Life.”

* * *

George seemed pleased with himself as he pulled up outside the sports arena, hopped out, and opened the door for them. “Got two seats in the owner's box!” he said proudly. “He's a friend of the senator.”

Lara stepped out, and Jones was just sliding over to get out the same door when Lara stopped, blocking the doorway. She stood staring at the parking lot, the arena, the crowds.

She stood there long enough for George to say, “Game's about to start, Dr. Blair.”

Lara turned back and spoke to Jones. “Are you crazy for this game?”

Jones shrugged, noncommittal. He felt up for anything; most of all he wanted to do what she wanted to do, for he felt Lara was working something through, something private, even secret.

She turned back to her driver and said, “George, why don't you take the tickets?”

“Me . . . ?”

“And—and give one to a kid, maybe that skinny one over there. You got your cell phone? When the game's over, call a cab, on me. If you can't get a cab, take a limo.” She turned and shut the door, sealing Jones in the passenger compartment, hopped behind the wheel of the limo, and pulled away.

George stood there baffled, and then he grinned and headed toward the kid selling souvenirs.

Lara swung the limo out of the parking lot and lowered the privacy screen so she could watch him through the rearview mirror. “Am I being kidnapped?” Jones asked.

“Cause trouble and I'll come back there and torture you.”

Jones moved up to the rear-facing seat in the passenger compartment, just behind the privacy screen, so he could speak to her through the opening just behind her. “So where are you taking me?”

“I know just the place.”

* * *

He sat there behind her and watched her driving. She did not glance into the rearview mirror for a long time and he said nothing, and yet they both felt connected, encased together in both peace and adventure, moving into the unknown. Jones wanted to touch her, put his hand on her shoulder, or reach his fingertips into her hair, or cradle her palm into his. But he just sat with her and rode quietly.

Lara turned the limo onto the long tree-lined drive that he recognized as the lane that led to her estate. Then she looked into the rearview mirror and caught his eye. “Tonight I'm making up for lost time,” she said.

She parked in the rear of the mansion, got out and led him into the kitchen, switching on lights. “First,” she said, “we eat.” She opened one of the huge refrigerators and found food left over from the party.

Jones leaned against the counter behind her. “Can I help?”

“Not a chance.”

A butler appeared, blinking with surprise. “Dr. Blair?”

“Oh, hi, Harold. Harold, Dr. Jones.”

“Hi, Harold.”

“Is there anything I can get for you?”

“Thank you, Harold, no—in fact, you and Gladys should take the night off. Come back tomorrow. Late tomorrow. Day after tomorrow.”

Harold hesitated.

“Good night, Harold.”

“Good night, ma'am. Dr. Jones.”

“'Night, Harold.”

Lara seemed dissatisfied by the contents of the first refrigerator; she opened a second huge refrigerator and found cream pastries. “Aha! We start with dessert!” She shoveled a couple of plates of pastries out to Jones and then grabbed two bottles of chilled champagne.

An hour later they were sitting in the breakfast room of the mansion and Lara was opening the second of the champagne bottles; the first was already upside down in the ice bucket. She had lit candles and put the plates of party confections on the table; now she poured herself another glass of champagne—Jones had taken only a few sips of the first glass she had poured him—and then she used her fingers to dig into a whipped-cream dessert as she kept talking with rapid excitement, exactly like a child on too much sugar. “You know I love whipped cream. And I never eat it! Is that ridiculous, or what? More champagne? You hardly touched the last bottle.”

“You're trying to take advantage of me.”

“Drink up, plowboy.” She tipped the bottle of bubbly like she was dousing a fire, overflowing both their glasses; he clinked his glass with hers and sipped. She took a long swallow of champagne and looked out over the dark acreage of her estate. “I used to blame my parents that I was such a stick-in-the-mud. Or I blamed the company. But it wasn't everybody else, it was me.” She scooped her index finger into another treat and licked it clean. “Ooo, this one's the best! You've gotta try it.”

She put her finger to his mouth. When he started to lick she swiped the cream onto his nose. He lifted a hunk of pie. “That's good but you gotta taste this!” He held it out so she could take a nibble; then he smeared the pie across her mouth.

Her eyes lit up and she grabbed at a whole pie. “Food fight!” she squealed. She drew back the pie to throw and he grabbed a dessert to retaliate, when she said, “Wait!” After a pause she added, “I've got a better idea.”

* * *

The rear of the house was completely dark; then floodlights flared, switched on in stages until the entire rear garden was ablaze. The flowers and decorations still sprang fresh in their vases, and the dance floor lay clean and bare, as if the party planners had left it until daylight so that the surrounding trees could step onto it and cavort to the sound of the wind in their branches.

Lara emerged from the kitchen, carrying a boom box and leading Jones. She filled her lungs with the damp spring air and sighed, “Ah. The decorations are still in place, and the guest list is just right.”

“The hostess is beautiful,” Jones said, smiling.

“Let's try the band. It's from the housekeeper.” She switched on the boom box and a Spanish ballad leaped from the speakers. Lara twisted the dial and began to surf the channels.

“Wait! That one!” Jones said when she dialed across a honky-tonk dance tune.

“You're kidding me.”

“No! Here, do what I do!” He took her hand and led her through the simple movements of a western line dance.

Lara struggled her way into the rhythm. “This is great! How am I doing?”

“You dance like a doctor. But . . . that's a good thing!”

She switched the radio dial and found an oldie ballad.

And without embarrassment, as naturally as breathing, they began to dance, holding each other close.

Encirled within each other's arms, they felt love rising, not just its lofty emotion but its earthly, physical trance. Both of them sensed it; they broke apart immediately. Jones looked around for anything else to focus on, anything besides her
yes
, and spotted the barn. He struggled to make conversation. “That's the nicest barn I've ever seen,” he said. “But I don't smell horses.”

“No. They're all gone. My father built that barn.”

They walked together, side by side but not touching, out of the dome of light around the gardens and into the unlit night, to the broad mouth of the barn. Lara reached for the switch on the wall and illuminated a lane of cedar chips between green- and white-painted walls, with stables carpeted in clean hay, all empty. It wasn't an extravagant showcase, it was a practical, working barn. Lara said, “He worked so hard to control life and health. He saw horses as wild and liberating.”

Jones took a few steps down the lane between the horse stalls, then stopped. She watched him as he looked around, breathing in the spirit of the place. “He built this barn for you, didn't he,” Jones said. Not a question but a statement.

“You know, you scare me sometimes, what you see.”

“Why didn't you keep the horses?”

“It wasn't fair to them. I didn't ride them anymore. I was too much like my father, caught up so much in the future that I couldn't live now. . . . And you . . . uh . . . I just want to thank you for . . .” Suddenly she couldn't speak.

His eyes were shining. “No. I owe you,” he said. “My life is in the past. I won't ever escape that. But you've given me a little piece of the present. I'm the one to thank you.”

Surprised, disarmed, she smiled.

“I guess I'd better get back to my hotel,” he said.

“Yes. I'll drive you.”

They started toward the door, both of them sure the danger had passed.

They were wrong. Neither moved first—they reached for each other's hands—and the moment their fingertips touched it was explosive. They kissed.

In that moment Lara could feel everything she'd ever wanted to feel. Then she stopped abruptly and turned away. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I'm so very sorry.”

“What . . . ?”

“It's not—it's not right. I've used you. I'm sorry. I should never—” She pulled away from him; it was easy, his arms had gone numb.

“Used me? How have you—”

“I can't love you. And you can't love me. We have no future. This night was selfish of me . . . so selfish.”

He tried to take her back into his arms, but she stepped completely away from him, pulling in breaths as if to sober herself from the intoxication of love, of life.

Jones stood there watching her, not hurt, not angry, just mystified. “I don't understand,” he said quietly.

“I wish I didn't. I'll call you a cab.” Then she hurried out, leaving him alone . . . and desolate.

17

Jones flew home alone.

Lara returned to her work in Chicago and spent endless hours staring blankly at new engineering plans and listening to Malcolm stalwartly trying to push ahead with their research.

But she couldn't keep from staring out the window, her mind in Virginia.

Jones, the second night after he had returned to Charlottesville, took a detour as he walked home from his shift at the Emergency Room and found himself stopped outside the restaurant where he and Lara had first tried to have dinner. He stared through the glass at the table where they sat, and he watched as the maitre d' seated a young couple at the romantic corner he and Lara had occupied, and their happiness burned Jones as he felt the loss of Lara's presence.