Matters of Gravity

Episode #18: Confessions

Uh oh. There was Maria in the middle of his thoughts. Lovely in one sense, not in another, but obliterating all other realities. He got up from where he and Julie had been working earlier and walked down the hall. Lisa was evidently watching a movie.

"Do you watch Masterpiece Theatre?" she asked.

"No, I haven't. I hear it's good. Ellie watches it."

"It is," she said. "This one in particular. I think you'd enjoy it."

"Not tonight. I need to get out and drive a little."

"Sure. I understand."

He drove a while, not rapidly but staring at the centerline in a sort of catatonic daze. After a while of aimless driving he noticed the stadium and decided to go on to the physics building from this direction. When he got there he saw that there was no car in the lot where he had parked on the other occasions. Julie must have gone straight home for the night. Maybe she was working at home. She must be; that's where she had generated all that data last night. He idly got out of the car and began meandering toward the physics building; it would probably be locked. He tried the door. It wasn't so he went in and walked up the already familiar stairs. Looking down the hall to Julie's office, he could tell everything at that end of the hall was dark. He trudged on back down the stairs and decided to look around the corner down the bottom hallway to Maria's office. A light was on in her office.

'A moth to a flame' crossed his mind as he began walking toward the light that seeped out through the crack under the doorway. Beyond that crack was the unformulated reason he had come. Evolutionary reactions kicked in that were no longer appropriate to this environment, this habitat. That sort of thing. Yes, even the phrase 'that sort of thing' crossed his mind as another indivisible unit. At her door he stopped. He was there only a moment before turning around. He had taken a couple steps back down the hall when he heard the door open behind him with his own huge long shadow now projected down the hallway,

"Roger! Is that you? I thought I heard something." She was on him, her arm around his shoulder, swinging around to face him. There were no words then, just kisses, and kisses, and... Oh god!

...it was four in the morning when Roger got back to the Edward Bonn mansion, exhausted. Lisa had left the door unlocked.

Four hours later he awoke to sounds in the kitchen.

After showering and shaving he joined Lisa.

"Good morning sunshine," she said.

Walking to the table where she had a plate of toast and bowls for cereal for each of them he managed to respond, "Yeah. Good morning."

He sat down eyeing the several cereal boxes and pitchers with juice and milk. Finally he reached for the Wheaties – 'breakfast of former champions', he thought, like Caitlyn Jenner and he himself, also a 'has been' trying to be somebody else.

"I was a little worried about you till I heard you come in."

"Yeah. I'm sorry about that."

"Do you need to talk about anything?"

"I don't know whether I need to or not, but I don't really want to." He managed to laugh.

"Sometimes it helps."

"Then I'm guessing that more often it doesn't."

"Maybe. Are you going to be able to stay focused? I think that being busy on something one enjoys is the best medicine for what ails one."

"I'm going to try."

"You're not really wanting to talk are you?"

"No. Not really. But I enjoy being with you and listening to you."