Distraction - Bruce Sterling [85]
She stamped in with a face like a thundercloud. He rapidly abandoned the notion of embracing her. “You didn’t have any trouble getting here, I hope?”
“In Boston? Heavens no.” She yanked her hat off and knocked snow from its brim. “Boston’s so civilized.”
“There was a little trouble in the street earlier.” Oscar paused delicately. “Nothing too serious. Tell me all about your conference.”
“I’ve been out with Bellotti and Hawkins. They were trying to get me drunk.” She was, Oscar realized belatedly, very drunk indeed. She was plastered. He relieved her of her coat like a nurse removing a bandage. Greta was dressed in her best: knee-length woolen skirt, sensible shoes, green cotton blouse.
He hung her hat and rumpled coat inside the entrance alcove. “Bellotti and Hawkins would be the gentlemen studying fibrils,” he prompted.
Her scowl faded. “Well, it’s a pretty good conference. It’s just a bad night. Bellotti was buying us drinks, and Hawkins was shaking me down for lab results. I don’t mind talking results before publication, but those guys don’t play fair. They don’t want to reveal their really hot stuff.” Her lips thinned with contempt. “It might have commercial potential.”
“I see.”
“They’re industry hustlers. They’re all cagey, and edgy, and streetwise. They’re hopeless.”
He led her through the dayroom and snapped on the kitchen lights. In the sudden cozy glow, her face looked congealed and waxy. Smudgy lipstick. Loopy-looking crisp dark hair. The unplucked eyebrows were especially unfortunate.
She closely examined the pedestal chairs, the chromed table, the ceramic rangetop island, the built-in resonators. “This is some kind of kitchen you have here,” she said wonderingly. “It’s so … clean. You could do labwork in this kitchen.”
“Thanks.”
She settled with drunken caution into the white plastic shell of a Saarinen tulip chair.
“You have every right to complain,” Oscar said. “You’re surrounded by exploiters and morons.”
“They’re not morons, they’re very bright guys. It’s just … Well, I don’t do industrial work. Science is not about the money. Basic science is all about … Basic research, you see, it’s supposed to be for …” She waved one hand irritably. “What the hell was it?”
“For the public good?” Oscar suggested suavely.
“Yeah, that was it! The public good! I suppose that sounds totally naive to you. But I do know one thing—I’m not supposed to be stuffing my own bank account while the taxpayers pick up my tab.”
Oscar dug through the glossy sliding shelves of a Kuramata cabinet. “Would a coffee help? I’ve got freeze-dried.”
The scowl returned, settling into her eyebrows as if tattooed there. “You can’t do real science and be a businessman on your weekends. If you’re serious about it, there aren’t any weekends.”
“This is a weekend, Greta.”
“Oh.” She gazed at him with an alcohol-fueled mélange of surprise and regret. “Well, I can’t stay with you for the whole weekend. There’s a hot seminar tomorrow morning at nine. ‘Cytoplasm Domains.’ ”
“Cytoplasm sounds very compelling.”
“I’m here for tonight, anyway. Let’s have a little drink together.” She opened her purse. “Oh no. I forgot my gin. It’s in my bag.” She blinked. “Oh no, Oscar, I forgot my overnight bag! I left it back at the hotel.…”
“You also forgot I don’t drink,” Oscar said.
She cradled her forehead on the heels of her hands.
“It’s fine,” Oscar said. “Just forget about work for a minute. I have a krewe. We can supply anything you need.”
She was having a bad moment at the kitchen table: doubt and bitterness. “Let me show you my house,” Oscar told her cheerfully. “It’ll be fun.”
He led her into the dayroom. It had a Piet Heim elliptical coffee table, steel-and-birchwood cantilever chairs, an inflatable vinyl