Fifty Degrees Below - Kim Stanley Robinson [55]
“If you can chew your food well, it’s sexy!” he had informed her, and handed her the article while he continued to chortle convulsively. Sociobiology could be so stupid! Anna too had laughed, her gorgeous mirth pealing through the halls.
Frank grinned again thinking of it, watching Francesca sip her latte. No doubt she masticated very efficiently. And had legs fast enough to escape predators, hips wide enough to give birth safely, mammary glands generous enough to feed infants, yes, sure, she had quite a figure, as far as one could tell under her dress—and of course one could tell pretty damned well. She would certainly have many successful offspring, and therefore was beautiful. All so much crap! No reductio ad absurdum was more absurd.
“Yes, it’s very busy,” she was saying between mastications, in response to a question he didn’t remember asking; she appeared to be unaware of his train of thought, but maybe not; he might be staring. “It works out—usually—but it feels so crazy. I don’t know how, but—” swallow “—things just seem to get busier and busier.”
Frank nodded as he chewed. “It’s true,” he said. “True for me, and I’m not even married.”
She grinned. “But that can make you even busier, right?” Leaning into his shoulder slightly with hers, giving him a conspiratorial bump.
Startled, Frank had to agree. There were lots of ways to be busy, he said, and his days were very full. She sipped her latte, looking relaxed and somehow pleased. Not flirtatious, but expansive. She could do what she wanted; what man was going to object? She licked coffee from her upper lip, neat pink tongue like a cat’s. For sure the symmetry-as-beauty hypothesis was wrong; Frank had a tendency to zero in on the asymmetries in other people’s faces, and he had often noted how it was precisely the asymmetry that drew or hooked the eye, that tugged at it like a magnet. As now, seeing the way Francesca’s sharp nose tilted very slightly to the left then back. Magnetic.
Of course he was envious of her too. Lab, tenure, home, partner, children: she had it all. And seemed relaxed and happy, despite her talk about the crazy pace. Fulfilled. As Frank’s mom would have said, in one of her most annoying formulations, “She has it all put together, doesn’t she?” At this point in his life Frank doubted that anybody on Earth “had it all put together” in the way his mom meant. But if anyone did, this woman might.
So: Frank chatted on happily, full of admiration, respect, envy, doubt, resentment, suspicion, and a lust that was perhaps bridge-induced but nevertheless real. He had to mask that part. She would be used to seeing it in men, no doubt. Nonconscious regions of the mind were very sensitive to that.
He would also have to be very circumspect when it came to inquiring about her business affairs. This was one way of characterizing what he had come up to do, and she was done with her scone, and no doubt would soon suggest returning to her duties, so now was the time.
But it was a subject that scientists did not often discuss at academic meetings, as it was too much like prying into matters of personal income. How are you turning your scientific work into money? How much do you make? These questions weren’t asked.
He tried a roundabout course. “Is the teaching load heavy here?”
It was.
“Do you have any administrative duties?”
She did.
“And you do some consulting too, I think you said?”
“Yes,” she said, looking slightly surprised, as she had not said any such thing. “Just a little. It doesn’t take much time. A company in London, another in Atlanta.”
Frank nodded. “I used to do some of that in San Diego. The biotechs can use all the help they can get. Although they seem to have a hard time