Sixty days and counting - Kim Stanley Robinson [200]
“Have you talked to your tech transfer office about this?” Bannet asked.
“It’s Eleanor Dufours who is the P.I.,” Frank said. “She’ll be the one leading the way with any start-up.”
“Okay,” Bannet said, looking a bit surprised. “We can discuss that later.”
By the time Frank got back to Leo’s lab, Caroline was already there, and so were Marta and Eleanor, with Marta looking most intrigued.
“Frank!” Marta said. “I didn’t know you were going to be out here again so soon.”
“Yes, I am. Hi, Eleanor. Have you guys met my friend—”
“Yes,” Caroline said. “Leo introduced us,” and for a second everyone was saying something at once.
After a brief laugh, they fell silent. “Well!” Marta said. She had a gleam in her eye that Frank had seen before. “What a lucky coincidence! We were just going to grab Leo for dinner in Del Mar, to celebrate the latest results—did he tell you about those? Why don’t you two join us?”
Frank said, “Oh, well—”
“Sure,” Caroline said, “that sounds great.”
So there they were at one of the beach restaurants in Del Mar, talking away cheerfully. Given the results in the lab, they had a lot to be cheerful about. Caroline was seated on one side of Frank, Marta on the other. It made him uneasy, but there was nothing he could do. And besides he too had cheerful news, in the form of his meeting with Henry Bannet.
“So does that mean you’re moving back?” Marta said to Frank when the others were all talking among themselves.
“Yes, I think so.”
“You’ve been out there a long time—what has it been, three years?”
“Almost,” Frank said. “It feels like more.”
After dinner, Marta invited them to come along with them to the Belly-Up, and again Caroline agreed before Frank could beg off. So there they were, in the crush of dancers on the floor of the Belly-Up, Frank dancing with three women, watching Marta and Caroline shouting over the music into each other’s ears and then laughing heartily, before excusing themselves and going off to the ladies’ room together. Frank watched this appalled. He had never even imagined Marta and Caroline meeting, much less becoming friendly. Now he was surprised to see that they looked somewhat alike, or were in some other way similar. And really, now that he thought of it, it was gratifying that Marta liked Caroline—a kind of approval of his judgment, or his D.C. life. Part of a more general amnesty. But it also felt like trouble, in some obscure way Frank could not pin down. At the very least it probably meant he was going to get laughed at a lot. Well, whatever. Nothing to be done about that. There were worse fates.
Frank had made reservations for the night at a motel in Encinitas, but for some reason he was nervous about that; and besides, he wanted to take Caroline up to Leucadia. He wasn’t going to be able to sleep until he did.
So he explained as they left the Belly-Up, and she nodded, and he drove north on the coast highway.
“So?” Frank said. “How are you liking it?”
“It’s beautiful,” she said. “And I like your friends. But, you know—I’m not sure what I would do out here.”
“Well—anything you want, right? I mean, you’re going to have to do something different anyway. You aren’t going to be going back into intelligence….”
But maybe she thought she was. Maybe that was it.
She didn’t say anything, so he dropped the matter, feeling more uncertain than ever.
He turned left off the coast highway in Leucadia, onto the street that led to Neptune.
He parked a little down from Leo’s house. As they walked up the street, gaps to their left again revealed the enormous expanse of the Pacific, vast and gray under the marine layer, which was patterned by moonlight. Like something out of a dream. He had her