Sixty days and counting - Kim Stanley Robinson [63]
“Eventually, sure. But the department and the administration are happy to have someone out there, I think.”
“Sure, I can see that.”
She considered it as they walked along behind the other two. “But—but what about the rest of it? What about girls, Frank, have you got a girlfriend?”
Oh God. Stumped. No idea what to reveal or how. And he had only a second before she would know something was up—
“Ah ha!” she cried, and crashed her shoulder into him, like she used to—just like Francesca Taolini had in Boston, so familiar and intimate, but in this case real, in that Marta really did know him. “You do have one! Come on, tell me, tell me!”
“Well yes, kind of.”
“Kind of. Yes? And? Who is it?”
She had not the slightest idea that it might be Diane Chang, despite him having said he was following her from NSF to the White House. But of course—people didn’t think that way. And it was not something Frank had told anyone about, except maybe Rudra. It was not even really true.
But what then could he say? I have two sort-of girlfriends? My boss, whom I work for and who is older than I am and whom I have never kissed or said anything even slightly romantic to, but love very much, then also a spook who has disappeared, gone undercover, a jock gal who likes the outdoors (like you) and with whom I have had some cosmic outdoor sex (like we used to have), but who is now off-radar and incommunicado, I have no idea where? Whom I’m scared for and am desperate to see?
Oh, and along with that I’m also still freaked out by my instant attraction to an MIT star who thinks I am a professional cheater, and yes I still find you all too attractive, and remember all too well the passionate sex we used to have when we were together, and wish you weren’t so angry at me, and indeed can see and feel right now that you’re maybe finally giving up on that, and aren’t as angry as you were in Atlanta….
He too had had a couple of margaritas in the restaurant.
“Well? Come on, Frank! Tell me.”
“Well, it isn’t really anything quite like that.”
“Like what! What do you mean?”
“I’ve been busy.”
She laughed. “You mean you’re too busy to call them back afterward? That’s what too busy means to me.”
“Hey.”
She crowed her laugh and Yann and Leo looked over their shoulders to see what was going on. “It’s all right,” Marta called, “Frank is just telling me how he neglects his girlfriend!”
“Am not,” Frank explained to them. Yann and Leo saw this was not their conversation and turned back to their own.
“I bet you do though,” she went on, chortling. “You did me.”
“I did not.”
“You did too.”
“Did not.”
“Did too.”
Frank shrugged. Here they were again.
“You wouldn’t even go dancing with me.”
“But I don’t know how to dance,” he said. “And we still went anyway, all the time.” Except when you wanted to go by yourself to meet new guys and maybe disappear with them for the night.
“Yeah right. So come on, who is it? And why are you so busy anyway? What do you do besides work?”
“I run, I climb, I play frisbee golf, I go for walks—”
“Go for walks?”
“—snowshoeing, tracking animals—”
“Tracking animals?” Now she had gotten to the snorting phase of her laughter.
“Yes. We follow the animals that escaped from the National Zoo, and do feral rescue and the like. It’s interesting.”
She snorted again. She was thinking like the Californian she was: there were no such things as animals.
“I go ice-skating, I’m going to start kayaking again when the river thaws. I stay busy, believe me.”
“When the river thaws. But big deal, so what! You’re never too busy for company.”
“I guess.”
“So. Okay.”
She saw that he wasn’t going to say anything to her about it. She elbowed him again, and let it pass. She caught them up to the others.
The sun was almost down now, and the ocean had taken on the rich glassy sheen that it often did at that hour, the waves greenly translucent.
“Have you been out surfing yet?” he asked.
“Yeah, sure. What about you?”
“Not on this trip.”
They came back to their restaurant, went through to the parking