Jennifer Haigh (7 page)

The intensity of his anger astonished him. In the office, the lab, he could not meet her eyes. He saw the truth in all its ugliness: he had hired her because he wanted her. And believed, in some deluded way, that she wanted him too. In weak moments, self-pity overwhelmed him. He began to feel that she had taken advantage of
him
, his all-too obvious fascination with her. Unfounded, of course; but the feeling dogged him. Their hour-long weekly meetings seemed interminable; he found excuses to cancel them, which seemed best for all concerned.

The sight of her filled him with resentment, and such sentiments had no place in a lab.

Meanwhile Cristina toiled away on her transgenic mouse. The work proved more difficult than expected. XIAP was not cooperating; she'd had some difficulty turning off the gene in the mouse's stem cells.

Such glitches were common in gene manipulation; but as the months passed, Frank grew nervous. He began to see apoptosis as a long shot, his interest in it a spell of temporary insanity. He'd made lousy hires before, but never for such a contemptible reason. An old dog's fascination with a beautiful young woman: was anything more pitiful? His motives would be obvious to anyone paying attention; the lab techs and postdocs, Betsy Baird and Margit, all must have seen him for the fool he was.

Meanwhile, Kevin Cho had stayed on at Stanford. He'd been snapped up—didn't it figure?—by Frank's old buddy Neil Windsor. Cho was studying signaling proteins in the growth pathway—far less risky than Cristina's apoptosis work. Frank understood that he'd missed a rare opportunity. A blind man could see that Cho was destined for a hit. Cho was as close as Frank had ever come to a sure thing.

Then, at long last, Cristina's luck shifted. After months of manipulating stem cells, she succeeded in turning off the gene. She had the knockout! And twelve weeks later, her transgenic mice showed mammary tumors—a direct result, presumably, of deactivating XIAP.

And in a stroke his judgment was vindicated. Cho had been the safe choice; but Frank McKotch was not timid; Frank McKotch had never shied away from risk. Beneath Cristina's comely surface was a true scientist, and only he had seen it. The postdocs, the lab techs, even Steve Upstairs: all would be awed by his perspicacity, his uncanny prescience.

Frank sat in the bar of the Charles Hotel, waiting for Neil Windsor, staring out at the snow. A storm was moving in from the west.

Gwen had phoned him from the Pittsburgh airport to tell him that her flight was delayed. A couple of hours only, but Frank resented the holdup. They'd have to drive directly to South Station to meet Billy's train, fighting rush-hour traffic, then go straight to dinner. Frank hadn't seen his daughter in a year, his son—was it possible?—in three.
At least we have tomorrow
, he thought. They would spend the morning and afternoon together before the kids left for their mother's house in Concord.

He glanced around the bar. He felt summoned here against his will. Grohl had closed early for the holiday, and Betsy Baird had left at noon. After he and Gwen hung up, the phone rang again immediately, and Frank answered without thinking. When he heard Neil's voice, he knew that he was trapped.

Now he sat nursing a martini, fortifying himself. He would make small talk with his old buddy: swap some gossip, ask about the wife and kid. A new round of massive DARPA grants had just been awarded; Neil would know who'd gotten the nod. There was plenty to talk about besides the academy, Kevin Cho, and the
Nature
paper, the bolus of resentments that sat inside his gullet, the betrayals of the past.

He startled when Neil clapped him on the shoulder.

"McKotch! Man, are you a hard guy to track down."

Frank rose."Jesus, it's good to see you." To his surprise, he meant it. He was always startled by how familiar Neil looked, how much like his old self. Nearing sixty, he was as scrawny as ever; his crazy metabolism had not slowed. In grad school it had earned him a nickname, Tapeworm. Frank thought of the cold-cut sandwiches—slappers, they'd called them—Neil had made each morning. He'd carried them to the lab in a grocery sack, half a dozen slappers a day. His hair had been thinning even then. Now he was virtually bald, his shoulders beginning to stoop. Frank still had a full head of hair, to his great satisfaction: thick and wavy, with only a touch of gray.

Neil seemed to read his mind. "My God, look at you. Aging beatnik. Get a haircut, wouldya?"

"Envy's an ugly thing, Weisberg."

Neil grinned appreciatively."Is that a martini?"

"Want one?"

"It's a little early for me. But hey, knock yourself out."

Thanks for your permission
, Frank thought sourly."So what brings you into town?"

"I gave a talk at Dana Farber." Neil poured his beer into a glass.

"Then I met with your outfit this morning."

"Protogenix?" Frank stared at him, surprised.

"Yeah. They want me on the SAB."

"No kidding." Frank felt himself sweating. He'd been on the scientific advisory board for nearly three years; his agreement expired in a month. He groused about the management to anyone who'd listen, but that didn't mean he was ready to be replaced.

"I told them no. The money's incredible, but I've got too much on my plate." Neil reached down the bar for a bowl of peanuts. Tapeworm had always loved peanuts."Seen Paulette lately?"

"Not in a few years." Frank speared his olive with a toothpick, a mortal blow. "When Scott moved back from California, she let me come for dinner so I could get a look at my grandkids." He said the word a little sheepishly.

Neil laughed. "Don't much like the sound of that, do you, old man?" He tossed a peanut into his mouth."Where's Scotty these days?

Vermont somewhere?"

"Connecticut."

"And why Connecticut?"

Here we go, Frank thought: Neil was never happier than when he was asking questions. In the old days it had driven Frank crazy. He hadn't minded the factual ones—
where did you take Paulette for dinner?

But those were just the warm-up. Neil wanted to know the reasons for things.
Why were you home so early? Why did she get mad at you? Why do you suppose she felt that way? Are you sure that's the reason?
At the time Frank had been flattered; he assumed that Tapeworm, with no girlfriend of his own, was living vicariously through him.

Later he saw those questions in a different light.

His friend's curiosity, the depth and dazzling breadth of it, was his primary strength as a scientist. Other investigators, including Frank, were driven to find the correct answer to a question—the single, uniquely perfect answer. Neil was interested in the whole range of possibilities; he truly enjoyed positing theories, playing out scenarios as far as imagination could take him. Unlike Frank, he didn't mind being wrong.
It's the only way you learn anything
, Neil often said, but Frank found the whole process tiresome. He didn't have the patience for mistakes.

"Teaching," he said, draining his glass. "At some prep school there."

"Choate?" Neil asked."Taft? Pomfret?"

"One of those." Frank couldn't remember the last time he'd discussed his younger son with anybody. Scott the longhair, the college dropout, who'd gone west and married a girl the family had never met. Billy was the son Frank talked about. But Tapeworm, as always, went right to his weak spot.

"Billy's practice is thriving," Frank said.

"Good for Bill," Neil said."And Gwen?"

"I'm seeing her tomorrow. She and Billy are coming for an early Christmas."

"Did she ever make contact with Doug Levin?"

Frank hesitated, a bit surprised. He'd forgotten that years ago, trying to track down an endocrinologist for Gwen, he'd asked Neil for a referral."I think so."

"Levin's top-notch. He was in on that Turner study at the NIH."

He poured his beer into a glass. "She's still taking the estrogen, I hope."

Frank felt a flash of anger.
None of your goddamn business
, he thought, draining his glass. It shamed him to admit he had no idea.

Gwen was an intensely private person. For years now—her whole adult life—she'd spurned any conversation about her health. Questions were met with stony silence. And estrogen was more than a health question; it was a sex question. Frank was no prude. He'd always—well, until recently—enjoyed a healthy sex life. But he froze at the idea of discussing sexual matters with his daughter, who
was
a prude. She was possibly as uptight as her mother, a prude of worldclass proportions.

"She won't discuss it," he said. "To be honest, I have no idea if she's taking it or not."

Neil frowned. "Frank, you know the arguments. Bone density.

Early cardiovascular disease."

"It's her decision. She's not a kid anymore."

"All the more reason she should understand the ramifications."

"I'm sure she does," Frank said, a bit sharply.
She's short, not retarded
, he wanted to add.
She's an intelligent girl.

"'Nuff said, then." Neil slurped at his glass."How's your science, amigo?"

Frank signaled the bartender. Clearly another martini was in order.

"Nothing to report just yet, but things are moving forward. Yourself ?"

Neil grinned."You saw the paper, right?"

"What paper?" Frank said smoothly.

"Oh, it's in a little journal called
Nature.
Ever heard of it?" Neil chuckled."I can't take all the credit, of course. I've got a terrific postdoc. I believe you know him. Kevin Cho."