ME, CINDERELLA?(50)

“He’s a good cat,” Mark said.

“I’ll see that he’s taken care of.” Eliot looked once more at the both of us, then pressed his lips together. “I’ll see you both later, I’m sure.”

“Looking forward to it!” Mark said. I just nodded, and Eliot climbed back into his car, Lucky sitting on his haunches in the passenger seat. Whiskers twitching, he looked back at me through the window and I waved goodbye. Eliot held up a hand, and then the engine rumbled to life and the car rolled away down the street.

“I miss him already,” I said, not sure who I meant. I walked up the steps slowly and watched as the car turned at the corner and disappeared.

“You’ll see him again,” Mark said. “Don’t worry.”





CHAPTER FOURTEEN



“Mathematics is the queen of the sciences, and number theory is the queen of mathematics”. - Gauss



We began our work in earnest at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and Mark and I spent most of our time in the libraries studying. Despite our intense efforts on the problems we worked on, Mark and I goofed off together just like we always had, and the other students all broke off into their own cliques to study. Everything was the same, but something inside me had changed. In less than a week, I had become someone different.

The academy stood only a few blocks away from the apartments, and so we walked to our study sessions every morning and back every night. After so much time and effort spent studying, I never wanted to do anything but collapse in my bunk at the end of the day. I promised myself that I would go to see my mother’s grave that weekend when I had the time to spare.

Meanwhile, Eliot stayed away from the academy. At first I had hoped to see him during the day when we studied, but always it was the assistants who taught the lectures and worked with us on the math problems. After we learned the fundamentals of the work, the assistants had no further insights to give us, and on the last day of the week Mark and I slipped away to the library to work on our own.

“Could you call him?” Mark said, after we had been stuck for hours working on a single line of the proof.

“Call who?”

“Dr. Herceg. Just to see if we’re right about this part. It seems impossible.”

“I can’t,” I said.

“Why not?”

“If he wanted to work with us, he would work with us,” I said. “There must be a reason he’s staying away.” I didn’t bother to mention that the reason might be me.

“Just give him a call then. If he doesn’t want to answer, he doesn’t have to.”

“Mark…”

“What? Come on, what’s the worst that could happen?” He looked at me with pleading eyes, and I breathed a sigh of frustration. If there was one thing I didn’t want to do, it was to be dependent on Eliot’s help. Really, after everything that had happened between us, I thought it would be best if I never spoke to him again. After all, I had reached out to him, and he had pushed me away completely.

“Come on,” Mark said. “Please?”

“Fine,” I said. The problem in front of us did seem intractable.

The phone rang four times, and I was beginning to think that Eliot wouldn’t pick up. Even though I was nervous to talk with him, I admit that I was disappointed. I wanted so much to hear his voice again. Then, just before the call would have gone to voicemail, Eliot picked up.

“Hello, Brynn.”

“Dr. Herceg?” I said quickly. “Hi! I have you on speakerphone. Mark’s here.”

“Oh,” he said, and coughed. “Oh, hello.”

“Hi, Dr. Herceg,” Mark said. “We just had a question for you.”

“Yes?”

“It’s about the projective algorithm. We’re stuck on one spot.” Mark explained what we had done and where we had gotten stuck. Eliot listened to half of the explanation before interrupting.

“Wait one moment,” he said. “The general case for the second equation you mentioned. It isn’t solved yet.”

“We’re just looking at one specific instance,” I said. “Letting the permutative variable equal one, just for this part.”

The phone was silent.

“And we’ve made some headway on that instance,” Mark said. “But we’re getting stuck when we try to put it back into the original algorithm.”

Still nothing but silence.

“Dr. Herceg?” I ventured.

“No! I mean, yes, interesting. Very interesting, to look at that particular case. I’m going to have to take a peek at that tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow’s Saturday,” Mark said.