Where the Forest Meets the Stars(38)
“Someday I’d rather live in the woods like you do. But if I have to live in town, it’s not bad.”
“You’d rather live in the woods?” he said.
“Of course. Or the mountains or on a lake. I want nature out my front door.”
“That’s how humans should live.” Looking at a nearby house, he said, “We’re not meant to live on top of each other.”
She pressed against him, wrapping her arms around his neck. “I thought you liked it when we were on top of each other.”
He glanced nervously at the back door.
“Tabby knows,” she said. “Anyway, what’s to hide?”
“I don’t know. I’m trying to get used to all of this.”
She kept her hands on the nape of his neck. “You’re trying to get used to trusting us.”
“Maybe.”
She kissed him. “I have to trust everything. I want no regrets if . . .” She couldn’t say it aloud. She never had.
“If what?”
“If the cancer comes back.”
His body tensed against her. “Could it?”
“It’s always a possibility, but the prognosis is good. They caught it early.”
He held her so tight it hurt. But it was an excellent kind of ache.
“Yo, barnacles!” Tabby called from the deck. “Lunch awaits.”
Gabe went in the half bath to wash his hands, and Jo pulled Tabby into the living room. “Don’t ask him a lot of questions,” she whispered. “There are some things he won’t want to talk about.”
“Like what? That ax murder he committed last month?”
“He’s had some bad times. Just keep it light.”
“More bad times than you?”
“It’s a different kind of bad stuff.”
“My god. You two are some match.”
“Yeah—weird that we found each other, isn’t it?”
Tabby hugged her. “I’ll stick to weather and politics. But, wait . . . is he liberal or conservative?”
“You know, I’m not sure.”
“What? That’s the first thing I have to know!”
“It hasn’t come up,” Jo said.
“Holy shit. Is the sex really that good?”
“Shh!” Jo returned to the house, relieved when she found Gabe in the kitchen with Ursa. Ursa’s drawing of the tabby kitten—exceptional as always—was already stuck to the refrigerator with a veterinary magnet that read PLEASE DON’T LITTER. SPAY AND NEUTER YOUR CRITTER!
During lunch Tabby only asked Gabe a few neutral questions such as, How long have you lived in Southern Illinois? She steered the conversation onto politics, and they discovered Gabe leaned toward libertarian views. Jo could work with that.
They finished unloading the cars by around three. Jo didn’t have time to unpack because she had to run a few errands on campus. She had to leave everything stacked on the floor and the bed Frances Ivey had left behind. Tabby had cleared her day for the move, and she insisted Jo take Gabe to campus without Ursa. “Alien and I are gonna do human girl stuff,” she said.
“Tabby is going to paint my nails,” Ursa said. “We’re doing purple.”
“Are you sure you want to stay here?” Jo asked Ursa.
“I do!”
Jo wished she and Gabe could walk to campus through the state-street neighborhood, but she had to get to the biology office and her bank on Green Street before they closed. On the drive out, Gabe said, “I was last here when I was a kid, but these streets look familiar. I think George Kinney lives in this neighborhood.”
“He may,” Jo said. “Some students call the state streets the Professor Ghetto.”
“I remember that. My father joked about it both times we came here.”
“More jabs at George?”
“Definitely.”
She parked near Morrill Hall, where the Animal Biology office was located. She had to submit paperwork for her fall classes, but first she wanted to show Gabe the quad. She held his hand as they walked into the large rectangular space surrounded by old buildings. “Pretty campus,” he said.
“That’s Illini union , the student center,” she said, pointing to the north. “And the big domed building on the south end is Foellinger Auditorium.”
They walked one of the diagonal paths. The quad was mostly empty, typical of midsummer. A few students lounged in the grass, and in the south end, a shirtless guy threw a Frisbee for his dog.
“This reminds me of the quad at the University of Chicago.”
“I’ve never seen it.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“Do you ever think about going back to school?”
“No.”
“That was a fast answer.”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
“Because keeping your gifted brain hidden in the woods is as criminal as hiding your face behind the beard.”
He stopped walking and faced her. “I knew this was why you brought me here.”
“This is my world, Gabe. If you could find a way to be in it, everything would be much simpler.”
“You said you wanted to live in the woods.”
“I have years to go before I get my degree and find a job at a university.”
He sat on a bench and put his head in his hands. “This is impossible. Why did we ever start this?”
“I don’t recall having much control over it.”
He looked up at her. “Me either. Do you know I was attracted to you from the first time you bought eggs at my stand?”
“You sure didn’t act like it.”
“You couldn’t see me checking you out when you walked away.”
“You mean my ass?”
He only smiled.
She tugged him to his feet by his hand. “Good thing you’re an ass man and not a breast guy.”
“I’m an ass man?”
“Yeah, like the guy in Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
“Nick Bottom.”
She pulled him down the sidewalk. “Come on, Nick. I have stuff to do.”
They entered Morrill Hall and took the stairs to the fifth-floor biology office. Jo left Gabe out in the hall so he wouldn’t have to chitchat with the secretary while she did her paperwork. “Now, the bank,” she said when she left the office.
Gabe started for the stairway they’d used on the way up. “No, this way,” Jo said, gesturing toward the eastern stairwell. “We’ll come out closer to my car.” They walked a long corridor past office doors. The majority of biology professors and graduate students were away from campus working on their summer research.
“After the bank, are we getting on the road?” Gabe asked.
“Only with a fight.”
“Why?”
“Ursa is set on having dinner with Tabby at a restaurant she likes. Would that be okay?”
“I guess so.”
Jo wrapped her hand around his. “It’s a pizza place—really casual.”
“Gabe?” a man said behind them.
They turned around, hands parting. Dr. George Kinney stood in front of an open office. He walked toward them, clearly confused but smiling, his gaze fixed on Gabe. “I thought I was imagining it when I saw you walk by.” He stopped in front of Gabe. It was like a strange mirror of time, the elder reliving the face of his youth, the young man confronting his future.
27
They looked more alike than Jo had realized. They were about the same height. Dr. Kinney also had blue eyes, but a lighter shade. His hair was white and he wore it on the long side like Gabe, his part on the right, while Gabe parted left. Dr. Kinney was slimmer than Gabe, but robust, as fit as a man could be at the age of seventy-three.
“I almost didn’t recognize you without the beard,” Dr. Kinney said.
The irony of the comment wasn’t lost on Gabe. But he said nothing.
To ease the awkward silence, Dr. Kinney turned to Jo. “Good to see you, Jo. How’s your research going?”
“Very well,” she said.
“Glad to hear it. I hope that living room air conditioner isn’t giving you too much trouble. Do I need to replace it?”
“It’s fine. I don’t use it much.”
“I see you’ve met the neighbors,” he said, glancing at Gabe.
“Yes,” Jo said.
“We should go,” Gabe said to Jo as if Kinney weren’t there. His contempt was palpable, shocking even Dr. Kinney, who must have been accustomed to it. But rather than back down and retreat to his office, Kinney said, “Gabe . . .”
Gabe reluctantly looked at him.
“I’d like to talk to you”—he directed his arm toward the open door down the hall—“in my office.” Relaxing his tone, he added, “If you can call it that. When you’re emeritus, they give you a closet. Sometimes the janitor accidentally puts his mop in there.”
Jo smiled. Gabe didn’t.
Dr. Kinney kept his eyes on Gabe’s. “Lynne is very sick. She has a month at most.”
“I’m sorry,” Gabe said at last.
Dr. Kinney nodded. “Please come into my office. I need to talk with you.”
“Sounds like you two need privacy,” Jo said. “I’ll run over to the bank while you talk. Meet me on the benches out front when you’re done,” she said to Gabe.
“Sounds good,” Dr. Kinney said.
She walked away before Gabe could refuse. “Take as long as you want,” she said over her shoulder.