Lessons in Chemistry (18 page)

Madeline cocked her head to the side. “Are you okay, Mom?”

Without realizing it, Elizabeth had covered her face with her hands. “I’m just tired, bunny,” she said as the words slipped out between her fingers.

Madeline laid down her fork and studied her mother’s stricken posture. “Did something happen, Mom?” she asked. “At work?”

From behind her fingers, Elizabeth considered her young daughter’s question.

“Are we poor?” Madeline asked, as if that question naturally followed the former.

Elizabeth took her hands away. “What makes you say that, honey?”

“Tommy Dixon says we’re poor.”

“Who’s Tommy Dixon?” she asked sharply.

“A boy at school.”

“What
else
did this Tommy Dixon—”

“Was Dad poor?”

Elizabeth flinched.

The answer to Mad’s question lay in one of the boxes she and Frask had stolen from Hastings. At the very bottom of box number three lay an accordion folder labeled “Rowing.” When she first spied it, Elizabeth naturally assumed it would be filled with newspaper clippings recording the glorious wins of his Cambridge boat. But no; it was stuffed with Calvin’s post-Cambridge employment offers.

She’d skimmed the offers jealously—chairs at major universities, directorships at pharmaceutical companies, major stakes in privately held concerns. She’d sifted through the stack until she
found the Hastings offer. There it was: the promise of a private lab—although all the other places had guaranteed that, too. The only thing that made the Hastings offer stand out from the others? A salary so low it was insulting. She glanced down at the signature. Donatti.

As she jammed the letters back in, she wondered why he’d even labeled this folder “Rowing”—there wasn’t anything rowing-like about it. Until she noticed two quick penciled notations at the top of each offer: distance to a rowing club and area precipitation. She returned to the Hastings offer letter—yes, the computations were there, too. But there was one other thing: a big, thick circle drawn around the return address.

Commons, California.

“If Dad was famous, then he must have been rich, right?” Mad said, twirling her spaghetti around her fork.

“No, honey. Not all famous people are rich.”

“Why not? Did they mess up?”

She thought back to the offers. Calvin had accepted the lowest one. Who does that?

“Tommy Dixon says it’s easy to get rich. You paint rocks yellow, then say it’s gold.”

“Tommy Dixon is what we call a flimflam man,” Elizabeth said. “Someone who schemes to get what they want through illegal means.” Like Donatti, she thought, her jaw locking in place.

She thought back to another folder she’d found in Calvin’s boxes, this one full of letters from people just like Tommy Dixon—wackos, get-rich-quick investors—but also a wide assortment of fake family members, each of whom desperately wanted Calvin’s help: a half sister, a long-lost uncle, a sad mother, a cousin twice removed.

She’d skimmed the fake family letters quickly, surprised at how similar they were. Each claimed a biological connection, each provided a memory from an age he wouldn’t be able to
remember, each wanted money. The only exception was Sad Mother. While she, too, claimed a biological connection, instead of asking for money, she insisted she wanted to give it.
To help your research,
she claimed. Sad Mother had written to Calvin at least five times, imploring him to respond. It was really rather heartless, Elizabeth thought, the way Sad Mother persisted. Even Long-Lost Uncle had called it quits after two.
They told me you were dead,
Sad Mother had written over and over again. Really? Then why had she, like all the others, only written to Calvin
after
he’d become famous? Elizabeth assumed her ploy was to hook him, then steal his research. And why did she think this? Because it had just happened to her.

“I don’t get it,” Mad said, shoving a mushroom to the side of her plate. “If you’re smart and you work hard, doesn’t that mean you make more money?”

“Not always. Still, I’m sure your dad could have earned more money,” Elizabeth said. “It’s just that he made a different choice. Money isn’t everything.”

Mad looked back, dubious.

What Elizabeth didn’t tell Mad was that she knew very well why Calvin had eagerly accepted Donatti’s ridiculous offer. But his reason was so short-sighted—so
dumb
—she hesitated to share it. She wanted Mad to think of her father as a rational man who made smart decisions. This proved just the opposite.

She found it in a folder labeled “Wakely,” which contained a series of letters between Calvin and a would-be theologian. The two men were pen pals; it was clear they’d never met face-to-face. But their typed exchanges were fascinating and numerous, and lucky for her, the folder included Calvin’s carbon copy replies. This was something she knew about Calvin: he made copies of everything.

Wakely, who was attending Harvard Divinity School at the same time Calvin was at Cambridge, seemed to be struggling with his faith based on science in general, and on Calvin’s research in particular. According to his letters, he’d attended a symposium where Calvin had spoken briefly and, based on that, had decided to write to him.

“Dear Mr. Evans, I wanted to get in touch with you after your brief appearance at the science symposium in Boston last week. I’d hoped to speak with you about your recent article, ‘The Spontaneous Generation of Complex Organic Molecules,’ ” Wakely had written in the first letter. “Specifically, I wanted to ask: Don’t you think it’s possible to believe in both God
and
science?”

“Sure,” Calvin had written back. “It’s called intellectual dishonesty.”

Although Calvin’s flippancy had a tendency to annoy a lot of people, it didn’t seem to faze the young Wakely. He wrote back immediately.

“But surely you’d agree that the field of chemistry could not exist unless and until it was created by a chemist— a
master
chemist,” Wakely argued in his next letter. “In the same way that a painting cannot exist until it is created by an artist.”

“I deal in evidence-based truths, not conjecture,” Calvin replied just as quickly. “So no, your master chemist theory is bullshit. By the way, I notice you’re at Harvard. Are you a rower? I row for Cambridge. Full-ride rowing scholarship.”

“Not a rower,” Wakely wrote back. “Although I love the water. I’m a surfer. I grew up in Commons, California. Ever been to California? If not, you should go. Commons is beautiful. Best weather in the world. They row there, too.”

Elizabeth sat back on her heels. She remembered how vigorously Calvin had circled Hastings’s return address in the offer letter.
Commons, California.
So he’d accepted Donatti’s insulting offer, not to further his career, but to row? Thanks to a one-line
weather report from a religious surfer?
Best weather in the world.
Really? She moved on to the next letter.

“Did you always want to be a minister?” Calvin asked.

“I come from a long line of ministers,” Wakely answered back. “It’s in my blood.”

“Blood doesn’t work that way,” Calvin corrected. “By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask: Why do you think so many people believe in texts written thousands of years ago? And why does it seem the more supernatural, unprovable, improbable, and ancient the source of these texts, the more people believe them?”

“Humans need reassurance,” Wakely wrote back. “They need to know others survived the hard times. And, unlike other species, which do a better job of learning from their mistakes, humans require constant threats and reminders to be nice. You know how we say, ‘People never learn?’ It’s because they never do. But religious texts try to keep them on track.”

“But isn’t there more solace in science?” Calvin responded. “In things we can prove and therefore work to
im
prove? I just don’t understand how anyone thinks anything written ages ago by drunk people is even remotely believable. And I’m not making a moral judgment here: those people had to drink, the water was bad. Still, I ask myself how their wild stories—bushes burning, bread dropping from heaven—seem reasonable, especially when compared to evidence-based science. There isn’t a person alive who would opt for Rasputin’s bloodletting techniques over the cutting-edge therapies at Sloan Kettering. And yet so many insist we believe these stories and then have the audacity to insist others believe them, too.”

“You make a fair point, Evans,” Wakely wrote back. “But people need to believe in something bigger than themselves.”

“Why?” Calvin pressed. “What’s wrong with believing in ourselves? Anyway, if stories must be used, why not rely on a fable or fairy tale? Aren’t they just as valid a vehicle for teaching
morality? Except maybe better? Because no one has to pretend to believe that the fables and tales are true?”

Although he didn’t admit to it, Wakely found himself agreeing. No one had to pray to Snow White or fear the wrath of Rumpelstiltskin to understand the message. The stories were short, memorable, and covered all the bases of love, pride, folly, and forgiveness. Their rules were bite-sized: Don’t be a jerk. Don’t hurt other people or animals. Share what you have with others less fortunate. In other words, be nice. He decided to change the topic.

“Okay, Evans,” he wrote, referring to a previous letter, “I take your very
literal
point about how ministering can’t, technically, be in my blood, but we Wakelys become ministers just like cobblers’ sons become shoemakers. I’ll confess: I’ve always been attracted to biology, but that would never fly in my family. Maybe I’m just trying to please my father. Isn’t that what we all do in the end? What about you? Was your father a scientist? Are you trying to please him? If so, I’d say you succeeded.”

“I HATE MY FATHER,” Calvin typed in all capital letters in what would prove to be their final exchange. “I HOPE HE’S DEAD.”

I hate my father; I hope he’s dead.
Elizabeth read it again, stunned. But Calvin’s father
was
dead—hit by a train at least two decades earlier. Why would he have written such a thing? And why had Calvin and Wakely stopped corresponding? The last letter was dated nearly ten years ago.

“Mom,” Mad said. “Mom! Are you listening? Are we poor?”

“Honey,” Elizabeth said, trying to stave off a nervous breakdown—
had she really quit her job?
“I’ve had a long day,” she said. “Please. Just eat your dinner.”

“But, Mom—”

They were interrupted by the jangle of the telephone. Mad jumped from her chair.

“Don’t answer it, Mad.”

“Might be important.”

“We’re eating dinner.”

“Hello?” Mad said. “Mad Zott speaking.”

“Honey,” Elizabeth said, taking the phone. “We don’t give out private information on the telephone, remember? Hello?” she said into the mouthpiece. “With whom am I speaking?”

“Mrs. Zott?” a voice said. “Mrs. Elizabeth Zott? It’s Walter Pine, Mrs. Zott. We met earlier this week.”

Elizabeth sighed. “Oh. Yes, Mr. Pine.”

“I’ve been trying to reach you all day. Perhaps your housekeeper neglected to give you my messages.”

“She is not a housekeeper and she did not neglect to give me your messages.”

“Oh,” he said, embarrassed. “I see. I’m sorry. I hope I’m not disturbing you. Do you have a moment? Is this a good time?”

“No.”

“I’ll be quick, then,” he said, not wanting to lose her. “And again, Mrs. Zott, I’ve rectified the lunch situation. It’s all fixed; Amanda will only be eating her own lunch from now on, again my apologies. But now I’m calling for another reason— a business reason.”

He went on to remind her he was a producer of local afternoon TV programming. “KCTV,” he said proudly, even though he wasn’t. “And I’ve been thinking of changing my lineup a bit—adding a cooking show. Trying to spice things up, you might say,” he continued, taking a stab at humor, something he normally didn’t do but did now because Elizabeth Zott made him nervous. As he waited for the polite chuckle that should have come from the other end but didn’t, he grew even more anxious. “As a
seasoned
television producer, I feel the time is
ripe
for such a show.”

Again, nothing.

“I’ve been doing research,” he blathered on, “and based on
some very interesting trends, and combined with my personal knowledge of successful afternoon programming, I believe cooking is poised to become a force in afternoon TV.”

Elizabeth still offered no reaction, and even if she had, it wouldn’t have mattered because none of what Walter said was true.

The truth was, Walter Pine did not conduct research, nor was he aware of any trends. Factually speaking, he had very little personal knowledge of what made afternoon TV successful. As proof, his channel usually hovered near the bottom, ratings-wise. The real situation was this: Walter had an empty programming slot to fill and the advertisers were breathing down his neck to get it filled immediately. A children’s clown show had previously filled the now-empty slot, but in the first place, it hadn’t been very good, and in the second place, its clown star had been killed in a bar fight, making the show completely dead in the truest sense.

For the last three weeks, he’d been scrambling to find something else to take its place. He’d spent eight hours a day screening promo reels from countless would-be stars—magicians, advice givers, comedians, music instructors, science experts, etiquette mavens, puppeteers. Wading through it all, Walter couldn’t believe the drivel other people produced, nor could he believe they had the gall to commit it to film, put it in the mail, and send it to him. Had they no shame? Still, he had to find something fast: his career depended on it. His boss had made that abundantly clear.

On top of work woes, four times this month he’d been summoned in to see Mrs. Mudford, Amanda’s kindergarten teacher, who most recently had threatened to report him simply because, in a cloud of exhaustion and depression, he’d inadvertently packed his gin flask where Amanda’s milk thermos was supposed to go. He’d also sent a stapler instead of a sandwich, a script instead of a napkin, and some champagne truffles that time they were out of bread.