Man Who Loved Pride and Prejudice (14 page)

   So anyway, could you send me Erin's new email addy and maybe her phone number? I would appreciate it more than I can tell you.

   I hope you're having a great year. Maybe I'll see you this summer in Woods Hole!

   Scott

   Cassie debated what to do. It would be easy enough to forward it on to Erin and let the choice be hers, but she didn't want to take Erin by surprise, not when she herself was still hurting from the shock of seeing Calder at the Christmas party.

   Had Calder told Scott about Erin's new job? She wanted to pretend it would be beneath him, but she couldn't forget his look of bewilderment when she lost her temper with him and the times in their acquaintance when he seemed to possess human feelings and failings—the night in the lab when he told her about his uncle, his fear for her safety in the water, and the sex. She wouldn't dignify it with the name of making love—no, it had been little more than physical gratification—but she couldn't deny that he was a considerate and tender lover, as interested in her pleasure as his own. He might well have talked to Scott after the party. It shouldn't matter to her whether he had or not, but it did.

   Erin sounded tired and subdued when Cassie finally reached her that evening. Cassie took a deep breath. "Erin, sweetie, I have something to tell you, and I don't know if it's going to upset you or please you, so I hope you're sitting down."

   Erin said, "You're not getting married, are you?"

   "Far from it. The only offer I've had in ages was for a hot holiday fling—marriage wasn't in the picture, believe me. No, this is about you."

   "Okay. Maybe you'd better tell me then."

   "I got an email from Scott today. He's been trying to reach you, and wanted me to send him your new email address."

   There was silence on the line. Finally Erin said faintly, "Did you?"

   "No; I thought I should ask you first."

   There was a pause. "What did he say, exactly?"

   "Do you want me to read it to you, or send it?"

   "Read it. I don't want it sitting in my inbox."

   Cassie read it to her as neutrally as possible and then said, "There's something else I need to tell you, too. At Christmastime I ran into Calder Westing at a party, and he said Scott broke up with you because you were too dedicated to an academic career to have time for him. I told Calder you weren't in academia anymore, and why you had said that you were. So maybe Scott has had a change of heart, if Calder told him that."

   "So now that I have a job he likes, he wants me back?" Erin said, her voice shaky. "Cass… look, I need to think about this. I'll get back to you, okay?"

   "Whatever you want. And I'm here any time you want to talk."

   Last year at this time, Erin would have asked her advice and told all her feelings. Now she kept her own counsel more.

   It was several days before she heard from Erin.

To: C. Boulton
From: Erin
Subject: Scott

Please tell him I said no.

To: C. Boulton From: Scott Dunstan

   Please, Cassie. I feel terrible about what happened last fall. I really need to talk to her about it. Tell her I'm begging.

To: C. Boulton From: Scott Dunstan

   Isn't there anything I can do? Could I send you a letter to forward on to her? Help me, please.

To: C. Boulton From: Scott Dunstan

   Can I ask you just one more question, and then I promise to stop bothering you. Is she seeing someone else?

   She didn't raise the matter to Erin again, and Erin didn't ask. Scott became a taboo subject between them, just as Calder had been. Cassie worried about her and hated feeling helpless over Erin's pain. But there was nothing she could do about it except to stay in close contact and hope that someday Erin would be willing to talk to her about her feelings again.

   In March, right in the middle of midterms, Cassie received an unexpected phone call.

   "Dr. Boulton, this is Ella Connors. I don't think we've met. I'm the director of finances at the MBL. I wonder if I could have a few moments of your time."

   Cassie settled back in her chair. "Of course. What can I do for you?"

   "I'm afraid there's a problem about your grant."

   In the end, she had to cancel her classes for Monday and spent all day Sunday driving up to Woods Hole. She stayed the night in a small motel at the edge of town, nearly empty at this time of year. Woods Hole was like a ghost town. Although there were townspeople about, it was nothing compared to the crowds of summer.

   The meeting in the morning with Ella Connors and the director of the MBL was short and painful. They listened sympathetically to her presentation, but facts were facts. It was little consolation to know they were impressed with her research when it didn't change the outcome.

   She still had the long drive ahead to get home but couldn't quite bring herself to leave yet. On impulse she walked down to the drawbridge in town. Leaning her arms against the rails, she looked out over the harbor as she had so many times before. The water reflected the grey of the sky. It looked different without the forest of masts that usually filled it in warmer weather. She shivered a little in the raw March wind but didn't move. It would be full of boats again this summer, but she wouldn't be there to see it. Tears pricked at her eyes and began to run down her face.

   "Cassie?" An unexpected voice spoke her name almost disbelievingly.

   She dabbed quickly at her cheeks before turning to face him. "Calder—this is a surprise." She couldn't even bring herself to care that he was seeing her in this state.

   "For a minute I thought you were a figment of my imagination." He was torn between an odd pleasure in seeing her and concern over what could possibly cause Cassie Boulton to be crying in the middle of the street. "Is something wrong?"

   "No, I just… the view is very different than it is in the summer." She looked over the water again, tears pooling in her eyes.

   He frowned. "It's too cold to talk out here. Let's get a cup of coffee and warm up."

   Calder was the last person she expected sympathy from. Her voice was shaky as she said, "Thank you, but I can't. I was just about to leave, and I need to be back in Philadelphia tonight."

   "Are you driving?" At her nod, he said, "I don't know what the trouble is, but I really don't think you should be driving right now. Better to leave a half hour late than have an accident on the way." She hesitated, and he added, "Please. I'll worry."

   "All right," she said, her voice subdued.

   "Good." He put a hand on her back to steer her across the street and into the Dock of the Bay Café, where they had been introduced so long ago. Given the season, it was empty, and they had their pick of tables. Cassie stared out the window as the waitress came over to them.

   Calder waved away the menu. "I'd like a cup of coffee, please. Cassie, what would you like? Coffee, tea?"

   "Coffee, please." Her voice was flat.

   "Do you have pie today?" asked Calder.

   The waitress nodded. "Apple, blueberry, or peach."

   "One slice of apple and one of blueberry, then," he said.

   Cassie looked at him questioningly.

   "The first time we came here, you said you liked the pies," he said, a little defensively. "And I like both of those, so you can have whichever you prefer."

   "I never knew you had such mother hen instincts." She sounded a little more like herself. "But what if I said I wanted peach?"

   He smiled. "Then I'd get that, too."

   Their coffee arrived. "So, what are you doing here?" She wrapped her hands around the cup. Her fingers were pale from the cold.

   He hesitated. "I was doing a little writing when I was here last summer, and I came back for a while to see if I could get re-inspired," he said self-deprecatingly. "And what about you? More research?"

   She stared at the table. "No, there were some problems about my funding for the summer. I came to see if we could clear them up."

   "And were you able to?"

   She paused to add a generous amount of cream to her coffee. "No," she said. She hoped he wouldn't ask questions.

"What happened?"

   "Politics. The National Science Foundation had its funding slashed by the president. He'd rather fund his little wars than basic research. So NSF had to cut
their
funding to MBL. I'm one of the most junior researchers there, so my project was axed." She took a sip of her coffee. Seeing the closed expression on his face, she realized how tactless she had been. The president wouldn't have been elected without the backing of the Westing family prestige and money. "Sorry, I shouldn't have said that about the president."

   He grimaced slightly. "Don't worry about it. I don't agree with my father on everything, and you're entitled to your opinions. Especially right now." He paused. "Are there other funding options?"

   "It's too late for this year. I can apply for a new fellowship for next year, but I won't be as likely to get it if I'm not here this summer." She took a deep breath. "It'll be fine. I'll stay at Haverford for the summer and work on writing up the results I have, I suppose." She wanted to sound as if it didn't bother her, but her voice was quavering a little. "I'll just miss being here."

   "You've been coming here for a long time, haven't you?"

   "Since I was in college. It's been the big constant in my life. Some people have a home and family; I have Woods Hole and the MBL."

   "You don't have a family to go home to?"

   Her lips twisted into a wry smile. "Oh, I have a family; the question is whether I want to go home to them. You'd probably call them poor white trash, except they're from the South Side of Chicago. I'm the first one in the family to graduate from high school. My mother isn't really sure what a PhD is, or that marine biology has anything to do with the ocean, or why I'd waste time and money going to college when I could have found some nice boy and been married with two children before I was twenty. Needless to say, we don't have a great deal to talk about. I don't go home often."

   "It's a little difficult to picture you in a setting like that."

   She was surprised as well; she had expected a more negative reaction from him. What had inspired her to tell him? Even Erin didn't know that much. She supposed Calder was a safe enough choice to confide in. They had few acquaintances in common, and one of the few things about him she was certain of was that nobody would ever accuse him of talking too much. She glanced down for a moment and then looked up at him mischievously. "They've probably never even heard of your family."

   "They may be fortunate in that."

   She was unsure if he was serious or not until he smiled at her, and then she couldn't help laughing. "Perhaps so."

   The waitress came over with their pies. "Who gets which?" she asked brightly. Calder glanced at Cassie.

   "I'll have the apple," said Cassie with rueful amusement.

   The waitress set the pies in front of them but lingered at the table as if expecting something else. After a moment, she said, "Excuse me, but we were talking back in the kitchen. Are you Calder Westing?"

   "Guilty as charged," he responded with a polite smile.

   "Oh, wow!" she said. "I heard you were here last summer, but I didn't know you were back. Can I have your autograph?"

   Cassie expected Calder to go into his abrupt, monosyllabic mode, but instead he agreed pleasantly. "What's your name?"

   The girl blushed. "Jessica."

   He scribbled on the piece of paper she handed him. Cassie could read the words: "To Jessica, with best wishes from Calder Westing." The waitress thanked him profusely and hurried back to the kitchen with her prize.

   Calder glanced at Cassie , then looked away. "Sorry." He seemed to be speaking to the view out the window. "I find that kind of thing pretty embarrassing. It's not as if I've done anything to deserve it, except for being my father's son."