Desert Chemistry

"Our third date was when I think I really fell in love with her," he said. "We sat up late, talking about our lives, what we wanted to do, and I went into this whole long thing about chemistry and solving the world's problems. She got this gleam in her eye, like she was really excited about what I was doing, even if she didn't understand it. That was it. That was when I knew I wanted to be with her."

His voice was still dreamy, but I caught the little hesitation when he said it, like there was something else hiding behind it.

"How could you be with somebody who didn't understand your work?" I asked. "I don't think I could do that."

"Nobody understands our work, Allison," he replied tartly. "If you limit yourself to only dating scientists, especially female scientists, you're going to be very lonely."

"Fair point," I said, "but isn't it important to you to have a partner who's at least close to your intellectual level?"

"Of course it's important," he replied, "but it's not the most important thing. Melanie was wonderful to me, and she made me happy. She was going to be a good mother someday after we got married. It may sound old fashioned, but that was more important, and it was enough."

I pictured David and Melanie as Ward and June Cleaver, and I giggled.

"What?" he asked. He smiled and almost laughed himself.

"Nothing. Sorry," I replied, trying to look serious. I almost giggled again. "Go on."

He told me the rest of the story over two more beers: getting serious; her job in real estate; meeting the families; moving in together; getting engaged. It all sounded wonderful, but every so often, that hesitation would come back.

"I really thought she was the one," he said, shaking his head. "I know she's not perfect, but Lord knows I'm not either. I loved her like crazy, took care of her the best I knew how."

He paused for a moment, and his face turned bright red. "And the sex was amazing," he said. "She knew exactly what she wanted, and she made sure I gave it to her."

"So you don't want to know anything about my sex life," I said, smiling, "but you're okay telling me about yours..."

"Oh, god, Allison," he replied. "I'm sorry. I really didn't mean to..."

I reached across the table to take his hand. "It's okay," I said. "I don't mind. You need to talk to somebody, and I'm here."

David leaned back in his seat, and I let go of his hand. "Thanks," he said, still blushing.

Two different pictures of Melanie had emerged while we talked, one from what he said, and the other from what he didn't say. The first one was a much better person than the second.

That gleam in her eye on their third date was about more than David's love of chemistry. It was also a promise for the future, one that went along with his upper-middle class family. She expected the paycheck that came from a job at a biotech startup or big pharma. She wanted one of the McMansions she showed off to her clients in north Scottsdale, with the five car garage, the gardener, and the nanny to take care of the kids. When she figured out that David was happy in his house in Tempe, teaching at ASU, she crawled into Eddie's bed, hoping his dad's car dealership would get her what she wanted.

At first, I wanted to smack David. How could he have not seen her for what she was? But then I realized he did, and he stayed anyway. He saw all her faults, but he also saw the best in her, and he wouldn't let go of it. And then I wanted to smack her. It's a rare thing to have somebody who loves you like that. It makes you a better person. She just threw him away, and he deserved better.

"It's going to be okay," I said. "It'll hurt like hell for a while, but it'll get better. You know that, don't you?"

"Yeah, I do," he replied. "It still feels awful, though."

"Did she keep the ring?" I asked after a while, already knowing the answer.

David's face filled with rage for an instant, but it was gone just as quickly, and he actually laughed out loud. "Yeah, she did, and that's fine," he replied with a smile. "I hadn't even thought about it, but I feel really good right now about a decision I made."

"Well, I still think it's rude," I replied, "even if you don't."

David drained the last of his beer and explained. "When I proposed, I thought about giving her my grandmother's ring. I think it's beautiful, but I decided she would probably want something bigger and flashier. We went to pick it out together, and she got a kick out of showing it off to everyone. She can keep the damn thing. I still have the ring that really matters, tucked safely away in my box at the bank, ready to give to somebody who will appreciate it."

David waved at the bartender for another beer. He's a big guy - maybe six two and very well built - but even so, after that sixth beer I was surprised by his alcohol tolerance. There was no sign that he was even a tiny bit impaired, other than letting down his guard and talking to me. But then he leaned forward in his seat, and it was like watching a light bulb turn on. His head bobbed, his eyes got a little hazy, and all of a sudden he was quite visibly drunk.

"You okay?" I asked.

"I'm good," he replied, looking as surprised by the sudden change as I was. "Mission accomplished, Allison. You got me drunk."

With that, he decided he'd had enough, so we went back to my apartment. He wasn't too drunk to get around, which was good since he's a lot heavier than I am, but I could tell he was tired and very dizzy. After we got inside, I showed him the bathroom, found a spare (unused) toothbrush for him, and left him alone. It was still somewhat early, so I sat in the living room and read. About fifteen minutes later, I could hear him snoring.

The next morning, I went out early to get some freshly ground coffee and something breakfast-y. He would likely be hungry when he woke up, and he would definitely need caffeine. He was still snoring away when I got back. After rummaging around my kitchen cabinets, I found my barely used coffee maker and set it out. I left him a note, along with my car keys, and then walked to the bus stop to go to work.

~~~

David was in the lab working when I got back from teaching his class. He looked a little tired, but he seemed happy enough, so I let him be. Later in the afternoon, I asked him, "How are you today? Feeling okay?"

"Yeah," he replied. "I was a little hung over, but the coffee you put out this morning fixed me right up. Thank you."

He went back to work for a while, preparing some samples for the mass spec that he'd subjected to various lignin-modifying enzymes. "Thanks again for last night," he said about half an hour later. "It still hurts a lot, but at least I don't fly into a blind rage every time I think about Melanie and Eddie."

"You're welcome," I said. "That's what friends do."

When David went home that night, I went with him for moral support. He hadn't been back since Melanie moved out. There was a brief flash of rage when he walked in the front door and saw the state in which the movers had left everything. Melanie had taken some of David's nicer furniture, including the couch and TV, and the kitchen was a god awful mess. David ignored that and went straight for the dining room, with the beautiful old teak table and chairs his grandparents had left him. When he saw they were still there, he calmed down a little.

"The only thing I really cared about was that table," he said, and let out a tired sigh.

"Replacing the rest will cost me, but whatever. I guess that's what I get for trusting a pair of snakes," he said bitterly. He was more charitable than I would have been.

I got a good sense of the whole house while looking around with him. It was an old (for Tempe) ranch style house, with two bedrooms at one end and another by the garage that Melanie had used as an office. The kitchen and family room were the center of the house, and I guessed David's grandparents had been remodeled them about fifteen years ago. They went all-out when they did, with heavy wood cabinets, granite countertops, and high-end stainless steel appliances. The original kitchen had been a tiny, galley-style place, but they ripped the walls out and opened up the room into a U shape, with an island in the middle, facing into a big, open area. The dining room and a little den were off to one side, and then the bedrooms. Most of the floors were a reddish-brown ceramic tile, with carpet in the bedrooms. It wasn't especially large or fancy, by modern standards, but it did feel homey, the kind of place to raise a family.

After checking through the house, we walked next door to fetch Lucie. David thanked Tina profusely for taking care of her, and he negotiated a new agreement with Tina and her parents. Tina would feed Lucie every weekday afternoon at four, something Melanie used to do, and she would take Lucie out for afternoon walks when it cooled down in October. David would pay her twenty five dollars a week for the feeding and another twenty five for the walks. Tina was thrilled to be getting paid for something she would enjoy doing; her parents were thrilled that she had a job with some responsibility; and David was thrilled to not have to worry about working late in the evenings. It worked out well for everyone, especially Lucie.

We took Lucie back to the house and ordered a pizza for dinner. "I used to be a pretty good cook," he said while we ate, "but then Melanie took over the kitchen and it was easier to just stay away. Guess I'm going to have to learn again."

I stayed a while afterward to help him clean up some of the mess before I went home.

~~~

David let me fill in for him the rest of the week. He was calm and stoic about everything, but I could tell he was still a wreck on the inside, and working in the lab by himself was easier on his mood than teaching. When Friday came around, I was a little sad it was over. After a rocky start, I felt like I was connecting with the students, and they did well answering questions and working out problems on the board.

That Saturday, David went furniture shopping, and he asked me to tag along. I offered to drive, and when I picked him up in the morning, I was glad I did.

"You look like a walking corpse," I said.

"Thanks," he replied with a rueful grin. "I feel worse. Not sleeping much."

The first stop was an electronics store for a new TV. After that, we went to a very nice furniture shop in Scottsdale to buy a couch, some comfy chairs, end tables and assorted shelving. "Have you thought about a new bed?" I asked David after he had picked out everything else. "That might be the reason you're not sleeping."

The post-breakup rage flooded back into his face instantly, as if he'd been struck by lightning. "Of course," he said, fists clenched and knuckles white. "They were fucking each other in MY bed. I'm sure of it. That's probably why I haven't been sleeping. You are totally right - I need a new bed."

He chose a low, queen-sized maple frame with drawers underneath and one of those cool space age foam mattresses. We got a knowing look from the salesperson as we took turns laying down to test it. It was amusing, and not worth the effort to dispel her assumption.

The couch and chairs he chose were simple and modern, comfortable without being aggressively hip. He asked me to choose the fabric - he was fairly hopeless with colors - and I found a dark green that would look good in his house. The tables and shelving were similarly simple and modern, clean lines of blonde wood and stainless steel.

The furnishings added up to more than I had ever spent on house stuff in my entire life. David just shrugged. "My grandparents left me some money along with the house," he said. "I can live off my salary without a problem, but when things like this come up, I can dip into my savings and not worry about it."

I wondered what that was like.

The woman who rang everything up managed to get the bed, tables and shelving all scheduled for delivery that afternoon. The couch and chairs would take a couple of weeks to upholster. After the furniture store, we went to buy new bedding, and David picked out the same charcoal gray jersey cotton sheets I had. We were both exhausted by then, so we stopped at Los Olivos, that wonderful Mexican place, for lunch and then went home.

"Call me tomorrow," I said to David when I dropped him off at his house. "Just so I know you're okay. Let me know if you need anything."

"Okay," he replied. "Thanks so much, Allison."

I didn't hear from him until three in the afternoon.

~~~

The next week, David was mostly back to his normal self. A little sadder and angrier, perhaps, but still basically David. The big difference was that he had no idea what to do with his time. He still had Lucie and his job, but the rest of the structure that he fit his life into was gone, along with his two best friends.

Leo filled in part of the gap, dragging David to evening lectures around campus. David also had dinner with his sister Joan's family once or twice a week, which his nieces loved. They got to stay up later and play games when Uncle David was around.

Mostly, though, he spent more time with me. When he was with Melanie, he generally kept me at a professional distance. Without her, I was no longer the 'little office wife.' He no longer had any reason to keep away, and he really needed a friend. Since I was just as single as he was, without much of a social life, that was fine with me.

We ate dinner together most nights after work. There's a lot of cheap food around campus, and some of it's even pretty good. I dragged him out for early morning hikes at Piestawa Peak or South Mountain some weekends. He didn't like the hour any more than I did, but it's better than scorching midday heat.

David normally had a guys' night every two weeks or so with some other associate professors, but they hadn't met up for almost two months. Summer travel, family emergencies, and various other things had gotten in the way. Three weeks after the big breakup, they finally managed to plan an evening. David stopped me before I headed out after work to the student rec center. "I'm going out with the guys tomorrow," he said. "You, um, want to come?"

"I'm really not sure you want me to intrude on your guys' night," I replied.

"All we do is drink, shoot pool, and talk about the women in our lives," he said. "Nothing you can't relate to. You'll be fine."

"I guess," I replied. I wasn't sure, but I wasn't doing anything else.

We met the next night at the parking garage nearest the chemistry building. Jonsey was already there, sitting on the walker thing he uses to get around. He's actually kind of handsome, with curly black hair and a matching black beard. He has handicapped plates, which make parking much easier, so he always drives. Craig and Guillermo showed up together just after David and I arrived, one short and skinny, the other big and barrel-chested. I thought they looked a bit like Laurel and Hardy. They're both physicists, and Jonsey is a chemical engineer.

The guys were all in shorts and collared shirts, either polo or button-down with the sleeves rolled up. I was glad I had chosen the same thing, blue shorts and a pink polo. I didn't want to pretend I wasn't a girl, but I didn't want to look too out of place either.

Jonsey drove to a bar just off campus, and we found a booth in the back. I paid for the first round since I was the new girl in the crowd, and I started to relax. None of the guys seemed bothered by my invasion, so why should I worry about it?

Pool was amusing. All five of us could do the calculations for even the most complicated shots without blinking, but only David and Craig had the coordination to pull them off. I acquitted myself rather well in the first couple of games against Guillermo and Jonsey, but Craig wiped the floor with me when his turn came up. I went to the bathroom.

When I came back, I found the guys arguing.

"We need you to break a tie," Jonsey said. "Who's hotter, the blonde in the corner, or the redhead at the bar?"

I looked at all four of them, and I could tell they were serious, in that guys drinking in a bar kind of way. I also knew better than to just choose one of the two of women. These were all very smart guys, despite their current behavior, and if I was going to fit in, I had to show them I could think for myself.

"Her," I said, pointing across the room to an absolutely gorgeous woman just as she turned to talk to the guy sitting next to her, laughing and running her hand through her long raven hair. The guys all turned their heads in unison, and their mouths dropped open.

"Okay," Craig said after a very long pause. "Allison's right. Definitely hotter than either of the other two." At that point, the little, lingering discomfort I felt about hanging out with them vanished.

The rest of the evening went by in a flash. Craig beat David twice in a row at the pool table and declared victory. We ate some bar food - I think I remember potato skins - and talked. The conversation bounced around at light speed, from Lyndon Johnson to space elevators to how hard it was to get an NSF grant these days. I felt right at home.

There was also more guy conversation about the women in the bar, and in our lives, and I was surprised at how easily I joined in. The guys sometimes let their dicks do the talking, like guys everywhere, but underneath the hard male exterior, they were basically decent men. I didn't hear anything I would have minded being said about me, though I might have chosen different language.

To these guys, women were, first and foremost, actual human beings. Some of them, though, were also wondrous, magical creatures that made their heads go a little fuzzy, something I could totally understand. Their admiration was spread broadly, from the obviously hot girls they noticed earlier to the tall, muscular, ebony woman behind the bar and the short, plump fiftyish woman sitting in the corner, whose tight curls formed an airy auburn cloud around her strangely pretty face. I had a fairly cynical view of men and their ideas about women before I went out with the guys, and I was very happy to be proven wrong. They weren't really any different from me.

Craig and David played a final round of pool before we went home. David won, and I cheered a little inside.

"Thanks for inviting me," I said when Jonsey dropped me off at my apartment afterwards.

"Glad you came," he said, smiling.

Walking in my front door, I smiled to myself. Between Maggie, Julie, Melissa, and now these guys, I had a group of friends like I hadn't really had since college. Grad school was great, but it was a pretty solitary existence, except for the brief interlude with Xiaomei. It was good to feel like I fit in again.

And then I thought about David, and how I fit into his life. Since Melanie left, I had filled most of the hole she had left behind, but what was I to him, really? Once I had proven myself in the lab, I had always been an equal partner, despite my precarious status as a post-doc. Outside work, I had become one of the guys, the one with whom he spent most of his time. Maybe even his best friend, at least for a while. But there was also this other side to how he treated me, sweet and a little protective. He walked me to my car at night when I worked late, helped me install my ceiling fans, brought me chai. And of course he took me out and made me feel better after Cate left. It felt kind of like he had adopted me as his little sister.

Whatever I was to him, it was nice. I had a real best friend again, for the first time since Anne.

~~~

The last Monday morning in July, I sat down at my desk and opened the envelope I had found pushed under the door of my apartment. I expected it was probably about HVAC maintenance or something. I skimmed over it, not really paying attention, until I realized what it was really about.