Prizes

by Erich Segal

  Toni converted one of the smaller bedrooms into an office for herself, hooking up a computer not only to the firm’s mainframe and to Lexis, the database of the legal profession, but to her father as well.

  Adam concentrated on making the garden a child’s paradise. The old oak in the back had its thick sturdy arms outstretched enough to attach a swing, and in a rare display of practical craftsmanship, Adam actually succeeded in building a climbing frame.

  These facilities he correctly calculated would immensely enhance his daughter’s social life, for the neighboring children were immediately attracted by the play area.

  From the moment Heather was born, Adam had sworn an inner oath that he would never take her for granted. And to be sure that her world was circumscribed with love, he would make a point of coming home for dinner every night, then reading a good-night story—or two or three.

  When Heather was at last comfortably asleep, he would return to the lab for peaceful, unhassled, scientific quality time.

  His research was soon earning not only professional recognition, but also the coveted prizes that would normally accrue to his gray-haired seniors. And all that glittered very often was gold. Even relatively minor prizes carried with them rewards in the $25,000 to $50,000 category. And these honors created a momentum of their own.

  One evening at dinner, Lisl predicted that Adam was advancing so swiftly, it would not be more than three years before he received the Lasker Award.

  “Isn’t that pretty much the stepping-stone to Stockholm?” Toni asked with uncharacteristic interest.

  “Yes,” Lisl answered. “The prize after that comes with a handshake from the King of Sweden.”

  “And a cool million dollars,” Toni added.

  “Not so fast, honey,” Adam admonished her jocularly. “That’s only if I don’t have to share it.”

  “That’s okay, I wouldn’t object,” Toni said. “It would still give us enough to buy the house we rented on the Cape this summer.”

  “From the pictures, it looks divine,” Lisl remarked. “Did Heather like it?”

  “Absolutely adored it,” Adam replied. “She and I got up every morning, packed sandwiches, took a long walk down the beach and had a picnic, with only sea gulls for company.”

  Lisl sighed. “That sounds idyllic.”

  “Except that Heather’s going to have a hell of a time finding a husband to match her father,” Toni commented. “In fact, I sometimes feel jealous. Every woman in the world seems to want him for something. The minute they came back from their walk, Adam was on the phone for hours with patients all over the country in various stages of pregnancy.”

  “Shame on you,” Lisl scolded. “Are you becoming a workaholic?”

  “That’s a fine one, coming from Max Rudolph’s wife,” Adam chided. He had never been able to say the word “widow.” “Did Max ever go anywhere that wasn’t within driving distance of the lab?”

  “Listen,” Toni said, “when it comes to workaholics, nobody in this room can throw the first stone. In fact I have to disappear upstairs to bone up for this damn deposition tomorrow morning. Would you excuse me, Lisl?”

  “Of course, dear.”

  Although this was not the first time his wife had retreated to her office, Adam was uncomfortable, especially considering the guest Toni had abandoned.

  He looked apologetically at his guest.

  “That’s okay,” Lisl said, patting his hand. “I have a tendency to be a nudge.”

  “Come on, you know that’s not true,” Adam objected, and then added sotto voce, “Lately, I think I’ve been getting on her nerves myself.”

  “I’m afraid nothing in Boston can match what Toni had in Washington,” Lisl observed. “And she’s probably feeling professionally nostalgic.”

  “I’d say resentful is more like it,” Adam asserted, instantly regretting having been so candid, even with such a good friend.

  “Does she still speak to her father so often?”

  “Not really,” Adam answered dryly. “I mean, rarely more than two or three times a day.”

  “Oh, that doesn’t sound ideal. But in any case, she should never let her … attachment … affect her parenting,” Lisl insisted.

  “You tell her that,” Adam remarked with frustration. “The problem is that Heather’s too bright for her own good. I’m sure she can tell that her mother’s just going through the motions.”

  “Well, if it’s a consolation, I honestly don’t think Toni would be any different if you lived in Washington.”

  Adam put his head in his hands. “Damn,” he murmured. “How could I have known when we were getting involved that she had an allergy to motherhood?” It hurt him to say it.

  “Darling, you were madly in love. Would anything have dissuaded you?” Lisl said lovingly, trying to soothe his conscience.

  He pondered for a moment and answered, “Frankly, yes.” Then added, “Meanwhile, I’m trying to work fewer hours at the lab, just so I can compensate for some of her parental shortcomings.”

  “That’s good for Heather,” Lisl said approvingly, “but it’s also unfair to you. After all, as I well know, research can’t be a nine-to-five job.”

  “You know something?” he commented. “That’s exactly what Toni tells me about her law practice.”

  Lisl hesitated for a moment and then ventured, “So it’s not just Heather who’s getting short shrift. May I ask a very nosy question?”

  “I’ve got no secrets from you.”

  “Has she mentioned boarding school?”

  “That’s out of the question, Lisl. I mean, you don’t bring children into the world and then farm them out and expect them to show up on your doorstep as well-adjusted adults—ready to go off again to college. After all, look what living at school did to Toni.”

  “How much of this does Heather sense?”

  “Well,” Adam responded, “I’d say she’s got a good idea of where she stands in her mother’s priorities.”

  “Then I’m going to shake you with a bit of radical advice,” Lisl said, rising to get her coat. “In your case, boarding school might be Heather’s salvation.”

  “No,” Adam protested. “I couldn’t bear that.”

  It was nearly nine o’clock in the evening. The Indian summer heat had been so intense that the asphalt still felt like melting licorice beneath the feet of the pedestrians crossing Longwood Avenue.

  Adam had left the lab and was walking toward his car when, out of the corner of his eye, he spied what he thought was a familiar figure. A young woman was standing by the curb, right hand covering her face, her body shaking.

  As he drew nearer he recognized Anya Avilov, the unfortunate Russian to whom he had given such bad news several months earlier.

  “Anya, is something the matter?” he asked.

  She looked up, startled, her face wet with tears. “Oh, Dr. Coopersmith. Is nothing,” she replied unconvincingly.

  “Please tell me what’s wrong. Come on, I’ll buy you a drink and we can chat.”

  “No, I am all right,” she again protested. “Besides, you have more urgent things to do.”

  Before she could object further, he took her by the arm and swept her toward the coffee shop at the motel next to Children’s Hospital.

  Adam ordered a beer for himself. But at that moment it was all he could do to convince Anya that she was worthy of a cup of coffee.

  His attempts at small talk were in vain. He could elicit only monosyllables to banal questions, like how was she adjusting to life in Boston, or the progress she was making with her English lessons. She answered with polite platitudes.

  “And how is Dmitri?”

  She shrugged. “I suppose he is all right.”

  “Suppose?”

  “He has left me,” she said abruptly, yet still trying to sound nonchalant.

  Adam was tempted to say, Good riddance, he was unworthy of you. But he kept his counsel and let her thoughts cascade.

  “He ha
s found, so to say, a better deal.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, he has fallen in love and moved in with a woman.”

  I knew it, Adam thought. He had sensed that day in the office that Dmitri was on his way out of her life. “And you’re all on your own?”

  She could only nod.

  “How do you live? I mean, pay the bills and that sort of thing?”

  “He gives me money. And besides, I still work in his laboratory.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “Not long after we saw you.”

  “I wish you had gotten in contact with me, I would have—”

  “There was no professional reason,” she said self-consciously. “Anyway, I was managing to cope.” She paused, and then continued, “Yet, it was easier to accept the idea of a woman I did not know. But just now I actually saw them walking arm in arm across the street. I cannot honestly say they are an attractive couple.”

  “Well, she can’t possibly be as beautiful as you,” Adam offered, hoping to reassure her.

  “No,” she explained mischievously, “she is pretty enough. It is he who makes any couple unappealing. I wish I had been wearing my glasses when he asked me to marry him.”

  Adam laughed. “Well, at least your sense of humor’s intact,” he said.

  “It would have to be,” she answered pointedly. “The woman is pregnant.”

  Adam was stunned. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, that was one of the first things he told me. I think he wanted to punish me.”

  “What a bastard! Too bad you have to see him every day.”

  “That was one reason I think he informed me. I am sure he would be more comfortable if I found another job.”

  “I agree.”

  She gazed at him and gestured hopelessly. “But I have not yet qualified, where could I go?”

  “I have a lab,” he replied impulsively. “I wouldn’t ask you for a diploma.”

  “That is very kind,” she answered. “You are such a good man, Dr. Coopersmith. So I will tell you what a nasty person I really am. I want desperately to hurt him for what he did. And I do. Now he comes in every morning and has to look me straight in the face. And begin the day with an upset stomach.”

  “Frankly, if I saw you first thing in the morning, it would make my day.”

  She blushed. “You flatter me, Doctor.”

  “First of all, I want you to call me Adam,” he countered. “And secondly, I’m not flattering you. And third of all, I want you to take my offer seriously. I mean, take all the time you want, but promise me you will at least think about it.”

  She smiled. “I promise.”

  “Good. I’m flying to a conference in San Francisco tomorrow morning, but I’ll try to call you to make sure you’re all right.”

  19

  ISABEL

  Muriel’s outward calm belied her inner turbulence. Her apparent serenity was in great measure due to the strong tranquilizers prescribed by the therapist she had been seeing. To safeguard any future relationship with Isabel, it was best that in the short term she seem to be in agreement with the revised plans. Though she deeply resented Ray’s perfidy, a pitched battle would only make things worse. For it was abundantly clear that however strongly she held on, Ray would only pull harder. And Isabel would inevitably be torn to pieces.

  Without emotion she wished Ray a safe journey. It was only when she embraced her daughter that she could not hold back the tears. Peter bit his lip as he in turn hugged his sister, then tried not to reveal his intense loathing as he perfunctorily shook hands with the man who had refused to be his father.

  Isabel napped as Ray drove demonically through the night. He was intent on lifting her mood by reaching San Francisco at the magical moment when dawn and darkness met, driving further north than necessary so that they could turn onto Route 80, along the eastern side of the bay, and contemplate the first rays of the morning sun beaming over the Berkeley Hills and illuminating the Golden Gate bridge in the distance. The side lamps of the majestic span still burned as the first beams of sunlight brushed the cables strung between the huge arches, making them glow like the filaments of a giant light bulb.

  “Ah,” he remarked, “home sweet home.”

  Isabel pretended to be asleep. But in her heart she still thought of the house they had left behind as her “home.”

  When they reached their apartment on Piedmont Avenue, Raymond had to push open the door, since the floor inside was piled high with mail.

  “Anything for me?” she asked hopefully. As a rule, Isabel never received letters at the apartment, since Ray had arranged with the University to withhold all personal information, including their address and phone number. Any correspondence that came for her was directed to the Physics Department. It consisted mostly of requests for autographs.

  It all embarrassed her. Isabel did not want to be treated like a pop star. Nor did she relish the notion of being held up as a shining example to female children.

  Raymond was busy tearing open envelopes, grumbling to himself, “I can’t believe this electric bill, you’d think we were running Cape Canaveral in here.”

  And then he noticed it. “This is your lucky day, Isabel. There’s actually something for you.” He felt comfortable passing the letter on to her since he had already seen that its provenance was the Physics Department.

  She opened the envelope, stared at the card inside for a moment, and then smiled broadly.

  “Hey, this is really neat. Karl’s invited me—I mean us—to a party.”

  “Who’ll be there?” her father inquired, suspicion immediately surfacing.

  “Oh, just physics types,” Isabel replied. “For some reason most of them are loners. It comes with the territory, I guess, since they live so much inside their own heads. But Karl sweeps them out of the lab one day a year to get some fresh air.”

  “That sounds very hospitable.” Raymond averred, knowing from his own experience that his daughter was right. But it was not really Isabel he worried about, but himself—concerned with the disquieting possibility that he might not be able to hold his own in conversation.

  But at least it would give him a chance to size up this Pracht fellow.

  The professor’s home was, appropriately enough, on Panoramic Way in the Berkeley Hills, straight above the university and in the area to the east of the Cyclotron and the Bevetron, a high-energy, multibillion-volt proton accelerator. It was definitely an up-market neighborhood, its lavish homes giving architectural testimony to the fact that their owners were the most highly prized, and therefore most highly priced, members of the Berkeley science faculties. Raymond looked around him with satisfaction. It was common knowledge that MIT had been wooing Pracht with a lucrative offer which Berkeley, a state university, could not possibly match. Judging from his house, the professor liked to live well; maybe he would, in fact, be lured to Boston.

  Karl Pracht himself answered the door. He was lean and stoop-shouldered, with a prematurely receding hair-line, and was undeniably attractive, especially when he smiled. Raymond disliked him instantly.

  Pracht welcomed Isabel warmly and introduced himself to her father. “Glad you could come, Mr. da Costa.”

  Feeling defensive, Raymond interpreted this greeting as a bit of subtle irony, criticizing his constant presence as Isabel’s shadow.

  “Come out into the back garden,” Pracht continued. “Isabel can introduce you to just about everybody. But I warn you, they’re not all as bubbly as your daughter. It takes two or three drinks to make them let down their hair.”

  As they walked through the back of the house, Raymond glanced at the guests’ faces. This was an ideal opportunity to check out the cast of characters Isabel worked with during her labs, where he could not find a plausible excuse for being present.

  It was a typical Berkeley summer evening, just cool and refreshing enough so that most of the guests wore sweaters—at least tied around their necks.

  He w
as not surprised to find that most of them were male. The few women present, wives of the graduate students, were especially thrilled at the sight of Isabel, the departmental celebrity.

  The young scientists were indeed, as Ray whispered to her, “all cut from the same cloth”—Isabel had smiled and quipped, “Yes, wet blankets.” It was no wonder she shone like a Roman candle in their midst.

  They greeted Raymond with a respect he had not anticipated. His confidence returned until a sudden thought struck him. He whispered to his daughter, “Isn’t there a Mrs. Pracht?”

  “There is, yes, but they’re in the process of splitting.”

  “Oh,” Raymond said. Paradoxically, even though he himself was divorcing, he counted Pracht’s dubious marital status as a point against him.

  Raymond felt more at ease with the professors than with the graduate students. While the junior physicists were so involved with their doctoral projects that they could speak of nothing else, the senior guests were happy to take a night off from talking shop. They preferred gossip … like who might get the Nobel this year.

  Two young boys, roughly sixteen and thirteen respectively, were grilling vegetarian hot dogs and burgers when father and daughter reached them with their empty plates. The elder chef, sinewy and bronzed, greeted Isabel jauntily.

  “Hey, you must be Ms. Einstein.”

  Ray frowned. “Come on, Isabel,” he chided her with surly impatience. “We’re holding up the line.”

  “On the contrary,” the boy dissented. “I’m holding it up so I can get acquainted with God’s gift to physics and—regardless of age and mental capacity—the cutest thing to happen in science since the apple that hit Newton on the head.”

  “Just who do you think you’re talking to?” Ray demanded.

  “Have I caused offense in some way, Mr. da Costa—or is it ‘Doctor’? I know you’re in the game too.”

  Raymond took this to be a not-too-subtle put-down. Surely everyone in the department knew he had no doctorate, and this young upstart was deliberately trying to humiliate him.