Love by the Numbers

by Karin Kallmaker

  “But you wrote that book, which I read, by the way. I loved the case studies, they were like short stories about real people who figured out how to be happy.”

  “I remember now,” Watty said. “DNA seems more reliable than astrology. Though Carleen couldn’t be more of an Aries if she tried.”

  “I should hope my research is more grounded in science than astrology.”

  “I like astrology because it feels right,” Carleen said.

  “That’s called intuitive validation.”

  “Right.” Carleen looked as if she were trying to add large sums in her head.

  The band switched to an even higher energy song she didn’t recognize and she wondered what Lily would make of it. She glanced at her watch. Given the maze to get back to the boulevard from where they were, she thought she probably ought to make a start to the agreed upon meeting point with Lily. Not that she was running away from more revelations or two pleasant women who called her “Cole” and saw her without the protective layers of degrees, research and awards Dr. Nicole Hathaway had worked so hard to procure. Not running away—she was keeping to a schedule, that was all.

  She stayed through one more number, and when the show stopped to allow bands to change, she took a friendly leave and wished them a fun evening. When she finally reached the boulevard and spotted Lily’s bright peacock-feather patterned sweater she felt a wave of relief. She quickly re-donned her shoes and felt more like herself.

  “It was great, Cole,” Lily called as soon as they were in comfortable earshot. “You should have come with me.”

  “The beach is an education,” she allowed. She wished she had told Lily to keep calling her Nicole. It would have helped.

  Lily brushed her wind-knotted hair out of her eyes. “How did it feel to walk in the surf?”

  “I didn’t do that.”

  Lily’s eyebrows shot up.

  “No one was doing it, so I presumed it wasn’t the time or place.”

  “Oh.” She blinked her green eyes, which, in Nicole’s opinion, were altogether a more pleasant shade of green than the ocean. “Are you hungry? Shall we try out the pasty shop? Or there’s a tearoom around the corner that didn’t look very crowded. Most people are on the beach, I suppose.”

  “How about the tea shop? Especially if there’s a restroom.”

  “Loo, remember?” Lily corrected. “I will certainly be happy to visit the loo. This wind is getting to be something else. If I got an umbrella maybe I could be Mary Poppins!”

  Lily danced on tiptoe ahead of her, feigning holding an umbrella as the wind buffeted them both. She looked joyous and at ease, while all Nicole wanted to do was close her eyes and cover her ears. Maybe, she thought desperately, the confusion and uncertainty was the predictable and simple outcome of her introverted nature being hyperstimulated.

  Yes, she thought, that explained everything.

  Chapter Seven

  “You don’t have to come with me to the tea with my cousins. It will be very dull. You could stay here, then meet me at the station.” Nicole turned from her study of a highly romantic Georgian painting of young never-to-be-queen Charlotte with a Belgian king. She hoped Lily did join them but it seemed only polite to give her the chance to decline.

  “I love the setting of an opera box. It’s very innocent, somehow.” Lily’s head was tipped to the side as she also studied the work. “I don’t mind. But be honest, do you want me to be there? I won’t be offended if you say no.”

  “I would be happy if you were. I don’t know them at all, and if you were to imply we had to be someplace after a proper amount of time has elapsed, even if it’s not time yet to leave for the station…”

  “Say no more. I take your meaning, guv’nah.” Lily winked. “We have to leave by three fifteen at the latest. Three would be better.”

  “Which is only an hour for tea.” She glanced at the vaulted ceiling of the National Portrait Gallery, replaced after the original was destroyed by bombs in World War II. She admired that time and care had been taken to carve and paint it like the original but using a lighter, more mildew resistant wood. Sentiment tempered with practicality—it was clear that the New England sensibilities she had grown up with had not drifted that far from their British roots.

  In spite of the fact that she found the portraits fascinating she fought a yawn. After dinner in Brighton they’d wandered the booths again and sat listening to the headline acts. Lily hadn’t seemed at all uncomfortable in the very lesbian crowd but Nicole hadn’t been able to relax. She wasn’t ready to see or be seen. It wasn’t a decision she’d come on this trip to make and she was grateful Lily spoke only of the music.

  They had just missed one train for London and didn’t reach the hotel until after one. She hadn’t slept well again, and rising early for the radio program hadn’t been easy. She didn’t want to waste time meeting Rajesh and Priya but her mother would be very disappointed if she bowed out. “We can spend another ten minutes here, can’t we?”

  Lily gave her an indulgent smile. “Nine minutes, and then I get out my whip.”

  After a few more minutes, and admitting that there was simply not enough time to even peek at the collection that focused on Victoria, they left the gallery and Lily led the way. At the tea shop, with a quaint The Trafalgar Rose Tea Room – Scones & Crumpets sign over the door, Nicole paused at the reception, but a very slender Indian man, no more than thirty, enthusiastically waved to her from a nearby table.

  “You’re Nicole,” he said as he rose. “I recognized you from your picture. I am Rajesh Ansari. This is my sister Priya.”

  A fine-boned woman, perhaps three or four years younger than Rajesh, rose to shake her hand. Nicole introduced Lily, who immediately murmured, “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  Rajesh helped both of them into their chairs, and Lily filled the awkward pause with an observation about the much cooler weather of the day than yesterday. Nicole was glad to be spared a response of much more than a nod and a smile.

  When the waitress stopped to take their order, Rajesh demurred to Nicole. “My American cousin will decide.”

  “I think we want to have a traditional tea,” Nicole said. “When in Rome…”

  “As long as that means strawberry jam and clotted cream with scones or Sally Lund bread,” Lily added brightly. She batted her eyelashes at the server, who laughed.

  “It sure does, love.”

  Lily grinned back. “It’s been a while since I’ve had it.”

  “That so?” The server tapped her pen on her tablet and gave Lily what Nicole thought was a rather cheeky smile. “Then I’ll have to make sure it’s good, won’t I?”

  “I’m easy to please.”

  Rajesh laughed as if Lily had told the most amazing joke and Nicole realized she was watching yet another man fall under the spell of the wide smile and dancing eyes. It was tediously predictable at this point. She had an irrational urge to tell Rajesh to put his eyes back in his head.

  Merriment subsided, Rajesh gestured at Priya. “My sister is studying at Dickson Poon.”

  Nicole wondered if that was a school where they taught women not to speak unless their brother said it was allowed. “What subject are you studying, Priya?”

  “Law,” Rajesh said before Priya could answer. “Lily, have you graduated from college? You’re…twenty-four? Twenty-five?”

  “Thereabouts.”

  “Rajesh,” Priya admonished. Apparently not the model of decorum, she poked him with the butter knife. “You’re asking a lady her age. That’s rude.”

  “Forgive my curiosity.”

  “There’s nothing to forgive.” Lily’s smile was exceedingly pleasant without giving away any emotional cues. Nicole decided she didn’t like it much.

  The waitress delivered their teapot and set out delicate china cups.

  “I was indeed being curious, Priya is right.”

  Lily’s smile softened as she glanced at the waitress. “Will all the crusts be cu
t off our sandwiches?”

  “Of course.” The waitress gave Lily a steady look. “Any other requests? I’m very flexible.”

  “That will work for me, but thank you for the offer.”

  Nicole tore her gaze away from the sparkle in Lily’s eyes. “Are you specializing in any kind of law, Priya?”

  “She had some idea of working in immigration, but there’s no money in that,” Rajesh said.

  Nicole kept her gaze on Priya, waiting for an answer.

  Priya rolled her eyes at her brother. “Immigration is definitely my field. I am concerned with issues of social justice.”

  “What do you hope to achieve after your studies?” Nicole asked. She was aware that Rajesh had asked Lily another question but she ignored it. Priya was turning out to be an interesting conversationalist, and she didn’t need to watch Lily make another conquest to know that it had happened.

  * * *

  Ensconced in adjoining seats in the comfortable “quiet” car of their train, they were thirty minutes out of London before Lily asked, “Are all the men in your family like that?”

  “I haven’t met them all.” Nicole glanced over at Lily. “I’m sure there are some that aren’t. I believe he is what some of my students would call an ‘asshat.’”

  Lily laughed. “I’m not surprised he’s unmarried. He won’t find many modern women who want to be talked over and so obviously measured for suitability as a wife.”

  The parting had been amusing, with Lily adroitly sidestepping an exchange of e-mail addresses due to their uncertain, uncharted and unknown travel plans. Nicole was certain Priya had known it was a smokescreen, but Rajesh had seemed oblivious. Even the server had been watching with a wry smile. Nicole had caught her rolling her eyes at Lily, who’d winked back.

  She went back to the paperwork she’d spread out on the narrow table bolted to the floor in front of their seats. The train was far more comfortable than an airplane. But before she could pick up the threads of the report, Lily spoke.

  “May I make an observation about the presentations you’ve been making?”

  Nicole raised an eyebrow. “You seem trepidacious.”

  “I’m not sure what I’m going to say will go over well.”

  “I’m out of practice at receiving feedback,” Nicole said. “The hazards of tenure. But go ahead. I’m listening.”

  Lily was clearly choosing her words with care. “The first few minutes of your talk you spend explaining what your book isn’t, what your study doesn’t prove and what your audience won’t learn from it. It seems—a bit—defensive. Isn’t there a way to turn all those statements to positives?”

  Nicole ran over the first paragraph of her lecture in her mind. It was common practice to let students know the parameter of the day’s subject discussion at the outset.

  “The women there aren’t in class, after all. They are there by choice, taking time from their day, because they want answers. And you might have them.”

  “Point taken,” Nicole said. More slowly she added, “You’re quite right. I was thinking of it as an academic lecture.”

  “Some of the events are definitely going to have some students. Tomorrow at the university in Edinburgh for certain. But bookshops and book clubs will be far more casual and what the audience wants is more specific.”

  “Such as? My findings only address the probable term and success of relationships with certain hallmarks, based on extrapolated data. It won’t tell them how to establish a relationship.”

  “Any more than a diet book guarantees losing weight. But I think women read to give themselves choices. Dreams. When it comes to love, they’re looking for hope.”

  “Now you’ve lost me. The last thing I want is someone using research to build constructs that aren’t real.”

  Lily leaned toward her. The green light in her eyes was so gentle that Nicole missed the first few words.

  “…Page one-fifty or so. It’s the case study about the interracial couple that’s in the part of the book that deals with whether race and its genetic markers have bearing on relationship success.”

  “I couldn’t find evidence that they do. You really did read the book?”

  Lily nodded. “I finished it last night after we got back from Brighton. You don’t feel that a person’s race has bearing on whether they can have successful relationships.”

  “My feelings are irrelevant.” Nicole had probably said that sentence a hundred times in her career to students, even other faculty, and now to Lily. “The data plainly says that race is not a factor. We had a good sampling across most races as well as many mixed race participants and interracial relationships.”

  Lily nodded. “You found that people in interracial relationships were no more or less likely to succeed—be happy—than people who weren’t. So when I read that case study what I took from it is that if I am looking to find a mate, there is no reason to narrow the field because I think I might be happier with someone of the same skin color or racial background. There may be unique social pressures, but contrary to social myth, your research says they aren’t going to be any more destructive than whatever pressures I might get if I stay with choices within my race.” She stopped.

  “Go on.” She wondered why Lily was restating one of the book’s core hypotheses.

  “You’re frowning.”

  “I am? I’m sorry, I’m thinking. Go on.” She forced her expression to relax.

  “If that is true, then if I’m a woman looking to find a life mate, my possible pool just increased multifold. And that gives me hope. It says that it’s actually a good idea to look outside my usual paths of life. Go further afield. Open my eyes to parts of the world I’d ignored.”

  Nicole blinked.

  “Have I drawn an incorrect conclusion?”

  “No.”

  “You look…startled.”

  “I am.”

  “So,” Lily concluded, “I’m not sure that your statement that the book won’t help women find a life mate is…fully accurate.”

  A clatter in the aisle jolted Nicole out of her surprised silence.

  “Would you two ladies like something from the trolley?” A plump middle-aged woman paused next to them, her cart laden with snack food.

  “Oh! I’ll have a packet of chocolate McVitie’s,” Lily said promptly. “And tea with milk.”

  “Tea for me as well,” Nicole said automatically. Her mind was spinning.

  Lily opened her packet of what turned out to be thin whole-wheat cookie sandwiches with chocolate inside. Lily dipped hers in the tea before taking a bite. She said in a crumb-thickened voice, “They’re good. Want one?”

  “No thank you. Are you saying that I ought to frame my speeches to the general audience in those terms?”

  Lily finished chewing and swallowed. One corner of her mouth was streaked with chocolate until she licked it away. “I’m saying that if you consider the good news it might make the bad news more palatable.”

  Nicole watched, fascinated, as Lily dunked the cookie and took another huge bite. The sound she made was positively lustful. “Can’t get those at home?”

  “Only in ghastly expensive import stores. I’d forgotten how yummy they are until I saw them on the cart.”

  “Have you been living on a desert island? You seem starved for experience.”

  Lily froze and a dark flush crept up her throat. After a long silence, she said, “Do I?”

  Surprised and intrigued by the reaction, Nicole nevertheless felt that she’d intruded. “That was an overly personal observation. Have I upset you?”

  “No.” The denial was automatic. “I didn’t realize I gave out that kind of vibe.”

  “Perhaps I have mischaracterized it. I only note that sometimes you are the epitome of the superego and others the epitome of the id.”

  “Freud? Really, Dr. Hathaway.” The flush receded. “Are you changing the subject? We were talking about the opening of your speech.”

  “I’m gi
ving your comments a lot of thought.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Aware that it was Lily who was changing the subject, Nicole decided to go along with it. “I’m capable of thinking and talking at the same time.”

  “I should hope so.” Lily finished the second cookie and wiped her fingers on a napkin. “I just think a more positive beginning, followed by the necessary caveats and cautions, will keep your audience with you longer.”

  “I agree.” Nicole glanced at the work she had spread out on the table. She knew she should return to it. These hours should be productive. She put down her pen and leaned back in the seat. “As a scientist I’m wary of practical applications. The desire to find one can lead to bias.”

  “Isn’t the reverse true? The desire to remain purely in pursuit of knowledge for the sake of the knowledge might lead to a bias against obvious practical applications.”

  “It’s probable. However, the funding pressure to seek knowledge only when there are practical applications—space research, for example, only if it cures a disease somehow—is so strong that a bias in resistance to that pressure will help keep the research in balance.”

  Lily’s brow was furrowed. “So why did you start the research for Love by the Numbers?”

  “It was an outgrowth of a different study on genetic mutations and autism. We had gathered DNA profiles for a wide study, looking for a pattern of mutation and a possible common event that might have caused that mutation—nuclear detonations, vaccine releases, and so forth—and were unable to find compelling loci that called for further study. Colleagues went another direction and are working on an examination of comparative toxin levels in air and water and overlaying it with the rise in reported autism. They will be another three years before they can make conclusions. We had digitized all that DNA data—”

  “And you thought you’d just see what you could discover with it?”

  “My specialty is the intersection of neurobiology—how our body/brain chemistry works—and biopsychology—why our brain and body chemistry affect our behavior. I’m particularly fascinated by the apparent disconnect between a stimulus and a predictable response.”