"Yeah, of course I'm sure. Platinum and silver don't really look alike at all. Silver is much shinier and more reflective."
"It's gonna take me a long while to get used to being in this family," Ryan said, a wry smirk on her face. "I got a club sandwich from my father, and this from Catherine."
"Well, no matter what it cost, it looks gorgeous on you," Mia said. "It fits your style and your personality. You'd look goofy with some delicate little chain."
"That's what I like best about it," Ryan admitted. "Catherine obviously put a lot of thought into this to tailor it to me. That's the cool part."
"I'll take the pound of platinum, you can have the sentiment," Mia offered.
Ryan had to tickle Mia mercilessly to get the necklace back, but she finally had it, and the card, in her hot little hands. She sat down on a kitchen chair to read the handwritten card.
Dear Ryan,
Please forgive me for breaking the O'Flaherty rules, but I simply had to buy you something to commemorate your birth.
I know this was an unintended consequence, but your love for my daughter has allowed me to experience a re-birth this year. I fear that I would not have come out of my emotional torpor if it had not been for you, and I want you to know that I am forever grateful for that gift.
Being with you both, and being allowed to be an honorary member of your family, has permitted me to see what a real family can be. I am going to spend the rest of my life trying to live up to the example that your clan so beautifully models.
Knowing you has been a wonderful experience for me, Ryan, and I hope you will think of my regard for you when you wear this necklace.
With love and affection,
Catherine
Ryan brushed the tears from her eyes as she read the note at least six more times. She is so precious, she thought fondly. So much like Jamie. Like a beautiful pearl just waiting for someone to help open her shell. I hope to God that Jim can wake up and see what he has right in front of him!
"Hi, hon," Ryan said on Tuesday night when she came in from practice. "You look thoughtful. What's going on?"
"I just spoke with Jennie," Jamie said, an uncharacteristic listlessness to her words.
"How is she?" Ryan sat down next to her partner and placed a hand on her thigh. "Is everything all right?"
Jamie shook her head and tried to put a name to the discomfort she was feeling. "She says they're sending her to live with her father."
"Oh, shit!" Ryan sank back against the cushions and ran her hands through her hair in frustration. "That's so not going to work."
"I got that impression too, honey. But I can't put my finger on why I feel that way." She cocked her head and added, "Jennie sounded pretty happy about it."
Ryan sighed and said, "She adores her father, and I'm sure she believes that things can work out. But he hasn't gone out of his way to see her in over a year, babe. No loving father abandons his child for that long."
"Oh, Ryan, what are we going to do? She seems happy at the group home. Why won't they just let her stay there?"
Sighing heavily, Ryan shook her head, then let it drop back onto the back of the sofa. "I guess they have their reasons. In Jennie's case, there's no obvious choice of a permanent placement, so I guess I see that they want to give the birth parents a chance. I'll be amazed if this works, though."
"She sounded funny," Jamie revealed. "I'm not sure what it was-but she was giving off a vibe that just didn't match her words."
"When is she leaving?" Ryan asked.
"Tomorrow night. Apparently her father is being deployed at sea for six months starting Monday, and they want to give them a few days together to bond."
"Did you make dinner?" Ryan asked.
"Oh! Damn, I was so preoccupied I forgot to start it."
"Skip it," Ryan said. "Let's call Jen and see if she can go out with us. I want to give her a pep talk before she leaves." Ryan stood and started to remove her jacket, then walked up the stairs, mumbling to herself, "They wonder why she doesn't do well in school. She's eight weeks into the term, and she's changed schools twice. Can't anyone buy a clue?" As she rounded the stairs to go into the bedroom, Jamie heard her final grumbled comment. "I still don't have my damn drums set up!"
Jennie had an early curfew and couldn't go out with them, so Ryan decided to get in a little work on their stock portfolios even though she would have preferred to set up her drums. But Jamie had to make a weekly report on her progress, and since Ryan kept the books, her preliminary work was required. Jamie had caught up a little, showing good progress, but Ryan was still confident that she'd prevail. Jamie came up behind her and observed her for a minute, saying, "You took a beating on that big block of General Motors, didn't you, babe?"
"Yep, sure did. I have confidence, though. I'm not going to change my position until they have two disappointing quarters in a row. I think this is just a momentary blip."
"Ooo…I did well," she said, very pleased with the numbers that Ryan was scrolling through.
"You sure did," the dark woman said. "You're starting to catch up, Sparky."
"Where are we?" she asked, trying to see the totals for both portfolios.
"I'm at $967,000, and you're at $725,000. I think we're both doing great."
"I'd say so," Jamie laughed.
"Thank God this is a game. If this were real, I'd be in front of the computer all day."
"Just what you need," Jamie scoffed. "Another fixation!"
"One is quite enough," Ryan agreed, tipping her head up to be able to look into her partner's eyes. "And you're it."
"Hmm…that's interesting," Jamie commented, trying to see as much as she could before Ryan scrolled past her own holdings.
"What's that?"
"I'm surprised to see you loading up on 3com. Do you know something?"
Ryan turned and gave her a dazzling smile, blue eyes filled with delight. "I know plenty--but I don't share." With that, she turned back to the screen, stifling a giggle.
"Come on," Jamie moaned dramatically. "Give me a little break! I'm doing this for a grade, Ryan."
The dark head turned slowly as the contemplative eyes traveled up and down Jamie's body. "What's it worth to you?"
Eyes wide, Jamie considered how she could entice her reluctant partner to share her thoughts. A smirk settled onto her face, and she leaned over and whispered into Ryan's ear.
Shaking her head, the amused woman turned her seat around fully, gazing at Jamie with fond regard. "I don't know why I find this so adorable, but I love the fact that you can't even say things like that aloud. You sure don't seem to have a problem doing them," she chuckled, "just talking about them."
The blonde shrugged her shoulders and wrinkled up her nose, unable to explain her quirks.
"Okay," Ryan decided. "Even though I'm sure I could convince you to commit that act without giving you a stock tip, I'll spill it." She turned back to her computer and went to another screen. "Okay, here's 3com's history over the past 18 months. See what the price did here in September?"
Jamie nodded, assessing the graph.
"That was when they announced that they were spinning off Palm. I think that's gonna be a massive IPO, and I want to own it. I also think that 3com will get a boost after the IPO, if it does as well as I think it will."
"How much are you putting into it?" Jamie asked, trying to gauge Ryan's confidence.
"Well, I would never do this with real money," she insisted, "but I'm going to unload a number of under-performers." Her brow furrowed as her eyes slid down her holdings. "I'll probably stick $100,000 into it. I really have a hot feeling about this one," she decided.
"Hmm…maybe I'll do it too, if you're that hot for it," Jamie mused.
"Well, ya could," Ryan agreed as she turned in her chair to grin at her. "But the IPO isn't going to happen until February or March. That's too late to do you any good for your class." She was grinning like the Cheshire Cat and Jamie slapped at her while making an outraged squ
awk.
"You suckered me into offering sex acts for information that you knew I couldn't use?"
"So it would seem," she happily agreed. "You really ought to ask the right questions before you start compromising your virtue, sweetheart."
"I'm gonna kick your ass!" Jamie fumed.
"No," Ryan said thoughtfully, her brow furrowed, "that wasn't part of the deal. Right part of the anatomy, though," she smirked.
They were already in bed when the phone rang, and Jamie crawled across her partner to answer. She was in a very vulnerable position, and Ryan had to stick her hands under her own butt to fend off the nearly irresistible impulse to grab some of the attractively displayed merchandize. "Hi, Mom," the smaller woman said, shooting warning daggers at her partner. "No, you're not interrupting us." She listened for a few minutes, nodding occasionally, a very thoughtful look on her face. "How long would you be away?" Another pause. "No, I don't think you're crazy…not at all. Besides, how often will you get an opportunity like this?" She smiled at Ryan as she crawled back across her body and settled herself into her usual position. "If you're asking my advice, I'd say that you should go." She nodded again and said, "Sure. I'm always up for a shopping trip. Friday midday would be best for me. Will you come to Ryan's game on Friday night?" After yet another short wait she said, "Yes, I know it's a silly question, but you never know…something could tear you away. Okay, Mom, I'll tell her." She cast a look at Ryan, who was gesturing at her. "Ryan's blowing you a kiss, Mom. Okay, I will. I love you."
"You will never--ever--guess where she's going next week," Jamie declared when she hung up.
"Oh, boy! Do I really get to guess?"
Jamie looked at her watch and said, "Nope. Too late. She's going to Washington to attend a state dinner at the White House…with my father!"
"Darn it!" Ryan cried, hitting the mattress in frustration.
"What's wrong, honey? Don't you think that's a good idea?"
"Oh, sure, I think it's a good idea," Ryan assured her. "I just know I could have guessed that eventually!"
After they finished dinner on Wednesday night, Ryan went upstairs to study, while Jamie staked out the library, as usual. She realized she needed something from her room and went up to get it, finding Ryan lying on their bed, talking on the phone. "I know we have to have a consistent time," she said, "but I can't commit to any one day right now." Her massive day-planner was open in front of her, and she thumbed through the pages idly. "I have games on either Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday," she said. "Hmm…I guess I could do it on Monday night, but I've got a few conflicts between now and the test." Her shoulders shrugged and she said, "No, I agree that one day a week hardly makes it worthwhile." She met Jamie's eyes and said, "I don't like it, but I guess we have to. Let's do Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. Yeah, 6:30 until 8:00. That should give us enough time to make a dent." She chuckled mildly and said, "Well, at least we'll know that people who join the group are serious about it-or idiots." She started to pencil in the times in her day-planner, nodding the whole time. "Yeah. We may as well start tomorrow. See you then, Vijay-and thanks for this. I really appreciate it."
She hung up and cast a glance up at her partner, who was perched on the arm of the loveseat. "Wanna yell at me now, or after I explain what I agreed to?"
"Oh, I think I'll be rational for a change. Just to mess with your mind," she chuckled. "Care to explain what you're committing to?"
"Studying for the Putnam," Ryan said, her expression far from happy. "If it's gonna be worthwhile, I've got to commit a significant amount of time to it, and the only time I can be consistent is early in the morning. Vijay Khan, my student advisor for my independent study, is willing to get up at the crack of dawn to help me, so we're going to try to get some of the other alternates to join us. The more minds the merrier, with this stuff."
Jamie sat down on the loveseat and looked at her partner for a moment. Ryan started to feel a little uncomfortable under her penetrating gaze, and finally said, "What?"
Shaking her head, Jamie said, "Sorry. Sometimes I really wish we could speak the same language on this stuff."
"Me too," Ryan smiled.
"I know this is probably a silly question, but why do you have to study? Isn't this stuff obvious for you?"
Ryan sat up and gazed back at her partner for a few minutes, trying to think of a way to explain a little bit of her mental processing. "I do have to study, honey, but not like I have to study a language or history." She gave Jamie a long look and said, "I've been thinking about this a lot," she admitted, "because I know that you feel a little left out when I talk about math. I've come up with an analogy for how I think about it. Now, it isn't perfect, but it's the best I can do."
"Come sit by me," Jamie urged.
Ryan did so, sitting in the quirky manner that she often did when she was thinking of math concepts. The posture reminded Jamie a little of Caitlin's favorite position, and it dawned on her that Ryan had probably started to develop her amazing abilities when she about Cait's age, and she briefly wondered if that's when the habit began. Ryan placed both of her feet on the cushion, her heels almost touching her butt, and locked her arms around her shins. She was half-sitting/half-squatting, with her chin resting on her knees, her bright blue eyes peering out to stare at a point in space. "The best analogy I can think of is comparing math to houses. Let's say that each of the disciplines is an individual house. Now some of them I built with my own two hands-I know every brick and beam, and I installed the electrical system, the heating system, the plumbing-everything. I know that house so well that when I walk in there, I don't think about the individual systems, I simply live there. I don't say, 'Oh, I want the lights on, let me go to the switch and send a signal down the line to the fuse box that will tap into the main line to the power for the house'. I just flip the switch without a thought."
"Explain what you mean when you say that you built that house with your own hands?" Jamie asked.
"Well, that means that I learned that discipline from the ground up. I started with the simplest concepts, and work my way through the body of knowledge piece by piece. There are three or four of the branches of math that I'm that familiar with," she admitted. "Those are my specialties, and I know them so well-so intimately-that I can just take all of that background knowledge and build on it-without thinking about the background."
Jamie nodded, observing the tranquil, even tone of voice that Ryan used. She could actually see a kind of peace settle over her when she spoke like this, and she offered up a little prayer of thanks that Ryan had this guiding force in her life to center and calm her.
"When I'm thinking of my specialties, I don't think in words or symbols or concepts. I just…live. It's very instinctual."
"That's so far beyond my ken," Jamie said. "I always think in words."
"No, you don't," Ryan giggled. She leaned over and caught her partner by surprise, pressing her lips to hers in a slow, lazy kiss. Her tongue tickled the pink lips open, and languidly explored the warm recesses of Jamie's mouth for a long while. When she pulled away, a smug grin covered her face and she asked, "What words were you thinking of just then?"
"More?" she murmured, reaching for Ryan to merge again.
"Uh-uh-uh," the dark beauty said. "I was making a point."
"It felt like you were making love," Jamie smiled, her eyes starting to get the hooded look that signaled arousal.
"That too," Ryan smirked. "But I think I made my point. There are some things that your brain doesn't process as language. It's more elemental than that. My math specialties are like that for me."
"Okay," Jamie said. "I guess I see your point. But what about the other areas? The areas you don't specialize in?"
"That's why I have to study," Ryan said. "But even then, I don't have to study like someone would who didn't have a very good foundation in math. It's like I have to look at the blueprints for the new house. Since I'm a builder, I understand all of the concepts alread
y. I just have to take some things on faith-rather than building the house with my own hands."
"So what will you have to study?"
"I know the fundamentals of math very well. But they have a lot of questions in group theory, set theory, graph theory, lattice theory, and number theory. Those clearly aren't my specialties, so I need to spend a lot of time looking at blueprints."
"I think I have some idea of what you're talking about," Jamie smiled broadly. "I understand this explanation a lot better than when you've tried before."
"I want you to understand this, Jamie. I'll keep trying to explain it to you."
"I appreciate that you do this, babe. As I've told you repeatedly, I find you completely fascinating."
"The feeling is mutual. Now I'd better get to sleep or my head will be hitting the desk tomorrow morning, and I'm sure Vijay would like a little more interaction from me than that."
Due to a Saturday night volleyball game, Ryan decided not to go home to Noe Valley until Sunday afternoon. She stayed in bed much later than normal and was in poor spirits when she finally did wake. Knowing that she was treading on thin ice, Jamie tactfully asked, "I need a few things at the drug store. How are you doing on tampons, honey?"
"I should be doing fine, since I haven't used any in more than a month," Ryan grumbled, her face mostly obscured by a huge coffee mug.
"Are you overdue, sweetie?"
"Yeah. Third time in a row. This never happened to me before, either. I chalked it up to living with you-it's common for women to synch up when they live together, but it can't be that now."
Jamie had been standing at the sink, and she walked over to the table to put her arm around her partner. "Are you worried about this?"
Ryan leaned her head into Jamie's hip and said, "No, I'm not worried…but I should feel better by now, and I don't. It's been a long time, Jamie, and I should have bounced back by now."
"I know it seems like that, honey, but Dr. Aiken said this was fairly normal for a severe case of the flu. I don't think you have anything to worry about."
Journeys - SF10 Page 9
