Smarter (an Ell Donsaii story #2) (17 page)

A waitress came and took their orders and their conversation turned to more pleasant things.

When it came time to go, Roger got up to walk her home again. He took some good natured ribbing from James. “Hey, Rog, you going sweet on the girl? That why you’ve been defending her to Johnson?”

He just ducked his head and shrugged. Ell realized that, tall and smart as he was, he was actually pretty shy.
Maybe he doesn’t have much more experience with this boy-girl stuff than I do?
She turned to James and said, “Hey, now you back off my knight in shining armor. We damsels need our protection from evil professors and horrid Rigellians.”

They all turned and grinned at Jerry. He grinned back and said, “Ah hah, it is good to see you’re finally beginning to heed my warnings!”

Ell and Roger headed out the door and after a little way; Roger’s hand found Ell’s again. They walked in silence a while, then talked about their plans for Thanksgiving. Roger would be heading home to Morehead City and Ell realized there was some chance she might bump into him as “Ell.”

This time, when they got back to Ell’s apartment complex, Roger walked her up to her apartment door. They turned and faced one another uncertainly again. Roger said, “Every time I bring you home lately, I worry that it’ll be the last time I see you.”

Ell wrinkled her nose as she grinned up at him, “Not if I have anything to say about it.”

He fumblingly put his arms around her and gave her a hug, leaning his head down next to hers. He felt her lips next to his ear. She quietly said, “Roger?”

Her breath in his ear gave him goose bumps. “Yes?”

“I think we’re both pretty geeky and shy?”

He drew his head back and looked into her eyes from a few inches away. He shrugged.

Ell pulled him closer and whispered in his ear, “I just want you to know that it’s OK with me if you kiss me.”

Roger’s goose bumps were back. “OK,” he mumbled, then slowly moved his lips to hers, startled by the minty taste of her lipstick.
Wow!
He thought to himself,
this is way better than I imagined.

Ell savored the sensations of her first real kiss, thinking wonderingly about how warm and firm his lips were. It made her feel all warm and fluttery inside and sent pleasant tingles down her spine.

Roger felt her hand move up his back to rest on his neck and pull him more firmly into the kiss. The feel of her fingers there somehow added to the kiss. Then she broke the kiss and leaned back eyes twinkling. She said, “Hey, I really liked that! Maybe again sometime?” she let go and turned to her door.

Roger resisted the temptation to reach out and pull her to him again. Something about this girl was magical and he didn’t want to ruin it. “Me too, and yes, definitely.” She stepped into her apartment and swung the door closed, stopping with it open just enough for him to see one eye, which winked at him before she closed the door the rest of the way. He turned to go home, feeling a mix of frustration and ecstasy. A bright moon lighted his way home through a cool crisp evening.

The next day Ell washed off her makeup, bronzers and mousse, converting back to her “Ell” persona. She left her apartment in a hoodie with a scarf over her face and headed down to her rental car, but she didn’t encounter anyone in the brief trip.

The drive to Morehead City was uneventful and she parked a block away from her grandmother’s house. When she walked up to Gram’s house she didn’t notice the small camera on the fence, but that was hardly surprising because it was tiny. Its buried electronic brain sent notification to its masters in Goldsboro though, and they exclaimed to finally see the young woman they’d been looking for. “Mr. Li,” one shouted, “she is back at her home in Morehead City!”

He grunted, “Finally! Gather the team, the mission is a go.”

Ell opened the door and called out, “Mom? Gram?”

They were sitting at the dining table studying a slate but both looked up in delight at her entrance. “Ell!” they said together. Hugs and excited catching up were followed by preparation of juicy BLT’s for lunch.

Before taking another big bite, Ell nodded at the slate they’d been hovering over, “What’cha workin’ on there?”

Kristen said, “Trying to analyze our finances. My attorney says that even though the divorce won’t give me any money from Jake, I should get my own money back. But I have to get through until then and that obnoxious SOB has even managed to get a large part of my salary ‘sequestered’ until the divorce is concluded. Not because he really thinks he’s entitled to it in the end but just because he knows how to work the system and he
can
make it hard for me. I think he’s hoping I’ll knuckle under and crawl back to him like I used to.”

“Aw, Mom, I am so sorry you ever got hooked up with that creep.”

“Me too, kid, me too. Anyway we were trying to make sure we can make it a few more months on Gram’s pension and my partial salary. That $5,000 you sent really helped.”

Gram said, “I don’t want to take a loan out on the house, but I will if we have to.”

Ell said, “I don’t want to count chickens before they’re hatched but there’s a pretty good chance that the little device I invented will bring in a fair amount of money.”

Gram said, “Well that might be, but we shouldn’t count on it.”

Ell could tell that her grandmother didn’t really think there was
any
chance that her little granddaughter could have invented anything that would bring in money. But that was OK. Ell didn’t want to count on the invention either, unless and until she actually had money in hand. With the loan to her mother and flights to Boston, she’d burned through almost all of her remaining savings but, other than the $5,000 for her mom, hadn’t quite gotten into the hundred thousand from Dr. Smythe yet. If possible, she intended to return that hundred thousand to Dr. Smythe if the invention didn’t work out. The money he’d spent on the patent was bad enough. She said, “I’ve told the Air Force that I’m available, but they told me that I have to do an abbreviated Officer Training course since I didn’t do all four years at the Academy. So I won’t actually start, until the officer’s training starts in late January and I won’t get any paychecks until a month after that. However, I do have an investor who’s advanced me some money on the invention—we can dip into that if we have to.”

“Really?” Her mom said. “Well I guess somebody must have faith that it’s going to make some money.”

The next few days leading up to Thanksgiving were lazy and uneventful. Ell spent some time talking over the net to Smythe and Exeter about exactly how they would present the idea to their potential buyers the next week. Ell drove to Raleigh to get the PGR-clock that had been shipped to Australia and send it back to Australia so that they could have the clock in Austrailia for their demonstration. It was addressed to an international patent associate of Miller’s named Allison who would hold it for the demo. On Thursday, Ell, her mom and Gram cooked all day for the big dinner they had traditionally held with a few of their neighbors each year. Ell found herself bemused to be sitting next to a little girl who looked up at her and said, “You look a lot like that Olympic gymnast.”

“Do you mean Ell Donsaii?”

The little girl nodded thoughtfully, “I think so.”

Ell smiled, “That’s who I am.”

The girl’s eyes got big and she said, “Are not!”

Ell grinned at her a moment, then said, “OK, you’ve got me there. Aren’t you Mary Estes from across the street?”

The girl nodded. From across the table, Mrs. Jenkins said, “Ell, could you pass the butter.”

As Ell said “Sure.” and reached for it, she heard Mary gasp. She looked back down at her.

Eyes open very wide, Mary said “Are too!”

Ell grinned down at her. In a conspiratorial whisper she said, “Would you like to see the medals?”

Mary nodded her head up and down, finger in her mouth.

“After dinner we’ll go see them OK?”

Wide eyed, Mary nodded again.

On Saturday afternoon Ell, feeling a little stir crazy, went into town to do some Christmas shopping. She didn’t notice a van pull out to follow her. On the way home she had a whim and turned into Emmerit’s restaurant, it was almost dinner time and she could use something to eat. As soon as she entered, she saw Roger’s sister Shelly seating people. She waved hello to her old classmate.

Shelly’s eyes widened and she squealed delightedly while hugging Ell at the hostess station. “Ell! It’s so great to see you! Are you here to have dinner?”

Ell could feel people staring at her, “Yep. Where should I sit?”

“Are you by yourself?”

Ell nodded.

“Oh! Sit here at the counter, we can catch up!” She indicated an empty stool next to the hostess station.

“Sure.”

“Etta?” she said, looking up into the screens of her AI. “Call Roger and tell him that Ell Donsaii is here in the restaurant.”

A little alarmed that her disguise might have been penetrated, Ell said, “Roger?”

“My older brother. He just thinks the world of you and made me promise to call him if you ever came in.” Conspiratorially she said with some indication of disbelief, “He’s a physics grad student so he
says
he admires you because of that paper you wrote, not your gymnastics. Or that’s what he claims anyway!” Shelly winked at Ell as if men were entirely too transparent. Her brow furrowed, “I hope you don’t mind?”

Ell said, “Not at all, I love talking physics.” She took her seat and Shelly took her order personally.

Between Shelly’s seating other customers, Shelly and Ell talked about what had been happening in the lives of their classmates. A couple of other people that Ell knew came by, and a couple of kids asking for autographs, and then Ell heard a familiar voice, “Ms. Donsaii?”

She turned to see Roger, apparently having come in through the back entrance of the restaurant. She restrained her impulse to jump up and give him a hug. Then she almost used her “Ellen accent.” Finally she managed to say, “Yes?” in her Ell accent.

“I’m Roger Emmerit, Shelly’s brother. I asked my sister to call me if you ever came in so that I could personally tell you how much I admire your quantum physics paper. I’ve hoped to see you in town for a long time.”

“You’ve read it?” Ell managed to put a surprised lilt in her tone.

“Oh yes Ma’am. I’m a physics grad student at NCSU and I just think the implications are amazing, though I do have a little trouble following some of your new math conventions. In fact, there’s another grad student in our lab who’s been working on testing some of your predictions.”

“Really?” Ell put a surprised and excited tone in her response.

“Yes. She works in the same room as I do. I’d love to work on your stuff myself but I was already deep in another project when your paper came out.” Roger stared at Ell. She looked familiar, of course, from all the times he’d seen her in the news. But there was something else, almost as if he knew her somehow. She was so pretty, such perfect flawless skin except for the scattering of tiny freckles. Her cute turned up nose seemed perfect for her face. Her eyes were the same green as Ellen Symonds he realized, maybe that’s what made her seem so familiar?

Ell said, “Oh, that’s great. I’ve been hoping someone was trying to test my predictions. Of course, there’s always that niggling concern that whoever does will prove me wrong.”

“Well I’ve got good news for you there. Of course, I should let Ellen tell you herself. Can I call her for you?”

Nonplussed at the thought of being connected to talk to herself, Ell quickly said, “No, I’d rather not talk to her myself. It would be better if she could avoid any semblance of bias by being able to say she doesn’t know me. But could you just summarize what she found?”

Roger seemed disappointed that he wouldn’t be able to introduce them, but said, “Sure, she worked out a way to use high energy photons in a modification of the double slit experiment while measuring flux in the slits. You may be aware that current flux sensors are much more sensitive than they used to be?  In any case there are fluctuations at both slits, suggesting that the single photon goes through both slits just like you predicted!”

Ell made a little fist pump, “That’s great! Has she submitted for publication yet?”

Roger looked abashed, “Well, kinda. She and her professor got in a huge fight and she quit the University. He refuses to have his name on her paper. She sent the paper to a journal anyway, but I doubt that any journal will publish it with him opposed. It’s a real shame because she’s absolutely brilliant!” He shook his head. “She has so much to offer physics. I hope she’s able to get into grad school somewhere else.”

Bemused, Ell said, “Brilliant?” It was nice to hear what people really thought of you, at least when they thought nice things.

“Well, not like you, but still pretty amazing! I’d been having trouble with my own study for months and when I was commiserating with her over my problem, in an offhand way she pointed out what I had been doing wrong as if it were just minor issue. And she’s only a first year grad student! Though, the problem she saw with my experiment was based on your theory. Ellen is much more familiar with your theory than I am.” He shrugged. “If only she wasn’t so hard headed! If she’d just apologized and kowtowed to Dr. Johnson like the rest of us do, she’d still be in grad school, I’m sure of it.”

Ell restrained the impulse to reach out and punch him. “So, was she hard to work with then, hardheaded and all?”

“Oh, no!” Roger leaned conspiratorially to Ell. “Actually I’m crazy about her. She’s sweet and a great friend.” His face fell, “But I expect she’ll move away now, and I don’t know if we’ll be able to stay in touch.”

“You’ll just have to try harder then, eh?”

Allan spoke in Ell’s ear, “Phil Zabrisk is calling.”

Ell put up a finger, “Just a minute Roger. Allan put Phil on. Phil, are you in North Carolina like you thought?”

She heard Phil’s voice, “Hah! Better than that. I’m in Morehead City. I drove down to surprise you, dropped by your house and have been hanging out with your mother and your Gram a bit. Having given up on you returning spontaneously, I’m just leaving your house to come find you. Dinner is on me. Where are you?”