I stuck my hand out again. At least I hadn’t screwed up that part. Raymond shook and began talking to Nick, and I was left with...
“Sh-Sh-Sherman.”
“Pleased to meet you, Sherman. I’m Lara.” The poor man looked almost as nervous as me. He opened his mouth as if to say something, then thought the better of it, so I helped him out. “What do you do for work?”
“I’m a m-m-math professor. At St-Stanford.”
Finally! Someone I understood how to talk to. While Nick and Raymond spoke about business, Sherman and I held an interesting discussion on string theory. Although we disagreed on several minor points, I relaxed enough to smile as I bid him goodbye.
“Are you ready to go?” Nick asked.
I tried not to sound too eager. “Whenever you are.”
Nick rounded up the others, and we all headed for the exit. It had just turned midnight, and I’d managed not to do anything stupid for oh, at least two hours—a minor miracle.
The door was within touching distance when a sour-faced woman in a fire-engine-red dress blocked our way. Nick tugged my hand, and I lost my balance, falling into him and catching onto his waist to steady myself. Before I could take a step back, he wrapped an arm around my back, plastering me against his side.
“Hello, Nick,” the woman cooed.
“Katya.”
I studied her, trying not to be obvious about it. Her face was a juxtaposition of sharp angles, and her too-white teeth made her fake smile seem even more predatory. She stroked her fingers down Nick’s arm, and he released me for a second to peel them off. Then he held me tightly again.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“I was wondering if you’d like to take me out for a drink this week? I’m free Tuesday and Thursday.”
Before Nick could reply, Mack did it for him. “Katya, do you even have eyes? Nick’s with Lara, and it’s just plain rude to ask him out in front of her. Now, get lost because not one of us is interested in anything you have to say.”
She stomped past Katya, and we all followed her.
“Nice,” said Jed.
“Just channelling my inner Emmy.”
“Emmy wouldn’t say that. She’d say ‘Fuck off, don’t you have to go and throw up?’”
I snorted. “No way. Nobody would dare to say that!”
Although I really wished I could.
“Emmy would,” Nick said. “And indeed she did. Her brain to mouth filter could sometimes use work.”
Wow. I liked Emmy more and more.
Nick dropped my hand as soon as we got in the car, leaving me strangely bereft. I had to keep reminding myself that this evening was for show, and me being there didn’t mean a whole lot to him. I was just a body in a dress to keep the likes of Katya away, and I hadn’t even managed to do much of a job of that. In fact, I’d messed up everything.
Nick interrupted my thoughts. “What were you talking about with that guy?”
“What guy?”
“Raymond’s brother. The professor.”
“Oh, him? We were discussing string theory.”
“What’s that? Like rope and stuff?”
I laughed. “It’s a theory of quantum gravity, where particles are replaced by these one-dimensional objects called strings. Except it’s not just a single theory; there are lots of different ones at the moment. Sherman’s working on the HE theory, which means there’s supersymmetry between forces and matter, and it only uses closed strings, and left and right moving strings differ.”
“I’m not even going to pretend I understood any of what you just said. How on earth do you know all that stuff?”
“I went to college at Brown for a few years.”
“Brown? What was your major?”
“A double in math and physics. String theory wasn’t really my thing, but I had to do a project on it in my second year.”
“Without wanting to sound rude, how did you go from studying math and physics at an Ivy League school to cleaning my house?”
How could I avoid discussing my past? While I was in Virginia, far away from Billy Cooper and Baysville, I could block it out and pretend it never happened. Why had I even mentioned stupid string theory? I should have just wittered on about fashion or spa days or something. Not that I knew a thing about either of those topics, but Sherman probably didn’t either, so I could have taken a leaf out of Emmy’s book and made something up. But it was too late to turn back the clock.
“I didn’t manage to graduate. And there aren’t many openings for