Chapter One
May 1986 Thursday
Lying on my back, chest heaving, I looked up at the ceiling and traced the orbits of the planets around the sun, testing my memory of these basics of astronomy as I had done a thousand times before. Nine planets worshipping the sun. Understanding their movement, relative to their Sun God and to one another, was the bedrock of astronomy and my life.
It was a large poster of the Solar System, first fixed to the ceiling above my bed at home and now, eight years and ten thousand miles on, it was still with me. Tattered and wrinkled, torn at all four corners from repeated fixings and removals, it wouldn’t allow me to get rid of it. This knowledge, and the yearning for more from the vast Cosmos beyond, was at the heart of all ancient cultures, great or small; reciting this knowledge and feeling those yearnings had become a bedtime ritual for me, like counting beads on a rosary or chanting Om.
Except now I wasn’t doing it to try and fall asleep. I was doing it after sex, with the other body still hot beside me! Was this my problem – Astronomy was my first love, and I could never escape her embrace? Every lover that had followed had found me out, sooner rather than later. Kelsey had once told me that she felt that I was never fully present with her. She was right, but I did not know why. Was it just the pull of the stars, or was it something closer to home, something inside me that raised either a shield or a sword at this stage of all my relationships?
What is it out there that you can’t find in me, David? Amber had asked. I had no answer, but I did know that it was time to let her go. Now it had got to that stage with Kelsey.
‘David. David. David!’ Kelsey jabbed me in the ribs with her elbow on the third one.
‘Ow! Why did you do that?’ I cried out, my reverie knocked out of orbit.
‘Because I asked you a question. Twice. Where are you? Was the sex that good?’
It was, like rain on the parched sands of Northern Texas from where Kelsey hailed. This was our first coming together in three weeks – she had been writing her final music exams while I was finishing my Doctoral thesis. I had heard her question but had blocked it out, hoping she would let it go.
‘I heard you. You asked if I would like to come home with you for the holidays.’
‘So why didn’t you answer?’
‘I was waiting for my lungs to recover.’
‘You are out of shape – all the more reason for you to say yes. Daddy’s ranch is huge. We could take long walks, go horse-riding and swim in the river.’
I had suspected the invite might come today and it had, after sex when I was at my most vulnerable. She was going home, not just for the holidays but also for good. We had been ‘dating’ for almost five months since I’d had too much to drink at the campus New Year’s party and kissed her. I had planned to kiss someone, but not her. She was a final year music student and played all sorts of stringed instruments she had told me as we sat side-by-side on the steps of the Music and Dance Building waiting for the countdown. It was directly opposite the Space Sciences Building, which is why we met. I had seen her around, heard good things about her, but she was too classy, too smart, too pretty, and I knew that getting involved with her would have plenty of other kinds of strings attached – strings that reached all the way down to Texas. I hadn’t been wrong.
Now it had reached the point it always did and had only taken this long because our time together had been restricted to a few stolen hours a week in between my thesis and her studying. I had hoped we were just a safety valve for each other, blowing off steam in a high-pressure environment, until I saw that look in her eyes the last time we had made love:
‘I like you, David,’ she had said, the words following the look.
‘Uh…why?’ was all I could come up with. Of course, I liked her too, a lot, but I could not say it and not give her the look in return. That look.
‘You’re different. Mysterious. A good-looking nerd.’
‘Thank you… I think.’
She laughed. ‘And you fuck like a maestro. I feel like I’ve been through The Blue Danube, The Flower Duet, and Beethoven’s 5th in a single performance.’
‘Now that’s a compliment. Will you put that on my CV?’
She frowned. ‘I’m not planning on firing you. In fact, I may give you a contract.’
Crap! That was when I knew for sure that the question about the holidays was coming. I had made excuses for three weeks but now she had finally cornered me in the last week of term and had popped it. I was prepared. I knew she was on a deadline to get home for her father’s birthday next weekend.
‘I’d love to, Kelsey, but can I take a rain check? I’ve still got a lot to do here before I can think of taking summer break.’
‘Why? You’ve just finished your Doctorate and six years of hard labour. You deserve a break. Take it. With me.’
She put her hand on my stomach and combed the hair beneath my navel with her rose-red nails. She was good with her fingers. I had fifteen minutes at most before my strings retightened and she struck a chord.
‘I’m applying for a post here at Cornell in the Space Sciences Department. Protégé to Professor Sagan. It’s open to doctoral graduates around the world, but only one will get the opportunity to work under the greatest astronomer since Galileo.’
‘Wow! That is a big deal. But… how long does it take to apply for a job?’
‘Exactly. It is a fifteen-page application, motivated by essays and a summary of my thesis. I have to get it right. I have home ground advantage and can’t waste it.’
It was the truth. The lie, by omission, was that the application was almost complete in an envelope in the drawer just six feet from toes that now curled with pleasure as her nails reached the end of the path and entered the woods.
The other unspoken lie was that I did not intend to leave campus for the holidays. I needed to work my summer job at the observatory. Although my scholarship took care of tuition, accommodation and a small living allowance, my summer job here allowed me the freedom of a little travel, a few luxuries and a savings account that had grown steadily over the years to cushion my transition from full-time student to employee. Also, and more important, was that Professor Sagan lived in nearby Ithaca and he always spent time at the main Cornell observatory during summer break. He might have questions about my thesis, ‘Star Talk. The Universal Language of the Cosmos in the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence.’ SETI was his passion and so was it mine, and I aimed to work with him in being the first to communicate with an alien intelligence.
So why was I lying to Kelsey, dodging a hard break-up when I had already perfected the art?
‘How long will it take to complete?’ she asked, scratching rhythmically with the tips of her nails.
‘At least another week. Maybe longer.’ She was driving home and would have to leave on Wednesday at the latest to make it in time for daddy’s birthday.
‘So, once you have finished your application you could come?’
‘Uh, yes.’ It was a lie, white in my head but it tasted black on my tongue to Kelsey. I would manufacture another reason not to go and it would be easier to deliver it with a 2,500-mile gap between us.
‘Okay. I will wait for you to finish. Do you know what…?’ Her voice rose in excitement. ‘Come and stay at my place. I could help type things for you. My word processor is much faster than that antique typewriter of yours.’
‘What about your father’s birthday? I can’t let you to miss that on my behalf.’
‘I won’t. I made a mistake. His birthday is not next week – it’s the week after,’ she said sweetly.
Had she tricked me, lied about the date in the first place? I could not be sure of course, but I did allow a tiny flame of anger to enter my mind. Should I push the button, shoot the spark – get it over and done with? I had broken up with Amber straight after sex – why not Kelsey?
I could not, and it wasn’t because her fingers were now lost in the woods, wandering around in ever-widening circles. It was something deeper, something that threatened my resolve after my blowout with Amber last year to restrict my ‘relationships’ to friends with benefits – at least for the next few years while I established my career. Kelsey certainly offered the benefits, but also a whole lot more. I really enjoyed her company.
‘Oh… uh, okay, but I feel bad about you wasting a week here when you could be at home with your family. I could fly down when I’m done.’ I could, but I wouldn’t.
‘Don’t feel bad. I won’t waste the week. I will fly to New York to do some shopping for the family. They are always like kids when I come home, expecting presents. Also, you could help me with the driving; perhaps we could make a road trip of it and overnight in a couple of places on the way. My treat.’
Now she was really excited. This was it. Make the break now or the hole would just get deeper.
‘Okay. Road trip it is.’
What the…? I felt like a ventriloquist’s dummy, powerless to stop the words coming from my mouth.
‘Well, I do declare! I pinned David Kingsley down to something.’ She turned onto one elbow and kissed me, her nails momentarily digging into my groin with catlike pleasure. ‘I’m going to teach you how to ride a horse, city boy.’ She rolled over onto me, straddling my thighs and grabbing my wrists like reins. Her hands were surprisingly strong – countless hours of plucking strings and pushing bows. The only exercise mine had got lately was from twirling telescope dials.
‘This is how you trot.’ She moved up and down, keeping most of her weight on her knees, the rise and fall of her pert breasts hypnotizing me. ‘It’s bouncy and you have to learn to relax and move with the horse.’
‘I like this trotting. I could do it all day.’
‘No, you can’t. You’ll get a sore tush. This is the canter. Squeeze your calves gently against the flanks and lean forward a little.’ Now she moved forward and backwards, picking up the pace with clicking sounds to match. My eyes dropped to her hips, and I felt myself respond to her urging. ‘This is a gallop, the easiest of all because you have the rhythm of the horse to help you. Lean forward, give the reins some slack and enjoy the ride. Do you want to try? I could be the horse.’
In a minute or two I would very much like and be obviously able, but it would make things worse. My mind was preparing to leave her, and my body should be obeying. I rolled her over and kissed her lightly on the lips. ‘No encore I’m afraid, cowgirl. The Maestro has dropped his baton.’
‘Really? You could have fooled me,’ she laughed, looking down. ‘That’s okay. Plenty more performances to look forward to.’
‘I’d better get going with that application. The sooner I start the better.’
I rolled away and sat on the edge of the bed, searching for the boxer shorts that she had thrown over her shoulder an hour earlier. I retrieved them from my typewriter handle and pulled them on. Kelsey gathered her clothes and began dressing.
‘When do you want to move in?’ she asked as she fixed the straps on her glossy red high heels. I wondered that a girl who rode a horse wore heels like that. I loved watching her walk in them, especially in a pair of tight jeans.
‘Move in? Oh, yes, thanks for the offer but I would rather get the application done here, Kelsey. The information I need is all over these files.’ I waved at the bookshelves that filled the gap between my desk and the corner of my tiny apartment, filled with the clutter of six years’ study.
‘Why do you live like this, David? I know your father is way richer than mine.’
‘It’s cosy and I know where everything is.’
‘There you go again! Every time I ask you about your family you duck and dive. I’m having sex with the heir to the throne, but I have to look up the Kingsleys in books and magazines.’
‘You met my mother.’
‘Yes, but not thanks to you. I had to invite myself.’
‘You can ask me all the questions you want on our road trip.’
‘I’ll hold you to that.’
She picked up her purse, sat on the bed and took out a gold compact with a flip-up mirror. With a few expert strokes she re-coloured her lips, smacked them together twice and, happy with the result, swopped lipstick for a brush that she ran through her thick, corn-coloured hair. She shook her head, spreading her hair over her shoulders, and got up. She was average height for a woman, but in heels she felt perfect alongside my six three.
‘Dinner and a movie tomorrow night?’ she asked.
‘I’m on observatory duty, and Saturday I’d like to work late on the application. How about Sunday night?’ I needed time to think, figure a way out of the corner I had reversed myself into.
‘Deal. I’ll make a reservation.’ She picked up her car keys and we hugged. ‘I’ll pick you up outside, say 6 pm?’
‘Sounds good. See you then.’ I opened the door, and she walked out. At the stairs she turned, gave me a knowing smile and blew me a kiss before descending out of sight. She suspected more ducking and diving, and I had two days to prove her right.