The Story of S.

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

The author was a math and physics major in college, and then worked as a computer programmer, so it seemed natural to her to give the characters variables instead of names. A list of variable definitions accordingly seems in order.

S. F-R, Jr.—the male lead

W. F-R—wife of the male lead

W. F-R, Jr.—daughter of W. & S.

WS1—first son of W. & S.

WS2—second son of W. & S.

S*—deceased mother of the male lead

S. F-R—deceased father of the male lead

A. M.—the female lead

A*—husband of the female lead

A3—first son of A. & A*

A4—second son of A. & A*

CityOne—where S. lives

StateOne—as state distant from CityOne

Rivertown—where A. lives, lesser suburb

MountainOne—where S. has a vacation homes

ShoreOne—where S. had another vacation home

Mountain Twenty-five—where A. has a vacation home, a much lesser resort area

J.—a ‘friend’ of S.

WarmIsland—location of the estate of S.’s stepfather

SuburbOne—where W.’s parents live

V.—a friend of A.

AirportSix—a small airport near CityOne

A. D.—one of S’s former girlfriends

C. J.—another of S’s former girlfriends

Ms. F.—an attorney

CountySeat—a small city near Rivertown

BigPharamceutical—C. J.’s employer

Some of the more minor characters have names rather than variables. If the reader gets this book in electronic form, and if the reader does not like the characters having variables for names, the reader is invited to do a search and replace to change the variables to something she likes better.

CHAPTER 1

THE MEETING

One summer day, S. attended a party. Both S. and W. liked parties, or seemingly did, anyway. They were commonly photographed at elegant soirées in even more elegant clothing. According to those who considered themselves close to the couple, W. & S. were both highly animated at these events—the life of every party. The general public, of course, had never had a chance to observe this, as the press was seldom invited to these parties; as a result most people just had to trust rumors as to S. & W.’s social acumen.

This particular summer party was connected with S.’s current career. All the people at the party were from his current workplace, except for a few who had been invited from the outside.

One of these few was A. A. was in the awkward situation that the person who had invited her had suddenly fallen ill that day, so that A. had shown up at the party and knew absolutely no one there. Of course, she recognized S., but did not have the courage to introduce herself to him. Consequently, she contented herself with sitting on a small bench adjacent to the coat rack and watching S. as he moved about the room, schmoozing with everyone, charming everyone, and making several women quite faint with lust.

A. was very different from S. She was a working mother and had precious little time for exercise. She was overweight—despite her efforts to walk at least a mile every day, something she did extremely slowly. She was enamored of plain appearance. She refused to do anything with her frizzy, gray hair, except comb it in the morning and put in a couple of barrettes. She wore long, loose dresses that she had to buy from catalogs, since most stores at that time were only carrying short, tight ones. She refused to wear jewelry, makeup, perfume, or shoes that hurt her feet. She wore rather dull, black-rimmed male-style glasses.

A.was also HIGHLY intelligent. Her IQ had been tested at 154 in high school. Like S., she had attended the very best of institutions of higher learning, but unlike S. she had not gotten in because she was rich or famous, but rather because she was academically qualified. While S.’s family had succeeded brilliantly in public life and business, A.’s family had produced a large number of distinguished scientists, a couple of whom had won Nobel prizes—but despite their familial brilliance they were anonymous, invisible.

Also unlike S., A. had had children. And from her children she had learned a good deal about herself, about her own social isolation, and her own sensation of strangeness. It least one of A.’s children, if not both, had Asperger’s Syndrome—a mild form of autism. A psychiatrist had explained to A. that people are supposed to be born with an invisible antenna that allows them to interpret facial expressions, gestures, and tones of voice instinctively, without learning how to do so. A child with Asperger’s Syndrome would lack this antenna. As a result, the child would be unable to figure out what other people were feeling. Indeed, such a child would have trouble understanding that other people are people at all.

A.’s oldest child, A3, the one who definitely had Asperger’s Syndrome, had been an all-consuming occupation for A. He was almost completely unable to conform his behavior to social expectations. It did not matter how many times she told him not to make murals on the walls, or punished him for the same, he still did so. If anyone spoke harshly to him, he only thought that that person was being mean to him. He failed to appreciate how he might have contributed to the situation he found himself in. He had mind blindness.

At this point, A. felt she was getting this child under control. He was now in a special class and had four psychotherapy sessions a week.

After her son’s diagnosis, A. had considered a number of people in both her family and her husband’s family, and concluded that they all had autistic features that made them socially difficult and, to a certain extent, misfits. A. concluded, empirically, that she must have autistic features as well.

This explained a lot to her. It explained why she had always had such a hard time making friends. It explained why the discomfort of tight clothing was so great to her that she could not bear to wear tight clothes, even though she knew that others expected her to. It explained why everyone always seemed to get angry at her, or find her frightening—she lacked the antenna that would have enabled her to learn proper facial expressions and social behaviors.

As she sat there in her enormous clodhopper shoes, at this elegant party, staring at S., she imagined that he must be just the opposite of her. Coming from the family he did, his social antenna must be perfect. He must be able to look at others for only an instant and immediately know whole books about what they were thinking and feeling. He must be able, based on this instantaneous observation, to know instantly how to approach each person, so as to make that person like him and to make that person at ease.

This was in fact true about S.. For instance, he noticed immediately that she was staring rudely at him. True, every time he looked at her directly, she averted her eyes, but he knew how to look at someone without their knowing it. Someone as inept as A. would never guess that he had noticed her.

S. had also decided that A. was probably dangerous. This was actually not true. She wouldn’t hurt a fly. But her intense stare seemed dangerous to him.

S. was still fairly young, in excellent condition, and a trained boxer. He felt moderately confident that he could handle this out-of-shape, somewhat older woman, if she decided to attack,; but he wished suddenly that there were metal detectors at the entrance of his workplace. He had never asked for such a thing. Certainly his celebrity status would have made such a request reasonable—but he was always trying to pretend that he was a normal person—and normal people did not need metal detectors at their work places. If there had been a metal detector, though, he could have been sure that that big, loose dress did not conceal some deadly weapon.

S. surreptitiously told a number of his co-workers to keep their eyes on A., and several of these people were doing so.

A. was determined not to hang around the buffet table. Normally, she was a big eater and would spend entire parties stuffing her face with goodies, but she was trying to reform herself. Therefore, she sat on her small bench for two entire hours, except for a visit to the toilet and two trips to the bar to get a glass of water. She nursed the second glass very slowly, pretending she could convince people at a distance that it was vodka. She did not drink alcohol. She had mitral valve prolapse, and alcohol gave her heart palpitations, dizziness, and shortness of breath—so she could not stand the stuff, especially given her sensitivity to discomfort stemming from the autistic features.

A. stared at S. continuously—hoping, probably in vain, that if she studied him enough she might master his social secrets. She thought of herself as being a bit like a biologist in a marsh observing a rare water bird. She wished that she had a better blind.

At first, S. tried his favorite social trick, the one he always used when confronted with people he did not want to meet. He kept his back to A., relying on his trusty friends to keep an eye on her. Naturally, he kept alert, too, looking surreptitiously out of the corner of his eye, whenever he changed positions or social groups.

Unfortunately for S., his little social trick was totally unsuccessful with

A. A. was only too delighted to have his back turned to her. This gave her the illusion that he did not know she was watching.

She did occasionally notice that other people were watching her. She supposed that she would soon be kicked out of the party, but she did not much care, as she was not really getting into it. Parties were too loud, had too much smoke, and too many drunken people. She always wore earplugs at parties. This did not prevent her from hearing, though. Her hearing was extraordinarily sensitive and she could conduct fairly normal conversations over the loud background noise of a party, with her earplugs in—well at least as normal of conversations as she was capable of.

Finally, one of S.’s friends, Karen, came over and asked to see A.’s invitation, which A. duly produced. A. explained that the friend who invited her had fallen ill suddenly, so she knew no one at the party. Karen realized that now she was in the equally awkward situation of having to try to integrate this unpleasant-looking person into the party. Karen did not relish this thought at all, since integrating A. into the party would mean introducing A. to everyone other than S., and trying to keep A. as far away from S. as possible. This would mean that Karen would have to stay as far away from S. as possible, as well. Karen desperately wanted to avoid this sad fate.

Karen therefore hurriedly introduced A. to a small group of people at the other side of the room from S. A. tried to be nice to these people, but quickly learned that they were cocaine addicts who were debating whether they would use their cocaine openly at the party or find somewhere more secluded. A. was not a drug type person at all. Nor did she succumb easily to social niceties. A. said bluntly that if they brought out any cocaine, she would leave and call the police.

The little group quickly exited the party themselves, leaving A. to return to her bench and her observation of S.

Karen observed their departure from another corner of the room with resignation. She sighed and went over to A. to ask what had happened. A. reported her outrage that these people were planning to use cocaine openly at the party. Karen made a little mental note to let the other cocaine users know that someone was present who was likely to report them.

Karen brought A. over to a second small group, this time of congenial, straight laced administrative personnel, all women. A. tried to be nice, but quickly became frustrated with the conversation. These people were having a detailed technical discussion of the art of choosing and applying makeup. A. eschewed makeup. The little group, in typical social, peer pressure fashion tried to pressure A. into promising to attempt to wear some makeup. A. resisted. At first, she simply said it was contrary to her religious beliefs, which was partly true. Finally, she stated, with emphasis, that she thought that the heavy use of makeup by women in the United States was very similar to the wearing of veils by women in Saudi Arabia. Both implied that a woman’s face was not fit to be seen in public.

A. could be fairly intimidating. Her autistic features made her face a bit rigid and wooden, and her voice sometimes a bit overly loud, especially when she was wearing ear plugs. After hearing A. deliver this pronouncement in a loud, preachy tone, all of the women in the group wished dearly that they could be magically transported to the other side of the room.

One of them declared that she needed to use the toilet. Another professed a sudden hunger that beckoned her to the food table. The third suddenly remembered that she needed to make a telephone call.

A. announced that she was trying not to eat any food at this party. She did not mean to sound haughty or arrogant, but really she wasn’t very good at social situations—and she did sound haughty and arrogant, and as if the food was not good enough for her, which was preposterous.

The dispersal of the little group was a great relief to A. She did not enjoy explaining to these women, who were obviously not too smart, over and over again that she had no desire to wear makeup. A. returned to her little bench and resumed her scientific observation of S.

Karen sighed again. She had just managed to work her way over to one person away from S. This meant that he might soon notice her and bestow a few words upon her, maybe even a smile, something she craved desperately. She knew that S. was counting on her to try to deal with A., and she had failed again. She shrugged her shoulders and assumed her most apologetic expression, and said to S., I tried.

S. was an acute observer of parties, and he knew perfectly well that Karen had tried, and, moreover, that whatever fault there was lay with A. Harry, another of S.’s friends, said, "You know, S., she’s been staring at

you solidly for two whole hours. I know. I guess I’m going to have to go over and meet her. Uggh, said Harry. Oh, well, said S. You’re too nice to these people, S., said Harry. You know, I end up hitting it off with most people, said S., I’ll be o.k."

S. knew from experience that if anyone could deal with A., it would be he, himself. He had coped with any number of weirdoes in his life. He usually was able to calm them down, if he could get time to talk to them. He really did have an extraordinarily well-developed social antenna.

S. attempted to make eye contact with A. She studied the floor. His gaze was unbearable. His face was covered with the subtlest of expressions—expressions she could never hope to make or understand, expressions that were all things to all people, expression that allowed S., as his famous parents had done before him, to make most of his entourage into mindless slaves. To A., with her limited social skills, these expressions were just painful. They overwhelmed her receptors, and made her feel confused and frightened.

She glanced up again and saw him closer, still walking toward her, obviously looking at her. She wished she could dematerialize and reappear on the other side of the wall.

He finally arrived. She had to look up. He was smiling—one of his nearly full smiles. He had learned that he looked silly in a full smile. It made too many wrinkles in his face and made his eyes disappear. He had seen a lot of photographs of himself. He had mastered this nearly full smile, one that did not bring out all those ugly wrinkles and kept his eyes open. Most people liked it.

It bothered A. She wondered why his eyes looked uninvolved with his smile. A. had little skill in observing faces, but she had been working on it very hard, and with all her concentration, so sometimes she noticed little things like this now.

Hi, I’m S. F.-R., said S.

I’m A. M. said A. A. assumed her best smile. A. was very good at assuming fake smiles. She had practiced over and over again in front of the mirror, trying to get it right. It was one social thing that she did know how to do. It was her practice that had made her able to discern that S.’s smile was fake as well.

S. was a bit taken aback. The smile was beautiful. It changed the frightening face into an intriguing face. It was not a nearly full smile. It was a full smile, but because A. did not have a full range of facial expressions, due to her autistic tendencies, the smile did not cover her face with weird wrinkles or make her eyes disappear completely. Instead, it managed to look like a full smile without all the oddities that bothered him about his own smile. It was the innocent and instinctive smile of a baby, in fact, one with no sophistication.

In fact, there was something that neither of them noticed, though many others in the room did notice. A. and S. looked very much alike, once you had them next to each other. Their eyes, brows, lips, and jaw shapes were almost identical. This made A. look a bit masculine, but not repulsively so. The main difference between their faces were the noses. His was long, straight and pointed, while hers was a bit broader and lumpier. Also, her face had a lot more fat than his.

S. also had spent a great deal of time staring at himself in the mirror, wondering what made other people so excited about his looks, making sure that his hair was in order—so that he would look good at all times, in case a photographer should show up. The resemblance, though it did not register at a conscious level, gave S. a feeling of familiarity, of comfort with A., that made him relax a bit, like staring at his own face in a mirror.

She in turn, looking at his eyes, was sucked into them, because in fact they were identical to her father’s eyes. She did not realize this either, but found still herself glued to S.’s eyes, unable to look away.

I’ve been noticing you staring at me, said S.

Oh, said A. She did not apologize. She did not feel sorry.

It made me sort of uncomfortable, said S., hoping to get the apology. He intuited that being direct would be the best thing with this particular person. He was perfectly right. If he had tried to be subtle she would only have been more confused and possibly gotten upset.

A lot of people have told me that my stares make them uncomfortable, said A. but I don’t stop staring, because staring gives me so much pleasure.

It doesn’t bother you to make other people uncomfortable?

Maybe I’m a bit like Temple Grandin. She said that, as a child, she found the world full of beautiful moving shapes that she loved to watch. It was only remarkably late in childhood that she realized that the moving shapes were people.

Temple Grandin was probably the best known of autistic people—a person who had emerged from profound autism as a child to become a fairly successful scholar. S. had no clue about this, however. He found the comment totally incomprehensible. Moreover, he found the wooden, lecture-like way it was delivered strange and unnerving. The beautiful smile had disappeared and he began again to fear that this was a dangerous person.

S. was not normally fearful. He prided himself on being fearless. He

gave himself a mental slap on the hand for his concern. Temple what? He said.

A. launched into a lengthy dissertation on her son’s Asperger’s Syndrome, autistic features, her perception of S. as someone who had mental abilities that she lacked, and her own status at this party as an observational biologist trying to learn how to imitate him. She made a point of saying that she thought she was a person of high IQ, but low EQ, while she imagined that he had very high EQ. She went on endlessly, in a lecturing tone and quickly, not allowing any opportunity for interruption. It was difficult to stand still and listen to it, even for the best of listeners.

S. stood by politely, his cultivated charm serving him well, though he was absorbing perhaps half of what she said. Even at his best, his ability to focus was poor. Nevertheless, some things did get through to him and affected him strongly; but A. did not realize that she had just pushed a lot of buttons with S.

S. had a retarded relative. This made him very interested in mental illness and its treatment, though his rather limited intellect had not allowed him to retain very much detailed knowledge.

Also, he had a tremendous inferiority complex. He worried a great deal about being stupid. He had heard about this EQ thing, social intelligence, in a popular magazine article. He had hoped fervently that he had this thing, to make up for his belief that he lacked the other Q. He had never dared tell anyone about his insecurities about himself. He never told anyone what he was really thinking or feeling.

Being a bit suspicious, he asked A. a few questions about her allegedly high IQ. She responded with some detail about her personal and familial academic pedigrees. He became convinced that she was telling the truth about this. Her pedantic tone did not sound like that of a liar. She might be boring, but she was no liar. He had a good intuition about such things. He made a mental note that she had loved math & science and was now an environmental attorney. This was the type of information that might come in useful later on. One did not meet too many women who had IQ’s of 154 and loved math and science.

He was at some level deeply flattered that his highly intelligent being thought that he had some mental abilities that were remarkable and totally beyond her. He was all the more flattered, because he could discern from A.’s dry tone that she had absolutely no intention of flattering him and considered herself only to be reciting scientific facts. In fact, he correctly intuited that A. was utterly incapable of false flattery—only of reciting what she believed to be true.

S. was much too sophisticated to let anyone know when his buttons had been pushed. He covered it with his famous social manner, the F-R family charisma.

He toyed with allowing A. to remain on the bench and continue observing him. That would obviously have been her preference. But he had a lingering fear of her. He decided that he would be able to control her better if he kept her closer to him.

I’d like you to meet some of my friends, he said. He carefully modulated his voice to full warmth. He did not do this entirely consciously. It was something he knew how to do. He knew it was a voice that could bring women to their knees.

A. did not react visibly to his tone. She was not very good at that. Her facial expressions were limited. There were the big smile, fierce anger, a little flirtatious smile that she only gave to her husband, and some strange fearful or worried expressions. She did not know how to give the sort of smile that would acknowledge the warmth without implying excessive interest. She did hear the tone, though. Her perception of auditory social signals was much better than of visual ones.

She could have given the BIG SMILE, because she was unable to give the correct slight smile, but she had heard that S. was promiscuous. She feared that he might drag her into some anteroom and try to pressure her into some sex act, if she smiled too much. At some level she knew that this was probably absurd. But she, like most people, projected a number of fantasies on the F-R family. One of these fantasies was that S. and his father were both sex addicts.

This alleged addiction had certainly been rumored in the press, and there were grounds for these rumors, but A.’s immediate fears were groundless. S. was actually extremely careful about his intimate encounters. Granted they were frequent, more frequent than he would like to admit—but he was certainly not coercive. He knew that the slightest hint that his advances were excessive or unwelcome could end up as a tabloid news article—something he detested. Nevertheless, he and others thought of sex as his kingdom, one that he controlled. Women around him were always in some danger of seduction, though no one had ever been reported to regret being seduced.

He concluded, from A.’s lack of smile and for the first time incorrectly, that A. found him somewhat disgusting. This disturbed him. He regarded people who disliked him as a special challenge. No one ever disliked him for long. He always saw to that. He could always win them over.

He adjusted his tone to add, if that were possible, even more warmth, more charm. He observed, with some satisfaction, a slight upward curve to A.’s lips. Then he saw her clamp her mouth tightly to eliminate any hint of a smile. She then looked disapproving of him, haughty—and yet there was that earlier smile—very confusing. He decided, correctly, to trust tentatively to the smiles, and not the apparently disapproving looks.

He brought A. over to where Harry was standing. None of S.’s thoughts showed—only the charming, nearly full smile—the one that he had perfected over years of being a public figure—the one that identified him more than anything as the scion of the F-R family.

Harry frowned. Harry was a nice fellow, but he did not have the F-R charm. He saw only his beloved friend next to this person whom they had both identified as probably dangerous.

Harry saw S. turning on the charm. Harry knew that S. always did that. Harry worried about S.’s being so friendly to everyone. He did not see S.’s subtle control of such situations, he only saw S. as putting himself in unnecessary danger. If only S. would listen to reasonable people like Harry! If only S.’s father had listened to reasonable people like Harry, then maybe S.’s father would not have been killed by a sniper.

But what Harry did not know was that almost no one would be able to kill S. if S. were actually talking to that person. S. was too good at dealing with people. The only person who would be able to kill S. would be someone who took S. by surprise, someone whom S. did not get a chance to speak with. S. was much safer with A. next to him, conversing with him, than with A. staring at his back. S. knew this. Harry could not bring himself to believe it. Harry just wanted to get rid of A.

A. would have been very easy to get rid of. If anyone had asked her to leave, she would have done so immediately and never sought to return. She would have been totally intimidated. But Harry did not know that. Even S. did not know that. It was one of S.’s few errors in reading another person; but it was not a fatal error. A. was totally harmless. In any case, S. could not at this moment bring himself to be rude to A. He felt a bit sorry for her—and she had pushed some buttons, buttons that he could not even really admit to himself were there.

S. did something that was very common for him. He decided to start a political discussion. Several member’s of S.’s family had been involved in politics, and he sometimes thought that he would like to do the same. With his insecurity about his intelligence, he often feared that political opponents would mock him as an idiot. Over the years, though, he had seen plenty of not too intelligent people succeed in political office, so his fears were lessening. However, he was for the first time in his life seriously studying something, and that something was politics. He liked to get intelligent people talking about politics, because he hoped to pick up some catchy phrases and formulations that he could use later.

What do you think is the most important political issue facing us today? he asked A.

A. was delighted. She knew that S. had powerful connections. She knew that this was an opportunity for her to air one of her greatest concerns, something that she had recently been obsessing about, with the hope that S. might do something about it. Her concern was the spraying of pesticides in and around the area of CityOne, the area where S. and A. both lived.

S. lived in the very heart of CityOne, in a large and well-appointed apartment, in the trendy part of town. A. lived in the suburbs, in a completely unnoteworthy, private house.

Though they did not yet know it, politics was an interest that they both shared. A.’s mother had been very active in the League of Women Voters, and had constantly pressed A. to be politically active and involved. A. was not as active as her mother had been, but she still cared, and loved a good knock down, drag out argument.

Most people could not argue long with A., because she was too intimidating. However, there were a few people who loved arguing as much as she did and would match her, intimidation for intimidation, something she found very entertaining—though ultimately she felt humiliated if she could not answer someone’s statements with a successful counter-argument. She always thought of the response later. She had learned from Charlie Brown that this was called pensée de l’escalier. She considered herself the mistress of pensée de l’escalier, rather slow on her feet, though she kept trying to improve.

A. began to go into great detail about the pesticides that concerned her. She had spent some time on the Internet researching these pesticides and was totally consumed with her passion that these pesticides must be eliminated—a common thing for people with autistic features. She knew that one pesticide was a neurotoxin and known carcinogen. Another was a known endocrine disrupter and suspected carcinogen. She had read a study of Mexican rural children who had been exposed to pesticides, and compared their drawing abilities. As A. spoke, seemingly interminably, to her increasingly restless audience, she explained the differences in the drawings by those children exposed to pesticides and those not exposed to pesticides had been remarkable. The forms created by the exposed children were irregular and jerky—lines that were supposed to meet failed to meet. The creations of the non-exposed children were of far superior quality.

A. also told a story of the meter maid in her local suburban community. This meter maid was remarkable in that she was one of the fattest people that A. had ever seen. Of course, A. was overweight herself, but this person managed to make A. look positively waif-like.

At one point, A. had had cause to discuss pesticide spraying with the meter maid. The woman had professed little concern. I remember, she said when I was a child, the planes used to fly overhead and spray DDT on my community—and I’m healthy. A.’s meager social skills had been sufficient to prevent her from replying out loud that the meter maid looked anything but healthy. But now A. did not hesitate to opine that since DDT was an endocrine disrupter, and estrogen mimic, and estrogen was connected with weight gain, the meter maid’s weight problem was very likely the result of childhood pesticide exposure. The currently sprayed endocrine disrupter might have similar effects on the population, she pointed out.

A. spoke quickly, a bit too loudly, with a fear of being interrupted before she could finish her thoughts—thoughts that she wanted desperately for S. to hear and agree with.

S. and Harry listened politely, as did the neighboring hangers on—those who hoped to speak more with S., to get a few more of his precious short sentences for their personal mental collections of utterances he had blessed them with. Everyone but A. and S. was frustrated that they could not gather even a few of S.’s rare pronouncements. A. was not frustrated because she wanted to talk and S. was only feeling sorry that others could not talk. Anyone could see that A. was obsessed about this subject. Her loud, pedantic tone caused them to be a bit skeptical of her, so that the longer she talked the less likely they were to take her seriously.

Nevertheless, the story of the Mexican farm children and the fat meter maid stuck in S.’s mind. He, in fact loved children, and worried about his beloved nieces and nephew being exposed to pesticides. Moreover, he feared fat like the plague. S. looked at older relatives who had become fat with genuine terror and monitored his own slightly increasing waist line with almost the preoccupation that A. had toward pesticide spraying.

So far, no one had accused him of gaining weight, but he was concerned. Very concerned. He definitely was broader than he had been ten years earlier. He tried to reassure himself that the larger size was from power lifting, but he could not be quite certain. Every morning he pinched himself all over to make sure that he was still all muscle and no fat. He never let W. see him doing this. He pretended that only she was worrying about her weight. He feigned a total casualness about his appearance.

W. did not consciously know that S. was weight watching, but he communicated it to her unconsciously. She manifested her reception of his inadvertent communication by dieting and working even more passionately than he did. She had done so before she met him, as well, but with the access to several health clubs, and her time freed up by not working after marrying S., she could devote incredible energies to this project. But W. was not at this party, so only S. knew of his thoughts drifting towards her.

Blessedly, A. finally looked at her watch. The time had flown. She had to catch a train back to the suburbs. She abruptly terminated her monologue and excused herself hurriedly, not bothering to determine how her dissertation on pesticides might have been received. She had delivered her message successfully, without being interrupted. That was sufficient for her.

As she headed toward the door, S. followed after her and asked for her card. She gave it to him. He quickly wrote on the back IQ 154! Loves math & science These would be his keys to remembering who she was and what she was like. He was smart enough not to write VERY strange, and somewhat scary, even though that was what he thought, because he knew that little notes like that had a way of falling into the wrong hands.

It was only as she left that A. noticed that S. had a cast on his left arm. It was hidden in the sleeve of his designer suit. It was too late to ask what had happened to him. She had already said goodbye.

CHAPTER 2

PURSUIT BEGINS

Why did S. decide to look A. up after the party? She wasn’t beautiful, unlike the woman in MountainOne he was having a secret affair with, and unlike so many women who crowded around him seeking his attention.

A. wasn’t even very nice, as far as he could tell. Maybe he was unconsciously drawn to her eyes, their similarity to his own.

But one day he impulsively showed up at her doorstep. He tended to do things impulsively. He was on a long bicycle trip, and he managed to get 25 miles from his home in CityOne out into the suburbs and find himself in A.’s town. He still had her card in his wallet. He hadn’t gotten it to his personal secretary yet. He was not a model of good organization. S. was not detail oriented.

The cast was still on his arm, but he rode his bicycle anyway. S. was not cautious.

A. was nervous, seeing him at her doorstep. She found it entirely improper for a married man to visit a married woman alone at home. A.

worked at home. She had deadlines. She did not want to spend time talking to S. right now.

Still she saw that S. was hot and sweaty and needed something to drink, so she decided, with some reservations, to let him in. She was savvy enough to know that it never is terribly wise to be overtly rude to a rich and famous person. One never knows what problems that might lead to later.

S. saw her reluctance, and remembered his impression that A. did not like him. Perhaps that was why he was here. He liked to win people over. Even now he did not see her fear. That might have made him approach the situation differently. Instead he saw only an appearance of hostility that actually came from her limited array of facial expressions rather