I said I understood and thanked him. Where should we go? I had read an article in the Times about an island in the Aegean where half the population lived to be a hundred. There was no valid scientific explanation; the residents, most of whom were goat herders, took it as a fact of life. A man was quoted in the article as saying, “Time is different here.” I bought two first-class tickets to Athens and found a ferry schedule online. A boat traveled to the island only once a week. We would have to wait two days in Athens, but there were worse places. We would visit the temples, the great, indestructible monuments of a lost world, then vanish.
The day arrived. I packed my bags; we would be going straight from the station to the airport for a ten P.M. flight. I could barely think straight; my emotions were an indescribable jumble. Joy and sadness had fused together in my heart. Foolishly, I had planned nothing else for the day and was forced to sit idly in my apartment until late afternoon. I had no food on hand, having cleaned out the refrigerator, but doubted I could have eaten anyway.
I took a cab to the station. Five o’clock was, once again, the appointed hour. Liz would be taking an Amtrak train to Stamford, to see her mother, in Greenwich, one last time, then a local to Grand Central. With each passing block my feelings annealed into a pure sense of purpose. I knew, as few men did, why I had been born in the first place; everything in my life had called me forward to this moment. I paid the cabbie and went inside to wait. It was a Saturday, the crowds light. The opalescent clock faces read 4:36. Liz’s train was due in twenty minutes.
My pulse quickened as the announcement came over the speakers: Now arriving at track 16 … I considered going to the platform to head her off, but we might lose each other in the crowd. Passengers surged into the main hall. Soon it became clear that Liz was not among them. Perhaps she had taken a later train; the New Haven line ran every thirty minutes. I checked my phone, but there were no messages. The next train came, and still no Liz. I began to worry that something had happened. It did not occur to me yet that she had changed her mind, though the idea was waiting in the wings. At six o’clock I called her cell, but it went straight to voicemail. Had she shut it off?
Train by train, my panic grew. It was now obvious that Liz would not be coming, and yet I continued to wait, to hope. I was hanging by my fingertips over an abyss. Time and again I tried her cell, with the same result. This is Elizabeth Lear. I’m not available to take your call. The clocks’ hands mocked me with their turning. It was nine, then ten. I had waited five hours. What a fool I’d been.
I left the station and began to walk. The air was cruel; the city seemed like a huge dead thing, some monstrous joke. I did not button my coat or put on my gloves, preferring to feel the pain of the wind. Sometime later I looked up to find I was on Broadway, near the Flatiron. I realized I had left my suitcase at the station. I thought to go back and retrieve it—surely somebody would have turned it in—but the flame of this impulse quickly extinguished itself. A suitcase—who cared? Of course there was the morphine to consider. Perhaps whoever found it would enjoy themselves.
Drinking myself blind seemed like the next logical step. I entered the first restaurant I came to, in the lobby of an office building—sleek and upscale, full of chrome and stone. A few couples were still eating, though it was after midnight. I took a place at the bar, ordered a Scotch, finished it before the bartender had returned the bottle to the rack, and requested a refill.
“Excuse me. You’re Professor Fanning, aren’t you?”
I turned to the woman sitting a few stools away. She was young, a little heavy but quite striking, Indian or Middle Eastern, with raven-black hair, full cheeks, and a bow-shaped mouth. Above her generically sexy black skirt she wore a filmy top the color of cream. A glass of something with fruit in it sat on the bar in front of her, its rim stained with crescents of rust-colored lipstick.
“I’m sorry?”
She smiled. “I guess you don’t remember me.” When I didn’t reply, she added, “Molecular Biology 100? Spring 2002?”
“You were my student.”
She laughed. “Not much of one. You gave me a C minus.”
“Oh. Sorry about that.”
“Trust me, no offense taken. The human race has a lot to thank you for, actually. Many people are alive today because I didn’t go to med school.”
I had no recollection of her; hundreds of young women like her came and went from my classes. It is also not the same thing to see someone from the distance of a podium at eight o’clock in the morning, wearing sweatpants and furiously tapping a laptop, as to find them sitting three stools away in a bar, dressed for a night of adventure.
“So, where did you end up?” A dull remark; I was simply looking for something to say, since conversation was now inevitable.
“Publishing, where else?” She leveled her gaze at me. “You know, I had the biggest crush on you. I’m talking major. A lot of the girls did.”
I realized she was drunk, making such a confession without even telling me her name.
“Miss—?”
She moved to the stool next to mine and extended her hand. Her nails were perfectly manicured, painted to match her lips. “Nicole.”
“It’s been a long night for me, Nicole.”