Charmed Particles (26 page)

Her attention was caught again, later, by the following:

Long hair is fine for young women, but after thirty-five it is aging. Then it is best to keep shoulder-length the limit
.

She was not, however, eager that Abhijat should find and comment upon her choice of reading material, so she kept these books in a drawer in the china cabinet in the dining room, a part of the house into which Abhijat rarely ventured.

Meena and Lily had been the recipients of two socially uncoveted invitations to Erick Jarvis's birthday party, and although Lily indicated that she had no intention of going, Meena urged her to reconsider. “It would be nice, Lily.”

“Oh, fine,” Lily acquiesced, and the two had been dropped off at the Jarvis house by Abhijat, as rare an excursion for him as for the

girls.

Erick's mother had insisted that he invite not only his brother to the party, but also his cousins, with whom Erick had an uneasy relationship, themselves being dedicated students of the high school's auto shop classes and finding nothing so damaging to their social reputations as having a cousin in the nerd classes.

Lily had not strayed far from Meena's side the whole evening.

“I hear you're going to that school for geniuses,” Erick said, addressing Lily, who responded to this attention by turning slightly away.

“You mean the nerd academy,” Tom Hebert said loudly, hoping to attract the admiration of Erick's brother and cousins with his quip.

“You don't just decide you're going to go,” Lily explained, her eyes half closed, arms crossed in front of her, a posture Meena noticed that Lily adopted when she was nervous. “It's a competitive application process.”

“So do you think you'll get in?” Erick asked, ignoring both Tom and his cousins, who were now shotgunning cans of Mountain Dew in the living room.

“I don't know,” Lily responded, eyes still half closed, arms still crossed. “I hope so.”

“Will you guys be roommates?” he pressed on.

“Probably,” Lily answered. But at the same moment, Meena responded, “I don't know if I'll get in.”

Lily looked at her, perplexed. “Of course you'll get in.”

Most of the town's residents were now nervously anticipating the public hearing on the matter of the super collider, which had been scheduled for May and would be held in the auditorium of the Nicolet Public High School.

Lily's mind, however, had turned entirely to the matter of the Academy. She worked diligently on her application each evening and could, it seemed to Meena, be counted on to talk about nothing else.

For Lily, the Academy represented the promise of a world of peers who would understand her eagerness in the classroom, to whom her quirks might seem normal. The idea that such a place existed, a ready home for her, seemed to Lily like a dream come true.

At school, she found herself poring over the Academy brochure, imagining the room she would share with Meena, how she would come to think of her single year of regular high school as a lost year—a horrible glimpse at the tiresome football games and ridiculous cafeteria dances she would soon shake off in favor of more worthy endeavors.

Meena had counted on her father's preoccupation with the matter of the collider to allow the announcement of the opening of the Math and Science Academy to slip, unnoticed, past eyes that were otherwise ever vigilant for opportunities to enrich her academic environment.

The plan she had settled on was to say nothing, and with any luck, by the time the matter of the collider had been settled, should her father catch wind of the Academy opportunity, the deadline for application would have long since passed.

She had a sense, though they hadn't discussed it, that her mother would have taken her side. Would have argued that the Nicolet school system was perfectly fine, better than fine. That it was, after all, why they had chosen to live there. That Meena would have time enough on her own in college and beyond without forcing her out into the world at this age. And she had a sense also that her mother (whom she sometimes noticed watching longingly as the other fathers on the block conversed easily with one another, leaning against their lawnmowers or snow blowers) would understand Meena's wariness about moving so completely away from her classmates, her concern that she might become as unable as her father was to connect with them.

This was not, however, a decision Meena had shared with Lily, who, she imagined, would find it nearly impossible to comprehend.

Lately, Meena had begun to realize that the more time she spent with Lily, the more isolated she felt. There were an increasing number of moments in which she'd noticed, growing within her, a lurking and unpleasant suspicion: that it would be easier to do some things without Lily—social events she would have liked to enjoy without the specter of Lily at her side, needing to be attended to. This, though, had left Meena feeling both guilty and ashamed.

How different it was from when they were younger, Meena thought. She could still remember the first time she'd been invited to Lily's house to play. She'd understood it to be a great honor and a sign of the depth of their friendship when, one Saturday afternoon, Lily invited her into Randolph's study—a grand cabinet of curiosities filled with specimens in glass jars, the fossilized bones of strange creatures, sculptures, wood carvings, well-worn travel books (his favorites, Lily explained, and thus, well loved). It was as though Lily's house contained within it a miniature museum.

Meena thought how unlike Randolph Lily had turned out to be, and how a bit more of his curiosity about the world might serve her friend well.

As for breaking the news about the Academy to Lily, Meena did not yet have a plan. Instead, she kept silent while Lily pored over her application, too engrossed in her own application materials to notice that, rather than commiserating, Meena barely responded each time Lily brought up the subject of her application essay, her quest for the strongest letters of recommendation.

Meena never told Lily that she had applied. But she never told her that she hadn't, either. For Meena, this seemed an important distinction—a talisman against any future accusation that she had acted with dishonesty or deceit.

The week before the public hearing, the Lab had arranged a meeting to brief all employees on how they would be expected to conduct themselves should they choose to participate in the hearings. Dr. Palmer, the Lab director, stood once more at the podium in Anderson Hall, addressing the assembled employees. “I'm sure you all know by now,” he began, “that the public hearing on the projected super collider will be held on Wednesday at the Nicolet Public High School. For those of you who have preregistered to speak—and I understand there are a number of you who have—I'd like to make a few important things clear. If you choose to speak, and we encourage you to do so, you may identify yourselves as Lab employees, but you must also make it clear that you are speaking for yourselves as private citizens, that you are not speaking on behalf of the Lab. Please remember that your conduct at these hearings will reflect on the Lab and may well influence the Department of Energy's decision regarding the collider. We would urge you to do your best to talk in terms that will be easily understood by laypersons.”

Here there were chuckles from the audience.

Dr. Palmer held up his hand, smiling. “Yes, I am aware that this is difficult for many of us. In light of that, Gerald here,” he gestured at Dr. Cardiff in the front row, “has been working over the past few weeks on something we're calling the checkout-line project. Essentially, it's a quick physicist-to-layperson translation of some of the central issues. What we're thinking about is how you might quickly and clearly describe what we're doing to one of your neighbors in the checkout line at the Jewel. Gerald will be handing out some of the talking points he's put together, and I'd encourage you all to make use of them.

“Now,” he continued, resting his elbows on the podium, “I know there is a good deal of frustration in this room with the people who want to put a stop to this project, and I know there is also significant concern over what will happen to the Lab if this collider isn't built. But the thing we've got to remember at this hearing is that these are our friends and neighbors.”

Here, Abhijat thought he detected the voice of Dr. Cardiff in Dr. Palmer's remarks.

“And no matter how unfounded we think their concerns are, the most important thing to remember is that they believe them to be true. All we can do is to try our best to educate them and to allay those fears.”

In the atrium after the meeting, over coffee and Danish, Abhijat listened with concern to his colleagues, wondering how well those who had chosen to speak would be able to adhere to the director's advice.

“I don't know what we can say to these people,” one of Abhijat's junior colleagues was saying to a circle of fellow physicists. “These are the same geniuses who think a mobile phone is going to give them cancer.”

“Or living near power lines,” added another.

“It's not looking good for us, is it, mate?” one of his colleagues said, patting Abhijat on the back, and setting a few tiny muffins on his plate.