This is an old one about the unfolding of an accident.
Anyone in the University community who had an opinion on the matter, and most people did, said that they were a pretty unlikely couple. She was startlingly attractive, borderline-brilliant, flamboyant, erratic, and used to having people do things for her so she would like them. He, on the other hand, was startlingly plain, borderline-brilliant, reserved, consistent, and used to doing things for people so they would like him. At least in the last of these, they were compatible. The last of these is what brought them together in the beginning and it’s probably what broke them apart in the end.
***
Sometimes, Winter creeps up on Autumn and whispers gently in her ear that it’s time to go, at which time Autumn carefully folds up her beautiful multi-colored gown and strolls quietly into the evening. But, not this year. This year, Winter pounced on Autumn, thrust a dagger deep into her heart, threw her and her beautiful gown into a shallow grave, and buried her over and over again with ironically pure whiteness. It was one of these merciless burials that kept the turnout at the Dean’s Christmas party lighter than usual.
Even so, there were enough people at the party that it crackled with nerdish energy. Like subatomic particles, some of the party-goers attracted each other and others repelled each other depending on their natures and their current positions. A cloud of electrons seemed to orbit the couple near the center of the merrily decorated open area of the Strickland Physical Sciences Building, being strongly attracted to Pallas, yet also being kept at a distance by an inexplicable force. The force certainly couldn’t have been the mild but universally envied Albert who was standing at Pallas’s side trying as hard as he could to sip rather than gulp the Tanqueray and tonic he was holding.
When Pallas was born forty-seven years ago, her father struggled with what to name her. He wanted a name that would reflect the greatness he knew she was destined for and that was of equal stature to their family name: Rhodes. He was a professor of history at Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers at the time, and his first thought was to name her Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom and war. But Athena was the daughter of Zeus, and he knew his colleagues would take that name as an attempted reflection of his own greatness rather than his daughter’s – they already thought his ego was a bit overblown. So, he settled on Pallas, Athena’s inseparable friend and a goddess in her own right. His colleagues certainly couldn’t think less of him for that choice. The goddess Pallas, however, it should be noted, was killed in a tragic accident.
As the party progressed, one of the electrons orbiting Pallas and Albert went into a nervous oscillation and then dropped nearer to the couple, spending a considerable amount of his introverted energy in the process.
“Excuse me, Dr. Rhodes,” the young instructor said with a slight quaver, “but I just wanted to let you know that I really appreciated your latest paper. I thought it was brilliant. Is there any chance we could meet so I could ask you a few questions about it?”
“Sure, of course,” said Pallas, always happy to oblige an adoring fan. “Sometime in January would be fine. Why don’t you call my office and Judy will set up an appointment.”
“Thank you,” the instructor said with a relieved grin. “Merry Christmas.”
“Thank you, same to you.”
As the young instructor walked away, Albert said, “Should I be part of that conversation?”
“Sure,” Pallas said indifferently. “If you want to be.”
“If I want to be?” Albert said, the tone of his voice switching from its usual gentleness to annoyance much like a slowly simmering pot snapping to a roiling boil.
Outbursts like that were so uncommon from Albert that it startled Pallas. “You seem angry,” she said slightly flustered.
“You know,” Albert said, calming himself as much as he could, “that freaking paper was as much mine as yours – more, in fact. You may have articulated the initial inspiration; although, truth be told, we were both thinking along similar lines at the time. But I’m the one who ground through the math and turned the inspiration into more than just a clever thought.”
“Oh, is that so…” Pallas said, still slightly off her guard.
“Yes, that’s so! And as long as I’ve opened the flood gates, I might as well tell you that I’ve been feeling pretty damned taken for granted lately.”
Pallas was given a temporary reprieve by the Dean who crashed his way through the cloud of electrons, clearly having no regard for the laws of nature, and nearly collided with Pallas. “Rhodes,” he said with his usual good-humored brusqueness, “that Nature paper of yours is getting a hell of a lot of press. Good job.”
“Thanks,” Pallas responded, simultaneously dodging the Dean’s half-hearted way-to-go swat on her butt and his martini that was sloshing just a little too close to her Versace evening dress.
“Happy holidays,” the Dean said to Pallas as he ricocheted away toward his next set of party-goers. “Same to you, Alfred,” he added over his shoulder.
“Thank you, same to you, sir,” said Albert. But the Dean was already out of range.
The Dean’s momentary interruption gave Pallas the chance to compose herself and think a few moves ahead in the little chess game Albert had abruptly started. “Albert,” she said, “I must have told you ten-thousand times over the years that I love you. You complete me. That’s still true.”
“I believed you the first nine-thousand nine-hundred times. But, lately, your words have seemed hollow. And maybe it’s not enough to simply complete you.”
“Come on, you know it’s more than that. I need you. You saw what happened when you did your semester at Oxford last year. I turned into a wreck. Who was there to keep me together? Who was there to pay the bills, for goodness sake,” Pallas said, trying a bit of mostly-true humor.
Albert was not amused. “I know you need me,” he said. “And I like you to need me. I might even need you to need me. But I’m not sure that’s enough anymore.”
“Look, Albert, sweetheart,” Pallas said, her voice betraying the exasperation this unexpected intrusion into her carefully constructed little universe was causing, “I’m going to do nothing less than change the world. Isn’t being a part of that enough?”
“Holy smokes. You’re going to change the world? How big is your ego? Has it gotten bigger lately? Or have I just been blinded by you, like everyone else around here? You’ve had a few ideas that have advanced the field by a few fractions of an inch – but nothing world changing, I can assure you. I know the Christmas season isn’t the best time to talk about this, but I’m not sure I can do this much longer.”
“I’ve got to admit, you’re starting to worry me a little bit,” Pallas said. “I’m hoping you’re talking about work. I’m hoping you mean you don’t want to collaborate any more for a while. That’s no problem. We can take a break, maybe team back up in a few months…”
“No, Pallas, it’s more than work. I mean I don’t think I can be part of us anymore, especially since us means you almost all the time.”
Pallas stared at Albert for a good fraction of a minute. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she finally said.
“No, I am very much not kidding you.”
Instinctively, Pallas reverted to a behavior that had served her well in the past but that she hadn’t needed for many years. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she repeated, except this time much louder and with a tear in her eye. The electrons stopped orbiting. The Dean stopped ricocheting. Everyone turned their full attention to Pallas. “You’re breaking up with me?” she said, letting the tear in her eye roll down her cheek.
“Pallas, quiet down,” Albert said trying to take her arm.
“Leave me alone,” Pallas said, breaking away from Albert’s grasp. Having nowhere else to go, she ran for the front door of the Strickland Physical Sciences Building.
As though he and Pallas had rehearsed her little drama a thousand times, Albert followed her, saying, “Pallas, wait, we can talk about this.”
Pallas repressed a tiny grin – a tiny grin would have ruined everything. She kept running out the door and into Cavendish Street, paying far more attention to the door she had just exited than to traffic.
The driver of the car heading down Cavendish Street jammed on his brakes as soon as he saw Pallas running out the door, but it was too late. The old car slid silently on the slippery pavement. Time seemed to slow down for the driver as it does when heading into an accident, and he repeated over and over to himself, “Please, God, don’t let me hurt her; please, God, don’t let me hurt her; …” God must have been listening, because the car came to a stop with the bumper pressing up against Pallas’s leg.
The driver jumped out of his car and said, “I’m really sorry. I tried to stop. Are you okay?”
Pallas waved him off, her attention fully on Albert who had just caught up with her.
Albert looked at Pallas, and Pallas looked at Albert, her little drama forgotten. Her need to be helped and his need to help formed an attractive force as strong as any in nature. “Are you okay,” he asked, catching his breath.
“Yes. Yes, I’m okay.” She looked into his eyes as another tear ran down her cheek. “Albert, sweetheart, would you please reconsider what you just told me?”
A whirlwind of thoughts and feelings swirled through Albert – some good, many not so good. Finally, he answered Pallas with a single word. “No,” he said. He turned around, walked away, and didn’t look back.
As Pallas watched Albert go, her first thought was, Hmm, I didn’t think he had it in him. Her second thought was that it likely would have been better for her if the driver of the car who had just barely hit her hadn’t bothered slowing down. Albert, on the other hand, was looking forward to relative happiness. Anyone in the University community who had an opinion on the matter, and most people did, said that they were a pretty unlikely couple.
Story copyright © 2010 by David W. Palmer
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