It was late February in Boston that I met her in the lounge of the Sheraton. She sat with a rocks glass in one hand, a pen in the other, lost in a scattering of papers that covered the bar’s lacquered surface. Even though she was sitting on a stool, I could tell she was tall and thin, but beyond that, all I could see was hair. Lots of it. It was gorgeous. The track lighting overhead highlighted a thick mixture of mostly blond, strands of golden brown, a streak of gray here and there. It fell around her shoulders in soft, springy waves, the type of hair that probably bounced when she walked. I wished mine were like that, but my own dark hair lacked body and bounce and looked much better in the shorter style I sported.
She appeared lost in thought, scribbling notes in the margins of strewn papers, the whole mess seeming to extend her personal space so that the area more closely resembled a desk than a bar. I pulled out a stool, leaving one in between us because, unlike her, I had very good boundaries in public.
“Excuse me,” I said, before I sat. “Is this bar taken?
It took her a moment to respond, and when she did she stared blankly over the edge of her glasses, as though she’d forgotten she wasn’t at home and wondered who had let me in her house.
I smiled, amused by her startled expression, and in one sweeping glance noted every feature of her face. At least the half I could see. The other half was partially covered by the wave of hair falling forward from her side part.
If pressed to choose my favorite part of a woman’s body, I admit it would be her face. It’s the one part someone can’t cover up, the part you have to wake up to, speak to, look at all the time. I knew right away I could get used to hers, particularly her mouth. Her lips were incredible, full and well defined, and there was something especially beautiful about the outline of her upper lip—so beautiful I wanted to run my finger along its shapely contour.
“I’m so sorry.” She quickly scooped the papers into a pile to make room for me. “I was so involved I didn’t know where I was.”
“Neither did I. I saw all this paperwork and thought I’d mistakenly walked into the hotel’s office instead of the bar.”
“Oh, come on,” she said with an exaggerated frown. “Is it that bad?”
I got up on my stool, but before I could say anything more the bartender came over. I’d gotten to know him by name during the weekend.
“Hey, Rob,” I said.
“Hi there. The usual?”
“I’m not sure.” I looked at my watch. It wasn’t yet four o’clock. “It might be too late for a libation, too early for a cocktail.”
“As they say, it’s five o’clock somewhere in the world.”
“Good point.”
“Grand Marnier margarita on the rocks, no salt?”
“You remembered! Yes, please.” It’s amazing how generous tips can improve a bartender’s working memory.
When he left she turned on her stool, facing me fully and tilting her head in question. “What’s the difference between a libation and a cocktail?”
“In bartending? A libation is a drink served early in the day—with brunch, say—and a cocktail is reserved for evening.”
“Hmm…if my memory serves me correctly, a libation is usually associated with religious ceremonies…something offered up to the gods, or goddesses as the case may be.”
“To what end?”
She shrugged. “Atonement, spiritual cleansing, I guess…something offered to rid oneself of bad karma or negative energy.”
“Well then, given the residual negative energy from my last relationship, I should have two,” I joked.
“Ha! You and me both.” Rob set my drink in front of me.
I laid a twenty on the bar, stirred my margarita, and out of the corner of my eye caught her checking me out.
“So,” she said matter-of-factly, “you’re a bartender?”
“Me? No. I’m a high school English teacher by day.”
“And by night?”
“A novelist. I moonlight as a lesbian romance writer.”
She furrowed her brow. “Seriously?”
“Seriously. What about you?”
“I’m in higher education.”
“Oh, well, excuse me.” I gestured at her with my chin. “What do you teach?”
“Mathematics.”
“Hmm…that would make you a math professor?”
“It would.”
“Wow. You can’t get more unromantic than that, huh?”
“I beg your pardon?” she said, visibly offended by my raillery. “Are you saying mathematicians can’t be romantic?”
“Uh…yeah! A romantic mathematician? That definitely qualifies as an oxymoron. I mean, I can’t speak from experience because I’ve never dated a math teacher—specifically for that very reason—but by way of a comparative analogy, math is to romance what Chinese or German is to the Romance languages.”
“I happen also to be German,” she said in a clipped voice.
“A German math professor? Ah…so that explains the frost forming on your eyeglasses.” I rubbed my arms. “Oooh. You feel that chill in here, or is it just me?”
She removed her reading glasses, slid them into the pocket of the white shirt she wore over a black top, and looked at me incredulously. “Have I just been insulted?”
“I wouldn’t know. I’m not that bright. I’m in lower education, remember?”
“You know what?” Her face soured, like I was a wedge of lime in her mouth and she couldn’t wait to spit me out. “When it’s our turn to talk, please remind me to pass you up.”
She’d lost me. “Pass me up for what?”
“Aren’t you here for speed dating?”
“Speed dating? No. I don’t do anything fast, except drive. I’m here for a lesbian writers’ conference. It ended today, but I extended my stay to see a little bit of Boston.”
She picked up her glass and shook her head. “You really write romances?”
“I do.”
“That’s hard to believe. I certainly hope you’re better at writing them than you are at having them.”
“Oh, absolutely. My fictional lovers are the best. I don’t know what it is about those women, but they have an incredible knack for saying all the right things at the right time.”
This remark made her laugh, even if it came with a roll of her eyes.
It was true, though. As much as I wanted an everlasting relationship, I’d never found anyone who stuck to the script, so to speak—not the way they did in my novels. Inevitably, the beauty of the romance would fade, and when the romance went out the door so did I. Now approaching middle age, I found all my relationships combined amounted to no more than an anthology of unhappily-ever-after stories.
“So, in other words,” she said, “you only like women who follow your script? That makes you as cold and controlling as a German mathematician.” She rubbed her arms, mocking me. “Oooh…you’re right. I’m starting to feel that chill in here.”
I laughed out loud, oddly enjoying our pejorative discourse, this rhetoric of insult. I liked her. A lot. And my romance-writer instincts were telling me she liked me, too. A little bit. Maybe. Maybe not.
“What name do you write under?” she asked.
“Why? In case speed dating turns out to be a flop, which it will, and you find yourself in the mood to cozy up with a good romance novel?”
“Something like that.” She smiled, a soft, almost seductive smile, and looked me up and down appraisingly.
“Kay Westscott,” I said.
“Is that your real name?”
“Yes. But tell me what interest a straight woman has in reading a lesbian romance?”
“I’m not straight.” She rolled her eyes again. “I’m here for lesbian speed dating.”
“You’re kidding me. Here at the Sheraton?”
“They hold the event monthly in one of the conference rooms.”
“Geez, between speed dating and the writer’s conference, the Sheraton is infested with lesbians this weekend, huh?”
“A quite heavy infestation, it appears. But I’m sure management much prefers us to bedbugs.”
This time we laughed together, and I was just about to ask her name when someone called out mine. I turned on my stool to see Michelle, a fellow writer, and her wife, Rose. They’d decided to extend their stay as well before heading back to Oregon, and being solo, I’d invited myself to tag along for an early dinner.
“Hey, ladies,” I said as they approached. They looked at my companion and then at me, obviously eager for an introduction. “Michelle, Rose,” I said, “I’d like you to meet…um…my current wife…uh…” I cleared my throat and looked to the professor for help.
Clearly unamused, she shook her head as if she’d had just about enough of me. “Ann,” she offered, graciously smiling, and extended her hand to each of them.
They exchanged pleasantries, Rose asking why she hadn’t noticed her at the conference, Ann saying only that she lived in the area and wasn’t here for the conference. Michelle caught my eye just then and arched an eyebrow suspiciously. She knew me too well. I winked, and she got the hint that I wanted a little more time alone with…Ann. She gave me the thumbs-up and a moment later took her wife by the hand and dragged her along the bar to sit a few stools away from us.
“So, Ann…” I said, returning my attention to her and holding back a smile. “You have a wonderful mouth, incredibly beautiful lips.”
“Whoa,” the unromantic math professor answered harshly. “That’s crossing the line, don’t you think?”
Her response came as an unexpected reprimand, and I was taken aback. “I said you have beautiful lips. I didn’t say I wanted to kiss them, did I? Not that I would be strictly opposed to engaging in such an activity if forced to do so, but I didn’t say that. What if I’d said you have beautiful ears, which I can’t see because of all that hair, or a nice nose, which you do—would that be any different? Geez…it was an honest compliment. I’m sorry.”
“No…I’m sorry.” She sighed. “I should have just said thank you. I get uncomfortable around aggressive women. They throw me off balance.”
“Aggressive?” I put my hand to my chest. “Trust me, if I were aggressive I’d have you by the hand right now, taking you up to my hotel room. And you’d be going home a lot happier than you’ll leave after speed dating tonight,” I added as an afterthought. I felt rejected, wrongly accused, and turned to my margarita for comfort. “Besides,” I said, mumbling into my glass, “you look as long and lean and agile as a cheetah, so I’m reasonably confident you could outrun, if not fend off an aggressive woman.”
“But it’s not my nature. I’m a pussycat. My instincts would have me climb a tree and hide.”
“You don’t think I could get a cat out of a tree?”
“Climbing up after me would be a rather aggressive move, wouldn’t it?”
“Who said anything about climbing? I’d just put a bowl of food on the ground and wait for you to get hungry and come down. Then I’d nab you.”
She smiled and grew quiet, almost bashful, and looked at me sideways. “Would you really have wanted to take me to your hotel room...if you were aggressive?”
Suddenly I felt as shy as Ann looked. Our eyes locked, and when I opened my mouth to speak nothing came out.
“What’s wrong? Is the writer at a loss for words?”
“She is,” I said. “And it’s probably for the best. If the writer answered in the affirmative, she’d probably have to endure another reprimand for crossing the line.”
We stared at each other, and for a moment the sexual chemistry was palpable. I ran my hands over my face, trying to sober myself from the dizzying effects of desire. “Listen,” I said, desperate to keep her company a while longer. “What time does speed dating start?”
She looked at her watch. “Half an hour.”
“Then I have a proposal.” I motioned to the bartender for another round. “Let me buy you a drink, and if you’ll explain the rules of speed dating, I’ll help you practice.”
Ann was silent for a moment and then in a hesitant voice finally said, “Okay.” She ran her fingers through her hair, pushing it back and out of her face, but it only fell forward again. “Well, we split into two groups. Group A stays seated along one side of a conference table. When the moderators have us begin, people assigned to group B move from person to person in group A, switching every three minutes until everyone’s had a chance to talk.”
“Three minutes? That’s all you get with a potential suitor?”
“That’s all.”
I slid off my stool to close the distance between us. “And I see you’ve been making up questions?” I asked, nonchalantly occupying the stool that had separated us.
“Some are mine. Others I’ve taken from a book of speed-dating questions.”
“There’s actually a book for serial speed daters?” I gestured toward the thin paperback partially covered by her papers. “Is that it?”
“I’m not a serial speed dater. This is only my second time.” She finished her first drink and pushed the empty glass away.
“Well, since you’re back for a second run, let’s hope tonight goes better than the first.” I straightened myself and rubbed my hands together as the bartender brought our drinks. “Ready when you are.”
Ann checked her watch. “All right. I’ll ask you questions for a minute or two, and then you can ask me a few.”
“Got it.”
Ann faced me squarely. “What do you consider one of your best qualities?”
“Hmm…my best qualities? Let’s see…” I took a deep breath and exhaled. Suddenly under pressure, I couldn’t think of one good thing about myself. “Gee…that’s a hard one.”
“It’s a simple question, Kay.” She glanced at her watch. “You’re taking way too long.”
“That’s because you’re putting me on the spot…asking me to brag.”
“It’s not bragging. Just say something positive about yourself.”
“Um…” I threw my hands in the air. “I’m generous. How’s that? Generous to a fault.”
“Good. And what would you consider one of your biggest faults?”
Another hard one. I scratched my head, then reached for my margarita, but she stopped me before I could get the glass to my lips and almost made me spill it.
“Put that down,” she ordered me. “No drinking during speed dating. It takes up time.”
“This is so ridiculous. How can anyone do this in three minutes? I feel like you’re clocking me with an egg timer.”
“Well, you’re almost poached, and you’ve only answered one question. Come on…think…one fault,” she said, keeping me focused.
“Okay…I’m generous.”
“You already said that. It’s not a fault.”
“Yes, it is. I said I’m generous to a fault.”
Ann pushed her hair out of her face again and shook her head sympathetically. “You’re doing terribly.”
“I know. Ask me another.” I squirmed on my stool. “Something easy.” While she sorted through her papers, I defiantly grabbed my glass again and took a big gulp. “I’m sorry, but I really needed that. The pressure of three minutes is paralyzing my brain. Who came up with this three-minute rule, anyway? Whatever happened to a leisurely three-hour dinner date where a couple can engage in relaxed conversation?”
I took the orange from the rim of my glass, bent the rind, and was just about to bite into it when she said, “Now you’re going to start eating an orange? We’re almost out of time!”
“Sorry.” I dropped the fruit into my glass and wiped my hands on a bar napkin. “Go on.”
“What’s your favorite holiday?”
“That’s more like it.” I didn’t even have to think about that one. “Halloween,” I said.
Ann’s eyes lit up. “Mine, too. And tell me about your alter ego. What character are you most likely to dress up as on Halloween?”
I answered without hesitation. “A pirate.”
“Me, too! Ever since I was a kid I’ve loved the whole pirate mystique, the idea of sailing the seven seas in search of hidden treasures.” She studied me, narrowed her eyes, and I could tell I’d earned a bonus point for that answer. “So, tell me, Kay…if we were pirates and I rescued you from your sinking ship, what would you give me?”
“Why, I…I’d give you my treasure!”
“Aww…that’s awfully sweet,” she said with a bite of sarcasm. “But if you gave me your treasure, what would you have left for yourself?”
“I’d have you.”
“Ah, good answer…but then you’d have your treasure back.”
I grinned. “There’s nothing like having it all.”
She moistened those beautiful lips with her tongue. “You’re very slick, Kay.”
“You can add that to my list of finer qualities. All I ask is that for our first Valentine’s Day together you use some of our treasure to buy me that potbellied pig I’ve been wanting.”
“And you’ll get me the parrot I’ve always wanted. I really do want one in real life, but in my pirate fantasies a parrot on my shoulder seems the perfect pirate accessory.”
“Done! And we’ll exchange pet-presents on the new schooner you’ll have waiting for me—you know, to replace my ship that sank.”
She regarded me with a thoughtful smirk and then glanced at her papers. “Moving on…what’s your favorite number and why?”
Another easy one. I was quickly making up for lost time. “My favorite number is three, because the rule of three fascinates me. Except when it comes to speed dating, of course.”
“Can you expound on that subject?” she asked in typical professor fashion. Her tone suggested she was familiar with the rule and would gladly provide a mathematical explanation should I fail to logically support my answer.
“Well, something about the human brain—animal brains, too—seems hardwired to respond pleasantly to patterns. And three is the smallest possible pattern.”
Ann nodded. “One is chance, two is coincidence, three is a pattern.”
“You’re jumping way ahead of me, Professor, but that is correct. You and I just met by chance. If we accidentally bump into each other a second time tonight it will be a coincidence. But if I run into you a third time, I’ll see a pattern in your behavior and begin to think you’re following me.”
“You should be so lucky.”
“I should.” Defiantly, I stared at her and ate my orange, then stirred my second drink.
Ann made a face, but I could tell she was trying to keep from smiling. “Despite your aversion to mathematicians, you’re speaking in mathematical terms.” She sipped from her own glass and stared at me. “A pattern is defined as a discernible regularity. Recognizing, calculating, and predicting patterns helps us organize and make sense of life. In fact, you should think of mathematics as the search for discernible regularities in the universe.”
I wouldn’t have minded Ann becoming a discernible regularity in my personal universe, but God forbid I say this to her; complimenting her lips had gotten me into enough trouble. “Hmm…I never thought of it that way,” I said, “but the rule of three does have wonderful applications in language and writing, not to mention art and photography. Stories, for instance, have a beginning, middle, and end. Essays have an introduction, body, and conclusion. In the visual arts, we look at things in terms of foreground, middle ground, and background, and we critique art based on form, context, and content. Threes are all around us.”
“I see what you’re saying,” Ann said, her interest seeming piqued. “How does it apply to writing?”
“In writing, the rule of three is known as the triad. Think of the Three Stooges, Three Musketeers, Three Little Pigs…Goldilocks and the Three Bears, the Three Blind Mice…even the three wise men.”
“Hmm…and the Three Wise Men…didn’t they bring three gifts to baby Jesus?”
“They did. Gold, frankincense, and—” I couldn’t remember the third.
“Myrrh,” she said.
“Myrrh. That’s right. And for that matter, we think of God as a trinity, don’t we? We even think of ourselves as a trinity—mind, body, and spirit.”
I glanced at a clock over the bar. Three minutes had come and gone. We’d been speed dating for fifteen minutes. It was safe to say Ann and I were both hard-boiled. She wasn’t checking her watch anymore, which made me feel far more relaxed.
She stirred her drink, seeming lost in thought, until her eyes suddenly widened, and she turned back to me. “Hey, what about superstitions? Don’t we always say death comes in three?”
“Good one!” It was on the long list of threes I used in class discussions with my creative-writing and honors-English students. “And how many wishes does the genie in a lamp grant?”
“Three! Yes. And—oh!” she said, bouncing on her stool with the enthusiasm of a game-show contestant. “Snow White has three fairy godmothers—Flora, Fauna and Merryweather!”
If this had been a game show, Ann would have won the new car. “Outstanding,” I said, laughing at her excitement and warding off a compulsion to touch her upper lip.
“And…and…what about the three witches in Macbeth?” she blurted out. “This is fun!”
“Mythology, too, is full of threes…a fine example being the three Fates who weave our lives together. And if you think about it, life itself and the passage of time are divided into threes. Past, present, and future…morning, noon, and night. Listen to people, and you’ll hear them speak in threes all the time. We say, on your mark, get set, go, don’t we? And ready, aim, fire.”
Ann beamed. “One-two-three!”
“One-two-three?”
“Yes, you know, when two people are getting ready to lift something they don’t do it on the count of two or four. They lift on the count of three.”
Ann was right. She was a quick study. “So, you see,” I said, “something inherent in our nature attracts us to patterns and things that come in threes.”
“I do see. And you know you’re going to have me up all night thinking about triads.” She took a maraschino cherry between her teeth and pulled it from its stem.
“Well, if you can’t sleep, you can always round up a couple of lonely speed daters for a ménage à trois.”
“I’m going to ignore that suggestion. I’m not into threesomes. When it comes to lovers I’m a one-woman woman.”
“Me, too.” One at a time, but never a one-and-only. True love was reserved for the characters in my novels.
Ann searched my eyes as if looking for something. I couldn’t tell what color hers were in the ambient lighting of the bar, but their intensity nearly took my breath away. “So,” I asked, trying to stay focused, “what’s your favorite number?”
“1.618.”
“A decimal. Seriously? Your favorite number is a decimal?” Now it was my turn to roll my eyes. “Do I dare ask why?”
“It’s a very special number. 1.618 is the Golden Ratio, the Golden Mean. It’s the value of phi.”
“Oh, Lord, here we go—I’m about to get a math lesson. I can feel it coming.”
“Well, the English teacher just gave me a lesson, so the math professor will give you one. And you might actually enjoy mine because the Golden Ratio is thought to be divine. Some believe it’s the blueprint for all of creation.”
She got more comfortable on her stool. “Phi is actually a geometric construction. It’s a specific type of rectangle whose proportions are unique because when you divide it into two parts—a bigger and a smaller one—the total length of the rectangle divided by the long part is also equal to the long one divided by the short one.”
“What?” My eyes crossed, and she laughed at me. “I have no idea what that means.”
Hearing the words geometry, phi, and ratio made me want to politely excuse myself and run screaming to the ladies’ room, never to return. I’d never been a good math student. Even now, as an educator, I steered clear of colleagues who were math teachers. Numbers made me nervous. But something about the word divine captured my attention. Ann captured my attention. And so I stayed.
“Let’s try it another way,” she said in a soft, patient teacher’s voice. She picked up her pen and turned over a sheet of paper on which she’d been scribbling her dating questions. I watched as she began to draw a rectangle, but halfway through, she discarded her pen and reached for her phone.
“It’s easier if I show you,” she said as she searched the internet, “but just think of a picture frame, or a painting on canvas, something you’d like to hang over your sofa. The Golden Ratio is like that canvas, except that its length and height would have very specific proportions, a ratio of one to 1.618.”
“Hmm…okay. That I understand.” A rectangular shape hanging on my living-room wall was a lot easier to envision. “Is phi like pi?”
“No. The value of pi is 3.14. Both are two of the most important numbers in history, but basically you can think of it this way: pi is to a circle, what phi is to line segments.” Ann paused to sip her drink. I watched her lips slowly part, watched them hug the rim of her rocks glass. Never mind pi and phi; I was more interested in calculating the value of her mouth.
“The Golden Ratio has been used everywhere,” she went on. “In advertising, artwork, playing cards, postcards, even some monitors and television screens, because that unique rectangle is supposedly the most visually pleasing of all possible rectangles. And as an author, and presumably a bibliophile, what you’ll find most interesting is that during the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries, books were commonly sized and printed according to the Golden Ratio. Apparently books of those proportions felt especially good being held in one’s hands.”
She finally brought up an image on her phone and held the screen to my face.
“Okay. Ignore the spiral for a moment,” she instructed me. “Just look at the outside rectangle. See the vertical line that divides it into a larger and smaller part? Now look at the smaller part and see how that rectangle is again divided into two. And in the smaller portion of that rectangle the pattern repeats itself.”
“On and on into infinity?”
“Exactly. Because as a decimal, the Golden Ratio can’t be represented by a finite number of digits. It can never be solved, really...but we can find it with a compass and ruler.”
“Hmm.” I didn’t understand everything Ann was saying, but having numbers translated into words and pictures helped me grasp the concept. It really was sort of fascinating. “So what’s up with the spiral? I like it.”
“The golden spiral is a logarithmic or growth spiral. For every quarter turn it makes, it gets closer or farther from its origin by a factor of phi, 1.618.”
Ann saw my eyes beginning to cross again and laughed. “You don’t have to understand the math itself, only that the Golden Ratio and the golden spiral—the divine proportion, as it’s called—is a mathematical relationship that appears in nature. You’ll find it in everything from the shape of our galaxy to the shape of flowers, pinecones, seashells, embryos—even the double helix spiral of a DNA molecule.”
Ann smiled and nodded with satisfaction at the apparent look of wonder on my face. “Suddenly math isn’t so boring, huh?”
I grinned. “Not when you explain it.”
“Well, when you get a chance, search the images online. Something about that special rectangle appeals to our sense of aesthetics the same way your rule of three does. In fact, the pyramids of Egypt, the architecture of ancient Greece, even the Mona Lisa are presumably constructed according to its proportions. Plato thought it was the key to understanding the physics of the whole universe. Composers like Bach used it, and believe it or not, the analysis of some modern-day systems, like financial markets, is based on it.”
Ann brought up an image of a nautilus shell, and I saw the spiral right away. The swirls brought another design to mind. I examined my hands and thought for a moment. “Do fingerprints qualify? They sort of look like golden spirals too, don’t you think?
Putting her phone down on the bar, she nodded. “I like that…yeah…the Golden Ratio might be right at our fingertips,” she said.
And as we both sat there, holding our hands to the light and staring at our thumbprints like two idiots, I saw Michelle raise her arm in the air and tap the face of her watch.
“Damn…I have to go,” I said. “My friends are getting hungry.”
Ann looked at her watch. “Oh, my gosh, me, too!”
“I don’t think your three-minute speed dates will appreciate you being fashionably late.”
“Nope. No time for lateness.” She hesitated as though she didn’t want us to part. “Well, thank you for the drink, Kay.”
“My pleasure.”
“The pleasure was mine.” She held out her hand and I shook it. The moment our hands touched, I felt an intense sexual attraction and knew she felt it, too. It seemed neither of us wanted to let go. “I don’t know when I’ve enjoyed a conversation more,” she said.
“Me neither. It’s been great…educational, to say the least.” I slid off my stool and straightened myself. “Well, Ann, I hope you meet the love of your life tonight.”
She shrugged. “You never know. Maybe today’s the day.” She looked at me with a tenderness that hadn’t been there before, and I decided she liked me considerably more than she had a half hour ago. I thought of asking to see her before leaving Boston but saw no point in being chastised for crossing the line again. “Can I ask how many serious relationships you’ve had?”
“Serious? As in long-term? Two.”
“Ah. Then maybe the next one will last forever. You know what they say: the third time’s the charm!”
“Oh, wow.” She laughed. “More threes!”
I paused, hoping she’d ask to see me before I left town, but when she didn’t, I said good-bye, leaving her to collect her papers. Halfway down the bar, though, she called out to me. I stopped and looked back.
“Hey, Kay, what about dinner?”
I felt my face light up, but just as I opened my mouth to speak, to say yes, of course, I’d love to have dinner with you, she said, “Isn’t dinner served according to the rule of three—appetizer, entrée, dessert? And isn’t it the third meal of the day?”
From the distance at which we stood I don’t think she saw the disappointment wash over my face, but in a split second I went from elated to deflated. How ridiculous was it that someone I’d met less than an hour ago should have this effect on me? I forced a fake smile and cheerful tone. “Good ones, Ann. Thanks. I’ll put them on my list.”
She regarded me hesitantly, as if hoping I’d say something more, but a crowd of people walked into the bar just then, partially blocking our view of one another. I waited in place, giving her one final opportunity to say something, anything, and when she didn’t, I held up a hand and waved.
I don’t know what it was, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was walking away from something very important, something meant to be, possibly one of the best things to ever happen to me. But I did. I walked away.
During dinner that evening, at a place not far from the hotel, I couldn’t stop thinking about her.
“What’s with your ‘wife’?” Michelle asked. “I’m surprised you didn’t ask her to join us. You hooking up later?”
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
“She didn’t ask me.”
“Why didn’t you ask her?”
“She doesn’t like pushy women. She made that clear. So I left it up to her to do the pushing. Apparently, she’s not pushy either.”
“Someone better push!”
“Whatever. It doesn’t matter.” I patted the pockets of my coat hanging on the chair, feeling for my phone. “She lives here in Boston. I’m in New York. We’re two hundred and fifty miles apart.”
“Minor details,” Michelle said, pointing to Rose. “This one talked me into relocating from New Jersey to Oregon.”
“Someone had to get you out of Jersey.” I winked at Rose and pulled out my phone. A tangled necklace and bracelet came with it. I put the phone on the table and stuffed the jewelry back into my pocket.
“Why do you have jewelry in your pocket?” Rose asked.
“The safe in my room stopped working today.”
I knew it was impolite to use a cell phone at a dinner table, but I just had to put a name to that part of Ann’s lips that fascinated me. In between the waiter clearing our table and bringing dessert, I kept my phone hidden in my lap and busily searched the internet to find the proper term for that contoured outline of one’s upper lip.
Michelle scrunched her face as she lifted the tablecloth and peeked underneath the table. “What the hell are you doing under there? Playing with yourself?”
“No.” I sucked my teeth and shook my head. “I’m doing a little research, if you don’t mind…trying to find the technical name for a person’s upper lip. It must be called something.”
“That’s the…the philtrum, isn’t it?” She looked to her partner, the nurse in the group.
“No,” said Rose. “The philtrum is the grooved skin between your lip and nose. Your lips are your labia.”
“I’m not talking about those lips,” I said.
“Lips are lips.” Rose laughed. “I think the upper lip, the one on your face, is the labium superioris, the bottom the labium inferioris…or maybe it’s the other way around.”
I was learning so much today. I typed in labium superioris and came up with a bunch of cosmetic sites describing types of lip enhancement. Rose was right about the lips, but then I saw exactly what I was looking for.
“I found it! Listen to this: the colored outline of the upper lip is the vermillion border, also known as Cupid’s bow.”
I mentally pictured this concept. “Yeah, I get it. If you imagine turning that vermillion line from its horizontal to a vertical position, its contour is the shape of an archer’s bow.” I looked up in amazement. “How about that—Cupid’s bow!”
Michelle crinkled her face. “And you need to know this…why?”
I laid my phone on the table and reached for the cream and sugar. “Because Ann has the most beautiful one I’ve ever seen.”
“Call her,” Rose said.
I stirred and drank my coffee. “I didn’t get her number.”
“She lives here in Boston,” Michelle said. “Try looking her up.”
I frowned. “I don’t even know her last name, but…” I thought for a moment. “Actually, she’s at the hotel right now.” I told them about lesbian speed dating, to which Rose replied with surprise. “No shit. Here at the Sheraton?”
Michelle looked at me like I was nuts. “So why are you still sitting here? Go find her.”
I looked at the crème brûlée I’d ordered, too restless now to eat it. “Are you sure? You don’t mind if I desert you guys?”
Rose smiled. “Desert us now so we can eat your dessert.”
“You know,” Michelle chimed in with that all-knowing look, “if this were a novel you were writing—one worth reading—Ann and her Cupid’s bow would be dessert.”
“Yep. Everything turns out just great in my stories.” I made a face and got up. “Dinner’s on me.”
“Oh, no, you don’t. Dinner’s on us. Go get the girl before she gets away.”
When I opened my mouth to protest, she stretched out her arm and pointed to the door. “Go. Now!”
“Thanks, you two.” I jumped up, dropped thirty dollars on the table for a tip, and kissed them both. “I’ll let you know what happens.”
A heavy snow was starting to fall as I raced two blocks back to the hotel. When I got there, I rushed straight to the desk and asked in which conference room speed dating was being held. The young gentleman directed me downstairs, and I nearly flew down the flight of steps. But when I got there the room was empty. Everyone was gone. The lights had been turned off. Damn it!
There was no sense in going back to the restaurant now. I lumbered up the stairs with none of the enthusiasm with which I’d gone down. Suddenly, though, it occurred to me to check the bar, just in case Ann was back there waiting, hoping I’d come looking for her.
I peeked in and scanned the crowd. No such luck. With a heavy sigh of resignation, I moped to the elevator, stopping by the desk on my way to complain about the safe in my room not working.
“What room?” asked the same young man who’d been there a few minutes ago.
“One twenty-three.”
He looked down at something. “Oh! Ms. Westscott? I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it was you a minute ago. There’s a message here from…” He stopped and regarded me with a stupid smirk. “Your wife.”
“My who?” I took the folded note and opened it.
You were right, she wrote. Three minutes is ridiculous. I want three hours. With you. There was no name. Just a phone number.
My heart pounded. How could a complete stranger send me back and forth between desire and despair—crush my spirits one minute and send them soaring the next? How crazy, how significant was that?
The bounce in my step had me nearly skipping to the elevator. I texted Michelle and Rose the good news while I waited, and when I got to my room I flopped onto the bed with Ann’s note and dialed her number.
“So,” I said without even saying hello when she answered. “I take it you didn’t meet the woman of your dreams tonight?”
“Not speed dating, I didn’t.”
“That’s good to hear because…well, I know you didn’t like me at first, and then you had me thinking you didn’t like me at all and—”
“I liked you right away.”
Stretched out on my back with a big smile, I held her note in the air, staring up at the words, her handwriting, as we talked. A dog barked in the background, reminding me of my own dog who was staying with my mother. “Where are you?”
“Home. Ready to curl up with one of the Kay Westscott romances I just downloaded to my Kindle.”
My smile broadened, if that were possible. “Speaking of last names, tell me yours…in case I ever have to track you down again.”
“Ward,” she said.
“Ward. Dr. Ann Ward?”
“That’s me.”
“Ward and Westscott…a catchy name for a business, don’t you think?”
“I’m thinking more along the lines of unfinished business.”
“Mmm…three hours’ worth according to your note. Is that a mathematician’s way of asking a girl out on a date?”
She laughed. “I think it is.”
“Hmm…what do you have in mind?”
“I haven’t decided yet, but I thought you might want a private tour guide, someone to show you around Boston tomorrow.” Her voice sounded different than it had in the bar, sexy and dreamy. And every now and then it cracked with a hint of nervous tension that made it even more irresistible. “We could start with brunch…and if you tell me what interests you, I’ll plan a nice day for us.”
“I intended to visit the Museum of Fine Arts, but I’m up for anything.”
“Good choice. Boston has one of the most comprehensive collections in the world. As a matter of fact, I was thinking of the museum. It’s close by, and there’s an exhibit there I think we’ll both want to see, but I’ll let it be a surprise.”
“Will this date be at all romantic?”
“Of course. The whole point of asking you out is to prove you wrong about mathematicians not being romantic.”
“Ah…well, in that case I will say yes, only because I enjoy being proved wrong. But I do have one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“Well, as you know, I seem to have developed something of a fixation on your vermilion border or, if you prefer, your Cupid’s bow—to such a degree, at least, that I had to research and put a name to that precise part of your anatomy that quite fascinates me.”
“Cupid’s bow?”
“The contour of your upper lip.” She was silent, and I started to worry that I was fast developing a knack for putting my foot in my mouth. I held my breath, waiting for a response, another reprimand to come.
“Is that really what it’s called?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I don’t know what to say…except that I’m flattered you would take the time to research and put a name to it.”
Whew! “But here’s the thing,” I chanced to say. “If I see you again I’m afraid I’ll find myself overwhelmingly compelled to run my finger along, if not put my lips to that part of yours. So, if I may beg your indulgence in either beginning or concluding our three-hour time together with a three-minute kiss, you’ve got yourself a date.”
Ann was quiet again, but I could feel her smiling. “Three minutes is a really long time for a first kiss,” she said.
“I know. What do you say?”
After an even longer pause, “Okay,” she said in a low voice I could barely make out.
“You’re mumbling. Was that a yes?”
“I’m sorry. I mumble when I’m feeling shy. But yes.” She spoke up. “That was a yes.”
She made my heart so happy, this woman who’d come out of nowhere. Everything about her felt right. It was as if the three Fates, unbeknownst to us, had prearranged our fortuitous introduction this evening.
As though hearing my thoughts, she said, “I feel as though we were supposed to meet, but I’m almost afraid to ask where you live…not too far away, I hope.”
“I’m here in Beantown all the way from the Big Apple.”
“New York…” In her silence I heard her disappointment. “When do you fly back?”
“I don’t. I drove. It was only four hours by car. Not so bad. I didn’t want to book a flight and then decide I wanted to spend more time at the museum.”
“Were you headed there to see something in particular?”
“Not really. I do have a thing for three-dimensional art, though: pottery, sculpture, furniture.”
“How apropos of the rule of three. It’s interesting that we also live in a three-dimensional world. I didn’t think of that before. And it just so happens that I, too, adore the decorative arts.”
“That’s surprising. I thought mathematicians only adored numbers.” I let her note fall out of my hand, watched it flutter to the bed, then dropped my arm and closed my eyes, absorbing the arousing sound of her voice.
“You have a lot to learn about math. And about me, Ms. Westscott. When I’m done with you, you’ll have discovered that pottery, poetry, music, biology, chemistry, physics—everything in the world—can be reduced to mathematics.”
“Well, I certainly hope you’ll never be done with me. I hope you end up liking me as much as you do decimals, and that your sudden and inexplicable feelings for me prove to be as wonderfully irrational and divine as the Golden Ratio, as infinite as the golden spiral.”
“Wow. Did you actually just put together a mathematically romantic sentence?”
I’d surprised myself and laughed. “I did, didn’t I? A few hours ago, I wouldn’t have been able to define those terms, let alone string them together in a reasonably coherent sentence.”
“I’m very impressed…and charmed. You’re a good math student after all.”
“I might have been, with you as my teacher. Of course, I’d probably have sat in class fantasizing about you and only half paying attention to the lesson—like in the bar this evening.”
“I didn’t notice. I was having my own fantasy.”
She had me grinning. “Seriously?”
“Yeah, seriously. And speaking of students and lessons, tomorrow’s Monday. I don’t teach on Mondays, but I thought you said you work in a high school?”
“This is winter break for the public schools. I’m leaving Tuesday though. I have to get back to my dog, who’s staying with my mother.”
I could almost hear her thinking. “Well, if your mother will dog-sit another day, when you check out of there you could check in to my place for an extra day of sightseeing. I have a sofa bed. At least you’d leave here with a better feel for Boston…and for me.”
Had she just invited me to spend the night, this woman who’d found me antagonistic and rather irritating only a few hours ago? “We’re jumping ahead of ourselves, Dr. Ward. Let’s see how much we enjoy that kiss before we make extended plans. You might decide I’m a lousy kisser and change your mind completely.”
“You know, you’re absolutely right. If you write romances better than you have them, as you say, then you probably write kisses better than you give them.”
“Then I advise you to hold off reading too much of my book tonight, lest you end up with expectations I can’t possibly meet in real life.”
“So noted. How about we meet in the lobby tomorrow morning, say nine o’clock?”
“Okay. Or if you get here early, come get me. Room one twenty-three.”
“One-two-three? The rule of three?”
“Ha! That never occurred to me. You’re very observant, Dr. Ward. I’ll have to keep that in mind.”
I called Michelle and Rose before I went to bed and fell asleep that night wishing Ann were beside me, under me, on top of me. I desired her intensely—any which way.
The next morning, I was showered and dressed by eight thirty and waited until almost nine, certain she’d come up for me. But she didn’t. Never before had I second-guessed a woman as I did this one. I waited until nine, and when her knock never came, I threw on a gray peacoat over my white turtleneck and black pants and hurried down to the lobby.
Ann was sitting there in faded jeans, a plaid scarf, and a camel-colored overcoat that fell just below her knees when she stood.
Dr. Ward was a long drink of water, tall enough that I had to look slightly up at her, and in the morning light, I could see that those eyes that had been diligently accessing me in the bar last night were actually hazel. “Good morning,” she said.
“Good morning.” I looked at my watch and tapped the face. “How about that. I’m exactly 1.618 minutes late. Your favorite number.”
“Perfect timing.”
“Perfect timing would have been you knocking on my door at nine o’clock sharp.”
“I said I’d meet you in the lobby.”
“But I gave you the option of coming for me. You never stated your preference for beginning or concluding our three-hour date with that three-minute kiss to which you agreed. I was hoping to begin the day with at least a third of it.”
“Well, this will just have to hold you over,” she said, and gave me a quick peck on the lips. “And in case you haven’t done the math, this date is going to take more than three hours.”
“Then I expect that kiss I have in the bank to earn interest.”
“Hmm…how does an interest rate of 1.618 percent sound?”
I laughed. “I’ll take it.”
Ann stared at me, a sudden seriousness washing away the humor in her eyes, and I knew then that she was anticipating that kiss as much as I was. She blushed and looked away, fumbling with the buttons on her coat and tossing one end of her scarf over her shoulder as she led me out of the hotel. I smiled as I followed her, studying her stride, watching her hair bounce as I had guessed it might, and imagined what it would feel like spilling all over my naked body.
It’s a good thing we weren’t naked, though, because the temperature was probably in the high thirties. The sidewalks were shoveled, and trucks had driven through some time during the night to plow the few inches of snow that had fallen. Trees were still covered in a melting blanket of white, but the morning sun and heavy traffic had turned what was left in the streets to slush. I smiled to myself as we sidestepped the icy slosh on our short walk.
“I’m surprised you came out in the snow last night for speed dating. You must have been…” I shut my mouth before I finished the sentence with an ill-chosen word.
“I must have been what? Desperate?”
“I did not say desperate. You said it.”
I waited for a defensive attitude, but she just shook her head and laughed.
We lingered over brunch and several cups of coffee in a quaint, historic restaurant that was, I must confess, a quite romantic choice for the math professor. The walls were made of brick, the plank floors worn with age, and a gas fire burned in a nearby fireplace. It was nice to occupy a building, a space, that had hosted centuries of scholars, writers, American visionaries, possibly even the Founding Fathers.
“Oh. I almost forgot…” Ann reached into her shirt pocket. “After looking up your books and further investigating the rule of three on the internet, I came across something that will amuse you.”
“I’m glad to know I made a lasting impression and occupied your thoughts last night.”
“That you did.” She pulled out a pink Post-it Note and handed it to me with a smirk. “I don’t know much about Wicca, but according to the Wiccan Rede, the rule of three is stated in the Law of Returns.”
I took it from her and read aloud. “Ever mind the rule of three, what ye send forth comes back to thee.” We both chuckled. “Oh, my God…this is so great.”
“Isn’t it?”
“I’ll definitely use this in my creative-writing class. Now I can end my rule-of-three lesson with a karmic anecdote. It’ll make the kids laugh.”
By the time we left the restaurant we had talked about our personal and professional lives, my writing, and our dogs. She asked about my childhood in New York and described what it had been like growing up and living in New Hampshire until accepting a teaching position here at Northeastern six years ago. The conversation never lulled and, truthfully, I would have been content to forfeit my tour and while away the day talking, learning more about her. But it was already noon, and Ann had other plans waiting just around the corner.
“I’m taking you to the Prudential Center, better known as the Pru,” she announced as we entered the building on Boylston Street and ascended to the Skywalk Observatory on the fiftieth floor of its tower.
“This is Beantown’s equivalent of the Empire State Building,” she said with a sweep of her arm as we entered the glass-enclosed dome. “I thought a panoramic view of Greater Boston would give you a spatial orientation, a visual layout of the city and beyond—even if it is from seven hundred feet in the air. Seeing it all is much better than me just describing where things are in relation to one another.”
And it was. This bird’s-eye view extended for miles. It was a clear and cloudless day, and from the observatory we could see all the way to New Hampshire and far out to sea. Ann pointed out Fenway Park, home field of the Red Sox; the Boston Common, America’s oldest city park; and the Charles River. “I would have arranged for a boat ride if it were spring or summer.” She gave a coy shrug. “Maybe we’ll get to do that in warmer weather… if you ever make it back to Beantown.”
“Oh, my instincts tell me I’ll definitely be back. Sooner than later.”
Ann took a deep breath and smiled, seemingly relieved by the promise of my return, and she took me by the hand then, slowly leading me in a vast circle as she identified countless other landmarks. “See? That’s Harvard University…and over here is MIT…and look. Down there is the Boston Symphony. Its concert hall has the second-highest-ranked acoustics in the world.” She glanced at me as though gauging my reaction to it all. “You can’t experience Boston in one day, but I figured the Skywalk would allow you to at least glimpse it all.”
“Thank you so much. This is spectacular.” And it was. So was the feel and physical intimacy of her hand in mine. It felt so right. Ann felt so right. And it struck me, an inexplicable revelation, that I’d finally met the one. Now if I could just figure out a way to coax her into my suitcase and take her back to New York.
An hour later we were off to the museum. The weather was brisk, and we buttoned our coats against February’s chill. The sun was out now, and the sidewalks had dried, so we decided that traveling on foot would afford me a close-up appreciation for more of the city’s architecture. We walked straight down Huntington Avenue, toward the university where she taught and toward the Museum of Fine Arts. Just before we reached it, though, she hooked her arm through mine and veered us off into another quaint establishment.
“This is sort of a dive bar, but it serves light fare and draws a big gay and lesbian crowd on Thursday nights. And Trish, the resident bartender, is one of us.” The place was empty, tavern-like, but Trish was welcoming, the music was good, and it was nice having the place to ourselves. We settled on raspberry ale, and while we were waiting on an order of buffalo wings, Calvin Harris’s “One Kiss” came on, and I dragged her laughing onto the small dance floor. We held each other’s waist, half dancing, half talking.
“So, is this where you bring all your speed dates?” I asked over the music.
She rolled her eyes. I seemed to make her do that a lot, but more and more those eye rolls were accompanied by laughter instead of the frowns they’d elicited last night. Of course, the idea of Ann speed dating after I returned to New York didn’t make me want to laugh. As ridiculous as I found the whole process of that hurried, three-minute, expedited search for love, it bothered me that she might soon meet someone. Someone who lived a lot closer.
Sensing my concern, or perhaps reading the hint of worry on my face, she said, “I’m giving up speed dating.”
“Really? Why?”
“You’re more my speed.”
All I could manage was a stupid grin as the song ended and we went back to sit at the bar. Neither of us addressed the geographic complications that falling in love would pose. For now, we both seemed content to avoid the subject, to simply enjoy this beautiful day together, to immerse ourselves in the wonder of this deep and unexpected connection we’d made. And then, of course, there was that promise of an overdue kiss.
The museum was outstanding, and it was nice to discover we shared a similar taste in art. We managed to see several outstanding collections: English decorative arts, Native American and ancient Mississippian ceramics, and an Oceanic art exhibit that included tableware, masks, and sculptures. The best, though, was a human-feline effigy vessel from Costa Rica, depicting the transmutation of a female shaman into her jaguar spirit-animal. Ann liked it, too. We agreed we wouldn’t be above taking it home had the opportunity presented itself, then argued over in whose living room it would look better.
We perused a Claude Monet and then a Studio Craft exhibit, and finally came the surprise one she had in store for me: The Phantasmagoria. “Since we agreed that Halloween is our favorite holiday, I knew you wouldn’t want to miss this,” she said. “The Phantasmagoria was a form of theater. It’s where people went for scary entertainment during the 19th century, before the invention of the cinema and horror movies.”
Optical devices, called magic lanterns, were arranged to project a ghostly spectacle of macabre images and spooky illusions in the dark. There were vaporous spirits, creepy skeletons, looming monsters, all of the moving images set to eerie music and sound effects. It was amazing.
“Pardon me for going into professor mode,” she said, “but I did some research after I first read about this exhibit. You might find it interesting that an art-history professor pioneered the use of these magic lanterns to project photographic images during his lectures. Prior to this, the only way to see a work of art was by visiting its physical location or looking at prints and illustrations in books. Magic lanterns became lantern projectors, which eventually became the carousel slide projectors we grew up with. Now we have digital projectors…no small thanks to magic lanterns.”
“This is so amazing.”
We spent a long time reading about and admiring the exhibit, Ann stepping out at one point to call her next-door neighbor, who had agreed to walk her dog at two o’clock and feed both her dog and cat if she wasn’t home by six.
By the time the museum closed it was dark and blustery. The temperature had plummeted, and a bitter wind was blowing. I raised my coat collar. “Wow. What a change from a few hours ago, huh?”
Ann laughed. “Well, as Mark Twain said, ‘if you don’t like the weather in New England now, just wait a few minutes.’ It changes that fast.”
“So I see…and I think I see flurries.” We looked up at the white specks whirling in the cold night sky. I smiled and took both her hands in mine. “I know you have to get home to your dog, but it’s only five. Come back to the hotel and have an early dinner with me.” She’d insisted on treating me all day long, and I wanted to take her out. Besides, I’d been admiring those beautiful lips for hours now and was beyond ready to collect that kiss.
We grabbed a cab back to the Sheraton and, in a quiet corner of the restaurant, ate and talked nonstop—about our favorite horror stories and movies, about romance, fantasy, magical realism, and how exciting it would be to time-travel back to the 1800s and attend the phantasmagoria as spectators during the age of spiritualism.
“Speaking of the 19th century,” she said when we were done with dinner and finishing a bottle of wine. “I live in a Victorian brownstone. It’s in the Back Bay, a twenty-minute walk from campus. I think you’d like it.” She gazed at me with a flirtatious but somewhat nervous smile and swirled the remaining contents of her glass. “I know you’re checking out tomorrow. Have you given any more thought to my proposal?”
“Of checking in with you and spending an extra night?”
“Uh-huh…”
“I’d like to do that. Yes. But right now, all I can think about is that kiss. So maybe you should end this date properly by seeing me to my door.”
“I’m not having sex with you, Kay. Not tonight.”
“Whoa!” I feigned a gasp of appalled surprise. “I’m not having sex with you, either. Not on the first date.” She could easily have persuaded me otherwise, but I wasn’t about to tell her that. “How could you think that of me?”
“I don’t know what to think of you. You sort of came out of the blue, you know?”
“Well, I’m not that kind of girl. But I do have a kiss coming—with interest. So don’t put your coat on yet,” I said as we got up and left the table.
We made our way across the lobby, past the desk where she’d left a note for me last night, and took the elevator up one flight. She was quiet all the way and hesitated when I opened the door. I reached for the coat draped across her arm and laid it with my own on the nearest chair. She was still in the doorway when I turned back. “Have you changed your mind?”
“No…I’m just feeling a little…”
Taking her hand, I pulled her inside, shut the door, and gently backed her up against it.
She stiffened just a little, and her sudden nervousness both endeared her to me and boosted my confidence a bit. I suspected that coming up to a woman’s hotel room after a first date was completely out of character for her, and it was definitely out of character for me to feel such deep affection for someone I’d just met. “I think the ‘pussycat’ in you is fighting the urge to climb that tree,” I said.
“Can you tell?” She tried to smile but her lips trembled. “I’m not so good at physical introductions. Maybe I should slip into my more confident Halloween persona and pretend I’m a pirate.”
“Aye! Come aboard, my lady. My treasure awaits you,” I whispered, slowly running a fingertip across that incredible vermillion line of her lips. Back and forth I traced it before moving in to let my mouth replace my finger.
Ann responded by putting her hands around my waist. I draped my arms around her neck and pressed myself against her body. We kissed slowly, tenderly, deeply—a first kiss that nearly brought us both to our knees.
“Not bad,” she teased me when we stopped to catch our breath, our lips still touching. “Not great…but certainly worth improving upon.”
“Oh really?” We were back to that rhetoric of insult, and it was turning me on. I smiled against her mouth. “I’ll take that insult as a sign of encouragement,” I said, walking slowly backward toward the bed. “I kiss much better lying down…so if it’s okay with you, I’ll take the next two-thirds of that kiss reposed.”
We collapsed a bit awkwardly and laughed together, but our laughter quickly dissipated as the lady buccaneer, apparently relaxed now that the worry of sex had been lifted, took the lead. With newfound confidence she began kissing me, a kiss so sensual, so consuming that I desperately did want to make love with her. I ran my hands down the length of her back to her thighs. Her fragrance, the feel of her skin, the weight of her body on mine—all of it was so new and wonderful. It was amazing how life sometimes presented us with the sweetest of unexpected delights. But this delight was destined to be short-lived. Tied to our jobs, how could our relationship ever amount to more than an affair?
I could hear Michelle lecturing me now: What, are you crazy or just plain stupid? How many people experience love at first sight? You’re gonna let two hundred and fifty friggin’ miles dictate the rest of your life? Are you really that ineffectual? What a wuss!
“Maybe we should agree not to fall in love.” I groaned.
“Too late.”
“That’s what I was thinking.” I tried to laugh, but all I could manage was a hoarse whisper as she kissed my cheek, my jaw, my throat. “But this couldn’t possibly work, could it?”
“No?” Ann glanced down at me. “Can you imagine it working in a story—a long-term relationship that begins as a long-distance affair?”
It was hard to think straight with her lips roaming my skin. “Distance, timing…sure. Both are popular antagonists in romances.”
Her voice was soft, her breath blowing across my skin like a warm breeze that stirred something deep in me. “If you can imagine it as a possibility in a story,” she said, “then it’s possible in real life.”
“Affairs are one thing. The complex dynamics of relationships are another. There’s no simple mathematical formula for real life, Professor,” I moaned, tilting my head, giving her full access to my neck.
“Some mathematicians believe there is a formula for finding ‘the right one.’ It’s based on the optimal stopping theory, which is used to help solve the problem of knowing the right time to take a particular action.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. You mathematicians think you have it all figured out. But real life has so many extraneous variables, romantic love many angles. Relationships depend on so many factors, beginning with a calculated distance of two hundred and fifty miles between us.”
She kissed her way back up my throat, buried her face in my neck, and then slid her mouth over my ear. “Never mind all the calculations, variables, factors, and angles,” she whispered, in that intimate voice reserved for lovers. “You just worry about the story. Let me do the math.”
“That’s funny. You’re pretty funny for a math professor,” I murmured, my words almost unintelligible.
She pulled away just far enough to smile down at me, her hair spilling onto my face. “‘My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand to smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.’”
“Said Juliet to Romeo. Mmm…a Shakespeare-quoting mathematician. Now that’s romantic.”
“You have no idea…”
“I’m beginning to.” I ran my fingers through Ann’s bouncy hair, took her face in both hands. Her lips were rosier, plumper now, swollen after three straight minutes of kissing. So were mine, all four of them. “Damn, you’re such a sexy math professor.”
“Did you just use sexy and math professor in the same sentence?”
“I think I did. Who would have thought I’d find myself so incredibly attracted to an oxymoron?”
“Never say never.”
“I never will again.” I stroked the side of her face, drinking in the beauty of her lips and all her other fine features. “Do you have a car?”
“A car?” she asked, as if trying to make sense of the question.
“Yes, a car. Do you drive?”
“Oh, you mean…sure, yes. I can come pick you up in the morning.”
“To take me to your home, where I will sleep on a sofa bed instead of this comfortable queen-size one.”
Ann propped herself on an elbow and looked down at me. “You never know. You might get a free upgrade.”
I grinned and she laughed. “Actually,” I said, “I asked about a car because I was thinking you might consider driving down to New York for an extended weekend, maybe next week. I’m sure my dog would love playing with your dog, and I’d love to spend Valentine’s Day playing with you.”
“Valentine’s Day was last week.”
“Was it?”
“You know it was.”
“But we missed spending it together. Can’t we pretend it hasn’t happened yet? Come visit me, and we’ll celebrate it in New York. My house is a few miles outside of the city. I’ll show you around the Big Apple.”
“Valentine’s Day…that doesn’t give me much time to buy the potbellied pig you want. And you better leave town now if you expect to find me a yellow-naped amazon parrot.”
“You said you wanted a parrot. Does it have to be a nappy yellow—what was it?”
“Yellow-naped amazon. And yes. It’s what I’ve always wanted.”
I wasn’t exactly prepared to take on a pig right now, and where the heck was I going to find one of those parrots? “All right.” I sighed. “Whatever makes you happy. But how about we save the animal presents for next year? It’ll give us more time to shop.”
Ann just stared at me, looking quite bemused, like she couldn’t quite wrap her head around the fact of having met me. “Where on earth did you come from?”
“I told you, the Big Apple.”
She made a face. “That’s not what I meant.”
“I know what you meant. Don’t you think I’ve been wondering the same thing about you all day long?” I smiled at her. “Now about that 1.618 percent interest…”
Perhaps it was too soon to adore her, but I did. I was beyond enamored, absolutely besotted. After tomorrow night it was likely I’d return home lovesick. Already I felt a bad case of her coming on. The only antidote might be finding a way to make this relationship work.
Right now, though, I had interest to collect on that kiss. I ran my thumb across that arousing vermillion line and drew Cupid’s bow to my mouth once more.