"h.e.l.lo," Rick said.
"Oh, Rick," she said, "I"ve been here for months but haven"t spent any time with you."
"That"s ... all right."
"I haven"t talked to you." She added, "I"ve been having many gluten attacks."
"You"ve been very busy, I"m sure," Rick said carefully.
"You need to find me. Yell out to me. Grab me by the shoulders." Her speech quickened with each sentence.
"I don"t want to do that," Rick said.
"You are upset," she continued, her voice staccato, "because I am pretending with the others but being honest with you. It is easy to pretend. It"s hard to be honest."
Rick had no idea what she was trying to say.
Suddenly, she threw her arms around him. Startled, Rick paused before returning the embrace. She held him for several long moments, gently running her fingers down his back.
Just for a moment, Rick felt a familiar frisson.
"I have to go," he finally said.
Rick let go of her hand, turned around, and headed for the exit. He walked slowly, as if waiting for someone to join him. When he got to the door, he was still alone. He put his badge against the card reader.
The door opened.
Rick walked through, and he did not look back.
The phone rang several times before Chris picked up.
"Rick, what"s up?"
"There"s something wrong with me."
"So what else is new?"
"I"m serious, man!" Rick gripped the phone tighter. "I"ve been having trouble recognizing people."
There was a pause. "Say again?"
"People at work, people on the team ... it"s like it takes me a second or two to see who it is. And then I b.u.mped into Mariel at work yesterday."
"And?"
"And I felt ... nothing," Rick said, a part of him knowing it wasn"t quite true. "It was like she was a stranger."
"What do you want me to do?"
"Make an appointment for me to see Dr. Ho again, right away!"
"I"ll try to get ahold of Barbara, but she"s out of town until next week."
"Well, there"s got to be someone else in the lab who might be able to-"
"It would be best to wait for Barbara to get back." There was a pause. "Listen, Rick ... our game this afternoon, it"s at the Reflecting Pool fields, right?"
"Yeah, but-"
"Meet me at Foggy Bottom Metro an hour before the game."
Chris and Rick rode the escalator out of the Foggy Bottom Metro station. As they emerged at street level, the entrance to the George Washington University Hospital appeared to their left.
"Think anybody in there can help me?" Rick asked.
"Sure," Chris replied. "There"s lots of cute girls at G.W."
"This isn"t funny!" Rick snapped.
"Sorry," Chris said. "Look, I"ve spoken with Barbara. She can see you next week."
They walked south down 23rd Street NW, and as they pa.s.sed the State Department, the Lincoln Memorial, resembling a Greek temple with its limestone and marble faces and fluted Doric columns, came into view. They followed the throng of tourists making their way around the ring road to the front steps of the memorial.
"Hey, the fields are that way." Rick pointed to the south side of the Reflecting Pool.
"We have time." Chris jerked his thumb at the memorial. "Let"s have a look."
"At Lincoln?" Rick asked. "Why?"
"Indulge me."
Puzzled, Rick followed Chris up the steps to the front portico. Dodging tourists, they walked past the ma.s.sive Doric columns into the central hall, finding themselves before the sculpture of the seated Lincoln. The marble visage of the sixteenth president gazed unblinking toward the ivory needle of the Washington Monument in silent, benevolent contemplation.
Chris pointed. "The man was hideous, wasn"t he?"
"What?" The chatter of tourists echoed loudly through the hall. Rick was sure he"d not heard right.
"Abe," Chris repeated. "He was one ugly dude."
"What are you talking about?"
"I read that one of his political opponents once accused him of being two-faced. You know what he said?"
"I have no idea."
"He said, "If I were two-faced, do you think I would be wearing this one?""
"What"s your point?" Rick asked.
Chris turned back to the sculpture. "During his lifetime, Lincoln was widely regarded as ugly. But later on ... well, what do you think of when you see Lincoln?"
Rick shrugged. "Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation. Brought the country together after the Civil War. Is this a quiz?"
"Do you think he"s ugly?"
"No, I don"t think Abraham Lincoln is ugly!"
Chris nodded. "President Lincoln"s physical features are beloved, not because of their physical qualities, but because of what they stand for."
"What"s your point?" Rick asked.
"I worked on an interesting study when I was doing my masters at Wisconsin-Madison. We got the university"s ultimate team together and asked them to rate each other on physical attractiveness. Then we got some strangers to rate the team members, but based only on photographs. You know what we found?"
Rick shook his head.
"There was a tight-a.s.s on the team, a Ca.s.sie Clarke type, that every other member of the team rated as ugly, even though I thought she was kind of cute myself. She"s actually the reason I got into ultimate, but that"s another story. Anyway, there was another woman, one of the team leaders, who was rated most beautiful by her peers. But the strangers rated the other woman more attractive on the basis of the pictures.
"Later on, we put some of the volunteers in a functional MRI, and it confirmed the results at the neurological level. The brain processes attractiveness differently when the person knows nonphysical traits of the other person that are unknown or invisible to strangers. Nonphysical factors are crucial to the subconscious a.s.sessment of beauty."
Rick waited for Chris to continue.
"So, it turns out the old saying was right all along. Beauty is a h.e.l.l of a lot more than skin deep, and now we know there"s an actual neurological basis behind it."
Chris looked his friend in the eye. "Rick, we never gave you the treatment."
It took a moment to sink in. "You, never..."
"Barbara put you under, you had a nice nap in our lab, and that"s it. Nothing was done."
"But, the retainers-"
"I have no idea what those pills are," Chris said. "I hope they tasted good."
Rick was momentarily speechless. "You sneaky b.a.s.t.a.r.d."
"You"re welcome. But still, I"ll bet you don"t find Mariel quite so hot anymore."
Rick thought for a moment. "No, I guess not."
"You know why?"
Rick said nothing.
"Because she"s f.u.c.king insane."
Rick looked at his friend ruefully. "Is that a legitimate medical diagnosis?"
"Absolutely. f.u.c.king insanity is a common affliction of many men and women, unfortunately. As for Mariel, I guess you could say ... she ain"t pretty, she just looks that way."
Rick put a hand on Chris"s shoulder. "Thank you."
"What are friends for?" Chris looked at his watch. "Now, come on. We gotta win one for the Gipper."
Rick laughed out loud, to his total dismay. "Wrong president, dude!"
"Well everyone, we"ve got two big things to celebrate." Rick raised his beer. "Number one is, of course, our first win of the season!"
Shouts of "yeah!" resounded, and fists pumped the air.
"The second thing is ... our peerless captain Chris has finally finished the first draft of his doctoral thesis!"
More claps and cheers. Someone yelled, "You the man, Chris!"
"Actually," Chris said, "there"s a third thing, and that"s our first full team post-game pub meeting. You have no idea how painful it was to be stuck with just him"-he pointed at Rick-"for company."
"Cheers!"
The team raised their beers again. Jill smiled, toasting her soda in Rick"s direction.
Everyone had come out. The team had practically taken over the Froggy Bottom Pub"s modest patio facing Pennsylvania Avenue. Even Ca.s.sie Clarke showed up. They had to pull together all the small square Formica patio tables to seat everyone.
The revelry continued into the evening, but gradually people began to leave.
Rick checked his watch. "Well, it"s been a blast, but it"s getting close to my bedtime." He stood and waved. "See everyone next week."
As he walked by Chris, he patted him on the back. His friend smiled and nodded.
Rick had just stepped around the patio railing to get onto the sidewalk when a voice called out.
"Hey, are you going to the Metro?"
He turned and saw Jill Kravitz. "Yeah."
"May I come with you?"
"Sure."
It took less than five minutes to walk to the Foggy Bottom station, but it was still more time than Rick had ever really spent with her before. They had played together for months but had never really talked about anything except what was happening during a game.
Jill told him she was from London, England, and that she was working as an information researcher in the Geography and Map Division at the Library of Congress. Rick told her about his work on LIDARSAT at G.o.ddard and the importance of satellite remote sensing to global environmental monitoring. They both agreed that Wrath of Khan was without a doubt the best Star Trek movie ever. Rick resisted the urge to do the infamous Shatner scream.
They arrived at Foggy Bottom Metro and took the escalator down to the platform, where they prepared to part ways. She needed to take the Blue line to Franconia-Springfield, and he the Orange line in the opposite direction.