Love Minus Eighty (30 page)

Lycan shrugged. “They just happen.”

Veronika certainly knew how that was. “What do you usually do to cope?”

“Usually? I row.”

“You row.”

Lycan nodded. “I have a rowing machine. I pick a place, maybe the Nile, or the Amazon, and I row until I’m exhausted.”

Veronika broke into a grin. How many times had she passed the lagoon around Central Park and vowed to rent one of those antique fiberglass rowboats and paddle around?
A quick check told Veronika there were a few available. She reserved one.

“Come on, let’s get our pizza to go,” she said, standing.

“Is it helping?” Veronika asked.

“A little, yes. I always feel better when I have something to do with my hands.” Lycan pulled on the oars. He seemed less awkward, less a goofy brain, now that he was pulling on oars. Veronika reclined in her seat, a slice of pizza in one hand, enjoying the sweet smell of cut grass in the air. It was delightful—the breeze created by the boat’s movement, the dribble of water off the oars as they lifted out of the water, the plunge as they dug back in. She watched the oars trace an oval, Lycan’s biceps and triceps alternately bunching and relaxing. The baggy clothes Lycan wore gave the impression that he was more plump than powerful, and his atrocious posture reinforced that misperception, but he was actually a muscular guy.

“I have a theory about anxiety and exercise,” Lycan said between heavy breaths.

“Yeah?” Veronika tossed a piece of crust into the water; almost immediately, the water swirled and a fish plucked it away.

“I’m guessing you know that physiologically, all emotion is nothing but elevated autonomic nervous system activity—elevated heart rate, skin conductance, blood pressure?”

“Sure.”

Lycan smiled, nodded. “So, emotion is just the label you place on that arousal. If someone is pissing you off, that beating heart is ‘anger’; if you’re giving a speech, it’s ‘terror’; if you’re in a horse-drawn carriage with a beautiful woman, it’s ‘love.’ ”

Another rower came into view to their left. Veronika glanced at him; he looked like he was rowing for his life.

“I think rowing alleviates my anxiety because it provides a plausible explanation for my pounding heart and sweating palms. It tricks that primitive part of my brain where the fear is originating. It’s not ‘anxiety’ I’m feeling; my heart is pounding because I’m ‘exercising.’ ”

“Misattribution of the arousal. There’s a tried-and-true method dating coaches use based on that principle: Get a couple on a roller coaster and get their hearts racing. Often they’ll attribute their thumping hearts to physical attraction instead of fear.” Veronika sat up, considering. “You’ve come up with a clever application of the theory.”

“I find the key is that I have to hit a level of intensity in my exercise that matches the arousal my anxiety is creating, to fool the caveman in the back of my head.”

Veronika chuckled at the analogy. To their left, the other man was rowing with all his might. He glanced back, pulled even harder.

“What’s that about?” Veronika asked. She queried her system. Virtual boats appeared, along with a dozen lanes delineated by red strips perched a foot above the water. “Oh, he’s racing.” Evidently the other boats were in other bodies of water.

“Interesting,” Lycan said, consulting his own system. “The program corrects for variations in wind conditions and water flow, so the racers are on even footing.” They watched as the live rower finished third, then, huffing, slowly made his way toward shore, passing Lycan and Veronika.

“Excuse me,” Veronika said as he passed, “can anyone participate?”

“You have to belong to the International Rowing Club,”
the guy said. He raised his eyebrows. “You want to race one-on-one? IP is always better, and I could use the extra work.”

Veronika looked at Lycan, who was already shaking his head. “I’m not a racer.”

“Oh, come on, it’ll be fun. So he creams you, so what?” It was weird and wonderful, playing the role of the carpe-diem free spirit. Normally Veronika would be whining for them to go back to the coffee shop, that she was damp from the spray of the oar. “This is a perfect opportunity to get out of your comfort zone.”

“I left my comfort zone when I stepped out of my apartment this morning,” Lycan said.

Veronika reached over and sent a spray of water at Lycan.

“
Hey
,” he laughed. He swung one of the oars, shooting a veritable wave into the boat and over Veronika’s lap. She leaped out of her seat, screeching from the cold, then leaned over the boat and splashed him a couple more times.

“How about it?” the rower called.

“Come on,” Veronika goaded. “Let’s race.”

Lycan shrugged. “Okay, why not? Seize the day.”

The rower, whose name was Russell, created two lanes and a countdown clock with his system. Lycan struggled to get their boat into the lane and relatively motionless as tiny waves nudged them. Russell used his oars to compensate for the waves, keeping his boat firmly in place. The clock hit zero.

With smooth, easy strokes, Russell pulled ahead almost immediately. But once Lycan got going, Russell didn’t pull any farther away; he and Veronika hung on, about twenty feet back.

“Faster!” Veronika called. Laughing through gritted teeth, Lycan rowed faster. With each stroke, the front of the boat
lifted slightly out of the water, then crashed back down onto the lake. They were moving, really moving, a stiff breeze whistling in Veronika’s ears, her hair blown back in the cool blast. Veronika closed her eyes, laughed out loud. “Faster!”

She opened her eyes and looked at Lycan, who was looking right at her, grinning and grimacing simultaneously, pulling on the oars with all his might, seemingly oblivious to Russell, who was only a dozen or so feet ahead.

Veronika clapped her thighs. “
You’re gaining on him.
”

Glancing at Russell over his shoulder, Lycan found another gear. His hands were a blur, his rowing smooth. Veronika saw Russell react, picking up his own tempo a notch, his forehead rippled with creases.

She’d always been a little skeptical of the evidence supporting technomie, had always suspected it was mostly trumped-up bologna created by people nostalgic for a simpler time, the same people who had once argued that picture books were wonderful for your child, but if the picture
moved
, it would rot her brain. How different was it, really, to talk to a screen instead of a live person? Wasn’t a virtual landscape still a kind of landscape? But this—racing in a boat—might force her to rethink her position.

“How’s that panic attack?” Veronika asked.

“
Gone
,” Lycan shouted over the crashing of the oars.

They were a boat’s length behind Russell. Ahead, Veronika could see the finish line—a blue line bisecting the spot where the lanes ended. “Another hundred meters. Give it all you’ve got—leave it all on the field.”

They closed a few inches with each stroke as the finish line grew closer, closer…

Russell broke the virtual tape about four feet ahead of them, but Veronika whooped anyway. Lycan squeezed
his eyes closed and laughed as their boat cruised along on momentum.

“Another twenty yards and you would have had me,” Russell called, paddling alongside them. “Wow, you just don’t tire.”

Russell asked Lycan if he’d ever rowed competitively, invited him to join the rowing club, shot him a link.

“See?” Veronika said as Russell rowed off. “See?”

“Yes,” Lycan said, smiling at Veronika, blinking away the sweat trickling down his brow. “I see.”

Reading people was part of Veronika’s job, and what she thought she read was that Lycan was developing a crush on her. That would do wonders for her shrunken, pathetic ego—for a genius to have a crush on her, but it also made her uneasy. It was possible she was feeling a slight reciprocal crush, but for some reason, whenever she tried to imagine herself holding Lycan’s hand, or lying in bed with him, it felt wrong. Odd. Maybe because it felt like she was cheating on Nathan, and how neurotic was
that
? Chances were decent that Lycan would never move beyond harboring a secret crush, if that’s what it was, so hopefully it would never be an issue.

The drone lowered another load of electronic crap into Rob’s bin.

“Thank you, kind drone,” Rob said. The drone wandered off, not equipped with a mouth. Or ears.

About twice a day, Rob decided to quit. When four a.m. had come the day after his meeting with Winter in Central Park, he’d found himself up and preparing for work. He’d just allowed his body to go through the motions out of habit, let his feet carry him to the reclamation center, let his hands pluck the color-coded electronic treats. He had no desire to touch his lute, less desire to reconnect with long-neglected friends, sipping beer, discussing the issues of the day.

The exception to his utter lack of interest in others’ company was, for reasons he didn’t fully understand, Veronika. He felt comforted by her. Maybe it was because she didn’t mind that he was morose, often uncommunicative. She seemed at her best when faced with that kind of sadness, maybe because
she lived it, pining for Nathan. If only Rob were in love with Veronika. But he wasn’t.

He tossed the husk he’d just picked clean into the plastic chute and pulled his next victim toward him—one of those drone vacuums you see in old comedies, running over people’s toes and bumping into shins.

Eventually he would get over Winter. Until then, best to stay busy, to be so tired at night he fell asleep before his mind could get working.

When his shift ended, he put one foot in front of the other until he was standing at his front door. He quietly let himself in.

His father was in the bedroom, speaking in low tones to Rob’s “mom,” telling her about his day, maybe updating her on the news. Dinner was on the stove, some sort of stew, stingy bits of meat on round socket bones. It was definitely not vat grown; something had screamed and bled so meat could make this relatively rare appearance at their table. Rob wasn’t hungry, but he pulled a bowl from the dispenser and ladled in some stew. His dad had gone to the trouble of making it, some sort of animal had given its life, the least he could do was eat some.

“I didn’t hear you come in.” Dad got himself a bowl, filled it with stew, and sat across from Rob at the aluminum folding table. “How you doing?”

“Good, Dad. Good.”

Dad ate noisily while Rob cast about for some innocuous topic of conversation to break the silence. His mind rebelled, unable to generate any topic except Winter.

“You’re doing good, huh?” Dad said, eyeing him over his raised spoon.

Outside, a neighbor’s dog barked hoarsely.

“No, Dad. Not good. Miserable. Wretched.”

“Let me ask you something,” Dad said through a mouthful of stew. He waved his fork at Rob. “If you’d met Winter at a bar—if she happened to be sitting in the seat next to you and you got talking—you really think you’d feel the same?”

Rob smiled sadly, the meat suddenly dry in his mouth. Lorne was suggesting it was their situation, not Winter herself, that caused the flame to be so hot. “I know I would.”

“I just don’t see that you have much in common.” Lorne reached up and wiped the corners of his mouth with his fingers. “Penny and you had more in common, and you didn’t even seem bothered when that ended.”

“Yeah. If only we could control what we feel, and who we feel it for.” Rob looked out the windows, at the tall yellow grass and the big mound of dirt in the backyard. He sighed, looked at Lorne. “Let me turn the question around. Would it have mattered how you met Mom? Wouldn’t you have
known
, no matter what?”

Lorne set his spoon down. He loved to talk about the days when he was courting Rob’s mom. “When I saw her for the first time, walking into town with her family, guiding an old broken-down four-legged drone that was carrying everything they could heap on it, it was like recognizing someone I already knew. It was like, ‘Oh, there you are. Where’ve you been?’ ”

Rob laughed. “That’s a nice way to put it. That’s exactly how I feel. It’s as if the universe made a mistake and forgot that we’re
supposed
to be together.” A lump grew in his throat. He tried to eat some stew to give it time to relax, but it was as if his chest and throat were clamped shut. It was so painful to think about Winter, yet she was all he could think
about. No matter how he tried to wrestle his mind toward another topic, it fought its way back.

Lorne was staring out the window, his mouth set in a familiar tight line of grief. Rob had brought up his mom, now Lorne was off on his own loop of painful, useless thoughts.

“I know Mom felt the same about you. I think of you two and it gives me faith that two people can be in love their entire lives.”

Lorne surprised Rob by responding with a dry, bitter laugh. “It’s never that simple, except in stories.”

“What do you mean?”

Lorne studied Rob for a moment, then folded his arms and leaned back in his chair. “Let me tell you a story about true love.”

Lorne took a moment, evidently considering how best to begin. Rob couldn’t imagine. “Let me tell you a story about true love?” The words sounded so strange coming from his father’s lips. It just wasn’t something he’d say. “Never turn away a customer,” sure, or “We’ll get along just fine.” Not “Let me tell you a story about true love.”

“Remember when you lent me that voice-analysis thing, where you could tell when someone was lying?” Lorne asked.

“Sure. Then almost immediately it became obsolete.” A week after the lie-detector system app was released, someone came out with a tone-scrambling application, so whenever someone tried to use the vocal-stress application as a lie detector, the target’s system scrambled their vocal tones. “What about it?”

Lorne stood, picked up his and Rob’s bowls, and turned to the sink. “You let me borrow it to see whether Shorty Pepper was watering the fuel he was selling me, and it turned out he
was.” Spoons clinked as Lorne washed them in the bucket of water sitting in the sink, his back to Rob. “The problem was, I kept the damned thing running when I came back into the house.” He shrugged. “Forgot I had it on.”