The Pinebox Vendetta by Jeff Bond

Author:Jeff Bond [Bond, Jeff]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781732255258
Publisher: Jeff Bond
Published: 2020-04-14T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

Sam took Joss to “Intersecting Studies of Dance and Quantum Physics.” Laurel came, too, the three of them sitting in metal folding chairs in an airy ballet studio as an associate professor performed grand jetés and explained how the ebb and flow of subatomic particles mimicked classical dance. The woman was in her late twenties and commuted up from Manhattan, hair razed at a severe angle, tossing off references to CERN and the eccentric pizza-topping preferences of Nobel laureates she collaborated with.

Sam barely heard.

Jamie Gallagher was alive. For so long he’d been a ghost, gauzy memories of goofy grins and mountain bikes and a dingy rucksack, entwined with Sam’s own from youth. It took her a while to orient him back into the living, touchable world—the world of today.

Every ten minutes, she remembered and re-experienced that runaway, mind-blowing joy from the candle ceremony.

She wished he were here, sitting beside her so there was no risk he’d vanish back into the ether.

She and Laurel had offered. After catching up in the courtyard, they’d walked Jamie to registration (in a surreal twist, his name was grayed-out in the volunteer’s list) and checked him into his room.

“We’re hitting this dance and physics lecture at eleven-fifteen,” Sam had said. “Care to join us?”

Jamie had started to say yes, but then his eyes had flicked to Joss and he’d demurred. “I—I should make some calls…the rest of my family has probably heard by now.”

Though Sam wasn’t sure, she thought she had detected skittishness—at seeming too forward, at putting her in a compromising position. Something about how he kept his head slightly back in conversation.

Remembering now, that uncomfortable-looking kink in Jamie’s neck, Sam was helpless against a comparison with Abe. Abe, who’d texted again about the nineteen-volt charger. Who, when he misplaced his apartment keys for more than three seconds, would scream for her to come help look regardless of what she was doing.

The lecture dismissed at noon. Joss burst from the brownstone that housed the ballet studio, arms arched gracefully overhead.

“The CERN particle accelerator, are you serious?” She looked between Sam and Laurel’s faces. “That was amazing! I can’t wait to tell Miss Moreau about how quarks swing…”

As she danced over cobblestone, dipping one shoulder and then the other like a happy airplane, both women smiled.

Laurel said, “This reunion’s about fifty times more exciting than the ten-year.”

Sam laughed. “Right. I can’t believe about Jamie. It’s…” What other word was there? “Wonderful.”

“And great for your documentary, too,” Laurel said. “You know there’ll be gobs more media coverage now.”

This dented Sam’s smile. Maybe it was true, but she hated the idea of kiting press off Jamie’s reemergence. When Joss had mentioned the project, Jamie had seemed downright spooked by it.

Sam hadn’t decided how she felt herself. Jamie’s tragedy had partly inspired the project, and now that tragedy was…diminished? Less tragic?

More complicated, for sure.

Sam decided to deflect. “Oh, I’m a disaster with marketing. I tried to pitch in promoting our Nicaraguan birds piece? Brutal. I spent twenty hours calling around to bloggers and got one mention out of it.

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