Me, Cinderella? Part 14

"Looking forward to it!" Mark said. I just nodded, and Eliot climbed back into his car, Lucky sitting on his haunches in the pa.s.senger seat. Whiskers twitching, he looked back at me through the window and I waved goodbye. Eliot held up a hand, and then the engine rumbled to life and the car rolled away down the street.

"I miss him already," I said, not sure who I meant. I walked up the steps slowly and watched as the car turned at the corner and disappeared.

"You'll see him again," Mark said. "Don't worry."

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

"Mathematics is the queen of the sciences, and number theory is the queen of mathematics". - Gauss We began our work in earnest at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and Mark and I spent most of our time in the libraries studying. Despite our intense efforts on the problems we worked on, Mark and I goofed off together just like we always had, and the other students all broke off into their own cliques to study. Everything was the same, but something inside me had changed. In less than a week, I had become someone different.

The academy stood only a few blocks away from the apartments, and so we walked to our study sessions every morning and back every night. After so much time and effort spent studying, I never wanted to do anything but collapse in my bunk at the end of the day. I promised myself that I would go to see my mother's grave that weekend when I had the time to spare.

Meanwhile, Eliot stayed away from the academy. At first I had hoped to see him during the day when we studied, but always it was the a.s.sistants who taught the lectures and worked with us on the math problems. After we learned the fundamentals of the work, the a.s.sistants had no further insights to give us, and on the last day of the week Mark and I slipped away to the library to work on our own.

"Could you call him?" Mark said, after we had been stuck for hours working on a single line of the proof.

"Call who?"

"Dr. Herceg. Just to see if we're right about this part. It seems impossible."

"I can't," I said.

"Why not?"

"If he wanted to work with us, he would work with us," I said. "There must be a reason he's staying away." I didn't bother to mention that the reason might be me.

"Just give him a call then. If he doesn't want to answer, he doesn't have to."

"Mark..."

"What? Come on, what's the worst that could happen?" He looked at me with pleading eyes, and I breathed a sigh of frustration. If there was one thing I didn't want to do, it was to be dependent on Eliot's help. Really, after everything that had happened between us, I thought it would be best if I never spoke to him again. After all, I had reached out to him, and he had pushed me away completely.

"Come on," Mark said. "Please?"

"Fine," I said. The problem in front of us did seem intractable.

The phone rang four times, and I was beginning to think that Eliot wouldn't pick up. Even though I was nervous to talk with him, I admit that I was disappointed. I wanted so much to hear his voice again. Then, just before the call would have gone to voicemail, Eliot picked up.

"h.e.l.lo, Brynn."

"Dr. Herceg?" I said quickly. "Hi! I have you on speakerphone. Mark's here."

"Oh," he said, and coughed. "Oh, h.e.l.lo."

"Hi, Dr. Herceg," Mark said. "We just had a question for you."

"Yes?"

"It's about the projective algorithm. We're stuck on one spot." Mark explained what we had done and where we had gotten stuck. Eliot listened to half of the explanation before interrupting.

"Wait one moment," he said. "The general case for the second equation you mentioned. It isn't solved yet."

"We're just looking at one specific instance," I said. "Letting the permutative variable equal one, just for this part."

The phone was silent.

"And we've made some headway on that instance," Mark said. "But we're getting stuck when we try to put it back into the original algorithm."

Still nothing but silence.

"Dr. Herceg?" I ventured.

"No! I mean, yes, interesting. Very interesting, to look at that particular case. I'm going to have to take a peek at that tomorrow."

"Tomorrow's Sat.u.r.day," Mark said.

"Oh, yes, yes, of course." Eliot sounded distracted, and I thought I could hear the sounds of a pencil scratching on paper.

"Did you want us to come in anyway?" Mark asked.

No, I thought. I couldn't. Tomorrow was the day I had planned to go visit the graveyard where my mother was buried.

"Hm, yes, you're working now?"

"We're just finis.h.i.+ng up in the library now," Mark said.

"Would you mind just leaving your work for me to look at tomorrow?" Eliot said. "Just leave it at the main desk. I'll be there tomorrow morning."

"Okay," Mark said, a bit deflated.

"Excellent work, you two," Eliot said. "Brynn?"

"Yes?"

"Excellent work."

"Thanks," I said.

"I'll see you both later."

"Goodbye, Dr. Herceg," Mark said, but the line had already gone dead.

"Well," I said. "That didn't help us solve our problem."

"I'm going to come in anyway tomorrow," Mark said. "You in?"

"I... I can't."

"Come on, Brynn!" Mark was getting pumped up just thinking about it, I could tell. "He said our work was interesting."

"I know," I said. "It's just tomorrow I had plans to go see my mom." I began to tear up just thinking about it. For the last week and a half, I had let everything else get in the way of the real reason I was in Hungary. Guilt washed over me as I thought about all of the lame excuses I had leaned on to prevent my going.

"Oh," Mark said. His face drew down into a serious expression. "Of course. I'm sorry, Brynn." Mark put his arm around me and hugged me sideways.

"Hey, whatever," I said, leaning into him. "No big deal."

"I'll take copious notes," Mark said. "Whatever he says, I'll write down, and I promise I won't do any more work until you're there."

"Thanks," I said. "I owe you."

I always seemed to owe Mark. Especially once in college, especially after what happened at that party, I already owed Mark big time.

Last year I had dared to venture out to a party at one of the dorms on campus. I danced and drank with Shannon and had fun, really I did. But then Shannon left and I had to go to the bathroom. Somehow I ended up in the back courtyard of the dorm, where off in the bushes a group of stoners pa.s.sed around a pipe. I turned to leave them alone, but as I went back through the doorway some frat guy caught me by the arm and pulled me through the open door of a dorm room.

"Hey!" I said.

"Hey, you," the guy said. "You look like you might want to have some fun."

"Sorry, I'm just lost," I said, and tried to push my way out. He blocked my way with his arm and grabbed my a.s.s with his hand. I tried to slap him off of me, but he was too strong, and as I looked up into his eyes I realized what he wanted. Opening my mouth to scream, I kicked out but he pressed his mouth down on mine, stifling the noise. His mouth tasted like beer and cigarettes, and I kicked out with my legs, unable to get out of his grip.

"Brynn?" Mark was in the doorway, his eyes wide. The frat guy loosened his grip except for one hand that still held me tight around the wrist. I tried to speak, but my mouth was so dry that all I could do was cough. Apart from a couple of cla.s.ses, I didn't really know Mark back then. We had worked together on one project for linear algebra, that was it.

Mark took in the scene quickly and must have realized what was going on. "Everybody's waiting for you to go out." He turned to the frat guy, whose eyes were glazed with alcohol and hate. "Come on."

"Okay, yeah, let's go," I said, but the guy didn't let me go.

"We were just having some fun," the guy said. He started to close the door, but Mark stepped forward and blocked the door with his foot.

"Her friends are waiting," he said firmly. The guy looked at him like he wanted to kill him, and he probably could have. He stood at least a foot taller than Mark, and his arms felt like pure muscle, the way his hand circled my wrist like iron shackles. I could tell Mark was scared, but he stood fast.

"Let me go!" I cried out finally, and the guy shoved me out the door and into Mark.

"Fata.s.s b.i.t.c.h," he mumbled.

"What did you say?" Mark stepped between me and the guy.

"It's okay, Mark, let's go." I pulled frantically on his arm. The party-and safety-beckoned just down the hallway. "Please, let's just get out of here."

"You heard the c.u.n.t," the guy said. "f.u.c.k off."

If I hadn't pulled Mark two steps away, he would have swung at the guy, I'm certain. But I didn't want anyone to get hurt because of me. The door slammed and we walked down the hallway.

"You okay?" Mark said. His voice trembled.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Thanks," I said.

He had tried to convince me to report the guy, and eventually I had gone to one of the deans and filled out a form. I didn't hear what happened with the guy, and I never saw him again. But the fact that Mark had stepped forward and stood up to a guy almost twice his size-that was something. Not a lot of people would do that, especially for a girl they barely knew.

I snapped out of my thoughts as Mark was finis.h.i.+ng a sentence. "...see what happens?" He was looking up at me eagerly, his dark eyes sparkling.

"Sorry," I said. "What was that?"

"Do you want to try it as an inverse function, the way the a.s.sistant was showing us? We could see what happens when we try it backwards."

"Huh," I said. "Yeah, that sounds good. Maybe just a couple more minutes. I'm pretty tired."

"Me, too," Mark said, although he seemed buoyed up with enthusiasm now that Eliot had talked with us about the problem.

I bent over to the page and got through the first part of the proof without any trouble, then got to the hard section. It took some manipulation, but eventually I got everything reduced to a simple two-part solution. No way, I thought. Hope rose up in me as I double checked all my work to make sure it was right. I couldn't get excited about this. Not yet, not until Mark had seen it.

"Hey, Mark," I said. "Check this out."

He leaned over to see my page.

"How did you get-wait, what? Holy s.h.i.+t, Brynn!" He pushed back his chair and stood up, the paper held inches away from his nose. "No way!"

"Check to make sure it's right, first," I said, but he was already pulling me up into a bear hug, a huge grin on his face. I couldn't help but laugh, he was so excited.

"Of course it's right," he said. "Wow!"

"It's just the first part," I said, pulling back slightly.

"The part we were stuck on! You're amazing!" He looked at the paper again, his eyes tracking each line. I saw him pause on the step where I had manipulated the equation into a solution. Tossing the page down on the table, he shook his head in wonder. He turned to me and placed his hands on my cheeks. His fingers felt warm against my skin.

"You. Are. Amazing," he said, and kissed me.

At first I was too startled to say a word, and I froze under his embrace. His lips pressed against mine, insistent, and I was shocked to find myself responding to his kiss. My body began to lean forward just as Mark pulled back. His face was filled with joy.

"Amazing," he repeated, but now his eyes darted back and forth to mine, searching me for an answer to the question he had just posed. We had been friends for so long, and I never realized that he might want anything more. Now I felt utterly confused, and my mouth dropped open, searching for the right words.

"Mark..." My words ran away from me. They always had.

A slight noise from the front of the library made me look up over Mark's shoulder.

Eliot was standing not thirty feet away, and from the looks of it, he had seen everything.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.