Part VI
Kathleen
Spengler
It
was after eleven before we managed to discreetly slip away from the party after
dinner. Janine Stantz was in the foyer and saw us leave; when she nodded and
smiled I knew she’d handle anybody looking for Egon or myself. Oddly, I saw
her speaking with Mrs. Yeager whom I’d thought had left earlier with her
husband.
The
forecast had been rain with occasional flurries so I was glad for the heater in
Egon’s car when the clouds finally broke open. I’d planned on flying back
home right afterwards, but Egon had convinced me to spend the weekend with him
at his house off campus, and now I was glad I’d let him. No doubt the flight
would have been delayed coming or going, and the turbulence would have giving me
fits. I hate flying under the best conditions, and as far as I was concerned
these were far from it.
And,
I suspected, Egon just wanted the company.
I
turned and leaned back against the door as best I could with the seatbelt
securely fastened, and just studied my brilliant son for a long minute. Tall
like his father, pale like myself; his hair was closer to my platinum than his
father’s sand, and I wondered if he realized Edwin had kept his hair so
tightly cropped because he hated the cowlick that Egon so assiduously
cultivated. Leftover teenage rebellion? I considered that and discarded it; Egon
was Egon, and he had his own reasons for everything he did, public opinion
be-darned. Handsome no, but striking still; if he’d been a dog I would have
called him a saluki, the individual parts long and awkward but musical in
motion, infinitely suited to the purpose.
“Egon,”
I said, then stopped, not sure how to ask what I wanted to know.
“Yes,
Mother?” The dark hid his face but I heard the smile in his voice. He’d been
waiting for me to speak first.
“Are
you sure, Egon?” is what I finally settled on.
“Yes.”
I
looked down at my hands folded neatly around my purse and felt my own grin tug
at me. “He is very handsome,” I said, “and a doctor as well.” I slanted
a glance at Egon and caught his startled look at me before he turned back to the
road. Really, the boy needed to be more careful or he’d give himself whiplash.
“Not to mention an excellent dancer.” Oncoming traffic lit Egon’s face
just enough for me to read the confusion there, quickly hidden. I started
laughing and felt my son relax into the teasing.
“I
wouldn’t know about his ability to dance, Mother, so I’ll have to accept
your opinion.”
I
sighed, “I had hoped to see you settled with somebody a little more…stable.
I cannot think that Dr. Venkman would make you as happy as I’d like.”
“Because the man is hopelessly heterosexual?”
“That’s a start.”
“An incorrigible flirt?”
“Egon, I caught him flirting with Fluffernutter for twenty minutes before the last board meeting. The man will flirt with anything with a pulse.”
“Flits from beautiful woman to beautiful woman on a near weekly basis?”
“You
can’t pick up the society page without a mention of him escorting a different
female. Honestly, for a while the gossips were betting who he’d date next, so
he started dating them!”
He
chuckled at that. “And what was the result of his foray into dating them?”
“He
was alleged to have said that at least now they would be able to write about
something they knew for a fact, rather than sheer speculation.”
The
car filled with his deep laughter, and it was not only fortuitous we were
stopped at a red light, but also that there was no traffic behind us because we
ended up waiting through the cycle a second time.
My
son broke the companionable silence that followed. “Fluffers? Really?”
“Yes,
and it’s disgusting the way that dog follows him around and fawns all over him
now. It’s fortunate he’s not allergic to dog hair or the man would be in
hives from the moment he set foot on the property.”
“She’s
a Maltese, they don’t induce the same types of allergies as other breeds.”
I
sniffed in answer, allowing him the banter but I refused to let him control the
conversation, awkward as it was about to become.
“Egon,
you haven’t been sitting around…pining for him, have you?” I ventured at
last.
We
pulled into his driveway, and the car was silent while he considered the
question, and I considered retracting it. He reached into the glove box and hit
the button on the opener before answering me.
“When
I was in college, I fell in love with a man that I knew was totally and
completely heterosexual, a man who could never offer me anything more than a
close friendship, no matter what I dreamed of. I knew that then, and I know that
now. I do not pretend to understand why he would have rejected me then, and now
seems to be if not actively seeking my companionship, at least not avoiding me.
If eventually we should become friends and nothing more, I would be content. Not
happy, not completely, but in this I prefer to play the optimist and enjoy my
half-full glass.” Finally he turned to me and met my eyes. “And as for any
other needs, there are…other friends that I can turn to for help.”
I
suspect that was as close as Egon was going to come to saying that he was not a
complete novice in the ways of men, for which I was grateful. I only hoped he
would be able to find a friend to explain the ways of the heart to him when his
was, inevitably, broken by the handsome and flirtatious doctor, Peter Venkman.
"Mother,
the odds that the two of us would become engaged in a romantic and exclusive
relationship are near astronomical, despite his odd behavior this evening, which
was probably due more to the animosity between himself and Dean Yeager than any
unspoken tendre for myself.”
I
nodded my agreement, although I’d been too far away to hear the actual words
exchanged. “You should know, though, that while we were dancing Dr.
Venkman’s attention never strayed from our table, which is why he was there so
quickly when Dean Yeager grabbed your arm. I wish I knew what was between
them.”
Egon
drew back and frowned. “I, too, wonder at that. I did not think the
disciplines would overlap so closely that the Dean and Dr. Venkman as a student
would come into close enough contact to spark such animosity. Perhaps it was a
personal disagreement that came later.”
I
shook my head, exasperated. “Egon, Egon, Dean Yeager lusts for you, and I
think Dr. Venkman knows it, and it offends him. I hope it is not that he is a, a
homophobe.” In which case, your hopes of even friendship would be doomed,
I thought but did not add.
My
son opened his door and shut it before coming around and helping me out from the
passenger side. In the dim light of the garage it was difficult to read his
expression, but I could tell something moved in his eyes. He looked at me and
gave me the little quirk that was a Cheshire grin. “Knowing even as little as
I do about Dr. Venkman, I don’t think it’s as simple as that. I don’t
think anything with him could ever be simple. Perhaps some of the
answer will be revealed on Tuesday.”
“Tuesday?”
Where had that come from?
“We
have a lunch date. He made it after he’d escorted Dean Yeager to the door.”
I
frowned. The two men hated each other; there was no mistaking that fierce an
emotion, not at such close quarters. Dean Yeager lusted after my son, not just
to add him to his department, for the prestige it would bring him and the
university, but in a much more earthy manner. The looks he’d given Egon could
never be misread by a woman, we were too often on the receiving end. In the
receiving line, what prey had Venkman scented when he greeted my son: his own,
or the stalking goat? Was he measuring my son, or his own ability to bend Egon
to his need?
In
matters of cold science, hard fact and numbers, I would yield the field to my
husband or son without fail; their ability to reason, the measure of their minds
was vastly superior to mine, indeed to most of humanity. But I was not without
my own mind, my own thoughts and abilities, and while I wasn’t a tower of
intellect like they were, in matters of human interaction they both acknowledged
me as their superior. Many a time I was able to explain the real world to them
in a way their dependence on science could not. My instincts were screaming at
me now, and I grabbed Egon’s shirt and dragged his attention back to me in the
kitchen in an almost violent manner.
“Break
it,” I nearly hissed, desperate now, and shaking him with all my strength. I
could see Egon’s eyes huge behind his glasses, nearly washed out in the still
pale light from further inside the house. “For God’s sake, Egon, break
it!”
I
saw understanding in his face, and a trace of wistfulness. Gently he pulled my
hands from his shirt and pulled me into his arms for a hug. My eyes burned with
tears I couldn’t spill and I blinked, feeling one eye overflow despite my
efforts. My arms went around him and I hugged my son to me tightly.
“I’m
sorry, Mother,” he whispered to me. “I’m sorry.”
Then he let me go. It was a long time before I made it to my room.
|
|
|