Romancing Einstein
an excerpt

This excerpt starts at almost 12,000 words into the story. All you need to know is that Andy fancies Lex (who is a bit of a social recluse - if 'a bit of' is a synonym for 'totally'), and Andy's friend Clara dug up some disturbing information about Lex's life, and sent it to her.

The story switches between Lex and Andy's POVs; in this excerpt, the first part is from Andy's, the second from Lex's POV.

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It was Wednesday. Usually, Andy would stay over at Clara’s on that night, to avoid her passionate housemates. This week, however, she was still angry at Clara.

She was angry at herself too, of course, for reading the bloody attachment, but she just added that to her anger at Clara for looking so far and adding that postscript.

‘How is it any of your business? Really?’

Clara moved her lunch around to try to redistribute some of the heat. ‘I’ll be there to pick up the pieces if you get involved with her. It’s not like it hasn’t happened before.’

This time Andy really was surprised. ‘What do you mean?’

Clara looked tired. ‘I mean that every single time one of my friends gets involved with someone where you can say right from the get all, that they were damn wrong for each other, it’s stupid old me who hangs around to put them back together. I’m tired of it!’

While virtuously counting to ten, like her Mother had taught her, Andy chewed a mouthful of cold cous-cous and pondered her response. ‘Clara, in the time that I’ve know you, you’ve never had to pick up the pieces at all. I’ve always come out happier than when I went in.’

‘Yeah, darling, but you’ve never been in love, have you? Even I could tell that. It was all just play. You get involved with this woman, it’s not just play. Hell, you’re having problems and you’re not even involved!’

Andy, still recovering from her day-old hangover, couldn’t disagree.

‘Do you even know if she’s gay?’

How strange. That had never even occurred to her as a variable. Perhaps because she’d been focussing on Lex being out of her league in other ways, she’d never even considered whether she was in the same game, gender wise.

‘Fair point. I’ll find out. And you –‘ Andy made sure her friend was looking her in the eye – ‘you will meet Lex before hating her. She’s different.’ Lex really was ‘different,’ Andy realised. ‘You will meet her twice before hating her. At least.’

‘Deal.’

That seemed a good point on which to end lunch in a friendly way. Andy bound up to the physics department. She knocked on Lex’s door, and was gratified to see Lex spring to life as soon as she walked in, her hunched computer position giving way to a lively posture that put Andy oddly in mind of a meerkat.

‘You keep hunching over like that, you’ll ruin your back.’

‘I know,’ admitted Lex, stretching. ‘My massage therapist tells me that all the time.’

Massage therapist? Never mind. Andy was on a mission.

‘Hey … Lex …. Do you ….’ Her mission faltered.

‘Do I what?’ Lex looked so guileless. She wasn’t trying to second-guess the sentence at all, just waiting for Andy to complete it.

Lex, sat there, with all her computers, with her dull black suit jacket and white shirt, bizarrely long hair in a plait which was visible underneath the chair (Andy’s mind boggled at this), huge green (no, hazel - no, they were green - no, definitely hazel) eyes, and that open expression that Andy still had not seen given to anyone else – oh, that was enough to make anyone fall in love, surely? Or if not in love, then in something else.

‘Do you … want to … do something?’

Gaaah.

Lex didn’t notice Andy's inability to form complete sentences, or perhaps she was so used to physicists that it seemed normal to her. ‘When?’ was her only response.

‘Um, well, I’ve got things on at the weekend, and a salsa class tomorrow, and I felt like well, so … Tonight?’

Nod. ‘What shall we do?’

Yessss! ‘Whatever you like.’

Now Lex looked completely at a loss. ‘I don’t know. What do you usually do on a Wednesday night?’

‘Well, usually I stay at my friend Clara’s, and we either go to the pub or a club or we stay in and watch TV.’

Lex ducked her head. ‘I think watching TV would be easiest be for me. I’d like it.’

‘Great!’ Andy’s grin reached so far she wasn’t sure she’d be able to get out of the door. ‘Say 7 o’clock at your place? My place is too crowded. Email the address – I’m on the intranet.’

She backed out the door. Lex was still grinning and nodding.

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Lex was frozen.

Andy was coming to her house.

No-one had ever been to her house.

No-one had ever been inside her door.

She’d have to let Asif know she had a visitor.

But firstly, she’d have to buy a TV.