18

It took every ounce of Kendra’s meager powers of restraint to keep from asking about the strange population curve she’d found when she’d searched Matt’s pockets Friday night.

“Look,” he said in the sort of fake reasonable tone that had always made the hair on the back of Kendra’s neck stand up, “we seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot.  Why don’t we start over?  We’ll keep it simple, go to a movie or something.”

Kendra stared at him.  He was cute, and he’d asked her out--two things that never went together in her life.  It might be worth it to pretend that everything was fine.

As if he knew what she thought, Matt smiled. 

Why couldn’t you just have been Shaggy?  The question brought to mind the haunted houses on the cartoon series, and then Kendra remembered the vampires’ cold, elegant cavern.  She staggered back a half step.

“What is it?” Matt asked, concerned.  He stood to put a steadying hand on her arm, but touched one of the many bruises Kendra had gotten the day before.  She flinched and shook him off.

“No,” she said.  She managed to sound definite, though she felt torn, like she’d closed forever the door to romance in her life.  “I don’t date industrial spies.”  She turned to walk away.

“Kendra,” Matt said with such heaviness that she turned to look at him.  “You’ve got the wrong idea.”

She remembered the image of him with Xenopoulos, both of them looking up at her from the dark.  “No, I don’t,” she objected, but it came out in a whisper.  Kendra hated that she sounded so weak, but the emotion in his voice promised everything that she longed for.

“Yes, you do.”  Matt must have sensed the division within her.  His voice grew even more emotional.  He opened his mouth to go on, but Kendra cut him off.

“You must dabble in theater.  You lie so well.”  Her voice was still shaky, but her words must have hit their mark.  Matt stood there with his mouth open.  Kendra spun on her heel, and strode off with as long a stride as her short legs allowed.

She went back to her lab, and worked on her dissertation.  All of the research was done, she just needed to give her notes some structure.  It was different enough from her time travel work to be safe, so she didn’t shield it from the spy clone Xenopoulos had left on her computer.  Kendra intended to submit it for publication somewhere soon anyway.

She stopped work at five, having planned to follow a crowd of commuters to dinner.  As she closed the various programs she had running, she saw the screen with the results of the equation she’d left running to distract the spy.  The population of stars in the universe was definitely thinning.  One day the universe would end.  Though it was not news to Kendra, the curve seemed grim to her that day, even though the end was billions of years in the future.  She turned off her computer. 

Having mindlessly followed a group of young teachers, Kendra ended up in a Chinese restaurant.  She sat alone, and worked on variations of her equation as she ate mu shu shrimp.  Her heart wasn’t in it, and the work didn’t flow as it usually did.  Damn you, Matt.

The teachers were long gone by the time Kendra stopped moping and finished eating.  She looked around in alarm.  It seemed dark outside, but that was always true when one looked out from inside a lighted place.  She wanted her bill and a take out box.  The waiter was nowhere to be seen, of course.  Kendra counted to ten, then pushed through the double doors behind the cash register, and walked into the kitchen.  One of the cooks noticed, and pointed a cleaver at her while he screeched in one of the Chinese languages.  She glanced at her waiter, who looked up with a noodle hanging out of his mouth.  He seemed both guilty and tired as he leaned against a wall in a corner of the kitchen.  He continued to shovel food from a bowl to his mouth with chopsticks as he gazed at Kendra. 

Kendra didn’t begrudge him the chance to eat, not after her recent, forced, three-day fast.  She nodded at him, spotted a stack of take-out cartons, and snagged one. 

The cook turned to yell and point his cleaver at the waiter, who nodded as he gobbled the last of his food, and hurried to follow Kendra.  Back at her table, she wordlessly handed the waiter a twenty.  Conversation was unnecessary and impossible anyway.  The waiter would asphyxiate himself on the food that still bulged in each cheek if he tried to speak.

She left a ten percent tip, saw the waiter rolling silverware inside napkins with a hangdog expression, and added five percent more.  He nodded in her direction, and Kendra hurried out of the restaurant.  Why had she bothered with a tip, or been concerned about how the waiter felt?  Was this part of liberating her arrested development? 

Damn, with all that had gone on, Kendra realized that she’d forgotten her appointment with Phil, an appointment that he hadn’t been happy about in the first place.  He’d probably never speak to her again.  She’d just have to hack his schedule when she reached her apartment.

Kendra hurried along with her head down, careful to mind her own business even though she wasn’t sure what that was anymore.  She didn’t notice that someone walked beside her until Matt said, “Hello.”

Kendra jumped.

“Sorry.  How ‘bout I walk you home?  You seem nervous.”

“Go away.  You make me nervous.”  They were in the middle of The Commons.  Kendra changed direction, away from her apartment.  It was probably a wasted effort.  Matt had probably already looked up her address.

“Why do I make you nervous?”

Kendra stopped under a streetlight and looked at him, incredulous.  It didn’t seem to bother Matt at all.  “Wow, you really are ballsy,” Kendra said.  “Did she tell you to keep after me unless I file a restraining order?”

“She who?” Matt asked, but a tinge of red crept along each cheek bone.

“She did.”  Kendra walked on.  “Fine, I’ll file one tomorrow.”

“For what?  What have I done?  You’re over-reacting.”  Matt followed her.

Kendra stopped under another streetlight.  “And what?  It’s safer for me to under-react around a guy who conspired to have me kidnapped?”  She didn’t wait for his reply, but strode off angrily.  He followed her without speaking until she reached the steps of Campus Security.

“This is where I live, so scram.”

Matt shrugged, and sauntered off.  He looked over his shoulder several times.  Kendra squinted angrily in his direction, wishing she could vanish him from the face of the Earth with the power of her gaze.  When he was finally out of sight, she shuddered.

“Need some help, Miss?” asked a friendly voice behind her.  One of the security officers leaned out of the large glass doors that led into the security building.

“Yes, please.  Some creep was just following me.  Could somebody take me back to my apartment?” 

No way would she walk home alone. 

“Sure.  Wait right here.  I’ll bring a car around.”

Kendra stayed under the lights and within sight of the officer at the desk while she waited.  Was it her imagination, or did the shadow at the corner of the biology building seem thicker somehow?  No, you’re imagining things. 

One of the security cars came around the building and stopped in front of the steps.  Kendra hurried down to it, but checked to be sure she recognized the officer before she opened the door.  She glanced once more toward the biology building, and gasped.  A pale statuesque man stepped into the dim light for an instant, then disappeared.

“Wow.   You sure are shook up,” said the officer who had leaned over to look up at her.  “Are you sure you want to go home?  Maybe the hospital, if…” he broke off , dropped his gaze below her waist, and made a vague circular gesture.

Kendra realized what he was trying to say.  Talk about arrested development.

“No, I wasn’t raped.  Just take me home, please.”