Love and the Laws of Motion Read online

  “Can I get you something to drink?” Gemma said. “It’s white wine, right? Or we’ve got beer, soda, whatever.”

  “Wine would be great. Thanks, Gemma.”

  “Something sure smells fantastic, Gem,” Dad said.

  “Dinner’s ready. Why don’t we all sit down? I’ll be right back.” Gemma had on her very best company manners, and so did Jess and Alex. Livie vowed to herself, no matter how strange this felt, that she would try, too.

  Dinner was not unpleasant. Just stiff. It was new, Livie told herself, having a stranger join what had been their intimate little family for over a decade. The family had easily expanded to embrace Alex, and even Nick, who had no real connection to them at all and didn’t seem to want one. Of course, it would expand to embrace Teresa, too. Logically, Livie knew that. Then why did she feel like there was a cement block sitting on her chest? Why did this all feel so hard?

  Livie watched her chat with Gemma about people they both knew from the neighborhood and tried her best to imagine it—this woman—this stranger—joining their family. She couldn’t. She could envision sub-atomic particles dancing on the edge of an event horizon, but she couldn’t picture Teresa becoming part of this family.

  “Livie—is it alright if I call you Livie? John says that’s what you go by.”

  “Sure. I mean, yes, I go by Livie.” Although literally everybody called her that except Professor Langley, it still felt weirdly intimate to let Teresa do it.

  “Your dad says you’re getting your master’s degree in astronomy?”

  “PhD. I’m getting a doctorate.”

  “Oh, my mistake. A doctorate in astronomy.” Teresa’s light brown eyes widened. She had kind eyes. And a nice face. It was just an unfamiliar face. “Isn’t that something? Well, your dad said you were a genius.”

  “I’m not a genius. Genius is just a level of IQ results and IQ tests aren’t an accurate measure of mental abilities. They fail to measure several aspects of intellect, and these days they’re not widely relied on as an indicator of intelligence.” Under the table, Jess nudged her with her foot, and she shut her mouth so fast her teeth clicked. Nice, Livie. That’s exactly what this dinner needed—a lecture about the unreliability of IQ tests. This was why she avoided talking to strangers. She opened her mouth and a bunch of irrelevant nonsense poured out.

  Teresa seemed unfazed. “Sure are smarter than me. Nobody we grew up with even went to college, right, John?” She elbowed Dad, who chuckled along with her as they shared some memory from their past.

  Except he wasn’t supposed to have a past with this woman. Their mother was his past. That’s how it had always been. What would happen to Angela Romano now that Teresa was here? How was this going to work? Would they have to pack up all her pictures? Would everybody slowly stop mentioning her? Would Teresa step into the spot their mother had once inhabited so fully that it would be like Angela Romano had never even existed? How was she going to ever get used to having this stranger in their house? This person she couldn’t hold a normal conversation with to save her life?

  When Livie clammed up, Teresa switched her attention to Jess. Jess was much better at this, chatting animatedly with Teresa about her job, the latest story she was pursuing at the paper, her recent engagement, anything and everything. Alex swung in after that. Alex was used to chatting up Fortune 500 execs and senators. Making conversation with Teresa came as easy as breathing to him.

  Livie watched her sisters closely, wondering if this was hard for them, too. It didn’t seem to be. Jess was much better at adapting to new things. She was probably fine. And Gem had spent her whole life wearing a brave face. You could never tell if something upset her. Livie was terrible at pretending to feel things she didn’t feel, and just as terrible at hiding what she did feel.

  Somehow, dinner was eaten. Conversation was managed. Maybe it wasn’t one of the free-wheeling family dinners the Romano table usually witnessed, but they got through it. As soon as Gemma started clearing the table, Teresa leapt to her feet, offering to help. Gemma firmly shut her down, and Dad led her to the living room, where they turned on the TV to catch the end of the Jets game. Well, at least she was a Jets fan. Dad never would have dated her if she rooted for the Giants.

  “Well, what do you think?” Gemma whispered as she covered leftovers in plastic wrap and stowed them in the fridge.

  Livie turned on the hot water and squirted some dish soap into the sink. “She seems nice.”

  “I like her,” Jess declared as she scraped plates into the trash. “And she makes Dad happy, that’s obvious.”

  “They make each other happy. Teresa’s had a rough time of it, too,” Gemma said, turning to take an empty serving bowl from Alex. He cast one brief look around the kitchen, realized the girls were having a post-mortem, and headed back out to the dining room.

  “What happened to Teresa?” Jess asked.

  “You know when she was married, she lived out in Jersey? Her husband was pretty high up in some construction company. Did well for himself. They had a nice house, Teresa didn’t have to work, all that. Then he up and left her for her best friend. She never saw it coming. Completely broadsided her.”

  “That’s awful.”

  “And,” Gemma continued, “he got some shark of a lawyer to hide all their assets. Somehow he shafted her out of everything in the divorce.”

  “Bastard,” Jess growled.

  “Typical,” Gemma concurred. “Anyway, on top of all that, her mother got diagnosed with cancer. She had to move back home to take care of her, but it wasn’t like she had a lot of options in her situation.”

  “Poor Teresa.”

  “I’m glad she found Dad. He’s a good guy, and she deserves a prince.”

  “I guess,” Livie conceded. “She’s...”

  “What?” Jess pressed.

  “She’s different than Mom. That’s all.”

  Gemma shrugged. “Maybe that makes it easier for Dad.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Maybe if he was dating someone exactly like Mom, he’d always be reminded of her, or feel like he was trying to replace her. With Teresa, he won’t compare, you know?”

  “Do you think...?”

  Jess handed Livie a stack of plates. “What?”

  “Do you think it’s serious? Do you think Dad’s really serious about her?”

  Gemma paused for a moment before answering. “I think, after all these years, Dad wouldn’t have brought her home if he wasn’t thinking about marrying her.”

  Marry her? Dad was going to marry Teresa? For a second, Livie couldn’t breathe. She was silent as she washed and passed the dishes to Jess to dry, tuning out Jess and Gemma’s quiet chatter about the dinner and Teresa.

  When they’d finished cleaning up, they moved out to the living room. Livie stopped cold, arrested by the sight of Teresa and Dad, side by side on the couch, his arm around her shoulders, her body tucked into his side. The intimacy of it took her breath away. It occurred to her in a flash that maybe Teresa was spending the night.

  “I’m going to go to the bar,” she announced, not realizing what she was saying until the words came flying out of her mouth. “To check in with Clyde and see if he needs a hand.”

  Everybody turned to look at her. “I’m sure he’d text if he needed help,” Gemma said slowly.

  “It’s Monday night. There’s a game. You never know.”

  Without waiting for anyone else to speak, she turned and left the house.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  For the entirety of the short walk to the bar, Livie berated herself. She’d been childish and stupid. So what if Dad’s girlfriend was spending the night? So what if they got married? It shouldn’t matter to her. Why did it?

  The crowd at Romano’s was a little bigger than an ordinary Monday, owing to the Jets game, but that wasn’t what su
rprised Livie when she entered. It was the sight of Nick sitting at the bar.

  “What happened to your meeting?”

  He swung around to face her, guilt flashing in his eyes. “They cancelled.”

  “You don’t need to keep lying. I know you didn’t have a meeting.”

  His shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry, Liv, I just—”

  She waved away his apology. “It’s fine. You were right. It was a family thing and you don’t do families, right?”

  “Um, yeah, I guess. Is dinner over?”

  “Yeah. Except Teresa’s still there.”

  “Then why are you here?” Nick asked.

  “I think she’s staying over.” Saying it out loud felt so weird.

  “Ah, I see. You escaped.”

  “I didn’t escape, exactly,” she lied. “I came to see if Clyde needed a hand.” At the moment, Clyde was watching the Jets game along with everybody else. He was hardly being run off his feet.

  “Hey.” When she looked back at Nick, he leaned in closer. “You don’t need to keep lying to me.”

  She scoffed softly and looked away.

  He patted the stool next to his. “Sit.”

  She sighed and climbed up on the stool. “It’s nothing.”

  “Liar.” He only grinned when she flashed him an annoyed look. “How was dinner?”

  “It was fine.”

  “How was Teresa?”

  “She’s nice.”

  “Fine. Nice. Wow, you’re the master of exposition tonight. Now the truth, please.”

  “That is the truth. She’s very nice.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “She’s the first person Dad’s dated since Mom died.”

  “Really? No one? Thirteen years is a long time to stay on the shelf.”

  “No one,” Livie confirmed. “Not a single date in all these years. And now, out of nowhere, he’s really serious about Teresa.”

  “I guess it would be hard, when you’ve had him to yourself for so long, to see someone new come into his life.”

  “I’m not jealous,” she said defensively. “It’s more like... You know how I told you people don’t like me?”

  “Hold up. Nobody dislikes you. They’re intimidated by you. But they don’t dislike you.”

  “Whatever. None of that mattered, because my dad always did. He doesn’t understand any of my research or my work, but he asks questions, and he listens to me, even when he doesn’t know what I’m talking about. He cares, you know?”

  “Ah. And no one else did.”

  “I didn’t really care about not having friends as long as I had my sisters and my dad.” As soon as she said it out loud, though, something clicked in her brain, a revelation that had never before been apparent to her. She thought of Michiko, asking her to the departmental potluck, and Teresa, patiently trying to tease out any information at all about her as Livie repeatedly shut her down. People did reach out to her. She was the one backing away.

  The realization left her with an unpleasant sensation clawing at her insides, something that felt like a muddle of guilt, shame, and fear. Because realizing that about herself didn’t mean she knew how to fix it, or that she was brave enough to try.

  * * *

  Livie was clearly upset. Nick could see it in the hard set of her lips and her flat, expressionless eyes. When Liv was upset about something, she closed down, like steel gates lowering at Fort Knox. He nudged her elbow with his. “I can always tell when you’re thinking big thoughts. You get that look on your face.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  That was a lie if he’d ever heard one. She didn’t want to tell him what she was thinking, so he hazarded a guess. “You won’t lose him, you know.”

  “What?”

  “Your dad. I mean, obviously I have my own complicated relationship with my parents—”

  Livie snorted a laugh. “You mean the ones you haven’t seen since you were eighteen?”

  “Shut up. We’re talking about your hang-ups, not mine.”

  “Sorry. Go on.”

  “Livie,” he began, lowering his voice and leaning into her until she raised her eyes and met his. “I’ve only been hanging around here for a few weeks, but I can see how much your father loves you. All of you. That won’t change, no matter who he hooks up with.”

  “I know that.” She looked down at the bar. “But everything else will change.”

  “Well, yes, I guess so. Maybe that’s a good thing?”

  “I don’t do well with change. I mean, look at me.”

  He’d been doing his best not to look at Livie, since every time he did, his mind unhelpfully wandered down the same path it had a week ago, noticing breasts and lips and skin, and how hot she was when she was puzzling out a difficult problem. But he was trying very hard to be a good friend who did not notice those kinds of things.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

  “My only friends are my sisters.”

  “Hey, am I imaginary?”

  “I look exactly the same as I did at sixteen.”

  “Think how handy that’ll be when you’re forty.”

  “I’m twenty-five and I still live at home.”

  “Just because you’re going to Adams and it’s in Brooklyn.”

  “But I didn’t have to,” she said, before quickly cutting herself off.

  “What do you mean? Did you have other offers?”

  She looked away and shrugged. She was hiding behind her hair again. “Sure.”

  He reached out and carefully tucked it behind her ear, until he could see the side of her face. “Like?”

  Another shrug. “MIT. Berkeley. McArthur.”

  “McArthur has some of the best science programs in the country.” He knew because they’d been courting him along with DeWitt.

  Her eyes stayed fixed on the bottles lining the shelves behind the bar. “I know. And they offered me a full tuition waiver, plus a stipend for teaching, and a fellowship.”

  That was one hell of an offer, better than the one they’d made him. And while he was reasonably sure Adams had coughed up a decent financial aid package, Adams was no McArthur. Not by a long shot.

  “And you said no to that?”

  “I picked Adams because of Janet.”

  Okay, yes, Finch was doing exciting work, but there was something else hiding in Livie’s reasoning, he knew it in his gut. She hadn’t picked Adams just for Finch. Adams was right here in Brooklyn, and McArthur was all the way out in Colorado. He’d bet his best laptop that she’d also picked it because Adams was here, close to home. She’d picked it because she didn’t want to leave.

  It had been different for him. He’d been so eager at sixteen to get away from a family that didn’t understand him, from always being compared and found wanting, that he’d have moved to the moon if that’s where the offer took him. And in one way or another, he’d been running away from them ever since.

  But Livie’s life was different. Her family was different. There was no judgment here, only love and unconditional acceptance. He couldn’t really blame her. He probably wouldn’t have wanted to run away from that either, if he’d had it.

  “Do you ever wish you’d said yes to McArthur?”

  She shook her head. “I wanted to work with Janet. Her research is exactly what I want to do.”

  “But there might have been great research happening at McArthur, too,” he said carefully.

  “What are you saying?”

  “Okay, I have no life plan, right?”

  She hiked one eyebrow at him, and for a second he forgot where he was going with this. “Did you just figure that out?”

  “No, I’m trying to make a point. You’ve seen how I work. I say yes to whatever sounds interesting, because you n
ever know where it might lead.”

  “I can’t work like that.”

  “I know you can’t. That’s not what I meant. I mean, sometimes I’m wrong and the job sucks. But sometimes I’m right and I get to do something amazing. Like this project with you.”

  “I get it. You’re saying I should try more new things. You sound like Gemma trying to get me to try beets when I was seven. I still don’t like beets, by the way.”

  “I’m saying that playing it safe might not always make you happy. Or as happy as you could be. Shaking things up can sometimes lead to great things. Maybe your dad being with Teresa is one of those things.”

  She heaved a sigh. “Yeah, maybe you’re right. I should give her a chance.”

  As she stared unseeing at the liquor bottles against the mirrored wall, her expression was impossible to decipher. Had he helped her at all? He wasn’t sure. It was laughable, anyone coming to him for advice. Sure, he’d had some success in life, but in retrospect, only by accident. His past seemed to be nothing but a string of reckless self-destructive acts that somehow led to success instead of abject failure.

  “Ready to head back into the lion’s den?”

  She hopped off her bar stool. “Clyde, you sure you don’t need help with closing?”

  “Nah, I got this. Night, Livie.”

  * * *

  Outside, the night air was almost balmy for mid-October, which was good, because in her panicked dash from the house, Livie hadn’t bothered to grab a jacket. It was late on a Monday, and the sidewalks were nearly empty.

  “You really think Teresa’s staying over tonight?” Nick asked her.

  “When I left, they looked pretty cozy together on the couch.” That was the last thing she wanted to think about right now. What if she ran into Teresa outside the bathroom in the middle of the night? Oh God, what if she could hear them?

  Nick chuckled. “You get it, John Romano.”

  She shoved his arm. “Eeew. Come on. That’s my dad. My previously celibate dad.”

  “Um, Livie, the man has three daughters. I hate to break it to you, but he’s had sex before.”