The Windsor Knot

Highlander out. That accomplished, he replaced the foot on the coffee table and crept out of the room.

He stopped by the kitchen for a glass of fruit juice to fortify him as he worked, and then he hurried upstairs to his room with the purloined magazine. Charles was inept at acting nonchalant and he was sure he would look guiltier reading the innocuous Highlander than a bishop would with a copy of Hustler.

Once safely barricaded behind the door of his bedroom, Charles sat down at his desk and opened the magazine. Flipping past the film reviews, the symphony schedule, and the restaurant ads, he turned to a part of the magazine that he had heretofore only glanced at: the personals column. The editors called this feature DSS, which apparently stood for Desperately Seeking Someone, and it was placed well toward the back of each issue. It had once been a source of amusement to Charles that people could be so desperate for companionship that they would advertise for a blind date, but now he felt the need to consult the listings for reasons of his own. Of course, he would have to check with the family attorney before doing anything rash, but surely he could commit himself to the extent of composing a letter.

Charles skimmed the list of ads and discovered that his first task would be to decipher the code in which they were written. A closer examination proved that this was not difficult. It was just a local singles column, after all, not the Nobel Prize Winners’ Sperm Bank. The initials SWF meant single, white female. He would begin with that category, and if he found nothing helpful there, he could go on to DWF, WWF, and whatever else the alphabet had to offer. He turned to the first entry.

SWF, the ad began, Bible college grad, 32, seeks-Charles stopped there. He didn’t care what she sought; he wasn’t about to contemplate a relationship with somebody who insisted that the world was created on a Tuesday in October in 2846 B.C.

What else was there?

WWF, 62, full-figured-Next!

… Professional, stable, enjoys movies, outdoor activities, quiet times… That sounded promising. Charles read the entry again. Oh. SWM. He might have known.

SWF, 22, out for a good time. Seeks laughs, travel, good dancer. Not ready to settle down-

Charles sighed in disgust. Where were all the eligible women in the world when he needed one? Here he was a veritable prize: he could cook; he could arrange flowers; he could show an intelligent interest in their careers. And did anyone care? No. All girls seemed to want these days were cheap, casual relationships with no responsibilities.

Charles read on. DWF, likes movies… Why did they all start by saying they liked movies? Surely no one was so pitiful as to need a companion just to sit in the dark and stare at a screen. Wasn’t there anybody whose company would be preferable to a movie?

He stopped and took a gulp of fruit juice. It was, appropriately enough, passion punch. Maybe he was being too choosy with the personal ads. How much can one reveal about oneself in a one-inch box, after all? Besides, it wasn’t as if he had much time to complete his plan. He stared up at the poster on the wall above his desk: a photograph of Albert Einstein against a background of the Horseshoe nebula. The caption, a quote from the great scientist, read: God Does Not Play Dice with the Universe. Charles wondered if that applied to biology as well as quantum physics. On an individual level, he doubted it. With a renewed sense of desperation, he returned to the DSS column.

This one looked promising. Blonde SWF, 26, 5’7,” 118 lbs. Good career in scientific field. Pretty, but no time to meet men. No married creeps. No serial killers. Someday my prince will come, but he’ll have to find me. DSS-5-270690. The Georgia Highlander.

That was more like it, thought Charles with a nod of satisfaction. He certainly seemed to fit most of her requirements-i.e., he hadn’t been married and he had never murdered anyone. He wasn’t so sure about the rest of her specifications, but nevertheless he allowed himself to fantasize about this perfect woman and found himself, as usual, picturing Sally Ride. Unfortunately, Dr. Ride (wherever she was these days) had better things to do than to be courted by a floundering physicist with not a single journal article to his credit. Perhaps this younger, obviously lonely young woman would recognize his potential and encourage him. Perhaps she would even be a physicist and could share his dreams!

Perhaps she would be Jane Goodall and think he was a perfect chimpanzee when she read his letter.

Charles tried not to give in to his natural pessimism. There was nothing to do but write a letter in response to her ad. He must try to sound intelligent, charming, sophisticated. (Is that what glamorous blondes were after these days?) Unfortunately, Charles had very little practice in two-thirds of those attributes. Intelligent he could be. He had been reading Popular Electronics since second grade, and his grades (except in literature) were effortlessly good. He didn’t see why everybody made such a fuss about things like calculus; mathematics seemed perfectly straightforward to him. But perhaps his intellectual good qualities would not be endearing to this modern Athena. Charming and sophisticated he had never tried to be. That was Geoffrey’s department. For a fleeting moment, Charles considered enlisting Geoffrey’s help in composing the letter reply, but he dismissed the thought almost at once. If he told Geoffrey why he was doing it, it would spoil the whole plan, and if he pretended to be in search of a lady love, Geoffrey would laugh like a drain. The potential humiliation wasn’t worth it.

He read the article again for clues as to the lady’s preferences, but found nothing useful. He wished he had more to go on. It was difficult to make yourself attractive to someone you knew nothing about. Creative writing wasn’t his forte anyhow.

With a sigh of resignation, Charles extracted a sheet of writing paper from the desk drawer and stared down at it, hoping for inspiration. None was forthcoming. The sheet lay there smugly, daring him to jot down an equation or two to break up the expanse of emptiness.

What should he call her? Dear SWF seemed accurate, but crass. Dear Fellow Scientist sounded like a fund-raising letter from the greenhouse effect people. He glanced at the ad. Someday my prince will come…. That was a line from a fairy tale wasn’t it? Disney movie? Dredging up memories of longforgotten kiddie matinees, Charles finally placed the reference. Dear Snow White, he wrote carefully. I hope to become your prince.

He nodded approvingly to himself. Not bad for an inarticulate physicist, he thought. Not even to himself did Charles ever say the word nerd.

That evening in Edinburgh Margaret Dawson was having tea with the ladies’ circle from the church. (The primary item on the agenda was the forthcoming bazaar.)

Margaret’s sons, left to fend for themselves, had managed to brew a pot of tea around five o’clock and were making do with leftover pastries from yesterday, rather than attempting any actual cooking themselves. They were counting on a substantial meal later that evening to compensate for this temporary deprivation. A roast on the top shelf of the refrigerator seemed to substantiate their hopes in this matter. (Unfortunately, neither of these college- educated louts had noticed the note tacked to the door of the refrigerator, which read: Please put roast in oven on setting of gas mark 6 at 4:30. Love Mother.)

Blissfully unaware of the coming famine, Ian Dawson had finished off a plate of shortbread and was sitting at the kitchen table watching the now recovered Traveller tuck into his evening meal of whitebait when Cameron came in from the hall and poured himself a cup of tea, ignoring Ian completely. He carefully poured milk into the mug and stirred it, humming tunelessly. He started to put the milk jug into the refrigerator and then set it back down on the counter. “I keep forgetting that in this country, you don’t have to refrigerate milk,” he murmured. “When I first got to America, I tried leaving the milk out after breakfast. It didn’t last a bloody day.” He set his mug on the table, picked up the evening paper, and sat down to read it.

“Well?” said Ian impatiently. “What did they say about the gnome theft?”

“Who?” said Cameron, turning a page.

“The police, twit. Are they coming ‘round?”

Cameron sighed and set aside the paper. “If you’re so interested, Ian, you should have rung them up yourself.”