“Yes,” I said, slowly grasping that this wasn’t the wrong house, wasn’t some dream or practical joke. Cynthia Jalter was their therapist.
“You pay them to come here,” I recalled, inserting it in the place of a thousand apologies.
“They couldn’t possibly afford it themselves,” she said. She stood, her back to the consultation room, her clipboard hugged to her chest, eyeing me curiously. “I’m well funded, as you guessed the other night, Philip.”
“Your research is into blindness, then.”
“Coupling,” she said. “Obsessive coupling.”
“Ah. The way they are together, you mean. The private world. Twins, invented languages, that sort of thing.”
“Yes.”
“You help them separate, I guess. A Siamese-twin surgeon of the soul.”
“I help them understand it,” she said. “They can make their own choices. The goal is to develop an awareness, from inside, of how dual cognitive systems form, how they function, how they respond to hostile or contradictory data. Threats to stability, inequal growth by one member. Cognitive dissonance. I’m sure these concepts are familiar.”
“Oh, yes.”
“In the larger sense my research is into the delusory or subjective worlds that exist in the space between the two halves of any dual cognitive system. It applies to any coupling, from obsessive twins all the way down to a chance momentary encounter in public, between two strangers.”
“Ah.”
“The therapy can serve as a catalyst for change, sure. As the inherent limitations of two-point perspective are exposed. It’s inevitable. But the research is pure. Perhaps sometime we’ll have a chance to talk at length.”
“Oh, yes.” I said this stupidly, too fast.
“Good.” Her smile was wry.
“You knew my name, just now,” I said. “Not the fake name from the bar. Dale Overling.”
“Evan and Garth—we talk about their situation, too. Daily life stuff.”
“So you knew it was me, the other night.”
“Not right away,” she said. “But it dawned on me. And I drive them home sometimes. So when I dropped you off, I knew for sure.”
I wanted to flee. I felt like an idiot. Anyway, I had to go search for Alice, rescue her.
“We’re keeping Evan and Garth waiting,” I said.
Her smile was knowing. “You have somewhere to go.”
“Actually, yes.”
She straightened, and lifted her clipboard as if to weigh it. She looked at me and I saw that she had science gaze. The look that seemed to encompass my whole life inside theoretical brackets. Paradigm Eyes.
Alice used to freeze me with that look. Before she lost it, surrendered it along with everything else, to Lack.
“Well, I hope we get that chance to talk,” she said, still smiling.
“Right.” I was panicked. I thought of last time, my jaunt from the apartment while Soft dragged Alice home. Why was I always with Cynthia Jalter at these moments? Alice’s vanishing belonged to me this time, if I hurried. I had to go claim it.
“And Philip?”
“Yes?”
“I know about Alice. They talk about her.”
“And Lack?”
“And Lack.”
I winced. I didn’t want Cynthia Jalter to take a professional interest. The possibility that she might view Alice and me, or worse, Alice and Lack, as a fascinating and absurd example of obsessive coupling was horrifying.
And yet here I was, rushing away to attend a new phase of the crisis. I felt exposed.
“Well,” I said. “I hope you take all they say with a grain of, as the saying goes, salt.”
“Yes.”
“I have to go. You’ll drive them home, I guess.”
“Yes.”
“Oh, good.” I slipped back through the front door, then ran stumbling down the porch steps and back to my car. I was panting, as if after some vast exertion. I seat-belted myself into place with difficulty, my fingers numb.
Dual cognitive system?
Two-point perspective?
New data, threats, unequal growth?
I drove back to campus, to the parking lot of the physics facility.
20
Alice sat, slumped, elbows on knees, against the padlocked doors of Lack’s chamber. She was a human mite in the machine, an insect sucked up in a vacuum cleaner. Her head was ducked between her shoulders, blond hair shining in the dim, steely light of the corridor. She looked up forlornly when she heard me coming.
“Alice.” I panted. “I’m here.”
“I see.”
“You’re okay.”
She smiled. “Yes.”
“So.” I peered around the curve of the hallway. We were alone. The doors to the lab were still locked, and I had Alice’s copy of the key. “So, I guess you’re just waiting here, huh?”
“I guess.”
“Sort of staking out a position, is that it? An encampment?”
“I don’t know, Philip.”
“Resting. A siesta.”
“If you like.”
I sagged. The air had gone out of my rescue already. Alice stared at me, plainly resenting the intrusion.
“Well, I think we need to talk.”
“We could talk in the apartment.”
“But that’s just it,” I said, trying to get some momemtum. “We never do.”
“You came here to talk?”
I concealed my panting. “Yes.” I slumped down across from her, against the opposite wall, one knee up, the other leg stretched out. If she’d taken the same position our feet could have touched across the width of the corridor. The fluorescent light above us flickered and blinked. “I want to pin some things down.”
“What things?”
“You love Lack. The way you used to love me, but don’t anymore.”
She sighed. “You keep repeating it, Philip.”
“Then it’s true.”
“Yes. I love Lack.” She didn’t flinch or falter. She was comfortable saying it now.
“I was too real for you. You wanted to meet someone imaginary.”
“Lack is real, Philip. He’s a visitor. An alien.”
“Lack’s an idea, Alice. He’s your projection.”
She stared at me defiantly. “Well, he’s a much better idea than a lot of others I can think of. He’s the idea of
