“Yeah, me, too. So you’re not as eager about it as you used to be, huh?”
“I just don’t know if it’s been worth it. All this effort—for what?”
“I hear you, man.”
The waiter returned to deliver their drinks. As soon as Trent’s vodka martini touched the table, he picked it up. “Cheers,” he said. “To effort paying off.”
Jed lifted his own. “I’ll drink to that.”
Their glasses clinked. The clear liquid stung Trent’s throat and dulled to warmth sliding into his stomach. When he set the glass down, he scanned the room and saw the women moving toward them, whispering to each other.
“They’re coming back,” Trent muttered. And then, louder, “So what neighborhood are you looking to move to?”
“I’m thinking about Murray Hill,” Jed replied without missing a beat. “The rent is more reasonable over there.”
Arianna and Megan scooted into the booth as Trent answered, “Yeah, prices are so crazy. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to stay in my place on my savings. Unless I sell my book.”
Arianna smiled at him encouragingly, but before she could speak, the waiter appeared again to take their orders. The waiter’s presence was comforting, and when he disappeared, Trent took another generous sip of his martini. He set the glass down with renewed energy.
“Let’s talk about something happy,” he declared. Off topic, he thought.
“I have something,” Arianna said. “My piano lessons!”
“Oh?” Jed asked. “You play?”
“Well, thanks to Trent, I’m taking lessons now. He surprised me with them!”
The previous night, Trent had invited Arianna over to meet a Juilliard piano professor for private lessons using his keyboard. He knew she had regretted never learning to play, and his thoughtfulness had thrilled her. When she sat down to play a scale, Trent had been surprised at the poignancy of the simple notes under her fingers—like a warrior’s call to battle, they sounded plaintive yet proud, the emotion of a symphony condensed into a scale. It was perhaps the greatest gift he could have given her—an outlet to express her exultant sense of life, which was precisely what had drawn him to her.
“Cool,” Jed said. “That was nice of you, man. What made you do that?”
“It means she has to come over to my place and practice,” Trent half joked.
“No wonder I haven’t see you much lately,” Jed teased.
Perfect opening to reinforce my good-guy image, Trent thought. “Do you miss me?” he joked.
“Of course,” Jed responded. “What’s Friday night without my brother?”
“I guess I have been taking over your guy time,” Arianna admitted.
“Don’t worry about it,” Trent replied, smiling sadly. I have my whole life to make up for it.
* * *
The group parted an hour later after a dinner that segued into peacefully irrelevant conversation about sports, pop culture, and movies. It was well before midnight, but Trent could tell that Arianna was exhausted, and he was glad to turn in early. They starting walking back to his apartment.
But just as he indulged a sigh of relief, Arianna grabbed his forearm.
“Are you okay?” he asked, assuming she had lost her balance.
She looked intently into his eyes. “Did you have any idea before that Jed was snooping around my clinic?”
“Not at all. He never mentioned anything to me—we didn’t realize the connection until tonight.”
The air outside felt chilled, like the physical manifestation of dread.
“So,” she said, “you must not know who his health source was, then?”
“I have no idea.”
“It had to have been someone with access to the DEP, since the person had my numbers. Could you find out?”
He hesitated. “You want me to ask Jed?”
“Do you think he would tell you?”
“Doubtful. You know that keeping sources confidential is a cardinal rule of journalism. It’s the only way reporters are able to get access to inside people at all.”
Arianna sighed. “I just wonder what else that person knows. But at the same time, it can’t be much, since the lab is still safe and the clinic is doing fine.”
Trent put his arm around her shoulders. “Try not to worry about it.”
“Did Jed say anything when we went to the bathroom? Megan was worried he might want to reopen his story, now that he knows you could get information from me.”
“I’m not going to scoop you, Arianna. And if you thought I would, then I don’t think you would be here right now.”
“True.”
“We talked briefly about the clinic. I said that you’re just a really popular doctor.”
“Thank you. I told Megan you wouldn’t give us away; it was ridiculous to even consider it.”
Trent felt her shoulders loosen under the weight of his arm.
“I guess I took enough of a chance telling you. But I trust only you.”
He resisted his urge to stiffen. “How come?”
“Because I know you love me.”
“I do.” Overcome by a sudden fervor, he stopped short on the sidewalk. She turned to face him, and her skin looked pallid in the moonlight. He took her cheeks with both hands, wishing he could rub some color back into them. “I would never tell anyone,” he said. “I want to protect you however I possibly can.”
“I wish you could.”
He held her gaze for a moment—could she tell it was meaningful?—and then kissed her lightly. They continued to walk in silence. Her cane slapped the ground at regular intervals, a third footstep.
Trent’s mind wandered to the lab in the church basement and its enormous potential just out of reach. While the public would no doubt see the lab as scandalous, Trent realized that its existence was actually their culture’s greatest sign of enlightenment.
“Hey,” he said, “I’ve been meaning to ask you something about the lab. What does ‘sad face’ mean? That password you used at the door?”
She chuckled. “I thought you would ask. It’s an acronym.”
“For what?”
“First I’ll tell you how we came up with it. At my clinic, I need to separate the donated embryos from the ones that come from actual patients. But since I don’t want the DEP inspectors to understand, I put the donated embryos in a separate cluster in the incubator,
