Density and Singularities

"What about your hope chest?" There was a protest in Mardi's voice.

She even stomped her foot a little as Renee shook her head and sat the onesie back on top of the stack of baby clothes.

"What about it? I told you I'm not doing that anymore," Renee did her best firm voice, turned her back on her best friend and headed towards a card table holding an assortment of old and newer glasses.

Mardi came up behind her and in a loud whisper did her best mom voice, "Renee Michelle Nalan! I was talking to you!"

Renee laughed.

She picked up a piece of cobalt blue glass and held up to the sunlight before turning to say, "I'm not one of your kids, Mardi. And, it's okay. I'm just done."

It was the expression she used a lot these days. Done. It was done. She was done. Her despair and her longing and her hope. All done.

The married woman sighed, "You're not done, honey. You just think you are."

Renee rolled her eyes, "I am thirty-five years old, my friend. I think I know myself well enough by now to tell you what I think and how I feel. It's over."

She paused for a moment and added, for effect, "In fact, I should have a yard sale myself and get rid of those things."

Mardi just shook her head and walked to a rack of toddler clothes. She turned, met Renee's eyes and shook her head again as she asked the old lady, in whose backyard they stood, about the blue glass.

When they got back into the sunshine-yellow Volvo, Mardi started the engine and turned to her, "What about sex?"

Renee crossed out the just-visited sale from the list in the classifieds as she answered, "I can have sex. That doesn't mean I have to have a relationship...Hell, I don't even have to have a man. There are always toys and porn."

Mardi shook her head again and with more than a touch of sarcasm added, "Great, that sounds life-affirming and healthy. I wish you and your dildo all the happiness in the world."

Renee's hair was still dripping water down her back as she went into the bedroom to find her pajamas. She glanced at the alarm clock. Three o'clock in the afternoon, on a sunny Saturday.

'Yeah, but, it's humid outside. And, you don't need to spend any more money if you're going to build that deck. You might as well be comfortable.' Her mind told her, being well practiced in the reasons it was okay to put on pjs in the middle of the afternoon.

She walked by the old hope chest that had once held her grandmother's embroidered handkerchiefs, a porcelain-faced doll from her childhood and an assortment of photo albums. When she had inherited it, already emptied of those prize possessions by greedy family members, she sat it at the end of her bed and slowly began to fill it herself. Her grandmother stashed away memories inside the hardwood confines; Renee stashed dreams.

It began with a teddy bear. She saw it in a store window and couldn't walk by. When she got it home, she wasn't sure where a grown woman was supposed to put a stuffed animal. She was certain setting it on her bed would kill any romance that made it as far as her bedroom, so into the trunk it went.

It didn't take long before the cutest pink baby dress she'd ever seen lay next to the brown bear. Now it held an assortment of baby clothes, a couple of hardcover children's books, the picture of a wedding gown she'd secretly torn from a friend's bridal magazine, a few photo frames meant to hold the picture of one's true love and an assortment of other such items.

'Fairy tales,' Renee said to herself, 'Just fairy tales.'

She'd hidden the contents of the chest from almost everyone. Mardi knew, but Mardi was her oldest and closest girlfriend. She'd physically tackled two men who decided they had to know the secret treasure hidden inside the large box.

Michael was the only man she'd opened it for herself. Michael, or as she affectionately referred to him for months afterwards, The Ass. After fourteen months, three weeks and five days, just a little over a month after she shared her best-guarded secret, he'd instigated a fight, gathered his things and left for good. It was less than a month before she found out, through the ever-twining university grapevine, that he'd begun dating a stewardess named Becky just a few days after he turned away from her.

'Ass,' she decided he still deserved the title.

Renee heard the shouts as she searched for the remote.

"How do you disappear when I'm the only person who ever uses you?!" she said aloud.

She continued, "Good God, I'm talking to inanimate objects now. I've lived alone for too long."

A second round of shouts from outside caught her attention, "Come on back! Okay, stop!"

The rumble of an engine echoed into her house and took her to the front window. She pulled back the curtain just enough to see but not be seen.

"Jesus," she said, and her head fell back to stare at the ceiling for a moment as she let the curtain close.

Renee huffed her way to the couch. Another new neighbor across the street. It had been such a nice street when she bought the little house. In the city but quiet. People kept up their yards; cats could meander peacefully from house to house. The little old people would wave when she left for work in the morning. Then, the little old lady across the street got shipped off to Ohio to live with her daughter, and it all went to hell.

Renee learned quickly that there was nothing in the world worse for one's property value and peace of mind than a rental house across the street. First, there had been the people who had a well-patronized drive-thru drug service. She'd called the police only to see them in the front yard, slapping the guy on the back, laughing and leaving.

Next, there was the woman whose boyfriend liked to beat her up. Renee decided she must like it too since she kept bailing him out of jail and bringing him home. Her pity died quickly with that one.

There was a nice couple whose young son liked to pee on the bushes that lined the street. That only made Renee laugh, but they didn't pay their rent. They were gone in three months. And, now there was a man whose voice could carry clear across the street and into her bedroom to disrupt her quiet.

She curled up on the couch and turned on the TV, flipping through the channels until she found a boy meets girl, loses girl then marries girl romances she'd seen twice. There was something comfortable about the familiarity of it, so she left it there. It was about three-quarters of the way through when the familiarity turned to tears. She cursed herself even as she cried, but self-pity won.

'He's not out there. You've already faced that. Why are you crying? Stop crying. No, really, stop crying!'

"Dammit," she cussed when she realized she'd used the last Kleenex.

She moped her way to the bathroom, retrieved a wad of tissue paper and blew her nose. She glanced in the mirror and decided she looked even worse than she felt. Her nose was red. Her eyes were swollen. And, her face seemed to have a certain dullness that never went away now. She vowed to moisturize every night, but she knew it was a promise she'd forget by bedtime.

She pulled her long hair up off her neck into a clip and headed to the kitchen for ice cream. Ben and Jerry were the only men she really wanted in her life now. She'd decided there were worse things in the world than being fat, like living without ice cream. But, before she could make it to the freezer, a loud bark startled her.

It sounded as if it were on her front porch. She walked quickly to the front door, turned the dead bolt and opened it just to enough to see out.

"Hey!" Renee yelled, as she threw open the door and ran outside, "You stop that! Stop that now!"

The black lab did stop, looked up at her and barked.

She looked at the newly planted but now uprooted spring flowers, and then at the dog, saying, "Don't you bark at me, buddy! Who do you belong to?"

The Labrador barked again, as if to answer and wagged his long tail; his whole rear end seemed to wag with it.

Renee frowned, "Don't try to kiss up now. I bet I know where you belong."

She walked to the street, looked for cars, and then called the dog. He followed her and sat beside her as she knocked at the door of the new tenant.

"Just a minute!" a male voice shouted from inside the house.

'A dog,' she thought, 'If there's a dog, there are probably kids. Mean kids.'

The lab was still wagging tail and now sitting on her feet when the door opened. Renee forgot what she was there to say for a brief moment. He was indeed tall, dark and handsome in a scruffy, unwashed kind of way. The sweaty man holding a beer looked at her and smiled, and then looked down at the dog as he barked again.

'He's a sweaty man holding a beer, Renee. And, you're attracted to him? You do need to get laid.'

The embarrassment of the unexpected attraction only increased her annoyance as she asked, "Is this your dog?"

The man on the other side of the screen door was still smiling when he answered, "Oh yeah, he's mine."

He opened the screen, and she stepped backwards as he walked out onto the porch to join them.

"His name is Babboo. Introduce yourself to the pretty lady, Babboo," he said, and the lab lifted a paw.

Renee ignored the dog's invitation and continued, "Well, your dog dug up my flowers. There are leash laws. I'd appreciate it if you would keep him on your property. I'd hate to have to call animal control."

'Animal control?' she almost laughed at herself.

She'd never do it; she just thought it would be best to set down a firm barrier from the beginning.

The famous Robert Frost line crossed her mind, 'Good fences make good neighbors.'

"Babboo, did you hear that? She's going to put you in doggy jail. You better get in the house." He sounded amused as he opened the screen door for the dog.

When he turned his attention back to her, he said, "Look, Miss, I'm sorry. He's in a new place. He's a little over-excited, doesn't really know where home is yet...I'll pay for the flowers."

Renee looked into his eyes. They were blue, and they didn't look as amused now.

"I don't need you to pay for the flowers. I just need for you to respect that fact that you have neighbors, and we'd all appreciate it if you kept control of your dog. There are children and cats around here."

He looked amused again, "Cats?"

"Yes, cats. Cats and kids." Her irritation was increasing again, as was the pitch of her voice.

"Cats...you are the spokeswoman for the cats? You have some yourself?" He didn't give her time to answer before he continued, "Women like you don't have just one cat, do they?"

"Excuse me?" She stared at him in disbelief, "Women like me? You don't know me."

He laughed, "No, nope, I don't...I'll keep Babboo on my property."

She turned quickly to leave, feeling her face redden, as she said, "That's all I'm asking."

He called out behind her, "Hey, are you sick?"

She stopped, sighed and turned to face him again, "Excuse me?"

He repeated, "I asked if you were sick."

He pointed at her and continued, "You know, the pajamas...your face...the grouchiness."

Her mouth fell open.

He said, "I'm assuming this is just grouchiness and not your normal demeanor? Since I don't know you and all."

Renee stood silent a moment and then answered, "Yes, I think I have the flu."

She started to turn again but stopped long enough to say, "I'm sorry for being a bitch; I actually like dogs...and for the record, I don't have any cats. I just feed one or two who wander by the house."

She didn't wait long enough to know whether or not he accepted her apology, quickly crossing the road and burrowing herself back inside of her home. She thought of an event horizon, where the gravity pulled strong enough to suck one inside the black hole, and she slammed the door shut.

Renee turned up the lights in the front of lecture hall and turned off the overhead projector. She closed her power point file and finally looked up to the small group of students who gathered beside the podium to wait for her.

"Dr. Nalan," the girl with the nose ring, tongue ring and a large tattoo across her chest asked, "Could you explain this formula again?"

Renee smiled and answered, "Sure."

She sighed at the laptop slung over the girl's shoulder. She was as technically savvy as anyone on campus, but she sometimes missed the days of pen and paper in the classroom.

She dug a piece of paper out of her bag and spoke as she wrote down the formula: B(w, T) = 2 * h * c^2 / (w^5 * (exp(h * c / (k * w * T)) - 1))

She wrote as she explained, "The formula gives the amount of radiation emitted at a particular wavelength w by a black body with temperature T."

Renee glanced at the girl.

Her eyes didn't appear glazed over, so she continued, "h is Planck's constant...Do you remember it? 6.63e-34 J*s."

She could see the girl biting her lip as she continued, "k is Boltzmann's constant...1.38e-23 J/K... the actual units of B are J/(m^2*s*sr)/m.

The professor stopped when the girl looked almost near tears, set her pen down and said, "Black bodies emit radiation that peaks at a characteristic wavelength, and which falls off in strength for wavelengths away from that peak. Hotter objects emit radiation at shorter wavelengths."

She handed the girl the paper and said, "That's the Reader's Digest version. There's a pretty good explanation in your book, but you can see me during office hours, if you like. We can take more time with it there."

The girl smiled, looked a little doubtful and said, "Thanks, Dr. Nalan."

Renee felt bad; there was only so far she could break down the basics of astrophysics. Too many students, it seemed to her, barely scraped by in lower level classes but signed up for hers because of her name. She was grateful for the accolades and the success of the book. She just wished she could post a warning below the course description in the catalog.

Renee fielded a couple of more advanced questions and made her way out of the hall, breathing a sigh of relief. She loved teaching, but she had grown to love her time away from the university, too. It had been years in coming.

She avoided her office and headed out the door of the old building to the faculty parking lot. She just had time to make it to the community center. It was her turn to be the eager student. Renee smiled thinking about it.

Her mind preoccupied, she stepped off the sidewalk to the crosswalk without really looking. The old truck jerked to a stop only a few feet from her. She jumped, then clinched her teeth and pointed to the yellow sign: "Yield for Pedestrians."

She could barely make out the figure of a male in the driver's seat for the glare of the sun off the windshield, but she was fairly certain that he mouthed, "I'm sorry."

She continued to her car; her mind still fumed, 'Idiot! It's not the highway! This is a one- lane road that only leads to the science buildings. Students aren't even supposed to park up here.'

She was still mentally dressing down the male driver when she pulled out her keys and hit the button to unlock her car door. With the small beep the same vehicle that had almost run her down pulled into the empty parking space beside her.

Normally, she wouldn't care so much about such a small violation of the rules, but this guy had ruined her good mood. So, she waited for him to step out of the truck, prepared to direct him down the hill to the student parking.

She wasn't prepared at all for the grown man who stepped out of the truck and smiled at her. Renee held her breath. He looked as stunned as she did for a moment, and then he laughed.

"Well, hello neighbor," It was Mr. tall, dark and scruffy, looking much the same, adding one button-down shirt and minus one beer.

He held out his hand, but she didn't move for a moment, "Lee Sutherland, we weren't properly introduced this weekend."

She took his hand, trying to meet the firmness of his hand shake but not succeeding, "Renee Nalan."

Her hand, her arm, her face and various parts of her body all seemed to tingle from the strong touch.

He grinned, "Oh, well, to be honest, I already knew your name, Dr. Nalan."

Renee cleared her throat and tried to regain her composure, "Have we met at some faculty get-together?"

The dark haired man reached into the back of his truck and pulled out a backpack, "No, I avoid those things."

He was still smiling when he added, "I know your name because you're famous around here."

She wasn't sure how to respond as he pointed to a building at the far side of the quad, "I'm late...I'm filling in for Dr. Rine."

Renee knew David Rine; he taught most of the agronomy courses.

The handsome man said, almost to himself, as he walked by her, "Crop science is really my thing, but I can wing one economics class. I have the book."

He patted the backpack, winked at her and then took off at a jog.

Renee was still dumbfounded when he stopped suddenly, turned and said, "You're cuter in person than on your book jacket...at least when you're not yelling at me."

Before she could do more than blush, he smiled and was gone.

Renee stood still for a moment. She wasn't sure what had just happened, but she felt slightly stunned as she got into her car and drove home. There was definitely a pull to him, but was he another black hole?

Mardi was standing at the front doors, smoking a cigarette and looking more than a little frazzled when Renee pulled into the parking lot.

As she approached the other woman, the tale began, "So, Katie is throwing up...everywhere...and I'm trying to make dinner and feed the baby. You know what Bobby says to me?"

Renee shook her head, knowing pretty what Bobby would say to anything by now, but not wanting to ruin Mardi's moment.

She crushed the cigarette beneath her shoe and continued, "He says, I work all day. I don't see why I should have to be the one to clean up puke...Bastard! He actually said that to me. Can you believe that? Three kids under the age of four, Renee. Three of them. But, I guess that's not work!"

Renee echoed, "Bastard," as she held open the large glass door and let her friend pass through first.

Mardi talked all the way to the locker room, "I would just give anything if I'd have gone to graduate school, Renee. I swear, you don't see it, but you're the one who got the better deal. No lousy husband. No puking, screaming kids...just your freedom and looking up at the stars. God, that's like a dream. I read that Carl what's-his-name's book when I was in college. I think I could have been a good astronomer."

Renee stuffed her bag into her locker and pulled out the rolled up blue mat. Both women changed their clothes quickly.

Mardi poked her in the arm as she they made their way into the room used to teach ballroom dance to old people on Friday nights and ballet to five-year olds on Saturday mornings. It was a place of hardwood floors and encircling mirrors.

Mardi poked her again when Renee didn't immediately turn towards her, "Don't you think I could have been a good astronomer?"

She smiled, having met Mardi in college and remembering her friend's academic status well, "Didn't you flunk calculus twice?"

Mardi looked at her like she was insane, "What does calculus have to do with the stars, Renee? I swear, honey, sometimes you just pick the most random things to say...the absent-minded professor...if all those students of yours only knew."

The two women contorted themselves as well as they could into the variety of odd shapes and stances the yoga teacher demonstrated, sharing brief moments of whispered conversation. Mardi did most of the talking; Renee did most of the laughing, inevitably leading to her falling on her head or ass at inopportune moments.