Bruce Sterling - Distraction

“They’re not morons, they’re very bright guys. It’s just … Well, I don’t do industrial work. Science is not about the money. Basic science is all about … Basic research, you see, it’s supposed to be for…” She waved one hand irritably. “What the hell was it?”

“For the public good?” Oscar suggested suavely.

“Yeah, that was it! The public good! I suppose that sounds totally naive to you. But I do know one thing-I’m not supposed to be stuffing my own bank account while the taxpayers pick up my tab.”

Oscar dug through the glossy sliding shelves of a Kuramata cabi-net. “Would a coffee help? I’ve got freeze-dried.”

The scowl returned, settling into her eyebrows as if tattooed there. “You can’t do real science and be a businessman on your week-ends. If you’re serious about it, there aren’t any weekends.”

“This is a weekend, Greta.”

“Oh.” She gazed at him with an alcohol-fueled melange of surprise and regret. “Well, I can’t stay with you for the whole weekend. There’s a hot seminar tomorrow morning at nine. ‘Cytoplasm Domains.’”

“Cytoplasm sounds very compelling.”

“I’m here for tonight, anyway. Let’s have a little drink together.”

She opened her purse. “Oh no. I forgot my gin. It’s in my bag.” She blinked. “Oh no, Oscar, I forgot my overnight bag! I left it back at the hotel…”

“You also forgot I don’t drink,” Oscar said.

She cradled her forehead on the heels of her hands.

“It’s fine,” Oscar said. “Just forget about work for a minute. I have a krewe. We can supply anything you need.”

She was havinga bad moment at the kitchen table: doubt and bitterness. “Let me show you my house,” Oscar told her cheerfully. “It’ll be fun.”

He led her into the dayroom. It had a Piet Heim elliptical coffee table, steel-and-birchwood cantilever chairs, an inflatable vinyl divan.

“You’ve got modern art,” she said.

“That’s my Kandinsky. Composition VIII, from 1923.” He touched the frame, adjusting it by a hair’s width. “I don’t know why they still call this ‘modern art’ when it’s a hundred and twenty years old.”

She carefully studied the glowing canvas, glanced at Oscar medi-tatively, examined the painting again. “Why do they call this stuff ‘art’ at all? It’s just a big mess of angles and blobs.”

“I know it seems that way to you, but that’s because you don’t have any taste.” Oscar restrained a sigh. “Kandinsky knew all the big period art krewes: Blaue Reiter group, Surrealists, Suprematists, Fu-turists … Kandinsky was huge.”

“Did it cost you a lot of money?” Clearly she hoped not.

“No, I picked it up for peanuts when the Guggenheim threw a fire sale. All the art between 1914 and 1989 — you know, the Com-munist Period, the core of the twentieth century — that’s all totally out of fashion nowadays. Kandinsky is the very opposite of ‘modern art’ now, but you know, I find him absolutely relevant. Wassily Kandinsky really speaks to me. You know… if Kandinsky were alive today… I really think he might have understood all this.”

She shook her head woozily. “’Modern art’ … How could they get away with all that? It’s like some huge, ugly scam.” She sneezed suddenly. “Sorry. My allergies are acting up.”

“Come with me.”

He led her to his media center. He was particularly proud of this room. It was a modern political war room done in a period idiom. Chairs of pierced aluminum were stacked against the wall, there were modular storage units, swarms of flat displays. Danish shelving, a caster-trolley, bright plastic Kartell office baskets. Handsome Milanese lamps… No frills, no furbelows, no wasted motion. Everything pruned back, all very efficient and sleek.

“This looks all right,” she said. “I could work in a place like this. ”

“I’m glad to hear you say that. I hope you’ll have that chance.”

She smiled. “Why not? I like it here. This place is very you.” He was touched. “That’s very sweet, but I should be honest about it … It’s not my interior design. I mean, that Kandinsky canvas was certainly my choice, but after I sold my start-up company, I bought this house, and I brought in a professional designer… I was very focused about my house then. We worked on this place for months. Giovanna was very good about it, we used to absolutely haunt the antique markets…”

“ ‘Giovanna,’ ” she said. “What a lovely name. She must have been very elegant.”

“She was, but it didn’t work out.”

Greta gazed with sudden waspish attention at the tracklights and the gleaming tower of chairs. “And then there was that other per-son — the journalist. She must have loved this media room.”

“Clare lived here! This was her home.”

“She’s gone to Holland now, right?”

“Yes, she’s gone. That didn’t work out, either.”

“Why don’t they work out for you, Oscar?”

“I don’t know,” he said. He jammed his hands in his pockets. “That’s an excellent question, isn’t it?”

“Well,” she said, “maybe it’s an excellent question, but maybe I shouldn’t have asked it.”

“No, Greta, I like it when you show up drunk and confronta-tional.”

He crossed his arms. “Let me get you fully up to speed here, all right? You see, I’m the product of unusual circumstances. I grew up in a very special milieu. Logan Valparaiso’s dream home. A classic Holly-wood mansion. Tennis courts. Palm trees. Monogrammed everything, zebra skins, and gold fixtures. A big playground for Logan’s friends, all these maquiladora millionaires and South American dope czars. My dad had the worst taste in the world. I wanted this place to be differ-ent.”

“What’s different about it?”

“Nothing,” he said bitterly. “I wanted my home to be genuine. But this place has never been real. Because I have no family. No one has ever lived in here who cared enough about me to stay. In fact, I’m rarely even here myself I’m always out on the road. So this place is a fraud. It’s an empty shell. I’ve tried my very best, but it’s all been an evil fantasy, it’s completely failed me.” He shrugged. “So, welcome home.”

She looked stricken. “Look, I didn’t say any of that.”

“Well, that’s what you were thinking.”

She shook her head. “You don’t know what I’m thinking.”

“I agree that I can’t outthink you. Not from a dead start. But I do know how you feel.”

“You don’t know that, either.”

“Oh yes I do. Of course I do. I know it by the way you talk. By the way you move your hands. I can see it in the way you look.” He smiled. “Because I’m a politician.”

She put her hand over her own mouth.

Then, without warning, she embraced him and printed a damp kiss on his upper lip. He slid his arms around her lean torso. She felt magnetic, hypnotic, absolutely compelling.

She bent backward in his tightening grip and laughed.

He pulled her toward the inflated couch. They fell together on it with a bounce and squeak. He buried his face in the sweet juncture of her neck and shoulder.

She slid her narrow hand through the open collar of his shirt. He nuzzled her jawline. Those wondrous cavities beneath her earlobes. The authentic idiosyncrasy in the tendons of her neck.

Their lips parted stickily. She pulled back half an inch. “I like feeling jealous,” she said. “That’s new for me.”

“I could explain all that, you know.”

“Stop explaining. I’d bet anything Clare’s dresses are still in your bedroom closet.” She laughed. “Show me, I want to see.”

Once upstairs, she spun in place, swinging her purse, tottering just a little. “Now, this room is amazing. Your closets are bigger than my dorm room.”