Robert Sawyer - Frameshift

Finally, she could take no more of it. It was only 8:40 — awfully early to end a date that had begun at 7:30 — but she had to get out of there.

“Excuse me,” said Molly. “I’ve— I think the pesto sauce is disagreeing with me. I don’t feel very well. I think I should go home.”

Rudy looked concerned. “I’m sorry,” he said. He signaled for the waiter.

“Here, we’ll get going; I’ll take you back to your place.”

“No,” said Molly. “No, thank you. I— I’ll walk home. I’m sure a little walk will help my digestion.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“No, really, I’ll be fine. You’re sweet to offer, though.” She took her wallet out of her little purse. “With tax and tip, my share should be about fifteen dollars,” she said, putting that amount on the tablecloth.

Rudy looked disappointed, but at least his concern for her health was genuine enough to have banished the Penthouse Forum commentary from his mind. “I’m sorry,” he said again.

Molly forced a smile. “Me, too,” she said.

“I’ll call you,” said Rudy.

Molly nodded and hurried out of the restaurant.

The night air was warm and pleasant. She started walking without really thinking about where she was heading. All she knew was that she didn’t want to go back to her apartment. Not on a Friday night; it was too lonely, too empty.

She was on University Avenue, which, not surprisingly, ended up taking her to the campus. She passed many couples (some straight, some gay) going the other way, and picked up clearly sexual thoughts from those who unavoidably entered her zone — but that was fine, since the thoughts weren’t about her. She came to Doe Library and decided to go in. The pesto sauce was in fact making her intestines grumble a bit, so a trip to the washroom might indeed be in order.

After she finished, she went up to the main floor. The library was mostly empty. Who wanted to be studying on a Friday night, after all, especially this early in the academic year?

“ ‘Evening, Professor Bond,” said a librarian sitting at an information desk. He was a lanky, middle-aged man.

“Hi, Pablo. Not many people here tonight.”

Pablo nodded and smiled. “True. Still, we’ve got our regulars. The night watchman is here, as usual.” He jerked a thumb at an oak table some distance away. A handsome man in his early thirties with a round face and chocolate hair sat hunched over a book.

“Night watchman?” said Molly.

“Doc Tardivel,” said Pablo, “from LBL. Been coming in here most nights lately and stays right up to closing. Keeps sending me back to the stacks for various journals.”

Molly glanced at the fellow again. She didn’t know the name and didn’t recall ever seeing him around the campus. She left Pablo and ambled into the main reading room. The copies of many current journals were stored in a wooden shelving unit that happened to be close to the table this Tardivel fellow was using. Molly made her way over to the unit and began looking for a recent issue of Developmental Psychology or Cognition to while away an hour or two with. She crouched down to go through the piles of journals on the bottommost shelf, her slacks pulling tight as she did so.

A thought impinged upon her consciousness, like the lighting of a feather on naked skin — but it was unintelligible.

The journals were out of chronological order. She worked her way through the pile, reshuffling them so that the most recent issues were on top.

Another thought fluttered against her consciousness. And suddenly she realized the cause for her difficulty in reading it. The thought was in French; Molly recognized the mental sound of the language.

She found last month’s copy of DP , straightened up, and scanned the room for a place to sit. There were plenty of empty chairs, of course, but, well…

French.

The guy thought in French.

And a foxy guy he was, too.

Molly sat down next to him and opened her journal. He looked up, a slightly surprised expression on his face. She smiled at him and then, without really thinking about it, said, “Nice night.”

He smiled back. “It sure is.”

Molly’s heart pounded. He was still thinking in French. She’d known foreigners before, but all of them had switched to thinking in English when speaking that language. “Oooh, what a lovely accent!” said Molly.

“Are you French?”

“French-Canadian,” said Pierre. “From Montreal.”

“Are you an exchange student?” asked Molly, knowing full well from what Pablo had said that he was not.

“No, no,” he said. “I’m a postdoc at LBL.”

“Oh, so you must know Burian Klimus.” Molly feigned a shudder.

“There’s a cold character.”

Pierre laughed. “That he is.”

“I’m Molly Bond,” said Molly. “I’m an associate professor in the psych department.”

“ Enchante ,” said Pierre. “I’m Pierre Tardivel.” He paused. “Psychology, eh? I’ve always been interested in that.”

“Wow,” said Molly softly.

“Wow?”

“You really do that. Canadians, I mean. You really say ‘eh.’ ”

Pierre seemed to blush a little. “We also say ‘You’re welcome.’ ”

“What?”

“Out here, if you say ‘Thank you’ to someone, they all seem to reply ‘Uh-huh.’ We say ‘You’re welcome.’ ”

Molly laughed. “Touche,” she said. And then she touched her hand to her mouth. “Hey — I guess I know some French after all.”

Pierre smiled. It was a very nice smile indeed.

“So,” said Molly, looking around at the musty shelves of books, “you come here often?”

Pierre nodded. There were lots of thoughts on the surface of his mind, but to Molly’s delight she could make sense out of none of them. And French — French was such a beautiful language, it was almost like soft background music rather than the irritating noise of most people’s articulated thoughts.

Before she had really considered it all the way through, the words were out. “Would you like to get a cup of coffee?” she said. And then, as if the suggestion needed some justification, added, “There’s a great cappuccino place on Bancroft.”

Pierre had an odd look on his face, a mixture of disbelief and pleasant surprise at his unexpected good fortune. “That would be nice,” he said.

Yes, thought Molly. It would indeed.

They talked for hours, the background accompaniment of Pierre’s French thoughts never intrusive. He might be as big a pig as most other men, but Molly doubted that. Pierre seemed genuinely interested in what she had to say, listening attentively. And he had a wonderful sense of humor; Molly couldn’t remember the last time she’d enjoyed anyone’s company so much.

Molly had heard it said that French men — both Canadian and European French — had a different attitude toward women than American men did.

They were more relaxed around them, less likely to be on all the time, less inclined to be constantly trying to prove themselves. Molly had only half believed it. She harbored a suspicion that their apparently blase attitude toward female nudity was some vast conspiracy: “Keep a poker face, and they’ll wave their tits right in front of you!” But Pierre really did seem to be interested in her mind and her work — and that was a bigger turn-on for Molly than any macho display.

Suddenly it was midnight and the cafe was closing.

“My God,” she said. “Where did the time go?”

“It went,” said Pierre, “into the past — and I enjoyed every moment of it.”

He shook his head. “I haven’t taken a break like this for weeks.” His eyes met hers. “ Merci beaucoup .”