Chapter 12

Secretly, Bob's hopes were high, quite possibly at least as high as Dan Russell's, but he didn't voice them. Instead, he put his energy into driving carefully, to get the samples to Brady through winter weather and difficult driving conditions. They got there without incident, but it was Christmas Eve when they arrived. Brady didn't have to work that day, but he met them there so he could secure the fragments in the bowels of the museum.

"We're all set," he said as they went past a curious security guard. "I talked to the director and he's all for it. When you write your paper, the testing agency will be listed as The Museum of Science and Industry. We'll probably publish something on how all this was done as well. He says the prestige that the museum will gain by doing that kind of analysis is well worth the time and resources it would take. I'll do the questioned document examination and our biology folks will tackle the DNA. They've done a lot of work on both animal and plant genomes. They tell me that, while there are obvious differences between animal and plant DNA, they are both shaped in the double helix and that helix is made up of the same four nucleotides. All he's asking for is official notice in the paper."

"No problem," said Bob. "Assuming there is a paper. We don't have the results yet. What if it turns out to be a bust?"

"Shit happens," said Brady, shrugging. "You wouldn't believe how much we spend on stuff that turns out not to be worth anything. We're always searching for pearls in the mud. It's the name of the game."

"Whatever you say," said Bob, watching as Brady carefully placed the glass bottles in a big, gray, heavy, four drawer file cabinet that had a dial on the front like those Bob imagined might be on bank vault doors.

"You guys get a motel room already?" asked Brady.

"We're going on home," said Bob.

"You have to come for dinner," said Brady. "I told Christina all about you and the kids are all agog to meet an actual college cheerleader."

"What about an actual college professor?" asked Bob, manufactured hurt in his voice.

"They're a dime a dozen around the museum," said Brady. "But a cheerleader! Now that is big doings." He looked at Kendra, appreciatively. "You didn't, by chance, bring along one of your uniforms, did you?"

She laughed. "No, but I think I can convince them I'm the real deal."

"I TiVoed the last football game you guys played. Well, the last one they put on the air, anyway. I'm sure there are some shots of the cheerleaders, but I didn't go through it to see. Maybe you're there."

"The camera guys all love us," she said, smiling.

"Gee, I wonder why?" asked Brady. "So you'll come?"

"We're not exactly fixed for party clothes," said Bob.

"Who cares? We're after your personalities, not your looks." He frowned. "The cheerleader excepted ... sort of."

Kendra laughed. "We'll be there. What time?"

"Why not just follow me home?" he suggested. "It will save me having to write down the address and try to figure out how to tell you directions."

"Can we stop along the way to get some wine?" asked Bob. "We can't show up empty-handed."

"We're not like that. Besides, Christina's a member of the wine of the month club and she's got bottles and bottles of the stuff stashed all over the place."

"Okay," said Bob. "Lead on."

It was a relaxing evening after long hours of driving. Christina insisted that they bring their suitcases in and offered them the guest bathroom to freshen up and change into fresh clothes. Dinner was comfort food: ham, mashed potatoes, asparagus, and fresh-baked hot rolls, with pineapple upside down cake for dessert. Brady had two children, a girl named Amy and a boy named Paul, thirteen and fifteen, respectively. They were shy, at first, but obviously enraptured with Kendra, who broke the ice with them by asking them what their favorite classes were in school. That led to constant questions about what college was like, and what cheerleading was like.

After supper the kids demanded a demonstration and, even though she'd just eaten, Kendra showed them her stretching routine. Her flexibility and ability to move her body parts places where the average person can't move them, impressed the kids no end. Brady fast forwarded through the game he'd TiVoed and found a scene where a cheerleader, obviously Kendra, was standing on the hands of four other cheerleaders, with her arms raised. When she leapt up in the air and fell on her back, there was a gasp from Amy, and then a sigh as Kendra was neatly caught by a line of outstretched arms.

Christina also invited them to stay the night, but was obviously uncomfortable about it.

"We only have the one guest bedroom," she said. "But Bob could sleep on the couch."

It was obvious they were going to get up early, though, and it would be Christmas morning, a time for family, not strangers intruding. So Bob said they had to hit the road.

"I have to get you the original manuscript, right?" asked Bob.

"Actually, when it was here last time I took photographs of it with different filters. That's what I'll use for my analysis anyway. I don't need the original. But the DNA people will."

"I'm running the wheels off my poor bus," said Bob. "But I'll find time to make one more trip."

Brady frowned. "The Bio people were asking me all kinds of questions about how the manuscript had been stored and stuff like that. They think the DNA will already be in poor shape because of the kind of chemicals it was exposed to when the paper was made. Especially if it's as old as we think it is. I guess they used lye back then, and lye is hard on DNA. They want to stipulate how the manuscript is handled until they can get their hands on it."

"I can answer some of their questions, I guess, but a lot of it will be guesses."

"How about I talk to them again and then call you," said Brady.

"Deal," said Bob.

"You're sure you have to go?" asked Christina, but her body language said she was relieved.

"It would be lovely to stay, but we need to get back," said Bob.

And so, they got back in the van, bundled up until the heater could warm the space.

Taking turns, they drove straight through. It took them fifteen hours.

They had Christmas dinner at Bob's house at noon, and then they fell in bed together and slept until the next morning.

By then, they hadn't had sex in over 72 hours.

Kendra fixed that, though.

After breakfast, she took him back to bed and kept him there until supper time.

On December 27th, a man looking lost opened Bob's office door and walked in. Kendra was at her "desk" going through the last of the receipts and invoices from the Eldridge papers.

"I'm looking for Doctor McFeeley?" he said.

"That would be me," said Bob, leaning back and stretching. He'd already started his own examination of the Marlowe manuscript, working off a copy he had made. He wasn't comparing the handwriting, like Brady would be doing. Instead, he was looking for, and documenting, clues in the language in the work. He'd explained to Kendra that every author has his own unique style, and uses words and word order that will look familiar to those who have studied his or her writing.

"I'm Jerry," said the man. "From The Museum of Science and Industry," he added. "I'm here to pick up an old manuscript and take it back to the museum."

"I thought Brady was going to call me," said Bob, looking surprised.

"You're supposed to call Mr. Williams," said Jerry. "He has some results for you."

"Already?" Bob's surprise grew.

"He's pretty busy. We all are. He's already examined those fragments you gave him, and now they're in our biology lab. We've already collected some fibers and are trying to isolate some cells we can extract DNA from. That's why we need the manuscript. I'm low man on the totem pole, so they sent me to get it."

"I could have shipped it to you," said Bob.

Jerry looked horrified.

"Oh no! It needs to be hand carried. I brought a special container for it that has a temperature and humidity controlled interior."

"Wow," said Kendra.

"It should always be kept in that kind of environment," said Jerry. "Old paper is very fragile."

Bob decided not to tell him how the manuscript had been handled in the past. He opened his fire box and gingerly extracted the document protector.

"This is the best we could do," he said, a little sheepishly.

"Acid free paper," noted Jerry. "That's good. He looked at one document. "This is in surprisingly good condition, if it's as old as Mr. Williams thinks it is."

"How old is that?" asked Kendra.

"You should ask him," said the man. "I'm not really authorized to divulge museum information."

"It's my manuscript," said Bob, a little peeved.

"Oh," said Jerry, who pushed his glasses back up on the bridge of his nose. "I was talking about the fragments, but I guess that's right, isn't it." He looked around, as if he were worried some "unauthorized" person might overhear. "Mr. Williams says they're at least five hundred years old."

"Well, they came out of a five hundred year old writing desk," commented Kendra. "So I'm not too surprised."

"You must be Kendra ... er ... Miss Bradford," said Jerry.

"That's right," said Kendra. "How do you know that?"

"Mr. Williams mentioned you."

"And what did he say?"

Jerry looked startled, then nervous. He swallowed. Bob hid a smile. He could just imagine how Brady had described Kendra.

"Did he say I have big tits?" asked Kendra, sweetly.

Bob almost choked, and Jerry looked around as if for a place to hide.

Jerry might be low man on the totem pole of the biology department, but it was the biology department of the Museum of Science and Industry, which meant he was no slouch. He blushed, but then recovered his equilibrium.

"Actually, Ma'am, he did," he said, somewhat defensively.

"Really?" Kendra sounded pleased. She cupped the mammary glands under discussion and hefted them. Bob could tell she was wearing a bra this day. "I've always thought they were sort of medium."

"They're fine," said Jerry, stubbornly. "I need to pack this up and get back to Chicago. I'll go get my shipping container."

Kendra left the man alone when he returned. Bob offered him coffee, but he declined, carefully placing the manuscript between folds of what appeared to be some special kind of cloth, and then inside an obviously heavy, insulated box. Once it was latched, he felt the need to point out where cables would be connected, before he filled out a receipt for the manuscript, describing it in detail that was surprising, since he had gotten only a short glance at it.

Ten minutes later Kendra stood in front of Bob, her blouse open, as she unclipped the front opening of her bra.

"Do you think they're medium or large?" she asked, as she flashed him.

"You were supposed to call me two hours ago," complained Brady, when Bob finally called him.

"I got distracted," said Bob. "Why two hours ago, by the way?"

"Jerry called in and said he was on his way back. He also said he'd delivered my message."

"He did," said Bob. "I thought you were going to call me."

"Too busy," said Brady. "And I found out they were sending somebody for the manuscript, so I didn't worry about it."

"Jerry says you think the fragments are old," said Bob.

"Genuine sixteenth century paper, made of at least two kinds of wood cellulose and other fibers that look like flax to me under the microscope. I used our CLSM on it."

"Layman's terms, Brady," said Bob.

"Sorry. It's a confocal laser scanning microscope. It allows us to look at things like paper at different depths."

"Paper has depth?"

"Paper is thick as hell, Bob," said Brady. "Anyway, I hit it with different wavelengths of light, looking at the layers of fibers in the fragments. We have known samples, and your fragments came in as no older than 550 years, and no younger than 480."

"That's pretty specific," said Bob.

"Paper making technology has gone through lots of changes since it was first developed by our Chinese friends, back in 105 AD. All of those changes are pretty well documented. My library has over ten thousand paper samples in it."

"Okay, then," said Bob. "That's good, right?"

"That's the good news. The bad news is that none of the fragments had any ink on them. I suspect they were all from the edges of a page."

"That makes sense," said Bob. "The edges would be what bump into things."

"I'd have loved to have found some ink."

"Me too. You still have the sample you took earlier, right?"

"That one is unofficial, at least until I pretend to collect it when Jerry gets here with the manuscript. I'll document the hole I made then and produce the sample I already took. I'll also take four or five others. I need to do that to see if the same ink is used throughout the whole thing."

"Take as many as you need," said Bob. "Nobody will notice."

"Nobody but another document examiner," Brady qualified. "And trust me, if this thing turns out to be what we hope it is, that manuscript is going to be examined dozens of times."

"Not if I don't let people do that," said Bob.

"You'll have to. Verification is part of the game. You know that."

"I do," said Bob. "I just hate to think of a bunch of people putting their paws on my baby."

"You'll never be able to tell they did," said Brady. "Without a microscope, I defy you to find any evidence of my own examination."

"I know," said Bob. "When do you think the DNA will be done?"

"No idea. They're excited about it, I can tell you that, but nobody has said anything about how long it will all take."

"Okay. Say hi to Christina for me."

"I'll tell them Kendra said hi to the kids too," said Brady.

"About Kendra," said Bob. "Did you really tell Jerry she had big boobs?"

"All I did was tell him he was in for a treat. I had to describe her for that, right? Wait. How'd you know about that?"

"Jerry crumbled like a cracker," said Bob.

"He actually told her that?!"

"Believe it or not, she guessed," said Bob. "And she guessed out loud."

"Some day you have to tell me the whole story about how that happened. But I need to get back to it. Your manuscript took time from my other projects, and they aren't cutting me any slack for it."

"Thanks. Later," said Bob.

He was talking to a dead line.

Nature always seeks a balance. She always has, and always will. Humans recognized that, probably before a way was found to make language into little marks that could be read, rather than heard. Some humans wisely decided to work with Nature, accepting her balance. Others tried to impress their own desires on the natural order, something that can look like it's working, but probably isn't. Without going into a long dissertation about it, one example of this is housing. If you work with Nature, you might live in a cave. If you decide that's not good enough, you might build a log cabin. That cabin looks like you've won out over Nature, but eventually that wood will rot, because all wood rots, and your house will come tumbling down.

Language has many references to this phenomenon. It may be called the Yin and Yang. In politics and law it is sometimes called the pendulum. One may say there is bitter with the sweet. A more recent rendition of this idea is, "What comes around goes around." There are even a few dour folks who suggest Nature is the perfect example of bipolarism.

Perhaps Mother Nature decided some balance was needed in Bob and Kendra's lives. They had, after all, been flush with one sort of victory or another for two months. In Bob's case, his whole world had changed, now revolving around a find that could make him famous, at least in literary circles, and secure his financial future as well. On top of that, he had a lover. And that lover wasn't like what anyone who knew Bob might have guessed. Most, in fact, would not have guessed he'd have one at all. And if he did, it would probably be some forty-year-old virgin, plain in the extreme, or perhaps even ugly, a desperate woman for a desperate man. But Kendra was any man's wet dream, and Bob knew that.

As for Kendra, her friends might have looked at her situation with the same jaundiced eye. She was a girl who could have her pick and choice of any man, and it was unlikely they could understand why she had wedded herself, in spirit, if not by law, to a man most girls wouldn't give a second glance to. But for her, the choice had been obvious. Bob had all the qualities she had been searching for in a man. For her, he was the perfect match. It was just something she felt inside. And she'd found him in a most unorthodox way. The fact that he turned out to be entertaining as well as a good lover was simply a bonus.

Basically, things had been pretty manic in Bob and Kendra's world for a while, and perhaps Mother Nature felt it was time to toss in a little depression to balance things out.

The first evidence of this was at the end of December, when Kendra's period should have showed up ... but did not.

Being a woman in this day and age is complicated. It didn't used to be that way. A mere thousand or two years ago, if you were a woman, all you really had to worry about was which man was going to stick his penis in you and whether or not you'd survive having the baby he made in you so that he, or some other man, could do that all over again. While that phase of your life was going on, you generally didn't have to worry too much about being provided for. Whatever man happened to be fucking you usually took care of your housing and food needs. Eventually, of course, you did begin to wonder who was going to provide for you. If you were lucky, your children were still alive and liked you.