She knew, of course, the notion was silly. If you could freeze such moments, how would they remain blissful? Joy was an experience defined by contrasts to lesser moments. Besides, there would be others.
As she dressed Adam for bed, she felt Elixir coil around her mind like a snake. At moments like these, she understood its allure.
She could hear Chris's words: "The trouble with life is that it's 100 percent fatal."
And: "I've never died before, Wendy, and I don't want to learn how."
And: "Think how many books you could write if you had another fifty or hundred years. You could be the Dorothy Sayers of the twenty-first century.
There was almost no escaping it. One night a few weeks ago, they watched a rerun of The Philadelphia Story. Before a commercial break, a young, handsome Jimmy Stewart turned to twenty-two-year-old Katherine Hepburn and said, "There's a magnificence in you, Tracy that comes out of your eyes and your voice and the way you stand there and the way you walk. You're lit from within…" While Chris got up for another beer, he wondered aloud how painful it must be for the eighty-year-old Hepburn, now wrinkled and palsied, to see herself in reruns. She probably didn't watch them, he concluded. Wendy's response was that Kate Hepburn was supposed to grow old and die. Painful as it was, she had no doubt accepted that. As we all must.
It was a good response, like her usual caveats about tampering with Nature, or her old standby: "'Death is the mother of Beauty.'"
With Adam in her arms, Wendy felt that the Stevens line never made better sense. Such moments were beautiful because they didn't freeze. Besides, all the animals had died from withdrawal, which meant it would be years before human testing, maybe never. She could only hope.
The telephone rang, jarring her out of the moment. Her first thought was Chris. He was at a two-day conference on cell biology in Philadelphia. But it was Quentin Cross.
"Chris said you were having trouble landing accommodations in the Caribbean."
"That's what happens when you make plans at the last minute," Wendy said. "Everything's been booked for months."
"Well, coincidentally, we've got a time-sharing condo at La Palmas on the east coast of Puerto Rico that's free for the first two weeks in February, if that interests you. Margaret and I go down every year, but with Ross's retirement and all the things going on, we're going to have to pass this time around. But you guys can go in our place," he said.
"Are you serious?"
Quentin chuckled good-naturedly. "Yes, and it's on us, free of charge."
"Oh, Quentin, I'm speechless. How generous of you!"
"The only catch is that you have to book with the airlines today. I hope you don't mind, but, just in case, I took the liberty of making reservations in your names. All you have to do is call Eastern and confirm. But it has to be today. What do you think?"
"My God, yes, we'll take it!" Wendy said. "And thank you, Quentin. Thank you so much. Wow!"
"Well, think of it as a little token of appreciation for what Chris has done for us-and you, for standing by him all the way."
Thrilled, Wendy thanked him again. After she hung up, she called Eastern and confirmed their reservation, thinking, How considerate of Quentin. Maybe Chris had misjudged him.
13
Every morning at five, Betsy Watkins would drive to the Cambridge Y and swim fifty laps in the pool before going to work.
At forty-eight years of age, she would do her regimen in forty leisurely minutes, letting her mind free-play, while her body kicked into autopilot, guided by the lane lines.
At that hour, especially in the winter, the place was nearly empty but for the lifeguard. By six-thirty a few people would dribble in. But this morning with a sleeting rain, she did her laps alone.
As she swam, she thought about the new position she was taking at the National Cancer Institute in two weeks. She would have started the day after Jimbo's death had Chris not pleaded for her to delay her departure so he could find a replacement. She agreed on the condition that no more animals be sacrificed. Chris swore to it, and no more animals were withdrawn.
At the NCI she intended to study how tabulone deprived cancer cells of the telomerase enzyme, which was not the interest at Darby. And before she left, she would approach Ross again in hopes of getting him to agree to a watchdog agency coming in to monitor the development of Elixir. Quentin was dead set against that, but Ross would appreciate the need for the assurance of ethical practice and accountability. Prolongevity was frontier science fraught with frontier dangers.
On lap forty-four, she thought about her approach to Ross should he stonewall her. It was not beyond her to let the FDA in on what they were doing.
She also thought about Chris-how he was a good man and fine scientist torn between ethical considerations and a near-personal appeal of Elixir. His wife held the opposite sentiment, yet they seemed very much in love. Betsy would miss Chris and those wonderful two-tone eyes.
On lap forty-five, she looked up to see the lifeguard step out for a coffee refill. She flashed the okay.
On lap forty-six, at midpool, she noticed some movement out of the corner of her goggles. Another swimmer was in the other lane moving toward her on a return lap. A man wearing a white bathing cap, snorkle and fins. Betsy preferred swimming unassisted.
On lap forty-seven, she felt a sudden blow to the top of her head. The pain was blinding, and instantly she slipped into thrashing confusion, sucking in water and feeling arms embrace her legs like an anaconda and pull her down. A flash of the white cap. Under the pain and choking anguish was utter disbelief. She was being attacked underwater.
On what would have been lap forty-eight, her mind cleared for a split second. She saw the bottom of the pool rise up, while her diaphragm wracked for air and her arms flapped against the grip.
On lap forty-nine, bubbles rose up around her… so many bubbles… and panic filled her chest… and the weight on her leg… so heavy… all so heavy and dark, and her lungs burning for oxygen against the water filling her throat… and a face in a mask… eyes staring back at her… and the glint of chrome from a SCUBA regulator… black hoses and bubbles… the leaden weights of her limbs… her mind filling with dark water… and she kept swimming… swimming… toward a man with two large black eyes…
On lap fifty, she was dead.
14
Vince Lucas handed Quentin a Chivas on the rocks as he stepped inside his Hampton estate-a building that the designers had fashioned after Monticello.
Dressed in an elegant double-breasted suit with a white shirt and white silk tie, Vince led Quentin inside where a large crowd of people spread throughout the rooms. At the far end of a large and opulent ballroom, a jazz combo played. Waiters and waitresses in black and white worked their way through the crowds with champagne and hors d'oeuvres.
Quentin kept his briefcase gripped in his right hand as he made his way. Every so often he would spot someone he recognized from magazines and television-athletes, entertainers, New York politicians.
At the rear of the building, under a glass ceiling, lay a serpentine pool in small groves of palm and other tropical plants-all fed by fountains and waterfalls that emanated from rock-garden formations leading off to a poolside bar at one end. It looked like a jungle-movie set. Several men and women cavorted in the water while patio guests sat in lounge chairs as waiters moved about with drinks and food. In the distance through the rear glass wall spread the vast black Atlantic, whitewashed by a full December moon.