Page 52 of Alone With You in the Ether

Charlotte, for example, was a dimmer Regan upon entering the house she’d grown up in; almost as if the effort of trying to fill this space, easily accomplished in every other place, had sapped her of the energy required for certain facets of her personality. Where Regan was typically poised in a languid way, Charlotte was tensed and strained, all her muscles tight, the pads of her fingers pressed white around her glass. It was all Aldo could do not to stare at her hands, repeatedly drawn back to them like something out of place. Her discomfort was, for him, an insurmountable distraction.

“—you do, Aldo?”

Aldo blinked, tearing his gaze from Regan as he registered that her mother had been speaking to him. She was a smaller woman (Regan’s height was clearly inherited from her father—John, like his second daughter, was lean and almost reedy, while the other two women were petite and, for lack of a better word, woman-shaped) and Aldo was forced to look down, uncomfortably too-large by comparison.

“Sorry?” he said, grudgingly. He’d have preferred to speak to Regan, who in turn seemed to prefer to speak to Carissa, her niece. This, Aldo reminded himself, was something he probably should have anticipated. He hadn’t formally modeled the party’s events, but it was progressing as he could have (conceivably) predicted.

“What do you do?” Helen repeated, speaking with pained deliberation that time.

“Math,” he said, and stopped for a moment, thinking there was something in his throat. There wasn’t.

“Like a programmer?” Helen pressed.

“No. Theoretical math.”

“Mom, I told you,” Regan said, picking up Carissa and joining their conversation with the little girl’s legs slung around her hips. “Aldo’s a professor at U Chicago.”

“Adjunct,” Aldo corrected. “Not tenured. I’m a doctoral student.”

“Ah,” said Helen. “Are you hoping to become tenured?”

“I don’t especially love teaching,” Aldo said.

“He’s good though,” Regan contributed. “Well, he’s a genius, anyway.”

She flashed him a smile and a wink as Carissa grabbed hold of her hair.

“Is there much of a job market for ‘theoretical math’?” asked Helen.

“Mom,” said Regan.

“I’m not sure,” said Aldo, who had never really bothered to find out.

“Charlotte, I’m just asking questions. Are you from Chicago?”

It took him a moment to realize Helen was addressing him again.

“No. California,” Aldo clarified. “Pasadena.”

Regan, he noted, was glancing towards him with increasing frequency, so he guessed he was saying something wrong. Whether it was what he was saying or how he was saying it, he wasn’t entirely sure.

“My father lives there still,” he added. Perhaps he was permitting too much silence between words. “He owns a restaurant.”

“Oh?” said Helen.

“Yes.”

“Aldo’s an excellent cook,” Regan contributed.

Helen gave Aldo a sharpened glance, then turned to Regan. “When has he cooked for you?” she said, speaking exclusively to her daughter. Aldo had the distinct feeling he had abruptly disappeared, fighting the instinct to check for his hands and feet.

The answer to Helen’s question was never, and that Regan had no evidence, qualitative or otherwise, to gauge Aldo’s requisite skill. This, however, did not stop her from proceeding as if these were not relevant matters of consideration.

“We’re friends, Mom. He cooked for me, I cut his hair. Looks good, doesn’t it?”

It was a question, Aldo observed, but also somehow a threat.

“Since when are you friends?” Helen said. “I’ve never heard of him.”

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