Chapter 11

It was approaching lunchtime when Betsy stepped into Sally’s darkened laboratory. The only sources of light were the fish tanks, and the base of the microscope. It was enough light to see by once the eyes became adjusted to the low level, but that always took a moment upon entering.

The soft burble of the aquariums running provided a background noise that one noticed initially upon arriving in the room, but which faded from awareness after a few minutes.

The effect of the darkness and soft noises, combined to give the room a feeling of calm tranquility. It was much like that found in an old church, rather than the dark and forbidding feel one might expect. It was a room well suited for the young woman who worked in it.

A large lab bench occupied the center of the room. Sally was bent over a microscope examining the tissue taken from one of her fish. There was an open research notebook on the table next to the precision instrument. A pen lay across the page.

“Ah, there you are,” Sally muttered while her hand moved to the base of the microscope.

The click of a digital photograph being taken sounded loud in the quiet of the room. An image showed up on the screen of the laptop computer on her desk. She reached out without looking and grabbed the pen. With the barest of glances at the lab notebook, she made an entry documenting the picture that had been taken.

Betsy walked over to the desk to examine the picture. Her eyes picked out a few details from it, but she knew that Sally would see a lot more in the picture than she would. There was another click from behind, and a new picture showed up on the screen. This was at a greater magnification and more details were observable.

Sally looked up from her work and said, “It’s lunchtime already?”

“Yes,” Betsy said listlessly.

“I guess I was so into my work that the time just flew by. I had no idea that it was getting that late,” Sally said.

“Take your time. I’m not really hungry,” Betsy said going over to one of the fish tanks to watch the fish swim around.

Sally froze and turned to study Betsy. Not once in the entire time she had know Betsy, had the young woman ever professed to not being hungry.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

“There’s definitely something the matter. Spill it,” Sally said.

Betsy said, “I spent the past couple of evenings over at Sanders’ house.”

“That’s great,” Sally said.

“I spent most of time talking with his mother,” Betsy said.

“That doesn’t sound so great.”

Betsy said, “I think she’s more interested in marrying me, than Sanders is.”

“She swings that way?” Sally asked, rather surprised that a woman with two sons was actually a lesbian.

“No, silly. She’s dating Neil Roberts,” Betsy said.

Sally thought about it for a moment before realizing what Betsy was saying. She slumped in her chair, knowing that Betsy had to be pretty down. She knew that Betsy had been hoping that Sanders was the one for her.

“You’re saying he’s not interested in you.”

“That’s right,” Betsy said.

“Did he say anything to you?”

“It’s more like what he hasn’t said to me,” Betsy said.

“What do you mean?”

“He’s never asked me out on a date.”

Sally felt there was one little flaw in that statement. Betsy was spending nearly every evening over at his house at his invitation. The fact that he was inviting her over had to mean something.

She said, “He invites you over to his place every night.”

“Me ... and everyone else.”

There was always a crowd at Sanders’ place. It wasn’t a rowdy crowd and no one actually got drunk. They weren’t even very loud although occasionally someone might shout something to someone else. The neighbors didn’t seem to mind. In fact, a good number of people who dropped by, were the neighbors.

People came, then left after spending a half an hour to an hour visiting with Sanders. Some showed up with beer that they left behind, after having one of the cold ones from the ice chest. Others grabbed a beer from the ice chest and chatted until they finished drinking it. No one stayed long, just enough to be sociable.

There was even a path worn in the carpet inside the house, leading from the door to the bathroom. People even joked about it as Betsy had discovered when she had needed to visit the facilities on one of her first visits.

Sally said, “At least you get a chance to talk with him, don’t you?”

“Not really,” Betsy said.

“How can you not talk to him, if you’re over there every night?” Sally asked incredulously.

Betsy answered, “I spend all of my time there seated between him and his mother. For every hour that I talk to his mother, I spend five minutes talking with him. He’s always talking with the other people who drop by. It seems like fifty people drop in, every night.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Sally said.

“There’s not much to say,” Betsy said, “Let’s go to lunch.”

“Where do you want to go?” Sally asked getting out of her chair.

“I don’t care. I’m not really very hungry,” Betsy said.

“You’ve really got it bad, don’t you?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Betsy said.

“Be that way,” Sally said. Knowing she would get a rise out of Betsy, she added, “Since you don’t care where we eat, how about fish tacos?”

“Don’t be revolting! Fish tacos? How dare they call that fish dish a taco? That’s like saying a cherry blintz is an enchilada,” Betsy said with her face twisted in disgust.

The one thing that Betsy missed more than anything from Arizona was Mexican food. She would have killed to have one enchilada dinner at Maria’s. Just thinking about it, she could taste the frijoles, the tacos, the rice, and the cheese enchiladas.

“No tacos?”

“No tacos,” Betsy said.

“How about soup and sandwiches?”

“I guess that would be okay,” Betsy said.

“Give me a minute to put away my samples,” Sally said.

“Sure,” Betsy replied knowing that Sally would be busy for several minutes.

Sally took the sample from the microscope and placed the glass slide into a box designed specifically for holding samples of that size. The box was placed into a freezer atop the plastic box that held the fish from which the sample had been taken. Freezing the sample would prevent the tissue from decomposing. This would allow her to revisit the sample should she find a need for it in the future.

She went over to the laptop and made sure the pictures she had taken were saved and backed up. That afternoon would be spent marking up copies of the pictures with notes identifying interesting features that she had observed. It was all part of the disciplined life of a biologist – the care and feeding of the subjects, the management and protection of the samples, the recording and archiving of data, the analysis of data, and the painful process of interpreting the results to form a cohesive theory.

Finally Sally slipped off her white lab coat, and hung it on a coat stand by the door.

“I’m ready.”

“Let’s go,” Betsy said.

The women left the lab. They walked side by side out of the building. Sally noticed that Betsy wasn’t moving as quickly as usual.

Betsy said, “I’m kind of jealous. You’re already collecting data and I’m still putting my laboratory together.”

It seemed to Betsy that a lot of her life was in stasis. It had taken a lot of time to purchase the tugboat, restore it to an operational state, and then turn it into a floating laboratory. They were still installing equipment and it would be another month before it was ready for use. That would put her at the beginning of her research. She would still have to spend time collecting data, which in her case would mean tagging sharks, taking samples from each one, and then tracking their movement.

“You’ll be out on your boat before you know it,” Sally said.

Betsy said, “I know. It’s just that I feel like I’m not progressing in anything I want to accomplish.”

In addition to not having a boyfriend and not having completed her lab, progress on fixing her home to her satisfaction had come to a standstill. The work on the security center/office, at home, hadn’t even been started. Gary, Stacy, Charlie, and the architect were gridlocked on what the building should look like. Gary and Stacy were only interested in the security features of the building, while Charlie was focused on providing a professional business environment. The architect was struggling to achieve an esthetic balance with the landscape, the existing structure on the property, and the functional purpose of the building.

She was half tempted to fire the architect who didn’t seem to understand that a security center needed to be secure. He kept giving them plans with glass exteriors to take advantage of the views and to reflect the architecture of her home. He felt like a few structurally strong interior spaces made the building secure enough. Gary was so frustrated that he was halfway tempted to take the architect to a training session where attackers learned how to go through walls rather than doors.

“Sure you are,” Sally said.

“Where am I making progress?” Betsy asked.

The question stumped Sally for a moment while she tried to think of some area where things were going well.

“Your businesses are doing well,” Sally said.

“That’s true,” Betsy said.

The motel had been partially restored. It was now at a point where it could accept paying guests. The lobby had been refurbished so that it wasn’t an outright embarrassment. Six of the guest rooms were in condition to be rented. The landscaping company had done a pretty good job of removing the weeds and putting down sod. Flowers would have to wait until the construction was finished. They were waiting to repave the parking lot until after the rest of the work was completed.

With regard to the true purpose of the motel, Candice had done a good job of implementing the plans Stacy had created for the safe rooms. Tony Thomas and his family were currently living there with Stacy in the room next door. The only problem with the safe rooms that had cropped up was a lack of things to keep young boys from getting bored. Stacy was busy trying to rectify that situation.

Candice’s living quarters had been fixed up nicely although she had not yet decorated it with much more than the barest of furnishings. It was a source of pride on her part that she was going to pay for all of the furniture out of her paycheck rather than let Betsy front the money. Betsy understood that.

The water filtration company was in the process of delivering a system to the aquarium and had a tentative order for a second one. A lot of people in the business were waiting to see how well it performed before committing to the new technology. Betsy had known that would be the case so she wasn’t bothered by the lack of orders.

Jake was busy meeting with the leadership of a town in Honduras about the possible use of their filtration system for the local water. He had read in the newspaper of a number of deaths in the area that had been a result of people drinking contaminated water. There was a very good possibility that this sales call could open the door to the selling the filtration system to small towns around the world. Everyone was excited about the future.

Knowing there was one thing that could cheer up Betsy, Sally said, “If you want, we can go to another performance.”

“That would be nice,” Betsy said starting to sound cheerful. “Maybe we can go to a symphony.”

“Let’s do it. We’ll see what’s available and get tickets to whatever we like best,” Sally said.

“That’s a great idea,” Betsy said.

The little luncheonette had a number of brochures for the arts and the local entertainment paper. They spent the lunch going over available performances. There were performances at all levels of polish – local amateur theaters, nationally recognized artists who were making bar appearances, university productions, and full professional performances. They could watch plays, operas, jazz, and rock bands. Then there were the ‘art’ films being shown in high brow specialty cinemas, and on campus.

By the time they finished lunch, it had been decided that they would go to a local jazz club to listen to a performance in a women in jazz series. Neither knew what to expect, but they were going to approach it as an adventure.

The decision to go to a live performance had cheered Betsy significantly. It was to the point where she had basically forgotten the source of her earlier discontent. She was in a good mood when she jogged over to Sander’s house for an evening visit. Turning onto the street where Sanders lived, she spotted Cat waving to her. She jogged over and slowed to a walk for the last few steps.

“Hi, Betsy. How are you doing?” Cat asked.

“Okay,” Betsy answered.

Cat gestured to the house behind her and said, “Would you like to have a cup of tea?”

“Tea? You’re not drinking beer, tonight?” Betsy asked.

“I drink beer with the guys; but I enjoy a nice cup of hot tea, occasionally,” Cat replied.

Betsy said, “I like tea.”

The two women went into the house. Cat had a nice wood box filled with a large selection of teas that she had recently received as a present. They discussed the various flavors and each selected one to try. They treated it almost as if they were trying to pick out just the right piece of chocolate to try in a box of mixed chocolates. Betsy picked the White Ginger Pear while Cat went with the Flora.

It wasn’t long before the two women had a cup of hot tea in front of them. Betsy tasted hers and said, “This is a delightful tea. I would have expected the ginger to overpower everything else, but it provides just a delicate hint of ginger.”

“I’m rather pleased with this one. I would never have thought of combining hibiscus, cinnamon, and licorice,” Cat said.

Betsy took another sip of her tea trying to decide if a little sugar would improve it or ruin it. The flavors were so well balanced that she decided the sugar would lessen it.