August 2, 1910
Tonight Dr. Pickering hosted a gathering at his home for the astronomers in town. As soon as I entered the parlor, I noticed a pair of broad shoulders, a finely shaped head. Even before I saw a quarter profile, I knew it was Mr. Frederick Gibson. It made my chest ache and my head feel light.
I have not felt like this since I was in college. I don’t particularly enjoy it.
I turned to face my friends. I refused to approach Frederick first; if we spoke, I wanted him to approach me, some validation of his interest.
My friends noticed me behaving oddly. “What is it?” Melony said.
“Whois it,” Claire corrected, with a sly glance toward the knot of men containing Gibson. “Did one of them catch your eye?”
“It’s the man I was telling you about,” I said, so quietly they had to step closer to hear. “From back home.”
“Mr. Gibson, from the summers?” Melony glanced toward the men, even though I made hushing noises at her. “But you said he never wrote.”
“He didn’t.”
“Then what is he doing here?”
“The same thing everyone else is,” I suggested. “He is interested in astronomy.”
“He’s coming!” Melony said. “Our way!”
We burst into giggles, as though schoolgirls instead of fully grown professionals.
His low, smooth voice cut through them. “Miss Darrel? Is that you?”
I turned. In my daydreams, I pictured myself being cool and aloof, but in fact I smiled terribly brightly. “Mr. Gibson! Hello!”
He smiled warmly. “I thought I recognized you. But then, this is your stomping ground, not mine. And these are your colleagues?”
I introduced everyone and I’m sure we had a very pleasant conversation, but I floated through it. I’m not even sure it’s a good thing Frederick is here, but I cannot deny I feel light as hydrogen.
August 10, 1910
Mr. Gibson called on me to see if I would like to go for a walk on Sunday, and so we are going for a walk, and all I can think about is us on a walk. I am supposed to be combing through my quadrant for faint variable stars and helping Mrs. Fleming prepare her manuscript, and I cannot. Is this why so many successful women are unmarried, romance decays the brain and makes you spin in circles?
Andrea didn’t write for several weeks, and I wondered if Gibson had taken over too much brain space.
September 3, 1910
Three days ago Frederick kissed me and I was over the moon about it, so filled with joy and delight I couldn’t even write. But I have not heard from him since, and now I think I’m starting to go mad. What is the protocol for talking to someone who kissed you, and said they would call on you, but did not? I asked Claire and she laughed (bitterly) and said I should track him down and make him tell me his intentions. But Melony said I should under no circumstances do so.
I am too old to be so stressed about whether a man likes me. I am too happy with my life to want to dramatically change it. And yet.
But hedidcall on her; that week, and the next, and the next. They attended Red Sox games and played tennis and discussed infrared photography and the Wright brothers. Andrea sounded happy, but also irritated Frederick Gibson’s intentions weren’t more clear. I’d had no idea such irritation was so universal throughout history.
November 13, 1910
Somehow, on a perfectly normal evening, I found myself asking (after one too many beers) “Why have you never married?”
Freddie flashed me his crooked grin, like this was a joke rather than a question I’d been harboring for ages. “I’ve never found a woman who could keep up with me.”
“How strange,” I said archly, “given how many brilliant women I know. Perhaps you were looking in the wrong places?”
He laughed. “Perhaps I meant keep upandkeep me in my place. I suppose the truth is, I wasn’t ready.”
And then—again, I blame the beer—I said, “Wasn’t? Or aren’t?”
