“What do you mean?”
“Well, we had to sneak around to be with each other, and I don’t have to do that sneaking around anymore, but the feeling of very muchknowingthat I’d met this person whom I wanted to spend all my time with and never let go – that’s the same. I fell in love with her after being friends first for a while, but we were kids for most of that friendship, so I’m not sure you canreally use this for your whole timeline question. My two adult relationships, where I said those words, I was probably five months in on one of them and seven on the other.”
“Seven months?”
Harlow nodded.
“That seems long,” she noted.
“Who else have you interviewed to tell you different?” Harlow tossed back.
“No one yet, obviously. But why do you stay with someone for seven months if you haven’t said that yet?”
“Sometimes, it takes longer to realize it. Other times, it takes longer to say it, but you’ve known it for a while; you’re just not ready to verbalize it. There are a lot of factors here, Lou. Do you maybe want to get your computer out and get this down? Your knee is shaking so hard under the table, the water in our glasses is moving like there’s an earthquake.”
“Can I?” she asked excitedly.
“Go ahead. I’m giving you twenty more minutes. Then, we’re going out.”
“Out where?” she asked as she stood and walked over to the living room, where she’d left her computer earlier.
“Out for a drink,” Harlow said.
“Why are we going out for a drink?”
“Because I told you that you need to start getting out more. You can have water, if you want. It’s just about getting out of the house.”
“I don’t want to get out of the house right now. I have applications to review. Three more came in. I saw the emails on my phone a minute ago, and I need to get people scheduled for interviews if we only have a month in the space you rented.”
“You can’t take a break? For, like, an hour?”
“I don’t think so. The faster I do this, the faster I can get things out of my mind and work on the paper with the realscience in it. When I first came up with this concept, I really thought I could produce some kind of formula using science and that it would help people find their partners, but I don’t know.”
“There’s no formula for that, and you know it.”
“Yeah, not one that would work for everyone. But maybe there’s something that can help some people.”
“Why is that important to you?” Harlow asked.
“I don’t know. It seemed like an interesting concept to me. I’m a scientist; I like to explore concepts and theories.”
“Larissa, people aren’t concepts you can mess with and manipulate like you do in a lab.”
“I don’t work in a lab.”
“You know what I mean.” Harlow shook her head and smiled at her. “If you do write this book, I think you can find moments where the science can go, but it should be on the stories people share with you. You can find your similarities and commonalities, but differences, too, and maybe that’s a good thing. No gimmick or catch. You’re not selling them a book that will guarantee they can meet their perfect soulmate in a certain period of time or if they only do one thing. You’re telling stories.”
“People learn from stories,” she said, nodding in agreement. “It makes sense.”
“So, let’s go out and make some stories of our own. I’ll even buy you a drink. Maybe we can talk about something other than this.”
“Like how your workday was?”
“Yeah, things like that.”
“Howwasit?”
“Nice try. You can ask me that when we’re there with drinks in our hands.” Harlow laughed.
