“Who?”
“Who else?”
I started to say something, but it was taking a long time for my thoughts to congeal into sentences.
“It’s like, give me a break. You’re not there to hit on my wife.”
“I don’t think he was hitting on me,” I said firmly.
“If that’s the case, he could have sat up front like a normal person.”
“He just wanted to catch up.”
“Yeah, well, why you’d want to catch up with him, I have no idea. Especially after all that shit he was bringing up about theChartridge.”
I should have said nothing. Especially after how I’d spent my afternoon. But I couldn’t help it. “It was one question.”
“It was several questions,” said Paul.
“That were all getting at the same idea.”
“His tone was wrong.”
“Is there a tone he could have used that would have gotten you to answer the question?”
“Very funny, Eileen.”
“I’m being serious,” I said. “The Maddalenini are really worried about this, and I don’t think it does anyone, including you, any good to dismiss their concerns out of hand.”
“Vaughan said I handled the Q and A beautifully.”
“I guess he would.”
“Do you have a problem with what I said up there?” he asked.
I bit my tongue for a quarter of a second, and then I just said the thing I was thinking. “It feels like you’re lying about the source of the cesium-137.”
“How dare you.”
“How dare I what?” I said, my voice shaking. I could feel myself growing angry, but it wasn’t even about what he’d said at the press conference. It was about everything he’d said and done in the two years leading up to it. “Confront you with your own bullshit?”
He gestured at the space between us. “This is what’s bullshit.”
“You acted like Teo was totally out of line when all he was doing was asking a very logical question.”
“You would think it was logical.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’ve got the hots for that guy.”
“That’s beside the point,” I said, and his face registered something akin to surprise.
“You’re not even denying it?” he stammered.
I was tempted to tell him everything right then and there. In many ways, it would have been a relief. But I was terrified of what came next. So I just said, “I’m not doing this.”
We rode in silence for a few minutes before Paul spoke. “Stearns pulled me aside today, after everyone left. He said my detachment date’s been pushed back to the end of August.”
