The Apotheosis. Darrell Lee

she was too broke for anything but the cheap stuff. Ethan knew less than she did. He attempted to hide his ignorance with an attitude that it was superfluous.

      “No.”

      “Can you provide us with a bottle of Crémant de Loire Brut NV?” John asked the waiter.

      “Yes, Dr. Numen.”

      The waiter collected the wine list and left. They each studied the entrée menu. The waiter came to the table and opened the bottle John had ordered. He poured a small amount of it in the wine glass at John’s setting. He took a small sip and set his glass back down—an act she could tell he had done countless times.

      “It’s fine, Victor, as usual.”

      The waiter filled his glass and then Amira’s.

      “To friends and life with passion,” John said and lifted his glass for the toast.

      Amira Shinwell, wife and mother, looped a strand of hair behind her ear, lifted her glass, touched it to John’s with a smile, and had her first drink of sparkling wine since she’d left New York. It felt good.

      “What is it you do—I mean in your lab?”

      John looked at his wine glass for a moment then to her eyes again. “I’m doing research in cloning. That’s what has been occupying all of my time lately. Hopefully this year I’ll see the work I’ve been doing come to fruition.

      “If it does, as I expect, there is another area of research I am working on that involves an extensive software system. I have been writing the core pieces of that also. At least that’s the high-level description, suitable for dinner conversation. How about you?”

      “I take care of our daughter and run the house. Nothing really suitable for dinner conversation either. But I have a plan I hope to implement this year.”

      “Care to share it?”

      “I already have a degree in journalism from NYU. I’m thinking about trying to find a position with a local newspaper or do freelance writing.”

      “How old is your daughter?”

      “A very precocious five.”

      “Do you have a picture?”

      Amira removed her cell phone from her purse, flicked to her favorite picture, and turned the screen toward John. The screen was filled with the smiling face of a child. Big brown eyes, a mane of raven-black hair in a need of brushing, blushed cheeks on an ivory complexion. A miniature of Amira.

      “She’s beautiful.”

      “She’s my whole world.” Amira put the phone back in her purse. “But don’t let that innocent face fool you. Yesterday I was driving her home from school. I ask the usual question. ‘Anything interesting happen at school today?’ She answered, ‘My teacher asked me what I wanted to be when I grow up.’

      ‘What did you tell her?’

      ‘I told her I want to be just like my mommy.’ So, you can imagine the pride swelling inside me. ‘Really?’ I said. ‘Yep, I told her I want to drink wine and say bad words.’”

      “Uh-oh.”

      “It gets worse.”

      “Worse?”

      “I, of course, am about to wreck the car trying not to laugh when she says, in a casual sort of way, ‘Oh, and you can’t say fucking cow at school. The cow part is okay, just not the fucking.’”

      “That is worse.”

      “You can imagine the shock. My jaw almost hit my lap. ‘Elona!’ ‘I’m sorry, Mommy, I didn’t mean to say it.’ We both have to work very hard on not saying that word, I said. ‘Okay… the teacher says she wants to have a conference with you next Thursday.’”

      John choked on his wine. “So, journalism degree… interesting. Have anything published?”

      “As an intern for The New Yorker I got a small piece published. That’s the extent of my literary achievements. But I love fiction, I’ve been an avid reader as far back as I can remember. Two years ago, I started on a manuscript for a book but only got about one hundred pages done. It’s hard with a toddler in the house.”

      “I can imagine it would be hard to get settled in behind a keyboard.”

      “I do all my creative writing longhand, in a notebook. The old-fashioned way. It slows my mind down enough to really think about what I’m writing, and, of course, I can then write anywhere. But even with that I just couldn’t keep it up.”

      “That’s a pure Boston accent you have. Do you like it here, in Boston?”

      “The place is nice. The people are nice. Good place to raise a fam—.” She paused. “May I have some more wine?”

      He poured her some more from the bottle.

      “I’m supposed to say, ‘Great. A wonderful place to raise a family.’ And that’s true, mostly. It’s a nice place for a family. But—being a housewife in Boston isn’t what I dreamt about when I was at NYU.” Finally, she’d said it out loud, the words she had held back for years. She said them now to a man with whom she hadn’t spent twenty minutes.

      John was silent for a minute. “Life can throw us curveballs. Taking our best swing at them is all we can do.”

      The waiter returned to the table. Amira hadn’t looked at the menu enough to make a decision. John didn’t need to.

      “Did you have anything particular in mind?” John asked Amira.

      “Not really.”

      “Do you mind if I order for you?”

      “Be my guest.”

      “We’ll spilt the pan-seared beef tenderloin medallions with mushrooms and Marsala sauce, baked au gratin with Romano and Fontina cheeses, accompanied with Vesuvio potatoes and vegetable of the day.”

      The waiter wrote the order, took their menus, and left.

      It will be nice to eat a meal with a man who enjoys meat, Amira thought. An articulate man, an elegant suit, and perfect wine. On a cold Wednesday evening, this was a world of change for Amira.

      “Your work sounds complicated,” Amira said, feeling the need to keep the conversation going.

      “Not as much as you might think. Science can involve a lot of boring repetition and mundane observations. But I like the excitement of discovery and doing things not done before. Having a passion, a theory, maybe just an insight that nobody else has and running with it.”

      Amira laughed quietly, thinking about a life with passion. She supposed John thought like this every day, lived his life like this every day. Spoke like this every day. In the Shinwell household, and in the house where she grew up, no such paradigm existed.

      “When you were studying at NYU, what was your favorite modern piece of literature, one from an author still living today, the one that inspired you to write, that gave you passion?”

      Amira hadn’t expected the question. She hadn’t thought about her inspiration for years, suppressing it along with the rest.

      “The Rest Was Folly and Ashes by Joseph Clarke.”

      “His first novel, written when he lived in Prague, almost forty years ago,” John said.

      “Yes, that’s right.” Amira wasn’t surprised he knew, she could feel the raw intelligence sitting across from her.

      “Probably ranked top twenty of the most influential novels of the twentieth century. It has themes of love, death, renewal, and the fundamental nature of femininity and masculinity. Very interesting coming from a Jewish girl from Boston.”

      “Maybe there’s more to Jewish girls from Boston than