Read The Cure for Free Online Page B

I mean, I’m here, aren’t I? On a Monday. Having an actual lunch with a friend at an actual sit-down restaurant.”
    As if on cue the hostess appeared and led them to a small, isolated table against the window.
    When they were seated, Lisa shook her head slightly and pursed her lips in a classic what-am-I-going-to-do-with-you gesture. “I do appreciate you coming to lunch with me,” she said. “But I had to practically put a gun to your head to get you to do it.”
    “Well I’m glad you did,” said Erin. “Keep forcing me to remember I’m a human being.”
    Lisa brightened. “Well, you teach once a week, right? So why don’t we do this every week on your teaching day?”
    Erin realized that while this might have seemed impossible only three weeks before, now it was actually worth considering. Because the unimaginable had happened. She had achieved the results she had been working toward.
    Perhaps .
    Preliminary results were breathtaking, true, but they were still preliminary. She would need to confirm and refine these results for several months by doing careful, rigorous, statistically significant science. Only then would she be able to shout eureka, if only to herself—and to Hugh Raborn. But if her initial success could be duplicated, repeatedly, she really would be able to throttle back, enjoy life a little. But she couldn’t agree just yet, and certainly not without a little banter. “Lunch every week?” she said in amusement. “Now that’s just crazy talk.”
    “It’d be good for you,” said Lisa. “You just admitted that yourself. Just cut your office hours in half and use this time to bond with your roommate. Come on, does anyone ever visit you during your office hours anyway?”
    “Well, there was this one guy once. In 1943…”
    Lisa laughed as the waitress came over to take their order. Lisa ordered a massive plateful of food, while Erin ordered a gyro sandwich and water, declining to add an appetizer or at least a side dish or two as Lisa urged her to do.
    “If I had your figure,” said Lisa as the waitress left, “I’d be ordering everything on the menu.” She frowned. “Which probably explains why I don’t have your figure.”
    Erin suppressed a smile. “Come on, Lisa. You’re not in the least overweight. I bet we weigh exactly the same.”
    “Yeah, but you’re a few inches taller, and your weight is, ah … distributed better.” She sighed. “Let’s face it, if I were going into a prison, I wouldn’t have to wrap gauze around my chest every day like you do. My breasts would hide out just fine in that ugly, baggy outfit of yours.”
    “From what you’ve told me, Derrick doesn’t seem to have any problem with your figure.”
    Erin’s roommate raised her eyebrows. “He does seem to be a bit insatiable, doesn’t he?”
    Derrick was finishing up an MBA, and he and Lisa had started dating just four weeks earlier—but they were seeing more and more of each other and the trajectory looked promising.
    “So did he call you today?” asked Erin.
    Lisa beamed. “He did. I think I really like this guy. I mean really like him.” She shook her head and frowned. “But you’ve really freaked me out, Erin. Before I met you, I didn’t even know how to pronounce the word psychopathy . I would have said psycho-pathy instead of psy -cop- athy.”
    Lisa gazed up at the sky as if pondering a long-ago memory. “Those were the good old days,” she said. “Seven weeks ago. When I was blissfully ignorant of not only the pronunciation of this word, but the fact that fricking one percent of the fricking population is fricking psychopathic. Now I’m totally paranoid. I’m seeing psychopaths everywhere. I mean, take career politicians. Are there any who aren’t psychopathic?” She shook her head. “Thanks, Erin.”
    “That isn’t fair. You asked me what percentage of the population were psychopathic. I didn’t bring it up. What was I supposed to do, lie?”
    “ Yes, ” said Lisa