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no anagram of love within this fool’s farewell.
    He listened to her plea that night and stared at her sunburned scrap of skin. He seemed as if he wanted to reach out and take it from her, such was the look in his eyes. Perhaps he thought it was rare to own a piece of someone’s skin, taken from a memorable first day on this island, on this trip where she might have a chance to forget a bad romance and take the course he’d planned for her. Because he did have a course for her; he felt he made good choices for other people, but from experience he’d learned not to tell them. He had kept his silence, but here was at last a way to touch and change her.
    “I need a favor, too,” he said.
    She gritted her teeth, staring at him, then said, “Oh Eli, just do this for me.”
    He was quiet and watched the boys throwing a ball, the background of stars behind them. Eli knew he couldn’t ever win by talking; she was too stubborn and selfish, and he had lost too many scientific battles with her to bother now with a real one. He couldn’t argue with her, but he could wait her out, let Denise fill the silence with arguments far better than he could come up with. He’d learned the trick of her. So he sat and let his pupils dilate in the darkness while he felt her beside him, looking, thinking too hard.
    Denise folded her arms across her breasts. She asked softly, “What is it?”
    “First, after this, let’s not talk about Carlos anymore.” Her face folded in subtle rage, but he knew she’d forgive him. He was always hard on her in a way no one else dared to be; that’s why she cared for him.
    “Eli….”
    “And also,” he said quickly, and she was quiet. He thought for a moment about how to put it, then he said, “I hoped you could … I want you to ask Kafhy something.”
    She closed her eyes and the sunburnt skin fluttered on her nose as a cool wind came. The breeze lifted her hair slightly from her face. Eyes still closed, she said, “You don’t just want me to ask. You want me to report on what she says.”
    He said nothing. There was a breeze that took the edge off the hot night, and you could hear the soft noise of people leaning in their plastic chairs, relaxing, taking it in.
    Denise asked, “Is this a trade? That you’ll talk to Jorgeson if I talk to Kathy?”
    Eli murmured something, nodding, and looked toward the tall Swede. Jorgeson was close now, looking ridiculous and shouting something. A few yards away. A choice had to be made.
    “What am I asking her?”
    He quietly told her to ask if his wife was pregnant.
    She sat back and placed her fingers to her forehead, as if her headache were returning. He knew she was watching Jorgeson’s approach, timing her decision.
    Eli wanted to be patient with her, but it was difficult—she seemed so much younger than he was, so frustratingly fragile for someone so brilliant. He looked at her face, how it cracked—shouldn’t she be hard as a diamond? Weren’t people either weak or strong, he wondered, not both at once, not unpredictably both? This was the flaw— he hated finding it—the flaw, as if she were a vase he was examining in a shop, cinnabar with two handles, discovering the flaw that would widen with time, crack and destroy the shape. He had found it now, a hint of it; you can’t return a friend at this point, but what do you do? You wait; you try to see if they will fix themselves before they grow too old to notice. Eli turned away as the Swede approached, as Denise considered the deal, and he let his doubts enter again.
    He had his own flaw, of course. The great sign of this decline had come half a year before when, after collecting a preliminary set of data, Eli had let Swift sign him up to give a presentation at a professional meeting in Berkeley. A presentation—it was an honor. But he was not ready. Eli had taken the data so carefully over three nights at Palomar, but he found himself in Campbell Hall at four o’clock in the morning,