“Why ‘I’m sorry’?” she asked, indicating the note on the bedside
table. He picked it up and looked at it, then at her.
“For all the reasons that a man says ‘I’m sorry’ to the woman
he loves. I’m sorry that you’re gone. I’m sorry that you’re angry with
me. And I’m sorry that I’ve hurt you.” He looked back at her suitcase.
“You’re leaving,” he said with resignation.

The lunch conversation had begun with Alex teasing Tracy
about her investment banker boyfriend. “Are your parents dancing
in the streets with joy and picking out the names of their grandchildren?”
Alex had asked. Then she moved on to the Made in America
T-shirt that Tracy wore over her tie-dyed shorts. Tracy pointed out
her foreign-made car. “The shirt refers to me, not my things. We’re
perfect examples of ‘made in America.’ Me, an Italian-Finn and
you with your German grandmother’s tits on your Japanese grandmother’s
body.”

“… Isn’t finished with his dissertation
but thinks he’ll make some money for a year and come back.
But those companies have golden handcuffs, he won’t be back. They
snapped him up because he was doing research on charge pumping
circuits or something like that having to do with high voltage
on microchips. Offered him some insane amount of stock options.”
Kevin helped himself to the last slice of pizza. “Old Tom will probably
be the first millionaire that I know personally. Luckily pure scientists
like you and mathematicians like myself will never have to
worry about being shackled to money like these engineering slobs.”
She smiled. He washed his bite of pizza down with some beer. “We’ll
always be free to pursue truth and knowledge without the burden of
financial security,” he said.
“That’s right,” Alex added, chuckling. “We’re following a long
tradition of using poverty to achieve clarity of vision.”
“Hear, hear!” he said, raising his glass. “We’re the monks of
science.”