Zig Zag by José Carlos Somoza Page A

I'm sorry.
I'm just a little uptight because the year's almost over and I have
to hand in my report ASAP."
    "Come
on, then," she said encouragingly. "Let's get a move on.
Ask away, leave no stone unturned."
    Still,
their conversation was forced and unnatural at first. He asked
formulaic questions about her free time, and she replied hesitantly,
as if it were an oral exam. Elisa realized they were both sorry
they'd had to start the night with such a different tone than they
had at the party. But once Maldonado became interested in her active
lifestyle, things picked up. Elisa told him she did everything she
could, which was true: weight lifting, swimming, aerobics ... He
stared at her.
    "Well,
that explains your physique."
    "What's
up with my physique?"
    "It's
a perfect physique for physics."
    "That
was terrible," she groaned.
    "You
asked for it."
    Then
they talked about her childhood. She told him she'd been a lonely
child and that she'd lived inside her head, even when she was a
little girl, even when she was playing. She'd had no choice, since
her parents hadn't wanted any more kids and never paid much attention
to her, preferring to spend their time working on their own problems.
Her father ("He was a Javier, too") had become a physicist
during times when things were "even worse" than they are
now. Elisa remembered him as a friendly guy with a dark, bushy beard,
but that was about it. He'd spent part of his life in England and the
United States researching weak interaction, the force emitted by some
atoms when they disintegrate, which was (at least in physics) all the
rage in the seventies.
    "He
spent a long time studying something known as 'CP symmetry violation'
caused by kaon ... Come on, don't give me that look," Elisa
laughed.
    "Who
me?" Maldonado asked. "I'm just taking notes."
    "That's
kaon, with a 'k,'" she corrected, pointing to Maldonado's notes.
    She
was getting more and more into this. Unfortunately, she had to talk
about her mother, too. Marta Morande, a mature, attractive, magnetic
woman, owner and operator of Piccarda. Uncover
your beauty... at Piccarda.
    She
found it hard to talk about her mother and feel even slightly amused.
    "She
comes from a family that's always had money, always traveled. I swear
I wonder what my father ever saw in her. The thing is, I'm sure that
if my mother had been a different kind of person, my father wouldn't
have left me alone so much. She was always saying that she had to
'enjoy' life, that she couldn't lock herself up and throw away the
key just because she'd married a 'brainiac.' That's what she used to
call him. Sometimes even in front of me. 'The braniac's coming back
tonight,' she'd say." Maldonado had stopped scribbling. He was
listening intently. "I think my father decided it was too much
of a hassle to go through with a divorce. And, besides, his family
was very Catholic. So he just pretended not to notice, and let my
mother get on with her life." Elisa looked down at the table,
smiling. "I have to confess, I decided to study physics to annoy
my mother, who wanted me to go into business and help her run her
famous beauty salon. And boy did I annoy her! That really got her.
She stopped speaking to me and moved to her summerhouse in Valencia
while my father was out of town. So I was left in Madrid, alone
except for my paternal grandparents. When my dad heard, he came
straight back and told me he'd never leave me. I didn't believe him,
though. A week later he went to Valencia to try to get my mom to sign
an agreement. On his way back, a drunk driver crashed into him
head-on, and that was the end of that."
    She
was cold and rubbed her arms. She wasn't actually uneasy talking
about it and thought it had probably done her good. After all, who
had she ever been able to talk to before this?
    "Now
I'm back living with my mom," she added. "But we've carved
out our own spaces at home, and we both try not to cross the line
into each other's territory."
    Maldonado
was doodling. Elisa