5 An American Pickup
Here’s the rest of her story of being picked up by Desmond—at least as best I can remember:
Desmond handed me a tray and took one for himself. “And the saying is right,” he said. “My offer was a ploy to introduce myself to the most attractive woman in my History class. If that’s too pushy for you, then I’ll withdraw the offer and disappear.”
He reached out to replace his tray on the stack, but I restrained him with a light touch on his arm. “Yes, I’d like you to withdraw your offer, but I’d be happy to have you share a table with me, Dutch treat. Is that the expression? In Switzerland, we call that a Swiss treat.”
He offered a mock bow. “So, you’re Swiss? Sprechen sie Deutsch?”
We reached the start of the food offerings. I found myself attracted to a small plate with three kinds of cracker matched with three kinds of lunch meat, plus some sort of cheese. “Yes, Swiss, but not that kind of Swiss. I do speak German, or Swiss-German, but I’m from the French-speaking part of the country.”
“Like Geneva?”
“Well, yes, like Geneva, but not Geneva. You wouldn’t know my home village.”
I added the cold-cut plate to my tray, hoping the yellow cheese was Cheddar, not so-called “American” cheese. Or should I say, American so-called “cheese.”
Desmond chose a bear claw pastry for himself, and we each chose coffee. He took black. I preferred cream and sugar, but the “cream” was “non-dairy coffee lightener,” so I took sugar only. For a Swiss, coffee lightener was a mortal sin. I actually would have preferred cocoa, or chocolate milk, but I didn’t want to look too stereotypically Swiss.
We’d hit the cafe in the interval between the lunch and dinner rushes, so we had a complete choice of tables. We sat near a ceiling-high window where we could watch the students hustling through the cold to their next classes. While I tore into my sugar packages, Desmond modified his question. “So, what will you study once you matriculate.”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t know that word,” I apologized, a bit embarrassed to show my inadequate English.
“No need to apologize. Your English is certainly better than either my French or my German–which are actually non-existent.” He sipped his coffee carefully, then waved the air in front of his mouth to show me it was too hot. “To matriculate means to enroll officially. Literally, to be ‘put on the list.’”
“Aha. ‘Se faire immatriculer,’ in French. I should have figured it out. I do better if I see the word written out.”
He tried his coffee again. Still too hot. “That’s very impressive to a mono-lingual American boy like me, but why do I get the impression you’re avoiding my question?”
I sipped my own coffee. I liked the temperature, but it had probably been boiling since lunch. It tasted bitter and needed more sugar. Instead of adding the sugar, I answered his question so he wouldn’t think I was stalling. “Mathematics. And I wasn’t avoiding the question.”
“Oh, boy.” He started to lift his cup, then just held it with his elbow resting on the table. “I’m impressed. I’ll bet you were hesitating, consciously or unconsciously. I’ll bet a math major scares away a lot of guys.”
“Yes, I suppose it does, but what’s wrong with that? If a guy–or a girl, for that matter–is afraid of math, I’d just as soon scare them away.”
He set down his cup without tasting. “Well, if that does me any good, I’m not scared. I’m not very good at math, but it doesn’t scare me. Not from a beautiful woman, anyway.”
I felt myself blushing slightly, and laughed to cover it up. “I guess I should confess, then.”
“To what?”
“To being scared of good-looking men who are accomplished flatterers.”
Now he finally drank some coffee. “I’d better change the subject … but you are beautiful.”
Before I could react to that, he did change the subject. “So what brought you to America. I mean, I know you came to study, but why come to Hurlsburg. I’m surprised that a Swiss has even heard of Hurlsburg.”
“You shouldn’t be surprised. I came because you have a world-famous mathematician on your faculty.”
Desmond smacked himself on the forehead. “You mean Rosemont? Of course! You came to study with him? Now that’s impressive.”
Before I could reply, he went right on, slapping himself again. “You’re not part of his detective team …?” Something must have showed on my face because he corrected himself. “No, you are part of his team, aren’t you? Now I’m the one who’s scared. What’s it called? The Garbage Group or something like that?”
I couldn’t help but laugh, at the same time I felt a bit offended. “It’s the Residue Class, and the ‘residue’ in that name doesn’t mean garbage.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll remember now. But are you really a member?”
“Barely. I’m a candidate for membership.” I wasn’t sure I should be telling people that, but I was overflowing with pride and anxiety and couldn’t help myself.
He gave me a mock bow, saying, “From what I hear, you must be a mathematical genius. I am really impressed.”
“Why?”
“Because I never met a genius before.”
“Anyone can be a mathematical genius.”
“I don’t agree, but okay, if that’s not it, how do they choose new members? Do they take everyone who applies?”
“Not by a long shot. It’s character that counts–along with the math. It’s the combination of the two.”
“Then I’m impressed by your character, too.” He hadn’t touched his bear claw, but now he picked it up with his fingers and took a huge bite. (I wondered if Americans ever used knives and forks.) With his mouth still half full, he asked, “Is it okay to ask a math genius with character for a date?”
“Residue members have to be pragmatic, too. You’ll have to ask and find out.”
He asked, then excused himself to answer the call of nature while I pondered my response.
So, that was Cosette’s story, as far as she wanted to tell me. I believe she thought I was too virginal to hear the rest. But what they did next was ultimately the most interesting part. That part started when she noticed the headline on a the school newspaper that lay abandoned on the next table.
Someone in New York had shot and killed a 73-year-old widowed grandmother in Little Italy. Ballistics had shown that the killer had used the same gun as our first two murder victims—victims we hadn’t noticed up to that point. Each of those first two victims had been attractive young professional women. Because of their age and attractiveness, police had begun to suspect a possible sexual predator. Though it wasn’t politically correct to say so to the press, their suspicion was erased when someone put a bullet in the brain of Bella Marino. 73-year old grandmother with six adult children, eighteen grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.
Not that a 73-year old woman might not be attractive to some nut case, but Bella was incredibly obese. I later learned that nobody knew exactly how heavy she was because the morgue scale maxed out at 400 pounds.