Page 38 of The Mouse and the Maestro

With a growl of frustration, she shoved him away. “No.”

“You don’t understand. I’ve spent my entire life on a computer, trying to solve riddles and puzzles, and I have never failed. And then you come along and you’re like some kind of walking Rubik’s cube.”

“I guess you have a decision to make. Do you want to get to know the real woman standing before you, or do you want to solve the mystery of my lack of virtual history?”

“I’m a hacker.Hacker Monthlynamed me one of the top ten hackers in the world.”

“Really?” she asked.

“No, but they probably would, if such a thing or magazine existed. The point is this is what I do, and I’m amazing at it.Asking me not to care about it is like asking a surgeon not to cut out a tumor.”

“Am I the tumor in this scenario?” she asked.

“You’re the everything in this scenario. Lately it’s like my life has reoriented itself and centered on you. I’ve gone from deep loathing to deep liking so quickly I have emotional whiplash. But I can’t take not knowing who or what you are.”

“Well, there you go,” Jane said.

“Just tell me,” he pled.

“No.”

“Well, there you go,” he said. They stared at each other, a sad, impenetrable distance between them. “Don’t marry the guy who took ten years to realize what a good thing he had going all along.”

Jane didn’t say what she was thinking, that he was asking her to hope instead for the guy who preferred a virtual woman to the real one standing in front of him.

Chapter 18

The next morning they set off. The ride was silent and awkward, as the previous night had been. Last night they ordered takeout Chinese, and the reminder of their perfect date in New York was painful.

Now Jane sat staring out the window watching the scenery in silence. No one could do quiet like Jane, Blue thought. Her entire body became still so it was difficult to discern if she was even breathing. Blue wondered why she did that. Finally it occurred to him to ask.

“Why do you sit so still?”

“When we lived in Africa, a boy I knew was learning to hunt. His dad taught us how to stalk, how to track, how to be silent. I loved it, thought it was the greatest thing ever, and I practiced so much I guess I internalized everything.”

“Did you ever see a lion?”

“Yes. When I lived there, it was the last age of the Massai lion hunts. They don’t do it anymore. They have an Olympics style contest instead. I’m not going to say I condone or endorse lion hunting, because I don’t, but it was something to see. I liked the pageantry of it, the ceremony and tradition.”

“How many places have you lived?”

“I don’t know. We moved a lot when I was a kid, but what makes it interesting was the manner of places I lived. They were always fascinating in vastly different ways. I don’t know how I turned out so ordinary.”

His mind flashed to her bashing in a car’s window and shoving a screwdriver in the starter. “I don’t think you did.”

“Compared to my sisters, I did. They’re…extremely unusual.”

“How so?” he asked.

“My older sister was a wild child, seriously insane. She had no fear. She still doesn’t.”

“What does she do?”

“She followed in our father’s footsteps,” Jane said, turning to gaze out the window. Was she sad or merely pondering?

“Doing…” he prompted, but Jane shook her head. “You said you had two sisters.”

“My younger sister is sweeter, but no tamer,” she said and left it at that. “Are you going to tell me where we’re going?”

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