Waiting (takes place after Jonathan Livingston Seagull)

"And no secrets between us, remember?" She nodded. "We'll see each other on Instabook?"

"Sure." Jacob shrugged.

"And I'll be home for Christmas, of course," Ada added. "We'll see each other, in the middle of the Here and Now."

"I'll be waiting," Jacob said with a wave.

She values her independence. Dylan knows this. That is why he is not at the airport to pick her up. She does not expect him to be. That is why he is not at the train station to walk her the few blocks to their shared house. She does not expect him to be.

Ada opens the front door and bends down to pet the cats that came running at her return. "Cleo! Tut! Did you miss me?" she coos at their meows of joy.

"We all missed you," Dylan says from the chair where he is holding his guitar, a pencil tucked behind his ear as he writes music.

"I missed you, too," Ada says with relief. But she does not know why she is relieved. She walks over and bends down to kiss the top of his head softly.

"How was your flight?" Dylan asks.

"Fine."

"And your dad?" He looks back down at his sheet music on the stand before him.

"Fine, now, I think. Fortunately it was a only a little scare. Maybe it will stop him from eating so much Asian take-out."

"Good," he says in an absent-minded way before strumming another cord. Something about it makes the gnawing feeling in Ada's stomach grow.

The story she wrote on the plane did not make the feeling go away. She still feels the weight, the longing, the waiting. Although she thinks maybe it helped her understand it.

"Dylan?" she asks.

"Yeah?" He still doesn't look up, changing his fingering and humming to himself.

"How long was I gone?"

"What?" He looks up then. "Uh -" she sees him silently count "- four days. Four and half now. Are you okay?"

"Why did you have to count?"

"I don't know. Why did you ask? You're the math genius."

"Did you miss me?"

"I already told you I did."

"No. Did you feel my absence? Like a weight, right here?" She presses against her chest. "And did it grow wings and flutter away when I walked in the room? Did you miss me passionately?"

Dylan wrinkles his brow. "Ada, what are you talking about? Maybe you need a nap. It was probably stressful, with your dad and all."

"With my dad and all? My father almost died!" She hears her voice rising, and, for once, she doesn't try to control it.

"You said he was fine. You said it was only a little scare. And, like I said before you ran out of here, heart attacks are rarely fatal these days."

"Can't you put down your guitar and talk to me, just once?"

"We are talking. Or I'm talking. You're being uncharacteristically shrill."

Something about the peaceful way he says it makes the gnawing inside of Ada bite. "What's wrong with being shrill? Want's wrong with being passionate? Why can't you ever be passionate?"

"Is this about sex?" Dylan asks calmly. "We've talked about it, you just have a larger sex drive than I do. It's just the way it is."

"No! It's about us! You're always so calm, nothing ever ruffles your feathers, nothing gets you excited. Why can't you be passionate about me? About our relationship?"

"I'm confused. We've been together for three and half years, and all along I thought you liked that I was calm and steady and predictable. We get along. We respect each other's space. We've never had an argument. Until now, I guess," he shrugs.

"Do you think that's normal? If we had a fight, would you go adopt twenty-five cats because you missed me so much?"

"Are you drunk? Sometimes people drink more on airplanes than they realize," Dylan asks.

"No. Why can't you raise your voice just once? Why do you have to be so reasonable all the time?"

"You're one to talk. You're so logical and rational. You approach everything like a math equation." Still he doesn't raise his voice. "People think you're cold, you know, heartless. A calculating bitch. I've heard them say that before, especially when we started dating."

"So you defended me? You stood up for me?" Ada asks with a glimmer of hope. She is not shocked by this description of herself, she is aware that some people thought that about her.

"It was none of their business who I dated, so I didn't engage them. You know I don't like confrontation."

The glimmer is gone, as quickly as it came. "Engage them? What about engaging me?"

Finally, he puts down the guitar and stands up. "Ada, I don't understand what's happening here."

"I want passion, Dylan. I want somebody who picks me up the airport and runs after me just because he cares about me. I want somebody who, yes, makes love to me like they can't get enough of me. I want somebody who waits impatiently for me, I want somebody who is constantly surprised that I'm still with them, that I choose them, that lights up every single time I enter a room, because their heart is fluttering. I want what my parents have! Or at least someone who stands to meet me at the door after I've been gone for four and half days!" Ada yells the last sentence and it feels so good, screaming like this in her own home, even if it makes the cats run out of the room in terror at the new sound. With the scream, she feels the weight being lifted off her shoulders, the gnawing dying away.

"Are you breaking up with me?" Dylan asks. "If you are, just say so. I just told you I don't like confrontations. I don't like drama, either."

She stares at him, meeting him on his level. Now that the weight is gone, she be the calm, calculating woman he has obviously come to expect. She sounds unperturbed when she says it, because she is sure of her decision. "Yes. Do you have somewhere to go?"

Dylan nods. "I can sleep on Joe's couch for a while. Are you okay on rent?"

"Yes. My parents will help if I need them."

He turns and heads to the back porch to get some boxes from recycling before he goes to the bedroom to pack. She sits motionless on the couch, petting the cats who have returned, as she hears him shuffling. She is not worried that he will take anything of hers. She has never lost trust in him. She hears him mumble as he makes a phone call, and, not much later, Joe's old beat up car pulls up out front. She sits as Dylan carries out three boxes, and then he stops by the door with a fourth still in his hands

"Well, I guess this is good-bye," he says, turning to look at her. "I thought we had a good run. I would have been happy staying with you. No hard feelings?"

Ada gets up and walks over to him, putting her hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry. You're not a bad man, at all, Dylan. You'll make the right woman very happy someday. I just don't think that's me."

"That's okay."

They look at each other for a moment, and a spark of regret flares within her. There really isn't anything bad about Dylan; it's just that there is nothing she remembers with excitement or . . . passion, either. She knows she will always think about him without any bitterness. They did get along well, that is true. He followed her out here from Boston, after all. Three and half years is a lot to throw away. Perhaps she has been too rash.

But, no, this ending is proof that she has not. There is no passion here at the end. She realizes, suddenly, that she doesn't love him and maybe never has. Now she can't even remember what held them together for three and half years other than habit. And even that thought doesn't make her sad, just disappointed in herself. She smiles softly, and Dylan turns and leaves. It is not true love if it ends with a whimper.

Later, she will call her mother and tell her the whole story, even all the embarrassing details that she always hid away before. She will tell her mother that she was correct all along, that Ada wished she's listened to her before, that she understands now what her mother was trying to tell her doing all those lectures: that love is passion. That she should be so lucky to find someone she loves as much as her parents love each other. But, for now, she doesn't even sob for Dylan. She just sits on the couch and lets a few tears roll silently down her cheeks, before she calls her mother. Dylan would approve.

Grandmother Fowler taught her the importance of a timely and well-composed thank you note. So, in the midst of her strange calmness about the end of her first relationship, Ada dutifully sits down and writes a thank you to Jacob for picking her up at the airport. She pauses, her fountain pen above the page, and wonders if she should thank him for that afternoon on his back porch. But then she thinks that is just what one good friend does for another, and to thank a good friend for being present is akin to thanking the air for oxygen. Instead, she writes, in the beautiful calligraphy she also learned from Grandmother Fowler, "I am thankful we have remained friends all these years, despite the distance. We'll always be in the Here and Now." It is a short note, because Grandmother Fowler also taught her all thank you notes should be concise. Too effusive a thanks is vulgar. Its value lies not in the words, but in the thought and in its quaint old-fashionedness. Ada almost forgets about it because there is so much else on her mind and because sending thank you notes is a long habit of hers.

Surprised, she receives a note in the post a week later from Jacob. It is written on a torn sheet of graft paper and his handwriting is small, cramped, awful. "I heard about your break-up. I'm sorry. Please feel free to call me if you need to talk. Otherwise I will give you your privacy." Ada is touched beyond words. True to his promise, he says nothing to her on social media about it. But, a week or so later, she wakes up unexpectedly at 4:30. She has woken up at 6:30 for as long as she can remember, and the dark stillness unsettles her in some fashion. Unable to go back to sleep, she wraps up in her robe, feeds the cats early, and makes coffee.

Not sure why she does it, she sits at her desk and begins to write a lengthy letter on the heavy cream paper she rarely uses. She writes about switching her focus of study, telling him all the details she left out that afternoon on the porch: how she told her parents, her father's initial dismay, her mother's support even in the midst of confusion, the meeting she had the day before with her advisors, some ideas she has had to further refine her theories. She doesn't write about her feelings, really, just her version of events, and she never once mentions Dylan.

A week later, there is a full sheet of graph paper. Jacob writes about his job at Caltech and how he looks out his window at the gardeners. He writes about looking for a roommate and an apartment, because he is determined not to live with his father forever. He writes a brief sentence about each of his parents, and a longer sentence about hers because he has seen them recently. He doesn't mention his feelings, but Ada can feel something forlorn in the paragraph about the Caltech gardeners.

She writes back about the start of her new studies, changes she has made to the house now that Dylan is gone, first about swimming and then about leaves turning and falling, about the Lotus Festival downtown, about quiet Sundays at the Art Museum, her Halloween costume, and meeting her parents in Texas for Thanksgiving. He writes about fall flowers, about a chess club he has joined in an effort to meet people, about quiet Sundays at the beach, his Halloween costume, and his awkward Thanksgiving with both his parents. She draws little sketches of people and places, he describes everything with self-effacing humor.

As promised, Ada goes home for Christmas, and she and Jacob meet for coffee and talk. It is as though they never left, their conversation picking up where their last letters left off. At Leonard and Penny's Christmas party, they sit on the stairs and listen to the adults talking in the living room and their younger cousins talking and pretending to be sullen and bored in Frannie's room. They are shocked when their parents start playing some old card game called Cards Against Humanity, and they pass horrified looks back and forth. When it is Ada's father's turn to choose his favorite card, they have to run away. Jacob collapses laughing in the hallway, but all Ada can manage is a shocked smile.

At Howard's New Years Eve party, Ada gets a little tipsy and so does Jacob and they dance in the kitchen, Jacob making fun of her because she can't find the rhythm. They are standing next to each other when the countdown begins, but they both turn at the last second and kiss someone else on the cheek. But their eyes meet nonetheless.

Across the miles, across the different climates, across the time zones, the letters fly as fast as the postal service will allow them. They both become premium subscribers, so that all letters are guaranteed delivery within twenty-four hours. The letters are never mentioned between them on Instabook, and they rarely text now. One boring day, Ada sends a geometry proof to fatten her letter, something simple. Jacob writes back that his likes it, so she sends one with every letter. Jacob starts writing about rare plants. Ada bought him stationary for Christmas, and he bought her sealing wax.

Unbeknownst to her, she is opening, peeling back her hardened skin with every letter she writes. Jacob reads in them the opinionated but light girl he once knew. Unbeknownst to him, he is growing more confident with every letter he writes. Ada reads in them the solid, sure man she always knew he could be.

In mid-February, she asks him if he would like to come visit her the week of Spring Break. She writes that is her favorite week in Bloomington, how almost everyone leaves for warmer places, how it feels like she is alone in the city she has fallen in with, how the crocuses are blooming in the mud for only her. Jacob replies that he thought her parents always came to visit her at Spring Break. She explains that she told them that she was having a friend in town this year, instead. They are coming in May.

He ends his next letter: "I would love to come, but what will your parents say when they discover you have thrown them over for me? Because won't they know it's me?"

Her only reply, a single sentence in the center of the cream stationary, "I think they've always known it was you: it just took me longer to figure that out."

Ada is strangely nervous the day he will arrive. Butterflies in her stomach, Ada wonders if this how women felt welcoming their men back from war, men they have only known for months via letter. She wears her most 1940's inspired dress, red with big white polka dots, rolls her air up in matching undo, and puts on her brightest red lipstick to take the train up to the airport, to pick him up. Because that's what you do for you care about someone.

Even though he knew she was meeting him, he looks at her like he's surprised to see her there. Not like he's forgotten about her. But like he can't believe he finally has her, that she choose him. Like he was waiting, and, even though he's not anymore, the memory of how it felt to wait for her all those years in still very fresh in his mind. Ada feels something in her heart fluter and grow wings before it flies away.

He falls in her arms, and they kiss hungrily, right there in public at the airport. The train cannot travel fast enough to Bloomington. He fidgets endlessly in his seat, although he never lets go of her hand. They run and laugh down the sidewalk to her house, the suitcase wheels clattering behind them.

They don't even make it to the bedroom. She covers his face in lipstick kisses even as she unbuttons his shirt and runs her fingers through his thick chest hair. They tear their clothes off, a line strewn from the door to the living room. He cannot believe this is happening to him even as he helps her pull off her dress and takes in her nakedness for the first time. Her neatly groomed pubic hair is bright red, which both shocks him and excites him further.

"Ada, wait," he stops her, as she reaches for him on the living room rug, in front of the fireplace. "There's something you need to know. I've never - I mean, I'm a virgin."

She raises her eyebrows, more obvious because she has left her glasses somewhere in the passion. "Really?"

Jacob blushes deeply. "Yes."

"Well, we all are at some point." She kisses him again.

Objectively, it was awful. It was choppy and her body wasn't really ready and it was over so fast she's certain her eyebrows are still raised. Jacob makes the most absurd face when he climaxes and, by the time he's rolled off of her, she can't hold it in any longer. She laughs harder than she can remember laughing in a long time, deep belly laughs, and she actually snorts which makes only makes her laugh harder.

Jacob groans loudly on the living room rug. "Ouch, you don't have to make fun on me."

"No, no," Ada manages to get out. She sits up to lean over him. Touching his face softly, she turns him toward her. "I loved it. It was passionate! I loved the way you kept saying my name in my ear, over and over again. It's like you couldn't get enough of me."

"Are you serious?"

"Yes. When am I not serious?" Jacob nods slightly at that. Ada is the most serious person he knows. "I loved it. It was wild and hungry, and I never thought anyone would want me that badly."

"Do you have any idea how long I wanted you? You're right, I can't get enough you." He cannot help but smile, Ada so rarely laughs like that, she so rarely lets down her poised exterior. Not to mention he is thrilled to have finally touched her in that fashion.

Ada raises up and straddles him and slowly starts to rock back and forth over him, awakening his body again. Then she starts to take down the pins in her hair. Her beautiful hair, her long, shimmering hair, such a gleaming color, falls around her lean body. Jacob is mesmerized by her: her hair, her bright blue eyes, her almost flat breasts. He has never seen her so uninhibited. Between his age, the way her body is touching him, and the way her hair falls seductively, he is ready for her again.

"You're out of my league," he whispers, his most secret fear and confession. She is so much more intelligent then him, she is more certain of what she wants in life, she is taller and much more attractive. Surely she could have anyone in the world she wants, so why does she want him?

"My league is lonely. Come join me." Ada takes him in her hand before he can respond, and she helps him join her once more. It is even better the second time.

And then, the third time, the next morning in her bed, Jacob whispers, "Please, Ada, tell me what to do. Show me. I want to make you come." But when he succeeds, her climax comes out as a sob with tears and she curls in upon herself, crying. Jacob is frightened he has hurt her, and she manages to tell him, no, it's just that she's never had an orgasm from a man before. Jacob looks at her and doesn't even know what to say. He cannot reconcile this astounding news with his confident, demanding Ada, who knows and gets what she wants. There are so many new questions swirling in his brain, so many things he longs to know, but he understands that now is not the time. Later he will gently ask and she will tell him everything. But now, instead, he pulls her in close, and uses his palm to dry her tears and says, "I'm here now, Ada." It is all he has to give her, just himself, and he hopes it is enough.

Despite her previous plans to show him around town, to share with him everything she loves, they hardly leave the house. They are insatiable for each other. Jacob is eager to learn everything about her, and Ada is eager to finally have someone willing to experiment. He asks what she likes, he learns from her suggestions, and she is just as willing to try his whispered fantasies. They order food in, they cuddle on the sofa and watch television, they make so much noise in the heat of their frequent passion that the cats run out of the room. It is everything Ada ever wanted, everything her mother ever told her it could be, when she was too stubborn and independent then too settled to listen.

It is everything Jacob ever wanted, what he knew he could share with her all along. Even though Ada is not a virgin, this does not bother him as he has a visceral feeling that something in her soul is virginal and has been waiting for these moments, just has he knows his soul has been. But he does not tell her this, that making love to her feels like his soul has met its match, because he is afraid to even whisper it will make it disappear. Happiness like this must be a dream.

One morning, five days in, Ada makes a big brunch with the last of the eggs.

"Jacob, will you read something for me? Something I've written? I need you to be brutally honest," she asks over the kitchen table.

"Sure. What is it?"

"I'm not sure. A graphic novel, I suppose. But I want to do something different with it. It's long, much longer than most graphic novels." She goes to her computer desk and takes out a box. "This is the original. I've scanned it in, too, but I like it better on paper. It's not done. It needs editing, and some of the drawings aren't correct. I want to make every frame an example of a geometric proof or rule. So the angles and measurements aren't exact. But I think you'll get the idea."

Jacob pushes his plate away and wipes his faces with a napkin. He lifts the lid carefully. "Wow, this is different. I thought it would be like a regular comic book, like you normally draw."

Ada shakes her head. "No. I can draw like that, but it's not what I love. I prefer Cubism. But I want to take Cubism to the next level, I want it to uphold precise mathematical principles."

"Math as art or art as math?"

"Yes."

"So, it's a story about math and geometry?"

"No, read it. It's a story about . . . well, read it and tell me what you think."

He smiles. "Hey, do your parents still have that book club?"

"Yes. Why?" Ada wrinkles her brow, which always put this little line between her eyebrows just like her mother's.

"I don't know." He shrugged. "The way you said that, it made me wonder if that's how it got started."

"As neither of them are authors of fiction, that's unlikely. But," the line deepens, "you have made me realize I don't know how it got started. I know it was long before I was born." The line dissolves. "I'll leave you alone to read. Remember: brutal honesty. There are no secrets between us."

He hopes that his nod conveys that he understands how important this is to her, he can feel the weight in her words. She picks up her mug of coffee and turns to walk to the back porch. As she walks away, a cat on each side of her, it occurs to him how feline like she is herself. Jacob knows, in that instant, as he has suspected but never acknowledged before, how his life will forever be incomplete without her.

Blinking slowly in the bright morning sun as he sees her settle onto the porch swing, Jacob sighs softly, the universal sigh of longing and love, and then turns to the pages in front of him.

It is hours later when he raises his head. The sun has shifted, the coffee left in his cup has gone cold, his neck is cramped. Ada, though, is still sitting silently on the porch. She has been waiting patiently, like a monk. He knows the feeling. He also knows the feeling of euphoria when one finds the treasure for which one has been waiting. He is moved beyond words. He knows the feeling not just from those fevered, rushed, lipstick kisses on the living room floor five days ago. He knows the feeling, deep in the pit of his stomach, from this book he has just read. Never in his life has he read anything like it, anything so beautiful, anything that has exposed so perfectly the secrets of a heart.

Stiff from sitting for so long, he stands and walks slowly to the door. It creaks as he opens it, and the cats come rushing in with the cool spring air.

"Ada?" he whispers.

"Yes?" She turns her face slowly toward him, as though it's all a dream.

"It's - it's -" he puts his palms up, a supplication for the words he cannot find, "it's - a masterpiece."

They look at each other for a moment. It occurs to Jacob that maybe Ada loves him, too, as she has shown him this most private and exquisite part of her soul. It occurs to Ada that she is deeply in love with the short, funny looking man on her back porch, his hands still looking as though he is praying for her or blessing her or both.

Ada stands and takes one of his hands and brings it up to her lips to kiss the palm. She does not doubt him, she has asked for the truth and she knows he has given it. She leads him back inside, back to her bed.

It is nothing at all like it has been. They give to each other slowly, tenderly, delicately. They are wrapped about each other, the only sound is the most beautiful sound of their breath, mingling in the air, coming faster.

"Jacob, I love you," Ada whispers just as a tear falls out of the corner of her eye.

"I love you, too," Jacob whispers back.

Afterwards, he tells her that he has made a decision, as he runs his fingers idly through Ada's hair, her head on his chest. He's been researching and considering it for a couple of months.

"I think you should do it. It's obviously your passion," Ada replies.

"You gave me the strength, you know. If you could tell your dad you were studying a form of art for your PhD, I should be strong enough to tell me dad I was getting my Masters in Landscape Architecture," he explained.

"Thank you, but I didn't do anything special."

"Oh, but you are special. I always feel more confident next to you. And Purdue, that's close."

Ada lifts her head and looks down at him. "Jacob, don't do it for me. Or at least not at Purdue. You don't have to for me, I don't have to have you that close."

"Purdue isn't for you. Well, not really. I'll admit it crossed my mind. But it's a great school and I've been accepted." Then he pauses, his heart pounding. "But would you mind having me that close? I know you value your independence."

"Not from you," she shushes him into a soft kiss. "Besides, it's about time you followed me around the country, not the other way around," she says as she puts her head back down.

Jacob laughs, relieved. "You didn't follow me to Boston." His heart thumps once more. "Did you?"

"No. Although I did use your presence at MIT to help convince my parents I should go to Harvard." Ada sighs. "I didn't know then."

There is nothing Jacob can say in answer to that. It is the truth, as is everything Ada says. But it is also the past. And now, lying naked in her bed, holding her, it does not matter. He waited long enough, and now the wait is over.

"Let me take you out to dinner. Somewhere nice. Your favorite restaurant," Jacob says, giving her a squeeze. "My author. My mathematician. My renaissance lady. We'll celebrate."

Ada chuckles softly before sitting up. "Yes. But afterwards, I have to call Yasmine. And everyone else."

"Everyone else? Are you going to rent a billboard to tell the whole world about us, too?"

She smiles down at him. "This may shock you, but it's not about you. Okay, it is with Yasmine. She'd been texting me naughty lines from Lady Chatterley's Lover all week; every time my watch vibrates, it's about hunching buttocks and shriveled penises."

"I'll try not to take that personally."

Her smiled broadens. "But I call Uncle Raj and Stuart every week. You can join me, they'll enjoy that. And I probably ought to call Dad, he's going crazy without me. You should see my whiteboard." She shifts in the bed and reaches beneath her bedside table to grab it. "Here."

Jacob takes the device from her and sees what he presumes is Sheldon's handwringing on the screen, although in different colored inks. The first is a math equation, but then the next says "Ada?" Another equation and then
"I know you're busy, but I am curious."
"Your mother says I should leave you alone as you're having Jacob."
"I meant having him as your guest, not in the sense of sexual congress."
"Although I assume you are having sexual congress, please do not tell me about it."
"Your mother has read this and is unhappy with me. I apologize."
"Have you heard any good science jokes?"
"Leonard and I are having a disagreement. Will you settle it?" followed by another equation.
"Do not rush, I have told Leonard that you are enjoying Jacob."
"Howard just told me that 'enjoying Jacob' could be a euphemism for sexual congress, as well."
At the end: "We are all so happy for you."

Putting the board down, Jacob wrinkles his brow and looks at Ada's amused face. It was bad enough when it was just Sheldon, but apparently his sex life is being opening discussed in the cafeteria at Caltech, too. "I don't know what to say," he admits.

"I was embarrassed at first, too. But then I remembered that to my father it's just another fact, he doesn't really mean anything by it. But did you see the end? They're all happy for us. They mean well," she explains. "And you know what your dad is like."

Jacob hands the board back to her and runs his hand down his face. Yes, his father never met a situation he couldn't make a quip about. And Jacob has sat at that table in the cafeteria and he can see it all clearly, Sheldon telling a story and using a phrase of which he does not understand the full connotation, Leonard grinning at him, his own father pointing out the obvious and cracking a joke about, maybe even with Raj joining in. "You're right. They're happy, we're happy. Dinner?"

They shower, and Jacob finally unpacks his nicest shirt and pants from his suitcase. He's just adjusting his belt when she enters from the spare room she uses as a closet. His heart flutters when she enters the room.

"What are you wearing?" Jacob laughs, although he has known Ada long enough to not really be surprised.

"You said I was your renaissance lady," Ada says, twirling for him in her forest green gown with gold lacing up the front and bell sleeves. She has made two small braids with the front of her hair and circled them around her head like a tiny crown. "Let's go to the Irish Lion, it will be perfect for this dress."

"Not everything requires a costume, you know," Jacob says, still smiling.

"You sound like my mother. To which I reply, life is boring without costumes."

"And that makes you sound like your father." Ada smiles serenely back at him. "But I feel like I'm underdressed, walking with you."

"You'll get used to it," she says matter-of-factly. Only Ada has the self-confidence to pull it off, and Jacob can't wait to spend all of his time getting used to her.

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