V
Maeve knew he was being deliberately light-hearted.
"Where is Boonsboro?"
"BARNESBORO!"
"Where is Barnesboro?"
"In Western Pennsylvania. It's about two hours northeast from Pittsburgh."
"Why were you at the Kuhn lecture?", she asked. David didn't want to go there.
"I go to school there."
"At the University?"
"Oui."
"I thought you said you were on business with your dad."
"I was. Both. Father was in town and I go to the University of Chicago."
What are you studying?"
"You know, I don't know how to answer that, Maeve. The school records would show 'Major: Liberal Arts.' What am I studying? People, I guess," it was out before he realized.
She didn't pick up on it.
"I just want to learn."
"Why are you doing this?
"What?
"Driving a woman halfway across a strange country?"
"You're taking me!" he parried, and then decided to go there.
“The witch."
"Are you calling me a witch?"
"No, no, no. Plato, The Symposium, Diotima. Feeling for the witch."
"Which is the witch in Plato?"
"The highest form of beauty." Well, that is the meaning! Not what I mean by it but...blame the translation.
She thought he was being deliberately opaque with her now. He noticed.
"First rung on the ladder, one person's physical beauty, then the beautiful body archetype, then the beautiful soul, then the beauty of knowledge. The highest rung is 'Beauty itself', an eternal oneness. I'm on the third rung, I guess, knowledge."
Is this guy a hippie?
He had a panic as he listened to himself. She's going to think I'm some kind of flower child and conceded,
"I know it all sounds squishy. I'll explain.” He put on his turn signal and slowed down to pull off the road.
"What are you doing?", Maeve demanded, alarmed.
"I want to explain this to you and I want to look you in the eyes when I do."
"There is no time for this. Just drive!"
He had lost himself and badly overstepped. It made him sick to his stomach and fluid leaked from his eyes, from the pores on his forehead and under his arms. He drove on. There was silence in the car but now they were approaching South Bend and he needed her to guide him on the city streets to St. Mary's and her dormitory.
"Do you need help or am I just dropping you off?
Dropped off, Maeve thought.
She said,
"My dorm friends have packed up most of my stuff and shipped it home. I only have a few personal items to get. Stay here with the car and I'll be just a few minutes."
