Quantum Entanglement

"It's the mean lady, the one that doesn't like Mommy and says our house is hers," said Samantha.

"I thought I recognized that fat flabby..." I began.

"Sam!" said Chavonne nodding her head towards Samantha. "Nine years old, loves her Daddy, very impressionable, repeats everything she hears."

"Okay," I said. "Got it."

We had a nice family breakfast and were sitting down planning our day before Chavonne remembered that she had picked up an early shift at the cafe. I asked her why she worked in the kitchen.

"I started out as a waitress," she said. "But there were always guys hitting on me. It doesn't pay as much, but I can just relax and work."

She came over and kissed me. "Now that the reason for me not wanting anyone to hit on me is back I have to be even more careful," she said.

"Now that the reason for you not letting anyone one hit on you is back, you don't have to work there anymore unless you just want to," I said.

"Well I have to give them some kind of notice," she said. "Come on Pumpkin get a book or two."

"I'm going to work with Daddy," she said. Chavonne just looked at me. I shrugged my shoulders.

"Well why don't the two of you stop by the cafe for lunch," she said.

"Can Granny come too?" asked Samantha.

"Granny is going to lay back and put her feet up and watch soap operas all day," said my Mom. "But thanks for asking. Maybe I'll do dinner with you."

Chavonne drove us to the cafe in my car. There was an extra swing in her hips and a smile on her lips as she leaned over and kissed me goodbye. She sashayed inside the restaurant and every guy in the place glanced at her.

The guards at the campus waved me in as soon as I pulled up.

"Professor there are three photographers waiting for you in your office," they told me as I drove past.

As Samantha and I walked into my office Alice was there talking to the photographers.

"I think it would be a great idea for you to take a picture or two of Sam and I together," she told them. "You know to kind of humanize him. You'd be showing that the famous scientist is just like everyone else. He has a family and people he cares about. It would show him as something other than just a brain."

"That's a great idea," I said just as they noticed that I was there. "I only want to make one change."

"What's that honey?" said Alice.

"Alice, it's Dr. Stanford to you. The next time you call me Honey, or use my first name, you're fired. Now I gave you an assignment yesterday. Do you have anything for me yet?"

She shook her head. "As soon as we take the picture, I'll start working on it," she smiled.

"Alice the change I wanted to make was to take a picture with my daughter, I'm not taking any pictures with you." I told her.

"Daughter? What fucking daughter?" she asked. "When did we have a child?"

She looked at Samantha. "Isn't that the titty girl's kid. I thought Greg was her father."

"Not according to the DNA results," I snapped. "Come on Alice, you're not an idiot. Look at her. Listen to her talk. You know there's no way she could be Greg's daughter."

"We need to talk Sam...Dr. Stanford," she said. "I didn't know that children were an option. We need to have a serious talk before you do something stupid again. How about dinner tonight, just to clear the air between us so we know each other's position?"

"Not tonight," I said. "I'm taking my Mom, my daughter and Chavonne out to dinner. We'll schedule something for next week. That way you can tell me what it is you do around here at the same time. And we can decide whether or not you need to step down or retire."

I moved over and sat next to Samantha as the photographers started clicking away. Alice got up and left abruptly. She was clearly angry.

Samantha and I had our pictures taken all over the campus. We took pictures in front of the laser array and the university's small particle accelerator. They were great pictures and we thought they'd sell a lot of magazines. We said goodbye to the photographers and got ready to go meet Chavonne for lunch.

As we got to the car I realized that I'd left my keys in my office. I asked the guards to watch Sammi, as we'd decided to call Samantha for short, while I ran back and got them. We didn't have a lot of time because I wanted to stop at the house on our way.

As I got near my office I heard Alice's grating voice loudly talking to someone on the phone.

"We have a common problem, so as much as I think you're a moron we need to work together on this. Well if we don't do something soon you'll never get her. Aren't you married anyway? Forget it, I don't care about your situation. You've been chasing that cunt for nearly ten years, if they get back together you are never going to get her. Yep they are. It's worse than you think. He's dragging her brat around with him. Are you stupid? He's a lot different than he used to be. He's more worldly, he's better looking, he's more confident and he beat your ass and knocked you out without breaking a sweat. Your arm is still in a fucking cast right now. We need to plan." Then she was silent for a while as she listened to him.

"He's taking her out to dinner tonight," she said. "Meet me in my hot tub. Nah they're not going to be home doofus, I told you he's taking her out. Whatever, it depends. If things go well and we come up with a plan, you might get lucky. I am kind of horny, but I'm not promising you shit."

Then she hung up the phone and I rushed to complete my errand. Remember when I said I wasn't the kind of guy who needed revenge? Listening to Alice's call made me change my mind.

When I got back to the guard shack I asked the guard to call my cell phone when Alice left the building.

"Checking up on her huh Proff," he said. "She's a real witch. A lot of people around here would be glad to see her gone."

"Alice is my ex wife," I said. "I just want to make sure she isn't working too hard. She has a tendency to do that, and it's not good for her."

"Boy have things changes since you left," he snickered.

Sammi and I dashed home. I ran into the house grabbed something and we took off for the restaurant.

As we entered the cafe, there were a lot of people looking at us. Some of them because they remembered what happened between me and Greg, others either recognized me or remembered me from the past. Sammi and I sat down at a table. Chavonne came out of the back and floated over to our table. "I'm taking my break now Ed," she yelled to the guy behind the counter.

"Hi mommy," said Sammi. "We had soooo much fun. We took pictures for a magazine. I'm gonna be famous. All of those dumb kids in school will be so jealous when I go back after summer break. I saw a real life laser and a...a...What was it Daddy?"

"A particle accelerator," I supplied.

"Yeah, one of those," she continued. "And the evil lady called Daddy, Honey, so he said mean words to her too, and my name is Sammi now so that's what you have to call me."

"Well Sammi," said Chavonne smiling. "It sounds like you've had a full day already. And I was worried that your Daddy might not be able to handle you."

"That's silly Mommy," laughed Sammi. "Granny told you we were two peas in a pod."

"I was worried about you too," I said. Chavonne looked at me funny.

"Why would you worry about me Honey?" she asked.

"Well when you came in here this morning, I kind of saw the way all of those guys look at you." I said.

"Guys have been looking at me like that since I was twelve," she laughed. "You don't have to worry I've finally got the man I want back. They're always going to look, but nobody touches, except you, ever."

"I was thinking that maybe you should be wearing something..." I began.

"Sweetie, I'm already wearing baggy pants and a loose shirt. What do you want me to wear a suit of armor?" she asked. "I'll do whatever you want, but it's not the clothes, it's the body under the clothes and I want you to know that this body is all yours."

"Well I thought if you wore this it might make a difference," I said holding out the box to her.

She jumped up in the air and ran around the restaurant screaming. Sammi and I just looked at each other and shook our heads. The waitresses and the cook came over to see what was wrong with her. When she told them, the waitresses started screaming too.

"Congratulations, Professor," said the cook.

"What for?" I asked. "She hasn't given me an answer yet."

A few minutes later Greg came into the cafe for lunch. A guy he knew must have told him what all of the commotion was about because he looked across the restaurant at me like he wanted to kill me. I smiled and waved at him. Then I pointed at my arm, mimicking his damaged one and shrugged my shoulders.

"Chavonne your break is over," said Ed. "We've got orders to fill."

She ran back over to me. "Sorry about lunch honey," she said. "Oh and the answer isn't yes. It's hell yes." She snatched the box from my hand and put the ring on.

"How'd you know it would fit?" I asked.

"It didn't at first," she said. "I had it resized two years ago. Sammi has soccer practice at 1:00 so you'd better scoot. Are we going to "Talk" so more tonight?"

I dropped Sammi off at her school for Soccer. I promised her that I'd come back early and watch. I went over to the house and looked at the hot tub. It was fine. Chavonne was right, she'd posted several signs warning people that the tub was malfunctioning.

It was really cute, she'd spelled "danger," incorrectly. I unplugged the tub and took off my shirt. I didn't want to get it wet. I unscrewed the housing for the pump and went into the garage. I got a set of wire stripping pliers out of the tool box and stripped one of the wires from the pump. I stuck that wire under the edge of the housing so it would appear that the housing had rubbed the insulation off of the wire. Then I made sure the switch was in the off position and plugged the tub back in. I wouldn't want to be in that tub when the power was turned on.

Then I got on the computer in the house and using my yahoo email account I wrote a letter to Alice telling her how much I valued her friendship and offering her the Assistant Dean of Physics position. I saved the letter as a draft.

Then I went back to the soccer field to watch my daughter play Soccer. While I was watching Sammi, my iPhone rang. It was the guard telling me that Alice had left. I logged onto to my Yahoo account from my phone and sent the email to Alice. Too bad she'd never read it.

Sammi and I picked up an exhausted Chavonne at the cafe. Chavonne didn't want to go out to eat, she wanted to go home and "Talk." It took a while but I finally convinced her to at least go to Mom's apartment for dinner. We sat on Mom's balcony afterwards and relaxed.

At about 9:30 the police knocked on Mom's door looking for Chavonne.

"Ms. Robinson, do you currently live at 1444 Field Street?" he asked.

"Yes I do," she said. "The house is owned by my fiancé though."

"That would be me," I said.

"Who are you sir?" he asked.

"Professor Samuel Stanford," I said.

"The Physicist?" he asked. I nodded

"Well professor there's been an accident. I believe you know one of the victims. We'll need the two of you to come to the scene with us."

We got into my car and followed the police back to our house. As they led us around to the rear and the hot tub I noticed a small crowd of my neighbors had gathered.

There were several people examining Alice's body and Greg's as well. As we walked over to the tub, Chavonne started crying and looked away.

"Oh my God Alice!" I said, pretending shock. "Why is she in our hot tub?" I asked.

"Professor you've been away for a long time," said one of the cops. I assumed he was a detective. "According to your neighbors, your ex wife snuck in here and used your tub several times a week, either alone or with...uhm guests. This time apparently it cost her."

I started looking down at my feet as if I was barely holding it together.

"Professor, we've pretty much ruled this one an accidental death except for the fact that most of her colleagues at work didn't like her much. We checked her email and except for one from you she didn't have any emails that were positive. Most of them were anonymous messages telling her to drop dead. Most of them were sent by her colleagues. The guards told us that she was a bitch to everyone. We know that you and she got along well. Sorry but we read your letter to her telling her how much you valued her friendship and offering her a promotion. We don't think you had anything against her, unlike her colleagues."

"They just didn't understand her," I said. "Her whole life was science. Maybe she wasn't polite or she didn't have time to chit chat, but she was brilliant at physics." My voice was louder and my tone was angrier as if I was defending Alice.

"Professor maybe she was brilliant at physics, but it just wasn't too INTELLIGENT to get into a hot tub that was clearly marked dangerous and out of service. I know you're upset but it was an accident. My condolences to you sir. You really need to get that tub fixed before someone else gets hurt."

"We're destroying it and ordering a new one," I said. A tear rolled down my face. He nodded and looked away. Guys hate to see other guys cry, so he moved on.

Greg and Alice were buried separately but on the same day, by coincidence. Greg's wife wasn't too broken up about his death. She'd been on the verge of divorcing him anyway. After five years of marriage Greg had still been obsessed with Chavonne and it was all the poor woman could take. Of course she'd assumed he'd been cheating with Chavonne, she was actually relieved to find out that it was Alice.

Only Chavonne and I attended Alice's funeral.

Six months later, I was teaching a Theoretical Physics seminar for some of the brightest students in the university. At the end of the lecture I asked if there were any questions. Most of the students were puzzled by a lot of the topics we'd discussed. I saw one hand near the back of the hall go up.

"What's your topic and your question," I asked.

"The topic is Quantum Entanglement and Black holes," said a tiny familiar voice.

"Sammi," I said. "Wait until we get home. Class this is my 9 year old daughter Samantha."

"Let's hear her question," said someone in the back. Then everyone wanted to hear her.

"Okay so far most scientists have only studied QE in terms of single particles, ignoring more complex structures and entities," she began. "My question is what would happen if something bigger such as two black holes were entangled, instead of just particles?"

"Holy shit, professor, that's definitely your kid," said someone.

"What do you think would happen? Sammi," I asked just as Chavonne stepped into the room looking every bit of her five months pregnant.

Sammi started walking towards the front. "To illustrate the problem we're going to use objects on a smaller scale to replicate the black holes," she said. "My Daddy is going to be structure number one. He's like a black hole because everywhere we go people are drawn into his orbit like he has his own gravitational field. My mommy, that's her over there, will be our second black hole. My mommy is not a genius, but she's hot so guys are always hitting on her even though she only loves my daddy. So you have two black holes entangled, whatever happens to one affects the other regardless of the distance between them. They're drawn into each other's gravitational fields and once they're past each other's event horizons there's simply no way for them to escape each other."

"So what's the result?" asked one of the students.

"Me, silly," said Sammi exasperatedly. "And it's happening again."

The whole assembly laughed and started for the exits.

Chavonne waddled up to the front of the room. "I finally understand Quantum Entanglement," she said.

"Was it me?" asked Sammi. "Did I help you to get it?"

"Sorry Sammi, it was something else," said Chavonne. "But you're going to be a brilliant physicist."

"You betcha," said Sammi.

An hour later Chavonne and I were lying in our bed. "Just out of curiosity," I said. "What was it that helped you to get QE?"

"I still don't quite get it," she said smiling. "But I feel it."

"You feel it?" I asked. "Now I'm confused. When do you feel it?"

"Every time I look into your eyes or you wrap your arms around me," she said. "Every single time."

The end.