“I’ll do it if you like,” Donna said quickly.
“Thank you, Donna. I appreciate it when any of you volunteer to do something for the good of Spindrift. We all need to expand beyond ourselves.”
“?‘I am a part of all that I have met,’?” Mayfair quoted from Tennyson’s poem Ulysses. “By definition, we expand beyond ourselves every moment we are alive.”
Dr. Marlowe smiled and swallowed back her pang of annoyance. Such condescension stung. She did, however, take a deep breath. “I agree,” she said, hiding her true feelings. “We simply have to show it so others will appreciate it even more. Enjoy the remainder of your day, girls. And thank you again, Donna.” She walked to another table.
“Kissing ass?” Mayfair said, spinning sharply on Donna.
“No,” Donna replied, looking outraged. “Why were you so curt to her?”
“Was I? I thought I was simply stating what was true.” She looked at Corliss. “What say you?”
“I think we’re all going to suffer from cabin fever more than we think,” Corliss said. “Irritability is a symptom despite the many opportunities for expansion, some new ones surprising.”
Mayfair smiled. She knew what Corliss was implying. She looked at Donna, who had grasped it as quickly if not more. Only instead of smiling, she looked worried.
“You expand from within,” Donna recited. “There are worlds within us yet to explore. We don’t have to look outside ourselves.”
“Right off the brochure,” Corliss said.
Donna blanched.
“Yes,” Mayfair said. “?‘How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world that has such people in it.’?”
“The Tempest, Act Five, Scene One,” Corliss recited.
They both laughed and looked at Donna, who protested, “Mock me if you will, but I know you know, just as I do, that we are very lucky being here and shouldn’t be so cavalier about losing the opportunities.” She continued to eat, now ravenously, mostly out of nervous anger.
Corliss shrugged. “Too much of any good thing is eventually bad,” she said. “Even too much water—hyponatremia. You dilute sodium levels in your blood.”
“Osmosis then draws water from the blood into body cells to equalize sodium levels,” Mayfair continued.
“And the cells swell. Bloating in the brain can be fatal.”
Donna looked at the full glass of water before her, picked it up, and spilled half into Mayfair’s glass. All three laughed.
“Where are you off to this morning?” Mayfair asked Corliss.
“Still toying with Tryon’s and Rosenthal’s experiments with rats, separating the bred superior from the dull and then mixing with new variables. Actually,” she said, leaning in, “I find a clear analogy between the rats and us.”
Donna stopped eating. “What are you saying? They want to breed us? Encourage us to mate with one another? There’s no empirical evidence to support that thesis. None of the three of us comes from parents with superior IQs. Genes don’t make up the whole explanation.”
“Don’t sound so outraged with her analogy, Donna,” Mayfair said. “And don’t be so jumpy. Each of us has admitted to past love indiscretions, and all three of us have not had what you would call successful romances with so-called normal males. Inevitably, the young man you fancy will feel inferior and resent you. The only logical solution is to mate with an exceptionally gifted guy. Then you would be left only with the normal competitive challenges in life.”
“You said you dreamed that your Mr. Taylor would continue your romance,” Donna shot back.
Mayfair sat back thoughtfully and nodded. “I did. Back then. But when I analyze it now, I understand that he tossed me because he realized I would make him feel inferior. It’s not in the male psyche to permit that.”
“She’s right,” Corliss said. “Men have domination built in.”
Donna grimaced. “I’m not having the man I’m attracted to take an IQ test before I commit to a relationship. ‘Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove.’ Some Shakespeare for you two.”
“Romantic drivel,” Mayfair said, smiling. “Reality is thunderous. By the third time you correct him about something, he’ll be looking elsewhere. And don’t think you can prevent yourself from doing it,” she quickly added. “That, Donna dear, is what’s built-in with us.”
Donna’s look of frustration brought a smile to Corliss’s face, too.
“Maybe that’s true for you, but it’s not for me,” Donna insisted. “We are not rats in a maze. We are not absolutely predictable. At least, I know I’m not.”