Saffron’s Menagerie. Phil Stevenson

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СКАЧАТЬ OK, but you may not like my line.”

      “Don’t care,” smiles Reg.

      “Get ready! I want to do biological studies on prehistoric creatures that are still present today.”

      “Well, there are about a few thousand, if you count chickens and stuff.”

      “No, I mean the ones that have not changed much since that time.”

      “Oh,” smiles Reg, “Let me guess? Crocs, alligators, sharks, Loch Ness monster even. I know, what about bringing prehistoric animals back to the present?”

      ‘Reg, you are losing the plot. What, a woolly mammoth?” She smiles.

      “Ok, how about something more recent. Say a thylacine.”

      “What’s a thylacine? Hang on - isn’t it the Tasmanian devil? No wait, the Tasmanian Tiger.”

      “Correct, as always Saff. And it is not a tiger. It’s a dog type with tiger stripes. It was the largest known carnivorous marsupial of modern times.”

      “Very creative Reg, but you are looking at the almost impossible. Like twenty years devotion, and that ain’t me brother. We are talking DNA big time and genome sequencing. Nah, not going there.”

      “Alright, what about creating a mutant shark, like Jaws’?

      “Stop fucking with me Reg.”

      “OK, sorry. I’m all ears.”

      “Snakes and insects, especially the scorpion,” she says directly.

      “You’ve picked a very attractable family. All you need is a cat.”

      “A cat! A Birman. Like my Mom’s? Yes, one day.”

      “Have you told your Mom and Dad?”

      “Yup, last night. They just say, do want you want that will make me happy. And I say, well I’ll be here most of the time for four to five years then. And they say, we are only about sixty minutes apart and weekends will be more special.”

      “Have you already enrolled on that direction?” Reg looks.

      “Yes, I have and didn’t want to tell you so that we could be free.”

      “Free we are. I actually decided to do the same and also enrolled this morning, after our conversation last night on your thoughts,” he looks smug.

      “Love you even more Reg,” Saff reaches out and gives Reg a big hug and kiss on the lips.

      2.

      Saffron is quartered in a modest apartment off-campus with a car space and Reg is in a dorm on campus but very much shared. He told Saff that it’s like a military dormitory, but with private walls. You get a bed, wardrobe, large desk and a sink, with bench and a small fridge. No cooking allowed. A couple of power points finish off the décor.

      “What about a bathroom?’

      “Nope. It is a share experience, but I’ll get used to it.”

      The next day, a Sunday, they go for a long walk through Copley Square sight-seeing. They share a magnificent plain six-egg omelet that is over one inch thick. Saffron could never make one like that.

      “How about clam chowder later?’ asks Reg.

      “For sure! I’ll clam your butt.”

      “No like clams?”

      “Nope.”

      “OK, what shall we do later today?”

      “Come around to my flat and I’ll cook for you.”

      “Yeah”’ he laughs, “All us students want is a bathroom, fridge and microwave.”

      “Don’t be a loser Reg. See you at six tonight.”

      Saffron paid for the meal and left Reg to himself. Independence she cherishes. If Reg handles it, then it’s a relationship made in heaven.

      As she departs she looks at him with a smile, “Here,” she drops her car keys down. “Return it at 6 p.m., my place.”

      Saffron hailed a cab and went on a private icon tour. Not Bunker Hill, but the USS Constitution. Old ‘Iron Sides’ that gave a fist to the British navy during George Washington’s time. She is the world's oldest commissioned naval vessel still afloat. Launched in 1797.

      Getting home, she phones her folks and chats for thirty minutes.

      Dad was great and Mom was great. All was great.

      Saffron thanked them yet again for paying for most of Reg’s tuition to be with her. Saff had convinced them that one mind was not enough to discover the prehistoric beast to modern man synergy that they both had connected to when in high school. After all, Reg surpassed his contemporaries in Chemistry. A child prodigy he was.

      Reg was as sharp as. Right on six o’clock, he knocks on Saff’s door. She opens with pleasure. The microwave was hot and the fridge was full of Bollinger, her folk’s favorite.

      “Nice car Saff,” Reg smiles as he lays the car key on the table.

      “My folks bought it last month. Brand new white Toyota Yaris. Dad says it should be reliable and efficient and last my entire tenancy at M.I.T.”

      “I like it,” replies Reg.

      “Well, you can borrow it whenever you like, as long as I’m not using it and you return it to me by the end of each day.”

      They ate lasagna with crusty bread. Saff opened a bottle of Bollinger.

      “You really like this stuff,” Reg says as he watched the fine beads of bubbles flow from the bottom of the flute glass. “A bit mesmerizing.”

      “It’s my folk’s favorite. They drink it most weekends and a bit during the week. They wouldn’t let me taste it until I turned sixteen. My reaction was, ‘Why have you kept me from this all my life’? My Dad says that the matriarch of the Champagne house, Madame Bollinger, stated once, ‘You can drink my champagne when you are sad, when you are happy and anywhere in between.”

      Reg laughs and takes a sip, “Better than Pepsi.”

      The bottle went down well, so Saff opens another, declaring out loud in a disappointed way, that there will be no more.

      “Remember at primary school?” She slurs, “When you were confronted by that fucker, Wayne Kerr?”

      “What are you bringing this up for?” Reg frowns. “Wayne Kerr. So, I called him wanker СКАЧАТЬ