isn’t like me.’ It would be impossible to describe just how
unlike
her it was. She hadn’t chased a man since she’d been, well, a student at CSU, and then made the mistake of catching him. She’d been interested in her late fiancé from the moment they met, but hadn’t let on for months. How did this particular man get past her defenses, and in such record time?
This was dangerous.
She stared at the robots.
‘I’d like that,’ Madison said. ‘Right now, though, I have to go pick up Jake. His judo class will be over in ten minutes. The lobby’s right here, so I’m going to take this opportunity to slip out.’
‘Oh. Well, OK, then. It was nice talking to you.’ Inane! She made herself look at him, and hoped her cheeks were not flushing.
‘Yeah, I have such pleasant conversation.’ He put a hand on her upper arm, nearly encircling it with his fingers, making her ever so glad she
had
worn the too-tight shirt. ‘Thanks for listening.’
She bit her tongue to keep from saying ‘Anytime’, and settled for smiling, curving up her warm cheeks. He skulked away down the catwalk without looking back. She made herself gaze at the workroom and stare at the nearly completed electric car without seeing it.
Then she took in a deeply contented sigh.
Ridiculous.
Bruce Lambert caught her gaze again and she blushed anew, a sure confession that she hadn’t heard a word he’d said about robotic assembly.
The crowd moved on. She followed.
You do not like that man. This is a silly flash of infatuation because you’re bored and lonely and you drank wine on an empty stomach. And he’s probably only trying to prove that he can still be found attractive by women who don’t prefer little boys.
The group wound up back in the conference room. Some collapsed into chairs, as if that had been the longest walk they’d taken in months. Theresa headed for the wine box, ignoring the baby carrots entirely this time. Bruce Lambert moved on to the subject of fuel cells and how they lasted ten times longer than batteries but still ran out too soon and were too difficult to replenish. She wondered if he had agreed to speak to the board to help the school reduce its carbon footprint or to drum up new investors.
Her eye fell on the yearbooks. Ginny had stacked them in groups of five, sitting alternately on their sides and on their ends, with the tail stacks fanned slightly. The Vice Chairman would slap Theresa’s fingers if she disturbed them.
She’d have to be careful. To disguise her errand, even from herself, she first located her own year and photograph, noting with a sigh how firm her skin had been. Then she moved four years back and found David Madison’s. He hadn’t changed his hairstyle much; the flecks of gray made it look lighter these twenty-three years later. Schoolgirl behavior, gathering information on her secret crush and squirreling it away. Next she’d be leaving notes in his locker.
Bruce Lambert wrapped up the discussion of thermoset composites and took some questions. Yes, he expected the car to be on sale within the next year, possibly the next six months. Yes, he had helped create the full-body scanning station for schools and no, he didn’t feel they were an invasion of privacy. No, he had not proposed to his current girlfriend, that was a rumor. No, his brother Carl had not gone to CSU until his sophomore year; like the Kennedys, his father had planned for his eldest child to bring in riches and scraped and saved to send Carl to Columbia, from which he was promptly expelled for a schoolboy prank that remained a more closely guarded secret than Bruce’s new fuel crystals, ha ha. Yes, the new cars would be available in an array of colors, including lemon yellow and something called electric poppy.
She turned another page, and once again David Madison’s face jumped out at her. In a candid shot under the heading ‘Campus Life’, his younger incarnation hoisted a brew in the tradition of all
unlike
her it was. She hadn’t chased a man since she’d been, well, a student at CSU, and then made the mistake of catching him. She’d been interested in her late fiancé from the moment they met, but hadn’t let on for months. How did this particular man get past her defenses, and in such record time?
This was dangerous.
She stared at the robots.
‘I’d like that,’ Madison said. ‘Right now, though, I have to go pick up Jake. His judo class will be over in ten minutes. The lobby’s right here, so I’m going to take this opportunity to slip out.’
‘Oh. Well, OK, then. It was nice talking to you.’ Inane! She made herself look at him, and hoped her cheeks were not flushing.
‘Yeah, I have such pleasant conversation.’ He put a hand on her upper arm, nearly encircling it with his fingers, making her ever so glad she
had
worn the too-tight shirt. ‘Thanks for listening.’
She bit her tongue to keep from saying ‘Anytime’, and settled for smiling, curving up her warm cheeks. He skulked away down the catwalk without looking back. She made herself gaze at the workroom and stare at the nearly completed electric car without seeing it.
Then she took in a deeply contented sigh.
Ridiculous.
Bruce Lambert caught her gaze again and she blushed anew, a sure confession that she hadn’t heard a word he’d said about robotic assembly.
The crowd moved on. She followed.
You do not like that man. This is a silly flash of infatuation because you’re bored and lonely and you drank wine on an empty stomach. And he’s probably only trying to prove that he can still be found attractive by women who don’t prefer little boys.
The group wound up back in the conference room. Some collapsed into chairs, as if that had been the longest walk they’d taken in months. Theresa headed for the wine box, ignoring the baby carrots entirely this time. Bruce Lambert moved on to the subject of fuel cells and how they lasted ten times longer than batteries but still ran out too soon and were too difficult to replenish. She wondered if he had agreed to speak to the board to help the school reduce its carbon footprint or to drum up new investors.
Her eye fell on the yearbooks. Ginny had stacked them in groups of five, sitting alternately on their sides and on their ends, with the tail stacks fanned slightly. The Vice Chairman would slap Theresa’s fingers if she disturbed them.
She’d have to be careful. To disguise her errand, even from herself, she first located her own year and photograph, noting with a sigh how firm her skin had been. Then she moved four years back and found David Madison’s. He hadn’t changed his hairstyle much; the flecks of gray made it look lighter these twenty-three years later. Schoolgirl behavior, gathering information on her secret crush and squirreling it away. Next she’d be leaving notes in his locker.
Bruce Lambert wrapped up the discussion of thermoset composites and took some questions. Yes, he expected the car to be on sale within the next year, possibly the next six months. Yes, he had helped create the full-body scanning station for schools and no, he didn’t feel they were an invasion of privacy. No, he had not proposed to his current girlfriend, that was a rumor. No, his brother Carl had not gone to CSU until his sophomore year; like the Kennedys, his father had planned for his eldest child to bring in riches and scraped and saved to send Carl to Columbia, from which he was promptly expelled for a schoolboy prank that remained a more closely guarded secret than Bruce’s new fuel crystals, ha ha. Yes, the new cars would be available in an array of colors, including lemon yellow and something called electric poppy.
She turned another page, and once again David Madison’s face jumped out at her. In a candid shot under the heading ‘Campus Life’, his younger incarnation hoisted a brew in the tradition of all
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