“I’ve never seen this many kids so quiet,” Bron whispers back. “I guess I really know how to put people to sleep.”
Sunny punches his shoulder.
“Don’t be stupid. They loved every minute of it. And you better watch out—I think a few of the eighth-grade girls have a thing for you.”
Beyond the fringe of the crowd, behind a small outcrop of rocks, Bron spreads out the sheet he borrowed from his hotel room. Sunny lays down her own blanket for an extra layer of cushioning. They lie on their backs, side by side, with a few inches between them.
Bron finds himself wondering if this girl is too good to be real. But he buries the thought, like he always does. His heart is pounding just to be this close to her. He feels like a school kid himself.
“How did you learn all that… about the sky and the stars?” asks Sunny. “How do you remember all the names?”
Bron gets a quick flashback from his childhood—a pleasant one for a change.
“When I was a kid,” he says, “we lived near the ocean. On summer nights, I used to sneak out by myself and just lie on the beach for hours, looking up, memorizing patterns. I remember thinking that in some ways I’d rather be up there than down here.”
Sunny tilts her head back to take in the entire expanse overhead. “This is pretty incredible. Where I’m from, I hardly saw any stars at all. Just streetlights and store signs.”
“You mean you’re not a local?” Bron asks.
Sunny laughs. “Not even close.”
She’s resting on her elbow now, propped onto her side. Her face is right next to his. She can see that he’s tired, finally coming down from the high of the show. He puts his hands behind his head and closes his eyes. He’s perfectly still, except for his chest rising and falling. She leans toward him slowly, deliberately, until her lips are almost on his.
“Mr. Bron! I really gotta pee!” A high-pitched call from a few pods away.
Bron and Sunny lurch up to sitting positions. Bron rolls over onto his knees, struggles to his feet and heads off for bathroom duty. He’s so groggy that he’s not sure what just happened—or almost happened.
But Sunny knows.
Chapter 27
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!
The feed is messed up. The monitors are pure snow and the speakers are crackling with static.
It happens at least once a week, but this time for some reason, Daisy has had enough.
She wheels around and shouts at Karl—who happens to be at the console closest to her. “Get the glitch out of this bitch!”
Karl pops out of his chair and heads for the bank of seven-foot-tall IBM mainframes, where the problem usually starts.
I admit I’m always a little amused when Daisy loses her cool. Sometimes I even egg her on just for the fun of it.
But this time, something stops me.
Get the glitch out of this bitch. It’s an unusual expression.
I should know—I wrote it. In my first novel.
Which almost nobody read.
Chapter 28
FIRST THING tomorrow, I need you to look at the Durango out front. Something with the computer. Right up your damn alley.” It’s quitting time for Pico. Bron is wiping the grease off a set of wrenches.
“Will do,” says Bron.
Pico’s a great boss, but the shop is not really big enough for two people, especially when one of them weighs about three hundred pounds. Bron prefers the times when Pico is in his office sorting through invoices—or when he takes off early, like tonight.
Especially tonight. Because Bron has plans.
As soon as he sees Pico’s taillights fade, he starts gathering what he needs.
From a bin of discarded parts, he picks out some thin pieces of sheet metal and plastic pipes, some rubber tubing, and scraps of insulation. A rusting metal cabinet in the back of the shop contains a few decades’ worth of discarded chemicals of all kinds, organized in a way only Pico could explain. Just about every element in the periodic table is in there somehow. Bron finds a half-empty box of stump remover, some random solvents, and a few ancient steel wool pads. Perfect.
He packs his treasures into a cardboard box and hoists it onto his shoulder for the walk back to the motel. He was hoping Luke and Timo wouldn’t be out on the deck tonight. But no such luck.
They spot Bron and hear the rattle of metal in his box as he tries to slip past.
Caught.
“Hey! What are you making there, Einstein—your own margarita machine?” says Luke.
Bron is too tired to explain. “Nope,” he says. “A vibrating bed.”
“Smartass,” says Timo, grinning.
Luke and Timo look at each other, still curious. But not curious enough to stop drinking. Bron gets a pass.
“Night, guys,” he calls out.
Bron closes the door, lowers the shades, and tucks the box into the closet. He realizes that the contents of his cardboard carton are almost enough to put him on a no-fly list.
And he’s about to carry them into a classroom.
Chapter 29
ONCE UPON a Starry Night. This is one of my favorites. It’s the best! You’ll love it!”
Willow is signing out a picture book at the library. She stamps the card and slips it back inside the jacket, then hands the book to the eager five-year-old boy standing on tiptoes in front of the desk.
The boy’s mother tells him to say thank you, but all he can manage is a quick nod. He grips the book to his chest like a priceless treasure. As they walk out, Tyler Bron is on his way in.
“Hey, Willow,” says Bron.
“Hey,” she answers brightly, then turns mock serious. “I’ve got a bone to pick with you.”
Bron has no idea what she’s talking about.
“Thanks to you, we’re totally out of books on constellations. Gone. Finito. The shelf is empty.”
In the week since Bron’s open-air astronomy lesson, the town has been buzzing—especially the kids. Bron had never been asked for his autograph before. But now it’s happened a few times.
“Sounds like I’m good for business,” says Bron.
“So, what’s up?” Willow strokes her fingers through her hair and cocks her head to one side. “You need the computer again?” She bores her eyes into his. “Need to delve deeper into your life?”
“Actually,” says Bron, fiddling with some pencils on the checkout desk, “I need to take it with me.”
Willow stops playing with her hair. “The computer? What do you mean—take it with you?”
“I’m helping with a science project at the school. It involves digital control. And you’ve got the only programmable hard drive in town.”
Willow thinks this over.
“I’ll get it back, right?”
“Absolutely.”
“In working order?”
“Probably.”
Willow leans forward. “Oh, What the hell. Go ahead. To be honest, I prefer the card catalog anyway.” She leans forward a little more. “I like having something in my hand. Something I can touch…” Crazy flirty.
Nice try. Bron is already on his way to the back.
He has to crawl on all fours underneath the study carrel to trace the power cord and modem cord to the outlets. He encounters about twenty years of dust and a box of petrified Gummy Bears.
When he backs out and stands up again—surprise—Willow is right there, leaning with her back against the wall just a few feet away. Bron could swear that her blouse is opened at least one button lower than it was before.
“So, Fred Astaire, when are we going dancing again?” she asks.
Bron tugs the power cord through the opening in the desktop and starts wrapping it around the computer.
“Are we allowed to discuss dancing during library hours?”
“I don’t see any rules posted,” she says, moving toward him.
“Sorry I’m late!” Sunny barges around the corner, out of breath. “I just finished my shift—”
&
nbsp; Willow halts in midstep, eyebrows raised.
“No problem,” says Bron, “I just got this thing disconnected. If you can carry the CPU, I can get the monitor. Willow, you know Sunny, right?”
Willow smiles, kind of.
“Not sure,” she says. “Oh, wait… I remember… you’re Sunny… the waitress.” Bit of an edge there, but Sunny lets it go.
“Yep. That’s me. Sunny the waitress. Everything good?”
“Never better,” says Willow.
If Bron weren’t so preoccupied with detaching the cable between the CPU and the back of the monitor, he might pick up on the tension in the air. But he gets nothing. He lifts the base unit and hands it to Sunny. He grabs the monitor and balances the keyboard on top, cables dangling everywhere.
“Thanks, Willow,” says Bron.
“We really appreciate this,” says Sunny.
“Namaste,” she says. “Just don’t break it.”
“We’ll be careful, I promise,” says Bron.
On the way out of the back hall, Bron catches a glimpse of a metal periodical rack. There, on the bottom shelf, is an issue of Scientific American from 2001. Tyler recognizes the face on the cover. It’s his. Different time. Different guy.
Outside, Sunny pauses to get a better grip on the computer. “Be honest,” she says, “what’s the worst that could happen with this thing?”
“A computer this old?” says Bron. “It could blow up.”
Willow watches them leave, then hangs the WE’LL BE BACK AT… sign in the door. She swings the clock hands on the sign to an hour from now. It’s been a busy morning, and she’s all out of goddamn star books, anyway.
Walking toward the back hallway, she reaches into her purse and pulls out a joint.
A big, fat one.
Chapter 30
NICELY DONE,” says Daisy, and I have to agree.
Sometimes I surprise myself with the way the words on the page end up on the screen. Sunny’s timing was impeccable.
Daisy and I are sitting together on the sofa in the back of the control room. Because we’re both in such a positive mood, I decide to see if I can peel a few more layers from Ms. DeForest.
“So, you met Bron when?” I ask it as if she’s told me before. Which she hasn’t. She gives me a look.
“I interned for him,” she says, “when I was still in law school.”
“A Ph.D. intern?”
“Look. Everybody at the company was overqualified. We just wanted to be part of it. Bron was doing things that had never been done. It was exciting.”
“So what were your duties?” I ask. “Bringing him pizza?”
“I worked on clearing patents. I’m not sure he even knew who I was.” She shakes her head. “Thinking back, I’m not sure he knew who anybody was.”
“So how did you get from there to here?”
I consider myself a keen observer of body language. And I’ve noticed that whenever Daisy doesn’t want to answer a question, she does a quick nose-crinkle—like a kid refusing broccoli.
“I don’t know,” she says. “I moved into operations and logistics. I guess he thought I had the right skill set.”
“So you hatched this scheme together—the two of you?”
Daisy scoots herself off the sofa—nose-crinkling big-time.
“Okay, Shakespeare, that’s it. Back to your Smith Corona.”
“It’s a Selectric.”
Chapter 31
DID YOU bring the powdered sugar?” asks Bron. He holds out his palm like a surgeon waiting for a scalpel.
Sunny reaches into her bag and hands him a five-pound bag of confectioners’ superfine, packed so tight it feels like a brick.
“Perfect.” Bron adds it to the pile of ingredients and parts on the worktable.
Bron and Sunny are in Vern’s classroom, surrounded by a delegation of kids from every grade. A group of teachers looks on from behind. Principal Delgado’s face is pressed up against the small square window in the door.
A tiny third-grader pipes up. “Are we making cookies?”
“Absolutely not,” says Bron. “What we’re mixing would, well… it would make your tummies explode.”
The kids laugh. But he’s not joking.
Sunny sits down at one of the classroom desks, lowering the top across her lap and folding her hands politely, as if she were back in Catholic school. Or acting class.
Vern pulls up a desk next to her.
“I should have taken the day off,” he says in a stage whisper. “Nothing to do but watch the maestro at work.”
He’s right. Bron is terrific with the kids—totally in control. He’s laser focused on the task, and they’re right there with him. Over the past week, they’ve sorted and measured the parts and made a construction diagram on graph paper. Now, with the kids’ help, Bron clips, slides, and glues bits of metal and plastic together until a shape begins to form on the worktable. The buzz in the room picks up. Teachers nod. Kids point. The little ones start to bounce on their toes, angling for a better look.
And suddenly, there it is: A thin, upright cylinder about four feet tall. Some rudimentary fins. The beginnings of a nose cone. Crude. Ghetto-rigged. MacGyvered. Say what you want. But it’s clearly and unmistakably… a rocket. And a pretty cool-looking one at that.
As he tinkers, Bron explains what he’s doing. He spills out information so fast that some of the younger students have a hard time following, especially if they’re new to English.
Thrust. Pitch. Roll. Attitude. ¿De qué está hablando? What the heck is he talking about?
Gonzalo leans down to translate for his smaller schoolmates until he sees their eyes light up—just like his.
The truth is, Gonzalo feels lucky—and a little proud of himself. After all, he was the one who spotted this pasty gringo wandering in the desert. And now, thanks to him, his school is going to have the most kick-ass science project of all time.
Chapter 32
DAISY IS amazing. And so are her nerds.
I don’t know how the hell they got cameras into that classroom. Maybe they tapped into the school security system. Or maybe they invented some kind of miniature lens that looks like a fly on the wall. I’ve stopped asking questions, but I wouldn’t put it past them.
Right now, Daisy is sitting across from me with her feet up, her nose buried in her laptop. Even after all this time, she still feels like she needs to babysit me. But honestly, I don’t mind the company.
I’m pecking away at my Selectric, working out ideas for tomorrow. It feels like everything is finally flowing. A well-oiled machine. Maybe I don’t suck at this after all.
Out of nowhere, the metal outer door opens and slams.
“I am done! Can you hear me? DONE!”
I know that voice.
Daisy sits bolt upright as a woman walks into the control room. It’s Sunny.
I definitely did not write this. Sunny is still in her waitress outfit. Her eyes are red. It’s the first time she’s set foot in this place since her audition.
“Wait! Hold on! What’s the matter?” says Daisy, rushing over to put her hand on Sunny’s shoulder. Sunny pulls away—not having any of it.
“I can’t do it. I can’t do this anymore.”
She’s not crazed. She’s not yelling. She’s just… determined.
This situation is way out of Daisy’s wheelhouse. Mine, too. But I give it a try.
“What do you mean?” I say. “It’s working really well! He’s crazy about you!”
Sunny takes a step forward and jabs her finger at me.
“Working? Sure. Because you’re making it work. You talk me through every step. You give me all the questions and all the answers—you and your—” She points at my typewriter.
“It’s a Selectric.”
“And all this… this Mission: Impossible bullshit!” She waves her arm around at our multimillion-dollar lair—consoles, monitors, mainframes. “This has nothing to do with the real world!”
&nb
sp; The minions are stunned. They just sit there.
Daisy decides to switch up her approach.
“Wait now. Wait a minute. You knew what you were signing up for. This isn’t some dorky school play you can quit if you don’t like your part. You need to see this through. You’re committed—like all of us. You signed an agreement.”
“That’s pathetic,” says Sunny. “You can keep your stupid money. And don’t worry, I won’t run and sell my story to the Enquirer. I know what I signed. I’m just sick and tired of being a fake. I don’t know if you can tell from inside your little cocoon here—but Tyler Bron is a good guy. He’s a really good guy. He deserves something better than a grade C actress.”
For a second I think about telling Sunny what a terrific actress she’s turned out to be, but I don’t think it would go over too well right now.
Sunny turns to walk out—and then turns back. She tugs her hair away from her right ear, then prods with her little finger until a tiny receiver pops out into her hand. She tosses it onto a desktop.
“I know you’ll want that back,” she says. “I’m sure it’s really expensive.”
And she’s gone.
Daisy stands there for a few seconds. Then she walks slowly across the room and sits down on the sofa. She looks at me.
“Oh. Shit,” she says. “This is big trouble.”
Like I don’t know it. A huge part of Bron’s life just walked out the door. A huge part of my life. If this doesn’t get fixed, the whole project collapses. Right on top of me.
I hate to sound selfish at a time like this, but without Sunny, I’ve got no ending.
Chapter 33
BRON WRAPS up his last oil change of the day and makes it to the diner by eight, just like clockwork. He takes his usual seat and settles in to watch the crowd. Way more interesting than TV. When he feels Sunny at his elbow, he looks up and smiles at…
Maria?