Hmm. Singing test tube. She wrote it down. Then crossed it out.

She tapped the pen on her teeth, thinking, then writing.

Nitrovex: The Future of Hexavalent Chromium Reduction. Today.

Nitrovex: We Make Stuff That Cleans Your Poop So You Don't Have To.

Hi, I'm Peter the Pipe! Sludge need bulking? Polymers need flocculating?

Need some deadly, brain-damaging chemicals to do vague, chemical-ly things?

I'm your guy!

Nitrovex: Help Kate keep her job by liking this slogan.

Crap. This was impossible.

She sat back. Maybe she should break down and call her parents. Yeah, that

would be rich. Kate calling her parents for advice on Nitrovex, the place where

they'd worked that she'd always ridiculed as a kid. The place that almost got her

into art school but always gave their scholarship to some science geek.

Since then, she'd made a point of making her own way and leaving her

parents out of career advice. Well, she was paying for that now.

She bit her lip, then sighed. I can't believe I'm saying this. “Do you think Peter's home?” She half-wished he wasn't, that he was at school or somewhere,

anywhere. That he didn't exist, and she was back in Chicago, in her nice, safe office, with someone else handling this hopeless account.

Carol entered the room, drying her hands on a dish towel. “Oh, I know he is.

Can't you hear the hammering?”

Kate noticed it for the first time. Random hammering and occasional thunks

on wood coming from next door.

“He's working in the back yard,” Carol said, returning to the kitchen. “I'm sure he'd be happy to help you.”

Kate just looked at her.

“What could it hurt?”

What could it hurt? How much time did Carol have?

But for all Carol's obvious machinations, maybe she was right. Let's look at

this objectively, Katie thought. Peter knew chemistry, which meant he was

already miles ahead of her in understanding what could hit Nitrovex's sweet spot. He'd lived here all his life and knew the company, especially the last few

years.

She just needed that first step, that edge. Then she could take it from there.

All she had to show for the last few hours was a doodle of gap-toothed, lab-coat-

wearing cow that looked suspiciously like Penny Fitch.

She only had a couple days before she had to report on her progress, and they'd made it abundantly clear that this was no small account. Lose this and she'd be designing flyers for baby showers and cleaning out Danni's coffee machine.

She put her head in her hands. “Carol, if you need me, I'll be over at Peter's.”

* * *

Peter set the heavy wooden toolbox down next the huge oak tree in his back yard

and looked up. His old tree house had been there for almost a couple of decades

now, and the tree was beginning to grow around it. Slowly and unthinkingly, it

was bending the boards and swallowing it up. Some things don't stop for time.

He picked out a hammer. He'd been meaning to get to this for months, and

now was as good a time as any. Some things needed to be done, right? It had nothing to do with the yellow VW he'd spotted in Carol's driveway.

He shook his head at himself. It was a schoolboy move, and he knew it. It

was just an excuse to be in the backyard, hoping maybe he would see Kate next

door. Maybe he could talk to her. Finally apologize. Before she left again.

He climbed the ladder he had rested against the tree and began working on

pulling off some of the loose boards at the base of the tree house. He tried not to think about all the fun he had had here. Building it with his dad, who almost fell from the tree and made him promise not to tell his mom. That brought a bittersweet smile. Then there were the sleepovers with his buddies on cool and

humid June nights, staying up late, eating junk food and playing Grand Theft Auto on their PS2s.

And that night with Kate after the movie.

He began wedging out a stubborn nail. Shook his head at himself again.

Why did he always get so sentimental about things? He was a scientist, for crying out loud.