no, and her heart jumped.
“Sure,” he said finally. “I think I can give you a refresher on the basics.”
“That would be so helpful, thanks.”
“No problem. I've got to grade a few papers tonight, so I could meet you at
the school. There's basketball practice so the doors should be open. Meet you at
the front doors at six-thirty?”
She nodded. “Sounds great, thanks.”
He began sliding out of the booth. “I better give Lucius a call, see what's up.”
“Okay. I'll see you tonight at six-thirty then?”
The smile flashed again. “It's a date,” he said, and left.
She watched him go. Allrighty, then, it's a date. A chemistry date. Yay. She
wiped her sweating palms on her pants, breathed in some air, and pushed her shake away. Yay.
* * *
Kate set her purse down on Peter's desk at the front of the chemistry classroom.
She looked around at the rows of black Formica tables, each with their own sink
and chrome gas nozzles. She sniffed. The air smelled acrid, like sulfur and things long since burned. She wrinkled her nose. She preferred the thick waxy smell of
paints and paper in the art room down the hall.
“So this is where you spend most of your time?”
Peter was at a bookshelf near the window putting away some books. “Most
of it. I've got an office down the hall, but I'd rather hang out here. Easier for students to find me.”
Kate walked around his desk, touching the various knick-knacks on it.
Models of molecules, small homemade trophies with cryptic sayings on them.
Probably inside jokes from students. She joined him at the shelf, scanning the titles. Organic Chemistry Study Guide. Quantum Chemistry and Molecular Interactions. Wow. Real pager-turners.
“Thanks again for being willing to help,” she said.
He pulled out a folder and walked around the desk to his chair. “No problem.
Beats grading papers.” He moved back to his desk and opened a drawer. “Sorry I
couldn't help more the other night.”
She looked up, remembering that night. “No, that's okay.” She spied an
official-looking paper on the corner of his desk under a folder and two books.
Spirograph swirls around the border of parchment paper. She pulled it out from
under the books and read it: Board of Education of Iowa confers on Peter Hargrave Clark Science Teacher of the Year.
She cocked her head at him. “This is your award?”
He looked up, then down again. “Yup.”
“Why don't you have it in a frame. It'll get all wrinkled here.”
“I'll get to it sometime.”
She opened her mouth to say more, then stopped. Instead, she put the paper
down neatly on his desk and returned to scanning his bookshelf. A weathered spine of a book with a photo of a hand holding a beaker of pink liquid caught her
eye.
She pulled it out. “Isn't this our old chem book?”
Peter looked up from his desk, then back down. “It is. Bring back
