33
“You’re looking perky this morning,” Mark said, pouring a plastic cup of waffle mix onto the waffle iron.
Heather smiled. “I haven’t slept that well in I don’t remember when.”
Mark closed the waffle iron, rotating the handle into the upside-down position and setting the timer. Grabbing an apple from a bowl on the breakfast bar, a hotel perk he planned on taking full advantage of, he slid into a chair beside Heather. As he studied her face, he smiled back. She did look good, damn good. All traces of the worry lines on her forehead from this last week had been erased as if they had never existed.
Well he wasn’t about to spoil things for her this morning by bringing up his own concerns. The Jennifer conversation would just have to wait until after this weekend. So would his other proposal. It would do them all good to lose themselves in the hustle and bustle of the science competition for a couple of days.
A loud buzz from the waffle iron brought him to his feet just as Jennifer strolled into the breakfast nook. Mark froze in his tracks.
Jennifer had done something to her hair, brushed it out or blow-dried it or something. And she was wearing makeup, not too much either. Mark hadn’t ever seen her in the little knit top and snug jeans either. She had even lost the horn-rimmed glasses. Damn, just like Heather, she was drop-dead gorgeous.
“Wow, Jen! You look fantastic.” Heather’s exclamation woke him from his trance.
A broad grin spread across Jennifer’s face as she moved past Mark to grab a glass of orange juice.
“Thanks. Mom took me out shopping the other day. I thought I’d try out a new look.”
“Well you can quit trying. This is it.”
“What do you think, Mark?” Jennifer’s laughing eyes locked with his.
“Uh…Yeah. I mean, you look good.”
Those eyes. Something about the way Jennifer’s gaze held him made it hard for him to break the lock. Never in his life had he seen, in his sister, anything close to the confidence that shone in those eyes, a glow that seemed to illuminate her whole face. Hell, it shone from her entire body. Coming from little Jennifer, it gave him the creeps.
Before he could ask the question that rose to his lips, Mrs. McFarland popped around the corner.
“For heaven’s sake! Do you kids have any concept of time? We’ve been waiting in the cars for ten minutes.”
“Oh my God,” said Heather. “We just got to talking. Sorry, Mom.”
“Hmm. Finish off whatever you have left. We barely have time to get over to the convention center for the start of orientation.” Without waiting for a response, Mrs. McFarland vanished back around the same corner.
Mark folded his waffle into a taco, poured on a dollop of syrup, and began eating as he walked toward the door.
“Disgusting,” Heather laughed.
“Hey, it works.”
By the time they arrived at the convention center and made their way inside the lobby, a large crowd had already gathered around the in-processing and registration tables. The excited babble of voices grew as they worked their way into the room, rising to a buzz that made Mark think of the sound that must be present within a hive as the workers struggled to please their queen. Only here the buzz was all about personal glory. No matter what anyone might say, as he looked around, he could feel it: that growing sense of the glory that awaited the winning team, that sense that, in the matter of intellectual prowess, they would be acknowledged as superior. And just like those around him, Mark wanted it.
He glanced over at Heather, noticing the proud way her delicate chin tilted upward, her eyes misted with a wet sheen of excitement. God she was beautiful.
This was it. This was their time. It didn’t matter that they had the extra advantage provided by the neural enhancement they had received from the Second Ship. After all, that had merely released the potential that had always existed within them. Now it was time for Mark, Jennifer, and Heather to put the world on notice. The future was now.
His musings were interrupted by their arrival at the front of the registration table and the menial task of filling out the forms that presented themselves. Before he knew it, he was back in the exhibition hall, this time one of hundreds working to prepare their stations for the judges. Minutes became hours as their project reassembled itself, his fingers tuning and adjusting each piece of the apparatus, guided by the steady drone of feedback from his sister as she brought more and more of the computer-controlled instrumentation online.
And always at the periphery of his consciousness, Heather hovered, her gaze staring outward into a numeric dreamland that only she could see, her musical voice chiming in from time to time with special optimization instructions.
Evening came so suddenly that it was not until they were in the restaurant adjacent to their hotel that Mark remembered he hadn’t eaten lunch. Dinner passed through his lips and into his stomach with a rapidity that caused his mother to raise a disapproving eyebrow. However, it was Heather’s grin that made him aware he’d dribbled barbeque sauce from the baby-back ribs onto his shirt.
“Sorry. Guess I was pigging out.”
Jennifer shook her head. “There’s not much guessing about it. No use bothering with a napkin.”
Just as he was about to deliver an angry retort, Mark felt Heather’s hand slide up onto his arm. Something about the gentle squeeze of her hand drained the anger from his soul. Her eyes caught him, pulling him deeply into their gentle brown depths. Those lovely brown laughing eyes took his breath, causing his heart to thunder in his chest so that a wave of dizziness threatened to sweep him away.
Then the moment was gone, swept away by the arrival of the waitress bringing the check. Before he knew what had happened, Mark found himself back at the hotel, alone in his room.
And, tired as he was, sleep was no longer an option.