“Maybe this is what we’ve been waiting for, Jodie,” Brad said. “Yes . . . yes, this is he . . . yes, sir, in fact, I’m here with one of the team leaders . . . yes, sir, thank you.” He tapped the screen and put the call on speakerphone. “I’m here with Jodie Cavendish, sir.”
“Good evening to both of you,” university president Marcus Harris said. “I have good news. The news actually came in about a week ago, but we have just finalized the agreement and signed the papers. Your Starfire project was one of three projects selected for research and development funding by Sky Masters Aerospace. Congratulations.” Jodie and Brad jumped to their feet, Jodie let out a yelp of glee, and she and Brad hugged each other. Harris let them celebrate for a few moments, then said, “But that’s not all.”
The students sat down. “Sir?”
“I am also pleased to tell you that your project received half of the Sky Masters Aerospace grant money—twenty-five million dollars,” Harris went on. “That makes Starfire the highest-awarded undergraduate aerospace engineering research project in the history of Cal Poly.”
“Twenty-five million dollars?” Jodie exclaimed. “I don’t believe it!”
“Congratulations, you two,” Harris said. “Brad, find a time when your entire team can get together as soon as possible, call my office, and set up a time for a press conference. I know we’re coming up on finals, and I don’t want to take too much of your time, but we want to make a huge splash about this before everyone takes off for the summer.”
“Yes, sir!” Brad said. “I’ll contact everyone tonight. We usually have a team meeting every day at eleven A.M., so that might be the best time tomorrow.”
“Perfect,” Harris said, his voice sounding more and more excited by the second. “I’ll get your schedules and drop e-mails to your professors telling them you will be late for class, because I’m sure the presser and photo ops will take some time. We’re going to go international with this one, guys, and we’re looking to break more funding records with it. Wear something nice. Congratulations again. Oh, one more thing, as long as I have Miss Cavendish on the line.”
“Sir?”
“Miss Cavendish has been awarded a full scholarship to Cal Poly to finish her undergraduate degree, including tuition, books, fees, and housing,” Harris said. “We can’t have one of our best undergraduate students leave when she was so instrumental in getting such a large grant, now, can we? I hope you’ll accept, Miss Cavendish.”
“Of course I will, sir!” Jodie cried in stunned glee. “Of course I accept!”
“Excellent,” Harris said. “Congratulations to the entire Starfire team. Well done. Good night, Mustangs.” And the connection was broken.
“I don’t friggin’ believe this!” Brad exclaimed after he hung up. “Twenty-five million bucks just dropped in our lap!” He gave Jodie a big hug. “It’s unbelievable! And you got the scholarship you were looking for! Congratulations!”
“It’s all because of you, mate,” Jodie said. “You’re the jackaroo. You’re my jackaroo.” And Jodie put her hands on Brad’s face and gave him a big, deep kiss on the lips.
Brad savored every moment of that kiss, pulled back, then gave her one in return. When they parted after the kiss, Brad’s eyes were telling Jodie something, something powerful and incredibly personal, and her eyes were immediately saying yes. But to her dismay, she heard Brad say, “I’d better contact the others. Tomorrow will be a big day.”
“Yes,” Jodie said. She was content, at least for the moment, to put an arm around Brad and sip her coffee while he texted on his phone.
Brad contacted the entire team leadership by text messaging, then included the Cal Poly engineers, professors, and students who had helped with the project, then decided to include anyone who helped with the project who was within a couple hours’ driving distance of the university, as far away as Stanford and USC—he was determined to fill that press conference room with Starfire supporters. When he was done with that, he decided to text anyone who had supported the project, whether or not they could possibly make the press conference—everyone associated with the project should be aware of the presser and the impending worldwide publicity, he thought. Anyone associated with this project should not hear about the grant from anyone else but the team leader.
He read off all the text acknowledgents to Jodie, save one. It was the only Central Asia country code in all the messages he received, and it was from Kazakhstan, which had no Starfire contributors. The message read simply, Congratulations. D.