“I made your veggie chili on Sunday.” She tilted her bowl into view.
“Good chili,” from her father, sitting beside his wife at their kitchen table.
“I’ll put on a crock-pot tomorrow before school.” Lori patted her husband’s arm, then turned back to her screen. “But leftovers aren’t a proper celebration meal, Erin.”
“You should spice it up,” from Wes with a wink, his eyelashes bleached by Ecuadorian sunshine.
She pointed her spoon at him. “I’m not putting jalapeños in it. That’s sacrilege, and I can’t believe you—”
“We only added the peppers to your bowl,” Adrian noted. “We didn’t sabotage the whole batch. Besides, you ate it, didn’t you?”
“It’s been fifteen years, and I still have numb patches on my tongue, you jerk!” Their unapologetic laughter drowned her out. Somewhere in the background of their parents’ house, Cassie—the Monaghans’ aging Australian Shepherd—began to bark. Raising her voice, she continued, “I ate the chili because I wasn’t going to let you win. Then I got you back later. With the Icy Hot.”
Adrian winced. “I couldn’t feel my ass for a week. You were a menace.”
“Still is,” Wes added.
Shouting at Ethan Meyer in the light of a project beam—data fraud—her sweater slipping off, everyone watching—
“She’s a published author, too,” Lori redirected them before their conversation and Erin’s attention went completely off the rails. “She should celebrate with more than chili.”
Right.Focus.
“I’malmostpublished, Mom. ‘Pandora Rising’ will be inGalactica’s next issue, and my paper’s queued for a September printing. Assuming no one sabotages it. Then I’ll celebrate. But I’ve got a late shift on LIGO tonight, and there’s a grant that I need to work on. Adrian, if you think Texans can be hard sells on investing in xeriscaped urban infrastructure, you should try getting research funding out of the Department of Energy. If it’s not something politically expedient, like work on semiconductors, things that create industrial jobs, something for a campaign platform? Forget it. So, if I can’t get my funds from a private grant—”
“When’s the application due?”
“Next month.”
“Then you have time.” Adrian shrugged and sobered. “You can go out tonight. You’ll get these particular funds, or find some other way. You always do.”
“But—”
Ping.
A message from Martina zipped onto her screen above the Monaghan video squares.
Martina
(Awake now!) Sounds like you’ve had a DAY. Meet at Left Bank to discuss? 6:15 p.m.?
Her fingers hovered over the notification. “It seems like Martina agrees with you. She wants to meet at Left Bank.”
“Martinis with Martina?”
“You know I hate olives.”
Ethan Meyer wouldn’t be out at a brasserie tonight. He was probably hunched over the Eischer-Langhoff application right now. That, or gloating about his digs from the all-hands. Not to mention, she needed a clear head for her research shift…
“Erin,” Lori recalled her. “Just be happy for yourself tonight, like we’re happy for you.”
“Go see your friend, kiddo,” from her reclusive father.
“All right, but just for one glass of wine.” And, despite the pressure of the grant, her midnight lab hours, and her irritation from the workday, her stomach bubbled with joy again. Ethan Meyer’s attempts at torpedoing her research and challenging the validity of her methods notwithstanding, shedidalways find a way to reach her goal. She’d wanted to see “Pandora Rising” published and wanted sole authorship of a paper, so she’d put in the time, put in the effort with a thesaurus and data analytics tools, and now—
Her father smiled at her. “Good. Go.”
“No, wait!” Adrian waved on her screen. “You have to tell me what route you took around the Dish this morning.”
