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“I had to give them something to show we’re disciplined.” Olivia tapped her pen atop her clipped stack of papers in a steady staccato. “Look forward, not back. Here’s my angle. I’m going to suck up to the professor. Hint that I could offer him free legal counsel.” Olivia spoke quieter. “What about you guys?”
Calista didn’t answer, still caught up in Olivia’s phrasing. Burned down a lab? Please. They’d only had to replace the ceiling, no one had gotten hurt; and the most important part, the bit that they never mentioned, was that she’d improved their Bunsen burners. The chem lab’s flames burned hotter and higher than any other within that cost range. Mechanical re-envisioning wasn’t something Calista could explain, she’d learned that early on, so she had buried the urge to try.
This desk required only a simple repair and no fire. Minor welding would have helped by lengthening the metal, but she could imagine her classmates’ faces if she fired up a torch. Hah. And the dean thought she didn’t consider consequences. Calista added washers, steadied the wobbly leg, and bolted the end to the tabletop. After three more, she righted the desk and checked the top with the level. Excellent.
Vivien didn’t answer Olivia either. “Back to what I was saying.” Vivien spun her computer around so they could see a mermaid swimming on the display. “The Mer-bar is a Canadian club where women swim inside a two-story aquarium. Here’s where the process gets murky. I can’t tell if they lure men to them like sirens, or if men pick them out to buy them a drink like dating days of old.”
“Hmm, misogyny under the water.” Olivia straightened her legal pad and flipped the page. “Many potential lawsuits there. Tell me more.”
“Misogyny?” Vivien tapped on her keyboard, making the image zoom out. “Depends on who’s picking.” She used a defensive tone and crossed her arms over her chest.
“Mer-MAID. It’s a derogatory term about virgins.” Now, Olivia sounded like a lawyer. Well, she always did, but when her tone grew lofty, Calista knew legalese was coming. “Maidens can only be virgins. They have scales from the waist down, ergo, they can’t get their legs apart. We’re promoting the myth that men want untouched women.”
“Are you listening, Calista?” Vivien asked.
Calista smushed her lips together. Of course, she was, sort of. Why did people turn to her when the talk pivoted to virginity like her status was scrawled across her forehead by an industrial marker? All three of them had taken Dahlia’s purity pledge, not just her. “Um hmm.”
“Opinion?”
A tank which essentially held multiple human-sized fish. Where to start? “What’s the tensile strength of the structure? It’d have to be see-through for the partner-selection aspect to work, no matter whether the men picked the women or the women picked the men. Glass? Some type of industrial plastic? Imagine the floor joists alone to hold that many gallons.”
Neither Vivien nor Olivia responded. First, they prod her for her thoughts, and now they leave her hanging. Typical. Calista let them marinate on her ideas and bolted the seat back against the frame.
Artie didn’t volunteer an opinion, and none of them prompted him for his thoughts. He was back seated in his chair, where he wound wires through a tube, while chewing on a large strip of his peppered beef jerky. The half of the meat strip that hung from his mouth bobbed, and his teeth made a scraping sound against the hardened beef.
Seat complete, Calista flattened one palm against the writing surface and the other against the seatback. She tried to make the structure wobble. Nope, steady as titanium. She slid onto the chair like a normal student and took out her notebook. Now, she could brainstorm contributions for the class. Something she would have done already if she hadn’t been distracted by replaying her meeting with Ronan in her head. She could focus.
Calista drew four squares on the page and connected them with arrows. The four of them needed to work together, share, interact, contribute, and present the project.
The fact that they were all solo workers had been brought to the attention of the dean. However, to make up for their supposed transgressions, and a lack of course credits that utilized groups, they’d complete a project under the supervision of Professor Terrence. Show the university that they could work as a group without imploding, then the university would stamp their seal upon their sheepskins. Hah, as if her having these guys in the room would have saved that lab’s ceiling. She diagrammed four people fighting over one fire extinguisher.
“Calista.” Vivien was staring at her over the top of her laptop, and she sounded impatient.
How did people chitchat and concentrate on their work at the same time? Ah well, she had other gifts. “Hmm?”
“Do you even want to know why I’m asking about the Mer-bar?” Vivien snickered, and the llama-eared hood of her jacket slipped over her brown eyes. “And they think I lack social skills.”
Heat flushed Calista’s face. Using herself as a barometer, it wouldn’t take much to call anyone a social butterfly. She was an unashamed homebody, worker, and hockey-watcher. One hockey game had tens of thousands of people in the stands alongside her. Surely that counted as being incredibly social during hockey season. On average, that made her more social than most, but she truly wasn’t tracking the hidden meaning behind Vivien’s small talk, so maybe she had a smidge to learn.
“Calista,” Vivien prompted.
Vivien was on about this as if the Mer-bar had personal meaning for her. Calista rolled her pen on her notebook. “Sorry, yes, big water tank and you don’t know about the structure. Is this for a birthday rental?” Had they all forgotten Vivien’s birthday? Heat flushed her face. She needed to set up a calendar that gave her an electrical shock, and not just a discreet notice, so she wouldn’t hurt her classmate’s feelings when she got lost in her work. “Do you want me to calculate what size you’ll need? Or how many gallons will fill a tank you’ve rented?”
Vivien turned away. She typed faster with her attention on her monitor. All they could see of her was the back of her hoodie, which had big llama eyes and a protruding pink llama tongue. “I don’t need your calculations. I want you to ask me why I brought this up.”
And give up the puzzle? Nope. That would be admitting defeat. Calista could do this. Was the answer less obvious? More of a segue into another topic? “You want to buy a fish tank? Saltwater or fresh? Buoyancy matters.” Calista raised her legs to the top of her desk and leaned back, pleased to note the furniture remained steady. This relaxed, feet up position was superior for theta-wave producing brainstorming. “What kind of fish?”
“Did you or did you not, ask me to help with the Snowers ice hockey team?” Vivien spoke like she was giving her a clue.
Calista snapped upright and dropped her feet back to the floor as if the desktop had turned to slick ice. Her insides buzzing, she braced her sneakers on the linoleum, ready for something awesome. “This is about the Snowers?” Calista tried to portray a cool countenance, but she couldn’t say the team’s name without revealing her enthusiasm.
“Did you buy another professional ice hockey team that I’m not aware of?”
“No.” Calista answered the question she knew had been rhetorical. Olivia and Vivien had both helped her with the onslaught of paperwork that had come with the contract to purchase Austin Snowers shares. Management of an organization required a head lawyer and a computer expert.
Plus, Calista trusted Vivien and Olivia. Not to get to the point evidently, but to ensure her investment ran smoothly. Hiring a great team was how she’d avoid any day-to-day demands. That’s how Dad ran his auto shop. He paid well, offered his staff career growth, and they stayed. That allowed him to work on his exotic car obsession mostly undisturbed.
“You told me to work with Dahlia on organization requirements as needed.” Vivien tilted her laptop and showed a picture of a frozen rink. The sound of ice cracking filled the room as the image shattered down the middle and the players ran through.
