"Wonderful. Well, we’ll see you Monday."

Dr. Wills and I went out different ways as he was parked in the underground parking garage. I nearly skipped to my car, so excited at the prospect of working with him on his research. Pictures of what we could accomplish together flew before my eyes, huge dreams. Larger than I.

I drove home with a new sense of worth and power, and my love and passion for science was larger than ever before. I felt a definite sense of accomplishment today, like I’d changed someone’s life, somehow. I knew that all this thinking was young and puerile, but damn it felt good.

The snow had begun to fall again as I pulled into the garage, glad to be off the streets as they got more icy. There were some nutty drivers in Minnesota.

"How’s mom?" I asked my brother, who worked on his homework while watching TV. I never understood how he was able to concentrate on both at the same time.

"Bed. Her headache didn’t go away." He turned the page in the text book he was pouring over, not even looking up at me.

I headed upstairs, only to stop when I heard the doorbell.

"Door." Chris called to me. I glared at him, but it was lost to the top of his head. I walked over, flipping the porch light on as I unlocked the front door. Haley smiled at me.

"Hey." She said when the door was open.

"Hi." I said, surprised to see her.

"Busy?" I shook my head. "Good. Come on."

"Um, where?"

"I’m taking you to dinner. Come on." Without another word, she turned around and headed to her car, which was parked in the driveway. She must have been practically following me here.

"Tell mom I’ll be back later." I said as I hurried to grab the coat I had tossed on the couch. He just grunted acknowledgement, and kept studying. I headed outside, pulling the door closed behind me.

Haley pulled out to the street, waiting for a car to pass before heading out.

"So how was work?" she asked, glancing briefly at me.

"It was good." For some reason I didn’t want to tell her about it, somehow feeling she’d think I was even more of a science geek than she already did.

"Good. I was waiting for the stop light on Merrideth when I saw you pass, heading home. I figured my timing was perfect." She grinned.

"Wow. I must have been booking it; I never even saw you." She smiled at me.

"How’s the eye, by the way? It looks a lot better. Now it just looks like you have a pee stain under your eye." I glanced at her to see she was grinning as she watched the streets before her.

"Thanks. Now I feel all the more confident about going out in public." Her smile spread, and she smacked my leg. "Ouch. Trying to give me a bruise there, too?"

"Hey, now. It wasn’t my foot that took careful aim." I grinned, looking out the window. She pulled into the parking lot of Franko’s, a nice, but not expensive,, Italian restaurant.

"You like Italian, right?" I nodded vigorously, she smiled.

"So, why are you doing this, again?" I asked as we waited to be seated. She looked at me, leaned against the wall near the front door.

"Why not? And it’s just kind of a continuance of my thank you."

"For what?" We followed the hostess to a table for four, and were given menus.

"For last weekend," she answered, finally getting settled. "That was really nice of you."

"It wasn’t that big of a deal, Haley. I was glad you called. I’d much rather get out in the middle of the night than have you guys run into a misplaced telephone pole." She smiled, sipping from her water.

"You sound like my mother."

"No, I sound like my mother." She leaned across the table, lowering her voice.

"Has she made any brownies lately?" I shook my head.

"Sorry, lady. She’s been way too busy at the hospital."

"What does your mom do?"

"Nurse."

"Oh. Cool."

"Not as interesting as an astronomer, but a good job all the same."

"This is true." The waitress came to take our orders, and of course neither of us had looked at the menu. Quickly picking something out of the air, we ordered, and Haley looked at me. "So, how long have you done this Karate thing?"

"Tae Kwon Do, since I was six."

"Wow. Some time. Are you like a black belt, now?" I grinned, not really one to brag, I nodded. "Is it hard to get one?"

"Well, I don’t know if hard is the word, but it certainly does take time and patience and discipline."

"How did you get started in it?" We both took the glasses of soda the waitress brought to the table, me sipping from mine before I answered.

"Well, when my folks were still together, my father thought it was important for me and Chris to have some sort of self defense. We initially started out in Karate, but then the dojo burned down, and the instructor left town, so we got involved with another guy, my Sabum Nim, who taught Tae. Been there ever since."

"Does your brother still do it?" I shook my head.

"No. He got more into the athletic thing, school sports and such."

"Oh." She looked at me for a minute. "I saw you have a computer in your room, do you get online much?"

"Off and on. Usually it’s to play Literati or for homework. Why?"

"Well, just wondered. Me and Kelly get on all the time and chat while we write papers. So, if you feel the need, drop a line. We talk on instant messaging all the time."

"What’s your screen name?"

"You’ll laugh." She gave me the cutest little shy smile as she leaned back in her chair, nearly tipping it back. This, of course, intrigued me all the more.

"Come on, Haley. Spit it out. What is it?"

"Well, I chose it because it was simple, and I’d certainly always remember it."

"Great. What is it?" I wasn’t about to let her babble her way out of it.

"Cometbaby."

"Cometbaby?" She nodded, giving me a side look.

"Yeah, it’s silly."

"Not at all. I think it’s rather cute."

"Really?"

"Sure. It makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?"

"Well yeah, but,"

"But what? I like it."

"So?"

"Mtn 83." She looked at me for a minute, her brows drawn.

"Huh? No, wait. Let me try and figure this one out." She studied me for a moment. "You’re 17, right?" I nodded. "Okay, that would explain the 83. Am I right?" Again I nodded. "Okay. So, mtn." I watched her, swearing I could hear the wheels turning in there as she tried to figure it out. Come on, Haley. Think about it. "Mtn. What is that? Let’s see. It’s definitely not your initials. Right?" I shook my head, amused. "Okay, so what does that stand for? Mountain? Why mountain?" She straightened, a slow smile spreading. "Mountain, Andes, Andi." She looked proud, crossing her arms over her chest. "Am I right?"

"Bravo. And it only took you," I glanced down at my watch.

"Yeah, bite me." She balled up the paper that her straw had been encased in, and threw it at me.

"So whose Halloween party was it?" I smiled as I spied our waitress headed toward our table, a tray laden with absolutely yummy looking food. I was famished.

"Oh, a guy named Stone Walthers. He’s a quirky college freshman whose folks own a lot of property, and rarely, if ever, use the old farm house, so he holds parties there for just about every holiday."

"Oh. Was it fun?" A plate of stuffed raviolis was placed in front of me, the smell wafting up to tickle my senses and make my mouth water. Haley’s rigatoni looked just as good.

"Yeah, I guess. It would have been more so had I not gotten so drunk." She grabbed the small parmesan cheese shaker that sat on the table, and coated her food liberally. "I don’t drink that often. To be honest, I’ve never really understood the urge to get loaded every weekend. That’s one thing about my friends that I really don’t like, you know?" She glanced up at me, then turned back to her food. I just nodded as I began to eat, and listened. "That’s one thing I like about you, Andi. You don’t seem to feel the need for that kind of thing."

"I don’t." She smiled, taking a huge forkful of food into her mouth, closing her eyes as she savored the flavor. After chewing, she looked at me again.

"You know what’s sad?" I shook my head. "You and I are the ones that are unusual. I think the only reason my friends don’t get on me that bad is because I give them all rides home when they’re too drunk to stand. Before I got my car, oh man did they used to give me shit over it."

"Then why hang out with them?" For some reason I felt a need to understand why Haley, so different and fun and kind, would hang out with them, complete opposites of all those things. She looked at me, fork halfway to her mouth.

"They’re my friends."

Okay, good enough. Though I would never understand why.

"So I hear Ryan called you. Or tried to, at least." I looked at her, my mouth full of ravioli, which was good. It would give me time to think as I slowly chewed. I had a feeling what was coming next. Why hadn’t I called him back? "So, why haven’t you called him back?" I wiped my mouth with my napkin, took a sip of Dr. Pepper, and cleared my throat.

"Well, I don’t really have an answer for you. I did intend to, but then I didn’t for whatever reason, then I forgot." How did I tell her that I thought Ryan was a dork, albeit a cute dork?

"Oh. If you didn’t like him, Andi, all you had to do was say so."

"Yeah, well, you know. He was really a nice guy. I guess I’m just not interested in finding a boyfriend right now." She looked at me for a moment as she took a drink of her Coke, eyeing me over the glass.