The Pike: Ships In The Night by Erik Schubach Read Free Book Online Page B

is only eight fourteen.”
    He gave me a grin and offered a deviation of established procedure, “What do you say we live on the wild side and sneak out a wee bit early, Imee?  Throw caution to the wind.”
    I thought about it, it was sort of exciting to go against the structure of our regulated procedure.  I felt like a rebel and nodded with a smile.  He led us to the back door, checking to make sure it locked then we loaded up into our old green minivan.
    I noticed a box beside my seat.  The shipping label said it was from Jake's U-Pick in Houston, Texas.  It was already open, and I took a quick peek inside.  I quickly looked up at dad as he smiled in the rear view mirror at me as he said, “Finally located it.  What say we get it installed this weekend?”  I nodded excitedly while mom chuckled at us.
    He said to her, “Now Lily, it's our project, and we are coming into the homestretch now.”
    She said in the tone I have identified as teasing, “You two have been in the homestretch since Liya graduated from college at thirteen, Vince.”
    I started shuffling my weekend schedule around in my head to accommodate this new, unexpected dataset variable.  It was one of the activities dad insisted I participate in to keep me out of my own head and the math.  He says I have to be a part of the physical world as well as the intellectual world.
    I just sat and pondered the warm feeling I got as my parents slipped into their nightly banter.  It confused me sometimes, they seemed so happy, but they continually teased each other.  But it wasn't like the teasing I got from the other kids in school that made me feel tense for some reason, though I didn't understand most of their references.
    I understood that what I saw between my parents was love, and love confused the hell out of me because it defied math, there seemed to be no reliable formulae for it, though it seemed there was plenty of empirical evidence that it was indeed a tangible thing.  I knew that one day, I'd like to have with someone what I saw they had with each other.
    ***
    The next morning, after dad dropped us off at mom's Kusina Ni Tala, I waved to him as he drove off to work and I made my way over to catch the ferry.
    I noted that tall woman with straight black hair and those light grey eyes was sitting on the bench opposite me as we waited for the Hyak to dock in the early morning twilight.  She seemed to be just watching everyone at once with her cane laying across her lap.
    I had noticed her a few months back when she had first wheeled up to the ferry in a wheelchair.  Her eyes were striking and were a counterpoint to her black hair.  There was just a one in forty-three thousand two hundred and twelve that someone would have that combination of hair and eye color.
    I always felt more unsure and aware of myself whenever she was around and felt an odd fluttering in my gut.  That feeling just multiplied when she showed up ninety-one days ago walking with the cane and I saw just how tall... and fit she was.
    I exhaled and looked at my shoes, I felt a little flush, I hoped I wasn't getting sick.  I looked away and pulled out my calculations from my bag and started shuffling the partial differentials around a bit to see if I could identify the problem with my wavefunction probability current.
    I glanced at the woman again before going back to the math.  I got distracted, remembering her at the establishment I had substituted for Common Grounds Java in my life equation, the Pike.  She seemed even taller when she had held the door open for me, though I knew that was improbable.  I felt like a little girl again as I passed under her arm as she smiled down at me.  I absently wondered if she was a regular customer there.  Mom had a lot of regulars at her restaurant.
    I realized that I had allowed my mind to stray and get off task, so I focused on my notes.  I was so close, I got what dad called a 'feeling,' that I was just missing something, just