“Give Mr.Lawton your chair, Noah, so he's got the edge of my desk to write on.”
Gray settled into the chair by her desk and went to work on the form she slid across to him.
“Gray,” Noah asked impatiently, “can fire burn upside down?”
Here we go.Bonnie split her attention between her computer screen and the man writing beside her.
“Fire burns in the direction of available oxygen and fuel,” Gray said, reading the form and writing simultaneously.“However, gravity shapes the flame.Hot gases rise, so flames lean upward under normal conditions.In zero gravity, fire burns as a sphere, because there's no convection pulling it in any direction.”
“WHOA.”Noah wrote that down too with the solemn focus of a child transcribing scripture.Bonnie stifled a smile and went back to reviewing the inspection report request.
“Can lightning start a fire?”Noah shot at Gray.
“Absolutely.Lightning superheats the air and anything it strikes to around fifty thousand degrees Fahrenheit.That's five times hotter than the surface of the sun.”
“FIVE TIMES?”Noah wrote faster.“Does everything catch fire from lightning?”
“It depends upon the material and the moisture content.Wet wood resists ignition from lightning better than dry wood, for example.”
“Did your dad teach you about fire?”Noah asked.“Or did you learn it from books?”
The atmosphere in the room did something odd.The light was the same.The sounds from the street below were the same.But the quality of the air shifted the way it did before a change in weather.
Gray set down his pen.Frowned.He picked the pen back up.
“I've learned a lot from books,” he finally said.His voice was even.Careful.“That's why it's important for you to become a good reader, Noah.”
“But did your dad---”
Gray cut in gently.“My dad wasn't around much.”His pen started moving across the form again.
Noah, bless his oblivious, relentless heart, was already on to his next question.The moment slid past him like water.
But Bonnie caught it.She kept her eyes on her computer screen and heard every word of the exchange.And she heard a few things that hadn’t been spoken aloud.
From the corner, Cassidy looked at Gray as if she was revising an important opinion about him.She jotted down something in the margin of her worksheet that was definitely not a math problem.
The mayor surprised Bonnie by stopping in at four-thirty.Gray was still at her desk, finishing up the latest form, and the kids were both reading.She’d finally taken pity on Gray and ordered Noah to leave Gray alone until he was done with the application she needed him to fill out.
Lucas walked through the outer office with the careful gait he always used these days and a slight hunch to his shoulders that was new.His skin was pasty white around the edges of his sunbed tan.
“Afternoon,” he said, without breaking stride.
“Your three o'clock for Monday left a message,” Bonnie said.“They want to reschedule.”
“Fine.You handle it.”
He went into his office.The door closed.He’d stopped slamming it closed this past week, which worried her more than the slamming had.Slamming was anger.A show of spirit.Feistiness.This defeated retreat into seclusion was so much worse.
She heard the familiar sequence: the creak of his desk chair, the metallic clicking of the locked safe’s combination lock, the sound of papers being shuffled.
She didn't usually speculate about what he was doing.It was the mayor's personal safe, and he could keep whatever he wanted in it.She was his secretary, and there were appropriate professional limits to what she was allowed to notice or question.But she did find it strange that he always closed his door and forbade her to enter any time he had the safe open.
“All right,” Bonnie said briskly.“Noah, it's almost time to go home.Start packing up.Cassidy, you know what to do.Gray, when you're finished with the form ...”
“All done.”He slid it across the desk.
“I'll get this filed first thing Monday morning.”She clipped it to the inspection packet.“The facility certification should come through within a week or so.”
