Dark Star Rising Second Edition (Pebbles in The Sky) (2 page)

Peter sat upright in bed. “Oh shit, I forgot about Susan,” he moaned.  He was supposed to
have met Susan at seven am for breakfast.  Peter climbed from bed and stumbled to the door. Opening the door confirmed his fear; there stood a very annoyed Susan with several grocery bags.

She looked at him with contempt and aggravation. “Did you forget that we had a breakfast date this morning?” she accused.  Peter could think of nothing to say
. His expression said it all; “busted and guilty as charged.”  He just sighed, slumped his shoulders, and stood aside as she pushed through the door to his apartment and dumped the bags down on his kitchen counter.

“I drove past on my way home from work last night and saw your light still on at one thirty in the morning,” she said.  Her expression softened with concern.  “I figured you were up late working on your paper again and that there
was probably no way you were going to make it to breakfast.  So, I brought breakfast to you.”  She pulled out some bacon, eggs, a box of Bisquik baking mix, and a half gallon of buttermilk from her grocery bags.  “Go take your shower and I will make breakfast. You are going to have to eat and sleep sometime or you’re going to kill yourself,” she said. She turned the oven on and rolled up her sleeves to cook.  Peter shut the apartment door and moved toward the kitchen as if to help but she held up a hand for him to stop and pointed toward his bathroom. Peter sighed, and like a scolded puppy, turned to obey.

As Peter slowly turned his body under the steaming hot water of his shower he willed himself into full wakefulness.  “Boy did I blow that,” he thought to himself as his thoughts turned to Susan.  Susan Crawford had come crashing into his life in a most literal sense just seven short weeks ago.  Peter had been at a small pub one night where Susan was working to support herself while she was attending college.  Peter and Damian Summers, his best friend, had gone to the Greenhouse, a local pub and watering hole, for some late night beers and barbecued pork sandwiches the pub was well known for. Peter had been walking back from the bar with a pitcher of beer while at the same time trying to watch a news story about a meteor that had exploded the day before over South Africa.  With his eyes on the TV and his momentum going the other direction, his two hundred pounds, and six foot two inch
frame ran right over Susan who was delivering a platter of hot wings and drinks to a neighboring table.  Somehow in the ensuing crash of bodies, tables turning over, flying hot wings and spilling beer, Susan ended up lying flat on top of him face to face with the instigator of the entire mess.  She was spitting mad, dripping beer and hot sauce from her hair, and in Peter’s mind at that moment, the most beautiful girl he had ever met.  In addition to her beauty, he had been extremely impressed with the expansive though quite vulgar vocabulary she had hurled at him at him as he attempted to help her up and clean up the mess.

It had taken two weeks, many hung up phone calls, six dozen roses, and him moping around the Greenhouse Pub nightly before she
finally acknowledged his existence and offered him a smile.  After several dozen more apologies he finally enticed her to join him for dinner and they had spent the evening laughing about the incident of “Pigs on the Wing” as they started calling it.

  It had turned out that Susan was also from the southeast. She had grown up in Pendleton
South Carolina, which was only a little over an hour or so from where Peter grew up.  Since that first dinner together, they had dated several times a week and had made a habit of meeting every Tuesday and Friday for breakfast at Cook’s Restaurant.  Cook’s was the only local eating place on the west coast that Peter had discovered that actually served the homemade biscuits, gravy,  and salt cured country ham that he loved to eat for breakfast.  Of course, today was Friday, and he had over slept and missed his breakfast date with Susan.

Peter’s mind wandered as he fantasized about Susan.  He and Susan had still not taken that next step in their relationship where they slept together, but he knew that if he could ever get the heavy weight of his
research paper off his back they could finally get there and it would be so …so…

Peter stuck his head out of the shower and sniffed.  “What
is that wonderful smell?” he thought to himself.  Peter jumped out of the shower and hurriedly dried off.  After making sure the hallway was clear, he ran to his bedroom for shorts and a t-shirt.  He then followed his nose back to the kitchen where Susan was just removing a pan of fresh, hot, homemade biscuits from the oven.

Peter grabbed Susan in his arms and spun her around. “You can make biscuits!” he exclaimed.

She just stared at him in amusement.  “I am not some Valley Girl with bleached hair and fake boobs you know,” she said.  She spun out of his embrace, turned on her southern dialect, and stated, “I am a bred and born Southern Belle. Now release me, sir. We need to eat our eggs before they get cold.”

  There was several minutes of silence while Peter ate some of the best biscuits that he had tasted since he had last had his mothers.  After his second biscuit Peter spoke. “I don’t think I am going to meet you for breakfast out any more.”

  Susan looked at him with concern and questioning in her eyes. “Why not?”

“Because,” he stated, “it would be cheaper, and the food much better if you just came over here and cooked our breakfast!”

  Susan leaned over the table, looked him in the eye and laid down the law, “It isn’t going to happen.”

“But why?” exclaimed Peter, as he buttered another biscuit.

“Because,” she said, “I don’t cook!”  Peter opened his mouth to disagree, but Susan placed her hand over his mouth and whispered “Don’t even go there.  That is why I moved way out here to attend school.  Women in my little home town were expected to cook, do laundry, clean house, have babies, and in addition to all that, work a job to help support the family.”  She leaned back in her chair and pressed her point.  “I don’t cook, I hate cleaning house, I am not sure I ever want a baby, and I sure as hell am not going to support a man!”  She stood and grabbed her backpack and headed to the door. “Now, be a good boy and clean up the kitchen. Meet me at the park in thirty minutes and I will let you walk me to class.” She blew him a kiss and went out the door.

He stood and went to the kitchen sink window to watch her petite, brown haired, California sun-tanned form walk down the street toward the local park.  As he watched
her, Peter’s mind was filled with thoughts of a heavenly body that was for once, not of the stellar type.

Peter caught up with Susan about a half hour later after he had cleaned the dishes and stuffed his laptop with the data and images that were giving him his problems into his backpack.  Susan was sitting on a bench in the shade of a palm tree looking at her Facebook page.  Peter snuck up behind her, put his hands over her eyes, and whispered
.  “Would you like to go run naked on the beach with a total stranger?”

“Only if he is tall, good looking, rich, and does not have his doctoral paper to finish,” she sighed as she reached over her head and ran her hands up his warm arms.  Susan stood up, shut down her tablet and came around the bench
to him. “We better get a move on because I have a class in twenty minutes,” she stated as they started down the sidewalk toward the campus.

  Peter fell into step beside her and after a minute of walking in stride he broke the silence.  “I am going to take your advice and go talk to Professor Casselman.”

   She squinted up at him for a moment and spoke. “Well it’s about time. I have been telling you to do that for almost a week.  It’s not like he is going to bite your head off you know, you are his lead graduate assistant.”

  “I know
,” said Peter “but he is always carrying on so about how our research should be an independent project and how we need to learn to take the initiative and find the solution to our own problems. But anyway, I have two hours free this morning until I have to teach a class, so I am going to stop by his office.  On Friday he usually catches up his paperwork and then leaves at lunchtime.  Maybe he will be so fired up for the weekend he will not give me the independence and initiative lecture again.”

Susan turned
to him as they came to the biology building and stood up on her toes to give him a kiss.  “Good luck. I am sure he will not cut your head off or anything.  And remember, you promised to take me to the new Nicholas Sparks movie tonight since I had to work on Valentine’s Day.  You better not forget, Peter Rockwell,” she warned as she turned to enter the building.  She smiled, and waved as she went inside to class.

  Peter turned and headed on down the sidewalk toward the Administrative offices for the Applied Science Department. 
Arriving at the entrance of the building, he dodged around the grounds keeper who was weed-eating the grass around the edge of the sidewalk.  He bounded up the stairs to the Astronomy Department offices.  He paused at the door and read the brass plaque on the door.  “Doctor Eric Casselman, Lead Professor, Astronomy Department,” it stated in engraved script.  Peter sighed and wondered if he would ever have a plaque that read Doctor Peter Rockwell on it.  Probably not at the rate I am getting my paper done he decided.  Raising his hand he knocked on the door.

A gruff voice answered the knock from within the office.  “Well, if you
are that intent on coming on in, why did you knock?”

  Peter grimaced and opened the door.  “Good morning Dr. Casselman, can I see you for just a moment?”

  Dr. Casselman leaned back in his chair, removed his glasses and set down the newspaper he had been reading. “Only if you reach over on the file cabinet and grab us both a cup of coffee he answered.”  As Peter was pouring the coffee he looked down at the newspaper and laughed. “Remember the meteor that exploded over South Africa about two months ago and caused all the damage on the ground? Well, now the locals over there are making a fortune finding and selling the pieces of it that made it to the ground.”  He shook his head in amazement. “You have to give them credit, they are a resourceful bunch.”  He took the cup of coffee that Peter offered and waved his hand at the old wooden chair in front of his desk.  Peter settled his muscular frame carefully into the chair as it creaked and wobbled. “Have I ever told you where I got that chair?” Dr. Casselman asked.

  Peter grinned and replied. “The rumor is that it used to be a crucifix but you had it made into a chair for your graduate students because the crucifix would not fit into your office.”

  Dr. Casselman grinned. “I planted that rumor myself. I thought maybe it would keep all these bothersome undergrad students out of my office.  But actually, it belonged to one of my professors back when I was at Princeton.  I sat in that very chair as he yelled and cursed at me when I told him I was transferring to Cal Tech to do my graduate work.” He actually got so mad at me as I left that he kicked the chair and broke it.  The next morning it was in the garbage on the curb as I walked by, so I took it home and had it repaired.  That chair has memories you know. It has seen a lot of asses come and go over the years.”

“So Peter,” Dr. Casselman said as he looked at his watch. “What can I do for you this morning? Don’t you have a class to teach in a little bit?”

“I have one to teach in about two hours sir, but I have a problem with my research data that I cannot seem to resolve.”

  Dr. Casselman frowned, “Peter, you know how I feel about my grad students not solving their own problems. Someday when you are running your own independent research you are going to have similar issues and it is best that you start learning how to deal with the problems and to find the solutions yourself now.”

  Peter shook his head and said, “I know, I know, but I have been beating my head bloody over this for a week now and I cannot decide what to do since I do not have access to more recent data.  The problem is with some of the archived Spitzer Telescope data.  Do you have a moment to look at something for me?”

  Dr. Casselman looked at Peter sternly for a moment and then winked and spoke. “Well, it is Friday, and I have several games of golf scheduled for the weekend
.   You have caught me at a good time I guess.”

  Peter laughed, “Actually, that is what Susan said when she
convinced me to come talk to you. Go and see him on Friday before he leaves early at lunch, she advised.  I could not figure out how she knew so much about you.”

“And would Susan be that attractive young brunette I have seen you around campus with?” Dr. Casselman asked.

   “Yes Sir,” answered Peter.

  Dr. Casselman grinned and laughed.  “If I was a young graduate student again, I might find it hard to concentrate on my paper also if I was in orbit around her like you have been.  She is quite the looker, and quite bright to boot, from what I hear from the professors over in the Biology Department.”

Peter looked perplexed and asked, “How do you know about Susan if I may ask, Sir?”

Dr. Casselman face took on a serious look, and he replied, “Don’t you think that I keep close tabs on my graduate students and anything that may affect their work on their thesis projects?  I am especially keeping an eye on you Peter, since you happen to be dating my niece,” Dr. Casselman said as his face broke into a huge grin.

Peter was stunned.  “Susan is your niece? But, I don’t see the connection.  You are from California and she is from South Carolina.  That is clear across the continent.”