Tiona (a sequel to "Vaz") (3 page)

***

Nolan looked up as Dr. Eisner shepherded the new graduate student into the lab. Slim and medium height, she had a buzz cut of blonde hair about a quarter of an inch long. She wore an oversized black T-shirt with “E=MC
2
” written on the front of it.
Talk about your super geek,
he thought to himself. He stood, “You must be Tiona Gettnor?”

She nodded.

Eisner grinned and said, “Yep, this is her. Weitzel was trying to recruit her to his team. Lucky I made my offer in time.” He waved at Nolan, “This is Nolan Marlowe. He’s been working with graphene for a while, so he’ll be a great resource for you. If you two can get along and work somewhat as a team we’ll make a lot more progress than if you’re each trying to go it all alone?”

Nolan remembered getting a similar talk when he joined the lab a few years ago. He and Frank Ehrlich, the other grad student in the lab then had gotten along well, but Nolan thought that Eisner must’ve had two grads that didn’t like each other at some time in the past or he wouldn’t make such a point of it. This girl looked a little weird, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t get along with her. He stuck out his hand, “Hello, welcome to the lab.”

She shook his hand while glancing around at the equipment, but said nothing in response beyond a simple, “Thanks.”

Eisner launched into a description of the equipment available in the lab and how it might relate to the part of his grant that Gettnor was supposed to work on. Knowing that he would be expected to help Gettnor get up to speed, Nolan listened to Eisner’s spiel. He kept an eye on Gettnor who said very little. When Eisner asked her if she understood something, she always answered, “Yes.” Either she was really smart, or, more likely, she was afraid to display her ignorance by saying, “No.”

Nolan had always thought he liked long hair on women, but as he watched Gettnor he began to think that short hair looked good on her. It gave her kind of a pixie look. If her clothing hadn’t been oversized she might have looked like one of the anime characters he liked.

Eventually Eisner wound down and left the two of them in the lab. “Did you get all of that?” Nolan asked jokingly, jerking a thumb in the direction Eisner had left.

A serious look on her face, Gettnor merely nodded, “What kind of music do you listen to in here?”

Startled by the question, Nolan said, “Usually don’t. Don’t mind if you play some though, as long as it’s not really loud.”

“Okay,” she said, eyeing Nolan. The look gave him the feeling that she thought he was a complete dweeb. She went over and sat down at the small space assigned to her and began going through the drawers.

Nolan normally felt like he was a pretty sophisticated guy. He wondered just what it was about her that made him feel so “un-cool.”

***

As Tiona shuffled through the line at the shelter to pick up a sandwich of cheese and two day old bread, Shelley, one of the shelter’s social workers caught her eye. Tiona chose a seat that put her next to a woman who was new to the shelter. It also had an open seat on the other side of Tiona.

A few minutes after Tiona took a seat, Shelley plopped down in the empty seat. “Hello ladies, I’m one of the social workers that serve the homeless here. Are there any issues I might be able to help you with?”

Without looking up from her plate, Tiona gave a sharp little shake of her head. The new woman on the other side of her gave a hopeless laugh, “Not unless you’ve got a couple grand in your pocket?” she rasped.

Tiona’s eyes darted over to the new woman. Skinny, bad teeth, she probably had a meth addiction. Giving her money would
not
do her a favor.

Shelley said, “Well, if I
could
drop a couple grand on you, what would you do with it?”

The woman exhaled a long dreamy sigh. “I’d…” Apparently thinking better of speaking whatever plan she’d had, the woman didn’t finish. After a moment, in a more businesslike tone, she said, “I’d use it to get out of this shithole… somehow.”

Tiona frowned disappointedly. She’d been hoping for something constructive though she’d known it would be unlikely.

Shelley leaned forward and said, “Would you like to talk to me after dinner about your situation and the resources available to help you work your way out of the hole you’re in?”

“Nah,” the woman said, “I’ll take care of myself.”

Shelley sighed. As she stood up she whispered to Tiona, “Talk to me before you go?”

Tiona gave a sharp little nod this time. She ate silently, glancing around at the rest of the denizens of the shelter. She’d lost interest in the woman next to her and wished she’d taken a seat near someone else.

A large man sat down next to her. “Hi, didn’t your hair used to be red?”

Though she didn’t look at his face, Tiona recognized his jacket from the times he’d taken the seat next to her in the past. Without responding, she stuffed the rest of her sandwich into her mouth and stood, picking up her tray.

On the other side of the room, Shelley stood as well, heading out the door of the shelter a little bit before Tiona did.

Outside, Shelley leaned against the rail staring into the night. When Tiona paused briefly next to her, she quietly said, “We’ve got a young mother who needs enough to pay for daycare for her two young daughters. With that she could get back to work. She should be able to work her way back out of the shelter and might even be able to pay back the daycare costs.”

Tiona nodded.

Shelly said, “You’ll make a deposit then?”

Tiona nodded again, then turned to go down the stairs, slipping her hand into her pocket for her pepper spray.

Shelley said, “Can I ask you a question? You don’t have to answer if you don’t want.”

Tiona stopped and turned back, raising an eyebrow.

Shelley said, “Why do you eat here? With the money you’re spending on these people, you obviously could eat somewhere nice. You could still leave me with a budget to spend on these folks.”

Tiona narrowed her eyes, and then turned to look off into the distance for a moment. “Eating here… is an education. Because they think I’m like them, I learn things about these people that they don’t tell you.” She turned to look Shelley in the eye, “That’s why I don’t give you money for all of them. Because I’ve learned things about some of them that you don’t know. It’s also why I give you more money than you request for some of them. I appreciate your help in getting it to them though.”

She continued on down the stairs and out to the street. Two blocks from the shelter she opened her backpack and pulled out her AI. Putting it on, she had it do a search for daycare costs, then began giving instructions for a transfer into the fund Shelley controlled.

When she got back to her apartment, Ronnie was sitting cross-legged in front of her door, playing his acoustic guitar. He looked up at her and smiled, still picking a gentle melody. “Hey babe,” he said, looking happy to see her.

Tiona stopped and crossed her arms in front of her. Frowning she said, “What are you doing here?”

He shrugged, “Wanted to see you,” he said, as if it was obvious. “I found a bass player and we’ve been practicing. Been talking to a couple of drummers too. Got a gig lined up for next Thursday, hopefully I’ll have a drummer by then.” After a momentary pause, he said, “These guys are really good!”

Tiona said, “Good, I hope it works out for you.”

“Works out for
us
, Babe. Works out
for
us
. I keep telling you, when I make it, you make it.”

Tiona shrugged, “I’m pretty happy where I am. Not sure I want to go with you when you ‘make it.’”

“Aw man, wait till things get going. You’ll change your mind! Listen to this song I’ve been working on.”

Ronnie looked down at his fret board and started playing. Tiona struggled against the feeling that it was rude to leave him sitting there in front of her door rather than inviting him in. She didn’t want him inside; he might be hard to get rid of again. So she stood outside her apartment and listened to him play.

The guitar line he was playing was very interesting, but then he started to sing. Tiona realized it was a sappy sweet love song about her. Something about the whole thing was kind of revolting; to say nothing of the fact that Ronnie claimed that he hated love songs. She couldn’t decide whether it was more likely he’d actually decided to do something commercial, or that he thought that he could manipulate her with a song like that?

When the song wound down he smiled up at her, “What do you think?”

“I think it’s a pretty radical departure from the kind of stuff you usually play.”

He looked down at his guitar as if he were surprised to find it there. “Yeah, but I’ve been thinking about you a lot and it just kind of welled up out of me.”

Tiona wanted to roll her eyes, but she kept a serious look on her face. “That’s nice.”

“Hey,” Ronnie said, unfolding smoothly to his feet, “can I grab a shower here at your place? I’m headin’ over to talk to one of the drummers in a little bit.”

And here it comes
, Tiona thought to herself. “I’d really rather you didn’t.”

“Aw, come on Babe. I’ve been living in my car for a few days to save some bucks and it sure would be nice to get clean.” He shrugged, “It’d be nice to
be
clean when I’m trying to recruit someone to my band.”

After some begging, Tiona finally gave in, based on the promise that he’d be gone in thirty minutes or less.

***

Nolan looked up when Tiona entered the lab. Jeans, too long so the cuffs were rolled up. An oversized T-shirt with a picture of some rock band Nolan hadn’t heard of. Clean clothes, but they looked second hand. She always dressed this way and he guessed it represented her signature, or style… or something, but Nolan couldn’t help but wonder if she wouldn’t look a lot better in something else. “Hey Tiona.”

“Hey,” she said, tossing her backpack on her desk.

A moment later music started coming from the small set of speakers she’d brought in. They didn’t look like much, but sounded surprisingly good. Nolan had thought about buying some for his apartment until he’d looked them up. First, he’d asked Tiona what kind they were and she’d shrugged, “Don’t know. My dad was throwing them away so I claimed them.”

Later, when Tiona had been gone, Nolan had looked at them. Up close he’d seen that they were pretty beat up. The logos had been torn off, so he’d had to look at the fine print on the bottom.

The speakers cost a
lot
more than he would have thought. He’d thought to himself,
If her dad buys speakers like that, he should buy nicer clothes for his daughter.

Back in the present he said, “Can you help me with my next run in about 30 minutes?”

She didn’t look at him, but did shrug, “Sure.”

When Nolan had his test run ready he let her know. “What do you need me to do?” she asked.

“Well, I’m trying this new idea I had for graphene deposition out of solution. I think the problem I’ve had when I’ve tried this before is that the pH of the solution drops as deposition occurs. When the pH gets too low it degrades the graphene deposition so I never get a very good product.”

Tiona nodded.

“So, to try this out I’m hoping that you can watch the pH meter and drip in sodium hydroxide to keep the pH above seven.”

“OK,” she said, picking up the bottle of NaOH. “I assume you can’t buffer the solution.”

Nolan shrugged, “I’m worried that the buffer will screw up the deposition so I want to try it this way first.”

“OK,” she said doubtfully, “it’s
your
experiment.”

Irritated, Nolan could hear the subtext implying that there must be a better way, but he didn’t want to ask her about it.
Not
someone junior to himself.

They ran the experiment and Tiona managed to keep the pH within half a point of his target. It would be a day or so before he could test the quality of the graphene disc that had hopefully precipitated.

She left for her class before he had a chance to thank her.

***

“Yes!” Nolan shouted. He looked around at Tiona, wanting to share his triumph with her.

Tiona looked up at him curiously, “What happened?”

“Remember how you helped me control the pH for my graphene deposition a few days ago?”

Tiona nodded and tilted her head curiously.

“It worked! Awesomely! I deposited hundreds of monolayers, and based on these measurements, most of them must be nearly flawless!”

Tiona quirked a small smile, then said, “Cool.” She turned back to whatever she had been doing.

Nolan had pictured her leaping to her feet and giving him a hug while they leapt up and down with excitement. He’d been finding himself torn between thinking of her as irritating and finding her smart and kinda sexy. Her actual reaction to the success of his experiment was quite the letdown. He blinked a couple of times, and then headed out to see if he could find Dr. Eisner.
Eisner will understand how important this is and he’ll be excited,
he thought to himself.