"No, it was Grasdolf, he has a friend at the foundation and--"
"Exactly."
Father sighed. "You're such a cynic."
"What go
od does it do to take a hostage if you don't send a ransom note?"
"Grasdolf is a friend, they're just using him, and I meant what I said about--"
"Father, you might think, for a moment, that you'd give up your quixotic crusade in order to make my life easier, but the fact is you won't, and you know it and I know it. I don't even want you to give it up. I don't even care. All right? So your conscience is clear, their attempt at extortion was bound to fail, the school is taking care of me after their fashion, and hey, I've got a smart, cute, and annoyingly conceited boy in one of my classes trying to hit on me, so life is just about perfect."
"Aren't you just the noblest martyr."
"See how quickly it turns into a fight?"
"Because you won't talk to me, you just say whatever you think will make me go away."
"Apparently I still haven't found it. But am I getting warm?"
"Why do you do this? Why do you close the door on everybody who cares about you?"
"As far as I know, I've only closed the door on people who want something from me."
"And what do you think I want?"
"To be known as the most brilliant military theorist of all time and still have your family as devoted to you as we might have been if we had actually known you. And see? I don't want this conversation, we've been through it all before, and when I hang up on you, which I'm about to do, please don't keep calling me back and leaving pathetic messages on my desk. And yes, I love you and I'm really fine about this so it's over, period, good-bye."
She hung up.
Only then was she able to cry.
Tears of frustration, that's all they were. Nothing. She needed the release. It wouldn't even matter if other people knew she was crying--as long as her research was dispassionate, she didn't have to live that way.
When she stopped crying she laid her head down on her arms on the desk and maybe she even dozed for a while. Must have done. It was late afternoon. She was hungry and she needed to pee. She hadn't eaten since breakfast and she always got lightheaded about four if she skipped lunch.
The student records were still on her desk. She wiped them and got up and straightened her sweaty clothing and thought, It really is too warm for a sweater, especially a sloppy thick bulky one like this. But she didn't have a shirt on underneath so there was no solution for it, she'd just have to go home as a ball of sweat.
If she ever went home during daylight hours she might have learned to dress in a way that would be adaptable to afternoon temperatures. But right now she had no interest at all in working late. Somebody else's name would be on anything she did, right? Screw them all and the grants they rode in on.
She opened the door...
And there was the Wiggin boy, sitting with his back to the door, laying out plastic silverware on paper napkins. The smell of hot food nearly made her step back into the office.
He looked up at her but did not smile. "Spring rolls from Hunan," he said, "chicken satay from My Thai, salads from Garden Green, and if you want to wait a few more minutes, we've got stuffed mushrooms from Trompe L'Oeuf."
"All I want," she said, "is to pee. I don't want to do it on insane students camped at my door, so if you'd move to one side..."
He moved.
When she had washed up she thought of not going back to her office. The office door had locked behind her. She had her purse. She owed nothing to this boy.
But curiosity got the better of her. She wasn't going to eat any of the food, but she had to find out the answer to one question.
"How did you know when I was coming out?" she demanded, as she stood over the picnic he had prepared.
"I didn't," he said. "The pizza and the burritos hit the garbage half an hour ago and fifteen minutes ago, respectively."