Boston—a half hour later
Needing to perfect an excuse for her father, Borya stopped briefly at Mary Lang’s house on the way home. Mary, an awkward, wallflowery kid at school, was overjoyed to see her, eagerly inviting Borya in and asking if she wanted to stay for dinner.
Borya ignored both invitations, asking instead about a social studies assignment she had finished at school. Lang ran and got the handout with the question, copying it out for her in a neat script. Handing her the paper, she offered to help with it; Borya managed a polite smile, then told her that she had to get home.
“Did my dad call your house?” she asked, stepping back from the door. Mary shook her head. “If he does, I was here all afternoon. Right?”
“Oh, yes.” A bright smile broke out on Mary’s face. She practically salivated at the idea of being in on a conspiracy. “The whole afternoon. Doing social studies.”
“Not the whole afternoon,” coached Borya. “Just from like, three. Until now.”
“Until now.”
“Gotta go.”
“See you tomorrow,” said Mary Lang.
“Oh yeah.”
Borya flew home on her bike, confident that her cover story would stand any scrutiny her father threw at it. Skidding to a stop behind the back porch, she hoisted the bike on her shoulder and hustled up the steps, chaining it quickly and heading inside, barely catching her breath.
Her father was standing in the kitchen.
“What is Smart Metal?” he asked.
The question drained the blood from her head. How had he found out where she had gone?
He must really be a spy, she thought. He must have put a bug in my clothes.
Her father held a business card out to her. “Smart Metal?” he asked again. “Chelsea Goodman?”
“Oh.” Borya struggled to come up with an explanation. She had completely forgotten about the card; it must have been in the front hall. “My, uh, she’s my friend’s older sister. They do computer stuff. And robots.”
That wasn’t enough explanation. Borya struggled to find the line between just enough information to satisfy him and not enough to get her into trouble. Part of her wanted to tell him about the place—it had been the coolest thing she’d ever seen, awesome beyond awesome. But opening that door would expose her to many more questions.
“Uh, she, they want to hire more girls to be in, uh, like STEM stuff,” said Borya, stitching in information from a school assembly they’d had a few weeks back. STEM was big, especially for girls.
Study your math!
Ppppp.
But finally an assembly had proved good for something.
“What STEM?” asked her dad.
“STEM, you know. Like, science, technology, engineering, and mom.”
“Mom?”
“I mean math.”
The unintentional slip caught them both by surprise. Borya felt as if she had lost all the air in her chest. Her father looked the same way.
“I . . . I don’t know why I said that.” She felt tears starting to well in her eyes.
“It’s OK, baby,” said her father softly. His eyes were heavy as well.
Tolevi worked silently in the kitchen, making his daughter’s favorite dinner, soft tacos with extra cheese. Technically, it was only her third or fourth favorite—pizza was number one, and her aunt Tricia’s pot roast was number two—but it was the only one of her favorites that he could actually cook himself.
Borya didn’t know her mother’s cooking. If she did, those would surely be her favorites.
Tolevi pushed his sadness away, concentrating on the meat cooking in the pan. He stirred it around, working it until no pink remained. He drained the oil into the sink, then put the pan back on the stove and began adding sauce and spices.
I need to ask about this friend’s sister, he thought as he stirred. Get us off the topic of missing mom.
“Borya, set the table,” he called.
“Already done.”
He turned around, surprised to find his daughter already at the table. He wondered if she had somehow heard what he was thinking.
“Good day at school?” he asked, getting the taco shells out of the warming tray.
“OK day.”
“A lot of homework?”
“I’m on it. I told you I did most of it.”
“You did?” He didn’t quite succeed in making that sound like a statement rather than a question.
They ate in silence, Tolevi dreading the fact that he had to tell her that Mrs. Jordan had bailed on him and he was substituting a former au pair, Mary Martyak. Borya hated Martyak, and he wasn’t particularly fond of her himself, but she was the best he could do on short notice.
“Can I be excused?” Borya asked, her plate clean.
“I have to travel again.”
“You told me.”
“I’m going to be gone for a week. Maybe more. I don’t know. The business—there are a lot of loose ends. It may be less time,” he said, trying to sound optimistic. “But Mary Martyak is coming to stay with you, starting tomorrow.”
“I thought Mrs. Jordan!”
“She can’t. But Mary was very excited. She really likes you.”
“Ugh. Is she still doing that history stuff?”
“Anthropology.”
“Whatever. She thinks she’s a psychiatrist.”
“You mean psychologist.”
“And a know-it-all. And bossy.”
“She’s in charge.”
“Phew.” Borya got up from the table with her plate. “I’m old enough to stay by myself.”
“And break curfew like the other night?”
“I won’t do that again.”
“Maybe next time. Break curfew or give Mary a hard time, and I’ll sell you to the nuns,” he told her, softening what had started as a threat into a joke. His daughter came and hugged him around the neck. “I mean it.”
“I know.”
“Where were you this afternoon?”
“Mary Lang’s, studying. You said I could study with friends. That’s always been a rule. If their parents are home.”
It was a rule. Though she should have told him.
She had texted, though, hadn’t she? He was so distracted with everything else now that he couldn’t remember.
Focus on your daughter. She’s all you have.
“Mary Lang is the little fat one?” he asked.
“No, you’re thinking of Georgina. She’s kind of skinny, with kinked-up hair.”
“You know if anything ever happened to me, you would go and live with Uncle Bob and Aunt Lisa, right?”
“What?” Borya practically crossed her eyes as she stared at him.
“I’m not saying something is going to happen,” he added quickly. “But you know them and like them.”
“Yeah.”
Bob and Lisa weren’t actually related to Borya or her father, but were such close friends that they fully earned the title of uncle and aunt. As long as Borya could remember, she had spent at least a week with them every summer in upstate New York, where Uncle Bob owned a radio station and Aunt Lisa had the world’s biggest collection of nail polish, always gladly shared. Their three daughters and son were a few years older than Borya, and all were out of the house now.
“But nothing’s going to happen to me,” added Tolevi. “That I promise.”