Chapter 114: Regina's Calculation
Regina didn't go far.
She found a spot near the side exit where the angle gave her a view of the center table through the cafeteria's interior window — the specific, practical thinking of someone who had been running social situations for long enough that retreat and observation were the same instinct.
She had a granola bar in her jacket pocket. She ate it slowly and watched.
Mike had sat down at the center table. Karen and Gretchen were there. Cady. Lina Torres, who had come through the cafeteria with Mike, had taken the seat at the end.
The table looked different without her in it.
It looked, she had to acknowledge, like it was functioning fine.
She watched the table for seven minutes and arrived at several conclusions.
The first was that Gretchen's outburst had not been spontaneous. Gretchen had been building toward something for weeks — Regina could see that now with the distance of the corridor and the specific clarity of someone who had stopped defending and started analyzing. The things she'd been carrying had been accumulating, and today they'd arrived at a threshold.
That was real. She wasn't wrong to be angry about the jeans rule. The rule existed. Regina had enforced it before. The situation was hypocritical and Gretchen's grievance was legitimate.
The second conclusion was about Cady.
Cady had been at that table for six weeks. She had been present for every version of this situation developing. She had made exactly one comment at the table today — one sentence, careful and tentative — and then had not said another word while everything unfolded.
Regina had been watching people manage situations her entire social life.
She recognized the specific quality of a person who was letting something develop rather than preventing it.
She looked at the half-eaten granola bar in her hand.
Cady had been bringing her these since the third week. Athletic recovery nutrition, she'd said. High protein. Good for the cheerleading workload.
Regina had been gaining weight since approximately the fourth week.
She looked at the granola bar.
She looked at it for a specific, careful moment.
Then she folded the wrapper closed and put it in her jacket pocket.
She wasn't going to throw it away. She was going to take it home and look at the ingredients label with the focused, specific attention of someone who had a hypothesis and intended to test it.
She straightened up.
She walked back through the side corridor toward the afternoon's classes with the composed, unhurried pace she always maintained in public.
She was angry.
She was also thinking clearly, which for Regina were not incompatible states.
The afternoon Math Olympiad session had the established rhythm it always had — Ms. Crawford's problem review, the team working through the session's problem set, Kevin being simultaneously the most enthusiastic and most distracting presence in the room.
Cady worked through the number theory problem at her end of the table with the focused, slightly inward quality she had when something was on her mind that she was processing separately from whatever her hands were doing.
Mike, across the table, noticed this without mentioning it.
After Ms. Crawford dismissed them, Cady gathered her things with the organized efficiency she brought to leaving. She stopped beside Mike's end of the table.
"The cafeteria today," she said.
"I saw some of it," Mike said.
"I gave her information at the food line," Cady said. "True information. That Regina had mentioned the lunch wasn't quite right." She paused. "And I said one sentence at the table. About whether Wednesday was a hard rule."
"I know," Mike said.
"That's all I did," she said. "What happened after that came from Gretchen."
"I know," he said.
She looked at him.
"I'm not sure which side of the line that is," she said. "The one Janis and I talked about. Making something go wrong versus not making something go right."
Mike looked at her with the direct, unhurried attention he gave things she was genuinely asking.
"What do you think?" he said.
She was quiet for a moment.
"I think Gretchen got there herself," she said. "I think the information I gave her was true, and one sentence at a table isn't engineering an outcome." She paused. "I also think if I'm asking the question, I should keep asking it."
"Yeah," he said. "That sounds right."
She picked up her bag.
"Regina's going to figure out the drinks," Cady said.
Mike looked at her.
"She was watching from the corridor during lunch," Cady said. "I saw her. And I watched her look at the granola bar and put it away instead of finishing it." She held his gaze. "She's running a calculation."
Mike absorbed this.
"How long?" he said.
"I don't know," Cady said. "She's smart. She's very smart, which I think people underestimate because of how she uses it." She paused. "Not long."
"What do you do when she figures it out?" he said.
Cady thought about it honestly.
"I don't know yet," she said. "I'll figure it out when I get there."
"Okay," he said.
"See you Thursday," she said.
She went.
Kevin appeared at Mike's shoulder in the specific way Kevin appeared at shoulders, which was immediately after anyone else had just left.
"That was a real conversation," Kevin said.
"Yes," Mike said.
"I wasn't eavesdropping," Kevin said. "I was finishing my problem set at a nearby desk."
"I know," Mike said.
"The acoustics in this room are better than you'd think," Kevin said.
"Kevin," Mike said.
"Right," Kevin said. "Walking home?"
"Walking home," Mike said.
They walked.
Lina was at the school gate, which Mike had not expected but registered without surprise — Lina operated on her own schedule with the practical, unannounced quality of someone who had a farm to run and didn't organize her time around other people's expectations.
"How was the session?" she said.
"Good," Mike said.
Kevin looked between them.
"I have somewhere to be," Kevin said, with the transparent efficiency of someone making a decision based on available social data. "See you Thursday."
He went.
Lina watched him go.
"He's like that all the time?" she said.
"Pretty much," Mike said.
They walked in the direction of Meadowlark Lane, which was roughly on Lina's way to where she'd parked her truck.
"The cafeteria thing," Lina said.
"Yeah," Mike said.
"Regina figured something out today," Lina said. "I was watching her when she left. Her face changed about two seconds after she picked up that granola bar."
"Cady said the same thing," Mike said.
Lina looked at him.
"Cady's been inside that situation," Lina said. "That's been a long time to be inside something like that."
"It has," Mike said.
"Is she okay?" Lina said.
Mike thought about the specific quality of Cady's question in the classroom — I'm not sure which side of the line that is — and the honest, careful way she'd arrived at her own answer.
"She's asking the right questions," he said. "That's usually a good sign."
Lina nodded.
They walked in the comfortable silence they'd developed over a season of sitting near each other and not needing to fill all the available space.
"The farm's got a good harvest window opening," Lina said, after a while. "Next month. We're going to need everyone available."
"How many of you?" Mike said.
"Six, usually," she said. "Plus whoever we can bring in." She glanced at him sideways. "I'm not asking."
"I know," Mike said.
"But if you wanted to see what an actual working ranch harvest looks like," she said, "the offer's there."
Mike looked at the street ahead.
"I'll think about it," he said.
She accepted this with the easy, undemanding quality she brought to most things.
They reached the point where her truck was parked.
She stopped.
"Good week," she said, to the general direction of his general week.
"Getting there," he said.
She got in her truck.
He kept walking toward Meadowlark Lane, in the specific, comfortable tiredness of a Thursday afternoon that had had more in it than most.
At Connie's, dinner was the pot roast George had started that morning in the slow cooker — the smell of it filling the house since about three o'clock, which was the specific effect that a slow cooker had on a neighborhood when someone in it knew what they were doing.
Connie was in her chair with her Lone Star.
Mike came through the back door.
"How was the session?" Connie said.
"Good," he said.
"Kevin?" she said.
"Present and enthusiastic," he said.
She drank her beer.
"Cady Heron came up in conversation today," Connie said, in the mild, informational tone of someone passing along something they'd heard.
Mike looked at her.
"Mary mentioned it," Connie said. "She'd heard from someone at church that the Heron girl is the one who brought the granola bars."
Mike looked at her.
"Mary doesn't know what the granola bars are for," Connie said. "She just thought it was nice that Cady was being thoughtful about Regina's nutrition."
Mike sat down at the kitchen table.
"Regina's figuring it out," he said.
Connie looked at him.
"Today?" she said.
"Today," he said.
Connie drank her beer with the calm, considering quality she brought to information that required processing before responding.
"Cady know?" she said.
"She knows," he said.
"Then she'll figure out her next move," Connie said. "That girl's not someone who leaves things unaddressed."
"No," Mike agreed.
"The Math Olympiad team is a good thing for her," Connie said. "Having something that's just hers, separate from all of that."
"It is," Mike said.
Connie set down her beer.
"Dinner's in twenty," she said. "Go wash up."
He went.
(End of Chapter 114)
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