Tiona (a sequel to "Vaz") (7 page)

This time Tiona’s eyes widened. “You’d come to Chapel Hill? I thought you hated traveling?”

“Uh, I do. But my car’s AI should take me right to the front of your building, right?”

Tiona nodded, trying not to look amused at her father’s obvious discomfort.

He said hopefully, “Then you could meet me outside?”

“Sure. I can even take you on a tour of the campus.”

Vaz looked startled, “Well… I’d like to see your lab…”

***

Nolan looked up as Tiona came into the lab Monday morning. She had on a baggy sweatshirt with the number 011235813 on the front of it. He was stumped for a moment, thinking it was a foreign phone number; then he recognized Fibonacci’s sequence. “Hey Tiona, did you have a nice Thanksgiving?”

“Uh-huh,” she said, setting down her bag. She stood for a moment, looking uncomfortable; then said, “Um, my dad’s coming by to look at the lab this morning.”

She seemed embarrassed about it which surprised Nolan. Like many teenagers he’d been embarrassed by his parents, but he got over it by the time he’d gotten through his undergraduate years. Trying to reassure her, he said, “That’s great! I’d like to meet him.”

She fidgeted a little, “He’s a little… different. Nice but…”

Nolan said, “Everybody thinks their own parents are weird. Don’t worry about it.”

Tiona snorted a little laugh, “You’ll see.
My
dad really is weird. But in a good way.” She turned back to her desk. A minute later her music started playing and she began working on her experimental set up again.

Nolan wondered if her dad was homeless too.

Focused on his own project, Nolan hardly noticed when Tiona left the lab. He did notice a few minutes later that her music had stopped. When he turned he saw that she was gone and thought that was odd as he had thought that her father was coming.

He looked at his watch, seeing that it was nearly 11.
I could have sworn she said he was coming in the morning,
he thought, but then shrugged and turned back to his own bench.

The lab door opened and Nolan glanced over curiously. Tiona stepped in followed by a bald man. Nolan tilted his head, wondering if this could be her father. The man’s complexion was darker than hers, but Nolan couldn’t compare their hair coloration, the man didn’t even have eyebrows! Their features did seem to have something in common and their clothing certainly did. The man wore clothes that were even baggier than Tiona’s!

Nolan stood up, “Hello, you must be Tiona’s dad?”

The man stopped as if startled. After a moment he nodded. Tiona introduced him as her father Vaz Gettnor. The whole time Nolan had the feeling that Gettnor was only listening to be polite. It was as if he knew that he was supposed to, so he did it even though he didn’t want to. Nolan shook Gettnor’s hand which seemed hard and calloused though Gettnor’s grip was weak and wimpy. As soon as the handshake was completed, Gettnor started looking around the lab as if he’d completely lost interest in Nolan.
I’m less interesting than the equipment,
Nolan realized.

Tiona guided her father over to her lab bench and Nolan got the feeling they’d both completely forgotten he was even there.
She wasn’t kidding when she said her dad was different,
he thought to himself. He turned back to his own project, but kept an eye on Tiona and her dad. They spoke quietly enough that Nolan couldn’t hear what they were saying, but evidently Tiona was showing him some of the electrical properties of her doped graphene membranes.

Though Nolan couldn’t understand their conversation, he could tell it had its ups and downs. Frequently it seemed like Tiona’s father was very excited, making muted exclamations. Tiona, on the other hand, often seemed frustrated. Nolan felt a little jealous. He knew that if he brought his own father in to look at his research, his dad would ooh and ahh, but wouldn’t really understand any of it. Nolan had the feeling that Tiona’s dad, peculiar as he was, kind of had some idea what she was doing. Nolan’s own father might not be weird, but he couldn’t help thinking that he might be willing to have some weirdness in exchange for a parent who liked physics like he did.
Of course, I also like having a parent with enough money that I don’t have to eat at the homeless shelter,
he thought to himself, glancing back at Mr. Gettnor and wondering about the man’s finances. Gettnor’s clothing looked cheap and old, though clean.
If the man’s smart enough to understand the physics of Tiona’s experiment, why can’t he get a job good enough to help pay her way through school? Mental illness?

A little bit after noon, the Gettnors got up and started shuffling around as if they were about to leave. Nolan had just finished a test run, so he stood as well. Having a thought he turned to the Gettnors and said, “Hey, how about lunch? I’d be happy to buy.”

The Gettnors looked at one another and Nolan could have sworn that neither of them looked happy about it, but that they had completely different reasons for not wanting to go to lunch with him. However, a second later Tiona pursed her lips and said, “Sure, that’d be fun. Dad, you don’t have anywhere you have to be, right?”

Gettnor looked flummoxed.

Gettnor opened his mouth and Nolan would have sworn he was about to claim he had something to do but Tiona interrupted him with a little grin, “Nope, I saw your schedule. No reason you can’t eat lunch with us.” She turned to Nolan, “Where were you thinking we should eat?”

They walked to the Cosmic Cantina. Cheap food, but good and lots of it. Nolan felt pretty surprised. He’d invited Tiona to lunch several times as well as to other social events and she’d always turned him down. Though he’d made the offer, he’d never expected that the first time they would go out on some kind of social, non-work event; it would be with one of her parents. As they walked he turned to Tiona’s dad, “What do you do Mr. Gettnor?”

Gettnor stared at him with a little bit of a “deer in the headlights” look on his face. Then he said, “Research.”

For a moment Nolan expected Gettnor to expand on his one-word answer, but when nothing was forthcoming, Nolan asked, “What kind of research?”

Gettnor opened his mouth, but then froze as if he didn’t know how to respond. After a moment, Tiona said, “Physics research. Well, and some chemistry too. He’s done a lot of work on energy storage.”

Gettnor looked at his daughter for a moment, and then turned back to Nolan, “Yeah. Energy storage.”

Nolan said, “Who do you work for?”

Gettnor said, “Myself.” He said with a great deal of satisfaction, as if there couldn’t be a better employer.

Nolan wanted to ask Gettnor how he funded his research and how he paid himself. Questions that he thought would help him understand Tiona’s financial situation, but they’d arrived at the Cosmic Cantina by then. Their conversation was interrupted by the business of placing orders for their burritos and Nolan’s careful maneuvering to make sure he paid for lunch.

When Tiona realized that he’d paid for their meals as well, she snorted a little laugh and thanked him. Nolan had been worried that Mr. Gettnor would be embarrassed that a student had bought his lunch, but actually the man seemed completely oblivious to the implications. In fact, Nolan had been worried that Tiona would be embarrassed as well, but she seemed to accept his charity without any awkwardness.
Well, she eats at the shelter. She must’ve gotten over any embarrassment about these kinds of things a long time ago.

Nolan never got around to asking Gettnor about how his research was funded. Instead, Tiona asked Nolan to explain his research to her father. He did so, wondering how in depth he could go. Explaining what he did to most of his friends and family was difficult because it was so hard to explain in terms that they could understand. However, Gettnor apparently had at least some education in physics. Even if his research was in batteries he should be better able to understand Nolan’s work than a layman.

Once Nolan started describing his project, Gettnor’s eyes lit up. He said, “So
you’re
the one who first precipitated the monolayer graphene?” Gettnor suddenly appeared to be
extremely
interested.

“Um, yeah. Though the process results in many monolayers being put down, one on top of the other. So we usually call it multi-monolayer. It’s not graphite, because each monolayer covers the whole area of the copper disc we precipitate it on. It’s just that the precipitation method forms multiple monolayers.”

Now
Nolan found himself under a barrage of questions about graphene precipitation, how it might be scaled up, how fast it could occur, what the properties of the membranes were, and on and on. The questions continued until they’d gotten back to the lab and for a few minutes after that. Nolan had the feeling that they might have lasted all afternoon, but Tiona eventually interrupted to say, “Well dad, I’ve got to go to my class and I’m sure Nolan has to get back to his research.” She held out a manila folder like the lab kept graphene membranes in. Nolan wondered if she was giving her father a souvenir.

Gettnor blinked; then looked disappointed. After a moment he simply said, “Okay.” He took the folder and turned to the door. He started to leave; then suddenly stopped. He turned back to Nolan and said, “It was nice to meet you… Goodbye.” Gettnor turned and left without waiting for a response from Nolan though Nolan felt sure the man had forgotten his name.

Tiona walked her father out of the building, leaving Nolan sitting there thinking that Gettnor’s farewell words sounded rehearsed. It felt like Gettnor had chosen them from some kind of menu that popped up in his brain. As if he’d selected the words like a robot might pick them out. He snorted,
she was right, her dad
is
weird
.

***

Dr. Eisner felt pleased with the progress his two grad students had been making on their projects. Nolan Marlowe’s work with graphene precipitation was especially exciting. The university’s Office of Technology Development had a lawyer hard at work to patent the process. They wouldn’t be able to publish until the patent process was complete, but Marlowe was writing his paper. In the lab he continued characterizing the mechanical and now the electrical properties of his multi-monolayer graphene.

Tiona Gettnor, on the other hand,
had
initially been making progress at a much faster rate than he’d expected. Certainly she was smart as a whip. She was almost impossible to stump in their lab meetings. Every time she had run into a roadblock she had immediately come up with plans to get around it. Recently, however, she’d seemed distracted. Her last few doping schemes hadn’t shown much promise and she hadn’t proposed any ideas for new experiments. Eisner had found himself having to suggest possible next steps to her. She’d duly noted those possible steps when he presented them, but lacked the enthusiasm she’d had earlier. He wondered if something in her personal life was interfering. Boyfriend problems?

Mentally he laughed at himself. He wouldn’t have thought of
girlfriend
problems if Marlowe was the one having trouble with
his
project.

As Eisner headed back to his office, he suddenly realized that Marlowe was following along behind him. “Yes Nolan?”

“Um, Sir, I was hoping to talk privately… maybe in your office?”

Eisner shrugged, “Sure.” He led the way into his office.

Marlowe closed the door behind him and Eisner waved him to a chair. Marlowe said, “Um, it’s about Tiona. Um, I think she might be having financial trouble.”

Eisner frowned. The girl had a graduate assistantship which paid a small salary and let her avoid tuition, but it would be difficult to make ends meet on it. If she had a lot of debt built up from her undergraduate education he could easily imagine that she might have financial troubles. That might explain her apparent distraction here recently as well. To Marlowe he said, “What makes you think that?”

Marlowe said, “I happened to see her downtown. I’d been down there to have dinner and was walking to the parking lot when she went by on the other side of Columbia. She was far enough away that I didn’t try and wave to her or call her name or anything. She didn’t see me…” Marlowe trailed off.

Eisner said, “And so…?”

“Um, she turned in to the homeless shelter!”

Eisner shrugged, “Maybe she works there. Volunteers there I mean, you know, as a form of charity.”

Marlowe said, “Yeah, that’s what I thought it must be. But then I thought about how old all her clothing is. And it’s out of style and doesn’t fit. So I started to worry… I probably shouldn’t have, but I followed her to the shelter and looked in…”

Eisner felt like he was pulling teeth, “And…?”

“She was eating there. With the… homeless people.”

“Maybe they feed you if you volunteer there?”

“Yeah, I thought of that,” Marlowe almost whispered. “I saw her go in there one other time. She left after about ten minutes. If she did any work, it wasn’t very much.”

Eisner sighed, “Well, I’m not quite sure what to do with this. She
has
seemed distracted here recently, and from what you’re saying financial problems might be the cause. I’m not sure how to help her though.” He lifted an eyebrow, “I don’t have any skills as a social worker.”