Helen was trying hard not to be annoyed with him, making herself think of all his good points, reminding herself of how much she loved him. She was just stressed. There was no need to take it out on poor Nate.

She thought back to when they met, both new teachers at Palmer Academy. It was at a faculty mixer the first week of school. Nate had worn a tie with the periodic table on it. There was another woman there, Stella Flemming, the English teacher, who kept cornering Nate, saying she wanted to put him and his tie in one of her poems. The first time Helen noticed him, she wondered why the handsome science teacher with the funny tie was looking at her so strangely. Later, she smiled, realizing that he’d been giving Helen pleading save me looks all night. At last, she walked over, touched his arm, and said, “You’re the science teacher, right?” He nodded encouragingly. “I was hoping you could help me. I hear the Pleiades are visible in the sky this time of year, but I’m not sure just where to look.”

He smiled. “Ah, yes, the Seven Sisters. I’d be happy to point them out. Excuse us please, Stella.”

“Thank you,” Nate whispered, once they were out of earshot.

They walked out to the back lawn near the tennis courts and he showed her the stars. “Right there,” he said, taking her hand and pointing with it. “The Pleiades were the daughters of Atlas and the sea nymph Pleione,” he explained. “Zeus transformed them into doves, then into stars.”

“Lovely,” she said.

“Your dress reminds me of starlight,” he told her then. She looked down, saw the way the pale fabric seemed to shimmer in the lights around the tennis court.

“Do you think Stella will come out looking for you?” Helen asked.

Nate laughed. “Poor Stella. Maybe. She’s had a bit too much wine, I think.”

“I heard her saying she wanted to put you in a poem,” Helen said.

Nate laughed again. “Like I said, too much wine.”

“So you’re not a fan of poetry?”

“Oh, I’m a big fan. In fact, I even write a bit from time to time.”

Now Helen laughed. “Really?”

He nodded, and in a half imitation of poor Stella, he said to Helen, “Be careful, I might just put you and your glimmering starlight dress in a poem.”

She laughed again, but the next day, she’d found a typed poem in her faculty mailbox: “Helen Talks History in a Dress of Stars.” It wasn’t half bad (not that Helen was qualified to judge poetry). She had it still and would tell people, years later, that it was the poem that won her over immediately, the poem that made her realize Nate was The One.

“We got a lot done today,” he said now.

“Mm-hmm.”