They filed out, and Maureen apologized. “I should have seen this coming,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“You really think I shouldn’t go?”

Maureen’s eyes almost closed. She nodded. “Yeah.”

Another teacher entered the room and came over to speak with Maureen. She listened, said thanks, and came back to Hutch. “Mom, do you know where the faculty room is?”

“I have no idea.”

“Okay. I’d go with you, but I have another class.” She collared a student. “George, would you take Ms. Hutchins to the teachers’ lounge?”

“Sure,” he said, and smiled at Hutch.

“You have a visitor, Mom. And don’t forget to come back here for fourth period, okay? You won’t duck, will you?”

“I’ll be here. Who’s the visitor?”

“I don’t know. But I gotta get set up. He’s waiting for you in the lounge.”

•  •  •

The visitor was Gregory MacAllister, an old friend and a prize-winning journalist. There were only two other people in the room when she arrived, and they were just leaving. Mac showed her that familiar all’s-well-with-the-world smile, got out of his chair, and held his arms out for her.

“Mac,” she said, “what are you doing here?”

The smile widened. “Once I heard that you’d be here, I couldn’t stay away.” MacAllister was probably as influential as any journalist on the planet.

“Why’d you stay out here? You could have come into the classroom.”

“I’m a little too big for the furniture. I assume you’ve had lunch?”

“It’s a little early yet.”

“How about we go for a drink?”

“I can’t, Mac. I have another class to do.”

“Well, okay. That limits our options. I’ve been meaning to call you.”

“Running out of stuff to write about?”

“I wouldn’t put it exactly that way. You’ve become the story of the week.”

“It’ll go away pretty quickly.” A half-empty cup of coffee waited on a side table where MacAllister had been sitting. A basket holding a few muffins and buns rested on a counter beside a refrigerator. He reclaimed his seat. Hutch refilled his cup and got fresh coffee for herself. “It’s good to see you again, Mac.”

“You too, Hutch. We should get together once in a while.”

“Sounds like a good idea if we could get the timing better.”

“I know.” MacAllister, when he wanted to, was able to make her feel that, no matter what was going on in the world, everything was okay. There was nothing to worry about. He was a big man in every sense of the word. He took up a lot of physical space. And he was an intellectual heavyweight. When he entered a room, everyone came to attention. Mac was an international figure, an editor and commentator whose connection with Hutch stretched back to when they were stranded together on Deepsix. “I wanted to talk with you about the Calliope flight.”