Sarala had invited Lily, Rose, and Dr. Cardiff to join them, and Rose, though conscious of the potential for awkwardness, had been so hungry for a glimpse into Lily’s life, having felt, since their argument about her letter, so entirely closed off from her own daughter, that, much to her own surprise, she found herself accepting the invitation.
The conversation at their table, like most of those throughout the diner, concerned how the hearing seemed to be going so far. Abhijat felt it was impossible to tell. Dr. Cardiff thought it would be important for the Lab to make a better effort to acknowledge the opposition’s fears. Both felt that Dr. Cohen’s comments had done them no favors, but Lily said that she didn’t think it was fair to expect the Lab’s representatives to be evenhanded when it seemed to her that the opposition was relying on hyperbolic scare tactics.
Perhaps, Sarala suggested gently, if they hoped to stand up against the heartfelt, emotional appeals of the opposition, the supporters might rely less on dry testimony from the directors of state agencies and a bit more on some heartfelt, emotional appeals of their own.
But wasn’t that, Lily argued, precisely what Dr. Cohen had been doing?
Sarala and Rose exchanged a look, which Lily caught and found at once both perplexing and exasperating.
Sensitive to Rose’s presence at the table, Sarala suggested that perhaps they should refrain from discussion of the collider over this meal among friends.
“An excellent idea,” Dr. Cardiff agreed.
The waitress circled their table, setting plates before each of them, and Meena began to pick at her French fries. There was a long, awkward moment as they all tried to come up with another, more suitable topic of conversation.
“Perhaps we might talk about the girls’ opportunity at the Academy,” Rose suggested. “That is certainly a happy turn of events.” Rose smiled, first at Lily and Meena, then at Abhijat and Sarala. She wondered why her smile seemed to be returned only by her daughter, who had, over the last few weeks, expended a considerable amount of energy in pointedly avoiding doing any such thing.
Abhijat and Sarala looked first at Rose, then at Meena, who sank down into her seat, as though willing herself to turn invisible.
Sarala spoke first. “I’m afraid we must be, as you say, out of the loop.”
“The Math and Science Academy,” Lily explained. She looked at Abhijat and Sarala, Abhijat’s brow furrowed, Sarala still looking pleasantly expectant that soon someone would explain this to her. Then Lily turned toward Meena, her own brow furrowing.
Meena had decided that, of the limited remaining options, the best plan was to take charge of the conversation and to steer it as determinedly as she could away from the topic at hand. “We haven’t had much time to discuss it yet,” she explained to Rose and Lily. Then, turning to her parents, “I’ll fill you in later. I didn’t want to bother you with the hearing coming up.”
Abhijat, still frowning, had the sense from Meena’s voice that something strange was afoot. “I look forward to our discussion,” he said.
Dr. Cardiff, perceptive enough to sense that something unpleasant was stirring beneath the surface of the conversation, took charge and turned toward Rose. “I understand, Mrs. Winchester, that you grew up in Nicolet when it was quite a different town?”
“Oh, yes,” she said, turning her attention toward Dr. Cardiff. “I suppose it was just your typical small farm town then. Everyone knew one another.” Indeed, some people still did, Rose thought to herself, as the waitress, a classmate from her school days, set a cup of coffee in front of her.
“And what was it like to return from your travels to find it so changed?” Dr. Cardiff asked.
“Well,” Rose thought for a moment. “To be honest, I found it exciting. The whole place had such a sense of—” she looked up and around the diner “—such a sense of possibility.”
Back at the high school, a crowd of participants made their way back into the auditorium. Sarala had expected that the room might thin out a little after lunch, but it seemed just as crowded as it had before the break. She, Abhijat, and Dr. Cardiff saved seats for Lily and Meena, who made their way to the restrooms before the hearing reconvened.
“You haven’t even mentioned the Academy to your parents?” Lily asked, incredulous, as they walked through the empty halls of the high school. “And Mr. Boden says you still haven’t asked him for a letter of recommendation. What’s going on?”
Meena shrugged and rolled her eyes. “Nothing. It’s just been busy and kind of stressful around our house lately. It hasn’t felt like the right time to bring it up.”
Lily eyed her strangely. It felt, to her, much like the conversation they’d had weeks earlier about cheerleading. But Meena seemed determined to ignore this strangeness between them. She ducked into the ladies’ room, Lily following behind.
The moderator and the rest of the Department of Energy panel filed back onto the stage and re-took their seats behind their microphones and name placards. The moderator again leaned forward into his microphone. “Ladies and gentlemen, I now reconvene the public hearing on the matter of the super collider. We will now hear from Mr. Lawrence Callahan, mayor of Nicolet.”
Rose watched with interest as the mayor stood, hiking the waistband of his dress slacks over his substantial girth, and made his way to the podium. The difference between the professionalism of Rose’s campaign staff and Mayor Callahan’s loose group of family and friends pitching in to help when they could, was, Rose believed, a manifestation of the difference between the old, rural Nicolet and the Nicolet of the present — a suburb that, with the arrival of the Lab, of developers, had become savvier, more sophisticated. Mayor Callahan, Rose hoped the voters would see, was a relic of the old Nicolet.
“Hello, everyone,” he began. “Gentlemen. I’m awfully glad so many of our good citizens have come out today to participate in this hearing. And now if you’ll bear with me, like I said, I’d like to say a few things.” Here he looked down, consulting his notes.
In his comments, he came down, as Rose expected, squarely on the side of the collider’s supporters, pointing out that the Lab was a good neighbor, a showplace for the arts, a cancer treatment center, and an educational institution.
Rose had also registered to speak. Her own comments were brief, largely an affirmation that she stood “in support of the safety and sanctity of our homes, schools, and farmland,” and that she believed the local elected officials had “failed the citizens of Nicolet by allowing this proposal to proceed this far.”
When they returned to the school from lunch, Sarala had taken Rose aside and asked her to explain the conversation about the Academy, so Sarala, unlike Abhijat, had a better sense of what was afoot. As the hearing continued, she began to guess, correctly as it turned out, at why Meena had not before mentioned this opportunity.
Abhijat, however, now found himself distracted, half following the hearing, and half curious to learn what it was that Rose had been referring to, what this opportunity for Meena was, and why she hadn’t shared this information with her own parents.
Meena sat stiffly next to her parents as the hearing continued. Surely, the moment they found themselves in the car on the way home her father would ask her about the conversation. And what to say? she wondered.
After the two mayoral candidates had come a kindly old lady, who urged the panel to pray over the matter. “Please don’t build this terrible machine under our homes, our schools, our beautiful farmland,” she urged them. “All of us, on both sides of this auditorium, want safe homes for our families. Don’t you want that, too? Then don’t take that away from us.”