Crow Flight Page 7

  She also read through dozens of articles about Grant Gartner—his inventions, his businesses, his charitable efforts. In only one article did he mention crows. It was an interview from twelve years earlier with a small, local newspaper, and when asked what he did for fun, Grant Gartner said that he trained crows. “Who knows,” he had said at the end, “maybe their skills will come in handy one day.”

  It was that statement that stuck with Gin, rolling over and over in her mind. The crows were obviously well trained. Maybe they were being used for something. The question was what.

  “Come on, class. Take a guess.” Mr. Ryan looked to one side of the class, then the other, waiting.

  Gin stared back at the quote. One hand clapping was a non-existent sound. Like drumming without a drum. The sound of air, which was like waves of sound, like light. Maybe the sound of one hand clapping was a bright, yellow light. Or the sound of someone’s thoughts. Or . . .

  A few students volunteered answers and Mr. Ryan nodded at each one. Finally, when the class’s ideas were exhausted, he held a hand out. “The sound of one hand clapping,” he said as he waved his lone hand in the air.

  The class laughed. And Gin held her hand under her desk, opening and closing it, slowly.

  In modeling class, they got their next assignment. This model would be due the week before winter break, which meant they had exactly two weeks to build it. It was a fun one, Ms. Sandlin said, because it was all about predicting something very hard to predict—weather.

  “Don’t worry, even the experts can’t get this one right,” she said after a few kids groaned. “You’ll be judged on your logic, creativity, and effort, as always.”

  They only had a few minutes to talk about it. Gin stared at her computer, suddenly nervous. She had barely talked with Felix after that day on the field. He was always so easygoing, and despite that—or maybe because of it—she seemed to clam up around him.

  “So, maybe we should meet and work on this one?” Felix tapped his pencil on his open notebook. Gin could see the sum total of his notes from the day: the erf function, the molecular structure of a catenane, and a note to look up ‘purple frogs.’ “I’ve never even attempted to model weather. Unless you’ve already done it. Then we can totally work separately.”

  “No, I haven’t,” she said too quickly. “We should meet. Maybe the library after school?”

  “The library doesn’t sound very weather-conducive.”

  “So what are you thinking—like a lab at NOAA? I don’t know anyone there, but maybe you have an in?”

  He tucked his pencil behind his ear and looked at her, really looked at her. She felt herself blushing, but she didn’t look away.

  “I just meant that maybe we could meet somewhere we actually experience weather.” He motioned towards the window, where trees were shifting in the breeze. “You know, wind and water, sun and sky.”

  It almost sounded like a date. “Sure. Like where? The library has good windows.”

  He smiled, wide. “You know, this afternoon’s actually going to be warm. How about the river?”

  “The river? What, like the Potomac?”

  He closed his notebook and sat up straighter, energized. “Exactly. There’s a park near the Roosevelt Bridge, with a little pull off by the river. Let’s meet there after school, near the boat ramp.”

  Gin knew exactly which park he was talking about—she had gone there last summer once with Hannah and Pete. It was a cool place. And maybe he was right. Maybe the best way to model weather was to start by experiencing it. Like graphing data, but in a sensory way.

  The bell rang, and Felix was still sitting there, eyebrows raised, waiting.

  “That works.”

  Felix tapped his notebook on the desk. “Sweet.” He stood and leaned over slightly so he was closer to her. It was overwhelming, like she could feel the energy rolling off of him.

  “All right.” She closed her laptop and added the event to her phone. “See you at 3:30.”

  But Gin didn’t get there right at 3:30. Traffic was heavy, and by the time she reached the parking lot, it was almost four. She got out of her car and squinted in the sun. The water glinted, thousands of small waves rippling blue, and a breeze pulled at her hair. Across the river, she could see the white Capitol dome, and further back, the Washington Monument, stately and smooth.

  Felix’s car was parked to one side, but Felix was nowhere to be seen. In fact, no one was there.

  She glanced around the parking lot again and walked to the river’s edge. It smelled vaguely like fish and mud. Little waves lapped against the concrete boat ramp, one after another, and she squatted down and touched the water. It was icy cold.

  Something flashed way out on the river and she stood up for a better look. A windsurfer was bobbing in the waves. She could see the white and blue sail, the metal bar gleaming in the sun. The rider wore a full-body wet suit and leaned back, legs slightly bent, arms strong.

  A slight shift in the board’s sail set it off, skimming across the water, cutting through the choppier waves. Beautiful.

  And somehow—maybe it was from the rider’s easy stance, or the wet curls against his neck—she realized it was Felix. It made her catch her breath. He zipped along the water, then slowed and looked back to shore. That’s when he noticed her and waved. She waved back, and before her hand was down at her side, he was angling the board to zigzag back to shore.

  Once he was close, he hopped into the water and waded up the boat ramp, resting the board’s sail down on the grassy bank and squeezing the water out of his hair. “Hey. Glad you made it. Give me one sec, okay?” he said, bounding off to his car.

  Within seconds, he was back, wearing a black puffy jacket and flip-flops, still-wet hair curling out from under an indigo beanie. He was holding his notebook, a chocolate bar, and a towel.

  “I figured you got stuck in traffic. So I got out on the water for a second. Conditions are great.” He took a bite of the chocolate and held it out to her. “Want some?”

  She shook her head: HungerStriker had recommended a granola bar before she left school, and she was still full. And nervous.

  He finished eating and wiped his hands together. “If you want, I can take you on the water. I have an extra wet suit.”

  For a second, she could imagine it—being out there in the wind, speeding along the glittery river. “Nah,” she said. “It looks cold. And isn’t the water . . . dirty?”

  “It’s not bad, really. The wet suit keeps you warm, and as long as you shower when you’re done, you’re fine.” He laid the towel out on the concrete boat ramp, and sat on one side of it, cross-legged. “Here, want to sit?”

  She sat next to him, the concrete cold even through the towel, and hugged her knees to her chest.

  “It’s crazy to think about it, isn’t it?” He was staring out at the river, and they sat there for a moment, in the quiet.

  “What?” she asked after it was clear he wasn’t going to say more.

  “Oh, you know . . . this. The weather stuff we’re supposed to model. It seems kind of impossible. To try to build something that accounts for all of it: all of these drops of water and atoms of oxygen and energy from the sun.”

  Gin pressed her face into her knees for warmth. Even with the sun on her back, the wind was chilly.

  “But then, being out there, it hit me.” He was leaning back, his elbows resting on the boat ramp, feet crossed and almost touching the water. “The trick is to make it overly simple.”

  The wind stilled. With the water and the sun and Felix so close, what was impossible was the act of thinking.

  “So how’d you get into it?” she asked.

  “What, windsurfing?”

  “Well, yeah, that too. But I meant modeling. Did you do it at your last school?”

  Felix sat up and stretched his arms overhead. “Ahh, modeling. Guess we must be pretty weird to love predicting the unpredictable, right?” He
smiled at Gin, and she met his gaze for a moment, then stared at the water and took a deep breath. “I think it was my dad who first got me into writing code. I was maybe four.”

  “Four?”

  “Yeah, is that young? Maybe I was five. It was normal at our house. I guess anything seems normal when you’re little.”

  A seagull floated near them, banking hard to the left to catch a breeze. Felix picked up a handful of pebbles and threw them, one by one, into the river. The breeze ruffled his drying hair.

  “I started with basic code, lots of ‘if-then’ logic, and moved on to making models for fun. Things like whether my dad would be mean or nice when he got home from a business trip, or whether my mom would extend her vacation at the spa.” He looked at her and shrugged. “It was all kind of a joke. Then Dad got me a tutor—”

  “You had a tutor? Like a once a week thing?”

  He found a smooth rock and skipped it across the water. Seven hits. “No. The other type. The type that teaches you Latin and classical literature and physics and calculus, all when you’re ten.” He turned to his side, propped up on one arm, facing her. His body was fully relaxed. She kept her arms tight around her knees. “I was at this weird point where the private school saw I had potential, and my dad wanted to maximize it. Just like his portfolio. Take something good and make it the best.” At the word “best,” he pumped his hand in the air for emphasis. “It worked for a few years, and then I got sick of it. So back to private school I went.”

  “That sounds kind of . . . miserable.”

  “At the time it was. To realize that I could never, ever live up to my dad’s expectations.” He looked back out at the river, his face serious. “But once I really got that, it was like the whole world opened up. Total freedom. Because I didn’t have to care about him anymore, you know?”

  He pulled off his beanie and shook out his hair, bits of water flying in all directions.

  “So what about the modeling part?” Gin finally asked.

  “Oh right,” he said. “Modeling. That was the best part of the tutor. He taught me a bunch of it. Eventually I started doing more complicated work. And it just grew from there.”

  He sat up and scooted towards Gin. “Anyway, enough of my story. How about you?”

  Gin picked up a stick and touched it to the water. “Oh, you know. Father who’s a crazy computer scientist, the type who creates programs to teach his daughters everything from reading to how to find the right school bus home. Mother who’s a nurse at the ER and keeps everything together at home.”

  He cocked his head, eyes serious. “Yeah? That’s kind of cool. Where’s your dad do his research?”

  A knot formed in her stomach. If she was going to tell Felix that his dad had messed up her dad’s life, this was her chance. “Some think tank group. Actually, one that your dad owns. My dad works on apps. Streamliner is his big one.”

  “Whoa, no way. Streamliner? My dad loves that thing. I swear, he’s said like three times that it’s incredible. Which, from him, is basically giving it a Nobel prize.”

  “It changed a lot of people’s lives. Just not ours. Since my dad was a company employee, it’s not like it made us rich. If he’d been out on his own, we’d be living the high life. You know, fancy house, maids, crazy trips . . .” She glanced at Felix, embarrassed to realize she was probably describing his life.

  He leaned back on his hands, legs stretched out before him, feet nearly touching the water. “Oh yeah, I know all about that. But I wouldn’t necessarily call it the high life. More of the distracted life. Anyway, I want to hear about your mom, too. What hospital does she work at? I’ve had a few emergencies—split chin in third grade, broken arm in fifth, a few near-disasters in junior high. Maybe she patched me up.”

  “Arlington General.”

  “Never been there. But now I know who to call the next time I decide to take my skateboard down the steps at the Capitol.” He nudged her with his shoulder. A quick touch, but enough to make her catch her breath. “With all that logic, you were practically fated for predicting the future.”

  The wind was picking up again, and the sun slipped behind a cloud, making everything darker for a second. When it popped back out, it was so bright she had to squint.

  “I don’t know about that. My sister Chloe’s not a modeler. She’s more of a professional partier. And it’s different now—Chloe’s at college, and my mom’s working or studying all the time.”

  It was the most she’d said about her family to anyone—even Hannah—for a long time.

  “That’s fair. And trust me, I’m the first to say things often aren’t as good as they seem.” His eyes were lit up in the sun, and for a minute, the only sound was the water pushing against the bank.

  Finally, he rubbed his hands together. “Anyway, as for windsurfing, which you kind of asked about, and which I love to talk about—I got into that a few years ago. My friend was learning, so I tried it. When I got out on the water and felt the wind tense on the sail, it was incredible. I never looked back.”

  “That’s cool.” It had been cool watching him out there. She could imagine that it felt even better. “So you like to write computer models, to windsurf, and to train crows.”

  “Guess that pretty much covers it.” He looked up at the sky, breathing deep. “So about this model—I feel inspired after being out here. What about you?”

  “Water, sun, wind, land. I guess I have the basics.” In a small way, it was a start. Maybe she could put numbers and assumptions to the whip of wind, or the darkening sky, or the coolness of the air.

  “Good. Let’s meet again soon, maybe at my house? But if we’re good for today, I think I’ll get back out on the water. You sure you don’t want to try?”

  She shook her head. “Next time.” The sun was a little lower now, and when she stood up, her shadow was long, reaching out into the river.

  “I’ll hold you to it.”

  Felix pushed his board back in the river as she walked to her car. She sat inside and put the keys in but didn’t turn the ignition. Instead, she watched. How he ran out into the water, and swam, one arm on his board. How he climbed up, his wet suit dripping, and tugged the sail in close, closer until he had caught the wind.

  To catch the wind. It sounded impossible. But it was beautiful.

  // Fifteen

  If Gin had had any doubts that Felix was rich, they were now gone.

  The day after their “work session” at the river, she had agreed to meet Felix at his house. Which meant first driving through the rolling, wealthy woods of Great Falls, Virginia, where old trees spread their branches, and everything had a hefty price tag. The Gartner estate was likely the priciest, with its immense brick wall and iron gate that Gin had to be buzzed into. The house itself was massive and modern, made of steel and rock and wood and glass. The living room, which was the size of a small home itself, had window walls and stretches of smooth leather couches and low, empty tables.

  When the maid had shown her in, she kept looking for signs of something strange—bird cages or rows of blue bells. But the house was so nice, so put together, it looked like something from a magazine. It didn’t look like anyone—much less someone who trained crows—lived there.

  Gin and Felix were supposed to be working on the weather model. But so far, they hadn’t even broached the topic—all they’d done was sit in the living room. Or rather, Gin sat, and Felix lounged. Laying back on the couch, one long leg off the side, the other bent up. His flip-flops were off, his hands were behind his head, and his shirt was hiked up just enough to show a thin line of his stomach.

  A cloud passed by, blocking the sun and darkening the living room, and Gin thought cloud cover was as good a place to start as any. She was about to tell Felix, when he spoke.

  “So, Gin, what do you want?” His eyes were still closed, body still fully reclined.

  “What do I want?” All thoughts of cloud cover vanished.

>   He opened his eyes to look at her once, then promptly closed them. “Yeah. What do you really want?”

  “Now? In life? For the next twenty years?”

  He smiled wider. “Just, whenever.”

  Gin bit her lip and rubbed her forehead. What did she want? The question settled in her, weighty for a second. Until she remembered she knew exactly what she wanted. “I want us to finish up our model. So I—we—can do well in this class. And then I can go to Harvard.”

  “Harvard, that seems right. Smart school for a smart girl. You know, my dad went to Harvard, and sometimes interviews prospective students. If you want, I could see if he could help.”

  Gin’s mouth dropped open—she had never expected Grant Gartner would have the time to even consider helping someone like her. “Really? That’d be great.” It was more than great. Even though she was smart, getting into a school like Harvard demanded more than smart—you had to be special, and most likely, to have connections.

  “So, Harvard . . .” Felix’s eyes were still closed, his lips smiling. “And then what?”

  “Get a good job,” she said. “Work on computer models, ones that are good and make a difference. And make money. You know, the normal stuff.”

  He turned to his side and looked at her. “I don’t believe you.”

  She sat taller, hands on her knees, feeling suddenly indignant. “What, that I want to work on models? Because that’s been my dream since I was, like, five. Or that I need money? Because I can show you my bank account. And there’s not much in it.”

  He pushed himself up and pulled one knee to his chest, setting his chin on it. “No, I just don’t believe that’s all you want.”

  She narrowed her eyes, her body tightening with annoyance. “I guess it’d be nice if I didn’t have to worry about any of it.” She could feel the heat build in her face. “If I could float through life, riding yachts and vacationing in Europe.”

  “Okay, that’s fair.” He stretched his arms out in front of him and sat up straighter. “And you’re right, money is important. But the thing is, a lot of time, too much of it makes people less happy. Take my father’s friends, for instance, who have loads of money and end up stressing about which plane to buy or whether their private beach will erode an inch.”