“So good to see you,” said Amy.
They kept right on talking as the hostess led them to a small table near the window. There was lots of catching up to do. Maria had recently bagged her eighth fourteener — Colorado lingo, meaning she’d climbed eight of the state’s fifty-four mountain peaks that exceeded fourteen thousand feet. Maria was a bona fide fitness fanatic, a fairly common breed in a city where winter snow-plows sometimes cleared the bicycle paths before the streets. She never ate meat and actually had a chin-up bar in her puny office. Amy was the only one in the department who had even come close to keeping up with her on the jogging trail.
The waitress took their orders, and then they marveled over the latest pictures of Taylor while sipping house chardonnay. Finally, the conversation wound its way down the career path.
“So, are you ready for law school this fall?”
“I guess.”
Maria smirked. “I’m glad to see your enthusiasm has grown since last we talked.”
“Actually, I have some potentially good news on that front.”
“What?”
“It’s highly confidential. If I tell you, you can’t tell anyone. Not even your husband.”
“Don’t worry about Nate, honey. I could tell him I just uncovered the secret formula for Coca-Cola, and his response would probably be something like, ‘That’s nice, sweetie. Have you seen my car keys?’ Come on,” she said eagerly. “What’s the big secret?”
Amy paused for effect, then said, “I may be reenrolling in the fall.”
Maria shrieked. Heads turned at neighboring tables, but she kept on gushing. “That’s great! It’s better than great. It’s fabulous. But why is it a secret?”
“Because the law firm I’m working for is giving me a partial scholarship to law school. If they find out I’m having second thoughts, I’m afraid they’ll pull the scholarship. If my astronomy plans don’t work out, then I’d be screwed all the way around.”
Maria gestured, zipping her lip. “Your secret is safe with me. When will you know for sure?”
“By the end of the week, hopefully.”
“God, I’m so happy you’ve had a change of heart.”
“My heart never changed. It’s more a change in circumstances. Money, to be exact.”
“What, somebody died and left you a fortune?”
“Actually, yes.”
Her smile faded. “Great. I mean, I’m sorry about the death. But good for you, in a way. Hell, you know what I mean.”
“It’s okay. I didn’t really know the guy.”
“Somebody you didn’t know is leaving you a pot of money?”
“Possibly, yes. I met with his son yesterday to make sure everything checks out. It’s a little sticky. He’s in the middle of a divorce.”
“Oh,” she said. It was an ominous “oh.”
“Why the look?”
“Some guy you don’t know dies and leaves you money. His son is in the middle of a divorce. Don’t you think you’re being a little optimistic about enrolling in the fall? Those kinds of legal problems can drag out indefinitely.”
Amy hesitated. It was even more complicated, but it was best to keep it simple. “He promised to have everything cleared up by next Friday.”
“Friday,” she said, drumming her fingers on the tabletop. “To be honest with you, that might not be soon enough.”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t get me wrong. No one would be more excited than me to see you come back. But it’s already mid-July. I’m not sure we can line things up for the fall term.”
“What’s the big deal? I just pick up where I left off.”
“It’s not that simple. With most of your coursework already behind you, your primary focus this fall is your independent research. There’s already a lot of research being done in the field on the birth and death of stars and the possible existence of other planetary systems around them. If you’re going to generate a dissertation of publishable quality, the best place to conduct your research is the Meyer-Womble Observatory on Mt. Evans.”
Amy was aware of that. At better than four thousand meters above sea level, they were pulling images from Mt. Evans that rivaled Hubble Space Telescope quality. “What do we have to do to get me in?”
“The site is operated by the University of Denver under a U.S. Forest Service special use permit, so the department will have to work out some kind of collaborative research arrangement with DU. That needs to be done well in advance. It’s not just a question of access to the telescope. It’s also a matter of getting to and from the observatory. Living accommodations are limited on the mountain, especially if you’re going to take your daughter and grandmother with you. You can’t be driving back and forth from Boulder every day. It’s not only time- consuming, but come November, the roads could be impassable.”
Amy sipped her wine, thinking. “I promise to let you know by next Friday.”
“I can’t guarantee anything.”
“Come on. Cut me a little slack, okay? What’s the absolute deadline?”
“Yesterday. Or to be even more precise, last month. If I’m going to bust my political hump to work you back into the fall program, I need a commitment from you. And I need it right away. I’m being straight with you, Amy. As a friend.”
She snagged her lip with her tooth. She had agreed to give Ryan Duffy a week to pull together the records, but that wasn’t written in stone. “Okay,” she said with a quick nod. “I’ll let you know by Monday.”
19
By midafternoon, Ryan could see the Denver skyline from the interstate. A hint of the infamous brown cloud hovered over the city. Despite serious clean-up efforts, Denver hadn’t completely shaken the ghost of air pollution. The worst Ryan had seen it was a year ago last winter. That was the last time he’d come to visit his old friend Norman Klusmire.
The once inseparable twosome had met as freshmen at the University of Colorado — roommates, in fact, though it was just the luck of the on-campus housing lottery that had thrown them together. They didn’t exactly seem destined to become lifelong friends. Ryan was the more serious student, with an eye on med school from the first day of orientation. Norm had chosen UC because it was close to the ski slopes, a curious move for a native of southern Mississippi who had absolutely no use for ice, save for mint juleps. His grades were lousy in one sense; astounding if you considered he never went to class. On a dare he took the Law School Admissions Test and scored in the top one-half of one percent. The sea change was complete when he met another transplanted southerner, the radiant Rebecca — though he nearly blew it with her right on their wedding day. In probably his only lapse of judgment since his twenty-first birthday, Norm put his hell-raising older brother in charge of his bachelor party. Norm awoke an hour before the ceremony with a permanent nipple ring big enough to set off a metal detector and absolutely no memory of how it got there. Ryan did the emergency removal in the basement of the church. The stitches blended nicely with the chest hair. Rebecca never knew. They’d been married ever since.
Norm had always said that if Ryan were ever in a crack, he could count on Norm to return the favor. It was intended as a joke. Norm’s specialty was criminal defense.
Ryan called from the truck stop just outside Denver to say he needed to cash in on that old offer. Norm laughed, recalling the old joke. Ryan didn’t laugh with him. Norm immediately dropped everything and invited his old buddy over to the house.
Norm lived on Monroe Street in the Cherry Creek North subdivision. A million dollars didn’t buy what it used to in Denver, but Ryan still thought it should have bought more than Norm’s five-bedroom, mausoleum-like home with no yard to speak of. It had that multilevel, overbuilt look that the same builder had achieved in a dozen other new homes in the neighborhood, all in the hefty million-plus price range. For the money, Ryan preferred the restored
