Page 6 of Gryphon

“My parents had a chart for me to point at how I was feeling, or I’d look in the mirror to try to figure it out: happy, okay, sad, worried, and upset—big smile, small smile, no smile, frown, and tears. A neat continuum that made emotions much easier to comprehend.”

“Well, the five are useful for general categorization, but there’s more.”

She opened her personal notebook to the four pages of pasted-in charts of emojis and identifying words. “This is out of control.”

“But,” he waved a hand to the southwest. “Taz is at home with our Amy. I miss them both so much, which makes me sad. Having a child, Miranda, is so beyond awesome that I can’t wait for her to talk so I can ask what she’s thinking. She’s only four months old, but I can see her learning every second of the day. Every time I hold her, I’m so happy that it’s a wonder I don’t self-destruct like Japan’s H3 rocket engine. It was so hard to leave her, to miss a single day, but Taz said I had to come to the conference to see you and get out from underfoot,” he imitated Taz’s Latinate tones. “Which made me happy to see you and laugh at Taz’s joke.”

“But those are all covered by my five.”

“Well, you didn’t mention excited. Aren’t you excited about being here? Aren’t you pleased with Meg the superdog?”

Meg looked up at them and wagged her tail at the mention of her name.

“And saddened or even annoyed by some of the safety methodology failures that we’ve been hearing about?”

“I guess.” Would she be down-frown sad if she left the NTSB? In September of last year, the NTSB had signed an agreement with the FAA stating that the NTSB would lead aerospace accident investigations only if someone was hurt or property unrelated to the launch was damaged. In other words, hands off if anything technologically interesting occurred.

She’d been with the NTSB for twenty years, half her life. Would she have to leave its familiarity to join the FAA to work on the newer problems? She didn’t like the sound of that.

“Anyway,” Jeremy looked around, then leaned closer. “Who was the guy at the table?”

“Rotorcraft,” there was a sharp tightness in her throat and her stomach roiled. Was it the langoustines she’d eaten? Miranda looked down at Meg, who had taken the opportunity to lie down and fall asleep at the base of the potted palm’s pot in her usual position (on her back, legs in the air). Her prominently displayed belly didn’t appear to be bothering her. Was the discomfort an emotion? None of the faces on her reference chart showed choking and she didn’t have a mirror handy to check her own face even if it did. Did she need a Heimlich Maneuver? No, her breathing was overly rapid but functional.

“Rotorcraft? Like replacing-Andi kind of rotorcraft? Took them long enough.”

Miranda looked up from Meg, almost to Jeremy’s eyes.

“I mean it. None of us was ever a tenth as good at those as she was. If this guy’s at all decent, you need him.”

There was a look on Jeremy’s face. His eyes aimed upward, but not as if he was looking at something and there was an odd twist to his mouth. Wistfulness? She studied the pages of her still open personal notebook. Yes, it was the only one that fit his facial pattern.

“What are you feeling wistful about, Jeremy?” she asked to test her hypothesis.

“Oh,” he looked down at her and she looked aside quickly.

Knowing that her eyes were hidden from others by the reflective sunglasses helped less than she’d hoped. They might be looking at their reflections, but that still lined up their eyes with hers. In fact, they watched their reflections more intently than they’d ever looked at her eyes. And she saw their eyes. She sighed and took off the sunglasses, tucking them carefully into the pocket of her vest that she’d dedicated to their use.

“I just miss being on your team, Miranda. I mean, Taz is happier in Washington, DC. And I love the problem-solving needed at the NTSB Headquarters lab. But I miss…you.”

Did she miss him? “Yes. Not as much as Andi, but I miss you too.”

He laughed again. “Good to know. So, he’s rotorcraft, but who is he?” Jeremy hooked a thumb back towards the banquet room.

“He’s the Big Bad Wolf,” a deep voice said so close behind her that she leapt away. After tripping on Meg, who gave a sharp yelp of surprise at the rude awakening, Miranda would have landed on the floor if she hadn’t run into Jeremy first. She managed to remain upright, but he tumbled backward into the palm tree, landing sprawled across the big pot with his butt planted in the plastic ivy covering the dirt.

“Whups! Sorry, buddy.” Tad lifted Jeremy back to his feet as if he weighed less than Meg, who was up on all fours and snarling at Tad.

“What the hell?” Holly grabbed Tad’s shoulder and yanked him away. He almost dragged Jeremy over Meg before letting go of Jeremy’s arms.

“Ow! Shit, woman.” Instead of collapsing in pain as most people did when Holly did one of her vice-grip things, Tad reached up and peeled her hand off his shoulder. “Got a good grip on you.”

“I’ll grip your damn face off!”

“About time,” Mike whispered from close behind Miranda, almost making her leap again.

“Just chill, woman. You on that hair-trigger all the time?” Tad rubbed at his shoulder.

Mike answered for her. “Count on it. Now, what did you just do?”

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