Page 110 of Love Around the Corner
“Sheisa hell of a girl.” He smiled, a small, private smile. “She walks amongst the stars.”
“Stop it. You’re gonna make me cry.” Smith sat back and took a sip of his coffee. “Okay, then. Let’s talk about what happens next.”
Chapter Forty-Six
“This is so cool!”
“Hang on,” Livie said, leaning over and punching a few buttons on the telescope. The huge metal tube slowly swung to the left and oriented itself to the new coordinates. “Take a look now.”
The sullen fifteen-year-old boy, who’d been dragged along to the community outreach event by his mother, peered into the eyepiece again. “Holy shit, what is that?”
“Cameron!” his mother wailed. “Language!”
“It’s okay, I’m from New York. I’ve heard much worse. That is the Horsehead Nebula.”
“What is it?” Cameron breathed, never lifting his eye from the eyepiece. Nearly everyone else from the evening stargazing event had gone home. There was only Cameron and his mother left. She’d been urging her son to wrap it up for fifteen minutes, but the kid was hooked. From someone who hadn’t wanted to step foot in the observatory earlier this evening, now he’d become someone she couldn’t tear away.
“It’s a star nursery.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It’s made up of interstellar dust and gasses that come together to create new stars. See those little bright spots inside of it?”
“Yeah?”
“Those are stars being formed.”
“Wow.”
“I know, right? It’s pretty cool.”
“So cool.”
“Okay, Cameron,” his mother interjected. “The stargazing ended fifteen minutes ago. We’re keeping Dr. Romano from getting home. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay. I really don’t mind. And I’m not a doctor yet.”
Cameron finally looked up from the telescope. “You’re not? But you know so much stuff.”
“I’m still in school, I’ve got another year to go and when I’ve finished, I’ll submit something called a dissertation. It’s a paper, about the research I’m doing here at McArthur. After that, I’ll graduate and become a doctor.”
“What will you do then?”
“Even when I finish my dissertation, I’ll still have a lot of research to do on my subject,” she explained. “My dissertation will only describe a tiny part of it. Hopefully I’ll get hired to teach at a college somewhere that will let me keep working on it.”
“They should definitely give you a job, because you’re a great teacher.”
“Thanks,” Livie said. To her surprise, she agreed with Cameron. She’d become a great teacher since she’d arrived at McArthur. She’d never have believed it when she’d stepped in front of her first Intro to Astronomy class back at Adams. A lot had changed since then. Most importantly, her.
“McArthur opens the observatory to the public once a month,” Livie told Cameron. “Be sure you come back.”
“Oh, absolutely,” his mother assured her. “I haven’t seen him this excited since they released a new edition ofFortnite. Thank you so much for your time.”
“It was no problem at all. Drive safe. The road down the mountain is a little scary at night.”
It was scary even in broad daylight, when she’d only had her license for a few months. At night, it was absolutely terrifying. But she was working on that. A little fear wasn’t going to keep her away from McArthur’s mountaintop observatory.
“See you next month!” Cameron called as he trailed his mother out of the observatory. Livie waved them off, pausing for a moment at the door to breathe in the night air.
