Page 42 of The Scientist

“Maya Chen,” she said.

“What’s your major, Maya?”

“Nursing,” she answered.

“Wow. That’s amazing,” I said. “One speck of blood and I’d be on the floor.”

She smiled and stood a little more proudly.

“Show me what you guys came up with.” I gestured to the board.

They made their way to the board and wrote out the loose structure of a 32-bar form. I was genuinely impressed by their composition, especially since half the group couldn’t even decipher musical notations. I sat at the piano and played the first two A-sections and discussed how they could clean up the second half of the song.

“Overall, very nice, ladies! It has a little Jerry Lee Lewis thing going for it,” I told them.

“Who’s that?” Maya asked with a puzzled expression.

I clutched my chest like I was injured. “Maya, thank god you’re a nurse. I may need medical attention after the way my spirit was just crushed harder than the ‘I’ in Pixar.”

She giggled, and I started playing the one Jerry Lee Lewis song most people knew, “Great Balls of Fire.”

“Oh yeah,” she said. “I do know that one. My dad likes all that old stuff too.”

I gave her a deadpan look. “Anddddd that’ll do it for team Kennedy and Chen.” I shuffled them back to their seats.

Maya continued to giggle. “I didn’t mean it like that, Ms. Olivier.”

“Huh? What was that?” I said loudly, cupping my ear. “You’ll have to speak up. I don’t have my hearing aids in.”

They were both chuckling as they made their way back to their seats. I was about to call for my next set of volunteers when I saw John-Luke raising his hand with a mischievous grin on his face.

“Ms. Olivier?” he called out.Internal sigh.What was he up to? “Is it true you know Phoebe Bridgers?”

I could tell he was working some angle, and that this wasn’t just genuine curiosity. I hesitated to answer, knowing the other shoe would eventually drop.

“Yes, it’s true,” I confirmed when excited murmurs broke out. “I helped write a few songs on her last album.”

I could see his faithful lackeys gearing up for the joke to come. “You think you could give her my number? I think we’d really hit it off,” he said, bravado on full display.

There was that other shoe. “And what makes you think that?” I asked, flexing my sarcastic muscle.

“My dad and I bumped into her at a restaurant in LA once. He told her I was in law school, and she said she could always use a good lawyer. I think she was giving me the green light, Teach. What do you think?”

“I think that’s a bigger stretch than MJ’s arm at the end of Space Jam. Now, you and your partner come up here and show me what you’ve been working on.”

He grinned wider than the Cheshire cat as he and his partner made their way to the board. Their composition was actually decent, but I hurried to give them their feedback to avoid any more flare-ups.

When class finally wrapped, some of the students stopped to thank me and asked a few more questions about my work with Phoebe. Despite John-Luke’s continued attempts to distract me, I still felt really content about the day as I drove home. It was the first time I considered the possibility that I might actually be able to pull off this teaching thing.

???

“You have all the paperwork Dr. Gremillion gave you, right?” I asked my mom when I called to check in on her later thatevening. She had an appointment first thing in the morning, so I wanted to be prepared.

“What paperwork?”

“Mom…”

“Just kidding. Lighten up, kiddo. It’s just a little chemo.”