like you’re five,” Emerson said.
I stepped away from my laptop and joined them. “Hey, Lizzie. It’s okay. You can touch it.”
Lizzie turned to her mother and stuck out her tongue.
Emerson narrowed her eyes, but it was obvious she was more amused than annoyed.
Lizzie grabbed the model and continued to inspect it. “So, you’re going to build this?”
“It’s just one example. We’ve actually made a few others. This was our first try, though.”
She rolled it over the surface and watched the tires spin. “What’s wrong with it?”
I shrugged. “Just not right. When it comes to stuff like this, you have to think of every single scenario, and some scenarios are just impossible to anticipate until we make an attempt. With this one, we realized the material of the tires was corrosive to some of the elements in the sand, and then there was an issue with the placement of the brakes. Just a bunch of little things.”
“So, you have to do it over and over?”
“Pretty much.”
“Wow, that sounds like a lot of work.”
“Yeah, it can be a pain sometimes. But when it comes to the final product, it has to be absolutely perfect. And in order for it to be perfect, it takes a lot of work.”
“That’s really cool.” She set down the model and continued to look around. “So, you want to show me around, Derek?”
“Sure, Liz.” I walked with her and showed her the different parts of the warehouse, along with the models of the other rockets we’d built. Emerson hung back, like she wanted to give us the opportunity to be alone.
I spent the next hour showing her the simulations we’d worked on because she was so interested in everything, and we got deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole of my work. It was technically a waste of time because I should be working on the things that needed my attention, but I didn’t mind it.
She walked to one of my whiteboards and looked at the equations and calculations written there. Her mouth dropped, and she turned to look at me in shock. “This math doesn’t even have numbers.”
I chuckled. “Yeah, it’s a little weird.”
“You know how to do this?” She stepped closer and looked it over.
“Do it every day.”
“What does it mean?”
“Well, this is actually physics. We were trying to understand the way the centripetal force would affect the astronauts inside the shuttle of this particular rocket, since the thruster design is a little different.”
Lizzie looked amazed. “Whoa, that’s sick.”
“Yeah…sick.” I found her terminology humorous since it made literally no sense.
“I can’t wait to take physics.”
I didn’t want to tell her it was probably the most difficult subject because I didn’t want to discourage her. “You can take it in high school, probably when you’re a sophomore or junior.”
“Cool. I’ve got the best tutor, so I’ll ace it.”
My heart suddenly warmed when she said that, because she believed in herself and believed in me, and it just felt good for inexplicable reasons. “Yeah.”
“So, can we see the rocket now?”
“Sure.” We walked back to the entrance, and Emerson tagged along. We got in the golf cart, drove across the asphalt to the hangar, and then parked and walked inside.
The look on Lizzie’s face was unforgettable. “This is the coolest shit I’ve ever seen!” She walked ahead of us and got closer, seeing the engineers work to piece it together, focusing on different parts.
“Wow.” Emerson crossed her arms over her chest. “I never thought in a million years that my daughter would be so interested in science.” She turned to me, giving me a look full of accusation, like I was entirely responsible.
“Most people aren’t interested in science because they aren’t given a reason to be.”
She gave me a soft smile before she watched her daughter get close to the rocket and look high up, forty feet in the air, to its new height.
I stood with my hands in my pockets and admired how hard everyone was working to meet the deadline of the test launch. “So, do you have plans for Thanksgiving?”
“I usually cook for my parents and Lizzie, and we watch Christmas movies while Lizzie looks at all the ads for Black Friday and makes a ridiculously long list of presents that I can’t possibly afford to buy her.” She chuckled. “What about you?”
“My family usually goes to our cabin in Connecticut. Sometimes we get snow.”
“Oh, that will be nice.”
“My parents asked me to invite you and Lizzie to come.”
She slowly turned back to me, surprised