here goes

[self_composed]

Bella schedules an appointment at Stanford. She breezes through sixteen hours of motorcycle class, mostly by demonstrating that the instructor is redundant and wouldn't he rather teach her exotic motorcycle tricks and then just mark her as passing the course? She plays in a soccer game against a Port Angeles high school and wins. She starts driving her bike to school, and she names it Tegu after a lizard of similar coloring, because it needed a name.

On Friday evening she's due to fly out, crash in a Stanford grad student's house overnight, interview on Saturday, and fly home that evening. She bikes for the airport, black leather gold-studded saddlebags over Tegu's back wheel carrying her luggage.

Comments

[self_composed]

[Enjoy,] Bella says lightly. [Man, the weather is nice here. It's like I've time-traveled to a land in which it is already spring.]

[edgeofyourseat]

[It's pretty great,] he agrees. [Snow's fun, too, though.]

[self_composed]

[Well, I imagine I'll visit Charlie some holidays, when I'm not going to see Renée instead.]

[edgeofyourseat]

[And if I do the magic doors thing, I can just bounce around until I find weather I'm in the mood for, anyway.]

Magic is awesome!

[What's your mom like, anyway?]

[self_composed]

[Well, she looks a lot like me, but we're not that similar in personality] Bella says. [She has no long-term attention span. I think the only reason she can teach kindergarten is that she gets to forget she was doing it once a year. Hobbies and stuff she's intense about for a few months, then drops. In a lot of ways she's very childlike - she used to screw up things like depositing her paychecks, never bad enough that we went hungry or couldn't pay the mortgage if the bank called to yell at her, but bad enough to be scary, so I learned how to help her with that sort of thing as soon as I could. She's good at her job, she's never embarrassed not to know how to do something new, she's often very insightful about people and how they relate to each other while completely missing plenty of relevant implications of whatever she's spotted.]

[edgeofyourseat]

[Huh,] says Alice. [I kinda like her already.]

That's not new, though. He likes a lot of people!

[self_composed]

[She might well like you too.]

Bella finishes lunch and departs the cafeteria.

[edgeofyourseat]

That is a pleasing notion to contemplate! He bounces happily after her.

[self_composed]

Bella explores Stanford, wending her way to where she's supposed to meet the soccer coach.

The soccer coach is in the soccer field with the soccer players.

Bella waits politely for her attention, and then introduces herself.

"So you're some kind of prodigy now that your ear's fixed, I hear," says the coach.

"I've only had a chance to play against high schoolers, but I think so," Bella says modestly.

"Great. You're a forward? Go shoot goals against Mackenzie."

Bella goes and shoots goals against Mackenzie. Bella has only excellent-human-level soccer skills and Mackenzie is pretty good, so Bella misses one of twenty goals. She does not miss the other nineteen.

"Damn," says the coach. "I had some other stuff for you to do but I think I'm done."

[edgeofyourseat]

Alice giggles over brainphone.

[self_composed]

Bella warmly expresses her enthusiasm for playing soccer at Stanford and bids the coach goodbye. [I wonder if I should feel bad about cheating,] she muses, heading for the orchestra conductor's office.

[edgeofyourseat]

[Nope,] says Alice, predictably.

[self_composed]

[I suppose I probably shouldn't feel any worse than people who really do have this level of genetic gift do. I mean, I'll actually show up to practices; I don't have the history of putting the effort in but I will in the future. Still. Seems vaguely like doping or something.]

[edgeofyourseat]

[Well, I don't think you should feel bad that you're cheating, but I'm not gonna tell you you're not cheating.]

[self_composed]

Bella mentally laughs. She doesn't laugh aloud; she does not wish to look like a crazy person.

[edgeofyourseat]

He grins at her.

[self_composed]

Bella has a half-hour wait for the flute audition, since the soccer one didn't last long.

She makes sure no one is looking, and conjures herself a novel. Jane Austen.

[edgeofyourseat]

Is there room for Alice to sit down and lean his head on her knee? He would like to do that.

[self_composed]

There is. Bella doesn't pet him - someone could come around the corner at any moment - but she does smile a bit.

[edgeofyourseat]

Yay!

This is an excellent place to be and Bella is an excellent friend to have.

[self_composed]

Eventually the orchestra conductor shows up and leads Bella into his office. She plays pieces from memory - showoffy complicated ones - and reads music and transposes things in her head and plays a duet with him.

He seems suitably impressed, though he doesn't cut off the audition partway through like the soccer coach did.

[edgeofyourseat]

Alice sits where nobody will trip over him and... enjoys the music.

Enjoys it a lot, in fact.

[self_composed]

Bella cleans and puts away her flute, making concluding small talk with the conductor, and walks out. [I'm supposed to catch an airport shuttle next - I have all my stuff on me,] she says. [Flight's in four hours.]

[edgeofyourseat]

['kay,] says Alice. [Think I'll head back early.]

Pretty much entirely because he already checked out of his hotel room and he wants to go enjoy that music some more in a place Bella will not consider creepy.

[self_composed]

Bella laughs silently, and heads for the place where the airport shuttle will appear.

A few hours later, she's riding Tegu home.