The Math Teacher.
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Chapter Two
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[Ms Nichols/Nikki]
At 4.30 I signed off my Yahoo Groups and went tell my Math Club kids it was time to hit the road. The dozen or so students obediently gathered their backpacks and trail off, still yakking about RGPs. I had to wonder if their parents are aware of what the kids get up to on-line. Moments later only Julie Martine was left in the classroom. I asked her, "Your mom picking you up, Julie?"
She smiled at me and yet again I was stunned by her exquisite looks. She's what- 12? 13? She'll be on the cover of Vogue before she's eighteen. The girl's slender build disguised the budding figure of an athlete or a dancer. And I knew she was both. Her eyes were the darkest chocolate brown and her almost waist-length hair was straight, silky and a shiny near-black. She had the face and complexion of a Latina china doll combined with a sweet alert air that was charming. As usual her clothes and purse and backpack were expensive in a tasteful teenage way.
And Julie Martine was frighteningly intelligent.
Now Julie zipped shut her Prada laptop case and said, "No, today my uncle is picking me up. He'll be here in a minute or two, he's never late."
"Really?"
I was dubious. Like every other adult at this exclusive private school—kindergarten through grade 12, 96.3% college bound, 60% to Ivy League universities—I had been extensively briefed on this child's security requirements.
Julie nodded and said, "Yep. He has a note, you'll see—"
We were interrupted by a voice at the door saying, "Knock-knock," accompanied by a soft rap of knuckles on the door jamb.
"Anthony!"
"Babe!"
Big happy hug. The man twirled her around and kissed her forehead. I could definitely see that Julie knew this man and was thrilled to see him. But surely this was no one's uncle.
Julie was squealing, "Thank you for coming for me."
"No problemo, chica."
"Come meet my math teacher! Did daddy tell you I am taking advanced calculus this year?"
"Yeah. That's like awesome, sweetheart." The man sounded totally clueless.
Julie grabbed his hand and dragged him over to me. "Ms Nichols, this is my Uncle Anthony Stewart." Then she added to him, "My teacher, Ms Nichols." Nice manners, I thought.
I looked at the uncle. Six or so feet of male model body draped in ragged cargo shorts, faded blue wifebeater (The Crabby Clam Bar ~ Key Largo), flipflops and aqua-lensed sunglasses. And! Get this—diamond earrings and beaded dreadlocks, blond. Nice tan.
I checked out the muscles displayed by the sadly ancient tank top and surreptitiously checked my face for drool. Bad dresser but hot, very hot. Wow.
The man took off the sunglasses and we shook hands—his unexpectedly callused—and we both said, "Nice to meet you."
"Antonio! Mom says being in Math Club is geeky…." The guy frowned. "But look, Ms Nichols is totaly not geeky, she's really pretty! …Oh, ooops! Sorreeee!" The man had set a gentle hand on her should to silence her.
To me Julie said, "Uncle Anthony liked math too when he was in school—he's really good at math and computers and stuff."
"Chica."
Good at math? Give me a break! Not only did this guy look like he just rolled off his surfboard, he was obviously unemployed if he was available to do a school pick up run in the late afternoon. He was so good looking that he couldn't possibly have a brain in his gorgeous, albeit cornrowed, head.
Politely I said, "Really? Bet you're really good at adding up your checkbook, huh?"
Mr. Stewart narrowed his eyes at me and said, "Yeah—well, I like, you know, do it online, click, click. Doesn't everybody?" He paused. "Actually I have someone..."
"Of course," I said kindly. Run out of fingers and toes for counting, huh?
Julie spoke up quickly and said, "I left my English homework in my locker—be right back!" And she hustled out leaving me with "Surfer Dude."
After an uncomfortable silence, Stewart rested a butt cheek on a student desk, crossed his arms on his chest making his glossy brown biceps bulge, and said, "So what exactly do you teach, Ms Nichols?"
"It's Alyssa," I heard myself say.
He nodded. "Alyssa." And smiled at me. Omigod, he had Julie's wonderful smile.
I got a grip and told him what my classes were, adding, "Some of the advanced students are really bright. We actually had a discussion about the application of fractal theory to quantum geometry the other day….Oh well, you wouldn't know what that is, but it's quite esoteric. Julie should do well here."
"Babe, I wrote the fundamental theory on fractal generation of the Mandelbrot and Julia sets." He shrugged. "Chaos and cyber-quantum theory applications and so on. You know, like—the Julia set consists of values such that an arbitrarily small perturbation can cause drastic changes in the sequence of iterated function values. Thus the behavior of the function on the Fatou set is 'regular', while on the Julia set its behavior is 'chaotic'. As I'm sure you know, in numerical analysis, the Newton-Raphson method of approximating the roots of a function can lead to chaotic iterations if the function has no real roots, thus creating Julia sets. The name, Julie/ Julia, is just a coincidence, I'm pretty sure her mom chose it."
I laughed. "Good one!" But he stared at me as if he sensed a hint of challenge or disrespect from me. Well, look at him! Can you all say Airhead? Yeah….
He straightened up and said, "I'm gonna find Julie, good to meet you, Ms Nichols…." He turned to leave but stopped at the door, said quietly, "Look it up, Alyssa. Go ahead, Google me. MIT, PhD, class of…." He told me the year and was gone.
I did a fast subtraction in my head. Say he was maybe 25 or so now, he'd have been...what? Seventeen? I laughed. What a jerk!
…. …. ….
I turned away, a little flustered and then I noticed a white business card left on the desk where Stewart had been sitting. I picked it up. It was heavy cardstock with simple and elegantly engraved black print:
Anthony Robert Stewart
M-S World International Bank
NYC, London, Rome, Zurich, Geneva, Tokyo
Georgetown, Cayman Is
…no phone numbers.
I flipped it over and engraved on the back was:
an 800 number: 800 One Shot and a web site: OneShot [dot]com
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—in a goofy font I recognized asThriller Bold.
Hmmmm. I heard footsteps in the hall and Stewart stuck his head back in. He said, "Call me!" in chorus with Julie's, "Bye, Ms Nichols, see you tomorrow!"
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That evening I sat at my kitchen table, laptop open in front of me, diet Coke in my hand. And yes, okay. I did Google him. And yes, there he was. On the bank's website, on MIT's website and on their alumni site, and on the web's cyber-math chat boards. The bank even had his picture and title: CFO/ chief financial officer. Suit and tie with the dreadlocks.
The strange thing though was the One Shot website—it opened, but then a Department of Homeland Security seal came up and a banner text that said:
Sealed by order of the President of the United States.
NTK/ eyes only.
Yikes! I backed out fast.
Later that night I again sat down at my desk and looked at his card. He said Call him…and I would. To apologize.
Just as soon as I got up the nerve.
I picked up my wine, the diet Coke just wasn't doing it for me tonight, and took a big gulp.
tbc