Nora woke at one on Thursday afternoon with the strange sense that she had missed an alarm. The room was bright, and she could hear Lucy in the kitchen, arguing with somebody on the phone about whether a school bus counted as public space. It took Nora a moment to remember that she had taken the night off. The leave request had been approved three weeks ago, before Lucy made the final round, when getting enough sleep for a Friday school event had seemed merely sensible. Now there was an actual final at four, and the empty hours ahead felt extravagant.
She put on a robe and found Lucy standing at the counter, eating a tomato directly over the sink. Imani’s voice came through the phone speaker. “If buses aren’t public spaces, half our examples collapse.”
“They won’t,” Lucy said. “I’m going to make you explain it to the judge instead of hoping she agrees.” She saw Nora and mouthed, Sorry. Into the phone she said, “I’ll call back after you read the case.”
“I did read it.”
“Read the part with the buses.” Lucy ended the call and put down the tomato. “How did you sleep?”
“Like somebody who doesn’t have to run a shift tonight. What happened to plates?”
“I was going to slice it. Then I started thinking about buses.”
Nora cut the rest of the tomato for sandwiches. Lucy spread her notes on the table while Nora ate. The topic had changed twice during the season; tomorrow’s proposition concerned a city plan to replace two neighborhood libraries with one central building and more mobile services. Lucy’s team had to defend the plan in the first round and oppose it if they advanced. She hated one side in a way that made her work harder on it.
“They always say a mobile library reaches people who can’t get downtown,” she said. “Then they never say how often it actually comes.”
“Ask them.”
“That’s not a question. That’s a trap with a little bow on it.”
“I thought traps were the point.”
“Only if they’re elegant.” Lucy tapped her pencil against the page. “Sam said I could use him as a bad opponent. Can he come at five?”
It was the first time she had suggested his presence inside their house, and she sounded more interested in the opponent than the invitation. Nora did not conceal her pleasure entirely. “I’ll ask if he’s free. What kind of bad do you need?”
“The kind who answers the question I asked, then wanders into an argument I didn’t expect.”
“That sounds alarmingly like him.”
Sam answered Nora’s call from a grocery store. He was looking for a lemon. There were three kinds, he said, and he had no idea which one Ben meant in the recipe he’d been sent. Nora listened while he read labels to her, all of which said lemon.
“The one that looks like a lemon,” she said.
“I was afraid you’d say that.”
“Lucy has a more difficult request. She wants you here at five to be cross-examined.”
“May I choose my position?”
“I suspect you won’t even know which position you’re defending until she tells you.”
“Five,” he said. “I’ll buy an ordinary lemon and bring evidence of my judgment.”
Nora put the phone down smiling. Lucy had pretended not to listen and failed. “He’ll come?”
“He’ll come.”
They spent the afternoon doing work that had been waiting for an unscheduled Thursday. Lucy practiced on her own while Nora washed the kitchen curtains and hemmed one torn corner. She put the curtain back damp. The breeze caught it and pushed the smell of soap into the room. By four, the table was covered with index cards, colored tabs, and a timer that Lucy insisted was more accurate than the phone. Nora moved a bowl of fruit out of reach of an especially energetic gesture.
At four thirty, Lucy changed her shirt twice. Neither shirt was for Sam; she was testing whether the collar pulled when she stood at a lectern. Nora knew because Lucy explained it before Nora asked.
“The blue one,” Nora said. “You can lift your arm without fighting it.”
“I know. I wanted to see if you knew.”
“Ruthless.”
Sam arrived at five with a paper bag of small oranges. “The lemon went to Ben,” he said. “I thought I’d bring the fruit that required fewer instructions.”
Lucy took the bag and inspected one. “You’re allowed to eat these only after the practice. Sugar affects focus.”
“Is that true?”
“It is now.”
Nora made him tea. Sam stood by the back door while Lucy arranged her cards, his full fair hair ruffled from the wind, his sleeves rolled above his wrists. He looked at Nora when Lucy was bent over the timer. She knew that look from the bowling alley and the railway path: amusement first, hunger just behind it. She wanted him in this kitchen for reasons that had nothing to do with what he could do for Lucy. She carried his tea over and let her fingertips stay against his for a second longer than necessary.
“You two can flirt after I win,” Lucy said without looking up.
Sam nearly spilled the tea. “What would you call a tie?”
“A failure of judging.”
They began with Lucy defending the central library plan. She stood at one end of the table and gave a brisk opening statement with the speed of someone trying to fit too much into two minutes. Sam took the chair across from her. He listened closely, which made his first question worse.
“How many books would the new building hold?”
Lucy blinked. “More than the two old ones. That’s not my claim.”
“You said it would increase access.”
“Access isn’t volume.”
“Right.” He glanced at Nora, who made no effort to save him. “Let me try again. If you’re closing the building nearest my house, what does access mean for me?”
“Better,” Lucy said. She wrote something down. “You don’t get to pretend you live in every neighborhood, though.”
“Only one?”
“One is conventional.”
Nora watched Sam take the correction without performing a show of humility. He changed seats when Lucy told him that a hostile questioner wouldn’t lean back and smile. He interrupted once, too soon, and she restarted the clock. On the third attempt he asked why a person who could not walk to the central building should trust an irregular mobile schedule. Lucy answered with the plan’s published route, then admitted the route left a gap on rainy afternoons when the bus could be delayed.
“You can’t admit a gap,” Nora said.
“I have to if it’s in their evidence.” Lucy turned a card toward her. “I’m going to say what the city has to do about it. If I pretend there isn’t a gap, they get me twice.”
Sam put his pen down. “I’d believe that answer.”
“Good. But you’re not the judge.”
“I am relieved.”
Lucy changed sides. This time Sam defended the closures and surprised himself by arguing that a central building could keep longer hours and employ specialized staff. He knew how to make a case for consolidating physical sites; Nora heard the old company man beneath the playful opponent. Lucy heard him too.
“You sound like the person who announces that the other branch will be served more efficiently,” she said.
“I have said something like that.”
“Did people believe you?”
“Some. The ones who had to take a longer bus weren’t delighted.”
“Then tell me what you did when the bus didn’t come.”
Sam looked at her in surprise. “I didn’t run the bus.”
“I know. I’m asking what happened to the people you said would be fine.”
Nora felt the question land in two places at once. Sam sat forward and answered without using a story that would make him look better. “I don’t know what happened to all of them. I should have measured it. We changed the hours at one location after complaints, but I don’t know whether we fixed the problem for the people who couldn’t get there.”
Lucy nodded and wrote a quick note. “That’s where I would ask for the numbers.” She looked up. “You’re a useful bad opponent.”
“High praise.”
“I said useful.”
At six, Nora brought out the oranges. Lucy had a second practice at Mae’s house that evening with Imani and their teammate Darnell. Mae was making supper; Nora would collect Lucy at nine. Lucy packed her cards, then found one printed with the school crest and a blank line for a guest name.
“Coach gave us these for the final,” she said. “You don’t need a card to get in, but they put names on seats if we turn them in. Mom, I put yours in the front row.”
Sam peeled an orange slowly. “What time does it begin?”
“Four. Doors at three thirty. We have a qualifying round in the morning. If we win it, the final is at four.”
“Then I’d like to be there. If you’ll have me.”
Lucy looked at Nora once, brief and assessing. “I asked you to practice. Watching is different.”
“It is. I would like to watch.”
“All right.” She wrote Sam Calder on the card in block letters and placed it beneath his hand. “You can sit near Mom. She makes a face when she wants to shout the answer.”
“I put you on Coach’s seating list too,” Lucy added. “The card has the row number so you can find it.”
“I don’t,” Nora said.
“You do. It’s why I don’t look at you during questions.”
Sam read the card. “Friday, four o’clock. I’ll be there.”
Nora thought of the conversation on the riverbank and of Ben’s lunch invitation for Saturday. “Is Ben expecting anything from you tomorrow?” she asked. She tried to keep it a practical question, not a rehearsal of disappointment.
“June arrives at his place after three. He asked me for Saturday lunch, and that’s what we arranged.” Sam turned to Lucy. “If something changes with Ben, I’ll tell you and your mother. I won’t leave you waiting.”
Lucy tipped the orange peel into the compost bowl. “Good. If you can’t come, I can make Coach give your chair to Darnell’s aunt. She’ll clap at anything.”
“I expect I would clap at more than she does.”
“Don’t clap when I prove a minor point.”
“I will ask your mother for signals.”
Lucy pointed at Nora. “She’s worse.”
They laughed. The card stayed beneath Sam’s palm while Nora found Lucy’s jacket. Mae honked once outside. Lucy took the oranges Sam offered for the team, returned one when he tried to give her three, and ran down the path calling that she would see them at nine.
The house settled around the two adults. Sam put the card carefully in his inside pocket. Nora took the remaining orange and broke it in half with her thumbs. Juice ran onto her wrist.
“I want to know which side you’d take,” Sam said. “Two neighborhood libraries or one central one?”
“I’d ask when each one opens.”
“You can’t answer a question with a schedule.”
“You can if you’ve ever tried to get something done after a night shift. A building that opens at noon might as well be a building on the moon.”
“The central one can afford evening staff.”
“And two neighborhoods have to travel there.”
“You are enjoying this.”
“I am. You look convincing when you’re wrong.” She took a segment of orange and held it out. He leaned in and took it from her fingers. The argument had gone soft around its edges, but she did still care about the answer. “Where did you take Ben when he was small?”
“The branch on Hanover. It had a wooden train table with one wheel missing. He’d go straight to the table, then bring me a book about sharks.”
“Were you better at the sharks or the train?”
“The sharks. You could read a fact and sound like you knew it. The train refused to roll, no matter how often I worked on that wheel.”
“Did Ben mind?”
“He pushed it anyway. That was before he expected me to replace things.” Sam smiled without trying to make the memory solemn. “I should call him tonight. He has to clear a place for June tomorrow and I promised to bring lunch Saturday.”
“Then call him when you get home,” Nora said. “I have plans for you until you do.”
“I liked watching her make you work,” she said.
“I liked it less when I had to remember what I did to those branches.”
“You answered her.”
“I answered the part I knew.” He reached for a napkin, but Nora shook her head and licked the juice from her wrist. His expression changed. “Do you want me to leave before I say something inadvisable?”
“No.”
“What about the curtain?”
“It can witness anything it likes.” Nora stepped toward him. She had spent the afternoon washing it and listening to Lucy prepare. She had wanted the kitchen clean for company. She had also wanted an evening that belonged to her body, not her calendar. “I have to pick Lucy up at nine,” she said. “Between now and then, I would like you here with me.”
“Here?” he asked, his hand warm at her waist.
“Not beside the compost.”
Sam laughed against her mouth. She drew him toward the stairs. They stopped once in the hall because he kissed the place below her ear and she lost track of which step came next. In the bedroom she pulled the damp curtain’s twin across the window, then changed her mind and opened it a little. The late light fell over his shoulder. He waited while she looked at him; she did not hurry to make the looking less obvious.
“I keep wanting this,” she said.
“I do too.”
She kissed him again and closed the door.
Later, they lay with the window open. A neighbor started a mower and immediately stalled it. Nora laughed into Sam’s shoulder. She had thought she would feel self-conscious about the hour, about the house where Lucy lived, about how much of herself she had let him see. Instead she felt pleasantly tired, warm, and annoyed that the mower had stopped just when it was becoming predictable.
“We could tell him which part is failing,” Sam said.
“We could let him discover it.”
“I’m practicing.”
“You’re terrible at it.” She turned onto her side. “You were good with Lucy. Not the questions. You were bad at those.”
“I noticed.”
“She noticed you stayed when she was difficult.”
“She was precise. There’s a difference.” He rubbed a thumb along her hand. “I meant what I said about tomorrow.”
“I know.” Nora rested her forehead against his. She had asked once and heard him answer in front of Lucy. She wanted to leave the evening intact, not interrogate its edges.
At eight fifteen they dressed. Sam found one of his socks beneath the bed and held it up as evidence of a crime. Nora drove him to his car, which was parked around the corner. He kissed her once through the open window and made her promise to tell him whether Darnell’s aunt was truly an indiscriminate clapper. Nora said she would conduct a careful study.
She reached Mae’s at nine. Lucy came out with Imani, both carrying too many cards. Mae stood on the porch and called that they’d done well until Darnell tried to defend a library bus without a driver. Lucy got in, cheeks bright with the pleasure of a problem nearly solved.
“How was Sam?” she asked as Nora pulled away.
“He went home a little while ago. How was Darnell?”
“He recovered. I made him name a driver.” Lucy buckled her bag in the empty seat beside her. “Sam’s going to be there tomorrow?”
“He said he is.”
“Good.” Lucy watched the passing houses. “He asked a question I hadn’t prepared for. I wrote it down.”
Nora stopped at a red light. Lucy was looking at the page, not at her. The word Sam had written was there in Lucy’s hand, underlined once. Nora did not need to know the argument it supported. She liked that Lucy had found a use for his visit and had still kept her own work.
At home, the damp curtain lifted in the breeze. Lucy set her bag by the stairs and went up to sleep. Nora folded the spare guest card Lucy had left on the table and tucked it beneath the fruit bowl, where they could find it in the morning. She took the unusual luxury of an entire night in her own bed.