Brenda Redmond found it strange to be coming up to the dining commons without the children in tow. Almost as if she were naked.
But both of them were having lunch with their training groups today. It wasn’t an every-day occurrence that lessons ran over and they had to have a meal sent to their classrooms, but it was rare that both her children would on the same day.
No use worrying about it. She’d gone to lunch alone a lot of times when she was single. Even if she did still live with her folks, both of them had jobs that tended to make it difficult to eat lunch as a family. Heck, half the time Dad had been so busy he couldn’t even get away from Engineering for supper.
Things had settled down as the settlement had expanded its life-support capacity to handle all the Expulsees with a comfortable margin of error. But by then she’d married Drew and tended to sit with the other pilots’ families, and once the kids came along, she’d gotten used to eating as a family, reminding the kids of their table manners when they’d rather play with their food and goof off instead of eating and freeing up the seats for the next person.
As she was walking through the dining commons in search of a free seat, she heard a familiar voice calling her name. She walked over to join Lou Corlin. “You must’ve made good time up here.”
“The Timeline Brothers showed up early, so we got most of the handoff done before it was actually time to sign off. That and I got lucky at all my airlocks.” Lou helped her into her seat, a gallantry that seemed like something out of a movie. “So how did it go?”
“Gym went fine. I think we’re finally getting a handle on the wear and tear on the equipment, especially now that the new gym has room for three times the amount of machines. Right after the the first wave of Expulsions, Dad was complaining that Fitness shouldn’t be so astonished they were having constant problems when their machines didn’t even get any down time for preventative maintenance.”
Lou lowered his voice. “Actually, I was wondering whether you learned anything at Medlab.”
“Yeah, right.” The words came out awkwardly and Brenda could feel her cheeks grow warm. “I talked with Dr. Gorman, and he did seem to take me seriously. But he said he’d have to pass it to someone with more authority, so right now I’m playing the waiting game.”
Lou commiserated. “Do you want me to let Toni know now, or would it be better to stand pat until we actually know something?”
Brenda considered that question. “Maybe tell her we’re hitting some delays, but don’t make a big deal of it. She’s pretty high in the IT hierarchy over at Grissom City, so she’s probably got a lot of stuff to keep her occupied as it is.”
Lou allowed that she was probably right, and shifted the conversation to something more neutral. The table was starting to fill up, and it was inappropriate to carry on a conversation about private matters in front of others.