“Naturally,” Eden soothed.
Gabe finally extended the Ken doll to Jan, who took it gingerly. “I’ll just go take this back to Annelise now,” she said almost meekly.
“Thank you,” Eden said magnanimously.
She watched Jan go. And then she drew in a long, long breath and exhaled.
Gabe was regarding her as though she was a miracle.
“Nothing to get worked up over, huh?” he said.
“Well, it all depends, of course.” She said this mildly.
He stood, utterly arrested by the lingering flush of anger in her cheeks and that wicked glint in her eyes.
A half dozen wicked optional responses flitted through his mind: “I bet I can give you something to get worked up about, given a few minutes alone in the supply closet.” Or, “Did you know I rechristened my penis ‘Your Excellency’? I’d be happy to demonstrate why.”
He was pretty certain his eyes got that point across. Because her own went rather dark. And she tucked a stray hair behind her ear.
What he said out loud, though, was, “I think I’m going to have ‘some people think a man’s heart is just as important as his penis’ embroidered on a pillow.”
“Or you could have it engraved on your car’s license plate frame.”
He laughed. A little too loudly, apparently.
Heads swiveled toward them, including Jan’s. He clapped his mouth shut guiltily. Gabe understood that they were here to get the school’s business accomplished, and the school’s business was his business.
So like kids caught passing a note in class, they both dropped to their knees.
“...complicated or...” Eden prompted. She gestured at the “E.” At the opposite end of the sign, room enough so that they wouldn’t accidentally paint each other.
He dunked his brush in shiny, gloppy gold.
“...simple? You can only choose one.”
“Complicated,” Eden said instantly.
“Complicated like a labyrinth, or complicated like an... ecosystem?” He meticulously stroked one arm of his assigned “E” full of gold paint. And paused to admire it.
“Mmm... I’m gonna go with complicated like an ecosystem, but aren’t they elegantly simple when you understand them?” She was already done with the “F” and moving on to the “O.” Which brought her just a little closer to him.
“So I guess you’re moreintricate, as it were, than complicated. Although I’ll accept the word ‘elegant’ when it comes to you,” he allowed.
“I guess I am. And I’ll accept the flattery. My life has a lot of different moving parts that may not seem at all related but which are, in fact, interconnected and necessary to each other’s mutual survival.”
“Allof the parts are necessary?”
She paused. Sat back on her heels. Held her brush thoughtfully aloft, like a conductor with a baton.
“Mostly. For a visual representation, you should see my whiteboard, man. I am the Bobby Fisher of whiteboards.”
He stopped, too. Sat back on his own heels, next to her.
“Well, you know, sometimes ecosystems are missing the one very important thing. You know what happened when they reintroduced wolves to Yellowstone after seventy years after the deer had grazed it down to nothing? It changed the behavior of the deer. They didn’t chomp on the vegetation so much. The trees and vegetation grew back, all kinds of wildlife thrived again and moved into the region. It even changed the course of rivers. It was restored to its original natural... wild... beauty.”
Their gazes collided with such force.
“Wolves are kinda hot,” she said offhandedly.