Free Silent Symmetry (The Embodied trilogy) by JB Dutton Page A

her whole life. I stood on tippy-toes, peering over the crowd to find Bob. I could see his head bobbing along (how appropriate with a name like that!) near the front. Good thing he was tall. If this was to have any chance of success, I’d need to take matters into my own hands.
    The crowd started to spread out. This was my chance. Before Mom knew what was happening, I’d managed to squirm past a tightly-packed gang of Japanese tourists and sidled up to Bob. He turned around before I even reached him and smiled at me.
    “Hey again, Kari!”
    “Listen – you have to ask my mom out,” I said, conspiratorially. “Don’t tell her I spoke to you, she’ll kill me!”
    He threw his head back and laughed loudly as I pushed my way back to Mom. I don’t think she even realized that I’d gone.
    Twenty minutes later we’d made the slow climb up the inside of the statue. Bob was there waiting at the upper level. I was impressed – good strategy! As soon as Mom saw him she was caught in the charm of his twinkly eyes.
    “We have to stop meeting like this,” he joked, and she broke into a grin. “In fact,” he continued, moving closer to her but never dropping his gaze, “I’d love to meet up with you somewhere else. Maybe dinner tomorrow night?”
    “Oh!” she exclaimed, totally unprepared to deal with his forwardness, “but it’s Sunday tomorrow.”
    This was lame.
    “Yes it is! You’ll have the whole day to relax and work up an appetite.”
    She wanted to say yes, I could feel it. But she just couldn’t do it.
    “That would be perfect, Mom,” I interjected. “I wanted to rent a bunch of movies this weekend. You know, the kind that have vampires in them and make you roll your eyes and sigh a lot when I watch them.”
    Bob kept looking at her and I could tell Mom was of two minds. She found him cute, but she was scared. And who could blame her? No boyfriend in ten years, and now, within a couple of months of moving to the Big Apple, she was being hit on by a blond version of George Clooney!
    “Can I call you?” he asked. “Please?”
    He actually raised his clasped hands in mock pleading as he said this. I felt Mom soften – her resistance had crumbled.
    “Sure.”
    She fished a business card out of her purse and handed it to him.
    “Thank you – I’ll call you later. And ... I’ll get out of here now so we don’t stand around awkwardly not knowing what to say to each other.”
    Mom laughed and covered her mouth with her hand out of shyness. She’s so adorable sometimes. Bob winked at me surreptitiously as he walked past us and headed for the exit.
    Mom was in a great mood during the helicopter ride. I’d only ever been on a plane a handful of times and this was way more fun. It was kind of bumpy and Mom squeezed my hand a bit too tight when we took off, but man, what a buzz! We were in the front rubbing shoulders with the pilot. There were four other tourists in the back, looking envious at our incredible view out the rounded glass front of the helicopter. For twenty minutes I felt like I was a seagull, swooping around the Statue where we’d met Bob only an hour before, then gliding up the Hudson river, across Harlem and the new Yankee Stadium. Manhattan is insane – the skyscrapers packed so tight and the park in the middle of it all, with its woods, paths and ponds.
    As we headed south again, back along the edge of the park, Mom suddenly shouted to me, “Hey – I think that’s my building!”
    I looked down to where she was pointing.
    “What do you mean?”
    “Just north of Columbus Circle – that’s where I work! How cool is that?”
    I really wasn’t sure which building she was talking about.
    “Can you take me there later?”
    “What do you mean?” she frowned.
    “I’d like to see your office.”
    “Why?”
    “Because.”
    “Because what?”
    “Duh! Because it’s, like, super exciting that you’re working in the center of the universe !”
    She laughed. “It’s just an