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As I rebuilt the computer as rapidly as quality would allow, I listened to her leave the room, and just barely, the floor. By then I had finished reassembly and was half done reconnecting it to the system. Three minutes later I had tested the unit, gathered my gear and was racing for the room.

I knew it would take her a couple of minutes to get the Union building and back next door with the coffee drinks but it had also taken me a bit to finish up. What I had in mind was dangerous, foolish, and something I had been considering for months.

I ran across the roof and checked what I had suspected from the ground. Ah, the branches were just right! I kicked out every erg of speed I had in my overweight but still impressively quick body and leaped from the edge of the roof and caught a sturdy branch oh a few feet from the roof. That was actually the easy part. Letting my feet swing up and land on a large, strong bough, I spun and stood up straight, balanced with my grip on the first branch.

The ancient oak upon which I stood was so old it towered over the three, four, and five story buildings near it. The buildings had been, originally, spaced to not threaten its living and growing space, but the tree and thrived and now had a thick branch running in the direction I needed and it had enough clearance over it to walk (or run) upright.

I easily walked in towards the trunk of the tree and laddered up a few levels to the branch I wanted, working in a half circle around the tree, ascertaining everything was strong and healthy as I went. I know all this sounds time consuming, but the tree was so large, it was a virtual sidewalk in the sky. In less time than I could have walked downstairs, I was on the branch I had selected and walking quickly towards the other building.

I could see Elise coming, already half way back from the Union, but she had not noticed me in the tree. When I was about 8 feet from the other roof, but still above it, I took four running steps, like a tight rope walker finishing a dangerous show, and jumped for all I was worth. I landed neatly on the roof, about a foot over the low parapet and let my landing run carry me right to the roof entrance.

By the time Elise entered the lounge, I had arranged a table, scrounged and washed silverware, furnished glasses of water, and was sitting back languidly, waiting on her like I had been there forever.

She was mildly surprised but did a good job of not letting it show. I only had a microsecond to notice it, but I had been watching.

Elise strolled over, her eyes appraising me and the table I had set. “How did you manage to get the room for just us?” she asked. She picked up a fork and examined it closely.

“I washed those, already, to answer the unasked, and we just lucked out, to answer the asked,” I said, as I watched her fight the rise of her eyebrows. “I abhor dirty silverware.”

I stood up and began arranging the bounty she had brought to the table, causing her to step back and watch in curiousity as I fussed things into place. Once it all met my satisfaction, I pulled out her chair and held my other arm in a welcoming arc, indicating she should sit. I helped her with her chair and sat myself. I took my own chair, bowed my head, and gave thanks for our food. I kept my voice low and soft in case she might be offended, but I did not sacrifice my faith, either. When I was done, I took my napkin and arranged it in my lap and looked over at her to see how she had taken it.

As she smoothed her own napkin into her lap, she looked back over at me. “You work like a man possessed. You find answers in minutes to problems that have lasted for years. You arrange the table like a woman. You pray thanks for your food in a considerate manner but with absolutely no hesitation. You have a sense of danger to you but make people feel very safe around you. You literally fix things before they break. You can talk to almost everyone on campus.” She paused for breath as I delicately dressed my salad and speared a bite on my fork. “Look, you didn't fill your fork or smother your salad in dressing. How you put the dressing on salad is even pretty!”

I nibbled the bite of salad off of my fork and chewed it thoughtfully. I put my fork back down on my plate as chewed. As I finished chewing I dabbed my mouth with my napkin and then took an evaluating sip of my mocha. It was very good, as is always true of the mochas from the Union. She still had not spoken farther so I asked, “Those were all statements, so why do I feel like I am supposed to answer you? I am just slightly confused.”

“Oh, don't you dare try to turn blond on me! I will not stand for it!” she intoned.

I decided to tweak her a just a bit, “I've been blond several times. I have also been redheaded. I like being blond, it suits my personality, but I like being redheaded, too. I get to be almost as ditzy and I get to have a firey temper.” I managed a pretty decent rendition of a coed giggle and cracked the facade of her supercilious expression in two.

She shook her head, grinning. “You? As a ditzy redhead with a redheaded temper? Ok, to be honest, it is the temper part I find hard to believe.”

I waited until she was taking a sip of her latte before I said, “It's simple, I just fake PMS.”

She only sprayed latte into her cup, causing me to have a very high degree of respect for her level of self control. “If you do that to me ever again, I'll make sure I get latte **all** over you! She tried to scowl at me but I was pretty much seeing though all of her fake expressions, now.

I crossed my eyes and waggled my eyebrows at her independently in response, causing her to choke on her salad. Now I felt bad. I beat feet to her side of the table and helped her sit up straight. She sipped her water for a moment then held up her hand. “It's ok, it's ok, I am fine, now. How did you do that?”

I pretended to be blond. “Do what?” This time I rolled my eyes independently as I also waggled my eyebrows independently. “What do you mean?”

She squealed and swatted at me with her napkin. I'm not sure why. A direct swat would have been too ineffective to even deal misery to a house fly. I patently ignored her efforts and ate my salad while she pummeled (?) me with her napkin. I was pretty sure that unless she wrapped that napkin around her fist, or maybe the leg of her chair, I could eat through the entire episode, more or less unfazed.

She was less than amused. I decided I would assist her in locating her priorities. “Your salad is getting warm and your latte is getting cold.” Just to make sure she was paying attention, I rolled my eyes, waved my eyebrows, and, for good measure, wiggled my ears. She sat in stony silence surveying me with a glare and crossed arms as I finished my salad.

Sometimes my weird personality and my cesspool of useless talents get in the way of me relating on a human level. Now you see why I text so much.

Just when I thought we were going to sit out the rest of our meal silently, she machine guns me with, “What was all that? I guess I have heard of people wiggling their ears, and even the eyebrow thing was kind of... umm... interesting, but how on this green earth did you make your eyes move independently of each other?”

I carefully chewed my last bite of salad while making the most thoughtful face I could muster on short notice. Just to stretch out my response as long as possible, I held up one finger and sipped my water, then my mocha when I completed that bite. “Practice.”

I had my mocha back up to my lips before she could sputter in protest.

“Waaaaaaait, wait wait wait!” she cried. “You can't get away with that! Normal humans cannot roll their eyes around in opposite directions from each other!”

“That's not exactly what I do. But yes, I can move my eyes around in somewhat different directions for a brief period of time. It is the same idea as some women being able to make their breasts twitch on one side on demand. I just had to learn to separate the motor impulses. The hard part isn't doing it separately, it's doing it at the same time.”

She just sighed as we ate the rest of our meal in companionable silence.

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To Be Continued...