“How about I get some lunch going?”
She gave a sour laugh. “That’d be great. Breakfast ended a little quicker than we’d planned.”
He put a large pot of water on to boil and got some fresh pasta and a bowl of cooked bacon from the fridge.
Parker said, “Sorry. Hannah’s a vegetarian.”
The strips went back.
“Cheese?”
Parker shook her head. “I don’t know. The rules change all the time. Maybe today it’s zucchini only.”
Frank called, “Hey, young lady. How’s cheese pasta suit you?”
There was no answer.
“Hannah, can you hear us?”
“Yeah.”
“Answer Mr. Villaine. Is cheese okay for lunch?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Hannah!”
“I’m not hungry, thank you.”
Parker lifted her palms and Frank gave a laugh. His children had been teens once too. “Give her cheese. She’ll eat it.”
Frank asked, “What do you do at Harmon?”
“I just finished up a stint as anti-terror girl. Now I’m garbage girl.”
“Okay.”
She explained about the S.I.T. trigger and her current project: the fuel rod pods. “Like changing batteries—the difference being batteries won’t kill you if you come within twenty feet of them.”
“Your idea?”
“It was.”
“You like nuclear work?”
“Who wouldn’t?” A beat of a pause, then: “We’re leading the way to a brighter and cleaner tomorrow.”
He was clearly amused.
“Ah, just because it’s a slogan doesn’t mean it’s not true. And I believe in what Marty wants to do in developing countries. You’re mostly green, right? Wind and solar?”
“A hundred percent.”
“We’ll see where it goes,” she told him. “Lot of thinking that nuclear isn’t green at all. That debate’s going to heat up.”
“To critical mass?”
She laughed.