The Perfect Match. Kristan Higgins

Barlow, with the hovercraft project, I was wondering how you’d calculate the escape velocity?”

      “Good question. The escape velocity is the speed at which the kinetic energy of your object, along with its gravitational potential energy, is zero. Make sense?” The Barbarian Horde (those who were listening) looked confused.

      “Definitely,” Jacob said. “Thanks.”

      Thirty seconds to the bell. “Listen up,” he said. “Your homework is to read chapters six and seven in your texts and answer all the study questions at the end of both as well as pass in your term project proposals. Those of you who flunked the hovercraft estimates have to do them again.” Hopefully, he could break the Horde with a ridiculous workload. “Anything else?”

      A hand went up. One of the Barbarians, of course. “Yes?” he said briskly.

      “Are you British?” she asked, getting a ripple of giggles from a third of the class, whose mental age appeared to be twelve.

      “I’ve answered that in a previous class. Any other questions that pertain to mechanical engineering, then? No? Great. Cheerio.”

      “Oh, my God, he said ‘Cheerio,’” said a blonde dressed like a Cockney prostitute.

      The bell rang, and the Barbarian Horde surged toward his desk. “Mr. Kearns, please stay a minute,” Tom said.

      Seven female students clustered around him. “So do you think I could, like, work for an architect or something?” one asked.

      “I’ve no idea,” he answered.

      “I mean, after this class.” She lowered her gaze to his mouth. Crikey. Made him want to shower.

      “Pass the class first, then apply and see,” he said.

      “Do you want to hang out at the pub, Tom?” asked another of the BH. “I’d love to buy you a drink.”

      “That’d be inappropriate,” he answered.

      “I’m totally legal,” she said with a leer.

      “If you don’t have any questions related to the lesson today, get out, please.” He smiled to soften the words, and with a lot of pouty lips and hair tossing, the Barbarian Horde departed.

      Tom waited till the other kids were out of earshot. “Jacob, would you be interested in interning for me?”

      “Yeah! Sure! Um, doing what?”

      “I customize airplanes here and there. Got a project coming up. It might be good on your CV.”

      “What’s a CV?”

      “A résumé.”

      “Sure!” Jacob said again. “That’d be great.”

      “You can’t be using, of course. Will that be a problem?”

      The kid flushed. “No. I’m in NA and all that. Clean for thirteen months.” He pushed his hands into his pockets. “I have to pee in a cup every month to come here. The health office has my records.”

      “Good. I’ll give you a shout when I need you.”

      “Thanks, Dr. Barlow. Thanks a lot.”

      Tom nodded. The head of his department was standing in the doorway, frowning down the hallway, where a cacophony of giggles was coming from the twits. When Jacob left, the man came in and closed the door behind him.

      This wouldn’t be good news, Tom thought. Droog Dragul (not a shock that he was called Dracula, was it?) had the face of a medieval monk—tortured, pale and severe. He looked even more depressed than usual.

      “Dee cheeldren of dis school,” Droog said in his thick accent. He sighed. “Dey are so...” Tom winced, fearing the next phrase would be well fed or iron-rich. “Dey are so unfocused.” Phew.

      “Most of them, anyway,” Tom said. “I’ve got one or two good students.”

      “Yes.” His boss sighed. “And you heff such a vay vith the ladies, Tom. Perhaps we can heff beer and you can give pointers.”

      “It’s the accent, mate,” Tom said.

      “Mine does not seem to heff same effect, for some reason. Eh heh heh heh heh!”

      Tom winced, then smiled. Droog was a good guy. Strange, but nice enough. In the month since Tom had been teaching here, they’d had dinner once, gone out for beer and pool twice, and if the experience had been odd, it seemed that Droog had a good heart.

      His boss sighed and sat down, tapping his long fingers on the desk. “Tom, I am afraid I heff bad news. Vee von’t be able to renew your vork visa.”

      Tom inhaled sharply. The only reason he’d taken this job was for the work visa. “That was a condition of my employment.”

      “I em aware. But dee budget...it is too overtaxed for dee court fees.”

      “I thought you said it’d be no problem.”

      “I vas wrong. They heff reconsidered.”

      Tom felt his jaw locking. “I see.”

      “Vee value your teaching abilities and experience, Tom. Perhaps you vill find another way. Vee can give you till end of semester.” He paused. “I em sorry. Very much so.”

      Tom nodded. “Thanks, mate.” It wasn’t Droog’s fault. But shit.

      Dr. Dragul left, and Tom sat at his desk another few minutes. Finding another job in February was unlikely. Wickham College had been the only place in western New York looking for an engineering professor, and Tom had been lucky to get the job as fast as he did. It wasn’t a prestigious place, not by a long shot, but that wasn’t really the point. This time around, it was all about location.

      He couldn’t keep his job without a work visa, though it wasn’t like Immigration would be breathing down his neck; an employed professor was less of a concern than most of their cases. Still, the college wasn’t going to keep him on illegally.

      If he was going to stay, he needed a green card.

      Fast.

      But first to the rather shabby house he’d just rented, and then to the much better bar down the street. A drink was definitely required.

      * * *

      A FEW NIGHTS later, Tom sat in the kitchen of his great-aunt Candace’s kitchen, drinking tea. Only Brits could make decent tea, and though Candace had lived in the States for at least six decades, she hadn’t lost the touch.

      “That Melissa,” Aunt Candace said darkly. “She messed everything up, didn’t she?”

      “Well. Let’s not speak ill of the dead.”

      “But I’ll miss you! And what about Charlie? How old is he now? Twelve?”

      “Fourteen.” His unofficial stepson had been ten when Tom met him. Hard to reconcile that talkative, happy little boy with the sullen teenager who barely spoke these days.

      A fleeting pain lanced through his chest. Charlie wouldn’t miss him, that seemed certain. One of those situations where Tom wasn’t sure if he was doing any good whatsoever, or if, in fact, his presence made things worse. Melissa, Charlie’s mother, was dead, and her brief engagement to Tom qualified him as nothing in the boy’s life today, even though Charlie had been just a few months away from becoming Tom’s stepson.

      Whatever the case, Tom didn’t have much choice about whether or not he was staying in the States. He’d emailed his old department head in England, who wrote right back saying they’d take Tom back in a heartbeat. There weren’t any other colleges in western New York looking for someone with his credentials. And teaching was what he loved (when the students were actually interested in the subject matter, that was).

      And so, Tom had decided to drive to Pennsylvania, visit the only relative