That was when the phone rang.
Was it Dave, dropping out at the last minute to prove he could still piss her off, one more time? She headed for the kitchen, so she could at least chop some veggies while they argued for half an hour on the phone.
It wasn't Dave. Instead it was a scratchy old voice, one she loved. Shouting into a cell phone at Kennedy was Allan Stern, who announced in his staccato tones that he'd just stepped off a JAL flight fresh from some conference in Tokyo. He had to see her tonight.
"Tonight?" When it rains, it pours, she thought. "Allan, I'd love to, but I'm having some people in from school . . . What? . . . Well, sure, nothing that special . . . Allan, I adore you dearly, but you wouldn't know any of the . . . Okay, okay . . . Can you get down by eight?"
"See you then, Tamara. You're a dear."
Stern was an old, old friend, and a guy everybody in the country had probably heard of vaguely. Any freshman in computer science could tell you he was one of the unofficial founders of the field known as artificial intelligence, now usually shortened to "AI." As it happened, she had convinced him the previous spring that they ought to collaborate on a book about the growing use of smart robots in the workplace, but for some reason his input had never made it past the talking stage. She'd decided just to go ahead on her own with the writing.
Well, she thought, maybe he's decided to pitch in after all. Great. That would mean it might be adopted for a lot of college courses. Allan had plenty of respectability with the establishment.
He was probably the closest friend she had, her mentor almost. They went back to a Denver conference fifteen years agp, when he'd stood up in a session and challenged the conclusion of the very first paper she ever gave, though he'd come in midway through. Even then he had been a powerhouse in Washington, chairing one of the technical committees that reviewed federal grant applications submitted by university researchers. The inside talk on campuses was: love him or hate him, but think twice before you cross the opinionated bastard.
She was so mad she didn't care. She had sidled up to him at the coffee break and introduced herself, saying what an honor it was to meet a scholar so highly regarded, a man whose reputation was so well established. He nodded in absent acknowledgment, sipped at his Styrofoam cup, and stared over her shoulder. She then proceeded to advise the celebrated Allan Stern that he'd missed the whole thrust of her talk, which she'd explained in the introduction, and furthermore—judging from the data at hand—he struck her as a pompous asshole.
Such forthrightness, which was entirely new to Dr. Allan Stern's sheltered existence, so astonished him he apologized on the spot. By week's end he was trying to recruit her out to Stanford. He still was.