Chapter 19

Claire’s turn:

I wonder if they make graduation so painful to ensure you won’t come back? Maybe not, but it felt like it at times. I tried to skate on some of the pain by passing on being the valedictorian, arguing that I’d only been there a year and didn’t take that many classes during that year. No one bought my argument.

To ensure I didn’t go crazy with it, they gave me a template to use for guidance when writing my speech. When I showed it to Charley, she laughed. “Sweetheart, I’ve heard that there’s such a thing as an exciting graduation speech, but if you thought engineers who were good programmers are rare ... Do your best, love, but expect to see people in the audience nodding off.”

As I started to go through the template, I realized that we could have a problem, so I went to see Principal Wells the next day during my first free period.

“Mr. Wells, have you really thought through what’s going to happen here?” I asked. “In particular, the part about acknowledging those who have helped us to get to where we are?”

“I have, or rather, we have,” he said, sounding resigned. “I don’t suppose there’s any way you could avoid it, is there?”

I shook my head. “No, I’m sorry. I couldn’t bear to stand up in front of everyone and thank those who are most important to me, and who have supported me and helped me to grow in to the person I am today, without including my wife. I don’t suppose you could reconsider making me valedictorian, could you?”

“That came up in the conversations we’ve had, but no one feels that would be right. You’ve contributed too much to the school in one year to ignore you.”

He leaned back in his chair, obviously going over options, before he motioned me to have a seat. Picking up the phone, he dialed a number from memory.

“Good morning, Jim. This is John Wells.”

...

“We’re doing well here, but we have a situation developing concerning graduation that I’d like your assistance managing.”

...

“As an educator, it’s nice to know you’re doing your homework,” he said with a laugh. “Do you have any suggestions about how to handle it so it doesn’t blow up in our faces?”

...

As he listened, he began to smile. “I would be most appreciative of that, and I won’t forget your help. Do I need to call your competition, as well?”

...

“Excellent. Hey, while I have you on the line, do you think you and Jean can make it to our place for a cookout on Father’s Day?”

...

“Okay, see you then.” After putting the phone back in its cradle, he grinned at me and said, “That was the editor of the local paper. Go ahead and write your speech.

“I’m certain there will be some people in the audience who will have issues with your situation, but it’s not much of a secret — it was part of the daily announcements back in November. Because of that, he’s agreed to not bother his readership with those details. He’s going to talk to the editor of the daily paper out of Port Angeles and convince him of the same thing.”

I smiled and thanked him before heading to the library.

At least my speech didn’t put people to sleep! It might have done so, but when I got to the part where a normal graduate might have thanked their parents mine was different:

I heard there were a few outraged letters to the editor, but the only one that was printed was a diatribe against same-sex marriage. That one didn’t worry us too much, since that had been settled law in Washington since the citizens voted to legalize it in 2012. We all knew it could still blow up later on, but we’d have to deal with that if it happened.

Now that graduation was over, it was time to relax, right? Er, maybe not. Charley and I found Mrs. Tyler’s office on Monday and were ushered in. There were four others there as well.

“Claire, I’d like to introduce some people who plan to speak with you during the rest of the week,” she said. Indicating the man on the left end of the lineup, she said, “First, Professor Morris Steinberg of the math department. You’ll be working with him today. Next are Professors Ben Samuelson and Jennifer Leblanc, representing the computer science and engineering department. To Professor Leblanc’s left is Dr. James Alden, the Dean of the School of Computer Science and Engineering.”

“I’m quite pleased to meet you,” I said. “Well, maybe not Professor Steinberg, at least not if he’s going to put me through the wringer like Mike Timmons did with the test he gave me.”

Professor Steinberg laughed at that, and said, “You might not remember this day fondly, Claire. I was Mike’s doctoral advisor, so I know he’s not that easily impressed. Thank you for giving him permission to share your test with me. I should be better prepared than he was, since I know I don’t have to hit the earlier material too heavily.”

I winced at the thought of a tougher day than what I put in on those tests, but then smiled and said, “I’ll live. I spoke with his wife a few months ago, and she let me know what he said about my results. Based on that, I’ve been doing some more studying in abstract algebra. I added linear programming just because it seemed interesting.”

Now it was the professor’s turn to wince.

“I’d like to introduce you all to my wife, Charlotte, though she goes by Charley.”

After greetings were taken care of, Charley left with their assurance that they wouldn’t beat me, too much. Then Professor Steinberg guided me to a separate room.

“First, Claire, unless we’re in a more formal setting, please call me Morey. Do you need coffee or to use the restroom?”

“No, thank you. I’m good that way, but I’d like to refill my water bottle, and I saw a filling station just down the hall.”

“Then please, go fill your water bottle. After that, I’ll give you the written test I’ve prepared. Then we’ll go to lunch, and we’ll do the oral portion of the test after lunch.”

I looked at him blankly and said, “Oral portion? Of a math test?”

He grinned and said, “Certainly. Honestly, I think you might find it interesting.”

“Well then, I suppose I should work to get through the written test, and get on to the fun part of the day, huh?”

I quickly filled my water bottle, then had a seat. He handed me a stack of papers and told me to give it my best shot. He’d be sitting on the other side of the room, working on a problem of his own.

Okay, let’s do this. There were just a few linear algebra and calculus problems, and I sailed through them. Differential equations? No problem. Number theory? That took a little longer, if only to organize the proofs. Linear programming? Glad I’d looked into that. Fields, rings and groups. Check.

I looked at the next page and blinked. Then I laughed, long and hard.

“Now, that’s a different reaction to one of my tests. What caught your funny bone?”

“Sorry, Professor ... oops, Morey. I just looked at this page, and it reminded me of a funny story I read once. The main character spent a couple of paragraphs ranting about the concept of math problems that don’t involve numbers. The only number on this page is the page number.”

That startled a laugh out of him as well. “That’s a good observation. What do you think of it?”

I glanced at the page again, then at the preceding pages and said, “At some point numbers get in the way because they pin things down to a specific instance, rather than letting us examine the general relationships between the things we use numbers to represent. On the other hand, without numbers, it’s an abstract that relates less to the world of our experiences.”

He just nodded.

From that point on, I skipped around a bit through the test, answering the ones I could. Then I hit the last page, and another number theory problem.

Show that every even integer > 2 is the sum of two prime numbers.

I sat there and stared at it for a couple of minutes before I asked, “Professor, what do I get if I solve the last problem?”

He didn’t miss a beat. “My job.”

We both cracked up. No, I didn’t know how to solve Goldbach’s Conjecture. I remembered reading about it and thinking how simple and elegant it looked, yet the greatest mathematicians of the last 300 years had beaten their heads against it. I sketched out some thoughts gleaned from my reading and a few of my own, but nothing that I felt was very profound.

I was done, so I handed him the papers. He paged through it and smiled.

“Ah, I get to keep my job for a while. On the other hand, between this and what you did for Mike, I can definitely say you won’t need to take any of my classes for a computer science or engineering degree. You’re already there. Come, let’s see if Cindy is available and go to lunch.”

She was, so we grabbed her and ended up at a little hole-in-the-wall that they both recommended for their gyros. They were right, too.

“Cindy, I’ll let you know right now that Claire is through her math requirements for a computer science or engineering degree. I’ll have to look more closely, but at first glance I’d say she can just about test out of a bachelor’s degree in mathematics.”

Turning to me, he said, “Apart from the last one, the questions on that test were all chosen from the finals for their respective courses. I believe all but one of the questions that you skipped was taken from a graduate level course. Your performance was quite impressive. When we get back from lunch, I’d like to see if there are things you might find interesting in our curriculum.