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coat.
    “That’s nice of you to say, but I had problems with the gas law on those multiple-flask questions. Thank goodness you took time on that tonight, Heather.” Roy finished wrapping his scarf around his neck and zipping up his coat.
    The midnight hour approached as Roy unlocked his dorm room door. Exhilaration overrode any tiredness from the long day. Greta was right. He felt the magic she rattled on about surrounding his heart, at least knowing that on his side it was true. Heather’s own special beauty, not actually subdued in his estimation, soothed his mind as he popped open a glass bottle of Barq’s orange soda pop from his small refrigerator and prepared to read a chapter of Great Expectations before going to bed. Heather’s intelligence, not flaunted with arrogance like Blanchard’s and Finnigan’s, appealed to him, as well. He was sure falling for her fast, but beneath her reserved shell did anything churn his way? Had she softened toward him? He’d been guilty of wishful thinking before, but attraction to a woman, at this level, was something new for him.
    ****
    Despite Roy glancing at Heather several times during the test, he applied what he’d learned the night before, conquering the problems with a vengeance. Heather’s prediction of a multiple-flask question was exactly right. When the infamous blue books were returned in the next lecture, Roy had barely missed a B. He squinted his eyes to make out Heather’s score from his vantage point. Doctor Hunter always put two scores on each student’s book: the class average, for this test 55, and the student’s score. Heather had made 86, an unprecedented mark on Doctor Hunter’s tough p-chem tests. There seemed to be extra writing at the top of her book, but Roy couldn’t make it out from a few rows away. He wondered if she noticed he’d vacated his fourth row aisle seat and moved to the middle of the second row, closer to her front row end seat. After the lecture, he heard Greta call to him. He hopped to the wooden floor, dodged a few students who were going the opposite direction, and approached Heather and Greta. Heather concealed her test booklet between the pages of her p-chem text.
    “How’d you do?” Greta asked.
    “Better than I expected. Sixty-nine. At least it was above class average,” Roy answered, trying to make out the tip of the writing at the top of Heather’s booklet.
    “How about you two?” Roy asked, curiosity grasping him about Heather’s test.
    “I made a seventy-seven. High enough for an A. Heather, show Roy your booklet,” Greta said, tapping her on the shoulder.
    “Roy doesn’t need to know,” Heather answered, her face blushing red.
    “Oh, Heather,” Greta said in a chastising tone and jerked Heather’s test book from between her text pages to flash it at Roy.
    “Greta!” Heather shouted.
    Roy saw the 86 and was able to read the comment written in Doctor Hunter’s upright choppy letters before Heather jerked the blue book from Greta’s hand. It read “top score in class.”
    “Whoa! You beat everyone. Good job, Heather,” Roy said, daring to touch her shoulder lightly for half a second.
    Heather’s face turned a brighter shade of red as she adjusted her glasses, her usual nervous habit. She met his happy face with embarrassment, and her delicate throat revealed a swallowing.
    “I have to hurry off to class,” she said, her voice shaky. Roy watched her take three rapid steps toward the door before she stopped and looked back at Roy, her hair swaying gently before settling over her ears.
    “I think Professor Hunter will reward you with a B on your test.” With that, she hurried away, leaving Roy and Greta alone in the lecture hall.
    “You’re making a dent in that concrete wall she’s erected around herself,” Greta remarked, looking at the open door Heather had cleared seconds before.
    “I don’t want to make her uncomfortable, and I’m afraid that’s what I’m doing. Do you suppose she