She had a display board, a working demonstration model, and a prepared speech that she had practiced on Marcus until he could recite parts of it from memory. When Olivia walked in next to Marcus, Maya looked at her with the same calm, assessing expression she used for everything. Then she looked at her display board. Then she looked at Olivia again. "You're Olivia," she said.
"You're Maya," Olivia said. "I've heard a lot about you." Maya looked at Marcus briefly, one quick evaluating glance that he recognized as the same glance she'd given him across the cereal bowl weeks ago. "He told you about the dog thing?" Maya said. "He did," Olivia said. "And I think every kid should have a dog," Olivia said.
"I'm just one vote, but that's where I stand." Mia looked at her for another long second. Then she said, "Okay, come look at my project." and turned and walked to her display. And Olivia followed, and Marcus stood there watching his daughter explain water filtration to Olivia Coleman with the same focused seriousness she brought to everything. And Olivia leaned forward and asked a real question, a genuinely curious, not condescending, actually interested question. And Maya's eyes lit up in the way they only lit up when she felt taken seriously.
Marcus put his hand in his pocket. He looked at the floor for a moment. He was not going to be emotional in a middle school gymnasium about his daughter's science project. He was a grown man. He was slightly emotional.
He got it under control by the time Olivia came back to stand next to him while Maya talked to the judges. She's extraordinary, Olivia said quietly. Yeah, Marcus said she is. She gets that from somewhere. Her mother, Marcus said.
A pause. And her father, Olivia said. He didn't answer that, but he didn't look away either. Maya came in second in her category. She was annoyed briefly, precisely, and then she recalibrated because she was her father's daughter and said that the first place project had a more complex methodology and she had respect for that.
Even though she thought her presentation was better, which was probably true. Olivia told her second place was something to be proud of. Maya said she'd be prouder next year with a more complex methodology. Olivia looked at Marcus. Marcus said this is a normal Saturday.
After the fair, they got ice cream. Maya sat across from both of them in the booth and ate her ice cream and watched them the way she watched everything carefully without being obvious about it, gathering data. At one point, Marcus said something that made Olivia laugh, and Mia looked at Olivia's face when she laughed. And something in Maya's expression went softer for just a second before she turned back to her ice cream. Later, much later, after Olivia had gone home and Maya was in bed, Marcus was doing the dishes when Maya appeared in the kitchen doorway in her pajamas.
"Dad, hey, you're supposed to be asleep." "I know." She leaned against the door frame. "She looks at you," Mia said. Marcus turned off the water. "What?" he said. "When you're not looking, she looks at you in this way." Maya searched for the word like you're the first solid thing she's grabbed onto in a while.
He looked at his daughter. She looked back at him with eyes that were way too old for 11. I don't know where you get this stuff, he said. I read Maya said completely serious and I pay attention. She pushed off the door frame.