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nothing if not efficient. “He thinks he’ll be arrested.”
    She shrugs. “Then I guess you’re going to be working at the community centre.”
    Asher doesn’t want to work at the community centre. He’s never actually been in a community centre, of course, but he has no trouble picturing it. There will be fluorescent lighting, fourth-hand furniture and one of those gigantic coffee urns that no one ever washes properly. The place will be filled with do-gooders being chirpy and wearing cheap clothes, middle-aged women doing Pilates and T’ai Chi, and kids who can’t read or have nowhere else to go. With poor people; people who don’t try hard enough or work hard enough to succeed. People who don’t want to work, don’t want to succeed; who just want handouts. People things happen to, not people who make things happen. His father wouldn’t want him to work in the community centre, either. What does that have to do with corporate law? With the people who do make things happen? His father will be disappointed in him. He’ll think that it’s Asher’s fault; that he didn’t make enough of an effort; that this is what he gets for being immature and annoying Dr Kilpatiky. The last thing Asher wants is to disappoint his father.
    “You never know.” Claudelia smiles like a pat on the shoulder. “Maybe the centre won’t be that bad.”
    “Oh, it will be that bad, that’s guaranteed,” says Asher. “It’s in Queen’s Park, Claude. Queen’s Park is so busted it’s like the graveyard of hope.”
    Claudelia suggests that that might be why they have a community centre. “You know, because people need help?”
    “It used to be a supermarket. A small one.” Asher says this as if it’s conclusive proof of just how bad the placement is going to be. “I checked it out online.”
    Of course he did. Asher wouldn’t buy a ballpoint pen without checking it out online first.
    “And that means what?” asks Claudelia. “It was a supermarket, not an abattoir. An abattoir could have some really bad vibes from all that blood and screaming animals. But a grocery store? What’s the problem? You’re afraid of finding an expired can of peas?”
    “You know, you could be a little more sympathetic,” says Asher. “This is really hard for me.”
    “And you could be a little more like Marigold,” says Claudelia.
    Even Asher can’t help but smile at that. “You mean grow my hair and wear short skirts?”
    Claudelia nods. “And nail polish. Colour-coordinated to match what you’re wearing. And fake lashes.”
    “OK, I can do the polish, but I draw the line at the eyelashes. I don’t know how she sees through those things, they’re like awnings. One day they’re going to fall into her soup and she’s going to choke to death.”
    “Seriously, though,” says Claudelia when they stop laughing. “I think you should. Not the skirts, but her attitude. She doesn’t want to teach reading any more than you want to help out at the community centre, but she’s not acting like it’s the biggest tragedy anyone’s ever experienced in the history of civilization. She’s just making the best of it.” This time Claudelia does pat him on the shoulder. “I know this is hard for you, Ash, but you’re not making it any easier.”
    “Yeah, but it’s different for Marigold,” argues Asher. “It doesn’t really matter to her what she does.”
    It is different for Marigold. She gets good grades without staying up till three in the morning and falling asleep over her homework. She doesn’t have to be the best at everything she does; she’s happy enough to be good. She has no interest in being even a minor town official, never mind President of the United States.
    “You mean because she’s not an obsessive workaholic?”
    “No, Claudelia, that isn’t what I mean.” Asher is starting to feel as if he’s dealing with a difficult witness. “Because she thinks life’s some kind of buffet. You try a little of this and a