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knuckle down and finish his assignment. He grabbed his notes, pulled out his laptop and got to work.
    After several hours, a rumble in his stomach told him it was time for a break. The aging clock on the wall of his rundown kitchenette surprised him with 1 PM. He’d made good progress, having cranked out seven pages of theoretical discussion points.
    Beside his computer, though, sat a pad of legal paper covered in symbols and drawings. Jason was barely aware he’d been scrawling on the pad as he immersed himself in the assignment. To the casual observer, his scribbles would be meaningless, just a bunch of Greek letters and math symbols. Even Professor Lachlan would have struggled to comprehend his notation, as it was an abstract representation A bunch of placeholders he’d arbitrarily assigned to explore different physical properties of subatomic particles. Ultimately, he knew calculus was a means of quantifying relationships, the only problem was that no one agreed with his notation.
    Sweat dripped from his forehead. He got up and grabbed a Coke from the fridge and made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch. As he sat down, he noticed the girl again, still standing on the far corner of the intersection.
    The sun was relentless, baking the city. Heat shimmered from the scorching concrete.
    There was no shade on that corner, but there she stood looking the wrong way down a one-way street like she was waiting for someone to drive like a salmon against the flow of cars and pick her up. Her dark hair, pale skin and petite body seemed to be wilting in the heat like flowers left out of a vase.
    Jason bit into his sandwich, wondering about her, curious about where she was from and where she was going. She clearly wasn’t a local. What was she doing in New York? Who was she waiting for? Why didn't she stand back in the shade? Curious, he wondered what the story was behind her vacant stare. He popped open the can of Coke and sipped at the cool drink, enjoying the brief respite from the heat.
    Jason had work to do. Staring at eye candy wasn’t going to help him get his master's degree in physics. He focused his mind, having enjoyed the brief distraction, and got back to work.
    Hours drifted by unnoticed.
    The sun was setting when he next glanced out the window. Although he expected she would be long gone by then he half hoped to see her again. She had sparked his curiosity. For today, at least, she was his mystery woman.
    Several pages of legal paper lay strewn on the ground, covered in apparent gibberish.
    There she was. She looked like she hadn’t moved from the one slab of concrete he’d seen her on earlier that morning. In the back of his mind, he’d been vaguely aware of her standing there throughout the day, catching her occasionally out of the corner of his eye.
    Jason checked his phone. It was half past six in the evening. He’d completed an intellectual marathon, or so he felt. His paper was finished. Well, he mused, physics revolved around relativity and uncertainty, and finished was a relative term, one that in his case carried a high degree of uncertainty. He knew he needed to spend at least a couple of hours reviewing his work before he was really finished.
    Looking at her, he knew she had been out there for the better part of twelve hours. She must have moved, he thought. She couldn’t have stood there all day in the unrelenting sun. She had to have had something to eat, something to drink. She must have gone to the bathroom at some point, but if she had, he hadn’t noticed.
    Jason stared down the road, wondering who she was waiting for. Whoever it was, they were really late.
    Since traffic only went one way down the street and she was looking in the direction the traffic was traveling, he decided she must be waiting for someone on foot. He wondered if she would make a scene when they finally arrived. She must have been mad as hell standing there all day. That would make a good show, he thought, smiling