Learning to Swear in America by Katie Kennedy

have enough time,” Pirkola said. “In theory, we ought to be able …”
    “Is big chertovskii —” He paused, wishing he knew how to swear in English, and started over. “Is big, bad asteroid coming toward Earth, to smash your country? Then maybe we should do it right, yes?”
    “We intend to do it right,” Simons said, his voice clipped.
    “No, you intend to do it safe. You have how many years old? A hundred?”
    Simons flushed. He was fifty-six.
    “And still you have to do things like everyone else. Be all alike. You …”
    “This isn’t about peer pressure,” Simons snapped. “It’s about science.”
    “Then look at science,” Yuri said, tapping the table. “We want to destroy asteroid, but it’s very big. We can make it smaller with antimatter bursts and greatly increase chance of success—of debris burning in atmosphere.”
    “You know you’re not the only guy who’s ever looked at this, right? You’re not the only physicist in the world.”
    “That’s not point.”
    “That is point.”
    Yuri flushed. Russian didn’t have articles, and while he knew that English was full of them, he was never quite sure when to use which. Easier just to skip “the” and “a.”
    “There are a lot of smart people who wonder aboutantimatter,” Simons said. “Who have thought about it for longer than you’ve been alive . What does that tell you?”
    “I’m not saying they’re not smart. I’m saying … they just don’t know how to work with antimatter.”
    Simons threw his hands in the air. Yuri turned to Pirkola.
    “Here, let me explain.”
    “How long will it take?” Pirkola asked. “To really explain it and give the mathematical proofs so I’ll believe it?” He laid his fork down. “You do have mathematical proof?”
    “Of course. Would be … really to explain? And you’d want to work it out yourself little bit, to double-check. Four days.”
    “Four full days,” Pirkola said. “That’s time we can’t lose. Maybe at the end, if we get this done early. I’d love to hear unpublished work from Yuri Strelnikov, boy sensation. But not now.”
    Simons crumpled his napkin and tossed it onto his tray. Yuri ignored him and focused on Pirkola.
    “Our point of divergence is early. I wish it wasn’t. But if we work out whole thing, then I show you I’m right, we don’t have time to do it again. We’ll have wrong approach.”
    Simons stood. “And if we waste four days on this and don’t agree with you, and don’t get done in time, what then? We’ve killed everybody in California to indulge your ego.”
    Pirkola stood, too, holding his tray. “Look, I really would like to hear your thoughts on this. But we can’t handle anything else right now.”
    Yuri turned to Simons. “If you’re not going to listen to me,why am I here? Why not just send me home? You two do equation, and I’ll go back to Moscow and watch sky.”
    Simons flushed. “We need your input,” he said. “Is that what you need to hear? You need a compliment every five minutes? We need your input, based on proven, established theory .”
    No , Yuri thought. I don’t need compliments. I don’t need to be kidnapped, either, while everyone is looking at the sky .
    They put their trays on a rack outside the kitchen and headed toward the stairwell with its glass wall, but Simons turned back. He pulled his wallet from his back pocket and extracted a photo.
    “My daughter,” he said, holding the picture out.
    Yuri looked but made no effort to take the picture. It showed a pretty brunette in a purple shirt. Looked like a high school senior picture.
    “She’s older now. Expecting our first grandchild. It’s going to be a boy.” He tucked the photo back in his wallet. “She’s due June ninth.”
    Impact day.
    Simons choked for a moment, looked surprised with himself, then regained control.
    “I do a little woodworking—have a shop set up in the garage. I’m making him a wooden rocket ship seat for his bedroom. He