Community [1-58]

by oyster50

Copyright© 2012 by oyster50

Description: The ongoing adventures of Cindy, Tina, Nikki and Susan as the odd group of intelligent young ladies tackle college, family, friends and life with love and good humor. If you haven't read "Cindy", "Christina" and "Nikki", you're going to be lost on a lot of what's happening here. Do yourself a favor and back up and read those stories first.

Tags: Ma/ft, Consensual, Romantic, Heterosexual

Published: 2012-12-27

Updated: 2015-01-19

Size: ≈ 258800 Words

Introduction

This story starts out with a wedding, as eighteen year old Susan marries twenty-six year old Jason in a little town in Tennessee.

But this story is itself a wedding, the melding of three separate stories in my "Smart Girls" universe. Three stories of young girls unfortunate enough to be 'mothered' by trashy moms, each of them 'rescued' in her own particular way.

To understand "Community", you really need to read "Cindy", "Christina" and "Nikki" and meet the girls and their mates. Find out how they react to finding love and security and family, how personalities and capabilities blossom when there's an opportunity.

Hundreds of reader comments tell me that I have some remarkable young girls here. I think you'll enjoy meeting them and seeing their lives.

Each of those stories starts out on its own legs, but somewhere in the middle of "Cindy" and "Christina" a neuron misfired in my addled mind and I tossed them together. It was there that "Community" was born. That should have been enough, but one of my readers, YOU folks, suggested that since a hurricane figured in the early stages of both "Christina" and "Nikki" and both of them were from Louisiana, what if...

That's how the three of them tied together.

So now we have "Community". Let's look at the major characters.

There's Cindy. Redheaded pixie, fourteen, an off the scales genius, and her husband, Dan Richards, an electrical engineer.

Here's Christina. Everybody calls her 'Tina'. She's seventeen, brilliant, has skipped a year of high school, and her husband, Alan Addison, an electrical engineer. She's auburn-haired.

Susan Carter is NOT a rescue. She's eighteen and a pretty normal, if a little too intelligent, friend of Tina, actually has a loving mom and dad. She's blonde, slightly plump, and engaged to Jason Ellerbee, an electrical engineering technician.

Alan's daughter, Terri, product of his failed first marriage, is blonde, seven (ALMOST EIGHT!)

And there's Nikki, brunette, fifteen and married to Dan Granger, an electrical engineer who went to college with Alan.

Surrounding the crew are a bevy of friends, family, acquaintances and others who pass into and out of their lives.

And if you've read the individual stories, you KNOW something interesting is going to happen.

Chapter 1

Author note: If you haven't read the introduction to this story, I strongly recommend that you do so. I'm working hard to make "Community" stand alone, but the characters in this story have had a year (in 'story' time) to get where they are. I think that the enjoyment of this story will be much greater if you know the players.

Friday afternoon under a sky punctuated with puffy cumulus clouds, two small private planes hustled along purposefully from two different directions.

The destination was a rural airfield in Tennessee, a stretch of concrete, a few buildings, a fueling station, a hangar left over from World War II.

Piloting one of the planes was Dan Granger, fortyish, engineer, not exactly white-knuckled, but more than a bit wary. This Dan had just under a hundred total hours of flight time and his airplane was, according everybody who knew flying, a bit 'hot' for a novice pilot. In the right seat was his wife, all of fifteen years old, dark brunette hair in convenient pageboy bob, bangs cut straight across her forehead at eyebrow level. Nikki.

Almost directly south of the airport, flying in from Alabama, was a thirty year old Cessna 180, another forty year old engineer, but this time he's in the right seat. The left seat is occupied by a redheaded young girl, her eyes scanning the skies, even though the instrument panel almost obscured her forward vision. Cindy. The guy in the right seat is the other Dan in the story, Dan Richards, husband of fourteen year old Cindy.

The two couples have a common goal. One of their friends is getting married. The wedding is slated for Saturday afternoon

We'll let Cindy tell the story for a while.

High-speed let-down into Tina and Susan's home field. I know I could get this ol' plane down faster and steeper, but right now I'm trading the altitude I paid for two hours ago for some ground speed at this end. I just changed the frequency on the radio from the air traffic center to the Unicom. Tina's home field is like ours, a little place with no control tower, so there's a universal frequency for places like this. Everybody knows about it, and a goodly number of them monitor the frequency and broadcast their status.

Like us. I pressed the 'transmit' button on my control yoke. "Tulla traffic, this is Cessna 6-5-6-7 Golf, ten miles south, descending for landing."

The radio broke squelch. "Roger, 6-7 Golf, this is Tulla. No known traffic."

"Uh, Cessna 6-7 Golf, Tulla, this is Mooney 2-8-3-5 Kilo, about fifteen southeast, also for landing at Tulla. We'll be watching for you."

I squealed just a little bit, mind you, and I wasn't transmitting. My Dan looked at me and smiled. "There's the rest of the gang."

"I know! Isn't this exciting? Susan's getting married." Reason to be happy, that. Susan. Can't call her 'best friend' because she's one of us and we're SISTERS. And among our sisterhood, Susan's the only one that's NOT married, and when she DOES get married tomorrow, her marriage will be the most normal of the bunch. It's 'giggle' material, our marriages, when it's not 'huh?' or 'You're kidding me!' or 'Is that LEGAL?'. Let's see. We have me, fourteen, MY Dan, forty-one. There's Tina, seventeen, and HER Alan, forty-one. And Nikki, fifteen and HER Dan, forty-one. And Susan's eighteen, the oldest of us, and her Jason's twenty-six.

Eighteen and twenty-six, that's almost normal.

Okay, I'm flying today. Must be doing a good job of it, because the REAL pilot (he has his license. I can't get one. Too young!) is riding along with his arms folded, talking with me. I punch the transmit button again. "Roger, Mooney 3-5 Kilo. We'll meet you in a few minutes."

"Roger, 6-7 Golf. Mooney 3-5 Kilo out."

Dan laughed. "You can take the guy out of the army, but you can't take the army out of the guy. That last transmission is pure military procedure." Dan (mine), Dan (Nikki's) and Alan are all army veterans.

Anyhow, we're doing a good descent, keeping the speed up and I see the field ahead of me. And off in the distance I see the strobe flashing on Dan and Nikki's Mooney. I'm at a thousand feet entering the downwind leg and the Mooney's closing in. Nikki's husband is getting good. He puts the Mooney in 'dirty' configuration, flaps and gear down, to slow them up a bit to sequence behind us for landing.

I can do this. Wheels on the ground, pulled the yoke back to keep the tail pasted down while I stood on the brakes and took the mid-runway exit.

"You're getting good," my Dan said. "And you can fly, too!"

I giggled. Love my guy. And seven months into being married, eight if you count where we committed to each other before the State of Alabama certified us, Dan and I have our little jokes and suggestive comments.

"Let me get us parked and we can work on that other thing later," I replied.

I put our plane on the transient tie-down line and shut the engine down. By the time we got the doors open and I stepped out onto the wheel, a crowd was streaming out of the office and the Mooney was pulling up beside us. The planes could wait. I had sisters to hug. And a niece. It wouldn't do to forget Terri, Tina's stepdaughter and a very neat little person in her own right.

Dan calls it 'the scrum'. He's played rugby and I've watched it on TV and 'scrum' describes our massive group hug pretty well, except instead of cussing and grunting, we're laughing and giggling. The guys attended to tying down the planes while we caught up on physical contact with each other.

Yeah, this bunch knows all about Skype and email and dropboxes and every manner of digital communication, so there's hardly a second when we're more than a connection away from each other. During school, before the graduation marathon last week, we got together almost daily to talk about school and life. Now it is just about life. School will start again next week when Nikki goes to Auburn for interviews. I did that a couple of weeks ago and they pulled me sideways off the ladder to getting my degree. I'm hoping the same thing for my sisters. Nikki's already on their radar, and I sent Mizz Patel at the Auburn School of Engineering a little email advising her that she just MIGHT want to sift through the stack and look at Tina and Susan.

This time we did the car-sharing thing a little different. Instead of separating by couples, all us girls piled into Tina's little Honda. I got in the back seat with Nikki and Terri. Terri and I are the smallest, physically. Mentally, I think we could punch holes in steel. I didn't know I was smart until Dan told me and showed me and led me along. Now I have some idea of intelligence and how it shows up in people.

Okay, so it's the day before Susan's wedding. Susan's pretty. And the day before her wedding? Gosh, she's glowing. Today's the rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner.

No, Susan's not doing the 'Princess for a Day' weddings that you see all over, where there's a ten thousand dollar cake and a ten-thousand dollar dress and eight matching bridesmaids and all that sort of thing.

"Mom and Dad didn't raise me to be a spoiled little twerp," Susan said. "Mom and Dad got married in the preacher's office at a little Baptist church. Since I have all you guys, we can't fit in the office. So we're gonna do the church, but then we'll move to the activity hall."

And dress. I, no, WE went with her, Tina and I and Susan's mom, Mizz Kathy, went to buy it. And it's WHITE!, and that's in the traditional sense of things, too. Susan's an eighteen year old virgin. But the dress? After she gets married in it, it's STILL a nice dress that she might wear again. The rest of the sisters and I will wear nice clothes and Terri's gonna be the flower girl/ringbearer and the whole assemblage is not nearly as important as the two people who will pledge their eternal love in front of God and family and friends.

And then Susan's gonna kill Jason. Tina and Nikki and I all agree. Our sister Susan is a virgin. We believe her when she says that. And that her and her Jason have never gotten past a little enthusiastic kissing and cuddling and then they both stop, but...

"I don't wanna stop sometimes," she said. "But I promised myself and God and my family..."

"You're a good girl, Susan," Tina said. "That's something rare these days."

I couldn't say much on that subject. I was a good girl, too, and my Dan is the only man who's ever done ANYTHING with me and that's the way it should be. But we weren't married. But I knew that when we did it that first time that there was never gonna be another for me. So I guess that qualifies. But still, we had a couple of months where the only 'married' was our vows to each other.

Some of our talks, though, Susan got pretty specific. "I REALLY get all gooshy when I'm with Jason and I sort of think about it. Am I ... Is that normal?"

I kept my mouth shut. I was like a fountain when I touched Dan the first time. Still am. Lucky for me I have a guy who knows how to deal with all that wetness. I think Tina handled that one best. "Everybody's different, Sis," she said. "But I get that way. First time. And still..."

All I really told her was that watching and hearing Mom sort of turned me off to the idea of sex, but Dan turned me back on because it was making love. I can play innocent, you know. AND bashful. Until I get Dan in the right kind of place, where we have some privacy. That might be a bedroom or a secluded glen next to a creek or a back yard behind a privacy fence under a sky full of stars. I just can't see Susan being much different.

But we're all in the car and we have Terri with us so the conversation is pretty well G-rated. I like Terri. It's funny when we have one of those Skype things going with the sisterhood and many times Terri's face pops up alongside Tina's. She usually says 'Hi' and then scoots off, but sometimes she joins in, talking, and sometimes she's just there, listening, so she knows how we are about school and education and love and family.

"I'm part of this now, aren't I?" Terri said in the middle of one of those sessions.

Tina was officially in the 'step-mom' position but that wasn't the way she played it. More like big sister, I think. And when we said 'little sister', Terri straightened us out. "Tina's my step-mom, actually. So that makes me your niece." So okay, I thought 'not something to waste time on." And let it drop.

We pulled up the caravan in front of Susan's house and went in behind Susan's "Mom! Dad! We're here!" and sat down to have coffee or sodas. Terri was sitting beside Tina, doing that polite thing she does, listening, answering when she was addressed. Mizz Kathy said something to Tina about how Terri finished the second grade and her status among the group.

"Mizz Kathy, you an' Mister Mike are awfully close to being my grandparents, you know."

Mizz Kathy almost choked. Mister Mike patted her on the back.

"How'd you come up with that, baby?" Alan asked Terri.

"It's just simple, Dad," she said. "Tina's REALLY my step-mom and Susan 'n' Nikki 'n' Cindy are Tina's sisters, right? So that makes 'em my AUNTS, because your mom's sisters are your aunts. So that makes Mizz Kathy my GREAT aunt. Almost a grandparent, right?

Mizz Kathy started to smile. "I'd planned on waiting a few years before I gained grandma status, baby. But I will happily claim you as my great-niece."

"And it's a whole lot less painful that way," Mister Mike laughed. He looked around the room. I guess some expressions hinted at other surprised people. "So I'm thinking, 'Who explained this to Terri?' and I've a sneaking suspicion that she came up with it on her own."

"Dad," Susan said, "That's pure Terri there."

"You know? That's scary right there," he said. "But at the same time, in this group, she's perfectly normal."

"Thank you, Mister Mike, uh, UNCLE Mike," Terri said, giggling. "We do have a wonderful family, don't we?"

I looked around the room. Friends. Family. Whatever they are, they're MINE, just like my Dan, and that fact makes me rich beyond compare.

More small talk. A few suggestive comments from the guys, directed at Jason and Susan, and Susan, seated on Jason's knee, was causing him untold misery by lightly drawing designs on the nape of his neck with her fingertip, all the while smiling and giggling. He's in love. She's a cutie. She's gonna kill 'im.

We went to the church for the rehearsal. Susan's a hoot. You have to KNOW that we're an unusual group, three teens with middle aged husbands, and Susan accentuated that fact in the introductions.

"Reverend Spillers, I want you to meet my wedding party," Susan said. She was smiling and she had a confident poise to her demeanor. "You already know Mister and Missus Addison. Alan and Tina." Her hand descended on Terri's shiny blonde head. "And Terri."

It went downhill from there.

"This is Mister and Missus Granger. Dan and Nikki. They're from Louisiana. Nikki went to school with Tina. Dan rescued her after the hurricane last year."

I could see the look on the poor guy's face. I mean, there's an OBVIOUS gap between Dan and Nikki. But wait. If Dan and Nikki shocked him...

Susan motioned to me and MY Dan. "And this is Mister and Missus Richards. Dan and Cindy."

"B-but..." he started.

"I'm happy to meet you," I said.

Dan was shaking his hand. "I know," he said. "She graduated from high school last week, if that's any help."

The preacher sucked in a breath. "Miss Susan, you warned me, didn't you?"

"Yessir," Susan said. And she pointed. "Tina graduated with me. Nikki skipped two years of high school. And Cindy was in the eighth grade at the beginning of last school year. She's got a full scholarship to Auburn University."

The poor guy was just a little obvious when he stared at me. I backed against Dan, who protectively wrapped me in his arms. "Eighth grade? How old?"

"Fourteen, sir," I answered.

"Going on forty, Rev'rend Spillers," Dan said. "Sometimes things just aren't as they appear."

"I'm sorry," Reverend Spillers said. "Susan said that her friends were, in her words, 'unconventional' and 'startling'. I wasn't prepared for..."

I smiled as innocently as I could manage (which is pretty innocent, really, so I've been told) and shook his hand too, then showed him my left hand with the ring on my finger. "We're as married as Susan and Jason will be tomorrow evening," I said. "I hope we..."

"Oh, no, Mizz Cindy. Mister Dan. I'm glad to meet you and glad you came to share in our Susan's wedding."

By this time, Nikki was beside me. Nikki smiled at the poor guy too. "I'm a year and a half older than Cindy. Got a scholarship to Auburn, too."

Her Dan stepped up behind her. "Angel," he said, "What are you doing?"

"Just telling Reverend Spillers about me and Cindy going to Auburn." She smiled. "I think the idea of the two of us having college scholarships at such a young age surprises him."

I was thinking that he was surprised, but it wasn't about our academic status. Still, nice guy. And this is Susan's wedding, and I certainly didn't want to spoil Susan's day. "I'm sure that Susan can explain the whole situation to you if you're interested," I said. "It's one of those sad stories that turns out good. I got rescued. But Nikki here REALLY got rescued. Her Dan had to use a power saw."

We got through the rehearsal. I stood up there on the stage with Nikki and Tina, Susan's mom, Terri with a sofa cushion instead of the official ring bearer's tuffet. Went through the motions. It wasn't going to be that big a deal. For sure, it's a lot more than me and Dan in Judge Charlie's office with Mizz Helen and his staff for witnesses. But Susan wasn't using the wedding protocols of British royalty as her guidelines.

"Honest, it's about me and Jason and friends and family. It's not entertainment. It's OUR wedding," she'd said. I remember the conversation.

"What's Jason say?" Tina had asked her.

"Jason, my dear future husband, says we can rent Westminster Abbey. Or we can jump a broom and sign the family bible, but he's marrying me." And those blue eyes sparkled. I'm happy for her.

We didn't dodge the rehearsal dinner afterward, not because of some trumped-up protocol, but because that's just what friends do every chance they get: go somewhere and share a meal and conversation.

Okay, Reverend Spillers and his plump little brown-haired wife ended up across the table from us and Nikki and her Dan and they got some of the good parts of our stories.

"Lindy," he said to his wife, "Look at 'er. Does she LOOK like a high school graduate?"

"Cindy LOOKS like a happy young lady," she answered him.

"Thank you, Mizz Lindy," I said. "Sometimes it's like waking up and the dream doesn't stop."

"But being fourteen..." Reverend Spillers said.

I know the answer that usually works with that question. "I know. But if you get away from the numbers, I'm perfectly normal. Many high school graduates have scholarships and some of them are even married." The guy's got a kind face. He's really looking for answers that can get him away from that whole 'she's FOURTEEN and that's just WRONG' idea. "A lot of people think that since I'm fourteen I'm being exploited. I have a high school diploma, a college scholarship, and this guy," I patted Dan's arm. He was letting me defend myself. I know he's perfectly capable of defending me if need be. He has the scars to prove it. "My husband is in deep need of lessons on proper exploitation. I'm having too much of a decent life since we married."

We made it though the whole evening and nobody got upset. At the end of the evening, Dan and I and Nikki and her Dan loaded up in Tina's little Honda and drove to the hotel.

Nikki turned to me. "So you didn't get nervous at the questioning?"

"No," I said. "Heard most of it before. The guy's just trying to reconcile what he sees in front of him, that'd be you and me, with what he expects to see when teen-aged girls get involved with mature guys."

She reached ahead and brushed her fingers over her Dan's ear. "Uh, Honey, are we INVOLVED?"

"I dunno about right now, but after we get in the room, maybe..." he said.

"Dan Granger!" she squealed in a feigned huff. "How coarse!"

I was giggling. "Honey," I said to my Dan. "They're INVOLVED. Are we INVOLVED?"

"I'm kind 'a like my brother in law," he said. "Wait'll we get in the room."

"Beasts!" Nikki tittered. "We married BEASTS!"

"I don't know about YOU, sis," I laughed, "but if he thinks he's gonna exploit ME, I'm liable to exploit him right back." I flopped back against the seat back and Nikki flopped back beside me.

"Yeah. Ain't it wonderful," she smiled. Softly, she whispered, "I never dreamed it would be this good."

"Me neither, Nikki," I said.

"Buddy, I think they're talking about us," my Dan said.

Nikki's Dan turned. "Baby?" he asked.

"We're not. And if we are it's only to say good things." Giggle. "Mostly. Actually, you're being pretty well spoken of, considering your beastly ways."

I was smiling at the happy love showing between Nikki and her Dan. I know my Dan's the same way. We laugh, pick, taunt, and then there's this big ball of arms and legs and lips and tongue and protrusions and orifices and secretions and WOW! Exploitation! It's wonderful!

I reached my hand forward and stuck a finger between Dan's seat back and the head rest, lightly brushing his neck. He wiggled. "Cindy Sue Richards, you're asking for it!"

"I am glad you understand that, Dan Richards."

One of these days a hotel desk clerk is gonna call the cops because of what I was doing when we checked into the hotel. I was being about as obvious as I could and still remain within the limits of propriety in public venues.

I said good night to Nikki and her Dan as we got into the elevator and when Dan and I got into the room, he dropped the bags, locked the door, picked me up under one arm, carried me to the bed and dumped me on it. I thought I was gonna get raped, except for one tiny detail: You can't rape the willing.

It's a good thing I dress in sturdy, sensible clothes, otherwise they'd be in shreds. We frantically undressed, ourselves, each other. I know the answer to THIS question, too: it's a number. Sixty-nine. Because I'm gonna make HIM come and he's gonna make me come, probably twice, and THEN we'll get a shower together and then go back to bed and make slow, tender, amazing love.

Too much iced tea too late at night. Around two I HAD to get up and relieve myself of some of it. When I got back near the bed, I sort of looked. The room was dimly lit, so I could see fairly well. There's my Dan, all six feet and a little bit of him, wearing a T-shirt, just like me, otherwise naked, just like me. And he still shaves his pubic hair. I don't do that, but I don't have much anyway, just a whisp of red.

"Shows that you're a natural redhead," he said, first time we talked about it.

"Was there any doubt?"

"Nowadays? Kids in elementary school dye their hair, baby."

"Nope," I told him. "It's natural. Mom wouldn't pay for me to color it." And I didn't even know at the time that my hair was almost like a fetish to him.

But it's like twilight in the room and Dan's halfway rolled onto his back and his dick, MY dick, it's soft and just sort of laying there and it's so awfully tempting. But he's my husband, and we don't have to get up and go anywhere right away in the morning, so...

I gently get into the bed and slide over to where my face is almost THERE. I use my tongue to lift the head of that wonderful bit of Dan up to line up with my mouth and I suck it ALL in. Soft, I can get it ALL in my mouth, and "Mmmmmm".

It doesn't EVER stay soft. It's MY toy and I know what makes it work, and I know my Dan and by the time I get him to full hardness, his hand is fondling my head.

"You're the most wonderful of creatures, Cindy," he says softly.

"You're My Dan," I said, "and you're equally as wondrous to me. I love you. And not because I'm getting ready to..." I moved up and straddled him, putting the hardness I created into the single place in the universe where it's MADE to be. Or maybe one of the TWO places. I love sucking on that thing.

So what if we had to take another shower when we got out of bed the next morning?

We met with the gang for breakfast Saturday morning. Susan was in full giggle mode.

"My LAST breakfast as a single woman," she said. She looked at Jason. "Baby, tomorrow morning, we may not even EAT breakfast."

Jason turned as red as a ketchup bottle.

Poor guy. He may be dead in the morning.

Next stop is a wedding and a honeymoon. does Susan REALLY kill Jason?

Chapter 2

Susan's turn:

My wedding day. Let me say that one more time, just to make sure: MY WEDDING DAY! Yes! Susan Carter, daughter of Kathy and Mike Carter, is getting married to Jason Ellerbee, son of Ginger and Wallace.

Little girls dream about weddings. I always knew that one day I would be married like Mom and Dad. That's an important point. I know that a lot of friends and acquaintances in school want to get married. I'm a little more picky. I don't want to GET married. I want to STAY married. Like Mom and Dad.

Learned a lot from watching them. Perfect marriage? No. And yes. If 'perfect' means never disagreeing and never arguing and fighting, then no. If 'perfect' means loving and caring and seeing each other as worth the battles, then yes.

Example. Mom hates hunting. Dad is a hunter. Mom refuses to eat venison. Dad (and I) love it. Compromise. Dad goes hunting without Mom, brings home venison, cooks it himself, and WE eat. Mom makes do with a chicken breast or a ribeye. There are other examples, but you get the picture. I can see the result in the way they look at each other when they get home in the evenings. I won't talk about some of the sounds that leak out of their bedroom at night.

And then I've got neat friends. ODD, neat friends. Tina and Alan. Cindy and Dan Richards. Nikki and Dan Granger. All married. I talk with those girls, my sisters, several times a week. We Skype and message and email and phone each other. We've met for weekends and graduations. Tina and I practically LIVE in each other's back pocket since she moved to Tennessee and I got past my first bone-headed event with her.

And in all those talks and visits and whatever, NONE of those girls has ever said anything negative about husbands and marriage and freedom and such. Cindy said "Freedom? To do what? Sleep around? Change mates every other week? I'll tell you what I think freedom is. Freedom is being free to love the ONE guy who means everything to you while he thinks YOU mean everything to him."

And that's my Jason. One of the girls at school, when word of my engagement got out, learned that Jason's been married (and divorced). Snotty little thing said he was 'tarnished goods'

"Tarnished goods?" I said. "I can't BELIEVE you, Lisa Jane! I'm marrying him. Just because his first wife didn't see what I see in him, that's HER problem, not his. Or mine."

Oh, I know all about the former Mrs. Ellerbee. Jason's a whole lot more perceptive, some of it from maturity, some of it from hindsight. "I walked off the stage at graduation and straight into a sixty thousand dollar a year job. Two things some women will settle for: A dong and a paycheck. And the dong part wasn't that important. And when it wasn't fun any more, she hauled ass. I'm just glad we didn't have kids."

"She didn't love you," I told him, petting his head. "I love you."

He looked at me with those grey eyes of his, and said, "I love you, Susan."

And I believe him. So okay, from the first time that I touched his fingertips, the first time I met him, that was with Tina and Alan, I admit to being a bit smitten. But then, Jason's different. He tells me that he was an outsider at school, and I pretty much believe that. He's just, well, DIFFERENT, but not the way that some guys go out and make a special effort to LOOK different. Jason just IS different.

Some of it's like reverting to a bygone age. He's gallant, cultured, considerate. Add to that his intelligence and sense of humor, and I just fell. Like a tree that had its roots cut.

And we, to use the words he used on Dad, 'courted'. Then announced our engagement. I used to visit him at his apartment, but early on, I told him that I was going to be a virgin until my wedding night.

"You're a virgin?" he asked.

"Yes," I said. "I am a good girl. I know right from wrong. And when I am married, I will give myself to my husband. Wedding night. I promised my family and I promised God."

"Then that's what we will do," Jason said. "I am a man of honor."

I won't say that there weren't times that I didn't REALLY have to... "Jason." Breathe. "Jason, baby..." Breathe. "Too much..." Did I mention that he's the best kisser I ever met. I mean, I am NOT that experienced, but hey, lots of dates, lots of kisses, and Jason makes me weak ... It's like his lips just brush mine and my nipples burn and my face flushes and I start getting gooshy.

I ... WE. US. We got that way more than once. I deliberately tried not to stimulate that lump in his pants, because I think that if I pushed a little too hard, then he'd lose track of things and if HE pushed a little too hard, I would be a goner. But just so you know, sometimes I almost wish we did.

More than once I got home, to my own house, my own bedroom, my own shower and...

"Tina, tell me. I know this is VERY personal," I said. "But before you an' Alan made love the first time. I mean intercourse. Did you ever, you know ... yourself?"

"I thought I was going to Hell for doing it, too," Tina said. "Here was Alan, perfectly honorable. He almost died the first time he thought I caught 'im with an erection, because he was trying to protect ME. And then I'd go get on my sofa and cover up and ... me and my fingertip..."

Yes, I did. And imagined ... yeah, fantasized, that it was HIS finger. Or some other things. I know about that other stuff. Never done ANY of it, mind you. I was too young to remember President Clinton's 'eatin' ain't cheatin'' defense, that oral sex wasn't you know, real SEX, but that's not the way I was raised. Oh, sure, I did the normal 'let's play doctor' kid stuff up until I was maybe five or six, and I babysat and changed diapers, and I admit to catching a glimpse of a fully grown one a few times, including, <<gasp!>> Dad's.

But I'd never touched one. Not intentionally, anyway. When Jason and I cuddled up, kissing, I couldn't HELP but notice that thing. Only the strongest self-control kept me from just grabbing it and saying "Let me HAVE this thing!"

"Cindy," I asked, "before you and Dan slept together, did you ever ... you know ... about him?"

I got a giggle back. "Mmm-hmm." I could picture the green eyes and that quirky little smirk of hers, a sort of tight-lipped smile. "I ... about two or three weeks after I met him, I was already deciding that Dan was THE guy. And I imagined how HE would touch me. And so I touched myself. And you know what?"

"What?" I asked. I should've known. In some ways Cindy's the most forward of the four of us.

"If the ones I did myself were like a candle, the first one Dan did for me was like the sun exploding. So get ready for it."

Interesting. Like wanting to go to a movie and everybody that's been tells you how wonderful it is...

And I'm anticipating.

And I'm nervous, too. Mid-afternoon, things are taking shape. Aunt Mimi has come over to help. Aunt Mimi fancies herself as the family fashionista. Mom's not frumpy or anything like that. I think she's beautiful, even at forty, and Dad adores her. Aunt Mimi is more about flash and fire, and so here I am, sitting on this chair and Aunt Mimi's gonna 'do' my hair. She opens up her crashbag (I call it that. Aggravates her to no end) and sets a couple of things on the dresser that to ME are like a cross and holy water to Count Dracula: hair spray and a teasing comb.

"Nope. Just put that stuff back," I said.

"But baby, this is your WEDDING day. You need to have a LOOK!"

"If you use that crap on my hair, Aunt Mimi, I'm gonna look at my former fiance' disappearing out the door. I like my hair like it is. And so does he. We've HAD that conversation already."

Aunt Mimi straightened up to her full five foot six height and looked at Mom. "Kathy Sue, talk to your CHILD!"

"Now Mimi, listen to her. It's HER wedding. And I know how Jason is. Humor her.

Aunt Mimi huffed, frustrated. I knew she was a very competent administrator for a good sized business, but deep down, I think she wanted to be a hairdresser. "Well, then, Miss Frump, what WILL you submit to?"

I handed her a pair of silver combs, a gift from Jason. "These! Pull the hair back on the sides of my face and use these to secure it. And that spray of orange blossoms, or whatever they are, can you figure a way to secure 'em so they'll stay there and not get in the way when I get kissed?"

Then she laid out enough base and blush and make-up to patch up a car wreck. "Put that up, too," I said. "Blush? Seriously? I'm eighteen and just thinking about the honeymoon is gonna make me blush plenty. Believe me, I'll be the right colors."

Mom started giggling.

"You're NOT helping, Kathy!"

"Seriously, Mimi, did you expect anything less from this girl?"

"No, but I expected her mom to control her."

"Not since she turned eighteen, baby doll, " Mom said.

Aunt Mimi was getting wound up. "I can't believe you're not doing MORE for the wedding. That dress..."

My turn. My dress was white. That's for me and my promise. And it's knee-length. If it was black, it'd be the basic 'little black dress'. I'm not the 'slinky blonde' type. I guess that if I starved and exercised I could get down to the numbers on that weight table that worries everybody, but I'm not there. I carry a few pounds extra. Everybody says I carry them well. And when I tried on that little dress in front of Mom and the gang, they thought it was ME. So do I.

"Aunt Mimi, I am just a little girl from Tennessee. Why should I try to look like British royalty for ONE day?"

"Oh, baby, it's your WEDDING day..."

"That's right, and after its over, all that gaudy crap goes back to the rental place (Dad's, but you get the idea, right?) or into the trash, and Dad gets the bills. I know people who're still paying off the wedding when the divorce is final. This is about me and Jason, and everybody else is along for the ride."

"But..."

"I love you, Aunt Mimi. We can do all that for your next wedding..."

"Kathy, I do believe my lovely niece is being a smart-ass."

Final touch-up in the little room off the church entry. I could hear the church pianist playing and I knew that my time was fast approaching and NOW I was getting nervous. Thank God that ONE thing Aunt Mimi had in her crashbag was some deodorant that has an EPA file number, otherwise I'd be sweating inordinately more that a young lady should sweat, even in early June.

The pastor's wife knocked on the door. "Susan, baby, it's your time." Opened the door and presented my arm to Dad.

"Your time, punkin," he said. "And before you take another step, let me tell you that you've never looked more perfect. And I'm proud of you."

A girl doesn't need to be crying when she walks down the aisle on her father's arm.

I took a deep breath. Tried to SEE. Oh, look! Jason. In the same suit he wears when we go to church together. Magically, we're on the platform.

"Who gives this woman in marriage."

I looked at my Dad's eyes and saw eighteen years of having a loving father as THE man in my life. It ended with "Her mother and I do." He released me to stand as Susan Carter, woman on my own, for the next whole minute I stood there next to ... Gosh, it's JASON!"

And there by him is a seven (ALMOST EIGHT) year old angel with orange blossoms in HER hair, with a velvet pillow holding two rings.

"Do you take this man..."

Quick, Susan, get control of your KNEES! Breathe! "I do."

"Do you take this woman..."

"I do. Forever," Jason ad-libbed."

And there was a ring on my finger. And his. And a kiss.

And a recessional, the subject of animated discussion on one of the sisterhood Skype sessions. "Not the usual thing," I said.

"Ode to Joy," Cindy said.

Squeals from my sisters. "Oh, absolutely!" Nikki said. "The greatest piece of music ever written."

"I would argue with that, but I agree that 'Joy' has to be at YOUR wedding," Tina said.

So a few people's sense of tradition got violated, and a few people probably got introduced to a piece of music they'd never heard, but I was out in the sunlight with that music behind me and Jason on my arm and Cindy's Dan and a real (Dad paid for him) photographer were snapping pictures and I turned to Jason and there in the sunlight of a June day, we kissed.

"Come on, Mizz Ellerbee," he said. "We have a reception to blow off."

Reception. Right around the corner from the church sanctuary was the church multi-purpose hall and today the purpose was my reception. It was equally understated, even though you have to remember that Dad ran the biggest rental service in the county and he'd put a lot of stuff into this.

We got the 'cake picture' and I REFUSED that 'push the cake into his face' shots. And I did the father-daughter dance. Noticed that Mom corralled Jason for a dance too. He told me what' she'd said later.

Jason and I disappeared into separate dressing rooms and changed into street clothes and came back out. I kissed and hugged a list of people I can't remember and Jason shook the same amount of hands and got kissed a bunch of times, too, and it was finally time for us to make our escape.

Nashville. Maybe it's not one of the big-name honeymoon destinations, but it's where we chose and we could drive there if we maintained just a little sanity for just a leeeeetle while longer.

And I was swinging my overnight bag in my hands while my HUSBAND checked us into the hotel.

CLACK! I heard the door close and lock behind me.

Jason looked at me. "Well, Missus Ellerbee, what's next?"

I would like to say that I exhibited decorum and self-restraint. I would LIKE to say that. The truth is that I didn't say one thing past "I love you" before I had him flat on the bed with me, his happy bride, on top of him.

We were both giggling. "Clothes!" I said.

"Clothes," he repeated. "Right! We don't need 'em. Susan Ellerbee, let me undress you."

Okay, I can stand for that. His touch on my BODY was like drawing a rosined bow on a violin string. I was positively vibrating as he got me down to bra and panties.

I've been waiting for THIS. No, not eighteen years, because I'm female. Nope, just since I decided that Jason was IT! I started to turn so he could unfasten my bra but he said, "No. Step closer."

He buried his face between my titties and reached around behind me with both arms and I felt the elastic stretch and then loosen and fall away. His hands gently worked the straps off my shoulders and he let me step back so it could fall to the floor.

My titties are one part of my body that I'm happy with. B, maybe C cups, and no sag and normal-looking nipples and for the first time a lover's hands were touching them. I bent over and kissed him.

"Are they..."

"Perfect," He said. "Absolutely perfect." His thumbs hooked the elastic of my panties.

"No," I said, "we get to THAT part together. You stand up!"

I sat there, naked down to my panties, and they were WET. Okay, they've been wet before. But this time...

He stood in front of me. I had to stand to peel his shirt off. It was one of those knit polo things. We laughed while I struggled with it, but I got it off and for the first time I got a look at his bare chest. Hairy. Not thick hair, but hair, and I couldn't keep my hands off. But I had a goal. I sat back on the end of the bed and started struggling with his belt.

"Let me get that," he said, expertly releasing the buckle.

"I WILL get good at this," I said.

"We can practice a lot, baby," he said. "Every day when I come home..."

Okay. I can work the snap on a pair of jeans, and I popped that snap and tugged the zipper down and for the first time realized how well his pants had been hiding what was going on there. As that zipper went down, more and more of his drawers bulged out with this HUGE thing behind it. I couldn't help but stare for a second, but then I gulped and started pulling his jeans down off of his hips. They fell to the floor and he kicked out of them.

"Stand up, princess," he said.

I was almost in a trance. We started out with a standing kiss, as passionate as any I can remember with Jason, and believe me, I can remember some humdingers. Then I realized that the little tingly feelings in my breasts, that was because they were in HIS chest hair and I was feeling HIM directly against ME. I kissed harder and let my hand run down his chest and for the first time, keep on going.

Found something. When I found IT, his whole body shook and he went "Mmmmm" in my mouth as we kissed. Apparently he likes this.

His hands, though ... my titties. NO, they'd been touched before, artlessly, I might add by 'dates' who thought 'fat chicks are easy' even though I'm not hardly fat and I'm certainly NOT easy. Except now. And the touch was gentle, exploring, like he was reading my curves, and then they worked up to my titties and cupped them gently, lovingly, then gently took measure of my nipples. My turn to shudder.

Breathe, Susan!

He let my titties go, almost reluctantly. I wasn't saddened at all. I knew he'd be back there. One hand went around to gently hold me against him, pressing in the small of my back, then sliding down where he's never touched me before, and the other hand was sliding down between us and I couldn't breathe again. Okay, I breathed, a gasp, really, when his fingertips slid under the waistband of my panties and reached my mound.

He backed his face away from kissing range. I got practical. "Let's get the bed turned down. I'm about to explode."

His hand went a little further down, into a flood of expectations. I squealed, threw arms around his neck and buried my face. "Oh, Jasonnnnnnn..."

He maneuvered me around to the side of the bed, my arms keeping us connected. We disconnected enough to let him toss the covers off the bed. And he slid my panties down. I wiggled them off, letting him see me entirely naked for the first time. And he smiled.

My turn. I had to tug the waistband of his drawers waaay out to get them off. Still didn't work. But it's MY job. I reached inside and touched it, the first adult one I EVER touched. He shuddered again, but I got his underpants down below that and pulled them down. And HE was naked. I stared again. I don't exactly know what's normal in guys' sizes. Didn't matter. This is the ONLY one. EVER.

I fell back onto the bed, bringing him with me. Kissed again. This time I felt tingles on every inch of my skin where our bodies touched. I reached down again. Thing. His. MINE. So hard! So HOT! And there was another hot part in this bed, mind you.

"Susan, love of my life," he started.

"Jason. I know what you're thinking. It's TIME!"

"What about foreplay?"

"We've had WEEKS of foreplay."

"You're a..."

"Virgin," I said "And right now it's a curse. Please, Jason..." I tugged and rolled over on my back, spreading my legs for the best reason in the world to spread my legs. Our lips met. He reached down between us and I felt something soft and hard and hot and insistent sliding into a place where only my fingers'd been before (because doctors don't count) and I knew ... Oh, yes, there it is. I can feel it! Pushing.

Not tearing. I can read, thank you, and I KNOW about hymens, if you want to be clinical, or cherries, if you don't, and I had one and I figured out that it might be a good idea to sort of loosen it up, preparatory to this single event.

Mom gently told me that the first time might be painful. Three sisters told me otherwise. Two reports of a little blood. And little twinges. And then bliss.

Those grey eyes read me. "First time I've ever done this, sweetness. I'll go slow." He started pushing. I felt myself expanding to fit him. And I bucked. UP. And Jason was buried in me.

"GodIloveyouJasonEllerbee," I blurted.

"Are you okay? Hurt?"

"I..." I caught a breath, "Fine ... God, Jason, please..." I pushed up against him, feeling motion as he slid in and out of me a tiny bit. He got the hint, withdrew a bit and went back in and I moaned. He did it again. My face. His shoulder. I buried in it, tears running down my cheeks. No, NOT pain. Oh gosh, I'm gonna have to talk with the sisters. Words failed. Imagination failed.

Jason did another stroke and I opened my mouth and tasted his flesh, then I put a hand behind his head and guided his lips to mine. Kiss. "God, Jason, YESSSSS!" and he started doing it to me. At me. WITH me.

"I can't ... hold..." he hissed.

"Don't," I said. "Just don't! Baby! Auuuggghhhhh!" And it happened. Not the way it usually is with me, where orgasm announces itself and then builds to a crescendo. Nope. Feels good - feels good -feels good - BANG!BANG!BANG! What'd Cindy say? Candle, meet supernova.

I was shuddering like I'd never had a climax before and I guess my shaking was all that my Jason could take, because his body went rigid at the bottom of his deepest penetration and I felt wet fire. So that's what THAT feels like. I could feel pulsations deep inside me as he did it. He was squirting in me. I'd heard about it. Read about it. Now ... Oh, my goodness!

I pulled his face to mine again.

"God, I love you, Susan baby," he said. And we kissed. "Are you okay? Hurt?"

I shook my head. "No. Are you okay?"

"Nope! I am dead."

"Dead?" I asked.

"Yep," he said. "Gotta be. Only way I can imagine ever feeling this good is if I died and went to heaven."

We rolled sideways. He propped up on one elbow, his free hand tracing my face gently. "You are so beautiful, Susan. What did I ever do to deserve you?"

"I'm thinking the same thing," I said. "What did you do to deserve ME?" I giggled.

He pushed me over onto my back. I reached down. Hard. "Again!" I hissed.

Another. He rocks me. Actually ROCKS me. This second time, we're sweaty. And I have an idea.

"Jason honey," I said. "Can we shower?"

He broke into a grin. "Together?"

"Of course!"

When I stood up, I had juice running out of me. I needed a shower and I needed to find out MORE of what it felt like to have this incredible male person whom I could explore this whole sex thing with.

Showering together. Yes, I'd asked. The answers sounded so, well, sterile. Ain't. Not a bit. I haven't been bathed since I was a kid. Found out how much I loved it.

Got out of the shower. Dried off. Went to bed. And hour and a half later, I had sucked on Jason for the first time. Pretty much fun. Have to ask about that. I'm sure the other girls do it. They HAVE to. I mean, here's this pink thing sticking up, all interesting-looking, and I've played with it and touched it and felt it and it just makes sense, so...

"GAHHHHHH!" Jason said.

"Did I hurt you?"

"Oh, baby, no..."

"You had to know I'd do this," I said.

"I had to DREAM that you'd do that," he sighed.

I did it again. Fun! Jason twitches. And then there's this salty taste. I understand what it is. And I like it. I make a note for further exploration.

Another thing happens for the first time. Susan gets her thingie licked. Kissed. Nibbled. Well, get serious. Worshipped. I came my brains out.

Time for another shower. Back to bed. The night was a blur. We did sleep. And I found out that my whole life of cuddling stuffed animals was preparation for FINALLY having the man of my dreams in bed with me. We FIT! When I roll over and want him to be there, he's THERE!

And we woke up the next morning.

"Breakfast?" I asked.

"Right now?" he retorted, a look in his eyes that ... I squealed, shoved him over on HIS back and did that 'straddle your guy and wear each other out!" thing. We finished THAT in a collapse of arms and legs and bodies mashed together. I found his soft thingie (I have to come up with another name besides 'thingie') with my hand. Hadn't been soft very much since we got into the room.

And when I touched it, it started getting hard again in my hand.

"Ooooo," I squealed. "Baby, it's HARD!"

And he smiled.

Twenty minutes later, I'm laying on my back, the universe a series of colorful swirls behind my closed eyes. My whole body is one big puddle of endorphins. And my phone rings. The ring tone is Cindy. Cindy!

"Your phone, baby," Jason said.

"That's Cindy," I whispered. I couldn't make much more effort. "Answer it."

"What do I say?"

"Just go with it," I said.

"Hi Cindy!" he said. Pause. "No, not right now. And don't giggle when you ask." Pause. "Of course she's here." Pause. "No, I think she's just passed out." Pause. "Now stop giggling."

Chapter 3

Wherein Jason attempts to describe the indescribable.

My wedding day. That whole 'travelling technician' thing, that was supposed to keep me out of trouble like this. There I was bopping along from job to job, making darned good money, really having fun (for the most part) doing it, and then I ended up in Tennessee. It was like a big, stupid moth falling into a spiderweb.

Except I fell in love with the spider. Susan. MY Susan. My blonde, supremely beautiful funny intelligent Susan with the blue eyes and soft, rounded body that had me going home after our dates, laying in my bed and beating myself to death.

God, I wanted her. Those eyes dancing with laughter? I wanted them to be MINE. The silly little titter of a giggle? Wanted it to be mine. Those dreamy sighs? Should be mine.

And here I am, staying in Tina and Alan's trailer and it's THE day and I'm shaving one last time as a single guy and I'm getting dressed and I'm looking at my watch and calling Mom and Dad. They're staying at the same hotel as everybody else from out of town. That would be Dan Richards and his Cindy, and Dan Granger and his Nikki, all here for my wedding.

"Hi, Mom," I said.

"Hello, son," she replied. "Are you still in Tennessee?"

"Yes, ma'am," I answered. "You know Susan. I made a better choice this time."

"I think so, son. She makes so much more sense than THING!"

Inside, I was finally laughing. My divorce was a painful thing to Mom. Actually, the truth of the matter was that my marriage, first one, that is, was a painful thing to Mom and Dad both. They just never saw a match there.

Mom had talked to Susan. Mom and DAD had talked to Susan. I set my technologically inept parents up with a computer and shamed them into entering the world of digital communications and they saw Susan and me on Skype a few times and then Mom and Susan got together several times and then we did that fly-in visit with Tina and Alan, and Susan just sort of slid into Mom's idea of a daughter-in-law, even if Susan's a bit younger than me.

I get to meet Mom and Dad and the rest of the gang (minus Susan and her folks) for breakfast.

"Son, you're remarkably calm," Dad says.

"Numb," Alan laughed. "In a few short hours he's gonna be Susan's accessory."

"Now, baby," Tina said, "he's been Susan's accessory for MONTHS now."

Dad is still shaking his head about me going back to college. "I like THIS bunch of advisors a whole lot better than the ones that talked you out of your engineering degree in the first place," he'd said.

Okay, let me tell you that this breakfast's conversation was a little bit more ribald. I sort of deduced that a lot of our group conversations were a little muted because Susan was not only not married, but oddly for this day and age, we weren't sleeping together, either.

That was a surprise to me. Susan did NOT want to move in with me. I know a lot of women who'd've been packing their bags, like my first wife, but Susan wasn't one of them. Another surprise was that Susan, pretty, eighteen, was still a virgin.

I'd never been with a virgin. I mean, I'm not exactly a classic playboy in the first place, but I was virgin until I met my first wife. She wasn't and I was. That was an early revelation when Susan and I got to the point that we kissed and snuggled and got all hot and bothered.

"Jason baby," she'd said. "You KNOW I love you, but we have to stop. We're both about to lose control and go a lot further than I intend to go until my wedding night." She explained to me exactly why and for me, a boy raised in Sunday School at a Southern Baptist church, it made perfect sense. It was something I understood. It was something I could live with.

There were certainly times that our common resolve was sorely tested. I mean, the girl's beautiful. She won't grace the cover of Vogue for about a million reasons, all of which are Vogue's problem, not mine. Okay, I'm not a chiseled Adonis myself. I carry a few pounds that I've gathered along the way, you know, one too many fast food joints, that sort of thing, and honestly, Susan's a few pounds over ideal, but it makes her look like a retro starlet out of the 1940's instead of one of those poster kids for anorexia that seem to populate the fashion world today.

Susan was sweet and blonde and curvy in ways that made me DREAM. Okay, sometimes those dreams ended up kind of sticky...

Good breakfast. Go home. Try to relax. Shower again. Shave again. I'm not gonna have ANY stubble, not for the expected festivities of the evening.

Lunch. There's a package of ramen noodles waiting on me, 'Purina Dorm Chow', but I'm doing a light lunch. Festivities planned, you know. Time to suit up. Nice neutral gray suit. Fits good. Multi-purpose. Church. Business. And now, this one wedding.

Phone rang. I didn't even have to look. The ring tone belongs to only one. THE one.

"Tell me you're not backing out," I answered.

"I'm not," Susan said. "No way, nohow. And there's not a place deep enough and dark enough for you to hide in if YOU are."

"Nope," I said, "But if you KNOW that place, we can go there after we're married."

"Are you dressed?" she asked.

"Is this one of THOSE phone calls?" I returned.

Giggle. (Oh, God, the giggle is still there. And it's almost mine.) "IN a few hours you won't NEED those phone calls."

"I suppose," I said, doing my best Eeyore impression.

"I shall pay extra attention to your tender sensibilities," she said, playing along. Then she paused, sighed, and said, "May be the last time we talk to each other as two singles, sweet boy."

"I know, princess," I said. "But I quit being single when I decided to ask you to marry me."

"Me too." Giggle. Yep! It's there!

"So, Miss Susan Carter, I shall see you at the appointed time?"

"Why, yes, Mister Jason Ellerbee! I look forward to our meeting!" Giggle. I heard her speak to somebody in the room with her, "I will NOT tell 'im to take Vitamin E!" and then to me, "See you in a bit, love!"

I sat the phone down and eased back onto the sofa, closing my eyes. It's like a dream. And I am hoping I don't wake up. Finally I got tired of watching the numbers change on my watch. Time to go.

In the church. There's Mom and Dad. Dad has never looked right in a suit. Mom looks good in her dress. My buddies, Dan, Dan and Alan are all spiffy in their 'respectable engineer' togs. I shake a few hands and it's time. I'm standing in front of this church and the church pianist is doing some light, lilting things. I notice that the pastor's wife is going to the back of the church with Mike, Susan's dad.

I wasn't this nervous the first time. Maybe I just didn't know. Maybe it's because I had nothing to compare it to. Mom was dabbing at her eye with a delicate handkerchief. I think that for the first wedding she was checking her purse for a straight razor.

The music changed and I almost lost it. I told you that I find Susan to meet my ideals of attractiveness. The creature, no, make that the ANGEL coming up the aisle on her father's arm, that creature took my breath away.

I've been to enough weddings to know that it's not uncommon to take a perfectly pretty, neat girl and primp and pompadour and make her up to where she looks like a refugee from the courts of Versailles.

Not my Susan. Her hair, that soft, shining, sweet blonde hair was just like I liked it, held back from her face, this time by combs. She had a spray of little while flowers on one side of her head. Her dress wasn't one of those Princess Di extravaganzas. It was white(!), simple in lines, and showed me this perfect creature.

Somebody said some words that forever escape my mind and I found her standing beside me in front of the pastor of the church, our assembled friends and families, and God.

I looked at this vision.

"Do you take this man..."

Blue eyes were looking into mine. "I do."

And some more words, "Do you take this woman..."

"I do. Forever."

Alan's daughter Terri, seven years old and almost a miniature Susan herself, was holding a velvet pillow with two gold rings on it. That little bit of simple gold was nothing compared to my heart right now.

"You may kiss the bride."

I brushed my lips against hers.

"Allow me to present to all present, Mister and Missus Ellerbee, Jason and Susan!"

The recessional was Beethoven. We stopped on the church steps for pictures.

Our reception was held in the church multipurpose hall and it was a blur.

My blushing (yes, really!) bride. Her sisters made sure that some whispered comments had Susan blushing well past the pink stage. I know she danced with her dad and I danced with my mom and Mom and Dad hugged their new daughter-in-law but I honestly don't know how much of it Susan remembers.

Cake. We cut it. Fed each other a bite. That's another bit of Susanat work. "We're NOT doing that business about pushing cake all over each other's faces. That's gross." And we didn't.

Then it was her time to toss the bouquet. One of her teenaged cousins elbowed her Aunt Mimi out of the way for the catch. Everybody has a branch on the family tree like her Aunt Mimi, a little too flashy, a little too loud, a little too made up, and just possibly a little loose in the virtue department. I danced with Aunt Mimi. Got my ass grabbed. Sure, she laughed, like it was a joke. Still got my ass grabbed.

And we disappeared chastely into two separate dressing rooms and came out in travel togs, and we're off TOGETHER on our honeymoon. At least they didn't tie a hundred inflated condoms on my truck. I've seen THAT done. Gotta love redneck weddings.

Susan and I had discussed honeymoon destinations and we figured that we could probably make it to Nashville without stopping on the side of the road and creating a spectacle.

I almost couldn't sign my own name when we checked into the hotel. When I turned, keycard in hand, and picked up my overnighter, Susan was standing there looking as absolutely delectable as is possible to achieve with the female form. From the top of her head to the soles of her feet, there was not an inch of her that I would change.

Another chaste kiss in the elevator. I let us into the room and closed the door behind us.

"Well, Mrs. Ellerbee, what's next?" What was 'next' was HER saying "I love you" and then me flat on my back on the bed with Susan atop me, giggling, kissing, hands WILD.

After a flurry of happy kisses, she said, "Clothes. We don't need 'em!"

"You're right, Mizz Ellerbee. Let me undress you!" She stood up in front of me as I sat on the edge of the bed. Getting her blouse off wasn't much of a problem and neither was getting her skirt off, and there she was, standing in front of me in bra and panties and I was beginning to think that she could hear my heart pounding.

She started to turn around so I could unhook her bra but I wasn't having any of that. "Step this way." I wrapped my arms around her and quickly unhooked her bra, easing the straps down off her shoulders. She stepped back and let it fall to the floor and then stepped back to me.

For weeks I've been wanting to bury my face between those luscious titties. I did. So perfect. Not big, maybe a 'C', but slightly rounded, not the slightest bit of sag, perfect, perky nipples and I had to touch them.

She backed away, bent over and kissed me. One hand stroked her hair, releasing tantalizing tendrils of perfume.

"Are they..." she started.

I had one word. "Perfect."

"My turn," she said. Then we got into a gigglefest as she tried to peel my shirt off over my head. Finally got it, and she ran her fingers over my chest and then hugged me tightly against her as we kissed. I could feel her nipples.

She started fighting my belt buckle, trying to get my pants off. I finally did the belt for her.

"I will master that particular bit of technology," she said.

"We'll have plenty of practice," I returned. I watched her eyes as she unsnapped my pants and tugged the zipper down. Oh, yeah, I was hard. I could've engraved her name on a diamond with what was in my pants. Her pupils dilated when my tented shorts were freed from my pants. I stepped out of my pants and that left us both clad win our underwear.

This time when she stood up and we kissed, her hand went down and for the first time, she touched my hardness. Grasped it gently. I shook and moaned my pleasure into her mouth as we kissed and then I explored those perfect titties. Her turn to purr.

I slid my hand down her soft belly. My fingers went inside the elastic waistband of her panties and my fingertips pushed to the soft hair on her pubic mount. She was shaking.

"Let's get the bed turned down, baby," she said, strained.

We managed to get the bedcovers mostly turned down without disconnecting from one another. She allowed me to slide her panties down past her hips and then she wiggled to let them fall to the floor. And she sort of pirouetted before me, completely naked, completely trusting.

Beautiful.

"My turn," she said. "Stand up."

I stood. She tugged at my waistband but it wouldn't clear the head of my dick until she gently pushed it back. By the time I kicked my feet free of them, Susan was pulling me onto the bed. We molded into each other. Every bit of my body was alive like it had never lived before, touching Susan.

"Susan, you're the love of my life..." I started.

"I know what you're thinking, my Jason," she said. "It's time."

"What about foreplay."

"Mister Ellerbee, we've had WEEKS of foreplay. It's TIME!"

"But you're a virgin."

"Right now that's a curse, baby. It's TIME."

She rolled over on her back, carrying me with her, spreading her legs. She had my dick at the gate to heaven.

"I've never done this before. Virgin, I mean," I said. "I'll try to go slow." And I started pushing. Apparently the love of my life can be impatient at times because she bounced upward. 'Slow' wasn't what she wanted. 'In' was more like it.

One breath and "GodIloveyouJason!"

"Are you okay? Hurt?"

"I ... Fine. Jason. Please!" And in the way of instruction, she pushed up. Here I was, trying to be gentle because I'd read that was the way to do it and I found myself up to the hilt in Susan. I tried a little slow stroke in and out and got Susan's face buried in my chest. When she pulled away, tears were in her eyes.

"You're SURE you're not hurt?"

"OHGOSHNO!" and she pushed up against me again.

I pulled back and eased in again. "Jason. God, YESSSS!"

Okay. I can do this. Of course you have to realize that this is the first actual sex that I've had in, oh, I can't remember when, and not only that, I loved this girl and she was wiggling against me (something #1 seldom did) and... "I ... I can't stop it..."

"Don't! Just DON'T!" and the little darlin' came. Surprise. And Aaauuuughhhh!" and I felt her pussy squeeze and spasm and that's all it took. I pulsed jet after jet. When the surging stopped, she pulled my face to hers and kissed me, long and hot.

"I love you, Susan," I said. "Are you okay?"

"Mmmm-hmmm," she purred. "Are you?"

"Nope. I'm dead."

"Dead?"

"Yes, because the only way I can think of that I'd ever feel this good would be heaven." I rolled over off her. "What did I ever do to deserve YOU?" I asked.

"I ask myself the same question," she said, then the giggle came out. "What did YOU do to deserve ME!"

I find myself married to a comedienne. A lovely, naked comedienne. Naked, and causing me to get hard again. I pushed her over on her back and she smiled and welcomed me inside her again. Took me longer THIS time. Left us both sweaty.

We showered. Went right back to bed. This time I ended up on MY back and one of the hazards of having a smart young wife is an insatiable ... well, curiousity is ONE thing that's insatiable. Blue eyes. Smile. Head bobbed down. She sucked me.

Caught me by surprise. "Ohgahhhhhh!"

Her head bobbed up. "Did I hurt you?"

"Oh, no, baby," I said. "You just surprised me."

That sweet face was smiling. "You know I just HAD to try it. I mean, it's just stickin' up there, all cute and pink, except this part is kinda purplish, and I just HAD to..."

"I dreamed that you would."

She did it some more. Crawled up and kissed me. Okay, that broke the ice on the whole 'mouth' thing. My turn. Had to worship those nipples. The fact that she had my head in both her hands pushing me into her sort of told me she liked it.

There was another thing to try with Susan. I kissed my way away from those titties and started downward across that soft belly. Lingered at her belly button. When I nuzzled my way through that little mat of sparse blonde pubic hair and reached my goal, she almost came unglued. Well, the 'came' part was certainly there.

After that, I laid close with her in my arms and we rested a little bit. I was happy. Satisfied like I'd never been satisfied in my life. Kissed her and got kissed back, a couple of big, hot ones, then a shower of little kisses and she got giggly, like she suddenly remembered that she was in bed with me and we were both naked and her hand pushed between us and found me hard.

She pushed me onto my back and climbed on top and rode me. After that, we needed another shower.

The night was blur.

I had long ago forgotten what it was like to sleep with another, but this was good! We woke each other gently the next morning.

"Breakfast?" I asked.

"Breakfast?!?!" she squealed? "When we have THIS?!?" and she pushed me over on my back and had her way with me. When THAT one was over, we were in a pile of mixed arms and legs and bodies. Her hand found me. I was soft. I got squeezed and heard her giggle. And I wasn't soft any more.

"It's hard," she giggled.

Fifteen or twenty minutes later neither of us seemed to have any ability or need for motion.

Until the phone rang. Hers. Unique ring tone. Cindy.

"Answer it," she said.

"What do I say?"

Dreamily she said, "Just go with it."

"Hi, Cindy," I said.

"Hi, Jason." Little giggle there. "Whatcha doin'? Or is it who?"

"We're Not doing that right now. And it's not polite to giggle when you ask."

"Is Susan there?"

"Of course she's here."

"Can I talk to 'er?"

I looked at my bride of less than twenty-four hours. Her eyes were closed. "I think she's passed out."

A peal of giggles came from the phone.

"And stop giggling!"

Susan's eyelids fluttered. She reached for the phone. "Let me talk to 'er."

"Bye, Cindy," I said.

"Bye, Jason. And thank you for marrying my sister!" Giggle.

"Hi, Cindy," Susan said. Pause. "Uh-huh. Mighty kind of you to wait this late." Giggle. Pause. "Listen! Let me tell YOU something, Miss Cynthia Smith-Richards. Your feeble attempts at explaining to me that I'd have fun fell well short of reality." Pause. "No, you're right. You were being nice." Pause. "No, I don't think I have a vocabulary to adequately describe what happened to me." Giggle. "Uh-huh. Might be a brunch, maybe." Pause. "Oh, so YOU'RE the designated caller? Well, tell 'em that innocent little Susan ... Ain't! Not any more." Pause. "Yes. VERY happy. Love you, little sister. Give 'em all my love." Pause. "'Kay. Bye!"

She put the phone on the nightstand and pulled me to her. "I have so many things to be happy about at this very moment, Jason my love. And you're the biggest one." She reached down. Giggled. "Really!"

Chapter 4

The big silver diesel pickup truck purposefully rumbled away the miles. The driver is Dan Richards, a satisfied look on his face. Part of the satisfaction comes from the passenger, a little green-eyed, red-headed teen. She was strapped into the center seat, snuggled against him, and her smile was somewhat broader.

"Dan," she said, "We're buying furniture. I can't believe we're buying furniture." Giggle. "Do you realize that we're putting together our first home together?"

"I don't know that I've had a real home for years, sweetness. Then you came along and turned a travel trailer into a real home."

More giggles. Cindy is in a good mood. If you know Cindy, though, good moods have been an almost constant state since the preceeding August when she met Dan. Married. Fourteen and married. Fourteen and married and a high school graduate. With an advanced placement scholarship to Auburn University.

"Well," Dan said, "The builders say we can move into the place in two weeks. We need to furnish OUR place and the office. I suppose that Tina and Alan and Terri will be down this week, too."

"And Nikki and her Dan," Cindy said. "Just a second." Cindy whipped her iPhone out and started punching at the screen with both thumbs. "Look! Here's Nikki's process control simulator on the internet."

Dan shook his head. "I can't believe the two of you came up with that on your own."

"She did most of it," Cindy tittered. "She's after Dan to get her some relays and stuff so she can hook the real world up to it."

"For fun," Dan said, shaking his head. "You're something, darlin'. Really something."

She curled her arms around his bicep, burying his cheek into his shoulder. "And my best move to date is hanging with YOU."

"Only because I find that I have this weakness for redheaded geniuses, little one," Dan said.

"Speaking of weaknesses, I wonder how Susan and Jason are faring today."

"They're four days into their honeymoon. They probably can't walk any more," Dan said.

Cindy giggled. "And we were all wrong. We thought that Susan would kill poor Jason. And when I called the first time, she was almost passed out and ol' Jason is all alert and bright and happy."

"Yeah, uh-huh. He got himself a cutie almost as cute and smart as mine."

Cindy's turn:

I just can't keep this third-person stuff up.

Dan and I are on the way to Auburn. I'm talking about the town, not the university, today. It's time to get furniture picked out for our new apartment. I, Cindy Smith-Richards, am furnishing OUR new home with my husband. It's just so right.

The new building has six apartments. We're getting a two-bedroom unit. So are Nikki and her Dan and Susan and Jason. Tina and Alan and Terri are getting one of the three-bedroom units. We're talking about renting the other two apartments, a two-bedroom and a three-bedroom unit, but we're going to be picky about it.

The new international headquarters (Nikki's term) of 3Sigma Engineering is one of the larger of the three units of the strip mall that's built in front of the apartments. We have things figured out. A restaurant is looking to relocate in one of the other units. And get this! It's INDIAN! I can just smell it now. I need to talk to Mizz Patel and see if she knows who it is. She tells me that the Indian (dot, not feather! Her description, not mine) community around the university is close-knit. Everybody knows everybody, even if they don't get along.

Work. It does little good to have a new business if there's no work. Under the letterhead of the new company, my Dan's already doing some consulting for, of all people, a law firm. Yes, when I was a mere eighth-grader (last school year) I had the opportunity to tutor and assist the math teacher. One of the kids I helped, Kaylee, was the daughter of one of the local attorneys. Kaylee and I became good friends and her dad has been using Dan for some consulting work. Word's getting around, so 3Sigma is lining up for that little piece of the pie.

I'm happy. I may be just a tiny bit prejudiced and maybe even ill-informed, but I think that after seeing Dan at work, he's got a handle on getting the business off the ground. And no, I didn't forget that we got Alan and a whole other Dan and Jason, that is if Jason survives both his honeymoon and a couple of years of going back to college to get an engineering degree.

I don't know what I might bring to this thing right away, but I do know that Nikki's doing some stuff that has her husband wondering, and I'm able to pull up an app on my iPhone and see what her simulator looks like in Louisiana, and she and I both have been doing some programming. Yes, Dan (both Dans, actually) explained that what we're doing is rather rudimentary, but we're doing it and getting better, more aggressive, learning things that are hardware, not theory.

That's a big deal in life, the difference between theory and the real world. Theory says that a fourteen year old girl is supposed to be aflutter over boy bands and boys in general and clothes and stuff. That theory works out to be true for the center of the bell curve. Out at the ends? Maybe not. And I'm out at the end.

My real world is a whole lot better for me and my Dan. I don't think that most girls in their teens would do well where I'm at. I read books about some of this stuff and I know I'm not normal in a lot of ways. I find myself focusing and fixating on things. Dan's one of them, the best one. I don't give other males, men or boys, so much as a second thought. They're just people to me, to be nice to if that works, to be ignored and avoided if it doesn't.

I know all about the conversations. The kids I helped through school were a mixed collection of male and female and I know about the flirting and the giggling and the suggestive talk and all that. I know what a girl likes when a guy she's interested in pays a bit of attention to her.

Unfortunately I also know from close observation the effects of that stuff taken to one of its logical conclusions, from watching Mom.

So right now me and my practical exercise in the mechanics of human interaction (he laughed the first time I popped that phrase on him) are headed to talk with the contractors about how we want our apartment painted and floored and we're picking out furniture.

I nestled into Dan's side. "Queen-sized bed."

"Not a king? Lots more room," he said.

"Nope! We tried kings at hotels. I don't like 'em. I lose you in one at night."

"Queen it is, then, sweetness," he said.

We had other discussions. I know he had the place plumbed for natural gas for heat and stove.

"But you're an ELECTRICAL engineer," I said when we talked about that choice.

"Yep! But man's been cooking over fire since before history. I like the control and the instant change."

And he didn't get an el cheapo stove, either. Not quite restaurant quality. But good. When I talked to the sisterhood about it, the next day I got emails from Tina and Nikki. "Get us one." And Susan. "See if you can get a discount when you buy four, then give Dad a chance to see what he can do."

Four new stoves are awaiting delivery. We wrote the check to Mike Carter. And refrigerators. And I think this is a milestone in my life. Talking with Mizz Ann she tells me about her and Jim and setting up households a few times when he was still a Marine, and the last time, when they settled into their home in Alabama. Seems like they had a lot more struggles than Dan and I are having. So that's a big plus in our lives.

Somebody said that all the pluses have to balanced out by minuses elsewhere. I don't particularly buy into that idea, but there's a new development that is really surprising to me, and I'm not sure how it's going to pan out. Mizz Helen got a letter at the RV park. From Mom.

It's been ten months. This is the first time either of us has heard anything from Mom. I was settled with the idea that Mom basically just dumped me and hauled her butt to Nevada and was done with the whole idea of having to deal with having a daughter. Then this letter showed up.

It was addressed to Mizz Helen and me.

"Dear Aunt Helen + Cindy,

I am still in Vegas, but its hard since Vince and me split up. Its something we both decided to do. I know he was tapping some drink bimbo at one of the casinos on the Strip and I thought that Vince wasn't that good a deal and I know a couple of guys who are better looking and have better prospects if they want to take me on.

Cindy I know I havnt been the best momma to you and that's why I left u with aunt Helen. I know she gives u a better place to live and better cloths and stuff. If I was u I think I woud latch on to that Dan guy if you cuod get him past ur age.

Rite now I am sharing an apt. with another girl. We share the rent and things and we think we can get better jobs at maybe one of the big casinos on the Strip where tips are good and there are all kinds of nice men looking for some companions. One of them might just be the man I am looking for.

I might evn make enough money to come back to Alabama some times.

Love-
Donna"

I read it. Dan read it. Mizz Helen and Mister Charlie read it. I agree with Dan. It's cryptic.

What am I expected to do about it? What's Mizz Helen supposed to do about it? After all, it did have a return address. But it didn't have a phone number, and I KNOW she's got to have a phone.

It's quite confusing. She said in her own words that I should latch onto Dan. I did that before she dumped me off on Mizz Helen. But should we tell her? Mister Charlie said that in view of her voluntary dissolution of her parental rights, she would be hard put to have any effect on Mizz Helen or Dan because of my marriage.

That made me feel better because when I first read the letter, I had a big knot in my stomach. My life began anew when I got Dan. I can't imagine life without him. I was reading somewhere about the practice of suttee in India, where when a man died, his wives would throw themselves on his funeral pyre. Well, to be honest, some of them didn't do so voluntarily, but I can understand how the practice might have started. Dan is my life and I sincerely think that I am his.

"I have to trust Charley on this one, baby," Dan told me. "That letter, though, it's almost like she was in a haze when she wrote it. Like, 'Hi, I'm still here doing my thing and I guess you're okay, so bye-bye.' It's ... I dunno."

"I wonder why she even thinks about coming back here, Dan. She has no place to stay. I can't picture her thinking that she's going to stay at Mizz Helen's, and she doesn't know that Mizz Helen's married, either."

"So we just don't say anything," Dan says. "If she asks specific questions, then you don't have to lie, but I don't think we need to volunteer anything, either."

"Okay, baby," I said. Later I repeated those thoughts to Mister Charlie and Mizz Helen.

Mister Charlie said, "That might be a good approach, child. If we make waves right now, we could end up with a little fight. It wouldn't be much of a fight because what we did in your case, making Helen your guardian and then waiving the age rules for your marriage; both of those are backed up by existing application of the law. Still, there's no sense in having a fight over it if we don't need to have one."

So there's that on the table. We're going to push it off to a far corner. All those months that I wondered about Mom and wished she could see how things have turned out for me, and now there's a little bit of fear that she might pop up and try and stir up some crap.

So now I'm riding up the road with my arm linked to my guy and we're furnishing the first house we're getting together. And now I'm thinking that just maybe I might want to get Susan's mom involved.

"We need to get Susan's mom involved, baby," I tell Dan.

"Why's that?"

I sigh. "Interior decorating is not one of my skill sets. And I've seen YOUR house..."

"OUR house," he corrected.

"Point taken," I said, "but I had nothing to do with the decorating. It looks like an office at the Pentagon, or one of those science labs. Mizz Kathy, Mizz Ann, both of them, they have some skills."

"Oh," he said, "this is the first thing you've ever told me that I was less than adequate at."

"Had to happen. As a great man once told me, 'You can't excell at everything.' So let's get it right from the start."

"And how's this supposed to work?"

"Well, I think we work it from the angle of Mizz Kathy helping her extended family. Get Tina to fly 'er down here and work with us."

"Sounds like a subject for tonight's Skype session. Except Susan..."

I giggled. "Still honeymooning. I can't get much out of her. Like she's on drugs. And I totally understand. I remember how I was."

Dan sighed. "So what's today's mission, then, if we're not picking out furniture?"

"We can look. Chose mattresses. I'm thinking that we need to choose a theme to bring the whole house together, instead of just sticking stuff in each room."

"A theme," Dan said. "I'm forty years old and now I have a wife who thinking our home should have a theme." He laughed. "Only my Cindy."

"Just want to push a bit past that 'practical engineer' thing that you and Alan seem to have fallen on. And Nikki's Dan. She says he's got it, too."

"Functionality is a beauty all its own."

"The difference between a box of crayons and the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. I don't wanna turn our home into something from "Southern Living" but I do want it to reflect a certain amount of culture and decorum. Shouldn't be like walkin' into a honkey-tonk on the bad side of town hoping to hear Beethoven on the juke box."

"How come you always have to make sense, little one," he said.

"Because you made me your partner," I answered, nuzzling his shoulder. "If you wanted some compliant little bimbo, you shoulda looked at another trailer park." I giggled. This is a conversation we've had before.

He turned his head away from the highway long enough to brush his lips against the top on my head. "I'm glad I didn't. I never expected you to jump up and take on as much of our lives as you do, and I learned to stop worrying that you might do something stupid."

"I try not to do stupid things, baby," I said. "You know we'll talk before I go off doing major things. Our new home is about as major as it gets."

"Never thought you were stupid, baby. I know a lot of adults who lack your restraint."

Dan has always treated me like I was a responsible human being. Even early on in our relationship, he never assumed I'd do something stupid or irresponsible. He just asked me what my ideas or plans were, just checking on me. Now he's pretty much stopped that, but I still talk to him about almost every decision, because the decisions usually affect both of us.

The general foreman at our new building knows us on sight, and from Day One, Dan didn't treat him like a subservient minion, so Dan's welcome on the site. Dan says that I'm welcome, too, because I'm such a cutie. I am, as far as Dan's concerned. But I can see the foreman's smile when we walk up and I know that he's happy to see both of us.

The building is coming together very fast now. The drywall's all up, the rooms are now set in place so I can visualize them, I know EXACTLY how big the shower is. Shower. Dan and Alan pulled the plans and changed the showers from the standard size to BIG, with multiple heads and a teak bench. Tina and I were giggling in the background. We both know the happiness of mutual showering. Oh, yeah, bumped up the water heater sizes, too. Our place.

That's stuff that happens during construction. After they finish painting, then there are other things that make it OUR place. Our first place.

With Dan driving, we checked the easiest routes to get on campus and looked at where the parking was in relationship to the engineering buildings and then I called Mizz Kathy and talked with her.

"Are you sure, baby?" she said. "I'm not really a professional."

"Your daughter says you have good sense about that stuff."

"Oh, yes, my married daughter. Have you talked to her?"

"Yes, ma'am," I said. "The day after the wedding. And she was still alive. Sounded happy. Has she called you?"

"Yes. I have a happy daughter and a son-in-law who says 'thank you' for her."

I couldn't help but giggle. The very first time that Susan asked me what I knew of Jason, I had a feeling that this was going to be the result. "I'm happy for both of 'em," I said. "They seem to be made for each other."

"Well," Mizz Kathy said with a sigh, "y'all have a nice little group coming together. Just one thing, though..."

"Yes ma'am?"

"Don't make it like a greenhouse. Make efforts to get out and deal with other people. Mike and I did that with Susan. Her being an only child, it would've been awfully easy to give her everything she wanted, but we made her get out and do thing with others and work for things and be with other people. I know you girls are brilliant in ways I only dreamed of when I was your age, but bring others into the group."

I understood that when she was saying it. Dan and I had talked. Yes, it was soooo easy to slide back into his arms and the arms of my new friends and family, but honestly, that's one of the things that I avoided by what I did in school, helping, tutoring and such. I had friends. I knew what it was like to have people who were jealous and held bad feelings.

I knew what it was like to be at the bottom of the social ladder. That's where I was before Dan. And with Dan, I just sort of stepped sideways off the ladder. I made friends from kids that were struggling but wanted to learn, like JJ, that black guy whose brother has an athletic scholarship to one of those big-name Florida football colleges. JJ started out just wanting to make good enough grades to keep playing football so he could follow his brother, but then he saw something in that idea of learning that made him a lot of fun to work with.

Or Kaylee Spears. Little Miss "My Dad's a Lawyer". Top of the ladder. Actually quite stuck-up, until we got pushed together because my math teacher wanted some help getting kids over one of those bumps in the road to numeracy. I never regarded Kaylee as an enemy. Was just sad that she wanted to lord it over me. But when we worked together, she saw me from close up and became a friend.

Funnier still is that I've had long talks with Nikki down in Louisiana and she's telling me just about the same story.

So 'greenhouse'? Nuh-uh. I don't think so. I think it's more like 'pit row', you know, where the cars in a race stop in and get the tires changed and the suspensions adjusted and take on fuel. When I explained that to Mizz Kathy, she laughed.

"Cindy, how come it is that when we talk, I get my mind changed and you make me feel good about it?"

"I'm not supposed to make people feel bad because they have different opinions, Mizz Kathy," I said. "And we both worry about the same thing, you know."

The conversation was the subject for one of our Skype conferences. No, this time Susan didn't join in. Honeymoon, you know. We giggled about her lack of dedication.

"She has other priorities, I guess," Tina said. "I know that I did when Alan and I connected. And we had a weekend before I had to go back to school."

Nikki giggled along with me. Neither of us had told anybody else the full story of our connecting with our husbands because truthfully, our husbands could have been prosecuted for what happened. I knew Nikki's story and she knew mine, but the rest of the group knew nothing more than the general details.

We all agreed, though, that we understood Susan's happiness. We also understood Mizz Kathy's trepidation.

"It's a real concern," Nikki said. "But we have a rare opportunity. I like your "pit stop" analogy, Cindy. I think we might be in a position to be the pit stop for others. I mean, we DO have some empty space in our little strip mall."

Yeah, you remember me talking about how our apartment building sits back from the street and we own a little building that is made to be divided up into several leases for businesses. And we're using a chunk of that for the offices of 3Sigma Engineering. Maybe one of those spaces is supposed to become the pit stop for Auburn engineering students. I think that's an interesting thought, but Tina suggests that we really need to get, her words, the lay of the land before we make any plans.

Of course, driving along, Dan hears half of my conversations with Mizz Kathy, so I fill him in. We do a look at some furniture stores while we're in town at Auburn, too. Important? Mattress. Gotta have a good mattress.

And we're heading back. We've decided that next week we're moving our little trailer from its spot in Mizz Helen's park to a new spot just few miles out of Auburn, Alabama so Dan will be handy to the new building. I suspect that Tina and Alan and Terri will stay in Jason's apartment until they can move into the new apartment, and Nikki and her Dan are waiting, too, even though he has a travel trailer he could bring up there.

Logistics. No, it's not exactly the Great Migration across the Bering land bridge, but we're moving four families, four pickup trucks (one for each family) two cars (Tina's and Susan's) and here's the fun thing: FOUR airplanes. That's going to be a trick. My Dan's the only one with tail-dragger time besides me and I'm not a licensed pilot, so he's the only one that can fly our plane. The rest, though, well, Nikki's Dan and their Mooney, he's gonna have to fly that one, but Jason and Susan and Tina and Alan, they can flip a coin. But we have to find us a friendly airfield around here. I see a weekend of various couples flying around the mid-south of the USA.

But today, we're going to end up back in the park and we're going to put something quick in the microwave or maybe we'll go to visit the Sommers sisters for dinner and then we'll end the day in each other's arms. Yes, my mind is going in about sixteen different directions right now. I desire tranquility. I know where to find it, right there in the afterglow, the moonlight steaming in through the windows, something soft and luxurious on the stereo, my head on Dan's chest.

And he understands that if I sleep for a couple of hours, then get up and get on the computer or in a book, that's okay, too, because sometimes I can't make my mind shut down for long. Those nights didn't happen very often before, but in the last few months I find that sometimes I just can't shut down. Those two math professors at Auburn planted some seeds that I just had to water, and it gets me sometimes. Or what Mizz Patel said about those engineering courses.

MIT. They have pages of courses on line and boy, I just feel like a sponge at two in the morning. I found out something, though. I had some questions about one of the courses and I sent an email to the instructor listed on the course information. Now I have a regular correspondence going. Seems like my name has been around in some circles there, too. Thanks, Mister Hardesty. I really do want to go to Auburn, but those people at MIT. I mean, it's MIT! Could turn a girl's head.

"Baby," I told Dan, "After my baccalaureate at Auburn, is there a way we could end up in Massachusetts for a while?"

"Massachusetts? Are you thinking MIT again?" Dan doesn't miss anything.

"Maybe some graduate work?" I smiled. I know that my place is with Dan and I'm not going off on my own, no way, no how. Not without the other half of my being. But still, I read about the world of engineering, and having 'MIT' on your curriculum vitae is a feather.

"Interesting," Dan said. "I graduate from a little college in Louisiana and marry a girl who's got an angle into MIT. I thought we'd discussed that."

"I'm learning things," I said. "I can't help it." Dan does understand. He's my soul.

We ended up in the trailer. The Sommers sisters could wait. Dan and I couldn't.

Chapter 5

Nikki's turn:

Hauling another basket of clothes into the living room, I started folding clothes. Dan was at the other end of the sofa doing the same thing.

"It's gonna be a wild week, baby," he said to me. "We're gonna tow the travel trailer up there, park it, then catch a flight back with Cindy and Dan to pick up our plane."

"It's an adventure," I said. "We're entering a new universe. Baby, I hope you don't wake up one morning in a new place and decide that I'm not worth all the changes."

"What changes?"

"Look around us," I said. "This is your old family place. You built this house the way YOU wanted it. And I come along and we're leaving this behind. You haven't figured out if you gained a wife or you're raising a teenager. You're leaving a successful job behind. Changes."

My Dan smiled. "Family place. Yeah. A hundred years ago my great-great grandparents moved out here into a one-room house. Grandpa farmed with mules. Grandma had to go to the bayou to do laundry. And they were married sixty-something years. That's why this is the family place. Should I be any less dedicated to us?"

I tossed socks to him. He's doing socks now. "Just wanna keep you, that's all."

He smiled. "That's good. I sorta wanna keep you too! You're interesting!"

I can't help but smile. Dan finds me interesting and I find him just absolutely marvelous. And the rest of the bunch? I have a bunch. His family. My strange and wonderful sister hood, and ... the phone rings. Tina's step-daughter, Terri.

"Hi!" I said.

"Hi, Aunt Nikki! I got bored for a second so I thought I'd call you!"

I had a picture of a bored seven-year old. "So why are you bored?"

"TV's just soooo stupid. And I thought you said something about some books."

"Baby," I said, "I love to read, but my books're a little above..."

"Puh-leeze, Aunt Nikki! I don't think I can stand another "See Spot run" story."

"Tell you what, little darlin'," I said. "Why don't we try it backward?"

"Backward?" Terri said, sounding uncharacteristically almost puzzled.

"Yeah. Don't read. Write. Get your laptop and YOU write the story you want to read. Maybe not the whole thing, but at least the beginning. And when you do, we'll pass it around and see what we can do with it, okay?"

Giggle. "Okay. Ol' Spot's gonna get a make-over. I knew that if I called you..."

"Yeah, but where's Tina?"

"At the other end of the sofa, grinning at me the whole time. She said the same thing almost. Said to call you and see what you said."

"Oh, she did, did she? Did she tell you to call Cindy too?"

"Uh-huh. Cindy's next."

"Cindy's writing is impressive, at least her non-fiction. But she might be just the one to help you remake ol' Spot."

"'Kay, Aunt Nikki! I'll call 'er. Love ya! Bye!"

I turned to Dan. He was staring at me. My phone conversations with the other sides of the Sisterhood were sometimes almost surreal. "Terri's bored." I smiled. "Honey, you have to please understand how much I'm looking forward to this whole bunch of us getting together."

"And you just told a seven year old to start writing," he said.

"Under the eye of Tina and me and Cindy and Susan. She might be the next Mark Twain."

"I note that you read a lot of Mark Twain."

"Love the way he uses the language. Cindy and I talk. And I can't believe that in two days I have to meet Mizz Patel at Auburn."

"Cindy," Dan said. "You an' Cindy! I am astounded by your math discussions."

He was. He confessed to how difficult it was for him to grasp some of the things he needed for his engineering degree, and I just hugged him.

"I didn't have the foggiest idea of what I dragged out of the collapsed building," he said, hugging me back. Every day, I see more and more."

"I ... baby," I said, "I don't mean to make you think I'm weird."

"I don't think you're weird, Nikki. Just very, very smart. I know how the other Dan feels."

"You've talked? With Cindy's Dan, I mean?"

"Yeah, we've talked. Started out talking about my clients down here, and then we got on the subject of you and Cindy. Cindy makes him deliriously happy. I feel the same way. About you, not Cindy."

I punched him playfully. "You better not be thinking about Cindy. You're MINE!"

"And always will be," he said. "Plus, you can cook!"

"That's one of the things that Cindy wants me to work with her on. She wants to cook like her Dan likes."

"You could teach 'er. You saw the stove we're getting for our new kitchen?"

I thought about that. "Uh-huh. Even better than this one. I can't wait. We'll all be there together and instead of us having to cook four separate meals we can just gather at one apartment for dinner. And Cindy's all excited that an Indian restaurant is leasing a piece of our new strip mall."

"You're excited, baby. Just remember that when all the 'new' wears off and we're in the middle of life with you going to class and me going to work..."

"I don't fool myself, sweetie," I said, tossing him a sock. "I know there's gonna be work, sweat, even tears, but you know, we can handle it." I paused. "Oh, news flash..."

"What news?"

"Been talking to Maddie. It's killin' 'er dad, but she signed up for Auburn, too."

"No joke?" Dan said. "What's her major?"

"Business stuff like I talked about before. Maybe heading for a CPA or something. Anyway, I told 'er that we were gonna be right there and if she didn't stay in touch I was gonna be very hurt."

"Maddie's a good kid," Dan said.

"Kid? She's a year older than me," I laughed. "And I'm your happy little wife." We stuffed stacks of folded laundry into the basket. He picked it up and headed to the bedroom. I followed. Bedroom is a happy venue after the clothes are put away.

Got even happier when I tugged on Dan's belt and pulled him onto the bed on top of me. We kissed and giggled and started to get... "Stop that! Maddie's coming over! She'll be here before we have time to do this right!"

He gets this sad puppy look sometimes. Forty year old guys aren't supposed to be adorable, but he's my guy and if I want to think he's adorable, I get to think that. "You put a pot of rice on. I'm gonna do something with pork chops." And we went to another happy place in my life with Dan, the kitchen.

"Is Maddie bringing her buddy?" he asked. Dan and I occasionally talked about some of the members of our study group. Maddie was the one who was obviously unattached. From time to time she seemed to connect with one of several guys at school.

"She didn't say she was. Just herself."

"Maddie's an anomaly in the dating thing," Dan said.

"I don't think so, really, honey," I said. "There are a few like her who never let high school relationships get past a simmer. You know, friends of the opposite sex who might be good for a kiss or two after dinner and a movie. If you want, I'll get 'er started and let her tell you about it."

Waiting for dinner, Maddie did indeed 'get started'. "High school. It's just high school. And I'm going to college. Why should I get all involved and head over heels in love with somebody and then go off to college and meet a whole new circle of friends and spend my time wondering if associating with guys there is being proper to my one and only back home or at another college?"

Dan just shook his head.

"Mister Dan," Maddie said, "you think I'm right, don't you?"

"Yeah," he said.

"There's more than just me like that. We just don't show up on the radar, that's all. And what about Kellen and Slade? D'you think that's for keeps? Or Holly 'n' Bret?"

Dan laughed at the mention of Holly and Bret. "If Holly hangs around, Bret's gonna be into her for the rest of his life."

A giggle escaped Maddie's lips, coinciding with my own. Maddie said, "Oh, I KNOW! He fell like a lead balloon."

"And they're both going to college here in town and living at home," I added. "I'd be surprised if they make a year without getting married."

"They're into each other. Most high school romances aren't like that. I know it can happen," Maddie said. "I just didn't find the one. And Mom says 'don't settle and don't get a 'fixer upper' or something'. So I didn't."

"You have good parents, Maddie," Dan said.

She smiled. "I know. I know it's not cool to say that, but I know. Nikki explained that to me in detail."

"I just told her how NOT to be a mom. I learned from mine."

Maddie smiled. "And back to the original thought, I have lots of friends. Some of 'em are guys, and occasionally I go out with one. But I'm not into 'I love you' when I know it's just words."

The rice cooker chimed and it was time to eat dinner. We filled our plates from the kitchen and populated the table. Maddie was still talking.

"When are you moving to Auburn for good?"

"Not a big hurry," I said, "but we're close. We're towing that travel trailer up there this week and flying back with Tina and Alan, then we're flying our plane back. Sometime in the next month or so the new apartments will be ready to move in, but we can do the travel trailer if we need to. And with the plane, being back here is a matter of a few hours, not an all-day drive."

I said, "And you're free to hitch a ride any time, you know..."

"Mom and Dad'll love that," Maddy said. "Just so you know, the fact that you're gonna be there sort of eases their minds about me being there."

"You'll fit in with the rest of the gang, Maddie," I said. "I know you will."

"I dunno, Nick," she said. "You and that Cindy, y'all are kinda scary." She smiled when she said it.

"What's scary?"

"Uh, come on, Nick," she said. "You have that THING in the back room that you hooked up to the internet. Coach Gary's eyes rolled back in 'is head when you tried to explain it to 'im."

The 'thing' was an old process control computer that Dan brought home, and we plugged it in and fired it up, just to satisfy my curiosity. And when Cindy said she knew about programming one, I just did a little bit of interfacing and now it's accessible if you know an IP address and you have a login and password, and we started learning together. Dan showed me enough about electricity to keep me from killing myself and showed me what a 'breadboard' is outside of the culinary venue. Between me and Cindy, with the occasional little bump from one Dan or the other, we had a lot of fun learning about control inputs and outputs and ladder logic and all sorts of things that most people never see.

Dan says that a lot of people also never see two teen girls screaming through forests of hardware like Cindy and I did. And if you can program and hard-wire that control system to the internet for remote access, then you can add a couple of cameras and then call up Susan and Tina and get them in on the fun. Except now, Susan's still honeymooning and I don't think making little lights blink in Louisiana is a high priority in her life.

Like the phone call I got. We all got a phone call or two from Susan on her honeymoon.

"Hi, Nikki," she said. Her voice was a few decibels ('decibel'. That's Dan getting into my head) higher than the normal bubbly Susan. "Just wanted to call and see how you're doing."

I giggled.

"I knowwww," Susan said. "Words just don't ... I could've never ... OH, crap, Nikki! It's great!"

"I didn't even get to ask, Susan," I said.

Susan giggled. "Oh, gosh, Nikki, I am sooooo unbelievably happy on so many different levels."

"How's Jason? He still alive?"

Tittering. "We have both tried to kill each other." Giggle. "It's all so new to me. I don't wanna be graphic, Sis, but..."

"Don't be graphic, then. But I know. Me an' Dan ... Omigod! So, yeah..."

"Did it slow down?"

"Not really. We do have day to day lives, but no, that's just a communication for us."

Giggle. "Jason and I communicate really well..."

My turn to giggle. "And often, huh?"

Sigh. "Oh, yesssss."

Had to explain to Dan why I raped him when he got home that day. As we lay in each other's arms after a particularly enthusiastic 'communication', I told him about Susan's conversation.

"She didn't kill 'im?" he asked.

"They liked to have killed each other," I answered. "I remember us..."

"We never had our honeymoon, baby," he said. "I promised you one..."

I pushed him on his back for a kiss, climbing on top of him. "One day we can take a special vacation. But we already have our honeymoon. It just hasn't ended yet." Another kiss. "I'm happy for Susan. And Jason, too, but Susan's my sister."

"I'm glad they connected..." Dan started to say.

"Apparently they 'connect' several times a day," I giggled. I noted that part of Dan's anatomy was pressing upward against me. I raised up, wiggled, and found the appropriate accommodation for the protrusion. It entered me and I sighed. "And so do we."

Another set of sheets had to go to the laundry.

Dan and I finally get everything loaded into the travel trailer and get it hitched to the truck. I've never ridden in anything like the unit we put together, a full-sized pickup truck and a big travel trailer, but Dan says that once it's on the open road, I won't notice the difference. He says it's a pain on secondary roads and a bigger pain in towns. Naturally, we do a bit of planning for the upcoming trip and studiously avoid having to go through towns except straight through routing.

On the morning of our departure, I gave Tommi a can of his favorite cat food as a treat and apologized to him for leaving.

"He's okay for a couple or three days by himself. We'll be back before then," Dan said. "And his carrier will fit in the back seat of the plane for the trip back."

"But the trailer..."

"He's lived in the trailer for a month and a half, before. He knows the drill."

Tommi regarded Dan with disdain. "Dan, I think he remembers."

"He's spoiled. He was spoiled before you came along, and he's even more spoiled now. He'll be okay."

I gave the old hairbag some extra snorgles until he tired of the attention and retired to his spot in the center of our freshly made bed. It was time to go.

We made one last pass through the house, making sure that everything was off that was supposed to be off, and that doors were locked. I'd called Sheriff Ernie and explained to him our projected absence. I knew his deputies would check on the place for us.

And we locked the front door behind us. We got in the truck and I buckled in as close to Dan as I could, punched a light classical piece up on the stereo, and off we went. I didn't try to get really cozy until we had our wheels on the interstate highway. We had a long day's drive ahead of us.

Yeah, I could've pulled out the iPad or my phone to occupy my time, but really, folks! I have my Dan, my mate, the man who completes me, and I'm not going to ignore him. We talked. Rolling up the interstate highway, the truck's diesel engine rumbling purposefully. It's summertime in south Louisiana. The rice fields are bright, healthy green and the cattle were fat and sassy and we talked about Dan's family, how some of them were farmers and ranchers, what the crops were, things like that. Between the conversation and the music, the miles flowed under us.

We were looking at eight-plus hours of just driving. Okay, you know we're not going to drive straight through. Noon found us a little shy of half way and pulling into the back parking lot of a restaurant just off the highway. Since Dan slid our rig alongside another of similar configuration, we could tell that this was a pretty popular stop.

The food was adequate, the ambiance pretty much what one would expect for a national chain that strove for a homey, country theme. We didn't waste a lot of time. In less than an hour we were back on the road. By five-thirty we were pulling into the RV park and by six-thirty we were unhitched and in our own trailer. I had to call Cindy, then Tina. "Skype," I said. "Just a short one."

I scooted alongside Dan in the dinette booth and opened my laptop, hotspotting off my iPhone.

I quickly had the three of us connected as Dan watched.

"We're in an RV park in Auburn Alabama," I said. "How did y'all live in one of these things?"

"Some of us didn't have houses when we met our husbands," Tina laughed.

"Yeah," Cindy said. "And compared to my mom's trailer, my Dan's was the Taj Mahal! 'Sides, there's all kinds of things you can do to entertain each other!"

"Uh ... yeah..." I squeaked. "Anyway, I wanted to let y'all know that we're here."

"We'll be at the airport at nine to pick you two up," Tina said.

"Okay, y'all," I said. "Let me try to get used to this thing."

"What thing?" Tina giggled, "The trailer? Or Dan?"

I tried to sound outraged, but it's hard to be outraged with Cindy and Tina giggling at you. "Really!" I said. "You two..."

Cindy's face was blooming that grin of hers. "We'd probably be doing exactly what you're thinking. You love your Dan." Another giggle from Cindy. "Look! He's blushing!"

I turned to look at Dan and he was turning away, his face reddening. I turned back to the screen. "Okay, ya'll've embarrassed my husband. Tina, I'll see you tomorrow. Cindy, we'll be down there for the concert on Saturday."

"Bye-bye," Cindy said sweetly, knowing exactly what she'd done to my husband.

"Bye, Sis," Tina said. "Bye, Dan!"

"Bye, you evil little things," Dan said.

I powered down the laptop and kissed my Dan on the cheek. "Quite the bunch, huh?"

He laughed. "Yeah, but every time I see Cindy and think of her being married, I feel like a child molester."

I smiled. We'd had this conversation before. "And she's a whole year younger than me."

Dan smiled. "I didn't say it was a BAD thing."

I twisted around and tossed my arms around his neck. "You old dog! I am soooo glad we met! Molested or not, I am still deliriously happy with us." I hauled him in for a kiss. "We have sandwich fixings in the fridge. If that works for dinner, we can do that, take a walk around the park, and then tuck in for the night."

"It won't be nine o'clock," he said, grinning.

"I know," I replied. "Whatever shall we do to entertain ourselves?"

This night was the first night since that night last year that we didn't shower together. The trailer shower was just too small, something that Tina and Cindy had warned me about. Dan let me go first, warning me about the hot water capacity.

We decided not to take the walk. It was muggy outside and a good walk would've left us both sticky for the absolutely wrong reasons.

We found the right reasons quite handily. The nook at the end of the trailer where the queen-sized bed was located was quite cozy.

The next morning we were up early and soon on the road to the nearest restaurant for breakfast. With an hour and a half before we needed to meet Alan and Tina at the airport, we made a stop by our future home. Dan had called the job foreman the day before. "It's best that you don't just drop in on a project unannounced," he said, "unless you're trying to catch something going on."

With that in mind, we got a great tour of our new home. The walls were up, the ceiling was up, doors installed, windows installed, so to my untrained eye I could see how our new space was shaping up. Bedroom. Kitchen. I stood in my kitchen and imagined the space between my refrigerator and the island in the middle and my stove and the window looking outside. No, the view wasn't the pristine marshland we had at home, but this would work.

Dan laughed at the size of the shower. "Cindy's Dan specced these out. Seems like he had hijinks in mind."

"Or Cindy did," I laughed. "Or both! And she made sure he upgraded the water heater capacity." I was thinking of long, luxurious, sensual showers with the man I loved.

"Y'all know Cindy and Dan, then," the foreman laughed. "I've seen some odd couples, but them two, they'll set you back. I thought she was 'is daughter, first time I' met 'em." He looked at me again. "I don't mean to offend, but she's young."

"Year younger'n me," I said. "Did she tell you the reasons they're moving to Auburn?"

"Yeah. That's another thing. She's fourteen and she's got a scholarship?"

"Me too," I said. "And she's my adopted sister."

He shook his head, smiling. "Just not something you see every day. She looks so happy." He grinned. "You too."

"We are," I said. "And this place is gonna be great!"

"I hope so," he said. "You threw our electrical contractor a kink with all that data stuff you asked for."

"We gotta be connected," Dan said. "For business, and for school."

"You will be," he said. "You paid for it."

We took a look at the new offices, too, and then it was time to get to the airport. We secured the truck and were waiting on the apron when Tina piloted her Cessna 182 up, Alan sitting in the right seat beside her.

She got out and we squealed and hugged while the guys shook hands. Guys! I know they're good friends, just like me and Tina, but they're so restrained. I'm glad I'm a girl and I can get happy and squeal and hug my sister.

They made bathroom calls and we loaded up and left, the guys in the front seat, me and Tina in the back seat. "Weight and balance is better that way," Alan said.

I looked at him. "Seriously! You expect me to believe that."

He laughed. "No, but it's the best excuse I can come up with."

"We have to let them win sometimes, Nick," Tina tittered. "Keeps 'em happy."

Four and a half hours later we were on the ground at our end of the trip and after they refueled their Cessna, we had our little Mooney rolled out onto the ramp. As they headed back to Tennessee, we hitched a ride with Dan's sister back to our house. Last night there made it kind of sad. In the morning she was back, and we loaded up Tommi in his carrier, made a sweep through the place, and we were off.

Life is getting interesting.

Chapter 6

Tina's turn:

I have this 'flying' thing down pat. Well, maybe not exactly, but I'm comfortable with it. I haven't done it yet, but I would be quite comfortable flying from Tennessee to Louisiana all by myself. But this time, I had my Alan with me. And my daughter, step-daughter actually, was with her adopted grandmother for the night.

Mizz Kathy promised Terri a mall trip. Terri promised me that she'd write something. Alan just looked at the three of us girls and then turned to Mike. He just laughed.

"Buddy," Mike said to Alan, "you gave Kathy her first grand-daughter. I think it's hilarious." He and I had talked about Terri and her precocious ways. Mike's a good dad.

"Don't turn 'er into a tom-boy," I said.

"Like Susan?" he laughed.

"Jason doesn't think she's any kind of boy," Alan laughed. He hadn't talked to either of them, but I'd talked to Susan and Susan had talked to her mom. So we're winging our way to Alabama to pick up Nikki and her Dan. I call him 'Dan 2.0' because I met Cindy's Dan first. Nikki and Dan 2.0 were towing their travel trailer to Alabama as a part of the Great Migration.

'Great Migration' is my invention for the moving of four families to Auburn. It's a giggle. Me 'n' Susan, we're the dumb ones of the group where 'dumb' is an ACT of thirty or better and language is a tool wielded like an artist's brush one moment and a sledgehammer the next.

But today we're on the way to a little Alabama airfield to get Nikki and Dan. It's an hour and a half flight, actually a little more. I'm flying. Straight and level at cruise speed in smooth air, it's almost mindless. I scan the skies for traffic, but traffic is sparse. I haven't seen anything at our altitude. We're at seventy-five hundred feet, and Alan's hand is idly toying with the hair at the back of my neck.

"You make me crazy when you do that, you know," I told him over the intercom.

"Yeah, I do know," he laughed. "And when we're home this evening, you can't scream when..."

"I've gotten pretty good at chewing the pillow," I giggled. "Or that spot on your chest."

"I can live with that. Can you?"

"Terri's worth it, babe. I get to be a mommy and a big sister all at once. She's a neat kid. 'Course, with YOUR genes..." I smiled at him.

He smiled back. "Get through college and let's see what genes can do."

"Yours and mine," I replied. "I'll be twenty-one. You'll be forty-five. You sure you're not too old to be a daddy?"

"I'm a daddy now."

"But a baby from us?"

"You've talked about it more than once. I'm not saying you ... we have to, but if you want..."

I couldn't help the squeal. "A big part of me wants that, Alan. But we don't have to decide today. There's plenty of time to decide. And besides, reversals aren't a hundred percent. I know the numbers."

"I do too, little one," Alan said.

"Way, I see it," I said, "my senior year of college, you get the surgery, I'm off the Pill, and we let life rock along. And if it happens, it happens. Sort of like buying a lottery ticket."

"I love it when you're analytical," he laughed.

"Plane below us at two o'clock," I said, noting the traffic.

"Got it," he answered. "Of course you realize that we'll have to have lots and lots of sex."

I got a little tingle in my jeans at that thought. With Susan's marriage, our sisterhood could talk freely about sex, something we did before when Susan wasn't part of the conversation. I learned that contrary to the conventional idea in some circles that sex was a base urge that intelligence would suppress, our experience was that intelligence brought a new dimension to two loving partners. Of course, there's that 'age' thing. Susan's the only one of us to make it to a 'normal' age.

I was close, seventeen, but Cindy! She'd confided that she'd crawled into Dan's bed when she was still thirteen. And Nikki was fifteen with Dan 2.0. And I talk with both of them and I can't think of more monogamous couples. Except me and the guy in the seat beside me.

The guy in the seat beside me got a quick fondle, causing him to purr while he looked at me with a bit of a surprised expression. "What is that about?"

"I was thinking of how many ways I love you."

"You're the most beautiful pilot I know," he said.

"And you know some cuties, so that's a real compliment," I giggled in return.

When we sat down in Alabama, Nikki and Dan 2.0 were waiting on the ramp for us.

"Look at 'em shakin' hands," Nikki said. "I'm so glad we're girls. We can hug."

It's the first time that I ever flew in the BACK seat of our plane. Nikki and I gave the guys the front seats. Worse, the intercom system doesn't allow private conversation between just two of the users, so our sister to sister stuff was a little subdued.

We did get a giggle or two in when we compared phone calls from Susan on her honeymoon.

"She sounded almost like she was high," Nikki said.

"Do you remember YOUR first week?" I asked.

Nikki's got a cute smile, and it showed up when she thought about that statement. "Yeah ... yeah ... I do."

"I don't remember a thing," Dan 2.0 said. "I didn't have a blood supply to useful parts for days."

"That's 'cuz you're an old lech havin' your way with tender young girls," Nikki tossed to him.

"Nope! I'm just the happy recipient of a fold in the fabric of the universe," he said. "A place of beauty and poetry and melody."

"You married a bard, Nikki," Alan said. "I think the same way, but I lack Dan's artistic nature. All I can do is grunt and throw leaves in the air."

"Maybe I'm just the girl who loves to be showered in falling leaves," I countered.

Nikki looked at me, grinned, and presented a hand for a high five. "Yep! He's definitely yours," she said. "But speaking of poetry ... Cindy and Terri?"

"Oh, god," I laughed. "Terri calls Cindy or Skypes 'er and they READ to each other!"

"I know," Tina giggled. "Sometimes I think that my Terri just might be special."

"She is special," Alan said. "I seem to attract special people."

"And apparently it's a not uncommon affliction," Dan 2.0 added.

"I'm not special, Dan," Nikki said. "I'm just your Nikki."

But then there's Terri (with the able hand of Cindy for final edit and structure):

I'm Terri and I'm almost eight years old and my life is interesting. There are sad things. My mother and father are divorced. It happened when I was little, perhaps (perhaps is such a lovely word, isn't it?) four years old. Mommy had a boyfriend that she liked better than Daddy. She told me that one day I would understand all about that.

I still sort of don't. I know my daddy and I know Mister Martin. I like Daddy a lot better. Daddy is very smart. He's an engineer. That's not the guy at the front of the train, you know. He knows how electrical things are supposed to work and how to design them and put them together.

Daddy turns me loose in a bookstore and didn't look nearly as surprised when I was reading whole books when I was six.

Mommy moved to California with Mister Martin. The last time I saw Daddy before we left, he was crying, like he didn't want me to go. I believed him. I didn't believe Mommy when she said Mister Martin would be like a daddy to me. For the last year Mommy has had a hard time being a mommy to me. Mister Martin says she has bad mood swings. Some days she never gets out of bed and stays in a dark room and if I go in to try to talk to her she gets very angry, almost scary.

I got to meet Daddy's new wife, Tina, on the phone. The first time I talked to her, she was just NICE to me. (Cindy says that when I'm writing like I'm just talking, I can capitalize, use the big letters, to emphasize a thought.) Tina was so nice that we started talking a couple of times a week. I would get a phone call from Daddy twice a week, and I always ended up talking to Tina.

She said that even though she was Daddy's wife, our ages were too close for her to act like a mom, so she was more like a big sister. I can understand that. After we were all together for Christmas, I was a lot better with Tina as big sister or mom or anything than I was with Mister Martin. She just seemed to fit right in with me and my Daddy and I think she understands me a whole lot better than either Mommy or Daddy.

When I had to go back to California after Christmas, I guess I might have made too big a deal about my time with Tina and Daddy. I think Mommy didn't like me enjoying myself with them like I did. I couldn't help it, though. I felt like we made a nice group.

I still talked to Daddy and Tina at least twice a week.

Mommy was getting worse, though. Her mood swings were really bad. She had to go to doctors and I had to go to doctors too. They tried to explain to me that Mommy wasn't really angry, that she had some things wrong in her head. They gave her medicine and it sort of helped. She didn't get as angry, but she just seemed almost like I wasn't real. Or Mister Martin, either.

She stopped taking the medicine. She had a big fight with Mister Martin and started throwing things and the police came and they took her away to the hospital. It's a special hospital. I know that when adults say 'special' they can mean a lot of different things. Sometimes 'special' isn't good.

The next day Mister Martin put me on an airplane. When I landed in Tennessee for the first time in my life, there was Daddy and Tina waiting for me. On the way home I paid attention. You can look at people and see signs about what they're thinking, even when they don't come out and say what they think.

I didn't see any signs that anybody was upset that I was here. It would've been bad if they were. Dad and Tina's trailer was little. Dad says it's a travel trailer and that families go on vacations in some sort of like this, but he had his specially made for him to live in while he worked all over, and it only had one bed. I saw others that had beds all over the place.

"We'll only be in this thing for a few days until we swap with Jason for his apartment," Tina said.

Jason is my Aunt Susan's husband now. They weren't married then. And Susan? Of course she's my aunt. She's my mom Tina's adopted sister, so that makes her my aunt because I'm Tina's daughter, right? And I have a bunch of other aunts, Dad's sister, Aunt Elise, and Tina's other two adopted sisters, Cindy and Nikki. Can you picture all this? We have a big family.

"Blended," Tina says.

"We're a family milkshake," Nikki tells me. And I'm happy with that. I'm sorry, Mom, but in California, there was no family. And living in that apartment complex, I had a lot of friends, but they came and went, and there were people there that not only were not my friends, but they were just bad. Here, I'm with family. And Dad and Tina make me feel really secure. Tina feels like family in a way that I never felt with Mister Martin. (Cindy's note: Tina's gonna tear up when she reads this. I know I did. I know exactly what Terri means about family.)

I got to be in Susan's wedding. I have pretty sisters, you know, but on that one day, Susan was definitely the prettiest. Brides are supposed to be like that. It's the only wedding I've ever been in, besides Mom's. She and Mister Martin got married in front of a judge.

Susan got married in a Baptist church in Tennessee, in front of friends and family. When I get married, I think it's gonna be a guy like Jason or my dad or my sister's husbands, and I want my wedding to be about family, like Susan's. Forget that Disney stuff. I don't believe in fairy tales. They're interesting, but you have to filter (that's Dad's word) the truth from the things they put in to make it interesting.

I have an interesting life, for real. Like school. When I showed up in Tennessee, we had two weeks to go in the school year. Dad and Tina took me to get into school to finish the second grade. I had an all morning interview with Mizz Callirosa. She was nice. Now she works at the school board office, but she has a lot of time in a classroom with elementary school children. She says that my birth certificate says I'm in the second grade, but my mouth says I should be in middle school. Or better.

I like reading. I like the internet. I don't like much TV because it's just not interesting. I told Mom and Mister Martin that a show promoted unprofitable behavior and Mom liked to have choked. I told Tina the same thing one morning and she kissed the top of my head and said that she understood exactly what I meant.

That's the difference between Mom and Tina. Tina understands me better. I know that part of that is because Tina is a lot closer to my age. That's not all the difference, though. Tina is smarter than Momma. It shows. Tina just knows how to do things. I'm that way in school. Every year I start out in a new class and by the second week the teacher is looking at me funny because she opens up lessons on things for the whole class and I can see what she's doing almost before she finishes talking.

I can read. I can read out loud, and I can read to myself and I don't move my lips when I do it. Mom never quite understood that. Tina and Dad do. First thing Dad did was give me his old Kindle and Tina showed me how to get books, and I'm not talking about "See Spot Run".

Tina said that she and Nikki loved Mark Twain and she showed me where to get all his works. She says it's a great way to build vocabulary, and when I read, I get to ask her and Dad to explain things to me in context. (Cindy's note: Yes, 'vocabulary' was used by a seven year old girl. I knew what vocabulary was when I was that age, too, but I couldn't find anybody else who cared.)

That's the thing, you know. Not that I'm smart, but that everybody around me kind of pushes just a little bit so I can grow. Tina said it's like a rich diet for my brain so it will grow.

In school I talked to one of my new friends about all this and she said it didn't sound like fun to her. She didn't understand why I thought it was so great. I try to understand that I am a little different, but I do have friends my own age. I'm supposed to.

Like Shara. She's my age. She lives in the apartment across from ours. We play together. She likes video games and we do X-Box and Wii, and we go to movies together. She's funny. Her mom is nice. Her grandparents bought her a really nice-looking set of furniture for her bedroom. Looks all princess-y, I told her.

"It's a theme," she said. "That's what people do when they decorate. My mom wants to be a decorator, but she's doin' okay as a manager at Wal-Mart. "And Dad sends child support and that helps."

I explained some of this to Dad and Tina and they told me how hard it can be for single moms and their kids. "At least her mom WANTS Shara. Sometimes it's not that good," Tina told me.

When she said that, she told me a lot by what she didn't say, too. I know that in that way I'm lucky, too. I have parents that love me. Even my evil stepmother.

That's something that Tina and I laugh about. I can't think of a less evil stepmother. Tina says it's like her and Dad. She says they were put on this earth to be together and she was put here to be with me, too. When she told me the story about when she met Dad? It's better than a fairy tale because it's real and it's people that I know.

Today I'm at my adopted grandmother's. That's Susan's mom. Technically, since Tina is Susan's sister, then Mizz Kathy is Tina's mom (sort of. You have to stick with me here.) and that makes her my grandmother. This is really funny. She says I look just like Susan did when she was my age, and she showed me pictures. I can see it. And since Susan is off on her honeymoon, still, Mizz Kathy likes having me around. Mister Mike makes a pretty good grandpa, too. They indulge me. Dad says that I am not to take advantage of that. But it's awfully difficult to keep people from being nice to me.

Mizz Kathy laughs when I open my backpack. Backpack. I talked to Tina and Susan and Cindy about purses. Cindy said, "You're a bit young to carry a purse."

"But I have stuff," I said.

"What kind of stuff?"

"Like Tina. A pen. A little notebook. My Kindle."

Tina giggled. "Tell your dad you need an iPad. That way you get rid of the Kindle and the notebook."

Cindy said, "Get a backpack. Carry it everywhere. That's what I did at school. It holds more than a purse and when people see it, you look like you're getting ready to do something."

"Y'all are terrible," Susan laughed. "My momma raised me sayin' ladies carried purses."

"And waited patiently for their husbands to get back to the cave with a slayed beast, no doubt," Cindy returned. Cindy tickles me. Her mind is fast, and that's in a circle of fast minds.

"Pffffft!" Susan raspberried her. "I guess I should just surrender to being a nerd girl like the rest of the gang."

"You can always be our princess," I said. "Ever'body needs a princess."

But when I opened my backpack at Mizz Kathy's house, I had the new iPad dad bought me (and Tina has one, too!) and it automatically connects to the wireless at Mizz Kathy's house. That's funny. I'm here enough to where my iPad thinks it's home, too.

"What're you doin', baby?" Mizz Kathy asks.

"Just updating my journal," I said. "Cindy says..."

"Cindy!" Mizz Kathy said. "Why is it that every time I hear something odd that you girls are doing, Cindy's name pops up in the middle of it?"

I giggled. "Cindy's like the soul of the Sisterhood, Tina says. I wanna be like Cindy when I grow up."

Mister Mike was reading his paper. He put it down. "Oh, for heaven's sake! Cindy's fourteen. What does Cindy want to be like when SHE grows up?"

"He's right, you know. Cindy's a whole seven years older than me. If I can be Cindy when I'm fourteen, then what's Cindy gonna be when she's twenty-one?"

"That's a good question," Mizz Kathy said. "And our Susan's right in there with 'er. And now my Terri, too."

I caught the 'my Terri' thing. I got a warm feeling in my heart. Fairy tale. I traveled two thousand miles from my momma's side and here was this wonderful lady that didn't even think about it when she said 'my Terri'. Daddy's parents are gone, since when I was two. I can use another set of grandparents, and Susan's parents will do quite nicely, thank you.

I went with Mister Mike to his rental business. He lets me wander around the shop in back. He says Susan started out doing that when she was younger than me and cautions me not to be a pest like she was. I am careful not to get in the way. One older guy back there, he's older than Dad or Mister Mike, is the head mechanic, and if he's doing something interesting, he lets me ask questions while he works. He says that Susan did that, too, and that Susan is a very pretty and intelligent young lady. Too. I catch that. Cindy says it's an 'inference'.

Today he's replacing the motor on a trenching machine. He showed me where the old one broke, which wasn't much trouble to find, with a big, nasty, oily hole in the crankcase, and he told me why these things happen. I smile and listen. People who know things I don't know and who are willing to share them, those are people to be around. He bought me a coke when he took his coffee break. Mister Mike came back into the shop from inside his office and found us sitting in the big open shop door, each of us on an empty five gallon bucket. Now I have a picture of that.

"Mister Len," I said, "you're forever on my list of mentors." His name is actually Leonard.

"I find that a happy thought, little darlin'," he said. "All my whole life I thought I was jus' some ol' redneck who could fix thangs. And you'n Susan tell me I'm a mentor." He looked at Mister Mike. "Say, boss, don't mentors get a pay raise?"

"Mentoring is its own reward, Len. Doesn't the smile of this child make you feel richer?" Mister Mike replied. And I smiled really big for Mister Len.

"I'll tell you on payday," Mister Len said. But that was for Mister Mike. For me he had a big smile while he finished his coffee.

"Come on, little helper," he said to me. To Mister Mike he said "We'll have that trencher finished in a couple hours."

And I learned what a ratchet was and that socket wrenches come in sizes and how they work. And I learned about the three things an internal combustion engine should have to work. "Pieces sticking out of an oily hole in the side aren't on the list," I said, and Mister Len laughed. "You are like Susan," he said. "Just a little ahead of her, though."

Mister Mike and I left at lunch to meet Mizz Kathy. She had sandwich fixings at her office and we sat there and ate lunch with her and the lady who is her accounting partner. She knew that hanging around an office wasn't as interesting as hanging around Mister Mike's rental place. An extra computer would've helped. I opened my backpack and took out my iPad.

"Is this your wireless?" I asked. "It says Carterinc."

"That's us," Mizz Kathy said. "You know about wireless?"

"Mmm-hmmm, yes, ma'am. Everybody uses it. What's the password?" She told me. "There! Now I'm on line."

Mizz Kathy looked at Mister Mike kind of funny.

"Look!" I said. "Cindy put some pictures of our new building up! We're gonna be living here!" I showed everybody the pictures Cindy had up for us to share.

Mister Mike said to Mizz Kathy, "You realize that you're looking at our daughter's first real home as a married woman, don't you?"

Mizz Kathy almost sobbed.

"Stop that, Mister Mike," I said. "Susan's gonna be soooo happy, her an' Jason!" I giggled. "And you can't forget Dad's trailer. That's where they'll be when they get back from their honeymoon. Tina says it's a great place to start a marriage."

Mizz Kathy hugged me and stroked my hair. "I'm sure it is, baby," she said. "I've seen it. It is neat and clean and cozy and what more do two people need when they're in love and starting out?" She elbowed Mister Mike. "Huh, honey?!?"

"You're right, sweetie," he said. "Kathy, we didn't have it that good when we first got married."

"Doin' pretty good now," she answered.

"Yes, dear," he said, "but now we have an empty nest. Our daughter is married and going off to college. And she's presented us with a premature and precocious grand-daughter."

"I'll come visit, you know," I said. "It's a short trip in an airplane an' everybody I know has an airplane."

And speaking of airplanes, my cellphone rang. It was Tina, announcing that she was safe on the ground in Louisiana with Nikki and Dan 2.0 and Dad. Dad explained to me that them flying is more safe than driving. Tina and Cindy say the same thing, so I believe them. And I like to fly. I've gotten Tina to take me flying, just me and her, and it's cool. You would not believe how many school kids think I'm lying when I tell them that my step-mom is a pilot and we own a plane.

My teacher says I have an interesting life. I agree. It's interesting and it's happy. And I can't wait to see what happens next.

Chapter 7

Nikki's Dan's turn

I have been informed by my beautiful and bright wife that I am now 'Dan 2.0'. It's funny. I was 'Danny' to Momma and Dad always called me 'Dan', as did my friends growing up, you know, when they weren't calling me 'Peanut' or 'Asshole' or any of the other wonderful nicknames guys give one another.

"You're Dan 2.0, according to Tina," my little love said. "She says that's because she met Cindy's Dan first."

We're shutting down the house down here. I'm not giving it up. This land is family land. This acre was walked upon by my great-great grandfather. Their first house was here on this ridge and it was wiped out by a hurricane in 1928. They built again, but it was a little further over to the east. There are the ghosts of five generations of Grangers here, with all the trials, the sorrows, the triumphs, the love and the laughter, and I and that brown-haired teen over there packing her bag are among the reasons I am adding a new load of laughter and joy to the history of this place. My house has now survived two Category 3 hurricanes, so it'll be here long after Dan and Nikki are gone on to their reward. At least I can hope that. Roots. We may vine out to Alabama, but Dan Granger's roots are here.

We've loaded everything we needed into the travel trailer. That's gonna be home for the next two months while the apartment building is finished. I've lived in apartments in the past,, up to the time I built this house, but I've never looked forward to living in an apartment. This one, though, is different.

First, I'm following this astounding brown-haired girl there. Nikki. Love of my life. Quirky, funny, smart, caring, kind ... I run out of words, and if I say some of them out loud, I get this somewhat athletic, delectable body plastered against me, her teeth and tongue teasing at my ear, knowing that I can't control what happens after that.

Nikki's going to college. Nikki, who is fifteen, precociously graduated from high school, the mind under those brown bangs in the last, tippy-top percentile in intelligence, is going to interview with the Engineering Department at Auburn University in Alabama. Interviews aren't normally part of enrollment, but in Nikki's case, a few letters went back and forth between an interested guidance counselor at this end and the Engineering Department at that end, that just maybe they need to look at my Nikki and see if there's something just a tiny bit different with her.

Nikki's got sisters. I laugh. When I met Nikki and I married Nikki, she was all by herself, her mom in the custody of the State of Arkansas. Now I find that she and three similarly intelligent teen girls have summarily adopted each other and formed what I am told is The Sisterhood, preparatory to descending en masse on Auburn University's Engineering Department. And each of those sisters is married. Even Cindy, a fourteen year old redhead who just might eclipse my own Nikki in raw intelligence, is married.

And of late, a collective little sister in the form of Terri, age seven, daughter of my old friend Alan Addison. And Terri regularly calls or Skypes Nikki asking questions that you'd only hope a middle schooler might ask. Oh, hell, Terri asks questions that I'd hope that a second year computer science major would ask.

The whole thing was a surreal blur. I imagine that from the outside it would take on an air of implausibility, but from the vantage I hold as mate to one of the participants it's just a string of happy curiosities.

My end of the string of curiosities was on her way back into the living room, trailed by a big goofy cat who was apparently her familiar. "He was just waiting with you for me to show up," Nikki giggled once. Tommi, the old yellow cat, accords her much more attention and affection than I ever got, even when he and I were the sole occupants of the house.

"He's gonna miss us," she said to me. "Look at this big ol' kitty face." She was holding him and he was lounging comfortably in her arms. He'd never tolerated me holding him for more than a few seconds before he writhed to free himself.

I just shook my head. "He'll miss you. Me, I'm not so sure."

"He's a cat, for gosh sake," she smiled, then she buried her face in his fur, buzzing him. "He's supposed to be strange. Let's go find something for dinner so we don't dirty any more dishes."

"Okay, good idea," I said. We did dinner, then returned to the house, straightening up a few things and then we disturbed the cat for an hour. He's smart. He knows better than to try to get on the bed or near the sofa or anywhere else that happy tangle of arms and legs may form.

Things are quiet after the shower and as Nikki and I snuggle into the bed together, he finds his new favorite spot on her side of the bed. I don't even get to touch the cat. Oh, well. The soft hair of Nikki's head on my shoulder, her body forming against mine as we drift into slumber, that's a bit more than a fair trade for a cantankerous old cat.

We were up and out the door at the crack of dawn the next morning, munching granola bars for breakfast. The cat was in the picture window, watching us depart as I maneuvered the truck and travel trailer onto the road. We were off, eating up miles, a goal in mind that would put us most of the way to our destination by sundown. I didn't relish driving this rig on secondary roads after dark.

Nine and a half hours of driving later, we parked the rig in the back lot of a nice hotel with a hamburger joint right next door. Yeah, yeah ... travel trailer. Why didn't we just stay in it? Honestly, it's okay if you must do that, but given the choice, I'd rather not. Especially when I have the choice of dealing with the holding tank and the water tank and all those issues. I had a full tank of potable water and full tanks of propane to cook with and keep the little refrigerator cold, but we had eyes for a king-sized bed and a big shower, both of which we availed ourselves after ditching the truck and walking next door to get a couple of burger baskets. And chocolate malts. Real ones.

"We can't do this too often," my healthy beauty said. "But mmmmmmm, chocolate malt. It's been years."

"Me too," I said, "But when I saw the mixer, I knew we had to try. Burger's good, too!"

The response to that was a muffled grunt because my cutie had one of the burgers at her mouth.

Our waitress was a friendly little thing only a couple of years older than Nikki. She was attentive and bright and Nikki looked at me when she dropped off the ticket. "Tip 'er good!"

"I usually do," I said.

"That could've been me, you know..." Nikki said as we walked back to the hotel.

"That would be a true shame, punkin," I said. "You're too smart to waste your mind on a dead-end job."

"I don't know if she's wasting her time. She has a couple of college textbooks behind the counter. One of 'em was open."

"Good," I said. "She's trying."

"Yeah," Nikki said. "So many of 'em give up. And don't get me started with the ones who think that high school's all they need."

"It is, for a lot of 'em," I said. "Some of them will get jobs and work their way up, learning as they go. Some of them will work a few years and see that they really do want something different. And some of them, by the time they get to that point, it will be too late because they're trying to juggle a house and kids and whatever else in life."

"I can see that," Nikki said. "And some of them will start their own businesses and get by. Sometimes they'll take off."

"People can be satisfied with a steady income from something like that little restaurant we go to up the road." Up the road from home, that is. It was a family restaurant, made good money in return for good food, and they had a neat little sideline going, putting together gift baskets that were popular among businesses. Even had, of all things, a bit of on line business. We talked about them.

"I like that bunch. They have a good business," she said. "But still, I'm glad that I get a chance to go past high school."

"Yeah," I replied. "Next week you might get a chance to get past some college, too."

"Me an' Cindy," she giggled. "Who'd've thought. Seriously, last year, I was NOTHING..."

I interrupted, "Oh, no, punkin, you were never 'nothing'. That potential is yours."

"But how do you ever think I might have gotten a chance to use it, Dan?"

"I dunno," I said. "I would hope somebody would've recognized you for what you are."

She swung her hip against mine. "Somebody did." Blue eyes twinkled at me. "Right?"

"You got it," I said. Her fingertips brushed my hand. I took hers in mine. "I got it. We both got it."

"Us!" Giggle. "Nikki and her Dan 2.0."

We strolled into the hotel hand in hand, hitting the elevator laughing, and went to our room. We took a bit of time to connect with the rest of the community. The contrast is amusing. Alan, Dan 1.0 and I are guys, we talk about the business, the plans, arrangements in level, measured tones.

Nikki and Cindy and Tina (and Terri) are a mass of laughter and giggles about relationships and life and family.

"Anybody heard from Susan in the last couple of days?" Nikki asked.

Tina giggled. "Terri, cover your ears."

Terri pulled her most mature (from a seven year old) tone out and said, "Tina, they're on a honeymoon. I know what honeymoon means. Gosh!"

"Okay, then, Little Miss Grown-up," Tina retorted. "Susan and Jason will be back home Friday."

Cindy's titter cut the noise. "And despite my own prediction, they're both still alive."

On my screen, Alan said "It may take a month for Jason to stop grinning, though." I completely understand that. It's been almost a year since I first met Nikki, and I still find myself smiling when I think of her. Right now, though, I'm watching her animation over the raised screen of her laptop. She looks up for a second, our eyes connect, and her smile broadens.

Yeah, I'm hooked.

The conversations over, it's time to give that shower a workout and then road-test the mattress on that king-sized bed.

The bed's quite handy for gymnastics, we decide, but when it comes time to go to sleep, we fit together in a corner in a compact and happy knot.

"I love you, baby," she says. "I miss our cat, but I love you."

One more long, conscious sniff of the fragrance from her tousled head, and we're asleep.

Nikki's turn:

We pulled the travel trailer into an RV park that Cindy and Dan 1.0 scouted out. It looks nice, but I am certainly no expert on these things. Cindy's lived in one for years and her Dan has been in and out of a bunch of them over that past few years, so they're in a position to pass judgment.

'Dan 2.0'. I giggled when Tina popped that one on me, and Dan laughed when I told him.

"I can't be Dan 1.0?" he asked.

My guy. Sometimes it hits me. This is my guy. I smile. "That's okay, baby. Version 2.0 is usually much better than 1.0."

"You have a point, bunny," he said.

We were having this conversation on the sofa in the living room. That's a good place to start happy conversations, you know. Up the hall is a great place to end them. Disturbed the cat. He gets extra skritches after the festivities are over. Gotta take care of my kitty. And my husband. And, oh yeah, that cat, too.

After we got our tiny house leveled and hooked up to the utilities, we unhitched that big truck and drove to a little airfield to wait for our ride back to Louisiana. I flip my phone open and punch it and say "Tina". It dials.

The voice that comes on, though, isn't Tina. It's Alan.

"You finally buried 'er?" I asked.

"No, but she's busy flying. I'm handling communications."

"We're here waiting on you," I said. "Dan's tugging me towards an airplane hangar. I think curiosity's got 'im."

"We're maybe twenty minutes or so out," Alan said. "Don't let 'im buy anything."

"Oh, I dunno," I said. "It's awfully big and bright yellow and you know how you guys are about big things."

Alan laughed. "I'll let you an' sweetie-pie talk about that. See you in a bit."

I joined Dan as he talked with a man about the big crop-duster in the hangar.

"You can park your truck over there in the corner out of the way. It'll be safe while you're gone," he said. "I'll get that T-hangar cleared out for you for when you get back." He smiled. "You said your Mooney and three Cessnas? That'll fill me up. Been a long time since we saw that kind of activity."

"That's what everybody tells me," Dan said. "I guess I'm kind of late to the game. I started flying while I was in college, but I sort of backed out."

The man's name turns out to be Wallace Jeffers. As in 'Call me Wally.' "Yeah, I guess you kind of change priorities in college."

I looped my arm in Dan's. I know he was thinking 'she's waiting to see what I say next', but I knew what Dan had told me about life when he was in college and I was a preschooler. First, I know he had a life before me, and second, he confessed to being socially inept. I find that difficult to understand in view of how he operates now, so self-confident, but he says he's a late bloomer.

"Not in the way one might think," he told Wally. "I was trying to keep my grades up in engineering classes and was into ROTC. Had a girlfriend. Something had to give."

I kind of leaned into to Dan's arm. "And three other couples in our group are flying. The Mooney gets us back home pretty quick when we need to go, and that makes it possible for us to move up here for me to go to school."

"You're going to school here? What's wrong with school back in Louisiana?" he asked.

"Little sweetie here's got a scholarship to Auburn," Dan said proudly. "So do her sisters. So us guys figured we'd just come up here and start up a business so we could support 'em."

"You'll meet one of my adopted sisters here in about ten minutes," I said. Sometimes I'm prescient, because the airfield had an outdoor speaker connected to the radio monitoring the Unicom frequency. Unicom is what aircraft use around uncontrolled fields. You don't have to use a radio, but if you have one, transmitting your intentions over Unicom is courteous.

"Greely Field, this is Cessna 6-5-6-7 Golf five miles north, for landing." In a male voice. Alan's.

"That's Alan Addison. His wife is flying. She's Tina," I said. "They're flying a Cessna 182. She's seventeen."

"Seventeen? How old are you, if y'all don't mind me asking?"

"I'm fifteen. Almost sixteen. And Dan's wife. I hope it doesn't offend you," I said, doing my shy smile move.

He shook his head. "Thought you looked young. No, I guess it takes a lot more to offend me these days. I'm all sensitive and caring and stuff. Must be those chemicals." Wally's main function was running an agricultural aviation service, and they use some pretty significant chemicals.

"Thank you," Dan said. "It's a long story, but we're married."

"Must be a good story. Don't see a kiddie seat in your truck."

"Best kind of story," I said. "Involved damsels in distress, horrendous storms, collapsed buildings, cut off from civilization, and a dashing prince rescuer. And here we are."

We talked a little about the story, taking the conversation out of the hangar when we heard the buzz of Alan and Tina's Cessna. I watched carefully. Tina's getting good. Even in the bouncy air of early summer, Tina slid the plane down to the runway like it was on rails and touched down without a bounce. Taxiing up, she was in the left seat, waving, while Alan smiled.'

"She did that landing?" Wally asked.

"No doubt," I said. She's getting good. "Private license since Christmas." I saw the look on Wally's face. "She's seventeen."

The Cessna halted a safe distance from us, the propeller came to a stop, the door on the pilot's side flew open and Tina and I ran to each other, squealing and hugging. Sometimes decorum is not a consideration. This is my sister.

Alan walked up to Dan and Wally, got introduced, shook hands. He nodded to me and Tina walking back towards them. "They're family," he said, noting Wally's expression. "And wait'll you meet the rest of 'em."

"There's more?" Wally asked, incredulous look on his face.

"Yessir," Tina said. "And if you think my sister Nikki is startling, wait'll Cindy wings in. She's too young to get her license, but she handles a Cessna taildragger quite handily."

"And Susan and Jason. They have their little Cessna 152, but they're looking for something bigger right now."

Wally snickered. "And Susan is what? Twelve?"

"Noooo," I giggled. "She's eighteen. On her honeymoon right now."

He shook his head. "Banker told me that he was real reluctant to loan me the money for that new T-hangar. Said he didn't see how I'd fill it. Now, all at once..."

We made our final bathroom calls, bid good-bye to Wally, promising him we'd be back by noon the next day, and we climbed into Tina's plane and left for Louisiana.

"You could fly and I could sit in the right seat and we could put them in back," I told Tina.

Her eyes twinkled with mischief. "I thought about that. But they'd look soooo sad. And they're bigger, so they'd be cramped."

So we let Dan and Alan sit in front and we sat in the back. The intercom doesn't allow only two-party conversations with four headsets connected, so everything Tina and I talked about, the guys were in on. I mentioned that.

"Seems like an ELECTRICAL engineer could fix that little omission," Tina said pointedly.

I giggled. "We can fix it, you know. I think between you and me and Cindy and Susan, we could figure it out."

"Should be a simple little switchbox mod, huh?" Tina said.

"Well, a little more than that. We all plug into an amplifier, so we need a switchbox and an amplifier. That means a power supply."

"Battery. Low energy. Battery would work."

"Listen to 'em," Alan said. "Did you ever imagine you'd meet a girl that would sit there and figure stuff like that out?"

Dan shook his head. "Brains. Packaged like THAT."

The Cessna purred on, pointed southwest. An hour out, Dan called my sister-in-law Dana. She laughs when I say it that way. She said when we first met, "Oh, don't worry, Dan. We accept HER. It's YOU we're not so sure about." Dana's going to run shuttle service for us while we're moving. The hour lead time gives her time to meet us at the airport.

On the ground, we handle the transfer easily and while the guys shake hands, all restrained and manly, Tina and I hug and bid almost tearful farewells and then we watch 'em fly off.

"That is so neat," Dana said. "Flyin' around in your own planes like that."

"I know," I said. "I don't know how we would've done this otherwise. It's a looooong day's drive. We took two days to get there with the trailer."

Dana brought us home and dropped us off. Tommi was all over me when we walked in, weaving in between my feet, begging for attention, so I sat on the sofa and tried to catch up on his need for affection.

We did frozen food for meals and in the morning when Dana picked us up, the house was basically secured. Tommi was giving withering glares from inside his carrier. I tried to assuage his rage by telling him that he was moving to another state where everybody would be properly worshipful of his magnificence, but big yellow cats do not compromise.

An hour later he was still in his carrier, tied down in the back seat of the Mooney, and we were doing a hundred and eighty miles an hour headed back to Alabama.

"You know, baby," I told Dan, "I am really excited about living close to my sisters. Cindy especially."

"Not Tina?" he asked.

"I'm not putting Tina down by any means," I said. "But me an' Cindy..." I paused. "All of us, really. We all found out what love and family is about. And now we're in a place where we put all that to work for ourselves."

"You make it sound like an adventure."

"It really is. In so many ways, it is. When you and I met and fit together, you already had a house. In the next few weeks, I get to take a bare apartment and make it OUR home. And we get to fit in with our friends to make a community. That's closer than I ever imagined to being a pioneer."

"You make it really sound like an adventure. You're not worried about school?"

"Concerned. Interested. Not worried. Seriously, baby," I told him, "In a year I've come so much further in the happy things in life than I ever dreamed I would. I could stop right now and be ahead of Mom. I have a high school diploma. She didn't. I have a husband. She didn't. But we, that us. Me and you, we are going to get me through college and we're going to be a wonderful part of a wonderful family. I think I'm giddy."

"I think you're giddy, too," Dan said. "Wait'll you're sitting at the table with a couple of textbooks and a pile of notes, staring down the throat of a big exam..."

"I'm on a different plane," I said.

"Nope," he laughed. "It's still a Mooney..."

"No, you know what I mean. Cindy and I talked about it. We're on a different plane, a different level. And planes can be parallel, never touching, or they can be like you and me, two planes intersecting. But then Cindy and I started figuring out what we had with all the different planes from our group and what that looks like. She says we're a tesseract."

"I married a girl that talks about tesseracts," he said. He brushed my cheek. I could feel love flow from the touch.

I giggled. "What about Dan 1.0," I said. "He married a fourteen year old girl who envisions tesseracts."

"Yeah..."

"And if only we could figure out how to fold dimensions, we could..."

"Fold dimesions?"

"Yeah. We're limited by dimensions. Think about this," I said, repeating a conversation from me and Cindy. "Suppose we live on the top floor of a tall building. We want to be on the top floor of the building across the street. We have to live with dimensions and rules for traveling within them. To get from where we are to where we want to be, we comply with those rules, go down to the ground level, walk across the street, go up in the other building and we're where we wanted to be. But if we had a way to get around a couple of rules, we'd eliminate travel in the vertical dimension entirely and bypass most of the trip. Think about it. We eliminate a dimension. That's what we're doing right now, abiding by the rule that says we must travel on this plane, this dimension only."

"You're making my head hurt," Dan said, smiling. "And Cindy scares me. In an Enrico Fermi kind of way."

I looked back and saw Tommi in his carrier. He was lying down. When he noticed I was paying attention, he yawned and smiled.

Yeah. New world. For me and Dan and Tommi.

Chapter 8

Cindy's view of the universe at this temporal location:

One more concert in the park. That's going to be Saturday. Well it won't really be our last one. I and Dan and the Hardesty bunch (they're ALL playing and singing now, even Billy) have decided that every month or so we can come down on a Friday, practice, and then do a Saturday concert. Mizz Helen likes it. We all like it. But Saturday will be the last one where Dan and I live in the park.

Sunday is church day. I like it. Family and church are two things that show a stability that I never expected to have with Mom. I talked with Dan about this, of course, and he said, "You don't have your mom's lifestyle, baby. You survived around the edges of it, but when I met you, you were struggling to keep your own lifestyle."

"I got it, didn't I?" I smiled. If living with Mom shoved so much more experience in my life than the thirteen calendar years I had when I met Dan, then being with Dan has made all the bad that went before us just recede into the background.

So we'll go to church Sunday morning like a lot of other people do and we'll listen to the message and derive from it ideas that lend stability and purpose to our lives. Everybody who goes to church isn't necessarily good, because people don't fit into formulae (I love it! 'Formulae' instead of 'formulas') like chemistry or physics. But the act of spending a portion of your life in church does say something for most of the attendees. At least that's my take on it.

By this stage of the game, Dan and I showing up, his forty-one years and my fourteen and everybody knows we're married, it's not as big a topic of whispers as it was the first time. The fact that we're friends with the Hardesty family and Mizz Mona and her husband Jeff and they're long-time members of good repute, that sort of smoothes things over.

But Monday morning, we're hitching up the trailer and dragging it off to the RV park we found near Auburn, Alabama. Nikki and Dan 2.0 are already there and she says she can't wait for me to get there. We'll probably have three or four weeks there before we move into the new apartment building.

I expect Alan and Tina and Jason and Susan to stay up in Tennessee until they can move right into the apartments. Terri's in that mix. My cutie pie niece Terri. She's very smart. I wonder if I'd've been like her if my mom had been more of a mom. We sisters have agreed that we take care of Terri.

So we did our concert. Now you have to remember that this singing and playing thing started last fall with Mizz Ann's violin and Mister Jim's banjo and my Dan playing bass guitar and we did a few simple bluegrass tunes. We've grown. Just like everything in my life, there was this seed planted, waiting to sprout.

Tonight we are almost polished. Dan and Mister Jim take turns MC'ing and Bill Hardesty has replaced Dan on the bass, most of the time. Dan's back to guitar and with practice, he's pretty good. Teresa and I do a couple of duets. But we really have fun when me and Dan and Mister Jim and Mizz Ann slam into a bluegrass favorite, Roll in My Sweet Baby's Arms, because Mister Jim sings half of it with Mizz Ann as a duet and I sing half of it with my Dan. That's, as Dan says, a sprightly tune. Then Teresa and I slow things down with a simple little bluegrass hymn, and for the finale, it's me and Dan doing Old Salty Dog Blues together. Several people from the audience came up to us and said we should have a recording. That tickles me.

And we had our church day and we had dinner at the Hardesty 's and just like we planned, Monday morning, Dan and I cut loose our umbilicals to the best home I'd ever had up to this point in my life. I was a little sad. I had tears in my eyes when I hugged Mizz Helen and Mister Charlie. He held me to his side.

"Cindy, don't be sad. This is life, you know. You move through it. And you'll be back down here often."

"Yes we will," Dan said. "And I will always remember how good you and Helen have been to us."

"And you two are a happy part of both our lives," Helen said. "Dan, you have no idea how happy I was when you started taking care of Cindy."

I couldn't help but smile. I remember Dan last summer when I first met him, how he seemed puzzled over me meeting him at the pool and wanting to talk to him about everything. Now he IS everything.

We filled two travel mugs with park coffee and got in the truck and started a journey into a new phase of life.

Dan's driving, naturally. Fourteen year old girls can't drive. Not that I would today anyway, towing thirty-something feet of trailer behind us. But that gives me time to catch up on phone calls. A few minutes were spent with Nikki. I'd see her in person before the day ended. I talked at length with Tina.

"Susan's finally home?"

Tina laughed. "With the biggest silly grin permanently affixed to her face."

"No doubt," I said. "Like neither of us could control that grin, you know."

"I know," she giggled.

"Yeah, I tried. Mizz Helen says that I failed miserably."

"Well, she's obvious, but at least Jason's not subject to prosecution for a felony. And you thought that you and I were attached to our guys. She and Jason are like there's a short chain between 'em."

"As it should be," I said. "How's Terri?"

"Terri's reading with her friend over there in the other room. She is something else."

"Not a problem, huh?" I asked.

"Not even. Only change is that I and my husband have to show a little more decorum around the house."

I giggled, thinking of me and my Dan and how clothing was optional on many evenings, leaving delicious and titillating access to each other. I know that Tina had that going with Alan.

"Oh, but Terri's smart about that, too. She has a way of going over to Shara's house and announcing that she'll be gone for at least an hour and a half and she never barges back in."

"Smart kid," I said. "I'm looking forward to having y'all for neighbors, Tina."

"Me too. Cindy, we have a family. We ARE a family. You and me and the whole strange bunch."

"I know," Tina said. "When you and Nikki get together tonight, Skype us. I'll poke Susan and make sure she's on."

My turn to giggle. "Oh, I dunno. She does have a new toy to play with, you know."

"You can't do that ALL the time..." and simultaneously we both said, "But I tried!" And we giggled our good-byes.

Dan was listening, of course. "Another happy sister?"

"Oh, yes," I said. "We were talking about Terri and Susan. Susan's a very happy girl now."

"New toy to play with," he laughed.

"You're not supposed to be listening to private conversations," I giggled. "But yes, new toy. And you know how much I wanted to play with it. And we did."

"Still do."

I reached over and slid my hand up the inside of his thigh. Yep! It's still there! And when I touch it, it changes shape. I giggled again. "See! Still fun!"

He looked away from the highway at me, smiling. "I experience lust over you sometimes, little one," he said.

"You are my lust, Dan. I hope you're happy with the monster you created."

"Which monster? I've created several, you know."

"List 'em," I said. "I wish to gauge your creativity."

"Cindy the sex goddess. Cindy the singer. Cindy the computer geek."

"I take a back seat to Nikki there," I said.

He continued, "Cindy the ringleader. Cindy the virtuouso of aging Cessnas ... What have we tried that you are not excelling?"

"Cooking. I can't cook."

"You're fourteen and you are quite accomplished with both a microwave oven and any foodstuff that is added to boiling water."

"Beast!" I said. "Nikki can really cook. I wanna."

"What about Tina?"

"She can cook. Maybe not full-blown Cajun like Nikki, but she can."

"Susan?"

"Susan's just about where I am. Although she can bake cookies and do casseroles and stuff like that."

"I have been remiss," Dan said. "Here I was, teaching you to fly and starting you off in advanced math and things and I have neglected your introduction into the domestic arts."

"I wish to be a wife, not a concubine," I said. I knew that phrase would turn his head. When he swiveled to look at me, I was smirking.

"But you're a very good concubine."

"And you're a beast," I said.

"Beauty and the Beast," Dan laughed.

I can be quite satisfied being Dan's 'beauty'. I glance up at the GPS. We're getting close to the new park. I push the button on my phone and say "Nikki". I'm rewarded by ringing and then a happy voice.

"How close are y'all?" Nikki asks.

"GPS says ten minutes."

"I'll get us ready. We'll be waiting for you. I'm so excited, Cindy!"

Nine minutes later we were parked at the front office. I went in with Dan and met the manager (again! "Hi, Cindy!" he said.) and watched Dan sign papers for our stay. By the time we got out the door I could see Nikki and Dan 2.0 out in front of their trailer. Naturally we were parked right next to them. I met Nikki with a hug and a kiss and and kiss hit her Dan's cheek and she gave my Dan a peck while the two husbands shook hands, then we got out of the way while they handled spotting our trailer.

It didn't take long to get us unhitched from the truck, but it took a while to get the trailer leveled and the utilities connected. Finally Dan unlocked the door.

"Come see my first happy home," I told Nikki. She looked around as I showed her. Doesn't take long to tour a thirty-something foot trailer, though, and then she took me over to look at theirs. It's a lot different. It's a standard travel trailer, not a custom job like ours or Tina's. I've seen some others before, and I recognized the thrifty use of space. Okay, I like ours better. Dan was smart about laying things out for a single guy, or, happily, a couple. I liked having the tiny bit of open space where a regular trailer would've shoe-horned in another sofa that turned into a bed.

There was a difference, though. Nikki's trailer smelled of good cooking. I mentioned that.

"Steak and gravy," she said. "Plain ol' food. I hope you like it. We can talk about what kind of foods you like and we can cook 'em together." Yes, Nikki knew that I wanted to learn to cook more. She lifted a lid and gave the pot a stir.

I smiled. "How long before it's ready?"

"Dinnertime. You let this tough ol' meat simmer and it gets tender so it almost falls apart. Let's go see where our husbands are at." She headed for the door, me right behind her.

I bounded through the door of my trailer and caught two Dans sitting at the end, my Dan in his chair, her Dan on the sofa. I sat in my husband's lap. "Did Dan tell you we're having dinner with them?" I asked.

"Yep. Is that okay with you?"

"Of course! But I wanna get back to that restaurant we visited with Mizz Patel."

Nikki raised an eyebrow.

"Indian food," I said. "Marvelously spiced and exotic-tasting. You have to try."

Her Dan nodded enthusiastically. "Oh, yeah. Good stuff."

"We'll have to do that, then," Nikki said. "And anyway, Monday I meet Mizz Patel and she's going to put me through the wringer she put you through, sis."

"You'll do just fine," I said. "We've talked about all this stuff. You're scary smart."

"YOU'RE scary smart," Nikki repeated to me. Then we both laughed. "Let's got to my trailer and call Tina and..."

"Susan, if she can leave Jason alone for a while," I said.

"Aren't they something," Nikki said.

"Uh-huh. And you were, like, all restrained and all that when you first got married?"

"I was, wasn't I, baby?" she asked Dan 2.0.

"Yes. And you still are," he laughed.

Nikki and I had compared notes. Her story was a little different. She wasn't yet in school when they became a couple. They had time together. Dan and I had to fit our intimacy around school and the fact that I had a mom and a place to live and our pairing was precariously exposed. But away from prying eyes, oh my gosh! I still remember and the memories get me going. I've taken it out on Dan. It's cute, after it's over and we're both lying together glowing and he asks, "What brought that on?"

Right now I'm having those thoughts, but I realize that social conventions require some self-restraint on my part. Sitting in my Dan's lap, though, I wiggle just a tiny little bit and gauge his self-restraint. I feel it. I lean back against him and he kisses the top of my head. I know how much I adore this guy and that little kiss on my head tells me that I am safe in giving my heart and soul to him.

Nikki catches that kiss, too, and she smiles. She knows. Sisters know. And she announced, "Dinner will be ready at five. That gives us a couple of hours. Why don't we meet here then?" And she had a sublime smile when she finished the statement.

"Come on, guy," I said, standing and tugging Dan's hand. "We need to straighten up a few things. Hmmm?" I gave him a little wink. He followed me out the door. "We'll see you in a couple of hours," I said.

Completely forgot about calling Tina, we did, until after dinner. Our two Dans Skyped in Alan and Jason, talking about the business. Nikki and I ended up in her trailer with a laptop on the dinette table with the faces of Tina and Susan on the screen.

"We're gonna talk with the contractors tomorrow for an update," I said. "But they should be finished in a couple of weeks, tops."

"I hope so," Tina said. "I have to provide a stable home for my daughter." And a giggle.

"And a whole mess of aunts and uncles," Susan said.

Nikki had to ask. "How was the honeymoon."

Susan sighed. "I should've raped him on the first date. I missed weeks of ... But we're making up for lost time." Giggle.

"Susan! Don't be so..." Tina started.

"I know you all tried to protect me, but you know, the smiles and the looks, I sort of knew. Really, I'm glad I waited. That was a promise to my family and to God, but oh yes ... goodgoodgood." Giggle.

"I'm happy for you," I said. "Glad you survived. We figured one of you was gonna kill the other."

"Thought you were gonna kill Jason," Nikki said.

"Poor Jason," I replied.

Susan giggled. "Nothin' poor about 'im. And dear, we are equally matched. Really. Uh, in your relationship, who initiates?"

"Both of us. Never have said 'no'," I said. My comment was mirrored by Tina and Nikki.

"See?!?!" Susan said. "Matters when you love 'im, huh?"

The answer was a chorus of 'Yes!" I knew that in the case of me and Nikki and Tina, our husbands were rescuers, too, and for Susan, Jason was the husband, the next step in a normal life of family and love. Result? She was happy, it's just that her path was different than ours.

Susan didn't have the nights of sitting quietly in her room with the curtain closed while her mom was with some guy, the two of them high or drunk or both at the other end of the trailer. She didn't have the nights of being scared that some scummy boyfriend would stumble up the hall and try to feel her up because Mom was passed out. She knew what it was like to have a mom and dad that showed up at school and who took care of her, guided her, cared for her.

Was I jealous? A little, I guess, but it's like Dan told me more than once, we ended up together because of that, and I am certainly thankful that I have Dan and he's happy he has me, so the cloud does sometimes have a silver lining. I've had some dark times since I met Dan. He knows what to do. I get held close, talked to softly, and gently kissed, and loved. That drives away darkness. As time goes on, though, those dark times seldom show up.

Dan did something one time that really surprised me, but I guess it shouldn't have. On one of our trips back to Louisiana, we were driving around. I thought it was random, but he turned off the road into a cemetery.

"I hope you understand, little one," he said. "My first wife and daughter are buried here."

Might've squicked out some people, I guess, but this is my husband and I know that he had a wife before me, and a daughter, to boot. I could've sat in the truck. He offered that as an option. I'm not an optional wife. He's my husband. In front of friends and family we both vowed 'for better or for worse' and everything else. I got out and stood beside him by the graves. His face clouded up. I just held his hand. This was something he had to deal with on his own inside. On the outside, I was there for him.

"Honey," he said, softly, talking to his first wife. "I know that we said 'until death us do part.' I think that if I'd've gone first, you'd have found somebody to spend your life with. I did. This is Cindy. She's not you. She's not to replace you. She's my wife, for the rest of my life." He hung his head for a bit. "I know you understand. Until we meet again."

I looked at him, squeezed his hand. He tugged me to his side and we walked back to the car and got in. As we drove back onto the road, he said, "Love of my life, I had to do that. I hope you don't think it's bizarre."

I shook my head. "No, baby. I can see myself doing something like that if I were in your shoes."

"I had to tell her that you are here and I love you."

"Dan, love," I said. "You told me that she loved you and that she wanted you to be happy. I would think that she would still want that. I would."

"I don't mean to be morbid," he said.

"I don't think it's morbid. I would have been more surprised if the subject never came up before. Wouldn't've been the loving and caring guy I married." I sighed. "You're not like Dan and Alan and Jason. You had a good marriage and lost your wife in an accident. She didn't do you wrong. You'll always have that part in you. You just made room for me. And I understand that."

"Doesn't mean I love you less..."

"Never said that at all. Never thought such a thing." I shifted to being as philosophical as I could be. "Love accommodates. Grows. When we met, you started growing a whole new love that is all for me and you."

And we went to dinner afterward and went home and he was tender and caring and soft and gentle with me and we made love. And I know he was there with me, not somewhere else, regretting."

Afterward, I was in his arms, cuddled in tight. "You don't have to forget her, Dan. That's not what you have to do."

"I won't be able to anyway, little one," he said, kissing my forehead lightly. "But you are a richness I never expected to find in my life again."

I scooted up a bit so our lips could touch. Kissed him. "And you found me. I found you. And we're together now..."

"And forever," he said. And that was the end of that episode.

Now we were here next door to Nikki and we were getting a taste of the community that we'd been so excited about for months. Nikki and I had a bit of conversation about privacy and alone time with our husbands.

"We all had pretty much private situations up till now," Nikki said.

"I know. Except that Tina and Alan have picked up Terri," I replied.

"I think that's kind of the key, the way that Terri makes sure that Tina and Alan have a little private time," Nikki said.

"That's typical Terri," I laughed. "She has a way of analyzing things."

"Scary smart," Nikki said, laughing, using a phrase we used about each other. "But we need to make sure that we do the same for each other. I suspect that you and your Dan are like me and mine..."

I couldn't help but grin. I knew exactly what she was talking about. "Undoubtedly so," I answered.

"So I don't know how we set up rules or a schedule or anything like that, but we just need to recognize that those issues are there to be dealt with."

"We're smart enough to do that," I said. "I won't come charging over, banging on your door unless the world's about to end or something like that. Phone call first."

"That's a good idea. And if we do occasionally interrupt the fun, we kind of understand, okay?"

"Sure," I said. "Tina and I have dealt with that on weekends we spent together. We can make it work."

She smiled. "And Terri. Terri is Alan's daughter, and by inference, Tina's, but she belongs to all of us. And if she wants to come over on a Saturday afternoon to give Alan and Tina a bit of time, then we understand that, too."

"You wanna know what I think? I think that Terri's gonna be like a butterfly around us, between just hanging out and that way she seems to have of wanting to KNOW stuff." That was funny. Terri had called me a few times to talk about things because Tina encouraged her to write and said, "Call Cindy. She's the best writer we have." And now I have to spend a little time learning how to explain what I just seem to KNOW about language.

It makes me giggle to think about it. I just sort of derived how to write things, but then Terri asks me, and have to explain about verbs and nouns and adverbs and things to her. It's like pouring water on a sponge. Then we start talking about fiction for stories and first and second and third-person vantages.

"I can write like that," she said. "I can tell MY story. People say I'm precocious, Cindy."

"You are, Terri. You have to understand where you are in age and where you are in knowledge."

"I know," she said. I could picture her, blue-eyed, blonde. Makes me wonder if Susan didn't travel back in time and deposit an offspring. She continued, "I lack experiences."

"Little sister, we both lack experiences, you know." I was trying to deduce how this seven year old was having the same thoughts I was having at fourteen.

She clarified her thought. "I know, Cindy. I think I know."

"Uh-huh," I said, "I'm fourteen and I'm doing things in life that most girls don't have to deal with until they're years older. Like college and bein' married."

"And I'm almost eight and I bother my teachers because I don't need to be in second grade classes. And I could do more things if I had more experiences."

"Baby," I said, stepping softly, because I knew that this conversation would have to be discussed with Tina and maybe Dan and Alan, "you just be polite and charming as you possibly can, and pay attention to life. That will give you all the experiences. In due time, you know..."

"Does it matter if I get impatient?" she asked.

"I'm perfectly sure that Tina and your dad will understand your impatience and do the best to accommodate you in the best directions."

The evening light was softening right before sundown when I called Nikki.

"Hi, sis," she chirped.

"Hey, sis," I said. "If you don't have plans right away, why don't you two come over. Dan needs to practice and we can talk and sing."

"You know I've been wanting to do that," she said. "We'll be right over."

And new town and new life is underway.

Chapter 9

From the wilds of Tennessee. Tina's Story

I'm just a bit jealous of Nikki and Cindy being together down there. I just wanna squeeze both of 'em. Shouldn't be jealous, though. I have my own husband and my own daughter and my own best friend, although since Susan is back from her honeymoon, all married and really into whatever sort of activities she and Jason can invent, I don't see her as often.

I do see Terri and Alan. What a fun family unit we are. In Alan's arms I can relax and unwind. In Terri's presence, though, I want to keep my hard drive spinning. I never know when she's going to shift from 'seven-year-old girl' mode into some entirely different sort of 'curiosity on legs'.

That's fine with me, but if my original plan was to kick back with some good music on the player and let my mind just ride along, Terri popping up with some random line of enquiry usually has us starting out with a discussion, then ends up on the Internet or on the phone with one or more of my sisters.

I've learned to push Terri's writing and language skills off on Cindy, learning a bunch in the effort, and computer questions go to Nikki. Susan and I can handle Terri so far in math and science, but keeping Terri going is keeping Susan and me going as well. One thing I've learned since acquiring Terri is that she's not settling for me as a "June Cleaver" mom.

We both look over Alan's shoulder sometime when he's working.

"Whatcha doin', Daddy?" Terri says.

Alan tells me that when she changes from 'Dad' to 'Daddy' he's expecting some amount of manipulation. When he's working, being 'Daddy' means that Terri knows she's interrupting and is smoothing the path for interrupting her dad's work.

"I'm working on a weak infeed problem for a transmission line in central Georgia," he says.

He doesn't soft-pedal things, not for Terri nor for me. He learned that I will keep asking. I want to know specific tasks, if not how to do them, then at least what general things are going on, and when it comes to Terri, he doesn't treat her like a silly seven year old who's all concerned about pink ponies with flowing Technicolor manes or little dolls dressed in the latest slut-puppy fashions.

Terri knows what a transmission line is. So do I. Alan knows too, in intimate detail, and he says that Cindy's Dan is the real guru, but the two of them have a contract with a power company to clean up some power flow and protection issues. Most of civilization doesn't think about things like this. My husband makes them work right. Interesting. He discusses what he's doing in simple terms.

"It's not a problem with hardware," he says. "It's a problem with what happens when the hardware occasionally fails and we want to understand how it's going to look to the equipment that monitors and protects the system. That's all math."

Terri's head bounces. "More than 'If I have five apples and Jose has six apples', I bet."

"Only slightly," he said. "There are formulas that apply. We have to figure out which ones, and what numbers to plug in."

I'm seventeen and I know more about the term 'national power grid' than 99.9% of the population. Hah! So Terri and I leave Alan alone with his workstation and go back to the kitchen. She helps me build dinner and then says "Tina, I'm gonna see what Shara is doing."

I looked at her. "Call. But don't be a pest, okay?"

She looked at me. "I won't. You know she's over here a lot too."

"I know." Shara was neat to have around. Her single mom used us to free herself up for the occasional date. Of course, Shara spending the night meant that more than once I or Alan had to attempt to stifle the giggles of two seven year olds past their bedtime. "Uh, tell her mom that if she's not going out tonight, she's welcome to eat dinner with us."

"I can do that," Terri said. She pulled an iPhone out of her pocket and called Shara's house. "Hi, Mizz Worsham. Is Shara there?" Pause. "Hi, Shara, whatcha doing?" Pause. "Yeah! I'll be over. Just a second. Tina wants to talk with your mom." She handed her phone to me.

"Hi, Mizz Worsham," I said. "It appears that Terri is heading your way. I got dinner on. You and Shara are welcome to eat with us around five if you want."

"Oh, that's wonderful," she said. "Saves me from cooking. It's been a bad week, and we had cereal for breakfast and sandwiches for lunch and I feel bad if Shara doesn't get a hot meal."

"Oh, I understand. We're glad to have you over. Five?"

"It's a deal," she said. I hung up and handed the phone to Terri. "Okay, kiddo. Go on. And don't be a pest or a smart-aleck."

"I won't." She looked at the clock. "Couple hours, then." Smile. "Or I'll call before I come home." And as knowing a look as can be generated in a seven year old mind. When the front door closed behind her, I walked over to Alan.

"Did I just hear our daughter taking off for a couple of hours?"

"Yes," I said with a little giggle.

"And she made a point of telling you it was a couple of hours?"

"Right again."

He stood and turned around, scooping me off the floor into his arms. I squealed. "Alan!"

"Tina!" he squealed back. And he walked into the bedroom and deposited me in the middle of our bed.

I spread my legs to get him between them, feeling his hardness through our clothing. I knew that I had only a short time before I'd be soaking through. I spent some of that time with my lips welded to his, then we parted and undressed.

That makes a playground for each of us. I felt his hands and mouth exploring me like he was starving and looking for the source of nourishment. I happily let him experiment with my body and after a few wildly wonderful experiments on my mouth and my neck and my nipples and breasts, he found his way to my pussy. By this time I was sure I was on the verge of creating a puddle. His "Mmmmmmm" between laps of his tongue told me that he found what he was looking for.

That is it might have told me that, if I was still in this universe. I love Alan. I love his mouth on my body, but especially there where he was teasing my button between the tip of his tongue and his teeth. First orgasm. I tried being quiet. Almost succeeded. Second one, though, I couldn't. I squealed. Moaned. Thrashed under his tongue.

When I came down, my hands scrabbled at the sides of his head, urging him upward to me. When his lips met mine, his hard prong parted that other set of lips and he went into me where I was waiting, wanting.

We were both primed for this one. My third one, he knew, was only a few thrusts away, coinciding with any amount of time he wanted. I pushed my hands against his chest, a sign he correctly reads as 'Tina wants to be on top.' Wrapping my legs around him to keep him inside me, we roll over and I rise up astraddle him. I can lean back and know, now, I can feel him deep inside me, and I know that a few little wiggles and thrusts and if I want, I can have him jetting fire inside me, feeling him pulse.

I look at this man that I have under my power at this moment. Yes, he's more than adequately handsome, and he's a good provider for me, and all those things. And I love him. Absolutely love him. And so I wiggle. If I tilt my pelvis forward just a little, my button's rubbing the base of his dick on each stroke and that means another one for me. I can just barely remain conscious enough to read myself and him and when I feel his thrusts upward take a sharp note, it's time. A few moves at just the right speed and I'm coming and when I do that, I drag against him and 'BANG!' I feel the first jet deep inside me. I can time my surges with his and after the first three squirts, he's up for some slow strokes that seem to prolong ecstasy for both of us.

I lower myself onto his chest and we kiss in a cloud of bliss.

"I love you, Tina Addison," he says. As if I didn't know.

"I love you, too, Alan Addison." I know that if I go down on him right now, he's soaking with the juices from our coupling, and almost from the first time we made love, so many months ago, I have enjoyed that taste. I've heard that some women object to that, but I'm not one of them.

Now, I'd be perfectly satisfied to just slide down there and catch his softening dick in my mouth and suck him dry and then slurp up everything else, but I never get to do that. When I start to move, he says, "I get some, too." So I spin around and he starts licking me while I do him. That creates one little issue: his tongue and my button. I just barely make it to the end of my task before he has me coming again.

This time, though, I just turn around and nestle into his side, his arm around me. We give each other a somewhat sticky kiss.

"You're not tired of me yet?" he asks.

"I'll never be tired of you, guy," I tell him. "But a little nap right now, that's a different story."

He kissed me, we configured ourselves, dragged the bedsheet over us, and napped. Alan woke up first, kissed me awake, which is a truly wonderful thing, and we did a quick shower to get the smell of unrestrained sex off us.

Alan went back to his project and I went back to the kitchen, taking care of preparation for dinner.

Next thing I knew was a pair of hands tickling the sides of my neck, followed by kisses. "I didn't marry you to keep you in the kitchen, you know."

I laughed. "I know. Only a short while ago, I was in the bedroom, you know..."

He turned me around for a GOOD kiss. "You know what I mean."

"And you know that despite the extraordinary path before us today, when I signed on with this little outfit I was going to be perfectly happy being a housewife to you. So I get to do this and all those other things."

"You're so darned perfect that it hurts, little one," he said.

I was thinking 'kiss me and say that again' when the phone rang. Susan's ring.

"Hi, Susan," I said.

"Hi. Did I catch you at a bad time?" her giggle was just a little lascivious.

"Uh, no! We have a daughter. It's not like we can run around nekkid all day."

Giggle. "No matter how much fun that is," she said. "Besides, your daughter is at Shara's house."

"And you know this because..."

"Because Jason wanted me to see if we could borrow her for a movie. There's a new animated feature out."

"And she told you..."

"To come over for dinner with you and Alan and Shara and Shara's mom and we'd go to the movies afterward if Shara could go with us."

"My daughter is a couple of short steps from world domination," I said. I looked at Alan. He was smiling.

"Well, come on, then. I have plenty enough for dinner. Just won't have leftovers to save this time," I said. That was Grandma's teachings: Make a big pot in case company drops in, and if they don't, save it and have leftovers the next day. I was happy with that, and so was Alan.

"We'll be there. Jason likes your cooking. I like your cooking, and I'm a little jealous that I can't cook like you do. Gotta satisfy my man."

I giggled. "I'm thinking that three weeks into marriage he could care less if you gave 'im peanut butter sandwiches..."

Susan laughed. "Gotta keep 'is strength up, you know..."

"Still having fun..."

"Ogoshyes!" Susan said in her typical rush. "If I'd've known it was this good, I think I'd've raped him the first time I got him alone." She paused. "Not really. But gosh, it's soooo good. We'll see you at what? Five?"

"Five works," I said. "Love ya."

"Love ya too! Bye!" Click. Just like that, Susan was gone and I turned to my husband.

"We've been Susaned." He laughed.

"Oh, yes. They're coming over for dinner. Our daughter has taken advantage of her uncle's weakness for movie animation. We give 'em dinner, they take Terri and Shara to the movies."

"Leaving us alone for the evening..."

I smiled. "We used to be able to find ways to entertain ourselves on evenings alone."

"All our evenings used to be alone," he said. "Now..."

"We've got wonderful friends and family and we still get evenings like this. And we've already had a wonderful afternoon. Do you think we can have an equally wonderful evening?"

"A good meal will help me keep my strength up," he said.

"I'm hungry for you, that's all," I told him. Then that kiss I needed.

Susan and Jason arrived first for dinner. That meant that when Terri came through the door she ran squealing into Susan's hugs, then slid over and kissed Jason on the cheek. Mizz Worsham smiled.

"Interesting family you have here, Alan," she said.

Only a little, Judy," he answered. "Tina and Susan adopted each other as sisters, so that makes Susan Terri's aunt. And Jason's the uncle."

"Still kinda different," she said. "But at least Terri has a loving daddy." Shara's absent father was still a sore point with Judy. We'd talked a little, started when she was curious as to how I ended up with a daughter only ten years younger than me. Or a husband twenty-odd years older. "I'm jealous," she said. "Good prospects are rare around here."

"They're rare everywhere," Alan said. "I'm proof of that. And until that morning in a Louisiana eatery, I wasn't even looking."

"Neither was I," I said. "Just happened."

"Well, it would be nice if it happened to me and Shara," Judy said. She looked at her daughter. "She's gonna miss her buddy when y'all move. Good buddies are hard to find, too."

"We know," Alan said.

A little small talk later, Susan and Jason and the two youngsters were out the door and Judy was heading to her apartment with prospects to meet with her current boyfriend. We agreed to provide Shara with an overnight place. Clothes? Shara and Terri were close enough to where that didn't matter.

Wow. Me and Alan. Alone. Twice in the same day. Happy couple in the shower. Getting out, while he shaved, I dried my hair, let him brush it. Yeah, 'let him'. It's neat how he gets so turned on. Especially when he finished brushing and I put my hair up in two little ponytails.

"You're really trying to get to me, aren't you?" he smiled.

"Do I need to try?"

He shook his head, smiling. I didn't bother putting clothes on. After all, everything that I am belongs to this guy. And everything he is, belongs to me. And right now I have a particular interest in something pink and hard and already leaking a little bit.

The movie thing was going to keep us alone for at least three hours. We used two of them up doing interesting and exciting things to and with each other, took a post-sex shower, after which I had to giggle and push my guy away so we didn't get started again, and we were curled up on the sofa watching a movie together when Susan knocked on the door.

I let her and the crew in, Alan thanked Jason for the movie evening, and we shuttled the two girls through baths and into bed.

"And don't think you're gonna stay up all night talking and giggling," I said.

Shara and Terri exchanged glances. "We'll be quiet, Tina," Terri said.

Terri doesn't lie to me, but her abilities to comply with that particular instruction were only slightly suspect. And mostly complied with.

My husband and I finished our movie and went to bed., wrapped up together, adjusted ourselves into familiar configuration, and went to sleep.

The wake-up came in the form of Terri sliding under the covers with us on my side and Shara sliding in on Alan's side. It was a happy, dreamy sort of family wake-up. Alan got up quickly, though, leaving Shara to slide over to sandwich me between her and Terri.

"I like to get in bed with Mom in the morning," she said. "I hope you don't mind."

Terri said, "She doesn't mind. I get in bed with her and Dad a lot. Sometimes they let me sleep in here with them."

"Mom never lets me sleep with her if a guy is over," Shara said. "But she hasn't kept a guy over for a long time."

"Your mom is trying her best to be a good mom," I said. "It's not easy when she has no husband."

"I know," Shara said softly. "But she does try."

"Dad's doin' bacon," Terri said, obliterating the tender moment. "Let's go get some!"

And off the two of them went. I went into the bathroom, ran a wet cloth over my face, put my clothes on, and joined them in the kitchen.

"Omelets," Alan said. "You want to do toast?"

"We can do toast, Dad," Terri said. "Tina, can you do cocoa?"

"June isn't usually a cocoa month," I said. That got me a duet of "Pleeeeease!" and I made cocoa. And a pot of coffee was already assembled, waiting for me and Alan. After breakfast, a group effort had the kitchen squared away and the house straight.

Shara called her house to see if her mom was up, then headed home. Terri immersed herself in some nature show on TV and I cornered Alan in the laundry room.

"You got out of bed pretty fast for a Sunday morning," I said.

"I know," he answered. "But I was uncomfortable with Shara snuggled up against me. I'm sure she didn't know what she was doing, but she threw her leg across me..."

"And I know how you get in the morning," I said smiling. "I always looked at it as a good thing. But I can see..."

"Yeah. I hope she didn't notice."

"I don't think so," I replied. And I gave that offensive bit of his body a squeeze.

"I do so much love you, Tina," he said, scooping me in against him for a kiss.

Terri's voice. "I'm happy that you have Tina, Dad. Talkin' with Shara makes me know what I have."

I turned out of Alan's grasp and picked up Terri's lithe form, depositing her on top of the washer. "And I'm so glad I have a wonderful bit of Terri in my life."

"I try not to get in the way, you know," Terri told us. "I know that sometimes Shara gets in the way of her mom and her mom's boyfriend. That's why she comes over here so much."

"You're never in the way, baby," Alan told his daughter. "People have been married and had kids around forever. And life goes on."

"I know," Terri said. "But I know that with Mom she used to get mad at me. You don't, do you?"

"Never," Alan said. "And neither does Tina. We're a family."

Terri's nose wrinkled, something that comes with a really happy smile. "Yes we are, aren't we? My dad. My Tina. Me." Then a little cloud passed over her countenance. "But I hope Mom gets well enough so I can talk to her and visit her. But I want to live here. Or Alabama. Or wherever my dad and my Tina live."

I couldn't help but plant a kiss on top of her head.

We packed a bag of snacks and headed off to a park only a half-hour drive from the apartment. This time I let Terri sit between me and her dad. Sometimes she pushes me to sit by him. I think it's cute. She says it's harmonious and I'm wondering where a seven year old girl gets off using words like 'harmonious' and then she starts in talking about conversations with Cindy about writing.

That's a hoot.

"Did you know that I end phrases with prepositions?" she'd asked me. "Cindy says we all do."

I took a deep breath. I was snagged by Cindy through my seven year old stepdaughter. "You're right, sweetie," I said. "Did she talk about vernacular and colloquial usage?"

Blonde head bobbed. "I'm probably the only third grader in the state that knows what those are and how they're different."

I had to laugh.

"You think I'm strange," she said.

"Not at all, precious, " I said. "I think you're very intelligent and when you talk with Cindy it's like taking a bucket of gasoline in one hand and a lit match in the other. So what did Cindy tell you?"

"She explained to me what it meant and how we did that. She says it's important to consider who you're conversing with, or, " giggle "for whom one is writing, and structure one's language appropriately."

Alan looked at me across the top of Terri's head. Shook his head just a little.

Terri continued, "Cindy says..."

"The Gospel According to Cindy," Alan laughed.

"Daa-aadd! Cindy's funny and smart, just like Tina. Tina, you're the one who told me to talk to Cindy about writing and grammar, remember?"

"I did."

"Well, Cindy says that it's good to use language properly, but to remember that it's easy to make people uncomfortable if they think you're talking down to them. But you don't have to sound like you're a hick, either." She smiled. "You and Dad speak well. I notice, you know."

"Thank you," I said. "My grandma tried to instill good grammar in me."

"It worked," she said.

"We're trying to do the same to you," Alan said.

"It won't be that difficult," Terri said. "But I get to twist it to my own use, Cindy says."

Alan shook his head. "We gotta call-block Cindy's number."

"No way!" Terri said. "And you know it. Everybody loves Cindy!"

"Especially her Dan," I said.

"Yeah," Terri stated. "I was telling Shara about Cindy and her mom heard. She says a lot of people think that it's wrong for a fourteen year old girl to be married." She paused. "But you're only seventeen and you're married."

That got me another look from Alan. We, he and I, had talked more than once about how all this appears to Terri. "It's going to be very difficult to tell her 'do as I say, not as I do, ' when she asks," he'd said.

"And she will ask, because that little head is full of curiosity and analysis. Still, Alan, I did right marrying you."

"We just have to be careful in how we present it to Terri. And now that she knows Cindy and Nikki, I'm sure that..."

"That she looks at all of them and sees what common elements there are," I said. "We all had the 'rotten mom' syndrome. Terri's not having that. Nor is there a, let's see, Cindy got abandoned, basically. Nikki was rescued from a collapsed building. I was the first prize in a shootout."

He laughed. "Yes, you are indeed first prize."

"So what's Terri's story gonna be?" he asked.

"She's going to grow up in an atmosphere where those closest to her are in loving relationships that value intelligence and personality, and when she's of the proper age..."

"At least eighteen," he injected.

"When she's the proper age," I continued, "she will meet a partner who will be her match intellectually and emotionally. You'll be a proud dad and I'll be a proud mom."

"And we all live happily ever after," he laughed.

But back to the front seat of the truck. "Nikki does kayaks," Terri announced.

"Yeah, I talked with Dan about it. Maybe when we get to Alabama. Maybe you can go with Nikki and see if it's something you'd like."

"I have to like something, you know," she said. "I'm too little to fly."

Chapter 10

Jason's turn:

I won't bother you with details of my recent marriage and honeymoon. In the stilted language of business correspondence, the results exceeded expectations. In the language of Jason, who went to sleep some nights completely drained, Wow! Just wow! I kind of deduced that Susan would not be the 'shy virgin' type. She had the 'virgin' part, to be sure, but shy? Susan was not shy the first time I laid eyes on her. She was happy and bubbly and sassy and bright. Having her as my wife just gives us a whole new avenue to share with one another.

Okay, that's all you get of that. We got back from the honeymoon, showed up at her mom and dad's place, invited Alan and Tina and Terri over, and we shared dinner together with me fighting my father-in-law for control of the barbecue grill.

And we got back into living. In three weeks Susan is supposed to go talk with the people at Auburn. I'm going, too. I don't fool myself. Susan's there because of high scores and good grades and she's already got a pretty good chunk of a scholarship.

Me? I'm going to find out how I go about correcting an error I made when I listened to the wrong kind of 'friends' at school. They talked me into pursuing a technology degree instead of going whole hog after an engineering degree. Because "Dude, that math stuff will eat your ass up!" and I believed them. Don't get me wrong here. I've done pretty well with the degree I did get. I've never missed a day of work. I have a good reputation and that makes me awfully portable if I needed to be.

Lately, though, I've worked with some really good engineers and they seem to think I should go for the next rung on the ladder. So does Susan. And truthfully, I've often regretted not having that degree instead of the one I have. So I'm going for it. The conversation with Auburn is going to be about how I can take what I have and move up. I don't delude myself. Work is going to be needed.

This time, though, college will be different. No loser buddies. No partying. A support network beyond anything I imagined the first time I went to college. Then, I had to hunt down a group. This time, I have three experienced engineers and FOUR fellow students, all of them in the stratosphere of intelligence.

That's future, mid term. Right now I'm packing up my stuff and so is Susan. I am putting on my engineering technician hard hat, taking my cutie of a wife along as an unpaid intern, and we're going on a job together.

Dan 1.0, that's Dan Richards, has some contacts at a big electrical utility company and they want some work done for some changes to the power grid. That's fun stuff. No, it's not 'dirty' work at all. We have to go to a bunch of electrical substations all over north Alabama and plug a computer in to each of several protective devices and download the programming from each of them. I figure a couple of weeks will do it. I bring Susan along, she gets to see the real work, gets familiar with some of the hardware, and neither of us has to spend the night alone. Plus, all those miles of driving, I have Susan to talk with.

Of course, this has the side effect of arousing a bit of happy jealousy among the other members of the sisterhood. Cindy spent enough time on Dan 1.0's project to be known as The Engineer's Apprentice, but Nikki has only been to a few conferences with Dan 2.0 and Tina visited our project in Tennessee only a couple of times, both with Susan and a group of high school students.

Susan's eighteen, though. That makes her old enough in the eyes of federal regulations to be able to show up as a worker on industrial and utility sites, so naturally she's signed on as a summer intern. She has a company ID card, her own hard hat and safety shoes, and she really looks good in a pair of jeans and a work shirt.

One thing I've gotten used to with Susan is that she has sisters, three, all of them 'adopted', and they stay in constant contact. Tina, of course, still lives fifteen minutes away in our little town in Tennessee, but now Nikki and Cindy are in an RV park outside of Auburn, Alabama waiting for the apartments to be finished so we can all move in.

Between unlimited minutes on cellphones and the nightly Skype sessions on the computer, they laugh and giggle and share their lives. I know that Susan's sisters have more to share since we've been married. No, they don't talk about sex all the time. They're actually kind of circumspect about it, but now that Susan's a member of that club, too, I know they've giggled their way through some stuff together.

And tomorrow morning we're headed down into Alabama. We have a reservation at a decent hotel for two days, then another for the rest of the week. We expect to come home after we finish on Friday, and go back down next week.

Tonight we were in Alan's trailer, still my temporary home, and now forever etched in the minds of me and my wife as our first home after marriage. The TV was on in the background and she had her laptop open waiting for the Skype chime. It came, and out of the corner of my eye I saw her with three windows open, the faces of Cindy, Nikki and Tina in them, and in Tina's, I saw Terri look in, wave and disappear.

"So you're really going, huh?" Cindy said.

"Uh-huh," Susan answered. "I'm going. But it's not my first job, you know. I worked summers and weekends with Dad and Mom."

"Yeah," Nikki jumped in, "but this is really electrical stuff. I'm envious."

"Me too!" Cindy and Tina said together, then they giggled at the synchronicity.

"Oh, Jason says it's not that big a deal. We plug in a laptop, do a download, that's all."

"But you get to see the inside of those places. I've only seen pictures," Nikki said.

"And we just got to see industrial substations, except for the utility substations for our new plants," Cindy said. "This will be soooo good. You need to take lots of pictures."

"I will," Susan promised.

As for myself, I was tickled to see the excitement these four found for the work I loved.

It was the end of a good day, made so much the better since I joined my blonde cutie in bed. Married two weeks now and I was happier than I'd ever been in my life. As we slid off to sleep, cuddled together after some joyous love-making, with that blonde head on my shoulder, I thought that it had NEVER been this good before.

The alarm pulled us awake at six-thirty. Here's where there is room for friction. Two people with a definite purpose in the morning in a tight space can do that. I let her have the toilet first while I brushed my teeth and then we traded places. She spent a bit of time in front of a mirror with a hairbrush, presenting me with that shiny, fresh-scrubbed look that I just adored. We secured the place, loaded up our bags, and headed out the door, breakfast at a local diner the only thing between us and a road to a new adventure.

And I wasn't surprised when I pulled into the parking lot and saw Alan's pickup there. We met him and Tina and Terri inside and sat together for breakfast.

"Nothing you haven't done before," Alan said, referring to the job.

"Except this time he has a cuter helper than he's ever imagined," Tina laughed.

"Intern!" Susan corrected. "I am a pre-freshman intern."

"Yeah," Jason said. "Aside from the fact that we're married."

"I'm happy you're married, Aunt Susan," Terri said. To me she added, "Uncle Jason, I like going to the movies with you an' Susan."

"I'm glad you do. People don't look at me funny when it's me and you and Susan," I said. I didn't add that they both punched me for laughing too loud at the movies.

When the breakfast crowd broke up in the parking lot, from all the hugs and kisses you'd have gotten the idea that Susan and I were leaving to find the headwaters of the Nile or something. Susan caught me laughing as we got in the truck and I told her.

"Just as well get used to it," she said. "This is the community. It's kind of like an big extended family."

"It could be a lot worse group," I said.

"It has been for some of us, Jase," she said. "I've heard the stories. I'm the normal one of the bunch of us girls."

"I've heard bits and pieces," I said. "Some women aren't made to be mothers. I think I was married to one of those. Was. No, it's different. You're so much different."

Yes, I and my cutie had been over the subject of offspring. She was for it. So was I. We even discussed when such a thing would happen, and had decided that she would get pregnant after she's been out of college a year. "And we'll do honor to our parents if we can do as good as they did with us," she'd said.

When I recounted that conversation to Dad, I think he had a catch in his voice. "Son, she sure sounds like a good one."

And so far, so good. Now we were going to see how we liked working together. We do quite well in the truck, driving. I'm driving, she's as close as she can get to me, and the girl's got active hands and she seems to really enjoy getting me hard. It never takes long. Once we're on the open road, she started teasing, tickling.

"You're making it hard to drive," I said.

She giggled. "It IS hard."

"You know what I mean."

She looked at me with those big blue eyes twinkling. "D'ya really want me to stop?"

"No."

"Is this too much?" she asked as she pulled my zipper down.

"No." I gasped a little as she freed my dick from its hiding place.

"I love every second where I get to do this, Jason," she said.

"Susan, baby, I love every second that you do it, and when you're not, I have to be careful about daydreaming..."

"I know" she smiled. "I get that way about you, too." She had me completely hard, sticking out of the fly of my jeans. She started working my belt buckle.

"What are you doing, little girl?" I asked.

"Wanna get more of it," she giggled as she unsnapped my pants, spreading them open. She stuffed my erection back through the fly of my shorts then pulled then down. Okay, I raised up a little bit, just to help. So here I am, rolling down the road, cruise locked in on seventy, with my pants down around my thighs, an erection, and wiggly, giggly blonde with her hand sliding up and down my shaft.

"You know what I need to do, don't you, honey?" she said, ginning.

"I have no idea." Okay had quite a few ideas.

She squeezed and milked a drop of pre-cum out of the head of my dick.

"Oooo, you're leakity!" Her fingertip gathered the clear, sticky droplet. She made sure I was looking when she stuck that finger in her mouth. "Mmmmmm! I love that. I am not going to even ask if you've ever been sucked while you're driving." She knew some of what I had for a relationship with my long-gone first wife. Honestly, with the first, sex had not been that good. I just didn't know it at the time, because I was a virgin on my wedding night. I have since learned that there is good sex and bad sex, and then there's sex with Susan, which is a whole different dimension.

"I haven't, baby!"

She grinned broadly. "Can you scoot the seat back and still drive?" I moved the seat back as she eased down onto her stomach. I watched that blonde head going down, and heard and felt the vibrations of "Mmmmmm" as she sucked me into her mouth. Her head popped up and she giggled "I can't believe we're doing this!" and she bobbed back down. I ran my free hand over her head, stroking that blonde hair that I adored, then I ran that hand down the curve of her back to feel that sweetly rounded ass. Her tongue was working magic on me, her head bobbing, the suction continuous.

I don't know how a professional might administer a blow-up and I will never find out, because my wife was making love to me with her mouth and I could feel the fire building. She bobbed free again. "Somebody's excited, hmmmm?" and she engulfed me again.

I barely maintained consciousness when I came. She made sure there was no mess afterwards by the delightfully expedient method of sucking me until I was soft, then getting hard again.

When she sat up, she was giggling. "I can't believe we did THAT!"

"Oh, god, me neither. That's the first time I ever had sex with a co-worker."

"Is not," she said. "I've been your co-worker for a week now." She was right. Cindy's Dan had her on the employment roster a week ago.

"Okay, it's the first time I ever got sucked while I was driving and..."

"First time you ever came while you were driving..." Her tongue flicked out of her mouth to collect an invisible drop. "And my first, too. For all of it."

"I almost ran off the road," I said.

"I thought about that, but I had your thing in my mouth and I didn't wanna stop," she giggled. "But now we know it's possible, huh?"

"Uh, yeah," I said. "I've always heard about that, but..."

"But you needed me to make it happen." She rose up a bit to kiss my ear. "You are the outlet for every fantasy and sexual exploration I ever had."

I had to smile. First wife was not exactly the poster girl for chastity before we met, but when it came to being even a bit adventurous, she wasn't, at least not with me. In the bit over two weeks of being married to Susan, I'd run out of ideas. If it could happen between one male and one female and didn't involve making permanent marks, we'd done it, at least as far as both of us knew. I'm sure there are some things left, but I can't think of them. Except anal. I didn't have particular desire for it, not with that tight, wet, pink, delicious opening only inches in front. So I wasn't bringing that subject up.

We drove onward. "I don't know how I could repay such a thing, sweetie," I told her.

Her blonde head was resting against my shoulder. A giggle escaped. "Well, you can't do THAT! All my plumbing is incorrectly configured. Maybe if I was a guy..."

"I've traveled a lot of miles with a lot of guys and THAT never happened," I said.

"Okay then," she said. "I guess my turn will come in the middle of a big bed and clean sheets and room to move around." She paused, looked at me. "I'm okay with that." She wiggled and I heard the sound of the zipper on her jeans. She took my free hand and pushed it into the direction of her panties. "Or this." Giggle.

Okay. I can do this. The destination was hot and juicy. That's good with a hamburger. It's ever so much better when it's a giggly, happy blonde girl. The truck ate up another ten miles of highway before she keened through an orgasm, ending with a sigh. She slumped back against me.

"Oh, yeah. That works." Sigh. "But not if I'm driving. I KNOW that I lose consciousness." She paused. "A little tickle would be okay, though."

Another half-hour and we were at a regional service center for the utility company. The two of us walked in, introduced ourselves to the administrator and were directed back into the hallway to meet the supervisor who would assist us in our tasks.

The sign outside the door said Robert Stevens. I knocked.

"Oh, don't knock! Just barge in. Everybody else does!" he said from behind his desk.

"Hi. I'm Jason Ellerbee from 3Sigma Engineering. This is Susan Ellerbee. Engineering intern."

He stood, extending his hand. "I'm Bob Stevens. Glad to meet the two of you." He eyed me and then Susan. "You two have the same last name. She's not your sister, is she?"

"No sir," Susan said with a smile. "I'm his wife. I'll be an Auburn University engineering student in the fall. This gets me into the family business."

"Auburn," he said. "The area manager's an Auburn man, so I guess I won't go on about your choice." He looked at me. "What about you?"

I named the little university I'd attended in Texas.

"I've actually heard of it," he said.

"But I'll be going to Auburn, too. Fleshing my degree out to a double E. (Author's note: 'Double E' is a degree in Electrical Engineering) Can't have a wife better educated than me."

"Oh, son," he said, "You'll never get ahead. Wives're supposed to be elevated above us. They're our civilizing influence, otherwise we'd be sitting in circles around a fire, thumping on logs in unison."

"Jason, I like this guy," Susan said with a giggle.

He smiled. Hard not to smile back at my Susan. "Are you two going to be here a few nights?"

"Yessir," I said. "I estimated we'll do two, maybe three substations a day. There are eight within easy drive from here. Looks like at least two nights here. That's what I have reservations for."

"If you want, you two can have dinner with me and my wife. I know all the decent restaurants."

I glanced at Susan, caught the crinkle in the corner of her eye. I know that sign. "Sure," I said. "That would solve the 'where's a good place to eat?' question."

"Are you two up for it tonight?"

"You have a wife you can just call up and say 'Stop cooking, we're eating out tonight.'" Susan said.

"I have a wife who's gonna walk into the house thirty minutes after I get home and wonder who's gonna cook," he laughed. "She works for a lawyer here in town. You're doing both of us a favor."

"Then we'd be delighted," Susan said.

"Great," Bob replied. "You have business cards?"

Susan whipped hers out before I got to mine. Bob laughed. "You're serious. It said 'Engineering Intern" on this card."

"I am serious, Mister Bob," Susan replied. "I've worked with my Dad in his rental business for years. I know all about mechanical and electrical things and I know some really great engineers. And Jason. So that's what I'm after."

"Very good!" Bob injected. "Are you up to it? I mean academically, it's a big step."

My turn. "She's in the top three of her graduating class in high school. ACT in the thirties. If she can't, I can always keep her at home with five or six kids."

"Stoppit!" she giggled.

"Well, good," Bob said. "On the work stuff, you're getting started in the morning?"

"Yessir," I said. "What time do you want us here?"

"Seven-thirty is when we start. I'll pass you off to one of our substation mechanics and you can follow him to the substation. He'll let you in. He's got station checks to do."

"Okay," I said. "We'll be here. What time for dinner?"

"Where are you staying?"

Susan named the hotel.

"That's a good one. We'll call you when we're out the door. There's a great place just up the road from there. We can meet in the parking lot. It'll be pretty close to six. Is that okay?"

"Perfect!" Susan said. "Looking forward to it."

I looked over to the door. There was a guy waiting there for Bob. "Okay, we'll get out of your way then. See you around six."

We left and checked into the hotel. That's a pleasant move. Bags on the floor, me getting pushed backward onto the bed with Susan on top of me in a kissing mood. Plenty of time for intimate recreational activities followed by a shower to erase the olfactory evidence. So that's exactly what we did. Still had time for her to pull out the iPad and catch up on email.

At 5:30 my phone rang. I didn't recognize the number, but when I answered it, the voice was familiar. "Hello, Bob," I said.

"Hi, Jason," he answered. "We're fifteen minutes out. You're still coming?"

"Absolutely," I answered. "Let me push Susan out the door."

"See y'all in a bit, then."

I regarded my wife. Informal, Susan does quite well. Those extra pounds really change a set of jeans from something on a scarecrow to something you want to peel off with your teeth, and her choice of a rugby shirt like mine (with different colors) and athletic shoes and she looked to me like an advertisement for the All-American Girl.

"Not too informal, is it?" she asked.

"Look at me. I'm wearing the same thing," I said. "We match."

"Like Legos," she giggled. "Your protrusions match my indentions." She stepped into my arms to emphasize the point and kissed me. "Let's go meet some friends."

That was one way that Susan makes me a better person. I admit to not being the most socially adept sort of person, where Susan's just bubbly and a bit of an extrovert. She is always ready with a wave and grin and a few words back at her home where she was pretty well known, and on the road on our honeymoon, she was in even a better mood. I just went along with it. I'm starting to feel more comfortable with doing that myself.

Okay. Dinner. Bob's a nice guy. So's his wife. Same age, maybe late fortyish. Not skinny, not too fat, purse full of pictures of kids (grown) and grandkids (toddlers) and both willing to spend time chatting with two total strangers about life and work and Susan's high school and college plans. We left the restaurant after a good meal and even better conversation. We exchanged goodbyes in the parking lot and Susan and I headed back to our hotel.

"I used to never do that, baby," I told her. "I just wasn't very comfortable with strangers."

"How'd we ever get together?" she asked.

"Alan's too nice a guy to pass up an offer and you showed up that first night I was in town. The first time I saw you smile, heard you giggle, I was gone."

"Tell me that you love, me, Jason."

"I love you Suzy," I said. I'd heard the 'Nobody calls me Suzy but Grandma' speech and yet I looked at those laughing eyes and knew this was Suzy.

"Wait 'til I get you in the room. You're due to be punished for your insolence."

"I accept my fate," I said. "But don't punish me too much. We have work tomorrow."

"Yes, my baby," she said. "You're supposed to be my mentor. I shall be respectful and obedient." She paused with a giggle. "At work. Away from work, we're on the same footing. Except tonight. You've been a bad boy."

"For calling you 'Suzy'? Because you're cute and bright and the sun shines on you and you're this beautiful little girl and 'Suzy' just fits, like you're standing in a field with a wreath of daisies around your head like a crown? If that makes me due for punishment..."

"Ohhhh, dammit, Jason. You make me crazy. Hurry! Get us to the room!"

Chapter 11

Jason Ellerbee:

We woke up the next morning to the sound of the alarm clock. That's an assault I could do without. It's been a few weeks since I had to deal with that. Honeymoon was great because waking in the morning was simply due to bladder pressure and when I did awake there was a cuddly blonde Susan right beside me.

That 'Susan' part is still there, still cute, still cuddly. Bladder's still full. But the alarm is going off and that means the time is not mine any more. She turns over.

"Kill that darned thing, baby," are the first words out of my wife's mouth. "Then kiss me." Giggle.

One dead alarm. One kiss, augmented by various touches and squeezes. "I like where this could go, baby," I said, "but today you enter the wonderful world of electrical power technology."

"Mmmmmm, oh yeah."

We rolled off opposite sides of the bed and being ever the gentleman, I let her have the toilet first. This was the beginning of a learning experience as the two of us started figuring out each other's paths in the morning ritual of going to work. I saved one big step by my habit of shaving after the previous night's shower and Susan saved a bunch of time by her habit of brushing her hair into place and washing her face instead of some long ritual of applying pastes and powders and paints and sprays. Susan's complexion and hair just naturally do what a lot of women spend an hour and a lot of money to achieve.

She finished her preparation by putting her blonde hair into a ponytail that immediately had me salivating, and then she put on a chambray workshirt and jeans and safety-toed shoes and she looked a couple of orders of magnitude better in hers than I did in mine.

A diner up the road provided breakfast and shortly after the waitress brought the ticket back, we were pulling into the utility company service center. This time we knew where we were going. We drove through the gate to the rear of the service center and parked and walked past the clouds from the few smokers standing outside and went into Bob's office.

"Good morning, Mister Bob," Susan said before I could open my mouth.

"Mornin', Susan. Jason." He indicated the guy who followed us into his office. "This is Jeffrey Lloyd. You can call 'im Jeff. Or worse. He's one of our substation technicians. He's gonna take you to the substation and let you in."

"Hi, Jason," Jeff said. "Hello, Mizz Susan. Bob told me that you two were going to show up. Said some guy accompanied by a cute blonde gal."

"I'm anonymous. And identified by association with my wife."

"Ain't we all? Bob said. "Don't believe anything Jeff says bad about me. The boy lies."

"The boy knows too much," Jeff laughed. "If you need a bathroom run, now's the time. No facilities at the substation, unless you don't mind hiding behind a bush."

"Where's the ladies' room?" Susan said.

"Around the corner on the right," Bob said.

"I'll be back." She disappeared up the hall.

"I can do trees and bushes, but girls're different."

"Oh yeah," Jeff said. "We had a lady engineer come out last summer for a project. I think she over-compensated for being female. Her language was nothin' like a lady."

"That's a lady," I said. "In every sense of the word except she's going to Auburn for electrical engineering."

"That other gal was pretty good as an engineer," Jeff said. "Just that she thought she had to prove something with her language." He smiled. "Wasn't that good lookin', either. Your wife's ... How'd you end up with somebody like that?"

"Came with the last job," I said. "Sometimes even a blind hog finds an acorn."

Both of them laughed. I heard footsteps. "Stop talkin' about 'er. She's back," I said.

"Uh," she feigned disappointment. "I thought all you guys talked about was work!"

"Unless somebody finds a flower on the dirtpile." Jeff grinned. "Hey, that's it! Can we call you 'Flower'?"

Susan smiled. "That's cute!"

We followed Jeff out the back of the building. He got in his company pickup truck and we got in ours and followed him through the Alabama countryside. "You can get an idea of where we're heading by keeping track of the high voltage transmission lines," I said, mentoring my protege wife. "We're interested in the ends of the big ones. This little stuff on the side of the road is distribution."

"What voltage?" she asked.

"That's around thirteen or fourteen thousand volts. See the insulator? One bell. Eight thousand volts to ground." We passed under the curving droop of a transmission line. "This one's more like it. Those long strings of insulators are high voltage. We used to be able to count the bells on the insulator string and tell what voltage it was, but now they use these synthetic things and it doesn't work like that any more. But I'm betting that's a hundred and thirty-eight thousand volts."

"Ohhhh," she said. "Since you're not getting nervous, I assume we're completely safe?"

"What we have to do doesn't put us anywhere near that stuff, and anyway, we don't work on it live. We get it turned off. I'll give you a tour when we get to the sub."

She smiled. "Cindy said one of the things that really sold her on Dan was seeing him in his element. I get to see that now."

The substation wasn't exactly in the middle of nowhere, but if you stood on tiptoe you see it from there. Jeff unlocked the gate and let us in. We drove to the control house and waited until he joined us and let us in. I showed Susan a lot of different things and then we got down to work. The laptop came out along with a long cable so I wouldn't have to keep moving the computer.

"You don't need that long cable," Jeff said. "We have these things networked."

"I figured you guys would. But with this thing, I plug into each device and I know exactly which device I'm working on. I've seen some really horrible things happen because of a transposed address on a networked device."

"You have a good point," he said. "We try very hard not to make those sorts of mistakes, but they do happen. Tells me you have your head on straight about this stuff."

"Ain't my first rodeo," I said. "And thanks for noticing."

"So let me understand this," Susan said. She started questioning and I started explaining. Let the schooling begin.

After we'd downloaded the second device file, Jeff said, "Look, you're going to be here all day. I'll check back around lunchtime. There's a hamburger joint about ten minutes away if you want to go get something for lunch."

"Sounds good," Susan said.

He smiled at us. She was at the computer. "Hamburgers are good. Don't forget us here."

"I won't," he said. The door closed.

"I just started the download," she said. "There's a few minutes to kill." She smiled. It was a evil little smile. "So tell me, Jace, have you ever been kissed in a substation?"

I was in trouble. "No, cutey, I don't think I ever have."

That was quickly rectified. While it was being rectified, fingers curled over the growing lump in my pants. "Then you haven't had a LOT of things in a substation, huh?" Those blue eyes, yeah, the same blue eyes that trapped me only weeks ago, THOSE blue eyes were twinkling.

I heard as well as felt my zipper doing down. Nimble fingers slipped inside and I felt them on my dick, then a tug and it was in open air. "I'm going to suck this thing," she giggled. And she did.

"Susan! We're gonna get caught!"

She slurped free. "No we won't! Jeff won't be back for a couple of hours and you heard how much noise tires make in the gravel outside. Sit down so I can get you good."

I'm nothing if not obedient. I sat. She knelt. A couple more slurps, though, and that blonde head bobbed up, smiling. "I got an idea!"

"Oh, no!" I said.

She was unbuckling her jeans. "Oh, yes!" she turned around, her jeans and panties down, and backed into my lap. My erection found the very most perfect place in the universe. She sighed, started bouncing that sweet rounded ass on my lap, stroking me in and out of her, stopped. "Your pants are in my way. Pull 'em down!" She stood, leaving me longing.

I unbuckled my belt and slid my jeans down. "Okay, honey," I said. "Come back here."

Giggle. "No, you come back there!" and I was inside her again. I grasped her hips pulling myself into her. This time there was no stopping.

"OhGOD!" she said. "Push me HARD!"

I was in as deep as I could get, feeling her cervix bumping the head of my dick inside her and gosh Susan's pussy is the best place in the universe and my whole existence is centered right there and I'm coming!

"Oh, GAAAAAHHHHH! Susan!" I was a throbbing bit of ecstasy as surge after surge of fire pumped from me into her. I could tell from the little shudders that she was there with me. Finally we regained our respective composures and separated.

"I have kleenex in my bag," she said. "Can you reach it?"

Her bag was a concession to not wanting to carry a purse in the field. It was a little backpack. And it was just within reach without me getting up.

"We're gonna have to be careful. I could feel you pumping me. That's a gallon. And I was flooding. Another gallon." She fished a wad of tissue out of the bag. "When I raise up, plug me so I don't leak!" Giggle. She raised up. My dick fell out of heaven with an audible plop and I pushed the wad of tissues into the pink mound I'd just vacated. She put her hand down there, holding the towels, sopping the result of our happy coupling. The towels went into her bag.

"I'll go put that in the truck in a minute," she said. "We need to do something about you!" That evil little smile was back as she knelt. Eager lips and tongue cleaned me up and had me rapidly hardening again. She stood up, pulling her pants up, eyeing my erection again. "Save that one for tonight. The hotel has a pool, you know..."

I looked at the computer. "Download's finished," I said, getting a peal of laughter in return. "Whaa-aat!?!?!"

"Yes sir, you did indeed do a download, didn't you?" and she lasciviously licked her lip with that pink tongue that drives me crazy. "I'll go move the cable to the next one." She was fastening her jeans as she walked around the end of the equipment panel.

"Okay. Check the comm link," she said.

I did a couple of computer operations. Had to chuckle when I said, "We're in!" and realized yet another double entendre.

"Indeed we were, huh?" she said, pulling her folding chair next to mine. "Back to work. And, love?" she said.

"Yes, my sweetness," I replied.

"For the rest of our lives we'll remember that the first time we ever worked together, we fucked each other silly!"

"The language!" I blustered.

"You KNOW that's what this was. And I'm perfectly satisfied with a good old-fashioned fucking. It's quite proper between a husband and wife."

"But not in a substation," I said.

"Wherever," she giggled. "I'm glad it happened here. Today. Makes it special."

"Don't tell your sisters," I said.

"I won't tell 'em," she giggled. "I might ask 'em if they know who had sex on the job today, though."

"Baby," I whined.

"You know you're proud of yourself. I see the smirk you're tryin' to hide."

Okay, yeah. Something about being Susan's husband that makes me feel like shouting from the rooftops. Of course, some of my partners in this business might look askance at the recent activity. I conveyed that to Susan.

"Oh, I know, Jace," she said. "But you gotta know that this would put me one up on my sisters. Nikki's done it on the bank of a river in a park. So has Cindy. I think Tina's the least adventurous. Or she's not tellin'. And now I got this!" she kissed me, a quick peck. "Now, back to work!"

We went about the task with no particular hurry. The project was bid for a fixed price. Dan Richards told me that it was just as much a learning opportunity for Susan as he could think of, and to let her ask questions and answer them. I knew that if we'd rushed, we could have finished this station in one day. We weren't rushing. In addition to extracting and storing the files for Dan 1.0 (Neat! That's Cindy's Dan. 2.0 is NIkki's Dan), I opened one of them up and we talked about how some of it worked to protect this part of the power grid. It's interesting stuff to me. I was afraid that when faced with some of the realities of working in the field, Susan would find that it wasn't what she wanted. I was wrong.

At ten-thirty Jeff's tires crunched the gravel outside.

"See!" Susan said. "Obvious!" She was on the other side of the equipment panel, cable in hand, when the door opened and Jeff walked in.

"Y'all makin' progress?" he asked.

"Oh, yeah," I said. "And the IP addresses on the devices on this list don't correspond with the applications. It's not a problem with the protection, but it's kind of confusing from where I'm sitting."

"Yeah, you said you worried about that. Make it part of your report?"

"Planned on it," I said. "Those have to be changed from the front panel keypad, too."

"Yeah, I know," he replied. "Probably why it hasn't been fixed, assuming that somebody knew about it in the first place."

"That's why a strange pair of eyes will help sometimes," I said. "We don't make assumptions."

"Been burnt, huh?"

"Oh, yeah," I said.

He saw Susan coming around the corner. "How's your help working out for you?" he asked.

Susan chirped, "He's marginal." Giggle.

"She's learning fast," I said. "The hardware's not difficult. I've shown her some of the important parts of the files and how they work in the real world."

"And I've learned what a 'straight distance scheme' and a 'permissive overreaching transfer trip' and 'carrier channels' are. Interesting."

"Really?" Jeff asked.

"Sure," Susan said. "This is good stuff. If I'm gonna be a power engineer, don't you think it's neat getting exposed to these things for real? Oughtta make the classes come alive."

"I guess," Jeff said.

I smiled. This is my Susan. Disarmingly charming. Of course I saw that smile and felt the tingling of an aftershock. "What time's lunch?"

"When you get to a stopping point. If we get there at eleven, we avoid the lunch crowd."

"Okay," Susan said. "When we get this next one done, we'll be ready. Check the comm channel, Jace."

"Yes, ma'am," I said, sounding obviously subservient.

"She's got you trained. How long y'all been married?"

"Three weeks," she said proudly. "We got married the weekend after I graduated."

"I was there at her graduation. Third in her class, she was." Yes, I'm proud.

While we worked, the three of us talked, her school, my work history, things relating to the job. Finally I said, "Okay, that file's saved. Wanna go to lunch?"

"Yeah," he said. "Y'all drive out ahead of me so I can lock the gate."

"You can ride with us," Susan said. "There's room. I can sit in the middle."

"Sorry," Jeff said. "Gotta take my truck, in case there's an emergency."

"Oh, I guess that makes sense, huh?" she replied. "Okay."

"Is my laptop okay here?"

"Yeah. We'll lock the door and the gate. Haven't had any problem with intruders here."

Susan grabbed her bag, now sans the wads of tissue from the earlier activities. Those were safely disposed of in the truck. We were out the door and quickly out the gate, waiting for Jeff to secure things, then we followed him up the road. The burgers were as good as he'd said.

Afternoon was uneventful and at the end of the day we left, promising to meet Jeff the next day here at the sub. I had the location programmed into the GPS, making our return a sure thing. On the way home, Susan's phone rang. 'Rang' is the wrong word. It was a happy little tune of bluegrass, telling us that Cindy wished to converse.

"Hi, Cin!" Susan chirped. Pause. "Yes, I learned sooo much! It's all very new and interesting." Pause. "No, there's a simple network, but nothing like what you and Nikki set up." Pause. Gasp. Giggle. "I'm sure! We're at work! We can't do THAT!" Giggle. Pause. "Besides, I'm not supposed to tell you!" Giggle. Pause. "We're on our way back to the hotel." Pause. "Noooooo," Susan said petulantly, "there's no sense of urgency!" Pause. She feigned outrage. "Cindy Sue! I am SHOCKED! There's more to our relationship than just THAT!" Giggle. "But it's darned good!"

And that was the conversation my eighteen year old wife had with her fourteen year old friend.

She turned to me. "Jason Ellerbee, I totally love you, you know." She leaned her head on my shoulder. I circled her with my right arm.

"I'm glad, my princess, because I totally love you right back."

"Good," she said. "Feed me dinner. Then shower. Then bed."

That plan usually works rather well. Except that between shower and bed was the nightly Skype session.

"I'm not going to be here long tonight," Susan said to the screen of smiling faces. "I'm kinda tired."

"Hard day at work?" came a voice. Not Cindy's. Nikki.

"Uh ... Gee Cindy..."

Cindy's voice. "I didn't actually tell 'em."

I gave my daily activity report to two Dans and an Alan. I heard no indication that they had heard of the extracurricular activities, but with their wives giggling in the background here, I know it wouldn't be long before the word was completely out.

Susan and I closed our computers. She was smiling. "You've got way too much clothing on," she said. Okay, I can fix that. I was naked when I pulled the covers back on the bed.

I bowled her over onto her back and kissed her and got seriously kissed in return. "Jason, I am not the least bit ashamed of what we did at work today. You get me going, you know. And if there's a way, we're gonna do it."

"A little restraint is sometimes called for," I said.

"Oooooooh, I've heard of that," she giggled. "YOU gonna tie me up? Or do I tie YOU up?"

I laughed, relishing her sense of humor, her liveliness, as much as the physical aspects I was savoring right now. "Nothing to tie you to here. I guess I'll install tie-downs when we buy a bed for the new place."

Giggle. "Got it figured out," she said. "I'll tie YOU down, then get completely nude and tease you and tease you and when you're really really close, I'm gonna lay between your legs and tease this thing with my lips and tongue and turn you into my own creamy fountain." She underscored her intent by sliding down beneath me to trap my dick in her mouth. "Mmmmmmm," she purred.

"Let me get MY end," I said. Sixty-nine was something I experienced maybe three times in my first marriage. With Susan it's a revel, a feast, a joy.

As she toyed with my erection using her mouth, she carried on a narration. "This is just perfect for me, Jason. I love it." Her head bobbed down, pushing me between wetted lips, her tongue active. "Today I wanted to suck you inside out. But I wanted you inside me, too."

"I like 'em both, my dear," I said, "but I guess that as pretty as this little pink flower is..."

She squealed. "Did you just say 'flower'?"

"Uh-huh. It looks like a pink rose, with dew on the petals. Why?"

"Because Jeff said they were gonna call me 'Flower' this morning. Now if he does that, I am absolutely gonna turn bright red and faint on the spot."

"I'll have to remember that," I said, "So I can catch you before you hit the floor. But it is like a flower."

"Maybe an artichoke," she giggled. "You just suck on the leaves."

"Good idea," I said, sucking a fleshy petal into my mouth.

All that makes for a good night's sleep.

The rest of the week passed easily. Yes, Jeff did call her 'Flower' and she did turn red and nobody could understand why. "Y'all make me blush," she said coyly.

Friday we shut down our operation at lunch and drove home. Had dinner with my in-laws and Alan and Tina and Terri. I remember a whispering conversation between Tina and Susan followed by Tina hissing "You DIDN'T!"

Driving home, I asked the obvious question. My Susan smiled. "She thought I was kidding." She reached over and lightly teased the bulge in my pants. "It didn't feel like kidding to me. How about you?"

"Plumb serious on my side," I laughed.

One thing about being out of town for a week was that we were both behind on flying hours. I forked over extra bucks to get the instructor out on the weekend, Susan and I both being neck and neck, almost ready for our flight test. "You're close enough," the instructor said. "Wanna do next week?"

"Can't," I said. "Out of town for work. How about week after?"

"Just get you some hours this weekend. Practice your maneuvers. I'll fly with each of you next weekend and sign you off for the test."

Got a squeal out of Susan for that. Cindy's gonna be more jealous. But in a good way. And it's a milestone for the two of us. Flying is something that Susan and I started together. Now we need to look for a bit larger, faster plane. With us living in Alabama and her family in Tennessee and mine in Texas and work all over the place, the idea of personal aircraft was entirely too enticing. We'd already seen that with the graduation round robin a few weeks ago.

And on Monday we were on the road back into Alabama for work. Yeah, that conversation with Dan 1.0:

"Cindy sort of tells me that you and Susan ... in a substation?"

"Didn't know she had an adventurous streak," I said. "I couldn't refuse. It happened."

"You weren't worried about getting caught?"

"No," I said. "You know how those rural transmission subs are out in the middle of nowhere? This one was. And anybody coming in had to drive a quarter mile over gravel. You could hear them coming."

Snicker. "Could they hear YOU? Or Susan?"

"Oh, the client rep had to go do something. Told us he'd be gone for a couple of hours. You can imagine how long it took us."

"Uh-huh. Cindy's kind of adventurous, too."

"Well, I think Susan's got that out of her system, Dan."

"You're a big boy, Jason. You know what you're doing. And the risks."

"Spur of the moment, buddy. Won't happen again. And she said she had to keep up with Cindy and Nikki."

"Yeah," Dan said. "My perfect little wife and her sisters. She's looking at me right now and I'm sure she knows what we're talking about."

"Tell 'er we said 'hi'," I said.

I recounted the conversation to Susan. "I think Dan was trying to sound serious. After all, new business. We need to be careful of our reputation. Can't be turning the jobsite into a bedroom."

Giggle. "You didn't put up much of a fight, you know."

"I lost most of the blood to my brain. And you're supposed to be mature and level-headed, too."

"Says who?" she giggled. "I'm the blonde airhead of the bunch."

"Yeah, okay. I know all about your game, lady!"

"Well," she said, wrapping herself up in my arms. "Any game I play, you play with me. And you saw through me fast."

"But it's fun watching you, too, especially when I know the truth."

"And the truth? Your version?"

I kissed the angel in my arms. "You're amazing. Smart. Cute. And most of all, mine!"

And at the end of that week, the project, at least the part Susan and I owned, was over. And we were home. And Auburn was calling.

Chapter 12

Nikki's turn:

Cindy and I spent a good bit of time going over what had happened when she went to Auburn for interviews. Tomorrow was my turn. My Dan and I had even made a special point of meeting Mizz Patel for dinner. Cindy's right. The lady is a delight. So is her husband. I love their accents, too. And yes, she does know the family that's leasing a slot in our little strip mall for an Indian restaurant.

Cindy and I have had a great time since we moved into the same RV park. Aside from the fact that we sort of feed on each other's intellects, our two husbands are freed up a bit to, you know, actually work on things. In the meantime, we both got into the books together. Cindy showed me some of the math that she'd been playing with. When I told Dan what Cindy was playing with, he laughed, with a little bit of a nervous edge.

"What you two are talking about as playing is material that brings ninety-nine percent of the population to its knees."

I kind of laughed. "A lot of that population doesn't want to work with numbers at all," I said. I remember helping kids during the last school year, how some of them really wanted to learn and some of them just wanted to get enough knowledge to pass the tests. Cindy and I had talked about that too.

"I couldn't be a teacher," Cindy said. "I can teach. So can you. But real teachers don't have the choice we had, to only work with kids who wanted to be there learning. How do you think we'd handle walking into a classroom every day knowing that half the kids in it don't want to be there at all, and some of them do not have the good upbringing to keep from disrupting it for others?"

"I saw that with my own eyes," I said. "I know you have seen it too." That was just one conversation. We had others. We snagged a pair of Dans. That's almost always worth a giggle. Imagine! One of my best friends in the whole world, and her husband is a Dan, just like mine.

"Okay," I said. "Which one of you is gonna school us on, what's that term, Cindy?"

Cindy gets this grin when she's being all precocious about technical stuff. "Ladder logic."

My Dan looked at her Dan. "Buddy, did I just hear a fourteen year old girl ask for a class on ladder logic?"

Dan Richards shook his head. "Yeah, she's been doing that to me for almost a year now. If you mention something to 'er, you'd better be ready to either educate or get an education."

My Dan smiled. "Yeah, three days with Nikki and she was pointing out components on a on-line diagram."

"See!" Cindy giggled. "He actually DID marry you for your brain!"

Maybe so. And I did marry him for that. And a whole long list of other things, too. Decent guy. Responsible. Caring. According to my school friends, 'geeky hot', even to the point that one of them actually had the hots for him. And Dan found out when she put a move on him, and he's decent enough to let her down ever so gently.

So today Cindy and I are in our trailer and the guys are in Cindy's. They're working up some stuff on a documentation project. I'm cooking and talking Cindy through everything I'm doing.

"You were fortunate you had your grandma to teach you things like this. I know how to boil weenies and make mac and cheese if I have the box," Cindy said.

"I just know a few things, Cindy," I said. "Grandma showed me how to set up to do a few things with some simple ingredients and techniques. Once you get comfortable with that, you can pop out meals really easy." Cindy knew my whole story, about me waking up the first morning I'd stayed at Dan's house after the hurricane, how I'd gone in the kitchen and fixed breakfast for him and how he'd said it was the first meal in the place that he didn't cook himself. I knew Cindy's story too. And we both knew exactly how far ahead of getting married we'd been in our guy's beds.

And tomorrow I was going to go to Auburn and get interviewed. That's Dan's fault, you know, that whole 'Nikki's smart' thing. I really didn't know before Dan. I did know that I could sit off to the side of the classroom and half pay attention and make B's and C's and with those grades the teachers stayed off my back and Mom never got called to school. All it took was Dan saying, "Nikki, you're smart. Use it." And here I am.

But I'm in the trailer showing Cindy stuff. "Onions. Take an onion the size of a tennis ball," I said. "Chop it up. Heat the pot, put a little oil in there, then turn the heat down and let it get brown. You gotta do it slow."

"Is that sauteeing?" she asked.

"No, with sauteeing, you can crank the heat up. All you want to do with sauteeing is get the onion to sort of turn translucent. This is caramelizing. Different texture. Different flavor. You'll see. And the grease? That can be from the bottle. Or you can brown your meat if it's got enough fat, and use that grease. It's a whole different flavor." Dumping knowledge on Cindy is like dumping water on a sponge. She just soaks it up. Dan says I do, too.

So the four of us had rice and gravy. I was raised on the dish as were both Dans. It's pretty much a Cajun staple. Cindy was familiar with it. She looked at Dan 1.0, her Dan. "You make this, right, baby?"

"Yes I do," he said. "And this is a good one."

"Different than yours?" I asked.

"I try to keep some green onions around, chop 'em up and put 'em in near the end of cooking," he said.

"I do that too, but I didn't have any." I made a mental note adding another item to the shopping list for the week's supplies.

We didn't have leftovers this time. A cook likes that.

Monday morning Dan and I were up at seven and on the road to the campus to meet Mizz Patel at her office at nine.

"Good morning, Nikki," she said when we showed up. "Good morning, Dan. I'm sure that Cindy has given you her assessment of what happened to her." Aneeta smiled. "We are asking the same of you. Based on your information, though, we will bring in a gentlemen who heads our technology department tomorrow afternoon so that he may speak with you."

What could I say? I just smiled and said, "Yes, ma'am. I'm ready."

"Oh, Miss Nikki," she said, "This is not a test. We already look forward to having you with us at Auburn. We are only trying to determine where you will be when you enter our program."

"I only hope I place as well as Cindy," I said.

Mizz Patel smiled. "Ah, yes. Cindy is special. And she made the point of calling me several times about, as she calls you all, 'her sisters'." She turned her attention to Dan. "Mister Granger, Cindy tells me that she and Nikki networked a process control computer. How much help did you give them?"

Dan laughed. "I brought it home from an upgrade project, along with a stack of manuals. I turned Nikki loose on it. The only instruction I've given her was the things necessary to allow her to work safely around electrical power."

She looked at me. "I had to learn to measure voltages and currents and how to solder and crimp and a lot of other little manual tasks. And how to read the drawings and apply that information to the equipment before me. Cindy already knew some basic programming, so she started me off on that part." I giggled. "I automated the cat feeder."

Mizz Aneeta (lovely name!) smiled. "You will do well to talk with Mister Kevin Gales about some of that." She looked up. "Hello, gentlemen. Please come in."

Two men came in. Cindy told me what to expect, or rather who to expect. They introduced themselves The taller, older white guy was first.

"I'm Dr. Brendon Wilkins," He said. "And you're Dominique Granger. Nikki."

"Yessir," I said.

The short guy was obviously from the sub-continent. He had that lilting accent to go with it. "I am Dr. Ranjeet Ramathani, Miss NIkki."

"Pleased to meet you," I said.

"It's 'Mizz", Ram. Nikki is married," Doctor Wilkins said.

"I am sorry, Mizz Nikki. I do remember reading that in your application." He turned to Mizz Patel. "We will take her to the office with us." To me he said, "Please come with us. And If you will call me Ram, I will call you Nikki and our conversation will be happier."

"And I'm Bren," Dr. Wilkins said. "Now, what exactly is your connection to Mizz Cindy Richards? We got emails from her about you."

As we walked, I giggled a little. "Cindy is my adopted sister. Our meeting has been one of those truly serendipitous events. We communicated daily almost from the first meeting, when she lived here in Alabama and I lived in Louisiana."

"Adopted?" Ram asked.

"Unofficial, of course, but we have much in common. We both graduated high school prematurely. We are both married. Both to engineers. Electrical engineers."

"Curious," Ram said.

I smiled. "If you think that's something, then perhaps Cindy has mentioned a Christina Addison and Susan Ellerbee?"

"Those names do ring a bell. Cindy says..."

"They're both coming to Auburn, too. In Electrical Engineering. Both have ACT's thirty and above. And you really ought talk to them. Tina's husband is an electrical engineer and Susan's husband has his bachelor's in engineering technology and he's going to be at Auburn, too."

"Gosh," Bren said. "Are they as young?"

"No, Tina's seventeen. She beat the school system out of a year, which is really something since she was a high school dropout. Susan is as normal as one can be."

"Does Mizz Patel know about these young ladies?" Ram asked.

"IS Cindy bashful about sending emails?"

"Then Mizz Patel knows. I will remember to ask her about them after we conduct your sessions. Or perhaps we will bring her to lunch with us."

They brought me into a nice office with a big whiteboard. "Okay," Bren said. "I'm sure that Cindy told you what to expect. So let's get started."

I broke a sweat. In Cindy's words, 'weapons of math instruction', indeed. I am glad I spent those evenings and early morning hours bulldozering my way through some of that on-line stuff. I'm glad that Cindy and I scared our husbands with math talk. And these two gentlemen caused me to dig deeper than I ever have been in my life. Up to this point, it's been high school. I've always been comfortable that I knew what the curriculum desired and I'm really not bragging, but it's been easy. Not today. I had no idea where these two were going. We started out with trig and high school calculus.

"Told you we shouldn't waste time on this," Bren told Ram. And they kept going. They'd write something on the whiteboard and ask me to talk about it, then they watched me solve equations and derive solutions and talk about principles behind my methods. What made me sweat most was being asked "How do you KNOW what you're doing is correct?" and finding out that "How could it be any other way?" is not the correct response. I had to learn quickly to layer my solutions step by step. I thought I failed miserably.

Lunch was pleasant break but I couldn't unwind the tension very much. I know Dan could tell. On the ride there he said, "Just do your best, baby," he said. "I'm with you forever."

"But what if I'm not up to all this?"

He snorted. "Come on, Nikki baby! "You're not up to what? You're supposed to be waiting to start your junior year of high school. You're already accepted here for college Today is low stakes. Anything you get out of this week is extra."

I took a deep breath and just slumped against him in the truck. When he dropped me off at the building for the rest of the interview, Bren and Ram were coming up the sidewalk. I worked up a smile and met them.

"Relax. Be calm, Nikki. We are friends," Ram said. "You look uncomfortable."

"This morning has been the most difficult academic experience I've ever had," I said.

"And you've done quite well, Mizz Nikki," Bren said. "Do you feel abused?"

"Kind of," I said.

"Imagine yourself one of our graduate students standing for an advanced degree, the culmination of six years of university, all hinging on what we ask and he says. Are you like that?"

I thought for a second. "I guess not. I'm not missing it by much, though," I answered.

"Relax, Nikki. You're doing fine. We learned something from Cindy. We're going to continue the interview if you're up to it."

"Bring it on," I said, steeling myself for more.

I was mentally exhausted when we called it a day.

"Go home, rest, enjoy your evening. When we see you in the morning..."

"You'll have a little written test for me, I suppose."

"Yes," Ram said. "And from your performance today, you should do quite well."

"Thank you," I said. "This has been quite a day."

When I left their office I pulled my phone and called my husband. "Come get me. I need a hamburger." I was sitting on the steps feeling a little bit drained, forlorn even, when I saw our truck round the corner. I almost ran to get in.

"Baby," he said, "I've never seen you like this!"

"Dan Granger, they have abused me. And they're very thorough. Very nice, but very thorough." I ran down some of the topics.

"Oh, gee," he said. "You're going to need a chocolate malt to go with the hamburger."

"Lemme call Cindy," I said. "Maybe we can do some group therapy."

"Certainly, talk to her. She's been through it."

"Thank you, baby," I said. "I'm a mess." I punched up Cindy. "CIndy!" I said. "I need support!"

"Was it that bad?" she squeaked.

"Never been through anything like it before."

"Oh, gosh, me neither," she said.

"We're going to get a therapeutic burger and a malt."

"That place we found the other day. Dan says it's old-fashioned?"

Yeah. Can you..." I didn't finish the sentence before I heard her. "Dan come on. We need to go support Dan 'n' Nikki!" I heard his agreement in the background.

"We'll be there in twenty minutes. I want a loaded burger and a chocolate malt. So does Dan!"

"You got it, Sis!" I replied.

"You look better already," my Dan said.

"Support. That's what husbands and sisters're for," I said. "Dan, it was horrible."

"Did you know what you were doing?"

"I was learning, processing, inferring on the fly! You know what I said about 2+2=4? It was like I was at 2+2. Now I'd guess I'd be at Algebra 2. They MADE me, Dan."

"You survived. And in an hour you'll be giggling with Cindy about it and Dan and I will be shaking our heads wondering what kind of creatures we've married." Still, he must have sensed that I could use comforting, so he slipped his right arm around me and cuddled me to his side.

"Mmmmmm," I said. That felt so good. And I was sensing that my husband, my love was right. "You're gonna get extra cuddles tonight," I said. "And I want 'em returned. Stress relief."

"Just cuddles?" He asked.

"For starters."

My Dan was right. A hamburger, a chocolate malt and a huge communal basket of onion rings, catalyzed by Cindy's irrepressible smile, those got my head back straight. And Cindy and I WERE giggling.

Tonight was one of those nights where I really miss a full-sized shower. I wanted Dan in there with me under the hot spray, lathering me up, attending to me. I had to settle for him brushing my hair after he finished shaving.

The next morning we hit a diner for breakfast. "I'm going to go to the apartments this morning, sweetness," he said. "You have your phone if you need something. I should be back around here at lunch."

"I'll be okay, baby," I said. I said it. Now all I have to do is do it. I walked in the building, went straight to Bren's office. He was drinking coffee with Ram. "Well, here I am. All recharged and ready to go."

"Would you like a beverage?" Ram asked.

"Coffee would be nice."

They escorted me to the kitchenette and I fixed a cup, took a sip. "Oh yes. Now we're ready."

They took me to a room with a conference table. On it were a stack of papers and a box of pencils. "Here it is," Bren said. "We don't expect you to be perfect. Some of these problems are well into the realm of a masters degree in mathematics. We will check back with you periodically. If you must leave the room, let us know you're doing so. And good luck. I think you'll do well."

"Yes," Ram said. "I suspect that you will do very well indeed."

I picked up the first page and a pencil, closed my eyes for a second. I was blessed. Really. In less than a year I went from nothing to where I was today. I knew I could make a phone call, one call, like yesterday, and have an avalanche of love and support. I have family. Husband. Sisters. In-laws. And I am Nikki Granger and this is just a silly math test. Let's give Bren and Ram something to look at. I dug in.

They checked in at nine o'clock. Ram looked incredulous. "These are what you've completed thus far?"

I nodded. "Yes. Is that slow?"

I saw Bren shake his head. "No, Nikki. Not slow. We can leave them here for you to go back over them, or we can take them and evaluate them."

"Oh, just take 'em," I said. "What is, is."

"Do you need to take a break?" Ram asked.

"Yes, I think I do. I'll be right back." I smiled and left them, hit the ladies' room, and then came back. "Can I refresh my coffee?"

"Let's go see if we need a new pot," Bren said.

While we waited for the brewing to finish, I told them about flying and Cajun cooking and networking control devices.

"You participate in all that?" Bren asked.

"I can cook. My husband can fly and I am learning quickly, although I'm not yet up to Cindy's proficiency. And the networking and controls thing was my idea, with Cindy and I both programming. My cat had a motion sensor automated cat feeder."

"And speaking of Cindy, she says you led a study group in high school?"

"Yes," I said. "After Dan told me that I was not going to reach any goals by just getting by, he sort of poked me and I took off with it. We had a really good group, too. One of 'em is going to be here at Auburn this fall. The rest are heading to colleges all over."

"You're happy with that, I see."

"Certainly," I said. "Paying it back. My grandma taught me that. My husband and my sisters reinforce it. I don't know exactly how it's supposed to work, but we're going to have a sort of incubator for engineering students here."

"Explain that," Ram said.

"Part of our situation here is that our new business owns a strip mall sort of building. We're taking a section for our husbands' new engineering business, and an Indian restaurant is leasing another section, and we're setting aside a bit for a sort of lab slash gathering place slash study venue. My sisters and I and one of the husbands will use it for studying, and we decided that we'd open it up for anybody else, until it fills up."

"One of the husbands?" Bren asked, as he poured cups of coffee.

"Yes, Susan Ellerbee's husband Jason is converting his BSET to BSEE. He's going to be here too."

We walked back up the hall and I dove back into the stack of pages. Finished before lunch. Grabbed the stack and went looking for them. Ram's door was open. I knocked. "Ram? I'm finished."

He smiled. "Much as Cindy was. We've reviewed your work up to the break and if this is of similar quality, we're very happy. You should be also. Let's go get Bren."

The next day was all about language arts and social studies. The day after that was four hours with that psychologist and four hours with the technology guy.

"You learned this from whom?" he asked.

"My husband sort of gave me a push. Once I got that, the questions just started coming up in my head and I had to answer them on my own. You know, about networking and firewalls and protocol conversions between different control schemes. My husband taught me enough about electricity so I wouldn't kill myself and showed me a few things about tying my magic box to the real world. The cat's feeding station uses a solenoid valve for water and a stepper motor-driven auger to dispense dried food."

"Feedback or open loop?"

"Feedback," I said. "Wouldn't want the kitty to starve or get thirsty. And the failure alarm dials my cellphone if it does not find me on the home wi-fi system."

"How'd you decide to do that?"

"I asked Dan, he's my husband, how those things might work. He told me that I should look it up. Took a while. But it works."

"So you seem to understand a bit about this. Analog and digital inputs?"

"All sorts of them. Off the shelf, but a lot of the industrial stuff is heavy and expensive. Automotive components are often cheap, but they lack the standardized interfaces of industrial equipment. I used both. And made some from odds and ends. Learned to solder. 3-d printer. Drill press. Stuff like that."

"All that?" he asked.

"I get advice from my adopted sister Susan. She knows more of that. Her dad has an equipment rental business and she grew up around the shop. I ask her stuff. If she doesn't know, then we both have to find the answer. We both grow."

He shook his head. "And you started all this since las August?"

"Yessir," I said. "I got rescued after the hurricane. My husband Dan found me in a collapsed building and it's been wonderful ever since. Just lets me learn. He encourages me to learn. And then I connected with my sisters and Dan says 'one burning branch is kind of weak by itself, but if you get a bunch of them together, it's like a bonfire and it draws oxygen in to feed itself."

"Your husband is a philosopher."

"I think so. Among other things. An amazing man. Wanna meet 'im?"

"I'd like that," he said. "I would like to see the man who watches you do these things."

"Oh, I'll get him to come in when we're finished." By three o'clock we were getting finished. I called Dan, told him the building and office to find me.

He knocked.

"Come in, I'm Lance Sutton. You're Nikki's husband?"

"Dan Granger," Dan said. "DId you abuse her badly?"

"Not as bad as the math department did. She says you tell her that things are possible and let her find out how to do them?"

"A little hint, a push, a 'this is one way it's done' and she can figure it out on her own. Amazing creature, my Nikki," Dan answered.

"It would seem so," Lance said.

"So, was this day as stressful as the other two?" Dan asked.

I smiled at him and Lance. "No. No math today."

"Well, I will see you in the morning at nine, then, Nikki. At Doctor Patel's office?"

"We'll be there," I said. Dan and I walked out into the summer heat to the truck.

We got in the truck and started driving. "Where are we going?"

"To get you a learner's permit. You need to learn how to drive, baby."

I let out a little squeal. With everything else going on, I'd pushed that idea into the back of my mind. "Seriously?"

"Of course! I have all your papers here, birth certificate, high school diploma, social security card. We'll get you a little card with your picture on it and we can start you driving. And when you turn sixteen you can drive by yourself."

"You trust me?"

"Oh, come on, Nikki, I married you. You fly with me. And when you start going to school, that will mean that you and Tina and Susan will all have the ability to shuttle back and forth to the campus and run errands and such."

"CIndy's gonna be jealous," I said.

"Oh, I know, her Dan and I talked about that. Cindy just gets so miffed about her age."

Two hours later I was in the RV park showing my license to Cindy. She does get cute when she's trying to act angry.

"I'll get mine the second week of September. I turn fifteen then. But you turn sixteen in July and you can drive." She stuck her bottom lip out. "So tell me about today. You said they hit you with a technology guy? I didn't get that."

I told her all about it and then thirty minutes later had to repeat the whole thing on Skype to Tina and Susan. "I can't wait for y'all to move down here," I said. "Dan says another week and a half, maybe two. Dan 2.0 and Dan 1.0 are going tomorrow after I get finished at Auburn. They want to look at the punch list."

Susan said, "And Dad says they're shipping the furniture the middle of next week, right?"

"They're ready for it", Dan says.

The next morning I was nervous. I told Dan.

"Don't be. If you're nervous it's because you want to be where Cindy ended up. You're already one of the youngest enrollees in the place. You're IN!"

"All this is YOUR fault, Daniel Ray Granger! A year ago I didn't worry about any of this." And Dan's middle name is NOT 'Ray', it's Paul, but I make one up every time I use his full name, just to watch his face.

"Well why don't we just listen to what they have to say and then you can laugh or cry or be gloomy or elated or whatever. And even if you can't remember my middle name, I will love you no matter what."

Chapter 13

Nikki's turn:

Friday morning. One of those significant days, not that every day wasn't significant, tasks to be completed, life to be lived, people to love, but today was the day that the people at Auburn would tell me if I was just a freshman engineering student or if I could bypass some of that.

When the alarm went off, I didn't want to get out of bed, not just yet, at least. You see, there's this guy laying right here beside me and if I sort of push on him a little he wraps me up in strong and loving arms and we can kiss. Neither of us worries about morning breath. Morning kiss is too important.

So's morning wood. And a little happy morning coupling. Now if he had to go to work and I had to go to school, that would have been sort of like the kiss, a promise of future intent. But this morning Dan doesn't have to go to work and I won't be expected at Mizz Patel's office until nine-thirty.

I kiss Dan. He kisses back. "Let me go for a minute, baby," he says. "I promise I will be back."

"Then we'll both go," I said. Losing a bit of bladder pressure would be a good thing. And in five minutes we were back in bed in one another's arms. I had just squealed my second and his first was oozing out of me when my cellphone played the tune that meant 'Cindy'.

"Hi, Cindy," I said.

"Hi," she replied, "I was gonna call earlier but this beast dragged me into his den and ravished me. You're not already having breakfast are you?"

I giggled. "No, just finished an appetizer. Wanna go to breakfast with us?"

"My Dan and I will be leaving in five minutes." Giggle. "Takes that long to get dressed."

"Don't I know," I said. "We'll be there."

"Breakfast with the Richards family?" Dan asked.

"You don't mind, do you?" I asked.

"Nope, not a bit. Not even with wives who treat us like sex toys."

"I do not! A valued, loving pet, maybe." I giggled, because that's when the cat felt it safe to jump up on the bed. I have two pets. One I just feed, the other I feed on.

"Grrrr," he rumbled, grabbing me.

"Eeeeek!" I squealed. "We need to get dressed." I rolled on my back and pulled his full weight on me. "I am happy to be your possession, Dan, my love."

"And I yours, my beautiful Nikki. Let's go meet our friends."

We saw them turning into the diner parking lot a couple of hundred yards ahead of us, so naturally they were waiting when we parked. We walked in together. Two couples. And the cashier recognized us. "Y'all are together again?"

"Sisters!" Cindy said.

We were seated at a nice corner table and enjoyed our meal, although the coffee wasn't quite as strong as what I was raised on. That's okay. We have the good stuff at the trailer and I can get some of that later.

"You look nervous," Cindy said.

"Does it show?" I replied.

"She is a bit on edge," my Dan said.

Cindy's Dan laughed. "Dan, did you get the 'WIll you love me if I'm just normal?' speech?"

"Oh yeah," my guy said. "From the girl who graduated from high school two years early."

"And an ACT two points higher than mine," Cindy added. "Stop worrying, Nikki. It won't change a thing. Last year did you even imagine in your wildest daydreams that you'd be here?"

I had this same conversation with Dan many times and the answer was always the same. Cindy's right. Dan's right. And he was happy with me when I was just a high school girl, before we found out how things are.

"I knowwww," I said. "But I still worry."

"What is, is," Dan said.

"Profound statement there, buddy," Dan 1.0 said. We laughed. "But seriously, Nikki, you shouldn't worry."

"Thank you all," I said.

Cindy and I giggled as the guys fought over the breakfast tab and we parted ways in the parking lot. Twenty minutes later we parked and Dan and I walked into the Engineering Department building. We met Mizz Patel and she ushered us into a conference room where I confronted my tormenters.

"Good morning," I said, putting on my best smile. Oh, I really didn't fake that, you know. These people have jobs to do and if I don't really make the mark, then I'd rather them tell me now than find out by being irretrievably in over my head in class. There was an older gentleman sitting at the head of the table.

Doctor Stebbins," Mizz Patel said, "This is Nikki. You remember Cindy Richards?"

He nodded. "She's a rather hard one to forget."

"Nikki is Cindy's adopted sister. There are similarities you will soon see."

"How do you do, Miss Nikki?" he said, standing.

I shook his offered hand, then turned. "This is Dan Granger, my husband and an electrical engineer."

He shook Dan's hand. "Aneeta, you said 'similarities'. This exceeds that. This is a parallel universe."

I smiled. Dan and I sat across the table from the Auburn bunch. "Confronting my accusers," I said. Was a good statement. My accusers were smiling.

Mizz Patel led the meeting off. "We're here to present our assessment of MIzz Dominique Granger. Nikki. As you know, Nikki has been accepted for placement at Auburn under our program for gifted students. Our work this week was geared toward determining if she would be a freshman student or if there was opportunity for advanced placement." She smiled at Doctor Stebbins. "We will let Doctors Wilkins and Ramathani lead off."

"You go ahead, Bren," Ram said.

Bren stood. "Good morning Doctor Stebbins. Good morning Nikki. Dan." He fingered a stack of papers. "Doctor Patel, it is fitting that you remind us about Cindy and Nikki's relationship because it shows yet another parallel in math skills. No, they're not the same. Yes, they're almost equally competent, advanced, precocious..."

"Scary," said Ram in that sub-continent lilt.

"Yes, it is scary when you think that a fourteen or fifteen year old can walk in and show up most of your class of graduating seniors. I'm personally relieved that she chose engineering instead of pursuing pure math. I fear the competition. But I digress." He smiled at me. "If Cindy went around the equator in mathematics, Nikki has circumnavigated via a polar route. Both made the trip, but in different paths. Ram and I pulled Cindy's papers and her solutions of the same problems we presented to Nikki were different in their path although they both resulted in correct findings." He smiled at me again, then Dan. "Mister Granger, did she ever use the term '1+1=2! What else could it be?' on you?"

Dan nodded. He was getting happier by the minute. "Yes, she did."

"She treats advanced mathematics in the same way. Correctly, because 'what else could it be?'. Miss Nikki, I'm afraid you'd fall asleep in any of the math classes you'd require for a bachelor of science degree in engineering. We recommend, as we did with Cindy, that you sign up for some more advanced classes while you're working for your degree."

Dan shook his head, muttered "more advanced classes" under his breath.

Ram caught that. "I know, Dan. I get the same feeling."

Doctor Anders delivered the language assessment. They'd learned from Cindy, told me to bring an example of a technical report and an expository article and an essay of a subject of my choice. The interview was benign compared to the math workout. He addressed Doctor Stebbins. "Doctor Stebbins, this is not Ernest Hemingway nor Mark Twain or Virginia Wolff. This, this Mizz Nikki, is somebody I would have been pleased to have graduating with my name undersigning her. I gave her technical report to Doctor Sutton because of his technical expertise on her subject matter. He said it was technically correct. I say it is grammatically correct. Her other examples as well as her discussions lead me to say that I would underwrite her for credit in all the language portions of her curriculum."

Doctor Sutton, Lance, got up. "I will address her use of technology. She's precocious. I have consulted on real-world projects and in training venues and can speak to the capabilities of many people who should have a grasp of the practical that this remarkable young lady shows. I worked with her for four hours. During that time she pulled out an iPad, navigated to her own personal server, through a firewall, and into a process control computer at her home in Louisiana. There she showed me a program she'd written to control the conditions within that house while she and her husband are away. She discussed heating, ventilating and air conditioning controls at length, as well as the gustatory characteristics of felis sylvestris cattus, for which she provided automated feeding and watering. I want her in my labs, not because I hope to teach her anything, but rather like her husband, I wish to give a few ideas and see where she goes with them. Rest assured, though, I will underwrite her for all laboratory credit for her degree."

Now I'm smiling.

Last up was Doctor Stanton. His psychological assessment went right down the path that Cindy said hers travelled. I too am a very poor example of a tender young teen abused by an older man. I added positive discussions of my time with Grandma to the mix, and we finished on a positive note.

"Doctor Stebbins. Nikki. Dan," he said as he stood. "I don't think that she's an axe-murderer. Nikki's normal except for that whole intelligence thing. I think we should keep her." He smiled broadly. I suppose if he'd had a negative report he wouldn't be in here giving it, after all.

Doctor Stebbins bridged his fingers thoughtfully. "Mizz Nikki Granger, I suppose I should just welcome you to Auburn. That's what I am doing. I know that Doctor Patel is going to continue conversations with you about the engineering curriculum you will need to satisfy for your degree. I have a similar report on my desk for your red-headed sister. I expect to confer those degrees myself and I would be terribly disappointed in my staff if I have to wait more than two years."

I let out a little squeal. "Sorry, sir," I said.

He smiled. "My grand-daughter makes that same sound for a whole lot less reason, Nikki. What I want from you and from your sister is that you should participate in such things as laboratories and classes you might otherwise not need. Round out your education, but put your strengths to work for yourselves and others. I expect great things." Turning to the group, he asked, "Is there anything else?"

Mizz Patel smiled. "No sir. I think we're satisfied. NIkki, Welcome to Auburn."

I stood. "Thank you all very much. I look forward to learning here." I was serious. I saw many paths forward from this day.

We left the building after shaking hands, a hug for Mizz Patel. "You never said 'Doctor Patel'," I said.

"Oh, it sounds so formal. I accept it. I am happy with it. But I do not have to wear it every day. Frankly, I would not mind seeing a doctorate in your future, Nikki. Or your sister's for that matter."

I have to smile. I was still smiling as Dan and I walked out into the early summer heat.

"Now you can tell me what you were worried about," he said.

"I know, I know," I said. "Everybody was right."

"Sometimes it's good to trust your family," he said.

"It's good to have a family to trust, guy," I replied. I unzipped my backpack and pulled out my iPhone.

"Go ahead, sweetie," he said. "Everyone is dying to know."

I pushed the button. "Cindy," I said. I unabashedly squealed when she answered. "We're on the way home. Meet me there. We have to tell Tina and Susan." And we talked a few more minutes, then I hung up with her. "Dan! Love of my life, my Dan. You know how happy I am, don't you?"

"Happy as me?" he said. "Scoot closer." And he wrapped his right arm around me. "I'm seeing if my mouth can say 'Doctor Nikki Granger'. What's your thought?"

"I can't think. I have explosions going on in my head. Gaahhhhhhh! Dan! It's unreal! If only Grandma could see. She'd be so proud."

"I'm sure she sees, and she is proud, little one. You're a credit to her."

"I like to think so," I said. I flashed memories through my head of her gentle smile, the way she cared for me, taught me. She would be proud. I am living the way she would have wanted. And this truly was the man she would have wanted me to marry. Well, that whole twenty-odd year age difference might have been a hurdle, but she would have loved the work ethic, the decency and yes, the looks.

"What are you thinking, Nikki?" he asked.

"Just thoughts of Grandma. Next time we're in Louisiana, would it be weird for me to want to visit her gravesite?"

"Nope. Perfectly normal, sweetie. We'll do just that. Let's plan on next weekend. I think we're moving into the apartment after that."

"It's about time," I said. "The sisterhood has to come together. Skype is okay if it's the best we can do, but..."

"My head hurts thinking about the four of you in one place for too long."

"Happy, Dan. We'll be happy!" I think Dan worries sometimes. Sometimes I do too, like this is all a marvelous dream and I'm going to wake up in that tiny bedroom hearing Mom and some guy going at it up the hall from me. I've explained that dream to Dan as the reason he sometimes gets these big hugs in the middle of the night.

"So the plan is," I said, "we furnish this place here, we leave our home in Louisiana intact. We need to make another truck run though. Kayaks. We need our kayaks!"

"Leave those down there for fall vacation, and we buy a couple for up here. What else do we need from there?"

"Nothing I can think of," I said. "At least nothing we can't toss in the back seat of the Mooney."

"Then we'd better reserve a rental car," I said. "That way we don't have to get Dana to pick us up and drive us around."

"But we'll still visit them? Right?"

"Oh, I plan on it. Gonna wangle a meal out of 'er."

"Then get us over there early enough for me to help out in the kitchen," I said. "It's only right, you know."

"Oh, she needs to be abused every now and then so she thinks I still love 'er."

"Dan You will NOT abuse your sister!" I giggled. "I'll tell 'er!"

"Oh, yeah," Dan laughed. "That'll be a surprise to 'er."

In a short time we were pulling into the park. Having not heard from Cindy, I knew she was giving us a little private time. I did the same for her and her Dan, too. That was a discussion that all us girls had pounded out. Yes, it's a great thing to have sisters and family, but the four of us also relish our time alone with our mates.

"I'll turn the phones off and lock the door," Susan said. "Is that subtle enough?"

"Oh, you're still a newlywed," Cindy had giggled. That broke up the group pretty bad. All of us had been married the previous autumn, less than a year ago, a few months more than Susan and Jason, and in one or another discussions we'd sort of figured out that we were in bed a lot. Dan says we have a healthy and active love life. None of my sisters are complaining, either.

"I thought you'd have Cindy over here first thing," Dan said.

"Cindy's cooking a chili-mac casserole," I said. "She said be over there at five. You and me, we have an hour and a half to ourselves."

"Cindy's cooking?" Dan asked, a bit incredulous.

"She got the recipe from Ann Hardesty. It's a casserole. Easy. And Ann teaches, so it's pretty quick too, when she gets home after school."

"Oh," Dan said. "And Cindy doesn't want to be a cute little useless ball of fluff, either."

"Cindy cooking," I replied, "is like finding out that Albert Einstein made muffins in his off hours. Besides, her Dan will keep 'er from poisoning us."

I was sort of pushing him backward toward the bedroom end of the trailer. So what's the excuse today? Every other day this week it was the stress, worrying about how this interview week would turn out. No, since it turned out good, today I wanted Dan because making love is just a whole other level of happiness to go with the rest of the day.

We were lazing around in the afterglow when Cindy's ring-tone struck. I answered.

"Quit it! You can't do that all the time!"

"I can try," I giggled. "Like you're telling me you haven't?"

"Nice thing about casseroles, Mizz Ann says. Put one in the oven and go do something else." Giggle. "Get dressed and come on over!"

"Uh!" I tried to sound outraged, but with Cindy?!? Come on! "What makes you think we need to get dressed? We might be sitting here playing cards!"

"Uh-huh. I've played cards naked, too!"

Her Dan in the background said, "Cindy!"

"It's my sister! She KNOWS!"

"We'll be there in a few minutes," I said. "Soothe your husband!"

"Why does Dan need soothing?" my Dan asked.

"Girl talk," I giggled.

"I can just about imagine," Dan said. "You two encourage each other."

"She's a good part of life, sweetie," I said. "Part of it that comes from being your wife." By this time we were at opposite ends of the sofa, tying our shoes. "All that chatter is about happy stuff. We're celebrating the idea that she and I have what a lot of people are searching desperately to find."

"What's that?"

"A couple a' Dans," I giggled. "Come on! And be nice. Cindy's really trying to learn to cook."

We walked hand in hand to Cindy's trailer and knocked. Cindy's head popped out of the door. "Come in! It smells like Mizz Ann's casserole!"

"It smells good, Cindy," I said. "Really!"

"I got the casserole and a salad. It's not like that pot roast you did, but it's pretty good, I think!" Cindy was pleased with her accomplishments. First steps, she says. Besides, the little trailer kitchenette kind of limits things. Still, it smelled good.

We all squeezed into the little dinette booth and enjoyed the meal. After we cleaned up the mess, Cindy and I pulled her laptop out and Skyped Tina and Susan. And Terri. While Terri is in on the mix, our conversations are strictly G-rated. If Terri's not there, we get a little freer with the discussion, like Susan talking about her stress relief session on her first job with Jason. Tonight, though, the conversation was my final day of interviews at Auburn.

"Next week Cindy and I are supposed to meet with some engineering professors," I said. That was the newest development. We'd been told that in order to be degreed engineers, even though we could skip through the math and a lot of the prerequisites and such, we still had to complete the engineering curricula. Mizz Patel said that under some circumstances credit might be given for some courses.

"Oh, come on!" Tina said. "That's not FAIR!" Then she smiled. "Of course, 'fair' is just a place where you get candied apples, huh? If you can get an inside track, that's great."

"Thank you," Cindy said.

Tina said, "I'm starting to feel left out. Susan goes on the job with Jason. Cindy and Nikki are down there at Auburn."

A grinning face popped up beside Tina on the screen. "And you have ME!" Terri said. "Me and my Tina!"

"Just wait'll you get down here, Terri," I said. "We're gonna split you four ways."

"Be careful what you ask for," Tina retorted. "A quarter-share of a Terri is still an awful lot..."

"Of cute," Susan injected.

"Thank you Aunt Susan," Terri said sweetly. "I can hardly wait."

"We can't either," Cindy said.

"Cindy," Terri squeaked, "I'm putting a new story up in the cloud for you to look at. Octopuses ... uh, maybe octopi. It's a story about them. I read something about how smart they are so I wrote something."

I just shook my head while Cindy smiled. "I'll read it tonight. At least part of it."

"Me too," I said. Neat thing. The file was on the web. A password let us read it and post comments to it and the world just kept getting smaller but you still can't upload a hug and a giggle. A couple of weeks, though, and she'd be down here, shuttling between the four apartments and the office and whatever. And we'd have our husbands with us and our sisters and we'd be learning and doing and somehow it just seemed that we'd be making a better world for ourselves by making it better for others. I get philosophical at times.

After dinner and Skype, Dan and I made our customary lap around the park. So did Cindy and Dan 1.0. The first time we did that, we giggled and came up with the idea of walking in opposite directions. I told Dan when he asked, "Cindy and I say we don't want to cut into each other's private times with our husbands."

"You guys are talking about that?" he asked.

"Of course we are, baby," I told him. "Except for Susan in some ways, we were always outsiders. Now we're kindred spirits. If we didn't have husbands, then we would probably just hang out together and if we were in college together, all rent a big apartment and have a den together. But we have families and we have husbands to care for. So we had a conversation and we're making a conscious effort."

"I see," Dan said. "I wondered..."

"We got it under control, guy," she said. "You and I come first." I giggled. "And yes, you can read THAT any way you want to!"

By the time that Mizz Patel (on Cindy's recommendation and my concurrence) had run Tina and Susan and Jason through the mill at Auburn, we started seeing how the summer and upcoming fall semester would work out. Jason, poor thing, was in the worst shape on math. Tina and Susan didn't quite get free of all of it, but they knocked the daylights out of the first year's coursework because they did advanced placement classes in their last year of high school and because they showed up favorably on some placement testing. And in a couple of months we were going to be into yet another dream, at least for me and Cindy and Tina. We pretty much figured that Susan, with a normal and loving mom and dad, she was college-bound anyway. For the rest of us, though, it was just a tiny bit shy of miraculous.

During the next week Cindy and I spent a lot of time at Auburn meeting and talking with some of the professors who taught the engineering courses. That was interesting. The average student spends four or five years trying to digest this stuff so he can walk out of the place with a diploma declaring him as a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering.

So I'm seated across the desk from Doctor Grinley, who's one of the professors.

"You know, Mizz Granger, that I am somewhat puzzled. I have these documents of your interviews. Several of my colleagues are impressed. Math. You went toe to toe with those math people and convinced THEM?"

"Yes, Doctor Grinley," I said. I was unsure whether to smile and do that 'this is ME and I'm something special' thing or go with the 'I just don't understand what happened either' path. So, as Dan says, I pulled my foot back and punted. "I can't argue with them, sir. They're professionals."

"Good answer," he smiled. "Since I have another folder that Doctor Patel says is your sister, after a fashion, either the two of you are masters in mass hypnosis and illusion or I have to see what we can do to get you and her unleashed upon the world at large."

Chapter 14

Tina's turn:

We're packed. The day just took soooo long in coming. Now we were leaving Tennessee. Oh, not for good, you know. This little corner of the state is going to be in my heart forever. A year ago, well not even a year ago, a worried girl showed up here from Louisiana, sitting beside a guy she hardly knew but who was certainly more decent than the man her mom had been with when she got arrested.

Now that young girl is not the same. That's me. And besides Tennessee being the first place I felt safe since Grandma died, it's the place where I fell in love and married the guy who rescued me. It's the place where I learned about friends and caring families and how two people become a family and, oh, there's too much to tell.

We'll be back. Susan's my first sister and her mom and dad live here. I can't see myself not being attached to them.

And along the way I got a daughter. Daughter. Ten years younger than me. Technically a step-daughter. In real effect, I'm on a cusp between being big sister and mom. I was watching that blonde child packing her suitcase. In a little exercise in logistics, we'd gotten all our stuff into the back of Jason's pickup truck. My Alan was going to tow his trailer with our pickup, and the goose-neck hitch sort of kills the use of the pickup truck's bed.

A moving company was going to haul the big stuff from Jason's apartment which became OUR apartment when Terri showed up in our lives. And Susan married Jason and they took over the little travel trailer that was the nest of my Alan and me. It was going to be a big production. We had to move two families, two households, a travel trailer, two pickup trucks, two cars and two airplanes three hundred or so miles south.

At least we had some infrastructure already there.

Our husbands had the business going. That office was already open. I've seen pictures: A sign. Desks. Workstations. Racks for real paper drawings. A huge scanner-printer. A kitchenette. Real office. Of course the pictures I saw had a little redhead smiling at one of the workstations and a slightly older, taller brunette at another. And a big banner on the wall that said "TIna and Susan: Hurry! We need you!"

The apartment building behind our little strip mall was finished. Finally! And it was time for what Cindy termed "The Gathering of the Clans" like it was some big metaphysical event.

"It is," Alan told me. "I've never seen nor heard of a more unlikely group of brains hitting a college at once."

"Uh-huh," I said. "What about your engineering start-up?"

"Guys start up companies all the time. Three or four engineers with a business plan and a few clients, it happens. But you four girls, you're something else. Made even more spectacular by the fact that I absolutely adore one of you."

"Who?" I giggled? "Cindy? That red hair and those freckles? Or Nikki. Or Susan? She seems like she glows since she got married."

"I married a beast." He laughed.

"Yes, Dad. My step-mom is such a beast!" Neither of us heard Terri walk in on us.

"And I become more beastly every day because I have to put up with this horrible child," I giggled, pulling Terri close.

Terri's blue eyes sparkle when she smiles. They were sparkling now as she hugged the two of us. "I am a most unfortunate child," she said, displaying that precocious turn of phrase that made her adorable to me and the rest of us. "I must wander this world alone and unloved."

Yeah. Terri is unloved. Since she moved in with us, I have found a happy, bright little companion. That's good. Better, she's become an attachment to Susan and Jason, and she and Susan's mom and dad have entered into an agreement for them to be Terri's grandparents. I suspect that when Susan produces her and Jason's first child, Terri will have the sense to get out of the way, but right now it's funny to have Susan or her mom call up and haul Terri off for an afternoon. And Terri is Jason's excuse to go to the movies and enjoy animated features that he's too embarrassed to be seen at without an appropriately aged child escorting him.

"It's time to load up your stuff, Terri," Alan said. "One more check, and then we're closing the door on this place."

Terri rode with me to Mister Mike's rental business. We parked my car in the back lot alongside his big rental equipment, Terri went looking for Len, Mister Mike's shop mechanic. She found him working, greasy, in the innards of a ditching machine. He stopped to clean himself up enough to accept a kiss on the cheek and a hug. Mister Len said that Terri reminded him of Susan when she was young. Susan was curious and smart, too.

The three of us piled into Alan's pickup and we made the drive to the RV park for the last time. Jason already had the trailer disconnected from the park utilities. Alan backed up and dropped the hitch into place. We stopped by the park office and I tearfully said goodbye to Mizz Lillian.

"You just go off and have a good life, baby," she said. "I've been glad to have you and see you turn all happy an' married. Drop me a card every now and then."

"We will," I said. Alan gave her a hug. Thanked her. And we pulled out onto the road. There's been a lot of water under the bridge since last fall when we pulled in, me sitting all the way on the side opposite Alan, not knowing what was going to happen to me next. I was still on the side opposite Alan, but I had a gold band on my ring finger and instead of the fold-down console between him and me, there was a seven year old blonde child.

She was smiling. She took my hand with one of hers, her dad's free hand with the other, clasped them all together. "Adventure, huh? Like a quest. Or better yet, a migration."

"With people who love you."

"Family," Alan said.

I knew Alan was having the normal second thoughts. New business was one, although he was already doing work under the logo of 3Sigma Engineering. Second was me and my sisters. Nikki and Cindy had shown themselves to be a bit ahead of Susan and me on the ladder to engineering degrees. The four of us, though, sort of lost our summers this year. Auburn gave me and Susan a lot of credits for the work we did in Advanced Placement classes in high school and they'd laid out a series of tests to see how much of the other things we could leap over.

"CLEP 'em," Alan said. 'CLEP' has a specific meaning, but it also is a generic term for taking tests on coursework to get credit for the courses without actually having to sit through a semester of classes. I'd talked with Alan and the other guys and I talked with my sisters and we pored over the course descriptions and Susan and I did a lot of reading and we got Nikki and Cindy in on it. I think this is going to work. I might not be in the academic stratosphere like NIkki and Cindy, but I'm gonna be up there.

Terri reached for the truck's sound system and punched around until she found something she liked. Smiled. Imitating her mom's voice, "There you go listenin' to the crap your dad likes." She turned to me and smiled. "The stuff my dad likes. And my Tina. And me. Dad," she said, "Mom really said it would be better if I stay with you?"

That was the development late last week. Carole, Alan's ex, had gotten out of the hospital. She was back with her husband, Martin. Medicated. Between Martin and Carole's doctors and with Alan's (and mine too) input, Carole had decided to sign over custody to us. Yes, there would be visitation. Alan said he'd pay for Terri to fly to California to visit her mom every summer for a month. But not this summer. Maybe Thanksgiving or Christmas.

Alan and I spent an evening consoling and talking with Terri. "Does that mean that Mom doesn't WANT me?"

"Terri, sweetheart, you're too smart to think that," Alan said. "Your mom still loves you, but she's sick. It's very difficult for her to relate to people. She has..."

"Episodes," Terri announced. "I know about 'em, Dad." She snuggled against me. "My own mom has episodes and can't stand me or anyone else. I know. But Tina's not my real mom and she never has episodes, even when I made a mess in the kitchen or walked in on y'all."

"Sometimes people are sick in different ways, baby," Alan said. "It's not your mom's fault that she's sick. It's not your fault, either."

I kissed my daughter. Yes, okay, silly, I know. For Terri to be my natural daughter I would've had to give birth when I was ten, but maybe I will never have a natural daughter of my own and I think that this one is a superior specimen. "It's your fault, Terri," I said.

She and Alan, BOTH of them snapped their eyes to me, astonished. "It's your fault that I love you and care for you so much, baby. Evil step-daughters are supposed to be ugly, stupid, evil, jealous little beasts."

A week later I got a real, actual letter in the mail.

"Dear Tina-

I know this is a strange thing for me to write down, but I trust you with my daughter more than the other options. There is no way that I can trust myself with her. It's very difficult for Martin to stay with me, and if I was alone with Terri and I had an episode and he wasn't around, it could be bad. Terri's grandmother, my own mother, is not in a state in her life to take care of Terri. That leaves her father. And you.

I am surprised at your age, but I am also surprised that Terri came back from Christmas vacation with raves about how the two of you get along. I was jealous that Alan found somebody who my daughter reports as young and smart and pretty and I was jealous that she likes you as much as she does.

Now I must be happy for both of these.

Tina, be a good parent for my daughter. For Alan's daughter. And forgive me in advance if you hear words to the contrary from me in the future. I know what this condition causes me to do. That's why I cannot keep Terri with me here.

Be good to my daughter.

Respectfully,

Carole Davisson

I showed Alan. "Do you think we should show this to Terri?"

"I think so," he said. "She worries that some of this is her fault, you know."

"I know," I said. "And she's such a perfect little thing to try to carry that."

"Mom asked me all those questions after Christmas, you know," Terri said. "I told 'er the truth, that's all."

"You're not the only one that worried about that," I'd told her.

"Oh, I know," Terri said brightly. "I watched some of those same movies about step-moms. Some bad. Some good." Giggle. Hug. "Tina. Really. You're a good one. The best!"

Now we're on the road to our new home together.

Moving is a blur. New furniture is a good thing. So is giggling with Susan over her new bed.

"Darned straight I want a new bed," she told me. "Who knows what manner of debauchery has taken place on that thing since you moved into Jason's apartment."

"Oh, yeah," I said. "And what have you and Jason done in my poor little trailer?"

Susan grinned broadly, blue eyes sparkling. Said one word. "Everything!"

And from the living room, Terri's voice. "Tina, am I gonna have to look up 'debauchery'?"

"Oh, lord, Susan! Did you hear that?" I said.

"You'd better explain to her before she Googles it!" Susan squealed.

Terri and I had a little discussion about adult jokes.

"Debauchery," Terri grinned. "Is that what you and Dad do?"

"Not actually. Sort of. It's..."

"It's normal for a married couple to have fun with each other. I know that," Terri said. "That's why I go to Shauna's sometimes. Or to Mike and Kathy's. Or with Susan and Jason. I KNOW that. So what makes it debauchery?"

"A best friend who wants to make a smart-assed remark," I said. "Oops! I shouldn't put it that way."

Terri smirked. "Exaggeration is a tool for humor. That's what we're talking about, then."

"You knew that all along, didn't you?" I said.

Grin. "Yeah. Sorta. Just wanted to have a conversation with you. You know you actually started sweating?"

I rolled her onto her back and tickled her until she squealed. "You're an evil, deceitful child!"

When she caught her breath, she said, "Yeah-huh! I'm your evil, deceitful child."

"Promise me you won't use 'debauchery' in everyday conversation, you little beast," I said.

"Now Tina," she giggled. "Don'tcha think a diverse vocabulary is a GOOD thing?"

"I'm gonna tell your daddy," I retorted.

She leapt up and hugged me. "I love you, Tina-sister-mommy," she said. "You make my life good!"

"Because you make my life, our lives, me, you, your daddy, all our lives good."

"And I am aware," she said, "of the appropriate use of vocabulary."

"I love you because of your brain," I told her.

The miles passed by as the truck's diesel engine did its job. I remembered the first time I heard that engine. I was a far different person in a far different life.

"They painted my room blue like I asked?" Terri asked.

"We gave 'em the chip you chose," Alan said. "And we picked out the bedroom set you wanted, and your desk."

"And a big bunch of Care Bears and colorful ponies," I added.

"Daaa-aaddd! She's doin' it again," Terri feigned a whine.

"I never did get the whole 'pink bear' thing myself," I told her.

"I'm gonna talk to Cindy about that," she said. "Gotta be some sociological basis for it."

Alan shook his head. "My seven year old daughter is going to ask a fourteen year old about the sociological basis for Care Bears. How did I ever get into this universe?"

"Oh, you have to ask Nikki that question. She's the one who talks about extra-dimensional travel."

"Owwwww," Alan said.

"You know you love it. Both Dans love it. Jason loves it. You'd perhaps rather we sit around leafing through People magazine and discussing hair colors and nail polishes?"

"No way."

"Your daddy likes smart girls, Terri."

"Got two of us, didn't he?" she giggled.

"She knows, Alan," I said.

"That's why Daddy will never leave you, Tina," she said. "Because he loves you. He didn't have a choice with me. When ya have kids, you get what you get. But when you choose a mate, you can be smart about it."

"What makes you think he chose me? Maybe I chose him."

"Susan says it's magical. You don't know you're looking and one day, there he is! Like her and Jason."

"That's a good way to put it," Alan said. "But there's a lot more to it."

"I suppose," she said.

Conversations like that eat up miles. We found ourselves threading the rig through the town of Auburn, looking at the place again. And then we found our place. Again. What was a construction site was no longer a mess. The apartments were new, inviting. The strip mall in front of it was fresh. With two signs up already, one for 3Sigma Engineering, the other for the Indian restaurant with a big 'Opening Soon' banner across it.

Alan pulled the rig around the back of the apartments and parked and before we could exit the truck Cindy and Nikki were skipping across the parking lot to meet us.

We squealed in a four-way scrum. Yes, four! Terri's in on this.

"Susan will be here inside an hour," Nikki said. "The circle is completing."

"The Grand Alignment," Cindy giggled. "Come on! Let's grab stuff and haul it in."

"Alan, we're going in. Where's the key?" I yelled.

Dan 1.0, Cindy's Dan, turned and tossed a key-ring to me. "The blue one!"

"Thanks, Dan," I said.

We walked into a place that reeked of 'new home', the smell of curing paint and other construction aromatics heavy in the air. "Let's open the windows and air it out again," Nikki suggested.

A squeal up the hall told us that Terri had not only found her room, but approved of it. Cindy and Nikki eagerly herded me into the master bedroom. I have no earthly idea why they found reason to be giggling.

"King-sized bed. Somebody's gonna cover a lot of area," Nikki smirked. "Although I do miss the queen-size. We stayed close. Now I have to find 'im."

"We stayed with the queen," Cindy said.

I started putting clothes away in my new dresser.

"Look! Closets!" Cindy said. "You can actually have more than five changes of clothes!"

"Yeah," injected Nikki. "I missed closets."

"We can have STUFF!" Cindy said.

I heard the rumble of our diesel outside, peeked through MY window and saw two Dans helping Alan unhitch from the trailer.

"Kitchen's empty. You're gonna have a heck of grocery bill until you get stocked up," Nikki said.

"I can go borrow yours," I said.

"Don't borrow it. Wait for her to cook and we go over there and eat," Cindy giggled. "Seriously, though, when we get schedules nailed down, we can work up something for who cooks on a particular day."

"Or that Indian restaurant can run us something out the back door," Nikki chirped.

Alan and the two Dans came through the door. I guess I kind of squealed. "You're happy?" he asked.

"Delirious," I said. "Let's get the rest of the stuff out of the truck. Then we need to make shopping lists."

"Cha-ching!" he said to the sound of laughter from the rest. "Not like the rest of you aren't in the same boat."

"That boat sets sail this weekend," I said. "Tomorrow, let's see ... Alan, you're staying here. Dan 2.0's flying me, Susan and Jason back to Tennessee. We're coming back with our cars. Then we do it again the next day, except with the planes."

"Tina, can I go with you?" Terri asked. "Cindy's plane has four seats. That's for her husband to fly, and then you and Jason, that's three. And me?"

"Susan might want to go with Jason, honey," I said. "Let's ask her when she gets here."

"Let Jason stay here and let Susan go with us. And get Cindy to fly their plane."

Cindy went over and knelt by Terri's side. "Sweetie, I'm too young to get a license yet. And nobody but my Dan is checked out on our plane. It's different than y'all's."

"Oh ... I wanted it to be all us girls."

"Taildragger checkout, baby?" Cindy asked her husband.

"It's not gonna happen in one session, sweetie," her Dan said. "But Tina's a licensed pilot. So is Susan. And I haven't touched the controls when you were flying for months now."

The clatter of another idling diesel engine announced that The Gathering was complete. "Susan's here," I announced.

"Come on, guys," Alan said. "We just as well go help Jason. Susan's gonna be catching up." Alan was probably right. We streamed out the door to meet Susan.

We went over the plans. "It's not going to work, though," I said. "We're short a pilot."

"That's right," Cindy replied. "Who's gonna be my licensed pilot on the flight back?"

Terri looked sad. "I'm sorry, baby. Just not enough seats this time."

"Oh, that's okay," Terri said. "I just like going on adventures with you." She sidled up next to Nikki. "Can I hang out with you while they're gone?"

"Of course, sweetie," Nikki said. "You and I, we'll figure out something."

"Since I can't actually fly, I'm gonna let Dan do it, and I'll stay here too," Cindy said. "And don't worry, Terri. We're gonna be together for a long, long time. Lots of adventures, okay?"

"Okay," Terri said. "Tina, you're gonna owe me an adventure, you know."

"I know," I said. "But you have all of us now, and I don't think adventures are going to be short in your life."

Terri giggled. "I suppose so."

For a period of time we flowed back and forth in a group. "Seriously," Susan said, "They're almost identical, except yours, Tina. It's three bedrooms. So why the tour?"

"Because," Cindy said, "We need to spread friendship and family throughout our domains."

Susan giggled. "Since when did YOU turn all New Age?"

"Nothin' new about families, kiddo," Cindy retorted.

I had to giggle at fourteen year old Cindy calling somebody 'kiddo'. "So what's the plan for dinner? Nobody here's got anything cooking."

"What's your interest?" Cindy said. "There's EVERYTHING imaginable around here."

So we ended up at a Mexican restaurant. I sort of laughed because I'm used to a lot spicier heat level than Cindy and Susan. Nikki's right there with me and Jason and Alan apparently has an esophagus lined with refractory brick, according to Cindy, as does her Dan. "Food shouldn't hurt," Cindy says.

The next morning was time to fly back to Tennessee to drive cars back. That put me and Susan in the plane with Nikki and her Dan. Their Mooney was fast and economical and we were curious. The three of us discussed who got to ride in the left front seat.

"Dan won't mind," Nikki said. "I can sit in the back. Won't be the first time."

"No," Susan argued. "Your plane. You get the stick time. In a month you'll be sixteen and you can get your student license."

"Yeah," I said. "You should be in the front seat."

"Okay," Nikki said. "But both of you have more flying experience."

"All the more reason," Cindy said. "Tina, tomorrow when you fly back up there to get your plane, you oughtta fly the front seat with Dan in our plane. Let him work you through take-off and landing in a tail-dragger. We need to get you both checked out in it. And if I stay back here, Terri can go with you."

"You'd give up your seat so I could go?" Terri squeaked.

Cindy bent over to Terri's level. It's not that far for Cindy. "Of course, baby. Unless you want to stay here. That way Susan flies their plane solo, you and Tina fly yours. Dan can fly back by himself. He's done longer trips than that."

"It's a plan, then," Cindy said. "You may have to console Dan, though. I don't think he's flown without me since we met."

"Awwww," Terri said. "I don't need to go."

"Yes you do, baby. It's okay!" Cindy said. "Me an' Nikki will be here cooking dinner for when y'all get back."

So two days of trips. First day, the not too bad flight to Tennessee. The Mooney's rear seat is a bit snug, but Susan and I managed. Dan 2.0 laced his fingers behind his head after take-off, showing us that Nikki was flying.

She giggled. "And the autopilot's turned off, too." Having Terri with me made the drive back a whole lot more bearable. Of course, seeing Susan ahead of us the whole way, That was good, and Nikki rode back with Susan so things would be equal.

"Dan's okay to fly back by himself. Right, honey?"

"Do you realize this is the first time I've flown this thing without you?" he said.

"That's right!" Nikki squealed. "Can you remember to use the checklist?"

"I'm getting good at it, baby," he said. "I'll do okay." He smiled at Susan. "You be careful, kiddo. That's my life riding with you."

I knew Nikki was looking forward to the drive for a bunch of reasons. First, she'd never driven through Tennessee and Alabama. I know what it means when you see hills like that for the first time, being from the same flat wet end of Louisiana myself. Second, she had a good four hours of talking to Susan. There's no telling where that conversation's going. A part of me wishes I was in on it. Other part of me wishes I had Terri with me, talking.

The next day was airplane day. This time Cindy's Dan fired up their Cessna. Okay, Cindy insisted that I take the left seat. Cindy waved from the ramp as we taxiied. I was nervous as a cat. I'd heard about taildragger airplanes on the ground, had laughed at Cindy's taxiing in lazy S-curves. With Dan 1.0 in the right seat hands and feet hovering over the controls, he talked me through it.

"You get a physical workout when you're taxiing, Tina. Visibility is poor, so you go slow and you keep your head swiveling and you do S-curves."

On takeoff, he made me make a meticulous effort at lining up on the center stripe. "Roll forward easy. Make sure you are tracking straight."

I did.

"Now ease the throttle in. You're not used to the nose being that high and the prop is going to pull harder on the right side. You'll have to give it right rudder to keep it on the center line." I noticed that as he kept talking, his hands and feet were lightly resting on controls. We got off the ground.

"How much of that was me?" I asked.

"All of it," he said. "See the difference, though?"

"P-factor. All that stuff. It's more pronounced. I have to really horse the 182 around to get those kinds of feelings at the controls on take-off." I looked in the back seat. "Susan, you can unclinch your fingers now."

"I'm nooooottttt!" she said. Terri, sitting beside her, just smiled.

Once we're off the ground, it's almost identical to our 182. Same numbers work, but we get a few knots more speed. "You're not pushing a nosewheel through the air," Dan said.

Landing at the other end was more white-knuckle time. "This is where it's really different," Dan said. "Tricycle gear has a tendency to self-correct if you're not lined up right. This thing will have you looking at your own butt if you get stupid." I guess he caught the concern on my face. "Just make sure you're flying in the direction you're pointing the nose, and you do NOT relax until you slow down to a walk. Now land. I'm right here with you."

When the propeller stopped on the flight line, I had beads of sweat on my brow. Dan looked at me. Smiled.

"Waaaahhhhhh! I want my tricycle back!" I said.

"You did good," he said. "Practice. We'll get you some practice."

"Me too," Susan said.

After bathroom breaks for all involved, three planes took off. We let Susan go first. Her little Cessna 152 was a couple of dozen knots slower than me and Terri in our 182 and I was a tad slower than Dan in his 180. He and I throttled back after we lifted off and caught up with Susan. "Not the Blue Angels," Dan said over the radio, referring to our gaggle of three aircraft heading south.

Terri was an attentive co-pilot. We talked about things passing four thousand feet below us, and we talked about our family and about school and "I want to fly, Tina." My first student. She can't see over the instrument panel and her feet don't reach the pedals, but she had the yoke in her hands and I let her bank and climb and dive.

"What's wrong over there?" Susan called.

"Terri's first lesson," I said.

"Here, Tina. It's yours," Terri said. "We're scaring 'em."

"We'll have plenty of time, baby," I said.

Plenty of time.

When we arrived, Cindy was there waiting for her Dan, having ridden with Jason. My Alan was there waiting on me and Terri.

We pushed three planes back into hangars, locked doors, and drove to the apartment.

I hugged Terri while Alan drove. "Hon," I told him, "The Gathering is complete!"

Chapter 15

"Cindy, baby," My Dan said, "you know how you were jealous of Susan going on a job with Jason?"

"Just a little bit. Why?" I asked.

"I got a strange one coming up. I think I might be able to get you access. At least you can be there with me."

"That specialty plastics thing you've been talking about?"

"Yeah," he said. "They're ordering an injection molding line and packaging equipment and it's coming from Europe. They want me to do the engineering interface between their factory people and the engineers from Europe."

"Oh, yeah," I said. "Tina told me about her and Alan and the Italians and the Germans. Do you speak..."

"A little German," he said. "I know a lot of the technical terms. And they'll send English-speakers here. Knowing a little of a foreign language, coupled with a good attitude, goes a long way in this stuff," he said.

"When's this?"

"In a month or so."

"I'll be eyeball deep in Auburn engineering, baby," I said. "Department head said he's going to get me and Nikki together with some instructors and see if we can't get through some early engineering courses. That's that reading list I got."

"Yeah, Dan told me she showed it to him and he had flashbacks."

"Oh, go on," I giggled. "Y'all are GOOD engineers."

"Baby," he said, as he sat down, holding his arms out for me to sit in his lap, "being a good engineer hasn't got that much to do with some of those courses. Those are hoops you need to jump through."

"I know, baby. And I'll jump though 'em. So I can be with you."

He laughed. We'd had this conversation so many times. "If it took you the whole four years, you'd still graduate at eighteen. I was twenty-two."

I always giggle. "Your fault for marryin' a freak," I said.

"Only the very best sort of freak," he laughed, burying his nose in the hair right behind my ear. "A magical engineer apprentice pixie. Who is the most incredible best friend and more than enough beauty for a galaxy full of fantasies."

I knew where that 'fantasy' comment was going. I could feel myself tingling the moment he pushed his face into my hair. Now, I could feel him hardening underneath me and I knew what I craved. I told him so.

"You think we're safe?"

"From what?"

"Your retinue."

"Silly! They know better. We all sort of know ... The way you know that Alan and Tina are having a bit of time to themselves is that Terri will be here or Susan's or Nikki's."

"They only do it when Terri's not there?"

"Of course not," I said, kissing him. "But they can be less restrained when Terri's not there. Terri has an idea about such things. Says her dad and her Tina need a little time to themselves every now and then and having us around gives her a place to go. D'you know that she's even spent the night at Nikki's?"

"No, I didn't."

"Well, she asked Nikki and Dan so sweet, Nikki said. Dan was working on some project stuff for that electric company, and Nikki and Terri stayed up really late going back and forth about writing and math..."

"Nikki is working with Terri on math?"

"Yeah, baby." I kissed him. I love kissing Dan. I remember the first time, when we weren't, well HE wasn't aware that there were feelings other than friendship between a mature man and a thirteen year old girl. I just kissed him on the lips, just barely long enough to make it more than a friendly kiss to me, but not so long that he would really think it was more than that. That was the first night that I had pictures of Dan in my head when I played with myself.

But Terri and Nikki and math. "Terri understands a lot of things, baby. She might be seven, but she's ... You know the stuff I showed you last fall when school started?"

"Yeah," he said. He thought for a second. "Noooo."

I nodded. "She'd probably make a 'C' on the first test I took. But it won't take long. What is it you call me? Precocious?"

He nodded, inhaling the hair under the curve of my jaw. I shuddered. "Well, she's precocious. In a big way." I wiggled against Dan's erection. "I have an idea," I said. "It involves getting some clothes out of the way."

He didn't answer. He kissed me. Let his hands trace around my body, knowing exactly the spots that make me quiver. I slid off his lap, tugging his hand.

Magical? What Dan does with me, that's magical. When it was over, we lay for a while in each other's arms. I had the taste of the results of our mating in my mouth. So did Dan. I was just sort of idly playing with his dick. It was semi-hard, making it almost full length, and I like it at that state. Oh, I like I any way I get it, but when it's like this, I know that I've just gotten the best of it and if I wanted to, I could get it again. And it's cute. I love it. My Dan's dick. Just thinking about it again, I slid down.

"What are you doing, little one," he asked.

"I just got an urge," I said. I observed the purple plum of a head in front of me. Licked my lips to wet them, then licked that plum, sucking it into my mouth. I let him go. "Just give me a little taste of your juice, baby," I said. "And then we can quit."

"Suppose I don't want to quit?' Dan said, petting my head. I turned a little bit so he could reach my pussy without uncomfortable stretching.

"Then don't quit," I said. "I could use one or two more." Two orgasms. On top of the two I already had earlier. It kept me free of mood swings. His hands guided me atop him in a wonderful sixty-nine. I'm still short, so he has to curl just a little bit if I'm gonna really suck him good while he eats me. A pillow keeps him from having to strain. I'm sliding this hot thing in and out of my mouth. Every now and again, I lightly bite down on it and pull the skin, and my tongue just cups around the head and I get these delicious little releases of creamy, salty goodness.

Dan's tongue is inside me. I like that, because when he does that, he covers my pussy with his mouth and sort of sucks all of me, then his tongue comes out from inside me and he lightly flicks my button. I'm only good for a couple of minutes of those cycles and I have to pull that delicious dick out of my mouth because I'm afraid I'll bite him. Again. Happened once, early on, when I was still learning about him and me and the effect we have on each other.

Two. Had two. Lost consciousness. Woke up to Dan lovingly kissing my face. "One for each freckle in that delightful constellation," he says. When I wake up, I kiss him. Long. Like I'm drinking, trying to quench an unquenchable thirst. Finally I looked at those blue eyes that I always seem to get lost in, and said, "My turn. I'm hungry for this." I gently stroked his dick. I know he's primed after all that sixty-nine. I push him on his back, let him position pillows so he's half sitting. My Dan likes watching me.

No words. Just good, wonderful sucking. Other people call it a blow job. Maybe it is, if the guy you're doing isn't the center of your universe. I love it. So does Dan. One of my hands is cupping his balls and the other is grasping his dick because that's another thing I learned. When he starts coming, his hips are moving uncontrollably and I can get enough in my mouth to gag. I don't want to gag. I want to enjoy. Savor. Relish. That handful of balls is my barometer. I feel his sack tightening up and I know he's close because of that and because I'm getting an almost steady flow of salty, tasty juice and then I feel the first pulse then the splash of semen in my mouth.

I let a little giggle out because I'm happy. I've just given my man a great physical pleasure. My side of the deal is good too. Kind of slippery and slimy and salty and there's a tang to it. Keep sucking. Not so hard, though. Just gentle sucking, tongue gently pushing that flesh around in my mouth as he's coming down. He's soft now, and I give him one good, vigorous suck, causing him to shudder, and then I scoot up beside him.

"That was good," I said. "Mine and yours."

Dan just smiled.

"You're still happy with me, aren't you?" I asked.

He squeezed me against him. "Do you even need to ask?" Little kisses that spell pure love and adoration rained on my face.

"In every way imaginable. I cannot imagine life without such bright, delightful..." he caught a deep breath, "and sexy partner as you. There's nothing I ever imagined in a mate that you don't exceed in spectacular ways."

"I'm just me," I said. "Nobody even gave me a second look until you came along. Now we're here with my sisters and they're all cute and smart. And I..."

"Baby," he said, "don't even imagine. Why would I even consider. Yes, you have a bunch of cuties, but each of them is a friend and the mate of a friend, and you're my everything. If I lost you, I'd give up and die."

"Don't die. I need you for the rest of my life," I said. I stood up beside the bed, stretched, ran my hands down my sides, then up from my belly to my titties. They're still small. I might as well give up. Mom had small ones, too, although she used push-up bras and stuff to make 'em look bigger. I just accepted them and knew that I could get by with a sports bra or no bra at all. Sag? Nothing there to sag. I thought I was lacking. Insufficient. Until Dan worshipped 'em.

I told him one day that I wished my genes had provided more titties and fewer freckles and he told me that he was so glad it was the way it was. Kissing me the whole time, he was.

"And that smile. No genes in the world can account for that smile. That has to be planetary convergence." No wonder I melt when I daydream about us.

Dinner tonight was at Alan and Tina's. We showed up, knocked on the door. Terri answered it. Hugged me, then Dan.

Everybody's house had dining room table that wasn't too far from the breakfast nook and seating at one table of the other was not a fixed thing. This time the five girls were at the dining room table, the guys at the breakfast table, eyeball deep in work stuff.

I had to share the prospect of going on a job with Dan. "Even though I'm just an observer," I said.

"It was fun working with Jason," Susan said. Yeah, we all knew exactly how much fun. One of those 'girl' talks when Terri was elsewhere. "I learned a lot about some of the equipment he works with."

Nikki was trying hard not to giggle inappropriately. I am not sure if Susan really understood the double entendres. No, scratch that. She knows. She's just using plausible deniability. Old habit. It works well for people who don't know her and don't realize that she has such a command of language. We know her.

"Jason, they're making funny faces at me again!"

Terri got a quizzical expression. "Why are y'all making funny faces at Aunt Susan?"

"Because we're jealous," Nikki said. "Susan got to go on a real job and work with her husband."

"Oh," Terri said. "Don't be mean to her just because something good happened to her." She was so precious, all serious-looking.

"We know," I said. "But sometimes we like to pick at Susan. She's our friend. We're laughing together."

"Okay," Terri said. "Susan looked so hurt."

"Susan's a good actress," Tina said.

"Talented," I said.

We finished dinner. Terri bounced up to Tina as we were cleaning up. "I'm going to Rachel's."

"Okay," Tina said. "Don't be a pest."

"I'm not a pest. She's an only child too. We hang out together." Rachel's mom and dad were renting the fifth of the six apartments in our building. Both of them were connected with the college. Both worked, and we were happy to have them. Simon Weismann was an adjunct instructor in sociology and Rebekah was an administrator. We'd met socially, of course. They had to see what manner of household contained the friend of Rachel when said friend revealed a seventeen year old step-mom. Now they knew. Rachel was subject to be over at Tina's as often as Terri was at their house, and the two of them were quite often together as they made the rounds of everybody else's.

Susan, I am told by the smiling pair, is usually good for ice cream and Jason has the best game system. And, as Beck - Rebekah- had said, "They look the most normal of anybody." Susan liked that comment.

The husband went by Sim, like in 'Sim City'. Sociology. Amused and confused by the older-younger cluster of marriages. "You people would've made a heck of a study," he said.

"Outliers," I answered him. "We're outliers on so many levels. Except Susan."

Susan smiled sweetly, something she's good at.

"Oh, Susan, you're on the same end of the intelligence curve as the rest of us. You were just fortunate to have a mom and a dad," I said.

I guess that he expected some sort of overt sexual component and some ignorance on the part of us poor misguided young girls, but instead he found what we know: committed relationships, elevated tastes in music, conservative tastes in clothes, morals, and a predilection towards learning. Even Terri.

Beck had come over to visit with us after she finished work one day. "Terri seems to be dragging Rachel along with her."

"That speaks well of Rachel" I said. I thought about the incongruity of having a talk about mothering, seeing as how I was all of fourteen and my own mom had done such a disastrous job. But Tina sitting beside me added her own input. "Terri's so good-natured, though. Her friend in Tennessee was probably not nearly as bright as Rachel, and Terri got along with her very well. I heard them talking. Terri catches on fast. But with her friend Shara, she didn't play that up. She urged and help Shara sometimes."

"Well, Terri acts like things like reading are important. Doesn't get into the pink plush ponies and such."

"She's got 'em," Tina said. "But with this one," Tina pointed to me, "they worked up a discussion of the ... Oh, you tell 'er, Cindy!"

"The Anthropomorphic Characteristics of Little Girl's Toy Animals." I tried not to laugh. "Terri had to work at 'anthropomorphic'. The pronunciation, not the definition."

"Oh dear," Beck said. "How did that go?"

"Lots of 'Animal Planet' clips juxtaposed with Nickelodeon Channel. She understands. Says 'cute animals are a legitimate expression of folk art.'" I smiled. "Her words."

"And so my poor husband comes home and hears his angelic daughter spout words like 'juxtaposed'," Beck said with a little laugh. "Then he asked what that word meant, thinking she's heard it and liked the sound. She explained, starting the conversation with 'Terri says'."

Tina laughed, looking at me. "Well, Cindy Richards, that is YOUR new generation. Beck, you have no idea how many conversations among our group take a strange twist immediately after the phrase 'Cindy says'."

"Does NOT!" I squealed. Inside, I was happy.

Beck laughed. "I just need to smear some grease on my glasses before I walk over here to visit," she said. "These conversations would be so much less surreal if neither of you were under eighteen. Uh ... make that 'under thirty'."

"I've heard that before," I said. "It usually comes out as a compliment."

"It should," Beck said. "I mean it that way. You have no idea what kind of thoughts one might have about you and your friends..."

"Sisters," Tina said. "We've settled on 'sisters'."

"Sisters it is then. When Doctor Patel showed me the rental notice, and explained that the other occupants were, in her words, 'delightfully unusual'. I asked if she meant 'gay' and she said, 'no'. She explained her personal interactions with you and Cindy, and with Nikki, and with Susan, but still..."

I giggled. "I've gotten that a lot, you know." I told her about Dan's confrontation with my middle school librarian. "But look at me! I'm not here because Dan needs a teeny-bopper sex toy to make him happy. I'm fourteen and going to college!"

Tina said, "I had the same thing, Beck. I'm just poorly exploited."

"You know how I'm gonna have this conversation with Sim, don't you?" Beck said.

"I know," Tina said. "He says we're the sociology paper he missed."

"He's really a good guy," Beck said.

I smiled. "He's your husband. You're supposed to think he's a good guy."

"But he really is," Beck laughed. "I'd marry 'im again today."

So life was pleasant and getting better.

The Indian family that was opening the restaurant was another bright spot. Yes, there was a son and a daughter in Auburn. And a mom and a dad and a grandmother running a restaurant. Indian food. Spices. Wonderful exotic smells. Dan put his foot down.

"We cannot eat out seven days a week, Cindy. And if you eat there any more often you're gonna come home wearing a sari and a dot on your forehead."

"Bindi. It's not a dot, it's a bindi," I told him, sticking my tongue at him.

"I know it's a bindi. And you need more insight like a fish needs a bicycle," he said.

"Look," I argued. "They don't mind us sitting in there drinking chai and working on school stuff. Half the time Ananta and Devi, at least one of them, is there with us. Sometimes both. Those are serious students. Baby, I'm not taking advantage of them. I know we're the landlords, but seriously, Ananta and Devi are nice kids, students, just a bit older than me, but still students. And their grandmother may be considering adopting me. I missed having a grandma, you know."

"Your grandma probably wouldn't wear a sari," he said.

I feigned outrage. "You! I can't believe that you would exhibit resistance to cultural diversity." I giggled. Sort of killed that whole 'outrage' show I was doing. "I don't think my theoretical grandma would've done a sari, but she would've certainly sat there with Mizz Desai. And Nikki likes 'er, too."

"Oh," he laughed, "THAT settles it."

"AND Tina. AND Susan. AND Terri. And I promised that YOU would show them an authentic Cajun gumbo." Dan looked at me. He gets this look sometimes, like 'What are getting me into?' so I said, "I'm thinking Cajun-Indian fusion restaurant."

"Oh, you're going crazy," he said, bowling me over.

"Just a possibility," I said. "Maybe they want to do a gumbo night."

He looked at me. "You're serious."

"Mizz Desai would be the one to ask you." I smiled at him. "And you'd do it. Now, how about you and me play some music?"

"Let me get the guitar," he said.

We sat there and he strummed a few and I sang and we sang together and the phone rang. Tina.

"Hi, Sis," I said.

"What are y'all doin'?"

"Playin' and singing," I said.

"Really? Is it a closed session?"

"Can you stand company?" I asked Dan.

"Bring 'em on," he said. "Just as well."

"The rest of life," I said. A minute later there was a knock on the door. "Come on in!" I said loudly.

Tina's head was through the door first. "I'm buyin' our way in with cookies. Susan's bringing meatballs."

"And Nikki?" I asked.

"Some kind of little things on toast," Susan said.

"Well, if you're gonna bring food, then come on in," Dan said.

Susan came up to him with a meatball on a toothpick, stuck it in his mouth. Giggled. "Now play!"

Dan strummed a chord. He looked at Nikki. "Nikki, if you bake me a pecan pie, I'll play Beethoven's Fifth Symphony."

That's my domestic sore spot. I cannot cook. I'm learning. Nikki's good. So is Tina. And Mizz Desai at the restaurant is showing me things.

"You and me. We're gonna make him a pie," I whispered to Nikki. I'm gonna learn. Got to. At least to Dan's level, and at least comfortable in the kitchen. It's silly not to have that set of skills.

"You don't have to do everything," Dan tells me. And I smile, because I know he's serious, but I look at Nikki and Tina and they're both pretty good. Nikki's darned good. TWO Dans say so. And I want to ... Oh, I don't know why I get this way. I used to not care, but now I don't like being second place. Or at least competitive.

So I was sitting with Devi looking at her math. Mizz Desai brought us some fresh naan and a vegetarian dal. "I need to cook like this," I said.

"Oh, don't say that," Devi said. "Nanni..."

"You would do well, grand-daughter," Mizz Desai said.

"Everybody should be able to cook," I said.

"Nobody will be able to cook like Mom. Or Nanni," Devi said.

"And I only wish I could cook like my own mother. Who wished she could cook as well as her mother," Mizz Desai said.

The next day when I went over there in the afternoon, Mizz Desai presented me with a spice box. "Cindy, every mother presents her daughter with one of these when she starts her household. I wish to give you this one."

I knew what to do. It hugged her. She's not much taller than me. And I said, "Thanks, Nanni!" That's how you adopt a grandmother. And I am very proud of my spice box. It's neat, and it takes 'show and tell' to a new level, like 'show and tell and smell and taste. I'm slipping Nanni some money for a sari.

But back to our gathering. Dan's playing his guitar. He's actually getting much better since I first saw him play, and he and I love to sing together. Having the group together, though, I find out that Susan already knows some of these songs and hey, we're not talking about opera in Italian, these are simple tunes for people who wanted to sing and share and be happy, so we're having a sing-along.

There's a knock on the door. Dan opens it. It's our neighbor, Mister Sim Weismann. "Are we being too loud?" Dan asked. "We kind of get carried away."

"Actually, Beck said to ask if it was a private party."

"Not a party. Tell 'er to come on!"

"Bring Rachel!" Terri said. "Please!"

"Oh, Rachel will be here," he said.

We don't have enough chairs. People sitting all over the place. Susan was on Jason's lap, Tina was on Alan's. Terri and Rachel were in the middle of the floor. Nikki was sitting on the floor between her Dan's feet. And we had a good time.

I think about all this sort of thing and think that it's paradise. Mostly is, too.

But there's some work, too. Like Mizz Patel said, Nikki and I are working with some of the instructors to knock out some engineering courses. Here's how it works. Nikki and I have met the instructors. They tell us what books to buy, what online resources to use, and what we're supposed to get from the course. And they send us home with a 'see you in a week so we can check progress.'

'Send', as in 'ride with Susan and Tina' because Nikki and I can't drive yet. Nikki will get her license in a month or two, when she has a birthday and turns sixteen. Right now, though, we're at the mercy of the licensed drivers. That's no big deal, though, because Susan and Tina would fight over who gets to drive us there, so we solve that by all going at once. That's a lot of fun, but we have to be careful that we don't distract the driver.

And after the first week, I came back to meet with the instructor. I don't know what he thought I'd do, but he seemed set aback.

"Benny," I said, "this intro to engineering. Pretty basic, don't you think?"

"Gimme a synopsis," he said.

I did. "I asked my husband his interpretation on some of this. And two other engineers who're pretty well respected, too. I just want to understand how the coursework relates to the real world."

"You should just worry about the coursework," he said. "You're gonna see some conflicts and some interpretations."

"I know. And you just told me what my husband told me." I smiled. "SO I'm putting the ideas into two piles. I'll be able to give you the book."

"Most people take a semester of classes for this course, Cindy," Benny said. "Doctor Patel told me that you're quick."

"I'm just trying to learn this stuff. I have a husband that showed me engineering and made me think I love it. So I want to learn. But this stuff..."

"Okay. You win. Go home with the book again. And next week, be ready to test. But then I'm just gonna throw you another book."

"That's okay," I said. "I got people poking me about some of the peripheral courses, too."

"You'll do just fine," Benny said. "You'll be an engineer, and you'll probably be an engineer before you're seventeen. What in the world will you do?"

When I got in the car to go home, I related that statement. Susan looked over her shoulder at me. "I'm thinking it's not 'what in the world will you do', it's 'what will the world do with you'."

Chapter 16

Tina's view:

Sometimes I curl up on the sofa in those rare moments when I need some 'me' time and I think about things.

Mommyhood. Little girls always think of being mommies. I did until I realized that my own 'mommy' saw me as a problem to be solved. Fortunately the solution was her own mother, Grandma, who did me right. When Grandma died and I ended up with Mom again, I pretty much decided that motherhood wasn't for me, not if I had a chance of ending up like Mom and me.

Rethinking that. Found out what it's like to be loved and cared for. What it's like to have a person to focus on in life, to share life with. That's Alan.

And then there's Terri. I've spoken with several people who advised me that step-kids are part of the package deal when you marry somebody who's got 'history'. I have analyzed the thought that I could have really thrown a fit and dodged the whole question of Terri in my life. Could've ended up with a very unhappy Alan. Could've ended up back out on my butt by myself, too. None of those things happened.

First, Alan was very open about Terri. I remember the first mention of her, a day after we first met, the sadness in his voice. "I'll never get to be the dad I want to be with her." Second, the first time I talked with Terri, we connected. She was open, happy, effusive, and excited to hear that her daddy had somebody. Third, the first time we met, Christmas of last year, it was like I'd collected a missing piece to the puzzle that is my life.

So I'm sitting here in our brand new apartment on a brand new sofa, graduated from high school and still psychically drained from a day with some of the staff at Auburn University and I'm a wife and a mommy and a college student. Overwhelming. A few months ago, 'overwhelming' would have been cured by falling back into Alan's arms, but today Alan's at the office eyeball-deep into FEED (Front-End Engineering and Design) for a new client's facility, and he's not available.

And Terri's across the way at her friend Rachel's apartment. Heaven only knows what they're up to. Rachel Weismann is a bright young girl in her own right, but compared to Terri, well, I love the term 'order of magnitude'. It applies to being intelligent. I now live with an intelligent bunch. Two of my younger sisters, Cindy and Nikki, have side-stepped a big part of a four-year degree program. And Terri's right up there with 'em. It's all confusing at times.

Life is supposed to be a series of carefully measured steps, you know. Zero to six, you're just a little kid, then for the next twelve years you're in school, one year at a time, until you graduate high school. And then college and marriage, you know. But I went from Grandma's where I was stepping through life, to Mom's where chaos reigned. And then the hurricane. And the diner. And Alan. I went from eleventh-grade dropout to advanced placement high school senior. And wife. And mom.

"Tina, we're here!" and the giggles of two seven year old girls is as good a way to break out of a reverie as any. I was presented with two cuties, one blonde, one dark-eyed, walnut-haired brunette. "Is summertime a bad time to make cookies?"

"And why are we making cookies, may I ask," I replied. I watched Terri doing a bit of light manipulation as she nudged Rachel.

Rachel giggled, struggled with the phrasing: "Cooking is an exercise in chemical reactions and aesthetic combinations of sight, smell, texture and taste."

I cut my eyes at Terri. "Okay, Terri-scooter! That sounds like YOUR words."

Rachel said, "See! You told me she'd probably figure it out!"

Terri grinned. "But we have to try! And no, actually it's a Cindy phrase."

"Cindy's trying to learn to cook," I sighed. "What sort of cookies?"

"Oh, we were thinking oatmeal. With nuts and raisins."

"Very healthy," I said.

"And lots of cinnamum an' spices!" Rachel added.

"CinnamON," Terri corrected.

"That's what I said! Cinnamum!" Rachel retorted to Terri's sigh.

"Let me do an inventory," I said. "Do you have a recipe?"

"Of course!" Terri said, whipping her iPad out of her backpack. "This one!"

"Sent it to the desktop computer and print it, then go see what we need. I know we don't have oatmeal."

A half-hour later we're getting into my car and I'm realizing that one point of this exercise is 'Let's get Tina to take us to the store!'. Happily, these two aren't the feral kind of kids you see running wild in the grocery store. They did look at the bakery department's oatmeal cookie offering, though, with running commentary.

"Ours will have more spices," Rachel said. "And love."

"Yes," Terri emphasized. "We will put love and happiness into ours."

Okay, now you KNOW we're gonna make these cookies.

The kitchen was a flurry of bumping into a pair of 'helpful' seven year olds and running discussions about ingredients and origins and mixtures and chemical reactions.

"You sound like Cindy," Terri said.

I could have been upset that I was being compared with a girl three years my junior, but we're talking about Cindy, and at this stage of our lives, I think Cindy is somehow the pivot. Or maybe the keystone. My first sister, with emphasis on the 'first' part. "Nobody sounds like Cindy," I said. "Except Terri!" Which was the truth. Seven and fourteen both horribly intelligent and precocious, and there's some sort of attraction between the two.

Alan and I had a discussion about Terri's place in the Community.

"My daughter..." he said.

"OUR daughter," I corrected.

And then we met the Weismanns when they moved into our apartment building, Sim Weismann is a Sociology prof and Beck, his wife. I get the idea that she's matured out of one of those, as Alan says, 'Kumbayah hippie socially aware' phases. Said Beck, pointing to a book on her shelf, "It Takes a Village. Hillary Clinton's name is on it although I doubt she wrote much of it. But when I see how Terri and Rachel flit around here, I see where my daughter and your daughter (she called Terri 'my daughter' and I melted inside) are indeed being raised by this strange village. On an intellectual level, I see this as a very good thing. I was worried about the sociological implications..."

"Yeah, all those teeny-bopper girls and their perpetually sexual husbands and all that," I said. That was another conversation, another set of fears put to rest.

"You have to admit..." Beck said.

"I know I would," I laughed. "But this 'village'..."

"Good thing. Right down to what goes on through the back door of that Indian restaurant," Beck said. "Terribly multi-culti, don't you know," she laughed.

"Oh, Mizz Desai told me that she was lamenting that all her grandchildren were grown up and not yet producing a generation of great-grandchildren and now she has two, one blonde, one brunette."

"Look," I said to Beck, "Let me make some coffee. Or tea."

"Oh, why don't you come to my place. I'll do that. You need a break."

"Okay," I said. I like Beck. Jewish. That's not a problem at all. Has strong family background. I like that. New recipes. She'd called us all over for... "Kasha varnishkes. I'd say 'like Grandma used to make', but there's no way. I tried, though. You'll get the idea."

Was good. Hard to be sad with stuff like that.

Not sad, though. Thoughtful. Lots of things to think about. Some days were just a tumble of things, like when I started taking tests. "CLEP out of as much stuff as you can," Alan said. 'CLEP' was an archaic program to allow one to take tests on college subjects and receive credits based on knowledge acquired through, to use the accepted term, 'non-traditonal means', like reading everything I could get my hands on. My results got me interviews with department heads in history, literature and language. And credits. A handful of them. I sighed. Maybe not the 'Cindy and Nikki' kind of credits in hard math, but I was at least good through the second year math. But I was satisfied. So was Susan, although Susan was the recipient of a much more traditional education experience. School. And smart.

Susan and I didn't create quite the stir that Cindy and Nikki did on campus. Both of them are so obviously young, and Cindy, well, we giggle and pick at Cindy sometimes. She's almost a caricature of a fairy tale pixie with that red hair and green eyes. And no, NOT jealous. If you took those two out of my life, I was still wonderfully blessed. Putting them IN my life was a happy thing. And they're my first sisters, Cindy from my new life, Nikki from the old. And Cindy's the one that came up with the whole community thing in the first place, on the first night we met. Yeah. It's like that.

Aside from everybody's apartments, we had a couple of other meeting places. The apartment had a pavilion, covered, in a back corner of the property. In late afternoon tall trees on the west side shaded it early, letting it cool to a kind of balmy place that one could sit in the evenings, alone (like I was ever alone when I didn't want to be) or with friends. The first time we ended up there, Cindy came out with a big pitcher of iced tea.

"Look! I made this myself!" she giggled, knowing how we'd discussed her desire to learn to cook. The pavilion immediately became known as 'Cindy's Tearoom' among us. Like the 'Nikki Granger Memorial Data Network'. And the 'Susan Ellerbee Arboretum', three cherry trees and a bed of petunias, most of them blue, that Jason publicly claimed matched the eyes of his true love.

I have something, too. Tina's Daughter.

I was puttering around the kitchen at the end of the day when Alan walked in. "How was college today?" he asked.

"I think I'm gonna still have to do two semesters of English. I'm thinking literature."

"Why don't you do something with writing?" he said.

"Writing? Cindy's the writer."

"You do as well," he said.

"Let me think about it. And stop that. You're my biggest fan."

"I just see your capabilities. You make the choice."

"I chose you, didn't I?" I said, kissing him.

"Yeah ... I'm awfully happy with that choice." He kissed me back, nuzzled the hair away from my neck and rendered me uncontrollably giggly. "Where's Terri?"

I know what that means. "She and Rachel are at Nikki's. We have time." We did have time. Time that was put to good use, I might add. Still, the languorous ennui afterward was cut short because we knew that Terri would be back soon. Of course we also knew that she knew that Alan had come home and we were alone and she's smart enough not to barge in unannounced.

And dinner. "Forget it," I said. "Cindy's been at the Desai's all afternoon learning to cook Indian food. They're laying a spread for the whole bunch."

"Who's paying for that?" he asked.

"I dunno. Figured that's one of those beancounter details," I giggled. I know that my engineer husband turns colors when we get to talking about financial considerations.

"Tell 'em to give us a bill and we'll sent it to Susan's mom. Deduct it from the lease."

"Oh, okay," I said.

"What time?"

"Six," I said. "Go shower."

"Come with me."

"Our daughter's gonna catch us," I said.

"She's already caught us," he retorted. She had. Well, not blatantly, but late night, watching TV, a blanket over the two of us on the sofa, covering us, and I was in Alan's lap with him inside me. The next day, Terri had asked, "You and Dad, last night..."

"You were supposed to be asleep."

"I didn't see anything," she said. "'Sides, you're married. Married people do that."

"Yes, married people do that."

"I'm sorry I walked in on y'all."

"It's quite all right," I said. "And we learned?"

"When you think I'm asleep, make more noise if I get up." Terri said, eyes downcast. Then she looked up, smiled.

Still we managed to jump in and out of the shower before my cellphone buzzed with Terri's ringtone.

"I'm coming home, Tina," she said.

"Oh, come home, baby," I told her. "You need to clean up for dinner. We're eating at the restaurant with everybody and the Desais."

"I know. Everybody's excited. Cindy's got a secret."

"Tell me when you get here!"

"I can't tell you. It's a secret and I don't really know."

Two minutes later she was through the front door. I scooped her up and kissed and tickled her. "You're not supposed to keep secrets from me," I said.

"And I wouldn't if it was something dangerous or bad. But this isn't," she said. "And I only know a little bit and it's a little secret and it's good. You'll like it."

Alan came into the living room. "Who's got a secret about whom?"

"Terri's got part of a secret about Cindy who's got the whole secret and she won't tell me."

"It's a good secret, Dad. It's not like she's a criminal or something." Terri was trying. Alan isn't totally immune to her wiles.

"We talked about kinds of secrets it's okay to keep, didn't we, baby?" he asked.

She did her best 'innocent little girl' pose and nodded in the affirmative. "If it could hurt somebody, I can't keep it a secret." She twisted like she was bashful. I had to turn my head to keep from giggling. "Daddy..." 'Daddy' was the key sign that she was playing her dad. "This is just a fun secret. Like knowing the punch line of a good joke."

"Okay, baby," Alan said. As he gathered her up for a hug, he looked over her shoulder and winked at me. He knows how the game is played, too. Walking out of the apartment we ran into Dan 1.0 without Cindy, a rare occurrence.

"Where's Cindy?" I asked.

"She said that she'd meet me at the restaurant," he said. "Something's up." He was smiling. "I am likely to be charmed."

Alan shook his head. "Yeah, between her and her sisters, you're liable to be shown a wormhole to a new universe."

"No, that'd be Nikki. She's talking extra-dimensional. The other Dan's problem."

Halfway across the parking lot we joined up with the other Dan and Nikki and Jason and Susan. Susan was grinning. "You know something," Dan 1.0 said.

"Only the barest little bit." Giggle. "And I ain't tellin'," Susan smiled.

"Jason. Your wife. Control her."

Jaosn laughed, "Gee, Dan. I don't know if I wanna try that. I like 'er wild."

"JASON!" Susan squealed.

Terri twisted her head to look at me. "They're in love, huh?"

"Oh, yeah," I said. "Like me and your daddy."

"That makes it good, huh?" she said. "Makes my dad happy, you being his wife. I can tell."

I cut my eyes to Alan. He just smiled.

When we trooped into the restaurant, they had a couple of tables pushed together for us, a good idea because there were nine of us, counting Cindy, who was conspicuous by her absence. The grandmother, Mizz Desai, the family matron, saw to our seating personally, again unusual because they employed a bevy of part-timers as wait-staff, all from the university. Two of them, a brown-haired girl from Kentucky and a sandy-headed boy from Mobile, stood by attentively. There were three tables of the little restaurant already in use, it being Tuesday night. Something was definitely afoot.

"Sit, sit," Mizz Desai said. "This is a special evening. I have been in the kitchen most of the afternoon with your sister Cindy, preparing dishes. Cindy!" she said loudly, clapping her hands twice.

Cindy appeared, wearing a sari, her red hair pulled back from her face. And a little red jewel of a bindi centered in her forehead, just above her eyes. She stood beside Mizz Desai, along with the son, Arun and his wife Malati.

"We know," Mizz Desai said, "That Cindy is a sister to some of you and she is the wife of Dan. Tonight we call Cindy family."

Arun spoke. "Your Catholic church and many of your other Christian faiths have what you call 'godparents'. My mother wishes to say that she is Cindy's godmother. I think that having Cindy as a sister is a good thing."

"And she is cute in a sari, don't you think?" Malati said. "Plus, she adds a pleasant contrast."

I could certainly see that, Cindy's pale complexion, green eyes and red hair alongside the shining black hair and dark eyes and skin of the sub-continent.

"So, my friends, please greet my grand-daughter Cindy. I understand that her name, Cynthia, is related to the Greek moon goddess Artemis. The Hindi moon goddess is Chandra." She motioned Cindy to stand before her, putting her hands on Cindy's shoulders. "This is my grand-daughter Chandra."

Cindy. Chandra. Whoever. Who knows where Cindy goes next. My little redheaded sister was beaming. Terri poked me. "See! Good surprise."

Cindy smiled. "My grandmother and my new sister and I prepared dinner. I do hope you find it satisfactory."

We did. Cindy slid in beside her Dan. He smiled at her. He's always smiling at her, but this time, even bigger. "Told you about hanging out here too much." He waved at Mizz Desai. "Although I do love my new in-laws."

What do you do with an opening like that? We laughed, talked, enjoyed good food, listened to Cindy say 'I did THAT' several times. I come away with the idea that the Desai family is a major star in this strange constellation that is my life.

Finally back in the apartment, Terri in the shower, Alan and I on the sofa. "How does she do that, baby?" I asked.

"Who does what?" he asked.

"You know who! Cindy! Little 'raised in an Alabama trailer park' Cindy. Who just got adopted by a Hindu family."

"You're jealous?" he questioned.

"Heavens, no! She has a way of bringing everybody in on her happiness like it belongs to all of us. She's like some kind of little redheaded Tinkerbelle, flittering around boppin' people on the noggin with her magic happy wand."

"You're not jealous, then," he questioned again. "Did you catch the look on her Dan's face when she waltzed out wearing a sari and a bindi?"

"She told me that he told her that would happen if she hung around there too much. I think it's the Cindy version of revenge for that comment. But I caught it. Surprise. Then smile. He loves 'er to pieces, Alan!"

"And that's part of the reason why. But she's not the only one. Y'all all sort of wormed your way into that family."

"It's how friendship is supposed to work. And community. We all bring something into the mix. She and Nikki are helping the Desai kids with math. Mizz Desai gives Cindy and Nikki run of the kitchen. I get Terri and Rachel, and Beck and Sim are showing me kosher."

"Nothing wrong with kosher," Alan said. "Even if we're not Jewish."

"Recipes," I said. "She's got hand-written recipes from her great-grandmother in Polish! And translations by her grandmother. Roots! I love learning about people's roots."

"It's a good thing, baby!" he said.

"Well, I only know half of mine," I said. "Maybe that's why."

"Or maybe it's because you enjoy getting the 'happy' out of people, too. Just a different approach than Cindy."

Terri bounced out of the hallway. "Everybody's different, you know."

"Enlighten me, O Delightful One," I said.

"They are. Some people just can't find a reason to smile. All my family smiles. An' that's not just my Tina and my dad. Everybody!" Terri slid onto my lap and hugged me. "It's good, you know. Rachel says so, too. That's why she likes living here. She said that their last apartment was full of grumpy people, and some you really didn't want to be around."

I'd had some talks with Beck about that. I knew what it was like to live in an apartment with unsavory occupants. Matter of fact, my own mom was one of the unsavory occupants. I didn't tell Beck that, but the thought was in my head as she talked about some of their trials. They were just clean, decent people who wanted a place where they could live peacefully without worrying about their daughter playing outside or their property while they were away.

Now, I think she has that. The noisiest we get is one of those songfests at Cindy's, and Sim and Beck are usually there with us. And safe? We're safe. I didn't tell her about Cindy and Dan's previous history, and that Alan was, well, there's something to Alan, he having defended me twice. And I know my way around the guns in our house. Which reminds me, I need to dig us up a shooting venue. It's been a while. Need to keep in practice. I've talked about that with Beck. She has trouble understanding, coming from the big city northeast to down here in the hinterlands, but her husband is not averse. Maybe I will drop a hint to Cindy. I can't think of a story Cindy could tell that would get people mad at her.

"Rachel used to couldn't go out to play with other kids unless her mom or dad went with her," Terri said. "Now she and I can go anywhere. We can go visit everybody."

"Remember what we said about calling first unless you already talked to them."

I didn't want my daughter being a pest. Told Susan that and I thought she was gonna yell at me. "Terri's NOT a pest. She's a confusing and interesting and precocious little ... uh, we can't use 'pixie' twice in the group, can we?"

I giggled. "That thing they called Cindy? The Engineer's Apprentice? Then Terri's The Pixie's Apprentice!"

Terri squealed happily. "I'm callin' Cindy!"

"Email her," I said. "It's a little late for a phone call."

"Okay, I guess," Terri said.

"Wise," Alan added.

Terri giggled, picked up her iPad and started tapping happily on the screen. Hit send. I started counting. Got to fifteen before the phone rang with Cindy's ringtone.

Terri put the phone to her ear. "Cindy! Ain't it NEAT?!?"

"And probably more true than either of us wants to admit," Alan said.

"Yeah, I know. But of all the people to wanna be like..."

Terri chatted excitedly with Cindy and I noticed the subject change from her new title to who was writing what and where it was going. Susan had worked with an English professor the previous Friday and mentioned a precocious seven year old.

"Do you have examples of her writing?" the professor asked.

Susan said, "She's my adopted, oh, I dunno, little sister, niece, something, and yes, I do have some examples. What do you want? Essay? Expository? Here!" Susan handed her a few printed pages and sat back.

"You edited these, of course?"

"I would never presume to edit Terri's work. I point out errors in spelling and grammar so she will learn. And she's passed me up, I think. I couldn't write like this when I was fourteen."

The professor read for a bit. "Susan, I have freshmen who can't do this well. Actually, sophomores, too." She read a little more. "Excuse me, but you've taken me away from the matter at hand. A question, though. What sort of educational opportunities are being arranged for her?"

"That's up for further discussion. She's the step-daughter of Christina Addison. You're talking to her next Tuesday, I believe. She and her husband would be interested in discussing that with you." Susan related the conversation to Alan and I, out of earshot of Terri.

"I hope I didn't do wrong, Alan," she said.

"No, Susan, you didn't. You might've opened a door."

"Or a can of worms," she said.

"Yeah," Alan said. "Let's see where THAT development leads."

Chapter 17

Sweet little Susan's turn:

"You did WHAT?" Alan asked me.

I took a breath. The guy actually sounded disturbed. "I gave some of Terri's writings to the English professor who's working with us." I looked at Tina. "Did I do something wrong?"

"Alan, she didn't do anything wrong, you know."

"I know. I'm just surprised." Alan smiled at me.

"You know they'd have figured it out when she started school in the fall," Tina said.

"Yeah, I suppose you're right."

"Do you forgive me, Alan," I said, using my best 'little girl' voice.

"Yes, I forgive you. And save that voice for Jason."

Giggle. "I don't need that voice for Jason. If I use it too much, he breaks into pieces." He does. I love having Jason in my life. And he is so easy to get going. He adores me. That's apparent. I don't know if it is as readily apparent that I adore him.

But there's Terri, too. Terri's kind of like the communal daughter. Well, not really. She spends most of the time at Tina's place, being Alan's daughter, after all, but it seems like every day Terri makes the rounds. Sometimes she only stops by to say 'hi', sometimes she's with her friend Rachel. That's on days we don't have a big confab going at the pavilion in back, or one of the informal meetings in the restaurant before they open for dinner at five.

You wanna know one good thing about it? Jason loves 'er. And tells me we need to have at least one like that. We talked. We both graduate, I get a couple of years on the job, then we work on the creation of a little collaborative effort of an offspring and pray that he or she will be the doll that Terri is.

This college thing is stressful. I talked to Jason. "Baby doll," he said, "you're doing things that I didn't do. All these interviews and the departments pushing books on you and then testing you. I didn't do that."

"I know, honey," I said. "But I'm caught up in the whirlpool now."

"Merry-go-round," Jason said. "Once you're on it, getting off before it stops can be painful." Jason knows. He's talking to people at the college, too, trying to get some credits ahead of his own ambition to convert from Engineering Technology to full blown Electrical Engineering.

I kissed him, not one of those 'take me to bed and make me knot the sheets up' kisses, just an 'I love you and you're a lovely part of my life' kiss. "Baby, we don't have to kill each other. You have a good career if you stay just like you are. And I could be a plain ol' freshman..."

"Shush!" he said, returning my kiss. Okay, maybe there just might be a call to wreck the bed soon. "Don't waste that mind of yours on mediocrity. Let's see how far you can go, and how fast. But don't burn yourself out."

I know about 'burn-out'. We, us, the community, we've talked to the guys who've actually done the work: Alan, two Dans, about people who burnt out, who crashed and burned, and why. Lots of reasons turn up, and a lot of them had to do with lack of support networks. When I look at our group, I see support networks out the kazoo, as Jason says.

All this closeness is something! I mean, it used to be me and Tina, just good friends, then Cindy popped up and said 'sisters' and then 'community' and then Nikki showed back up in Tina's life, and by inference in ours, too. We used to be happy with a phone call or a Skype session and those odd weekend trips. Then we tossed my Jason in, and then we all moved down here.

Cindy says 'critical mass'. "You take an isotope of uranium. If you put a little bit here and a little bit there, spread out, it's no problem. Bring enough of it into close proximity, and it starts heating up. Chain reaction." And she smiles. That's classic Cindy. I knew about chain reactions and critical mass. Cindy's the one who takes that idea from one venue and drops it in the middle of another. And makes sense.

Anyway, we like being together almost every day. For example, Cindy needs to go to the campus for a meeting. Rarely does her Dan take her. Usually it's me or Tina driving, but we usually squeeze the whole crew into one car so we all go together.

I'm trying to figure all this out. My sisters were products of somewhat similar and almost tragic backgrounds. If there's anybody who might have a reason to be withdrawn, I thought it would be one of them, but every one of them seems to thrive in the group setting. Our biggest problem is that we all need some alone time with our spouses, but we've reached an equilibrium over that. Text messages precede knocks on doors, after eight-thirty is off limits, that sort of thing. By this stage of the game, everybody's been 'caught', always by phone call. That's always the possibility, you know. My sisters and I are quite active in our relations with our husbands.

I heard stories about newlyweds. Asked Mom. She sighed, smiled at me. "Uh, Susan, I suppose that's part of The Talk I'm supposed to have with you," she said. "I loved your Dad. He loved me. We were young and energetic and yes, every day, every night, every chance we got, and we made sure we had lots of chances. It was completely new to me and almost new to him and we ... there were days I was raw. And that didn't stop us."

"Then it's normal to, like, ALL the time?"

"Normal, sweetie. And expected. And appreciated, don't you think?"

"OhGodYES, Mom. I love Jason and..."

"Don't be graphic, dear," Mom said.

"Oh, I'm not, Mom. But I asked the rest..."

"And they said?"

"Pretty much the same thing."

"Even Cindy?"

"Especially Cindy. She said it was magical."

"Fourteen," Mom said.

"Mom, you've met Cindy. The only thing fourteen about her is her age. And Nikki's only a year older."

But that's all part of life and we recognize it and make allowances and life is good. Some evenings I notice that Terri's over at our apartment watching one of Jason's animated movies on our big-screen TV and he and she are laughing. Okay, I laugh too, maybe not quite as much at the movie as I do at my twenty-something husband laughing out loud. And some of the looks Terri gives him. And I know that one of the reasons Terri is there is that Tina and Alan have a little time together to themselves.

That was another conversation. "Does Terri slow y'all down?" I asked Tina.

Tina smiled. Lovely smile, she has. "A little bit. I miss the 'naked on the sofa, any time' thing. And at night, I'm ... we're both a little less vocal. Terri's got good hearing, you know..."

"Oh, yes," I said. "Great hearing. And asks questions."

"Well, she KNOWS that we do it. Says 'That's one of the things that couples do. You an' Dad are married. So you do that because you love each other.' And she asked me what YOU asked me."

"What?" I asked, not exactly surprised. Terri's very insightful. Precocious.

"If having her around affected how her dad and I interacted. Her word. "Interacted." What'd'ya do with a seven year old who uses words like that and knows what they mean?"

"You answer her. What did you tell her?"

"I told her that having her around showed me how much Alan loved me that he brought her to live with us. Which is true, you know."

"I know," I said.

"Little darlin' didn't let it end there."

"Mmm, okayyyy," I said.

"She said 'What about other stuff? Like bedroom stuff?' and I said that we were doing okay, just fine. That's when she just got those big blue eyes going and said that she might enjoy going to the movies with you and Jason or spending an afternoon with your Dad or Mom."

I giggled. "Yeah, she told me. Sitting right there between me an' Jason, she said she was going to enjoy the movie with us and you and Alan were going to enjoy the privacy."

"That's my daughter," I said. "And if she bothers you by coming over too much, let me know, okay?"

"Tina, the kid calls before she comes over, and I have told her 'no' before. And she's okay with that."

"And Rachel's a relief valve, too."

"Oh, yes," I said. "And both of 'em together? Hilarious."

"Or Terri and Cindy or Terri and Nikki," Tina said.

And that's where I had the discussion with Tina and Alan. I mean, I am proud, a proud aunt, I guess, and if bragging about my beautiful niece is wrong, well ... but I bragged to a professor at a major university and showed her some of the work of a seven ("ALMOST EIGHT!") year old mini-me and now Alan and Tina are going to get a phone call from the psychologist who interviewed Nikki and Cindy. I thought that Alan was mad at me at first, but he ended up smiling.

"Like trying to hide a lit candle in a dark room," he finally said. "We only got a taste until she moved in with us."

Tina smiled. She's got a lot of different smiles. Most people do. This was her smile where she knows she's ahead of the game. "Come on, baby. Remember at Christmas when we played Monopoly with her. I was worried she wouldn't be able to keep up with the numbers, being seven and all that. I offered to help. You remember the look I got?"

"She's got an independent streak, I guess," Alan said.

"She's got an 'I can do this myself' streak," I said. "Ever since I've known her."

"That's a good thing," Alan said. "Just so she knows how to treat people well."

Tina said, "Well, she got along fine with Shara. She gets along fine with Rachel. Shara was just a normal kid. Rachel's a bright one, but not like Terri. But she seems to adjust."

My phone rang. Well, it didn't actually ring, it played a happy little tune that identified the caller as the most wonderful guy in the world. Alan and Tina both smiled. They knew who it was. "This is your fault," I said. "Hi, baby!"

"Hi cutie!" he popped. I could feel him smiling through the phone. "We're on the way back. Maybe half an hour."

"Goodie!" I said. "I miss you. Got us a casserole in the oven. One of Mom's recipes."

He laughed. "That takes care of ONE appetite."

I blushed. I knew what the other appetite is. Yes, I know. And I still blush. And that makes Tina giggle.

"Stoppit! Now I'm blushing!"

"And it's so cute when you do that," he said. "Who're you with?"

"Tina and Alan."

"Alan can control himself. Tell Tina to wipe that smirk off her face!"

"Jason says stop smirking at me," I told Tina.

"TIna, stop picking on Susan," Alan snickered. "She's still a newlywed. She's allowed."

"Am I allowed?" Tina asked in her best 'little girl' voice.

"Of course you are." He kissed the top of her head. "Let's see ... where's our daughter?"

"Oh," I said. "She's over at Cindy's since Dan 1.0 and Jason went to Birmingham today." That was the deal with work. The utility company that used us a couple of weeks ago was happy with our company's preliminary effort. I don't know if they were as happy as Jason and I were that ONE day, but still, you know. They want us to do another area, so that's what Jason is doing today, he and Dan. I'm hoping I'll be able to go with him, but now I'm starting to do college stuff. At least a lot of this area is within reasonable driving distance, so I get Jason at home most nights.

And there's Terri. When she overheard us talking about him having to stay overnight without me, Terri popped up, "I can stay with you on those nights, so you won't be alone."

"Awww, sweetie! If Tina and your dad will let you, that would be wonderful." I was actually charmed that she'd ask. Terri's, in Cindy's words, the community kid. Not like an orphan, more like a child of an extended family. Alan's daughter, but the rest of us love her to pieces, especially Tina. And to tell you the truth, hanging around Terri is slightly more surreal than dealing with Cindy and Nikki. Cindy's bad enough. You know the stereotype: Cute girls are supposed to be dumb. And Cindy's like this little pixie thing, cute as a bug, and when you hear her talk, you're hearing things that do NOT belong in the head of a fourteen year old girl.

And Terri's worse. Most of my nieces and the kids I worked with at church that were in that age range were all about colorful, fanciful toy animals and little mermaids and fairy tales. If I sit down and watch TV with Terri, I get a running commentary of the anthropomorphic characteristics of little girl's toy animals. And don't make the mistake of thinking she's just parroting words she heard somewhere else, either. She can spell them, mostly. And she can do a good job defining them.

And she made Jason explain Ohm's Law. "I heard Dad and Tina mention it like it was something," and these are her words, "of foundational importance."

"It's really pretty simple, darlin'," Jason said to her softly. As for me, when I saw him working with Terri, I felt my 'mommy' hormones surge. But he explained. "And you might want to see if Nikki has some stuff to show you an experiment."

I excused myself from Alan and Tina and headed to the apartment so I'd be there when Jason got in. A quick check of the oven told me that my dinner plans were not going to be a total disaster. I made a quick pass with my eyes around MY apartment. Mom was a good housekeeper and I see no sense in being less so. I expect that Mom and Dad will visit us in a week or so and I will be proud to show her a home as cared for as the one in which I was reared.

My dad got a nice home from my mother. I shall do the same for my husband. My mom made Dad feel loved. I shall do the same. And I have reason to expect no less a return than Mom received from Dad. I didn't marry some 'bad boy' bozo with a wife-beater shirt and a pickup truck half filled with empty beer cans. I married a bright, happy fellow who treats me like a princess sometimes and a delightful toy at other times and knows when to differentiate.

That's why I'm anxious for him to get home. Dinner. And...

I hear the front door open and "Honey, I'm home!"

I can't help but attack him. Just a little bit, because he starts attacking back and then we're both getting excited and I giggle "Stop! The casserole will burn!"

"It'll burn in five minutes?" he asks.

"Nooooo," I say, "but what do you think you can do in five minutes, sir?" and I sort of cup that lump that's growing in his pants. Giggle. "Quickie?" Giggle again. I've got him almost ready to pop now. "And a promise of a long shower and then a long, tender, loving..."

He's grinning now. "Promise!" And he kisses me. And I'm sliding my pants down over my hips. Right in the middle of the living room floor! Thank God we pulled the drapes closed. In a short time that happy little romp was over and I'd wobbled to the bathroom clasping my thighs together to dab up the mess and he's right behind me laughing and loving me.

"I didn't know you were such a beast, guy," I said. "If only I'd known..."

We've played this game before. "If you'd have known, you wouldn't have married me?"

"Not on your life, buddy boy! I don't think I'd've been quite as virtuous on my wedding day, that's all."

"Just means we have to work extra hard at it to make up for lost time." He grabbed my bare butt as I was trying to get my pants back up. "Feed me so my strength doesn't flag," he smiled, kissing my neck.

"Yes, my beast," I said. God, I'm in love!

Dan Richards' turn:

The utility company job is going to pretty be lucrative. Right now, Jason is happy doing the on-site data collection, although I don't expect him to do it all. The region they just gave us, though, is all within a short drive from Auburn. He'll be home most days if he wants to. When I see him and Susan together, I know he wants to.

I took him with me today to the company headquarters and introduced him around to the engineering staff there. Jason handles himself well. He knows his stuff. Doesn't run his mouth. Lets them ask questions. I was happy.

Happier when I walked through my own front door and saw my Cindy there. She ran up and kissed me. Terri was there with her. They had a laptop open and a notebook. Terri sat up, smiled, "Hi, Uncle Dan."

"Hi, Terri-button," I said. "What're y'all doin'?"

"Cindy and I are writing. And we needed to look something up on Wikipedia, and you know ALL the stuff you can find? We're doing mythical creatures."

"Because Terri's The Pixie's Apprentice," Cindy chuckled. "D'ya know how much that flatters me?"

"Me too," Terri said. She wrinkled her nose. "Cindy's my hero!" She stood beside Cindy. "And I need to go home now. Tina's probably looking for me."

"You don't have to run," I said. "Smells like Cindy stole another recipe from Mizz Desai."

"Simple country fare, just like you always say," my angel smiled.

"Except the country is India," Terri giggled. "I think that's soooo neat! Cindy started putting things together. Opened up her little spicebox and said, 'Now what does Grandma Desai say about this?' and she cooked."

"It's an accelerated biryani," Cindy smiled. "You made it for me and called it chicken jambalaya. At the restaurant it's biryani."

Giggle from Terri. "And in every country that has rice, they have the same dish. Rice and something. You sure you don't mind? Lemme call Tina." She reached into her constant companion backpack and pulled out her iPhone. "Tina-mom," she said. Held the phone to her ear.

"Tina, I'm at Cindy's." Pause. "Yes, he just got home. They wanna know if I can eat dinner here. I helped Cindy cook." Giggle. "She CAN cook. She's a child of the sub-continent, she says." Pause. Terri turned to me. "Tina says are you SURE?"

"Of course we're sure," Cindy said.

"They're sure." Pause. "Okay, right after we eat and I help clean up. Love ya. Hug Dad for me." Pause. "Bye!"

I told Alan that I was claiming a percentage of Terri as a dependent on my taxes. He laughed. "You're not the first," he said.

Cindy CAN cook. Let me add that to the list. Cute. The ultimate sexy. Smart beyond all measure of intelligence. Funny. Loving. And she can cook. It's over now. I have definitely died and gone to heaven.

True to her word, Terri was out the door after the dishwasher started and Cindy was laughing as she pushed me toward the master bathroom.

"Shower," she said. "I need to be washed, sir, so that I am presentable for my mate."

"Then I shall wash you, my dear," I said, playing along. "One should be prepared properly for her mate."

Her mate found her delightfully clean, and after an hour rather tastily sticky. And it was still early. We got up, tried TV, gave up, played cards, went back to bed, collided happily, then went to sleep in each other's arms. Oh, well, a morning shower wouldn't hurt.

Business. For me, that means going across the parking lot, unlocking the back door to the office suite in our strip mall and firing up the desktop computer on my desk. Yes, I had a desktop. Why? Because of Cindy and Nikki. "Look, we buy all the parts off the Internet, put them together, give you a ridiculous monitor and video card and it's your home system." Nikki told me that with Cindy grinning behind her.

I gotta talk to the other Dan. Nikki with tools is dangerous. The UPS truck regularly drops off boxes marked 'Nikki Granger'. Yes, I've seen the robotic cat feeder. I'm more impressed than their cat. It's got a proximity detector that dispenses a measured amount of food. He thinks, as most cats do, that feeding should be done directly by a human, so he still comes looking for Nikki to feed him. She sets him down in front of his bowl, the sensor sees him, a motor whirs, a measured amount of dry food falls into his bowl, and he looks at her like he's abused. She gives him a treat from her hand, and then he eats his food.

"Who's training whom here?" I asked.

"Up for grabs," Dan G. replied. "She thought he was getting too fat, so she put together that feeder to only give him the recommended ration every day. Now he begs. And she indulges him."

The idea wasn't so much about Nikki being trained by the cat as Nikki approaching an integration of hardware and software to accomplish a real-world result, and she did it with Cindy right there tucked in beside her.

When I found out what they were doing, I pressed Cindy for details. "What voltages are you playing with?"

"Hundred-twenty AC, twenty-four DC," Cindy said, like conversations about voltage are supposed to be rolling off the tongue of a fourteen year old pixie.

"Hundred-twenty will kill, baby," I said.

"Alan said the same thing. Showed us how to use a meter, how to kill the power before we put our hands on things."

"You haven't gotten bit yet?" 'Bit' is a trade term for light hit of electricity. A shock. I'd been bit, buzzed, sometimes badly. Always my fault. I learned.

"Nope. Alan has, though. You?"

"Yes. Sometimes it hurts. If somebody sees you, it can be embarrassing. And nowadays if you do it on a job, it usually means a recorded incident and a lot of meetings and paperwork. A contractor can lose a contract over it. But that's not as bad as getting killed."

"I'll be very careful," she said. "When we work around it, we're serious. No goofing off. No distractions."

"See that you do. It worries me," I said.

"Baby," she told me, "you have a wife who's going to become an electrical engineer. Don't you think I should, oh, you know, actually WORK with some electricity?"

"Baby doll, we have a project that includes voltage levels of 345,000 and 500,000 volts. You're not going to see me swinging from a transmission line."

Giggle. That tells me that first, I am being indulged and second, that she has won the argument. "And I've seen you up to your elbows in a 480-volt cubicle, too. With my own eyes." Grin. "I'll be careful."

"You and Nikki find out where the next CPR class is. You both need to go. Oh, just as well make Tina and Susan go too."

"CPR?" she asked.

"Yeah. At low voltages, the usual cause of a fatality is cardiac arrest. So you need to know how to do a re-start."

"Makes sense," she said. Then, "Wait! Isn't there some kind of thing that a lot of places keep that restarts a heart?" Her brow wrinkled. "AED. That's it! Automated External Defibrillator."

"I need one now, baby. That mouthful just stopped my heart."

"Just a second," she said, tapping on her laptop. "A thousand bucks. That's what they cost."

"Okay," I said. "We'll get one. Put it in the back room of the office and that will be your lab. But you still go get the training."

"Deal!" she said. "Now let me restart your heart." She plastered herself into my chest, her lips on mine, the kiss enhanced by a 'mmmmmm'. Giggle. "Must've worked, huh? Seems like you're generating blood pressure again!"

Yeah. Part of me inflated quite nicely.

"Come on, baby," she said, gently pulling me in the direction of the bedroom.

Chapter 18

Nikki's week:

I thought he was messing with me. I got dropped off at the engineering building along with Cindy on Monday morning. We're working with a couple of junior professors, guys hoping for tenure. We're novelties, mascots, pets, curiosities. At least we started that way in the middle of June. I'm not saying that at this stage they're exactly ducking and running, but Cindy and I have waded through about two years of engineering courses.

So when I walked into Jeffrey's office this morning, he had this smirk on his face.

"You're up to something," I said. "Are you gonna cause me pain?"

"Not like the pain you've caused me, Little Mizz Nikki Cajun Genius Girl," he said. "I had a talk with the department head last week. He's amazed at your progress. Too amazed, he says." He bridged his fingers together and rested his chin on them. "Did you go through the text I gave you last week?"

"Yessir," I smiled. "And I'm putting together a rail-gun, too. Got my husband looking for a freebie capacitor from the utility company."

"Oh, come on! A rail-gun?"

"Not up to that naval thing that's in the lab, but this one ought to be fun to experiment with. I'm using a spark gap for a trigger. Current-limited charge."

"You can't get a predictable firing pulse like that," he said.

"Oh, that's not what I'm after. I just want to see some bits of steel take off across the room."

"You're nuts."

"Maybe so. But I don't have access to the kinds of high power electronics you guys have. Cindy said..."

"And that's how things go off track," he laughed.

"Well she's the one who got the copper tubing from the HVAC contractor. I came up with the rail gun based on magnetics, she came up with the capacitor for storage. I came up with the spark gap."

"How would you two like to actually get to do some of those experiments?" he asked.

I squealed.

"Okay, then here's today's test. You know the drill."

He passed me a sheaf of papers. I did indeed know the drill: head into the empty conference room and get after it.

"Thank you, Doctor Jeffrey."

"You're quite welcome, Nikki."

I went into the conference room and laid things out, sat down and started reading. Got startled. Maybe the first page was wrong. Looked at the second page. Same thing. Third. Okay, they're messing up.

I knocked on Jeffrey's door. He looked up, grinned. "I figured I'd see you back pretty fast."

"What's the deal?" I asked. "I did this two weeks ago."

"Very astute observation, young padawan," he said.

"Why?"

"My boss, the super-doctor..."

"Doctor Stebbins," I said.

He smiled. Doctor Stebbins knew me by name, smiled and waved if he saw me. "Yes, Doctor Stebbins. He wanted me to make sure that you were actually retaining the subject matter. So be a good little girl and go take the stupid test. Again. And make sure you don't do measurably worse this time."

That 'little girl' comment was from a previous conversation wherein he opined about female engineers in general and especially 'little girl' engineers in specific, after Cindy and I both completed the first classes. "Yes, Revered Professor of Engineering," I said. And I curtsied.

When I turned, one of the department secretaries was staring in the door at us. "You guys are strange," she laughed. "And getting stranger..."

I returned to the conference room and did the test. Jeffrey never gave me a time limit and by now stopped looking surprised when I popped out before noon with the papers in my hand.

"Is your support network in range?" he asked. "I can give you the test you expected after lunch. If you think you can finish it before five, that is..." He stared at me.

"Puh-leeeez," I said.

"Tell me something, Nikki Granger," he said. "What exactly do you think you're gonna do with an engineering degree at age eighteen? You can't even go on the factory floor."

"Can too," I said. "Federal law says eighteen for hazardous work. Besides, I'm gonna be an engineer. It's not like I'm gonna be tapping crucibles at a steel mill."

"You said your husband snuck you into a high voltage transmission yard?"

"Yes he did," I smiled. I remembered the day I accompanied Dan to a utility company switchyard. Fascinated me. The company representative that let us in was another engineer, older guy.

"We'll bend the rules a bit," he said. "Since you're interested and we're escorting you."

And he and Dan showed me how the energy fields can charge objects that aren't physically connected and how low-level, high voltage can build on things. Yes, I got little shocks, kind of like scuffing your feet on carpet in the wintertime then touching a doorknob.

"Besides, we have our own lab at Dan's office," I said.

"You're avoiding the question," he said.

"Power system studies," I said. "I'm already working on them. With real engineer oversight, of course. That's data on a computer screen. In a program."

"I know," Jeffrey said. "I've used the program."

"That's part of that substation tour," I said. "Dan wanted me to see what the equipment looks like that those symbols on the screen represent."

"You DO have a clue," he said. "I have full-grown students who have no idea what they might do with a degree."

"Embedded controllers," I said. "Remember my cat feeder."

"I'd rather something that emptied my cat's litter box," he said.

"I looked," I laughed, "and nothing on the market impresses me. Don't you have a buddy in the mechanical engineering department who can figure that out?"

"Oh, hush!" he laughed. "Call your sisters."

That means that Cindy and I are sitting on the steps together waiting for Tina and Susan. I told her about Jeffrey and the double test.

"I got one, too. Remind me to send Doctor Stebbins a postcard," she laughed. "I suppose it's good that they're thinking about us. Even on Friday."

So we're sitting there waiting and this guy comes over and says "Hi! Are you waiting on somebody?"

"A ride," Cindy said. "Our sisters are going to pick us up."

"Are you visiting somebody?" he asked.

"We're engineering students," I said. "And if this afternoon goes well for me, I think I'm going to be a second semester sophomore by the end of the day."

"You're kidding, right?" he asked, eyes wide. "How old are you?"

"I'll be sixteen in a week. Cindy?"

"Fifteen the first week of September."

"You're kidding, right?"

About that time Jeffrey came down the steps and saw us. "Girls. You've met Justin. Justin, you're talking to true phenomena, Cindy and Nikki."

"Your nieces, right? They're jerking my chain about being sophomores."

"Worse than that. Much worse. And it's true. I just invited Nikki to look into our rail-gun lab."

Cindy's head snapped in my direction. "Really! You told 'im about our experiment?"

"And the only reason I hadn't invited Cindy was that I hadn't yet seen her."

Cindy and I looked at each other. "We're gonna do it, right?"

"Oh, wait wait wait. Come on," Justin said. "Tell me they were joking about their ages, will ya."

My reaction was to pull my student driver's license and show it to him.

"Geez," he said.

My cellphone rang. I pulled it out. Susan. I didn't need to look. She's got her own ring tone like all of us do. "Hi, Susan," I said. "Where are y'all?"

"Turning onto the side street," she said. "Come meet us."

"That's our ride," I said.

I stood up. "Nice meeting you, Justin. I suppose we'll see you around."

"Justin's in and out," Jeffrey said. "Summer semester. Catching up."

"Oh," I said. "We're going to have a study place off campus at our office."

"Office?"

"Our husbands have an electrical engineering company. That office." I reached in my backpack, fished around, pulled out a business card.

"You're MARRIED?"

Cindy waved her left hand. I did the same. "Yep!"

And the two of us bounced off to meet Tina and Susan.

It was just Tina and Susan. "Where's my Terri?" Cindy asked.

"The Pixie's Apprentice is taking in a movie with Rachel and her mom. Since it's not animated, my Jason is not begging her to go with him. And me," Susan said. "When it comes to animation, I'm an afterthought."

"You know better than that, Sis," I said. "Jason's never letting you be an afterthought, ever again."

"Yeah..." Susan said softly. "Yeah..."

I had to giggle, remembering how we used to soft-pedal our conversations around Susan before she and Jason got married. Now we didn't. And Susan was sometimes a bit forward. "At least I don't have to dress up like 'Little Mermaid' to get 'im goin'," she'd said. "Or Little Red Riding Hood."

That brought a gasp from Tina who'd intimated about role-playing with Alan. "I'm just not that good at it, you know. Gets to a point that I just say 'forget it!' and dive in!"

Cindy brought up the subject of Justin.

"He really didn't believe you?" Tina asked.

"Showed him my driver's license," Nikki said.

"And we showed 'im our wedding bands, too." I waved my finger. He thought we were Jeffrey's nieces or something."

"Where's lunch today?" I asked. "Desai's?"

"Naan bread and dal and chutney?" Cindy said. "Good for everybody?"

"Says Chandra," Tina giggled. "Yes!"

"And I'm gonna qualify for my own bindi," Susan chuckled. "Who'd'a thought."

"Yeah, it is funny, isn't it," I said.

We trooped into the Desai restaurant in our normal herd, greeted like family because, you know, Cindy was. At least adopted. We copped our family table in the back corner, Cindy went into the kitchen dipped us up a bowl of dal, another of fresh chutney and a stack of papadum and naan. And iced tea. I giggled. India meets Alabama, so we get sweet tea. Of course Mizz Desai was there hovering over the bunch of us like a loving grandmother is expected to do. Her real grandkids were in summer classes, so we got full grandma'd. Makes me happy.

Then we loaded back up and went back to school. I walked right into Jeffrey's office. "Well, did you catch more comments from that guy?"

"Justin?"

"Uh-huh. What's 'is deal?"

"Just a guy. Student. Said he saw you two sitting there and you looked too young to be students."

"We are," I laughed. "I'm supposed to be starting my junior year of high school in a month and a half."

"And when you take this test and pass it you'll have completed your sophomore engineering courses and I'll raise my right hand in court and attest to it."

"Well let me see what I can do," I said. I took the papers and headed up the hall. An hour and a half later I popped out for the bathroom and a cup of coffee, then dove back in. Nikki in the zone, I was. Last year, I didn't know it was a zone. The teacher would put the tests out and I'd have little flashes of 'remember when she said that' and 'that's a commutative property issue' and I'd pass. The flashes happened enough to get me B's and C's and kept Mom from having to talk to anyone at school. That was last year's goal.

Things have changed in my life since then. Dan, my Dan, my wonderful Dan. And Dan's Nikki learned about the Zone.

I'd spent a week with the books Jeffrey had given me, soaking stuff off the pages. It went in my head. And now it was pouring out. I was writing it as fast as I could, and I knew that when I presented the written work, Jeffrey had a list of questions for an oral exam. He was thorough. I think that the first time we did that exercise he thought I would be intimidated. It wasn't as intimidating as a building collapsing around me, so I just gave him the answers he wanted and then told him some more things that he didn't ask that I thought was significant. That was that first oral exam.

Now we just get comfortable and he asks the questions and I expound upon them.

"I don't know how you do it." He shook his head. "I know ... gifted." He pulled up another textbook. "Here's next week's fun."

"Have you decided how the labs are going to work?" I asked.

"I've thought about it. You mentioned your husband's work. Do you think he and I and you could talk?"

I brightened up. "When?"

He opened his calendar on his computer and looked. "How about Wednesday afternoon?"

I whipped out my iPad and opened my calendar. You just KNOW it's synched with Dan's, right? I looked. "As of right now that's a good time," I said. "I'll email you if there's a change."

"Go home, Nikki Granger, and let me sit in the dark and recount my inadequacies," he laughed.

"You are more than adequate, sir," I said. "Thank you for today." And I walked out into the sunlight again. I looked at the app on my iPhone and saw where Cindy was, messaged her with my status.

I saw Justin coming out of the building. He saw me sitting. "Where's your friend?"

"Sister. Cindy's my sister."

"You don't look anything like her," he said.

"Doesn't matter that we had different parents and were born in two different states, she's my sister," I said. "She's on her way over here from the liberal arts building."

"Oh, really," he said. "Is she like you are?"

"I dunno. How am I?"

"Gifted. Professor Jeffrey says 'terribly gifted'. Her too?"

"Oh, yeah, I guess. Neither of us knew any of this until this last year."

"Must be something," he said, sitting on the steps a bit away from me. "How does it work?"

"I don't give it much thought. My husband gave me a push. Showed me how there are principles behind things and that if I look at principles I can derive things. That got me through math. And English. And science. I read a little and the rest is apparent. I used to think everybody was like that, but I found out different."

"Do you, like, feel sorry for others?"

"I dunno if it's quite feeling sorry. I just understand."

I didn't hear Cindy walk up beside me. "We both had study sessions at school to help others who wanted to learn. It's what we could do."

"For kids that wanted to learn," I said.

"Hi, Justin," Cindy said. "How was your day?"

"I'm doing okay. I'm a semester behind because I was in a car wreck last Christmas holiday."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Nikki said.

"Don't be. It was my fault. Bunch of us at home, we all got together for the first time since the end of summer and you can imagine how much drinkin' an' stuff went on. And I tried to drive home. Didn't make it."

"Omigod," I said.

"Could've been a lot worse. I totalled my truck. I was lucky I was by myself. My girlfriend got pissed at me and left early in the evening or she'd've been with me. And I was wearing my stupid seatbelt. Or I'd've been killed. I missed the semester. Now I'm making it up." He sighed. "And you two just waltz in and knock out two semesters in a couple of weeks."

I guess I felt bad and it showed.

"Oh, not what I meant, Nikki. My stupid fault I missed the semester. That's all. Professor Jeffrey's helping where he can."

"Good," I said. "If we can help..."

"Okay," he said.

My phone rang. Tina. "Hi Tina."

"We're on the way. How'd you do?"

"Won't be official for a week, but I did okay."

"What about Cindy?"

"Here's Cindy," I said, handing her the phone.

"There are four of us," I explained to Justin. "Cindy's the youngest, then me, then Tina and finally Susan. Mine and Tina's birthdays are a week apart. I will turn sixteen and Tina will turn eighteen. Susan will be nineteen. And we're all married and we're sisters. Just the same as me and Nikki."

"Interesting," he said. "I'm not hittin' on y'all, you know..."

"I didn't think you were, Justin," I said. "Besides, Cindy's jailbait in the state of Alabama. Except she's married."

Cindy grinned. "Very much married. Like if he died I'd consider suttee."

"What's suttee?" he asked.

"An old Hindu custom where a devoted wife throws herself on her husband's funeral pyre. My Dan's my life."

"And there's only one man on the whole planet, as far as I'm concerned, too," I smiled. Dan worried about this. We'd talked. Justin seems like a nice guy, and I'm sure that a lot of girls would find him attractive, but he's not my Dan. That seals it. Dan. One. First. Last. Only.

I saw Susan's car turn the corner. "Justin," I said, "You're welcome to come visit us. I don't know what you do for dinner around here, but we have some interesting meals at home."

Cindy and I walked to the car. Once we were out of earshot of Justin, she asked, "Nikki, what was that about?"

"What?"

"Justin."

"He seems nice. We talked about having a greenhouse for engineering students. Somebody has to be the first."

"Just so..."

I stopped. Looked at Cindy. "Not a chance. You didn't think..."

"I don't know what such a thing would look like, Sis. I mean, you an' Dan, you're my family. I love both of y'all like that."

"Don't you ever worry," I said. "Dans are forever. You know that. You got your own."

We were giggling when we got in the car. Terri squeezed in between us in the back seat.

"Dad's making a gumbo," she said.

"I told 'im it was too hot for gumbo but he said we'd turn the A/C down. He had an urge."

"That's an envie," I laughed. It sounded like 'on-vee' when I said it. Learned it from Grandma. "That's Cajun for a craving you can't get rid of."

"That takes care of dinner," I said. I noticed Susan laughing to herself. "What's so funny?"

Susan's voice works well when she's giggling. "I feel like Alice in Wonderland, except when I fell down THIS rabbit hole it's bindis and envies and gumbo and biryani and Lord knows I never know what's gonna happen next."

"Well, don't hold your breath expecting us to top giving you Jason," Tina said.

We had a happy, raucous meal at Tina's. We compared progress. We were beginning to see a pattern, Cindy and I were lining up to complete and graduate with baccalaureate degrees in two years at the most.

I told Dan about the railgun proposal. He had to sit down. "This is some kind of fantasy," he said. "Tell me you're kidding."

Cindy shook her head, pulled herself onto her own Dan. "She's not. They asked both of us. I don't know if they mean really WORK on it, or just go look, but..."

Alan was effusive in his praise. "That's great, you two," he said.

And I told Dan about the meeting Wednesday. "Labs. It's how we're going to treat the requirements for labs, otherwise they're going to get in the way of graduating."

Dan laughed. "Do you realize, baby, that you're worried about what's in the way of you graduating from college and you're still almost three weeks from your sixteenth birthday?"

"Absurd. Surreal, stuff like that," I said. "Oh, God, Daniel James Granger, I love you and you've made my life something beyond fairy tales."

"Pixies belong in fairy tales," Terri said. "And my Aunt Cindy is living proof that pixies are not fictional."

"And Terri's my apprentice," Cindy said. And you know, I saw Dan's smile and I was thinking of really getting him home tonight. But right now it was family time, and we enjoyed each other's happinesses and stresses.

Stress. I cause my own stress now. I don't want to say that I'm obsessed. Maybe 'driven' is a better word. Or maybe there are no words. I find myself needing less sleep. The professors working with me give me textbooks and then a couple of days later we meet and talk about where I am in them.

"You're WHERE?!?" Professor Jeffrey was the first one to ask that question. He likes for me to call him Jeffrey, but he says 'please don't call me that in front of the other students.' Mizz Patel set me and Jeffrey up. He's the one that was supposed to see how fast I could get through the coursework specific to my degree in Electrical Engineering.

I came home to Dan that first day with three books. Dan picked up my backpack. "It weighs almost as much as you do," he said. And I showed him the books. "I remember this stuff," he said.

"I'm on my own, Professor Jeffrey says," I told my Dan.

"I'm here to help. Everybody else is, too," Dan said.

"Not what he meant. I'm on my own for how fast this gets done."

"I understand. Don't burn out, Princess," he told me as he knelt in front of me.

I put my hands on the sides of his face, drew him close enough to touch our noses together. "Just be there for me, baby. I looked at these. I can do this."

'Being there' meant some strange things. Yes, every evening I go to bed with Dan, sometimes, no USUALLY in a spectacularly satisfying fashion, and afterward we go to sleep together. But I wake up in the middle of the night. The first couple of times this happened he got up and came into the spare bedroom where I have a comfy chair and a swingover laptop table and stuff.

"This is like when you got into math in school. And with Cindy, isn't it?" he asked. He worried about my sleep patterns.

I nodded. I know that if Dan sees my hair bounce I can make him do anything. I don't want to 'make' him do anything. I want him to love me. "Yes, baby," I said. "It's like a challenge has been made and I have to accept it."

"Don't push yourself too hard, darlin'," he said.

"I won't. But you need to remember that the reason I'm not in bed with you is that I have this thing..." Dan understands, I think. He knows that a couple of hours or so in the middle of the night and I'm back in the bed with him and I make a point of snuggling up to him and if I can do it without disturbing him too much, I just sort of find my favorite toy and play with him until we're asleep together. But don't do that on a Friday or Saturday night because he'll wake completely up and I end up on my back being ravished by this lusty devil of a guy who will leave me sighing, satisfied and sticky. You just KNOW I do that on Friday and Saturday nights. Without fail.

I'm not the only one with the diurnal sleeping habits, though. I found out Cindy was doing the same thing. Naturally we tried working together. Didn't work. No synergy. We realized that two AM is not time for socializing, so after a couple of tries we agreed to do our 'hoot-owl' sessions alone. Usually, thought, I get a text or send one: "At it again."

One Friday I messaged Cindy, 'Shutting down early. If I wake him up we won't get out of bed until noon.'

'Hee-hee' was the reply. 'I won't call you if you don't call me.'

I closed the book, killed my laptop, walked softly into the bedroom. In the dim half-light of the clock display, I saw his form under the covers. I could feel myself moistening while I just stood there and looked at him. I untied my robe, dropped it to my feet, turned the covers back, and slid behind him absolutely naked.

He was almost naked himself, wearing just a t-shirt, a concession to cold shoulders. I know my skin was cool from standing in the cool air of the room, a fact I used to good effect when I spooned myself up against his back. That got me a little wiggle as he moved back against me. MY next move was to reach around with my hand. I found my goal. It was completely soft. I squeezed it gently then moved my hand down and cupped his scrotum, feeling his balls sliding inside their soft bag in my hand. A tug there and that thing I said about 'soft'? Forget it.

There's one more thing that moves this from 'honey, I'm in bed and I love you and I'm going to sleep now' to 'I need everything we share together', and that's kisses on his neck. On the third one he rolled over to face me. "I wondered when I'd be more important than Fundamentals of Electrical Engineering, " he said.

"Hush, you," I replied, covering his face with kisses. "I shall drop out of college, get myself a job stacking undies at WalMart, and become your full-time sex toy, if it makes you happy." More kisses.

His strong hands lifted me and brought my nipples to his mouth, first one, then the other. I couldn't control the little squeal as I wriggled under the feelings, but turnabout is fair play and I pushed him backward onto the bed, supine, and attacked him, well, at least his chest. Slid down. Found something that my mouth needed to work on. A couple of minutes and he was panting, his hands pulling me, trying to get me to turn around. I turned around. I know what he wanted and I wanted him to...

Another squeal. Dan's tongue. My nubbin. I couldn't take it, so I let myself go. Lost it. Ran all the way up the ecstasy scale to blackout. When I returned to lucidity I was in his arms, protected, warm, secure.

"Do you know how much I love you, Dan?" I asked.

Chapter 19

Dan Granger:

I don't know if I can keep up. Ten months ago I walked out of my house in the aftermath of a hurricane and heard a cry from a collapsed building. I rescued a young girl.

It was like finding an undistinguished-looking egg and upon incubating it, finding that instead of a baby chick, it hatches a tiny dragon. Make that a cute, pleasantly-demeanored dragon, but a dragon none-the-less.

Lying together in the dim light of the moon streaming through our window, I mentioned my feelings.

"You're really worried about it?" she asked, her voice soft, caring.

"I do, little one. You're something rare beyond measurement. I've known a lot of people in my years, some of them very smart. Never met one like you."

"Yes you have."

"I haven't."

"CIndy," she said. "You've met Cindy. We're neck and neck in this thing, baby. Why are you worried?"

"I don't know if I can keep up," I said. "And I love you. Adore you."

"And I mirror your feelings, Dan love," she said. "Remember what I said? You're the first and the only? Forever? Are you not going to want me any more?"

I looked at her face. Her eyes were moist. Worried. "Oh, god, please, noooo, little one. Never. But you're running so far ahead of me..."

She pulled up and kissed me. "I'm not runnin' ahead." She sighed. "Baby, let's look at this the other way. Just suppose that I hadn't made that little jump. You'd still be back there and I'd be on summer vacation, waitin' to start the next school year. What would you worry about then? Me staying home while you went to work? Me running the roads with friends?"

"I admit..."

"So you got THIS instead. And I still adore you. Dude," she said, "You SAVED my life. Really. No metaphor. Now! What do I need to do to make you relax." She saw my eyes. She giggled. "Noooo! You're a beast. What do I need to do to ease your mind?"

"I dunno, baby," I said. "Every time I see you I realize that I hit the lottery. You're ... everything."

"So why can't you just relax and see how this all shakes out, huh? In two years it will be Mr. & Mrs. Granger, Engineers. And I can be very happy imagining that."

"I can, too, princess. Just sometimes it all hits me at once." I kissed her.

"You don't need to worry, Dan Granger. I am yours. All of me." Her hands were comforting me, caressing. She moved downward, found me half hard. Little squeal. "And right now, despite what your head is saying, this thing wants one part of me."

"See, you're wrong, little brown-haired girl," I said. "That thing wants you because my head wants all of you."

"If I, like, kiss you all over your face will you know that I love you?" Those blue eyes hovered under her bangs. She saw the motion of my eyes, knew what to do. Her head bobbed, shaking that head of thick brown hair. She knows me. Yes, she does.

"I will know you love me."

She kissed me. Withdrew. Gazed into my eyes. "And when the last light in the universe blinks out, and I'm still at your side, then maybe you'll believe it's forever."

"Okay, baby," I said. "I'm sorry. Sometimes the good is just too good to believe."

"It is, isn't it?" she smiled. "It's a good thing. You're a good thing. And if I turned out to be Albert Stinkin' Einstein hisownself I would still want my Dan."

"I love you."

"I know you do," she said. "Cindy and I were talking about how wonderful it is to each have our own Dan. It is wonderful. Baby, her Dan has some of the same feelings you do. And she loves him the way I love you. Y'all need to get a grip. I will never leave you nor forsake you. When I met you, you were the smartest man I ever met. And there's more to you than just being smart. You're good to me. To other people, too. I remember how you managed our study group. Even when Holly was hittin' on you, you let her down easy. You're good to people."

"You're no slouch, either, princess," I said. "And I am so in love with you."

"Good!" she giggled, kissing me. "Let's make love."

"More love? I'm drowning in love since I met you."

"And I hold in my hand the evidence that your mind is worrying about things your body cares nothing of." And she squeezed.

I moaned, was silenced in mid-moan by soft lips meeting mine, an agile tongue transmitting a tactile version of her smile. She pulled away. "I would like to be eaten, sir," she said. "And I fully intend to reciprocate." And that marked the ascent into an ecstasy that I'd never experienced until this one entered my life. Afterward, I was supine, savoring the ennui resulting from two hard orgasms in the past hour and a half. I had a tousled brown head laid on my shoulder, probably doing much the same, although she had four.

I felt her move upward and twist. I opened my eyes to gaze right into hers. "Never doubt me, Daniel Granger. It is only a convergence of two universes that put us together and I could never expect another. I'm yours forever."

"Okay, little girl. I want you forever. But pretty and smart, others will notice."

"Let 'em notice," she said. "Too many smart guys are weird, and until I met you I thought guys only have one thing on their tiny little minds."

"Tiny little minds," I repeated.

"Of course," she giggled, "Up until YOU, I didn't have a lot of close exposure to decent guys. An' the ones Mom brought home ... Lord!"

"I'm glad I qualify," I said.

"You more than qualify. And now I can compare you to other decent men, and you know, you still come out on top! You speak a language that only you and I understand. Sometimes it's words, sometimes it's a look, sometimes it's a touch." Kiss. "And when I'm away from you, I remember the conversations we've had in our private language."

"And Cindy's supposed to be the poetic one? That's beautiful?"

"Cindy doesn't write poetry. And what's beautiful?"

"The description of the way we communicate."

She smiled. "We do. I noticed that about the second or third day I lived with you. I can read your eyes, Dan. I can see you talking and between the words you speak and the eyes, I know exactly what you're saying and how you feel about it."

"You're dangerous," I said. "No wife should be able to read her husband that closely."

"And every husband should have a wife that adores him like I adore you." She giggled. "And I shall only use my powers for good, not evil."

Later that week she and I met with the professor who was herding Nikki through the engineering courses. "He wants to talk about credit for lab work," she said.

"I thought that thing about you and Cindy and the railgun research..."

"I think I'll be getting something for that," she said. "CIndy too."

"Lord," I said. "The future of the defense of this nation rests with a fourteen and fifteen year old."

"Don't be mean," she said. "Others are already working on it. The only reason we're involved is that we let the cat out of the bag about our own experiment. Now Susan wants a vertical mill and a metal lathe with thread-cutting gears."

That came out of the clear blue. "What?"

"Susan knows the basics of metal-working. That old guy at her dad's shop taught her stuff. And if we need special hardware, Susan says she can make it."

"Lord!" I said again.

"We looked. What she needs isn't that expensive. Her dad says he owes her a wedding gift anyway."

"What kind of child gets metal-working equipment for a wedding gift?"

"One who's knocking out the first year of college this summer."

"It's crazy."

"As crazy as the first time you saw Cindy in the pilot's seat? Or listened to me teaching calculus? Which kind of crazy? The kind where a forty-year old guy and a fifteen year old girl exchange vows in front of a judge? Or the fifteen year old girl graduates from high school?"

"You're right. You and the gang have redefined crazy."

The meeting with Professor Jeffrey was interesting. First, I never tire of people expressing amazement at my wife's intelligence.

"I thought that somehow she's managed to game the system," he said. "It happens." He looked at Nikki and smiled. "The system gamed Nikki. Not to mention the fact that I have TWO of them, her and Cindy. You know Cindy, right?"

"Oh yeah," I laughed.

He smiled. "Yeah, they both do that to me all the time. I've handled some gifted students in the past that made me want to sit on a white sheet in the central square and slice my belly open. Nikki ... she and Cindy let me go home shaking my head and smiling. I need to get my wife to meet them so she'll know I'm not finally going over the edge."

"Labs, though. They both need labs. You know, though, that a lot of students graduate and their lab work is, shall we say, indifferent."

"I have that experience. Not my own, but I know some..."

"Thought you would. But I talked with the guy who interviewed Nikki from our technology bunch. He said she could go to work as a network designer today. Lab. Don't need one. But I have to jump through some hoops, you understand. Has she told you about the railgun?"

"Which one, the one that she and Cindy are building? I just got half a bank of capacitors from an acquaintance at the utility company."

"We're gonna crush quarters, too," Nikki laughed. "Do you know what kind of mischief you can do with a few farads of high voltage capacitance?"

"Do you know how many graduates I will see this year that hardly remember that capacitors are measured in farads?"

"And embedded microprocessor controls," Nikki added.

Professor Jeffrey sighed. "She says you're a power engineer?"

"765 kV on down," I said.

"Look, it's gonna sound strange, but could you enroll Cindy as YOUR intern and have Cindy's husband enroll Nikki as his? And come up with something that will show them achieving some measure of competence within the field?" He sort of eyed me sideways. "I'm gonna have this talk tomorrow with Cindy and her husband."

"Look," I said, "since I married this girl, there has never been a time where she WASN'T learning. Baby, tell Professor Jeffrey about the modelling software we use."

"ETAP!" Nikki said. "Our license cost us almost thirty thousand dollars. I've done the dog work with it."

"Dog work?" he asked.

"Yes, you know, you get a stack of drawings, one-lines, for a facility, and then you have to build the model on the screen. Buses, breakers, cables, all those pieces. Somebody has to go in there and put the thing together then go back and for each component, enter the parameters."

"Transformer. What does a transformer need?"

And my doll told him.

"Golly, lady," he said. "What's a seventeen year old engineer gonna do?"

And she looked at him with those twinkly eyes that always melt my heart and said, "R&D."

"Undoubtedly," he said. "Mister Granger..."

"Dan, please. If she's Nikki, I can be Dan."

"And I'm Jeffrey. Nikki may have told you. My first name's really Rutherford, but I've been Jeffrey ever since I got away from home. Anyway, has she participated in any of the actual system studies?"

"Like building study cases? Weak source, strong source?" Nikki asked.

I think Jeffrey looked annoyed for a second. "Yes. Dan, if she had a double E right now, she'd be working, wouldn't she?"

"No," I said. "Federal regulations against child labor in hazardous locations will keep her out of most of my client facilities."

"But in the office?"

"She's working. When she wants to. When it doesn't interfere with the forty pounds of books you and your cohorts pile on her."

He looked at Nikki. "And Cindy's gonna tell me the same thing, right?"

Nikki giggled. Jeffrey just sort of shrugged. "Figured," he said. "I need to talk to Doctor Patel and Doctor Stebbins. We have a situation developing here."

"A bad one?" Nikki asked.

"Only if I am so stupid as to put you in a classroom with the general population."

"Oh, Jeffrey, don't treat me like that. I need to get into classrooms. Work around people. I told you about the study group in high school."

"Nikki, Dan, I don't mean that we will completely separate her and Cindy from classroom work. It's just that anything I have to offer, the instructions I received from Doctor Patel and Doctor Stebbins, I'm afraid I'm wasting their time."

"Waste some of my time," Nikki said. "Look at it from my vantage point. I already work with degreed and very accomplished engineers. I need to see how they got there. What hurdles others face. I think that in the future, that knowledge will help me."

"So survey the classes," he said. "And don't you already see yourself in the normal array of social studies and lib arts things?"

"I suppose," Nikki said. "I'm getting out of a lot of those, too, though."

"Nikki, Dan, I don't exactly know what I want to do here. I feel like ... Dan have you ever ridden motorcycles?"

"Not in ten years," I said.

"I have one of those big touring bikes now, a Honda Gold Wing. When I was younger, though, I liked powerful bikes. Nikki is like one of those top-end crotch rockets. Sure, you can putt around the campus. You can go out on the interstate and maybe fudge the speed limit a bit. But there's always this urge to just crank the throttle wide open and see how she goes."

"Uh, yeah ... Our airplane has a little red line on the airspeed to head off those ideas..."

"I don't have a redline, baby," Nikki said.

"Little one," I said, "I will leave it to you and Jeffrey as to the path you take. We talked about burn-out."

"I know about burn-out, Dan," Jeffrey said. "I'm a victim. Spend a sabbatical cataloging sea birds in the Pacific for a year. But Nikki? Are you pushing her?"

"No."

"Nikki, do you feel like anybody's pushing you?"

"No sir."

"Okay, then. If you feel like you want to slow down, just slow down. Tell me. We'll put everything you've done to date in the books. Keep it safe. And if you want to lay back for a year, that's your choice. If you want to slow down and do a class schedule? Your choice. But if you want to get on the road and roll the throttle open, I'll be happy to watch you leave me in the dust."

I shook Jeffrey's hand when we stood to leave. She was already out the door.

"Is she always so totally charming?" he asked.

"She was sort of shy and scared when we first met. Ask her the story. The last few months, though, yes, totally charming. Self-assured."

He grinned really big.

"She's at the door, isn't she?"

"Yeah. Smiling, too."

"Okay, Jeffrey. And thanks for the effort you're putting into her education."

"I wish they were all as capable," he said. "You two enjoy your afternoon."

We walked to the truck hand in hand. I noted that Nikki waved at a few people hanging around the building. One young guy broke away and made his way toward us.

"Hi, Justin," Nikki said. "This is my husband, Dan. Dan, this is Justin. Engineering student."

I looked Justin over in a quick scan. Shorter than me, a fit but not athletic build, dark hair, longer than I had ever worn mine, brown eyes. A bit further from a shave than I let myself get. Okay. "Hi, Justin! Dan Granger! Glad to meet you."

"Justin Quincy," he said. "Pleased to meet the husband of Nikki. She says you're already running an engineering house here in town?"

"Yes, we are. How ... what semester?" I asked.

"Making up my second sophomore semester," he said. "Was out from a car wreck at Christmas."

"Oh," I said. "And you're catching up okay?"

"Yeah. By the time I got through healing, got the pins out, physical therapy, I missed the semester, so I'm back for summer semester."

"The girls and Jason are talking about a study group," I said.

"I know, Cindy and Nikki already let me in on it."

"We haven't gotten it off the ground yet," Nikki said. "But we'll let you know. You know where it is. And there's a great Indian restaurant next door. Cindy's an adopted granddaughter there."

"Oh, that's neat," he said. "Well, I didn't mean to stop you."

"Oh, that's okay," Nikki said.

"Yeah," I said. "Are you thinking of interning somewhere?"

"Hadn't thought of it. Are you gonna have anything?"

"Might," I said. "Keep in touch."

"Seeya," Nikki said.

"Yeah, seeya," He replied, headed back to the little group he left.

We got to the truck. I clicked to unlock the doors. Nikki dashed around to my side. I held the door, she got in, sliding over just enough to let me in.

I didn't immediately drive off. I cranked the engine, tuned the air conditioning on, and leaned back, rubbing my eyes.

"Are you okay, baby," she asked.

One of the things I pondered was being called 'baby' by a wife less than half my age. The other was a wife who would hang a diploma on the wall as a graduate engineer before most kids had a high school certificate. "Yes, my dear. I am pondering the universe's absurdities. And why a guy named Justin smiles at my wife."

"He's just a college student, honey. Not like he sawed me out of a fallen building. Or risked his reputation to make me his wife."

"Oh."

"And you got ALL that. And ME! Now, are you seriously thinking about offering internships?"

"I guess I need to be," I said. "According to Jeffrey, I just picked up Cindy as an intern."

"You're lucky I know Cindy, buddy!"

"Wha-?"

"If I walked in and you had Cindy in tow and tried to tell my she was an intern, I'd ... you think YOU were jealous over Justin?"

"And you heard Jeffrey. It's a formality, anyway. You know he expects you and me to be working together."

"Yeah, but maybe it will be a good thing to work with that other Dan, too. Keep from being insulated to a single view."

"You're thinking again," I said.

"Just wanna grow. Wanna be like YOU!"

"Don't set your sights too low, baby. I wish I was you sometimes."

She wrapped her arms around me. "Baby, you're successful. You're smart." She sighed and rubbed her cheek against my shoulder. "And you're loved."

"And I feel loved. I might feel like the cat sometimes, but I do feel loved."

"Oh, you know that's a poor comparison, baby," Nikki tittered "Tommi KNOWS he's the superior being in the household. You're feelin' all down. Have you EVER seen Tommi feelin' 'down'?"

"Yeah. The only people he sees as peers are you and Cindy."

"He treats Terri like his sister and Susan like his 'lady in waiting'," she said.

"Cats KNOW," I laughed. "And I think you're a cat. A kitten sometimes, but a cat nonetheless."

"I'll avoid the 'pussy' jokes, guy, because I know you've never treated me like that."

"You're right. You never were 'pussy'. Always were cute and smart and worth so much more than something to just stick my dick in."

"You never made me feel like that, baby," she said. "And you've shown me Mom was soooo wrong. Men don't want just one thing."

"Nope. I wanted you. But not only that one thing. I wanted the smile and the conversation and the laughter and the beauty and I wanted it all freely given and happily shared. And now I wanna watch you reach the stars."

Giggle. "Dan 1.0 gave the same speech to Cindy. She told me about it. Almost verbatim, guy."

"I can understand HIM sayin' that," I said. "After all, wanting sex with a fourteen year old..."

"Thirteen. When they started. But don't tell anyone."

"Thirteen year old, that makes you a child molester."

"Says the guy who bedded a fifteen year old."

I laughed. "That just makes me a cradle-robber..."

"Nuh-uh," she laughed. "Sixteen's legal in Louisiana. You know that. Remember?"

I did indeed remember. But that face. Those eyes. That mind. I risked it. Would do it again. "You're worth it," I said.

"So are you."

I glanced away from the road to see the face. Smiling.

The trip home included a grocery run. Everyday life. It creeps into the magic, you know. I put away groceries at the house, Nikki took care of laundry, we worked together to put fresh linens on the bed, heard Nikki's phone ring with the tone that denoted Terri.

"Hi, Terri," Nikki said. Pause. "No, I'm cooking something for dinner." Pause. To me she called, "Dan, Terri and Rachel? Okay?"

"Okay," I said. Forty-three seconds later I opened the front door to the Pixie's Apprentice (Cute!) and her accomplice. With a tray of cookies.

"Hi, Mister Dan," they said, almost in unison. "We brought cookies!"

"Oh, well, you know you're always welcome when you bring cookies," I said.

"See!" Terri told Rachel. "I told you he'd say that!"

Rachel smiled. "I know."

"Did you two make the cookies?"

"Oh, no sir," Rachel said. "We helped Cindy."

"Cindy made cookies?" Nikki asked.

"Yes she did," Terri said. "We helped. And she put extra stuff in 'em that wasn't in the recipe. They're GOOD! Here's your tray!"

Rachel presented the tray with a dozen cookies. "We gotta go deliver some to Jason 'n' Susan. Bye!"

I watched the two bounce off in that display of youthful energy that amazes us as we age. Cuties. Terri's blonde bob, Rachel's thick dark ebony, softly curly, gathered back in a thick ponytail.

Nikki saw me watch. "They're cute, aren't they?"

"Yeah," I said.

"D'ya know how much I would've loved to have this neighborhood when I was growing up?" she said. "Grandma was wonderful, but there weren't but one or two kids my age. And they kept moving away. Terri and Rachel can go to any house in the place and be safe and loved and appreciated."

"We are the result of all the influences in our lives, baby," I said. "And you turned out very well."

"And would you like a glass of milk with Cindy's cookies? They smell good."

We had cookies and milk. And it was good. "What's that spice? I can't quite place it," I said.

Nikki giggled. "Chandra's magical spice box, no doubt. She opens that thing up and opens each of those little containers and sniffs. I've been there with her. And she says 'I wonder how that's gonna work?' or she calls Grandma Desai."

We munched happily.

"You know I'm gonna have to make a batch of cookies soon. Can't have Cindy start being the Cookie Queen."

"Oh, yeah, baby. Start a cookie arms race."

"Can you think of a better battle?" she laughed.

The next thing is a shotgun text message to the Sisterhood: "Let's see what Nikki found out today! I'm bringing tea to the pavilion! Tina."

Nikki did a blanket reply. "Husbands?"

"Of course!"

She turned the burner down to a simmer under the pot on the stove. "Come on, babe! Let's go share the news."

Chapter 20

Cindy's turn:

Nikki sort of let me have it. I was kinda shocked. You see, ever since we became the Sisterhood, none of us had ever had any harsh words with another sister. It just never worked that way.

However, I think I touched a sore spot when I had sort of questioned her when I found her and Justin sitting on the steps on campus.

"Cynthia Susan Richards," she'd said. I should've known I was in trouble. Nobody ever called me that. Well, okay, Dan does, and when he does, it's tender and loving and I feel special. When Nikki did it, I felt a tightness in my stomach like I was in trouble.

"I can't believe you thought for a second that me an' Justin..."

"I'm sorry," I said. "You were sitting there chatting away ... You were smiling."

"And he was two feet away. And he's nice, and yes, I smile when I talk. A lot."

"You're not smiling now."

"I'm kind of disturbed right now. You and I, little sister, we've walked too many of the same paths. For the last month, we've been trading places at the university, poor Jeffrey is hallucinating, and we both married Dans and YOU. I know there's no way you'd ever hurt your Dan. No way I'd ever hurt mine. I don't care about that twenty years age difference thing. Not one bit. Just like YOU."

I cried. Been a long time since I cried. There I was though, with tears wetting my cheeks. "I'm so sorry, Nikki. I love you. You're my sister. And I don't want..."

"You don't want me to mess up."

Yeah, Nikki can finish my sentences. So can my Dan. "I ... I don't want to mess up this neat little universe we're in," I said. "And sometimes I'm not really good with reading how people interact. I mean, this last year, I've learned a lot. But every now and then I get a flashback of the way Mom did it. Scares me."

Nikki's face softened. "Oh, gosh, Cindy. I ... I can see that, Sis. I can really see that. I'm sorry." She took my hands in hers. "I know you didn't mean anything bad. I like our universe too."

"So we're okay?" I asked.

"Of course we're okay." She hugged me. I hugged back. "Come on! We got a world to beat!" And we took off to meet the rest of the gang at the pavilion.

Which got me "Cindy, I thought you were gonna bring some of that tea you make."

"Oh, I could go make some. I didn't know it was popular."

"Like, yeah!" Susan said in her best 'mall rat' voice.

"I thought y'all just wanted wet and cold..."

"No," Tina said. "It's the magic of Chandra's spice box in there."

I had to giggle. Grandma Desai had shown me how to add a pinch or two of a few of the spices to add a little exotic flavor to tea. We all loved sitting in the back corner table of the restaurant, sipping chai, delicious hot, steamy mugs of chai with real cream. My concoction, over ice, was just a little departure from the iced tea that is a southern staple. I was happy that I actually made something that people really like.

So we're all out at the pavilion. It's just a little bit shy of too hot to be comfortable. I'm wearing a loose cotton shirt that is comfortable if not fashionable, but I know that when my Dan sees me in it, he smiles. I think he likes it when I dress like this. Or dress in my green dress. Or that little black one. Or nothing at all. That's for my Dan.

Susan's wearing shorts and a T-shirt and she looks like one of those pin-up girls from the 1940's, you know, before somebody determined that models are supposed to look anorexic. She saw me looking a bit longer than normal, I guess.

"Do I have a bug on me?" she squealed.

"No, I was just having a thought, that's all," I said.

"Uh-oh," Jason said. "Cindy's having a thought!"

"Jason, don't be mean! It's a good thought."

"Tell us," Nikki said.

"I was just thinking that Susan in that outfit, she ought to be nose art on one of those World War Two bombers." I pulled up a slide show on my iPad. "See!"

"Kinda the way I feel about 'er," Jason said.

"Oooooo, you're a sexist pig," Susan squealed. "Exploiting wimmen like that!"

"Just the one, honey," he laughed, popping her on the cheek of her butt. "And who exactly exploits whom?"

"Y'all need to cool it. Terri's somewhere around. Her and Rachel..." Nikki said.

"Rachel had a butterfly net. They're going hunting," Tina replied. "I gave them a warning about dangerous things out there. You know, snakes, spiders, stinging caterpillars, bees, wasps..."

"And I imagine she soaked that up like a sponge."

"She and Rachel collaborated," Tina said. "I can't wait to hear the reports."

"Me neither," I said. "Terri's my buddy. My little sister." I'd entertained that thought a time or two in those daydream times. There was the side that had me thinking how much fun it would've been to have a little sister to share life with, but on the other hand I shudder to think of what Mom would've done with TWO kids. No, I was fortunate to have survived Mom with my sanity and virginity intact. I barely made it into Dan's arms.

Nikki was across the table pushing chips into her Dan's mouth. They embody a happy couple. I can scan around the table and see three other couples like that. Three? Yeah. Sim and Beck are here, too. And Alan has chicken on the grill, fragrant smoke rising as it's cooking.

And Tina's got her hair up. That's a giggle. Tina's like me and Nikki. We all started out with our hair short. I get mine cut before it reaches my collar. Nikki's stops at her jaw, a bit shorter than mine. Tina's is just a smidgen longer than mine. Susan's, you know, is collar-length. But Tina's got hers up in to diminutive pony-tails, one behind each ear. I'd asked about that one before and the answer makes me smile.

"Two reasons," she'd told me. "First, if I'm even a little bit sweaty, I hate the feel of my hair on my neck."

"And?"

"And second, it drives Alan absolutely wild. My dear husband has a fetish already..."

"My Dan's like that about my hair."

"But yours is so much redder than mine. Alan loves mine. But if I do these little ponytails every now and then uh, wow!"

I filed that for future reference.

So today, my Dan hasn't yet shown up. He's on the road back, though, so I plop myself down next to Tina, reach in my backpack and pull out a couple of little stretch hairbands and hand them to her. "Do me up!"

"Huh?" Tina says.

"Put my hair up like yours. It's hot out here."

She let a little giggle out. "Okay." She took the comb I offered her. "How's Dan gonna like this? I've never seen your hair any way but this."

"Never has been," I said. "But doesn't hurt to try. If he doesn't like it, I can take 'em out quick." And a quick glance at Alan. I giggled. He knows I know...

Five minutes later my cellphone went off. Dan was close. "I better go meet him when he gets here," I said.

"Uh-huh," Tina grinned. Grin? Maybe just a little bit of a leer, you know.

I heard Dan's footsteps as he approached the door. I opened it. He was smiling. Did a double-take. I tossed my arms around his neck for our customary welcoming kiss, then squealed as he attacked my exposed neck.

"Now THAT'S different," he said. "Did Tina talk you into this?"

I squealed again under another nibbly kiss behind my ear. "N-no! I got her to do it, but it's my idea. You like it?"

Like he needed words to answer that. My knees were going weak fast, along with my resolve. I took an arm away from his neck and checked the obvious erection that was poking me. "If we do it now, it's gotta be a quickie," I said huskily.

Ten minutes later we were putting ourselves back together. "That's pure Cindy," he said. "God, little girl, you get me..."

"And you get me right back. And now we're going to go out there and everybody's gonna know what we've been doing."

"You could've said 'no'," he said, his hand tracing my butt.

"That option never occurred to me after you got my neck," I said. "So, the little ponytails? I assume you like them?"

"It's a cute look on you. You carry it off better than Tina does, and I know what hers do to Alan."

"You do?"

"Oh yeah. I see his eyes. Put two and two together. And so I asked."

I giggled.

"We have our fetishes," he said. "Mine happens to be you."

"Come on," I said, taking his hand. "Let us go out and face our shame."

Nobody said a word. Of course, Rachel and Terri were there and that kept the conversation pretty much G-rated, And with our husbands and with Sim and Beck, we weren't going to get too explicit anyway, but I fully expect to hear about this again. We all pitched in after eating and cleaned the place up and then I grabbed Dan by the hand. "I gotta go study some stuff. They tossed me a history course."

History. I actually enjoy history. Used to read some of those things on my own. That's how I knew about frontier marriages when Dan and I first connected. History's different than math or engineering, though. On those two, I can usually save a lot of time if I can burrow into the text and get some foundational principles and derive answers from them. With history, you have to read history. Learn history. And then the lady who's giving me that course, I don't know that she's the least bit impressed by me getting through high school at the same age as her own daughter, who's in middle school.

Plus, I think that Jeffrey might just think I'm cute. A novelty. Not that I would ever think of exploiting that. That was a conversation with Dan.

"Has he said anything? Made any sort of move?" Dan asked.

"No," I said. "And I am always very proper, you know. Nice. But proper."

"Then what makes you think..."

"He's just nicer to me. I heard him working with Justin. He just seems a bit more, I dunno, brusque."

"You're nice, sweetie," Dan said. "From Day One. And you have a way of disarming a lot of people, male and female both."

"I look harmless."

"They've never seen you with firearms," he said.

I ignored that. "Jeffrey treats me like I want to learn, though. I don't think he's sidestepping anything. He says that I have honestly earned the credits based on knowledge. And Doctor Stebbins has sat in on a couple of my oral exams, so there are checks."

"Good," Dan said. "Because when you get to the real world, a bad calculation is a bad calculation and the world is not going to care a bit about those green eyes when you overload a circuit and your scheme doesn't react correctly."

Dan is serious abut my education. He's told me several times that he would've been perfectly happy having me stepping through school like others my age, but if I'm going to get an engineering degree, it had better darned well be a real one. I'm good with that. What's more, Nikki and Tina have had similar conversations with their husbands. Susan's was a bit different because she and Jason are going to be in school together, and right now it's looking like he's getting credit for a lot of coursework from his technology degree and translating that towards engineering.

So it's after dinner and we've had showers and Dan is watching, well, half-watching something on TV with his laptop on his lap and I'm in my own recliner with a swing-over table for books and my MacBook and I'm studying pre-Columbian America. It's interesting enough, but I can read holes in just about everything they're saying. It's kind of like Terri and her discussion of anthropomorphous kiddie characters. Some of the writers of the history text are trying so hard NOT to impart Eurocentric ethos (should have heard Dan when I popped that one on him) on Pre-Columbian America that they tripped over themselves. I saw another example in the text and I heaved a sigh.

Dan heard me. "Another one?"

"Oh, yeah," I said. "I need to disengage part of my brain."

"Social sciences..." Dan started.

"Aren't REALLY sciences. Especially this stuff. It's not reproducible. It's theory and it's opinion and one guy looks at a stack of rocks and comes up with one idea and then this lady looks at the distribution of pottery shards and comes up with another and then they get together and write a textbook that deals me misery."

"Sounds like somebody needs a cuddle," he said.

"Only if you can figure out how to cuddle in the farming tradition of the Olmec proto-culture," I said.

"Did Olmec babes have red hair in ponytails?" he grinned.

I slammed the book shut. "No, they probably didn't," I said. "Nor did they have engineer doll husband babes who blew their organic skirts up," I giggled. "Come on. These'll come out for our shower."

The Olmecs had to wait until love-making was over. And a shower. And then a couple of hours of REM sleep. And then I was up again, textbook in front of me, tapping away at the keyboard of my laptop while Dan slept. Around three AM I closed the book again, satisfied, and I crawled back into bed. I spooned up behind Dan, put an arm around him and hugged gently so he'd know I was back. His hand covered mine. Snug. Secure. Loved.

Breakfast together. Dan off to the office. I clean the kitchen quickly and I'm back into the books. Another engineering, electrical this time, circuit analysis. That stupid history. See? I can BUILD the circuit, put electricity on it, get a meter or a scope and measure it, and I KNOW the book is correct. It's kind of difficult to go off and build a Pre-Columbian civilization.

My cellphone rings. Terri. She knows my schedule. She knows EVERYBODY'S schedule. We have a community calendar on the server. We all post to it. Of course, some of the blocks say 'private'. Today it says 'Study' under 'Cindy'. "Hi, Terri."

"Hi, Cindy," she says, sounding soooo sad. Tina says it's cute when Terri tries manipulating people. I tell Tina that Terri KNOWS that we think she's trying to manipulate us and she plays it for effect, and in some ways it's even more effective.

"You sure she's not YOUR daughter?" Tina laughs.

"Cindy, I know you're prob'ly studying."

"That's right," I said. "But come over anyway."

Squeal! And two minutes later, the doorbell chimes. "Come in!" I yell.

"What do you have on the table today?" she asked.

"History of the Western Hemisphere," I said. "And Circuit Analysis I."

"How come you frown about history and not circuits?"

So I have the conversation with Terri. And the others might not be up to speed yet, but I am. I don't hold back for Terri. 'Seven' doesn't tell the story. I tried using simple words and simplified explanations before and got a flustered look and an explanation of things that I knew but thought she was too young to be bothered with.

"It's very difficult," she said when I finished. "People tend to ascribe their thoughts and feelings to others. It's a bad mistake."

"Oh?" I said. "Explain."

"People don't all think alike. Some people can be evil. If you're not recognizing that, then you're all those kids that get eaten in the fairy tales." She got that evil little grin. Well, it's not really evil. It's just something she does when she knows things that seven year olds aren't supposed to know. "And I'm talking about the OLD versions of the fairy tales, not the new ones. The new ones are too cutesy. Like those pretty little ponies on TV. You never hear anything about having to clean up behind one."

"Okay. You got me. There are differences between old fairy tales and new fairytales. And those ponies on TV? They poop rainbows."

"So what's in the history book?"

The next day when I met with Doctor Lasce I had the stupid book fresh in my head.

"How did you do this?" she asked.

I try not to sound arrogant. Really. "Doctor Lasce, I read it. And then yesterday I taught some it to my niece. We had quite the discussion."

"How old is your niece, if you will excuse my asking?"

"Seven." Okay, now I know that got to her.

"Seven. You had a discussion with a seven year old girl about a college history text?"

"Yes, ma'am," I said. "But Terri, my niece, she's seven like I'm fourteen. I really don't want to pay attention to that number."

Doctor Lasce is busy scribbling in her notebook. I can't see any of it.

"Okay, so tell me what you told Terri."

And I gave her the synopsis of the migration via Bering land bridge, went through the Clovis people, meso-America, Pre-Columbian societies.

"And she sat there and listened to all that?"

"No, ma'am," I said. I knew that Doctor Lasce was going to like this next answer. "She asked if we had any information available for Asian artifacts contemporary to the Clovis finds." I looked at Doctor Lasce's grey eyes. "Do we?"

"This Terri. Seven."

"Almost eight. Just ask her," I said with a little laugh.

"She's your niece."

"Sort of. It's a long story. You know Nikki Granger, right?"

Nod. "She's my one o'clock meeting."

"Nikki and I are two of four girls who've adopted one another." And I gave Doctor Lasce the grand overview of the Sisterhood.

"Would her father and step-mom be amenable to discussing Terri's educational status?"

"Here's Alan Addison's card," I said, after I retrieved it from my bookbag. "It will be interesting, to say the least?"

"Engineer," she said, reading his card. "Most of them are pro-education."

"Oh, he's my husband's partner in that engineering firm. 3-Sigma? We own it. Shares, of course. And very pro-education. But Terri's a surprise."

She sighed, almost heavily. "Oh, goodness, Cindy. Here's what I want from you. Give me ten pages, double spaced, type-written, on the Olmecs. I'm sure you have something interesting to say on them. Show me where you found and incorporated data that is not in the textbook. If you satisfy me that your grasp of the subject matter is sufficient, next week we will get you another book.

Which means that, when I get in the car to go home, Tina's looking at me funny and Terri and the rest of the gang are smiling, Terri widest of all.

"What have you done to my daughter, Cindy Sue?" Tina said. She liked calling me 'Cindy Sue' when she said 'you're doin' it again', 'it' being something unexpected.

"I just told Doctor Lasce about Terri and I working on history. That's all. And she asked what kind of conversation one might have with a seven year old..."

"ALMOST eight," Terri piped in. I don't know what she's going to do for a signature statement when she turns eight next month.

I continued, "And I told her that Terri asked about historically contemporary artifacts..."

"Of the Clovis points, from other continents," Terri finished.

Susan laughed. "Of course you pointed out that she was having a conversation about college level course matter with a fourteen year old."

"Alan wants to hear your version of the conversation when we get home," Tina said. "I think right now he's sitting in a closet with the door closed."

"Is NOT!" Terri squealed. "This is gonna be good. Just wait."

Got home. No Dan. Walked over to the office. Kissed Dan. Told him the short version. "I'm going to talk to Alan now," I said.

"Do I need to go?" he asked.

"Not unless you just absolutely want to," I answered. "Alan's not violent. Tina will be there to protect her baby sister. And Terri's on my side."

"Be careful," Dan laughed. "People fight hardest when they're outnumbered. Never corner a rat."

"One last kiss, then," I said. Kissed him. Kept my face close to his. "If I live through this, we're gonna have us a good one tonight."

"They're all good ones," he said.

"I know." And I walked back over to the apartments. Punched the doorbell to Alan and Tina's. Got let in by Terri. Alan got up when I entered. Gallant, he is.

"There she is," Tina laughed.

"Susan did it first," I said. "She told me."

"Yeah, I suppose you're right. Susan did it in language arts. You did it in history. I'm ... we're," he eyed Tina and Terri, "We're gonna have to talk to 'em. See what they have to say."

"Cindy's contagious," Terri giggled. "I caught it from 'er."

"Not just me," I said. "You do this kind of stuff with Tina and Nikki and Susan and Mizz Beck. And the Desai kids think you're possessed."

Terri giggled. "They're sitting there studying under that Ganesh statue and Lakshmi, with the four arms. And I'm possessed?"

"Stoppit!" I said. "Talking like that is disrespectful to some really good people."

Terri recoiled. "Sorry. But it's an absurdity."

"Life is full of absurdities," Tina said. "Pointing them out, though, can hurt some people who don't deserve hurting. Not Ananta and Devi. They're having fun with you. They like you. You're interesting."

"That's all beside the point," Alan interrupted. "Now, Cindy, how did this conversation go?"

I told him. All of them, actually. Terri was sitting beside Tina. Tina's hand was idly stroking Terri's blonde head.

"So what's your take?" Alan asked when I finished.

"I may find that Nikki and I just got bumped to a tie for Number Two on the prodigy ladder among the Sisterhood," I said. "Think about it, y'all. Really. The signs are all over the place. And you all know it."

Alan nodded. "I guess so," he said.

"You have to remember, baby," Tina said, "you didn't have much contact with her for the last couple of years, then we had the week at Christmas, and now she's here, but she's mixed in with all of us, and even though Susan and I are tied for THIRD..." She winked at me, "in the Sisterhood prodigy ladder, you see her in the context of a bunch of high end minds. Except for Shara in Tennessee and Rachel here, you don't get to see her around normal kids."

"And Rachel's pretty bright herself," I added.

"So you think I'm lacking a proper scale to measure her," Alan said.

"Yes!" Tina and I replied in unison.

"Baby," she said, "none of us will let anything bad happen to Terri. You love her. You're her dad. You're supposed to. The rest of us love 'er too. I'm sort of supposed to because I'm your wife and her step-mom, but the rest of 'em, like Cindy, they love 'er because she's cute and smart and a really good kid."

"I am," Terri said. "I try to be nice to people and all that. I know the Golden Rule. Besides, I have backup. Cindy loves me. And she comes with her own grandma."

Notebook 1

(Author's note: I didn't write this, one of you folks, my readers, did. It is the transcription of part of a TV report when word starts leaking out of this amazing Sisterhood that has descended upon a university in Alabama. Don't get confused. This vignette is a bit into the future compared with the actual story line. You'll see some things that haven't happened yet.

It's also good to keep in mind that when you're tagged by the media for an interview or an article, they get a lot of stuff that doesn't make it onto the screen or into the article, so what you see here is by no means the whole story. Keeping that in mind, you just know we're going to have fun when some of these things take place in the story itself.)

[Teaser for 'news magazine' TV program]

[Clip of the sisterhood climbing the steps to Auburn's library overlaid with the program's logo]

Lesley Steele VO: We've reported on child prodigies before but Auburn's young sisterhood of engineers is something unique in our experience: one preteen and four teenagers taking a university by storm.

[Start of segment]

Lesley Steele: [Seated on tall stool in front of a still of the sisterhood on the steps] Christina and Terri Addison, Dominique

Granger, Cindy Richardson and Susan Ellerbee are a phenomenon unlike any other upon which we've reported. All of them are exceptional, running through advanced coursework fast enough to give outsiders whiplash, but in combination they're astonishing. We caught up with them in one of Auburn's electrical engineering labs.

[Cut to the interior of a room filled with electrical lab equipment.

One wall is covered with whiteboards with the girls sitting in a line of chairs in front of it.]

Lesley: You ladies have certainly attracted attention, both individually and as a group. To get us started, please introduce yourselves.

[The girls look at one another for a moment.]

Cindy: I guess I'll start. I'm Cindy Richards.

Tina: Christina, Tina, Addison.

Nikki: Dominique Granger. Nikki.

Susan: Susan Ellerbee.

Terri: Terri Addison - Tina's stepdaughter.

Lesley: You're rather young, even for this group.

Terri: I'll be nine. Among other things, I'm working on the requirements for high school. I'll be eleven when I graduate. [shrugs] Age is just a number in this respect - the only real criterion is if you can do the work. Cindy was fourteen and Nikki fifteen when they graduated. Tina and Susan were seventeen and eighteen; Susan's really the outlier 'cause she wasn't married when she graduated.

Lesley: Married in high school?

Cindy: Yes. I was fourteen when my Dan and I fell in love and got married.

Lesley: At fourteen?

Cindy: Yes. Mom signed over custody for me to the manager of the trailer park. We were prepared to wait until I was sixteen but we convinced a judge how much we loved one another and he did the paperwork and married us. My Dan saved me.

Nikki: My Dan literally saved me. There was a hurricane coming, my mom and her boyfriend were out of town and the neighbors I was supposed to evacuate with couldn't get to me. The apartment building blew down around me and I was trapped. Dan found me the next day and cut me out; I'd have died in there if he hadn't. [shakes her head] He didn't evacuate; his house is just the kind of thing an engineer would build - able to stand up to a hurricane, propane generator for power, hot water, air conditioning. I was fifteen.

Tina: Mom, her boyfriend and I were part of that evacuation and Alan kept me from being beaten up by the boyfriend. I was seventeen.

Cindy: One of the things we have in common is our husbands. They're all really bright guys who want us to do well in school. Nikki and I were just going along trying not to attract attention when our Dans explained a few things and gave us a push. It's almost as if they were teaching us how to ride bikes, running alongside keeping us from falling over. The most wonderful thing is how proud they are of us even though we're farther ahead in stuff like math than they are. [shakes her head] We, Nikki and I, seem to have a special talent for math that makes things other people find difficult easy for us. To extend the analogy it's as if we've taken off the training wheels and they're applauding and cheering us on.

Nikki: When I'm explaining what I'm working on to my Dan I have to watch out for the EGO effect - E G O: eyes glaze over. I'll hit a tricky spot and he'll shake his head a little and say "Okay." That means he didn't quite follow the logic but he'll take my word for it. It doesn't mean he can't follow the logic, just that he'd need to work at it.

Susan: One of the things to note about my sisters and their husbands: almost immediately after they met the girls ran right through high school and on into advanced placement here at Auburn. You might think of them as poor exploited little girls. Ha! If their husbands are trying to exploit them they're really bad at it. Advanced placement and scholarships to Auburn, loving homes, airplanes, accepting inlaws...

Lesley: Airplanes?

Tina: Oh, yeah. We have a Cessna 182, Cindy and her Dan a Cessna 180 taildragger, Susan and Jason a little Cessna 152 and Nikki and her Dan a Mooney. Everybody who's old enough has at least a student license.

Terri: Annoys Cindy. She knows how to fly but she's too young for a student license. It annoys me too, but I'm too short for the rudder pedals.

[Fade to a shot of an Indian woman walking down a corridor and entering a room]

Lesley Steele VO: Doctor Aneeta Patel is one of the sisterhood's academic advisors.

[Cut to Patel behind a desk]

Lesley: Dr. Patel, you've been involved with the sisterhood from the beginning. What can you tell us about them?

Patel: It started with Cindy - a fourteen year old with astonishing test scores and scarcely-believable recommendations. We didn't believe it until I went to her school, a middle school, to interview her and verify what we'd been told.

Lesley: And it was accurate?

Patel: If anything their description understated the situation. Her teachers acknowledged that she had mastered everything in the textbooks. She had her own corner of the library where she tutored other students. We invited her here for interviews where the mathematics department, in her words, 'assaulted her with weapons of math instruction.'

[Cut of Lesley smiling]

Patel: Cindy introduced us to Nikki - the same thing except that she was fifteen. The two of them urged us to look for applications from Christina and Susan. With Christina came Terri and the sisterhood was complete.

Lesley: How has the university reacted to the sisterhood?

Patel: I've discussed this with Cindy, Nikki and Terri, since they're the most extreme examples. At first people are skeptical, "There's no way that little girl knows that!" Then comes amusement, "Okay, little girl, explain it to me," then incredulity when she explains, amazement when they realize that she actually knows what she's talking about. Finally there's acceptance and treatment like any other student. Of course, being cute and charming helps.

[fade back to a wide-angle shot of the lab]

Lesley Steele VO: Back at the lab the sisterhood is conducting an experiment.

[The girls clustered around a table of stuff, adjusting and fiddling and calling out technical-sounding things vaguely reminiscent of a rocket launch. The sequence culminates in calls of "Ready" and "Okay" and "Clear" followed by a loud "SNAP."]

[Fade to the girls standing in front of a diagram drawn on a whiteboard.]

Lesley: What was that? It was certainly impressive.

Nikki: Test shot with our railgun. [Points to various boxes on the diagram]

Capacitor bank, spark gap trigger, copper rails, chronograph to measure velocity, paper target, mag trap for the projectile.

Terri: We don't really need the paper target but it's much more satisfying to shoot a hole in something than to just read off the numbers.

Chapter 22

Susan's view:

You know, just a few months ago I was just a high school senior. I had a mostly normal life. Okay, little bits of departure from many of the contemporary norms were there. Mom and Dad were married to each other. I was eighteen and a virgin. I was in the top level of my graduating class and I didn't take the easy courses. I had a best friend and she and I decided to attend the same college for the same course of study. Okay, so that's pretty normal-sounding, right?

Then the avalanche started. My best friend adopted a sister who adopted me and then they introduced me to Jason and then they dragged another sister into the group and we got tossed into Auburn on the fast track (well, a couple of 'em are faster'n me) and I'm married and there's a new business and...

It is like an avalanche. So many things happening. This morning I woke up twice. The first time was when Jason got out of bed at five because he had to drive over to meet the area manager for another piece of the utility company's business. He snuggled back on to the bed with me for a second after he was dressed, kissing me and telling me he loved me. I would have gone with him today but I have some tests scheduled. I'm trying to knock back a few of the peripheral subjects and if I do, I think I can have just about all the first year math, English, social studies, and a couple of electives out of the way. I'm gonna end up a mostly sophomore if things work out. But anyway, that's why I didn't get up and leave with my Jason. After I heard the front door close behind him, I buried back into the pillows with his kiss still tingling on my lips.

I did get up at seven. The house was quiet. Sometimes that's a good thing, but not today. And I know a trick. IPhone. Punch the button and wake Siri up. "Tina," I say. I've tried really hard, but as much as I strain my ears, I can't hear her phone ring next door.

"Good morning, Sis!" is the first words I hear.

"Didn't you say that Alan was on the road this morning, too?"

"He's flying to Houston," she pouted. "You and I, we have tests, so here we are, right?"

"Yes, Jason left at five-thirty," I said. "What's for breakfast?"

"Come over. I think Terri's been clamoring for waffles."

I could hear the squeal in the background. I know that if Alan leaves early, Terri ends up in the bed beside Tina. I think it's cute, and I also think it is a window on how well Tina has connected with Terri, her step-daughter. I grew up in contemporary society and I have a lot of friends who've been subjected to what is euphemistically termed 'blended families'. Some of those haven't been happy at all, including one of my high school acquaintances who was molested by mommy's latest. I knew kids who absolutely hated their step-parents for any of a dozen reasons, and I knew a few that had pretty good relationships.

And I know Terri 'n' Tina. And I thought Cindy was a catalyst. Well, really, Cindy still IS a catalyst, but Terri's, well, Dad used to use some expensive paint at his rental business. You'd get this big can. It was the polymer-based paint. It had everything you needed to coat and protect the equipment. Looked beautiful, slick, shiny, colorful. If you dipped a brush into it and painted, it went on like a bit of perfection. And never hardened. Never dried. Something was missing. That was the little bottle of activator.

If Cindy is the catalyst, Terri is the activator. I don't know what the deal is, genetically speaking, but Alan has sort of sandy blonde hair. Terri's blonde. 'Me' blonde. Mom says Terri (her adopted grand-daughter) looks like me at that age. Terri, according to the Community, is my 'mini-me'.

So I went to have breakfast with Tina and Mini-me. When I hit the sidewalk, I saw Cindy heading towards me. And Nikki. And they were giggling.

"We're engineering widows," Cindy said.

"Going to drown our miseries in breakfast breads, cold milk and coffee," Nikki added.

What a group. I mean I'm the oldest one. And we need a bigger waffle iron. Tina's proud of her big mixer and we broke the task up and ended up with a tub of waffle batter.

"Bottlenecked the process," Cindy said. "One waffle iron. Three minutes per cycle."

"I'm gonna go get mine," Nikki said, heading for the door. She was back in a minute and we started up two waffle irons and kept the products in the oven until we had enough for everybody. It was far from a wild teenaged party. We do maintain sanity and decorum, but the laughter flows easily too. And all G-rated, because Mini-me was there with us. When we loaded the breakfast dishes into the washer and cleaned the mess up, the last step was coffee. Eight o'clock was time for me and Tina to get in gear. Today was our test day, wherein if we achieved success, we'd both knock out another six semester hours of coursework.

Cindy and Nikki's day was tomorrow. Today they were both into books that were a few steps up the ladder from what Tina and I were working on. I think that the staff is giving up on those two. I mean, it's almost like the staff says "You need to know THIS to get your degrees and they send Cindy and Nikki home with books and next week those two are sitting in the office or standing in front of a whiteboard laying out the subject.

It's funny. One of the instructors, Ken Simpson, who proctors some of our tests, asked me if I was jealous. "I guess, maybe a little tiny bit, but it's kind of like being jealous of Neil Armstrong on the moon and you're still trying to get a good handle on landing a light plane. I fly. Neil rode the fire to the moon. I excel. Cindy and Nikki soar."

"You have a good attitude about it," he said. "I look at 'em and want to go down the hall and bang my head against the bricks."

"You know," I said, "That's what they don't want to happen. Me neither. It's not a competition."

"It is, sometimes, I guess," Ken said. "At the higher levels. For tenure. And grants."

Ken," I said softly, "I went on a couple of jobs with my husband Jason. We go to these utility substations and gather data so we can feed it back into the big job, which is to update and verify the system protection of the power grid." I giggled.

"What's funny?"

"It just occurred to me that last year at this time I no more worried about the power grid than I did about the pigment composition on the Mona Lisa. And now..."

"And now?"

"It's what I wanna do. D'ya know that Nikki's talking to them about channel issues for the communications?"

"She's fifteen."

"Almost sixteen," I said. "She's just doing what she CAN do. That's what we're all doing: What we CAN do." I smiled. I think I had him. "Isn't that what YOU do?"

"On my better days," he replied.

"Well, I know what you mean there, Ken. Now, this Introduction to Engineering..." And we worked through a few questions I had. Got another work assignment. Felt like next week I could test though it. Naturally, when I left Ken's office, I ran into Tina.

"How'd yours go?" I asked her.

"Linda's in a mood," Tina said. "I almost let her get to me."

"Take a deep breath," I said. "That's what Mom always told me. Usually while I was arguing with her that it wouldn't work, it worked. Ken's okay today. He asked me if I was jealous of Nikki and Cindy."

"No way," Tina gasped.

"He did. I told him only like I was jealous of Neil Armstrong."

"Good one. If I use it, then he'll really think we're collaborating."

A lot of what we're experiencing in school is that we're, that's US, the Sisterhood, are just, well, different. I guess there's a lot of gaming going on out there, students who figure out ways to pop out these phenomenal ACT and SAT scores and work themselves into advance placement status, and then when they get to college, they don't measure up. It appears to me that we were subject to the carryover of that particular phenomenon. Until we proved ourselves.

Of course Tina and I were a bit more subdued in the process of proving that. One of the math professors, Doctor Ramathani. Horror of horrors to some of his students and teaching assistants, he's on a first name, phone call basis with Nikki and Cindy. Doctor Ram had me in to see if my advance placement math was a fluke or a fake. I almost broke down about halfway through the session.

"Oh, Susan," he said, "Stop fretting."

I love that sub-continent accent. His was thicker, more lush, than Doctor Patel's. His face was genuine with compassion.

"I ... Did I disappoint?" I quivered.

"Certainly not, Susan Ellerbee. You passed the point that validated your advanced placement status before lunch. I'm just about ready to sign your paperwork crediting you for sophomore level, fall semester."

I think people were startled by my squeal.

The next thing on the agenda this afternoon was a stealthy visit to a neat little bakery. The goal was a cake. A birthday cake. A HIDDEN birthday cake.

Tina was tracking locations of the whole community, husbands, wives, the Weismanns. Nikki and Cindy were doing their best to keep a lid on the secret: tomorrow is Mini-me's, Terri's, eighth birthday. She's expecting a celebration then. There were a few misleading hints dropped.

Her party is today. And right now, she's at home with Cindy and Nikki and EVERYONE else is gone, even her best friend Rachel. And we're all going to show up at once. That is, after Tina and I decorate the engineering office's back section with a big banner that says 'Happy Birthday Terri'.

Of course I get a phone call from Jason. "Why exactly am I forbidden from going to my own house?"

"Because you're my astoundingly handsome and intelligent husband and you know I would never ask you something without a good reason."

"So what's the reason?"

"Little surprise party for Mini-me."

"Good enough. Did we buy her a gift?"

"You betcha," I said. I giggled. "And I got something special for you, too, tonight." I can feel him turning colors over the phone. I just love this guy.

Three of our husbands had military backgrounds and it showed as we carried out our operation with military precision. Precisely at five, the back door to the office opened, Cindy entered, Terri trailing her, with Nikki bringing up the rear. They walked through the back room into the back section of the office and we all yelled 'Surprise!"

Terri put her hands on her hips. "Tomorrow's my birthday!"

"And you wouldn't've been surprised tomorrow,"Tina said.

"Happy birthday, Terri-bug," Alan said to his daughter, scooping her up.

"Honestly, Dad," she said, "Best birthday ever."

"Best one I've had with you in soooo long, baby," Alan said. I saw the tear in the corner of his eye. I know Terri did. And Tina. They're meant to be a family.

The cake was was a perfectly executed representation of "My LIttle Pony". Terri saw it, went over to Cindy, looked her in the eye and announced. "This cake has 'Cindy Sue' written all over it!" And she hauled Cindy in for a kiss. We all got 'em.

The next day was the day I got my wedding gift from Dad. I was there when the truck brought it and we'd made arrangements with a rigging company to have the equipment there to unload my new lathe and vertical mill and a cabinet full of tools and hardware. And a drill press.

The two guys from the rigging company were more than competent. "We move stuff over to the college all the time," the leader told me. "Who's getting this stuff?"

"Me," I said. "My wedding gift from Dad." That got some looks. I showed them where everything went. Got the machines placed precisely as they should be. I had good teachers with Dad and Mister Len. I had Mister Len on the cellphone telling me exactly how to level those things, too, and bolt them down.

"You got that grout that I told you to get, right, sweetie?" he asked.

"Yes, Mister Len. I got Terri here helping me. She said to tell you hi!"

"Oh, my little baby," he said. "It's like a re-run of you, Susan."

So we got the machines leveled and grouted with the five of us and Alan working on it. And we got the power connected. Alan and Jason were both there for that.

Jason was fighting hard to keep from doing the job himself, but we insisted. Two hundred and forty volts, three-phase. Connected. And check rotation. The lathe is backwards. Swap two wires. Now it's right and we're high-fiving each other like we'd just won a national championship.

Alan's shaking his head and Tina's consoling him.

"Alan," Jason said, "if my wife wants a lathe and mill, she gets a lathe and mill. It's a lot cheaper than one of those little sports cars."

"Yeah," Alan said, "but did you ever watch one of those horror movies and you see that poor loser headed to the door to the basement and you're screaming 'Don't open the door, stupid!'? Look at this bunch. The only thing that's kept them from world domination is nobody would make them the parts!"

"Alan, baby," Tina told him. "We need a sheet metal brake and a MIG welder and..."

"Oh, Lord," Alan said.

"And an engine hoist," I said. "So we won't have to struggle with heavy parts."

Poor Jason. "I've married a machinist," he said.

"No, baby," I said, kissing his cheek. "You married me, and you said 'no limits'. We're ordering some electrical grade copper. That rail gun..."

Cindy and Nikki were smiling.

Next week came. The tests. My first semester college schedule is going to look like a checkerboard. I actually have to do freshman orientation. We all do. I wanna see the looks when Cindy troops into the hall to take freshman orientation. The rest of my schedule, though, well, I've got all the way through freshman and half of sophomore math. I knocked English into my sophomore year. Got credit for the freshman level social studies and history. Got Fundamentals of Engineering 1 & 2 out of the way, so that puts me into sophomore year. Tina's along with me. Who knows where Cindy and Nikki are. They don't have a ruler for those two.

Another interesting tidbit came up, too. Nikki came back from one of her days and announced, "All of us have to fill out paperwork for security clearances."

"Huh?" was my comment, and I wasn't the only one. The only one not surprised was Cindy.

"You know they talked with me and Cindy about their railgun research, right?" Nikki said.

I nodded.

"Well, some of that research is under a National Defense grant, and you have to have a security clearance to look at it closer than a YouTube video. So Cindy and I told them that if we were on it, you and Tina need to be cleared, too."

I looked at Jason. "What do you think?"

"I had to have one for one of my jobs, a government agency. A lot of employers do the civilian version these days."

"Dan, tell us," Nikki said.

"I've had 'em. Most likely yours will involve filling out a form so the agency can do a background check. You may have to submit fingerprints and a photo or two."

Jason snorted and I slapped his arm. "Not THOSE photos!" I could feel my face turning red. My sisters didn't help when they saw the blush and started giggling.

Dan 2.0 was right. We got packets with some forms and had to go get fingerprinted at the campus police station. Naturally, all four of us went. No, make that five. We brought Terri.

We walked in, raising eyebrows first because in the crew, only Tina and I fit the age profile. I handed him the forms for the four packages. "We need fingerprint cards done."

Walter Anderson is what the desk plate said. He looked. "There are four here. You're telling me that YOU'RE all students?"

"Susan Ellerbee," I said. "This is Christina Addison." I pointed at Nikki. "Dominique Granger." And I knew the level of absurdity notched up a little more when I pointed to Cindy. "Cynthia Richards."

"All students," he said, almost grimly.

"Yessir. Here are ID's." We laid four photo ID cards on the counter. He scanned the cards into a card reader one at a time. I know he was pulling up records on his monitor.

"Susan. Unclassified. Christina. Unclassified. Dominique..."

"Nikki, if it makes life easier," Nikki said.

He looked up with a little smile. "Thank you. Unclassified. Cynthia..." He looked at Cindy. Cindy?"

She nodded. "Yessir."

"Unclassified. And fourteen. And you're students." He looked at Terri, eight years and three days old. "You're not a student here?"

I think he thought he was being humorous, but Terri was serious as a heart attack. "No sir. Not yet." She pulled up to her full (much less than five feet) height, "but I think it's under discussion."

"Jeez..." He rubbed the side of his head with his hand. "Unclassfied. Not freshman, sophomore..."

"Tina and I will probably place in the sophomore class by the end of summer. Maybe junior," I said. "Nikki and Cindy don't fit the ruler. Heaven help us."

"And you're all together. Is this some sort of prank?"

"It would be a good one, don't you think?" Cindy said. "Counterfeit ID cards. Information in the system. And finding four random teen girls to play the part." She giggled through a grin. "Are we foolin' ya?"

"Brady," he said loudly. "Come see this."

'Brady' came out of the back of the offices. "Yeah?"

"Look at this," Walter said. "These are college students."

"Ooooo-kayyyyy. Got ID's?"

"Yeah. They're in the system."

"Did you compare them with drivers' licenses?"

"Not yet." Three of us started retrieving drivers' licenses. Cindy just stood there, grinning. I, Tina and Nikki presented them.

"Mine's just a learner's permit," Nikki said.

"I'm too young to get one until September, darnit," Cindy said. She was in full 'pixie' mode and had Terri backed up against her for emphasis.

They both compared the licenses with our student ID's. "Either this is legit or we have a new level of competence in some of the pranks around here," Walter said.

"I doubt it's a prank," Brady replied. "Faking ID isn't the fun and games it used to be. Homeland Security stopped that amusement."

"Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth." Nikki is the one most likely to pop out a quotation at the drop of a hat. "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle said that. Sort of applies here, sir," she smiled.

Walter looked at Brady. "You wanna do this?"

"Sure," he said. "Let'em all come back here. I think I'll be safe."

"Or if you get the crap stomped out of you by this bunch, I'm putting the footage from the security camera on YouTube," Walter laughed.

"Can I go back with 'em?" Terri asked.

"Sure," Walter said. "Or you can sit back here behind the counter with me. It's gonna be crowded back there."

Terri smiled. "Okay, Thanks, Mister Walter."

"Lemme guess. You read my name."

"Yessir."

"What grade will you be in this year in school?"

"I just finished the second grade, Mister Walter. But I don't think I'm going back to elementary school any more."

"Really?" he said.

"Yessir. I can already read and do math way past the third grade."

I was listening to this from the door, wiping my fingers with a cleansing wipe.

"Terri's one of us," I said.

His eyes darted back and forth between us both. "You're not related, are you?"

Oh, I wish. I said, though, "The rest of the gang are my adopted sisters and that makes Terri my niece. But I think she's my Mini-me."

Tina joined us. "Terri's my evil step-child," she said.

Terri smiled. "I'm soooo abused. This is my wicked stepmother and her equally malevolent (Malevolent? Really, Terri?) adopted sister. They went to high school together."

Nikki came out next. "You know," she told Walter, "I'd've thought that being that y'all are on the campus of a major university you'd have state of the art equipment. You're still doing fingerprints the old way."

"Money, darlin'," Walter said. "We have a budget, just like everyone else."

"But still," Nikki pushed.

"We spend it all on cleaning supplies. You won't believe what some of these kids can do to the inside of one of our cars..."

In another minute, Cindy was out, followed by Brady.

"I heard your question, Nikki..."

"I wasn't meaning to be negative," she said.

"No, it's a good question. But there's another thing, too. Even where they have the electronic print collection, the applications for security clearance asks for fingerprint cards, so they get fingerprint cards. Some agencies are set up for the electronic thing. Some aren't."

"Oh, that's a good point. I understand that."

"And EVERYBODY understands budgets," I added. "Ask Mom."

We got ready to leave. "Wait!" Brady said. "Walter, go stand in the middle of that group. Lemme get a picture of this!"

I only wish we'd all have had Auburn University T-shirts on. Especially Terri.

That was the first set of giggles in the car. Second was Cindy.

"Brady asked me if that was really a wedding band," she said. "I told 'im that I'd been married for nine months now. Legally. Said we were ALL married, except Terri."

"You gotta remember how all this looks from the outside," I said. "When Tina told me that she was married, I knew where she was living and that she stayed in that tiny trailer with Alan and I just KNEW she was pregnant."

"We all got the 'Are you pregnant?' deal, you know," Nikki said. "I was kind of surprised my ownself." She giggled.

"Why?" Terri asked.

'Whoops!' I thought to myself. Terri's a little young to understand this sort of thing. "Because when men and women live together, quite often children are the result."

"I know about that," Terri said, serious in her tone. "Mom got pregnant after she left Dad. I don't think they thought I was listening, or maybe they thought I wouldn't understand."

Okay. Now we're ALL listening. This wasn't part of the narrative we knew about. I could see the change in Tina's eyes.

Terri continued. "I know words that a lot of kids my age don't know."

"Yes you do, Terri-bug," Tina said.

"I know about 'pregnant'. And birth control. And sometimes Mom is having one of her episodes and she's not thinking really good and she says she thinks she missed something and she was pregnant and she was scared and Mister Martin was nervous and I don't think he was happy." Her brow wrinkled before her next statement. "Mom had an abortion."

There was a sudden increase in silence as four gasps were stifled. I was driving, but I glanced over to see Tina's eyes. Tina spoke. "Terri, your dad told me that your mom had trouble being pregnant and she shouldn't try that again because it might be unsafe for her."

"Oh," Terri said. "I can understand, then. That's what they talk about on TV, you know, when they say 'for the mother's health.' It's not that they didn't want the baby." Her little shoulders heaved. "I thought that if they didn't want THAT baby then maybe..."

I couldn't believe this. I was hearing an eight year old girl telling us that she'd been carrying a burden like that, that she was unwanted.

Tina turned to Nikki. "Nikki, hug my daughter, please. I'm in the wrong seat to do it."

Nikki handled that, sharing the hug with Cindy.

"Terri-bug, you're the most wanted child in this state, you know. If it wasn't that I'm your evil stepmom, we'd share you, but I'm your stepmom and you have three aunts and any of them would be glad to take my place. And your dad has been so happy since we got you." Tina sighed. "Your mom is, well, you know ... She loves you too, baby, as hard as she can."

"But Mom's sick. But I still love Mom."

"I know you do, baby," Tina said. "But you need to know how much WE love you."

Yes. We ARE sisters.

Chapter 23: Terri and the Monolith

I'm EIGHT now. I had the most wonderful birthday in my whole life! And it was a total surprise. I can read a calendar, okay, so I knew what my real birthday was. I thought that we'd have the normal thing, you know, a cake, maybe a special dinner at a restaurant of my choice. I was thinking that there's this pizza place that has an arcade. I've been there with Cindy and her Dan.

Instead I was herded into the back door to Dad's office and everybody was there yelling 'Surprise" and I was genuinely surprised. Nobody had leaked a bit, and that's unusual with Tina and her sisters. They, uh, make that WE, like to talk. If it's happy, we share and get happy with each other. And if it's something stressful or sad, then we get together and have a way to share the burden.

Like Cindy's mom sent her a letter a week ago. Cindy got upset when she read it. I was there. She works with me on math and writing, so I'm over there quite a bit. She knew the letter was coming because her foster mom called her and told her it was being mailed.

I watched Cindy open it. My Cindy, that almost always smiles. And when she started reading, her face sort of caved in.

"What's wrong, Cindy?" I asked.

"Oh, Terri, it's my mom, just being my mom, like she's always been."

"I'm sorry, Cindy," I said. "Is it stuff I'm not supposed to know about?"

"Oh, Terri," she said, her eyes sort of wet, "Most of the world is stuff you're not supposed to know about. But you do."

"Stuff I'm not supposed to talk about?" I said, changing the angle.

"Kinda. Mom is not really good with guys. She doesn't do healthy relationships."

"Ooo-oooh," I said. "Kinda like Tina's mom?"

"Kinda," Cindy said.

I knew about Tina's mom being in jail. Tina had explained to me why I'd never met her mom. Dad's parents are dead, so I was hoping to pick up a grandparent. "Mom wasn't the 'parent' type. I don't think she'll be much for being a grandparent, either," Tina told me.

"Tina's written to her mom, but her mom never wrote back," I said. "So at least your mom writes."

Cindy sort of looked at me. "I hadn't thought of that. You're right. She writes."

"It's something," I said. "So she wrote something that upsets you."

Cindy nodded. I have pretty aunts. Tina's pretty. They're all pretty. Not like the women you see on the magazine covers in the supermarket. Those women are like kids' toys. Exaggerations, chosen for effect. My family is not that kind of pretty. They're the kind of pretty that's natural and it starts on the inside and works its way out and it's got clean and fresh and young and happy and natural. I don't mean to put anybody down, but I think Cindy's the most remarkable of the group. Red hair and green eyes sort of do things. A sad Cindy is a bad thing, because it's rare, and it takes away something I like. That's her smile.

"Yes, it's just the same stuff she's been doing since I was old enough to remember," Cindy said. "I keep hoping she'll straighten out."

"Sometimes they don't," I said. "I dunno about Mom."

"But you're talking about an illness, sweetie," Cindy replied.

"Doesn't really matter if it means you can't stand to be around 'em, does it? Or if they don't want you around. Either way."

"I guess," Cindy said. "Hug me, smart child."

"Okay, smart child," I said. I hugged her. In some families we'd be sisters, I would be the youngest, she'd be the oldest. Tina says we're a blended family, her and me and Dad. I point out the rest of the group and tell her that it's a whole lot bigger and richer blend. I blended in aunts, adopted Susan's mom and dad as grandparents, at least while we were living in Tennessee. I read Cindy's social studies presentation about the nuclear family and how things in society change. A lot of changes aren't good, but sometimes out of the mess something good happens. Like us.

"I'm sorry for you, Cindy," I said. I kissed her cheek. Sometimes that works.

It did, at least a little bit. She got some of her smile back.

That's good, too. Because when I saw the cake at my birthday party, it was in the shape of one of those little pony things you see advertised on the kids' channels on TV. I am NOT a fan. Everybody knows I am not a fan, the person who knows it best is Cindy, so I blamed her. It was good cake. So delicious and moist.

And yes, Cindy was the push behind the pony cake. That means she loves me and pays attention. And the fact that a well-constructed pony cake actually showed up? That means that Dad and Tina love me. And everybody else? Okay. I feel the love.

So I announced it to Dad. Sitting on his lap. "Dad," I said, "this is kind of like Terri paradise."

"How so?"

"Every time I turn around, there's somebody loving me. Taking care of me. Letting me do things that are good to do, helping me learn stuff. D'ya know that Susan made me a button?"

"A button?"

"Yeah. Look!" I showed him a brass button Susan had machined for me. "Metal lathe. 'Brass machines easy, ' Susan says. And she drilled the holes on a drill press with an x-y table."

"You understand why they call it x-y?"

"Axes, Dad," I said. "Horizontal. Vertical. And there's a Z axis, too, but we didn't use that to make buttons.'

"You did. You just didn't know it," Dad said. "The drill bit runs perpendicular to both the x and y axis."

"Then we knew it, because we used it."

"You didn't give it a numerical value. You just lowered the bit until you completed the hole."

Now I need to get somebody to show me a computer numerical control machine because Dad explained to me how they use the x, y and z axes. Dad and I were working on a computer screen showing the three dimensions when Tina came in from the campus.

"Look, Tina! This is a neat way to see things!"

The next day I talked with Susan about it. "Wow, Terri! That IS neat!"

"Do you know about CNC machines?" I asked her.

"No, cutie," she said. "I know about our tools because that's what Dad had in the shop. A CNC machine is for a production environment."

"Oh," I said. I understand that money gets in the way. "I would still like to see one at work," I said.

"We'll see what we can find," Susan said. "They might have one somewhere on campus on one of the research projects."

"Okay," I said. "How was school?"

"My head hurts," Susan said. "They did me another math today. But I think I'm done with math. We sort of agree that I've reached the limit for Susan Ellerbee's math skills without some classroom time."

"Why'n'cha get Cindy or Nikki to tutor you?"

"Because they're in the middle of their own issues right now," Susan said.

"Busy," I said. "I know. Tina tells me to be careful not to hog too much time. That's why I've been spending so much time with Rachel."

"Rache's a sweet girl," Susan said.

"She is, but that's not the point."

"What's the point, Mini-me?" Susan said.

I like it when she calls me that. "The point is that Susan has bogged down in math and we're trying to pull her out of it."

She hugged me. "Oh, Terri-bug! You can't rescue everybody. Let me sort of back off of math for a while. I can knock out some of the electives, I think."

"But don't give up on math."

"I'm not giving up. I'm resting. Terri-bug, I'm eighteen and I'm done with my sophomore year math. I'm two years ahead of schedule and I haven't sat in the first classroom since I got here."

Okay, she's right. And Cindy says that I must be careful about pushing people. "Okay, Aunt Susan," I said. "But remember, you want to be sitting in the same office as Jason when this is all over. And I don't mean as his secretary."

"Ooooo," Susan squealed. "That's a horrible thought." She smiled at me. "Besides, your turn's coming. The people at the college want to meet you."

"Me?" I squealed.

Alan's Turn:

I'm up to my eyeballs in this stuff, you know. Business is going well. I flew to Houston to meet with a one of the big engineering houses. They want to farm out some project work. We can handle it quite well. It's a good mix for our gang. Control things, mostly, a little electrical power, and between me and two Dans and Jason, we can do this. Put some money in the company coffers. Give the girls something to see and maybe participate in. I'm looking at the programming for some of it and I know that Nikki and Cindy can handle a lot of it, if (big IF) they don't get bored.

And let's see, my beautiful young wife is a week and a half away from turning eighteen, and she's also about eight or ninety percent of a college sophomore. Okay, that's a huge surprise for a guy who, this time a year ago, was decidedly alone, probably for a looong time.

A guy who thought he'd never be able to be a dad to his daughter. Now I had a wife. And my daughter.

Daughter. Just turned eight daughter who, by the rumblings coming from the university, might well be in some parallel universe in intellectual capacity. Boy, was that a genetic dice roll. Okay, I will bow my head and admit to being of above average intelligence. I'm an engineer, after all. High side of the IQ distribution. But my ex-wife, Terri's mom, she was not noticeably above average, not that I could see. Yet here is our offspring, and my sweet little blond daughter is, as somebody said, scary smart.

College knows about Terri because they're already working with some stiff intellects from this group. I'm proud as hell over Tina, a high school dropout when I met her, who skipped a year of high school to graduate this year, And her friend Susan, equally impressive, third in her high school class. But the college is also dealing with the wives of the two Dans, Richards and Granger, and Cindy and Nikki blew past high school entirely. And the four of them told stories of Terri.

Tina walked in one afternoon. "Baby, they want to see Terri at school."

"Huh?"

"They want to see Terri. AT school. That psychologist that interviewed Cindy and Nikki. He specializes in gifted students. He wants to see Terri."

"I don't want our daughter being treated like a lab specimen," I said.

"The guy's okay. I talked to both Nikki and Cindy and they said that he's not nutso."

"Not nutso," I laughed. "I love it when you talk technical."

"He talks to them. That's all."

"Well, if he talked with Cindy and his brain didn't explode..." I thought about some conversations with Cindy and Nikki and MY head almost exploded.

"So let me set this up," she said. "I'll make an appointment."

"I worry." After all, this was my daughter, and oddly, Tina's daughter, too. I recounted in my mind the fears I'd had when Tina and I first connected, stories of friction and outright warfare between the stepmom and the stepkid with dad in the middle. Wasn't that way. Terri was Tina's long-lost daughter or sister or appendage or whatever. The only thing that keeps the two from being inseparable was that Terri was equally part of the lives of Nikki, Cindy and Susan.

I give up. I wouldn't have married Tina if I thought she was a flake, and Terri's her daughter, too.

Friday morning I found myself, Tina, and Terri in the truck headed onto the campus. We parked and the three of us walked up the steps and into the building. We checked in with the receptionist.

"We're here to see Doctor Stanton," I said. "Alan Addison. My wife, Tina. Our daughter Terri. She's the one to see him."

The lady looked at me, then the girls. "Terri? The ... how old are you, sweetie?"

"I just turned eight, ma'am."

"You're the new record, Miss Terri," she said. "Are you a student?"

"Not yet," Terri said. "I just finished second grade last spring."

"Oh, this is wonderful," she said. "Let me tell him you're here." She punched her phone and spoke, "Harold, a Miss Terri Addison and company to see you." Pause. "I'll show them in."

We followed her up the hall to an office. "This is Doctor Stanton. Doctor Stanton, Alan, Tina and Terri. Terri's the short one."

My daughter smiled. "Hello, Doctor Stanton," she said. Tina and I shook his hand.

"Sit, please! Let's talk. Terri, how old are you?"

"Eight, Doctor Stanton," Terri said.

"You can call me Mister Harold if you wish, Terri."

"Which do you prefer?"

"Gee, I don't know. I don't usually deal with Terris," he said. "What do you call your dad's friends?"

"Like Mister Dan?"

"Okay. I think I prefer Mister Harold. Now why are you here?"

"Because I'm sort of ahead of other kids my age. My peer group."

He looked at me and Tina, then to Terri. "How far ahead, Terri?"

"Way ahead, sir. I don't want to sound like I'm bragging, though."

"Forget that while we're talking. I'm reading a letter from a Mrs. Callirosa. And from your second grade teacher in Tennessee, Mrs. Sorensen. They said you're probably past elementary school."

"Cindy said she thinks Terri's functionally above the eight grade in math. And language skills."

"Cindy. Like in Cynthia Richards?"

"Yessir," Terri popped. "She's sort of my aunt."

"Ah," he said. "You're part of THAT group. You're Christina Addison. Sorry. I'm slowing down in my old age. Tina, your name is on an interesting list."

"I hope it's a good list," Tina said.

"Oh, it is. So let's see if I have this all correct. Alan, you're Terri's father?"

"Correct. Tina's my wife. Terri's step-mom."

"Malevolent stepmother," Terri said, with a grin.

"Okay," he said. "Got it. Uh, Miss Terri, do you mind talking to me one to one for a while?"

"I don't mind," Terri said.

He looked at me and Tina. "Do you have objections?"

"That's one of the two big loves in my life, there," Tina said. "Be nice to 'er."

"Ditto," I said.

"You can wait in the room outside the door. Or there's coffee up the hall on the left." He looked at Terri. "If you hear me screaming, come rescue me."

Terri giggled.

We left, gathered the offered coffee. Sat. Chatted.

"I'm excited," Tina said. "Terri's unfolding. Bigger surprise every day."

"Our daughter," I mused. "Sometimes it scares me to watch 'er and listen to 'er."

"Don't be scared, Alan," Tina said to me softly. "She's something to be happy for. Proud of."

"All that's good," I said. "I want her happy and well-adjusted, not exploited and treated like a lab specimen."

"Alan," Tina said, her hand touching my forearm, "Seriously, have you seen anybody pushing Terri? I'm thinking of putting some blurry goggles and combat boots and mittens on her to slow her down. She takes off on her own."

"I know."

"And if one of us can't help her, she just makes the rounds until somebody can. That's how she ends up at Cindy's or Nikki's all too often. She's their kind of smart."

"Uh-huh. And they love 'er as much as we do."

"And Nikki says her Dan has the same questions you do, baby," Tina said. "We're all being careful with Terri. Sometimes Terri is not careful with us. Little darlin' has a vocabulary. Most sarcastic seven, excuse me, EIGHT year old I know of."

"She needs..." I started.

"She knows when to turn it off. I went to school with a building full of kids without the sense of observation and self-restraint Terri shows. But around us girls, she can unload. Had Nikki rolling on the floor laughing. Really. Not that 'ROFLMAO' in the text message."

We heard stirrings from inside the office. The door opened. Harold stuck his head out. "Folks, could you join us?"

"Sure," Tina said brightly. We got up and went inside.

"Please, sit," he said.

I looked at Terri. She was still smiling. "Hi, Dad. Hi, Tina."

"You weren't mean to Mister Harold, were you?" Tina asked her, smiling.

"Of course not," Terri said. "He's a very nice man. We had an interesting conversation."

"We did," Harold said. "I assume that those around her have learned that they're not talking to a typical third-grader. I just learned that myself."

Tina stroked Terri's head, causing Terri to lean against her. "We sort of grew into it ourselves," Tina replied. "Terri's pretty good about not popping up too precocious all at once."

He fingered the letters from the school in Tennessee. "And that's about as successful as bottling lightning, apparently. What are we going to do about Miss Terri?"

"I was going to present her name to the local school system and see what they had to offer. But Mrs. Sorensen practically begged us not to put her in a public school as a normal enrollee."

"Mrs. Sorensen is correct. It would be, in my opinion, a waste." He smiled. "You do, of course, realize that I have no standing in her case. She's not actually affiliated or, at this time being considered for affiliation with Auburn University. Yet. I ... we are having this conversation because, to be quite honest, two other youngsters blew my boat out of the water and from what I hear through the grapevine, they're stirring quite a storm in among the engineering faculty, among others. So if Nikki and Cindy say 'You need to see HER, ' I remember Cindy and I remember Cindy pointing me to Nikki and then both of them pointing to Terri." His shoulders heaved. "I admit that this session was to satisfy my curiosity. However, now that I am satisfied, I need to write you folks a report of my findings."

"So what did you find?" I asked.

"Oh, a cute little blue-eyed blonde eight year old girl." He smiled. Terri grinned back, turned her head in that little 'I'm just bashful and demure' thing she does. "With an intelligence level that isn't going to show up on any test the schools would give her as part of the regular student population. I'm thinking that she could walk into a room, take a GED test and walk out with a high school equivalency diploma."

Terri squealed. Tina gasped. I don't think I was capable of making noises, unless you count the thump when my body hits the floor from falling out of my chair.

"I don't think that would be fair to Terri, though. I think that a good, accelerated curriculum would serve well to broaden her knowledge. There's more to life than what is on the test," He said. "However, I do think I have another 'gifted program' card up my sleeve and I'm considering tossing it onto the table. Let me get back with you on that."

"My loving God," I said. "Doctor Stanton, you're serious."

"To lapse into the vernacular, a term Terri tossed at me in the proper context, incidentally, I am serious as a heart attack."

I sort of slumped back into my chair. Terri bounced once, landed in Tina's lap. "Dad," she said, "It's gonna be okay."

"It's going to be okay, Mister Addison," Harold said. "Interesting, though. Seriously, I want to talk with some people here. I will let you know what we determine in a few days, a week at most. Until then, don't bring her to the school board. They won't understand and it's liable to scare 'em."

"We'll be waiting for your call," I said, stepping forward to shake his hand.

Terri stepped forward too. "Can I get a hug? You did a good deed today." He bent over and hugged her. She said "Bye, Mister Harold," over her shoulder as we left.

At the bottom of the building's steps I stopped, closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Tina and Terri turned to look at me.

"Something wrong, Dad?" Terri queried.

"No. I just sense a great disturbance in the Force," I said.

"Ummmm, I'm gonna' tell Cindy you said that," Tina giggled. "She's the one to quote Star Wars."

"Cindy wasn't even born when Star Wars came out," I said.

"Yeah, but she said when she was a kid her mom would leave her home with a little TV, a DVD player, and all she had was the Star Wars trilogy. Besides, neither her nor Terri are short enough or green enough to be Yoda." Tina smiled.

"And I am too technologically advanced..." Terri scanned my face to see if her words were sinking in, "to be an Ewok."

"Oh, you're safe now, Terri-bug," I said, taking the nick name that was issued to her by the group. "But I owe you a big tickling. I can't do it on campus because it would be mistaken for child abuse."

She swung onto the other side of Tina, shielding herself from me. "Tina, Dad is planning to abuse me."

"Can't help you there, Terri-bug," Tina said. "He's probably gonna abuse me too."

"Burgers for lunch?" I asked. We know some good places now. One of them was almost directly on the track from the campus to our apartment.

"Good choice," Tina said.

We each got a burger and split a basket of onion rings and indulged in their specialty chocolate malts and then headed home. I had work in the office that needed my attention. No, I didn't have a 'boss' looking over my shoulder, I had clients who trusted me, part of a small startup engineering house, to break out some work, and our success depended on them being happy.

As far as me, I glance sideways at Terri sitting between me and Tina and I don't know between the two of them if I can get any happier.

Tina's phone blasts the 'Cindy' song.

"Hi, Cindy!" Pause. "NO, we're not keeping secrets. We're coming home right now." Pause. "Yes, it's good news." Pause. "Okay, talk to Terri." She handed the phone to Terri and smiled at me.

"Hi, Cindy!" Terri chirped. "Yeah, he's really nice. We talked for an hour, at least." Pause. "I'll tell you all about it when we get home. He says I shouldn't go to public school at all." Pause. "No, he said I'd just scare 'em." Pause. "No, I don't understand. You didn't scare anybody. Neither did Nikki." Pause. "Okay. See ya in a bit. Come over to the house. Nikki too, if she's around."

And that's a common mode of operation. One of us guys is subject to walk into his apartment at random intervals and find the whole crew there, although since Susan got her machine tools and I've been redirecting parts to Nikki and Cindy and my Tina ... I mean, it's surreal. I look at a pair of blue eyes that I've been lost in for almost a year, and soft red lips that I kiss and find nirvana, and then she says "Baby, we really need to see if we can get another couple of high voltage capacitors and something we can use for a high voltage resistor."

I wonder about guys whose wives come in and say "Baby, me an' the girls're goin' to the mall."

Chapter 24

Nikki's turn:

Some of this electricity stuff is messy. We needed some big capacitors for our railgun experiment. Actually, what I found out was that big high voltage capacitors are neat things to have around. We have a few inside tracks in the utility business, so between the connections of two Dans and an Alan, we got a dozen for free.

Then my Dan showed up and explained that these weren't exactly what we needed because they have a built-in electrical leak. It's called a bleeder resistor and it is for safety purposes the way they're applied in power systems, but for our purposes that feature makes them essentially useless.

"So we're dead in the water," I said.

"You have a couple of choices," Dan said.

"What are they?" Cindy, my co-conspirator, asked.

"We scrap these and buy the ones we need, but they're special order, so six months and four thousand bucks apiece and you think you need ten."

"Or," I said.

"We open these things up, pull the bleeder resistor and internal fuse out, and reseal them."

"Sounds easy enough." Cindy got that 'concerned Cindy' wrinkle right above her nose. "But I have a feeling it's not. These things are sealed."

"Uh, yeah," Dan said. "And filled with oil. So we have to be careful."

The next day a twenty-five pound fire extinguisher, a PVC kiddie pool and two hundred and fifty pounds of oil absorbent material that looked like something from Tommi's litterbox showed up.

Within a week the four of us were at the local fire department's training ground for a gratis lesson on the use of fire extinguishers on oil fires. That powder goes everywhere. Along with the soot from an oil fire pit.

Then we got to work. Nasty, messy, oily work. And learning to solder with a torch. And how to use a vacuum pump to properly refill those stupid capacitors.

Susan looked at me. Took a picture. Showed me my face with a greasy black smudge on one cheek. "Doin' science is messy," Terri said.

"Yes it is," I said. "But now we have something interesting.

And a stern safety lecture from Dan to the effect of "You are now in possession of devices that will store enough electrical energy to kill you instantly and blow pieces off your body while doing it."

"Under no circumstances will we power up the high voltage stuff without one of you guys around," Cindy said. "At least until we establish some procedures and safeguards. I'm thinking a steel cage. With a door interlocked to short out the cap bank."

Dan's head snapped over to Cindy. "Huh?"

"Interlocked," she said. "And I don't mean through the control system. I mean real shorting bars on the high voltage bus."

"Where'd you come up with that?" he asked her.

"Me 'n' Nikki, looking at some stuff about safety systems. We don't want any stages between an action and a safe outcome that have as many failure modes as our control system does. So here's what we want to do."

Dan was still talking about it when we were home that evening. I was sitting there with Tommi on my lap. I was petting the cat and he was purring hard enough to almost shake the sofa.

"You two are almost scary, baby," he said.

I knew what he meant, but sometimes I like to play. "Me an' Tommi?"

"No, I'm the one that feels like the cat. You and Cindy Sue."

"Oh, that! Honey, don't you think it makes sense? We looked up some stuff on the Internet about safety devices that have to be routed through the process control computer. It's usually a bad idea. You want to get your safety equipment as deep into the primary system as you can. That's where the term 'crowbar protection' comes from."

"Oh, hell! I know where it comes from, baby."

I smiled at my guy. "Well now, so do we."

"But you're fifteen."

I did my Terri imitation. "Almost SIXTEEN!"

"I know," he said. "Next week. But I didn't know the stuff you four are into when I was that age. I was playing with electronics kits, but you, you're dealing with a couple of million joules of energy that can be released in, literally, a flash." He sighed. "I made digital dice with little LEDs."

Tommi stood up in my lap and stretched.

"I feel like Tommi watching us load the dishwasher. I have no idea..."

"Oh, if you decided to get into it, baby, you'd be there. We're just playing. I promise we won't do particle beams." I flashed my best smile at him. "Yet."

"My wife has a security clearance. I don't have a security clearance."

"I haven't gotten it yet. We just turned the paperwork in."

Tommi stalked off to whatever destination his yellow cat mind was thinking of. I had a destination in mind myself. Dan's lap. I occupied it.

"You said you'd love me even if I was in the tenth grade, baby."

"And I will love you when they put you on the space station," he said.

"I'm not going to the space station. Not unless you can come with me. And I would volunteer a whole battery of experiments." I was imagining the geometry and physics of copulation while weightless. "I think we'd need Velcro waistbands. And two million joules? That's a couple of candy bars' worth of energy."

"You're too darned cute to be talking about megajoules, little brown-haired girl."

"So why don't we move this conversation to the shower, sandy-headed guy," I countered. "And then we can experiment on the effect of friction on neural stimulation."

"I love it when you talk all smart an' stuff," he laughed, sounding goofy.

"Don't forget who educated me, sir!" Giggle.

Yep! That part works quite well. And I'm pretty sure that the rest of the parts are working, too. I adore Dan. He knows it. Seemed like it when I fell asleep in his arms. And woke up cuddled against his back and darnit! I forgot to put a shirt on so my shoulders got cold and I really needed to snuggle.

And the cat jumped on the bed and woke my guy up. Well, since he's awake, I scooted a little higher and kissed the back of his neck, something that always gets a reaction. Tommi recognized that and abandoned the bed, leaving it to me and Dan. He could've stayed. It's a weekday morning and neither Dan nor I will stay in bed, even though he doesn't need to be at the office early and I won't be missed on campus until nine.

"I got leftover grits in the fridge," I said. "Let's go fix breakfast."

"Desert Island," Dan said, dragging me tighter into his arms. "We need a desert island. Weeks of just lounging around naked."

I giggled. We've never had weeks or even days of lounging around, naked or otherwise. "Well, if that desert island didn't have a lot of ripe, low-hanging fruit, we'd starve to death," I said. "So we STILL need breakfast." Of course, as I was saying this I was wiggling my heinie trying to get him to penetrate me.

He discerned that series of movements and rolled me over on my back and ... What is it about him and me? Just clicks. I've heard some of the conversations from girls I went to school with, you know, about faking it. 'I just act like I'm enjoyin' it. That Big O don't happen. Not unless I do it myself.' Not me! I roll onto my back, spread my legs and it's off to the races. Breakfast can wait. I can't and neither can Dan. Breakfast can definitely wait.

Well, breakfast can't wait too long because I'm in the bathroom dabbing the mess between my legs and Dan's washed his hands and the cast iron griddle is heating on the stove. He starts the coffee while I attend to the cooking and presently we do sit down to a simple breakfast of fried leftover grits, eggs and bacon. And coffee.

And I stopped him at the door for the customary good-bye kiss and darned near dragged him back in the house. I know what's going on here. I'm inordinately horny right before my period. I used to ignore signs like this from my body, but now that I've got Dan, I can listen to my body and know that I have outlets. I watched his khaki-clad butt walking across the square to the back door of the office.

Yes, we could, HE could work from home. After all, I'm the one, with Cindy's assistance and Dan 1.0's approval, who laid out the networking for this place. Anything he can do at the office, he could do here, except that at the office he's go the BIG monitor and the graphics pad.

Oh, that was one of those excursions I get. I was admiring my husband's butt and I drifted off course into the world of networking.

Of course out of the corner of my eye I saw the other Dan heading in the same direction. The 'Cindy' song played on my iPhone. I went back in the door to get it. "Hi, Cindy," I said.

""Dan just left for the office," she said. "I'm doing the breakfast dishes. Come over."

"No, You come over," I said. "I got the same task. By the time you get here, I'll be finished."

"'Course you will," she giggled, " 'Cause I'm gonna finish ours before I leave." She paused. "Oh, Susan's ringing in."

"Oh, just bring the gang," I said. "I'll put on another pot of coffee."

Four. No, five. No, seven. The gang plus Terri and Rachel and Beck. Hot water for Beck. She's a tea-lover. Terri gets her own version of coffee, which is mostly milk, and Rachel doesn't like it so she's good for a mug of chocolate milk from the microwave. We're very congenial.

Beck's a hoot. She had no idea of what she was getting into when Mizz Patel told them about the new apartment for rent. They moved in, desperate to get out of the apartment they were living in. "Too many college students," Beck said. "Not the 'you' kind of college students, either. The kind that like to party."

"But we like our social scene," I had told her.

"Uh, yeah ... I see your social scene. The only part that catches me is that you don't keep kosher. Sim and I try to be observant."

"In the middle of Alabama," I said. "Where pork is its own food group."

"I know," Beck said. "The other people at the temple..."

It's an education. Sim and Beck and Rachel are the only Jews I've ever met. I'm sure one of Mom's boyfriends would've had something to say about that. But the Weismann's, Jewish, and the Desai's, Hindu, and Cindy and Susan, Baptist and we're quite ecumenical.

"But don't you worry, Nikki," Beck had said. "We make our own way in the world. And your coffee is great. And the barbecue. Alan tossed that tri-tip on for us. That's Alabama kosher."

That's the way life is supposed to be. This morning we're all sitting around the living room talking about the challenges and victories of everybody's lives.

After our coffee social we disperse like a covey of quail. Terri and Rachel are going to hang out at the engineering office.

"We have to NOT disturb the engineers," Terri says. "My dad is an engineer. If you disturb them, they get grumpy."

It's a neat arrangement. The girls are quiet enough when they check in at the office., and they're good. When they're home, at either Tina's or Beck's, and so far we've not had to go to a back-up system which is for Grandma Desai to watch them. "If Cindy is my grand-daughter, then certainly Terri and Rachel are my great-grand-daughters," she said. The fact that she glared at her two real grandkids when she said it, that's cause for a chuckle. Mizz Desai is from India. Her son and daughter-in-law are born in America. Her grandkids, despite dark complexion and ebony hair and deep brown eyes, sound American, and college is going to come before kids start showing up, so Mizz Desai thinks she's being deprived of the joys of great grandchildren. Terri and Rachel fill the need.

We load into the car, me, Cindy, Susan and Tina. Tina's day to drive today. That's her and Susan's job. I won't get my license until after my sixteenth birthday. And Cindy, when she thinks about it, she fumes. Still fourteen. She can get a learner's permit in September when she turns fifteen.

They drop Cindy off at one building, me at the next and after lunch we swap places. I'm seriously believing that Cindy and I might be on a different track. Doctor Stebbins and Mizz Patel called me to her office.

"Good morning, Nikki," Mizz Patel said. "Do you remember Doctor Stebbins?"

"Yes, ma'am," I said. "How do you do, sir?"

He smiled. "I am quite well. Perhaps not as good as you, according to reports I'm getting, however," he said. "Please, sit down and talk with us."

"Yessir," I said.

"Please, relax, Nikki," Mizz Patel said. "We're still your friends here."

"Sorry," I said. "D'you have any idea how other students act when they find out that I've been in your offices several times? You're very frightening to some of them."

"Some of them should be frightened," Mizz Patel replied. "I fear that some are trying to leave here with engineering degrees when they would be better suited to some other course of study." She smiled. "You're not one of those. That is the subject of this meeting."

"Yes ma'am," I said.

Doctor Stebbins spoke. "Two years, Nikki. We want you here for two years. Starting this past June. We've talked to your faculty and we conclude that with your active participation for two years, you will have met and more likely exceed the requirements for a baccalaureate in engineering."

I tried not to, but a little squeal leaked out.

"We're not giving away anything, Nikki Domingue," Mizz Patel said. "We're looking at the amazing progress you've made, things that your professors are telling us, and quite frankly, it's amazing to the two of us. Even more amazing is that it is being duplicated by your friend, your sister Cindy."

"I'm glad for Cindy," I said. "Is she getting the same deal?"

"Yes, she is," Doctor Stebbins said. "And I know that your next question will be about the other two, Christina and Susan."

"Yessir. My other sisters."

"They're going to spend a lot of those two years in the classroom. You can go to classes if you wish. I would recommend that you do. But your actual instruction and evaluation will be as it has been for the last several weeks."

"But Nikki," Mizz Patel said, "this is if YOU wish to do it. You and Cindy are pushing very hard. I do not wish to see you burn out or sacrifice your family life for this."

"Never," I said. "I have talked with my husband about this many times. The only thing that my, uh, gift causes me to do is to sometimes wake up at night and dig into the books. Dan understands. He really does."

"I hope so," Mizz Patel said. "You two make a lovely pair."

I smiled. "We belong together. We do."

We talked a few more minutes, Doctor Stebbins being interested in my viewpoint of the people with whom I'd worked.

"They didn't believe me, at first," I said.

"How so?"

"I think that they thought I'd beat the system somehow." I giggled. "Now ask yourself. If a fifteen year old girl was going to beat the system, do you think she'd make her effort to scam the Auburn School of Engineering?"

He stroked his chin with a wry grin. Mizz Patel looked amused.

"Nikki, the School of Engineering is the most important thing in some of our faculty's lives. Their vision narrows after a while."

"That's an interesting way of looking at it, Mizz Patel. Very interesting."

"Have you changed any of their minds?" Doctor Stebbins asked.

"Yes, I think I have. Actually, despite their professional objectivity, I think they are my friends now. Doctor Sanders has been very exasperatingly thorough, especially the first couple of sessions after he assigned me a couple of texts. Very thorough."

"His notes are one of the reasons we're having this conversation, Nikki," Doctor Stebbins replied. "I think you've convinced him of your capabilities."

"There's a Post-It note," Mizz Patel said. "Says 'Ask her about her railgun.' I find it amusing that a fifteen year old girl is associated with 'her railgun'."

I smiled. "Not just mine. Cindy's. Tina's. Susan Ellerbee is our machinist. She's making parts. Tina and Cindy and I dissected some capacitors our husbands got from the utility company. We've got a two megajoule capacitor bank. Plastic guides. Copper rails. Firing mechanism is a calibrated spherical spark gap for now, but Cindy and I are working on a parametric trigger that is voltage-independent."

"I'm almost sorry I asked," she said.

"Well, if you bring your husband to the Desai restaurant for dinner one evening, I am sure that we can give you the tour. We're actually rather proud of it."

"Oh, how are the Desais doing?" Mizz Patel asked.

"Wonderfully. Very busy. At first we had the run of the place. Now we're pushed out in the evenings by the paying clientele."

"We do need to go visit."

"They're wonderful people. Their grandmother has adopted Cindy as her grand-daughter."

Mizz Patel smiled broadly. "That does not surprise me. Cindy is unusual."

"Cindy is 'Chandra' now. Grandmother Desai's adopted granddaughter." I stole a glance at Doctor Stebbins.

He was propping his chin on his fingertips, his elbows resting on his desk. "This part of the discussion makes me feel good, Nikki. I don't want to treat you and Cindy like a high performance engine, good for a few laps around a track and then worn out and on the junk heap."

"No, sir," I said. "We have lives. It's just that we have this rare and wildly wonderful opportunity to learn and grow here at the university, and that is not something to take lightly. Thank you for your concern."

He smiled. "I fully intend for us to have more of these conversations."

"I look forward to that, sir," I said. "And if it works out that way, I would like to graduate at the same time as Susan and Tina. We started together. I think we should finish together."

He smiled. "Let us see that it happens that way."

I left his office with Mizz Patel. "Well, Nikki, how do you see things now?"

"Gosh, Mizz Patel, put yourself in my position. This is ... can't be real."

"It is very real, Nikki. And I know that Doctor Stebbins was impressed by your insistence that you graduate with Tina and Susan. You have family and loyalty. That counts. It is often missing."

"You know my story, Mizz Patel. I yearned for family. Now I have one. A big, happy one. You understand that."

"Yes, dear girl, I do," she said. "Are you going to see Doctor Russell now?"

"Yes, ma'am," I said. "He says that I need to write another paper before he gives me credit for Psych 101 and 102."

"Electives," she said.

"Yes, ma'am. Read the book. Talk to Doctor Russell. He decides that I read it and then he has me write a paper. That' was the pattern for History of the Western Hemisphere. Pre-Columbian. I did ten pages on the Olmecs."

"Nikki, beautiful child," she said. "Do you realize that you just talked about finishing in a week and a half what the average student spends a semester on?" She smiled. "But then, you're far from average."

"Thank you," I said. "I hope I don't disappoint."

"Nobody is disappointed in you, Nikki. 'Astounded', however does come up."

We parted ways. Backpack slung over one shoulder, I walked across campus to meet Doctor Russell. I knocked on the open door. He was seated behind his impressive desk. "Psychology at work, don't you think?" he had said about it at our first meeting.

"There is my precocious engineerling," he smiled. "What have you got for me today?"

And off we went, discussing the second textbook.

"Karen asked me to tell you that she meant nothing by turning you back over to me," he said in the middle of the conversation.

"I don't think Karen was comfortable with me," I said. 'Karen' was Karen Rutskiy, one of Doctor Russell's adjuncts. I had two sessions with her. She seemed ill at ease.

"I think some of that is my fault. I gave her the task of evaluating you and determining if you should be given credit for these courses. She is a great instructor, but she is tied in to the traditional methodology and timing and I frankly think she was afraid to take the initiative." He sighed. "Or maybe you made her nervous."

"I didn't intend..."

"I said that wrong," he said quickly. "More correctly, she became nervous because you are a rare one, an intelligence that does not come up every day and say 'I'm fifteen and I soak up knowledge like a sponge'. You never said that, of course."

"Of course not," I said.

"Nonetheless, she wasn't equipped to handle you. I, on the other hand, wish you had walked in and said 'Doctor Russell, I want to work with you for my PhD in psychology." He sighed. "But you want to be an engineer, and we, alas, are mere electives."

"Interesting electives," I said.

He laughed. "I bet you say that to all the sideshows."

"Look," I said, "I was rescued from a near-death experience by an engineer. Look at it as 'imprinting'."

"Forgiven," he said, laughing. "Imprinting. And you married him. Speaks well of his taste, if not yours. Now, let's look at this chapter on abnormalities..."

I walked out into the sunshine at eleven thirty. I'm going to get those credits.

Tina's ring tone came out of my cellphone, so I walked to the nearby street and snagged a ride with the crew.

"How's Doctor Russell?" Cindy asked.

"Good mood today. He explained why Karen isn't doing this now," I said. She asked and I explained it to her.

"I kind of got that feeling," the pert little redhead said.

"You two scare the crap out of me and I love y'all like sisters. What did Doctor Stebbins and Mizz Patel have to say."

"I can't ... oh, heck, you gotta let this go no further than the guy you're living with. We're all graduating together. In two years."

Group squeal.

"I guess I need to get Terri to tutor me in math," Susan said. "Sometimes this stuff just gets REAL."

"I know," Tina said. "But I thought you and Cindy were, like, ahead of us."

"Doctor Stebbins says that we're taking different paths. Ours won't involve as much of the traditional classroom."

"I guess I shouldn't be jealous," Tina said. "But I am. A little bit."

I sort of hung my head. I loved Tina like a real sister. No, she was more than a real sister. She had a choice. It wasn't an obligation of birth. Tina saw me in the rear-view mirror.

"Oh, gosh, Nikki, I didn't mean it like that!"

"No, we don't," Susan added. "Gosh! We're ... did you just say TWO years?"

"That's what he said. So you know he's following you, too," I said.

"That's what I mean," Susan said. "Tina, this is all your fault."

"My fault?!?" Tina squealed.

"Yeah. There I was, a high school senior. Would've just bumped along and done the graduation thing and then in the fall I would've gone to college at some little college an' started me a degree in mass communications or marketing or something, and prob'ly married some guy and dropped out of college pregnant."

I giggled.

"It's not funny!" Susan squealed. "You, Tina Addison, have probably cost me a fine double-wide in an upscale trailer park!"

Tina snickered.

"See," Susan said, "None of what we knew of our futures a year ago is anywhere near what we can see right now. I'm not jealous. I just wanna see what happens next."

"That's what I mean," Tina said.

Cindy was giggling. "Whaa-aat!" I said.

"Oh," giggle "I was just tryin' to get a picture of Susan and a baby in a double-wide."

"You just wait, Aunt Cindy. You're gonna wanna babysit little Jason Junior one of these days!" Susan giggled.

Okay, we all laughed. But deep inside I got a little twinge. I love my Dan deeply. Maybe we can talk.

Chapter 25

Tina's turn:

Alan's at the office. I'm at home. It would almost sound like I was the little wifey staying home with the kid, except that right now the kid in question is talking to me about computer programming. What makes it worse is I'm answering her questions and in the back of my mind I'm thinking I need to send this eight year old down the sidewalk to talk to a fifteen year old who is leading the pack in computer skills. Or a fourteen year old who's just about that far ahead and is a little better on machine controls, which is the sort of question I'm being asked.

What manner of eight year old girl asks about feedback in motion control? Terri Addison, Of course.

"We need a waffle machine," she announced. "Automated."

"They have such an automatic pancake maker" I said. "I saw one in a hotel in their breakfast nook. They cost a few thousand dollars. And you still have to mix the batter for it."

"It's just that I really like waffles," Terri said. "The other morning when we all got together for breakfast, that was fun."

"And a lot of the fun comes from who you're sharing with," I said.

"I know. But automatic waffle maker."

"Could get those toaster waffles."

"Not very close, Terri said. "Just barely compares to yours."

"Mine," I said, "come from a plain ol' recipe out of a book."

"But definitely better than those frozen ones. But I was thinking about how an automatic machine would work."

"Some thing just aren't that easy to automate on a small scale."

"I guess we can still do it the old way," Terri replied.

"SO all this ... I take it Terri wants waffles tomorrow?"

Little blonde head nodded enthusiastically.

"As long as you load the dishwasher when we finish," I said. I really didn't have to ask. Terri took care of her share of the household chores.

"You sound like you really like your stepdaughter," Beck said.

"I do. She's like my little sister and my daughter and, gosh, that mind..." I answered.

"That's good. You hear so many stories about blended families and the friction..."

"Oh, I know," I said, sipping my Coke. "I worried about that when we first started talking, before I actually met. But Alan called her once or twice a week, and when he and I got together, I started talking with her, and then she started calling me to talk."

"You two relate, huh?"

"I guess it has to do with her mom's mental issues and her being on the West Coast and not being in comfortable surroundings. When she came to Tennessee for Christmas, we just clicked, almost as easily as Alan and I clicked. Compatible."

"I think she's good for Rachel," Beck said.

"They're a cute pair. I'm glad they fit together."

Beck smiled. "I sort of feel safe here with her. That last apartment, they had a lot of students renting and you have no idea..."

"I can imagine."

"Everything you imagine, and then more. Waking up in the morning, going out for a walk, finding a semi-nude, unconscious young scholar lying halfway across the sidewalk, his head in the shrubbery, and trying to explain such activities to your daughter."

"Quite the education," I said. "I got some of those lessons from my mom and her friends. I'd hate to have to explain it to one of my own."

Beck smiled wanly. "Especially with Little Miss Question there."

"Yours or mine?" I laughed.

"Either one. In that respect they're interchangeable. Except the college hasn't called me to interview Rachel."

"Rachel's plenty smart, Beck," I said.

"Yes, she is. Sim and I are very proud parents. But hanging around Terri..."

"Might be the way Susan and I are, looking at Cindy and Nikki. They have an order of magnitude on us. And Susan was third in her high school class and I had a 4.0 for my senior year. But then Cindy comes bouncing along, that's a surprise. Nikki's an even bigger one. We hung out for a few weeks before I moved. Never got into the academic side of things together. We were just relieved to find each other and be friends without judging one another. But now, academically..."

"I know," Beck replied. "Doctor Patel said 'unusual community. Very bright people'. I had no idea."

-

Today's the day we go meet the people at the local school board about Terri. Alan's at the office until nine. We have to be at the school board office at nine-thirty. I make sure that Terri's wearing the jeans without the holes in the knees, and her new shoes. And we're not exactly matching, but we're close. Clean. Casual.

"What do you think they'll do, Tina?" she asked me.

"I would guess it will be something like they did in Tennessee with Mizz Callirossa, baby. But we have to try and push them a little harder. We have all these letters." I had them in a folder, one from Mizz Callirossa, one from Mrs. Sorensen, one from Doctor Stanton on Auburn stationery with an official-looking signature.

Susan was doing taxi service for Cindy and Nikki today so I could take care of Terri. When we were dressed and I had her blonde hair brushed to perfection, we walked across the grounds and went in the back door of Alan's office. Alan was at his work station, along with Dan 1.0. Dan 2.0 had flown out the day before to meet with representatives from a big engineering house about picking up some of their electrical design work. That's a goodie.

Jason was working his way around the general vicinity with the local utility company, hauling almost a hundred thousand dollars of test equipment with him. You just know that when it came, he had to give us a demonstration first, then lessons. Susan goes with him when she has holes in the schoolwork. Today, though, she kissed him bye and let him go off by himself so we could all do what needed to be done.

"Dad, we're ready," Terri said softly. Loud talking was a no-no in the office.

"Hi, baby. You look cute." He kissed her head. "You look cute, too." I got a kiss, too. "We can go."

"Good luck," Dan said. "Like Terri needs it."

"I need all the help I can get, Uncle Dan," Terri said, tiptoeing to kiss him on the cheek.

A short time later we walked into the school board office and stopped at the front desk.

"Hi," Alan said, putting on his friendliest smile, "I'm Alan Addison. My daughter Terri is her for evaluation and enrollment."

The receptionist, a tastefully dressed black lady, smiled back. "Let's see if we can get somebody to take care of you. Good morning, Miss Terri!"

"Good morning Mizz Clayborn," Terri replied. I knew that Terri had read the nameplate. Mizz Clayborn didn't know that.

"Excuse me, Terri, how did you know my name?"

"It's on your nameplate. I read it." Terri smiled sweetly. Disarmingly.

"Oh, goodness, child," Mizz Clayborn said. "That's very good." She picked up her telephone and punched the keypad. "Mrs. Greybill? I have the Addisons here if you're ready for them." She paused. "Yes, ma'am. I'll direct them to your office." She turned her attention back to us. "If you'd take that hall over there, about halfway down is Mrs. Greybill's office. Her name is on the door." She smiled at Terri. "Nice meeting you, Terri."

"Thank you, Mizz Clayborn," Terri said as we headed off.

We found the door. Alan knocked gently.

"Please, come in!" came a voice from within. We entered.

"Hello, Mrs. Greybill. I'm Alan Addison. This is my wife Tina and our daughter, Terri."

Mrs. Greybill was tall and thin and grey, probably sixtyish. She looked at us, assessing. Her lips began to form a smile.

"I am pleased to see you. Please sit. Terri, you finished the second grade last spring?"

"Yes, ma'am," Terri answered.

"Mister Addison, you could have simply taken her to any of our enrollment days at the school nearest your home."

"Yes, ma'am," Alan said, "but I have a few letters here that made me want to run this case by you first."

"Letters?"

"Yes ma'am. From the school she attended in Tennessee last spring and from Auburn University."

"Could I see them?"

"Yes, ma'am," Alan replied, handing her the folder.

The three of us, me, Alan, Terri, exchanged looks as Mrs. Greybill scanned the letters. Finally she looked up.

"Sorry," she said. "This is unusual. Terri, do you know what these letters say about you?"

"Yes, ma'am," Terri answered. "They say that I learn a lot easier than most people. I read books that are way out of the elementary school level."

"She's doing math work that's easily in the middle school level," I said.

"You're her step-mom?"

"Yes ma'am," I said. "And I will be starting formal classes at Auburn in the fall."

"Formal classes? What other kind are there?"

"I'm working on advanced placement," I said. "I think I've knocked out a couple of years' worth of college."

"And you, Mister Addison?"

"I'm an electrical engineer."

"So you have a good, supportive family, Terri?"

"Yes ma'am. And this is the tip of the iceberg."

"How so?"

Terri told her about Cindy and Nikki and Susan and academic pursuits and hands-on explorations. I listened to her talk. By now I was used to Terri's decidedly precocious vocabulary and language use. I watched Mrs. Greybill's expressions as she listened. She was at first surprised, then she paid close attention.

"Cindy's the best of us at writing," Terri said, "so I go get her if I want to get help with writing. And math, that's either Cindy or Nikki. Susan and Tina are better choices for social studies. Sciences? It's a toss-up. And of course there's Dad or two other engineers and an engineering technician." She smiled. "And Grandma Desai for a view from another culture. She's an Indian immigrant."

"Okay, dear," Mrs. Greybill said. "Mister Addison, what exactly do you think this child will do in a public school?"

"That's the question we wanted to pose to you," Alan said. "I honestly don't know. She's done a lot of growing in the last couple of months."

"Terri, do you mind taking tests, dear?" Mrs. Greybill asked.

"I can take tests," Terri said. "On what subjects?"

"All of them," Mrs. Greybill replied. "If you could come back after lunch, we'd like to give you the elementary school assessment. That's what we'd give you if you were from a non-traditional education environment."

"Like home schooling?" Terri asked.

"Yes!" Mrs. Greybill smiled. "That's an excellent example."

"Or like the kids who sailed around the world with their family."

"That, too, Terri," Mrs. Greybill replied. "Now here's where I make a significant leap, people. I fear I know what the result will be from the elementary assessment. I would like to know if Terri will be available again tomorrow afternoon. I think we'd like to give her the middle school assessment."

Terri's head whipped around, grin beaming. I stroked her hair. "That's good, baby!"

"Will the three of you be coming back after lunch?" Mrs. Greybill asked.

"If it's necessary," Alan said. "I have a conference call that requires my participation, but if..."

"I can bring her," I said. "Cindy and Nikki can have lunch on campus."

"Cindy and Nikki are on campus? Summer semester?" Mrs. Greybill asked.

"Not exactly," I said. "Those two seem to have broken the standard college course progression. They're interviewing..."

"More like lecturing, from what I hear," Alan said. "I talk with their husbands."

"Interesting," Mrs. Greybill said.

"It's like you're sitting on the bank of the Mississippi and all you've seen is paddlewheel riverboats. And along come these two and there are no paddlewheels. And they're moving very well." I sighed. "They're scary smart."

"They're not scary," Terri said. "Just very smart."

"I know, sweetie..."

"Hyperbole," Terri grinned. Mrs. Greybill shook her head. "Goodness. Can you be back at one?"

"We'll be here," I said.

We walked out. Alan drove us back to the office.

"I have the conference call, baby," he told me. "I'm glad you can take care of Terri."

"Of course I can take care of Terri. Now go be prosperous!" and I kissed my husband and he bent over so Terri could land one, too. "We're goin' to the house. You want a sandwich?"

"No," he said. "I have some beef jerky in the desk. We'll make up for it at dinner."

"I'm sure we will. Tonight's a 'Cindy Casserole' night. She's got another recipe."

"Oh, boy..."

"Oh, you liked that last one."

"As long as I have my tabasco sauce" he said. "Just needs a little kick."

"You don't dare be rude. Cindy's really trying to cook. And we're supporting her."

"I'll be good," he said. "And you know how we all are about Cindy."

"Yes, I do."

Terri and I went to the apartment and I let her talk me into peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Really, it's not that bad.

"You're not worried?" I asked her.

"About what should I worry?"

"Those tests."

"Tina, if this was California and Mom, I'd be a third-grader. If I go in there and write my name on top of the page with a crayon and draw ponies on the page, I'll still be a third grader, except without worrying if Mom took her pills and if they worked and if I was gonna get out of my room without getting yelled at." She looked at me with a smile. "It's what Dad calls a 'win-win' situation. And seriously? Do you think that they're going to abuse me with those tests? Like Cindy and Nikki explaining logarithms? Or you talking about history?"

I grinned at this little imp. "You need to know history, Terri. It's the basis for a lot of decisions that might make sense in a strictly surface analysis."

"Why people think they way they do," she said. "I know. But that test this afternoon? Didn't YOU tell me about your own experiences?"

"I was still nervous," I said.

"And how did my evil stepmother handle that?" She propped her elbow up and rested her chin in her palm, raising her eyebrows.

"The same way I expect my monstrous stepdaughter to handle it. Just do the best you can."

"You know I will."

"I know you will, punkin," I said.

We finished our sandwiches and sneaked in the back door of the office and kissed Alan before heading out.

Terri's phone played the 'Cindy' song. "Hi, Cindy," she said. Pause. "Yeah, we're on the way there." Pause. "Thank you, Aunt Cindy!" I knew that the 'Aunt' prefix was good for an extra smile at the other end. So did Terri. "I'm excited. I WANT to do this!"

That was our conversation as we walked into the building. "Hi, Mizz Clayborn. We're back," Terri said.

"Hello, Miss Terri," Mizz Clayborn replied. "Mrs. Greybill is waiting for you." She smiled at the two of us.

We walked back to Mrs. Greybill's office. She called us in. There was another middle-aged lady waiting with her.

"Terri, this is Mrs. Canfield. She does our assessments."

"Hello, Mrs. Canfield," Terri said.

"And this is Terri's stepmom, Tina," Mrs. Greybill said.

"Hi, Mrs. Canfield," I said.

"Hello to the both of you," Mrs. Canfield said.

"Let's sit for a bit," Mrs. Greybill said.

We sat. Mrs. Canfield spoke. "I've read the letters that you brought. Terri, according to these letters, today may almost be a waste of time."

"I should still take the tests, Missus Canfield," Terri said. "The exercise won't hurt."

"I'm sure you get plenty of mental exercise. Mrs. Greybill has told me of your group." Mrs. Canfield shifted to look at me. "Interesting bunch, from what I've heard."

"I'm the dumb one of the bunch," I said. "4.0 in my senior year in high school and I'm gonna probably be credited with enough hours to be a second semester sophomore."

"We don't like to use the word 'dumb', dear," Mrs. Canfield said. "And in your case, it sounds like calling a diamond a 'pretty bit of rock'."

"It's the circle in which I find myself," Terri said. "And Tina's not even close to being dumb."

"I don't think she is. Nor you, Terri. Let's go take some tests, okay?"

"Yes ma'am," Terri said. "Let's."

They left the room. I smiled at Mrs. Greybill. "I guess I can go kill time."

"Or ... do you drink coffee? Or a coke perhaps?"

"Coffee would be wonderful," I said.

"You don't know this coffee," she chuckled. "You may change your mind."

I giggled. We drew cups of coffee from the coffeemaker and returned to her office.

"If I'm not prying too much, aren't you a bit young to be married? Especially with an eight year old?"

I recounted the story, the short version at least. "Rescued," I said. "And when I saw that we could bring Terri in, I jumped. Well, at least my heart did. She's a delight."

"You sound convinced."

"I'm past convinced. Committed. Excited."

"You're fortunate. I've dealt with gifted children. Some, many, in fact, have emotional difficulties."

"The only thing I see with Terri is an insatiable curiosity. I'd be hard put to handle it all by myself, or with just me and Alan, but with our little community, she gets to spread that curiosity around to the others."

"You said you're the dumb one? What about the others?"

"Cindy Richards and Nikki Granger are ... have been told that they need to hang around the university for two years before they get to receive engineering degrees. No classes. Just hang around. Labs. Research. Who knows ... maybe even teach..."

"They're your age?"

"Worse than that," I giggled, relaxing. "Cindy's fourteen until September, and Nikki's going to turn sixteen the same week as I have my eighteenth. Two years younger than me. But brilliant. Both of them. Past brilliant."

"Interesting. They're here in town?"

"Yes, ma'am," I said. "Cindy went from a middle school student to a high school diploma to wiping out the idea of a standard college education in less than a year."

"Who made the determination that she's that..."

"She took tests at the beginning of last school year. And more tests. And interviews. Colleges came looking for her. She's been wading through college texts since before she graduated, taking online courses from MIT. She's been grilled by department heads at Auburn. Wants to be an engineer." I sighed. "Nikki's just as bad, except a whole year older. Nikki designed and set up the network for our apartments and office. Designed. Chose the components. Specified a fiber optic trunk between the office and the building hub at the apartment. Fifteen."

"Goodness," Mrs. Greybill said. She took a sip of coffee.

"And that little girl-child taking the tests today? She's right there with them."

"You're married. What about..."

"Yes, they're married too. Looks really strange, I know. But no pregnancies. No abortions. No abuse. Just families."

We talked for another hour and a half before a knock came at the door. I turned, saw Terri's grinning face looking in the door, along with a rather exasperated Mrs. Canfield.

"Yes, Heather?" Mrs. Greybill said.

"Joellen, I have wasted an hour and a half." She and Terri stepped into the office.

Mrs. Greybill's expression was questioning. "How so?"

"I was supposed to assess an elementary student. This," she said, her hand on Terri's shoulder, "is decidedly NOT an elementary student."

"Oh?" Mrs. Greybill said.

Mrs. Canfield continued, "She is very, very polite. And self-assured. I gave her the booklet. She flipped through it, looked, asked me if this is really what we expected her to know as a third-grader, and READ me page after page, not missing a beat, and answering every question correctly. She flipped to the back, where we should expect a fifth or sixth grade student to be bogging down, and she didn't miss a beat. I got a little education on time, speed, distance problems and then had it explained to me that it was but one of the three-variable scenarios, her word, 'scenarios', that she worked with, along with Ohm's Law and pressure versus temperature and volume. I haven't seen that stuff in DECADES!"

"You weren't playing mean, were you?" I questioned Terri. She shook her head.

"Oh, no, Mrs. Addison. She wasn't. It's just like she was showing me that this basic idea of time-speed-distance, if I could understand THAT, then I could really understand all these other things if I tried." Mrs. Canfield heaved a sigh. "And you know?!? I am about ready for her to teach me."

"So where's this leave us with Terri?" I asked. Terri sidled up next to me, a look on her face that I knew meant she was playing her 'bashful' card.

"Can you come back in the morning?" Mrs. Canfield said. "I still want to give her the middle school assessment, but I'll be quite honest with you. I have a strong suspicion that if I gave her the GED (Auth. Note: General Educational Development: Successful completion gives an equivalency to a high school diploma) tomorrow, she'd pass. Maybe not like she'd gone to school eleven years and then studied for the test, but pass, nonetheless."

"We can come back," I said. "Okay, Terri?" I asked her.

She nodded affirmative, that sleek blonde hair bouncing. "But I rather like that idea of a high school diploma. Then I can go to college with you and Cindy and Nikki and Susan."

"She's NOT kidding, Joellen. She could do it. When I did my last year in the classroom, NONE of my eight-graders could do what this little cutie did when she walked in this morning. Tina, did she, like, grow up next to a nuclear reactor or something?"

Terri giggled. "Missus Canfield, you're making me laugh."

"Oh, Little Miss Terri, you've made my day. My week. My month." She stood up. "Can we expect you in the morning? I'm going back to my office and shut the door and turn the light out for a while."

"Oh, don't do that," Terri said. "Those flowers out front, they're really pretty. I'd go look at them for a while."

"We'll be back in the morning. Nine?"

"Yes, nine would be good," Mrs. Greybill said.

"Well, thank you both so much," I said.

"Yes, thank you," Terri said.

And we left.

"What did you DO?" I asked her out on the step.

"Tina, it was EMBARRASSING! That test booklet had the big letters like a second-grade book. MIssus Canfield asked me if I was having trouble, so I told her that I wasn't, and I started talking with her about the stuff in the book. We got to the last part and it was simple time-speed-distance problem, just like when you're doing flight planning. And just last week we were looking at the Ohm's Law stuff."

"Apparently you're the first eight year old they've ever seen who knows what Ohm's Law is," I said, giggling. "Just remember, though, you're NICE!"

We got in my car. She was giggling. "I'm texting the gang. I can't wait to tell everyone!"

The 'Nikki' song played first on her phone. "Hi, Nikki," she giggled. "Yes, it went VERY well. Oops! That's Cindy! Love you! Talk to you when you get home!" She punched at the screen. "Hi, Cindy!" Squeal! "It went good!" Pause. "Yes, go back to work! We'll talk you get home!" She looked at me. "Cindy says I'm too happy. She thinks something is up."

"Baby," I said, "don't get carried away. Sometimes people get over-excited and say things that they can't back up later."

"You think that's what's going on with Missus Canfield?"

"I'm thinking it's not the first nor the last time you will have that effect on people, darlin'," I said. "So let's be happy about today. Tomorrow, we'll see how that goes, and then we'll see what they come up with after your testing." In my head, though, I was trying to figure out where my daughter was going to fit into an education system that was never ready for minds like hers.

In a matter of minutes we were at the complex. I pulled into our parking spot and was completely unsuccessful at keeping Terri from heading across the lot to take the news to Alan. I followed her over.

She entered through the back door, quietly, assessing what was taking place. No conference calls, nobody on the phone, so SQUEAL! And a dash to wrap Alan up in a hug.

Returning her embrace, he looked at me. "I take it that things went well, then?"

Chapter 26

Alan's Turn:

I feel like I'm on a merry-go-round that's spinning too fast to get off of. Not that I want to, you understand. I've never seen anything like this thing that's going on here.

Business? It's doing even better than I'd hoped for a start-up. I brought clients. Both Dans brought clients. Jason's name sits in the middle of some of them, and for heaven's sake, that Alabama utility company's regional manager was impressed by the Jason and Susan team.

He sent an engineer out to see them after they found a significant screwup in one of their substations. He watched them work, asked questions, then called us.

"You know, my people should've caught that," he said. "They didn't. Yours did. Your intern (that would be Susan) showed us the data you collected and how you insured that you got things right. My guys took the obvious shortcut and fell right into the trap. It's a good thing we didn't see a fault on that line. We could've mis-operated and lost a chunk of the state."

"People make mistakes," I said. "That's why we cross-check and test."

"Well, you people have impressed me. You're going to get a lot more work out of this deal. And pass that on to both of those that found that. Your Jason Ellerbee is impressive, and his wife doesn't give up much, especially for a novice."

I sort of laughed.

"What's funny?"

"I have three more that are just as bright, or brighter, than Susan. All of them just graduated high school this past spring. Two of 'em might graduate with degrees in two years without setting foot in a formal classroom except to satisfy their curiosities. One of them's too young to get her driver's license."

"Wow," he said. "You're serious?"

"Like a heart attack," I said. "That's why this business exists. Those girls are storming Auburn as we speak. So we moved here and opened the business doing what we do. And in two years we'll see how they fit in."

"Two years?" he asked. "Thought you said they just got out of high school."

"Susan and Tina were both 4.0 averages in their senior year, ACT's over 30, advanced placement classes, and both of them have interviewed and tested their way though their sophomore years. Tina skipped a year of high school after being forced to drop out. Came back as a senior and ran a 4.0 average."

"You're kidding."

"That's not the half of it. Like I said, the other two, one's fourteen and the other's fifteen and they did better than that. Both of THEM graduated last spring and they are graduating with engineering degrees in two years, too."

All I heard on the phone was him sucking a breath in sharply.

"You need to come by the office one day and visit. They'll be glad to see you and give you a tour of the place."

"It's an engineering office. What's there to see?"

"Certainly not our office. They have a lab. You need to see their experiments."

"Experiments?"

"They repurposed some power factor capacitors to make a big DC bank. They are building a railgun."

"Four girls."

"Yeah. They haul us in to talk to them about the hardware they want a little bump on. We make sure they're safe. But yeah ... high energy impulses."

"Safety! You're letting a bunch of teens play with high voltage?"

"Lord, Axell," I said. "In two years those 'kids' will be sitting in engineering offices or running around in the real world if they can get by the 'One size fits all' safety rules. They're bright, inquisitive, motivated, and they're soaking up knowledge at a scary pace. And using as much of it as they can." I paused. "Seriously! Make an excuse and come by and visit."

"You've got my curiosity piqued now," Axell said. "So that blonde intern..."

"Is the machinist-artificer for the bunch. Got an engine lathe, vertical mill and drill press for her wedding present from her dad."

"You're not pulling my leg now, are you?"

"Not even," I said. "There have been days with this bunch that I'm almost afraid to think of what could be next. The four of them are waiting on security clearances."

"What?"

"Security clearances. So they can at least get familiar with an R&D project the university is doing in collaboration with the government."

"No shit?!?"

"Because they're building their own version of a railgun in their lab."

"Okay. Thursday. I've got Thursday open on my calendar. I'm coming over."

"We'll look for you," I said. "I'll have to check to see which of the girls might be here. They're on and off campus on a random schedule. But whoever's here will be glad to talk to you."

"I'll be there."

I hung up the phone, looked over at Dan 1.0. "That's a client who's impressed with Jason and Susan."

"Poor Jason," he said. "Top-notch tech. Goes on a job, and they remember his wife."

"And he does all the heavy lifting."

"In more than a strictly technical sense, I'm sure," Dan retorted.

"I dunno. You seen Susan in the lab? She doesn't come off as the squealy delicate type." I watched them at work. I know.

"Do we even HAVE any squealy delicate types?" he asked.

We both know the answer to that one. It's a solid 'NO!'. Last time we did an oil change on the Cessna, I kept bumping into Tina.

"Look," she said, "I can get my hands in there a lot easier."

I'm glad she's not one of those manicured, primped posers.

"I don't think I'd ever like being that way, Alan," she'd told me once. "Even earrings. I would be afraid you'd get frisky and chip a tooth."

I guess that Susan's the only one of the bunch who'd ever shown up with noticeable makeup, and hers was a tiny bit of eyeliner and mascara. Her eyelashes are long, but light-colored. My Tina's were equally long, but dark enough to need no enhancement. I thought about Dan's Cindy and the other Dan's Nikki. Nope! Nothing, other than perfume.

The perfume thing was fun. They traded samples among themselves. My Tina was subject of a variety of enhanced aromas, along with my other favorites, freshly-scrubbed Tina, slightly sweaty Tina, and sexually aroused Tina.

"Where'd that one come from," I'd asked her last week.

"Cindy," she giggled.

Apparently my excursion into thought was noted. "Where did you go, bud?" he asked.

"Oh, just letting my mind roam. Tina showed up with a new perfume last week."

"So did Cindy. They swapped. Our wives had good tastes."

I laughed.

"And you have a dirty mind," he said.

"Nothing dirty about what goes on between a man and his wife."

"Uh-huh ... so that was our utility company rep on the phone?"

"One of 'em," I said. "Good report. And was impressed by Susan."

"Not Jason?" Dan asked.

"Oh, he was impressed by Jason, but Susan's memorable."

'I can imagine," he laughed. "What would YOU think?"

"I dunno. And I suspect that the girls will have that effect for years." I knew that despite the guise of gender equality in the workplace, females still had hurdles. I knew some who rode the idea of being a 'protected class' and some who played the gender thing as a way to shirk tough jobs. I also knew some who not only held their own, but excelled. Just like men. Of course, you can imagine what happens when one of your key engineers pops up in the middle of a project and cites pregnancy and the medical leave that goes with it.

I continued, "But he's coming over Thursday to visit. We need to see if we can get as many of the Sisterhood together as possible."

"At the very least, we should have a couple, I think Cindy and Nikki usually go in on campus on Fridays."

"We should be good. Might want to take a bit of time to organize things here." 'Here' is an engineering office. It's not exactly the sort of place that cultivates walk-in business. However, we do need it to be presentable. It wasn't far from that point right now.

I heard the back door open and the twin giggles of Terri and Rachel. The giggles died quickly as the door closed. We didn't mind being part of their summer world of explorations. As a matter of fact, if Beck wasn't home, we served as babysitters.

"Hi, Dad!" Terri said, followed by "Hi Mister Addison," from Rachel.

"Hi, sweetie! Hi, sweetie also," I said. "What are you doing?"

"We were hangin' around in the lab, but Susan's welding so she recommended that we leave so we don't hurt our eyes."

"Susan's right, you know," I said. "That arc can damage your eyes."

"It's interesting, though," Terri said. "I watched 'er with welding goggles. You can actually see that little puddle of melted metal."

"I'm glad you learned from it," I said. "But you need to be very careful. Molten metal is no toy."

"No, it's not a toy," My precocious daughter said. "But it makes things. Real things." She giggled. "Have you watched Susan? She does STUFF. With metal an' plastic, and it's like Play-Doh for real!"

"That's what makes the world go round, little one," I said.

"Dad thinks you're crazy, you know," Rachel said.

I know that. I and Sim, Rachel's dad, had many conversations. Sometimes he drops into the office. Sim and I exist in different worlds. He's in academia, facing a different reality than I and my fellow engineers (and yes, I add Jason and the girls to that number) face. He knows it. Even admitted it.

"You know," he said, "we sociologists, some of my peers, try very hard to make it LOOK like science. I see papers with all sorts of formulae and statistics. What I don't see is the sociological equivalent of Ohm or Newton."

I smiled. "Yeah, it's kind of hard to do some of this stuff on the basis of opinion. Not that many won't try."

"Yes, I understand that," he said. "But it's not like a few peer-reviewed papers are going to push your opinion of the validity of the Laws of Thermodynamics off to the side. Happens all too often in sociology."

"I'm just peripherally aware of that stuff," I said. "You have to be brave in that world."

"Or just go along to get along. Flavor of the month. Drink the Kool-aid," he laughed. "I won't reach the upper strata of sociology. I'm making a living. I publish from time to time."

I had a feeling where this conversation just turned.

"Alan, would you mind if I used the Sisterhood (yes, he used the accepted title) for the subject of a paper?"

"I suppose that if I had the right of review and sign-off," I said. "I'm awfully protective of our little bunch."

"So are the others," he said. "I talked to Dan. Cindy's husband. He's much the same way. And I would not use names, of course, but it wouldn't take much intelligence around this place to find out who we're talking about."

"What's the thrust of the paper?"

"Prodigies. Precocious prodigies. Cindy already sent me to talk with her middle school counselor. Apparently that was his thesis."

"Oh, yeah. Uh, Jim Hardesty. I've met 'im. She says he's responsible for cutting her out of the crowd. Plays a mean banjo, too, by the way."

"So I've heard. Cindy's got a DVD."

"You think we're a good subject?"

"I thought so from the first week I've known the bunch of you. You don't see this often. Uh, like 'never'."

"They're certainly the first I've seen," I said. "I was happy that Tina wanted to get back into high school when I first met 'er. Now look at her. And the rest."

I went back to my task. Sometimes it's not that exciting, you know. Tables of esoteric numbers, meaningless to most of humanity, there on my monitor, but I knew their import and had to therefore accord to them great importance and attention. I knew that at the end of the thing, I'd give that file to one or the other of the Dans for a reality check.

I knew, too, that Tina's eyes were good for proofing, although she was only just beginning to understand this stuff past 'a nine point one on that one means there should be a nine point one on this one' direct comparison.

But Cindy. She was in here one day with her Dan and I was bitching about the comparisons.

"Why don't you port 'em into Word and compare?" she asked.

"They don't format the same. The 'compare' doesn't work." I should've known better. I could almost hear little gears spinning. Her husband was smiling, watching.

"Then convert it to text. Write a program that strips the spaces that hang around after you convert to text, then have the program chop your text files up and compare, then output the results to another text file."

"Sure," I said. "Just write a program..." I knew it was possible when she finished explaining it. "It's been too long since I programmed ... And I wasn't that good at it."

"Take the afternoon off, or do something else. Lemme call Nikki!"

"Nikki?"

"Yeah, she's better at this than I am. She CODES."

"Is she serious, Dan?" I asked him.

"Alan," he replied. "By this stage of the game you should know better."

Cindy smiled at her husband and did an exaggerated curtsy. "Thank you, my husband," she said.

He grinned. He knows. I do too. It's just that sometimes it gets to me, especially when it comes packaged like Cindy. Five foot something fourteen year old redheaded girls are not supposed to spout programming algorithms off the tops of their heads.

"Cindy just gave me the afternoon off," I said.

"I'd take it," Dan said. "I learned obedience a long time ago."

"Youuuuu!" Cindy squealed. "That's NOT what I meant! I'm gonna tell Tina on you!"

"You're in trouble now," Dan laughed.

"I stay in trouble. Been that way ever since I stopped for breakfast on the way to Tennessee."

Cindy and Dan know the story. He smiled. She giggled.

"Yeah, in my case it was the park pool that did it," Dan said, getting himself wrapped up from behind by Cindy.

I got a twinge. Need Tina. Cindy and her Dan have the same kind of love that Tina and I share, something that goes all the way across the spectrum of a relationship between male and female, so naturally seeing her hugging him made me think of my own Tina's arms around me.

She's on campus today with Susan. The two of them, while they didn't do that 'supernova' thing that Nikki and Cindy seemed to have accomplished, were solidifying positions as juniors, although unless something even more unusual developed, they both may have summer semester courses next year, but graduation two years from now is well within reach.

Terri's another story. We talked with the school board again, several times. Finally Mrs. Greybill came to OUR office for a visit.

"Folks," she said, "I'm taking off my 'public school administrator' hat here. What Terri's teachers in Tennessee said about putting her in public school? That she would be ill-served? I agree. Don't get me wrong. I can think of several teachers who would love to have Terri to work with, but Terri would be stagnating in school."

"That's our Terri," Tina said.

"I worry. You tell me, and she shows me a very well adjusted young lady. I think that the wrong school environment may upset that, rather like keeping a racehorse in a stall until he starts acting out."

"So what do you recommend?" I asked.

She looked around her. It's an engineering office. We have pictures of substations and impressive electrical apparatus and all the paraphernalia of the business, the huge scanner/printer, workstations, even an old-fashioned drawing board. "Have you thought about home-schooling?" She looked at the two of us with a serious expression. "And you realize that I'm not EVER supposed to propose such a thing, but what you two and your friends, Terri's support group, show me is that you might want to consider..."

Tina smiled. "We've talked about it. Alan and I. Cindy and Susan and Nikki and I and Terri and Rachel and Beck."

I didn't know about the 'Rachel and Beck' part but I figured that the conversation between the sisterhood and Terri was pretty much inevitable, subject as they were to launch off into 'what if' sessions.

"We even looked at some structured programs developed for independent schooling," Tina continued. "Like people who're sailing around the oceans or living in remote places."

"Like the Calvert School?"

"Yes, ma'am," Tina said. "We found that one, but it only goes through the eighth grade. I'm afraid that Terri's already that far along."

"Yes," Mrs. Greybill said. "That's what Heather, uh, Mrs. Canfield seems to think."

Tina giggled. "And Cindy just had to know, so she gave Terri some prep tests from the GED program. It's like we suspected."

Mrs. Greybill regarded Tina closely. "You, your group, you're something rather astounding, Mizz Tina. You all seem so much into the idea of learning."

"Yes, ma'am," Tina said. "And it gets worse. Nikki hit her husband up for a 3-D printer and now that's soaking up some of Terri's energy."

"Okayyyy," Mrs. Greybill said. "I've only just barely heard of the technology. What's that producing for Terri?"

You don't ask Tina questions like that without learning. "She's learned a CAD, computer design program for three-dimensional objects. She's learned to make measurements, PRECISE measurements using a variety of means, in both metric and inch systems. She's learned a few esoteric computer programs and the interfacing between electromechanical and digital equipment, and she's learning a bit about the physical characteristics of plastic materials." She dug in her backpack. "Here," she said, holding out her hand. "Terri prints these little plastic cats for everybody."

Mrs. Greybill examined the little plastic image. "She printed this."

Tina nodded. "One of her first. She's printed a lot of other things, but little plastic cats make people smile, she says."

Mrs. Greybill did indeed smile. "Look, here are some contact numbers for a home-schooling consortium here in the area. I got it through church. I'll be quite honest with you, though, I don't suspect you'll find another like her. Still, they do get together to pool resources for field trips and study days and support each other. Some of the members are faculty or staff at the university, I'm told."

"Thank you," I said. "We appreciate you taking a personal interest in this, Mrs. Greybill."

"Mr. Addison, thank YOU. And you too, Tina. I don't often, no, I never before had one like Terri. Is she around?"

"Let me check. I think they're in the shop," Tina said. She picked up the phone, punched the extension for the shop. "Hey, Nikki! Is Terri there?" Pause. "Uh, send 'er over to the office." Pause. "No, it's good stuff." Pause. "Yeah, I don't see why not. Bye!" she turned to us. "You're gonna meet Cindy and Nikki, too, Mizz Greybill. And Terri's friend Rachel."

About that time, the door opened and the four of them trooped in, led by Terri. "Hi, Mizz Greybill," Terri chirped.

"Hello, Terri," Mrs. Greybill answered. "Who are your friends?"

Terri grinned. "This is Rachel, our neighbor and my best friend. And this is my Aunt Cindy and my Aunt Nikki. We were working in the shop."

"I heard that you're doing 3-D printing."

"Yes, ma'am," Terri said. "But it's very limited, at least our device. We're using fused deposition modeling. It's kinda like a computer-controlled glue gun. It's running right now if you want to see it."

"I think I'd love to see it, Terri."

"Come on, then."

They trooped back out the door. Cindy looked over her shoulder. "Don't worry, Alan. This is one of our more organized days. Susan's milling those rails we talked about. We'll stay clear of the machining."

In ten minutes they were back. "Mister Addison, THESE girls are building a railgun?"

I had to laugh. "These girls are also going to work on R&D stuff at the university. But theirs came into existence on paper before the college found out." I smiled. "It's just physics at work. Goes with..."

"I just saw three girls, fourteen, fifteen and eighteen, working on something, and I date myself by saying it, that comes out of Buck Rogers."

"I'm kind of astounded myself," I said.

"And I'm supposed to worry that if Terri hangs around this bunch that she might be lacking education?" She sighed. "You know, as a young and overly idealistic college student I imagined what it might have been like to sit at the feet of Aristotle. I'm not saying that your bunch are Aristotles, but I don't see Terri lacking anything if she's in their charge."

She turned to Cindy. "And you gave her the prep test for the GED program?"

"Yes, ma'am. We were curious. Terri acted interested."

"And she got a passing score."

"Especially on the math. Most of the English. You have to understand that now I have to teach her what all the parts mean. She isn't proficient with the meanings of verbs and adverbs and conjunctions and things. I'm making sure she knows those." Cindy smiled. "I do pretty good with them. But she did seventy-five or better on every segment."

"We'd like to broaden the base, though," Nikki added. "Tina's sort of channeling Terri's reading."

"American history," Terri said. "I'm working on the timeline from the Mayflower to the Revolution."

"You're eight, dear."

"Cindy says I'm a polymath."

"Cindy has a vocabulary," Mrs. Greybill said. "Tina, if you get an opportunity, come visit me. We can talk about some structure ideas for Terri. You and your family seem to be charging right ahead."

"Mizz Greybill," Tina said, "We're not pushing her. She's dragging us."

"Yes ma'am," Rachel added. "She's dragged me through my 'pretty little pony' phase. Mom says Terri's good for me and everybody's good for Terri and it's all good."

Mrs. Greybill left.

Tina backed against me after the gang returned to the lab. "Alan? What just happened?"

"I think we just got told what's best for Terri is not coming from public schools. " I looked at the paper in my hand for the home school group. "I guess we need to talk to some of these people and see if we can fit in. Help them and get some help in return."

"Home schoolers come in all varieties," Tina said. "We need to be aware. Some of the sites I looked at online were pretty bizarre." She paused. "We stay in control of who and what. Beck's in on this. She looks more mature than I do."

Yeah, Beck was only a dozen years younger than me. She had that 'official' look about her, too, and I felt that with her Rachel joining our Terri in home-schooling, we looked better for any possible scrutiny.

I took Cindy's suggestion, dropping the task of cross-checking, pulled up another project from the Nikki Granger Server, finished out the day.

I knew the day was finished when I saw Dan 1.0's head lean backward out of his door. "Are you at a stopping point?"

"Pretty much."

"Callin' it a day here, boss!" he said. "Is today a gang meal at somebody's?"

"You're asking ME? Tina hasn't said anything, but that doesn't mean it's not on." I punched the extension to the shop.

"3-Sigma Engineering. This is Susan."

"My, don't we sound professional?!?" I sad to her.

She did that giggly thing that reduces Jason to mush, and I quite understand why. "Hi, Alan. Tina's not here. She just went home to take something out of the oven."

"Gang meal today?"

"Nope. Everybody wings it on their own. Me 'n' Jason're going light today. This bunch cooks too good and my jeans are gonna start getting too tight."

Another image in my mind: Susan in tight jeans. Lord! "Okay. Just checking."

"'Kay, Alan. Talk to you later."

"Bye, sweetie," I answered, and hung up the phone. I turned to Dan. "We're winging it tonight."

His face twisted. "Oh, lord! The one thing that Cindy is trying to get a handle on. Cooking."

"She does pretty good," I sad. "We've eaten..."

"I know," he says. "But she is subject to cook ANYTHING. Sometimes all I want is a plate of rice and gravy like Mom used to make."

"She's trying. Tell Nikki to get Cindy to work with 'er on it. Nikki nails it."

"Yeah, you can say that. Tina's not bad herself."

I smiled. Tina wasn't bad, even living in the trailer, once she got past the idea that it was MY trailer and she was some sort of guest. When it became hers, she took over the kitchen and did a very workmanlike rendition of many of the same dishes I grew up with. But still, Nikki nailed Cajun. And Cindy was ahead of the game when it came to biryani and other exotically spiced dishes from the Hindi repertoire.

"Well, I guess I need to find out what she's done for us this evening." I killed my workstation. "I may or may not see you later."

"Okay, buddy," he said. "I'm right on your heels."

I left, caught sight of Terri headed in my direction.

"Dad, Tina sent me to get you. Says it's time to come home."

"Okay, baby," I said.

She took my hand in hers and we walked back to the apartment. "I'll let her tell you what we cooked," she said. "It smells good."

Chapter 27

Beck's view:

I'm Rebekah Weismann and I'm astounded.

Background: I'm thirty-one, Jewish, married, mother to what I thought was the smartest eight year old in the world. My husband, Simon, agreed with me.

He got a position at Auburn as an associate professor with a lock on the tenure track. His parents were impressed. My own were happy, although my own mother secretly harbored the idea that I was supposed to marry a doctor whose name was on a bronze plaque in a big Northeastern hospital instead of doctor who's been published in several journals that aren't affiliated with the AMA. My Sim, PhD, not MD.

So we moved down here when my daughter Rachel was five, and for three years we lived in a pretty nice apartment and I took a position as an administrator.

We had a nice apartment in a nice building and one might think one has secured some certain stability, but in a college town, especially a town with a MAJOR college, one might be mistaken. Several of the apartments were leased to young scholars whose parents had money enough to insure that their offspring had more upscale lodging than the college dormitories.

Those students held some epic parties. Sim and I did not participate, but there were nights, usually Fridays and Saturdays, where the music was entirely too loud. Further, more often than I wish to recount we found passed out partiers strewn about the grounds, not to mention bottles, bongs, clothing, and other little gifts of their activities, many of which required protective equipment to remove.

One particular Sunday morning I left the apartment with Rachel in tow, headed out shopping and found one of our young scholars passed out across the sidewalk, his head in the shrubbery, having obviously and graphically soiled himself. He was unresponsive. I sent Rachel back into our apartment, examined the young man, found respiration and a pulse but he was totally unconscious, so I called 911 and waited until an EMT team carried him off. I went back into the apartment and told Sim that we HAD to move.

Then I sat down with him and my daughter and answered her questions.

"Was he DEAD?"

"No, baby. He probably had too much to drink."

"Why would he do that?"

"Sometimes young people experiment with things," Sim told her. "Alcohol is one of them."

"We have wine in the house. That's alcohol. And beer. That's alcohol." Like I said, smart kid.

"And there's nothing wrong with having a little of it, little one," I explained. "But too much is a bad thing. You CAN die from it. It happens."

We looked at more apartments. We looked at rental houses. The ones that fit our budgets held similar issues. We considered dipping into Sim's inheritance, but that was our nest egg, our rainy day money, so we soldiered on. Both of us put feelers out, though, hoping that something would turn up on any of several grapevines entangling our academic world.

Sim's the one that came home one day with a phone number.

"Where'd you get it?"

"I asked somebody who knew somebody in real estate. There was an apartment building that was under construction and the original developer had some business setbacks. A group bought it up. Six brand new apartments. Four of them are already occupied with families."

"New? How expensive?"

"Not bad, for new," my husband said. "But the report says that the owners are the ones occupying the place and I've been told they're unusual."

"Uh, Sim," I said. "I am not quite as open-minded as I was before we brought Rachel into the world. I've gotten a lot more conventional. What exactly does 'unusual' mean?"

"Three couples..."

"Hetero?"

"Yes. But with age differences. Older guys, younger wives."

"Fourth?"

"Older guy. His daughter. Young wife."

"Anything else?"

"The guys just opened an engineering house. The girls are students at the college."

"Ooooo-kayyyyy," I said. "That's not bad."

"One of them is fourteen. One is fifteen. One is seventeen. One is eighteen."

"Wait," I said. "Fourteen. In college. Who is it that talked to you?"

"Doctor Patel in Engineering. She's been working with them on their college placement."

"But fourteen? In college?"

"Doctor Patel says that we really need to meet them before we write the place off."

I thought for a second. "We'll do it, you and I. Rachel will be at Sarah and Jacob's."

"Rebekah, Doctor Patel said we shouldn't jump to conclusions, that we really need to meet them.

The next day Sim and I went to a brand new strip mall and entered a door that said 3Sigma Engineering where we were greeted by one Dan Richards. He introduced us to another Dan, whom he laughingly called 'Dan 2.0', Dan Granger, and Alan Addison. "One more of us, Jason Ellerbee, but he and his wife are working at a substation an hour out from here. Mizz Patel told us you might call."

"You know Doctor Patel?" I asked. That's when things got strange.

The voice of a young girl said, "Mizz Patel is one of my all-time favorite people. Hi! I'm Cindy Richards!"

"Hello, Cindy. I'm Rebekah Weismann and this is my husband Simon."

"Sim, please. You're Dan's daughter?"

"Oh, gosh no," Cindy said. "He's my husband." She smiled. Her whole face smiles.

Two more young ladies, obviously teens, showed up with a blonde girl child who appeared to be Rachel's age.

Cindy did the introductions. "This is Nikki Granger, wife to Dan 2.0. And this is Tina Addison and her evil stepdaughter Terri. They belong to Alan here. Guys, this is Mizz Rebekah and Mister Sim Weismann."

"Doctor Patel said you were an unusual group," I said.

"Numbers," Dan said. "The age thing. That's what people see. That part's not nearly what astounds me. This bunch will graduate college in two years."

"Except me!" Terri chirped. "Do you have any children?"

Her smile was innocent and genuine, but there's a sparkle in her eyes like there's a furnace burning back there somewhere. "Yes, I have a daughter, Rachel. She's almost eight."

Squeal! "So am I! I hope you like the apartment. I would love to have a friend my age."

Okay, that's a selling point. "Can we look at the apartment?"

"Certainly," Dan said. "Let's go. We can walk out though the back door. It's across the rear parking lot."

We trooped across the space. I swivelled my head, trying to catch as much data as I could gather on the trip. When we exited the back of the building I noted the small sign on the door we'd just closed. It said "3Sigma Office". Next unit over said "3Sigma Laboratory". A third unit was blank and the fourth unit at the far end said "Desai Restaurant". 'Desai'?

The grass on the other side of the parking lot had obviously been freshly sodded, but was looking like it was being properly tended. The apartment building looked new, not flashy, none of the architectural 'features' meant to convey some idea of a French chalet or a Cotswold cottage or any of the other imaginative excursions into manufactured fantasy that we'd seen. In fact, the place had no name at all.

"Most apartments have names. What do you call this place?" I asked.

"Home," Cindy said.

My dear husband laughed. I was trying to be objective, and HE was getting swayed by a little redhead who was, in my estimation, in an improper relationship. And HE was supposed to be the sociologist.

"We never intended it to be a commercial enterprise," Cindy continued, "but when the corporation bought it, we found ourselves with a couple of extra units. We didn't advertise. We were hoping that we'd find some responsible and compatible occupants." She smiled again.

Yes, I noted that those words came from a fourteen year old who looked like something out of a fairy tale.

"Cindy nailed it," Dan said. We have a three bedroom and a two bedroom unit open. We'd prefer a long-term lease. Water's paid for. You pay your own gas and electricity. You can lump your cable and telephone and internet package together, or if you want, you can access the Nikki Network.

"Nikki Network?" Sim asked.

"Yes, when we bought the place, we knew we'd need a pretty stout Internet presence as well as a local area network. The place is wired. Nikki and Cindy worked it up themselves, ran it past Nikki's husband, that's Dan 2.0, and that's what we installed. You're welcome to use it, but you do understand that it's going through our router. Cindy or Nikki can set up your access."

"Your network is designed by a fifteen year old and a fourteen year old. Really?' Sim asked, a bit incredulous.

"Yes," Dan said. "Nikki's husband made sure it would AT LEAST do what we needed. We have a pretty good system, I think."

I looked at Cindy. She was smiling. Over the weeks that I've known her since that first glimpse, I find it difficult to imagine Cindy without the smile. I didn't know that then.

We looked at the apartment. It was brand new, thoughtfully laid out, a larger than normal kitchen. I commented.

"Three Cajun men, two Cajun girls among us. We like kitchens."

I didn't say anything about the baths, but the master bathroom had a large shower. Sim saw it too, though, and raised an eyebrow at me with a little smile.

"Everything's painted white. I learned that in Germany. You rent it white, paint it like you want, and when you move out, we can decide if it goes back white again. If you have color choices, we can have rooms painted to your choice."

I looked at Sim. "We'll take that into consideration."

"If you'd like to see one that's lived in, I can show you ours," Dan said. "It's a two bedroom."

I saw that auburn-headed girl peer in the door. "Uh, Dan, I can show ours. It's a mirror image of this one."

"If you don't mind, uh..." I said.

"It's Tina," she said. "I'd be glad to. Terri's room might be a bit of a..."

"I know how young girls can be," I said.

We entered their apartment through their door. It's in the same alcove as this apartment's door. The alcove, like the rest of the building, was tastefully done in a neutral green with off-white trim.

I was impressed. I don't know why I was harboring any notion that I would be dissatisfied, but when I walked in, I noted that there seemed to be a cohesiveness to the decor. "Nicely done," I said. "Gives me ideas. Did you do this, Tina?"

"Oh, no ma'am. I just made sure that Alan DIDN'T do it. Our home in Louisiana is in the textbook called Home Decorating for Engineers and I wanted something a bit more aesthetically pleasing. Susan's mom helped us out."

"Susan? Did we meet her?" Sim asked.

"Oh, no sir," Tina said. "She's on a project with her husband today since we didn't need to be on campus. She'll be back after four. Her mom has some measure of decorating skill."

"It is well done. Doesn't do that 'I'm decorated' overstatement. Just tasteful and friendly."

"Thank you," Tina said. "I will pass that one on. Mizz Kathy will be happy to hear it."

The rest of the tour of their apartment showed a well done, clean, functional selection of furnishings. The child's bedroom was NOT done up in pink and filled with colorful stuffed animals. I noted the laptop computer open on the kid-sized desk, and the selection of books that I could see were not the normal things one would expect to find in a seven year old's room.

The third bedroom looked like a home office.

After the tour, we were invited to the office for coffee.

"We have a pretty standard lease agreement," Dan said. "You can take a copy with you if you want to read it. I'd recommend that you do. Sim, you're a professor at the college?"

"I am," Sim said. "Associate. I'd like to be tenured, but that's In the future. I do have a chance, though."

"Sociology?"

"Yes," Sim said. "Almost like a real science."

"And you, Mizz Rebekah?"

"I have an administrative position," I said.

"We're all engineers here," I said, "if you define that term loosely. Jason Ellerbee, the guy you won't meet until he and Susan get back in after four, actually has a degree in engineering technology. All four of the wives are working to push through to baccalaureates in Electrical Engineering." He smiled. "We'd welcome some sanity."

"I wish you'd brought your daughter," Cindy said. "Terri makes friends fast. She would benefit from one her own age."

The other two men and the three girls, two teens and Terri looked into the door of the conference room. "We don't want to seem like we're ganging up on you..." Tina said.

"We don't feel like that," Sim said. "Dan, is it okay with you?"

"It usually is. We're a sort of community here. Y'all come in!"

"'Community' is a Cindy idea," Tina said. "First time we met."

"Ran into my sister on the way to a Bach concert in North Carolina."

"Bach?" I said. "At Charlotte, last winter?" I looked at Sim. "We were THERE!"

"Noooo," Cindy said. "Wasn't it wonderful?"

"Yes it was. You like Bach?"

Cindy's red hair bounced. "And Beethoven and Mozart and ... Oh, the list is too long."

"We're a classical music bunch. But Cindy and Dan do bluegrass, too," Tina said. "We have CD's."

"Really?" Sim said.

"Yes," Nikki said. "It's just one of the threads that connect us. Music."

"Another thread is knowledge. Susan's the ONLY one of us who took twelve years to finish high school," Tina said, "And a lot of that is because she really didn't push herself. We read. We write. We put our knowledge to work. Even Terri. Mister Sim, you ought to read what she wrote about the anthropomorphic characteristics of little girls' toy animals."

Sim looked to Terri. She was sitting there, remarkably silent, but I could see she was dying to talk. I know how my Rachel would be. Is.

"Terri," he said, "do you know what 'anthropomorphic' means?"

"Yessir," she said sweetly. "It means having the forms and characteristics of humans, in this context. You can stretch the definition though." She looked to Cindy. "If you want to go to the roots of the term."

"What grade are you in, uh, WERE you in, last year?" I asked.

"Second, Mizz Rebekah," she said. "But ... Dad, it's better if you say it. I don't want to sound like I'm being arrogant."

"Terri's a bit precocious," Alan said. "She's probably not going back into the public school system."

Tina added, "Her math skills are well into middle school level. She reads at almost a collegiate level. Writing, well, you really ought to read some of her writing."

"You're certainly enthusiastic for a step-parent." That's when I got another little glimpse.

"Technically a step-mom, but also a big sister and best friend and mentor and student," Tina said.

When we finally left, I turned to Sim as he drove. "So what do you think?"

"I think Doctor Patel had a reason for saying 'unusual', to say the least."

"What do you think?"

"Nice apartment," he said. "You get to do with it what you want. Tina's was nicely done."

"But those people ... Sim. That Cindy. She's fourteen. Married."

"She's fourteen. Graduated from high school. In college. Those are not signs of your standard young girl. None of them are standard. Did you see the books in the little one's..."

"Terri?"

"Yes," he said. "The one open on the bed was Mark Twain short works. Do you imagine that they set that up?"

"No..."

"And did you hear her talk? Any of them, really? No 'like' and 'yaknow'. None of the trappings of the usual teenaged lifestyles. Right down to their dress."

"Make-up," I said. "I didn't see make-up."

"Oh, yeah," my sympathetic husband said. "Teeny-bopper brides are supposed to sport excessive make-up and slutty clothes."

Exasperated, I popped, "Sim! You know what I mean..."

"You know what I mean, too. Did any of them slip you a note saying 'Help! I'm being held against my will.'?"

"No."

"You wanna know what I think?" he said.

"As always, dear," I said.

"I think we call them and go back this evening after four, meet the other couple, and this time we bring Rachel and see if she and Terri can stand each other."

And that's how we became members of the Community.

It's been good. Strange, sometimes. Surreal, sometimes. But still good. Naturally, my Rachel and Alan and Tina's Terri clicked together like puzzle pieces.

Sim and I quickly determined that despite the caricatures of teeny-bopper sexpots, our neighbors were no more subject to display affection in public than Sim and I were, and Sim is just a little bit too proper himself, sometimes. I cautioned Rachel about knowing to extract herself from inappropriate situations, you know, and the little thing walked into the living room one evening and caught me and Sim entwined on the sofa.

"Mother, is THIS one of the inappropriate situations I'm supposed to get away from?"

I was rendered speechless and Sim was laughing out loud.

"I never saw anything quite like this at anybody else's house," she said.

So Rachel gets the run of the place, usually with Terri in close proximity.

My daughter is the second-smartest eight year old I know. They traded birthday parties. Both eight years old. I have pictures. My raven-haired daughter and her blonde friend. Both blue-eyed, though.

I noticed that the nightly question sessions with Rachel diminished. I asked why.

"Because I can ask ANYBODY here. I'm surrounded by smart people and I know they don't mind taking time to answer questions."

A week after moving in, she walked into the living room on Saturday morning. "Mother, I need a cardboard box."

"Why, baby?" I asked.

"I want to box up some of the toys in my room, if that's okay."

"Why, baby?"

"'Cuz they don't make a lot of sense, that's why," she said.

Okay, yes, Sim and I had read Terri's ("Cindy helped me with editing") article on toy animals. "You don't have to do that because Terri feels like she does about them, Rache," I said.

"I know, Mom," she answered, "but it sort of makes sense, don't you think?"

"Baby, it makes sense for an adult to give up those things. It's okay when you're young ... besides, some are gifts from your grandparents."

"Then perhaps I just display them."

"You don't seem to play with them like you once did."

"It's sort of like it's not that much fun any more. There are more interesting things. But I keep that big teddy bear you and Dad gave me. It stays in my bed."

That teddy bear was often found wrapped up with my daughter. I thought about that, and I thought about how my daughter had, in a matter of weeks, shed ideas she'd harbored about being a manipulative little girl.

"D'you know that Susan 'n' Tina have pilot licenses?" she'd asked me.

I was vaguely aware of that. I became more aware when Rachel asked me, "Can I go flying with them? They're taking Tina's plane. Terri's going."

Clearly a very different take on 'But Mom! EVERYBODY'S doing it.' I grabbed Sim's hand. "Let's go talk to Alan."

"The most dangerous part of that trip is the drive to the airfield," he said. "TIna's quite a safe pilot. So is Susan."

"You don't worry?"

"Of course I worry," he said. "The two biggest loves in my life are going. But it's safe." He looked thoughtful. "I'm sorry! We should have offered you a flight first so you could experience it yourself."

"You, Alan, I can see behind the controls of an aircraft. Tina and Susan..."

"Beck," he said, "both of them had to undergo hours of training by professional instructors and pass flight tests by government-approved examiners. I've flown with Tina all over the place. She's good."

Tina walked in. What's going on?"

"I have a daughter wanting to go flying and I'm a little nervous about it."

"Mizz Beck, I'm taking MY daughter. The most dangerous part..."

"Is the trip to the airfield," I finished. "Alan already told me that."

"Moo-oommmmm!" Rachel whined.

"Rache, your mom has the right to worry, baby. She loves you," Tina said.

I looked at the two faces imploring me. Yes, I am a mom. What's more, I'm a Jewish mom, and here I was perpetuating a stereotype. "My mother would die if she heard me say this, but go and have fun, Rachel. And follow instructions, baby!"

"I'll take care of her like my own," Tina said.

"I know you will, Tina," I said.

"Alan, my wife has made a breakthrough," Sim said.

"Look, folks," Alan said, "If you're interested, we can all go up so you can see what it's like. I always found it relaxing. Or you can go with Cindy and Dan. And watch a fourteen year old fly."

"We'll do it," my husband said. "I think I'd like that." He shook his head. "Cindy."

I smiled. "Yes. We can do that." I watched my daughter and her friend skipping out the door towards an adventure. And I was thinking about Cindy flying at fourteen.

Okay, we survived that. I suppose I should be happy. It's better than keeping her inside on Saturday afternoon lest she run into some pharmaceutically-challenged young scholar. We had to do that at the previous apartment. Pool? On a warm afternoon on Saturday? Not a chance. I honestly don't remember my OWN bikini top falling off as often as some of those young 'ladies' when I was that age.

Sim did mention the idea of a pool to our landlords.

"You know," Cindy said, "we could use a pool."

A couple of days later Sim told me "The complex is getting a pool."

A week after that, earth-moving equipment showed up and started work and I had to tell Rachel to stay away from the construction site. "You and Terri can see it perfectly from your bedroom window."

So here it is, nearly the end of summer. I'm up to my ears at work, the normal thing preparing for the fall semester. Sim is awaiting a new herd of young minds to influence. And my daughter is not going to public school. Not. Sim and I had been tossing around the idea of home schooling, and I'm pretty sure that our best move is not to subject Rachel to it. Neither will Terri be subjected to it, no surprise since I've gotten familiar with her abilities.

Instructors? Oh, come on! First, there's Terri. Despite her size and age, I've noted that since Terri and Rachel have become attached at the hip (only a slight exaggeration) Rachel's reading and mathematical skills have taken a leap. That's amazing of itself. Sim is taking notes. With the reading comprehension, Rachel's other areas of knowledge have only to be guided, and let's see: Guidance.

Cindy, I think, does the best job of urging the language arts, although I know that Cindy's name is bandied about in my office building where some of the math professors congregate. And trust me, compared to somebody with a PhD in math, a fourteen year old redhead with a high school diploma is close to normal.

Nikki's name shows up in the math department, too.

Susan's the historian, and Tina just urges them along, although I could be very happy with Tina as the sole tutor on her own.

I won't even mention science education. I'm a member of a select group who has friends building a railgun. TWO actually, the one that Tina and her sisters are just about ready to test in the lab next to the engineering office, and the one that Cindy and her gang are part of, a government research project at the university.

I have a daughter that comes home and tells me that copper is 'sticky' to machine. "Susan told me. Then she showed me the difference between copper and brass and steel. You can SEE the difference."

Or explains Ohm's Law. Or bases and acids.

So we're part of a community. How do I explain all this to my dear mother?

Chapter 28

Cindy's Turn:

Summer used to be something that I survived. School was sort of a refuge because I was out of Mom's hair. Living in a thirty-odd foot travel trailer with Mom did not exactly lend itself to lazy days. I didn't have friends my age. Mom certainly wasn't exerting herself to see that I had any summer activities, so I was on my own in the RV park. The only kids my age came and went with their own families, and very few people choose to visit RV parks in Alabama except for the odd weekend.

I could've gotten in as much trouble as one person could stand, maybe more, if I had Mom's open mind about sexuality and the employment thereof for personal gain, but I just couldn't. There were a lot of hopes in my life, and ending up like Mom wasn't among them.

When this guy moved his trailer in, told Mizz Helen, my great-aunt, that he was planning on being there for several months, it sort of popped up on my radar. When I saw that he went to work every day, five or six days a week, then came back to the park, went for a swim, he was somebody to investigate.

When he actually TALKED to me and didn't treat me like either a moron, beneath his intellectual level, or a tasty bit of flesh, we became friends. And as they say, the rest is history.

Which brings us to NOW. Tail end of August. 'School' is about to start, at least the official 'for everybody else' version of school. Across the country, millions of people from pre-school to post-grad are getting ready to go to school. Since last year when I counted myself as one of them, 'school' has never stopped.

Since I determined that Dan Richards was The One, and I managed to get him to figure out the reciprocal to that idea was that I was The One, I've been learning. Oh, yes, a lot of what I learned in the last twelve months belongs to subjects one does not approach in a traditional academic environment. I've learned that I can go from breathless to unconscious in a matter of minutes, and that sighs and giggles and touches are a whole magnitude different level of communication when two people love each other.

I also know that I went from 'How do I work this math problem?' at the beginning of the year to helping my teacher, Mizz Crocket, on her math for her master's degree program to going toe to toe with TWO college professors to establish my mastery of college-level mathematics.

And last year, it was just me, all confused about who I was and who was in the world around me.

Now I have family. Community. Sisters, every one of 'em smart and sane and moral and bright and funny and loving.

My birthday's coming up soon. I will be fifteen. That's a milestone in Alabama, because I will be able to get a (Wow!) learner's permit to drive a car. I have taken some good-natured ribbing because of that. I'm the youngest of the bunch, except for Terri, but Terri's my niece, not my sister.

I'm the current winner of the spot-landing contest for flying in our community, which means that I can make our old Cessna 180 listen to me very well. Of course, I think I get a break because she's a tail-dragger, but we had a Sunday afternoon at the airfield with EVERYBODY. My Dan set a camera up to video a stripe we put across the runway and we all took turns trying to touch down on that stripe. Dan had to fly with me, but I missed the strip by less than a foot. It's on video.

But I can't drive. In two weeks, though...

Birthdays. We had a summer full of 'em. Terri's was first, when she turned eight. I got her cake. Found a great cake shop that could do some really good decorating, and got her a 'My Little Pony' cake, done to perfection. Tina thought it was perfect, and when Terri saw it, she said "This has Cindy written all over it!"

A couple of weeks after that, we did a double with Tina and Nikki. They collaborated on a seafood gumbo. "I know it's supposed to be a wintertime food," Nikki said, "but we'll just turn the A/C down and pretend!"

The first part of August, we had Susan's, and her mom and dad were there. Susan and Jason flew Tina's plane up to Tennessee to bring them down. Susan's got proud parents. Very proud. Sometimes I wish Mom would see me and be proud. Mizz Helen and Mister Charlie are proud of me. I'm proud of me. Dan's proud of me. I just wish Mom...

It might be silly. After all, Mom just signed papers making Mizz Helen my guardian, gave me a hug, and left for Vegas with one of a long series of guys. It was months before I heard a peep from her. That's not a lot of 'motherly instinct' showing, there, and I really shouldn't get my hopes up. Still, Dan didn't know, but I did write Mom back. And then I told him.

"I understand, sweetie," he'd said. "Moms're moms. Just like a mom has difficulty writing off a bad kid, I guess kids have difficulty writing off a bad mom. And you're far from being a kid."

Still, that's the dark spot in my life. I naturally brought it up to my sisters. Nikki's mom writes her from prison in Arkansas. They've gone to visit her. Tina's mom is in prison, too, but Tina didn't want to initiate contact.

"Your case is different," Nikki said. "Your mom has a choice. If she wanted, she could come back here to see you. Mine's kinda limited on travel options for at least another four years, maybe more."

Tina's face. Wasn't smiling.

"Tina, I didn't mean to drag you down over this," I said.

"That's not your fault, Cindy," she said. "We all hurt over these issues. We're almost the same, except you, Susan."

"I know," Susan said. "It's sad. You know how many times I've listened to kids gripe because their parents cared enough to set limits?"

"Uh-huh," I said. I was thinking of Mizz Kathy and Mister Mike and how they loved and cared for their daughter. No, check that. They cared for all of us and just about everybody else we knew. Good people. I'd promised myself that I would care about people, not use them.

"I'll be okay," I said.

"You will, you know. Just think about us from last year, how far we've all come." That was Nikki. Sometimes I think Nikki and I think entirely too much alike.

So. Back to school. Mizz Patel told us that we needed to do the freshman orientation. "It's required of all full-time students, ladies," she said. "Even though there's not a freshman among you."

So Susan goes on line and orders T-shirts in Auburn colors. Across the back, they all said 3Sigma Engineering and the numbers were our ages: fourteen, sixteen, eighteen and nineteen and twenty-seven. That's Jason. Our names were on the left breast.

As you might imagine, campus was a madhouse that day. We were kind of spoilt, I guess, having spent the summer there, bopping from one hall to another. Yes, we were on a schedule all summer but the schedule was individualized because of our status.

On Orientation Day, though, it was a different story as hundreds of eager young scholars descended on the hall. School colors. Oh yeah, We stood out like snowflakes in a blizzard as we determined to stay together. The hall was, to use a good word, 'boisterous', I hadn't really expected to gain much knowledge, but we attended and got that block checked off on our college transcripts.

Working our way out of the building, Jason said, "Don't get in a hurry. It's not gonna help and you don't need the aggravation of struggling over it."

He's right. So we're standing there and I hear a voice. "Uh, Cindy?" Male. I look. Typical college kid, unlike me, you know.

"Yes. Do I know you?"

"I don't think so. My name's Garrett. Garret Jones." Garret is maybe six feet tall, a bit shorter than my Dan, his hair is brown like his eyes. He's not fat, but not skinny, either, and he's dressed in that informal fashion that one would expect on campus.

"Hello, Garrett," I said. "I'm Cindy Richards. Happy to meet you."

"You look young to be in college," he said.

Ah, that's the reason he chose me out of the crowd. Young. "I'm fourteen. I will be fifteen in two weeks."

"No shit!?!?"

"Zero," I said. Now that I knew what his angle was, I decided to sort of crank things up. "I've been here since last June."

"You're a freshman?"

I saw Susan's smirk behind him. "Nope. Just never attended the orientation. I'm unclassified as far as the 'freshman' thing is concerned."

"How can you be unclassified?"

"Same way I can go to college when I'm fourteen." I smirked. "And this is Nikki and she's sixteen, and Tina here is eighteen and Susan is nineteen."

Jason stepped up. "And I'm Jason Ellerbee and Susan is my wife, and if you look, Cindy's wearing a wedding band."

"Duuude," Garrett blurted, "I wasn't, like, hittin' on Cindy. Just curious."

So I defused the situation with the obvious question. "Garrett, what's your major?"

"BIology," He said. "Yours?"

"All of us are working toward electrical engineering. Jason's got a bachelor's in engineering technology already."

"Wow." The crowd started thinning out so we could move towards the door. "Uh, I guess I' may see you all around." Garrett made his escape.

Susan elbowed Jason. "You jumped in awful hard on the boy, didn't you?"

"Uh, I was just sort of takin' care..."

"Thank you, Jason," I said. "Your heart's in the right place. But I think I can handle that sort of thing."

Susan hugged his arm. "But we appreciate you being 'big brother', honey. Really."

I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned. A brown-haired girl stood there, she was bit on the chunky side. No, quite a bit past Susan. Susan's voluptuous. This girl wasn't exactly fat, but definitely past Susan.

"Uh ... Cindy? Did I hear you say you're here for engineering?"

"Yes. All of us are," I said.

"I'm sorry. I'm Tara Helton."

"Cindy Richards. And Nikki, and Susan, and Tina and Jason."

"I'm guessing you're not staying on campus, then," Tara said.

"No, we have an apartment building a couple of miles out from campus." By this time we were out of the building. The crowd was thinning, fanning out. We made our way to a somewhat crowded shady spot.

"I'm here for engineering, too," Tara said. "I didn't know how many girls there would be..."

"With you, at least five," Tina said. "But I'm thinking there are probably more."

"Yeah," Tara replied. "But y'all aren't really freshmen?"

"No," Tina said. "All my courses are junior level. Why?"

"Study group. I was hoping for a study group."

"Give me your cellphone number," I said. "We may just have what you need." As she spoke her number I punched it into my iPhone, then attached an e-card to a message back. "There! You have us now."

"What's this address?"

"That's the strip mall we own. We have one unit for our husbands' engineering company, one is part lab and part study area, and there's an Indian restaurant in one. We have one empty unit, too. We live in the apartment building behind it."

"You live here?"

"Yep!"

"Tara, where are you from?" Susan asked.

"Georgia. Savannah. But Dad's an Auburn alum," she said. "I sorta had to come here."

"Well, you got a place to come hide," Susan said. "Come visit us."

"I'll do that," Tara said.

We watched Tara heading off across the campus and then we bunched up again and headed to our cars. Make that 'their' cars. I can't drive, so I don't have a car. Of course, neither does Nikki. Yet. Tina and I and Nikki got into Tina's car. Jason and Susan were in hers.

"Madhouse, huh?" Nikki said.

"What did we expect?" Tina replied.

"Yeah. Get ready for the college experience. And Cindy didn't make it through orientation before she got hit on."

"He said he wasn't hitting on me," I protested.

"Yeah, right," Tina said as she drove. "He just picked one of several redheaded pixies to chat up."

"Yeah, and I'm gonna risk my beautiful, blue-eyed Dan for some unemployed biology major? How stupid did I get just this morning?" I giggled. "Nice to be noticed, and all that, but if you think I'm giving a second thought. And what about that girl? Tara?"

Nikki spoke up. "She seemed nice. How would you like to show up at a strange place hundreds of miles from home and not know anybody?"

Tina laughed. "Been there. Done that. Got a ring for it."

"Yeah, uh-huh," Nikki said. "So we all hit the lottery. Everybody's not as fortunate. We're gonna have a place where others can come and study and get help and have a safe social environment."

"I don't know if there is any sort of safe social environment around here, Nikki," I answered. "Guys can..." I paused, thinking of Mom, "And girls too. They can be kind of predatory."

"What I think," Nikki said, "is that if there's a place where one can go and relax and be around friends, then one might be less susceptible to falling for a line of crap, confusing the need for companionship with something else."

I laughed. "You need to run that line past Sim."

"Speaking of Sim, I wonder how Terri and Rachel are doing."

I giggled. "It's usually not 'how', it's 'what'."

"Speaking of Sim and Rachel, do you think that Beck's gonna go to work for 3Sigma?" Tina asked.

"Gosh, I don't know," I said. "There's a certain amount of prestige in having a position at a university."

"She's got a business degree."

"She's got an eight year old, precocious daughter who is being home-schooled," Nikki interjected.

"And the hours our engineers spend attending to administrative functions are hours they're not doing engineering," I said. "I agree. It makes good sense for us to hire an admin."

"And it makes good sense for Beck to take the job. Flexible schedule, access to her daughter all day, we don't have to worry about an unknown outsider. But we all know that just because something makes sense to us, it may add up differently to somebody else."

"Not to mention that Beck is almost part of the community. It's not like our husbands have to start interviewing people, with the inevitable bimbos looking for work," Nikki said.

"Yeah, Nikki, that's right. But do you actually worry about your Dan's head being turned by some bimbo?"

"No, I guess I don't, since you put it like that. But he's still MY Dan."

I giggled. "I know what you mean, though. The mere thought of another woman thinking she might have liberties with MY Dan..."

It was Tina's turn to giggle. "Liberties? I hadn't heard that term in that context in, like, forever!"

"Okay," I laughed. "Some bimbo might want to have her way with him."

"You wanted to have your way with him," Nikki said. All three of us knew each other's stories. Nikki and Tina both knew one little detail that Susan didn't know, that I was in Dan's bed when I was still thirteen, and that we'd lived together for several weeks before we got married.

"Yes, and I had to practically hog-tie him to make it happen."

"Yeah," Nikki laughed. "I'm the only one of us that didn't crawl in bed while my mate was asleep and..."

Giggle. "Don't knock it, Sis," Tina laughed. "It was scary. I mean, what if he'd just rejected me outright?"

"You wanna talk 'scary', I knew that if Dan reacted to me, he was committing a felony. But I wanted him."

"Alan committed a felony, too..."

"But y'all didn't know that until later. I knew. Dan knew."

"We both knew," Nikki said. "And we still did..."

"How'd we get on THIS subject anyhow?" Tina said. "Enticing our guys into criminal acts."

I crossed my arms, remembering. "Didn't feel criminal at the time..."

Nikki tittered, "You know, Dan's gonna walk into the house and get attacked and he's gonna wonder what brought that on."

"Yeah. Poor Alan," Tina sighed.

"It IS like that, isn't it? Us and our mates," I opined. "From Day One. I knew."

They made noises of agreement. We were coming up on the grocery store we all used. "Anybody need anything?" Tina asked.

"Yeah, Nikki said. "My apartment. Four o'clock. My Dan."

"Uh-huh," I said.

So, okay, we get back to the apartment and the guys are still working. We parked and then walked to the office. It's nice when you're sleeping with one of the owners. We each went to our husbands and made happy noises.

"Just so you'll know, that bullet trap is supposed to be here Thursday," Dan said.

Squeal! "I heard that!" Nikki said. "We've been waiting."

"Wasn't cheap," Dan said. "Why couldn't your experiment be a microwave refrigerator?"

"Where's your sense of adventure?" I laughed. "Susan's been dying to try that thing."

"I know," my Dan said. "I'd like to see it, too, but we have to be careful. Can't risk a projectile leaving the lab."

"That would be bad," I said. "Like shooting your own pickup truck." Yes, there were three holes in Dan's pickup, from the night we got shot. I'd wanted him to get them clear-coated, as a reminder. He got them repaired instead. "I have all the reminder I need when I see our scars," he had said.

"I'm excited myself," I said. "I wanna see what it does."

"What have you learned from the University's project?"

"They let us have some unclassified papers. It's letting us predict some performance issues. I think we can limit our first tests to under six hundred feet per second and validate our premises."

He shook his head.

"Whaaat?" I said. I think I've heard this before. Nikki's head peered around the corner.

"My beautiful young wife, you're supposed to be arguing the virtues of nail polish colors and hair styles and how cool it would be if that boy asked you to sit by him at lunch."

Nikki giggled. I know she's had the same conversation. "I hate nail polish, I like my hair like this as much as YOU do, and I tagged the cute boy a year ago. So now it's about doing science."

"We do what we must..."

"Because we can," I said. "What time are you getting out of here, baby?"

"In about an hour if I can get through these figures," he said. "You and Nikki's program helps a lot."

I kissed him on the head. "I'll see you in a bit, baby." I headed back out and had Tina and Nikki with me.

"Susan's going to be happy to get that trap. Maybe we can do our first shot Friday or Saturday," Tina said.

We ended up at Nikki's. Terri and Rachel showed up too. Nikki's cat absorbed a lot of attention before he finally retired to one of those places cats consider important.

Terri asked Tina about books. Tina and Susan have actual classes. I plan on auditing some statistics and probability and some extra chemistry and some history. Nikki's headed into some computer science, but she's already talked with one of the instructors and he told her that she might be wasting time. "But don't take my word for it. We'll be glad to have you and if you don't actually get anything new, you get to see other ways of doing things."

That was what I was looking forward to for the semester. That, and the group in the R&D lab wanted to see our notes and sketches for our railgun design.

The lead 'guy' was a woman. We were discussing the notes she'd given us. Nikki and I were hanging in there with her.

"You want to look at OUR design?" Nikki asked.

Hannalise Embert, PhD, smiled. "Now if I were a man, I'd come up with some sad joke about 'if you show me yours, I'll show you mine, ' but we don't need to be like that since we're all female and therefore on a higher plane of existence. Besides, until we get your clearances, I must be careful of what information you will be allowed to access."

"Okay," I said. "Here's what we have." I opened my MacBook. "We have pictures. Notes. Sketches."

Hannalise said, "Please, call me Hanna."

"I know one Hanna already. She's a friend back in Louisiana. Married a helicopter pilot. She's a pilot herself. Trophy-winning aerobatics." I said.

Nikki interjected, "I keep telling you that I wanna meet her, Cindy."

I giggled. "She'll take you flying and you'll swear you're looking at the back of your own head on some of her maneuvers." I looked at Hanna. "Sorry. We get off track sometimes."

"That's not a surprise, Cindy." She studied as Nikki and I narrated.

"Who fabricates your equipment?"

"That would be Susan Ellerbee, mostly."

"I will meet Susan tomorrow," Hanna said. "She emailed me her class schedule. Where did she learn to use machine tools?"

"Grew up in her Dad's rental business. There's a guy there ... Plus, if we run out of knowledge, she calls this machine shop in town and hires a guy to come teach us. And they do stuff too big for our tooling."

She was interested in how we modified capacitors for our service, and the spark gap we used. "We have access to some very interesting solid-state equipment for triggering," she said.

"My husband," I said, "told us that spherical gaps were used for high voltage measurement. We decided that if we could set the spark gap for a maximum voltage, it would serve a dual function. It keeps us to a specific maximum voltage and it serves as our trigger. We flip another sphere into the gap to discharge."

"Interesting," Hanna said.

"We've tested it without a projectile. We're still waiting on a ballistic trap for our lab," Nikki said.

"Your husband..." Hanna said.

"Our husbands are both electrical engineers. And not the office-bound kind," Nikki said.

"But you're fourteen, Cindy. And you're fifteen, Nikki."

"Just turned sixteen," Nikki replied. "And we're both legally married."

Hanna sighed. "Doctor Patel told me to reserve judgment. I cannot help the surprise."

"If it's any consolation," I interjected, "it's very good. Exploited teens aren't generally in college at fourteen and fifteen."

"Nor are they designing projectile devices," Hanna countered. "I suppose that over the next months I shall learn as much of that story as you're willing to recount."

"Whenever you wish. And naturally you're invited to visit us at our little lab, too."

"I intend to take you up on that offer," she replied.

So that little block is being filled. She took our notes, then we had to explain how much of the work was done by whom. "What's the engineering basis for the rail size and material?" We explained.

"What did you do for feed conductors?" We explained.

"How do you think you're limited in your approach?"

"You mean aside from having a few million dollars in federal grant money?"

Hanna snickered. "Oh, that would be one limitation. But we're speaking of the performance of your design and materials."

We explained, talking about rapid-rise DC waveforms and parasitic couplings and several other parameters.

"You two ... I didn't know what sort of game was being played when I was told that two young teens were being sent to me. I thought I'd become target of some odd idea of a prank. I was told that of the four of you, you two were candidates for degrees in ways that traditional programs do not capture."

"You thought we were pranking you?"

"In a word, yes."

"And now?" I asked.

"Now, what I will discuss with my colleagues is that we purchase YOUR railgun and add it to our project. You two and your colleagues have some interesting design approaches that I want to investigate further."

Okay. I squealed, but only a little bit.

Chapter 29

Dan Richards' Turn:

When Cindy gave me the news, I started laughing. I was still laughing when I hung up the phone.

"What's so funny," the other Dan asked.

"Our girls are selling their railgun to the government."

"No joke?"

"Cindy just called from campus. She's bringing a Doctor Embert to the lab. Said she's warning Tina and Susan. I think they're over there studying."

Cindy's fast on the phone because I'd no sooner got the words out of my mouth when the back door burst open and Susan and Nikki dashed in.

"Cindy told you?" Susan squealed.

"About the university wanting to buy our railgun?" I asked.

"Yeah," Susan said. "Where's Alan?"

"He just left to go stir a pot on the stove," I said.

"Wow," Susan said. "I didn't expect this. I hope we can keep it until we get to test fire it."

"We will," I said. "They won't haul it off tomorrow, you know."

"We need to read the sales agreement, too, little ones," I said. Cindy's used to being my 'little one'. I think this was a first time for Susan. She turned all pink and demure.

"Why?" Nikki asked.

"Well, punkin," I said, "As much as we engineers want to exist in a world of the application of our science, there are commercial considerations, like, 'you wanna gimme some money so I can put food on the table?"

"Uh, yeah," Susan agreed.

"If Doctor Embert wants to buy your work right now, just based on your notes, then there may be some patentable and commercially viable technologies there. Therefore, we want to make sure that we retain as much of a handle on them as we can. If somebody makes money on your work, you should get a share."

"We should," Susan said.

"I guess," said Nikki. "I kind of got carried along in the rush. The whole idea that our little experiment was interesting to the head of a government research project, that's like finding that they want to display your refrigerator sketch in the Museum of Modern Art."

"Or the Smithsonian," Susan laughed.

All I could do was shake my head. At sixteen and nineteen these two were looking at royalties and possible patents and I harkened back to my own status in my first year of college and I was quite happy to see some B's on my grades. "Have you told Tina?"

"Tina's in class," Susan said.

Dan Granger was at my door. I looked up. "Dan, have you EVER sold anything?"

"Just my soul, one project at a time,"he said. "Dan, I'm as lost as you are."

Nikki's turn:

I'm sitting in Doctor Embert's office and we're going over the documents she could let us see until our clearances were finalized.

"How did you and your group arrive at your performance parameters for this capacitor bank?" She asked.

"We did the calculations based on our understanding of the characteristics. We have a known input, a high voltage source, working through a known lumped impedance, into our capacitors. For our installation, we made an assumption that our buses were essentially zero impedance on the charge, so we could map total energy."

Doctor Embert pushed her glasses up her nose and looked at me. "Who set up the measurement equipment?"

I smiled. "Me. Cindy. Off the shelf components. Analog to digital into our data-logger."

"Your data logger is a standard desktop CPU."

"Mine. I did that. My Dan says there are commercially available systems, but we saved the money and we build an input network on a breadboard and I wrote the software to gather data and store it in a table that I can drag out into a spreadsheet."

"Why go through the trouble?" Doctor Embert asked.

"I don't want to just DRIVE the car," I said. "I want to get under the hood, understand why and how..."

"I'm going to HAVE to see this lab of yours," she said.

"It's just a place we can try things. Somebody gets an idea, we talk about it, if we see the need, we drag a husband or two into the discussion to keep us from violating the laws of nature..."

"Hon," Doctor Embert laughed, "you and your sisters ARE a violation of the laws of nature."

She was smiling when she said it, so I took that statement as a good thing.

She continued, "So you're saying that you set up a means to measure your parameters?"

"Yes, ma'am," I said. "We compared our findings with our calculated expectations and where we saw departures we tried to determine what we were missing, either in our assumptions or our hardware."

"Did you have departures?"

"We certainly did," I said. "We learned that there are things to consider when you work with DC with rapid rise times. And we learned about dynamic versus static measurements and scan times."

"Explain," Doctor Embert said. While I talked about some of our explorations, she asked for names and the roles we each played, and she scribbled madly in her notebook.

"Are you drawing pictures of me with horns on my head?" I asked.

She smiled. "That would make life easier for a lot of people. I'm describing all the knowledge for which you should get credit, and from this list, I will have questions for Cindy and Tina and Susan." She sighed. "Cindy will be right in here with you. Susan and Tina are capable, but not like this."

"Tina's the organizer of workflow. She manages. Directs. Doesn't get into the absolute nutty detail of some of the things, but she brings the assets and processes together. Susan's our artificer. We can sketch up something and Susan can make it. Or call somebody that can help her make it. Or find out where to get it."

She smiled. "You enjoy giving credit to others, Nikki. That's refreshing."

"Why?"

"Some of our people are rather cut-throat. Getting published. Getting grants. Lining up future positions. You'll see a lot of people who will be into self-aggrandizement."

"Doctor Embert," I said. "I'm just a poor little Cajun girl who fell down a rabbit hole. Ever since that hurricane last year, I've been in Wonderland." I folded my hands together. "I don't really need anything. All I want to do is learn and do things. Job? Got one already, with 3Sigma Engineering. Publish? With a baccalaureate I'm good to go."

"Miss Nikki Granger, first, I'm almost of the mind that I need to divert you and your sister Cindy from engineering into pure science. Physics. Second, I watched a stageful of young adults walk across the stage last year and receive baccalaureates and who could not, a month later, hold the discussion we had today about the work you've done on your own."

"Thank you," I said simply.

"Just keep what I said in mind. I will watch you to see that you get credit for your contribution, but you're going to have to wake up to dealing with some real personalities outside this office."

"Ma'am, I had some dealings with people with all sorts of agendas before I ended up with my husband. They wanted to do more than steal my ideas. And I do appreciate you caring enough to warn me."

"I'm selfish. I see you and I see your sisters and it's like somebody gave me the Philosopher's Stone."

"What if we're not a match for the project?"

"You're a match," she said. "The only thing is that Susan won't have to be hands-on when it comes to fabrications."

"Oh, that's not necessarily a plus," I said. "She likes it."

"Really?"

"Yes, ma'am," I said. "She says running a machine tool is like Zen for Baptists."

Doctor Embert smirked. "I've GOT to see that lab."

"Got a flower sticker on the lathe and "Hello Kitty" on the Bridgeport vertical mill."

She snickered. "Susan's rather disarming for a whole different reason than you and Cindy. You two are obviously under age. Susan's, well, just does NOT look like a premium-grade mind."

"Cindy says she looks like the nose art on a World War Two bomber." I saw the question cross Doctor Embert's face. "The idea of physical beauty was more rounded, voluptuous. Here, I have some PG-rated examples on my iPad." I showed her a sassy blonde one.

"Yes, that's pretty close to our Susan," she agreed. "Still, she can be rather disarming. Hardly the sort of thing one expects to see while hearing about conductive rail cross sections."

"Yep! That's Susan," I said. "Disarming."

"Okay," Doctor Embert said. "Now, if we can get back to this data you're showing me here..."

Somewhere along the mid-afternoon, my brain was starting to squirm. Doctor Embert begged off and left for a meeting.

I was sitting on the steps of the Math building one afternoon. I'd worn my 3Sigma T-shirt that day.

A kid came over and sat next to me - smallish, brown hair, clunky-framed glasses, a little acne. Dull green polo shirt with a pocket protector and a selection of pens. Back home they would call him 'wormy'. "Hi. Waiting for your mom or dad?"

I answered, "No, my husband. Who are you waiting for?" I wasn't waiting for Dan, really. I just wanted to establish my 'not available' status. I was expecting Tina.

"My Uncle Amos. You're waiting for your husband? That's unusual. Why are you here? You look kinda young to be a student."

'Same questions all the time, ' I thought. I guess my tone had a little edge as I answered, "Yes, I'm young; yes, I'm married; yes, I'm a student here."

The kid flinched a little and kind of folded into himself. "S- sorry, I didn't mean anything. Just that it's, uh, at least a couple of sigmas from the mean. And I saw the shirt. I'm Albert Williams."

"What are you doing here, Albert Williams? Trying to meet girls?"

"No! I mean, I mainly came over because you didn't look bigger than me." He paused and pushed his glasses back up his nose. "I get nervous around crowds and a lot of people are bigger than me. I'm kinda afraid of getting hurt."

I heard an unvoiced "again" on the end of that sentence. I gave him a reassuring smile. "I'm not going to hurt you. Are you going to school here?"

He smiled. "It almost seems like a dream, but yes, I'm going to school here."

"Did you graduate from high school early?"

"Not really, but kinda 'yes'; I got into a little trouble and they gave me a GED early and sent me here to live with Uncle Amos and go to the University."

This kid intrigued me and I wanted to know what had happened but I didn't want to really pry so I just said, "Oh?"

He sighed a little. "Well, I'm from Squashed Possum, Arkansas. The town doesn't have a high school so we got bussed to Resume Speed. Freshman year was okay and I didn't get picked on too much for being the smartest kid in the school. The problem started this year when a kid named Mark Schumacher started going to school with us. Second month he started beating me up - he really liked to punch me in the chest. He was sixteen and as big as the gym teacher and as dumb as a rock; I don't know where he's been to school before but I think they just wanted to get rid of him.

"Anyway, after a week of that I went rummaging in Dad's metal shop and found a piece of what I think was lightweight oval culvert material except it was smooth and kinda springy. It was about the right size to go around me so I cut off a piece and cut out the back and smoothed all the edges - it looked like a chunk of a tire. I wore it under my shirt and Mark broke his hand when he hit me.

"I knew his buddies were gonna beat me up the next day so I made a couple of brass knuckles; well, not the classic kind, they were more like a capital D. I put two of 'em in the hospital and it was even money if I'd be here or in reform school.

"This is the engineering building. Are you here for engineering?"

"Yes," he said. "Uncle Amos says I have the knack."

Okay. This sounds like a big enough departure from the standard pickup lines we'd all endured. I laughed at Cindy's retort to one would-be Lothario: "First, Kade, I'm married. Second, even if I wasn't, I'm fourteen and if you laid a hand on me you'd be committing a felony, no matter what I said."

"I'm Nikki Granger, Albert. Electrical engineering student."

He got a bit of a smile back. "Hi, Nikki. I'd rather be called Bert. I'm here for mechanical engineering. You a freshman?"

"No, I'm afraid not. I sort of side-stepped the process. They told me that I have to hang around for a couple of years acting like I knew things and they'd give me a degree."

"Really?" he said.

"Yeah. It's surreal," I said. "Are you staying in the dorms?"

"Uh-huh," he said. "You, married, where are you living?"

"You're not hitting on me are you?"

"No, I never hit on girls." He caught my eyebrow raising. "Or guys, either. If I was gonna hit on somebody, it'd be a girl..."

I unzipped a pocket on my backpack and pulled out a business card. "Here's my husband's, uh, OUR business. It's an electrical engineering house. This is where we're located. My email's on the back. If you want a place to study, we're setting up a greenhouse for engineering students."

"Just like that? How much does it cost?"

"Nothing. We have the office space. Nobody's banging on the door to lease it."

"Who all's in it?"

"Right now, me, four other girls, three of whom are my adopted sisters, and one husband who's working on converting his BSET to a BSEE."

"Academic support? Like tutors or teachers or whatever?"

I laughed.

"What's funny about that?"

"Bert, I got through FOUR years of engineering math by interview. Cindy Richards, whom you will meet if you wish, was an eighth grader who was tutoring her own teacher in masters' level math. We're on a first name basis with Doctor Ramathani and Doctor Wilkins at the math department. And next door are THREE licensed professional engineers."

"Wow! Why are you doing this?"

"We think it's a good thing to do." I saw Tina's little car coming around the corner. "There's my ride."

"I thought you said your husband..."

"I thought you were tryin' to pick me up."

"I'm not."

"Come meet Tina. And don't try to pick her up either."

"I shall restrain myself," he said.

I caught Tina's quizzical look as she saw me and Bert walking toward the car. As I got in, Bert walked around to the driver's side she rolled the window down.

"Tina, this is Bert. He's a mechanical engineering student."

"Hi, Bert, I'm Tina." She worked up a smile.

"Hi, Tina. Happy to meet you." He smiled. That put him all the way up the ladder to 'happy nerd' as far as his appearance.

"Is there someplace we can bring you?" she asked.

"No, but thanks! My uncle's coming to pick me up."

"Well, nice meeting you, Bert," Tina said. She drove us off. "What's that all about?"

"Oh, I was sitting on the steps," I said, telling the story. "I gave him a card."

"Oh," Tina countered. "I guess we need to get some things going there. There's two now. And when word gets out."

"They gotta be serious students," I said.

"Yes. I don't want that to turn into some kind of party pit. We'll shut it down first." Tina was serious. I know. I've talked about the same thing with my Dan.

"Like you and the gang used to do at the house, that's fine. No drinking, no smoking, no drugs." He looked serious.

"Goes without saying," I said. "None of us want that."

"And we don't have to put up with it," Dan said.

I set up guest access through our server and put a wireless router in the greenhouse. It was something to think about.

Anyway, Tina and I drove back to the apartments. "I saw the look on your face," I said.

"And I know about you and Cindy's conversation. About Justin."

"And like I told Cindy, 'No way. Not in this lifetime. Not in forever.' I got my Dan. And Bert says he wasn't hitting on me, either."

"We're going to have a lot of friends," Tina said. "Alan said he worries, too."

"Seriously?"

"I guess it's a 'guy' thing," I said. "We need to love those guys. Just like we always do. But the idea of Bert with brass knuckles..."

"And he stopped the guy?"

"Yeah," I said. "So we have Bert. And that brown-haired girl. What was her name?"

"Tara. She's on the list." Sure, we had an email list. This IS the twenty-first century, after all. "Bert 'n' Tara," Tina said.

"Look, let's not get crazy. We got lucky with Susan and Jason." I laughed, but I was thinking of Holly and Bret and Slade and Kellen, two couples who'd joined up partly as a result of the study sessions at our house back in Louisiana. I knew that Slade and Kellen were still good friends who dated occasionally, but Holly and Bret had a date set, a fact that I used to prod my Dan a time or two.

"It's a possibility that a study group can result in pairings," I said, "but I'd rather it result in friendships and academic growth. If somebody finds somebody else there who's dating material, that's just a happy sideshow."

The community calendar had 'Quiet time' on today's date for Nikki and Dan. It's not rude. We all do it, at least a couple of nights a week. It starts out as our recharging time. The curtains get drawn, the door locked, Everybody in the community knows not to call.

Light dinner. Loooong shower. One shower. Two bodies. Just like it's supposed to be. Since the beginning when we both admitted it to ourselves and each other.

My life is controlled chaos framed in the best of terms. The girl who only a year ago had no friends her own age, a family consisting of a mother with substance abuse and relationship issues, and nothing outside the walls of a Section 8 apartment, now it's happy chaos.

If I had a problem, which I don't, a simple text message would get me a roomful of people who CARED.

Especially this one with his arms around me. The one with the blue eyes, whose lips touch mine and reduce me to almost uncontrollable quivers. Of course there's a reciprocity at work here. I can turn him in to a quivering, semi-conscious mass, too. The fun part about this is that we both terribly enjoy exercising that power over one another.

So I was lying back in Dan's arms as our breathing returned to normal. "It's all mad and crazy and I love you," I said.

"It's every bit of that and I love you too, little brown-haired girls."

-

Susan:

"Mid-State Machining, how may I help you?" the female voice said.

"Hi! I'm Susan Ellerbee with 3 Sigma Engineering. I need a machinist."

"We're a full service industrial machine shop. What sort of project are you working on?"

"It's some electrical power equipment. We need some assistance fabricating a couple of parts."

"If you'd like to deliver some drawings we can give you a quote..."

"No, ma'am," I said. "I need just the machinist. I have the shop. I have the materials. I have the design. I just ran out of expertise. I want to rent a machinist."

'Oh, uh ... Let me transfer you to the manager."

"Okay. Thank you," I said sweetly.

Click. Riiiiiiinnnnnnggggg! "Jim Harris. How can I help you?"

"I'm Susan Ellerbee with 3Sigma Engineering. I need a machinist."

"You can get us a set of drawings and we can give you a quote."

"No, Mister Jim. I need to borrow a machinist. I have the design, the materials, the shop. I don't have the expertise to do this myself. I want to rent a machinist. Surely you have an hourly rate?"

"Just what exactly is it you're trying to do, lady?" he asked, sounding a little exasperated.

"I'm trying to get a qualified machinist to come to OUR shop and use OUR tools to machine a pair of components. It's copper, and I need precision and I'm just not up to it."

"And you want OUR machinist..."

"To do it and at least let me watch. If he can actually explain what he's doing, that's great, too."

"You're serious. Why don't you go to trade school?"

"Sir, I'm serious. I'm in Auburn studying electrical engineering. I ... we need the parts for a project."

"We usually charge a hundred bucks an hour for machine time."

"I don't need the machine. I have those. I need the machinist."

"What kind of machine do you have?"

"We have a fourteen by forty engine lathe, a nine by forty-eight Bridgeport vertical mill, grinders, drill press, metal brake, horizontal band saw..."

"That's a shop's worth of tools."

I giggled. "My wedding present from my dad."

"3Sigma? Where are you located?"

I told him the address. "New strip mall. Sign on the front. Why?"

"I'm putting my hat on right now. I assume you're ready for a visit."

"Yes," I squealed. "You'll visit?"

"I gotta see this."

When I hung the phone up, Cindy was grinning. "One of those kind of phone calls?"

"I don't think the guy believed me."

The phone rang. I picked it up. "3Sigma Engineering. This is Susan."

"Okay," he said. "Same voice. I just called your other number, talked to a Dan Richards. He sounds a whole lot more like an engineer. Told me to call you back."

"We're not pranking you, Mister Jim. Come see us. Do you drink coffee?"

"Yes I do."

"We'll put on a fresh pot."

"See you in fifteen minutes."

I hung up again. The phone rang. "3Sigma Engineering. This is Susan."

I could hear Dan's laughter. "What are you DOING to us, Blondie?"

"I'm having trouble getting a profile on these copper rails. I called for a machinist. I got the shop manager on the way over here. Put a fresh pot of coffee on."

"Yes, ma'am," he said.

"And be nice."

"I'm always nice. Just ask Cindy. Bye." Click.

Cindy and I moved a few things around the lab, tidying up.

I heard a strange male voice and then Dan's "The person you're looking for is right in here," and the door opened between the office and the lab.

Mister Jim was obviously at least ten years older than Cindy's Dan, stout, balding and not expecting what he saw.

I stepped forward. "You must be Mister Jim! I'm Susan. This is Cindy Richards. You've met her husband."

Okay, give the guy credit for fast recovery, but I saw a full spectrum of emotions as he parsed the fact that the 'Susan' he was talking to was me, nineteen, and Cindy, obviously younger, was married to the guy he'd just met. He voiced part of that. "You're not who I imagined. Glad to meet you."

"Glad to meet you too," I said. "Do you think you can help us?"

"Show me what you're trying to do," he said.

I showed him my 'uh-oh' pile, the rail that I'd botched, and I showed him our drawings.

"What is this going to? Copper. I'm assuming for either heat conduction or electrical conduction. But electricity doesn't care about cross-section. Unless you're trying to get intimate contact on something round."

"Electricity is the primary function. The ability to carry off heat is secondary. And we need it to match these," Cindy said, holding up one of our prototype projectiles.

"That looks like a bullet," he said.

"Bingo," I replied. "These rails are the 'rails' to an experimental railgun."

"You're kidding." He looked at the two of us. "You're NOT kidding."

Chapter 30

Tina's turn:

So I walk into the lab and there's Susan. No, that's not unusual. We don't have a schedule posted and we don't clock in. We do make plans if there's going to be something interesting happening, but Susan's been trying to get a pair of rails machined for our final design, and she hasn't been successful. Genteel southern girls don't curse, so her aggravated "Darn!" and "Oh, poo!" are as bad as it gets.

This time, though, with Susan is this old guy. 'Old guy' in this case means noticeably older than my Alan.

"Hi," I said.

"Tina, this is Mister Jim Harris. He's a master machinist. Mister Jim, this is Tina Addison. Her husband's the other engineer in the office right now."

"Hello, Mizz Tina. Interesting project you have here."

"Thank you," I said.

"Mister Jim's showing me how to deal with the copper better. And a neat trick that lets us get a round profile on the rails. I think that's better than the V-groove we settled on."

"We don't have to move this for a while," Cindy said.

"Move it?" I asked.

"Yeah, the university's buying it, you know, but they don't have a place to put it yet. So it stays here. We build it to the firing stage. Document our build., Tell them when we test, and they witness and document the tests. We document all the changes and modifications." The little pixie crossed her arms. "You're looking at your senior project."

"No joke?" I squealed.

"No joke?" Mister Jim blurted. "You mean this thing's for real?"

"You haven't shown Mister Jim the whole thing?"

"All I've seen is Mizz Susan's machine tools."

We gave him the tour. "Now forget everything you've seen," Susan said. "The project at school's under a government security pact."

"No shit! Oops, sorry, ladies! This thing's for real? You've tested it?

"We can charge the capacitor bank, that's the part that stores the energy, to ten thousand volts. That's twenty-five percent above the nameplate value. Like supercharging an engine. Takes us twenty minutes to do that. And then we can dump all that energy across these two spheres and into the rails. Should get really energetic between those rails. But we haven't fired a projectile. We need rails. Did Susan show you her projectiles?"

"I used brass," Susan said. "But with what you've shown me today, I'm thinking I'll make some out of copper."

"If you give me a drawing, I can program our CNC mill at the shop and make 'em a lot easier."

"How much will it cost?"

"If you provide the stock and don't get in a hurry, nothing. I have a young machinist who has been dying to get his hands on that machine."

"I've got it," I said. "I assume you have an email address. You want CAD or a PDF?"

Alan's head peered in the door. "I thought I heard your voice," he said to me. "Mister Jim..."

"Just 'Jim'."

"Jim, I hope you know what you're getting into."

"I'm finding out. How old is this girl?" He asked.

"Just turned eighteen."

"She's sending me drawings and knows about CAD and PDF and gives me a choice."

"You're seeing the tip of the iceberg, Jim."

"Or we could print you a hard copy," Cindy chirped in that sweet, disarming voice.

I scooted over and kissed Alan's cheek. "He's got a CNC machine. Volunteered to do our projectiles as a training session for one of his guys."

"Oh, really ... Terri..." Alan said.

"Mister Jim, would you mind terribly if I brought our daughter over and let her see your CNC machine?"

"You've got a daughter?"

"Step-daughter. Alan's daughter. She's eight. She wants to see one."

"W-w-wait. Eight years old?" He really sounded incredulous now.

Cindy already had her cellphone out. "I'm texting Terri. She and Rachel are doing history this morning, but she can get over here." She turned to Mister Jim. "Terri's being home-schooled. The school district didn't have any way to handle her."

I saw the look on his face. MY daughter. "Oh, not a behavior problem. She's eight. She passed the GED tests..."

"Like HIGH SCHOOL?!?" he blurted.

I nodded, perhaps a little less enthusiastically than Cindy.

"I gotta see this."

"She's something," Alan said.

"Mini-me," Susan lilted, tilting her blonde head. "You'll see."

The back door swung open and we got the pair, Terri and Rachel.

"Hi Dad. Hi, Tina. Hi Susan. Hi, Cindy!" She looked at Mister Jim. "I'm Terri. This is Rachel."

Mister Jim squatted to their level. "Hello, Terri. Rachel. I'm Jim Harris."

"Pleased to meet you, Mister Jim," the pair said, almost in unison.

"Mister Jim has a CNC mill," Susan said.

"Really?!?" Terri squealed. "Where?"

"My shop is on the other side of town."

"Would you mind if we saw it? Please?"

"What do you know about CNC mills?" he asked.

"Susan and Dad explained to me about XYZ axis control. I'm curious."

Jim looked at Alan. "I have a granddaughter this age. If I explained XYZ control to her, my daughter would make a case for child abuse." He smiled. "Get yourself over to my shop. Bring your mom and Susan and Cindy and whoever else. I'll make sure that you see it run."

"I'd like to see it set up," Susan said.

"Susan, if you pay attention to the old guy who normally runs it, he's gonna have a heart attack." He laughed, whipping out his cellphone. "Can I get a picture of your lathe? That Hello Kitty sticker may just be the new trend in machine shop decor."

"Sure. Just no pictures of our, uh ... apparatus," Susan said.

"Not a problem. I understand." He snapped a couple of pictures. "How about a group shot? With Susan by the control head."

I had Terri and Rachel in front of me when he snapped the picture.

"Nobody's gonna believe this." He was laughing. "Susan, if you decide to ditch that electrical engineering thing, I'll hire you tomorrow for my shop."

Susan does this 'demure' thing. "Oh, thanks, Mister Jim. But I kinda like the electrical engineering, but I don't limit myself, you know."

"Oh, I understand, young lady," he said. "But I would dearly love to see the faces when I introduced you to the crew as a machinist."

Alan was laughing. "Jim, I appreciate you taking time to come see us."

"Alan, you know, sometimes you go through life and just never know what wonders you're missing. Today has been one of those. Seriously, you ladies are welcome to come by any time. Make sure you call so we can have an idea of what's in the shop for you to see."

"I will, Mister Jim," Terri said. "I really will."

"And I'll bring 'er myself," Susan added.

Mister Jim took off, leaving behind a bunch of conversations, but one of them was Susan excitedly telling us that she'd have the final version of the rails ready for testing soon.

We had the new bullet trap bolted to the floor across the length of the lab. We had our power capacitor bank tested. We'd run through every test we could think of, short of actually putting the rails in and inserting a projectile.

Dan Richards had said, "This trap will handle everything short of a .50 BMG round."

Of course we'd already talked about that among ourselves. "We're going to start at low energy and step it up in increments," Nikki said.

"And we'll collect data at each step and compare with calculated values so we can extrapolate losses."

"And we will also monitor erosion on our rails and support and guide system," Susan said. "That's an unknown."

"If you blow through the back of that trap, you're gonna punch a hole in Tina's apartment," he said.

Actually, we have a line superimposed over the plot plan for the apartment and the office, and yes, if you draw from the muzzle of the railgun through the back of the bullet trap, it does go through Tina's apartment. Of course, there's a stack of sandbags on the outside wall behind the trap. That's something that three combat engineer lieutenants came up with.

"Nothing like a bag of dirt," Dan 2.0 said.

Hardware things. That's all. Interesting. I guess I never got enough time playing with Legos and K'Nex when I was younger.

Software things. Learning. Classes. I had some. Susan had some. Holes in a schedule. Mines. Pits. That's what the guy I sat beside the day I turned my schedule in. I laughed.

"That's funny? This stuff?" he asked.

"Yes it is," I said. "A year ago I was a dropout from the eleventh grade. Today I'm scheduling my junior year courses for electrical engineering."

"So I take it from your attitude that you're not worried."

"Nope," I said. "I'm already doing work with my husband. Electrical engineer."

"Oh. I didn't see the ring. I wasn't hittin' on you, though."

"No, you're worried about the new semester. How'd you get here? How're you doing so far?"

"I didn't do anything like what you're talkin' about," he said. "Just a college kid."

"What's your major? I know it's cliché', but I'm not hitting on you, either," I said.

"Yeah, that is kinda cliché'. Little more sophisticated than 'what's your sign'. I'm doin' pre-med."

"Oh, then you're jerking my chain," I laughed. "You can't get into that without some horsepower."

"Everybody thinks that. But it's tough."

I heard my name called. "Well, good luck," I said, leaving him sitting there.

"Wait! I didn't get your name!" he blurted.

"Because I didn't give it to you." Okay, I guess I was being hit on.

My schedule was accepted and duly incorporated into the system. After I finished, I went outside and sat on the steps and forwarded my new schedule to the gang. Later, I'd sent it to the community calendar so we could track each other's itineraries.

And Alan's not going to know why I'm extra attentive to him this afternoon.

Life has become a series of little vignettes since we cranked up the Community for real. I remember when Cindy first proposed it, and I remember talking to her about Susan being a part, and then Nikki popped up.

Now we're adding Nikki's friend (and mine) Maddie. Maddie's not an engineer. She's headed into accounting and business administration. When she and her parents came to town for a campus tour, they nabbed the last apartment.

I remembered Maddie from when I was sitting with Nikki at our little 'outcasts' table. We were on the outside. Maddie was on the inside. Nikki said Maddie'd changed, grown up. Maddie's not the only one. Nikki and I have grown up, too.

But adding Maddie, that brings up another point: Mizz Beck. You see, we're home-schooling Terri and Rachel. That means that Alan and I and Sim and Beck are taking responsibility for the educational progress of our children. I'm in school. Beck has (had) a full time job. Alan and Sim both work. Who's gonna school the girls.

Over dinner... "I don't know if this is kosher," Sim said over a plate of lamb biryani at the Desai restaurant. "Our Rabbi just shakes his head."

"More than the biryani," Beck said. "What do you think?"

Alan had been appointed by the others to breech the idea to Sim and Beck. "Hours we spend trying to track the finances and the correspondence and the administrative processes are hours we don't do engineering. And I almost shiver at the thought."

"And you want me to do that?" Beck said.

"Well, you were saying the other day that you would relish a more flexible schedule and fewer hours," I said.

Beck smiled at me. "So you want me to work with this menagerie of thick-headed engineers..."

"Who are apparently phobic over administration," I added.

Sim smiled. "You'd be a lot closer to the stay at home mom thing."

"And between your schedule and my schedule and everybody else's, we'd be able to sort of structure our daughters' schooling."

"Take a week and think about it. Don't do it if you don't think it fits, but we KNOW you and we'd rather not roll the dice on trying to hire somebody off the street." Terribly analytical, is my Alan. At least at times.

"I think your work might take up maybe twenty hours a week. Worse on some weeks, less on others," Beck said. "Let us talk about it."

That got us Beck, who knows a lot more than I gave her credit for, as it comes to tracking all the various federal, state and local requirements for a business. She called Kaylee's dad, talked for a while about our Articles of Incorporation, talked with us, and <<bink!>> we have an administrator.

And when Maddie showed up with another Louisiana girl, to rent that last apartment, Maddie marched down, sat with Beck. "You have a degree in this stuff, right?"

"Well, yes," Beck said.

"If that little redhead can be the Engineeer's Apprentice, then I can be The Beancounter's Apprentice."

Oh, you just know that Alan had a long talk with Maddie's mom and dad, Larry and Sherrie. "We can't coddle her," Sherrie said. "But at least we'll know she's next door to good people."

And the conversation with Maddie and Anita ("but we already know an 'Anita'," Terri said. "That's Hindi 'Aneeta' with two 'e's'," I replied) was along the lines of "we do NOT have a 'party' venue." Alan did that one, too. He seems to do 'stern' better than the two Dans.

"Yessir, Mister Alan." I watched faces. I know Maddie. Anita's an unknown, but unless she's a psychopath, I don't think she was lying.

"No underage drinking, no drugs. No move-in, live-in boyfriends. If you decide you're going to add another girl to the mix, we have this talk with her."

"Mister Alan, thank you. I didn't go off track in high school..." she looked at me, "mostly, and I'm not going off track here."

"Yessir," Anita said.

So that sort of filled up the apartment. And the office. It meant that if I dialed the office phone number on Monday or Wednesday or half a day Friday I got Beck, sounding all professional.

"I know you're looking at caller ID and you know who this is," I'd said.

"Now I do," Beck laughed, "but I wasn't looking at the phone when it rang, silly."

I cautioned Terri, too. "Maddie and Anita might not be as happy with you hanging around like you do with the rest of us."

"Tina, we KNOW how to behave," my daughter said.

Phone call. "Uh, Tina, can we take Terri with us? We're going get a burger?" Anita.

"Where's Rachel. They're almost a set."

"I'm calling Beck next."

"Did they talk you into this?"

"No, I saw 'em walking across the yard. Hollered at 'em."

"So they're no trouble?"

Squeal. "Those two? Hardly. Like little sisters."

Later, Maddie gave us another angle. "We love 'em. But you know, when they go with us, we don't have to chase off as many boys. How many guys are wantin' to pick up a single mom out with her kids." She saw Alan's face kind of change. "Oh, Alan, no way we're putting those two in a bad situation."

I'm rambling. I know. It's late, I'm tired. But I want to write this all down. I know, Cindy would be tracking these thoughts down, and she would alternate between the clinical sterility of a technical report and a rolicky romp through the language like a Mark Twain essay.

Sometimes I just want to lay back on the sofa in what we've named a 'family stack'. We, as in me and Terri and Alan. I lay back in Alan's arms and Terri lays back in mine, and we listen to music or maybe watch something good on TV and it's like the day's negativity (not that there's that much) just sort of flows away. Last night we were doing that and I was idly toying with Terri's hair.

"I like it since I cut it," she said. "It's easier to live with."

"You looked so pretty with it longer, like Susan's."

"I know," Terri said, "but somewhere there's somebody who's using my hair because they lost theirs."

We'd gotten it cut, in Alan's words, 'ridiculously short' because my daughter had read about a charity that collects hair for kids who've lost theirs due to cancer. It was almost boyish, a week after Susan's wedding, and I think that Susan is the one most affected by it, when she came back from her honeymoon.

Now, three months later it was growing out, still radically blonde, perfect counterpoint to sky-blue eyes. "When It gets YOUR length, I get it cut like yours."

"Your mom said she likes it, baby," I said. I was surprised. I guess those pictures arrived in California when Terri's natural mom was on an 'up' phase of her illness. She sent us back a picture of her own similar haircut a week later.

The weekly (somewhat) phone calls between Terri and her mom were a roll of the dice. Her mom's illness caused mood swings and at the depths of them, according to her husband, she was almost a hermit, and if that was the time for the weekly phone call, we didn't get one. The quality of the others ran the gamut, but I just held onto Terri and celebrated the good and held her after the not so good.

My own mom. Nothing. At least the letters didn't get sent back. But never the first reply. I sent a telephone number. No calls. I don't know what I expected.

That's one more reason that when I hold Terri, I sometimes have a tear in my eye. Somebody on this planet's gotta be a mom to this kid.

Saturday mornings It wasn't unusual to hear a soft knock on the bedroom door, and if neither Alan nor I said 'not yet', Terri would come slide in bed with us. Sometimes it was my side, sometimes Alan's, occasionally she'd bounce across Alan and nestle down between us.

Sometimes we'd languorously drift back to sleep, the three of us, sometimes conversation would start softly. One time I got a snuggle as Alan was breathing, the pattern telling me he was asleep. Terri put her lips close to my ear. "Tina, is it terrible of me to tell you that you're my best mom?"

"No, baby, it's not wrong. It's how you feel. Just remember that your natural mom didn't choose to be sick like she is, though. She'd probably love to have you the way I have you."

"Dad chose good," she whispered.

"We chose each other, baby," I said. "And I knew you were part of the deal. I'm surprisingly smart that way."

She couldn't hold in a little giggle. "Could you make us pancakes for breakfast?" She batted those long eyelashes at me.

"You horrid little beast. I thought we were having a tender moment."

"We were. But it's breakfast time."

That's 100% Terri there. Fast, funny, loving. She rolled away from me and I rolled out of bed behind her. I washed my face, did my morning bathroom routine, and then followed her into the kitchen where she was already setting out the makings of breakfast.

Once we got things going, I sent her back to wake up her dad. I was busy flipping pancakes when Alan walked into the kitchen, kissed me on the cheek I offered him and then gathered up Terri for a morning smooch.

We sat down to an almost idyllic breakfast together. I imagined that the other apartments were similarly happy.

Maybe for different reasons, though. I was describing one of our breakfasts.

"Had Cheerios," Susan said. "Didn't have time to cook." And an evil smile. Well, maybe not evil, but maybe I confused that look with one of lasciviousness.

"Uh?"

Giggle. Susan said, "Oh, just tell me that YOU never traded a hot breakfast for it."

I flicked my eyes to Cindy. "Don't look at me," she said. "Nikki?"

"Guilty. And likely to be guilty again on any given morning."

"Oh, poo!" I said.

"Terri. You have Terri. You have that little force of nature. You know, I could see if we can borrow her on the odd Friday or Saturday," Susan said. "Jason loves taking her to the movies. He gets to NOT look like a child molester out trolling for kids."

"But I really do love having Terri," I said.

"Mom explained to me how my presence changed her and dad's lives. I call Terri and she stays with us and it's karma, you know." Susan smiled.

"I could do that, too, you know."

"Terri will figure this out."

"Terri's already figured this out," Nikki said. "Why do you think she calls before she pops in on any of us?"

"I know," I said. "She almost winks when she takes off with Rachel and says 'I'll be back in two hours' when Alan is home."

So, yeah, you'd imagine that the presence of an eight year old would stifle some of the spontaneity of the happy (and frequent) couplings between me and Alan, and you'd be right. But it hasn't slowed us down very much.

Our nightly sessions are a little quieter and don't involve me running giggling through the house buck naked, and it's a good thing that Alan likes the biting I give his chest because that's my mechanism to stifle some of the sounds I make during mating.

I don't mean to sound like I regret a thing, though. Alan was still at work one day and I was in our kitchen working up a big pot of jambalaya for a group dinner. I push the limits of our pots doing this, but I can make it work. Anyhow, I was at one of those natural lulls cleverly put into Cajun cooking by generations of those who had households to run and couldn't spend the whole time on the single task of cooking. I was just finished putting away the cutting board when Terri came zooming in, followed closely by Rachel.

"What's up, kiddos?" I asked.

"Look!" Terri said, offering a clear plastic jar with an obviously confused insect inside.

"Praying mantis," I said.

Rachel nodded. Terri said, "Let's look it up!" and skipped out, returning with her iPad.

The two stretched some underutilized neurons that contained my biology knowledge. We looked at the common name, that Latin name, then branched off into scientific classification.

Everything's a lesson and a gateway to Terri, and just like the back door, Rachel follows right along behind her. Terri spills the knowledge and Rachel soaks it up, and at the end of the day Terri and I and Rachel and Beck have a little session where we talk about the day's explorations.

Beck and I are filling in a matrix of subjects and skill levels, taking home schooling seriously.

"I'm not sure how we can do this," Beck said. "They're all over the charts." She thought for a second. "No, check that. They're at the top end of the charts we have. This thing that started with the mantis in the jar, that's high school biology."

"We need to get you two to write us your reports on what you found today," I said. "Language skills are important, no matter what you do."

Two eight year old heads bobbed, one with a thick, dark brown ponytail, one with a cute blonde bob.

"Should we work together?" Terri asked.

"No," Rachel said. "You write yours and I'll write mine, and then we'll show them to Mom and after she sees them, we'll exchange papers and make corrections."

Beck's reaction to her own daughter's idea was a little catch in her breathing. She looked at me.

"I know," I mouthed.

I wouldn't exchange this for anything.

Chapter 31

Maddie's Turn:

I'm in COLLEGE! Yes, little Maddie Reynolds is in college. And I'm YOUNG for it. I'm two years ahead. It's because of the hurricane, you know. The hurricane hit last year and the storm surge pushed a wave through our high school and forced us to go to school at the nearest high school that was undamaged. Now you have to understand that I live in one of the least populous parishes (that's counties in the other forty-nine states) in Louisiana, so we're not talking about several HUNDRED students, but when we all descended on the next school, we over-loaded the place.

The guidance counselor reviewed files. Dad says he's the exception that proves the rule for government employees, a guy who actually puts an effort into his work. But I digress. Several of us got tested, a few got pushed up a grade. Or two. And I found myself on the stage getting a diploma two years early.

Mom and Dad freaked. Well, in a good way. We sat down and had a discussion. We bumped into one another and had several more. College is not a money problem. Mom and Dad letting their sixteen year old daughter loose in a college full of hormonally-challenged males IS a problem.

I saw myself headed for the nearby university, not a bad place in and of itself, but when it shows up on a resume', it makes no impact, or gets a 'huh?', at best.

I had a friend. It's a miracle that she was my friend, because in the years before, I was one of a little clique of girls who only spoke to her when we wanted to be bitchy and feel superior to somebody. She was on the edge of poverty prior to last year, and an easy target. Then this last year, after the hurricane, she showed up like a whole different person.

First, like me, she was thrown into a new school, so we were both outsiders, and us from the old school just gravitated towards one another. Second, she wasn't wearing Wal Mart's (or Goodwill's) best. She looked different. She acted different. From somebody who was just a face I recognized from last year, we became friends. Nikki. Last time I saw her, she was Nikki Domingue, daughter of a mom whose name showed up in a lot of the wrong kind of conversations.

This year, she showed up with a gold band on her finger. I naturally figured that from her reputed background that there was a baby at home and she was living with her 'husband' in his parents' house or something like that.

Nope.

That she was as dull as her clothes were the year before.

Nope.

That she'd dish out what she'd received from me and the little clique.

Nope.

"I wasn't that receptive to being a friend that year myself," Nikki told me. "I was a wreck. Grandma died. I had to live with Mom. Mom might've not had any shame, but I had enough for both of us."

A bunch of us gravitated to Nikki's side. Actually, Nikki and Dan's place. Dan's her husband. He's Dad's age, maybe a couple of years older. Engineer. And a good teacher.

Let me explain. Rural parishes don't have a lot of places for kids to hang out in the first place. Add to that a storm surge that topped twenty feet, wiping out the few places there were, so you know you're going to end up at somebody's house. For those of us that still had houses.

Then you subtract the houses of people who had families you really didn't want to mess with, or who didn't want a bunch of teens in the house, and pickings get thin. So Nikki's house. Nikki's good. So's her husband. The place is clean. And we're welcome. Lots of pluses. Add to that the fact Dan's a very apt teacher at the beginning, and that Nikki herself passed the whole bunch of us up about a month into the school year, and academically it was great.

Socially, it was even better. Safe. The fact that it started out as a STUDY group sort of shielded us from a lot of bullshit. We had a little turnover, and there were a couple of kids that weren't regulars, but we coalesced into a group of regulars: Nikki, because it was HER house, after all. Me. Kellen, a year older. Slade, the rare intelligent and academically inclined jock, Holly. Bret. Bret the nerd. And by the end of the school year, Bret 'n' Holly, the unit.

So when Nikki tells me that she's a member of a sisterhood, a community, and they're all going to Auburn, I march in on Dad one day and say "Dad, can I go to Auburn?"

"For what?"

"Business and accounting." I knew Dad's biggest fear was that he'd dump a hundred K on Medieval Literature. "Like your office stuff."

"Why Auburn?"

"Looks good on a resume'," I said.

"And Nikki's going there."

"Mister Dan's new business is there. They're moving there. And I know that Nikki knows three others going there."

"She's doing engineering."

"I know. But it'll be like I have family there. You like Dan. So does Mom."

Dinner that night was interesting, but I nailed 'em. And here I am.

Oh, we had the big migration, you know. Dad says I'm not getting a car, not just yet, not without living at home. "You're not eighteen, Maddie." We worked out the idea that my friends would help me out there. Including flying me home for the holidays.

But we had the Trail of Tears as Mom and Dad deposited their only daughter four hundred-odd miles from home.

I have a room-mate, Anita Searcy, eighteen, a serious student I knew from church camp. And I had an apartment. Brand new. Two bedrooms. In the same building as Nikki and Dan. And Cindy and another Dan. And Tina and Alan and Terri. And Sim and Beck and Rachel.

Got the serious talk from Alan about the conditions of our living in that apartment. From Mom and Dad it was "treat Dan like you would your own father. And the others likewise. We can't be here, but we know you know right from wrong."

"Yes, Mom. Yes, Dad."

From Alan, speaking on behalf of the others, "This is not a party venue. You're sixteen. No underage drinking. No partying. No live-in boyfriends. The apartment is leased to your parents. And you're my unofficially adopted daughter."

"Who's a year younger than your wife," I giggled.

He TRIED to look serious.

I bowed my head. "I shall bring honor to you and your house, master."

"Oh sure," he laughed. "Nikki and Tina warned me."

So I'm part of this. Got to be a bigger part, because I exist within the Community, a real entity that revolves around 3Sigma Engineering and Auburn and the families with which I am associated. The other girls make regular trips through the engineering offices from time to time. So do I. It's a different world. Interesting. They didn't have an administrator. I knew that Nikki's Dan (Dan 2.0, I'm told) was not fond of those duties. Turns out that's almost a characteristic of engineers. They talked to Beck, an actual adult female, wife of Sim, mother of Rachel, the dark-haired one of the two community elves. Beck agreed to become a part-time administrator, part-time homeschool educator.

"So," I said to Beck, "If Cindy can be The Engineer's Apprentice, then can I be The Beancounter's Apprentice?" That idea was run by the engineers and now I schedule hours in the office around my school schedule and Beck's home-schooling efforts. I get to answer the phone. I get to work up billing.

I am NOT allowed to make coffee. That's a result of the great pot-washing of 2013. Dan 1.0's (Cindy's Dan) has a specific ritual for preparing coffee and although I couldn't tell the difference, he swears that I stripped the 'cure' from his pot. Tina commiserated with me. Beck offered me herbal chai.

I was sitting there talking one day with Susan about this little community. "You know, I felt the same way. I pick up one friend and end up with this whole crazy thing. It's like I fell down the rabbit hole in Alice in Wonderland." Oh, yeah ... go to class, I might just as well be wearing a 'See the Freak' sign, because I'm just barely seventeen, but honestly, I don't think that this first semester stuff is much of a hurdle. Anita's about the same. She was in advanced placement classes in high school, and that gave her a lot of credits. I took my counsellor's advice, since it was HIM that got me here in the first place, and tested out of several subjects, too. I'm pulling enough hours to be considered a full-time student, but It's not as scary for me as it is for some of my classmates.

Of course, I look at Nikki and Cindy ... Anita said, "They're almost scary. Nikki ... was she like that at school?"

"It's hard to say," I said. "She did what you expect from an 'A' student in class. A little participation. Turned in the homework. Took the tests. And smiled."

"You did all that," Anita said.

"Yeah, and so did you."

"But I was eighteen. Senior."

I giggled. 'Yet here we are."

"But this bunch ... Maddie, they're crazy smart. Not like that kid..."

"'That kid' was also 'scary smart'. And obnoxious. Seemed like he lived for inappropriate behavior. Finally ended up being taken out of school. As they say, 'He had issues.'"

"That's what I mean," Anita returned. "I think that Nikki and Cindy are smarter. And they act so normal outside the academic thing..."

"You mean, besides Cindy getting married when she was fourteen and Nikki was fifteen."

"Yeah, that too. I knew about Nikki in school. Jumped on the 'she's gotta be pregnant' bandwagon like everybody else. But no. Thought 'little slut-puppy.' But no. I wish I could say I always acted with as much decorum as those two. Or any of the others."

"Using 'decorum' in a conversation. Nice," I said.

Anita laughed. "Yeah, that's another thing. Where do I go to hear a good old-fashioned normal teen conversation with 'like' an' 'yaknow' and 'knowhatI'msayin?'"

"Stop outside the classroom. You'll get plenty..."

"Oh, gosh, I know ... But this bunch? Uh, no. I saw more stuff goin' on at my last family reunion."

"It's a strange world, isn't it?"

"Yeah," she said. "Strange. But they let us fit right in where we want to."

That was the case. Our circles overlapped a lot. I enjoyed the evening get togethers. I enjoyed the communal meals, even contributing side dishes.

And I picked up the little sister I never had. Two of 'em, actually, because you seldom see Terri without Rachel, or vice versa. The way this works is surreal. I'm sitting there with a textbook open, Anita's across the coffee table with her laptop, and my phone dings, announcing an incoming text. From Terri.

"Are you too busy for company?" - Terri.

I text back. "No. Need a break. Come on."

A minute later, the door opens. Terri. No Rachel.

"Where's Rachel?"

"Something Jewish going on. She's with her mom and dad. Whatcha studying?"

"Economics 101."

"Beancounter Basic," Anita added

Terri's got a delightful giggle, as is fit for an eight year old girl. "You sound like my dad," she said. "He says beancounters are minions of the Antichrist."

"And I am an acolyte," I said. Terri's knowing smile told me that yet again I had not exceeded her grasp of vocabulary.

"So what's in it? I suppose I need to know sooner or later."

"Anita," I said, "Let's give Terri a lesson in Econ 101."

Afterward Anita and I were watching TV.

"Terri," she said.

"What about her?"

"My sister's got a kid that age. First time I saw Terri, I thought they were the same. Same age. Same height. Both third graders. Thought they'd be the same."

I smiled. I know where this is going.

"Clarissa is ... Well, if you look up 'brat' in the dictionary, they have a picture of her next to it. Terri's not only an 'only' child, but she's got a step-mom and a bunch of aunts right there with her. If there ever was a kid in a position to be spoiled, it would be Terri. But she's not."

"Neither is Rachel."

"Yeah," Anita said, "but we know who the alpha is in that pair."

"Yeah," I said, "and just think of what would be possible if those two WANTED to be trouble."

"Scary," Anita replied. "But she just bopped in here and asked what you were studying, and acted like she expected you to take the time to teach her."

I smiled. "Yes, that's exactly what happened."

"And you got me involved and now I feel like I REALLY studied the stuff."

"You don't mean to suggest that we just got played, do you?" I questioned.

Anita shook her head. "I dunno. D'ya think she's THAT smart? And why would she do it?"

"I don't know how smart she is, but I don't think that's the limiting term. I don't know if she made a conscious effort, that's all."

"I'm afraid to ask," Anita said. "Might be some kind of magical thing, where if you ask, you break the spell."

"Oh, Lord," I said. "Now we're talking about magical powers. That means..."

"Cindy," Anita said.

"Nikki was always talking about Cindy at the end of last school year. Remember? We met her and the others at graduation."

"I saw you with 'er," Anita said. "I just figured she was, you know, a bright one, like you and me." She hung her head a little. "She's bright, like you and me. She's not, you know."

"She's not?"

"Not like you and me. I didn't pay attention to Nikki last year, either. Those two are scary. I asked Dad about the math they're skipping. Told 'im that Cindy was tutoring her teacher on masters' level math. Dad thinks she's a freak."

"Only her brain. She's normal. Laughs, loves, plays, lives. Just like us."

"Except she walks into the professor's office and tests out of a semester's worth of subject matter in a week."

"So does Nikki."

"I know," Anita said. "It'd be sickening if they weren't just so nice..."

"Like that kid..." I said. "They're not like that kid."

Cindy's turn:

We finally got to fire it. 'It' being our railgun. We got the bullet trap in and positioned and bolted to the floor. Susan and Jim the machinist finally gave us a set of usable copper rails. Jim's machine shop turned us a dozen projectiles.

We've run the voltage up on the charging system to a hundred and fifty percent of the original voltage rating of the capacitors, just once. And we dropped the sphere to trigger the discharge into two electrodes stuck in a plastic barrel full of salt water. The measured temperature rise was within a decent range of our calculations. It was time.

So we did it. A ten percent test. We knew that ten percent would get the projectile out of the barrel, or off the rails, if you want to be technical. Made a satisfying snap and a clang as it hit the scroll of the bullet trap. High fives and giggles and congratulations abounded, all witnessed (and participated in) by Doctor Embert and a couple of researchers from the university.

Since this was the initial shot and we weren't sure that we were even close on our calculations versus the real world, it was a throw-away. We unbuckled the guides and inspected the rails.

"Shouldn't be much erosion," Susan said. "We're not pushing hard. Let's do one with the chronograph."

Second shot. Two hundred meters per second. Twenty-eight grams. A lot less than a shotgun slug. Everybody here knew, though, where we expected to be at fifteen percent voltage. And we were there.

Greg Sanborn on the university project shook his head. "Surplus this. Repurposed that. The oldest one on the project is nineteen. I think I'm quitting to go open a Jamba Juice."

Tina patted him on the shoulder. "Well, you can practice makin' smoothies at the lab."

"You're not helping," he said.

We got into each other's way trying to inspect the rails again. "Still good," Susan said.

We buckled it back up with another projectile. "This time we'll go for fifteen percent. Give us two points on the graph. Start plotting a characteristic curve."

We cleared the projectile path and huddled around Nikki's monitor watching the graph of the charging voltage. When it was at the setpoint, I handed the key to Doctor Embert. "Your turn," I said.

The snap this time was a bit more authoritative.

"Three-fifteen," Nikki said.

"We talked about that," Tina inserted. "The kickoff inertia remains constant, so the added energy almost all goes into velocity increase."

Greg had his arms folded. He looked at Doctor Embert and raised an eyebrow. "Did you guys (guys?) figure that out on your own or was that from our notes?"

My turn. "Observation of the rolling characteristic of a 1968 Cessna 180. Pretty basic physics."

"And you jumped from there to railguns."

"It seemed obvious. Power in, motion out. If it doesn't move like you think it should move, then your power's going somewhere other than where you expected it to go."

"Pathways," Nikki said. "Path of least resistance should be your design emphasis. Then you go after loss paths."

"We're considering a low pressure helium envelope. Or maybe a light vacuum, enveloping the launch rails. The projectile punches through on firing. Replaceable diaphragm," Tina contributed. "But then we started thinking about the effects of vacuum on dielectric strength..."

"And we're trying to quantify gains. Looks like the wrong path. But if we run into erosion problems, an inert atmosphere might be a good idea."

"You're taking notes, right, Greg?" Doctor Embert asked.

I turned my head so I wouldn't be seen smirking.

So, yes, our railgun is a qualified success. Actually, when you take into account the fact that most of it is salvage and scrap, it's an astounding success, and the university's supposed to come cart the whole thing off as soon as they clear some floor space.

And a check was deposited. Not a BIG check, but the first time we'd ever been paid for something having to do with our intellectual pursuits.

While we were all standing in a happy squeally circle passing the check around, Nikki said, "Embedded controllers."

"Embedded controllers? What about 'em?" Susan asked.

"Nikki said, "They're common as mud. We need to be playing with 'em. Hardware's pretty much off the shelf. It's what you put 'em in and how you program them. Great exercise."

Susan's face lit up to a level only slightly below the one she gets when Jason calls. "Robots. ROV's."

"Autonomous ROV's." Tina smiled. "We can do this."

So we have new projects.

I have Dan. Dan who wears slacks to work most days. Dan who works closely with me on my schedule.

Dan who looks at my books. "I remember this one. I have an older version on the shelf. Any problems?"

"Not according to Jeffrey. And Mizz Aneeta and Doctor Stebbins is riding herd on the department."

"You haven't gotten on a first-name basis with him yet," Dan asked.

"Best I think I could do is Uncle George. It would be like calling Mister Bill by his first name. Or Mister Charlie."

And then there's the news report. I get a phone call. "Can you gather the sisterhood this afternoon? We have an issue."

A thousand thoughts immediately started queuing up in my head. "Something bad?"

"No, actually, something good, mostly, and certainly interesting."

"And you're not gonna tell me." I knew my Dan. This action told me that it WAS good news.

Accordingly, I texted everybody, verifying itineraries, planning a meeting. At 15:30 we all trooped into the office.

"Spill it, baby," I said. "Before we get radical."

"Look at this email. And they backed it up with a phone call. And Mizz Aneeta called and talked with me."

It was from the TV station in the nearby big city, and they wanted to do a story on US!

"How'd they find out?" Susan asked.

"Since Mizz Aneeta's name is in it, that tells me a couple of things. First, the university is in on it, and second, it will be favorable."

Nikki said, "And I wouldn't be surprised if she's the progenitor."

"Maybe so," Tina said.

Following some excitement, we finally settled down. Over the next week, there were a number of phone conferences and a meeting and we had it all plotted out. And this is what came out of it:

(Author's note: I didn't write this, one of you folks, my readers, did. It is the transcription of part of a TV report when word starts leaking out of this amazing Sisterhood that has descended upon a university in Alabama.)

[Teaser for 'news magazine' TV program]

[Clip of the sisterhood climbing the steps to Auburn's library overlaid with the program's logo]

Lesley Steele VO: We've reported on child prodigies before but Auburn's young sisterhood of engineers is something unique in our experience: one preteen and four teenagers taking a university by storm.

[Start of segment]

Lesley Steele: [Seated on tall stool in front of a still of the sisterhood on the steps] Christina and Terri Addison, Dominique Granger, Cindy Richardson and Susan Ellerbee are a phenomenon unlike any other upon which we've reported. All of them are exceptional, running through advanced coursework fast enough to give outsiders whiplash, but in combination they're astonishing. We caught up with them in their own electrical engineering lab.

[Cut to the interior of a room filled with electrical lab equipment. One wall was covered with whiteboards with the girls sitting in a line of chairs in front of it.]

Lesley: You ladies have certainly attracted attention, both individually and as a group. To get us started, please introduce yourselves.

[The girls look at one another for a moment.]

Cindy: I guess I'll start. I'm Cindy Richards.

Tina: Christina, Tina Addison.

Nikki: Dominique Granger. Nikki.

Susan: Susan Ellerbee.

Terri: Terri Addison - Tina's stepdaughter.

Lesley: You're rather young, Terri, even for this group.

Terri: I'll be nine. Among other things, I'm working on the requirements for high school. I'll be eleven when I graduate. [shrugs] Age is just a number in this respect - the only real criterion is if you can do the work. Cindy was fourteen and Nikki fifteen when they graduated. Tina and Susan were seventeen and eighteen; Susan's really the outlier 'cause she wasn't married when she graduated.

Lesley: Married in high school?

Cindy: Yes. I was fourteen when my husband Dan and I fell in love and got married.

Lesley: At fourteen?

Cindy: Yes. Mom signed over custody of me to the manager of the trailer park. We were prepared to wait until I was sixteen but we convinced a judge how much we loved one another and he did the paperwork and married us. My Dan saved me.

Nikki: My Dan literally saved me. There was a hurricane coming, my mom and her boyfriend were out of town and the neighbors I was supposed to evacuate with couldn't get to me. The apartment building blew down around me and I was trapped. Dan found me the next day and cut me out; I'd have died in there if he hadn't. [shakes her head] He didn't evacuate; his house is just the kind of thing an engineer would build - able to stand up to a hurricane, propane generator for power, hot water, air conditioning. I was fifteen.

Tina: Mom, her boyfriend and I were part of that evacuation and Alan kept me from being beaten up by the boyfriend. I was seventeen.

Cindy: One of the things we have in common is our husbands. They're all really bright guys who want us to do well in school. Nikki and I were just going along trying not to attract attention when our Dans explained a few things and gave us a push. It's almost as if they were teaching us how to ride bikes, running alongside keeping us from falling over. The most wonderful thing is how proud they are of us even though we're farther ahead in stuff like math than they are. [shakes her head] We, Nikki and I, seem to have a special talent for math that makes things other people find difficult easy for us. To extend the analogy, it's as if we've taken off the training wheels and they're applauding and cheering us on.

Nikki: When I'm explaining what I'm working on to my Dan I have to watch out for the EGO effect - E-G-O: eyes glaze over. I'll hit a tricky spot and he'll shake his head a little and say "Okay." That means he didn't quite follow the logic but he'll take my word for it. It doesn't mean he can't follow the logic, just that he'd need to work at it.

Susan: One of the things to note about my sisters and their husbands: almost immediately after they met, the girls ran right through high school and on into advanced placement here at Auburn. You might think of them as poor exploited little girls. Ha! If their husbands are trying to exploit them they're really bad at it. I mean, advanced placement and scholarships to Auburn, loving homes, airplanes, accepting in-laws...

Lesley: Airplanes?

Tina: Oh, yeah. We have a Cessna 182, Cindy and her Dan a Cessna 180 taildragger, Susan and Jason a little Cessna 152 and Nikki and her Dan a Mooney. Everybody who's old enough has at least a student license.

Terri: Annoys Cindy. She knows how to fly but she's too young for a student license. It annoys me too, but I'm too short for the rudder pedals.

[Fade to a shot of an Indian woman walking down a corridor and entering a room]

Lesley Steele VO: Doctor Aneeta Patel is one of the sisterhood's academic advisors.

[Cut to Patel behind a desk]

Lesley: Dr. Patel, you've been involved with the sisterhood from the beginning. What can you tell us about them?

Patel: It started with Cindy - a fourteen year old with astonishing test scores and scarcely-believable recommendations. We didn't believe it until I went to her school, a middle school, to interview her and verify what we'd been told.

Lesley: And it was accurate?

Patel: If anything, their description understated the situation. Her teachers acknowledged that she had mastered everything in the textbooks. She had her own corner of the library where she tutored other students. We invited her here for interviews where the mathematics department, in her words, 'assaulted her with weapons of math instruction.'

[Cut of Lesley smiling]

Patel: Cindy introduced us to Nikki - the same thing except that she was fifteen. The two of them urged us to look for applications from Christina and Susan. With Christina came Terri and the sisterhood was complete.

Lesley: How has the university reacted to the sisterhood?

Patel: I've discussed this with Cindy, Nikki and Terri, since they're the most extreme examples. At first people are skeptical, "There's no way that little girl knows that!" Then comes amusement, "Okay, little girl, explain it to me," then incredulity when she explains, amazement when they realize that she actually knows what she's talking about. Finally there's acceptance and treatment like any other student. Of course, being cute and charming helps.

[fade back to a wide-angle shot of the lab]

Lesley Steele VO: Back at the lab the sisterhood is conducting an experiment.

[The girls clustered around a table of stuff, adjusting and fiddling and calling out technical-sounding things vaguely reminiscent of a rocket launch. The sequence culminates in calls of "Ready" and "Okay" and "Clear" followed by a loud "SNAP."]

[Fade to the girls standing in front of a diagram drawn on a whiteboard.]

Lesley: What was that? It was certainly impressive.

Nikki: Test shot with our railgun. [Points to various boxes on the diagram] Capacitor bank, spark gap trigger, copper rails, chronograph to measure velocity, paper target, bullet trap for the projectile.

Terri: We don't really need the paper target but it's much more satisfying to shoot a hole in something than to just read off the numbers.

So, yeah, I'm not sure exactly how Terri's listed on the university rolls, but she's there. I don't know if she's getting college credit, but hey, when you talk about transcripts, mine's gonna look strange, too.

And if there's a downside to this exposure, it's the stress of having fame on a college campus. Now people stop us and talk. I don't mind that, because I try to be polite, but honestly, sometimes it's an impediment to my schedule.

And with Terri, I'm no longer the youngest. She has accompanied me and Nikki to Mizz Patel's office. Thought people were gonna ask Terri for her autograph.

"I don't know if I wanna be an engineer, Mizz Patel," Terri said.

Okay, when I was thirteen, I KNEW, but I had Dan and he is a major transformation in my life.

Mizz Patel, though, looked at Terri. "Terri, sweet child, You're eight. You have plenty of time to decide what you want to be." Mizz Patel looked at me and Nikki. "And deciding a title for yourself has little to do with the title the world will bestow upon you. Let things happen. And just be the best 'Terri' you can be."

Chapter 32

(Author's note: This is not my fault. One of you readers came up with this transcript and sent it to me. I think it's part of the story.)

[transcript]

Operator 22: Nine one one, what's your emergency?

Caller: There's an armed robbery in progress at the Desai Indian Restaurant at 1148 Walnut, on the corner with Mockingbird Lane.

Operator 22: What's your name, honey? You sound pretty young.

Caller: I'm Terri Addison and I'm nine.

Operator 22: Are you sure it's a robbery? You aren't fooling around?

Caller: This guy came in and pulled out a gun and told Grandma Desai to give ' all the money. I sneaked out the back and came next door to our family's offices. I'm using the landline.

Operator 22: Are you safe there? Are there any adults around?

Caller: My dad and another guy are at the office at the other end of the building and the other two are out on jobs. I'm gonna call Dad next.

Operator 22: Can you describe-

Caller: He's a- about six feet tall. He must weigh about 250 pounds, shaved head, mirror sunglasses, tee shirt and a hoodie, baggy jeans, yellow metal necklace. He is really dark, African-American dark, not Indian-Indian dark like the Desai family.

Operator 22: You said he had a gun?

Caller: He has a dark colored automatic pistol.

Operator 22: Okay, I'm dispatching the police now; you stay on the line and stay inside where you'll be safe.

Caller: Yes, ma'am. Uh, I think there's another guy in a car outside. Maybe a silver Toyota with the big rims. I'm routing the feed from the security cameras to our WiFi so your officers can see what's happening. Our URL is threesigmaengineering.com, that's three s.i.g.m.a. I turned off the password protection for now and shut off access to anything else.

[End transcript]

Alan's turn:

Another day in the office. I was there. Dan 2.0 was there. Dan 1.0 and Cindy were in the apartment after flying back from a meeting in Houston. Jason was at a utility company substation an hour away. The rest of the Sisterhood were on campus.

It was about one o'clock. I'd called the restaurant and asked if they could put me together a little plate of biryani for lunch. My stomach's growling told me it was time to go get it.

"Gone to the Desai's," I told Dan. "You want anything besides that plate lunch?"

"Nope, that's plenty," he said. I thought I heard the back door to the office open as I left. That would likely be Terri. Rachel was at home with a case of the sniffles.

I didn't pay attention to the car idling in the parking lot, even though he wasn't pulled into a slot. Sometimes I guess we just get complacent. When I pushed open the door, it all came apart.

Two things happened at once: My cellphone rang with Terri's ringtone. That wasn't unusual. It usually meant an excited conversation about a new discovery. What was unusual was having a guy swing around and point a gun at me.

"Git ovuh dere wit' da udders, muthfuckah!" Black dude. Maybe my height or a tad shorter. Stockier than me.

He had me. I complied. I kept my hands visible, my mind working a million operations a minute.

He shifted back to Grandma Desai at the cash register. "Bitch! Gimme dah money or I'm onna cap yo' ass!"

Grandma Desai punched the keys to open the register. She started scooping the bills out of the drawer. I watched his eyes. He focused on the money. Agitated. Nervous. Maybe scared.

"Undah de draw! Get dat stuff undah de draw!" give him credit for knowing that the big bills went under the bill and coin insert in the register drawer. I'm thinking, though, that it's lunchtime, and most people pay with plastic, and if he gets three hundred bucks, he's lucky.

Grandma Desai tried to pick up the insert, slipped. It fell back in the drawer.

"Bitch! Doan' be fuckin' wit' me. I'm onna cap yo'ol' ass!"

She got the insert out and he focused on a hundred dollar bill in the drawer. She reached to get it, picked it up, it fluttered out of her grasp, to the floor. He pulled the trigger. Cindy's adopted grandmother and MY friend went down. The others started screaming.

Our center of attention was confused with the noise and was watching those closer to him. I made my move as smoothly as I could when he commanded, "Y'all get yo' ass on de flo'!"

When I hit the floor I had my gun in my hand under me and I was making measurements. Grandma Desai's moans further agitated him and her daughter started to move toward her mother.

I saw his gun starting to move toward that motion. I knew that he was going to shoot her too. My options weren't perfect, but they were the best I had. I rolled off my right hand and brought my little pistol up.

He caught that motion but I was too far away. He had to shift his feet. I was pulling the front sight onto his chest. 'Front sight. Target. Squeeze.' BANG! 'Front sight.' BANG! 'Front sight.' BANG!

He crumpled.

"Call 9-1-1," I yelled. Grandma Desai was still moaning. That meant life.

Our center of attention was lying on the floor in a widening pool of blood, not moving, his head thrown back, mouth open, pupils dilated. No visible movement. I kicked his pistol away.

And heard sirens. And the squeal of tires as that car in the parking lot roared off.

Grandma Desai and her daughter were talking rapidly in a foreign dialect as her son applied a folded napkin to her wound.

"Where's she hit?" I asked.

"Along her neck. It is going to be okay," he said.

Sirens in the parking lot. Flashing lights. The first police officers peered from cover, then the first one burst through the door, gun drawn.

Now I'm nervous again.

"The robber's down. We need an ambulance for Mizz Desai."

"Who shot 'im?"

"That would be me," I said. I had my own hands up in plain view. "That pistol on the counter is mine. The one over there against that table leg is his. He shot Mizz Desai."

By now the second officer was in the restaurant and I saw Dan and Terri looking in the window. Terri had her cellphone at her ear. I can only imagine who she was calling.

"Sir, do you have some ID?"

"Yessir," I said. "You want me to get my own wallet out?"

Two officers with drawn weapons. I darned sure wasn't moving fast.

"Get it."

I retrieved it. Pulled out my drivers' license and my concealed carry permit, both from Louisiana.

He picked the license up. "Mister Addison. You want to tell me what happened?"

"I walked in to get my lunch. The gentleman on the floor had a gun, robbing the place. He shot Mizz Desai. He was getting ready to shoot her daughter. I took a risk that I could stop that."

He looked at the Desai son. "Is that what you saw."

"Alan saved my wife."

A couple of paramedics were pushing a gurney into the dining room. One of them knelt beside Grandma Desai, taking the blood-soaked napkins from her son. Gingerly he raised the corner.

"You're going to be okay, ma'am," he told her. "Let's get you to the hospital." The two of them eased her onto the stretcher.

"Malati," I said.

Mizz Desai's daughter in law turned to me, eyes wet.

"Call us and let us know how she's doing, okay? We want to know ... especially Cindy."

"Can we accompany my mother to the hospital," Arun asked the officers.

"Let me get your identification," the lead officer said.

Arun presented his ID and the officer scribbled madly. "Okay, sir. I hope she's okay."

Arun and Malati and Grandma Desai were gone. That left me, two police officers, and the dead guy.

An unintelligible voice emanated from their portable mics.

"10-4," the first officer said. "This one's deceased. One wounded, on the way to the hospital." More buzzes and screeches. "10-4." He turned to me. "They caught the guy who raced outta here."

"Good," I said. "I though they were here for carry-out."

The officer looked a the corpse on the floor. "Kev, see if there's any ID on that guy."

"Yeah, okay," Kev said. He started donning a pair of rubber gloves.

I took a deep breath. "Officer Canfield..." I heard a voice call "Dad?"

"That's my daughter."

"She's the one that made the 9-1-1 call," Canfield said. "Pretty sure. Dispatch said a real young girl."

"Can I step over there and talk with her?"

"Yeah."

I walked to the door.

"Daddy Daddy Daddy Daddy!" Terri squealed, launching herself around my neck. "You're okay..."

I hugged my daughter. "Yes, I'm okay. How'd you call 9-1-1?"

"I heard loud talking and I looked through the door to the kitchen, an' saw 'im with the gun. I went out through the back door. I went in your office but Mister Dan said you'd just left. I called you." One big rush of words.

"I got your call just as I walked in and the guy pointed a gun at me."

"He's dead, isn't he, Daddy?"

"Yes, he is. He shot Grandma Desai. I thought he was going to shoot Mizz Malati. I couldn't let him do that." I kissed her. "Now go back to the office or to Rachel's until I get finished."

"Yes Daddy."

"Who else did you call?"

"Everybody."

"Okay. Then wait at the office. I might have to go downtown."

"They're not putting you in jail, huh, Dad?"

"I don't think so. Tell Cindy's Dan..."

"He knows. He was talking to somebody on the phone."

"Okay, baby. I need to go to talk to the police officer. I love you."

"'Kay, Dad."

I went back inside. A second crew of paramedics was loading the dead guy onto a stretcher.

"I suppose we end up downtown?" I said to Canfield.

"Mister Addison, I have to ... I'm sorry. Your guy there," he motioned to the corpse going out the door, "is likely the perp for a several convenience store hold-ups. If ... in a sane world, I'd shake your hand and send these people a crew of trusties from the jail to mop up the mess."

"Jack," the other officer said, "there you go again."

"I know," Canfield retorted. "But we are getting ready to take this guy away from his daughter. Rankles me. He's not the criminal."

"It's okay. My wife's coming. Terri can go to the office. Can I step out and talk to that guy?" 'That guy' was Dan 1.0.

"Sure."

Back out the door.

"What'd you do, buddy?"

"Picked an odd time to go for lunch," I said. "Dude was robbin' the place. All nervous. Shot MIzz Desai."

"Cindy's gonna freak," Dan said.

"He was getting ready to shoot Malati. I couldn't let it happen."

"Three shots?"

"Took his chest out. Dropped right there. Could you call your friend? The judge? Just in case?"

"Already did. He says we need to stop shootin' up Alabama."

"Yeah. I can see where that might be the case. Can you watch Terri till..." I heard tired squeal around the corner. "Never mind. Here comes Tina."

I caught a tearful armload of Tina.

"They shot Mizz Desai?"

"She's gonna be okay," I said. "I need to go downtown with these officers."

"They're not arresting you, are they?"

"No. Just routine for this sort of thing."

"I love you, baby. You scare me to death."

I left her with a kiss and rejoined the officers. "Whenever you're ready," I said. And we left. A crime scene crew was still taking pictures.

The station. Formal statements. Questions. "You know," I said, "you should be able to get a good video of the whole thing."

"Video? I didn't see the camera."

"I had a big argument with two girls who were designing that system. I wanted visible, standard cameras. Figured they'd have deterrent value. They wanted the little state of the art imaging equipment. Wide spectrum. High resolution. Goes to a video file on a server."

"We're going to need to get that," Canfield said. The detective sergeant with him nodded.

"Just the file? Or the drive it's on?"

"Both."

"Got it. Lemme make a phone call."

The detective pushed his desk phone at me. I punched up Tina.

"Are you okay, baby?" were the first words out of her mouth.

"I'm fine. I need something. Are Nikki and Cindy there?"

"Right here," she said.

"Put me on speaker. I'm here with a couple of police officers." I punched the speaker button on his phone.

"Hi, Alan,"Nikki said.

"Hi, Nikki. I need you to do something."

"Yessir," she said.

"Go to the video server. Download the video file from about 12:30 to 1:30 onto a USB stick, and then bring the stick and that drive to the station."

"It's a RAID unit."

"Bring one."

"We'll be there in a bit."

"She sounds like a teen," the detective said.

"She is. Sixteen. And one heck of a digital whiz. You didn't hear her partner. I'm betting you'll see the two of 'em in twenty minutes."

"They designed the system?"

"They designed the system." I smiled.

"The 9-1-1 call said something about routing the video to a website?"

"You get Internet on your system here?"

"Yeah."

"Browse to threesigmaengineering.com. Spell out 'three' and s-i-g-m-a. I can get you into it."

He typed on his keyboard. "Wow! Shit!"

"What?" Canfield said.

"Look at this!" He turned the monitor. The screen was split into four views of the restaurant dining room. Showed the crime scene crew working. Two bloody spots. In high-res at a low frame rate, and unusual in inexpensive commercial systems, full color.

"Your two designed THIS?"

"Yep!"

"I've seen systems this good, but never at a commercial restaurant. Wow! If you have that timeframe, then life is good again. What about sound?"

"Only the cashier camera. Directional mike." I paused. "Somebody altered the code. That's usually in a dark corner of the website behind a password. Nikki or Cindy could move it." It dawned on me. Neither one of those would KNOW to do it right now. Leaves one. Terri. "Okay. My daughter. She plays with websites."

"Wait," Canfield said. "That nine year old that was hugging you?!?! Pretty precocious," he said.

"Damn straight," I said. "Proud dad."

We talked for a while, waiting on the girls, heard the commotion when they got into the station. Tina, Cindy and Nikki came though the door into the office.

"Here's the drive," Nikki said, presenting the little hard drive, "And here's the video file." She handed over a USB stick. "It's a standard video file format. You can watch it right now."

"You're sixteen," the detective declared.

"Yessir," Nikki said.

"And you designed this security system?"

"Yessir. Cindy and I did."

Cindy smiled. Raised her hand, doing that little finger wave thing she does when she's trying to act completely disarming. It works.

"How old are YOU?"

"Fifteen. But I was fourteen when we designed this."

"And I was fifteen," Nikki said. "And my husband checked our work."

"Electrical engineer," I said. "We're an electrical engineering house."

"Teen girls aren't supposed to do this stuff."

Cindy smiled sweetly, full pixie mode. "I know. Scary, isn't it?"

"Canfield, I'm gonna need an extra beer after work."

"Apparently you didn't see the paperwork we filed with y'all for their railgun then?"

"Railgun? Like Star Wars shit?"

"It used to be in our lab in that building," Nikki said. "The government bought it and hauled it off."

"Two beers," he said.

Nikki pushed her hand into her pocket. "Here're a couple of quarters. It's our new thing." She handed him a couple of quarters, distorted things resulting from the application of high energy electrical impulses.

Canfield examined the artifact, as did the detective, Winsell. "D'ya give tours?"

"We serve coffee," Cindy said. "Friday mornings are a good time."

"Are you going to look at the video?" I asked.

"D'you mind?" Winsell asked.

"You're the boss," I said. "Tina. Nikki. Cindy, Y'all might not wanna watch this."

"Been there, done that," Cindy said.

Canfield did a double-take. "What?"

"Look in the records for Cynthia Richards. Or Daniel Richards. In Holt County."

"That double shooting at a trailer park last winter..." Winsell said. "That was..."

"My husband. And a couple months before..."

"Guy tried to break into a trailer, got hisself blowed away by a teenaged girl. I read that article. You..."

"Me," Cindy said.

"No joke?" Winsell blurted. "You ... Canfield, this little girl..."

"I know the story," Canfield said. "Never thought I'd meet 'er." He extended his hand. "You're kind of a hero."

Cindy blushed.

"So you won't be grossed out by this video?"

"My adopted grandmother. Grandma Desai. She's okay, but they're keeping her in the hospital. I would like to see what happened."

Winsell loaded the video and clicked quickly to the scene where the robber entered the restaurant, then switched to normal speed. In clear graphics, the events progressed exactly as I'd told them. I saw Cindy sag against Nikki and Tina when the shot hit Grandma Desai. When her daughter-in-law started to her side, the robber obviously started to draw down on her.

Tina watched intently as I rolled and fired. Her hand touched me. "You saved Malati's life."

"He might've saved all their lives," Canfield said. "A lot of those guys, after they shoot the first one, they get crazy. Mister Addison, you pretty well stopped that."

"Look, folks, we're gonna have to keep this drive and your gun, Mister Addison, until we get a read from the district attorney. With this video, though, I'm thinking that we won't have any problem with you getting it all back in a week. I can't imagine a circumstance under which there's gonna be any charges from this."

"We can go?" I asked.

"You can go." He stood up and extended his hand. I shook his, then Canfield's.

"Sorry we had to meet under these circumstances," I said. The girls nodded.

As we were leaving, Cindy tossed back over her shoulder, "Friday morning. Call. We'll have coffee brewing."

It was when I finally sat in Tina's car that the adrenaline rush died. I sagged into the seat, shaking.

"Are you okay, baby?" Tina asked.

"Yeah, sweetness. Just getting over the rush."

Cindy's hand was on my shoulder. "Alan, you did good. We all saw it. If you hadn't done what you did, our friends could be dead now. MY grandmother."

When we got back to the office, everybody was there, our bunch, anyway, including Rachel and Beck and Sim. I'm sorry. People weren't exactly what I needed at the time, but I put on my big boy pants and soldiered on. I recounted the story, narrated the video.

Nikki giggled. "I gave 'em one unit of the RAID drive. The other one's already rebuilt on the spare."

Finally, Tina and Terri dragged me to the house. Terri pushed me back into my chair and took my shoes off. Tina brought me a cold drink and I pulled her onto one leg and Terri onto the other.

"Terri's the hero here," I told Tina. "She called 9-1-1 first."

"Daddy," she said in her 'little girl' voice, "you saved our friends' lives."

"I live with two heroes," Tina said.

"Has anyone got an update on Grandma Desai?" I asked.

"Cindy and Dan were heading to the hospital when we came over here," Tina replied.

That night, Terri in her bed, Tina told me, "Baby, it's just scary. Ordinary day. I went to school like every other day. And I could've lost both you and Terri, just like that."

"But you didn't," I said. "I still have the two of you." I thought about the car idling in the parking lot. "I should've noticed that."

"You did notice, baby. Just nothing you saw that pointed out anything much out of the ordinary. And if you had, what were you going to do? Go in there like John Wayne?" She was on a roll. "NO, if you'd seen what was going on, you probably would've backed up, called 9-11 yourself, and that guy would've shot everybody in the place. If this was a freaky day, it was freaky in the most advantageous way."

"Except for that guy."

"He made his choice."

"Yes he did."

"And Grandma Desai's okay. Cindy's relieved."

"We all are," I said. "Wow."

Friday did come, and a patrol car pulled up in front of our offices, followed by an SUV. Winsell and Canfield got out and came in. We shook hands and I introduced them to both Dans and Jason, and called the girls.

I can see where that just might be too much. I mean, Tina, Cindy, Susan and Nikki, that's a lot of cute to absorb, and when they went into the lab and saw equipment that must seem incomprehensible to the layman, that's a lot. Then the gang put a quarter on the platen, lowered the safety shield, handed out safety goggles, and we watched the voltage display climb as the capacitor bank charged.

The loud BLAP! is startling even when you expect it. The two officers jumped more than the rest of us. Securing the safeties, Tina picked up the quarter with a pair of tongs, dropped it into a cup of water, where it sizzled for a few seconds.

"Show 'em the video of our final railgun shot," Dan said.

Nikki pulled it up on the monitor. "Thirty-eight hundred feet per second. We were afraid we'd blow out the back of a fifty-caliber rated bullet trap. I think would could've gotten over forty-five hundred."

Unfortunately the video didn't capture the excitement the crew experienced. I was impressed. So, apparently, was Doctor Embert.

"You're kidding, right?" Winsell said.

"I'm not. I have a file full of letters from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms people and one from the chief of police. Your chief of police. I don't think he believes us."

"And we can't see it now?"

"Nope. It's part of a classified government research project now. I may be committing a crime by showing you this video."

"These girls? They did this?"

"Nikki and Cindy are the R&D leads. Susan is fabrication and physical design. Tina is component integration."

Canfield scratched his head. "Way over my head," he said. "Just damn!"

"By the way," Winsell said, "I have your pistol and your hard drive in my car. The DA said he's not doing any charges." He smirked. "After seein' that video, he should be givin' you a medal."

"Thanks," I said.

"No, thank YOU," Winsell said. "The guy in the car? He talked. They were the ones that have been hitting a couple or three convenience stores a week for the last few months, anything within an hour's drive. He's gonna go to trial and that solves most of those cases. And the other one's already in a little plastic box. We couldn't find a next of kin and nobody stepped up to claim the final expenses."

"Glad I could help."

"And Missus Desai, she's home?" he asked.

"Yes," I said. "Cindy's her adopted grand-daughter. Keeps close touch. I think Grandma Desai's going to be back at the restaurant this weekend. They're re-opening."

"Neatly tied up, then," Canfield said.

"I think so. I guess that's good for you people, too, huh?"

He smiled. "Yeah it is. Wish it was always this neat."

"Seldom is," Winsell said. "I hate to go, but we gotta go protect and serve."

I stood to shake hands.

"You're leaving?" Nikki said.

"Gotta go to work," Winsell said.

"Stop by any time for coffee. We're glad to have you," I said. "Seriously."

"We'll do that, folks," he said as he left.

"That was interesting," Nikki said.

"Yes it was," I said. "It's been a rough week. Cindy's helping her grandma?"

"Uh-huh," Nikki said. "They're taking her big bandage off today. Cindy's really worried. You know she's serious about the people she loves."

"Yeah. I know."

Tina stepped in. "We all are, baby." She hugged me as Nikki smiled.

"Whatta week!"

Chapter 33

Alan's Turn:

One might imagine that in the aftermath of the restaurant robbery, things might be in a turmoil. To a certain extent, one would be right. I'm fortunate. I have immediate family, my Tina and my Terri. I have my full family, and Tina made sure that she talked with my sister about the incident. And I have the Community.

"You gonna be okay, buddy?" Dan 1.0 asked.

"Yeah. Am I supposed to be all weepy or something?"

He shook his head. "Not like you had any choices."

"You didn't either, did you?" I asked him, remembering the story of him and Cindy.

"I didn't start the fight," Dan said. "Neither did you."

Dan 2.0 rolled his chair into the middle of the office. "I saw the video. You made the right move. If you'd've hesitated, I think Malati would be dead or in the hospital."

We'd all seen the video.

Things went back to normal. The restaurant was shut down for a good cleaning. We had a few people drive through the parking lot, probably out of curiosity.

Dan 1.0 and Cindy were excited about flying back down to Houston and bringing a new couple back.

"Music. They do music. And he's an electrical engineer. The work I'm doing for that bunch in Houston? He was the principal engineer. Got in a car wreck. The company won't let him back to work until Christmas, while he recuperates. Look!"

He produced his phone and pulled up pictures. Cindy and another redhead, taller, hair a brighter red. And blue eyes. Then another of the same redhead with a guy, looked younger than me, and he had a noticeable scar on his face.

"They're staying in our guest room. We'll bring 'em in on Friday, fly 'em back on Monday."

My wheels started spinning. I knew the scope of the job that Dan 1.0 had picked up. It was pretty stout stuff. An affiliated engineer in Houston might be a good thing. Oh, well, he's already working. Of course I didn't know an electrical engineer who was worth a damn who wasn't, unless he refused to move to where the jobs were.

"He's sharp," Dan said. "With excellent tastes in music and women."

"Well, buddy," I said, "if you wanna bring him here then he probably will at least be interesting to talk with."

"And her," Dan said. "You don't know the half of it."

I laughed. "Yeah, we do know about that other half, don't we?"

And while we were talking we didn't know what sort of twists were taking place in our happy community.

(Author's note: The following is another bit of writing by one of my readers. I think it's a great twist.)

Ann Hardesty's turn:

Jim had to attend a middle school counseling conference not too far away, so we decided to take a few days extra to enjoy ourselves while we were down there. The drive wasn't bad, but it would have been nicer with the plane that Jim has been drooling over. I think this trip might put him over the top. (He's been talking about it, and frankly, I'm kind of encouraging him.)

The kids were happy to stay with their cousins, so we headed south toward the Texas Gulf Coast, with five days ahead of us to relax and enjoy the beach and other sights. Yes, we packed Jim's suit, and a couple of my "go to concert" dresses, so we'd be able to enjoy some big city culture while we were there. The local university was actually my alma mater. I knew they still had an excellent music program, so we hoped to get to attend a concert while we were there.

Jim asked why I'd packed our instruments, his guitar and my violin, and I told him I thought we wouldn't spend all our time running around, but might have time to practice a bit, and that always unwinds us from whatever tension we'd run into on any given day. Since Cindy and Dan had moved to Auburn we had kept in contact, and we were looking forward to our next concert on Judge Charlie's birthday. That old guy had really started something when he got Cindy and Dan together, and they've touched so many lives since then.

I know Jim and I wouldn't have gotten nearly as deep back into the music without them, and I'm even getting back into the classical scene. That little redhead sure knows how to stir things up, in a good way, and we love and miss the both of them.

Jim's turn:

I'm really not too keen on the big city. I only agreed to come down here because the committee on "special" student curricula had heard about how our efforts with Cindy had paid off, and they wanted to know how I'd come up with the idea in the first place.

After all, "special students" were traditionally the slower ones, maybe with learning disabilities, or with behavioral issues. None of these things applied to Cindy, so I don't really know what triggered it. All I can say is I saw something special there and I didn't want to see another possibly good student get plowed under and wasted by the system. Then the "possibly good" turned into absolutely phenomenal! And here we are. I even had to write a paper on it, (thank God Ann minored in English) and that led to this trip.

I'd been so wrapped up in making sure I have all my state reg compliances in order that I hadn't paid as much attention to what Ann was planning for us to do when we got here, and when I saw she had packed our instruments I just said "Okay, we've got the room in the van, so why not?"

So, here we are, the conference is over, and we've got four more days here to simply relax and enjoy ourselves. And I've got the perfect mate to do that with. Did I tell you how much I love this woman? She's even helping me do the pros and cons on buying the plane I've been looking at, and she's coming up with even more pros than I am! See what you've got me into, Dan?!?

Ann scored a couple of tickets for tonight, to a local university orchestral concert, and we're getting ready now. I'm glad we started early, because she's still so gorgeous that I can't keep my eyes off her, or my hands, especially in the shower! Gotta stay focused! God, I love this woman! "I love you, woman!"

"Mmmmm - I love you too, big guy, but you're gonna have to hold that thought! You wanted to get there early to get a good seat, and now we won't have time to stop for dinner before we go!" Ann was smiling, "As much as you know I'd like to just stay here, we did come down for some cultural enrichment too!"

"I'll culturally enrich you later, ma'am, if that's what you want," I said, "but you're right - we'll have to catch a late supper after the concert."

We did make it to the concert in time to get very nice seats, but we were a little disappointed that the crowd didn't seem to be as big as we had thought it would be for a fair-sized university production. I guess the public is getting too apathetic about good music, and seems to be stuck on the crap - excuse my bias, I'm married to a concert fiddle, whoops!, VIOLIN player - anyway, yes, the crap they hear on the local radio station, not to mention the internet.

I'm just thankful our kids have taken an interest in making their own music. Bill is 'teaching himself" the guitar, and doing quite well at it, and Theresa has started voice lessons with a lady from our church. She's overcoming her shyness too - Cindy had a lot to do with that, when she dragged out Teresa into singing duets with her in our little Bluegrass group.

So we're sitting here, thoroughly enjoying this concert, when right at the end of the program the conductor says they have a surprise - one final selection, not on the program, will be the Mozart Concerto for Flute and Harp.

They rearranged the chairs a little in front, and this cute redheaded girl carrying a flute came down out of the woodwind section and sat in the one chair. The other chair remained empty, and she just sat there smiling. Reminded me of Cindy a little, with that red hair, and you could see those freckles plain as day. She was smiling and looking pleased as all get out.

The conductor continued: "But I'm sure you may be wondering right now how we can do that, as it's plain to see we're short one essential instrument for that - yes, the harp is not here. We've got one on order, but it hasn't shown up yet, so we've had to make use of another stringed instrument."

Then he looked off to the side of the stage and said "Mister Jackson, bring out our harp substitute!" And out comes this tall, good-looking guy, walking with a noticeable limp. He looked a little beat up, check that, a lot beat up, with a nervous smile a mile wide on his face, twisted a little around a noticeable scar. But nobody is looking at that right now - we're staring at what he's carrying - a banjo. A banjo! Just like the one I play in our bluegrass concerts.

I'm thinking we've walked in on a taping of a Hee-Haw reunion, but the conductor continued: "No, this isn't 'Honey, I Shrunk the Harp," and that comment got a rather nervous chuckle from the audience. Then I saw a look go back and forth between the little redhead and this guy. I nudged Ann, and she whispered that yes, she had seen it too - there was something special between these two. Then the conductor continued, "Our solo performers for this piece are our lead flautist Johanna Jackson and her husband Randall, known to us as Stoney.

Stoney is not a student. He's an engineer. We shanghaied Stoney after hearing what the two of them have done with this piece. I think you'll be pleased with it, and I'm sure Mister Mozart would approve as well!" This got another tentative chuckle from the audience, and we all settled to hear what these two had to offer.

"By the way," the conductor continued, "you may remember our Veterans' Day concert earlier this year, when Johanna played the piccolo solo on 'Stars and Stripes Forever' -- Stoney was there in part, as it was his uniform jacket she was wearing. We're proud of our real hero, returned from defending our country." That brought a real murmur from the audience.

"And now we present him and his beautiful wife in a special version of the third movement of this lovely Mozart work."

Dead silence. The audience was eagerly leaning forward to hear what these two had to offer. Jo stood. Stoney remained seated. He looked up at her and there was 'that look' between them again, as the orchestra sounded those first three chords.

Ann's turn:

I won't try to describe what it was that I heard then, because there was a fusion then of what we were seeing with what we were hearing. These two were obviously so much in love that we felt we were almost intruding on a very private moment between them.

Stoney's first apparent nervousness had disappeared, and it looked as if he had totally forgotten that we were even there. The two of them were actually communicating their beautiful love for one another with their instruments, and were almost totally oblivious to anyone watching them as the music switched back and forth between one instrument to the other and then the duets together. When the orchestra picked up and they rested, I caught the smiles between them.

I know Jim was feeling the same things I felt, because I glanced over at him and saw a tear rolling down the cheek of my big, strong Marine, matching the one on mine. This was magic!

Jim, again:

What hit me? I have never been so moved by a musical piece as I was by that performance. Ann was crying, I had tears in my own eyes, and I doubt anyone in the house was dry-eyed, including the rest of the orchestra.

They played on, never looking at their music stands, both of them totally absorbed in 'that look'. He played those beautiful arpeggios up and down the neck of his banjo - a banjo!

And she responded perfectly on her flute, never taking their eyes off one another. They finished the selection, and there was dead silence for a few seconds, then, pardon my French, all hell broke loose!

The audience erupted into a standing ovation, Stoney started blushing, and Jo wrapped her arms around him, and I almost envied him for the kiss he got. Together they stood and bowed deeply to the audience, followed by a bow from the entire orchestra.

At the end, a very pretty black girl from the woodwind section just about vaulted over everyone to get to the two of them and wrapped her arms around them and hugged them just as tight as she could, and I saw she was crying too.

It was several minutes before the conductor was able to regain the sound system and thank us all for coming, and say that he hoped we had enjoyed the program, and we were all invited to a reception in the student hall across the courtyard from the auditorium.

Ann said over the tumult, "I know we'd planned to head right out for a late dinner, but I've GOT to stay for this and try to meet these two!"

I grinned at her and said "How did I know you were gonna say that! Let's head on over and get in line - I think it's gonna be a late night."

"That's okay," she said, "I just know it'll be worth it. There's no way I'm not gonna let these kids know how much they affected us."

We made our way to the reception area, and the receiving line to see Stoney and Jo was way longer than the food line, so my Marine mentality took over and we got some plates full of some very nice snacky stuff, and glasses of a passable punch.

By the time we finished munching, the line to see the orchestra members, especially the two stars of the evening, had dwindled a little, so we made our way over to where they were standing. That cute black girl was first, though, and Ann hugged her and thanked her for an enjoyable performance.

"Yes, ma'am, you're certainly welcome. I saw you out there and saw the way you looked at our two lovebirds when they started playing, and I hoped you'd make it back here to meet them. I'm Keisha, by the way," she grinned, "Jo's sister, and Stoney's my favorite white boy. I just love those two." She looked at me, grinned, and said "Adopted, of course," and we all broke out laughing.

"Playing with the audience's minds again, Key?" Jo came over and put her arm around Key and said "Don't let her get the best of you, folks, she's part sister, part bodyguard, and Stoney and I both are madly in love with her - and with Hutch, her fiancée.

She turned to Stoney and said "Honey, I think we need to get out of here and get something to eat before you starve! Doc said you need to keep up your strength, remember."

The young man came over and put his arms around his wife, and looked up at me, and something clicked in both our minds. Even though we'd never met, that unspoken bond was there, except that I knew he'd been through more hell than I ever had. I looked at Ann for confirmation, got it, and turned to Stoney and said "We'd be proud to have you two accompany us for a late dinner, if you could stand an old Marine pilot and a music teacher."

He looked at Jo and said "Let's do it!" She got one of those mile wide smiles on her face and just nodded.

Ann turned to Key with a grin, and said "And since you're obviously family, you're invited too!"

Key rolled her eyes, smiled mischievously, and said to Jo, "I hang around with you two and I'm gonna change my opinion of white folks. I like these two already! Lets go!"

We followed them to a very nice, quiet little Italian place, where they were evidently well known, as the three all received hugs, and were asked how the program went.

Key said "It went so great that two of our biggest fans came all the way down from Alabama (very observant, she was, to note our license plates) just to take us to dinner!"

The proprietor looked at us and smiled, and said "Welcome! Any friend of these three is entitled to the best service we have, and a complimentary bottle of our best cheap red wine to boot." I liked this guy right away, and after a firm handshake, we were seated at a nice corner table.

"That was the bes..."
"So what brings you..."

We laughed and started again - "You first," giggled Key, "I think I was gonna love what you were starting to say!"

Ann finally controlled her own giggles, put on her teacher face, and said "I was going to say that was the best concert we've been to - ever! It was all good, but where in the world did you come up with the idea of marrying the banjo to the flute for that Mozart movement?"

"Well," said Jo, "we were on Stoney's boat,"

"Our boat, punkin," he said, "Our boat, remember?" He smiled at me and said "She still calls it mine, but everything I've got has been hers for ever since I fell in love with her and married her."

She elbowed him and said "Anyway, we were on our boat, and we were talking about music. This was before I had convinced him that we should be talking about us."

Stoney grinned, and said "I had a thing for Key at first, but,,, "

Both girls punched him, and made us again aware of the real feelings between the three of them. "Like I said - anyway we were talking about music - this was after he had decked the trumpet player."

"Wait, wait," Ann protested, laughing, "This is getting a little hard to follow already. 'Decked the trumpet player?'"

"Long story," said Key, (Stoney was just shaking his head), "just go with it."

By this time Jo was really into it. "Yep, defended my honor, he did," she reached up and caressed his cheek, "And I decided right about then that any honor I had was all his. But anyway, he brought out this banjo, and I had my flute, and he asked me to play the Beethoven phrase I had played when he was setting up his new system for recording our orchestra. I did that one, then he played some, and I guess we've been playing together ever since -- Music! I mean music!" She was blushing so much her freckles looked on fire.

"Yep," said Key, "we could tell she got it bad right off!"

By this time Ann and I both had tears rolling down our cheeks from laughing so hard. "I think we've got another Dan and Cindy on our hands," she said, and I just nodded, still laughing. Ann saw the question in their eyes, "They're another young couple who play with us in our little bluegrass group. He's an engineer, and she's a little redhead with freckles and a quick sense of humor, who keeps us in stitches most of the time."

"W, w, w, wait," said Stoney, "Dan and Cindy? An engineer and a young redhead?"

"Yep," I said, "Show 'em the picture on your phone, honey." I turned back to Stoney, "You won't believe this, but she's a ringer for Jo, and she sings really well. Youngest one I ever saw graduate from high school, and now she's a fifteen year old engineering student..."

Jo finished my sentence for me, "At Auburn, I'll bet! You're talking about Dan and Cindy Richards! We met them a few weeks ago and you're right, she blew us away!"

"How,,, how..." I stammered.

"Dan's engineering firm took over a project for Stoney after he'd been seriously injured in a car accident. He came down here to touch base with Stoney, and Cindy came with him. We ended up just like now - sitting around that table right over there - talked for hours! She's scary smart!"

"And almost as sweet as my Jo," put in Stoney.

"Way to gain points, there, white boy!" laughed Key. "So y'all are friends with those two?"

"Jim was Cindy's guidance counselor in middle school," put in Ann, "and I'm a music teacher there. We both watched the change in her after Dan took her under his wing, but them getting married took us all completely by surprise!"

"Yeah," I said, "One of my fourteen year old students showing up married, and to a forty year old engineer, no less! Cost me a few nights' sleep, I'll tell ya!"

"But it's all good," said Ann, "there's no way those two belong anywhere but together!"

"Well, they're coming down here next weekend to fly us back to their place in Auburn," said Jo, "Stoney was going stir crazy here with nothing to do 'cause the doc wouldn't let him go back to work until after Christmas. So he called Dan to check in on the project they're doing, and Cindy suggested they fly down and get us."

"Sounds like Cindy," I said, "Like I said, she's the most mature fourteen-year-old I ever met. Well, actually she's fifteen now."

Stoney spoke up "Key? How about taking a picture of us four together, so we can mess with their minds when they come down for us?" So we did. Then we got the waiter to take a picture of all of us, including Jo's adopted sister.

The rest of the dinner went just about like that, and when we finally got back to our hotel, Ann asked "Didn't somebody say something about ripples? Seems they were right about Cindy and Dan - they've started some ripples that I'm beginning to believe we'll never see an end to!"

Chapter 34

Cindy's turn:

Riot weekend! We flew to Houston and collected an engineer and a flute-player. Okay, I said 'flautist' but Johanna said very few people still use that term. We flew? I flew. Dan handled communications with air traffic control once we entered the Houston traffic control area and fed me altitude and course data. I paid attention to ALL of that while we both watched for traffic. This is the most intense flying I've done, threading our way between TWO major airports, Hobby on the south side of the city and Bush on the north.

We landed and met Jo and Stoney, did the obligatory pit stop stuff, and then loaded up for the flight back. I sat in the back seat with Jo, mainly because I wanted to sit by my new friend, but also because I wanted to give Stoney some wiggle room for his leg. This was Jo's first flight in a light plane. Stoney said he'd been in Army helicopters before, so crossing the countryside at six or seven thousand feet isn't that big a deal to him, but Jo was happily amazed at the view. I'm exactly the opposite. I've never been in a commercial plane, just our Cessna.

We had a good trip.

I have to explain that I saw in Jo and Stoney a confident, poised couple, otherwise we wouldn't have dumped them right into the middle of the full community.

Made 'em play for their meal, too. Jo makes me jealous. That silver flute just seems to fit her, and when she plays, oh, gosh, I'm supposed to have a vocabulary, but words fail me. Comparison? Closest I can come is Mizz Ann with her violin when she's feeling classical. And I appreciate my Dan's guitar skills and Mister Jim's banjo skills, but honestly, Stoney is an order of magnitude above them. I asked him about that. He just pointed to Jo. "I'll never catch up, but I have to try. She makes me want to do it."

And when I heard Mizz Ann describe the performance where she'd seen Stoney and Jo in front of the university chamber orchestra, I was just a bit incredulous, but we're talking about Mizz Ann, whom I've sat beside at a concert or two in the past, and if she said it was memorable, then it must be. After all, I'd seen Jo and Stoney and Dan jamming in the apartment that one night. I can only imagine them with a real orchestra backing them up.

So we got the whole Auburn gang: Me and my Dan, Nikki and her Dan, Alan and Tina and Terri. Jo called her 'Terri-dactyl'. That's liable to stick. Susan and Jason. And Beck and Sim and Rachel.

I didn't know that Sim played violin. Yes, he does. Quite well, actually. "This bunch is making him come out of his shell," Beck intimated to me. "And that's not a bad thing at all."

I guess seeing so many people playing, making music, he just gave in and brought out his violin. I need to learn a few secrets about musical instruments and things, because they seem to have a way of applying parameters that make music work. I just know there's structure there. I need to look into it.

And today we're going to breakfast, me and Dan, Jo and Stoney, Nikki and Dan 2.0. The others had their own plans this morning. After breakfast we toured the university campus, like I'm some sort of expert. I was able to identify some of the buildings, as in "that's where they tortured me with math..."

Stoney turned back towards me and Jo. "Baby, what Cindy's talking about doing in a couple of days had me losing sleep for months."

"Scares me," Jo said, smiling at me. "I can't imagine."

"You play the flute like an angel," I said. "I'm just as envious of that."

"Cindy, I've been playing the flute since I was nine. I'd better be good at it."

"And Cindy got serious about math just over a year ago," Dan said.

I smiled when I remembered Dan being so patient with me. "Don't learn the problem, learn the principle. Then you're master of ALL the problems." I quivered just a little, thinking of the times I turned to look into his eyes when he was sitting there beside me talking, before we'd even decided we were supposed to be together. And after that night, when he was studying with me, and those eyes weren't about sex and lust, just my guy being himself. "Yes, I got serious once I had somebody in my life who told me it was good to be serious about school."

"Both my parents are college grads," Jo told me. "Well, Dad was West Point, but that counts."

"I wonder what it would have been like to have a normal family," I whispered to her.

"You probably wouldn't have him, sweetie," Jo whispered back. "Look what you DO have, not what might've been."

I smiled. Seems I've had this conversation before. Susan told me the same thing. And I'd related that conversation to Dan. "Inside that pretty and absolutely astonishing head of yours, baby, there's still a scared little girl who worries about the world she faces."

"I know," I told him.

"I'll be at your side, the whole way, cutie," he'd said.

I shook my head sideways, bringing my mind back to the present. My cellphone ringing jolted me all the way back. I looked at the display as I brought it to my ear. "Mizz Ann," I said. "How far out are y'all?"

"Twenty minutes," she said.

"Hurry! We can't wait! We're lovin' it. You should've heard last night."

"I bet," she said. "Jo plays like an angel. And Stoney..."

"We have a new violinist, too," I said.

"Who plays violin?"

"Mister Sim. We didn't know. He's a sleeper. But he's pretty good. We made 'im change gears pretty hard last night. Bluegrass to classical to Celtic."

"Oh, goodness," Ann said. "If that didn't scare him off, then he's okay."

"Well hurry," I said. "It's gonna be a riot!"

"Ann and Jim?" Jo asked.

"Uh-huh. Mizz Ann. They're twenty minutes out."

"How far are we?" Jo asked.

"Oh, maybe five..." I said.

Jo was smiling. "I love making music with people like we did last night," she said. It's like a music geek's dream."

"I never imagined anything like that happening," Stoney entered.

"You know," I countered, "I've had some déjà vu moments with music. It's another 'Dan's fault' thing."

"She showed me that she had a voice and liked singing. We got lucky and found people who'd join us. Now she's sung in public in three states," Dan proudly stated. What Dan doesn't say is that he was right there on the stage beside me for every one of those.

Jo leaned over and whispered, "He adores you, doesn't he?"

I giggled. "Two-way street. You and Stoney?"

"You betcha," she said. "Life is good."

It kept being good as we pulled into our parking slot at the apartment. Five minutes later we were walking across the lot to the back door of the lab. Jo, Stoney and Dan were carrying musical instruments. I had a milk-crate full of sheet music. When we got there, Terri was holding the door open to let us in.

"Hi, Terri-dactyl," Jo said to her, brightening Terri's already dazzling smile.

"Hi, Jo! I'm excited," she said.

Rachel was looking over Terri's shoulder. "Dad will be here in a little bit. He's bringing his violin."

It sounded exciting. The Hardesty SUV pulled up in the front parking lot and we met them at the door, the guys shaking hands and clapping each other on the back, the rest of us hugging and laughing.

Teresa looks noticeably more grown up. It's amazing to note that I'd last seen her live a couple of months ago, but she was definitely beginning to fill out in the ways that made Mizz Ann so pretty.

"Look at all the redheads!" Mister Jim said. "Hi, Cindy! Hi, Jo!"

Jo smiled broadly. "The rest of them will be here in a bit," I said.

"What're we looking at?" Mister Jim asked. "Instruments?"

"Two violins, two banjos, a flute and a guitar," I replied. I glanced at Teresa, caught her smile. "Two singers, one of whom is receiving voice training."

Teresa smiled demurely. She was happily moving along with her voice training, coming forth from the school chorus and the church choir to work with a voice coach.

I looked at Billy. "Did you bring your bass?"

He nodded. "But I really feel outclassed sometimes. I mean, Mom's a concert violinist."

"And you're a pretty good bass player. Are you having fun doing it?" I asked him.

"Uh-huh, but still..."

"It's supposed to be fun, Billy," Jo said. "Work sometimes, but fun, too."

I hadn't imagined Billy to be bashful, but I guess, Jo, pretty as she is, talking directly to him, he got tongue-tied. He's a little too old to hide behind Mizz Ann, so he stood there bravely and accepted the compliment. I saw Mizz Ann smile, so I know she saw what was going on.

"Ann," Jo said. "I have been looking forward to this."

"Don't get your hopes up too high," Mizz Ann said. "You're active. Me? Not so much."

Mister Jim shook his head. "Jo, she's been practicing quite a bit on her classical works. Limbering up."

We scooted chairs around and arranged tables and music stands (courtesy of a thrift store scavenging trip). First up was Stoney and Mister Jim, two banjos. I was trying to imagine how that would work out. I've seen both of them play. Truthfully, Stoney had an edge in my mind, because I've seen him play together with Jo, running that flute and harp piece, as well as some Celtic things and even a bit of bluegrass. I'd only seen Mister Jim playing with Mizz Ann and Dan and various people who'd played with us after our concerts back in the park.

I imagined two guys who were comfortable with their skills and that's what I got out of two banjos. Dan joining in with his guitar and Mizz Ann with her violin, and bluegrass erupted. With a flute.

Being good Baptists, Mizz Ann and Mister Jim had quite a repertoire of bluegrass hymns. I know. Teresa and I'd sang the list when we did that Dinner on the Grounds back before we moved up here to Auburn. I noted that Jo fit right in.

"You know all these?" I asked her.

"I know a lot of 'em. And what I don't know, I just watch Stoney's fingers. I know what chord he plays, then I know what notes I can play." She says it like "What else could it be?"

I'm like that with much of my engineering coursework, so I can easily see how she might be there with music. I heard the back door open and then the sound of Rachel zipping in, looking for Terri. That meant that Beck and Sim were here.

Dan introduced Sim and Rachel to Ann and Jim and Teresa and Billy. Sim was carrying his violin.

"You're not going to scare me to death, are you?" he asked Ann.

Ann's got that smile, you know, the one she uses for her students. "It'll be fun," she said. "Have you played with this bunch much?"

"No, but I've listened to them. Yesterday Beck elbowed me for the last time."

"Interesting, isn't it," Ann replied.

"Playing with them, it certainly is."

"Whaddaya think of bluegrass?" Jim asked him. "I understand you're from up north."

"Oh, indeed," Sim said. "Actually we're from a Jewish community. Bluegrass isn't too much of a surprise. I mean, we had klezmer."

Ann placed her violin under her chin, the bow landed, and soaring, alien, joyous strains flowed out. She smiled.

Beck said, "Sim, she KNOWS!"

"Yes, I think I know some things," Ann said. "My instructor in college conservatory was an elderly Jewish man. I asked. He showed me. Beautiful."

We played, we sang, we laughed.

Teresa started one of the simple hymns we used to sing. Ann looked at Beck.

Beck caught the questioning look. "Oh, Ann, don't worry. We've heard as many Christian hymns as you can imagine. You're certainly not offending us."

"Didn't want to, Beck," Ann countered.

"Let somebody else be all sensitive. You be you and we'll be us, and nobody bursts into flames or anything." Beck's got a sense of humor and she's a good person. "We eat at the Desai's all the time. Have you been in an Indian restaurant? Real Indian?"

Ann smiled. "Oh, yes..."

"Ganesha?" I interjected.

"Yes, indeed."

"Very multi-culti, we are," I said.

"Oh, certainly," Sim joined in. "College town. It's difficult to be very insular around here."

"Oh, I know some of that. Try being the wife of a Marine aviator living in Italy. All the Italian I knew came from the sheet music I played," Ann laughed. "And a good Baptist girl in a country where you run into statues of saints and virgins and crucifixes at every turn."

So in the middle and around the edges of the music we had all these side conversations going. Beck and Ann over motherhood, Sim and Jim over sociology and academia, those were two I caught bits of.

"You're not supposed to be listening, Cindy," Sim said. "We're talking about you."

"Then you need to talk about Nikki too," I giggled. "She's just as bad."

Stoney and Nikki and I went into the back section of the lab so we could show him our energy experiment. "Not much of an experiment," Nikki said. "More of a 'can we make one of these without having a drawing'."

"I'm impressed," Stoney said. "Nikki, tell me what you guys did for data acquisition?" That's when we found out that Stoney had done some pretty interesting things with computer data acquisition.

"I'll send you some files from our development. Fast data acquisition. Digital signal processing. Time coordination. Audio and video files."

"Bits are bits," Nikki avowed.

Stoney grinned. "Yeah. Bits are bits. We time-stamp, then we can slide files side by side to synchronize. In the old days, they had to cue tape to do that."

Okay, this is interesting stuff. Nikki and I have been playing with that whole 'data' thing a bit, from mundane stuff like networking controllers so that we could access a process control system via the Internet. Said this to Stoney and his ear perked up.

"Security," he said. "That's a big topic in industry right now."

Nikki jumped in. "We put ours behind a standard password-protected firewall."

"You know that's not enough for serious protection, right?" Stoney said.

I was nodding. Nikki replied, "We're working on some things. It's getting pretty deep. Did some looking at a network for a utility company. Found enough holes in it to drive a tank through."

Jo slid beside him and looked at me and Nikki. "What have you two done to perk my hubby up like this?" she asked. Her hand touched his shoulder. I know that touch. Possession. 'He's MINE.'

Stoney knew, too. His hand reached up to cover hers and give it a little squeeze, the proper response to a bit of tactile communication. "Network security, redhead," he smiled. "We're talking about securing digital control networks from outside attack."

"Oh, crap," Jo said. She giggled. "Please don't make me have to learn this stuff to stay ahead of you two."

"I'll teach you digital communications security if you'll teach me the flute."

"Oh, go on," Jo smiled. "I heard you sing. You need a musical instrument like a fish needs a bicycle."

"What about ME?" Nikki said.

"Cindy, what's that triangle thing in a Cajun band?"

"Honey," I hollered at Dan, "I got a music question."

Dan left his conversation and came over. "A music question?"

"Yeah," I said. "When you were playing with that Cajun band, what's that little triangle thing called? You know, the drummer had one."

"Tee fer," he answered. "Cajun French for 'little iron'. 'Petite fer'. Spelled F-E-R, pronounced 'fair'. Why?"

"Nikki wants to play a musical instrument."

"Awww, hon," Dan said, lapsing into a Cajun accent that's not buried too deep. "'Ey, Dan!" he hollered.

Dan 2.0 broke away from another sidebar conversation. When he got to where we were sitting his hand just naturally brushed Nikki's dark, shiny hair. "What's up?"

"Nikki needs a tee-fer."

Dan 2.0 smiled. "It was only a matter of time. We have one back in Louisiana."

"Where?" Nikki asked. "I never saw it."

"Top shelf of the closet in the office. Right next to a Cajun accordion."

Nikki's face changed through several expressions, ending in a smile. "I just found out something about my husband that I didn't know." She turned her face to his. "You never said anything."

"It was a phase, a long time ago. I toyed with it, me and a couple of other guys. Just sort of fell back from it."

"Don't you sort of get the itch, baby?" Nikki asked him.

"Oh, gosh, sweetness," he answered. "We have so much going on that I didn't see the need for a hobby."

"You..." she said. "You never struck me as the guy to be on the sidelines for these things."

"I'm not. I've been getting an itch. Next trip home..."

Nikki smiled. "Next weekend. Quick trip. I'll make the arrangements."

I can't help but smile. Nikki's like me, in her marriage she's the catalyst. You know, there's just GOT to be a reaction sooner or later. Nikki (and me) make it 'sooner'.

"So tell me what you'll do with this tee-fer," Jo said.

"It's a melodic percussion counterpoint," I said. Nikki nodded agreement.

"I know that's what it's for," Jo said.

"Thought so," Nikki injected. "Music major and all that." She smiled. "I move from the position of audience to that of participant."

"Jo, you have to understand that participation is important to me and Nikki. We were on the outside for so long..." My statement got me a hug from both of them for that.

Amid calls from several directions, we did another run on a musical number, forming what Sim termed The Greater Alabama Redneck Klezmer Band. We weren't particularly polished even though we had several really good musicians. You don't just bring the talent together and expect it to mesh flawlessly. That hardly affected the enthusiasm, and I think that everybody recognized what we were doing, so it was just fun.

After the evening wound down, precipitated by two eight (almost NINE!) year olds starting to get drowsy, we found our way back to the apartment.

"Wow!'" Dan said, dropping back into his recliner. I joined him. Stoney and Jo replicated the proximity on the sofa.

"I didn't know we could do that much music," I said.

"Worse than band camp," Jo added. "I do believe I'm drained."

"I wish the Hardestys would have stayed the night. We could've done it all again tomorrow," Dan opined.

"Teresa's doing a special solo at church. I kinda wish we were going to be there." I guess I had an unusual expression on my face and Jo noticed.

"How'd that work?" she asked. "I assumed that you've been to church with them."

"You can imagine," I said. "Small town. Word gets out that a fourteen year old girl is MARRIED. We were the topic of much discussion. Dan and I know some of the people who were NOT looking upon us favorably."

"I can imagine," Stoney said. "I know I had questions."

"And you don't have an axe to grind. You have some people who provide the stereotypes of the 'uptight church ladies'." I was thinking of Mizz Mona in particular, and my librarian. "But Dan and I just acted like this is the way it's supposed to be. We had Ann and Jim on our side, and Judge Charlie, my adopted grandfather, and Mizz Helen, my foster mom. And those people had some standing in the community."

"Must've been fun."

"I caught a little static at work, but my boss and I had worked together on and off for years," Dan said. "They knew Cindy out there. She visited often and they called 'er The Engineer's Apprentice. Boss said that if I hurt his adopted grand-daughter, he'd include my carcass in a foundation pour."

"I got asked if I was pregnant about a million times," I said. "Question number two was if I was being abused. It wore off. Became old news. We had fourteen REAL pregnancies in a middle school. I wasn't one of 'em. And when they found out I was graduating high school from the eighth grade, they had something else to talk about." (Yes, it's my story and I've told it many times and every time I tell it I remind myself of how much I love HIM and how fortunate we are to be together.)

Jo just smiled and pulled Stoney's arms all the way around her. I get the feeling that he wasn't resisting very much.

I suggested a round of hot chocolate. It was kind of a selfish move. Dan makes it best, so he generally does his thing in the kitchen. I really needed it. I'd talked and sang enough today to give me a scratchy throat, so while I sipped my sweet, steamy mug, welcoming the soothing liquid in my throat, I mostly listened.

Stoney revisited the idea of network security. "It's a real issue. Cindy, I'd like to work with you and Nikki, just to see where you're at on it, and maybe we can bounce some ideas around."

"You want my fifteen year old proto-engineer wife to work with you?" Dan sounded just a little incredulous.

"We talked earlier, me and Cindy and Nikki. I think they might be taking a different approach to things. It's worth a discussion." Stoney smiled. "Tell you what. Let's keep it really informal for the time being. I'm not working on anything like that at work and I don't want to come up with something that might be marketable and have it fall under my employer's umbrella. Anything we do, we'll call 3Sigma property."

I couldn't help myself. I let a little squeal escape.

"'Nuther thing," Stoney said. "I wanna call my old buddy up and see if I can get us some recording equipment. All this fun today, there's some real talent here, and I think we ought to get some of it recorded."

"Yeah, you and Jo," Dan smiled.

"Oh, come on, Dan," Jo said. "You and Cindy and the Hardestys? She says you already have some DVDs."

"I know," I said, "but those were recorded with one camera and mic."

"That's what I mean," Stoney countered. "If I can get the system I helped develop, we can do a much better job of processing the sounds and sights. Make a pretty good recording, put it out there under copyright, maybe see a few sales."

"Live at the Engineering Lab," I laughed.

"What was it that Sim called us? The Greater Alabama Redneck Klezmer Band? That'll work!" Jo laughed.

"Featuring the musical stylings of a bunch of warped nerds and Rara Avis," I added.

"Yeah," Stoney said. "Talk to the Hardestys. We can do this on another weekend. I think I can get us a set of equipment shipped here."

"And he knows how to set it up," Jo smiled. "That's how we met."

I looked at my Dan. "I think we should do it."

"As long as it doesn't take away from your school stuff."

"It won't," I assured him.

"It won't," Stoney avowed. "Just another little step and then we do like we did today, only with some formal beginnings and endings."

So that was on my mind when Dan and I finally drifted off to sleep in one another's arms, still tingling and glowing from the ONE thing that puts the perfect cap on a madhouse of a day.

Chapter 35

Dan Granger's turn:

I have to laugh. I tried very hard NOT to burn bridges when I left my old job. It paid off.

Steve called.

"Hey, Steve, what's up?"

"You ready to come back?"

"Not funny, Steve."

"Seriously. One of our clients specifically asked if we'd subcontract you so you can come in and do some stuff for him."

"What and when?"

Steve gave me the run-down. I wasn't too surprised. Big facility. I'd done a similar scope for part of it prior to moving to Alabama. Now they wanted the rest.

"I can come down for a few days, have a meeting or two, and get on with it."

"You know these guys," Steve said. "They'll want progress meetings."

"As long as they don't call on Monday morning for an afternoon meeting, I think we can handle it."

"We?"

"3Sigma. I'll handle the interface with the client and I will sign off on the work."

"Are you bringing Nikki down with you or is she too deep in classes right now?"

"You don't pay attention, dude," I laughed. "Nikki doesn't pay attention to classes. Classes pay attention to Nikki. The semester's ending. Her FIRST semester. She's unclassified."

"What's that mean?"

"She doesn't fit into that 'freshman-sophomore-junior-senior' thing. Not at school. And not at work."

"Work? The girl's fifteen."

"Sixteen now, actually, and she does data entry and reality-checking on our coordination studies and she's getting a federal stipend for research work."

"No shit?"

"Seriously. Beats stacking panties at Wal-Mart for a college job."

"So I can put you down as a 'yes' then?"

"Yes. When do you want a meeting?"

"It's Monday. Can we do Thursday?"

"I think so. I'll make reservations."

"Great! Are you averse to having dinner with me and Carole?"

"Sounds good!"

"And don't you DARE use that 'panty-stacker' thing in front of her. She worked at Target when I met her."

"I shall be as tactful as ever," I laughed.

"I need to check the doghouse then," he laughed. "Lookin' forward to it, buddy!"

A voice crossed the room. "Your old employer?" Alan asked.

"Yep! Been waitin' for him to call."

Alan laughed. "I know the feeling. The people I used to work for before I went on the road would've let Hell freeze over before they hired me as a consultant." He paused. "Idiots!"

"I hope Nikki can break loose for a day or two."

He laughed. "I'm sure there are people who'll be glad to see her go. And take Cindy with 'er."

"Yeah," I said. "Imagine that. There you are, a senior in an engineering program, you've been bustin' your hump for three years, kickin', clawin' and screamin' for a 3.0, and here come these two pixies that side-stepped the whole program..."

"And they're on a first-name basis with the department head and the senior professors."

"I'd think about committing seppuku in the quad at noon," I said.

"What's that kid's name that came to visit us last week? Albert?"

"Yeah," I replied. "Bert. Mechanical engineering."

"He said that if the girls came off as arrogant or something that the reception would be different, but they're not."

"That's our girls," I said. "Still amazes me."

"Yeah," Alan said. "That they're OUR girls. I mean, Cindy's Dan's wife, but she's part of our family."

"Yeah, sort of like Terri, the community's little sister."

"We have TWO community 'little sisters' actually. Rachel's in the mix now."

I chuckled. "Yeah, but I think Terri takes it to heart a bit more. She's really into it."

"Oh, that's Nikki and Cindy's doing, apparently. As long as at the end of the day she's still my little girl, I'm good with it."

"She adores Tina, too."

"Happy, happy thing, that is. I don't want to think about how it would be if it were otherwise."

"Could've been tough," I said. "Especially with the issues with the ex."

"Yeah. I worry though. If she decided to reverse her decision, it'd be tough on everybody. I think it would kill Tina and Terri."

"I can imagine. They fit together so well. And Terri is scary smart. The girls are handling that well." Home-schooling for Terri and Rachel was a riot. I didn't want to think about where those two might place in a standardized academic setting. In the third grade, where they would be based on chronological age. When I thought about the math they splashed around in the books they were reading, well ... And Terri'd already taken a couple of the practice tests for high school equivalency.

"Interesting," was Alan's comment. "I'm waiting to see what the university says. They've never had a Terri before."

Late afternoon, the back door swung open and our wives bounced in, accompanied by Terri and Rachel. I received my kiss. Yes, perfunctory on one level. The twinkly eyes that accompanied it though, validated it as a real kiss.

"How was your day, babe?" Nikki asked.

"Interesting. Can you get out of things for Wednesday and Thursday?"

"I think so. Why?"

"Steve called. Wants to subcontract me for one of my old clients. Need to fly down there for a meeting Thursday."

Squeal! "I have running room in my schedule. I'll work it out tomorrow. Send some emails right now to get 'em thinking about it." She plopped down and whipped out her laptop.

"Uh, before you start to email family, we're having dinner with Steve and Carole."

She didn't look too crestfallen. "That's okay. They're decent conversation. But we still..." she paused. "Let's think about itinerary. We can stay at our house. Maybe if we do things right, we don't have to cook. All that's left there is canned stuff and a few cold drinks in the fridge."

"Okay, we can hit up Dana..." Sister's usually good for a free meal, a good one if you act like it's special and give her a little lead time.

"Or we could bring Maddie and hit her folks up." Nikki grinned. Thinking of others. "I thought I'd ask you before I checked with her. She might not want to dodge classes."

"It's okay with me, but her classwork is important. We'll get 'er down there before Christmas."

"Okay, let me check with her, but I won't push hard." She smiled. "I'm going to the apartment. You coming along soon?"

"Yeah," I said, "Just as soon as I format this section," referring to the document on my monitor. I collected a kiss as she dodged past me.

"And that's how planning works at our house, too, except Terri gets an input," Alan said.

"Yeah, I married a girl with a brain. Just as well let 'er use it."

"One of these days one of those girls may be the evil overlord we've always feared," he laughed.

"Now that's a thought," I said. "Like Hello Kitty with death rays."

"Or Nikki as The Borg?" he laughed.

"She'd never go for that look," I said. "In all likelihood, the planet would be running on her command and nobody would even know they weren't calling the shots any more."

"Sounds like me. Rescued a troubled teen and next thing I know..." He laughed. "Sometimes you just walk into a situation and start playing the cards you get dealt."

"I'd say we drew a couple of winning hands."

Beck was at her desk listening. "I'd say you two have no idea what kind of luck you've had." She stood and walked back to our desks. "I never imagined I'd see such a thing as this bunch." She stopped. "I just said 'bunch'. Next thing you know, I'm gonna buy me a pickup truck."

"And start selling kosher pork rinds," Alan laughed.

"What's that number for EEOC? I think I'm being discriminated against."

"I'll give up pork rinds for your mom's kasha varnishkes," I said. Our little community had been graced by a visit from Beck's mom who played the Jewish mother stereotype for laughs, but the cooking was for real. And with real grandmas in short supply Beck's mom was quickly adopted. Went home with a family picture of her and her new grandchildren: her original Rachel, redheaded Cindy, auburn Tina, blonde Susan and my own Nikki, with that dark Cajun brunette thing going.

"I'll stir conversations up with this," she'd said.

I walked across the yard to our apartment. Found Maddie and Nikki sitting on the sofa.

"I can't go this week," Maddie said sadly. "I'm really sorry but I have a class I can't miss."

"Not a problem, sweetie," I said. Yes, Maddie was 'sweetie' to me, adopted daughter, my responsibility, Nikki's friend.

She left, books in hand.

"Problem," I asked Nikki.

"Just that college work is a bit more of a stretch. She thought she'd be able do like high school, just pay attention and stay in the top levels of the standings. She could, too, if she wasn't chasing the grades."

"Oh," I said. "I worry."

"Don't worry. Maddie's driving herself."

"I should pay attention to her social life," I said.

"Maddie? Come on," Nikki said. "Every guy that hits on 'er, she starts out by telling them that she's sixteen and unless he's pushing a 3.8 GPA or better, to take his ignorant self elsewhere."

"Interesting," I said.

"Maddie's a good girl. Some of the others ... Wow! Makes Mom almost look celibate. And I won't even think about guys."

I didn't comment. I knew. I'd been to college and knew that pursuit of knowledge was far down the list. No sense in talking about my own times.

My silence wasn't unobserved. I got Nikki on my lap. "I don't care, really, Dan," she said softly. "What you were then is not what you are now."

"I wasn't much then, at least in the realm of chasing girls. That's sort of how I ended up with the ex. I was an easy target, and apparently not a very interesting one."

She'd heard the story before. She kissed me. "She didn't see what I see, that's all. Her loss. My gain."

"Mine, too, princess," I said. I had long ago determined that this girl-woman was intended to be my completion. I would've felt bad about the hand that was measuring the pleasant curve of her sixteen year old ass. That is, if her eyes weren't twinkling and a purr wasn't escaping her lips.

"'Nuther day-dream about Dan today, guy," she said. "We downloaded some data, plotted the graph, measured it against the calculated values. Mindless." Giggle. "So if my mind didn't have to be there, guess where it wandered off to?"

I didn't comment. Just purred my contentment.

"Remember that day we went to the park the first time after the hurricane?"

I indeed did remember. First time I'd ever made love to a woman having a period. "Mmm-hmmm. You surprised me."

"Surprised me too. Some days I just have to have you, though."

I kissed the top of her head.

"It's everything. Not just the sex. Well, the sex is ... I don't have anything to base a comparison on, but if it was more intense, I'm afraid I'd die. But you, me, we're an everything to each other."

"That's the way I feel, Nikki. I couldn't imagine myself with another."

A kiss on my lips, her bright, happy face inches from mine. "So are we gonna talk about it? Or do it?"

"You know that we're liable to get a phone call in the middle."

"Nope!" she giggled, pulling her iPhone from her pocket. "I'm tagging us as 'unavailable' on the calendar." Giggle. "For an hour and a half."

I smiled. The Nikki Server's community calendar function was a product of Cindy and Nikki's programming with the able input of Tina and Susan for functions. One of the functions was an "I'm with my husband- wink wink" button. "The first PG-rated community calendar I ever saw," Dan Richards had said.

"That's just your lurid mind," Cindy had giggled. "It could mean we're discussing family finances."

"Uh-huh," Susan said. "That's EXACTLY what everybody will think."

There were a few instances of failure to check the calendar, but for the most part we all took a look before calling somebody who might be home with a spouse in need of some undisturbed time.

She was giggling as she navigated her phone to the calendar. "There! Now, bedroom! No clothes!"

"Subtlety is one of your skillsets," I laughed.

She was shedding clothes on the way to the room. "Subtlety can come later. I want YOU."

She's got me. We tossed the covers back on the bed and dove toward the middle from opposite sides. Familiarity. Married for over a year. We knew each other's bodies, pleasures, preferences. Familiarity doesn't breed contempt, it breeds virtuousity.

I only hope that I do for her what she does for me. By the way she relaxed in my arms when it was over, perhaps I did. She finally rolled to face me again. "Mmmmmm. You send me, guy."

"I didn't send you. I was right there beside you."

She turned her naked body to me and pressed close. "Can I get this thing hard enough for one more? Hmmm?"

The answer is 'yes'.

I've heard that orgasms relax men and energize women. This time, when I chugged the last diminished spurt into her center, she slid down, grinning, scooped my dick into her mouth and went "Mmmmmm," knowing that it rocked me. Then she giggled. "Quick shower. We smell like an orgy."

"That's not going to get rid of the smiles."

She laughed. "D'ya think you're the only one that's gonna have that smile? Watch for Cindy's Dan. I'm pretty sure he got raped this afternoon. Cindy and I talked."

"You talk about this?"

"Of course we do. We're all innocent little girls. None of us has any experience besides our own husbands, so it's kind of like we compare notes."

"I don't know if I want to be graded..."

"We don't compare notes like that. Just how often, and what kinds of things. In case you wonder, we're the only ones who've done it while menstruation was happening." Giggle. "Might not be that way long."

"How'd that subject come up?"

"I don't remember. Somebody mentioned it. Before anybody could say anything I blurted 'Sure! We did!', and that got into that whole 'whose idea was it?' and when they found out it was MY idea..."

"Did they think I'd forced you?"

"No, just that it was MY idea ... I told them how it happened. My idea." She paused, her hand getting the measure of my prong. Giggle. "You're hard! Me talking about this and you're HARD!" Squeal.

Nikki was still smeared and filled with the results of our last orgasms and when she leapt astride me I slid in just like I was made to be there. Actually, I am.

I wasn't the only one in the room who'd worked themselves up. Two shuddering, sighing orgasms. Now we'd go shower. After the shower, while I was brushing her hair, she picked up her phone and erased the flag on the calendar.

"Cindy and Dan are going to the Desai's. Wanna?"

"If you promise me that there won't be any knowing smirks."

She giggled. "Uh ... I am a woman of poise and decorum."

"No you're not. You're a spritely delicious misery to me."

"Didn't feel miserable fifteen minutes ago."

"You're deceitful."

"You adore me."

"Got me there," I said. "You're my weakness."

We got dressed, headed out the door. "Okay, try and stifle that grin."

"Why?" she giggled. "You put it there!"

And met Cindy and her Dan walking up the sidewalk.

"Hey, sis!" Nikki laughed. "You doin' okay?"

"Mmmmmm very much so."

"We gotta kill 'em, Dan," Cindy's husband said. "They know too much."

Cindy looked back over her shoulder. "And what sort of sad, uneventful lives would you have without us?"

"She's got us there," I said.

We entered the restaurant, got fussed over by Grandma Desai, who had recovered nicely from her gunshot, having only a little bandage on her neck. The restaurant was fully back up to speed. The only change was that now Grandma Desai fussed over Alan as well, but he wasn't here tonight.

We were eating good food, talking. Cindy and Nikki talked excitedly about the idea of my impending business trip.

Midway through the meal a three college-aged guys showed up. That in itself wasn't unusual. It's a college town. If you're not serving college students you're missing something, and the Desai's, having two college students of their own, knew it.

What was unusual was that one of the young men did a quick scan of the restaurant and fixed his eye on our table. I watched him walk over, a smile on his face.

"Cindy. Nikki. How are you?" he asked.

Nikki replied "We're fine, thank you. Cray, this is my husband, Dan, and Cindy's husband, another Dan. Y'all, this is Creighton Caldwell."

Dan and I stood and shook his offered hand. The other two guys stood behind him.

He introduced them. "This is is Cooter, uh, Brooks Davis, and Ryan Wilson."

More hand-shaking.

"Cray is a physics post-grad," Cindy said. "We see him on the project."

"Pleased to meet you," I said.

Cray spoke. "Cooter..." He paused, chuckled. "Man, ain't that just the most stereotypical Southern nickname ever?!? We're gonna start callin' Ryan 'Bubba', so we have a set. Anyhow, these two are gonna start on the project too." He turned to them. "Didn't I tell you? A pixie and that York Peppermint girl."

"Peppermint girl?" I asked.

"Yessir. Remember that commercial? Dark hair. Blue eyes. Bangs," Cray said.

"A husband who's a combat veteran," Cindy added.

"Oh, no no no," he laughed. "Intelligent wimmen scare me."

"C'mon, dude," Cooter said, "Before you get your butt kicked in an Indian restaurant."

"Or you can pull a table over and join us," Cindy's Dan said.

"Gee, you don't mind?"

"Not in the least," I said.

So we talked about college and the studies and the projects and pure physics versus engineering.

"These two blur the line, you know," Cray said. "I was telling Cooter and Ryan about 'em. We looked at their railgun."

"You're missing half the team, you know," Cindy said. "Come over Friday morning and visit our lab."

"You have your own lab?" Cooter asked incredulously.

"Yes, we do. Machine shop. Three-phase power. And now a sad, lonesome, unused bullet trap," Nikki injected. "But we can't take credit for that project without adding Susan and Tina."

"You'll meet them," Cray told his buddies. "They've been in class when I gave you the tour."

Ryan shook his head. "And Cray says that you two almost don't do classes. You just interview and confer with the professors in the departments?"

Nikki shook her head in the affirmative. "Yeah. Crazy, isn't it?"

"And you're gonna get your degree in two years? Batchelors?"

Cindy's turn to drop a bomb. It was a bomb because I hadn't heard it before. "Uh, Doctor Stebbins told me an' Nikki that if we started working on theses he'd start thinking about Masters."

I looked at Nikki who was smiling like the cat that ate the canary and got caught. "When were you gonna tell me about this?"

"When it was pretty much solidified," she said.

The other Dan sagged about as much as I did. "My wife is gonna have an MS (Master of Science) degree before she turns seventeen..."

"Mine will be eighteen." I shook my head.

"Wait," Cray said. "A thesis isn't a done deal."

Cindy has this little self-assured smirk. I think she's teaching it to Nikki. Cindy smirked, "Call it a done deal."

"See, I told you so," Cray told his buddies." He turned to us. "So! What's good here?"

"How adventurous are you?" Nikki asked.

And we finished the meal amid some pretty good conversation.

We, Dan and Cindy, me and Nikki, walked back to the apartments.

"And I'll go to your apartment every day and spend time with your cat," Cindy said.

"Yeah, Tommi will miss Nikki," I said. "Me? And I rescued his kitten butt."

"Since when did little girls and cats need to be reasonable?" Dan 1.0 said.

"Isn't that a Heinlein quote?" I asked.

"Almost," he laughed. "The idea is valid."

Yes, the cat was still lounging on the back of the sofa where he was when we left. He reacted to our return by lifting his head and stretching, then coming over to insinuate himself against Nikki.

"See!" I said. "Ignored!"

I sat in my recliner, got Nikki in my lap and the cat on top of the stack. "There!" she exclaimed. "He just treats us like a unit."

"I'm furniture. You're his goddess."

"Cats don't have goddesses."

I laughed when he turned and licked her on the tip of her nose. "Goddess. You're being worshipped."

"D'ya think it's gonna be too cold to sneak out in the back yard in the dark when we get home? I have a need."

"Might be okay. We're gonna fly in right behind a frontal passage."

"If we can, we will," she said. "Otherwise, I get to be in THAT bed. The one where we first made love."

"The one at the door to a new reality," I said. It was. She made it that way.

Chapter 36

Nikki's turn:

I'm kind of excited about going home. Only 'kind of' because honestly, since Grandma passed away, 'home' wasn't much until I found myself in the care of Dan Granger. Since then it's been a wild, exciting and happy ride. It's like my world turned upside down. Every negative I suffered, school, people in my age group, home life, all those things turned positive.

So I'm looking at me and my Dan flying back to Louisiana for WORK.

I'm kind of like an intern, really. All of us, me, Cindy, Tina, Susan, have had our look at the drudgery of entering parameters into the program that drives our power system studies and we've all had a look at what happens when things change on one or more of those parameters. It all happens right there in that computer program, and Dan says that the program is pretty good at replicating the real world.

"If the real world doesn't act like your program, then something's wrong with your program," he'd said while he was giving us an impromptu class, to which Cindy popped, "Well, DUH!", reducing the bunch to laughter.

We were learning that. Hands on, in fact, we were learning as we worked through some issues on our own railgun project and now, on the university's project.

Wednesday I went with the gang to school, sort of rolled through a few offices and through the lab, and did as I'd announced, hitching a ride home at lunch with Susan driving me. Yeah, still a student driver, and I can't drive with Susan because she's not twenty-one yet, so she drives.

Back in the apartment I make sure Tommi's food and water are topped off even though I know that Cindy will be taking care of him, and if I know my gang (and I do) Tommi will not lack for companionship in my absence. I tell him this. Almost seems like my words register in his kitty brain.

And Dan and I are out the door headed for the airfield. Half an hour later the truck is in the hangar and we're lifting off the end of the runway swinging on a long loop that will put us on course for south Louisiana.

We took off under an overcast sky, confident that the weather that had passed us in the early morning was continuing eastward and we were going west. As the trip progressed the overcast broke apart, thinned and by the time we crossed the center of Louisiana we were under clear skies. I was flying from the right seat. I'm not quite as adventurous as Cindy is in regard to flying and honestly, Dan's not gotten nearly the hours that Cindy's Dan has and our airplane is a bit higher performance than their old Cessna 180.

That's okay. Dan knows that I have a student pilot license in my possession and I've got my eye on Susan's Cessna 152. And Mister Wally says he might be rusty at it, but he IS a licensed flight instructor. Worse than that, he's an agricultural aviation pilot, so he's more than competent to teach me how to fly a taildragger like Cindy's Cessna 180.

Dan gazed at me. In my headphones I heard "Having a moment, are we?"

"Just thinking about this flying business, that's all. Susan said that if we can underwrite their plane for insurance, I can use it to get my license."

"Their plane is fifteen thousand dollars. I ... We can put that in escrow. Get a lawyer to write up something."

"I can talk to Cindy. Her step-mom's husband is a judge."

"Yeah," Dan said. "Let's do it that way. And work out a decent rate with Wally."

"Okay," I said.

We watched the miles go by, three a minute, below us. I throttled the engine back, dropped the nose to keep the airspeed up, and we did a descent to the home field. It has a control tower, so I gave up the controls and the radio to Dan. He put the wheels on the ground and we were home. We saw the rental car pull up in the parking lot while we were tying down our little Mooney.

While Dan was signing the rental papers, I was on the phone making sure that everyone was aware of our arrival.

Reminder to self: Call Sheriff Ernie. We made a point of talking to him about the state of our home when we moved to Alabama. He made sure it was watched, even though Dan's cousin comes in a few times a week to check on his cows. Tonight we'd be in there and the activity might elicit a check from the deputy that patrols that area.

"Don't want to cause a false alarm," Dan said.

I giggled. "Yeah, I can just picture it: We're running around the house, post-shower tonight, and two patrol cars full of deputies pull up..."

"Or worse," he said, "We're in the back yard under the moonlight, naked..."

I squealed. "Omigod, yes! And I absolutely intend for us to do it in the moonlight!" Okay ... I'm not the only one who's done it outdoors, but I've probably done it more than Cindy and I KNOW that she and her Dan have done it like the first week they connected. She said that they did it their first week together.

I know that Cindy was thirteen. I was fifteen when my Dan and I connected. We know each other's secret. Everybody knows mine. I'm the only one of us that knows Cindy was thirteen. They all know she was fourteen when she married Dan.

"Where's your mind right now, little one?" Dan asked me.

"Just kipping around random thoughts." I squeezed his hand. "You know how my mind is. Started off thinking of me and you under the stars."

"I thought you'd be more excited about coming home."

"Dan, home is where you are. Maybe if things had been happier here I'd look at it differently but I don't have much in the way of roots."

"You do. You just don't know it," Dan argued. We turned off the main highway onto the road that led past our house. "This is home. Roots. Your mom might not have realized it, but I'm sure your grandma did."

"Yes," I said, remembering. "Grandma did." It's been a bit more than a year since the hurricane that threw me and Dan together. I remember talking about the aftermath with Dan, looking together over the fields of storm-blown debris. He's right, a year later you have to pay attention to see the reminders. But this is MY road ... Omigod! He's right. I called it MY road. I do have roots. "You're right, baby," I said. "This is OUR road."

He turned his head and smiled. "Your ancestors have to be from someplace like this. One of these days we need to look and see where your grandma cme from."

I squeezed his hand. "This is where WE come from. We're in Alabama now but this is where pieces of us will always be." This guy is my husband. I want our lives intertwined.

The rental car finally rounded that last meandering curve and headed out of the low road to the ridge that held our house.

"Is it okay if I get excited?" I asked.

"Just as well you did," he laughed. "I am."

My hand confirmed a definite level of excitement there in his lap.

"Just remember, we are meeting Steve and Carole for dinner. Don't wanna be late."

"And you don't want me sitting there with one of those indelible grins from the spectacular sex."

He laughed. "It's all spectacular, little one."

"I read somewhere about 'nights of pleasure'. They were talking about sex, but they missed the point, Dan."

"Missed the point?"

"Lifetime of pleasure. Because it's not just about the physical act, it's about the life."

"Pleasure begins when I open my eyes and you're next to me," he said.

"And continues all day while you're doing your things and I'm doing mine, because I know that you're there."

He smiled. "We oughtta write greeting cards."

I know what he's saying. There's a tendency in the world to ascribe derogatory terms to the kind of things we say to each other. You know what, though? I FEEL the things we say. Life is better with my mate. And that's not because he provides material things. We share material things. It's because I have somebody I can talk with and laugh with and love with. And if that's smarmy, then you can smarm me until the sun burns out because I like it.

That's a conversation I've had with my sisters, too. Cindy giggles, "My life went from being a bad country-western song to a great little Hallmark card."

"Fairy tale," Tina says. "Once upon a time there was a tormented princess..."

"Who had a friend who needed a prince of her own," Susan jumped in.

I know some married people at college. Some of them seem happy. Others, maybe not so much. I heard some of them speak of frictions in their marriages. I try to think of frictions in mine. I'm about at the stage Tina intimated to me about her Alan's absolutely horrible predilection towards trimming his toenails in front of her.

"That's the worst, then?" I asked.

"Yeah," she said, bouncing her auburn hair.

"Toenails." Cindy emphasized the single word. "Gee, Tina, I can see where that WOULD be a major hurdle. I mean, how can you possibly STAND it?"

Susan was giggling. "Dad forgets to use coasters. Mom comes unglued about water rings on the furniture."

"What's that phrase that's popular? 'First World Problems'? We're the domestic equivalent," Cindy said. "I mean, does he get upset if you squeeze the middle of the toothpaste tube?"

"We use one of those little bottle thingies," I laughed.

So yes, it's good. Even when you walk into a house that's been locked up for a few months in your absence, it's good. It's good when you run around said house, opening windows and letting the fresh breeze blow through, exchanging inside air with outside air from somewhere waaaay north.

I followed Dan out the back door as he did a quick inspection of the house. Looking over the fence, the only signs of my former home was the concrete foundation, visible though a summer's worth of weeds and burgeoning underbrush. He saw me looking.

"You know what that means, don't you?" he asked me.

"No neighbors." Giggle. "I'm gonna go get a blanket..." Just as I made that statement, I heard the unmistakable sound of a car turning off the road and into our drive. I looked at Dan. "Or not. Let's see who that is."

Back into the house just in time to heard the knock on the front door. Through the window I saw the car, a marked Sheriff Department unit. Dan opened the door.

"Uh, would you be Mister Granger?" the deputy asked.

I didn't recognize him. I know a lot of them.

"Yes I am," Dan said. "And you're..."

"Stephen Leblanc. Sheriff Richard said you'd be back here today. Wanted me to come check on you."

"That's very nice of 'im," Dan said. "You go by 'Steve'?"

"Yessir," he said. "Sheriff Richard told me to keep an eye on this place, and he told me that you were back home, so I thought I'd check in."

"I appreciate it. Ernie takes good care of us."

"Yeah," Steve said. "He told me some of the story."

"It's a good story," I said. "Hi, Steve."

"I'm sorry, this is my wife, Nikki," Dan said.

"Hi, Nikki. Please to meet the two of you."

"No 'y'all'? Where you from, Steve?" I asked.

"Kansas."

"Wow! You're a long way from home."

"Yeah, I guess," he said. "I got out of the Army at Fort Polk. Thought I'd try working down here. Sheriff Richard hires veterans."

"He's a good guy," I said.

And almost undecipherable call came on his radio. He pushed the mike button and answered. "Well," he said to us, "that's my cue. Good meeting you. When are you heading off again?"

"Friday morning," I said. "Dan's cousin will be in and out with his cattle."

"Oh, yeah. I met him," Steve said. "He showed me those strange cattle of his. An' I thought cows is cows."

"Oh, he'll educate you," Dan laughed.

Steve was smiling as he got back into his patrol car. I turned to Dan. "Now what was that about a blanket?"

"Can you imagine how that would've looked if he'd've come around the side of the house and caught us?"

I giggled. I know ... I've analyzed my thoughts about why I like doing it outdoors. That 'getting caught' thing is a little titillating. "An' you, without a pocket for your ID..."

"Blanket it is, then," he said.

We stripped down in the house and paraded out into the back yard. Yes, it's nearly winter, but it's south Louisiana winter and the air is cool enough to be stimulatingly crisp on my naked skin. I know that if I had to be out like this very long, I'd be very uncomfortable, but I'm looking at Dan and he's walking with a truly epic erection and I know that I'm juicy enough to feel my thighs squelch when I walk. This won't take long.

A searing couple of kisses after the blanket was spread and we clashed, me pushing him onto his back, seeing him nude before me in the dimmed winter sunlight. I took care of the lubrication with a few swirls of my hips, smearing my juices all over his hardness and with a little lift, a wiggle, and a sigh, he was in me.

I fell forward into his arms.

"You're beyond my vocabulary to describe," he said.

I know that. I'm good with the English language and I run out of descriptors for what's happening in me, both down there where we fit together so well, and up here in my head. With all those things firing off in my mind, all I could squeak out was "God, I love you Dan Granger!" Didn't need much more conversation. I felt myself rolling right into one. A good one. I let it come on in because I could feel him throbbing, pulsing, expanding and I knew what that meant.

I bounced my butt up and down a couple more times and his hands clamped down on it, holding me. He kept pulsing deep and then I felt it! Fire! And I was a pile of gunpowder. I went off, burying my face in the corner between his neck and chest, whimpering, overtaken by the intensity.

Little movements of his hips, pushing into me, and I knew he was riding through it. I could feel my pussy spasming encouragement. A second surge of pleasure and I lost it. I squealed. The world spun. I passed out.

When I awoke, he was still in me, softening, and he was gently stroking my hair.

"I love you Dominique Granger," he said.

I was still atop him and his arms kept me there. "We do, don't we? Love each other, I mean."

"Yes, we do."

We stayed like that a few more minutes. "Baby, my butt's getting cold."

"Lets go shower, cutie," he said.

The blanket went straight into the washer and we went to the shower. In a bit we were freshly cleaned, looking sane. He was dressed informally, but well in slacks and a business shirt and I pulled on a little sheath kind of thing that he says makes me look like his wildest dream ever.

I like that. Before Dan, I never wanted to be really attractive to a man. Now, I don't have to try, but I know I am, and when this guy says he likes something, then that's what I want to do for him. So this dress ... and a little perfume.

We met Steve and Carole at a nice restaurant. These are friends. She met me with a hug. Okay, I gave one to Steve, too, because he's a friend and he's there with his wife and those are conditions under which hugging a man is acceptable.

We sat down for the meal. The food at this place is good, even though it's one of those 'white tablecloth' restaurants and sometimes they overthink things. I had flounder stuffed with crabmeat. Too fancy to be something that Grandma would've cooked, but still VERY good.

"How's school?" Carole asked, "Especially for a sixteen year old college student."

"Interesting. There are some hard parts. It's not a place that I can just pay attention and slide through."

"Did they give you any credit for your high school stuff?" Steve asked.

Okay, they don't know.

"I'm unclassified," I said. "It's wild."

Carole sort of frowned. "I've never heard of 'unclassified'. What's that mean?"

I smiled. I remember some of the fun I had getting here. "It means that I'm outside the normal 'freshman - sophomore et cetera' path."

"But you ARE a college student, aren't you?" Steve asked.

I glanced at Dan. "You just as well tell 'em, little one," he said. To Carole and Steve he said, "You're gonna get a kick out of this."

"Okay," Steve said. "I've heard you use that phrase before. It usually means you've run way up the road into disaster and managed a save."

I giggled. "Two years ago I was a 'C' student. Is that disaster enough?"

"Hon," Carole said to Steve, "I remember when you were very happy that you managed to salvage a 'C'." She laughed and in a theatrical aside to me she said, "My husband was in his 'beer 'n' bimbos' stage. I came along just in time to straighten him out."

I laughed at Steve's discomfort. Okay, yeah, he might not be THAT uncomfortable. Carole's pretty.

"So stop talking about my mis-spent youth, sweetie," he told Carole. "I wanna hear this."

"Steve, Carole, I'm gonna get my bachelor's in electrical engineering in a year and a half."

Carole's jaw dropped.

"It's worse than that. The head of the department is pushing me for a master's thesis."

Steve's face was changing colors.

"Steve, when's the first time you got a dime for your degree? Paid for your work?" Dan asked.

"Summer intern," he said.

"Nikki's getting a stipend from the government for her work on a research project. They BOUGHT a prototype railgun from Nikki and her sisters."

Sisters? Hon, I thought you were an only child," Carole blurted.

"Adopted sisters," I smiled. "Lemme show you." I pulled my iPhone out and pulled up the group shot." I pointed them out. "That's Cindy. Tina. Susan. And my adopted niece, Terri. We're all graduating in a year and a half. Cindy and I are unclassified. Terri's ... Well, they don't know WHAT Terri is. She's eight going on eighteen."

"You built a RAILGUN?" Steve was incredulous.

"And the government bought it and classified it." I smiled. "Check's in the bank."

"Good lord," Carole stated. "That's just amazing."

"Dunno why it's happening to me," I said. "But it is. And we're very happy."

"I can certainly see where you would be," Steve retorted. "Dan, did you know..."

"Just unfolded a bit more every day. Now there's a herd of 'em."

"Do geniuses come in herds?" Carole asked.

"I dunno," Steve said. "You're the English major."

"Dammit, Nikki, you need to keep me up to speed on what's going on with you and your sisters," Carole said.

"Oh, I will." I pulled a business card out of my purse. (Yes, I can carry a purse. I usually don't. I'm a college girl. A backpack is more my normal speed.) "This is MY card. My personal cell number and email are on the back. And all that social media stuff. And our blog."

The conversation shifted away from me and more on the business side of things, the technicians Dan used to work with. I was somewhat curious about Grady Denson, but I didn't dare mention him. He finally came up, though.

"Just like you said, Dan," Steve said. "Caught him faking tests. Wasn't hard to do. Got called every name in the book before he left."

"I bet," Dan said. "Guy was all about class and decorum."

"Still, hard to replace a technician."

"I'd risk it," Dan said. "I could put Punkin here (he meant me!) in the field a week and she could do it."

"I can't go to the field," I said. "Child labor laws. Susan goes with her husband, but she's nineteen now. I think Tina's gone out with her husband. Me and Cindy? Can't go. Have to work from the office."

"What work are you doing in the office?" Steve asked.

"Oh, Cindy and I have some projects going over distributed control security with one of the utility companies. But even that, we have to work under Dan's professional engineer stamp. And the Alabama State Engineering Board won't let me sign on as an engineer in training until I have an actual engineering degree."

Steve was amused. He knows about that whole 'professional engineer' licensing thing. "I know the rules," he said. "They can be demanding..."

"Because they get to say," I said. I giggled. "Baby," I said to Dan, "I wonder what they'd say if they got a phone call or a letter from Doctor Stebbins or Doctor Patel?"

My dear husband put his head in his hands. "Lord..."

"Who are those people?" Carole asked.

"Doctor Stebbins is the head of the Engineering Department at Auburn. Doctor Patel is the head of recruiting. She's the reason I am where I am."

"And the state board is bound to know them," Dan smiled.

"If they're not members already," Steve added. "I'll bet they are. At least Doctor uh ... Stebbins?"

"That's something to talk to Mizz Patel about when we get back," I said. "I think that Cindy and I will pay her a visit."

We finished the meal with a nice dessert. I had bread pudding, caught myself remembering the dish that Grandma used to put together. Hers was better.

We said our goodbyes in the parking lot, promising to be sure and call them for dinner any time we were in the state. And of course we had the meeting scheduled at the office the next morning.

I slid into my side of the car and let Dan get us out of the parking lot.

"I feel bad, baby."

"Why?"

"Because the conversation kept coming back to me."

"You need to understand that you're somewhat special. No, make that 'unique', as far as most people are concerned. You have a story. Carole and Steve were the ones that kept asking questions."

"I guess..."

"No guessing. You're off the charts. Steve and Carole were happy to hear your story."

"Let's get home, babe," I said. "I want Round Two of what we did in the back yard."

Chapter 37

Still Nikki's turn:

We survived the night. Yes, we did see the moon from the back yard. We can do this at night in the winter because the hordes of mosquitoes are gone.

Then we showered. And then we re-established the service of our bed. Our FIRST wedding bed.

We got up in the morning and went up the road for breakfast. No sense in making a mess in the kitchen on this short trip. Besides, the only ingredients we had on hand were the things that would keep well over the long term.

At the little diner we happily answered the inevitable "Where ya been?" and "How're things goin'?". This is our local diner, after all, and we've been in and out of it as a couple ever since they re-opened after the hurricane.

After breakfast, fully dressed for our meeting but with an hour to kill, we did a little tour to see the progress being made in the storm footprint before heading into town for our meeting.

Dan's phone rang. "Hi, Steve, what's up?" Pause. "Yes, we're on the road. I was going to drop Nikki off at the office while you and I did the site visit." Pause. "Really?!? That's great!" He turned to me. "Steve says that the client okayed you to go in with us. You're escorted and all that. Not working."

"Thanks, Mister Steve," I said loudly.

"Steve says 'you're welcome'," Dan said.

So, okay ... First time I've ever been inside one of those petrochemical plants. Had to watch the safety presentation, got a loaner hardhat and safety glasses. Followed a utility cart in through streets lined with towering steel and concrete, all heat and noise. Ended up trooping through a control room that I would have loved to explore.

We sat down in a conference room, me, my Dan, Mister Steve, and a couple of guys, the client engineers.

One of them stood up. "I'm Brian Statler. I'm the senior electrical engineer. Let's go around the table and introduce ourselves."

The guy next to him said, "I'm Sam Niel. maintenance manager."

Mister Steve said, "I'm Steve Oakley. Regional manager for HVS - High Voltage Services."

Dan said, "I'm Dan Granger. Electrical Engineer with 3Sigma Engineering."

All eyes were on me. "I'm Nikki Granger. Engineering student, Auburn University."

Before anybody else could say anything, Mister Steve jumped in. "Nikki says 'engineering student' but she's a master's candidate in electrical engineering."

"And your wife, right, Dan?" Brian said.

"That too," I injected.

"Nikki is interned with us. She works on power studies and I dare you to find somebody better qualified on communications networks for system protection." Dan. Taking up for me.

"Really?" Sam asked. "Master's candidate? You don't look old enough for that."

I smiled, trying my best 'who, me?' look.

"Uh, Nikki got tossed up two grades in high school last year. She's doing things at Auburn that require the Dean of Engineering to work with her. Trust me. Master's."

"We can talk later, if you want," I said.

The talk proceeded into the proposed work scope. Upgrades, taking 1950's and 1960's equipment into the 21st century. Millions of dollars were going to be spent. They wanted Dan to put the packages together, then after the equipment was ordered, to oversee installation, setup and commissioning.

"What's YOUR part of this going to be?" Brian asked. Putting me on a spot. Fortunately, it's a spot I'm prepared for.

"I get to do a lot of the dog work for the power studies, you know, load flows, fault studies, arc-flash studies. I also handle the programming for your protective devices and will work on the design for the communications between your field devices, your DCS (Auth. Note: Distributed Control System - the computers that control and record the operations of industrial processes) and your remote consoles."

"You do all this?" he questioned.

"Of course Dan or one of our other engineers rides herd on me. I work under their supervision." I didn't say that I would be collaborating with Cindy, a year younger, or Susan and Tina.

"You've done this before?"

"I have worked with a utility company in Alabama on their communications. They had some pathway issues. Tried to push too much data over a legacy system. We decided to use some fiber somebody had installed and almost forgotten. Like going from dial-up to broadband when we finished." And then I smiled. "If you're interested in one of my designs, type ThreeSigma dot com into your browser. Click on the logo twice. Type 'guest' at the prompt and you can see if my cat feeder is okay. I did the hardware. My contemporary did the programming."

Brian just stared. Sam tapped on his laptop. His jaw dropped. "This is your cat feeder?" He shoved his laptop to Brian. "Look at this!"

Cindy and I had fully instrumented the cat feeder: hopper level for food, liquid level for water. Cumulative use rates. Logs of the times that Tommi visited. We laughed at it as we built the display. It looked as formidable as a full scale process control, despite the fact that it monitored three pounds of dry cat food and two quarts of water.

"And you did this?" Sam asked.

"Yessir. Cindy and I did this. Design. Construction. Programming. That takes care of a couple of years of engineering labs, too. Tina and Susan, two of my other sisters, did the 3-D printing of parts and some of the hardware. There are four of us." I whipped out my iPad. "This is our crew." It was a picture of the four sisters in front of the business end of the railgun.

"No shit!" Sam said.

Brian looked at the picture and let out a low whistle. "You work with this bunch?" he asked Dan.

"Those four started at Auburn last June. In a year and a half every one of them will be degreed electrical engineers. Nikki and that little redhead will be presenting for their master's. Me, I curl up in a dark corner and shake sometimes."

"Tell 'em about the railgun," Steve encouraged.

"Railgun?" Sam asked.

"Yeah."

Sam looked at me. "What do you know about a railgun?"

"We, the girls in that picture, built and tested one. We don't have it any more. The government bought it and classified some of our research."

"Nikki's on the government payroll," Steve said.

"Well not exactly," I corrected. "We got paid for our railgun. We get a stipend for working with the research project."

"And HOW old are you again?" Sam asked.

"Sixteen, sir," I said. "Crazy, isn't it?"

Sam gazed at Brian. "We've pretty much decided that we want Steve's company to have this project. They're our approved vendor. And Brian says that the reason they've been our approved vendor is that Dan has been doing the work."

Brian grinned. "Not exactly. HVS has been providing good technical support on our maintenance and troubleshooting and installation, but we know that when it comes to the hard engineering, the deep stuff, the forensics, that's been Dan."

"So we got the job?" Steve asked.

"Do you have Dan?" Brian tossed back.

"We've talked about engineering rates. Basically, 3Sigma is subcontracted through us to you. You get Dan at cost plus fifteen percent," Steve replied.

"And 3Sigma may include hours by the other engineers and Nikki?"

"Is that a problem?" Dan asked.

"Not as long as YOU stand behind it."

"Then it's a done deal," Steve said.

"You're gonna be here when the equipment starts going in, right?" Brian asked.

"As needed," Dan replied. "Same during commissioning and testing."

The conversation degenerated to timelines and deliverables, then it was "Let's go to lunch", which Dan informs me is a common reason for face to face meetings in the first place. The five of us ended up at a mid-scale restaurant.

"It's a shame you're not eighteen, Nikki," Sam said. "You could bring a lot of work to a standstill just by showing up."

"Oh, I doubt that," I said. "Surely I'm not the first female engineer you've had here."

"You're the cutest, though," he said.

I blushed. "Thank you! But if Cindy showed up, they'd have an evacuation."

"Cindy?"

"The little redhead."

"Or Susan. She's the voluptuous blonde." I thought for a second. "And Susan's nineteen!"

Brian wanted details of my college experience. I told him about the math interviews.

"Interviews. Hmmph! I struggled and sweated through semesters of classes and you INTERVIEWED?"

"Just about the worst two days of my life," I said. "I didn't know what I was supposed to know. I didn't know what college math looked like except for what Cindy told me."

"Who's Cindy?" he asked.

"That little redhead. She was fourteen when she hit Auburn."

"Fourteen? You're kidding?"

Dan shook his head. "That's what I said. But when she and Nikki were talking, Cindy was an eighth-grader helping her teacher work on master's level math."

"How do you do math at that level when you're fourteen?" Sam queried.

"Or fifteen. I was fifteen."

Dan spread his hands, palms up. "You ask and you get 'it's like two plus two equals four. What else could it be?' I don't know. I watched. I was amazed."

"And the other courses?" Brian asked.

I described the books and the interviews and the written tests and the essays and papers. "And every now and then I walk in and the department head, Doctor Stebbins, is there with the professor. Makes sure I'm not taking shortcuts."

Brian laughed. You're doing four or five years of college in two. There's a shortcut somewhere."

"Railgun, Brian," Dan said. "Four teenaged girls built a railgun."

"And it worked?" Sam asked.

"Thirty-eight hundred feet per second with off the shelf and salvaged components. We could've gone higher but we only had a commercial bullet trap."

"What was your senior project, Brian?" Steve asked.

"Ain't fair," Brian snorted. "You know I didn't do the power option. I did some signal processing."

"Really???" I squealed. "Tell me about it!"

When we finally left, I asked, "Did I do okay?"

"You were spectacular. Ol' Brian may go hang hisself when he thinks about some of what he found out about you, but you did just fine."

"Good," I said. "I want to be a help."

"You're more than just a help, baby."

"Good. Now if we can go by the florist's..." I had another goal. Grandma's grave.

"I don't mean to be morbid, but I need to visit her grave, baby," I said.

"I understand completely, little one, and no, it's not morbid. It's respectful."

The florist provided me with a small spray of chrysanthemums, a flower that Grandma loved. The cemetery was adjacent to the church where she said I was baptized. We pulled into the cemetery. I knew where I was heading. We parked and I took Dan by the hand until we found a simple grave, no small feat in south Louisiana where custom sometimes expresses itself in some ornate tombs.

The headstone was simple. Grandma's name and two years.

I put the flowers in the little stone vase. Taking Dan's hand for support, because I was starting to tear up, I said, "Grandma, I know this is not where you really are, but it's where we came to talk. This is Dan, my husband. I wish you could have met him. He's who you taught me I should marry. There's not a day that passes that I don't thank God for the time you spent teaching me right from wrong, teaching me how to be an adult, how to be a lady."

"We've got a good life together now, Grandma. I pray that some day Mom finally gets a clue, but even if she never does, I love her, just like you loved her and you loved me."

Tears were running down my cheeks. I touched the tears with my fingertips, then touched my fingers to the headstone. "Grandma, thank you."

I straightened my back, leaned against Dan, nestled inside the strong arms that protected and cared for me. In my head I said a little prayer.

Finally, to Dan I said, "Okay, baby. Let's go. Grandma was always about life and love."

He replied with a little kiss. We got back in the car and drove off.

"Was I morbid?"

"No, love, you were not morbid."

"I know that Grandma's not there. Not in that grave. It's just that I feel tied to that spot. I've made the same speech many times in many places, you know."

"As have I to Mom and Dad. They would have approved of you. Would've startled the daylights out of 'em, but they would have approved."

"That would be Grandma. But If Grandma would've been around, SHE would have evacuated me and there would have been no rescue."

"I don't want to think about it, Dan," I said. "I cannot imagine life without each other."

"Nor I, little one," he replied, his right hand idly touching my cheek.

Dinner tonight was at Dana's. We get to see the whole bunch: Dana and Greg, Bill and Julie, one or more of my nieces and nephews, all of whom are older than me. We'd be back for a few days during the Christmas break and I plan on trying to get Kellen and Slade and Holly and Bret to come over for an evening. Don't know if it'll work. Everybody's in college and when it's Christmas break they're going to be like us, madly trying to see everybody and do everything.

Right now, though, we have some time to kill until dinner at Dana's. Yes, we're headed to the house. Almost empty. None of the regular chores we'd have to look after. Whatever can we do to entertain ourselves?

The house is warm in the chill of the cold front and my first instinct is to push Dan back into his recliner and snuggle into his lap. He doesn't put up a fight at all.

"I would've been happy to sit at the office while you went to that meeting," I said. "Especially after I found out that Grady's not there."

"I know, princess," Dan said. "I was surprised that Steve pushed it."

"I was surprised that I was the topic of conversation," I said.

"Now, see," he said, "I wasn't. I mean, we pretty much knew that the job was ours. I've had those people call me direct, and I didn't think it was fair to sidestep HVS, so I pushed 'em back to Steve. He and I both knew that the meeting was a formality as far as us getting the work. And I knew that if we brought you, that there'd be questions that we could happily answer."

"I watched Brian's eyes when you said that I was doing some of the work. I think he was ... had some reservations about that."

"Brian's no dummy. He knows that on power studies there's a lot of work that is mostly clerical - data entry. All manner of non-engineers are on company staffs to do that work. At least you had some interest in the engineering side of things."

"I do, you know. But I've been sitting there doing that data entry and thinking the same thing: almost mindless."

"And you know it's not. You've caught some errors in that stuff that would have really gummed up things. Numbers that didn't make sense to you, and a clerk without your knowledge might have let them through." He kissed me lightly. "The rest of that conversation was because they were just curious about you. You're an anomaly that most people will never see, much less get a chance to talk to."

"I don't want to be a freak."

"You're not a freak. And engineers, most of them, know what it's like to be freaks themselves. They tend to look past the 'freak' thing and get right into 'Wow!'. I think that's where Brian and Sam landed." He sighed. "I know that's where I am."

I twisted a bit in his lap, leaning back against his chest, and I turned my head a bit, exposing my neck in a fashion I knew he'd understand. I was rewarded. First, his breath against my neck, then a kiss right below and behind my ear. Then a whispered "I love you, blue eyes."

"Mmmmm. I feel loved. Always have, around you." I do. I have. Almost from the day he rescued me, wet, shivering, dirty, from that collapsed building. When I stood there in his house after that shower and saw the way he took care of things, including me. Dan's just different.

I still get the 'he's soooo old' comments. People just don't understand. I got 'im when he's still good looking, and he's healthy (I read his last physical) and yes, he will age ahead of me, so when I'm forty he will be in his sixties, but I know stranger relationships than ours, and I know that ours is built on a love that is so much more than external and physical things.

Another kiss on my neck, though, and I wiggle my butt against something that tells me how absolutely thrilling the physical aspect can be.

I twist around, still in his arms, so we're face to face. The recliner flattens fully out now. We know this. "I wanna breathe you," I tell him, just before our mouths merge. This could lead to anything in the spectrum of our sexual choices.

Sometimes I lead. Sometimes he does. Today is his turn. I can wiggle a little bit, though, and sort of let him know ... strong hands clasp my butt.

I'm not muscular, but I'm not soft, either. Dan and I end up walking or biking several times a week. It's funny because usually we end up with some of the rest of the community with us. We used to swim, before we closed the pool for the winter, too. Cindy and her Dan used the pool. Oh, sure, we all did.

"I met Dan at the pool in the trailer park," Cindy told me. "He was working so hard not to be interested. But first we talked."

But we all work on keeping ourselves fit. Alan and Tina do a gym. So do Susan and Jason.

But I'm fit, and the guy underneath me is fit and -giggle- we fit together just perfectly. His hands hold me tight against him as he writhes upward, pressing a prominent erection against my jeans-clad mound.

When the long kiss broke, he said, "We do have a hour to play with..."

I kissed him again. Bingo. "Whatever could we do in a hour?"

Forty-five minutes later my words were "How about a quick shower?"

"Or we could mess around a little more then walk into Dana's and see if anybody notices."

I slapped his naked ass. "Let's not be tacky. Shower!" I am SOOOO selfish. Showering with Dan is a happy experience that far exceeds any hygienic benefit.

After that, we headed up the road to Dana's. We both were looking forward to it. First, it's family, Dan's actually, but from the first day I met them they've made me feel included. That's a hoot, because Dana is Dan's sister, a year younger, and her husband is Dan's age, and the two of them treat me like I'm Dan's wife, which I am, but I'm the same age, basically, as their daughters.

The daughters treat me as one of them, for the most part, friend, not aunt, and since I've graduated high school and am in college, there are a lot of questions about my college experiences. I tell them that I'm not exactly the one to answer those questions. I'm not the standard college student, just as I wasn't the standard high school student.

And there's that OTHER reason: Dana's a good cook in the same vein as Grandma and me and Dan, and it is nice to eat familiar food, well prepared, in the company of friends and family. Yes, restaurants are nice, but there's just something about a plate of the food you grew up on. I said that to Dan.

"Dana's good. You're good. I don't lack for good cooking," he said. "Those cookies you and Cindy did..."

"Yeah. Cindy's Magic Spice Box."

Grandma Desai had conferred an Indian spice box upon Cindy at her adoption and Cindy LOVES popping the lids and taking a sniff. "Smell this, Nikki. Don't you think that will bring a tingle to some plain ol' sugar cookies?"

Dan laughed. "Stuff like that. Like you. Situations that I never in my wildest dreams imagined would be part of my life." He touched my cheek. "And you. You're ALL of my life."

Dinner at Dana's. Cool weather meant that Cajun essential, gumbo. The big pot was on the stove and the rice cooker was on the counter along with a stack of big bowls, just the way it's been in practical Cajun households for two hundred years. (Well, maybe not the rice cooker. I can make rice on the stovetop if I have to, but I love my rice cooker.)

The conversation was much more modern, though: Nieces in high school was one topic. Dan's unusual wife in college was another. So was work and homes and recipes and ... I love it! Family! NO drugs. No rancor. Just people getting together.

Katelyn opened up the 'it's about Nikki' part of the day. "You posted on Facebook that the Dean of Engineering asked you about a master's. Can you?"

"Katelyn," I said. Katelyn's my age. Smart, too, but not quite where I am and I don't want to sound like I'm bragging. "My professors say I should go for it."

"Gee," Katelyn replied. "I'm still debating on whether to do advanced placement classes next year. Uncle Dan..."

"Don't look at me," he said. "She was smart when I pulled her out of the wreckage."

"But you helped her."

Dan held his hands up in defense. "I gave Nikki a nudge. She took off on her own. I'm not in those interviews. I don't take the tests. That's all her."

"It's just scary, sometimes," Katelyn sighed.

"You oughtta see it from my point of view. Sometimes I wish I was sitting in a classroom with fifty other students to hide behind." I sighed. "Sometimes it's like hurdling down a steep hill with no brakes. Thank God I have Dan." I leaned back against him to punctuate that statement.

When we left, we were full and happy. Back to the house, shower, bedtime.

We woke up early, did breakfast, eyed the weather one more time, noting clouds moving in. Bags packed, house secured, run to the airport, turn in the rental car, and into the plane.

"Fly," Dan said. "I'm right here. Start 'er up and let's go."

I smiled at him. "Bein' pushy, ain't you?"

"Sixteen. Student license. You get to practice." He followed me very closely through taxiing and takeoff. Last night we'd looked over the flight parameters.

Wheels up, we headed east-northeast, climbing, putting miles behind us. Yes, this was home behind us. But it's equally home in front of us. And I'm ready to be there.

Chapter 38

The World According to Susan:

I am officially ready for a break. It's almost Christmas. I almost hide when I see my math professor. That's okay, though. He almost hides when he sees Cindy.

Jason's right there with me, though. He's tested out of some classes and he's gotten transferred credits for a lot of things he took for his technology degree and if he does a summer semester next summer, he just MIGHT squeeze his way onto stage with the rest of us. I hoping. He deserves it.

We work together, and despite the occasional bit of unprofessional behavior, we are very businesslike and we talk about what we're doing. He's good at it in a way that's different than two Dans and an Alan.

"I've watched Jason work," Dan 1.0 told me one day. "He's good. Really good. Never saw him wrong, and he's come in to run some idea by me to verify a solution to a problem he's found. Knows not only that something's wrong, but why it's wrong. He's a great tech. Gonna be a great engineer. Actually, he already is."

Makes me happy to hear people say good things about my Jason. It's not hard to find them, either.

Now about my sisters. Nikki made a splash at a client meeting. I laugh. I am the first one to be able to actually go to work with my husband. I'm actually getting very good at what we have to do at the substations, but any of us could do that. It's just that I was eighteen when Jason had to do the first ones and I was old enough to go with him. Now Tina's eighteen, and she's gone with Jason to see what his work is all about.

That leaves Nikki and Cindy. Cindy's got a project behind her as The Engineer's Apprentice but Nikki hadn't had an opportunity. Now she'd been inside a facility, even if it was only to a conference room. So in a way, we're even.

That's about the only way. Academically, those two are scary. Tina and I, we're in classes, regular classes, although it's a really heavy mix towards the junior and senior-level courses. It's nice, though, that when things make my head hurt, I can come back home and tap into active resources, you know, two Dans, an Alan, and Cindy and Nikki.

So I'm in class. Just turned in a paper. Guy in the seat next to me says, "Susan, you don't look stressed over this paper."

"I'm not."

"Why?"

"I had it checked last night."

"The professor checked your paper?" He sounded incredulous.

"No. I work with an engineering firm. That's three engineers right there. Three PROFESSIONAL engineers, I might add." (Okay, some days I get feisty.) "And you see that little redhead running around the Engineering Building?" (I wasn't dissing Nikki, not by any stretch of the imagination, but Nikki's one of a herd of dark brunettes. Redheads stick out.)

"Yeah. I asked about 'er. Thought she was somebody's daughter. Or grand-daughter. Cindy something, ain't it?"

"Yes. Cindy Richards. MY sister. Adopted. But my sister. And her friend Nikki, also my sister. Both of them are outside the class progression."

"Heard she's, like, a genius."

"Don't doubt it a bit, buddy boy."

"And they checked your paper."

"Yep. And if I'm wrong they teach me what I need to know. I wanna KNOW this stuff, not just make the grade."

"I do too, but our study group ... we all bog down the same way."

"Want some help?"

He looked at me. Eyes dipped down to my hand, the one with the gold wedding band, then back up. Okay, yeah, stopped for a bit at chest level. He IS a guy, after all. "They'd help me?"

"Here," I said, fishing a business card out of my bookbag. "This is us. Next door to this address is an empty unit we use for a study site. You're welcome to come visit. We do some pretty good stuff on Tuesdays and Thursdays." I watched his eyes again. "And you can meet my husband."

He deflated. I swear I heard the hiss of escaping air. Or ego. Might've been ego.

On the opposite side of me was a girl. "Susan," she hissed, "can I get in on that?"

"Sure," I said. "Here." I passed her a card, too. "Seriously, Tanny," I said, "it's a study place. Not a hook-up joint or anything like that. No alcohol, no drugs, no music. Wi-fi. Printer. Desks. Chairs."

"Good studying is hard to find," Tanny said. "Plenty of guys'll be happy to show me those other places."

"Well, we do study. And we have a safe environment." That was the truth. We did study. The two Dans, Cindy's and Nikki's, absolutely refused to install whiteboards in their apartments, so when one of those two were lecturing in math, we did that in the study space.

I remember the first time we brought in a few people from outside the community for some math help.

"Who did you say is helping?" one guy asked.

"Cindy and Nikki."

"Are they teaching assistants or what? What're their last names?"

"Cindy Richards and Nikki Granger."

"I don't know them."

"They're my sisters. Uh, adopted, but still..."

"So what makes you think THEY can help in this math stuff?"

Tina walked up in the middle of that conversation. "Trust me ... those two sidestepped ALL the engineering math. Cindy was helping teachers with master's level math before she came to Auburn." She got her 'serious Tina' face on. "You don't believe ME? Call Doctor Wilkins or Doctor Ramathani and ask about 'em. They're on a first name basis."

"The math dudes?"

"Yes," I said. "The math dudes. Cindy and Nikki interviewed with them."

"You're telling me that somebody from high school walked into the presence of two college math professors and went toe to toe with them?"

Tina was smirking. The truth of the matter is when it comes to Cindy and Nikki, we love 'em to death, but we're both in awe sometimes. Everybody is. She said, "you might want to know, too, that Cindy graduated high school at fourteen and Nikki was fifteen."

The other guy asking the questions was, "Duuuuude! I've heard about people like that."

"Well, if you actually want to meet one or two, show up on Tuesday evening for the math session."

We do get some activity in our study sessions. We have a few regulars. Jason's almost always there, and the rest of our husbands are quite often sitting in, if it's engineering classes, but they just back off when it's math. And the Desai kids (who are both older than me) come by, but usually we end up with one or the other of them at a table in the corner of the restaurant.

So that's school. I will, repeat, WILL, make an 'A' in every class, even if it means that Jason has to spend some evenings patting me on my head and kissing me and telling me it's all okay.

That's okay, though. I've done the same for him. Yes, the same Jason that's all competence and poise in a substation, in a classroom he sometimes struggles. Well, that is, if you define 'struggle' as 'needs to pay attention'. Yes, he can walk into a substation, hook up a hundred thousand dollars' worth of test equipment and test complex equipment like he was born to it, but the classwork... "Darn it, cutie," he told me on stressful day, "I just wish I could see where this is going to do me good going forward."

"You, husband of mine, will have a piece of paper that says 'Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering' and nobody will ever be able to look at you like you said you've had to put up with before."

"Of course you're right, Susie," he said. He calls me Susie. I let him. I'm 'Susan' to everybody else except my grandma.

"Yes, and you're my wonderfully intelligent and loving husband and we WILL get through this together." I giggled. I have a picture in my head of the two of us getting our diplomas together. He knows it. And we prop each other up. I know that my sisters have the support of their husbands. Well, I know Tina does. Sometimes she needs it.

Cindy and Nikki? Oh, come on. I told Jason one night when we were talking about things, "Those two are raw forces. All they need is direction."

And word of something unusual ALWAYS has a way of leaking out. I was on campus right before the end of the semester. It was my day to pick up Cindy, not that such a task was in any way onerous. She hopped into the front seat of my car, giggling.

"Okay, that's not the normal giggle," I said. "What sort of mayhem lies in your wake?"

"You know how me 'n' Nikki's been doing those math classes at the greenhouse?" 'Greenhouse' was the name we gave our off-campus study hole.

"Uh, yeah..."

"I got a call from Doctor Bren at the math department."

"Oh," I said, "And..."

Giggle. "He accused me of unfair competition."

"Noooo..."

"He was laughing," Cindy giggled. "I think it's funny! But he said that if Nikki and I were gonna do something like that off-campus, why didn't we ask him about how he could integrate us into the on-campus program."

"You're kidding. You're already scaring people at the Greenhouse." Now you need to know that I've known Cindy for almost a year now and I still have episodes where I think I have awakened in a warped episode of Alice in Wonderland and she lives in the same building as we do. I can just imagine how it looks to people who don't live with her.

"So what's he want you to do?"

She giggled again. "I really dunno. He laughed about me and Nikki being TA's. (Auth note: Teaching Assistants). Said he didn't quite have the guts to call us visiting lecturers."

Now it really gets surreal, because we round the corner to pick up Nikki. Nikki, who started giggling when she saw us. She jumped into the back seat.

"I don't wanna hear it," I squeaked, feigning disgust. She knows better. Anything that's good in the life of any one of us is cause for community celebration.

Squeal! "You told her, huh?" she asked Cindy.

Cindy nodded. "Doctor Bren? He called you?"

"No. Doctor Ram called me. So they're collaborating."

"Ram accused me of..."

"Unfair competition..." Cindy giggled.

"Yeah! His exact phrase. "They wanna talk to us before spring semester starts."

"Oh, come on, you two," I said. "What'd they really say?"

"I dunno," Cindy said. "Bren sounded happy, so I imagine it's good stuff."

"Of course it's good stuff," I told them. "How could it be bad? You already skipped all the math in your engineering curriculum."

"Maybe they're gonna take it all back," Nikki giggled.

"Yeah, right!" I answered. "You know, all my life I was used to bein', like, one of the smartest in the class. But y'all, you make me feel like I need a lined tablet and some fat pencils."

"Oh, come on, Sis," Cindy retorted. "You're still one of the smartest in class. Two years! You can graduate college in TWO years. How many people in your Eng 301 class have been there three years already?"

"Oh, I know ... but still." I was faking. And they knew I was faking. The conversation was about reassuring one another. "Have either of you told your husbands yet?"

Nikki smirked. I saw her in the rear-view mirror. "This may do it. Put him right over the edge."

"Yeah, right!" Cindy and I both laughed. Dan Granger has a pedestal in the middle of his house to put Nikki on. We know. There's one just like it in each of our homes.

"We ... Dan's gonna say," Cindy commented, "Be careful you don't bite off too much to chew. He's really worried about us burning out."

"Well, we can at least talk to 'em," Nikki said. "See what they have in mind. I mean, I'm privileged just to be asked..."

And that's who's doing my math tutoring.

"Who's doing what for dinner?" I asked.

"Tina's got Terri and Rachel helping her. I'm sure it's going to be good," Cindy said. "They're inspirational."

Cindy really does cook, you know. But she's in solid last place in cooking skills, even behind me, and that's saying something. Still, some pretty good dishes have come out of the Cindy domain. You never know what you're gonna get if she says she's bringing cookies. I've baked with her. She uses recipes off the internet, but then that spice box that Grandma Desai gave her comes out. And things get exotic.

"And I still have cookies," Cindy said. Apparently she reads minds a little, too.

So everybody's gathered at Tina and Alan's with several of us strewn around the dining room, a couple at the table, others on chairs or this neat bench that Tina found at a flea market. We're balancing drinks and plates and talking. I bumped into Cindy in a corner.

"Have you told Dan about your phone call?"

"No. Wanna watch?" she smiled.

"Sure, go ahead." We both went back in among the crowd.

"Nikki," Cindy spoke, "how adventurous are you feeling?"

Nikki brightened up noticeably. "Always up for excitement."

"Wanna let everybody else in on our latest development?"

Nikki bubbled, "Why not?"

The room got quiet. There's been talk that Nikki and Cindy have designed a light saber using a length of shoelace, three AA batteries and the wrapper off a Dove chocolate. This could be it. At least everybody but me thought this could be it.

Cindy said, "Nikki and I got calls from the math department. They accused us of unfair competition."

Two Dans know better than to have something in their mouths when Cindy or Nikki are making announcements. My Jason needs a refresher. He snorted iced tea.

Nikki picked up the line of the story. "Doctor Bren called Cindy and Doctor Ram called me, so they're both in on the discussion. They want to talk to us before the spring semester kicks off."

"We may be lecturers," Cindy giggled.

"Yeah," Nikki confirmed. "I think that's where they're headed."

"Word leaked out about the Greenhouse math sessions," I said.

Dan 2.0 worries. "They didn't sound negative?"

Nikki's dark brown hair bounced as she shook her head. "Nope. Ram uh, Doctor Ramathani, was laughing most of the way through. Just said that he's heard through the grapevine that we were presenting some very useful classes off-campus and just maybe we might want to help out on campus."

"Gives us an academic title," Cindy giggled.

Dan 1.0 looked at her. "I never had an academic title." He turned to Dan 2.0. "Did you? Alan?"

Terri scooted over to Cindy. "If you're teachin', then I wanna sit in your class."

"It's college math, baby," Tina said.

Terri retorted, "So?!? Cindy could teach me. So could Nikki."

Alan laughed. "Okay. If Nikki and Cindy lecture and if Terri's surveying the class, I wanna video."

"I'll post it on the company website," Nikki said.

After dinner, I dragged Jason to our apartment. Dragged. Yeah, uh-huh ... he was pushing me out the door of Tina's place, to the giggles of everyone present. I can ACT reluctant, can't I?

Inside our place, I lock the door behind us and find myself pressed backward. This is a good thing to start the evening with. I giggled my way out of his grasp after a few delicious moments. Didn't fight very hard, because in the absence of homework, the next phase of the evening is a shower.

We LIKE showers.

Plans. Christmas, we're scattering to the four winds. Well, make that ONE wind: Southwest. Jason and I are headed to East Texas with his family, since we got married up here with mine. The rest of the bunch are headed to south Louisiana. The night before the grand departure, we're having a community party so we can get Rachel and Beck and Sim in on it, even though this year Christmas and Chanukah are pretty far apart.

Dan 2.0 and Nikki are bringing Maddie back with them. Rachel and Beck and Sim are going back to New York. We'll all meet back here before New Year's.

I must've looked different because I felt a hand coursing over my body under my pajama top (no bottom) and a kiss in my cheek and "Hi, little blonde bunny..."

That brought me right back to the here and now. I twisted towards Jason and just sort of formed myself against him. Nobody ever did hugs like these, not with me. Jason just fits. We fit. Like Cindy says, "Tab A and Slot B stuff."

It's not nearly that clinical. It's a whole lot of other things, some of which my vocabulary cannot describe. Yeah, some of the descriptions involve squeals and sighs and grunts and gasps and giggles and yes, screams. Happy screams, but screams nonetheless.

Being clinical, though, I think that what happens to me is that during the course of all that stimulation, my senses start concentrating on that one little pink spot right there at the beginning of my cleft, and it builds and builds and builds and everything else just sort of recedes into the background and then BANG! It's sensory overload and sometimes that's the last thing I remember until I feel soft kisses coming through the luxurious darkness.

I asked my sisters about it. Got a general agreement. Cindy spoke. "Not every time. But definitely sometimes." She smiled. "Pretty often." Giggle. "It's that good!"

I knew that they used to avoid talking about sex very much before I was married. I thought it very decent of them. But since then, well, we don't get explicit, but we do compare notes. I worried about what was normal. My 'peers' in high school were certainly nothing I would consider a reliable source. I remember some of the garbage they recounted about birth control and stuff. And I remember a few girls who took some of that advice as gospel. There's a name for them. 'Mommy'

But right now I'm in the arms of this guy who is as close to perfection for me as to be scary. I'm not scared, though. I'm just finding that perfect position to drift off to sleep. Tonight it's with Jason spooned against my back, holding me against him. We're taking Cindy's advice: Lower the temperature and make snuggling mandatory. It's good sleeping like this. It's even better waking up like this. I just wish it were Saturday instead of Tuesday.

Or this week, Friday would work. Semester would be over, and Friday we're supposed to fly away. Four families, four planes, four destinations. Our little Cessna trainer is the slowest of the flock, plus we don't have enough fuel capacity to make the trip in one hop. Halfway there we're going to have to refuel. Bigger, faster plane. We need one. We're looking.

We're up and about, doing breakfast together, just me and Jason. I have one last rip onto campus before Christmas break, and he's got some loose ends to take care of at a substation seventy-five miles away, so he's soon out the door. I watch him cross the parking lot to his truck. One thing about working with 3Sigma: he dresses better. His duties are more about technical things that don't require him to sit on the floor or crawl in and out of cabinets.

Doesn't matter, though. First time I saw him he was wearing jeans and a Henley shirt and he caught my eye. Actually, he caught all of me. We've known each other for almost nine months and we still find things to talk about. And we know how NOT to talk. I asked Tina about that.

"D'you and Alan ever just BE in the same place, you know, NOT talking, just reading or studying or watching something and NOT talking?" I asked her.

"Of course," she answered. "That's part of being comfortable in each other's care. I don't need him chatting me up every waking minute. I know that if we're doing two different things, or even the same thing, we can be quiet together, too."

"But you still laugh and giggle, too, huh?"

"Oh, yeah," she smiled. "That's definitely part of it, too. But just like last night, we were in the living room. I was looking over some notes. Alan was watching something on TV. We started off at opposite ends of the sofa. When I finished my notes, I slid up to his end and we cuddled. Never said a word, but we still communicated."

"I've seen Mom and Dad that way," I said. "Just sitting in the living room, each in his own world, but still together."

"It's part of what people do," Tina responded. "I think it's a sign of a maturing relationship. We're certainly not bored with one another. And your mom and dad? Twenty years? Still in love."

"I know," I said. "They are. That's what Jason says about his parents, too. In twenty or thirty years that's what people are gonna say about us."

I know that my sisters have seen more than enough of the 'just for tonight' or 'this week' or 'until something better comes along' or 'I need something different' relationships from up close.

That idea was still on my mind one evening when I was twisted up with Jason. "How do guys do that? Jump one girl after another?"

"Don't blame it all on guys," he said. "Some girls're the same way." He touched my cheek. "And I never could figure it out, myself. Just don't know. I couldn't..."

I wasn't satisfied with the caress of my cheek. Like I said, we fit together well. Just like that. "Right answer!"

Chapter 39

Tina's turn:

It's almost Christmas and it's my second with Alan and my second with our Terri.

And the first for all of us together. I can't imagine being happier. Look around. I have this great extended family. It's got roots in several states and three religions. We go from blonde Susan to sub-continent dark Grandma Desai and several redheads. We have musical talents and culinary talents and all manner of technical capabilities. And it's all so unbelievably happy.

I walked into our apartment today. When the door opened, Terri looked up. "Tina!" she laughed. "Come see what me an' Rachel're doing!"

I went over to where they were sprawled on the living room floor. Terri showed me a drawing. "It's a pterodactyl."

"I can see that," I said.

"We're trying to get it just right. 'Member when Mizz Johanna called me 'Terri-dactyl'? It's a SIGN!"

"A sign of what?" I asked her.

"I dunno. But it's a sign. We're tryin' to draw a cute pterodactyl."

"Why don't you post a request on the board at the Greenhouse?" I said. "Some of the other students might have some connections in the fine arts. Might find somebody to help you with that."

Rachel's grin involves her whole face. "Yeah, Terri. We shoulda thought of that."

"We should've," Terri retorted to her little friend, "But we can't think of everything."

"Just go do it! And post it on the website in case somebody looks there."

"Networking," Rachel said. "We're doing it."

Terri rolled backward and reached for her laptop. The two eight year olds collaborate. My Terri's the brighter of the two. It's not even close, and I don't mean to sound like I'm bragging. I think Terri must've been conceived during a neutrino shower or something.

I know my Alan's plenty smart, but nothing I've ever gained from conversations with Terri's natural mother gives me the least indication that she's above average intelligence. Yet here's Terri, and 'genius' has been used to describe her.

Eight years old. Touch typist. Pretty good with technology. Right now she's posting to the bulletin board that resides on our company/community server. I went to high school with kids who didn't have Terri's vocabulary or literacy levels.

"While you're on line, what's the community calendar look like today?" I asked.

"Just a sec," Terri said.

"I got it," Rachel followed. She picked up her iPad. "Says Mom is makin' something kosher. 'Community feed at Weismanns', it says."

"I need to go see if she wants help."

"Oh, it's a nasty day out. She's probably doing that chicken soup you like," Rachel answered.

"Still. I'm going to go see."

Beck's house smelled good. "This is my heritage, you know. Just like all you Cajuns."

"And my grandma and your grandma would've gotten along just fine, sharing recipes and talking about family."

"Don't you know it," she laughed. "I assume you've seen our daughters?"

"Yep. They're in the middle of my living room drawing cute dinosaurs."

"Oh, yeah. Terri-dactyl. Cute. That's from Jo."

"Terri says it's a sign."

Beck looked up from the cutting board. "Oh, that'll go over big. I can see it now. 'What's your sign?' 'Pterodactyl'."

I laughed. "I hadn't looked at it that way."

"Probably because YOUR husband never used that line on you."

"Sim did? Really?"

She laughed. "Oh yeah. Mister Slick, himself. I'm glad I got past that. I'm not that gullible. I figured anybody who tried that line was in serious need of help. Felt sorry for him."

"Turned out well, though, didn't it?" I said. Sim and Beck are a great addition to our bunch. They're the 'normal couple'. Well, Jason and Susan are almost normal, too, but Sim and Beck? You see them, you just automatically think of a normal nuclear family.

But don't say 'nuclear family' around Cindy. She's got a paper entitled "Who Dropped the Bomb on the Nuclear Family" and it took honorable mention in a social studies fair when she was in middle school in Alabama. Honorable Mention? Not a big deal unless you factor in the knowledge that she was a middle schooler competing against the high school students on a regional level.

"You're doing kosher chicken soup..." I'd had it before. Great stuff. Beck says generations of Jewish mothers will attest to its curative properties, up to and including cancer.

"With matzoh balls," Beck added.

"And Cindy's doing cookies."

"Probably not QUITE kosher, but close enough for Alabama," Beck smiled. "It's all good. Cindy brings a lot of interesting things to our lives. You all do."

"We all do, Beck. I don't know how Terri would handle it without Rachel. They're like bookends."

"They're scary, you know."

"I know," I said. "What I don't know is what I can do with Terri."

"You can't keep her down, Tina," Beck said. "I'm working past fifth grade level with Rachel. Terri's so far past that point that it scares me. Sim needs to talk with the university again." She looked at me. "If you and Alan want that, I mean. And I haven't the foggiest idea of what they might do with her."

"Well, if they can place Cindy and Nikki, they should be able to do something for Terri. She had that interview with the staff psychologist. She's talked, we've talked with a few people." I sighed. "I'm almost afraid to find out where she'd end up. She just about goes toe to toe with Cindy and Nikki sometimes."

"Tina," Beck said, "You have an eight year old daughter..."

"Who may be college material," I injected.

"Yes, she has a brain that is certainly capable. But the rest of her is eight. Including an odd predilection for subverting the normal world's ideas of what an eight year old girl should be doing. For that, I'm grateful. But she's still eight. Like Rache. Prone to flights of imagination and creative tangents and short attention spans. All we can do is try to channel that energy into something useful."

That's one reason I like talking to Beck. Amazingly level-headed, she is. Not that my Alan isn't, but Beck's got 'mommy genes', and not just normal 'mommy genes' but the supercharged Jewish Mother version. Or am I stereotyping? And is it stereotyping if you are very happily envious?

"You know, you're right, my Jewish sister," I said.

She smiled at me. "Gosh, I hope so. I can't think of any better answers and I sure don't get a comfy feeling when I talk with some of the 'professional educator' types. Sim accuses me of being anti-intellectual. I'm not anti-intellectual. I'm anti-'people who think they're intellectual but aren't'. Especially the ones who don't have kids of their own but who will happily apply their bright ideas to mine."

I was helping Beck shape matzoh balls when we heard the door open, letting in a pair of attitudes with legs. Bearing a tray.

"Mom," Rachel said, "Cindy sent you some cookies. Said it's to hold you over until the soup's ready."

"It's our oatmeal-raisin fusion recipe," Terri added. "SO very multi-cultural. Scottish oats. Mediterranean raisins. American pecans." Giggle. Times two. "And spices from the Glorious Sub-continent by way of Chandra's Magical Spice Box."

"Yes, Mom," Rachel said. "We're thinking of saris and bindis and getting adopted by Grandma Desai too."

Beck rolled her eyes. "My dear mother is going to die. Her daughter moves off into the wilderness..."

"Wilderness?" I asked.

"Yes. The Tuchmanns regard anything besides New York as wilderness, except maybe Miami. And I marry a guy who's the wrong kind of doctor..."

"PhD, not MD," I laughed. I'd heard some of this before.

" ... And I can only come close to keeping kosher by herculean efforts. And now I'm sending her a picture of her beloved grand-daughter and her unmistakably non-Jewish best friend in saris complete with bindis." Beck sighed. "We'll be gone for a week for the funeral."

"You don't have send her pictures," I said.

A titter of laughter came from Beck. "I would not miss this chance for the world!"

"You're a horrible, horrible person, Rebekkah Weismann," I laughed.

"Am I, now? My husband and daughter love me as much as yours love you."

"Yes, indeed," I laughed "The world spins on the lubrication of the deluded."

"And I'm the horrible one."

"No," I laughed. "That's a Cindyism."

"Why, dear friend, is it that every conversation we have always seems to have a Cindy component to it?"

"That's a good question," I said. "First time I met her, it was as if I had found something I never knew was missing."

Beck shook her head. "I'm just glad she chooses to use her superpowers for good instead of evil."

"Yeah. Alan says that the only thing that keeps her and Nikki from world domination is that nobody will make them the parts."

"No, I have it on good authority that Susan could make them the parts. " She waved a machined pepper mill at me, one of Susan's 'I wanna make something for everybody' projects. "So it's just their amazing good natures."

"It's a strange world we live in," I said.

"Yes. The surprises. So many of them. And they're all happy."

"Mostly," I conceded. No sense in bringing up the incident at the Desai restaurant. Of course, now every week or so there's an unmarked police unit parked in front of the restaurant or the office. Those guys stop by for coffee. The thought crosses my mind. Of our group of twelve, three of us have killed in self defense.

If I add Stoney and Jo...

"Have you heard the latest from Stoney and Johanna?" I asked.

"No," Beck replied. "What's up?"

"They have a new friend. High school girl. Violinist. Jo says she's really good."

"Really?"

"Yes, we've talked. Her name is Kara, her dad's a wealthy attorney who doesn't seem to have time for a daughter."

Beck's next interjection almost floored me. "So when's she moving in?"

"Uh..." I was somewhat stunned. "We've talked on the phone and Skyped a couple of times. The subject hasn't come up."

"Yet," Beck returned. "You guys seem to attract the unusual and the smart and the talented."

"She graduates next spring..."

"Auburn's got a great music program. You guys can't be JUST about engineering..." Beck laughed. "You know how our social events go. What do you do? Sit in a circle and discuss Fast Fourier Transforms? You don't. We do music. Lots and lots of music. You bring friends in, and what happens? More music. You make my dear introverted husband drag his violin out. You got Nikki tinkling on a triangle and her husband is playing that accordion like somebody's abusing cats."

"So another violin, then?"

"Tell you what, my little Cajun darlin'," she laughed. "You get her here and I will get Sim and that lady that Cindy brought up here..."

"Mizz Ann?"

"Yes, Miss Ann. Her and your Kara and Sim doing a violin trio."

Speaking of Cindy and Nikki ... Knock on the door, followed by the sound of eight year old feet running, then "Mom, Cindy and Nikki are here!"

The pair of them came into the kitchen. Cindy giggled. "I see the cookies are well received." And then a duet, her and Nikki, "Mmmmmmm! That soup smells good."

Beck laughed. "I'm working up ideas for a kosher gumbo."

"What's your rabbi say?"

"You know, I think I need to get him over here for one of our socials. The man knows a little - what we've told him. He needs to experience it."

Cindy chirped in, "Why don't you bring him when we have the Hardestys up here, or if we can get Jo and Stoney back."

"We're gonna need a bigger venue," Nikki said. "Really. We are expanding past our accommodations."

"Yeah," I said. "That last one, we had the lab and the Greenhouse full up."

"Box office," came Terri's voice. "We could sell tickets if we had a box office, you know."

Cindy giggled. "We started putting a tip bucket out. Used the money to pay the park guy to clean up the pavilion. That works."

"But we don't have an audience. Everybody participates," Nikki added. "Even me."

Cindy giggled. "Oh, yes, Nikki Granger and her concert triangle."

"Stoppit!" Nikki squealed. "Or I'll start singing with you."

Cindy giggled. "Don't threaten me, lady. I'll take you up on it."

Now I have THAT image in my head. Honestly, if those two did to music what they've done to an engineering curriculum, there's gonna be a display case in the 3Sigma office with a Grammy in it.

My iPhone buzzed. Text. 'Honey, I'm home.'

"I need to go, y'all," I told the group. "Alan's home."

Naturally I got a comment from Terri. "I'm gonna be here with Rachel for a while. Tell Dad that I love 'im."

And knowing looks from the rest. The giggles started when I reached into the pocket of my jeans, pulled out a couple of elastic bands, and put my hair up in two little ponytails.

"Hmmmph!" I pouted. "I'm gonna go home where somebody loves me."

Beck cast me a knowing look. "Soup will be ready in an hour."

I almost skipped over to our apartment. When I walked in, Alan started smiling. "There's a reason for that look," he said.

"Oh, gee, golly, sir! I have no idea what you're thinking about."

I'm still subject to being picked up and carried into the bedroom. I'm also likely to want to do something different to my husband, so I'm astride him, perhaps the most wonderful location in the world, and the thought comes to me.

"What are you doing, angel?"

I was messing with my hair, trying to get those little ponytails further around to the front. "I have a plan."

"Oh." I guess he understands that if I am impaled on him and I'm busy with my hair, it's likely to be a good thing.

We rock to that point where I think he's about to lose it, then I slip off.

"Unnnhhhhhhh," he said.

"Don't whine, dear," I whispered as I got between his legs. Oh, I know I can do wonders down here, but today I gave him a couple of slow kisses and then a couple of good sucks. I could feel the pulsing start again. I know my lover. That's when I turned my head and tickled him with one of those ponytails that he adores.

Had to take a shower to get all the results off the side of my head.

"I'm sorry," he said as he shampooed me. "You know what you do..."

"So do I," I giggled. "So don't be sorry. I don't even have to ask if you liked it."

We managed to get back to Beck and Sim's place for dinner. Terri snuggled into my side at the table.

"Mmmm," she said. "You smell good! Just like you got out of the shower."

Poor Alan. It's a good thing we don't have to hide what we're doing. He turns so red.

"This soup is delicious, Beck," I said, changing the subject.

Nikki giggled and Alan turned even deeper red.

"Oooo-kayyyy," I said. "Let's try to be civil here."

"Yes, ma'am," Nikki laughed.

When we walked home later, after dinner, Terri was between me and Alan, holding onto both our hands. "I love my life," she said.

I smiled. "It is good, huh, baby?"

"Yes it is. Like that. D'you know that when I was living with Mom we never had a meal like that? Where a bunch of people got together and nobody got mad or drunk or somethin'?"

"You never said it like that before," Alan said.

"Cindy says..." Terri started. Okay, now I am definitely listening. Any time that Terri and Cindy get together, there's a good chance that the planet may change its orbit. She continued, "that we have a very synergistic community. I told her she was stating the obvious."

And there it is. Cindy, girl genius, and Terri, girl genius. And eight years old and understands terms like synergistic and obvious.

"It's like we just sort of optimize everybody's potentials."

"Yes," Alan said. "We give each other encouragement and bolster up each other's talents."

"Like Nikki 'n' Cindy helping out with math, huh?" Terri asked. "Everybody's good at it. But Cindy 'n' Nikki are really good."

"You just like Cindy because you're almost as tall as her," I said. Terri's having a growth spurt. Cindy's grown an inch in the last year. I think Terri's done two in the last six months.

My darling step-daughter stuck her tongue at me, then laughed. "I may pass her up this year," she tittered. "But that's not why. And you know it."

Yes, I do know it. Cindy's no slouch as a teacher. Of course, there are a bunch of those teacher types in this mob. It's just that one day Cindy called me and told me she was helping her math teacher work on math for a Master's degree. And that nice black lady walked up to her at her high school graduation and thanked her for helping get her son through math.

There's plenty of room for jealousy, I've been told by outsiders, but how can I be jealous? I never flaunted my status when I was in high school, nor did Susan. And I know the stories of Nikki and Cindy, and they didn't. That's just not in us. Nor is jealousy.

It's a subject that has come up with me and Terri, too. Terri's going to be another one like Cindy and Nikki, forever at the top of the heap, intellectually speaking, but Terri lives in a real world, not a hothouse.

Her first friend when she moved to Tennessee with us was Shara. Shara was a sweet girl Terri's age, but completely normal as far as intelligence. Terri soft-pedaled her own intelligence to play with Shara. Shara's mom and I talked.

"I know about Terri," Lindy said. "I'm pretty good friends with her teacher. The one that Terri spent two weeks of second grade with."

I guess my face is a bit too reflective of my emotions.

"Oh, Tina, I don't mean anything BAD. She just said that Terri is, in her words, exceptionally bright. It's a good thing, isn't it? I mean, your husband's an engineer. Those guys can't be dummies. And you, you skipped a year of high school and you're going to college." She smiled. "I know you're Terri's step-mom, but gosh! It's like she really is the offspring of you two."

Okay, now I was smiling.

"And I know some kids can be difficult, but she's so sweet. Polite, helpful, all that. I think it's rubbing off on Shara. Heaven knows that she can use some good influences. I guess I overcompensate her because her dad's out of the picture, but when she's around Terri, she sees what a real family looks like. You know, how people act together."

"We're definitely a real family, Lindy. But Terri's just easy to get along with. She seems to understand about us, me and Alan, and how she fits in with us."

"I know," Lindy concurred. "I struggle not to let Shara turn into a little beast. You know what I mean ... broken home. Single mom. And you, you have the added hurdle. You're a step-mom. All those stories, you know."

"Oh, believe me, that weighed on my mind. But right from the start, Terri and I talked. It was like I was bringing something that she was missing."

"Having her full time, that doesn't ... I mean, you and Alan?"

"Oh, sure it's different. But just like today, Terri grabs Shara and they play at your house, so Alan and I get some together time. Or she'll go to Susan's..."

"Oh, yeah, and Susan's guy, he makes me laugh. Says he needed to borrow some kids so he could go watch that new animated movie." She tilted her head, smiling. "So that's not just a coincidence, then?"

"Nope, pure Terri. She understands. Maybe not the nuts and bolts, but she says that her dad and I need some time to ourselves."

Now Terri's got Rachel. They're a pair, you know. Rachel's got luxuriously thick, dark brunette, almost black hair and brown eyes, and Terri's Terri, blue-eyed blonde. Rachel's bright. I suppose that in a traditional education setting, she'd likely be the brightest in any classroom, but she's not quite up to Terri's level. And Terri doesn't mind a bit. Rachel's her friend and her mom, Beck, who's OUR friend, knows the difference.

"Terri's good for Rachel," she says. "Rachel gets the mental exercise."

"Rachel's perfectly capable of her own mental excursions, Beck. She and Terri complement each other."

"Synergy," Beck replied, smiling.

And I'm not jealous of Cindy or Nikki. They are facets to the jewel that is my life.

Chapter 40

Cindy's Turn:

I finished, well, actually WE finished a Skype session with Kara. This time it was me and Nikki and Kara. I turned to Nikki.

"She's a sister, you know. Should be part of the Community," Nikki said.

I'm glad Nikki said it first. I don't want everybody to think I'm running this show. I'm certainly not malicious or anything, but everybody contributes in this effort.

"How do we make it happen?" I asked. "She's music, not engineering."

"We had Mizz Patel handling us, " Nikki said. "Call 'er tomorrow and see what she knows."

Mizz Patel. Genuine good person. Our patron saint.

Of course we had a sisterhood confab. Tina and Susan had met Kara on other Skype sessions.

The big question is 'How?"

I talked with my Dan. "She's a fit."

"You can't rescue everybody, baby," he said.

"You rescued one. Alan rescued one. Dan Granger rescued one. We're paying it back. Balancing the karma."

So naturally he asks the same question: "How? I mean she's living with her dad. She's seventeen, but she lives there. He gets a say in the matter."

"Yes," I said. "He gets a say. But it's Kara's dad, and she thinks he'll be glad to get her out from underfoot. Especially if she's in a musical program."

"What about high school?"

"She's a senior. An EASY senior. There are equivalences. She's got an ACT of 26 from the seventh grade."

"Wow," he said. "I suppose you've talked to Mizz Patel?"

"Not yet. Tomorrow. See if she has an equivalent in Fine Arts."

The next day I was on campus. I called Mizz Patel.

"Hello, Cindy," she answered.

I think it's neat that she knows my voice, or at least has my number tied to my name on her phone. "Hi, Mizz Patel. How are you doing?"

"Quite well," she answered, her voice rocking that sub-continent lilt. "And reports say the same about you, at least in school."

"It's like that away from school as well. I've got an 'outside the box' question."

"Is it Cindy outside the box, or another issue?"

"It's another high school student. She's sort of a music prodigy. Do you know somebody in the music department that might be interested in talking with her?"

"I know some people over there. Where's your friend located?"

"Houston, Texas. She's seventeen. A high school senior."

"A senior? Cindy, you're slipping." She laughed.

"I'm striving for normalcy."

"So now you're recruiting musicians? You've heard her play?"

"Just recordings. I met her through another musician who's in a position to know a prodigy when she hears one."

"I can make a few phone calls, sort of get things going," Mizz Patel said. "I'll let you know what we can do next."

"Oh, thank you so much," I said.

"No, thank YOU, Cindy," Mizz Patel returned. "You've added a lot of interesting things to my life in the last year."

"It really has been just about a year, hasn't it?" I replied and giggled. "It's been good for me. For you?"

Mizz Patel smiles a lot, but this time she laughed. "Why, yes, Cindy, it has been good. Of all the problems I encounter, you and your sisters have been the best. And now you bring us another one."

"Yes, ma'am," I said.

"I will keep you apprised of progress. Take care."

"You also, Mizz Patel. And stop by our office when you're in the area on Fridays."

"I will do that. Good-bye, dear Cindy."

Well, now I feel good about something positive happening. Mizz Patel is one of those producers of positive things. She's a role model in a world that Dan swears is filled with all too many people marking time in mindless jobs. Dan's not like that. I saw that early on in our relationship. Since then, he's introduced me to many others who bring positive things into situations.

Okay, time to go be a positive experience for the English department. I'm glad I like walking, because I walked across campus to an imposing building and entered, looking for an associate professor of language arts. Her door was open, but I knocked before I stuck my head in anyway.

"Hello, Mizz Richards," she said.

"Good morning, Doctor Singleton," I said. I giggled afterward.

She laughed too. "Now that we've observed the formalities, how did we do with our project, Cindy?"

"I think I did well," I said. "Of course, you might not see it that way at all."

She shook her head. "Not likely, my dear," she countered. "You chose Samuel Clemens, didn't you?"

"Yes, I was coerced into it by Nikki and Terri."

"Nikki, I can accept, but your Terri. Eight."

"Yes, the Terri-dactyl. I had a lot of fun discussing themes with her."

"With an eight-year old."

"Had to explain to her. She was looking over my shoulder while I was working."

"On college literature."

"Yes, ma'am," I said. "She wanted to know what was different between what they taught in grade school and what they teach in college. So I explained that I was exploring the thread of themes in Mark Twain."

"And..."

"She says 'I read Mark Twain. Nikki reads Mark Twain. I think I know what you mean by theme'"

"That's hilarious."

"Afraid not. It's scary. She took off, came back the next day and pointed me to a document on our server." I pulled a sheaf of papers from my book bag. "The first part is mine. The second part, I just printed Terri's interpretation." I paused. "If you have the time, you might browse through it."

"You're amusing me, aren't you?"

I shook my head. (Quick thought jumped in and out of my mind: Dan gets happy when I shake my head.) "I 'm not exactly trying to amuse you, but I think it will do that."

"I will look at it, then, Cindy. Now, let's talk about this next assignment..."

That's how a lot of what my college life is like. I don't do classes so much as just meet my professors. I left the building an hour later with another assignment. Back across campus. History this time. I oughtta minor in it. I could, but the department head told me that I'd have to do some classroom time and a thesis. And yes, I have a list of classes. Food for thought.

Making the remainder of my day is a visit to Mecca ... Uh, okay, the Engineering Department. And a couple of hours in the lab on that railgun thing. I was sipping a Coke, watching a bank of capacitors charging up. Time there, you know. Like filling a bath tub with a squirt gun. I texted Dan real quick.

"What's up for the evening? Plans?"

He texted back. "No."

"Don't make any. I'm posting a black square on the community calendar. 'Us time'."

I got a smiley emoticon in reply. Nope. Cindy is NOT going to neglect Dan. Or vice versa.

Like the one time he walked into one of our sisterhood confabs, picked me up, tossed me over his shoulder, and walked out to the squeals and catcalls from the other three. Him grunting like a caveman added to the effect.

As he walked up the sidewalk with me over his shoulder we passed Terri and Rachel. They stepped aside and let up pass.

I went along with the abduction right up to the point that I was dumped onto the bed and attacked. Then I attacked right back. In the afterglow, he was propped up on one elbow, has free hand idly teasing one of my nipples, tracing circles around it.

"Does this mean you're feeling neglected, my love?" I asked.

"Not in the least," he said softly, kissing me several times on my face. "Just means that sometimes I think about you entirely too much."

"And I like it that way," I sighed, pulling him over atop me.

So when I got in Susan's car at the end of the day, she was smirking. I knew why. Just as well play her game. "What are you carrying on about?"

Giggle. Shake of blonde head. "Somebody's got a 'Do Not Disturb' sign on the calendar this evening."

Giggle. "Are we keeping score? I think you're right at the top of the list there, Mizz Susie!" I still enjoy her fake outrage at being called 'Susie' although it's changed from 'My Gramma's the only one who can all me Susie' to 'Gramma and Jason'.

"Didn't say it was a BAD thing," she giggled. "I'm just being happy for you..."

We stopped across the square to pick up our other two co-conspirators and I was subjected to two more smirks.

"Whaa-aat?!?" I squealed. "I'm married. I don't have to sneak. And I do not want any disturbances."

"Because I intend to create MY own..." Nikki giggled.

"You people know entirely too much about my private life," I laughed.

"We all know everything about each other," Tina said. "We're sisters."

"So what did Mizz Patel say about Kara?" Nikki questioned.

I filled them in on the conversation.

"So where're we going to put her?" Susan asked.

"Maddie and Anita have a spare room," Tina said. "Maybe she'll fit there." Maddie and Anita were in one of the three-bedroom units of the apartment. "They're good people. We need to talk with them."

"They know about 'er," Susan said. "She doesn't know about them."

"So introduce them. Kara was kind of nervous about being a non-engineer student."

"Look," said Tina, "Kara's a polymath just like the rest of us. None of us is single-minded about life. We all read and we love music and culture. She got on board with that part."

"Yeah," I said. "She's smart. We have a lot of smart people."

"Happy ones, though. Kara's kind of dark and brooding."

"Like me before Dan," I said. "I needed an environment change."

"Good point," Tina smiled. "Very good point. I'll talk to Maddie and Anita."

"Kay!" I popped. "I gotta get home."

She giggled as I bounced off.

I walked into our apartment and made a quick little pass though the place. Took the dishes out of the dishwasher. Wiped the counter. Went in the bedroom. Turned the covers back. Made sure the bottom sheet was tight. I was propped up on the sofa between an engineering text and my MacBook when the door opened and my husband entered, grinning.

"Lock it," I said.

The lock clicked. "You know, little redhead, that you crashed half of my afternoon? As soon as I saw the calendar..." He was grinning as I closed the book and the computer.

I stood. "I had a good day, and therefore I desire the perfect end to it." I smiled. I'm a year and a half, well, almost, into being the mate of Dan Richards, a position for which I volunteered, and I regret not the least.

I've got eyes. I see other men and boys, and I am not stupid. Despite the fact that I'm notoriously small-breasted, I still get a lot of looks. I know red hair is a fetish to a lot of men, and I have it. Not quite a bright red as Johanna's, but still plenty red. Tina's is red in the proper light. Mine's red unless it's wet. Johanna's ... My friend Johanna of the sailboat and the flute, I seriously believe that she glows in the dark.

But I don't care if other guys are eyeing me. None of them is my Dan. None of them is THIS guy who's standing in front of me as I stand up. None of them is the guy who takes me in his arms and senses what I NEED. We've done is fast and slow, soft and hard, frantic, lazy ... I have never been unsatisfied since the first time I climbed into his bed one dark and stormy night.

In all that time since Mom left me, I have spent only one night without Dan in the bed with me, and that night, he was in the hospital. So I guess you can say Dan and I are supposed to be together. With his arms around me right now, I can feel my body reacting to THE stimuli. My nipples tingle. I feel heat and wetness between my legs. I expect one might find elevated pulse and respiration.

Then we kiss. And he picks me up in his arms and carries me into the bedroom.

"We are being conventional today, aren't we?" he said, eying the bed, covers turned down.

"I am whatever you can make me into," I said.

"I wanna make you into a Cindy. A creature of sublime beauty and unparalleled intelligence and whimsical humor. With red hair. And freckles." He positioned me on the bed and nuzzled into my chest, then pulled away. "Oh, joys! It worked!"

"Well, sir," I giggled, "If you made me into YOUR Cindy, then you could have at least made me naked." I rolled sideways out of bed and started to undress.

"Nuh-uh," he said. "I get to do that. It's a part of building MY Cindy!"

So that's the game today. I'm completely naked and standing before him and I'm not the least bit bashful about it. I step closer, just to make it easy for him. He caresses me, eyes closed, like he's reading me, seeing me with his fingertips. And his lips. Doesn't matter where he kisses me. I love it. He's sitting on the bed now, still dressed, and his lips touch my chest above my left breast, his eyes still closed.

Little kisses trace down over the slight curve to my nipple. He's reading me. The areole of that breast crinkles with arousal and expectation. His next kiss covers it, soft, gently sucking, his tongue teasing it as he sucks the nipple between his lips. It is only then that I realize I've been holding my breath.

As I sucked in a fresh breath, I caressed his head, savoring him savoring me. Another move of his lips and the hands that were stroking that short hair pushed the back of his head, encouraging him. Finally he moved back a little.

"What magic have you worked on me, Cynthia?" he asked. "You make me lose myself..." He breathed in. "I love you so awfully, horribly much..."

"Stand up," I said. "I need to get you nude." My Dan. Still not that chiseled body-builder type. Just not a lot of fat there. We sort of work at being fit, but we're not fanatic about it. He's still shaved around his pubic area, just like the first time I touched him. He even trusts me enough to let me shave him there. I like it like that.

That's naturally where my hands go when I stand up again and my lips are easily in range of HIS nipples. That's something that I didn't know about guys before Dan, not that I was the least bit experienced, you know, but Dan's nipples do for him what mine do for me: a perfect landing spot for a pair of lips, and he quivers like a plucked guitar string.

I slowly twist the two of us around and kind of push him back onto the bed. After all, this is MY idea. Six inches of very erect, and in my mind, perfectly beautiful male organ tells me that he's sold on the idea as well. I slide my body prone over his, kissing my way from his chest to his lips.

There are those blue eyes. They were so unthreatening and honest the first time I really looked into them. Now they're focused on me. His hands cradle my head, fingers pushing through my hair, as he pulls me in for kisses.

"You know, Daniel," I said, countering the fact that earlier he'd called me 'Cynthia', "Since I met you I've gotten used to a whole lot of happy places in my life, for many different reasons. But right here," I wiggled to make sure he understood where 'here' is, "is the happiest place of all, for sooooo many reasons. You, sir, are IT."

"That's awfully fortuitous," he said, "because all my life I've needed Cindy."

And another kiss and then communications was reduced to sighs and moans and "Yessss!" and 'Harder!' and finally 'Oh, godddddd!"

He fits me, inside me, so absolutely perfectly, and I don't know if it's possible for me to feel more totally connected to him that when we've just gone over the precipice together and he's still in me and I'm on his chest, trying to normalize my breathing and his arms are around me.

Finally I turn my face towards his, our eyes connect, and I get over being all metaphysical and I stretch up to kiss his nose and I feel a soft plop and and emptiness as his softening dick falls out of me. I giggle.

"That's ONE!" and I kiss him again, sliding off sideways to turn around before we get a big wet spot on the bed. I've heard that most guys don't like eating their partners after they've come inside them, but it's been something that HE started early on. And right now he's pulling me atop him and lapping and slurping at me and I'm trying NOT to lose control with his soft dick in my mouth but his tongue is just too good.

I've got him pretty clean and if the truth be known, I'm way past clean myself, but he doesn't stop until my body goes rigid and I have another orgasm. He gently lets me ride through it. Finally I twist back around and lay beside him.

We talked a little bit about our respective experiences of the day. I guess I just can't help it, though, I mean the guy's naked, and I'm naked, and there's this cute little thing. I remember that first time I called it a 'cute little thing' and he laughed and said 'guys usually don't like it being referred to as little' and we both laughed. "Compared to what it WAS, it's little. And definitely cute. That time, I told him how sorry I was and apologized as I kissed it in an expression of remorse. It didn't stay little. Was still cute, though.

Right now, though, I'm kind of playing with it, exploring the way that the skin slides, the texture of that marvelous head that feels so good in my mouth, and I watch it start growing again. Now I start sliding the skin up and down the shaft, tugging it halfway over the head, and I can't resist. I love it when it's stiff, and I'm still pre-charged and wet and getting wetter.

I toss a leg over him and in one move he's inside me.

"You know, you have the most erotic expression when you do that," he said.

"I dunno," I reply. "I'm just happy I don't look stupid. One day you need to set up the camera. I wanna see what it looks like when we do it."

The twitch inside me tells me that I just might have hit on something. I like being on top, but it's not the only way we do it. Sometimes we KNOW that I need to be underneath, in what I know as 'Dan possessing me' and he says is the 'missionary' position.

And I like doggy style, sometimes, too. It's our 'go-to' for quickies. We don't even have to undress, and the feel of his balls bouncing against me while he RAMS me ... and don't get misled by that 'ram' bit, because I'm shoving back onto him with every stroke and when he comes, that throbbing he's doing is right against my button and it takes me over the edge every time.

Right now I'm shaking through Number Three for the evening and I feel his second one leaking out of the junction between us. I tug gently on his shoulders, a sign he correctly reads and he gently sits up, holding us together. This is another position: me in his lap, impaled. It's a good one, too, and we've done it from start to finish like that many times. Right now, though, it's just a bit of intimacy where the message is Dan is going to love and protect and care for me forever.

This time I felt the soft plop, but everything else was just so perfect ... Oh, well, we do wear out a set of sheets pretty fast, what with all the washing they get. Dan scooted back to sit against the pillows and I kept my legs wrapped around him and we whispered all those loving, happy words that seem so silly and saccharine when you take them out of the context of two lovers in post-orgasmic bliss.

My husband, the love of my life, has a loud stomach. When he's hungry, it's audible. It was that sound that brought us back to clarity.

I can't help it. When I'm happy, I giggle. So I giggled. "Maybe we oughtta think about other appetites, huh?"

"I guess. Quick shower, then the Desais?" We can quick showers sometimes. Other times, the shower is just one of so many venues where we can love each other's bodies. Today, though, I'm thinking a quick one to get the musk from recent ecstasy off us, then maybe a longer one after dinner and before bedtime.

We hit the sidewalk headed to the restaurant and bumped into Susan and Jason. She giggled. "I didn't know you two were gonna show yourselves at all this evening."

Jason's not quite that forward, even now, married to my sister, so he just sort of smiled and hissed "Susan!"

She was holding him by the hand, swinging it as they walked. "Oh, you KNOW she posted a 'Do Not Disturb' on the calendar. Just like WE do."

"Yeah," he said. "One of those ideas I have to wrap my head around."

"So nobody disturbs us," Susan smiled.

"But EVERYBODY knows what's going on," Jason said.

My Dan made noises of agreement. He and I have had the discussion a time or two - oh, more than that. He gets a bit embarrassed if somebody mentions that they notice the calendar tag. I don't. My sisters and I have had happy discussions about the position that the physical dimension of a relationship plays in a healthy marriage.

Susan's the only one of us who didn't have to listen to a mom whoring herself out, night after night. "But Mom and Dad, they're not particularly good at being quiet sometimes. So I know, you know..."

"And since you met Jason?" Nikki had asked.

"Married Jason. There were plenty of guys who'd have been more than happy to make a woman of me."

That's my cue: "Funny how they say 'make a woman out of you'. I think it's much MORE womanly to be able to form and grow and maintain a relationship that's more than just sex."

We all knew lots of girls who did all the experiments, many of them with horrible and all too permanent results, physical and psychological.

Anyway, since the sidewalk led to either the parking lot or to the restaurant, I asked, "So where're my nosey sister and her husband going?"

Jason said, "I'm saving my wife the terrors of a kitchen this evening."

That's how we had company for dinner. And that's where that 'married life is more than just sex' angle starts working. We can sit down and carry on conversations with friends about everything. Since out of the four of us, three are students, what's happening in academics is a big topic. Since Jason and Dan are both working engineers, well, technically, Jason's not an engineer, but he does the work anyway, we talked about work.

I can't walk into the place without a hug from my sari-clad adopted grandmother, and we get great treatment. It's not a surprise, college town and all, that Grandma Desai rides herd over a staff who aren't Indian. Three waiters and the dishwasher are all college students. The cook isn't, either, but he's happy with working for the Desais, although he's announced he's angling toward his own restaurant sooner or later.

Good meal.

And when it's over, the Ellerbees head to their home while me and my Dan head to ours. And I know that we can put a cap to a perfect day.

Chapter 41

Tina's turn:

I'm not jealous, really. But here I am, this textbook open, and my laptop, and my notepad, and my precious step-daughter and her friend just stopped by and gave me a cookie because "You look like you're stressing, Tina."

I turned to gaze at her and Rachel. I knew that Terri would NEVER have to stress over any educational requirement accorded to the general population. For that matter, neither did I. My stress was because I was pushing hard so that I and my sisters would all graduate in less than two years from today.

"It's math," Terri said. "You know Nikki or Cindy will help you."

"I want to figure it out for myself if I can," I told my daughter. Yes, Terri IS my daughter, even though only ten years separate our ages. She's also my neat young friend, a diminutive bit of comfort, comic relief. It's easy to see her dad's genes in her.

"I know you do," Terri said.

"I do, too," Rachel injected. "But sometimes it's good to have somebody give you a little nudge when there are some sticky parts." She smiled sweetly. "Terri does that for me. It's a good thing."

Okay, these two munchkins just erased the self-pity that I was building up for myself. I bit into the offered cookie.

"It's a 'Cindy' cookie," I said.

"Me an' Rachel helped," Terri grinned. "Rachel said we'd add different dried fruit instead of raisins, and I told Cindy that one nut was as good as another nut, so it's got cashews, and you KNOW how Cindy is with that spice box." She smiled that little lopsided thing that she does when she's being a little snarky.

Rachel's head bobbed, nodding agreement. "Apple. Dried apple. Like in Mom's apple crunch. Do you like it?"

"Yes I do, Rache," I said. "Cindy's home?"

"Uh-huh," Rachel answered. "And she's got a physics book."

That's the latest development. The Physics Department and the Engineering Department cross their streams on the government railgun project, so the Sisterhood is known to the Physics bunch. I don't know that anyone has ever fought over me, academic or not. Well, if you don't count Alan in that parking lot incident, which I don't count.

But Nikki and Cindy are the subject of a nerdfight between the pure sciences bunch and the engineering bunch. And in Cindy's case, there are a couple of English profs who not so secretly hope she'll get disgusted and turn to literature instead.

"Cindy's got a physics book? That's new." I grabbed my phone. "Lemme call 'er." I woke Siri up and said "Cindy."

Two rings. "Hi!" in a voice so bright you can see the smile through the sound.

"Hi, yourself," I said. "Terri says you have a physics book."

"Yeah. Can I come over? We can talk. I'm bringing coffee."

"And cookies. More cookies." I looked up just in time to see Terri and Rachel hitting the front door.

"We're gonna help 'er.!"

"You got help coming," I said.

She giggled. "I need help!"

In a matter of minutes the front door opened again, Terri and Rachel tumbling in, giggling, followed by Cindy with her backpack over one shoulder and a thermal coffee carafe in hand. "Wanna mug?"

"Gotta mug right here," I said. I got up and diverted her into the kitchen where she topped off my mug, poured herself one, and we tended to the cream and sugar before returning to the desk in our home office/hobby room.

"So what's the deal with the physics text? I'm guessing it's not Physics for Jocks."

"No," she said, "it's not. Doctor Embert called me to her office yesterday and gave it to me. Said I'd be well-served to read through it and come talk to her."

I giggled. "She's gonna get you a physics major out of this, isn't she?"

Cindy smiled. "I am going to get an engineering degree."

I smiled back. "And a physics degree?"

"Maybe," she said. "I dunno. I was wading through this text. I see a lot of overlap."

"Really?"

"Yes," Cindy said. "I see where a lot of the engineering math comes from. Or went to."

"I talked about that with Alan," I said. "He says that a hundred and fifty years ago there weren't as many distinctions between pure and applied sciences."

"Yeah, like Doctor Embert smears the lines all the time."

"We all do, at least on that project. But are you thinking of changing majors?"

She shook that red head of hers. "Nope! Told my husband I wanted to be an engineer before I married 'im. And that's what I will be. Doesn't mean that I have to limit my horizons, though."

"Yeah, okay. You sing. You fly. You talked your way though most of college. And you're worried about limiting your horizons. Right..." and I tried sounding serious but who can stay serious too long when Cindy's smiling.

"You know what I mean," Cindy said. "It's all so unreal. Did you ever imagine you'd be where you are today?"

This was a frequent topic among us. I glow when I think about it. "You know the answer to that one."

"Yes I do," she said. "You KNOW how crazy it is."

I do know. In a year and a half I've gone from a high school dropout not sure she was going to live through another month to a high school honor graduate, college student, wife and mom. I cannot imagine what my expression might have been if somebody had suggested that path two summers ago.

Cindy was flipping through the pages of that physics text, showing it to Terri when my phone rang. Dan 2.0's ringtone.

"Hi, Dan!" I answered. I don't know what I was expecting. Last time Nikki's Dan called me he was setting up some happy surprise for her.

"Tina! Need you to get hold of Cindy. Susan's in the hospital and Nikki's at the police station."

"Omigod!" I blurted. "Did you call Jason?"

"Yeah!"

"Is she okay?"

"Yeah. They're ... it's an investigation. I'm on my way there. Jason's an hour away. Go take care of Susan."

"Terri. Rachel. Go stay at Rachel's house. We got a situation."

Cindy was staring at me, surprised. I grabbed my car keys. "Come on," I told her. "Nikki's at the police station and Susan's in the hospital."

Cindy kept her thoughts to herself until Rachel and Terri were around the corner. When they were out of sight, she blurted "What's going on?"

"I just told you everything I know. Let's go see our sister."

She was on her phone when we got into the car. "Dan? Have you gotten there yet?" Pause. "No? D'ya want me to call my step-dad? The judge?" Pause. "No, I don't know anything you don't know. Just wanted to give him a heads up." Pause. "Okay. I'll do that. I'm with Tina, on the way to see Susan." Pause. "My Dan's headed that way? Great! Let us know what's happening. Love you and Nikki." Pause. "Yeah, thanks. Bye."

I drove. Cindy was on the phone with her step-dad giving him what little we knew, which was darned sketchy. She was stowing her phone when I pulled into the parking lot at the hospital emergency room.

We introduced ourselves at the desk as Susan's sisters and got access back into the emergency room. There were two policemen with her. One of them was familiar. He was part of the investigation of the robbery at the Desai restaurant.

"Officer Canfield, isn't it?" I said.

He turned. Susan squeaked "Tina! Cindy! Oh gosh..."

"She's gonna be just fine," the officer said. He turned to his partner. "Remember that shooting at that restaurant a couple of months back? This bunch is all over it."

Cindy was already holding Susan's hand.

"My husband," I said. "He's the..."

"Oh, yeah, I remember now," the other officer said. "Jack, we can let 'em have some privacy."

"Yeah," Canfield said. "Take a few minutes. We're gonna find some coffee. We still have a few more questions."

I stepped to Susan's bedside. She looked disheveled, her face red, obviously from crying. "Are you okay? What happened?"

"I got attacked."

"By Nikki? Why's she at the police?"

"Because there's a guy over at the other end of the hall with a BIC pen in his head."

"Whaa... ?" Cindy blurted.

"I was leaving my history class. Supposed to meet Nikki at the car, so I walked that way. I've got that shortcut, you know, around the back of the building. I expected Nikki was gonna meet me but I guess I was running ahead of schedule or she was running behind. Anyway, you know that shortcut?"

We knew. Saved some steps, but was off the well-traveled paths most students took, running past the shrubbery that hid the utilities behind the building. "This guy..." Her face did something I'd never seen Susan do. It contorted into a sob. "He stepped out, tried to stop me to talk. I told him I had to meet somebody. He grabbed me ... From behind. His arm was around my neck." She sucked in a deep breath and continued. "He said he was gonna have me alive or dead and still warm, and he dragged me to the bushes. He was pulling my blouse open and pulling my jeans down and we both just sort of launched onto the ground and he stopped moving." One more sob. "There was a BIC pen stuck in the side of his head and Nikki was calling 9-1-1."

"Nikki? OUR Nikki?" Cindy squeaked.

"She saved me from getting raped or more."

"You didn't get raped," I said.

"Nope. Nikki must've been half a minute behind me. The cops took her away. An ambulance brought me here. And the guy."

The privacy curtain moved. "Excuse me," came the disembodied voice of Officer Canfield. "Can we get a little time to close this report out?"

"Sure," Susan said. "Come on in. We're okay."

She answered some more questions.

"We sort of overheard your conversation," the other officer said. "Just want to get it first hand, you know, all official."

"What're they gonna do to Nikki?" Cindy asked.

"I dunno," Canfield said. "Give 'er a medal?"

"The guy..."

"Stopped breathing on the way over here. That's off the record," he said, lowering his voice. "I'm not supposed to tell you that."

Cindy stroked Susan's hair, putting some of it back in place. Cindy, without a smile. I guess I stared.

"He attacked our sister. There's a price for that."

Susan squeezed Cindy's hand. "You've been through this."

"And he didn't ... I don't think he had time to regret it."

A nurse stuck her head through the curtain. "The ER doc is ready to look at you, Miss Susan," she said.

Susan asked for us to stay. The doctor asked questions, poked, probed. "Did he..."

"Nope," Susan said. "He was tryin' to get me on the ground and get my pants down when Nikki got there."

"So we don't need a rape kit, then."

She shook her head. "Nope."

"Then you're fortunate. Looks like you're going to have some bruises, but that's about it." He sort of smiled. "Do you want me to prescribe some sedative for the next couple of days?"

I recognized a male voice up the hall. So did Susan. "No, thank you. I think my sedative just showed up."

The curtain pulled aside and a very worried-looking Jason popped in. We stood aside as he said, "Baby..."

"Come 'ere, you," Susan said. "I'm fine." She held her arms open for him.

The boy broke down. When they finally separated, he had tears tracking down his cheeks. "Baby ... I ... I left everything at the substation. Dropped it all. Told the client that I had an emergency and I'd get back there in a day or two. Or somebody would."

"I love you, Jason. And we're okay. And you REALLY owe Nikki big time."

The next head that appeared was my Alan. "Hi, Susan. Hi, gang."

"She's okay," I said. "Any word on Nikki?"

"Nikki's still at the station. Talking with the DA. Her Dan's there with her."

"The guy ... He's dead," Susan said. "At least that's what we heard."

"Oh, that's a development," Alan said.

"We had Officer Canfield here. You remember him?" I asked.

"Yes, I do. He stopped by for coffee a week or so ago," my husband replied.

"He said this one's pretty much open and shut. Nikki's okay."

"Except maybe for the part where she stuck a ballpoint pen in the side of a guy's skull."

"Nikki'll be just fine," Cindy said assuredly. "She did a good thing."

"Anyway, I brought you some clothes. I hope they're okay."

"I told him to get you a few things, Susan," I said. "You know his sense of taste, though."

"Hummmph!" Alan coughed. "I just remembered some of the 'Susan' looks that we've all seen. And if I screwed up, I'm sure you'll all tell me and she'll change when she gets home."

They pulled Jason off to fill out paperwork before they let Susan go home. She rode home with Jason, naturally. Alan hauled me and Cindy by the university to collect Susan's car.

Cindy called her Dan for an update on Nikki.

"She's gonna be out in just a bit. Dan said that the DA can't think of any reason to charge her," Cindy said.

Nikki's story:

So Susan and I are supposed to meet after her morning class and my conference today. I walk part of the way across campus and usually meet her, but sometimes she goes to the car and pops her computer open and waits for me, studying in the car ... I was looking for her as I walked across campus. I saw her a bit ahead of me as she turned to go around the back of the building.

That's when things went, as my Dan says, 'all wonky'.

Despite the fact that in retrospect, it is SO cliché', this swarthy guy steps out of the shrubbery and confronts Susan. I could see her shake her head and start past him. She dropped her backpack when he threw an arm around her neck, and he started pulling at her clothes.

Okay, this isn't an appropriate social interaction. Thoughts started flashing through my head. I could call 9-1-1, but as Dan says, when seconds count, the police are only minutes away.

It looks like a BIC pen. It's neatly clipped to a loop on the shoulder strap of my backpack. It's not a BIC. It's what Dan calls a 'tactical' pen. Takes standard refills. Writes like a regular pen. Has a titanium barrel, though. He bought two. Gave me one.

I pulled it and dropped my backpack. And I charged. Didn't yell. Didn't scream. And the guy was struggling with Susan, trying to get her pants down when I hit him.

That pen will easily pierce a quarter inch of plywood. I know. I've done it. Now I know that it will pierce a human skull at the temple. And if you stick a pen into a guy's temple, he drops. Twitches a lot. Lets my Susan go.

Then we back off and call 9-1-1. I was consoling Susan and keeping an eye on the guy laying on the ground with blood coming out of his head and his nose when sirens approached, flashing lights, campus police, Auburn police. Ambulances. Big mess. Crowd started gathering.

Best I could tell, Susan is disheveled but okay. They bundled her into an ambulance, walking her away gently. The guy was jerking less often and less vigorously when they loaded him onto a stretcher and shoved him in the back of the second ambulance.

And I started answering questions. First one, I pulled a student ID and a driver's license and declared "I'm a minor. I need to have an adult present before we start questioning."

The Auburn PD officer shrugged. "You go ahead and call whoever."

Dan's at the office today. He's got a stack of high voltage switchgear drawings that I was helping him with yesterday. And I'm getting ready to disturb him. I called him.

"Hey, punkin," he said cheerily.

I guess that's when the adrenaline ran out because I started shaking and the tears came. "Dannnnn! A guy attacked Susan. I stopped 'im. With my pen. The police are here."

"Oh, shit, Sweetness. Are you okay? Susan?"

"We're both okay. But they want to ask questions. And I want YOU here."

"Where's 'here'?"

I turned to the Auburn officer. "Where're you taking me?"

"Downtown station."

"Downtown station," I repeated to Dan. "Call Tina. And Cindy. Her step-dad's a judge. In Alabama."

"Okay. I'm leaving right now."

"I love you, Daniel Horatio Granger." No, his middle name is NOT Horatio. That's a little quirky thing we do between us. This time it's so he knows I haven't lost control.

"I love you too, Princess Penelope."

I slid my phone back into its holster and turned to the officer. "I'm ready. Can I get my backpack? It's over there."

"Beej," he said to the other Auburn cop, "Get her backpack. That maroon and grey one over there?"

I nodded. I mean, how many backpacks did he see laying on the ground? "Handcuffs?"

He looked at me funny. "Are you dangerous? To yourself? To us?"

"Nope."

"Then no handcuffs. You're with that bunch that built that railgun?"

"That's us," I said.

"You know the guy that..."

"Stopped the robbery? Saved Mizz Desai and her family? Yeah. He's like a brother-in-law to me. We're a family."

He held the door open to his squad car so I could get in. We made small talk on the way to the station.

"Do you usually talk about winter weather with murder suspects?" I asked.

"First, you're not a murder suspect, not as far as I'm concerned, and second, I've heard about you kids from Lieutenant Canfield. What would YOU talk about?"

Kids? I was a KID?!? Okay. Let's learn stuff. I asked him about the odd equipment that filled the front seat of his patrol car. Computer. You know how I am about computer-centered systems.

"I'd like to dig around in that thing," I said.

"Works pretty good."

"Could be better. Voice commands. I'm playing, well, Cindy and I are playing with ideas about hands-off applications."

"Oh, then Canfield was right."

"I hope it was about good stuff."

"Look, Miss..."

"Mizz. I'm married."

"Mizz Granger. Uh ... Nikki. Sorry. I'm just a poor patrol officer in a small town police department. You passed me up when you said 'playing with'."

"Don't mean to sound like a smart-ass. Just something that we're playing with. Interested in. My thing, you understand."

"I understand that."

When we pulled into the police department parking lot, I saw Dan's pickup truck already there.

I saw him as soon as I was escorted into the station. I ran into his arms. Sobbed a little. I think it's allowed. Got my head patted. Got a kiss. Regained my control and turned to the officer.

"Dan Granger," Dan said, extending his hand. I'm thinking, is it a good idea to shake hands with the guy who arrested your wife?

"Sergeant Tracy Ross," my officer replied as he shook Dan's hand. "Detective Canfield will be here in a second."

"We know Canfield," Dan said.

"So I've heard," Officer Ross replied.

Canfield walked into the room. Shook Dan's hand. Shook MY hand. "Can y'all follow me?"

We went into a little room. Sat down across the bare table from Canifield.

"As you might imagine, this room is being video'd and recorded. Can you state your names for the record?"

We did that. There was a knock on the door.

"Yes?" Canfield answered.

The door opened. "I hate to bother you in the middle of this thing, but you need to take this call," a female officer told him.

"Excuse me, folks," he said to us. "Let me see what this is."

He left me and Dan alone. Dan questioned me a little about how my day was going, "Other than this, of course."

Canfield came back into the room. "Interesting," he said. "The District Attorney is coming to sit in."

"Is that normal?" I asked.

"It is if he's asked to by an old friend who's a retired judge."

Dan laughed. "We've just been Cindied."

Canfield cocked his head. "Cindied?"

"Yes," I smiled. "Cindy Richards, my adopted sister..."

"Oh, yeah," Canfield said. "Little redhead."

"Her foster mom is married to Judge Charlie Peebles."

"And Judge Peebles asked our DA, an old friend of his, to take a personal interest in this case."

"I hope that's a good thing," Dan said.

"Should be. Although what I've gathered so far, there's nothing to lend itself to any charges against Nikki anyway. Let's get a cup of bad coffee until the DA gets here."

We all went into the kitchenette, got the accurately described coffee, found one donut in a box.

"You guys treat us better'n that," Canfield chuckled.

"How far out is the DA?" I asked.

"Not far. Maybe a half an hour."

"Oh. I was thinking if it was gonna be a while we could order pizza."

Dan grinned, glanced at Canfield. "Wanna? How many people in here?"

"Five or six."

Dan turned to me. "Order four."

I have the app on my iPhone. A few keystrokes and "Pizza's on the way."

Dan laughed. "Doesn't count as bribery. Not donuts."

"You're perpetuating a stereotype," Canfield laughed. "We appreciate the pizza."

We were fighting slices of delivery pizza when the DA showed up.

Shook hands all around. Introductions, me and Dan. He knows Canfield.

"I'm Dudley Harris. Charlie calls me 'Dud' because it pisses me off. And he told me that I needed to treat Mizz Nikki like she was my grand-daughter."

"Well, what do we call you? Mister Harris?"

"Book. They nicknamed me 'Book' in school. It stuck."

By the time we got back into the interview room, the news had come from the hospital. Susan was okay and on the way home. Her attacker was on the way to the morgue.

Mister Harris sat back and let Canfield ask the questions. He had the preliminary report from the officers who interviewed Susan. He asked me a lot of questions that I knew Susan had already answered.

"She didn't know you were coming," He said. "Why didn't you yell for help?"

"I didn't know what he might've done. He had Susan around the neck from behind. Could've hurt her bad. Or killed 'er. I made the best decision I knew of."

"With a BIC pen."

"Show 'im YOUR pen," I told Dan.

Dan pulled it from his pocket protector and handed it to Canfield.

"Looks harmless enough."

"It's a good pen. Depends on what you use for a refill. The barrel's titanium. It's an engineering thing."

"It's a damn strong thing," Canfield retorted.

"It is that."

Canfield turned back to me. "Have you trained with this as a weapon?"

Mister Harris raised an eyebrow.

"You mean, like there's a kata for ball-point pens?" I asked.

"Kata. You know about a kata?"

"Only in the loosest sense," I replied. "No sir, I didn't train with it. Dan said we all needed to take some basic self-defense classes. The instructor said anything could be a weapon. I thought I'd do better with the pen than just swinging my whole bookbag. Although a MacBook to the head might've stopped the guy."

"But you pulled the pen."

"It's clipped to the strap of my backpack."

"And you launched into the guy."

"Blind-sided 'im. He never knew what hit 'im. I knocked him and Susan to the ground. He never got up." I thought about what I just said. "He had Susan. My best friend. As close to a sister as I will ever have. And he was tearing her clothes off."

Book--Mister Harris spoke. "That meets the standard for legal use of lethal force, Lieutenant Canfield. I'm not seeing the first thing that makes me think the state should charge her."

"I'm with you there, sir," Canfield said. "The interview with Susan Ellerbee, her sister, says the same thing." He waved the handwritten forms. And the only other witness is, well ... Nikki, we're done. You probably want to go see how Susan is."

"Thank you," I said. "I wasn't thinking about the legality when I moved. Just wanted Susan safe. And yes, I need to go see her."

"I'd've done the same thing, Mizz Nikki," Canfield said. "We're going to share this report with the campus police. They may want to talk to you." He smiled. "I know what the campus weapons policy is. They don't address ballpoint pens, titanium or otherwise."

I was holding Dan's hand when we exited the building into the sunshine.

"Little princess, you have given me quite a ride today."

"Sorry. Susan. Protecting Susan."

We got in the truck. I crawled across the seat and kissed him. "I need to talk to Cindy. She's been through this herself."

"Oh, I'm sure you'll have quite the support group when we get there," Dan told me. "Just remember, you did what you HAD to do."

"I know. And Dan?"

"Yes, angel?"

"I love you."

Chapter 42

Nikki's turn

Roller coaster of emotions. I wonder if the human mind is damaged by things like this where you go from a happy, normal day right into a life or death situation, where you make the choice to risk your own life in the defense of one you love.

Love? Yeah. Susan's my sister, despite two completely isolated genetic trees. We chose each other, along with the rest of the crazy group, that little pixie of a redhead, Cindy, and our taller, auburn-haired instant mom, Tina. Yes, I'd kill for any of them. I sighed. As a matter of fact, I did.

I was plastered tight to Dan's arm while we drove home. Somebody needs to go get Susan's car. How are we handling dinner? My mind was a seething cauldron of thoughts. We pulled around the back of the offices right into the apartment parking lot. By the time I'd exited the car, doors were opening. Cindy. Maddie. Tina. Beck. Terri. Rachel. The guys.

I was swarmed. The swarm reformed when Susan and Jason pulled up. I got reswarmed when Susan wrapped me up, our first contact since the police separated us after the incident. I heard my Dan telling the guys "No charges."

Finally the squeezes started to subside. "Look, guys," I said to my friends. "I need a shower." I saw Terri and Rachel standing off to the side. That made me squat to their levels so I could get a couple more hugs.

Then I grabbed Dan's hand and tugged. "Come on." To the crowd I said, "I need a shower. I have adrenaline funk." I don't think Dan had a really good grasp of what I needed until the door closed behind us. Maybe he was confused.

I unconfused him. Hard and fast and frantic. There was a stream of clothing from the front door all the way through the house to the bedroom.

Note to self: Change the sheets. Again.

Very relaxed. Satiated. Satisfied. Tranquil. Molded against my man's side, feeling the rise and fall of his even breathing, feeling his heartbeat against my cheek. I sighed.

"Are you okay, little one?" he asked. "I feel almost used."

"Don't even go there, love of my life, my light, my inspiration, my rock."

"But are you okay?"

"Nothing like this ... Well, add this to the memorable days. The day the building blew over. The day I was rescued. The day I found that I wasn't the only one falling in love. Some wonderful. Some horrible. Today ... both."

He brushed his lips across my forehead so gently. "I worry about you."

"I worry about you, too," I retorted.

"You dragged me in here and we just did each other silly and you didn't say a word."

Okay, that's something I hadn't noticed. We usually laugh and encourage and direct and giggle and sigh right up to where one or both of us is going over the precipice.

"I guess I needed to attach myself to my anchor," I said.

"You've had quite a day."

"Am I supposed to feel something? You keep asking if I'm okay. Dan, that guy was going to rape our Susan. Am I supposed to feel bad that he's dead and I killed 'im?"

"I don't know what you're supposed to feel."

"Love, you know I adore you, don't you?"

"Yes," he replied.

"And you're my everything, right?"

"Yes again."

"But Cindy's been through this. And her Dan. And Alan."

"And you should probably talk to them, right?"

"Do you think it's a good idea?"

"Have you ever had a bad idea?"

"I want you to understand..."

"Baby," he said, landing little kisses on my face, "I want you to do what you think is best for you."

I didn't let him get away with little kisses. I collected a big one. And several more. "I don't think Cindy will be surprised if I call her."

"Call her," Dan said.

I kissed him on the nose. "You know how much I love you, Daniel?"

"Almost as much as I love you?"

"Or maybe a bit more. We'll have such fun trying to settle that argument." I reached for my iPhone, pushed the button, and said "Cindy".

I listened for the ring, then the answer. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," I said. "But do you have time to talk?"

"Just me? Or the bunch?" she asked.

"Just you, for a little while. I need to understand some things."

"My place or yours?" Cindy questioned.

"You come over," I replied.

"I'll be over in a second."

It didn't take long for Cindy to show up. When she came in, she hugged me. She was not up to her full-blown smile.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"I'm okay. This is new ground for me," I said. "This is new ground for me. I wanted to talk to somebody."

"And since I've been through it..."

I have very smart friends, some so smart they seem almost psychic at times. "Yeah, it's like that."

"You know there's a difference," Cindy said. "I was protecting ME."

"The first time," I retorted. I knew the story. Her Dan said she had a pistol out, ready to protect him, but that he was in the way.

"You were protecting Susan. Everybody thinks - knows - you did the right thing. Just like Alan and that guy in the restaurant. Just be thankful that you were able to do something before SHE got hurt."

"Guy's dead."

"Made his choice. What do you think is supposed to be the outcome of grabbing Susan and trying to rape 'er?"

I just stared into Cindy's green eyes.

"Okay, let me ask you this, then. Which of us wouldn't have rushed to help Susan?"

Cindy's phone rang. She looked at the display. "It's Susan. You want to bring her in on this?"

"In a minute," I replied. "But ... when I got home, I sort of attacked Dan."

She has this little smirk. "SO that's what this is about? You subjected your HUSBAND to undue torment? And you feel guilty?"

"Aren't I supposed to be remorseful? I mean, that dude is DEAD."

"And Susan, sweet, innocent, happy Susan, OUR sister, is alive. It was a binary situation. Either - or. No middle ground. He made his choice. Susan didn't have a choice. You did what you could. It was enough. Might not have been. Was, though." She heaved a deep breath. "And you celebrated life, victory, with your mate. Primal."

"Did you?"

"Yes I did. The next day. And I was not the least bit remorseful for that. And you need to ask Tina if she and Alan ... after the restaurant thing."

"There's another thing."

"What's that, my sister?" she asked.

"I never even saw the guy's face. I just swung my fist with that pen into the side of his head."

"Then you won't have to remember the look on his face. I do. It's a good time to hold onto Dan. But it doesn't happen as often as it used to happen. So it gets better. It does." Her red head bobbed. The grin started to reappear, and she hugged me. "We'll all get through this. Okay?"

"Okay, little sister," I said.

"Remember, it's between you and your husband. It might look like sex and feel like sex, but it really does exist on a spiritual level."

I knew about Cindy's experiences. She was as virginal as I was until we each met out own husbands. "Okay," I said. "I think I understand."

She giggled. "Sometimes it's just so darned good that I forget that whole spiritual dimension, though. But it's there. At the end of the day - end of the night, you feel good about yourself and you feel good about your mate, right?"

"Right."

"So thinking otherwise is just WRONG. No matter when or where. You. Your mate. Always right."

I smiled at my sister. Incongruous, I know, coming from somebody a year YOUNGER than me, but Cindy's a thinker, and we've all had discussions. "Got it, Sis."

She smiled. "Tell your husband he can come back in here now."

"Dan," I raised my voice. "Cindy says you can come in now."

He came up the hall. "O, thank you, gracious Queen Cynthia," he sniveled.

"Stoppit! You're being a butt, Dan Granger," I said.

Cindy giggled. "Your wife needs lots of - hugs."

"I will give those to her. As you order."

Cindy broke into full giggle. "Okay, then. Twice a day on odd numbered days, three times on even numbered, and on Saturday and Sunday until one of you loses consciousness."

"Cindy!!!" I squealed. "You're being rather forward!"

"Just seeing that my sister is taken care of." Smirk. "Right, Dan?"

Dan was several shades of red.

"So are we up for the full bunch now?" she asked.

"Yes. How's Susan."

Cindy giggled. "Probably conscious now. Jason might not be."

As she headed out the door I snagged Dan. "Another kiss would be nice." I still melt into his arms. It's been a year and a half since we first kissed and it's still electric.

"You're okay? Cindy helped?"

"Yes. Like you're surprised?"

"Not surprised. You're a survivor. You all are, you know." He put his hands on my shoulders, pulled me back from the door, and spun me around. "You're the most amazing creature imaginable."

"I'm yours. You're mine. Forever and ever, Dan. Let's go see our friends." Then we kissed. Almost forgot about our friends again.

It was as I imagined it would be. Susan wrapped me up, hugging, proclaiming me savior.

"I don't look at it like that," I said.

Jason was sitting beside her. "I do. We owe you."

"You don't. You'd've done it. Anybody would've. I was just there."

Susan said "How do we repay you?"

Cindy slid in beside us. "Name your first-born after her. That's a traditional payment." She giggled. "It works, too. Dominique, like Nikki, if it's a girl, Dominic if it's a boy." She did that little smirky thing she does.

"I would NEVER hold you to such a thing," I said. "My sister is deranged. Besides, you need to name a boy after Jason or one of y'all's dads."

And then I had a run at Terri and Rachel. "What do you know?" I asked them in response to probing questions.

"They said a guy attacked Aunt Susan and you saved her," Terri said. Rachel was standing behind her, nodding.

"That's true," I said. "Bad man. They're out there. That's why we tell you to be watchful."

Beck noted that her daughter was conversing with me and came over. I got a hug from Beck. "Brave girl. Susan said that guy was big."

"I had to try," I said. I watched Terri and Rachel skip off. Beck slid a little closer and said softly, "I don't know if they understand that you killed that guy."

"I don't know if Tina told Terri. I certainly won't. Parent's job, you know."

"Might be sensitive," Beck answered. "I guess it's best we tell her instead of letting her find out through the grapevine."

"Have you talked to Tina and Alan about this? I mean, Terri and Rachel are almost joined at the hip."

Beck laughed. "Who'd've known? You're right. My terribly bright daughter is partnered with an even brighter de facto sibling. I guess I oughtta slide over and talk with Alan and Tina. And you're still a hero. Heroine. All that."

"Yeah, that's me," I laughed. The thought crossed my mind. Need to bring the Houston branch of the family in on this when I get a chance.

Cindy's turn:

I'm proud of Nikki. Surprised, too, if you want to know. It takes a bit of daring to dash into a situation like that, but my sister Nikki's, well, DIFFERENT.

I have one of those pens. I showed Susan once. She thought it was a little too much. "What're you gonna do with something like that?"

Now she's looking at doing her own prototype. She can, you know. It's mostly lathe work, and she's pretty darned good in a machine shop. She's toured Harris Machine Works. They're a real machine shop, and she's taken Terri and Rachel there for a tour. ("I get to see a five-axis machine, Cindy! It's neat!" Terri told me.) And she got a lot of advice. Training.

I'm thinking that between us and Harris Machine Works and word of mouth around campus, those pens might sell real well.

"What're you giggling about?" Tina asked.

"Just fractalled off another idea," I said.

"Must be good."

"Titanium pens. We could make 'em. Get Harris to do 'em in dead time on their CNC machine."

"Oh, that's RICH. I can just see it on the 3Sigma website: Engineering and lethal ballpoints." She laughed. "That's terrible!"

"So we're gonna do it."

"Maybe without the 3Sigma logo."

"I can see where that might be a little bit of a conflict. I bet Susan's up for it."

My iPhone broke into a violin concerto. "That's Kara."

Tina smiled as I put the phone to my ear. "Hey, Kara!" I said.

"Hi! I was wondering if you're up for a Skype tonight," she said.

"Yeah, in a bit. We've had rough day today."

"You never have a rough day," Kara replied.

"This one was. Somebody tried to rape Susan. Nikki jumped 'im. He's dead."

"Nikki?!?" Kara squeaked. "Our Nikki?"

I noted that under the stress of this news, Kara had noted 'our Nikki'. I guess we really do have a new sister. "Yes," I said. "Our Nikki. Blindsided 'im. Hit 'im the temple with her ballpoint pen."

"That'll KILL a guy?"

"It will if the pen penetrates. This one has a titanium barrel."

"Killed a guy? Nikki?" she sounded stunned. Understandable. It's not one of the normal things you find about your teen female friend.

"He had Susan around the neck from behind, tearing her clothes off. Didn't see Nikki come around the corner."

"Gosh! How's she taking it?"

"Seems okay. We talked. I have Tina here right now. Wanna put you on speaker."

"'Kay," Kara said. "Hi, Tina!"

"Hi, Kara," Tina answered. "Do you still want to be involved with this group of misfits?"

"I don't think you guys are the misfits, Tina. I think the world's out of step with you all."

"And you're still interested?"

"I'm trying to work up to talking with Dad."

"We had a meeting about the building. They completed the second phase of the apartment building. That gives us a couple of new units. One of them is a three bedroom, the other's a two. We can move Maddy and Anita and you into the new three bedroom."

"Oh sure," Kara laughed. "All you engineers! You're gonna segregate me off with the accountant and the biology major."

I laughed. "And you're quite free to traipse off into the geek preserve any time. But how's Auburn gonna feel if you come over on a music scholarship and switch to engineering?"

"Who says I need a music scholarship? Dad tells me he has my college fund ready for whatever choice I want. And you and Nikki tell me that my math skills would be kinda wasted if I went for a music major."

"Nothing's wasted, Kara," Tina interjected. "You could do pre-law if you want."

"You're being mean," Kara laughed. "Following in my father's footsteps. I just can't see myself there. Dad's an extrovert. I am all the way at the other end of that curve. You know how hard it was for me to call y'all the first time."

My turn. "Johanna's rather persuasive, isn't she?"

Johanna had indeed called us and explained about Kara. Kara was, at first, very reserved, but now we can see a definite change in her, like she's blossoming. When I talked with Jo about that, Jo told me that she saw Kara do a metamorphosis when she started playing her violin.

"Her refuge," Johanna had said. "I know where she is, there. I've been there myself."

"Yes, and she has this way of getting me to trust her. Like I just can't see Jo having any guile or ulterior motives. Like she just genuinely cares."

"She does that," I said.

"So, Kara, what do you see your dad saying?"

"I don't know, really. This is a bit much, you know. I mean, he's usually glad to have me in the background, but as far as cutting me loose to move to Alabama, I might be pushing it."

"You'd be in the middle of a great community here. It's not like he's turning you loose in a co-ed dorm."

"Yeah, but he knows almost nothing of you guys. I mentioned, you know, but he didn't ask questions. And it's my senior year, so he KNOWS I've been looking at colleges. But I can go to the school and get a certificate of completion, like a diploma, and I have SAT's and ACT's that..."

Cindy laughed. "I already talked to Mizz Patel. She thinks I have a copy machine. Cranking out geniuses."

"I get kind of excited thinking about it," Kara told me.

I had a thought. "Why don't you see if you can come visit for a few days, like maybe we get you on Thursday, so that on Friday we can run you around campus and then you can spend Saturday with the gang? And we fly you home on Sunday?"

"You'd do that for me?"

"Silly girl! Yes, we'd do that."

"Well I can pay for gas. I know that has to be expensive."

"It's cheaper than commercial airlines. And I get to fly to Houston. And we have an extra seat for the trip, so I'm gonna see who wants to go with us."

Kara giggled. She sounded positively giddy. "Oh, you don't have any idea how much I want this to happen. I'll hit Dad up tonight."

"I hope you can swing it, Kara. I think you'll fit in."

Nikki's turn:

I have to go see the campus police. Apparently killing somebody on campus is a BIG DEAL. Dan's going with me since I'm still a minor.

"First time I think this is turning adversarial, we're shutting the conversation down," he said. "We'll lawyer up fast."

"Lieutenant Canfield and the District Attorney said I'm NOT getting charged, honey," I countered.

"Still, you know I worry," my beloved husband said.

"We'll be fine. Let's go." It was a bit of a nippy morning, so I pulled a knit cap over my head, coving the tips of my ears.

"Oh, that's a good idea," Dan laughed. "Go in that place looking all neat and charming."

"It works for YOU," I said. "Everybody else might not be wired that way." Okay, I was thinking that I've gotten enough comments to think that quite a few guys MIGHT be wired that way. Cindy said that her Dan accuses us girls of hunting over a baited field because we have a lot of contact with engineering students, a pretty male-rich environment.

Still, it's nice to be noticed, not that I could possibly imagine any other guy who would float my boat like Mister Dan Granger. Cindy's the same way. And she's a green-eyed redhead. I'm just another brown-haired girl. There are thousands of us.

That's another discussion. Okay, I was never obsessed by my looks, or anyone else's, for that matter, but I know what the standards are. I'm too practical for most guys: Short hair. No make-up. Practical, comfortable clothes. Dan adores me.

That was an early conversation in our 'together' relationship.

"I don't do all that. That makeup and clothes and hair styling." I was telling him this when everything I owned was covered in the rubble of Mom's old apartment.

"None of that ever impressed me, really, little one. I've dated women that were into all that. First wife was. Hell, just about every woman around is, to one extent or another, and I've always been the guy who says forget that. I want the real you." He held me. "Let me say that again. I want the real you. Not the 'you' that had to make a mad dash for the bathroom first thing in the morning so I won't see you without your makeup."

"But most guys..." I stuttered.

"Actually, if the truth be known, most guys think the way I do."

"What you see is what you get," I said simply. "Are you sure?"

"Forever and ever, little one."

We took his truck, made the drive onto the campus to the police station. Walked in.

"There she is!" was the initial comment to my arrival. Walter Collings was at the front desk. "We're expecting you. You okay?"

"Yessir," I said.

"How about your friend Susan?"

"She's fine, too. In class this morning."

"Seriously?"

"What's she supposed to do? Get the vapors and go into seclusion? She got attacked. Other than some bruises, she's fine."

Walter gazed at me, then glanced at Dan. "Mister Granger, I presume?"

"Yes. You're Walter Collings?"

"I am. Even put the right nameplate on the desk. College kids'll keep me straight."

"Uh, yeah. I try keeping up with this one."

"Oh, we have a wonderful life together." I glanced at Dan. Yeah, he starts smiling when he thinks of our life. Walter looked a bit amused. "Was idlyllic, right up until yesterday..."

"Yeah. Yesterday. Can you go back and talk to Brady ... uh, Lieutenant Gormley?"

"Do we need an attorney?"

Brady had made his way to the desk. "You certainly can get one if you want. But I have the city police report and a little hand-written note from the district attorney and if I ever want to show my face in public again, I'd better not make Mizz Nikki uncomfortable. So it's your call."

"Let's go, Dan," I said. "We can do this."

We followed Brady back to a little room with a table and a few chairs.

"All we're doing here is fleshing out the report for our records," he said. "My boss sort of expects me to do a bit more than take the city police report."

"I understand that," Dan said.

"So what I'm going to do is read their report, Nikki. And then you can add or alter what they said and we'll make it ours. Okay?"

"Okay," I said.

"You're okay with talking about it? I mean..." Brady looked concerned, like maybe I was...

"Susan didn't get the vapors this morning, and neither did I," I said. "Yes, it was traumatic. But I did what I could under the circumstances, that's all. People are supposed to do that - defend their families and friends. Do you have military experience?"

"Well, yeah. I was an MP."

"Dan was a combat engineer. So was Cindy's husband and Tina's husband and my Dan has a Purple Heart, from a firefight with his platoon. He was takin' care of guys who were just as busy takin' care of him. I was takin' care of my sister. Same thing. Saw what I had to do..."

"You could've been hurt," Brady recovered, trying to get back into leading the narrative.

"That guy - I don't even know his name - he WAS hurting Susan. How could I stand by and let that happen?"

"Nikki," Brady said soothingly, "I'm just trying to be sensitive here."

I took a deep breath. Dan's hand touched my shoulder. I felt my stress level drop. "Sorry," I said. "I guess it sort of really DID come back to me for a second."

"The guy's name was Rudolfo Gutierrez. He was part of a crew doing repairs to the roof of that building. We're still waiting on information from the identification papers he had, but I've seen a lot of fake stuff, and his was fake. My opinion, you realize. Off the record."

"I didn't know. Not too surprised, though," I said. "Looked like a laborer. No that I did a lot of looking. I heard Susan squeal when I came around the corner."

"You didn't hesitate."

"He wasn't subtle. First, I know Susan, and I know she'd never let another guy touch her. Second, he had her from behind, forearm under her chin, stranglehold. And third, he was pulling her pants."

"And you just charged right in."

"Yessir," I said. "I know. Dial 9-1-1 and all that. But if I had backed up to do that, he could've killed Susan before you guys got here. I didn't see anyone else. Sort of made it my problem to solve."

"And you used your pen..."

"Uh, it's all I had. Campus regulations forbid weapons."

"Your pen..."

"Show him your pen, baby," I told Dan. Of course he had it. He's an engineer. It's in that shirt pocket in his pocket protector.

Dan pulled it out. Looks like a pen, because it IS. Of course, instead of being cheap plastic, it's machined titanium. Takes regular refills, so it's a good little writing instrument. He handed it to Brady.

Brady turned it over in in his fingers, examining it. Scribbled a bit. "Just a pen."

"Yes. Engineer's pen. Titanium barrel. That's all."

"And you..."

"All I had, Mister Brady. He was hurting Susan. That's all I could think of. I just jumped and swung."

"You know where you hit 'im?"

"Side of his head. Temple. My best chance of making sure he stopped. If I'd stabbed his back he might not have stopped. I wanted him to stop."

"This pen is seven inches long. You stuck four inches into the side of the guy's head."

"Once you penetrate, it's easy." Okay, I'm a little bit pissed now, reliving it. "And when I got it in there, I kinda swirled it a bit before he dropped."

"Oh, gee, baby! You didn't have to tell us that..." Dan blurted.

I looked at Lieutenant Gormley. He had the vestiges of a sort of wry smile. I plunged on. "When he fell, I lost my grip on the pen and Susan was loose so I went to her." I looked again. "You're not writing any of this down."

"You haven't said anything that wasn't in the city's report. Except for that 'swirly' thing."

"You didn't write that down."

"Nah, I think I'll just leave it out."

The conversation softened a bit. We talked about the rest of the bunch and about the engineering business, then we shook hands and left.

In the truck I sagged back into the seat. "Gahhhhhh!" I said. "I want this to go away. I don't want to be a celebrity for THIS!"

Chapter 43

Cindy's Turn:

Nuts! I think it's just nuts! The word is one I picked up from my husband. He uses it because he doesn't use a lot of other, coarser, words.

There are others: 'chaotic' comes to mind. 'Barely expected' works too.

It's like this: Nikki and I both ended up sitting in Doctor Wilkins' office - that's 'Bren' - of the math department.

"Ram's vacationing back in India, or he'd be here too," Bren told us. "He's in on this. So's Doctor Patel. Big part of it is her idea. She wants to broaden your experience base."

I glanced sideways at Nikki. Nikki has this smirky thing she does. Kind of like a smile, just not quite as obvious. She was wearing it now.

"We'll do it, won't we, Cindy," she blurted.

"It" was a little jaunt into being teaching assistants for a couple of math classes in their department.

"Would've made a bigger impression if we'd've done it when I was fourteen," I said.

Bren laughed. "Believe me, it's going to make a plenty big impression now. The two of you. And some students who want to get over a few bumps." He smiled. "Doctor Patel says that both of you were quite successful at tutoring in your schools."

"Yes," I said, "But you need to realize that we had students who recognized that they needed and wanted to learn."

"And that's what we're giving you."

"Plus a paycheck," Nikki injected.

"Stipend, Nikki. It's a stipend."

"You go ahead and call it what you like, but we know, don't we?" Okay, this time she passed up the smirk and got that crazy grin. Cute. I imagine it gives her Dan the shakes. I have a similar one that equally affects my Dan.

So that was a week ago. Now I'm sitting in the cubicle of Jeremy Call. A real teaching assistant. "You make my heart hurt, Cindy. You and Nikki. I'd say 'head', but I know about Nikki and I don't want to sound coarse."

"Oh, Nikki understands, Jeremy. And she's not one of those frail little flowers that goes to pieces at the first mention of a bad thing."

"I guess I didn't think of that. She did survive."

"Oh, no," I said. "Nikki didn't survive. Susan survived. Nikki triumphed. Yes, I'm proud of Nikki. She's my sister and she saved my OTHER sister."

"So that business aside, I walk in and Doctor Wilkins, whom I'm told you call 'Bren', and Doctor Ramathani, whom you call 'Ram', have recruited you to do remedial work with some of our sophomore class?"

"They asked. We said okay. I don't mean to step on toes, Jeremy. Really. I've been helping kids for the last couple of years. We were doing it off campus."

"Yes, I heard about that 'greenhouse'. Started out with engineers and then some of our math students found out."

"We thought it was going to be kind of like an off-campus refuge for study groups. Nikki was doing one last year in her home. I had a corner of the library..."

"IN a MIDDLE school..." He shook his head. Looked down. When he looked back up, he was grinning. "There's gotta be a portal here somewhere. Some kind of wormhole. Sixteen..."

"I'm fifteen, Jeremy..."

"Oh, make it worse, Cindy ... A fifteen year old girl got recruited to tutor college math."

"But it's only sophomores."

"Doctor Wilkins wants you to degree out in mathematics. NOW."

When Bren and Ram hit me and Nikki with that, we were astounded. Bren said, "Purely for the honor of saying you did it and we had a part in it. You'll get your engineering majors too."

"I know," I said softly to Jeremy. I didn't tell him that I was blocking out a master's thesis in electrical engineering on feedback mitigation in high frequency DC pulse strings. Nikki and I played with some ideas on our railgun, then brought it into the university's project.

I guess I looked worried.

"Oh, Cindy, don't get concerned. I think it's funny. I'm not jealous. Really, I'm not. I guess if I was small-minded, I could work up a good case for it, but I'm not, and if two PhD's think you and your brown-headed sister are a good fit to give some of our students a push, then I'm for it."

"Good!" I squeaked. "I don't want to hurt feelings. Math is neat stuff, okay? But where I really connect is when I take a real-world object, see how it works, and apply math to it."

"Cindy, you're not hurting MY feelings. But I wanna see the looks on some of those faces when you and Nikki start off in that classroom."

"Uh," I stuttered, "I don't see us doing much 'classroom' at first. Introduction, maybe, then assessments of who's having trouble with what, and then individual and small group work to get ahead."

He shook his head. "See! You already have a plan!"

"Would it help if I showed up for the first class in my sari? I've been adopted by the Desai family."

He laughed. "Now I KNOW you're messing with me..."

"Kinda," I said. "Wanted you to lighten up. But I really am adopted by a real Indian grandmother. And I DO have a sari. And a bindi. And if I wore it, it would be out of respect for her, who fought tooth and nail to get her children educated, and in honor of Doctor Patel, who's helped me."

"That's the story I got from Doctor Ramathani. Ram. He told me to just drop any illusions and let you to have a run at this."

We talked a little more. I left him, headed to meet Tina and Susan. I didn't tell Jeremy that we had a track on another bit of disruption in his universe. At the end of the week, we're flying to Houston and bringing Kara back.

Dan Richards' turn:

I was sitting at my desk, cutting and pasting documents together for a client's new engineering standard when my phone rang. I picked up.

Maddie's voice. "Dan, there's a Mr. Sevinsky on the phone to speak with you."

"Thank you, Maddie. Let's see what trouble we're in now."

She giggled. The story of Kara Sevinsky was out. I was expecting the call.

"This is Dan Richards," I said. "Can I help you?"

"This is Evan Sevinsky. I suppose you know why I'm calling." At least he didn't sound like he was in a murderous rage.

"Kara's dad," I said. "Yessir, I've been told to expect your call. You can call me Dan if you wish."

"I go by Van, then, Dan. I have questions."

"I know I would if I was in your shoes," I said.

"My daughter is not one who is taken with wild explosions of fancy. I have friends who tell horror stories. Kara is nothing like that. So what do you know?"

Okay, I'll avoid the negatives that had been relayed to me about reluctant fathers and bimbo stepmothers. "I hear that Kara is a precocious musician and a student with academic abilities that belie her age. She has indicated an interest in joining our little community here in Alabama."

"What is it that you do? For money?"

"I and three associates have a surprisingly successful engineering house. We're mostly electrical right now, but we're examining options for spreading out."

"Academically. Where are you?"

"Three of us have bachelor's in electrical engineering. One had a bachelor's in engineering technology, but he's fleshing it out to electrical engineering. With any luck he'll graduate with his wife."

"That's the next point. Kara tells me that your wife, uh, Cindy, is fifteen?"

"And working on a master's in engineering. Age hardly applies."

"The law thinks otherwise."

"Believe me, Van, I know. But I have papers from the State of Alabama, signed by a judge, allowing her to marry. And in case Kara missed it, two of my associates are in similar positions, both academically and maritally."

"So Kara tells me. Now, she says that you have a couple of single girls, both college students, living in an apartment there?"

"Yes, we do. One of them is working in our office as a part-time admin. They are good girls. My associate, Dan Granger, Nikki's husband, has sworn to treat Maddie, Nikki's school chum and our admin, as his own daughter."

"I know how college girls can be," Van stated. "It's one thing when you're a young man in college, it's a whole different perspective when it's your own daughter."

"Something I totally understand. We told the two girls that they were not to have parties and males sleeping over, to treat the place as if their parents were living with them. And they do."

"And that's where you're proposing my Kara should live."

"Just finished a couple more apartments on the complex. One of them's a three bedroom unit. We'll move Maddie and Anita into it with Kara. She'll have her own room and a couple of pretty smart and decent housemates. And the community here."

"And your plan, subject to my approval, is to FLY down here Friday, pick up Kara, and keep her there for a week?"

"Cindy and the girls have talked to the university people. They represent your Kara as another bright..."

"Past bright," Van said. I noted that there was a dash of paternal pride in his tone.

I continued, " ... they'll interview, and in her musical skills, audition, and then make a decision."

"It's a strange opportunity. But you're in the middle of a semester. How's that going to work?"

"If she ranks with my Cindy, they'll get her started on credits under non-traditional means, like interviewing and testing and self-paced studies. Quite possibly she'll be another one outside the traditional four-year structure."

"Ah, yes. She tells me about Cindy and the others."

"Cindy thinks Kara's in that class. And my Cindy hasn't been wrong yet."

"I'll have her packed and waiting for you, then. And naturally, I reserve the option to show up at random times to visit my daughter."

"I expect nothing less. Warn us, you get a social. Just show up, you still get a social, just a bit more impromptu."

"Huh?"

"Social is what we do. It's about family and support and reinforcement. I'm happily married to an academic rockstar, and part of what keeps us going is that she's got a group, a family, to live in. If somebody's happy, and that's usually the case, we get together and share it. If something bad happens, we get together and share it."

"I guess we ... uh, I went the other way. Great grandfather came from Poland, a ghetto, to New York, another ghetto, and Grand-dad got out of there in the great upheavals of World War II. I never had the roots like the Old Ones did, to family and community."

"I guess you're the same way that many of us are. Three of us are seven hundred miles from our ancestral homelands in South Louisiana. Add one wife to that. And you know, that's much of modern society. Interesting ... Uh, did Cindy relate to Kara that we have a Jewish family in that community?"

"The subject never came up. We didn't talk about ethnicities."

"Oh, we're very multi-culti here. Sim and Beck and their daughter Rachel are Jewish."

"Observant?"

"As observant as you can be for a Hebrew in Alabama. Shabbos. Pesach. Hannukkah. Keep kosher, mostly."

"Then they have me beat. I never pushed it on Kara. She barely knows we're Jewish."

"Cindy never mentioned it."

"Is it a problem?" Van asked.

"Is it a problem?" I retorted. "Sim Weissmann and I have had conversations. Cindy and I are mostly Baptist, but not radical about it. Did I mention that Cindy's adopted grandmother..."

"Indian."

"Dot, not feather, as her son puts it," I said. "They have a little altar to Ganesh in a corner of the restaurant."

"Not uncommon," he countered.

"Yes, and if the Weismanns can put up with a bunch of Cajuns and rednecks and Hindus, then I think that ethnicity is NOT going to be a problem for your Kara."

"I agree. Just wanted to have all the cards on the table. You never know what sort of furniture lies in the attic of a man."

"Look, Van," I said, "I'm more concerned that she's the daughter of a lawyer than I am about the color of her skin or what her religious propensities may be."

"You know, Dan, I'm glad we had this conversation. I feel better. Not 'adequate' better. Not 'good enough' better. Really better. Like 'I want to shake your hand' better. What time will you be flying in here? Can you make it by lunch?"

"Cindy calls it "Dawn Patrol". But I can guarantee lunch."

"Well, let's do that. Lunch. Me, you, your Cindy..."

"I may be bringing Nikki or one of the others. Probably Nikki."

"That's not a hurdle. And we'll all have lunch on me."

"First time a lawyer didn't cost me money..." I laughed.

"You - you're not gonna give me a lawyer joke I haven't heard, Dan. Hell, boy, I starred in half of 'em."

"Van, I'm looking forward to the meeting."

The phone went back on its cradle and I leaned back in my chair. A disembodied voice, female, came around the wall.

Maddie. "You know, you just amaze me. What did God do, Xerox you guys? That sounds just like Dan 2.0." Maddie was an early adopter of the '1.0 -2.0' differentiator between Cindy's and Nikki's husbands.

"What? I just had a conversation with a guy who worries about his daughter."

"Yeah? I thought that one reason his daughter wants to be here is because her dad wasn't that much into fatherhood."

"Maybe so, Maddie, but people remain messy things, terribly hard to measure, quantify and understand. Just because one action isn't manifested doesn't mean that the underlying emotions aren't there."

"Oh, sure, now you sound like MY dad. Or Mister Sim. But I predicted that your conversation would be more adversarial. I mean, besides us bean-counters, lawyers are like your arch-enemies."

"Van - Mister Sevinsky - is under it all, a dad. Maybe not the best, but apparently a little better than a lot of them. Who knows, maybe this will have a different outcome."

"Serendipity," Maddie said.

My wife's friends are NOT dumb. I caught the word.

"You go looking for one thing and come up with something completely different." She came into my office and picked up my coffee mug. "You've impressed me. I shall repay you by getting you coffee."

"I shall count this as the privilege it is," I said.

"You're well advised to do so," she smiled. "Because I know your wife. She's the one who tells me how you like your coffee."

Alan scooted his chair into the hall. "So our introductory tour for Kara is a go, then."

"Yes. We keep shuttling people around like this, we're gonna need a bigger plane[PtC1]."

"If we could figure out how to make money on it, I'd be all for that." Alan's probably the most business-oriented of our bunch. Expenditures have to have some sort of foundation in reality. Three-quarters of a million dollars for a King Air was a stretch.

"One can dream," I said.

"Oh, you just know it'd be like flying a school bus," Alan countered.

"There is that," I allowed. "While you're out here, heard from Dan 2.0?"

"He's visiting that co-op in northwest Georgia. Might have us a thing there. Get your cookie cutter out. They have some little distribution substations that haven't been upgraded since they discovered electricity."

"We need a civil engineer," I said.

"No such thing as a 'civil' engineer, Dan. They're all assholes."

"Mister Alan! I'm gonna tell Tina!"

"Sorry, sweet little Maddie," Allan feigned remorsefulness. "We know your Daddy never used language like that."

Cute giggle. Maddy's got one. "And if you're going to use off-color language, at least find a new joke."

I knew that Cindy's day had ended when she and Tina showed up in the office. I heard the door open, then footsteps, then a pair of arms wrapped around me from behind. A kiss on the ear, and a sweet "Hello, love. Didja miss me?"

"SHHH!" I hissed. "My wife will be here any minute!"

"Beast!" she squealed.

I swiveled my chair so she could perch on my knee. "Hi, little love," I said, then I kissed her. "How was school?" It's the obvious question, you know. My wife is in college. However, the way SHE is doing college, there's always a surprise around the corner.

"Next Tuesday is the classroom debut for me and Nikki," she said. "We're going to get one session a week in the classroom setting on Tuesdays, then pull selected students out for small group sessions on Thursdays. Nikki gets a bunch. I get a bunch."

"My wife, the college instructor."

"At fifteen," Alan added. He was standing at the door. "And you're still doing the 'dash to Houston' to retrieve Kara on Friday?"

"Yeah," she nodded.

"Little change there," I said. "I talked with Kara's dad."

"She texted me."

"He wants us early enough to have lunch with him and Kara."

"Oooo," she squeaked. "That's a significant development."

"I know," I said. "Talking to him on the phone, I'm having trouble reconciling that 'disinterested father' image with the conversation we had."

"Uh, remember, honey, he's a trial lawyer. That's as close to being an actor without going to Hollywood or Washington D.C."

"Good point."

Alan laughed. "Cindy, you sort of cut through the fog, you know..."

"Well, I'd really LIKE to think it was different, but I've talked to Kara and gotten a different side of the story. More than you guys."

I shrugged. "We'll play it by ear, I guess. Point is, he is okay with the general plan for Kara, and if she decides and Auburn decides, she has a place here, where he may or may not visit at random times."

"I don't get the impression that the middle of Alabama is on his list of voluntary destinations. He's never visited her at a summer camp or anything like that. Why would this be different?"

"Sometimes people grow. Change. Some parents are not comfortable dealing with little kids, but they find themselves better able to relate to young adults."

"Interesting angle," my cutie said. "I may run that by Sim later. Beck's got a big pot of chicken soup. Discussing food history with Terri and Rachel."

"You've already asked?"

"Oh, yeah. Gotta see what my Terri-dactyl is doing."

I smiled at the image of Terri as the communal 'little sister', not to take anything away from her constant partner in crime, Rachel. But Rachel has had textbook parentage, the Jewish version, from the beginning. Terri's was spotty, divorce, mom with 'issues', geographically distanced dad. Now Terri was immersed in family.

"And what's she doing?"

"Stopping long enough to lecture me about starch conversions and Maillard Reactions and the fifth taste."

"God, Grandma would've loved 'er," I said.

"Yeah, I can imagine her with your sister," Cindy said. "How much longer are you going to work? I can do stuff at the house."

"I need to finish this section. I'll be there after four."

"Beck says soup at five. The bread's in the oven."

"Oh, lord. Beck's baking."

"I told her to get some chapati from the Desais, but she said she wasn't up to the incongruity of Indian bread and Jewish soup today."

"Plus she likes baking," I said.

"Yeah. Calls her kitchen time 'Kosher Zen'."

I collected a kiss on the nose as Cindy bounced off my knee and out the door.

"There's dinner plans," Alan said. "Nikki's got Terri this evening with Dan out of town."

"We're all going over there. Me, Anita, Terri ... gonna play Monopoly," Maddy said. "I'm ahead in classwork, so we can relax."

"Bean-counter propaganda," I said. "Subliminal."

"Makes me wanna be a slum-lord," Maddie retorted. "I'm just another impressionable youth."

"Wish your dad had impressed you into becoming a civil engineer..."

Giggle. "There's no such thing as a civil engineer..."

Alan laughed. "Isn't there some work you should be doing?"

"Yes, Master," she laughed.

I finished moving a few blocks of text around, checked formatting, made sure I didn't get trapped in the horrors of cut and paste, where you leave evidence of the original document by failing to change ALL instances of the previous client's information. I saved the document to the server, left a copy on my own computer, and shut the thing down.

I heard Alan locking the front door. Maddie was already gone. That's how the workday ended. We walked out the back door together after I armed the security system. And I walked home to my little bit of heaven. She was stretched out on the sofa when I walked in the door, a textbook propped up on her stomach.

She closed it when I walked in, setting it on the floor. "Come press down on me, baby," she said.

I crawled up her lithe form, covering her, finding her arms around my neck, pulling my face to hers. Encouragement. I rained kisses on her face until, giggling, she trapped me, lip to lip. We drank deeply of each other, then I slid sideways, fitting between her and the back of the sofa.

"You're perfect like this," I said.

"Really? Not totally nude, freshly showered?" Her blue eyes twinkled. She plays the game.

"Nope. This is the perfection for right now." Another kiss. Wiggling, she molds herself against me, insinuating one of her legs between mine, then hooking her foot behind me to lock us together.

Little kiss. "Yep! Absolutely perfect!" A few more kisses and we untangled from each other.

She questioned me about details of the conversation with Kara's dad.

"I was completely neutral," I said. "He asked what I knew, I told him, except I omitted the part where Kara said he was not very much in interacting with her. I let him go where he wanted in the conversation."

"And he went there?"

"I get the feeling that he hasn't a really good idea of what she expected, nor did he have an idea of what he should have been doing."

"Kinda what Alan told Tina about how he handled getting Terri for visits before Tina came along. Dads and daughters, it must be a difficult thing. And Kara said the various step-moms were no Tina."

"Yeah," I said. I had Alan's side of the story on how Tina got excited about taking on Terri, at first for the Christmas holiday, and then full-time, and his version of trying to be a dad on his own with a little daughter for a couple of weeks at a time. I could imagine difficulties.

"But I do get the idea that he has feelings, is actually proud of her, her abilities. Maybe there's some growth there. People do change."

"Yes, and sometimes for the better. Maybe one day some of this will dawn on Mom."

Chapter 44

Nikki's turn:

We're going to pick up Kara. Cindy's Dan is the pilot in command. Cindy's flying, though. And I'm in the back seat. It's different. I don't usually fly without the controls in front of me. As matter of fact, I can count those times on one hand, because the first time I was ever in an airplane, I was catching a ride with the owner of OUR plane while my Dan was out for a flying lesson.

We're pretty excited today. We have pretty much decided that Kara is going to be a good addition to our community. Yes, she's single, and a year older than me, but she's terrifically smart, right there with me and Cindy, plus she plays violin.

Five hours in the air. Cindy giggles because she calls it Dawn Patrol, a tag that started out as an inside joke between her and Tina, but we're all in on it. It's rooted in an old movie about World War I, but the connection to us is from when Alan found out that cohabiting with his then seventeen year old love, our sister, Tina, was illegal under Tennessee law, he and Tina flew to Louisiana the next morning to get married.

This time the goal is to get to Houston to get our new sister Kara and, of all things, have lunch with her and her dad. That's sort of unexpected. I got the feeling from talking with Kara that her dad really didn't care that much, yet he wants to have lunch. Cindy's Dan says that he thinks that maybe there's a side to Mister Evan Sevinsky that we don't really know.

Cindy, though, says that the guy's a lawyer, and he's used to presenting a façade as a course of everyday life.

Me, I just want Kara's soft-pedaled sense of humor around the rest of us. She wants to grow academically? Yeah. And we have the greenhouse.

The trip to Houston was pretty routine flying until we got into that huge mess of air traffic control that is the Houston area. I paid close attention and kept quiet. Yes, Cindy had the controls - left seat, you know, but Dan kept a running commentary of altitudes and headings and handled the radio communications. That's unusual. Cindy's perfectly capable elsewhere, even though she's too young to get a license. I have my student license, but Cindy just has the knack. I learned a lot. Dan's (apparently both of them, but this time it's Dan 1.0) a good teacher. His direction over the intercom for Cindy came with a commentary for me.

Things started lightening up when we finally entered the traffic pattern for the little general aviation airport.

"Next time, Dan, I wanna do it all," Cindy said.

"You're crazy," I said.

"Oh, no, Nikki. You see the patterns. We'll look at the chart again. It makes sense."

"Yeah," I said. "I guess it does." I noticed that Dan didn't even move toward the controls for Cindy's landing. She's getting good. We shut the engine down at the fueling station. We'd flown six hundred and fifty miles. Cindy's plane could've done another couple of hundred, but full tanks make for a comfortable feeling.

Three people were making their way across the apron. One guy in work clothes, probably the FBO, another guy in a suit, and a brown-haired girl who finally skipped ahead.

"Kara!" Cindy and I said almost in unison.

"Nikki! Cindy!" Kara squealed, and she broke into a run for the last twenty yards. Group hug.

The FBO guy took the fueling hose away from Dan so he could turn to meet the guy in the suit. They shook hands. I could barely make out happy sounds from them.

We girls finally broke our hug and walked over to meet Dan and Kara's dad.

"Dad, this is Cindy and this is Nikki."

Mister Sevinsky extended his hand. I shook it. Cindy shook it.

"You're right, Kara," he said. "They are a couple of cuties."

"Why, thank you, Mister Sevinsky," I said. Cindy smiled her answer.

"Excuse me," Dan said, mostly to Mister Sevinsky. "I need to go park our plane."

"Sure," Mister Sevinsky said. "I'll take the girls inside."

We went into the FBO office. Looks awfully familiar: Pictures of airplanes. Big planning chart on the wall. Coffee maker. Counter with a few odds and ends displayed.

I heard the Continental engine start up, then a burst of throttle, the sound changed directions, dropped to an idle for a bit, then coughed to a stop. Presently, Dan came through the door with the FBO guy. There was the short conversation at the counter as Dan paid for the fuel, then he turned to us.

"Van? You have a dinner venue in mind?"

"Does everybody do steak?" Mister Sevinsky asked.

Cindy and I nodded.

"I know Kara does," he said, "but I have to ask. So many young people have strange ideas about diet these days."

"'Vegetarian' is Indian for 'poor hunter'," I said, to Cindy and Kara's giggles.

Mister Sevinsky laughed. "Yes, okay. I expect that if my Kara is choosing you as friends worth traveling across four states for, you're not going to be some sort of New Age nut-cases."

"I thought attorneys were all about careful speech," Dan said.

"In a courtroom, maybe," Mister Sevinsky popped. "I prefer a good steak, and prefer the company of those who share my choice."

"Steak it is, then," Dan said.

Mister Sevinsky loaded us all up in a big SUV and off we went. Was a good steak. The conversation, compared to some that Cindy and I have previously enjoyed with Kara, was somewhat subdued.

Dan and Mister Sevinsky talked about business, mostly about our company's licensing and liability protection.

"You need an attorney here in Texas," Mister Sevinsky said, "I'd be glad to help."

"Customary charges apply?" Dan asked, smiling. Husband of Cindy is not a dummy.

"Of course, but we can work up something equitable."

"Then let me talk to the others," Dan said. "I have an Alabama attorney and a retired judge keeping us between the lines right now."

"That's Alabama, this is Texas. There are differences."

"And naturally, you'll be doing all this personally, right?"

"Dan, I have minions. I pay good money, I have GOOD minions. And yes, I will take a personal interest." He laughed. Okay, the guy DID have a personality, despite the tales Kara had related. As Cindy says, it goes with his territory.

After lunch, a brief fight over the bill, where Dan graciously surrendered, we were deposited back beside the plane. Dan stowed the bags that Kara was bringing for the week, she hugged her dad, Dan shook his hand, we buckled in.

Mister Sevinsky leaned in the right door. Dan's in the right seat. Cindy's in the pilot's seat. "You sure? She can barely see over the dashboard?" he asked Dan.

"Van," Dan said, "she flew us here. If she had another two years on 'er, she'd be licensed. And I can do everything from this side if I need to. I don't need to."

"Bye, baby," he said to Kara, reaching back to touch her fingers.

Touch her fingers. Now I'm parsing that. If it was a spontaneous move, it means something. If it wasn't, if it was for show, then for whose benefit was it?

Mister Sevinsky backed away from the plane. Cindy popped her window open, hollered "Clear!" and started the engine. As Cindy pivoted around to taxi, I saw Mister Sevinsky wave at Kara. She waved back.

Cindy kept a running commentary over the intercom as we made our way to the active runway, and then we took off. Once we were established at altitude, picking our way back through the Houston air traffic maze, Kara's head was on a swivel as she took in the sights.

"I never flew like this before. Commercial, you know, it's ZOOM! Up to waaay high. This is neat!"

"Funny! That's what I thought the first time," I said. We kept conversation rather sparse until we were well outside Houston, headed on a course of around seventy degrees. Or not.

Cindy's voice. "We're going to follow the interstate until Winnie, Texas, then angle up on course. Keeps us south of the Fort Polk restricted area. And now we can talk."

"Dad was on his best behavior," Kara said. "He can be quite charming."

"He succeeded," I said.

"Don't get me wrong," Kara continued. "He doesn't treat me bad. It's just that he doesn't treat me good, either. I don't lack for anything material, you know."

Reprise of an old speech.

"There are worse things, Kara," Cindy said.

"I know," Kara replied. "We had this talk. I just wish..." her voice trailed off. She stared out the window at the ground sliding by a mile below us.

"Second thoughts?" Cindy's Dan asked.

"I shouldn't have them," Kara said. "I've been sent off to every imaginable teen adventure and summer music camp every summer for years. But this just feels different. Like I made a choice all by myself."

"Kara, it's your choice. If you're thinking you made a mistake, we can turn around," Dan said. "Nobody will think badly of you. This is a big step."

"We're here for you, Kara, whatever you want," Cindy reinforced.

"No," Kara said with emphasis. "Let's do this. A year from now I'd have to do it. Or the year after that. Sooner or later. I can do this. You all can help."

I put my arm around her. "Kara, we're glad to have you. This is going to be okay."

"I guess so. I'm sorry. Just having an episode." She looked out the window again. "You know, flying like this is just plain neat!"

"I've never flown the other way," I said.

"Me neither," Cindy echoed.

"Is it hard?" Kara asked.

"No, not really."

Kara looked at me. I nodded. "We'll make sure you get a try at it," I said. "Probably let one of the guys with a lot more hours do it with you in the front seat."

Kara's eyes brightened up. "I'd like that. Really."

"Another one who can get her license before I do," Cindy said, feigning sadness. "Hang on! Steep turn!" She dipped a wing and wheeled us around in a 60-degree bank. I knew her execution was correct when we ran into our own turbulence, just like my instructor said.

Kara squealed. "Hey! Neat!"

"I need to get you a ride with my friend Hanna back home," Cindy said. "I'm soooo tame."

"Cindy keeps threatening to expose us to her friend," I said. "Hanna's a trophy-grade aerobatic pilot."

"Makes my little turn look like a kiddy ride," Cindy said.

"And Cindy's not supposed to be doing steep turns at cruising altitude," Dan said.

"A steep turn is a clearing maneuver in its own right," Cindy said. "Nobody's supposed to be that close to us anyway."

Cindy's right. It's rare that we see another light plane outside the vicinity of an airport. Now, I have to give a different report for the times we've flown along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. There's a constant stream of helicopters moving down there, but if you stay above a couple of thousand feet, you'll be above them.

Kara said, "You can feel the gravity change. Like a roller coaster."

"Uh-huh," Cindy said. "And if you wanna get into the science..."

"I kinda do," Kara said. "I'm seeing some things, just thinking about it."

"We will, then," I said. "Start with some basic things."

"Some obvious, some a little less obvious," Cindy's voice came into my headset.

"This is gonna be good," Kara said. I took a surreptitious glance sideways. That darkness that had descended upon her when we first took off was gone.

"You two are better in real life than by Skype."

"And I'm just a supernumerary, then?" Dan popped.

"Oh, Mister Dan, I'm not leaving you out, but..." Kara had a hint of a giggle.

"Don't call him Mister Dan," Cindy said. "It's not like that with us."

"We're kind of a flat society like that," Dan said.

"I may take a while to get used to that, uh, Dan," Kara said.

I laughed. "Yeah, uh, to us, it's Dan and Dan and Alan. Some of our friends from outside the community do it, too, but a lot of 'em don't. And of course, Terri and Rachel, do the 'Mister' thing, although I halfway expected that Terri would start calling them 'Uncle'."

"Me too," Dan said.

Cindy jumped in. "I never saw that as something that would happen. This - Us - we're just different."

"I saw that," Kara said. "I wasn't sure, you know, when Jo told me to call you. She said you were different and that I should talk with all of you."

"And look where you are now," Dan said.

Kara put her head against the window looking at the terrain passing below. "What did you say, Cindy? Fifty-five hundred feet?" she questioned.

"Yeah," Cindy replied, "but you have to remember that it's referenced to mean sea level. I'm guessing that the terrain we're over right now is maybe a hundred feet higher."

"Mile high, then," Kara said. "That's where I am, uh, Dan. And I want to be here. And where I'm going." She sighed. "And we'll see how Dad takes it in the long run."

I'm watching a baby bird come out of her shell, I think.

As we expected, the flight home was completed without incident, the plane put away, including a little "Let me show you MINE!" at the airfield, because, you know, Kara needs to see a little bit more of our little general aviation stables.

And we were home.

The normal text bomb was lit as soon as we were on the ground, of course, not that anyone was unaware of Kara coming home.

Tina. "We have dinner waiting! Hurry!"

It was like bringing a puppy to kindergarten class.

Alan's turn:

I'm sitting in my office, working over a proposal for services to a rural electrical co-op. I hear the phone ring at Beck's desk, muffled conversation, then the inevitable. My phone rings.

"Yeah, Beck," I say.

"Were you expecting a call from a Kurt Brantle?"

"No. Name doesn't ring a bell."

"He said somebody from here told him we might have work for him."

"Well, give 'im to me."

"'Kay." Thump. Line swap.

"This is Alan Addison. Can I help you?"

"Maybe," the voice said. "Maybe we can help each other. I'm Kurt Brantle. I teach at Auburn."

"Okay. What do you teach?"

"Civil engineering. Heard through the grapevine that 3Sigma might need a civil engineer."

"Oh, I can imagine any of several grapevines that might have put that information out. We don't have a full-time position."

"And I don't want one. But I might want to pick up some work on the side."

"How'd you find out about us?"

"Are you kidding? Cindy, Nikki, Tina, Susan? 3Sigma T-Shirts? You people are some sort of legend. And Tina said you might have need of a civil guy."

"Wanna come by and talk?"

"Yeah. Monday afternoon work for you?"

"Sure it does. You know where we're at?"

"Got a card."

"Great! Looking forward to talking with you." So that's the second job prospect this week. We need another technician, maybe two. Jason's schooling has turned into a bit more of an obstacle to his productivity than we'd originally thought.

Despite whining as much as we could, they didn't translate as many course hours from his engineering technology degree as we all had hoped, and he was doing some significant classroom hours. Fortunately, Dan 2.0 is equally adept at the hands-on stuff that Jason has been doing and the clients haven't kicked about the rate of progress. I attribute that to Jason showing up with Susan at his side at least once a week. We all laugh about it.

"I KNOW it's sexist," Susan said. "But it's a sort of happy sexism."

It's not like she's a tease or anything like that. She's just Susan as we know her, pretty in that softly rounded way of hers, terrifically smart, funny, and just a little bit of that flighty-sounding giggle to her that melts old guys' hearts.

"Wish't my grand-daughter was half the brain that young blonde gal is," one old engineer confided to me.

So we're dragging over a technician that used to work with Dan 2.0 and I'm talking to a guy I worked with a couple of projects back. Work's gonna pick up. We need somebody to do it.

Conversation with Tina about that went rapidly to "Those guys will move here?"

"That's the normal way. I don't think we're going to start out normal. The job is where the job is. That North Georgia thing? If we get it, we won't be commuting from here, so if the guy's home is still in Louisiana, as long as he can travel, we're good with it."

"Then we can do a sort of quarterly company reunion here," Tina tossed back.

"Sort of what I have in mind," I said. "But it means we have to really rely on the technician to be self-starting."

"Mature. Like you guys. Like Jason."

"Yeah. Jason's a good one," I said.

Giggle. "Susan thinks so."

"That was pure luck, little girl," I said. "You can't go match-making. Besides, we're out of single girls."

"There's Maddie and Anita." She stuck her tongue out, went 'PFFFFT!" and left.

That was a week ago. Today I was in the office with Beck; Dan 2.0 and Jason were in North Georgia, and Dan 1.0 ... was flying back from Houston with Nikki, Cindy and a seventeen year old friend. Tina and Susan drove out there to meet them.

Beck stuck her head in the door. "I'm stepping out to check on Rache and Terri. They're supposed to be reading. And I have to check the oven. Brisket in there for dinner."

"Okay. I'll catch the phones."

"You're awfully ambitious for a Friday," Beck said.

"Just wanna hit this stopping point. But thanks for noticing."

She laughed as the door closed. I moved a couple of blocks of text, re-read closely to make sure that I had no errors, then saved the file in two formats, one to send off as a 'progress check' to the client, one for us to continue editing, then I shut the computer down.

My phone rang as I was walking to the apartment: Tina. "They're in the pattern. I'll call you when we leave."

"Keep the gleeful squeals to a minimum," I said. "I love you, darlin'."

"Love you too, Wolfgang," she said.

"Oh, I'm Wolfgang this week?"

Giggle.

I walked into the house and found Terri plopped, uncharacteristically, in front of the TV.

"'Sup, sweet daughter of mine?"

"Animal Planet. Tapirs."

"Where's Rachel?"

"Home. With her mom. I'm depressurizing." She sighed. "And this isn't doing it. Maybe music?"

I'm looking at my eight (Almost NINE!) year old daughter and a file is opening in my head. When she says 'music', it's not some 'packaged for pre-teens' Disney cute-boy faux band.

"I'm thinking the BIG headphones. What's that piece that you went to see when you met Cindy?"

"Brandenburg Concerto. Bach. Number three. Third movement."

Giggle from the little blonde girl on the floor. "That's it! Brandenburg Three-squared. You don't mind if I disappear in those headphones, do you?"

"Just don't turn them up too loud."

"'Kay, Dad," she said, clicking the TV off.

I busied myself with a little kitchen work. Opened the dishwasher. Put away breakfast dishes.

Phone rang again. "Yes, my love?"

"I hope you're up for Indian food this evening. We already called the Desais."

"That's good for me. Beck's got theirs at their place, though."

"Oh, I know. But Kara's with Cindy and Dan 1.0. Nikki's with me. Her Dan won't be back until later tonight, but I think that Kara's staying there for the night. Good thing it's Friday."

"I'd like one of those old Friday 'naked nights," I said.

"Mmmmm, maybe Terri could stay at Rachel's?"

"I'm not going to push it. Just wanted you to know that I think about it, though."

Giggle. "Yeah. Me too."

I heard a squeal and some muffled words. "And Susan says for you to stop sayin' things that make me turn colors."

"Tell Susan that Jason will be back by the time you get home. I don't expect to see her for a couple of hours."

"I am NOT going to tell HER that!" my mate squealed.

I walked back into the living room. Terri was lounged in an improbable position that is possible when you're an eight year old girl, headphones on, her foot swinging to the rhythm of the music. I waved at her.

She doffed the headphones. Her eyes asked questions.

"Dinner at the Desais."

"Luvit!" she smiled. "Uh, if Rachel's mom and dad say it's okay, can I?"

"Stay over there?"

"Yessir. I know that Dan 2.0 and Jason have been out of town, so that takes care of them. Maybe you and Tina-mom might appreciate some privacy."

"You know too much."

"I observe, Dad. Maybe you should've had a stupid daughter."

"No way, Jose'," I said. "I absolutely adore the one I got!"

I heard voices outside. The gang's back.

"Let's go meet Kara," Terri said as she hopped up.

That we did. Standard brown-haired girl. Not PRETTY. Not GORGEOUS. But certainly not unattractive, either. She was carrying a violin case. The rest of the gang were hauling other luggage.

"We'll be back down in a minute," Tina said.

They were in a happy, giggling mass, and I don't know why my house was the one they chose in which to congregate, but here we are. I was introduced, and half an hour later, Dan 2.0 and Jason were introduced, and then the whole flock moved out to the restaurant for dinner.

Afterward, Tina and Terri and I walked back into the apartment.

"I'm going to Rachel's," she announced with a smile.

"I talked to Beck. She's good with it. We get Rachel tomorrow night," my auburn-headed sweetie said to me. As the door closed behind Terri, Tina backed against it, locking it. She smiled. "Now what was that about 'naked night'?"

Let the games begin.

Chapter 45

Dan Granger's turn:

It's great when you've been on the road for a couple of days and you make that final turn back home, knowing that you've got a nice clean place to stay and you've got somebody waiting there who loves you and is waiting for your return.

Jason and I had been in North Georgia. That's the southern state of Georgia in the USA, not the one in Europe that birthed Stalin, in case you're wondering. The little regional electrical cooperative is in the process of upgrading itself. We looked at some equipment that was seventy years old. It's still working, but it needs changing. We're angling for some 'from the ground on up' projects here. We stand a chance to make a lot of money.

Heading home, Jason and I talked. I let him drive and I madly tapped out emails describing what I thought we should do for the proposal.

"If we get this we're gonna need some major help," Jason said.

"Yeah. I just know you've been keeping track of some good techs you've worked with in the past."

"Got some. And let's see ... All the panels? We can build those in the shop and ship 'em to the sites. Gives our wives some hands on experience, all the way up to function testing."

"Yeah, they sure liked the one we did for that other company." We'd grabbed a 'let's see how you do on this one' contract to build a new control and protection panel. We did it. It turned out beautifully, that is, if your ideas of 'beauty' includes technology assembled to do the jobs that keep civilization functioning.

I remember some of the conversations, though. We 'let' (as in how do you STOP them) the girls do a lot of the assembly and wiring.

"Can you imagine," Nikki told the group, "Trying to do this with your brand new designer nails?"

I've done a few of these in my life. I find the work almost therapeutic. I said so in conversation.

"Yeah, but while you're stretching wires, there's other stuff you should be doing," Cindy said. I watched Nikki's head bob in assent. "We should do this because we need to learn."

Jason walked over and looked at us. "Yes, please learn. You'd be surprised at how much equipment is designed with no thought given to how it has to be built, or worse, serviced in the future."

"Yeah," I said. "I haven't seen a good historical citation for it, but there's a saying that Roman law required the engineer to sleep under his own bridge. Sometimes you have to argue with the client about that. Sometimes 'cheap' collides with 'maintainable'."

"Don't I know it!" Jason reinforced. Jason's life as a field technician was much more hands-on than mine as an engineer. Between the two of us we had horror stories. Of course, it did little good to get depressed about it. These things are the fabric of life.

"Good. Fast. Cheap. You get to pick two of the three," I said.

"That's his mantra," Nikki sighed.

"I think it's part of some secret catechism for engineers," Cindy laughed.

"It's not universally observed," Jason countered. "Clients are hoping for the impossible, or they're buying stuff that they never expect to break or work on."

That was work. I was coming home, and I pretty much didn't like spending the night in an empty bed any more, not that I liked it in the days between Wife #1 and Nikki, but with Nikki, somehow it was just better. I really missed the conversations around the house, the constant activities of the Community, and the quiet time with just the two of us.

I guess having to spend an extra night or two apart every now and then served the purpose of sharpening my appetite. I knew that with Jason and I both out of town, Susan and Nikki would end up at one apartment or the other, usually mine because the cat liked company.

Also not unusual was the presence of Terri, who took advantage of these little hiccups in the status quo to give Alan and Tina a night to themselves. Was that intentional on Terri's part? Absolutely! In her own words, "Tina and Dad need some time for themselves. I can be quite a handful, you know."

She is, but not in an obnoxious or destructive way. It's just that if you're doing something and Terri's around, she's liable to ask questions. I wonder sometimes what's the point of an eight (Almost NINE!) year old asking about inputting data into a software for power system studies, but when you give her the 'age-appropriate' answer, you get a stern look from those blue eyes that says, "Come on, give me the real stuff. I can handle it." And when you do, you get "Impedance? That's like from 'impediment'? Huh? Something that gets in the way."

"Yes. Has to do with flow," I'd answered. I was almost blinded by the light bulb going off in her head.

"You mean like when you first squeeze the trigger on the water hose and there's a lot of pressure but then it drops off?"

"Terri-dactyl, you're not supposed to be making those leaps."

Elementary schoolgirl smile to go with her answer. "But is that right?"

"Yes, that's right. The water hose is hydraulics and this transformer is electrical, but impedance works pretty much the same."

"And you can measure it?"

"Yes. And calculate it. And use it to predict how things are going to happen when the flow changes."

Giggle. "'Kay! Thanks!" And she bounced off to the next adventure, leaving me sitting there contemplating how many professional electrical people I've worked with over the years who didn't understand what this little blonde pixie had just derived from casual conversation. (Or how casual was it?)

I can only imagine the conversations between my Nikki, Susan and the Terri-dactyl over the course of an evening. I'll get a short synopsis, I'm sure.

This evening was chaos of the Community kind: in addition to Jason and I returning from a road trip, Dan 1.0, Cindy, and Nikki had flown to Houston and returned with Kara. Naturally that resulted in Kara's immersion into a Community Friday night, complete with food and music. The girl can play very well, not that I'm the guy to really ask, but she just seems more comfortable than Sim is when he plays with us. Since the only other violinist I've seen up close is our friend Ann, that's my reference. Taking into account that Kara is a decade and a half younger than Ann, which puts her skills in the 'precocious' category.

'Precocious' fits right into the community. Plus, Nikki tells me that she's another mathematical adept. Like we need another. It's good, though. She's spending this night at Dan and Cindy's. May do the rest on the sofa at Maddie and Anita's. If she decides to stay, we move the three of them to the last three-bedroom apartment. I'm glad we took the option to build that last pair of units. That still leaves us with another two-bedroom unit, brand new, along with either Maddie and Anita's old unit or the new three-bedroom unit.

But right now I'm following Nikki back to our apartment. She's leading the way, leaving me behind her, watching that butt wiggle as she walks. She swears she doesn't do that little swish on purpose, but I find it mesmerizing. I'm not a horn dog, driven by my sexual urges, but I've had two nights away from Nikki and I miss her.

As I close the apartment door behind me, I find myself pressed back against it. Apparently she misses me, too. It's an attack I won't fight off. I cup my hands under the cheeks of her firm butt and lift her so we're face to face.

"You do realize, don't you, that I really miss you when you're gone."

"Perhaps as much as I miss you, little brown-haired girl," I said. That got me a searing kiss, a sigh, another kiss.

"Then let's shower and then tear the bed up." Giggle.

"Great idea."

"I have needs, you know..." the blue eyes twinkle. Corners of her mouth turn up. She's biting her bottom lip, knowing that it's a move that melts me. Well, MOST of me, anyway.

"You give me that look one more time and we won't make it to the shower..."

Giggle. "We'll make it TO the shower. Prob'ly won't make it THROUGH the shower..."

We didn't. There could be a long debate as to who initiated that session in the shower. Any choosing of sides would be wrong. It's both of us. A wet, clean Nikki is the stuff of which delights are born. I am thankful for that huge shower. I'm thankful for the teak bench in it.

We knew pretty much what was going to happen when we undressed. Warm water and soap and shampoo performed the assigned functions, then provided enhancement for recreation. I teased and tickled my dark-haired partner from giggle to sigh to gasping and then pulled her onto my lap as we sat under the warm spray. She straddled me, impaled, a favorite position, and keened through orgasm. As she was quivering I allowed myself the happy release.

"I feel that," she sighed. "You really did miss me."

"Was there any doubt? You're my everything, Nikki."

We got out of the shower. My knees were still uncertain from the orgasm, but we steadfastly went through the post-shower routine, right up to the point where I finished shaving and took her hairbrush to finish drying and brushing her hair.

"I like it like that, you know," she said.

"Like what?"

"Being your everything. I like it. I watch, you know."

"Watch what?"

"You. When we're someplace with other people. You don't stare at other women."

"I have you. What other woman would offer as much?"

Going on two years together, she still does that demure 'Who? Me?' thing so well. She laid out her nightshirt on the stand beside the bed and tossed the covers back, presenting us with a crisp clean playing field. We met in the middle. I attacked her neck, savoring the sweet touch of perfume in her hair, the velvet of her skin, the giggles as I hit sensitive spots, then I acquiesced to her hands pushing me back onto the bed. This time the coupling was slower, soulful, sweet, satisfying on every imaginable level.

Sated, we stretched out under the thin covers. A thump at the foot of the bed announced that the cat had determined that the bed was safe enough for him to join us. Nikki brushed her fingertips along my cheek, then patted Tommi's spot between us. He starts out there. When the lights go out, he moves to the foot of the bed on Nikki's side.

"D'you know what I'd be if I didn't know Cindy?" Nikki asked.

Okay, this was a new line of conversation. I tiptoed in. "No. What?"

"I'd be the youngest lecturer EVER in the Math Department at Auburn. Cindy is. I'm second."

"You did the final reviews for a roomful of students," I said. It was the end of the semester. I knew that the university had asked my Nikki and Dan's Cindy to do a review session based on reports of what was going on off-campus, next door to our office.

"Well, they put it in the official record, and now it's history."

"And it's very unusual. Much of my life with you is unusual."

She smiled, passed her hand down the back of the lounging cat, bumping his purr volume up a few decibels. "Unusual can be very, very good." She looked at me out of the corner of her eye, bit her bottom lip just a bit.

I felt stirrings in my groin. "Yes. Very, very good." I reached over and gently brushed strands of that short brown hair away from her rounded cheek. "You're somebody I never imagined, much less imagined being in my life."

"Our life," she corrected. "One life out of two, forever entwined, merged, melded."

The damned cat looked at me with that inscrutable expression common to cats, except this one said "You big goof. You stuck your hand in the dirt and pulled out a diamond." Then he turned back towards Nikki.

"You know this is something bigger than just us, though," she said.

I guess I had a question in my eyes.

She continued. "Oh, don't cloud up on me now. You and I, we're inseparable. We'll always have our life together. But there's another sphere. You know how some friendships come and go?"

"Yes, I do. The husbands of your sisters fit in that category."

"I know," Nikki replied. "Cindy explained her feelings when her project ('her' project???) in Alabama wrapped up. She knew a lot of people there were sad to see them go. But this, us, this little community, it's more permanent than that."

"Family. You all say it's sisters."

"More than that. Siblings are a matter of chance. We're a matter of choice. The intersection of multiple planes of the universe." Her eyes took on that extra twinkle as she let me digest that 'intersection' comment. She knew from long ago that I paid careful attention to her words, knowing that she was likely to toss a pun or a play or a twist into conversation.

"I think I understand," I said.

"Really? Do you understand that I started feeling smart when I started with you? And that Cindy and me - well, two plus two doesn't equal four, it makes five, or maybe it changes to cubes or something. She sees it. I see it. The others see it."

"And how does Kara fit into all this?"

"Our musical center," Nikki said confidently. "And Mizz Patel told Kara that she'd like her to do some interviews. Next week."

"Lord!" I spat. "Don't tell me 'electrical engineer'."

"No, maybe not. Let's see how that goes. Maybe not an engineer at all. After all, she didn't crawl out of the rubble into one's arms."

"No, but that brings up a source of friction."

"That she's single?"

Nikki reads my mind. I'm getting used to it. "Yes."

"Well so are Maddie and Anita, and there's no friction there."

"True," I said. Actually, that 'Maddie and Anita' thing was a lot less sturm und drang than I originally predicted. Yes, they both dated. It wasn't unusual for one or the other (or both) to drag some poor schmuck into one of our Friday or Saturday gatherings at the apartments. I can imagine the shock to one of those guys to find out that what he was going to wasn't the typical college weekend blast.

Mentioned it to Anita one day.

"MISTER Granger, husband of my friend," she scolded, "don't you think that I screen for that trait? I'm not some bimbo college girl."

I looked shocked.

"Oh, don't try to pull that look on me, Mister Dan. I was raised right. I got the 'this ain't a party venue' speech when I started talking about moving in here, and I know what goes with that other lifestyle."

Maddie came around the corner. Reinforcements. "Yes, Mister Dan. We're not bimbos."

"Never said YOU were. Just that guys..."

"Were YOU like that?"

"Nope. But I harbored the thought that I might WANT to be. Most guys do."

"Did you have the chance?" Anita queried.

"Yes."

"Did you take advantage of the opportunity?"

"No."

"Why?"

"Wasn't raised that way."

"Neither am I," Anita said. Maddie's face provided the same answer.

"Not gonna mess around with a guy I can't see myself with in twenty years," Maddie said. "But bringing over some guy on Friday night, that's part of the screening process." She turned to Anita. "What about that guy that left when he found out that there wasn't gonna be alcohol?"

"Oh, yeah. Harmon, wasn't it?" Giggle. "I didn't think he'd make the cut anyway, but it was worth the try."

"We always have beer," I said. "Sometimes we have wine."

"Yeah, but that's not what many of my fellow students are looking for. They want bathtubs full of liquid oblivion. Seems like they think that if they wake up the next morning in the trappings of debauchery, it's not really their fault." Anita snorted derisively. "Seriously. That's what passes for clarity of thought."

Still, with Anita and Maddie, we now had happy, known quantities. Adding Kara here was a change, a chance to screw things up. I have to stop thinking so loudly.

"Kara's not going to screw things up, Dan," she said.

"Am I that predictable?" I asked. "Or are you really reading my mind?"

"Yes, you're that predictable. All I have to do is run through a logical set of concerns about a subject and I know without doubt that if I'm thinking it, you're thinking it, right?"

"You're good."

"Just a bit ago, I was wonderful. Magic." She smiled.

"You still are," I said. I had to stretch to reach her lips for a kiss. The cat made an annoyed chirp, but I got that kiss.

Cindy's turn:

Our new sister is home. She might not be aware of it yet, but I am. I swept Dan away from the crowd at her reception.

"Baby," I asked him, knowing that 'baby' would signal him that he was being manipulated, "Do you mind if I ask Kara to stay with us this evening? She can set up with Maddie and Anita tomorrow."

Dan reacts well to manipulation. It's a good thing I'm not an evil, grasping little bitch. Mom would've drained a guy like Dan if she could ever get her claws in him. Fortunately my Dan saw that early on with Mom. Why he saw anything at all with me, well, I still say a little prayer of thanks every day.

"I don't see why she can't, if that's what she wants," he said.

"Good," I told him. "She might still be sort of traumatized about uprooting herself."

You just know that you don't get to walk into our group carrying a violin case without being asked to play. Kara does with a violin what Jo does with a flute. She's GOOD. Maybe when music was a bigger part of Mizz Ann's life, she might have been that good, but right now Kara's better. I looked at Mister Sim.

He shook his head. "I wish, Cindy. Never gonna happen."

We clapped and laughed and giggled and Nikki shoved her Dan and said "Go get your accordion."

"No way," he said. "I'd be like a housecat in the presence of a lion."

"Oh, Mister Dan," Kara said to him, "I'm very gentle."

"It's a Cajun accordion. Diatonic."

"Key of C. I imagine I can do that." Her eyes took on a new life when there was a violin in her hands. She arched an eyebrow, tucked her violin under her chin, struck it with the bow, and lo and behold, I recognized the tune from one of Nikki's Cajun albums.

So you get the picture then, don't you? My Dan on the guitar. Nikki's Dan on accordion. Nikki with her little iron triangle. And Kara.

"Regardez!" Sim said, putting it into perspective. "A Jewish girl from Houston, Texas playing Cajun music in Alabama."

Yes, sometimes life is just that surreal.

The party broke up at ten when Tina took the hand of a tired but smiling Terri and led her off to their apartment. Kara went with us to ours.

"You sure it's okay?" she asked me, away from the others. "I mean, I don't want to interfere with you and Dan."

I had to giggle a bit. "Kara-sis, you're not interfering a bit. There's more to our relationship than unbridled debauchery."

"Dad said he wondered what a mature male would want with a teenaged girl besides sex."

I have fielded this question before, many times. "First, you know I'm not the normal teenaged girl, and second, we chose each other. I practically had to tackle him to get him to stop trying to be an older friend who was keeping his distance. And how many old guys leering after teenaged girls are putting them through college and teaching them to fly and taking them to meet his family." I paused. "Who, by the way, are MY family now."

"I kinda get that Dad was wrong about this. Dad's wrong about a lot of things when it comes to personal relationships."

"So stop fretting about staying with us then, okay?"

"Okay."

So the social event (It's too regular to call it a 'party') was over and me and Dan and Kara were wending our way to the apartment. I let Dan go take his shower alone. He'll live. Last night we'd had a memorable one together. I had time to talk with Kara.

"Well, so far..." I questioned.

"Omigod!" she said, then caught herself. "I can't believe I just said 'Omigod'. What am I, some brainless bimbo?"

I laughed. "Expletives are a useful part of the conversational vocabulary."

She laughed. "That's why this is going to be so different."

"Explain."

"I'm not trying to be a snob or an elitist or anything like that," she said, "But I will bet good money that nobody in that group tonight had an IQ less than a hundred and thirty."

"I always figured one forty," I replied.

"You're probably right. Every time I cracked a pun, I saw eyebrows rise, not some blank stare. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE people, no matter what their mental capacity. 'Nice' is nice whether it's Einstein or the yard guy's 'slow' helper. But this is ... nice!"

"We don't flaunt it, Kara. We try to use it to help others along. I don't know if anyone will show up Monday, but that's the evening that we do the study group. You could meet a lot of others."

"All engineering students?"

I shook my head. "No, not really." I giggled just a little. "Word got out. We got people who wanted help with advanced math."

"And that's why you and Nikki got to do that class, right?"

"Yeah. It's a hoot, ain't it? I mean, I think about that. When I met Dan, I was getting ready to start the eighth grade in Beanpole, Alabama. Now my name is on the record as having given a class in a university."

"You really love him, don't you? Dan, I mean."

"Dan is life. My life. I'm his. No doubts. Never was. Never will be."

"Wish Dad could've found somebody like you. Well, maybe twenty years older, you know." She sighed, then smiled. "It's bad enough, you know. 'Uh, Kara, you know Tanya? We've decided to get married', and I know that Tanya looks like somebody who'd hang around the pool at one of those Vegas parties on TV and her entire vocabulary doesn't include one word with more than three syllables."

"Some people look for different things in their partners," I said.

"Yeah. Well..." Kara was sliding backward into that darkness.

"We're not going to solve this one, sis," I said. "Things you can't solve, you bypass until you get in a better position."

Her eyes brighten. "More data. Better materials. Understanding of the interaction of parameters."

"Yeah. Sometimes that's what I think is so comforting about engineering. You can find those things and take care of a problem. Then with people, it's not quite that easy. People are messy."

"That's a good word for it," Kara said. "I guess you just have to try not to get too much splash on you."

Chapter 46

Tina's turn:

Summer in Alabama. Not much different than summer in Louisiana except maybe there's not quite as much humidity to go with the heat. That's one thing. I have several things, though.

Summer vacation? You know, that three months of dead time that populates the lives of America's school kids? Okay? I'm not having one. Classes. College classes. All of us were, me, Cindy, Nikki, Susan, Jason. Okay, then not 'all' of us. Anita and Maddie were taking off for the summer. The rest of us were hurtling at best speed towards completing the requirements for that baccalaureate degree.

For me, Susan and Jason, that meant a lot of actual classes. My dear friends Nikki and Cindy were pestering department heads: "Gimme your book and two weeks, then test me."

It wouldn't be so bad except they never fail. Never. Give my History of Europe - Renaissance Through the 19th Century to one of those two, and they're sitting there telling my daughter what's going on in it and two weeks later there's an entry on their transcripts and Terri is questioning me about equivalencies between the formations of modern Italy and modern Germany.

Terri. The evil stepchild. We laugh. We love each other. Honestly, if I had my own child, I'd want her to be Terri. But Terri, though, is almost unique. I'm walking around a campus of a major university and people there, faculty people, know the name of Terri Addison.

You don't just walk across campus and HAPPEN to run into Doctor Stanton, but I did. "Mizz Addison, would you be so kind as to call my office and set up a time for us to talk?"

I wonder how many people on this campus have been asked to 'talk' with the staff psychologist.

"Sure, Doctor Stanton," I said. "Unless you want to sit under that tree over there."

"Oh," he smiled, "we can do that informally. I'd still like to see you."

"Is there a problem with me?" I asked.

"Oh, certainly not. I'm told that you're making remarkable progress. I wish to talk about your daughter."

We walked to the shade of one beautiful oak tree and sat in the shade.

"So!" I said. "The Terri-dactyl..."

"Cute!" he laughed. "She's just about like that, too ... If a real pterodactyl showed up on campus. Might not be as disarmingly cute, though. What are you doing for her education?"

"Seriously?" I said.

"Yes. You're home-schooling her, so I understand."

"Well, there's home schooling and there's HOME SCHOOLING. Terri, well, tell me how YOU think that would shake out."

"She's terrifically bright. Genius. I have trouble grasping..."

"Me too," I said. "Look here!" I showed him the spreadsheet that Beck and I used for our daughters.

"Who's Rachel Weismann?"

"Doctor Weismann? Your sociology professor? His daughter. Bright."

"Appears to be."

"Doctor Stanton..."

"Harry," he corrected.

"Okay. Harry, we're ... We're serious about this. I know that in some cases 'homeschooling' is an excuse to keep a kid out of public schools for some odd reasons. We're doing it because we don't think..."

"That either of these little jewels will be well served by 'No Child Left Behind' or whatever the Flavor of the Month is. I understand completely. But Terri..."

"Terri is scary." I heard what I'd just said and couldn't suppress a giggle.

"You're laughing about it. Have you looked at..."

I interrupted. "We gave her the sample tests for her GED. I'm apparently the stepmom of a ... an eight year old high school graduate. Susan gave Terri's paper to one of the English profs..."

"I got an email," Harry said. "Asking me if it would be wise for Terri to be interviewed." He sighed. "Absurdity. A college language professor wants to interview an eight year old girl. Wants to know if I think it will damage the child's psyche."

I laughed.

"That's what I thought. Nikki and Cindy are teaching math now. It's absurd, surreal enough, we have classes at this university led by a fifteen and a sixteen year old. I'm wondering what universe exists wherein an eight year old will stand before a classroom full of college students and LECTURE on literature."

"Despite the fact that she KNOWS what she's talking about," I laughed.

"Got one from a history professor too," he laughed.

"Synchronicity between Clovis Points and Similar Artifacts in The Old World, " I chuckled.

"Yeah. Where'd she get that?"

"Cindy. And Doctor Lasce. Neither of them mentioned synchronicity. That's all Terri's doing. She said that if there were people who'd been in the Americas developing this distinctive style, then what were people in the Old World doing in the same time frame? Said toolmaking was an evolutionary process with divergences for geographical isolation."

"In those words?" he asked.

"And smiling while she said them. Doctor ... Harry, she KNOWS she knows. Scary Terri."

"But you say she could pass the GED," he said.

"No doubt. 100%."

"An eight year old high school graduate," he said, shaking his head. "I've never seen one before."

"My daughter," I said. Wasn't too much of a leap for me to eliminate that 'step' qualifier. I loved her dad. I loved her. The only tiny detail was that she hadn't emerged from my womb.

"I'd like for you and your husband and Terri to come by and talk, if you don't mind. Can you talk with them and then set something up? I mean, it may just be this conversation repeated. Or maybe we get to look at next steps."

"There's no manual for this stuff?" I asked Doctor Stanton.

"Yeah, uh, right! 'Chapter 3 of the Precocious Acquisitions Manual: What to do with intelligent eight year olds.' No, young Tina. Your Terri is in a class by herself. We ALMOST had something for Cindy and Nikki. Terri? No way. Actually, if I had to give sworn testimony, I'd say that three of them were 'once in a century' finds."

"I'll talk with Alan and Terri," I said.

"Oh, please do," he laughed. "I so much love giving those department people fits. If Cindy and Nikki and you and Susan popped bubbles, Terri will change their atomic compositions."

I laughed. "Thank you, Harry. Doctor Stanton."

I was still sitting under the tree, musing, reading a text book when I heard Susan's voice.

"What are you doing here?"

"Enjoying the shade."

"Why here?"

"Was talking with Doctor Stanton."

"That psychologist guy?"

"Yeah," I said.

"What'd he want?"

"Wants to talk to me and Alan and Terri," I said.

"Ohhhhh, Terri ... I knew something was coming. Tina, she's ... she's almost scary."

"Scary Terri," I said. "The Terri-dactyl."

"Yeah, well," Susan said. "Since Jo called her 'Terri-dactyl' she's run with it."

"Only eight year old with her own logo," I laughed.

"And possibly the youngest student on campus, bumping our Miss Cindy from her throne." Susan laughed.

"You know what, though? Cindy and Nikki will be positively tickled about it."

"They're like that, for sure," Susan said. "It's refreshing. Remember our valedictorian?"

I remembered the student in question from our senior year of high school together. The term 'arrogant shit' comes to mind, and honestly neither Susan nor I gave that kid a thing in IQ points, but a careful choice of coursework and the kissing of much ass lifted his grades above Susan's for the top spot.

"Yeah," I said. "Did you see HIM holding study sessions and helping out other students?"

We both knew the answer.

"So what are you gonna tell Alan?"

"Something he already knows," I said. "Terri's off the charts and keeping her down is like trying to hide the sun under a bucket."

"Everybody knows it, Sis," she said.

"Yeah, but what does it mean? We sort of let her go off on her own and explore. What happens if she doesn't take well to structure? We all love her. Somebody else might not."

"We keep track. We don't let our Terri get in a bad place. Besides, what's that old Stephen King movie with the little girl?"

"Firestarter?"

"Yeah," Susan giggled. "Somebody pokes 'er too hard, she turns on the flames."

"Just don't want her hurt."

Susan patted my shoulder. "Tina Addison! Now with added 'Mommy Genes!"

"Yeah, I guess it's just like that."

More wisdom from Susan. "You have to walk a line though. You can't be one of those helicopter moms, hovering around so she never gets a chance to bump a knee or push her limits a little. And when that knee gets bumped, you have to be there to do the hugs and the doctoring, then turn 'er loose to go again."

"You say this from experience."

"You've seen my bicycle scar." I had. It's down her right calf, the result of a tumble over a picket fence at age eight. "Mom didn't make me stop riding bicycles. She and Dad lectured me about risks and about the limits of 'I double-dog dare you' from your friends."

And deep down I hoped that Terri would be as balanced as Susan. Well, make that the 'now' Susan, not the slightly naïve Susan I'd met at the beginning of high school last year. Today's Susan? Confident, fulfilled. Still funny, bubbly, a little flighty in conversation, but underneath the flightiness was some solid intelligence. A string of completed college credits was testament to that.

Around to the other side of the campus, we collected Nikki and Cindy. I recounted the story to them.

Cindy was doing that giggly thing she does from time to time. "Tina, you KNOW it's true. Have you ever had her ask you a question and you gave her some stuff to study, and she didn't come back with more than you started with?"

"Yeah," Nikki said. "Maddie says that Terri asked her about one of her accounting classes, and by the time they finished, she says SHE had a better understanding than when Terri walked in. She's like that. Everybody says so."

I laid out my concerns.

"We'll all watch for her. We already do," Cindy said. "But you know it's really a case of who's watching whom."

I smiled. I mean, it's not like nobody in this car will put themselves on the line to protect others.

One more consideration. Dinner. "Since we're all here, who's cooking?"

Cindy laughed. "You know, it's a hoot. I was reading about communal kitchens in the Stalinist Soviet Union where one kitchen served a block of apartments. We're just about there."

"Everybody has a kitchen."

"Everybody has a cook or two, too," Cindy countered. "Except all those cooks are busy sometimes."

Nikki was busy thumbing a text into her iPhone. Started smiling. "Beef brisket in the smoker. Ready at five, according to my husband. We all do side dishes. Beck's got a big pile of that pilaf she does."

"That'll work," I said. We have options for food. Most days we don't have the communal meal thing going, but we break up into small groups sometimes, sometimes it's just too easy to walk across the yard into the Desai place, and this is a college town, for heaven's sake, so there are plenty of options for just about any imaginable cuisine.

I still get to cook. It's validation for me. I remember the morning after Alan set our little trailer up in that Tennessee RV park. I made bacon and eggs for us. I remember the happy surprise on his face when he woke up to the smell of bacon cooking, and I am not about to stop wanting to see the satisfaction on my husband's face when I have a meal on the stove for us. Besides, I have to set an example for Terri.

Conversation with a fellow female student at school over 'what's for dinner?'

"You cook?"

"Certainly," I said. "Nothing like trying to replicate the foods I was raised on." And I mentioned that 'good example for Terri' thought.

"Isn't ... Don't you see that as setting her up for stereotypical gender roles?"

"Lin," I said, "You see Cindy over there?" Cindy was scribbling some stuff on the whiteboard.

"Yeah, so?"

"She cooks. You think SHE's in a stereotypical role?"

"No, I guess not. Still..."

"Still, if Alan gets home before me, he's just as apt to cook. And he's darned good at it, too. The only 'role' we're portraying is that families share work together. And Terri is learning from all of us. Ain't about gender roles. It's about love and harmony under our roof. Besides, go get a cookie from Cindy." I know Cindy's predilection for cookie-making. Today's batch had some cinnamon and cardamom and who knows what else along with her tried and true oatmeal and some kind of dried fruit and nuts.

Lin headed over to the coffee machine.

"Grab me one while you're there," I told her.

Same conversation with Terri. "Do you think about the male-female roles, Terri?" Yeah, Terri's up for that conversation, at least everything except that 'Tab A - Slot B' thing.

"You mean traditional family structures? Like Cindy's paper?"

"Yeah. What do YOU think?"

"I think..." (that's prelude to some wild rides if you're trying to equate the data with its eight year old blonde source) Terri started, "that a society of plenty, like we have today, allows a lot of latitudes in roles. Women aren't relegated to purely domestic tasks."

"Example," I teased.

"Bread. Suppose I had a tub of flour over there and my family needed bread. There's a certain real amount of time I need to put that bread on the table, including the kneading and rising and baking. We've done it, right? Mizz Beck does it all the time, because she LIKES it. But what if you had to do that every day? It would be hard to do that and pursue your education and work and raise kids."

That's why Terri's name is all over Auburn now.

"So you see me cooking as..."

She smiled. "Something we all do. Everybody here. Even Cindy. Dad loves cooking. It makes economic sense, too. That Monday red beans and rice we love? We can feed the whole Community for the price of a couple of Mickie D hamburgers. Besides, Cindy says (Oh, no ... here's Cindy again, coming from my daughter) that cooking is an interesting application of chemistry and biology."

So we pulled into the parking lot and headed to our own apartments. I checked. Terri's at Beck's with Rachel. "I'll be here for a while. We're studying language."

I called Alan. "I'm home and Terri's studying at Rachel's if you're at a stopping point."

"Hmmmm, yes, I think I am," he said.

I'm thinking that we have things cooking that don't go on the stove. When the door opens and he walks in, I'm sure of it. I know where to look for the signs.

"How was Modern European History?" he asked.

"Just about wrapped it up. I may test out of it. The professor says he'll be good with that." By this time I'm wrapping my arms around him. The kisses keep conversation down for a bit. I can rub against him and KNOW what we both desire.

We unravel from each other's arms and I take him by the hand, tugging towards the bedroom. Yeah, he's smiling.

Clothes were still fluttering to the floor when I pulled him into me.

Afterward, I'm lying on my side against him, toying with him as his breath stabilizes.

"Wow," he sighed. "Was that a happy one or a stressed one?"

"Happy," I said. I scooted up a little, kissing him, long, soft, sweet, then a little one, on the tip of his nose.

"So what are you getting ready to tell me?" he asked.

I feigned outrage. "Am I THAT predictable?"

"Delightfully so, my beauty. So! Spill it!"

"I talked with Doctor Stanton today."

"About..." he questioned.

"Our delightful daughter. Her progress. What she IS doing. What she MIGHT do..."

"What she WANTS to do," Alan said.

"I know," I said. "It's hard to talk about what she NEEDS to do. She's nine. She NEEDS to be able to read little books with a few pictures, play with dolls and toys, watch TV, do video games, ride a bike..."

"She does ride her bike," Alan said. "Reads..."

"My textbooks. EVERYBODY's textbooks. Mark Twain. Robert Heinlein."

"When did THAT develop?" he asked.

"She saw the books on Susan's shelf. Heinlein did a lot of young adult stuff."

"Yeah," Alan countered, "but he did a lot of ADULT adult stuff, too."

"I'm steering her clear of those, baby," I said. "Told her that some subject matter was a little too much for her. I don't know if that's gonna work for long, but for right now..." Sigh. "She knows that certain activities are proper when they take place in the correct context. She knows about that. Cindy told her that some of Heinlein's stuff lies outside the realm of convention today."

"We can't stop her from seeing things, I guess," he said. "Cindy and Nikki come to mind."

"I understand," I said. "But both of them are so totally conventional with their husbands in public. Other than that age thing. She can see much worse anywhere in town. The mall..."

"I know. She's our daughter, though. We get to worry."

"Well, worry about another thing," I said.

"Now what?"

"Music. We live in a very musical community, you know."

"I know. I'm the least musical one of the bunch."

"You're not," I said. "Worse, though, our daughter doesn't want to be. She heard Johanna say she'd been studying the flute since she was nine, and she and Rachel have been all over the Internet about music lessons, according to Beck."

"This is not necessarily a bad thing," Alan opined.

"No it's not. Music requires structure. She'll have to translate theory into physical activity against easily known metrics."

"You sound like Cindy on a roll sometimes," he laughed.

Another 'outrage' moment. "Uh ... I'm lying here naked, still leaking from giving myself to you, and YOU talk about Cindy?!?"

He rolled me over onto my back, nudging my legs apart. I sighed, exhaled, as he entered me again. "This had nothing to do with Cindy. Or any other woman on the planet, little one."

Okay. Shower before we can be seen (or smelled) in public again.

I was buttoning one of my favorite of Alan's work shirts after the shower when the phone rang. Beeped its way through Terri's ring, actually.

"Terri-love," I said.

"Mommmmmieeeeeee!" she countered in an obviously fake whine. I know when I'm being manipulated, too.

"'Sup?"

"Come over to Rachel's. We want to talk about my education."

I laughed. "Noooo. We decided that you need to be hopelessly ignorant. Maybe have a career harvesting strawberries."

Giggle. "I won't pick strawberries for long. I shall work my way up to my own boiled peanut stand."

"And the first commercial Mars ship..."

"Will have a Terri-dactyl logo on it," she tittered. "Come over. Rachel and I want to talk with you and her mom."

"Does your dad need to be there?"

Giggle. "It wouldn't hurt. But if you think it's a good idea, he'll think it's a good idea too. Y'all are like that together."

"I love you, punkin," I said.

"I love you too, evil stepmom."

"We'll be there in a little bit." 'Little bit' means 'long enough for a quick post-coital shower' so we wouldn't cause nostrils to flare.

Alan and I reached the Weismann door and knocked. Two seconds, it flew open, Rachel smiling, Terri right behind her. Cindy was sitting on the sofa behind them. She did her little finger wave.

I caught Beck's eye. "What's up, Beck?"

"Music," she said. "Our children want some music education."

I turned to my husband behind me, knowing full well that he'd heard this. "Where are we putting the grand piano?"

Terri elbowed Rachel. "See! Didn't I tell you they'd over-react?"

I elbowed Terri. "See! I KNEW you'd think we'd over-react!"

"What's Sim's take?" Alan asked Beck.

"Measured, carefully paced, incremental, all that college stuff," she laughed. "Actually, they're rather sane, Alan."

"Okay, Terri. Rachel. Tell us what you're working on."

Terri started, "We looked at some programs. We think we should do something simple that teaches how to read music, and couple it with a simple instrument that gives instant feedback with a fast learning curve."

"Recorders," Rachel said. "They're simple. And pretty cheap. And we looked at YouTube all afternoon and you can do some pretty stuff with them."

"Who's going to teach you," I asked.

"Mister Sim reads music. And I just sent an email to Mizz Johanna."

"You didn't."

"Uh-huh," Terri replied. "She's the best I know. And Kara says she'd love to have minions."

Rachel turned to her dad. "Dad! I'm a minion."

Maybe it would have been just a little less surreal if Terri hadn't sidled up next to her and mimicked exactly the same smile and head tilt.

"Is Kara coming for dinner?"

"Of course," Beck said. "She's as bad as these two. Always flitting in and out. Except she brings music sometimes."

"And we want to do that, Mom," Rachel said.

"Sim," Beck said, "do you hear your daughter?"

I could tell from his smile that he heard her.

"Buy three of 'em," Cindy said. "I need to learn, too."

Terri looked thoughtful at Cindy's statement. "You know, Nikki's gonna..."

So okay ... Cindy turns to me and says in a low voice, "Polymath. She is, you know."

"I know. Scary Terri."

"Awww," retorted Cindy, "How can anything that precious be the least bit scary?"

"Humphh," I rebutted. "It's like daisy stickers on a nuclear reactor."

"I'll buy that," Cindy said. "Nuclear reactors aren't scary. They're powerful."

Chapter 47

Dan Richards' turn:

I'm trying to keep a lid on this business. 3Sigma Engineering has taken off beyond our wildest imaginations. The Jason-Susan team has sold our services to a couple of small utility companies and my biggest, or maybe it's their biggest, issue is how to balance two college schedules with the client desires for work scheduling.

My sweet little wife and her dark-haired Cajun counterpart have gotten a name for themselves in the digital communications business that runs parallel with utility company moves towards automation. Of course, I wonder. Everything they do has to have that 'professional engineer' stamp on it, and that's Dan 2.0 or me since it's OUR wives.

The two of them came in late one afternoon. Of course, Nikki was driving.

"Well, how's your day?" I asked.

"Nothing too unusual," Nikki said.

"Yeah, that same interface thing we've hit before. Protocol to protocol conversion. Work around incomplete instruction sets."

I smiled. Yeah, it's my wife, and yes, it's something that Nikki's husband and I kicked off and let the two of them work out on their own. "So you already have the solution."

Two smiles. Two nods. By this time Nikki's Dan was at the door looking in. "Gentech's got prototypes of your protocol converter. Maybe we can get the client to buy off on a trial on this project."

We're building business. Another technician is on board now. They didn't move into the apartments. He and his wife and their youngster are buying a house bit out of town. She wanted a country place. He's got it. A lot of his work, though, is out of town and overnight. Burt Stanley would take off, leaving behind his wife and toddler, and half the time they'd end up visiting us or somebody else in the community while he was gone.

Adrienne and Bobby, the son: A two-year old human being was subject of intense curiosity to Terri and Rachel. Tina and Beck cautioned them about what was considered proper activities with Bobby, and Kara joined the Bobby Fan Club, too, even offering to babysit when Burt and Adrienne wanted a night out.

A client in Georgia wanted some new substations. We needed a civil engineer. Kurt Brandle was a professor at Auburn, and he knocked on our door a while back. We tossed him a set of drawings of a typical installation.

"This isn't difficult," he told us. "Pretty much cookie-cutter stuff. We start out with surveys and soil samples and weather data and we size foundations off that. The structure's pretty much overkill anyway."

I knew all this, so I nodded. "And then we give that to one of our interns," I nodded at MY intern, Nikki. Dan 2.0 has Cindy for his intern. Nepotism, you know, "and they take the material take-offs and work up the order."

"And I get a check," he laughed.

"And a copy of the drawings so we can 'cookie-cutter' the next one. We got three of these things right off the bat if we take this job. It's gonna be a few million apiece."

"And we get to play with state of the art equipment," Cindy chirped. "Plus ... from the ground up! I'm excited."

"You got to watch that one down there on that powerplant," Nikki said. "This is my first one."

"Look," I said, "We'll get EVERYBODY some time on this thing. I got us a superintendent picked out for the construction. I think we've got it figured out. If we pull this off..."

Alan was sitting across the conference table. He spoke. "We WILL pull this off!"

" ... we'll be set up for the long run," I continued.

That's what I'm looking at today. Business. I like our little office. 'Little' is now the operative term. We've got an architect and Kurt looking at adding a second floor. The architect says he can do it and make it look right.

"Or we can take that old store across the street, demolish it, and build new. And lease this place." That's Alan's take. He laughed. "Not MY idea, though. Tina and the bunch."

"Figures. Do you ever get the feeling that you've hopped on a train and you're just along for the ride?"

He laughed. "All the time. And I think YOU have it worse than me."

"Yeah, I guess," I said. "Thing is, I don't think she did it on purpose. There she was, hanging around that swimming pool every day, and we just started talking..."

"Yeah. And how could you not? I mean, Tina and I ... I really tried NOT to..."

"At least she was seventeen..."

"And in Tennessee that's not old enough."

"Yeah, but I know the story. You didn't know that. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was committing a felony."

"And now look," he laughed. "We've unleashed the swarm upon the planet."

"And Tina says we need a new office building. I assume that you and she have run some numbers?"

"I think we can make it work, you know," he said. "What I'm thinking is that we build two stories. The bottom floor gives us the room for the next stage, gets us out of this squeeze. We lease the lab in this building and the greenhouse. We move those functions to the new building."

"Ground floor," I said.

"Yep. And if we grow any more, we can build out the top floor for more room. If we don't, we might consider building it out and trying to lease it out."

I get a headache. Two years ago I was just a plain ol' itinerant project engineer, bopping around the country, building things. Somebody else got to worry about the 'growing the business' and paying the bills and such. Now I found myself sharing that with my incredibly competent friends while the unlikeliest of wives was a year from an engineering degree at the age of sixteen that I hadn't gotten until I was twenty-two, and she's blocking out a master's thesis and refereeing fights between the engineering department, the physics department and the math department, and the only reason that the fine arts bunch isn't in there is that they won't fit into the boxing ring.

"I suppose we need to start blocking it out, then," I acquiesced.

"Worse than that. Let me show you the girls' rough floor plan." He was laughing. I was shaking my head and the guy was laughing.

"We really do need it," he said. "I didn't expect us to GROW like this."

So there it is. I was beginning to think that I was the only one that had those thoughts.

"Yeah, me neither. And I get phone calls: 'Hey, can you come up here and talk to us? And bring Cindy.' And I'm wondering how they know about Cindy?"

"One of those trade shows, no doubt," Alan said. "Remember the story about Nikki and Johanna? That's how we sold that converter design to Gentech."

"I know. I guess Cindy's done the same sort of thing. Matter of fact, that one that you and I went to in Atlanta, she and Tina took off..."

"Oh, yeah, the 'You brought your daughter to a trade expo?' question." He was smiling.

"At least they had the sense to carry business cards," I stated.

"Yeah, business cards," he laughed. "One of the better ideas: give a fifteen year old and a sixteen year old girl business cards with 'Engineering Intern' on them."

"And then they waltz up to the Gentech booth and there's the guy Nikki blind-sided in Houston."

Cindy at the trade expo:

"Hi," Nikki squeaked when we turned the corner to one booth. "I think I remember you from Houston, don't I?"

"I remember you," he affirmed. "Different redhead, though, wasn't it? The other one was taller, redder..."

"And seven years older," I said. "I'm Cindy Richards. Here's my card."

"Wa-wa-wait - you said you're seven years younger?"

"She's fifteen, I'm sixteen. Johanna, my friend in Houston, was twenty-one," Nikki explained.

"This says 'Engineering Intern'. Seriously?"

"That converter that we sent in to Gentech for evaluation? This is my co-designer."

I think his knees started to buckle.

"Mister Lubovsky," Nikki soothed, "it's okay. We surprise a lot of people."

I just smiled.

About that time, our two Dans caught up with us.

My Dan read the expression on Mister Lubovsky's face. "Are you two out terrorizing the general population again?" He extended his hand. "Dan Richards. Husband of Cindy Richards. 3Sigma Engineering."

He eyed my Dan and Nikki's Dan, recognizing the latter. "Seriously? And yes, I've been hearing about 3Sigma. You guys turn up all over the southeast."

"Gosh, I hope so," Nikki's Dan said. "We're working our butts off."

"So what's the deal with these two?" he asked, motioning toward me and my sister.

Nikki's Dan fielded that one. "Graduating next spring from Auburn. Electrical engineers."

"That just ain't right," Mister Lubovsky replied. "Seriously?"

I nodded. I know that when I do that to Dan, he melts. (Well, under the right circumstances, MOST of him melts. There's this one part, though... ) "I'm ... actually, Nikki and I are both outside the normal four-year progression."

Nikki giggled. I think she likes messing with people and Mister Lubovsky seems like a decent sort, and easy mark. "Ask 'er what she's working on for a master's thesis."

He looked at us and then his eyes flitted between our husbands. "Now I know you're jerking my leg."

"One might rightfully think so," my Dan said. "But if you want references, we can start at the Dean of Engineering and work our way down."

"Graduate engineer at sixteen. What do you do with that?"

Cindy giggled. "I dunno. You hiring?"

"Oh, I can see the look on my boss's face when I tell him."

"Don't tell him anything. You have our little magic box."

"We could reverse-engineer that," he said.

"Yeah, I know. Non-patentable and all that. But here your R&D costs are zero," Nikki said. "We'd like a mention, that's the main thing."

"And a perfunctory bit of remuneration," Cindy said.

Lubovsky looked at me. "Did she just say 'perfunctory'?"

"Bill," I said, reading his nametag, "there are people shedding tears at Auburn right now that she's not in the English literature programs."

"And I know what it means, and so do you," Cindy smiled sweetly, Nikki looking on for reinforcement. "So you know ... a check. And a tag line on the company roster." Giggle. "Looks good on the resume'."

"You're fifteen and you're working on your engineering resume'. I'm going home and going to work in my wife's fabric house."

"Oh, it's not anything like that, Mister Lubovsky," Nikki soothed. "We do what we can. It's all for the challenges. Somebody challenged us with your equipment and getting it to work well with other equipment, and we sort of threw together the solution."

Cindy's working now. "A little hardware. A little software. Poof! Magic!"

"They told me that they thought about marketing it as a third-party solution, but for the sake of that block on the resume', they wanted to go to Gentech." I laughed. "I never had anything Gentech wanted."

"Oh, that's baloney, Dan. I've seen your name come up on a list of people to grab and throw at things our people can't tackle."

I knew he was truthful. I'd turned down offers before. Still, they weren't talking about hiring Cindy and Nikki, they wanted to get their hands on the little magic box. What's worse, that little move was known to a few people in the engineering faculty, too.

Two girls spent a few hours a day for several days putting together the documentation, both hardware and software, starting with the identification of the problem and the rationale behind their solution.

Cindy came home waving a paper. "Credit for labs in electrical engineering and computer science and a couple of elective hours that they're making up as we speak."

"Nikki, too, I suppose."

"You betcha!," she giggled.

The Doctors Patel met with us one evening at the Desai restaurant. Mizz Patel's husband, Jayant, was as personable as his delightful wife, so conversation flowed easily and pleasantly. Of course, part of the conversation was about the girls of the Community.

"Aneeta first told me of this community of yours," he said, "and I thought she might be exaggerating just a bit for effect." He leaned back in his chair, rubbing his belly after the meal. "But she keeps me up to date. I have curiosity. Aneeta was one such as your young ladies in the community."

Aneeta cast her eyes downward demurely. "I only wish I was as precocious as Cindy and Nikki. Perhaps I was at the level of Tina and Susan."

"It is unfortunate that nobody at our university wished to accept the risks for accelerating her education," Jayant continued. "I know this is why my wife expended the energy."

Aneeta wrinkled her nose at Cindy. "That may have been a tiny part of the equation, to be sure," she said. "When I got the first reports of Cindy, I was operating on the feelings of my own treatment. However, when I visited and saw Cindy in her element, it was as if I had the opportunity to collect a gem." She smiled. "That she came to us dragging along Nikki and Tina and Susan, those were, what's Nikki's Cajun word? Lagniappe? A little pleasant extra?"

Cindy giggled. "I wish Nikki was here to hear you using her word."

"Nikki gets affirmation enough," Aneeta said. "You two are the subject of entirely too many conversations." She laughed delicately. "Some of them are from the physics department, some from the mathematics staff, all wishing for you."

"I had professors that said, 'Oh, you AGAIN?'" I laughed. "I didn't know what I found when I found Cindy."

"Nor did we," Aneeta said. "Doctor Stebbins says that reading the reports of your progress is like a fiction novel."

"You should see it from my vantage," my Cindy chirped. "I'm supposed to be a high school freshman."

"Not what Doctor Embert says. "Her progress reports ... she says you could do with an office, but she fears they may put you in hers."

Cindy's giggle. It still gets to me. "Oh, hardly! She's such a wonderful person to put up with mentoring me. I have so much to learn."

"You're teaching, so I am told," Aneeta told Cindy. "Besides that set of classes that you and Nikki did, I understand that even in the summer, you're teaching off-campus."

"Yes," Cindy said. "One of the math guys told some high school advanced placement students to call us. We have four. Tuesday evenings. You will probably see a couple of them on campus when they graduate high school."

"The worst thing," Dan said, "is that Terri sits in."

"Ah, yes, the Terri-dactyl," Aneeta said, smiling. She fished around in her purse, pulling out Terri's 'business card' and handed it to Jayant. "Terri is eight. I think that if I would have found Cindy at eight, this is what she would have been like."

"She has her own logo?" Jayant questioned.

"Yes," Cindy said. "Another sister, Johanna Jackson, bestowed the name on her. Terri accepted it and we got one of the artsy types from school to do the cartoon pterodactyl for her."

"Terri tests above high school in most scales," Aneeta told him.

"Oh, Mister Jayant, you haven't actually MET Terri, have you?" Cindy observed.

He shook his head in the negative.

Cindy picked up her phone, punched it, said "Tina." "Hi, Sis," she said. "Is Terri where she can come meet Doctor Jayant and Mizz Aneeta? We're at the Desais." Pause. "No, we won't keep 'er long." Pause. "'Kay! Seeya!" She set the phone down. "Terri's coming over."

Jayant's look was quizzical. I explained. "Terri's Alan Addison's daughter, Tina's step-daughter. And the communal little sister."

A few minutes later the kitchen door opened and a bouncy blonde head navigated through the dining area. She went right to Cindy.

"Hi, Aunt Cindy," Terri said sweetly.

"Hi, Sweetie," Cindy replied. "You have met Mizz Aneeta before. This is her husband, Doctor Jayant Patel."

Pure Terri. She put her palms together, bowed her head slightly, and said "Namaste', Doctor Patel." And smiled.

What could he do? He returned the greeting. "Namaste', Miss Terri. I've been hearing of you. Now I have the pleasure of seeing you."

Terri smiled. She knows she's among friends and she's just added another. "You're a geologist, right, sir?"

Jayant flicked his eyes toward Aneeta, then back to Terri. "That is correct."

"That is very interesting. I have read some things. It's very difficult to get my mind around geological time numbers."

"You're eight," Cindy said.

"Almost NINE, thank you," Terri countered. "But in geological time, I'm not even a rounding error. And Pangaea? And tectonic plate movement? Old mountains and new mountains?"

Jayanth looked amused. "What have you been reading?"

"Oh, you can find so many things on the Internet." Terri grinned. "And Tina-mom took me to a REAL library, though. I got to check out real books. One of 'em was on the formation of the modern continents. I just wanted to know about it."

"I saw the book," Cindy told us. "Wasn't from the juvenile section. Had three hundred pages."

"I pay attention, Doctor Jayant. I learned about plates and subduction zones. Now when I look at a map, I understand what I'm seeing."

"Do you see, love?" Aneeta said softly. "We have students who manage to avoid understanding after four years of college. And here's Terri."

"Thank you, Mizz Aneeta," Terri said, doing her 'bashful girl-child' twist. "You're one who showed us that learning is fun." Smile. "I need to go back home now. I left Rachel in the living room. We're writing a report for home schooling. It's about reptiles in Alabama."

"Good bye, dear child," Jayant said. "Aneeta, you are correct. She is a delight."

"And you think that was ME at that age?" Cindy asked Aneeta.

"Yes, I do."

After dinner, Cindy and I went back to our apartment. She was smiling, but I have trouble remembering when Cindy wasn't smiling.

"They're a nice couple, baby," she told me.

"Indeed they are," I answered. "They're both comfortable with themselves and with each other, and it shows."

"Shows with us, too, you know," my fifteen year old wife said. "But some of the other students I talk with? Maybe we ... what we have, it's not that common. That whole 'forever' thing. My body being yours and yours alone..."

"And vice versa," I said. "And that brain..."

And home ... The door closes behind us and those green eyes flash and I am smashed by the other facet of this neat person who is part of my life. She's incredibly arousing.

"No dishes to wash. Laundry's done. I am writing off homework for the time being," she grinned. "And I don't need a shower until ... later."

'Yahoo!' should be the operative term.

"Let me put a block on the calendar," my redheaded cutie said, fingering her iPhone. She set it down. "Now!"

Chapter 48

(Author's note: And now for something completely different!

When I first started writing this stuff, I read a story, Runaway, here on SOL. I loved the story. The author and I have emailed back and forth a bit over the years and he and I talked about interweaving the characters of Runaway with my girls in Community.

Here it is. Be advised that Duncs is British, so you get a bit of different slang and a different tone, and he insisted on using the wrong spellings, like 'colour' and 'honour' and such.

This is mostly his lead into the connection. Do wait patiently because there WILL be more to this story.)

Meanwhile, in a small town in Yorkshire, England...

I swung my car through entrance gate to the office and factory complex where I work. I'd been on a road trip, working away for two weeks and it felt almost like returning home. The result of increasing friction between my wife of 22 years and me has increasingly led to me gravitating more and more to the office rather than home. My effervescent, extrovert daughter used to be my one respite, my one reason to look forward to returning home. But now 17 years old, her head buried in books, immersed in studying for the final year at school, or busy with her part-time job or spending time with her long-term boyfriend, she doesn't really have much time left for Dad any more...

So I smiled to myself as I entered the office building and headed towards the large communal engineering office. Within that messy, noisy but productive office I would find the usual bunch of misfits euphemistically known as the technical staff; my closest colleagues. Folk who I have worked with for years, folk whose strengths, weaknesses, foibles and families I know so well. Before I even enter that office, I know I will be faced with greetings on a scale ranging from polite to downright rude. I know all this but, I still love it. I also happen to know that if one particular person is resident in the office, a person very close to my heart, then I can expect to receive at least one very warm welcome offered with genuine affection; an affection that goes beyond that normally bestowed on a colleague. For the latter, I wasn't about to be disappointed. I opened the door and entered...

"Ah, Duncs, so you've returned from skiving-off work eh?"

"Been thrown off site again, Duncs?"

"Oh, so, you DO remember where the office is, then?"

"Oh, so the roving engineer has decided to grace us with his presence; we're so honoured..."

"Hey, ugly-mug; you're back!"

"Hello, Duncs, nice to see you back!"

Yep, so the usual range of greetings. I studiously ignored most of them, choosing to simply acknowledge Lisa, the one and only person to greet me politely. That's when one particular person looked up from her laptop.

Squeal! "DAD! Um ... I mean, Duncs! You're back earlier than expected!"

With that said, 120lbs of insanely beautiful, slim, blonde female rose quickly from her desk and bounded and skipped like a ten-year-old across the office towards me, threw her arms around me and planted a huge kiss on my cheek. Her actions were met with general cries of mock derision by other colleagues, all except Lisa who I heard utter "Awwww, I think she missed you..."

I gently pushed this blonde beauty away from me and cupping her face in my hands, planted a kiss on her forehead.

"Lovely to see you too, Amy. I really don't know how you and Lisa stand for the childish and rude behaviour that surrounds you!"

Amy smiled back, and gave me one of her wonderful infectious giggles, a sound guaranteed to lift my spirits.

"Oh, you know, Duncs, they're not so bad. Lisa and I can and do tolerate them! So, how was commissioning on the Ransome's project? Get everything done? Come back with your usual site scribbles for me to decipher and turn into proper test certs and 'as fitted' schematics, did ya?"

She said this with a deadpan expression, but the humour behind it was betrayed by the corners of her mouth twitching slightly and her eyes twinkling. I chose not to rise to the bait, though the smirk on my face betrayed me too.

"So, any chance of a coffee, sweetheart? And in return, I'll tell you some really exciting news."

"Yes sir, anything you say sir, one coffee coming up right away sir. You just make yourself comfortable sir!"

Ah, so there it was, her facetious side coming out. It took less than a minute from her initial warm, genuine greeting, through to being sarcastic to then returning to her true form, a form that I had to admit I totally loved and revelled in.

So what can I tell you about Amy? This fiercely intelligent, beautiful young woman standing in front of me now, with her elegant poise, her non-arrogant, quiet confidence and sharp wit is a person poles apart from the undernourished, sullen, waif of a 17 year-old street kid I happened upon back in October 2009; you wouldn't believe it was the same person. And the period of time between me first discovering her and the person she is now is the subject of a story in its own right. It would also not be an exaggeration to state that our relationship is unusual and complex.

That 'Dad' reference? Well, that came into play much later in my acquaintance with this delightful young woman. It was some months ago she decided to adopt me as her Dad, a title I wear with much pride. My own blood daughter adopted Amy as her sister some years ago and they remain extremely close to this day. As well as gladly accepting her as my daughter, I also consider Amy my best friend, companion and confidante and yes, we were at one time lovers too; a relationship that to some would be seen as immoral, especially given the thirty year age gap between us. Some might also say that at the time, I took advantage of a very vulnerable seventeen year-old girl. Well, all I can say to that is this: if the result of my actions a few years ago helped transform Amy into the young woman I look at now, then yes, I guess you could say I took 'advantage' of her ... But as I already stated, the previous four and a half years is well-documented in another story.

Amy returned with steaming-hot mugs of coffee for the pair of us. She sat down next to me, a look of expectation on her face.

"Thanks poppet, just what I needed," I said, picking up my coffee. I deliberately ignored her obvious expectation that I would tell her my exciting news immediately and pretended to be deeply absorbed reading some online technical article. I can play too!

"So, are you going to tell me your news, or as usual, are you just going to act like a twat?!"

I smirked. "Well, seeing how you asked me so eloquently, how could I possibly refuse to tell you, my sweet?"

Giggle. "You're always suspicious of me when I'm too polite, just like you are with Jess, so I thought I'd be like you and be rude!"

Ah, Jess, my sweet, 'butter-wouldn't-melt-in-her-mouth' daughter. A girl who when she reached double figures, seemed to suddenly develop a head way older than the ten year-old shoulders that supported it. Jess was thirteen when she first met Amy and was the vibrant, young teenager that Amy so needed in her then troubled life. Now seventeen-going-on-thirty, I don't see so much of her, especially since she passed her driving test this February and we bought her a car. I know she's all but an adult and will be flying the nest next year to go to university, but it's still a wrench, still something I can't fully accept. I don't want to acknowledge that 'daddy's little girl' is now an adult.

I started 'Outlook' on my laptop and opened an email from one of our major suppliers based in Germany; the 'Big S' as we liked to refer to them. By major, I mean they are huge - they dominate the electrical supply and controls sector. The email was from Franz, an applications engineer who both Amy and I very much like and respect. Slightly eccentric and quirky, he is, nevertheless, an excellent engineer and good company.

"Here, read this," I prompted Amy, twisting the laptop towards her.

I love watching her read or study something. Her brow furrows slightly and she's the kind of reader whose lips move as she silently speaks to herself as she reads.

"Wow, cool!" was all my excited partner-in-crime stated a couple of minutes later. But after her initial excitement, seconds later she looked pensive.

"But America? The 'Big S' wants us to work with an electrical engineering company over in America? D ... d ... do you really think I'm up to this challenge? I mean, it's America, those guys over there are going to expect perfection, you know, really high standards. I'm not so sure I..." She trailed off, her eyes boring imploringly into mine.

Yes, it is true she had come on in leaps and bounds the last four and a half years; overcome many personal demons and obstacles, surpassed all my expectations and her own and faced challenges with fierce determination, winning all the time. Yet, from time-to-time, her self-doubt could still surface and I and others close to her had to be ready to nip it in the bud before she became too despondent.

"Amy, sweet Amy, so it's America, it's another country, so what? You've worked in The Netherlands, You've worked in Germany. You've worked in Republic of Ireland. You've worked all over the UK. So what's the difference? Hell, girl, they even speak a form of English in America!"

"I know, I'm being silly, but well, it's just..."

"Just nothing, poppet. It's not as if you'll be by yourself. I'll be with you. You know how well we work together on site. It'll be a great experience for you and nice for me too; I haven't worked across the pond for some years, and Birmingham, Alabama is somewhere in the USA I've never been to before. I doubt it has much in common with OUR Birmingham."

"Well, um, okay, I'm sure I'll probably go, but I would just like to know a little more about the company and the folk we'll be working with before I make up my mind."

I studied Amy's face. I knew her facial expressions intimately. I saw hints of a young girl staring back at me, not the confidant young woman I usually expected to now see. I smiled at her in a fatherly way and gently thumbed her cheek.

"Look, as you read for yourself, Franz has personally recommended you and me to do this project. He explains he knows some of the folk at this American engineering house, 3Sigma, and reckons both of us will fit in with their style of working perfectly. Quite what that means, I've no idea yet. But you know as well as I do that Franz is never wrong. Anyway, as you read, he's asked me to contact one of the engineers at 3Sigma, a Mr Dan Richards, and introduce myself. I'll have to do that later this afternoon, to allow for the time difference and once I've spoken to him and sounded-out the project, I'll be able to tell you far more about it. How's that sound to ya?"

"Okay..."

If any confirmation of the 'little girl lost Amy' was needed, it was in this single word reply. She always becomes very monosyllabic when she's unsure or stressed. I really wanted her to go with me on this project; not only is she a formidable colleague to work with, she's a great companion too. However, ultimately I would never force her to do anything against her will and if necessary, I had other colleagues who could go with me.

Later that day

"Good morning, 3Sigma Engineering, how may I help you?" said a very pleasant female voice, with a lovely soft American accent.

"Er, good after ... I mean, good morning to you too. My name is Duncan Smith from Controltech Systems, based in the UK. May I speak with Mr Dan Richards please?"

"Certainly, Mr Smith. I'll put you through right now. By the way, loving that accent!"

I smiled; the number of times I had heard "I love your accent" whenever I had worked in the States! There was the inevitable pause as I waited to be patched through but thankfully, no awful on-hold 'muzak', just a pleasant 'ping' every few seconds to confirm the connection was still alive.

"Hello, Mr Smith, Dan Richards speaking. I've been expecting your call."

"I'll give you just one chance to drop the Mr. Smith. It's Duncan, or Duncs!"

"Ah, well, I thought what with all that Brit 'stiff upper lip' thing you guys have going, I would have to be more formal!"

I detected a hint of mirth in Dan's voice.

"Ah, a British stereotype that thankfully is reserved for the entitled upper-classes. Please, call me Duncan or Duncs and I may I assume by return I can call you Dan?"

"Oh no, not at all, it's definitely Sir for now, and then once I get to know you a little better, I may let to call me Mr. Richards!"

I liked and warmed to this guy already. Seconds later I could just make out a young female voice, obviously nearby to Dan and gently admonishing him.

"Dan one! Whose chain are you yanking now? Behave yourself!"

"Just kidding around with a guy from England, baby, that's all. Sorry about that Duncan, just being put in my place by my wife!"

"Well, SIR, as you know, our mutual contact, Franz, from the 'Big S' has decided that it would be a good idea for 3Sigma and Controltech Systems to combine resources and talents to work on this Co-gen and greenhouse project out in the wilds of Alabama. So where exactly do we fit in and why does an engineering house based in high-tech America need the resources of a little old company from England?"

Dan chuckled. "So, Duncan, you're gonna yank my chain right back! I like your humour! Listen, Duncan, don't sell yourself, your company or for that matter, the UK short, my friend. Everyone knows a lot of high-tech and original thought still comes out of the UK; you guys just lost out on your manufacturing base, that's all."

"Way I see it is this: 3Sigma is coming up with the control strategies and design for the Co-gen plant and high voltage switching. Another company based in Cincinnati are supplying the greenhouse controls package. What we need is that bit of magic in between to make reluctant co-gen 'control system A' talk to recalcitrant greenhouse 'control system B' and make 'em cooperate with each other."

"Now whilst 3Sigma certainly have the in-house talent to do it, this is a fast-track project and time is of the essence. Franz tells me that you guys do this kind of interfacing all the time, with your eyes shut and with one hand tied behind your back! He tells me that in particular, you have a young woman working for you that is a natural talent at interfacing A to B!"

"Dan, or what was it I heard your wife call you, Dan One? Yep, we are certainly used to getting otherwise non-standard control systems to cooperate with each other. And the young lady that Franz mentioned is Amy. Yep, she's certainly a natural; seems to possess the intuition of a much more experienced engineer, yet she's still shy of 21 years old. I've been mentoring her for the past four years, but more often than not, I'm just along for the ride. She has an insatiable appetite to learn, almost an autodidact if you will; in a nutshell, she's a breath of fresh air!"

I heard Dan chuckle and wondered what I'd said to humour him.

"Not quite 21 years-old Duncan? Autodidact? My wife Cindy is fifteen and in about a year's time will graduate from Auburn University with a degree in electrical engineering. Her sister Nikki, sixteen, is on track to do the same. Her other sisters Tina and Susan, seventeen and eighteen respectively, may take a little longer to qualify with engineering degrees but they will, without a doubt. Then there's the little pixie Terri, daughter of my associate, Alan. She's eight years old and could easily pass the high school GED right now. Not in any way wishing to denigrate Amy's abilities, but what you're telling me does not surprise me!"

"Cindy, your wife, only fifteen?" I parsed that little snippet about Cindy being fifteen and married to Dan but decided not to question it there and then. There was obviously a story behind that and I realised it was probably not suitable for a phone call, let alone a first call at that.

"Electrical engineering degree at sixteen? Wow, that and the achievements of the others girls you mention is certainly very impressive! Now I think I might know what Franz means when he said we might fit in with your group, more specifically Amy. But Dan, without giving you the long version, I have to say that Amy's achievements are all the more remarkable if you know a little about her background."

"This girl didn't start living what might be deemed a normal life until just after her seventeenth birthday. Up until then, she merely existed. Born to a teenage girl that didn't want her, never loved her, never cuddled her, always called her the most dreadful names and constantly reminded her just how much she'd messed up her life, Amy was off to a bad start right from the start."

"Then, as soon as Amy was old enough to do chores, this disgusting person that bore Amy, I refuse to call her a Mum, she never earned that title in my book, then put Amy to work in the house, cooking, cleaning, washing, whilst she went out partying and having a good time with her cronies. Then, when Amy hit puberty, things turned even darker for the poor lass when her so-called 'mother' allowed her twisted and depraved boyfriends to pleasure themselves with Amy, in other words, molest and rape her."

"Eventually, after a massive fight, she got the courage to run away and then spent nearly two years living on the street. It was October 2009 when I purely by chance came into her life and with help from me, my own daughter and some of my colleagues, well, we have slowly but surely turned her life around..."

I realised that by now I was pretty emotional and was practically shouting at Dan. I took several deep breaths.

"Um, Dan, I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to blurt all that out; I don't even know you yet to dump all that personal information on you. I guess I get pretty defensive on all matters relating to Amy."

Dan was quiet for what seemed like minutes but was probably only a few seconds. I knew he was still on the phone because I could hear typical office clatter in the background.

"Duncan, dammit man, I really don't know what to say other than given that potted history you have just recounted to me, then I have to concede that Amy does indeed sound like a very remarkable young woman in achieving what she has so far. My Cindy and her adopted sisters Nikki and Tina also have pretty messed-up childhood stories to relate, but nothing like the hell-hole of a childhood you have just described for Amy. You know, I really want to meet her and I know the sisterhood will take her into their hearts too. Damn, I feel quite cut-up about this."

"Sisterhood?"

"Oh, that's quite a long, complex story, or series of stories, but yeah, the girls all eventually came together and refer to themselves collectively as the Sisterhood. They're a tight-knit bunch who take care of each other and those close to them. But they also extend that care to others in need. Only recently, we have taken-in within our community a lovely girl named Kara."

"Community? The more I hear, the more I'm intrigued, Dan. Oh, and why Dan One?"

"I have another associate named Dan, so the girls named us Dan One and Dan Two, to avoid confusion. Formally speaking, we're Dan 1.0 and Dan 2.0, like in software revisions. Whereas the Sisterhood is the nucleus of the group, The Community is the greater whole of it and that includes me, Dan two, Alan, Jason, our little blonde pixie Terri, The Desai's, and finally the Weismann family. Long story short, we built a complex of apartments and offices, plus a couple of community areas, there's a unit turned into a Indian restaurant and well, we all live under one roof, so to speak."

"Ah, that makes sense, well, I think it does and I have to say, I'm all the more intrigued!"

"Well then, you two get your hides over here and come and see for yourselves! We'll welcome you with open arms!"

"Dan, I have to confess, there is a small chance that Amy may not accompany me to carry out this project, which I admit would be a shame as not only is she a damn good colleague to work with, I also love her companionship and last but not least, I feel the experience working in the States will be a great opportunity for her.

"Listening to what you've told me about the Sisterhood and the Community, I think there may be a way to finally convince Amy once and for all. Do you think one of the girls would be prepared to talk to her?"

"Without a shadow of a doubt buddy. My Cindy would be more than happy to do that and she tends to be the spokeswoman for the group anyway. Does Amy Skype?"

"She certainly does. She loves her tech. We often Skype each other when she or I work away. Plus when Amy works away herself, she frequently Skype's my real daughter."

"Good, then lemme just speak with Cindy a minute."

I heard a muffled conversation that I couldn't entirely make out, but I heard 'Amy' mentioned a few times and the word 'Skype' a couple of times.

"Duncan, Cindy would love to talk to Amy. She actually said how about right now but I guess you'll need to arrange it with Amy first. What time is it with you guys; by my reckoning its three forty five PM in the UK, right?"

"Spot on, Dan. And please, Duncs, okay? I'll go and discuss it with Amy now, but how about I tentatively say five PM UK time, will that be good with Cindy?"

"Just a minute Duncs. Cindy, is five PM good for you if Amy agrees? That's noon here." He paused. "Yep, Duncs, Cindy says she's good to go. Go and arrange it. And I promise you, this visit won't be all work, we want you guys to have some fun too. We like to make our own entertainment and it can get pretty rowdy at times! You guys into music by any chance? Do either of you play instruments or sing?"

"You haven't met my colleagues Dan. Bunch of misfits, most of 'em; overgrown kids with grown up toys, so I know all about rowdy. But you know, when they knuckle down to it, they do some serious work. And as it so happens, yes, I play piano and accordion, though I'm pretty rusty now and quite recently, we discovered at a Karaoke night that Amy has the sweetest singing voice imaginable. I'm talking an angelic, ethereal quality to her voice that is totally spellbinding. However, she's pretty shy and needs a lot of encouragement to get up and sing. Not sure if she'd sing for the community."

"And talking of work, we seem to have strayed off from that topic, which was the initial purpose of the call! Can you email over any relevant information, schematics, P&ID's etc., so that I can start to get a grip on what it is we need to do and the kit we'll need to ship over ahead of our visit? I'll need to ship over equipment as soon as possible; there's no way the TSA goons are going to allow us to bring strange technical equipment with us on our flight over to the US."

"Sure, give me your email address and I'll email you a link to some files in my Dropbox account. You guys have AutoCAD?"

"We do, the latest version, with an electrical bolt-on package too. And email me Cindy's Skype details too and I'll go and talk to Amy. Dan, it's been a pleasure talking to you, I'm really looking forward to working with you and your team on this project."

"The feeling's mutual Duncs; look forward to meeting you too and thanks for your time. Good luck with Amy!"

I gave Dan my email address and we bade each other goodbye. It was a fascinating conversation in more ways than one. I'd never looked forward to working on a project as much as this one in a long time. I had lately become somewhat jaded and disillusioned with life, especially as things at home were not so rosy now and I genuinely looked forward to this project. I left the office in search of Amy. Eventually I found her in the electrical workshop, talking to James, her very understanding fiancé.

"Amy, found you lass! I've just finished having a really long chat with Dan Richards from 3Sigma. You know, you really need to come on this project; based on what I just heard from Dan, you'll gonna love it and I don't just mean the work."

Amy shot a glance towards James. From the lack of surprise on his face, it was clear he already knew something about this project, so I guess Amy had just been discussing it with him. I know I can count on his support, even though I would be taking the love of his life away on a business trip for a couple of weeks. James encourages Amy in all she does. The lad absolutely dotes on her and within reason, will do anything for her.

I know James very well; after all, it was me that took him on in the first place. Due to cutbacks and downsizing, he'd been made redundant from his previous job but instead of wallowing in self-pity, he'd simply got on his bike that same day and started riding around all the local businesses asking if they had work, any work. Just so happened he stopped by our place as I was standing outside, getting some fresh air. He explained his predicament to me and I liked his attitude right from the start and offered him a job on the spot. My hunch at the time has since been proved to be spot-on and he's become a much-valued addition in the electrical workshop. The added bonus was that he and Amy hit it off from the start, which so happened to coincide with my plan to wean Amy off me as my lover (my so-called 'tough love' approach towards her a year ago).

As much as the selfish side of me would have kept Amy as my lover forever and a day (and by return, she was more than happy with this arrangement), the caring, practical side of me ultimately only wanted what was best for her. It would have been unfair and unrealistic for me to keep her as my lover. Assuming I live to 75, that would make Amy 45 and she would by then be so attached to me that she would find it almost impossible to find new love, if at all. So about a year ago, after a lot a soul-searching on my part and some very tricky and careful negotiations with Amy (she initially thought I was rejecting her entirely), I finally persuaded Amy to stop being my lover and just continue to be my best friend and companion.

Well, shortly after this change in my relationship status with Amy, I had a long-term trip abroad coming up, a massive project. I'd taken James on about a month prior to this trip and, well, it transpired that whilst I was away, James and Amy became close friends, leading to dating, finally leading to them being joined at the hip. By the time I returned home from my six month business trip, I was faced with a very nervous Amy telling me about her relationship with James. For some reason, the silly lass thought I'd be upset with her. Far from it, I was over the moon; it couldn't have worked out better. It was shortly after this first major revelation when one evening at my house, a tearful Amy asked me if I would consider being her adopted father; she wanted to have a morally acceptable relationship tie with me. I didn't even have to think about my answer to this request. I was truly honoured.

I looked at James and gave him an almost imperceptible nod. He picked up on my vibe instantly.

"Sweetheart, you really must go on this trip. The experience will be brilliant for you. You might never get the opportunity to go again. You must do it!"

"But, James, it's America; it's a long way from home. What if I can't do the work? What if I let everyone down?"

"Sweetheart, that's just not gonna happen. I know what you're capable of, even more so Duncs knows what you're capable of. Do you really think he'd offer to take you with him if he didn't think you were capable of doing the work?"

James can pull the tough love routine too. He has a knack of allowing his voice to give just a hint of authority without coming across as being mean or patronising towards Amy. Sometimes, Amy needs to be told things in a direct, firm manner. I noted not for the first time that James is better at this than I'd ever been. I tend to give in to her too easily! Amy then tried to change her tact.

"But what about you? Will you be alright? Won't you miss me? Won't you worry about me?"

"Sweet pea, of course I'll worry about you and miss you but I'm a big boy now, I can look after myself and besides, you'll be with Duncs and I know he won't let you come to any harm. Plus, think of all the fun we'll have the first night you return home..."

By now, James was grinning at Amy like a Cheshire cat and it amused me to see her blush. I grinned at her embarrassment. I had a brief flashback to an image of the sexual dynamo I know Amy was capable of being and knew exactly what James meant by 'all the fun'...

"Okay then, I'll probably go but I still need to talk to Dad, I mean Duncs, about what he's just found out about the project."

"And that's the main reason why I came looking for you. You have half an hour to prepare for a Skype call with a girl named Cindy. She wants to talk to you about 3Sigma, the Sisterhood and the Community. She's fifteen years old and will be graduating university with a degree in electrical engineering in about a year, so she's nobody's fool!"

"What?! Sisterhood? Community? Getting a degree in engineering at sixteen? I won't get my degree for another two years and I'm nearly 21! I can't possibly compete with her! There's no way I can go; I'll come across as totally inadequate in her company!"

"Yeah, but you're working full time, only attending college one day a week and had a horrendous life up until very recently and anyway, it's not some sort of competition, so don't you dare put yourself down young lady!"

So now it was my time to show a little tough love towards Amy and I noted James nodding along and agreeing with me too. Amy looked at me, looked at James and then looked down at her feet, slightly ashamed.

"Sorry Duncs, I didn't mean that outburst, I just get overwhelmed sometimes," she whispered.

"Don't need to be sorry, poppet. I just don't want to hear you putting yourself down. Against all the odds, this last four years you have achieved far more than anyone could have reasonably expected you to have done."

"Thanks Duncs, Thanks James. What did I ever do to deserve you two in my life? I love you two so much."

"More a case of what did the pair of us do to have the honour of having you, my sweet Amy, come into our lives, eh James?"

"Damn right, Duncs."

"Everyone deserves a second chance in life; in your case, more so than ever, Amy," I continued.

"Shut up the pair of you; you're gonna make me cry, you soft twats!"

"Oh come here lass!" I said, putting my arms out to embrace her. She melted into my arms and accepted my cuddle. I winked at James. He smiled. He knows how special and complex my relationship with Amy is and accepts it wholeheartedly and without reservation. He is a remarkable young man in so many ways. I kissed the crown of her head and then released her.

"Right, c'mon lass, time to go and get ready for your Skype call with Cindy. Go and use the conference room and you can put the video up on the projector. I've already checked, and the room's free to use and besides, as it will be five PM most folk will be leaving for the day. You'll have privacy"

"Okay."

Amy's turn:

I know both Duncs and James are right when they tell me I'm capable of doing the job required of me at this project in America. I know Duncs wouldn't put me in a position where I'd be out of my comfort zone. He always makes sure I learn any new things on 'home turf' so to speak, so that I can make mistakes and learn from them but at the same time be surrounded by those that know me and support me. So yeah, I know I'm being a little silly.

But, what I don't let on to most of the time to those close to me is just how nervous and stressed I get sometimes. I hate to keep burdening people like James and Duncs every time I feel afraid or worried, so I do my best to hide my feelings. I can't always do this successfully. Duncs knows me better than anyone, better than even James does, and he'll often take me out of the office to have a quiet word with me when he senses all is not well. He always manages to comfort me too. I owe and love that bloke so much.

It's why it hurts me to know that things have taken a further downturn in his relationship with his wife. They have been 'married in name' for a number of years now, in-fact, way before he first met me; I've known that for a long time, but they had, up until very recently, at least enjoyed a platonic relationship. It's because of this that way back in 2009 he didn't feel particularly guilty when we became lovers. But now, even the friendliness is waning between them. They're going through a trial separation at the moment, but I seriously think Duncs will part company with her for good, once Jess has left the nest; I think that quite simply, there is too much of a void between them for there to be any hope of reconciliation. I guess the only positive thing is that at least the split will be amicable. This latest state of affair has also reminded me to bring up something very personal with Duncs; something we discussed many months ago whilst having a heart-to-heart, though I'm not sure how he's going to take it...

Oh, and let me just talk about Jess, that beautiful girl who adopted me as her sister; a person who is another rock I used to heavily rely on, though not so much now. She is all but an adult now, a fun-loving, very loving, lovable, strong-willed, independent, very clever and extroverted young woman. She was the one reason Duncs used to look forward to going home, but inevitably Jess is starting to move on now; she is in her last year at school, studying hard, has a serious boyfriend and a part-time job.

Quite simply she just doesn't have the same amount of time for her Dad that she used to have. She doesn't love him any less, far from it, but yeah, she's gaining more and more independence and poor old Duncs sees 'daddy's little girl' slipping from his grasp. In his eyes, she'll be forever ten years old. I feel for him, I see the absolute love he has for her and it breaks my heart at times to know how sad it makes him seeing her drift away. Of course, I never knew my biological father and I doubt my mother even knew which boy or man fathered me. After all, if you eat a whole can of beans, how do you know which one made you fart?

But to now have Duncs as my adopted Dad, even if not in the legal sense, means the World to me, especially knowing that I am loved by him as if I were his blood daughter. I hope that I can 'be there' for him, his rock if you will, just as he has always 'been there' for me; especially when Jess finally leaves for university and he then loses that last tie that kept him associated with the family home.

I want to go on this trip to America with Duncs, I really do and I guess I've almost made up my mind that I will do it but this conversation I'm about to have with Cindy will be clincher. Anyway, it's nearly five PM...

"Hi, Amy, I'm Cindy, lovely to meet you and guess what? It's the first time I ever spoke to someone from England!"

"Hello, Cindy, pleased to meet you too and yep, same for me too, it's the first time I've spoken to an American!"

"Well, I'm told we speak a similar language but I'm led to believe there can be some confusion with certain words, some with quite amusing results!"

"I'll have to ask Duncs about that; he worked in America a lot through the nineties."

"Yeah, do that and let me know! By the way, I love your accent, Amy, that voice of yours is sure gonna melt the hearts of all the guys over here! But enough of that. What can I tell you to convince you to come over and visit us? Well, we're a great bunch, honestly we are. We're all geeky one way or another but, we like to have fun too and we are one big happy family. A problem for one of us is a problem for all to deal with." She paused for a breath. She's a happy-sounding young thing.

"My husband Dan told me a bit about your past, Amy. I can quite understand why you might be nervous or worried about a new environment. But you've got nothing to fear with our bunch; we certainly don't judge and will welcome you with open arms."

"Cindy, it's not so much that I'm worried about getting on with all of you; I'm more worried about letting folk down with respect to the project work, not the social side of things. I know I'm probably being silly. My boss and best friend, Duncs, in fact, my adopted Dad, the bloke who talked to your Dan, wouldn't even suggest that I should accompany him if he didn't think I was up to the job - I know that - so I know I'm being silly. I think I just need to get a grip and talking to you, actually seeing you on Skype and not just seeing you as a name in an email is helping a lot." I was looking at this little red-head, her hair short, a neat fringe, green eyes, freckles. I found her smile disarming.

I heard another voice from off screen. "Hey, Cindy, who ya talking to? She has a funny accent but it sounds cool!"

I couldn't see who this new, young voice belonged to, as the person who I took to be a young girl, was off camera. I saw Cindy look to her left.

"Hi, Terri, I'm talking to Amy, she's from England. Come over here and say hi to her!"

Suddenly, Cindy's face was obscured by a young girl's face; complete with neatly-cut, short blonde hair with another cute fringe and a beaming 1000watt smile. She reminded me of the fist time I met Jess.

"Hi, Mizz Amy, I'm Terri and I'm eight years old, NEARLY NINE! I've never spoken to someone from England before; I think your accent is cool! Ooh, and you're really pretty too and you have blonde hair just like me! So, why are you talking to my Aunt Cindy?"

Yep, an American and younger version of Jess, and just like her, curious and direct!

"Hello, Terri, pleased to meet you too! Well, you're now the second American I've spoken to and I think you are really pretty, cute as a button, in fact! I'm talking to Cindy to find out a little about 3Sigma and your community, because my colleague, sorry, the person I work with is coming over to work with 3Sigma and I might be coming with him!"

"Mizz Amy, I know what the word 'colleague' means! And what do you mean, might be coming over? You've GOT to come over, I so want to meet you! An' my best friend Rachel will wanna meet you too!"

Another 1000watt smile. I felt bad for thinking that an eight year-old wouldn't know what the word 'colleague' meant, but there again, I'd no experience with young children.

"Terri, sorry I thought you wouldn't know what the word colleague meant. I don't know much about eight year-olds. My childhood was pretty, um, rough ... Um, sorry Terri, forget what I just said then. Um, so Terri, I know I would like to meet you, you seem like a great kid, but tell me, will I like the older people too?"

"Mizz Amy, you don't have to apologise for assuming I wouldn't know a big word. I know a lot more than most eight year-olds do because I love to learn an' read an' my Aunt Cindy and Tina-Mom and everyone else help me learn about stuff. An' yeah, we're all nice 'n' friendly here; you'll love it, honest. We have a lot of fun playing and working. Please say you'll come! Pleeeeese?"

A 2000watt smile now, with head cocked to one side for added effect. Just like Jess working on her Dad. I am being manipulated, but in a nice way, by an eight year-old girl (nearly nine!) and felt powerless to refuse. I held my ground, just...

"Terri, it's good to learn, I love to learn and read too and I would love to meet you. But I just need to speak to Cindy a little bit more. Do you mind sweetheart?"

"Not at all, Mizz Amy, I'll hand ya back to Aunt Cindy, but please come over, please; it will be real neat to have a new friend all the way from England! An' the Sisterhood will make you an honorary sister too! Bye Amy!"

Terri waved at me, gave me another huge smile and a split second later she disappeared off-screen. I could now see Cindy again, smiling, eyes twinkling.

"So, you've now met the Terri-dactyl! She's a real live wire and keeps all of us on our toes. She's scary smart too!"

"Terri-dactyl - I love that! Yep, she's lovely and I'm really intrigued about the rest of you, especially given your ages and the relationships and how you all seem to fit together. It's fascinating and I guess too much for you to explain over this first Skype call. Cindy, on the outside I'm pretty much a normal 20 year-old woman and over here, I'm surrounded by loving, caring people and for the most part, I manage pretty well.

"But my childhood nightmare still occasionally comes back to haunt me and something quite innocuous can cause a flashback or I might be startled by something or by someone quite unintentionally. That's why I really fear the unknown when I move away from my comfort zones. I'm being silly, I know. I've worked away in other European countries and been okay. I guess America just seems so far away, so different. I guess what I'm just trying to say is I might not always act the way you might expect me too and I don't want to cause any embarrassment for me or anyone else."

"Amy, all of us here know all to well about personal baggage. Our husbands, me and my sisters, well, apart from Susan that is, all have stories of our own to tell, though, from the little I already know about you, not in the same category as your own childhood. If it helps, we can talk some more, or you can email me and tell me what we can do to help you feel more at home. I know we haven't said much, but I can already tell I'd love to get to know you more and you certainly made an impression on Terri! So are ya gonna come over Amy? What d'ya say?"

How could I refuse? Cindy came across as a warm, caring and genuine person and with a maturity that bellied her fifteen years of age. Given her high intellect and high academic achievements at such a tender age, I expected arrogance or a dull personality, but detected neither one nor the other.

"Okay then, I'll come! There's not much you need to know to help me out; I hate being approached from behind and sudden movements can sometimes get to me. Perhaps we can speak again sometime and find out a bit more about each other? But yeah, I've decided, I'm coming over!"

"Great, Amy! I'm so pleased. I'll send you all my details now via Skype. Let's talk again, maybe with more privacy next time. Anyway, bye for now, Amy, really nice talking to ya!"

"Thanks, Cindy, your details have just come through on my laptop. Nice talking to you too; you and Terri have really helped me, cheers!"

And so that was it, I'd made up my mind to go to America! Yay!

On a flight from England, USA bound Duncs again:

I hate flying. No, I'm not frightened of it in the traditional sense of that statement; in fact, far from it. I've been on some pretty hairy flights in the past and actually enjoyed it-nothing like a bit of turbulence to make a flight more exciting!

No, what I hate is the whole hassle of getting from A to B. Having to arrive at the airport three hours before the flight, the seemingly endless security checks, that irrational feeling you get when being questioned by officials that somehow they won't believe your answers and so on and so forth...

Then there's the whole tedium of long-haul flights. After you've watched a film, a documentary or two, read the in-flight adverts, I mean, magazine and eaten what barely passes for a meal, the novelty, if it was there in the first place, wears off. At least we had three seats to ourselves, it helps being able to spread out a little and putting the two middle seat arms up, Amy took advantage of the spare seat to stretch out. The flight was only a little over 50% full too, which at least meant the cabin crew were not so rushed off their feet and that resulted in a relaxed, prompt, very friendly service.

I listened to a fairly predictable but pleasant enough selection of classical music on one of the aircraft radio channels. By this time, Amy was in the 'land of nod', snuggled into me, her head on my chest and an arm draped across my midriff. I had an arm around her back and lazily stoked her cheek and beautiful long blonde hair, lost in my thoughts and enjoying the close contact.

I occasionally nuzzled and kissed the top of her head, enjoying the scent of her hair. The intimate contact and her scent triggered powerful memories and emotions of that wonderful time when we were lovers and whilst I still revel in those thoughts and have no regrets, it makes me sad to think of those times too. I miss that side of my relationship with Amy far more than I care to admit.

"Anything to drink sir?"

Startled and brought rapidly out of my reminiscing, I looked up to see a very attractive, mid to late-forties 'trolley dolly' smiling down at me.

"Sorry, miles away! Yes, I'll have a coffee please."

"Yes, you certainly were miles away; that was the second time I spoke to you! Whatever you were thinking about, it was certainly making you smile!"

"Ah, well, you know, distant memories of better times..."

"Your companion looks very comfortable and cosy there. Um, partner? Daughter? Colleague?"

"All three!"

"Say what?!"

"She's my colleague, my partner-in-crime and my daughter!" I neglected to qualify that she had unofficially adopted me, it didn't seem relevant or any of her business.

"Still 'daddy's little girl'?"

"Yeah, you bet, something like that!"

"Let me tell you, I'm 46 and as you can imagine, I travel the world working long haul. But whenever I go and visit my Dad, he still treats me like I'm ten years old! But let me tell you something else too: deep down, us girls secretly love it, despite what we might say, or roll our eyes cos Dad's just treated us like a child yet again; yeah, it's comforting and something to rely on knowing that your Dad still sees you as his baby girl! Milk and sugar sir?" said my chatty stewardess as she handed me a plastic cup of brown liquid, her warm smile more than making up for what I knew would be a mediocre drink.

"Just milk please, oh, and may I grab an unopened can of coke for my daughter, she's bound to be thirsty when she wakes up."

"Sure, sir, here you go."

"Thanks." We exchanged smiles. I briefly looked down at the slumbering form of Amy, and then looked up again at the stewardess.

"She's the most beautiful and precious thing in my World..."

"That was heartfelt and lovely; I think I'd better be moving on before my eyes mist up. I was gonna say you take good care of her but clearly there's no need..."

Seconds later, Amy stirred and looked up at me, a single tear rolling down her cheek but accompanied with a warm smile, so I knew she wasn't upset but sensed she was emotional.

"Thanks for getting me a coke"

"Pleasure, poppet."

"That meant the World to me, more than you can ever imagine."

"What, getting you a coke?"

"No, silly, you know exactly what I mean. What you said to the stewardess." So she'd been awake and pretended to be asleep, oh well...

"Oh that. Well, it's true, I meant every word."

"Jess should mean more to you than me. She's your real daughter."

"You're both equal in my affections and love."

Amy was sitting up now, but still resting against my side. She opened her can of coke and took a sip. I took a sip of coffee and wished I'd got a coke too...

"Duncs?" Oh no, my name spoken in that three-note interrogative intonation that girls perfect when they are about ten years old. It sounds so innocent but is invariably a preamble to a serious question or request. It immediately puts a father or husband in a state of alert and on his guard.

"Yes, poppet?" I said cautiously.

"Do you regret giving me up as your lover? Do you ever miss that relationship with me?"

"Um, that's a pretty loaded question, sweetheart, and one I'm not sure I want to answer."

"Well, you sort of already did with that reply. Look, I'll make it easier for you. There are times when I miss you in that way ... There, I've said it."

"Oh ... um, I..."

"I mean, don't get me wrong, Duncs. I love James to bits, he's wonderful, in fact, a clone of you, only younger, no wrinkles and no greying hairs!" She giggled.

"Thanks, love you too!"

"But, well, I don't know, I can't put my finger on it, but he's NOT you, if you see what I mean ... Damn, I can't explain it, Sorry, I shouldn't have said anything"

"Amy, I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss that wonderful intimacy we once enjoyed. Of course I miss you in that way. But I'm more comfortable with our new father-daughter relationship. I can flaunt that in public without feeling folk are taking the moral high ground and judging me or us.

"I think I can maybe pinpoint the feeling you cannot explain. They say you never forget you first true love. I was your first true love. You had never known love of any kind before you met me, so I imagine the intimate loving we shared is now deeply rooted in your subconscious, so that's why you look back on us differently."

"Um, I'm sure you're right but..." She trailed off and took another sip of coke.

"Duncs?"

Oh no, what now! "Yes, poppet?" I said even more tentatively than before.

"About that first true love thing..."

"Um, yeah?"

"Well, quite some time ago, when we were having one of our many heart-to-hearts, you once revealed to me about your own first true love. You told me everything, right back to how and when you first met her. You were sixteen and she was fifteen. You told me everything in wonderful, loving detail, including the reunion the pair of you enjoyed back in 2001..."

"Where's this going sweetie?" I interrupted.

"Well, you finished up by telling me that back in 2001 she was in an unhappy, unfulfilling marriage and if I remember correctly, her children were quite a bit older than Dan and Jess, so that must mean they have left home by now..."

"Go on..."

"Well, I know you stay in touch with her by email, you've told me as much."

"And?"

"Well, you're going through a trial separation with Jane. And in your words only the other day, you said: 'it's the thin edge of the wedge'. You seemed to be telling me in so many words that you didn't see any chance of reconciliation, so..."

"So?"

"So, then, why don't you contact Barbara, tell her about your present status, sound her out, see where it may go, what it might lead to. Nothing ventured, nothing gained as you always tell me..."

"Why, Amy, why are you suggesting this?"

"Cos I care for you, care for you an awful lot and I hate the thought of you being alone, living in some crummy little apartment, sad and lonely."

"Amy, it's not as simple as that. I can't just email her out of the blue, stating 'hey, guess what? I've just split up with my missus, fancy shacking-up with me, Barb? Besides, she's a high flying business exec, a director for a huge pharma company. I'm sure that whilst she genuinely enjoyed meeting up with me back in 2001 for several coffees and a couple of evening meals and walks in the park, faced with the reality of actually living together with an engineer oik from the sticks from 'oop north' would be an entirely different matter. Her salary is probably five time what mine is; we're not of the same social status."

"You know, you're such a twat at times, Duncs. You inverted snob! D'ya know you would bollock me with your 'tough love talk' if I said something like that to you? Don't you dare put yourself down like that! Do you really, seriously, think Barbara's gonna give a shit about where you're from or what you do, just because she's some sort of high-flying exec? Did it ever occur to you that just because she's successful, that it has nothing to do with her being materialistic at all, rather, her success in business is probably down to the fact she's immersed herself in work, to escape her unhappy marriage? From what you have told me about her and me reading in between the lines, she still loves you as much as you still love her. You will never know if you don't find out. Damn, you can be so dense at times!"

Silence. Seconds ticking by, then minutes. It was an impressive speech and I felt put in my place. Through all this drama I was still absentmindedly stroking hair. She pulled away from me, twisted around in her seat and faced me. I then saw the tears streaming down her face and realised she wasn't just angry with me but very upset too. Then her face softened, as did the tone of her voice.

"Duncs, I just want you to promise me that if the worse comes to the worse and you and Jane do split for good that you won't stay single forever after that. I simply can't stand the thought of you living alone, wallowing in past memories of love lost instead of looking for someone to share the abundance of love you have to offer. I won't ask you to promise you will definitely find a new partner, but please at least promise me you'll seriously consider it."

"Okay, I'll..."

I didn't finish what I was about to say, as at that point, the captain made an announcement to the cabin crew to start preparing for landing at Atlanta, Georgia. 'Saved by the bell', so to speak, I was uncomfortable with that last conversation with Amy and didn't want to face the home truths she was spouting.

After an uneventful landing, then taxiing for what seemed like forever, eventually the plane came to rest at a jetway. We disembarked to then begin the fun and games in the arrivals hall. Progress was painfully slow making our way through immigration, baggage reclaim and then the homeland security check. Amy found the process extremely stressful, especially the rather curt way homeland security bark questions at each individual. They do nothing to put one at ease and it was obviously an ordeal for Amy.

We both took advantage of the delay between our landing and our next flight on a regional carrier to our final destination to make phone calls announcing our safe navigation to the far side of the Atlantic.

That last flight was in a much smaller aircraft. We sat side by side in the narrower cabin. I allowed Amy the window seat. She paid rapt attention as she viewed the foreign countryside sliding below us. Finally we landed in Birmingham, Alabama.

By the time we walked through the final set of doors to the pick-up and car rental point, I could see that Amy was tired, stressed and emotional. There was a small sea of people facing us, holding up placards with names on, shouting and jostling, which did little to help her state of mind. Then I saw one particular placard, with the names 'Mr Smith and Amy' written on it. I smiled. It would seem that Dan was continuing with the joke we had started during that initial phone call. Next to Dan, I noted a cute redheaded teenager that just had to be Cindy and next to her a really cute little blonde-haired girl.

I hadn't seen photos of either of the girls, but I guessed based on what Amy had told me that this had to be Terri.

As we approached the three of them, suddenly there was a shrill, excited voice.

"Mizz Amy! Over here, Amy, it's me!"

"Terri! Terri-dactyl, it's you!"

As little Terri bounded towards us, Amy dropped to one knee, arms outstretched ready to greet her. Terri homed in on her, arms outstretched too. As they met, they embraced, like long-lost sisters. Then I saw Amy burst into tears, her emotions finally getting the better of her. Little Terri just hugged her harder still and stroked Amy's hair. How on earth can such a young child show so much understanding?

Looking at Dan and Cindy, I smiled and shrugged. Exchanging pleasantries, I shook hands with Dan and then Cindy, but she was clearly concerned about Amy and made her way over to the pair of hugging girls. A few soft words exchanged, Amy stood up and hugged Cindy and the three of them made their way towards the airport exit; I noted that Amy and Terri were holding hands, so cute.

Dan and I seemed to be relegated to managing the luggage between us. I looked at him and shrugged.

"Females, eh?

"Yup!"

Following 'our' girls, we too made our way towards the airport exit.

Chapter 49

Okay, here's a real Cajun recipe

(Author's note: Ever since Cajun food started figuring in my stories, I've gotten requests for a gumbo recipe. Here's one from a blog by a friend of mine. If I wrote recipes, it would be something like this. One more note: through the power of the Internet, you can order ingredients such as file' and prepared roux from online. Google "Cajun grocer".)

First, let me state that I was raised Cajun, although Dad's got 50% German Swiss ancestry. It is not unlikely that my first "solid" food was gumbo, although I don"t remember. I cook a very workmanlike gumbo myself. In the notes below, I am referring to the gumbos I enjoyed all my life in Southwest Louisiana. They make a sort of gumbo in the New Orleans area, too, and they can call it what they want, but I have tried some, and I find them as close to REAL gumbo as New Orleans is close to REAL Cajun, i.e., not really.

First, let's talk about ingredients: Traditionally, gumbo is a simple dish concocted out of ingredients either fresh or those suitable for long-term unrefrigerated storage, because that's the way Cajun homes (including my great grandmother's and grandmother's) used to be. So, fresh seafood, from local bayous and lakes, chicken (they were running around the homestead somewhere), guinea fowl (not uncommon in Louisiana), these meats formed the basis of most gumbos. Add to this some smoky Cajun sausage. You hear a lot of talk about andouille sausage these days.

As far as Grandma was concerned, sausage was sausage: pork, salt and pepper and other spices, smoked dark and hard, and it would keep forever. Vegetables consisted of onions, both yellow onions and the green onions that usually grew in the kitchen garden, bell pepper, and various hot peppers, and sometimes parsley or celery. The dry ingredients were flour (for the roux) and rice, usually medium-grain. Spices were simple: salt and pepper. Pepper could be black pepper or various fresh, pickled or dried hot peppers. And lastly, there was file', the pulverized dried leaves of the sassafras tree. These are what go into a traditional gumbo, as I was familiar with. You can find recipes that call for spices not on this list, and strange ingredients like ketchup. You can use these, and you can call it "gumbo"?. You can call your skateboard a Mercedes, too.

The RECIPE:

First, make a roux. This word "roux" rhymes with "boo". It has been said that the Cajun recipe for angelfood cake begins with making a roux, but this is not true. A roux is simply flour and oil heated and stirred in a pot over heat until the color changes from flour white to varying shades of brown. I prefer my roux to be dark. Refer to the color of your walnut Garand stock (obligatory gun reference is NOW satisfied) for a color reference.

How much of each? Enough is how much. Lemme guess and say start with ¾ cup of flour and enough oil mixed in so that it fills in the furrow left by the spoon in the bottom of the pot. This is enough roux for about 4 or 5 quarts of gumbo. It is easiest to use a heavy pot for this. I prefer a 5-quart cast iron Dutch oven. Making a roux in a cast-iron pot is very good for the cast iron.

Put the pot on the fire. You do use FIRE, don't you? Man has cooked over flames since time immemorial. It's the way things should be done. Put the oil and the flour in the pot, turn the heat to medium or medium-high, and begin stirring. Keep stirring. Don't stop stirring. Over a period of time, the roux will transform from white to tan to beige to brown. That 'brown' should be the color of milk chocolate. Here are some hints. Just as the roux is done, you should begin to see some tendrils of bluish smoke coming from the pot. Keep stirring. If you let it sit, it will burn. If it smells burnt, toss it out and start over. S****t happens.

When the roux is the right color, "break' it by dumping in your chopped onions (a yellow onion the size of your fist, more or less, and a handful of chopped green onions, often called scallions by the pretentious. You can also add a chopped up stalk of celery and maybe a little chopped bell pepper. Chopped here means pieces about a quarter inch or so. Doesn't have to be exact.) into the very hot roux. Keep stirring. The vegetables will cook somewhat and at the same time cool the roux down so it doesn't keep cooking and burn. Make sure your windows are closed when you do this. The smell is wonderful. Traffic may stop on nearby thoroughfares if it gets out.

When the sizzling stops, add water or chicken stock. (Grandma didn't use chicken stock. She did use a chicken that was usually old and tough and cooking this bird was an all-day process. These chickens had a lot of flavor and the long cooking needed to tenderize these tough old birds produced its own stock) and your meat.

For chicken and sausage gumbo, you can use a fryer, cut into serving size or smaller pieces, or the equivalent amount of boneless chicken, and about a half-pound of good smoked sausage, cut up. I like ¼ to 3/8 slices. Some folks like bigger chunks. Your call. (NOTE: Eckrich Farms or Smokey Hollow is NOT my idea of "good smoked sausage".) Good smoked sausage is deep reddish brown or brown, smells like smoke, and you can see the bits of meat in it, not the homogeneous mass that you find in bad sausage. You can substitute a wild goose or two, or a couple of guineas, in place of the chicken.

For seafood gumbo, after the roux is broken with the vegetables, add water, a pound or two of peeled raw shrimp, a pint or two of raw oysters (add the liquor that they come in, too.) and cleaned crabs, or combinations of the above. Even small crabs, too small to be eaten, can be cleaned and thrown into the gumbo, where they add immeasurably to the flavor. To this day, crabs too small to eat boiled are often called "gumbo crabs" in South Louisiana.

Whichever version you make, after the meat is added, add salt and pepper to taste. You have to temper this to the lowest common denominator. Lightly salted and peppered is best. After all, you might be feeding small children, the infirm, and Yankees, and too much pepper would cause damage. You can always add more to your individual bowl later. After the pot is boiling, turn the heat down to just above a simmer. Stir occasionally. Taste and adjust salt and pepper. If you used a fat goose or chicken, or fatty sausage, you can skim off excess grease as it rises to the top.

While the gumbo is simmering, prepare a pot of rice. Traditionally, this would be medium-grain rice, prepared on top of the stove, one cup of rice to one and a half cups of water, brought to a boil, then the heat turned down to just above a simmer, until all the liquid is absorbed. Many Cajun homes today use Japanese rice cookers. These do a good job, but the pot on top of the stove is best, because if it is left just a little time past when all the liquid is absorbed, a little of the rice next to the pot will toast, forming a deliciously crunchy brown "gratin", which many of us love to add to the gumbo.

After the gumbo has simmered, the meat is tender, flavors have time to develop, which is maybe an hour and a half after the roux was finished, serve the gumbo up. Put a scoop of rice in the bowl, dump gumbo over it, making sure you have meats in there. Sprinkle a little file' on top, add salt, black pepper, and red pepper sauce to taste and enjoy! My family's traditional sides include potato salad and saltine crackers. Enjoy the beverage of your choice with gumbo. A good, piping hot, spicy bowl of gumbo makes a beer taste wonderful.

By the way, gumbo is even better after being refrigerated overnight.

Further comments:
The file' gumbo I gave here could be summer dish, too, but in days before air conditioning, standing over a kitchen stove in the summertime, patiently stirring a roux for a big gumbo would definitely be a labor of love.

As a matter of fact, down here a colloquial expression for a cold, blustery, rainy day is "gumbo weather". That big pot of gumbo simmering on the kitchen stove dumps a lot of heat and humidity into the house, a big plus when the temperatures go down, and a bowl of steaming gumbo will warm your cold body fast!

As for your roux burning, well, try this. First, use a vegetable oil. Traditionally, lard was used, but it will burn at lower temperatures, so making a roux with lard took a looooong time. Second, check your heat. I have a gas stove, and I use a setting just a little above "Medium", and it typically takes me over half an hour to make a roux. It has to be stirred constantly. Somebody has to stand there with a spoon or a whisk and keep the flour and oil moving from the beginning to the end. Having your onions, etc. chopped and in a bowl, ready to add, that's a big help, because the minute you reach walnut color, you can dump them in and KEEP STIRRING,

Incidentally, there are commercially made roux available in local stores, typically in pint jars. I have tasted some darn good gumbos made with this bottled roux, and they might well be the way to go for somebody who doesn't have the opportunity to watch one being made from scratch.

Here's another tip: Add your liquid opposite to your roux. If you made your roux from scratch and it's hot, add cold liquid. If you use bottled roux, or roux made ahead of time, then add the cold roux to simmering liquid. (Yes, you can make a big batch of roux and use some now and some later)

For beginners, the best hint I can give about making a roux is that less heat is better than more. You'll stand over the stove stirring a lot longer, but things will not happen as fast, so it's more forgiving. Also, if you're unsure about how much roux to make for a dish, make more than you need. It keeps in the refrigerator for a week, easily.

Let me tell you folks, Cajun cooking is NOT rocket science. It couldn't be! These folks worked for a living on family farms and stuff, and Grandma didn't have time for endless cutesies with multiple pots and pans and critical cooking techniques. This is stuff you spent a bit of time up front getting started, and then it could simmer on the stove while you went about the rest of the business of taking care of home and family. So if you want a bunch of frou-frou cooking crap, go to New Orleans or someplace like that. We Cajuns didn't have time for it!

File'! It's made from green sassafras leaves, dried and pulverized. It GOES with the gumbo I showed you in the recipe above. That's why this is called a file' gumbo. It NEVER goes in the cooking gumbo. If you do that, you may end up with something closely akin to gumbo-flavored snot. The file' will get all ropey when cooked. So just buy a bottle, put it on the table or the serving area, and advise everybody to sprinkle a little on their individual bowls when served. While you're at it, put a few varied bottles of Louisiana hot sauce for individual application, too...

Chapter 49a

Flight of the pTerri-dactyl:

I'm not really flying, you know. I'm Terri, daughter of Alan. I have two moms, my birth mother who's in a hospital (again) in California, and my evil stepmother Tina, who knows I'm writing this.

Everybody I know of keeps a journal. I've read some of Tina's. I've read some of everybody's, really. I keep my own. I've shown it to some of the people at the university. It's interesting when I do that.

Dad worried when I first caught the interest of the people there. Doctor Stanton is a psychologist. Dad was very reluctant to let me talk to him at first. Cindy and Nikki both had extensive interviews with him, though, and they're both only a few years older than me. Since that first meeting, I've talked with Doctor Stanton several times. He's interested in me.

"You are very interesting, Terri."

"I must be, Mister Harold," I said. "Everybody sort of acts like it. I'm just me, though. This is all I know how to be."

"Before you got here, when you were around other children in class, how did you act?"

"Like I do now. Except I sort of learned to keep quiet."

"Keep quiet?"

"Yessir. In class I always knew the answers first. I could read all the words. I knew the numbers and the colors. I could read books out loud and I could read without saying the words. They just go right from my eyes to inside my head. But I found out that if I always acted like I knew the answers, other kids treated me different. Some of them were jealous and tried to make me feel bad."

"So you stopped telling people what you knew?"

"Yessir. It was the best way for me to stay out of trouble. If I had trouble in school it was bad for Mom. She had enough trouble when things were going good."

"I know a little bit about your mom. I talked with your dad and Tina."

"Then you know that she had trouble handling changes. I tried very hard to not make trouble for her."

"But with your dad and Tina..."

I sort of giggled. Now he was talking about my happy place. "Dad and Tina and Cindy and Nikki and Rachel and, well, everybody here, they want me to do what I can do. All out in the open." I looked at his eyes. He's a doctor and his job is to pay attention. He was paying attention. "Like you," I told him. "You don't say 'Terri, be careful or you'll make people nervous.' You just say 'Do what you can do.' And you're not holding back thoughts when you say it."

"I'm interested in your growth," he said. "You're the youngest person I've had the privilege of interviewing like this."

I smiled. "I hope that I do it right, then."

"Terri, you cannot do this wrong. All we're doing is talking about how things look and feel to you, how you fit into your world."

"It's not very hard," I said. "Mizz Beck is sort of my main teacher, since she's home-schooling Rachel and Tina's home-schooling me, but Tina's got a class load, so I spend a little time each day with Mizz Beck. She guides us, you know. Like she says 'Today we need to do something about history.' And we find something. Sometimes it's the Internet. Sometimes we go to the library. Real books are neat. I don't think they're archaic, you know."

"Archaic," he repeated.

"I don't mean to do that, Mister Harold. Use words like that. But honestly, what word would you use? I have e-books. But it's neat to go get a book off a shelf and see things on pages."

"Who goes with you?"

"Anybody I can get to take me. Dad. Tina. Susan. Nikki, now. I go with Rachel sometimes and her mom takes us. They're used to us now."

"Who's 'they'?"

"The librarians. At first they thought I was a little kid messing around in the wrong section, you know, not the juvenile literature section."

"What happened?"

"Tina was at a library table with her MacBook open, typing something and I was looking for a specific book. The lady came up to me and asked if I was looking for juvenile literature. I was very polite. 'No, ma'am, ' I told her, 'you have a field guide to southern insects. I have a project to identify several insects in the fencerow behind our apartments. Not just insects, either. We have arachnids and several other arthropods. It's for biology credit."

"What did she say?"

"Nothing for a few seconds. By that time Tina was coming up. She asked the lady if there was a problem. The lady told Tina 'this child just ripped off 'arachnid' and 'arthropod' and... ' I told Tina, 'You and Mizz Beck said I needed to do an in-depth evaluation of a single phylum. And the back yard is crawling with arthropods.' Tina laughed. She caught the joke. The lady didn't, I don't think."

"So you got the book?"

"The lady got it off the shelf for me and I opened it and showed her the centipede we found and then the millipede and the differences. I read the Latin names because this is supposed to be, like, high school level, so I can't just say 'bug'. Do you know that bugs are insects but all insects aren't bugs? 'Bug' is actually very specific." I looked at Mister Harold's eyes.

That's how you tell what people are thinking. You look at the eyes. His were a mixture of curiosity and just a little bit of happiness. At least I wasn't scaring him or making him nervous.

I've talked with professors of language arts, too. They've seen my writing. My typing, actually. I am trying very hard to learn to write well by hand. One of the students that comes to the Greenhouse to study knows calligraphy. That's writing as an art form. I find it interesting. Cindy says that science needs to be tempered with art to make life. Tina says I need to stop hanging around with Cindy, but she laughs when she says it.

That group of college students that comes into the Greenhouse, that's our study and tutoring center, those are interesting people. Everybody in my family tells me to be careful around other people, and I know about some of the bad people in the world and what they'd do to me if I wasn't careful, so I'm careful. I'm never there without Tina or my aunts or Dad, but when I'm there, I get to talk to the other college students.

One of them heard Cindy call me "Terri-dactyl". That's a most fantastic name given to me by another adopted red-headed aunt, Johanna. "How do you spell that?" the student asked.

Something just sort of went off in my head and I said. "P-T-E-R-R-I dash D-A-C-T-Y-L". That was the first time I thought of using the 'p' in my name. I like it. My namesake is spelled with a silent 'p'. They're quite common in English, like in 'psychologist' and 'pneumonia' but when I explained this to Cindy when she came over to see why that girl was giggling, Cindy said 'You're correct, but it is NOT common in the names of young ladies.

I laughed. "Gotcha, Aunt Cindy. I can show it to you in literature."

"Literature," I affirmed.

That student, Baylie, laughed with me. "Cindy, hit 'er up for a citation."

Cindy should know better. I think she questioned me just to show Bayli. "Citation?"

I stuck my tongue at her. Kids are supposed to do stuff like that and I do have to give in to the stereotype from time to time. "Contemporary literature, actually. Author is Terry Pratchett. The book is Pyramids. And Ptraci is the queen of Djelibeybi. And if Terry Pratchett does it, it's good enough for me."

Bayli looked shocked. "She reads Pratchett?"

Cindy touched me like I was her little sister. "She does. And obviously she remembers what she reads."

"I'm so sorry, Terri. I thought they were exaggerating," Bayli said.

"That's okay, Bayli," I said. "I understand."

"Cindy," Bayli said, "You're bad enough, but everybody's sort of getting used to you. I didn't know about Terri." She smiled at me. "pTerri-dactyl? That's soooo cute!"

"Don't let the 'cute' fool you. She's gonna have a high school diploma before the end of the year. People are sort of getting used to her at the school board and on campus."

And that's the truth. I feel bad that Rachel's not going to be able to do that. She's my friend and she's very smart, but I showed her some of the practice tests to get a high school certificate and she's lost. She can read most of the questions but she does not understand it. I understand most of it.

Mister Harold talked with the people at the school board. He told Dad and Tina that the university doesn't really care if I have a real high school diploma, but I don't want to be the only student in the university without one.

"You won't be," Dad tried to tell me.

"But Dad," I said, "Those are not the same. Besides, Cindy's got one. I want one." I don't do that 'I want' thing very often, but this was important to me. Dad and Tina know it. Tina's on my side and I don't think Dad's the least bit against it. He just doesn't understand why I'd go through the trouble.

"College students are supposed to have high school diplomas," I told him.

He grabbed me in his arms and lifted me off the floor. "College students are supposed to be eighteen, too, princess."

"I'm not a princess. Ptraci was a queen. I am pTerri, and I shall be a queen also."

He looked over me at Tina. "Keep her out of the Pratchett books."

"You started it, Hon," Tina told him. "You steered her away from Heinlein."

"Pratchett's funnier," I said. "But Mizz Beck says I need to look at other literature, like Shakespeare and Hemingway."

"Hemingway's over-rated," Dad said, "but don't tell Mizz Beck that unless you're ready to defend your assertion."

"That's why I like science, Dad," I said. "Literature is about opinion. Science is about facts and laws and rules. If I want to argue about Ohm's Law, it doesn't matter what my opinion is. It's a law. I may not like Ohm at all, and think he was ugly and not very nice, but the law is the law." I looked over at Tina. "What were we talking about the other day? Metaphors? Ohm didn't use metaphors. Or if he did they don't affect his work."

Tina mouthed 'Cindy' at me. I giggled.

"That's definitely YOUR daughter, Alan," she said. She joined our hug. The way it's supposed to be. This is my family.

Summer days in Alabama are hot. There are some days that I'd love to spend at the pool, but Rachel's mom runs us through exercises.

"Mooo-ooom!" Rachel said one morning, "Other kids don't do schoolwork ALL summer."

"Yes, dear," her mom said, "But they go to school for eight hours every day. And you'll be finished with high school before THEY get done with middle school."

Rache has this 'poor, pitiful child' look that she uses. She tossed it onto her mom. "And Terri will STILL be two years ahead of me." and she batted her long eyelashes. Mizz Beck had to turn her head. She didn't want Rache to see her face, but I saw it. She was trying hard not to laugh.

Rachel's lucky. She has smart, loving parents. But then, so do I.

We get to interact with a few other homeschool kids that are part of a group. All of them have parents working for the university and they just don't want their kids in public schools. This is my chance to see other kids my age. One day a week we all meet. Our parents agree on a subject that we can do together. One time Rachel and I did that presentation on centipedes. After it was over, Mizz Beck took me and Rachel aside and said "I don't know how many eight and nine and ten year olds have ever heard about kingdom and phylum and sub-phylum..."

"Linnaean taxonomy," I said. When Cindy and Tina taught that to me, I had to say it a bunch of times before I got it right, but I know it now.

Mizz Beck smiled. "Yes, Terri, 'Linnaean taxonomy'. It's not something that kids your age usually deal with."

"But we know, Mom," Rachel said. "Terri 'n' me. We looked it up. And now it makes sense."

I guess that's why Mizz Beck likes me hanging around with Rachel. We sort of collaborate. Work together. I point something out and she takes it and works with it and we both understand it.

I've done that with Maddie and Anita. Dad worries that I'm being a pest, but really I'm just visiting friends. Maddie says I'm the little sister she never had. Anita says I'm the little sister she wished she had instead to the bratty younger brother. They were studying one of their first year economics texts for class. I asked them to tell me what they were learning. They've learned that I really AM interested, so they explained it, one filling in after the other.

A week later they picked me up and took me for ice cream. "It's special, Terri," Maddie said. "You helped us study. You asked questions. Got us to explain."

I smiled. "I wanna banana split, then."

"An 'A' on that test is worth a banana split, Terri darlin'," Anita said.

"I was really interested in what you're studying," I said.

"It's boring," Maddie said. "But we have to take it. Gotta get that degree."

"You'll get it," I said. "You're smart. You an' Anita too. Y'all belong in college."

That was another talk I had with Susan. She worries about Jason. One night he was out of town and I begged Dad and Tina to let me stay with Susan. I think Dad and Tina use that time to do stuff they sort of can't do when I'm there, you know, husband and wife things. But anyway, I spent the night with Susan. We talk. She says I'm halfway between an adult and an eight year old kid (I'm ALMOST nine!) but we talked about Jason.

Jason is not having the easiest time in college. I think (and Susan thinks) that between work and college, he's got a lot of stuff going on.

"It's not as easy for him. I get to just be a student. I mean, I go out on jobs with him every now and then, but mostly I'm a student," Susan said. "Jason tries to do too much."

"Has he talked to Dad?"

"Probably not," Susan said. "He worries that he's not carrying his weight, you know, doing his part to pay the bills."

"Dad says that the company will be stronger with Jason as an engineer. He's already training those other guys."

"He worries."

"You need to tell him not to worry," I said. "Dad likes Jason. Says you two belong together and that anything they need to do, they'll do." I sighed. "Can I talk to him? Dad, I mean?"

"Can you be subtle?"

"I'm eight years old. I'm not even supposed to know what 'subtle' means."

Susan has a happy laugh. "You're almost nine and if you don't know what 'subtle' means, I'm the quarterback for the Auburn football team."

I can certainly lean against Susan while she studies. "Talk to me while you study," I tell her.

"I can't talk, I'm studying."

"Tell me what you're studying," I reply.

"It's ... Oh, never mind. History. Germany at the beginning of the 1800's was not a country..."

And that's my history lesson this week. I told Mizz Beck. "History of the formation of modern Germany."

"Where'd you get that?" she asked.

"Spent the night with Susan while Jason was in Georgia."

"Oh. Okay. Write me something. A timeline. Citations."

"And teach me!" Rachel says.

Dad and Mizz Rachel and Tina went to visit the school board. They came back happy. I heard part of the conversation. Dad says that the school board is very curious as to our approach on home schooling. Says we're doing it right.

And another thing. Recorder. No, not the thing that copies sounds, the thing that MAKES sounds, like a wind instrument. Johanna's fault. She plays the flute. It's magical. Musical instruments are magical, you know, bits of metal and wood that a skillful person gets music from. She says that a recorder is inexpensive and will help me learn to read music and actually MAKE music.

The first time I Skyped her with my recorder, she laughed with me. "You're serious," she said.

"Was I not supposed to be serious?" I questioned. "You make music. Mister Stoney makes music. Mister Dan makes music. Kara makes music. I just get jealous. I elect to use my energy for good, not evil."

"You're a devilish child," Johanna told me. "So show me what you know so far."

I showed her. I played "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" and a few other songs in my lesson book.

"Great!" Johanna said. "Do you practice with Rachel and Kara?"

"Uh-huh. Until Kara left for her summer trip. She actually went someplace with her dad. I can't wait until she gets back. She's a good teacher. So's Mister Sim."

"Terri, it takes practice. When you start getting comfortable with where you're at, it's time to move on to something harder."

"I wanna play like you do, Aunt Jo."

"I started when I was nine. You can do it. But you have so much going on, dear."

"But making music - when we get together and do that, it's a happy time. I want to be part of that. Like you are."

My Aunt Johanna's smile is very pretty. "Thank you, angel," she said. "I will make it a point for us to come visit you soon, and when I do, you and I shall have a recital. You and I shall play. Rachel, too, if she wants."

"Don't forget Cindy," I said.

"Cindy's doing it? For real?"

"Yes. The three of us get together twice a week for lessons and practice. We're horrible." I laughed.

"You're just starting out. You're sure you sound horrible, but it's like a baby learning to walk. Before long you'll be comfortable."

"I hope so."

"You are now," Johanna said. "If you're honest with yourself."

Johanna's smart. She knows. "I think you're right. But what do YOU do when you practice?"

Johanna smiled. "I play music. But I know what it's supposed to sound like, so I know when I'm not doing it right. I have to be honest with myself and work to make it right. I do scales and arpeggios and interval exercises. And I play music with Stoney. Playing with others is important."

Another teacher. I find that I have all these teachers. Everybody has them, you know. It's just that so many people don't recognize their teachers and the lessons they can learn. I hunted Tina down to talk with her.

"You're right, pTerri," she said. She voiced the 'p' just to make me giggle. "I know that. You know that. Probably everybody in the Community knows that. But you have to understand that our community is a bit different than a lot of the world."

"I think I see that a lot," I said.

"It's like having bad eyes. If you need glasses and don't have them, then you don't see everything clearly."

Mizz Beck had glasses. I'd put them on, just as an experiment. My vision went all blurry. "That's the opposite of me," Mizz Beck said. "My eyes see things blurry, and the glasses fix that."

"Couldn't you get those things that fit in your eye? Contacts?"

"Sim likes my glasses. I want to make Sim happy."

That's part of a mystery to me, what makes adults happy, especially happy with each other. I understand about friends, and I just know that Dad and Tina are friends. I listen to them talk to each other. They're happy. I watch the others. Same thing. Two people, adults, well, mostly, Cindy's fifteen and Nikki's sixteen, but you know, they're married, they have husbands, two adults who are friends. But then they're married and there's something that goes with holding hands and hugging and kissing, and I know there's more, that married people need time where they can be together in private.

Sometimes for us, me, Tina, Dad, that means they're in their bedroom with the door closed. Sometimes I go someplace and tell them that I'll be gone for a while, just so they'll know. I know to check the community calendar before I call or visit the others. If there's a black block, it means 'Do Not Disturb' and I don't bother them. Tina gently explains that it falls under the term 'intimacy' and it's very special between two people who absolutely love each other on an adult level, and that this will slowly be revealed to me as I get older. I get the feeling that I should be careful about exploring that subject.

So that's me, the pTerri-dactyl. I have business cards. Bayli knows this girl at college who's an art major who drew me a real pterodactyl, well, not exactly real, but a pterodactyl cartoon, with the wings and cute eyes and a grin full of dinosaur teeth, and we got it made up on business cards. And it's there on the 3Sigma website now.

And Tina's calling me. Cindy's got a batch of cookies and when I walk out the door, I can smell the spices on the breeze. Time to go taste them.

Chapter 50

Susan's Turn:

I didn't get my summer vacation. I'm supposed to get a summer vacation, you know, because I'm a student. At least that was the shine I laid on some of my classmates in summer classes. To be honest, ever since I was old enough to be useful, I worked a lot with either Mom or Dad in their businesses. Mom had me doing data entry and learning the basics of bookkeeping and Dad had me filing and filling envelopes and stuff until I talked him into letting me out into the shop area.

The first time I came home with grease embedded under my nails, Mom threw a fit; well, as much of a fit as I ever saw between her and Dad, but Dad explained that I'd been pushing him for something hands-on and he just gave in. "She's got your powers of persuasion," he told Mom. That's how Dad wins.

But now I'm in college and it's NOTHING like the 'college' that Mom and Dad talked about, or not anybody else I know. First, I'll graduate after TWO years, not four, and that's with my baccalaureate, not an associate degree, and it's in electrical engineering, not Womyn's Studies or some such stuff.

I know some of my high school classmates who're getting into some of that. Not me. Summers in Dad's business gave me a taste for how things work, and then I fell in with the wrong sort of people, finding myself up to my eyeballs in electrical engineering, so I just naturally succumbed.

And married one. Well, technically speaking Jason's right beside me. He has a four year degree in engineering technology and he's going after that double-E, electrical engineering, because he just SHOULD.

And that's why I'm walking up to the back door of 3Sigma today. Jason's trying to cover too much.

Today all three of our engineers are in. Time for what we call back home a 'Come to Jesus' meeting. I open the back door and stand in the hall. "Guys, we have to talk."

It's OUR business, and the day-to-day ebb and flow is rather informal. I see Beck stick her head around the corner. "Do you need me?"

"Not really, Beck," I said. "But you're welcome to sit in. I need to talk work schedules with the guys."

By this time Alan and both Dans are looking at me.

"What's up?" Alan questioned.

"We need to talk," I said. Got three serious but questioning looks. "Let's sit at the table."

"Ohhhh, REALLY serious," Dan 1.0 said. "The table..."

"Yes. Cindy married you because of your heightened levels of perception," I retorted.

Dan 2.0 laughed. "Give a smart-assed answer, you become the target."

So we're in our conference room. "Okay," Alan said. "What's up? You pregnant?"

I stuck my tongue at him. "Buddy, if I was pregnant, your wives would've told you. No, it's about Jason."

"Tina told me something," Alan said. "What are you going to tell us?"

"He's working too hard on everything. He's having a bit of trouble with his classes, and I think that he should hold off on the work hours, but..."

"But he worries about holding up his end of the business," Dan 1.0 said.

"I should've known," I told them. "No secrets here."

Dan 1.0 smiled at me. "Do you keep secrets from YOUR husband?"

I shook my head. "So what's the solution? If everybody knows, then there's bound to be a solution in the works."

"Your husband is hard-headed," Alan replied. "We keep telling him to back off, that we've got the work covered, especially since we've picked up more technicians, but he's afraid that nobody's as thorough as he is."

"I know," I answered. "He is a bit of a perfectionist. That's why it's tearing him apart when he doesn't get perfect scores in class. He told me that there's zero tolerance in the real world, that mistakes make people's lights go out."

"I think I've heard that speech a time or two," Cindy's Dan said.

"As have I," Alan added. "But we don't want to kill your husband, Susan."

"We have that in common," I countered, "Or if I kill him, it won't be from his work or his class loads."

"Whatever happened to sweet, innocent little Susan?" Alan laughed.

"I have the same happy lifestyle as each of your wives enjoy, and I wish to keep it that way."

"Then believe us when we tell you and him that he can cut back harder on the billable hours. Really. He's already more of a field supervisor than a hands-on technician anyway."

"You'll tell 'im that?"

"Yes," Dan 2.0 said. "And YOU can tell him that. Seriously, kiddo, we want you both to be happy. He's a great bit of our happy little world."

"He IS my happy little world," I affirmed. "I worry about him, you know."

"As a good little wifey should," Dan 2.0 said. "But don't feel alone. We all watch out for one another."

"I know," I said. "Nikki says that we all succeed together." I looked up and saw Terri standing just outside the door. "Hey, Terri-dactyl!"

"Is it safe in here?" she asked.

"Why wouldn't it be?" I returned.

"Mizz Beck says y'all're having a big meeting..."

"Just talking about how we're working together. Nothing wrong at all."

By this time Terri was next to her dad. He bent over and kissed the top of her head. "Trying to make Jason's life a little easier, baby," Alan explained.

"Oh," Terri spoke. "I know some of that. I told him that he needs to be more studenty."

"'Studenty?' Where'd that come from?" Alan asked her.

"I suppose I made it up," Terri giggled. "It means acting in the fashion of a student."

"And 'studious' wouldn't work? It's a real word," her dad rebounded.

"No, Dad," she explained. "'Studious' carries a meaning of a student being more active in his studies. I think it applies to people who are only students. Jason's more than just a student, so he has both a student life and a working life, and he needs to be more studenty."

"Oh, I see," Alan said. "Is that a Cindy thing?"

Terri gets this delightful look of exasperation sometimes. She used it on her dad. "No, Dad," she said patiently. "I came up with it by myself, although I'm sure it's been done before. I just never saw it."

Now Mizz Beck's head popped in the door. "Now you see why Tina and I think she needs more campus time."

"I always wanted my daughter to go to college," Alan said.

"Of course you expected her to be eighteen," Nikki's Dan tossed at him.

"I'm the only normal one in the bunch," I whined.

Beck laughed. "Susan, you don't get to claim 'normal' either, dear."

"Oh, Mizz Beck, you an' me, we're just caught up in this vortex."

"Yes, we are," Beck said. She turned to Terri. "Where's Rachel?"

"In the front office on the computer. She's writing some paragraphs of our paper on arthropods. I get to read 'em, then I write and she gets to read."

Terri's still a hoot. One of my school acquaintances said her nephew lived with them for a while when the kid's mom was sick and the dad was deployed overseas. "It was fun for a while, but when the 'new' wore off, the kid was a big pain." Terri's not a pain. Terri's a big bundle of happy 'what's gonna happen next.'

"You're being a good little dinosaur," I said. I should have been better prepared.

Terri's face got that 'serious student' look. "Pterodactyls are not dinosaurs. They are contemporaries of the dinosaurs, as are things like dimetrodons. You know, that's those big sailback lizards. Neither of them conform to the definition of a dinosaur, which includes the specification that their legs are vertical and do not sprawl. That's why alligators are not considered little dinosaurs." She smiled. "They never were."

What could I do? I opened my arms and beckoned for the inevitable hug.

"Was that too much?" she asked. "I'm not supposed to be a know-it-all."

I kissed her cheek. "You're my Terri!"

" ... with a 'p'..."

"Of course. And you operate within the specified limits attributed to puh-Terris everywhere." I pronounced the 'p' and received the giggle from her.

Now I had Terri sitting on my thigh, I had Beck in there, and the three engineers, husbands of my best friends. That's a whole roomful of friends there. "So we have path through this little thicket?" I asked.

Smiles all around.

"Come on, little 'not a dinosaur'! See if Rachel's finished, put the document on the server and let's go to the house. We're doing domestic chemistry this afternoon."

The kid bounced off my lap, headed up the hall. I told the group, "I'll talk to Jason. And thank you for being friends."

Alan spoke for the group. "We want Jason to succeed. That's all. You're part of his success in more ways than one."

Beck and I walked up the short hall. Terri was looking over Rachel's shoulder. "I've got about half a paragraph to go," Rachel said. "I'll be there."

Beck smiled proudly. "My third grade daughter knows more about paragraphs and grammar than a lot of high school kids." Terri stepped against my thigh. Beck touched Terri's sassy blonde tresses. "This is part of the reason."

Terri and I headed to the apartment. "What manner of alchemy are we concocting today," the elf asked.

"You need to lay off Terry Pratchett for a while, munchkin," I said. "It's coloring your speech."

"And you spell 'color' with a 'u'," she giggled. "I know, but I love the way that language can be altered to fit a situation."

"You're really having fun with it, aren't you?"

"I am. I know, that's not the way with some kids. But it is with me." She connected those blue eyes with mine. "It's just about like that with all of us. So what are we cooking?"

"Something inexplicable, but one of Jason's favourite things."

She giggled. "Tina says you're his favourite thing."

"You know what she means."

"I think I do. Best friend. And I guess that marriage means there's more to it than laughing at the same movies."

Tiptoe here, Susan. Tender young child. "There is. When you're married, there's more than just holding hands." Of course, eight was just a number on a timeline of physical age. Mentally...

"I sort of understand. I know that the black blocks on the community calendar mean that somebody's in a 'do not disturb' mode. Physical love, I think that's the term."

"Where'd you get that term?"

"I can't tell you exactly. I read it somewhere, or maybe I caught it in a conversation. But it's about love, and love is a terribly complex subject." She looked into my eyes, expecting answers.

"I know," I said as I unlocked the door to the apartment. "Tina says you've talked with her."

Little blonde head bounced in the affirmative. "And Cindy. And Nikki. And you. And Mizz Beck."

"Was Rachel in on the conversation with Mizz Beck?"

"Yes. Because one of the other kids we do those home-school outings with, he said we were in love. Me and Rache."

"And that's not quite accurate," I said. "There's 'love' and there's 'in love', and those are separate things."

We were in the kitchen. I opened the pantry.

"What's Jason's favourite thing? Culinarily speaking?" she asked.

"Tuna fish casserole." I was already in deep linguistic conversation with Terri and I realized...

"Isn't 'tuna fish' kind of redundant?"

Okay, I can recover from this. "It may be redundant in the strictest sense of the word, but it's also a common colloquialism."

Giggle. "Like there's a 'tuna tree' or a 'tuna nut'?"

"Or a puh-Terri-dactyl who'll jerk a friend around..."

"You know I love you, don't you?"

From an eight year old (Almost NINE!) girl. "And that is a proper use of the term for the feelings between friends. It means that you regard the desires and feelings of another as equal to or greater than your own."

"Very good," she said. "You put that into words very well. And that's for friends and family, right?"

"Right."

She looked thoughtful as I rummaged around for dried noodles, then said " Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends."

"Bible," I said. "Book of John."

"I pay attention in Sunday School, too, you know."

"I had little doubt." I put a can of mushrooms on the counter along with a can of mushroom soup.

"That's what Dad did that day for the Desai's. I understand it better in that context."

"Your dad was a soldier, too. Same thing. Larger arena." I picked up an onion. A pot of water went on the stove to boil.

"So that's a lot of love being defined," Terri stated. "Spiritual. Interpersonal. And I guess I understand some of that physical thing. I mean, that it happens."

"It does, sweetie," I said, mindful of the minefield I was stepping through. "It's a very complex part, and many, many people mess it up."

"Tina explained some of it." She sighed. "Said I'll learn more as I get older."

"You will learn. And look at Tina and your dad as examples. My mom and dad were my examples. There're right ways and wrong ways." I put the cutting board on the counter and went about the business of chopping an onion. "But you do know that talking about some of this is not considered appropriate for young girls."

"For young anybody," she said. "Tina and Dad have talked to me about all the wrong things that go on. I mean, I USE the Internet, and they tell me about some of the things."

"Those things can just as easily happen in person," I said.

"I know."

"Boy, this sure a serious conversation for cooking a casserole," I said. I was actually sweating a bit.

"Oh, I know. But you started it."

"I started it?"

"Yeah. You being Jason's favourite thing."

"I said that a tuna..." I paused for effect, "casserole is his favourite thing."

"Tuna bean..." she giggled.

"You're a horrible child."

She watched and questioned as I finished assembling the dish and slid it into the oven.

"Okay, now I need to study."

"What's the subject?"

"Another elective," I sighed. "Contemporary literature."

"Sounds interesting," she said. "So you're where?"

Ah, yes! Terri the study partner. Everybody knows this one. It works well for me if I read her my notes and answer her questions. That's where we were when I heard the door unlock. Jason walked in and I stood up for the requisite and very welcome kiss.

Terri hugged us both and said her goodbyes and left.

"I smell tuna fish casserole," he said.

"Don't you go getting all complacent. Terri says it could well be tuna bean casserole."

"What?" he asked. I explained the conversation to him.

"What a strange little person she is," was his reply.

"Not 'strange', baby. Unique is more like it."

"You're right. 'Strange' has a negative connotation. There's nothing negative there. And that brain of hers..." He kissed me on the forehead. "I'm surrounded by brainy women."

"And you're my brainy man."

"Some days I don't feel like it," my guy said.

"So okay. Let's talk about that. What did you do today?"

"I worked with two electricians and a tech upgrading the controls in that substation."

"Uh-huh," I said, "And you pretty much sketched out the installation from off the top of your head..."

"Well, it's obvious stuff."

"To whom, exactly? Alan was surprised. Cindy's Dan could do the same thing just like YOU did. You showed it to Nikki's Dan and he asked you questions about your approach, but nobody changed anything. They just signed off on it and stamped it for construction." I whacked him with my serving spoon. "You need to realize that you in that engineering office are just like me with the rest of this crew. You're like another light bulb in a brightly lit room."

He was rubbing the spot I'd whacked. "You're plenty bright, head and shoulders up in just about any venue except this one. I've seen you at meetings with clients. Jason, you have your shit together."

"Shit? My pure little wife says 'shit'?"

"Hang with me here, buddy. I'm on a roll," I popped. "I talked with them today. You need to back out of the field a bit more and work on your coursework."

"You talked with the others? Why?"

"Because my husband is hard-headed, that's why! And they told me they'd already tried to get you to pull out of the field more."

"B ... but..."

"Terri even says so."

"Well that settles it, then," he laughed. "I mean, if Terri says so..."

"You're her Uncle Jason. She loves you like the rest of them do. I'm different."

"Oh, really? How different?"

"They don't mean to feed you a casserole then see that you're showered and properly serviced."

"That IS different, no doubt about it." He grinned. His grin gets to me, ever since I first saw him. "It's a wonderful difference."

I pulled the casserole dish out of the oven, pulled a spatula out and smiled. "There! Perfect tuna-berry casserole for the man I love."

"And I can have leftovers for breakfast!" he laughed.

I laughed too, but the guy's serious. For breakfast, he's subject to toss leftovers into the microwave. I find it very strange. The first time he did this after we were married, I was appalled.

"I can't believe you're eating that! We have all kinds of cereal. Or I would've done eggs and grits and bacon."

"This is fine."

"It's not breakfast food."

"Food is food. This was lovingly prepared yesterday by a woman I trust and love. What could be better?"

Since then I've gotten used to it. I also have gotten used to him and me clearing the kitchen and getting into a shower together. Showers are fun. Drying off afterward is fun. I like handing him that hairbrush, too, and getting him to brush me out. Because everybody elses husbands do that for them and it's a luxurious feeling.

And no, not straight to bed. Sometimes we do. Sometimes we don't. Tonight it's two laptops full of notes and classes and we're each into our own studies when I get a chime announcing a message from Cindy.

"Check out this Youtube video. It's Johanna and Stoney in Norway! You'll LOVE it."

"Looking," I messaged back.

"Who is it?" Jason queried.

"Cindy. Says there's a video of Jo and Stoney in Norway online."

He slid over to my end of the sofa as I opened the link. It was indeed our two globe-trotting friends. The video looked like the product of a cellphone camera and the sound wasn't really good, but there they were with a bunch of other people, Jo with a flute and Stoney with his banjo.

They gathered quite a crowd and we watched it increase when he hammered down on some Bluegrass favorites.

"I don't imagine there's a lot of Bluegrass in Norway," Jason laughed. "Classical flute players are probably more common."

"I gotta send them an email. They're supposed to come back and visit."

"Yeah," he said. "Another real engineer while I'm bogged down."

That was my opening. "As I said before, I talked with the rest of 'em today," I said.

He got a worried expression. I was happier to see that than an angry look. "What did you tell them?"

"That I love my husband and I think he's trying to take on too much and I don't want him to crash and burn."

"I'm holding up my end of the company," he said.

"And they recognize that as well as I do, baby," I said softly. "But they want you to succeed in school. Everybody thinks that Engineer Jason will be a great asset. You have the most hands-on experience of anybody and you use it well. That's what they said." I kissed his cheek. "And that they tried to talk you into backing out of the field work a bit more."

"But those other guys..."

"They need a chance to grow and learn. Like you did."

"But my clients..."

"Your techs know their limitations. They'll drag you in when you're needed."

"I suppose. I just get nervous."

I smiled. "Of course you do. It's part of why you are where you are. You want to be the best. For the right reasons," I added. "So lets figure out how it's gonna work, okay?"

"I get nervous," he retorted.

"I know you do, baby. But you have EVERYBODY here behind you. There's nothing like it that I ever heard of. You and me and Tina, we have three degreed engineers and two creatures whose classification is beyond discussion as backup."

"Three of those creatures. You forgot the pTerri-dactyl." He grinned. Terri loves my Jason.

"Oh, she's one of your fans. Says SHE tried talking to you. Said you needed to be more 'studenty'."

"She used that word?"

"Yep! Gave us a definition, said she'd tried talking to you herself."

"She did. And used that exact word." He laughed. "I guess I'll knuckle under to the pressure."

"Good," I said.

Skype chimed on my computer. Tina. I opened it up. She was in the picture next to Terri. "Hi," I said.

"Hi, yourself. Did you see the video?"

"Uh-huh. I was getting ready to email them."

"I already did," Terri injected. "I miss 'em."

"We all do," Tina added. "How's Jason?"

"Jason's fine," he said loudly, off screen. "Tell Terri that I'm going to take her advice."

Terri smiled broadly. "Good! I wanna take care of my Uncle Jason!"

"We won't keep you," Tina smiled. "Terri wanted to ... We used the video as an excuse."

"Terri darlin'," Jason said. "You never need an excuse."

"Thank you Uncle Jason," she answered sweetly. "I'm happy now. Good night!" And she disappeared from the screen.

"I'm gonna leave you two alone. I got some studying to do, too. G'night, y'all!"

"Good night, sis!" I said, then I closed the app. I turned to Jason. "See?!? Everybody cares."

"I never doubted that," he answered. His hand traced up the inside of my thigh, causing me to quiver noticeably. "How about another hour in the books and then..."

"Then I will wear your casserole-stuffed butt out."

"I love you way you challenge me, princess," he said.

I lost the bet.

Chapter 51

Cindy's turn:

I'm sitting here looking at this email and giggling. Tina's in class. I'm not, and neither is Terri, so she and I are at the lab and I'm showing her some hardware things. That's what I was doing when my iPhone buzzed. I pulled it out of my jeans and looked.

"It's from Johanna."

Terri has the cutest squeal. "Open it. I hope it's what I'm thinking."

"Me, too." I punched at the screen and brought it up.

Dear family in Alabama-

You have to know that we miss you all. Skype and email don't do it. We're coming in on Wednesday. I hope we won't be disruptive to your routine.

"We don't have a routine," Terri said. "Tina says it's a subdued chaos."

"Tina is right, you know," I answered.

We're going to do that hotel thing, I think. We'll see. Maybe a week, maybe longer. We're playing that by ear.

Terri giggled. "My Aunt Johanna. A musical reference."

You're going to love this. We're FLYING in. We haven't bought a plane (yet) but Stoney wanted to get qualified for a tail-dragger to keep our options open. Remember a while back when I said something about a Pitts S-2? Yeah, we worked a deal out for insurance and the guy that owns it is loaning it to us for the trip. It's actually an S-2A. I may regret it later, but that's what I wanted to do now and Stoney didn't work really hard to talk me out of it. We have the canopy on it for the trip.

Okay, now I'm a little bit jealous. Of course, Terri...

"What's a Pitts S-2?" She looked at me as her fingers flew over the face of the iPad that was almost a body part to her. Then "Ohhhhhhh, wow! That's gotta be FUN!" Of course there's the 'quick' side of Terri, too. "Max range 277 miles. That means TWO stops on the way here. Maybe three."

If Kara hasn't already told you, we're set up for a fun concert on Friday night - her, me, Stoney.

I already knew. Kara can't keep a secret. That's one of the ways she's shown herself to be part of the bunch here. Besides, there are posters up around campus.

Phone rang. I answered it. "Hey, Nikki. Yeah, I'm reading it with Terri right now!"

"Are you jealous? That Pitts biplane?"

"Yeah, you gotta believe. Just a little bit."

"And a concert?"

"Riches, Sis. We have riches."

"'Kay! Just wanted to check with you. I have two lit instructors coming up the hall. Seeya!"

"'Kay, Nik!"

Terri smiled. "News spreads fast!"

"Jo shotgunned the email to all of us."

Stoney and I can't wait to get there. We need to go down to the coast, too. Looking at places for the boat. I'm looking forward to sailing it in from Texas.

By the way, we're having some stuff shipped there. Some of it's the sound recording setup. The rest is clothes and things. One thing that the Pitts doesn't have is luggage space.

But then you don't want to go inverted and have your unmentionables fluttering all over the place.

I will do a Skype tonight.

Love always-

Johanna

"That's good news," I told Terri.

"Oh, yes! She promised she'd play her flute with us."

I smiled. "Terri, me playing my recorder with Johanna is like putting a tricycle on a NASCAR track."

"I know," the little blonde thing said. "But we ARE getting better."

"I wish my fingers learned as fast as my brain did," I said.

"It's like that," Terri affirmed. "One of the reasons Dad thinks it's good that I learn to play."

"That's what Mizz Beck says too," I added. "You, me and Rache after dinner tonight? Half an hour?"

"Get your Dan to play with us. We need some real world stuff."

"That's my Dan. Real world."

"Yeah, cuz we'd be a fairy tale, otherwise," Terri said. She pushed the soldering pencil with her fingertip. "Now, let's see how you said we use this transistor for a switch."

And I have an eight year old girl who wants to know about saturation bias on a transistor. What's worse, I know about saturation bias on transistors because Nikki and Susan and Tina and I had used them in some pretty hefty power applications.

"Signal generator," I said. "What can we do with this?"

Those blue eyes almost (but not quite) looked exasperated. "A train of pulses of specific waveform and magnitude and frequency."

"And if we source current through this transistor then gate it?"

"We turn it on and off really fast, letting controlled amounts of energy flow." She laughed that little titter thing that I love to hear. "And with this setup, we have a very ugly and expensive light dimmer."

"Uh-huh," I laughed. "And why do we pulse instead of just biasing to raise the resistance of the transistor?" And she explained it to me.

"You wanna know what else is on my mind?" Terri asked.

"Always do," I replied. "You're a happy dimension in my multidimensional universe. So what's up?"

"Sex."

Okay, I gulped and swallowed hard. I'm not supposed to be an expert. In the eyes of most sane people, I'm fifteen, and half or more girls my age are sexually active to one degree or another, and I've been sexually active since I was thirteen, but it's ONE guy and we got married as soon as we could.

And Terri's not my daughter and by all rights, these talks should be taking place between her and her loving parents, and I know for a fact that she's got several of those and if I can't trust Alan and Tina to do this right, there's nobody on the planet that I can trust.

So that's what I said. "You probably should talk with your dad or Tina, baby."

"I do. And Tina said that I might learn something from talking with you." Serious blue eyes. Now my mind's running through files at top speed. Where's this going?

"Okay. So if Tina knows, I guess I will try, up until I get uncomfortable. Okay?"

Blonde hair bounced with her affirmative nod. "I know it's a sensitive topic, but I need people that I trust."

"Okay. Thank you for considering me to be somebody you trust."

"I trust everybody here. You're closest to my age."

"I ... your life and my life have been a lot different, sweetie. When I was your age, it was just me and Mom in an apartment and I never had a dad that lasted more than a couple of months."

"I thought about that," she said. "But then I look at you and your husband and I know there's something..."

"Sex isn't just sex, Terri. If it's just a mechanical thing, then it's not good. People are spiritual creatures."

Her eyes watched me closely. "Some people don't seem to think so."

"Where'd you get this idea?" I asked.

"I pay attention to things, don't I? It would be pretty hard to miss how much sex there is out there."

"I know that, puh-Terri," I said. "The world is a messy place. Sex is just one thing they mess up beyond belief."

"It's good, though? Sex? I mean, if people are so interested in it."

"Or it's very bad. You probably never saw the parts I saw. Mom showed me the bad side of sex, using it for herself, men using her for themselves. Miscommunication about what it was about between one partner and another." I sighed. "I watched that for years. I guess I was your age when it started dawning on me what I was seeing..."

"So you're saying that I'm starting to ask the same questions you asked?"

"And I didn't have anybody I could trust to answer them."

She stared at me. I knew there were questions. "Terri, let me tell you this. I had NO sexual experience before I met Dan. As far as I was concerned, there was supposed to be only one. Him."

"Tina said the same thing."

"Nikki and Susan won't tell you anything different."

"I know. Nikki an' her Dan go visit her mom in prison. That's not a good sign." She sighed. "I guess there are things worse than having your natural mom in and out of treatments and hospitals all the time."

"I suppose, sweetie," I said. "Your mom didn't make bad choices to end up where she's at. And I think she'd much rather not have those episodes."

"I know," Terri said. "It's sad, but I was going to ask to live with Dad and Tina anyway. I think you knew that."

"I understand. You told me."

"This is a better place for me. I don't think I could've found anybody to talk to me about sex like you. Or anybody else here."

"I can't think of anybody I would've found who would be as good a fit in our bunch as you. You're a natural."

"You'd've had Rachel."

"Maybe not. I know that YOU were a big part of the reason that Sim and Beck moved here."

"Mizz Beck says that sex is a gift from God."

Surprised me. "You asked Mizz Beck? About sex, I mean?"

"Yes. Some of the other kids in our home-school group, the subject came up." She sighed. "Everybody's family lives are not as stable or conventional as ours, apparently."

"Terri," I replied, "people would look at me and Dan or Nikki and her Dan or your dad and Tina and think that we're not conventional either."

"Just your age thing, you know. Other than that..." she paused. "Your social studies project. The nuclear family. It's less and less the norm."

"You're perceptive," I noted.

"It's a blessing and a curse, Mizz Beck says. You don't know how good you have it unless you can understand how bad others have it."

"Maybe that's why I'm so stuck on Dan," I said. "I know what a woman with a bunch of guys coming and going looks like, and it's not pretty."

"I know what kids in broken homes go through," Terri said. "Some of my friends in California. Bad. Shara in Tennessee. Not so bad. Her mom loved her, at least. But it's so neat having a dad."

I guess she caught the change in my eyes. "I'm sorry, Cindy," she said. "I didn't mean..."

I scooped her into my arms. "You make me realize how good we both have it now. I didn't really have a reference before. I wasn't really communicative with others in school. Just empty, me, I guess. Can't miss what you never had."

"But here, you're in the middle of everything. Dad and Tina both laugh whenever I say 'Cindy says... '"

"It's like I - I transported to another universe, Terri. Like something happened two summers ago in Alabama that let me out of one universe and into another one."

"I think I understand. It's like the difference between living in that apartment complex in California and this one. Everybody here..."

"Is part of this community because they want to be. You know how Mister Sim and Mizz Beck were concerned when they first visited."

Terri smiled. "Yeah. You're only a few years older than Rachel and me and it bothered her. I think she's used to it now." Blue eyes smiled. "You know she told Rachel not to get ideas, huh?"

"Yeah, she told me ... Mizz Beck. I have to be careful. What Dan and I did, it's rare that it works. It's got 'exploitation' written all over it."

"Don't get nervous, Cindy. I mean, this talk, it's just gathering data. I'm curious."

"No! YOU?!? Curious?"

"Well, not about what Tina calls the 'Tab A - Slot B' thing. People. I'm curious about how people work together."

"It's very complex, Terri," I said. "Very complex. Two people, each with all these variables. You're smart enough to realize that. Keep studying."

"And my time will come," she said with a smirk.

"Oh!" I said sharply. "You've heard this speech."

"You. Dad. Tina. Nikki. Susan."

"And I only wish I'd had those kinds of people when I was eight or nine." I sighed. "But you know," I said, "If I had, maybe I wouldn't be here with my Dan and YOU and all my friends."

"So that's part of it, huh?" little blue eyes asked. "That you look FORWARD. Build on what's behind, learn from it."

"Yeah," I said. "Sounds easy now. But I had to live through things. At least it was all on the outside. Some people have to live with what they've done to themselves and to others. Some stuff you can't erase."

"Morality," Terri spoke. "I asked about sex and we ended up on morality."

"Because..."

"Because everybody I talk with says that the two are intertwined. Like Mizz Beck said, 'A gift from God.' I think I understand more."

"I hope you understand that talking about sex and love and stuff is a very delicate thing. Here in the community, that's one thing. With outsiders, they may not understand and get the wrong ideas entirely."

"And that would be dangerous, Dad says."

"And like most things, your dad is right."

"So we're good, then?" she asked.

"Why would we NOT be?"

"Dunno." She tiptoed to kiss my cheek. "I'm lucky I have you for an aunt, Cindy. Thank you!" And she bounced out the lab door. I sat back in my chair for a bit. Another surreal moment in the life of Cindy Richards, Girl Genius. No, I didn't give myself that nickname. Somebody started it at the physics lab and then they looped it around Nikki too, and sometimes I get sort of scared that there are these expectations of me that I must live up to.

Now I have to make sure that I talk with Tina about the conversation between Terri and me. This is a delicate area, but like Terri says, she clears things between her and her dad and Tina, but I don't want to jeopardize our relationship.

Of course, voicing such a concern to Tina got me a "Are you kidding me? How in the world do you think you can keep a leash on that intellect?"

"You could just be oblivious to the fact that it exists and not pay attention and hope she turns inward..."

"Yeah, I love THAT plan. Thank God for Grandma," Tina said. "I don't know if I could've done what you did."

So everybody knows about Terri and everybody worries about Terri and everybody takes care of Terri and Alan and Tina both know it. Still, I keep them in the loop when Terri goes off on a tangent.

I let my eyes close for a bit, but I wasn't sleeping. I was running through half a textbook that I'd have to review next week. Physics. "Cindy, you really should've done pure physics," Doctor Embert has said more than once. "You would do great things."

I smile every time she says that. "I promised my husband that I would be an engineer, and an engineer I shall be."

To which, at the beginning of the semester, she'd said, "Okay, Cindykins. Be an engineer. You will get your BSEE (Auth. note: Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering) but tell me that you won't accept a physics degree along with it." She kept smiling. "You and your partner in crime, Nikki Granger, both."

At least she was directing me in paths that overlapped my electrical engineering interests.

Another neuron flashed. Love and sex. Dan was on his way back from a meeting and would be home soon. I punched at my iPhone to grab his location. He's on the road, he and Jason having visited the headquarters of an electric utility company. They wanted to outsource some engineering work and, hey, we just happened to do engineering work.

I opened the textbook on my iPad, then thought about why I was still here in the lab instead of in the recliner at home, surrounded by the aroma of Dan's aftershave. I locked up and left. I turned and saw Kara leaving the engineering office with Maddie. "Hey, guys," I said.

"Hey yourself," Kara said. "Do we have time for some music practice this evening?"

"I can squeeze that in between this physics stuff and telling my husband that we're having a tray from the Desais' for dinner."

"Good," Kara said. "Maddie?"

"Do fifteen minutes. Just fifteen. I have that business law course hanging over my head and I'm not a stinkin' genius..."

"You are. But business law? It's LAW. No foundation in reality," Kara said. "It's like passing off contemporary jazz as music. Somebody says it is, and therefore it IS. But fifteen minutes will work if that's all you can do. I'm working on some pieces that Johanna sent me. We're going to do some things for the university."

"What?!?" Maddie and I did a duet.

"Oh, it's not that big a deal," Kara said. "One or two of Jo and Stoney's performances, one of the three of us, that horrible video of them in Norway ... Can you believe it? Norway! I'm jealous! And my music mentor said that maybe we could do a little symposium on cross-genre music. I mean, I can't exactly build rail-guns, but I can fiddle with some alacrity."

Maddie faked a sob. "I guess I'll sit in the corner and count beans while y'all have fun."

"Poor, poor little Maddie," Kara chirped. "You shall be the CFO of our multi-media conglomerate."

"One can dream," Maddie retorted. "If you get this off the ground. I do enjoy the idea of Jo and Stoney coming back, though. It's a shame he doesn't have a brother..."

That was a common thread of conversation. Maddie dated a lot. Never got serious. Kara dated a few times, too, but of late she was sort of off the trail. Still, it seemed that Bert Williams showed up at our engineering study group without fail and if Bert was there, Kara was there. It was funny in a way. Kara's dialect is pure Houston amalgam, just a touch of an accent, but poor Bert sounds like he just walked in off a log truck, all Arkansas hick drawl so thick you can cut chunks off it. And he's about as subtle about what floats his boat as, to use Dan's coarsest term, a rhinoceros with an erection.

The boy is head over heels over our Kara Sevinsky. And she knows it. And the two of them are horribly socially inept, so it's cute. So it's gotten to the 'movie and a hamburger' stage while the two of them sort it out. Socially inept. Kara shouldn't be. She wears good clothes. Her dad makes sure she has a car. It's kind of like the one Tina was driving when she first moved down here, a nice neat little Japanese compact thing.

"I refuse to own a BMW," Kara said. "If I want something ostentatious and German in my life, I'll take up Wagner."

Bert doesn't have a car, but this is a college town and bicycles aren't that unusual. I'm watching all this of course, and I only have my learner's permit. Next birthday - driver's license. And student pilot license. And darned if Johanna and Stoney aren't flying down here in an aerobatic biplane. She needs chastising. I may make her practice with me - her flute and my recorder. That ought to teach her.

In the apartment. In Dan's recliner. Actually, it's OUR recliner, because an inordinate amount of time he's sitting in it and I'm curled up in his lap. It smells of him. I kick the footrest up, lay back and close my eyes. For a little while I transport away from the world of energetic particles and into a land once relegated only to fairy tales.

I was drifting along on the cusp of a rare nap when I heard the door unlock. I was stretching when Dan rounded the corner into the living room. He caught me in full stretch and scooped me out of the chair, dropped himself into it and held me on top of him.

"A million ways I miss you every day, little one," he smiled. "And every time I see you I renew my need for you."

We kissed. Sometimes that's the communication we need. When we finally broke, I sighed. "Dan ... is it okay if I still lust after you?"

"Still? Two years on?"

"You're what floats my boat," I breathed, punctuating the statement with a kiss. Then a giggle. "Floats YOUR boat, too. I feel the mast..."

He smiled that 'little boy' smile that had me tumbling head over heels so early in our relationship. "You know what you do to me."

"Mine just isn't so obvious," I said. "But believe me..."

"So do we give in to animal instincts or do we show some self-restraint?"

"It'll be soooo good tonight, all showered and fresh and clean..." My cellphone beeped. "And no interruptions."

"We could ignore that," he said.

"No, I should've put a privacy block on the calendar. You're home early and I promised Kara that I'd go practice with her."

He looked amused. "You're serious about that, aren't you?"

"As serious as I can get with a ten-dollar wooden whistle and a bunch of concert-grade tutors. You might just as well come along. We're almost at the point where it's not painful any more."

"Dinner?"

"Already called the Desais. My dear grandmother will see to it that we are fed."

So see?!?!? Contrary to what most of society would think, this young teen wife and her older husband were NOT about wall-to-wall sex. That thought flashed across my mind because of the conversation with Terri. Of course there was another thought galloping on its heels. We certainly COULD be.

"Grab your guitar. Let's go pester Maddie and practice with Kara."

Mind the clock. Everybody else does, it seems, because when we hit the sidewalk we were joined by the neighborhood pixies, Terri and Rachel.

"My dad says forcing a child to practice a musical instrument is a Jewish stereotype." Rachel does that 'big soulful eyes' thing too.

"And who exactly stood up in front of friends and family and announced, 'Mom! Dad! I wanna learn to play an instrument'?" I chuckled.

"It's WORK!" retorted Rachel.

"Oh, I know," Terri assisted her. "But you wanna go back and look at those videos we recorded a couple of months ago?"

"We are getting better," Rachel admitted.

Music practice. Dinner. Change of plans on dinner. After practice we just walked over to the restaurant and found a table. Dinner which, I was assured, was like momma used to make, that is, if 'momma' wore a sari and a bindi.

Dan was stuffing a rolled up chapati chunk into his mouth when I hit him about Johanna's choice of air transportation. He knew where I was with that one.

"Not very practical for transportation," he said.

"But you get 'style points'."

"How jealous are you?"

"Just a little bit. Maybe."

"You need some stick time with Hanna. That Pitts was top of the aerobatic heap a generation before the Extra came along."

"I know. I looked. Besides, I don't think they're doing aerobatics in the Pitts. Neither of them have the hours. They just wanted tail-dragger time."

"Speaking of tails..." I said softly. "I need you to wash mine..."

Dinner's over. And it's time to go HOME and lock the door and turn all the devices off.

Chapter 52

Nikki's turn:

So here I am at our airfield with Terri for assistance, and I'm driving Dan's big extended cab pickup truck.

There's an app on our phones and that means that both Terri and I are tracking the real-time location of the arriving Johanna and Stoney. Still ten miles out, so I turn to survey our home airfield.

Yes, it's the proverbial 'cropdusting strip'. That means that if the wind blows the right way, you get a whiff of Jet-A fuel from those neat turbo-prop cropdusters ... oops ... Agricultural aircraft, and if it's from the other direction there's the exotic and probably not too healthy (in high concentrations - I hope) odors of the agricultural chemicals that they wash out of those neat aircraft.

Cindy and I both have been trying to talk Wally into letting us fly one.

"You," he told Cindy, "you're easy. You don't have ANY license."

"Yet." Cindy retorted.

"And YOU," he told me, "You've just gotten a checkout on taildraggers. And you're not even eighteen."

"Yet!" I said.

"I can just imagine the phone call to my insurer. 'Uh, yeah, this is Wally at Mid-State Ag. I just wrecked an Air Tractor. I need half a million dollars to replace it. Pilot? Sixteen year old girl.' Can you get that picture?"

We laugh. But one day he's gonna do it.

He walks up to us. "You said you need to rent that end T-hangar?" He shook his head. "Ain't big enough for a LearJet."

Terri doesn't miss much and she knows what she does to people. She turned and did her 'little blonde girl-child' thing with the blue eyes and the smile. "Oh, Mister Wally, not yet. This time it's a Pitts. See?" and she extended her iPhone to him."

Wally whistled. "Neat-o! Haven't seen one of those in a while." He looked at me. "So who's flying this one? A fourth grader?"

"No, actually it's our friends Stoney and Jo. She's a recent college grad and he's another one of those darned electrical engineers."

He rubbed his chin. About that time the speaker outside the office building crackled. "Mid-State Field, this is Pitts November eight eight bravo, three miles southwest, for landing."

Terri bounced. "That's Stoney!" and a little happy squeal.

Wally pulled the handheld radio off his belt. "Pitts eight eight bravo, this is Mid-State. No known traffic, over."

"Eight eight bravo, roger, we'll do an approach to runway one-eight."

"Roger."

And I know all that chatter is unnecessary because the airfield is uncontrolled, no tower, but we're prudent pilots, so we communicate. A minute later Terri squeaked "I see 'em!"

A minute after that, a sleek, shiny biplane was gliding onto the end of the runway. After the tailwheel was down and they slowed to a walking speed, Johanna was waving at us.

"Not a bad landing at all," Wally said. "Not bad." He looked at me. "Now I'd trade a ride in that for a ride in one of mine."

I know he's just messing with us. "It's not theirs," I said. "They borrowed it."

The idling engine pulled them up to the fuel pump, then stuttered to a stop. Johanna pulled the helmet off that outrageous red hair and shook her head, then bounced out, followed by Stoney, who didn't have enough hair to shake out with that military haircut of his. While he was introducing himself to Wally, Johanna came over to see Terri and me.

"Hi, pTerri-dactyl," she said, getting the broadest of smiles from Terri. "Hi, Sis!"

Of course, the answer to that was returned with squeals and hugs.

Stoney had the tanks topped off and now he and Wally were arguing over whether to push the plane a significant distance to the open hangar or to crank the engine and taxi. I don't know who won, but the two of them climbed into the cockpit. I thought they'd just taxi the few hundred feet to the hangar, but instead they taxied onto the runway and took off.

Johanna sighed. "You people turned my Stoney into an airplane nut."

"I'm sorry," I said. "I just thought it was a fun tool for getting around."

"You know I'm kidding, right? He's jealous because our instructor says I fly better than he does." She sighed, but she was smiling as she did. "So where'd everybody else end up?"

I recited the roster. "Cindy's talking her way through a four-hundred level physics course. Susan and Tina are both in regular classes..."

"Hmmph!" Jo snorted. "Regular second year classes or..."

"Or not," I said. "I got out of a computer science course by giving the guy a diagram of our new interface box, including the conversion matrix and logic array that controls it. Of course, waving a contract under his nose where we actually SOLD it sort of helps."

"You and Cindy ... I'm jealous."

"You're jealous. If your husband doesn't leave your flute in an Alabama pine tree, then I'm the one who's jealous. I play a triangle, Jo. A TRIANGLE, for pete's sake."

"But you - did you look at the manual for the sound system?"

I nodded. "Actually, we unpacked it and did a trial run. Terri, let Johanna listen."

Terri held her phone up, letting a bit of impromptu bluegrass roll out.

"I like it," I told her. "That's an excellent application of the hardware and whoever did the software, I wish I could get hold to the source code."

"Talk to my husband."

The sound of a screaming Lycoming engine wafted in. We turned. There they were, a few thousand feet overhead, coming down the backside of a loop, swooping into a roll.

"Dammit, Stoney!" Jo spat, "We promised we wouldn't do any aerobatics!"

"Boys and their toys," I said.

At least they finished up the roll and descended back to the field for a landing. This time the plane ended up with its tail pointed into the empty T-hangar. Stoney and Wally were laughing as the pushed the sleek Pitts back into the open doors.

Jo and Terri and I walked up. Stoney's not stupid. He caught The Look.

"I know, Princess," he said preemptively. "But Wally's an old fighter pilot. We couldn't resist. And you know loops and rolls aren't VERY much..."

Wally looked remorseful. "I shall take the lashing for it..."

Jo's grim look morphed towards her more customary smile. "I was more worried that the luggage compartment would open and dump our stuff all over central Alabama."

"Oops!" Stoney said. "Well, Wally kept us in a positive or zero G the whole time."

"Thank you, Wally, for leading my gullible husband astray in a competent and safe manner. Perhaps we should remind him that aerobatics are prohibited with baggage on board."

"Oh, jeez! Forgot!"

"Anyway, thank you for bringing him back safely."

"You're welcome, ma'am," Wally said, touching the brim of his cap. "Thank you for letting me have stick time in that little thing."

We loaded up bags and people and got on the road. The Pitts biplane was only one topic. We crossed over several.

"pTerri-dactl, are you practicing like I told you to?" Jo asked.

"Yes, ma'am. Every day. All of us."

"Good! We'll play together, then," Jo smiled. "Stoney, Nikki wants the source code for your sound system."

"Oh," said Stoney, "I can't get you the commercial code, but I still have some of the early stuff. Why?"

"I wanna look at it. See how other people approach problems. My thing, you know. I like the system."

Stoney laughed. "How long before you had the lids off the boxes?"

"Well, you didn't say NOT to. It was kind of like you sent a sheep into a lion cage, you know."

"I know," Stoney laughed. "Just remember, most of that's patented and protected."

"Oh, we'd never do anything to compete. We're just interested in how you approached the rapid data recording and synchronization. I mean, the equipment's pretty simple, once you look at it."

"Glad you see that," Stoney laughed. "I banged my head pretty hard over some of it."

I laughed back at him. "The wheel's pretty obvious too, after you've seen the one somebody else built. Then it's obvious."

"Very adept at salving my guy's ego, Nikki," Johanna laughed.

"Speaking of guys," Stoney said, "Where are your handlers?"

Terri tittered at the 'handler' comment.

"Mine's at a facility in Mobile looking at upgrades for their power system. Jason's in class trying to keep up with Susan. Dan 1.0..."

"Cindy's Dan?" Stoney asked.

"Yeah, Cindy's Dan, he's half a day east in Georgia. Tina's hubby is actually in the office working through some bid packages."

"Wow! Lots of work?"

"More than enough. Want some?" I asked, eyeing Jo in the rearview mirror. I know they don't need to work for the money, but I'd sure like a way to keep 'em around for a while.

"Might be interested. Johanna's ... You tell 'em, Jo."

"It looks like we are going to do a little crossover music symposium for the college. Part performance, part lecture, part practical. Me. Stoney. Kara."

"And Kara hasn't said a word ... I'm surprised."

"Told her to keep it quiet until we got everything finalized. It's gonna be fun. Most of it's Kara's fault. She's deep into the music department there and showed off some of our stuff."

"And just like that, you're in as instructors?"

"Well, almost," Jo said. "We're under the umbrella of one of the professors. They want to see a PhD, but we're on the page with him as guest lecturers."

"Neat-o!" Terri squeaked.

"Neat-o? Who still says 'neat-o?"

"Me when I'm being retro," Terri chirped.

Stoney shook his head. "Eight years old and knows 'retro'."

"And a vocabulary to go with it," Johanna said. "We're gonna steal you, Terri. You can be our little girl."

"I'm already the community's little sister. Well, me and Rachel. 'Sides, you and Mister Stoney, you need a red-headed kid. So you'll have a set."

"A set," Jo mouthed with a smile.

"By the way, we made up our second bedroom for you," I said. "Or you can do Cindy's."

"We were gonna get a hotel..." Stoney said.

"Well, if you're more comfortable that way, then I guess so, but really, we - all of us - are really missing you two."

Johanna's smile. It changes to a little grin. "We cancelled the reservations at the hotel before we took off."

"Good!" I said. "Now, a car..."

"Let us rent one," Stoney said. "So we don't drain the resources."

"Okay."

Stoney was punching on his iPhone diligently. "Okay. I'm sending you the address of the rental agency. We can run right by there and you can offload us, then we'll meet you at the apartments."

"Awww," Terri whined.

"Terri!" I said.

"Oh, why don't you come ride with us, Terri," Johanna said.

"You're spoiling her."

"Look at that face!" Johanna said, causing Terri's smile to brighten a few hundred watts.

"It's not the face that dangerous, Jo. It's the brain..."

"I'm just a little eight year old girl," Terri said in an exaggeratedly squeaky voice.

"You're almost nine, and you're my evil niece." I glanced in the rear-view mirror. "How much baggage do you get to carry in that thing?"

"Twenty whole pounds," Stoney said. "Jo's concert flute and our little emergency clothes bag."

"We Fed-Exed our regular luggage to your office," said Jo.

"Yeah, we got that," I replied. "Smart move, considering your mode of transport."

"Cindy's jealous," Jo said. "I promised her a flight. But NO AEROBATICS!" She cast an eye at Stoney. "And I mean it! You know how you are with redheads." She paused, made sure I was paying attention. "And Nikki!"

"And Susan. And Tina," Jo laughed. "You just know we're gonna have to spend a whole day at the field giving everybody a ride."

"I dunno," Stoney sighed. "Cindy's got time in that Extra. Our poor ol' Pitts is a step back."

"Cindy likes to fly. We all do. But Cindy flies better than me. Her Dan checked me out in their 180 so I could get some taildragger time. (Auth. Note: 'Taildragger' refers to an airplane with two main wheels up front and a single small tailwheel in the rear. It is considered a bit more difficult to handle on the ground than the more common tricycle gear) I can do it. But I can't do it like Cindy. She's won our spot landing contests more times than she should."

"Cindy is Cindy," Terri said. "She's the ringleader."

"And you're the apprentice," I said.

Jo looked thoughtful. "I can take 'er. I don't have the hours, but I can take 'er. Why don't we look at Sunday afternoon? We'll all go to the field, we'll do the show and tell and the rides in the Pitts, and then we'll set up a contest."

Jo's got this 'in the zone' look. She gets there when she's playing her flute. If you know what you're looking for, you can see it. Right now I was seeing her getting into the zone.

"Don't tell Cindy anything," Jo said.

"Baby..." Stoney started.

"Oh, Cindy's a sport. This'll be fun."

"Like that video of you guys in the square in Norway?" I thought back to that cellphone video of Stoney and Jo and a bunch of Norwegian college musicians. Jo had 'the look' there, too.

"They thought we were posers," Johanna said. "It's odd that Norwegians think that American education isn't that rigorous."

"It might not be, in some case," I said. "They just didn't reckon on running into a student who WAS serious."

"I cheated," Jo giggled. "And I'm gonna cheat with Cindy, too."

"How so?"

"That pretty little biplane is quick and nimble and light on the controls, but when you go to high pitch and chop the power it glides like a brick. I think I can put the wheels where I want to."

I laughed. "We gotta do it. Terri, it's secret-keeping time."

"I can do that," Terri said. "Cindy's fun!"

We dropped Jo and Stoney off in the parking lot of the car rental agency and headed back to the apartments.

"I'm really, really happy," Terri said to me.

"Because Jo and Stoney are here?"

"Of course. They belong here. And Kara's gonna be the same way. She says Jo was her gateway out into the world."

"Interesting human interaction."

"Social part of life is interesting. People aren't neat," Terri said matter of factly.

"People aren't neat. I wonder where I've heard that one before."

"Let's see," Terri quipped. "Uh, everybody in this group has said it to me. When that boy in our home-school group was trying to show off by pushing me around, I got told by everybody. 'People aren't neat.' I know what it means."

"It's true," I affirmed to her. "But we've got a group of pretty neat people around us. And that boy you said was pushing you around? I think he's trying to get your attention. Maybe he likes you."

"Ewwww! Everybody in the group are already my friends. Why can't he just be like everybody else?"

"Maybe he likes you more than everybody else."

"Like 'boyfriend - girlfriend'?" her blue eyes questioned.

"Yes. Maybe like that."

Terri folded her arms across her chest. "I'm EIGHT (Not 'almost NINE', a detail of some significance.) and I don't need this stuff. I have Rachel. She's my closest friend because we live in the same place. And Kyle is one of the home-school group. He's my friend. So why is he doing that?"

"Oh, pTerri-dactyl," I said, "I wish I knew the answers to all that. It's part of the whole 'boy-girl' thing."

"That's the part of life that everybody says we can't put into a spreadsheet," Terri sighed. "Not like that 'watts in - watts out' thing that you guys say about engineering."

"We've talked about that. You tell me you've talked to everybody about it."

"Observations," Terri said. "The most normal couple that I can talk to is Mizz Beck. And then there's you and Cindy and Susan and Tina-mom. And Kara will talk to me. I think that Maddie and Anita are afraid to talk to me about it."

"Many people consider a conversation about relationships to be inappropriate for younger people."

"That's just it. I want to be 'people' and I keep getting written off as 'kid'."

"By this time, Maddie and Anita should know better," I said. "But still, it's something that people get nervous about. Some people can't even talk about it with others their own age."

"I'm beginning to see that," Terri admitted. "I suppose I would allocate more time to the question if I had a bad situation."

"Prioritizing," I said.

"Yes. Prioritizing. Deferring the question." She smiled. I know she knows that I get a little uncomfortable discussing some things with her. "You know, Aunt Nikki, It's not like I'm gonna run out and get married or anything." Watching my eyes, she giggled. "It's not like I'm fourteen or fifteen or something..."

"Here I was thinking we were having a serious conversation and you were setting me up for THAT!" I squealed. "Tina has an evil, horrible daughter!"

"You know I'm adorable and you love me," Terri giggled in return.

"Yes I do. But you take advantage of my good nature."

"Because I know you HAVE a good nature. And that you love me."

"There is that," I said.

We pulled into our parking space at the apartment building. As soon as the truck stopped, Terri was out the door, on to the next adventure. I took time to post a status update to the community board: "The Stoney and Jo Show is here!"

Cindy's ring on the cellphone. "Hey, sis," I answered. "Whatcha doin'?"

"Enjoying a fall day. Sitting on the steps waiting for Tina and Susan to come out. Jealous that Johanna is flying that Pitts."

"You have such horrible problems," I laughed.

"I knowwww," Cindy said. "Okay ... One of the physics people is coming up. I'll talk to you later..."

"'Kay, sis. Bye."

I unlocked the apartment door and busied myself with the tasks needed to keep the place up. Dan and I stay on top of things, so all I had to do this time was fold some laundry. Forgive me, but I get a bit tingly when I'm folding my husband's undies. I look around the place. We've got it good here. I've had it good ever since Dan Granger pulled me out of that collapsed building after the hurricane.

Friends. I have friends all over the place now. There's gonna be a December wedding back in Louisiana. Friends. Holly and Bret. Holly that once hit on my Dan. Bret who'd probably never been on a date until Holly came along. They became an item because they used to come study at Dan's house back when we lived in Louisiana. Now we're going to be flying back there for the wedding.

But friends. Friends in the upper strata of academe and science and engineering. Some of my fellow engineering students are absolutely astounded that the Doctor Stebbins, the Dean of Engineering, stops me and talks to me on a first name (mine, not his. He's forever Doctor Stebbins) basis.

Friends. Like Cindy.

Cindy's turn:

It's been a while since our little parade got rained on, but when I checked the mail at the post office box today, I had bad feelings. There was one from Mom. I don't know why she didn't call. She has my cellphone number. We could just talk, but I haven't heard her voice since that day she said goodbye and took off for Las Vegas with her boyfriend, leaving me as Mizz Helen's foster child.

Tina was driving me today. She saw my face when I read the envelope. "Cindy? What's wrong?"

"Letter from Mom."

"I'm sorry."

"It could be good news. For a change."

Tina started the car. "You can wait until we get home to open it. Personal stuff."

I was starting to work the flap open on the envelope as Tina said that. The letter was hand-written on lined paper in Mom's looping scrawl.

Dear Cindy-

I'm about ready to give up on Las Vegas. Jobs are not as good as they are supposed to be. I can't get any work at the big casinos because all the younger girls get the jobs there. The places where I can work don't pay good. I cant get as many tips. I think I coud do better at a bar in Alabama.

Or mabe its time for me to stop doing that. I had some paperwork back home that would help me go to school. Mabe I could be like you and learn something besides running drinks for tips.

I wonder if Helen will have me a place to stay this time.

Mabe you and your husband can help.

Love,

Donna

Your mom

Stunned. I was stunned.

"You're not talking," Tina said.

"Wanna hear?" I asked.

"Give it to me," Tina said.

I read it.

"At least she writes. I've written my mom a bunch and she never answers. Nikki goes to visit her mom. Mine doesn't care."

"How's the saying go? 'I was sad because I had no shoes, but then I met a man with no feet'? I guess this is one of those. But what? 'Maybe you and your husband could help.' How? Money? What's she want from me and Dan? I have it good with Dan. I don't want to mess that up."

"Dan loves you to pieces, Cindy. You two are strong enough to handle this. Besides, don't start worrying. She's only thinking about it. May turn out to be nothing."

"I have to tell Dan," I said. "I'm kind of scared. I never had to tell Dan something bad before."

"Kiddo," Tina said softly, "I refer to my previous statement. The guy LOVES you to pieces. We all know it. You two have bled for each other. You'll get with him and you'll get a solution."

"It's..."

"Like all of a sudden you're the adult and she's the wayward kid?" Tina said. Tina was like that. She has a heightened sense of insight into people, at least in my eyes. "Wait until he's home. Talk to him in person."

"Absolutely," I said. We changed the subject, talking about academic things a bit, then about how happy we were that Jo and Stoney were back.

"In a Pitts biplane, no less," I said.

"Says the girl with hours in an Extra," Tina laughed softly.

At least I had Jo and Stoney to add to the mix to keep my mind off that stupid letter until Dan gets back from Georgia. That explains the shiny red rental car in the parking lot when we pull in. We already know they're staying at Nikki's place.

"I'll go drop these books off, then go knock on Nikki's door," I told Tina. I walked solo to my apartment, thoughts spinning through my head. Mom. What was she thinking? What could I do? I knew Dan would help me. I laid Mom's letter on the bar between the living room and the kitchen, then called Dan.

My baby (Giggle! Twenty-five years older than me. But he's my baby!) answered. "Hello, little love."

"Hi, my baby," I replied. "How's the drive?"

"It's the drive. They asked about you at the client's office. Got kind of irate when I showed up without you."

"I'm a curiosity," I laughed. "Like a horse that can count."

"I don't' think so. I think a lot people see you as an example of what's possible in the universe. They said to get you back over there next time we get a chance."

"Well, good," I said. "Nikki's got Stoney and Jo over at her place. I was just getting ready to see them. They flew here in that Pitts S-2. Promised me I could fly it."

"That's kind of like a sports car with wings."

"Yeah. You and I talked about those little sports cars."

"Elfling," he said, "If you want one..."

"The car or the plane?"

"The car."

"Certainly not. Dan Richards, you KNOW that's not me. That plane, though..."

"Hundred and fifty thousand dollars," Dan said.

"I know. Used. I looked. Twenty pounds of baggage and two people..."

"Graduation present?" he queried.

"No! Emphatically no. And stop tempting me, Dan Richards. You know I have weaknesses."

"Yeah," he laughed. "Airplanes. Engineering."

"And forty year old ... No, that's wrong. Just the one. You're my weakness."

"Perhaps I will exploit that wekness tonight."

"As long as I get to exploit you right back."

"I'm hoping you do."

That's a thought. The guy I'm talking with is the only man I've ever made love with. I share notes with my sisters. We've heard of other girls talking about 'bad sex'. And I don't know what that would be like.

"Then keep yourself safe," I told him. "I have needs, you know."

"I supposed I'll see you in an hour or so. Love you, little one."

And I walked over to Nikki's. The letter. Dan would know what to do.

Chapter 53

Dan Richards's turn:

Only thing that would make today better would be if I could've brought Cindy with me. Oh, let's get past that whole 'cute redheaded travel companion' thing, or the conversations that bounced from one corner of the world to another, or the red head leaned against my chest with my arm around her on the open road. Nope! She'd met some of the client engineers with me at another venue and they asked for her in specific.

"Where's the little redhead?" was the first question from the head of their engineering department.

"Talking her way through a senior-level physics course," I said. I surveyed the looks. I already know that 'this guy's married to a college student'. That's bad enough. So I toss a little gasoline on that fire. "She's fifteen."

"I told you," Steve said. Steve's the senior engineer. "She and her adopted sister lectured me about multi-protocol interfaces for our protection networks. Her sister's a year older."

"You mean there's two of 'em?" the younger engineer squeaked.

"Buddy, if you ever get to Auburn, come by our office. I can show you the holes in the floor where their railgun was bolted down. Before the government bought it and hauled it off."

"You built a railgun?" he asked.

"You didn't listen," I said. "I didn't build it. They built it. Research. Design. Much of the fabrication. There are four of 'em, actually. Let's get to the conference room and connect my 'puter to the projector and I'll show you the slideshow."

After the slideshow, I could've been selling watermelons. They were ready to sign our contract. "Gentlemen," I said, "now let's talk about our engineering and technical support services." And I showed 'em what they were really buying. I flipped through some qualifications of not only our engineers, but also our field technicians.

"Wait! Go back one slide!"

I know what's on the slide in question - Jason and Susan with almost a hundred thousand dollars worth of test equipment connected to another client's devices. I flipped back.

"That's, uh, Piedmont Co-op, isn't it?"

"Yeah. We work for them. Why?"

"I went to school with the engineer there. He tells me about the work y'all did for them, but he sent me pictures of your technicians. That blonde girl..."

"Susan Ellerbee," I said. "She'll graduate from Auburn next year with her double-E. She's also a darned good machinist. The guy you're ignoring is her husband, our senior technician, Jason Ellerbee. He's fleshing out his engineering technology degree into his own double-E."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah ... another guy. She's a cutie."

"I will pass along your compliments," I said.

I drove off knowing that we had that contract. The miracle of modern electronics has me a playlist running Mozart through my speakers, incongruous, perhaps, for the hinterlands of Georgia, but it sure does make the miles go by, although it pales in comparison to having Cindy do the narrative along with it. One night away from her and I'm loopy over it.

When she Skyped me after dinner, she had Terri sitting with her, so the conversation was more subdued, "I miss you, baby" sort of thing. Terri's subject to spend the night with one of the sisters if a husband is out of town. If two husbands are out of town, then the two sisters choose a location and spend the night together, sometimes with the addition of Terri. Terri keeps things G-rated. No Terri, the conversation between wife and husband may be just a little bit spicier.

I didn't NEED the spicy version. My little redheaded pixie and I have run wild on one another for two years now. Familiarization has not led to boredom, it's led to, in her case, virtuosity. The squeals, giggles and sighs from her tell me that she's the same way. Still, no Cindy? I'm not going to whack off because I miss a night with Cindy. I'm going to save that up because I KNOW what's gonna happen when I get home. Supernovae are mere flashes in the night compared to what she will do with me when we're back together.

So now I'm driving down the road listening to one master, Mozart, and thinking of another, my Cindy. Then another thought swims into view, the idea of Stoney and Johanna coming in for a visit. I'm sure that's going to turn our little community into happy turmoil. Make that MUSICAL happy turmoil.

The phone rings. Cindy's ringtone. When I connect, I don't get a chance to speak before, "Hi, my baby. How's the drive?"

"The drive is the drive," I said. "They asked about you at the meeting. You have a following. They got kind of irate when I showed up without you."

"I'm just a curiosity," she said. Of course, I could hear the smile when she said. "Like a horse that can count..."

"Don't sell yourself short. They see you as an example of possibilities in the universe. Said make sure I bring you next time I show up."

She did a little giggle. "Well that makes me feel good. Uh, Nikki's got Stoney and Jo over at her place. I was just getting ready to see them. They flew here in that Pitts S-2. Promised me I could fly it."

"That thing's like a flying sports car," I told her.

"We talked about those little sports cars."

"Elfling, if you really want one..."

Another giggle. "The car or the airplane?"

I was thinking of myself in a Pitts. Stopped myself before I got into trouble. "The car."

"Certainly not. Dan Richards, you KNOW that's not me. That plane, though..."

"Hundred and fifty thousand dollars," I said. "Used."

"I know. Used. I looked. Twenty pounds of baggage and two people..."

"Want a graduation present?"

"No! Most assuredly no. And stop tempting me, Dan Richards. You know I have weaknesses."

"Yeah," I laughed. "Airplanes. Engineering."

"And forty year old ... No, that's wrong. Just the one. You're my weakness."

"Perhaps I will exploit that weakness tonight, little one," I said.

"As long as I get to exploit you right back."

"I'm hoping you do." That's something to anticipate.

"Drive carefully, love," Cindy said.

"I love you. See you in a bit, baby" I replied. Felt a little empty when the click ended the phone call.

Drive. Drive some more. And some more. And start seeing the familiar roads into my new hometown. It's plenty home enough for me, because at the end of the drive, I get out of the truck, walk into my apartment, wash my face for refreshment, then walk over to the Alan-Tina-Terri place. I can hear laughter. And I've got my guitar slung over my shoulder.

The first thing I collect when the door opens is a flurry of kisses from my nubile pixie redhead, to the squeals and catcalls of the rest of the gang.

Cindy wheels around. "Yeah, go ahead ... Like any of YOU would do anything differently." She didn't get much kickback on that one. I swept the room, noted a young man sitting in near enough proximity to Kara to count as nominally 'with her'. Kara's right in the hump of the weight-height distribution for her age. This young man was decidedly on the small side.

I walked up to him. "Dan Richards," I said, extending my hand. "Cindy's husband." Just in case that kiss at the door went unnoticed.

He stood. Okay, same height as Kara. Points for standing, I thought. He thrust his hand into mine. "Albert Williams. Squashed Possum, Arkansas. Mechanical engineering student. Kara invited me." He cut his eyes at Kara. She was opening up her violin case. I remember that look in a girl's eyes before.

"Seriously? Squashed Possum?!?"

He laughed. I get the feeling that he's more comfortable here than other places he's been. "No, not really, but you know, the Ozarks in Arkansas, they think we're nothing but hillbillies anyway, so I play with 'em. I'm actually from near Yellville, but if I told you that, chances are slim that you'd have an idea. And I get called 'Bert'."

"Well, you're welcome here, Bert. Happy to meet you," I said.

Kara had sidled towards Jo. Stoney had his banjo out. "You can't fit a banjo into a Pitts S-2," he said while I watched them. "Sit down. We need to tune. Jo, give us a G."

Once tuned, Kara turned to Johanna and said, "Celtic!" and something I didn't catch, and she and Johanna launched into a reel. Stoney plays with Johanna (!!! - Hey! We're talking MUSIC) all the time so he picked right up. I had to watch his fingerings to see what the chords were, and I picked and strummed along. Music happens.

When it finished, Johanna said, "Everybody limber?" She fixed her eye on Dan 2.0. "Dan Granger! Where's your push-fiddle?"

I'm thinking 'Wow! I hadn't heard an accordion called a 'push-fiddle' in ages.'

He smiled sheepishly. "Come on, Jo. You know I'm not fit to make noise with this bunch!"

Nikki nudged him. She knows her powers over the guy. "While you're bringing it, get my 'te-fer'. (a 'te-fer' pronounced 'tee-fair', or 'little iron', is a musical triangle common to Cajun music.)

Dan 2.0 got up, turned to the crowd and said, "First one makes fun of me, I'm gonna go home and cry."

Dan walked out the door. Kara said to Jo, "Brandenburg three-three."

Jo said, "We've tried it a time or two, right, babe?" to Stoney.

Stoney sighed. "I'm gonna burn out a finger." He took a deep breath, nodded.

"One - two - three!" and a musical avalanche ensued.

Cindy squealed in glee, punching me. She leaned over and whispered, "This is magic! I live in magic!"

In the midst of it all, Dan 2.0 returned with his little Cajun accordion and Nikki's triangle. She dangled it and told Kara, "Gimme a G!" to the laughter of the crowd. Her striker hit the triangle and produced a single ringing note. She smiled. "Okay, I'm good to go."

"You'd better have been practicing," Kara told Dan 2.0. "How about Back Door?"

"La Porte En Arriere," Dan said, giving the title in Cajun French. (Auth. Note: It's real! Look for it in YouTube) Dan's turn to lead. "One - two -three..."

I've been playing bass to that tune for decades. It's a Cajun staple. I've heard it done at a noticeably more sprightly pace, but Dan G. was riding on the edge of his competence at the pace we used. And we pulled it off amid claps and laughter.

Jo grinned. "You DID practice! And Kara! Quite the flourish!" She looked towards Kara. "Okay. We've done Celtic, and Classical and Cajun. Is Bert up to his turn?"

"Bert?" Kara said softly. When she said his name, it was like somebody switched a light on in his face.

"Golly," he said. "I..."

"Bert, I've heard you play. And we talked..." Kara being assertive, and with a boy, yet. I was watching personal growth in action.

"Awww, okay, baby..."

'Baby'?!?

He gently accepted her violin, tucked it under his chin. "I'm so limited," he announced. "Key of G. Turkey in the Straw." He didn't count. Just started right up and let the rest of us jump in. Since Kara had given up her violin to this Arkansas fiddler, she sat with her hands folded. Smiling. I noticed when Bert finished his last note with a little flourish.

"You need to get your own violin, Bert," she said. "You're abusing mine."

"Uh, Kara, punkin, I've seen you work this thing harder than I just did."

The flurry of playing and singing and clapping and banter called for a refreshment break, so I took a quick lull as a chance to question Cindy. "Bert and Kara?"

She giggled. "Friends. He shows up at the greenhouse for some math study, and Kara's in there doing her solo act as chamber music, you know how she does?"

I did. Kara sits on a stool in a corner and plays a repertoire. It works as background music, soothing, until your ear catches something and you start listening harder and find out she's in another universe and the music is her connection with this one. "Yeah," I said. "She does that well."

"Bert came in one day, studied. Nikki helped him with some stuff. Kara was playing. Next time he came in, I helped him. Kara was playing. Then he just came in, studied history, for Pete's sake, and listened to Kara. I think it took four trips before he worked up enough courage to talk to her." She smiled. "I met him one day on campus. He's nice, but a little strange." She saw my eyebrow raise. "Jealous? Dan, not EVEN if he was Bill Gates hisownself." She punctuated her statement with a little kiss. "Just wait 'til I get you home. We're a day behind, you know..."

I kissed her back, a little peck suitable for public consumption. "Believe me, I do know..."

Jo, Stoney and Kara gave us a preview of the presentation they were making for a college-level course. It was, just as we'd been doing, a multiple genre discussion of music, showing connections between each genre. "Classical music was the pop music of its day," Johanna said.

We went back to music. Cindy pulled Terri and Rachel up alongside her, handed each of them a sheet of paper, and said, "Okay. We said we'd do this together." Uncharacteristically, Terri looked a bit bashful. I knew what song they'd chosen, a bit of Stephen Foster, Oh Susanna, because it was pretty secular, not that I think Beck and Sim would kick if their daughter was singing Jesus Loves the Little Children but why go there? Of course, Sim and Kara did a pretty good job with Hava Nagila.

"First modern Israeli folksong in Hebrew," Sim affirmed. They'd both done a summer in Israel.

Like I said, we're pretty multi-cultural.

And with Cindy, Rachel and Terri doing the vocals, Stoney really let his banjo skills shine.

By the time the two youngsters were starting to tire, we'd already made plans. Tomorrow evening we'll set the recording system up at the Greenhouse and get some of this foolishness on disc.

The crew broke up to head for our respective homes. We, Cindy and I, walked out right behind Dan 2.0 and Nikki. She was carrying her triangle, giggling. I know Cindy has an idea of the reason for the giggle.

"Stoppit!" she squeaked.

"I'm just happy!" Nikki countered. "For me. For YOU!" Giggle.

"Dan," Cindy said to Dan 2.0, "your wifey is being coarse."

"I dunno that," he replied. "You know she's a happy person!" Of course while he was saying that, Nikki was outside his line of vision, sticking her tongue out at me.

To me, Cindy said, "She's trying to make me blush!"

"It's working," I said. Her cheeks had a rosy hue. "Let me get you home so you won't be abused by mean ol' Nikki."

"G'nite, Cindy," Nikki giggled. "I hope you sleep good."

"I can't control 'er," Dan 2.0 sighed. "She's just hard-headed."

We turned the corner into the alcove that had our apartment door. I punched the entry code and opened the door. By the time I got the door closed behind me I had Cindy climbing up me.

See!" I laughed. "This is what Nikki was giggling about!"

"Guy, does it show? How much I love you? Does it show?"

It's difficult to answer with Cindy's tongue in my mouth. Now she's got her legs wrapped as far around me as she can, though, so I can walk, and I have a destination. We tumble onto the bed.

"This is gonna be an explosion, baby," I said.

"Don't you tease me, Dan Richards! You think you're the only one on this bed with appetites?"

"B-but ... shower first?"

"No way," she said. "I want you. Now."

"Just now?" I teased.

"And every day after this," she sighed as I unbuttoned that cotton blouse. It was part of her 'Cindy' look, no flash there at all. I knew what hid inside, though. I was exposing it.

Blue eyes looked up at me. "You adore me, don't you?"

"Like nothing else in the universe," I replied. It was the truth. From the shy, almost frightened little girl I'd met two summers ago to the poised little rockstar who was kissing me now, I adored her. Brains. Beauty. Personality. She was IT.

"You have a shirt on," she said. "We don't need your shirt. Or your pants."

I stood and started to strip, ably assisted by Cindy. I was standing. She peeled my shirt off, tossing it carelessly aside, before working my belt buckle open. My trousers puddled at my feet. I looked down. The face looking up at me, framed in red hair, looked like a lusty little angel. She licked her lips as her fingers grasped the waistband of my underwear. She tugged them purposefully out in front, then down. My erection bounced like a spring, but just for a second before it was trapped in nirvana.

That lasted just long enough for her to tap each leg in turn so she could get my socks off. Socks weren't the only thing about to get off. She was still clad in panties and an only slightly necessary bra. Breasts? In a year an a half, they've gone from almost conical to more rounded, but still in the A to almost B cup range. Her bra had no hooks.

"Baby," she'd told me, "it's almost a training bra."

"Holds the prettiest ones I've ever seen," I told her back. Part of the reason was that when she was excited, the whole delectable little mound was sensitive. I loved 'em. Worshipped 'em with my hands and mouth, and Cindy writhes in excitement. Like now. She's barely got enough presence of mind to lift her butt off the bed so I can get her panties off.

Okay, maybe a bit MORE presence of mind, because her hands caress my head, then gently guide me downward. I fight it just a bit to lick that tiny little innie of a navel, then succumb to her guidance, finding a fragrant pink rose shyly opening to reveal moist, tasty secrets. Yeah, I'd been here hundreds of times, and I had experienced oral sex with previous partners, including my first wife, but THIS!

I enjoyed every wonderful bit of it, the moisture, which, honestly, was flowing visibly now, the salty, musky taste and fragrance, the texture. And if I did the things she wanted...

Hands slapped ineffectually at my head... "OHGODDan! Yeah ... OHGODDDD!" I pulled back, just kissing the tender, rosy lips. "I was on the EDGE." She purred a bit, then my tongue flicked out to caress that little pink pea head of her clitoris. I felt her shake.

"God, you know how to get me..." her breath hissed. "I'm ... oh, lovely..." she sucked in a breath, holding it as she shivered, then "NnnggghhhhOHGOD!"

I lapped up a little flow of juice while she rode that one down. "Mmmmmm."

"You make me feel soooo good, love," she said.

I took that as a sign to go for Number Three. Felt her curl up and grab my ears.

"Nuh-uh. Oh, no, Dan Richards. I get this one with you IN me."

"Baby, I don't know if I can last. I'm ... you're ... you're just so exciting to me..." I moved up, thinking with my dick, headed for 'missionary'. Another error.

Hands pushed me over sideways. Those blue eyes twinkling, she said, "No no no no no! I might have to rip that thing off, but I'm gonna have it in me and get mine while you get yours."

Okay, I'm a greedy bastard, but this, Cindy astride me, is like my favorite thing in the whole world. It's doubly sexy because the little darlin' has always liked making love with at least a little light in the room. This gives me a view of the most wonderful female on the planet, although I understand that other men may hold differing views. My thought on that, fuck 'em. This one's coded to unlock every erogenous thought I ever held, and here I was plugged into her with an erection that would put a scratch on a diamond.

She looked down at me. I read her eyes. She knows. "Made for me," she says. "I feel it all the way up to here." She touched her fingertips just above her pubic mound. "Wonderful." She wiggled backward on me, then leaned herself forward and gave a little bounce. She smiled. "It's there." Giggle. "You ready?"

"Always. I love you. This is a wonderful part..."

"Of your complete breakfast," she giggled. Inside joke, from one of our 'first thing in the morning' sessions when we first started living together, back when I was a child-molesting felon.

The thought was erased with the first movements of her hips, her pussy pulling on me like it was hungry. Maybe it was. "God, you feel good..."

"Oh yeah..." eyes closed. Tight. Concentrating. "It's like everything that I am is right THERE," she described it one time. I quite understand. The world does not exist away from this bed, and the center of the universe is the junction between us.

A few moments of happy humping and her nostrils flared. I know what that means. She bit her bottom lip just a little. I know what that means, too. I felt the first surge of heat building in myself and suddenly I don't know anything. It's all right there, centered in me going into hot, tight moistness and...

I managed to squeeze out "Cindy!!!"

Her breath hissed. "Do it!" Her bottom lip came unbit as she tossed her head back. "OHYESSSSS!!!! I FEEL IT!"

Pulsations rippled along the length of my shaft as if she was consciously milking every drop from me. I managed feeble thrusts.

This one got to my Cindy. She flopped forward into my arms, almost unconscious.

She's in my arms, breathing softly, naked, her body hot from the exertion and stimulation. I'm still experiencing aftershocks as my softening dick plops loose. She gives soft whimper at that feeling. I kiss the top of her head.

She speaks, softly. "I miss you when you're gone."

"I miss you, too, little pixie," I replied.

"You didn't ... you know..."

"Masturbate? Not when I'm coming home to you, sweetness."

"Me neither. If I'm gonna miss you, ALL of me is going to miss you. So ALL of me can enjoy your return." She sighed. "That one was epic!"

"Good word! Epic. Memorable. Measured at the upper end of the Richter Scale."

"Oh, I knowww. And it's gonna be hard not to smile so much tomorrow. Nikki's gonna be all smug."

I laughed. "Let 'er. I know that she and her Dan have..."

"Oh, we all have. We've all decided that 'making up for lost time' sex is great. We started to research 'make-up after a fight' sex, but nobody volunteered to get into a fight with her husband."

"Good! I'd hate to imagine you being mad at me in the interests of science."

She tittered. "I can't even fake that. Shower?"

When we got up, she looked back at the bed, then grabbed the corner of the sheets. "Forgot how much we do sometimes." Smile.

I love it. We showered, dried off. Attended to after-bath activities, then we helped each other make the bed, then crawled back into it together and snuggled up.

Saturday morning. No annoying alarm. We lounged until after seven then got up and after dressing, ate a restrained breakfast together. We each grabbed a mug of coffee and headed out the door. Saturday mornings at the pavilion ... cool autumn air, but not too cool, and it could be nice. Would've been just as nice with only me and Cindy, but we ran into Jason and Susan with the same idea.

Susan saw Cindy, started to smirk.

"Don't you say a word," Cindy told her. "Jason, restrain your woman."

"Sure thing, cap'n," Jason laughed. "I'm sure I'll be as successful as Dan is with you."

Life is good.

Chapter 54

Nikki's turn:

My phone played a sitar riff. I know ... The Desai daughter, Ananta, heard it a while back and laughed. "Whose tone is THAT?"

"Mizz ... Uh, Doctor Patel."

"Of the engineering department? You get calls from her often enough to assign her a ringtone?"

"Mizz Patel is a bright star in my universe," I had told her.

"None of my professors have their own ringtones," Ananta said.

"Mizz Aneeta's not really a professor to me. More like a handler."

"Oh..."

So I answer the phone. "Good morning, Mizz Aneeta."

"Good morning, dear Nikki. Can you come to a meeting with Doctor Stebbins this morning at ten?"

Okay, Cindy just got a call fifteen minutes earlier. Her meeting is at nine-thirty. Naturally I'm more than a bit curious. "Of course. Cindy's going in at nine-thirty. We'll ride together. Is this..."

"It is something good," Mizz Aneeta said, that sub-continent accent throwing me a happy lilt. "I think it's a happy bit of news."

"I'll be there."

"Very good, Nikki. I shall see you soon."

"Yes ma'am," I said. The phone clicked the end of the call. Push the button, hear Siri, say one word: 'Cindy'.

Another happy voice, but, hey, it's Cindy, and it's hard for me to remember her NOT having a happy voice. "Hello, my Cajun sister," she said.

"Your house or mine?"

"Mine! I have cookies!"

Three minutes later she's letting me in the front door.

Giggle. "Little batch. Baked 'em last night!"

I recognized them - Cindy's version of ginger snaps, with exotic spices from Chandra's Spice Box.

"So what's the phone call about?" I asked.

"I dunno," Cindy replied. "Something's afoot, don't'cha think? I think our professors are sort of doing things different lately."

"I noticed a change. Thought it was just me."

"No," said Cindy, pushing a glass of milk towards me. "It's like they just assume that if they give us a textbook, we KNOW it."

"I see that, too. So what are they going to do? You don't think they're changing their minds, do you?"

"Uh, no ... I have my transcript from the end of last semester. So do you. We already have all those credits." She smiled. "They can't take that stuff back. Besides, last week I saw Doctor Stebbins in the hall."

"And Mizz Aneeta said it's happy news."

"Then I think it's time to hang on for the ride," Cindy said. "She sounded happy, but didn't come right out and tell me that."

"Okay," I said. "Let's see ... Susan's got the early class today, so we need Tina." I woke Siri up again. "Call Tina." Then "Hi, Sis. Come over to Cindy's. She's got cookies. The door's open."

Two minutes later Tina's at the table and Cindy's pouring her a glass of milk to go with the cookies.

"Cindy, dahlin', you need to stop this. My jeans're getting tight."

"One cookie won't hurt."

"Four might," Tina said.

I giggled, shoving two more cookies at her. "You have one, here's two more. That's it. And treadmill tonight."

"Better ways to exercise than that stupid treadmill," Cindy laughed.

"Yeah..." Tina looked dreamy when she said it. "So what's up today? Besides me trying to figure out what to do besides treadmill."

"Both of us have been requested to meet with Doctor Stebbins and Mizz Aneeta," I said.

"Together?"

"No, me first," Cindy said. "They won't tell us why, but Mizz Aneeta told Nikki that it's good."

Tina shook her head. "You two are probably being selected for a space mission."

"Nope!" Cindy giggled. "I already told 'em that any space mission I do is gonna have to have Dan on it, too. Got some ideas..."

Okay, sometimes our conversations get a little explicit. That is, until the door opens and Terri and Rachel troop in.

"We thought we smelled you baking last night," Terri announced.

"And we know you saved us some," finished Rachel.

"I did," Cindy said. "You know where the glasses are. Pour yourself some milk."

"What are you two doing today," I asked Rachel.

"Mom's taking us to the library," she replied.

We munched cookies for a bit. Cindy prepared a little plate of them for Beck and another for the office, and then the group broke up. We ended up in the car with Tina and a short while later were walking towards the engineering building.

"Not fair," Tina whined, a feigned move. "I go to class. You two, though, there's no telling what adventures you're getting off into."

I left Cindy waiting in Doctor Stebbins' office and walked up the hall to see which of my professors might be free to talk with me. Doctor Simpson was in his office with his door open. I leaned in. He looked up.

"Oh, for heaven's sake, come in!" he laughed. "You, I don't mind. I just got through with a guy who should be a poetry major, but he's in my engineering classes. I need some relief."

"And I'm relief?"

"You know you are, Nikki. You're at the complete opposite end of the spectrum from that poor guy. You shouldn't be here. You should be out there with your name on your office, doing engineering things."

"We don't have enough offices, Doctor Ken," I said. "'Sides, I have a year to go."

"Little girl," he smiled, "you don't know what you have. You and Cindy, you're doing things, understanding things that I wish I saw in most of my students."

"Cindy's talking with Doctor Stebbins right now," I said. "I'm supposed to meet with him at ten."

Okay, that's a different smile on Doctor Ken's face. I remember Mizz Patel's statement, "It's a happy bit of news."

"Something's up, isn't it?" I blurted.

"I am not at liberty to say anything at this time, Nikki." He's still smiling. "So what's going on with your husband's business?"

We talked about the plans to build a larger office, the burgeoning workload, about the interface box that Cindy and I had sold to Gentech.

"What's the latest rumblings on Tina's daughter?"

"Terri? The pTerri-dactyl?"

"Now SHE is truly scary."

"She's the sweetest little girl imaginable," I said.

"Looks like a little Susan Ellerbee. Sounds like you and Cindy. And she's not even nine."

"Who's talking about her here?" I asked.

"Look, you can imagine the conversations we had when we saw what we had with you and Cindy. Can you imagine what the conversation might be about bringing Terri on campus?"

"We don't know what to do about Terri, and we're her family," I said. "Well, adopted family, but still ... you know. We just let her be herself and hope she uses her powers for good. You guys are educational professionals."

"She's got Doctor Stanton confused, and HE'S the professional here. He says 'prodigy' and I say 'like Cindy or Nikki?' and he shakes his head."

"Wow," I replied. "She IS something."

"What's Tina say about all this?"

"Her evil step-daughter ... Tina loves 'er to pieces," I said. "Terri's not one of those bratty little monsters you see running around everywhere. She's incredibly mature when it comes to dealing with others, but she still manages to be this happy little girl. It's difficult to explain how it works." I told him about the birthday cake and Terri's discussion of anthropomorphic characters in children's literature. From there we went into a discussion of my participation in power system studies.

"Not a lot of ground-breaking going on there," I said. "It pays the bills. You have to depend on the quality of the data collected for the quality of your final product."

"Life," he sighed. "Sometimes the things you do to pay the bills isn't as exciting as you might wish."

"True," I chuckled. "You're getting all metaphysical. Maybe they have an opening for a philosophy class instructor."

"You have a definite evil streak, Nikki," he laughed.

"So I've been told," I retorted.

Another student stuck his head in the door.

"What is it, Mister Bentley?" Doctor Ken asked him.

"Uh ... I'm having trouble understanding what you want with this assignment and the TA wasn't any help."

I stood up. "I'll let you get back to your real work," I said.

"Get me Terri! Fast!" he laughed.

"Be wary of what you wish for," I laughed over my shoulder to Doctor Ken. To Bentley I said, "He's yours." Yeah, Mister Bentley, Jeremy actually, knows me. A lot of people who're pursuing engineering degrees know me and the rest of the Community. We're notorious.

It was drawing up on my ten o'clock appointment anyway, so I walked over to Doctor Stebbins' office and presented myself to his receptionist. She knows me, too.

"He's still in the little conference room with your friend Cindy and Doctor Patel and a few others."

"They ganged up on her?" I questioned.

"Oh, yes, horribly so, I'm afraid. I hear laughter. Hers included. And a squeal. I do seem to remember a squeal. I suppose it's Cindy. I never heard any of the others squeal."

Okay, 'squeal' is a good sign. I've been told that an angry Cindy is ominously silent. I sit down, pull out my iPhone, check email, then immerse myself in a book.

Finally the door opens and a smiling Cindy walks out, followed by Mizz Aneeta, also smiling, and then the horde of old guys, nothing less than a doctorate among them, and they are doing as close to smiles as they can. And Doctor Embert. Not an engineer, rather a physicist. Smiling.

Cindy sees me sitting here and I raise an eyebrow in question.

"I am sworn to secrecy, Nikki." And she bounces, yes ... that 'almost a skip' gait that is signatory to a happy Cindy, and she's up the hall before I can reply.

Five minutes later I find myself seated at the conference table looking at faces I've become familiar with over the last year. Mizz Aneeta is sitting next to me.

"Protect me, Mizz Aneeta. I feel awfully vulnerable."

"You don't have to feel that way," Doctor Embert smiled. "Cindy has already beaten us into submission."

"Well, here I am," I said. "Bring it on."

Doctor Stebbins bridged his fingers, put a little smile on his face, surveyed the other faces at the table and asked, "Nikki Granger, why are you here at my college?"

Okay. Obviously a trap. Nikki, take the defensive approach. "Sir, because I want to be an engineer and you hold the power to confer that title upon me." And I did my bashful smile. Sometimes it works. Melts Dan into a puddle of slag.

Doctor Embert, the only non-engineer in the room sighed. "If only you wanted to be a physicist..."

"That. too," I said. "Kids who grow up in South Louisiana don't get a lot of exposure to whatever it is physicists do."

"You're doing it," she said.

"Engineering, too, I see," Doctor Stebbins said. He surveyed the table. "You see all these people, Nikki?"

"Yessir. I have had the shakes in the offices of every one of them." I got smiles in return for that comment.

"Let me summarize what's been streaming through my in-box and around the coffee machine," Mizz Patel said. "Nikki, we're mirroring Doctor Stebbins' question. Why are you here? Our conclusion is that we'd like you to stay here, but we feel almost silly denying you what you obviously possess, knowledge only slightly attributable to our input into your education."

Cindy's squeal is bubbling up. I can tell.

She turned to Jeffrey. "Your thoughts, Jeffrey?"

"Nikki Domingue Granger, I started out thinking that I was being spoofed. Now I look at you sitting at this table and I think back to the December graduates and I can't think of any of those who grasp engineering and technology and yes, physics, the way that you do. They went through, every one of them, no less than four and a half years of class and lab work and internships. And here's Nikki. Sold a railgun to the US government. Sold a magic box to an international presence in electrical power equipment. Is responsible for no less than four of my current students remaining in our university. Actually stood and presented classes on a college level." He sighed heavily. "And not even seventeen. Why haven't we graduated you? Doctor Stebbins? George?"

Doctor Stebbins sat back in his chair. "I had to go to the Board of Regents with this one. Auburn University, at least the Department of Engineering, does not confer degrees lightly. I like to imagine the products of MY department, like YOU, Nikki Granger, as holding the power to move our world forward. They know you're here. I've had conversations, assuaged curiosities, soothed trepidations as to why I signed up a fourteen year old and a fifteen year old into my department in the first place."

"Last week I had a different conversation. I explained and justified to them why you and your red-headed friend should not be walking the streets of Auburn with baccalaureate degrees in electrical engineering."

"And Physics," Doctor Embert added.

"And a minor in mathematics," Doctor Ramathani injected in his lilt.

Okay. Cindy did it. My turn. "Squeallllll! You're serious?"

Mizz Patel said, "Try as I might, I find almost no discernible sense of humor in this room, Nikki."

Doctor Stebbins continued. "We will, of course, ask you to continue your presence here. A common thread in our conversations is that you add to the stature of this university. And we will also ask that you participate in the spring graduation. Doctor Simpson tells me that you're pacing along with Cindy on your master's theses?"

"Yessir. I hope my work is up to the standard."

"Nikki, that's why we're having this meeting. You've broken our standard." And another smile from the man who terrifies so many of my classmates. "What we'd like you to do is concentrate on your master's work. Am I imposing a goal you can't meet by May?"

I shook my head. "No, sir."

"I thought as much," he said. "Do you have any questions?"

"Somebody pinch me. I must be dreaming."

Doctor Sanders - Jeffrey took that one. "If it's your dream, I suspect that some of your fellow students - I won't call them peers, they're not even close, -- will see it as a nightmare. I've fielded a lot of 'How do they DO this?' questions about you and Cindy. Students? I don't have to justify my decisions, although I have waved some of your papers at a few of them. To the Board, though, I did have to provide justification. We're not bonking you on the head with a magical 'you're an engineer' wand. I don't pretend to know the mind of the Creator, but what He gave you, we can only acknowledge."

I had to say something, so, "Thank you. Every one of you. You've caused me to really learn. My life is better since I've known you."

Doctor Stebbins smiled again. "Friends, I think that we have completed this proceeding. Nikki, you can talk with Doctor Patel about where you go from here until graduation." And he stood. "This is an official document stating that you have met university requirements for your baccalaureate degree with majors in electrical engineering and physics with a minor in mathematics."

I stood, received the envelope. Hugged Mizz Aneeta. Doctor Embert. Shook hands with the men. Walked out of the conference room. And there's Cindy.

Okay, I guess there are a few times where girls my age can be expected to squeal and giggle and hug in public. This is one.

When we finally achieved lucidity, to the amusement of the others streaming out of the conference room, I asked, "Have you told anybody?"

She shook that red head. "Nope! Didn't want MY moment to detract from YOUR moment. Here's the announcement. Take a picture of your letter and attach it. And let's hit 'send' at the same time."

"See!" Doctor Jeffrey said to the others. "That's what I'm talking about. I've never seen that combination of brains and personality working together."

We hit 'send', then walked out into the hall. I saw Doctor Simpson walking up the hall. I flagged him down.

"Well? Did you receive good news?"

"You KNEW about this," I accused. "I sat in your office making small talk and you KNEW about this."

"They swore me to secrecy, darlin'" he laughed. "It was difficult to keep my mouth shut."

Another student walked up on the scene. "None of my professors ever call me 'darlin'" he said.

"You didn't meet graduation standards in a year, either," was the reply.

"Really, Nikki?" the guy took my hand, shaking it. "Graduated?"

"Got a letter that says so."

"That's it! I give up! I'm pursuing a career as a night manager at a convenience store!"

"You are NOT, Gill," I said. "You're supposed to intern with us this summer."

"Oh," he laughed. "I feel MUCH better. You not only graduate at the age of sixteen, but you're my BOSS! Lemme practice my new career choice - 'you want fries with that?'"

Phone rang. Susan. I answered, met her squeak with my squeal. "Yes, it's TRUE!"

Cindy fielded the next one from Tina. We ALMOST never text one of us who's in class, but this was just too good.

Cindy's smiling. "Sorry to get you out of class, but this is MOMENTOUS!"

My next call was from my Dan. "Hey, baby!" I said.

"This isn't a JOKE?"

"Of course not," I giggled. "Why?"

"I think that the other Dan is having a new sign made. He's trying to call Cindy."

"She's talking to Tina. Baby, I'm giddy."

"I like it when you're giddy."

"You know what I wanna do for celebration?"

"I hope so," he said.

I'm wondering what we could possibly do to make this one special. They're ALL special.

I feel a tap on my shoulder, turn to see Mizz Patel. I straighten up. "Mizz Aneeta, this is your doing."

"No. You're incorrect, Nikki. This is your accomplishment. I am proud that I discovered you, but you did this. Come by my office tomorrow morning so we can talk of the remainder of the year."

"I will be there," I said. I was thinking, so will a bouquet of flowers.

It was a pretty enough day, a little chilly in the wind, but the sun was hitting the steps of the building, so Cindy and I were sitting there grinning like a couple of psychopaths, waiting for Susan's car to turn the corner for our ride home.

News was spreading fast. Several more students came up to make comments.

"I don't know how to handle this new fame," Cindy said.

"Just another level. Remember the stuff we went through with the class we did?"

"Yeah."

Flute solo on Cindy's phone. "Johanna!" she said as she put it up to her ear. "I KNOW! It's wild!" She put it on speaker.

"Stoney's going to find a dark closet to sit in," Jo laughed.

"Oh, don't be ridiculous," Cindy said. "Go pat 'im on the head..."

"Or something," I added.

"It may take that," Jo giggled. "Hurry home! We're dying to hear about this!"

"Susan just turned the corner. We'll be there in a bit!"

We walked across the yard to the road and got in. Susan was giggling. "I can't BELIEVE you two! Just can't believe it."

"It's still sinking in," Cindy said. "Kind of like adrenaline."

"Yeah ... this is like ... the building collapsing ... wedding night..."

"Now that's what you call 'sinking in'," Susan said, giggling at her own cleverness.

"Susan!" I blurted. Yes, Susan's gotten quite open about things since she's been married. I remember us being so circumspect in conversation when she was still a virginal bride to be.

"Uh, nothing compares with THAT," Cindy corrected, "but as far as things you can do with your clothes on, this is pretty much the pinnacle."

"We've done it with clothes on," Susan countered. "But I get your meaning."

"I gotta call Mister Jim," Cindy said. "He gets a lot of credit for this."

"Send 'im that email!"

"Yeah, When I got it I almost wet myself," Susan said.

Cindy punched purposefully at her phone, then put it to her ear. "Voicemail," she said to us. "He's working. Conscientious."

"That's why you're here," I said. "People who take their jobs seriously."

Into her phone she said, "Mister Jim, this is Cindy. You REALLY need to check your email. It's YOUR fault!" giggle. She put her phone down.

"Nikki!" she blurted.

"What?"

"Whadda we do NOW? It's OVER! WE just graduated college."

"Puh-leeze!" Susan jumped in. "I'm trying to complete college. You two are working on your master's. Or did they just give up on that, too?"

"No," Cindy told her. "They expect us to finish in time for the spring semester graduation."

"Do me a favor, dear," Susan spoke. "Break that news gently to Jason."

"Jason? We have to break it gently to our husbands," I said. Of course I've already had this talk with my Dan and Cindy's talked with her Dan. Our husbands are successful working engineers with good reputations. That's why the business is growing. The fact that neither of them has a master's degree, well...

"It just doesn't do much for an engineer to get a master's," Dan told me. "I guess maybe in a government R&D setting it might, but for us ol' field guys, it doesn't. That PE (Auth. Note: Professional Engineer) tag is much more useful."

"So I shouldn't?" I asked him.

"Hey, that's NOT what I'm saying at all, little one. None of my professors came up to ME and said 'Be thinking about a master's thesis'. They've done that for you. You'd be foolish not to pursue it. Besides, I want it on the company letterhead."

"There they are!" Dan 1.0, Cindy's Dan, announced when we walked in the back door of the office. He scooped Cindy up.

I skipped into the arms of my own Dan.

"Darnit!" Susan said, "Jason's in class. I don't get a hug!" Alan hugged her. "That's all you get until Jason gets here."

Susan laughed. "Don't I get some kind of finder's fee? I mean, I just brought you two engineers."

"Tell you what," my Dan said. "As a reward, I will give you full use of our senior technician when he shows up here this afternoon. Use him as you wish."

Caught Susan off guard. She blushed.

"Speaking of using people, are YOU at a good stopping point?" I whispered into his ear.

He pulled away from me, looked, smiled.

"Uh, guys," he said, "I'll be back after lunch."

I'm lunch.

Chapter 55

Cindy's turn:

Okay, there are days that I am going to remember all my life, like the day (night, actually) that Dan and I finally recognized that we belonged together, by the expedient of me climbing into his bed in the middle of a thunderstorm and practically forcing myself on him.

There is, of course, our wedding day.

There's a whole cluster of 'em centered around the Sisterhood.

There's the day I graduated from high school.

And there's today. I graduated from college. No, I still get to do that cap and gown thing in the spring, but I hold in my hand a letter signed by the president of the Board of Regents and it says "having met the requirements, we confer a baccalaureate degree upon Cynthia Susan Richards, with majors in Electrical Engineering and Physics, with a minor in Mathematics."

And I'm fifteen.

Cindy Richards, BSEE. Giggle. Just like my Dan. Oh, I suffer no delusion. Dan's got twenty years and multiple projects under his belt. He knows the same theory I do, but he's seen it put into action in hundreds of ways. I'm green. Very green.

Except I just saw Nikki heading out the back door of the office with her Dan's hand in hers.

Part of me is pink. Celebration. I bend over and whisper in my Dan's ear, "Do we ... can we..."

"Lunch break!" Dan announces.

"Suuuuuure," Alan says. "Go ahead. I got this. Maddie'll be back soon." Maddie's covering the phones this afternoon. She and Mizz Beck trade off.

I practically DRAG Dan across the lot to our apartment.

"Can you believe it, baby?" I ask him.

"I haven't believed anything for two years, little one," he said, wrapping me in his arms. "You're the stuff of fairy tales."

Giggle. "Do fairy tales have this?" I asked, squeezing the lump in his pants.

He bent to hook his hands under my thighs, picking me up so I could wrap my legs around him. I envy Tina her legs for their length. I wrap him up, though, feeling what I'm pressing against, and I'm giggling, not because anything's funny, but because I'm happy. I bounce a little, rubbing the crotch of my jeans against his erection. Very happy. Heading to superlatively happy, because he's walking us towards the bedroom.

This isn't time for finesse and subtlety. We undress ourselves. He pushes me back on the bed and attacks my titties, my woefully small titties, at least that is what I think of them sometimes until Dan gets them.

"Face. Mouth." I finally speak, breathless. As soon as he gets close enough, I pull his face to mine. I'm wiggling, trying to get him between my legs.

"In a hurry?" he asked.

"Hair trigger," I hissed. "If you put it in me, I'm gonna start coming!"

He doesn't speak. His mouth merges with mine, I feel the hot head of his dick spreading the lips of my pussy. I'm wet, I'm supremely horny, and so yes, it's a pussy. And he's pushing into it.

"Ahhhhgod! Dannn!" 'Dan' works as well and any other random sound to vocalize my climax. I hunch up, forcing him as deep as we can get, abusing my button. It's almost like a piezo-electric crystal. Each crunch I give to it sends a charge through my body. I suck a deep breath, latch onto his chest. Otherwise I'm sure my squeals would echo through the yard.

And he's spurting. Adds to mine. Mine adds to his. Perfect that way. When the climax subsides, I give him a pat with my hand, a signal to roll us over, and I'm on top, on fire, glowing, incandescent. Sooooo good ... I feel the soft plop as he falls out of me. I scoot up a little bit, kiss his nose. He does that to me. Melts me.

He's smiling. "You are perfect beyond words, Cindy."

"Only because you complete me, my Dan."

"First time I ever made love with an engineer," he said.

I grinned. "Yeah. That's right! Was it any good?"

"I only passed through parallel universes to get back here," he said. "Apparently engineers are great lovers."

Giggle. "You're just finding out? I've known it for years."

"I love you, you know..." he says with a kiss.

"I love you right back, you know."

We spent a few minutes in that embrace, me on top, him caressing me like his fingertips were reading sonnets in Braille on my body. Then he's caressing my face, running fingers into my hair, pulling it back, kissing my face...

I wonder. Wiggle. YESSSS! My turn on top! Ten GOOD minutes before I can feel him chugging away inside me again, triggering my THIRD. I wake up in his arms.

"Mmmmmm," I hum. "We really ought to shower, then go be social."

"Or stay here and be sexual..."

Giggle. "Go ahead, evil man! Tempt me to succumb to my animal instincts!"

He sits up, holding me against himself, so I'm sitting in his lap.

"We need a picture of us like this," I whispered.

"Uh, no..."

"Why?"

"You're too young."

"We're married."

"So we could have that picture, but since you're only fifteen, it's child pornography."

"It stays here."

"Can't risk it, baby..."

"Well, I see us in the mirror ... we're perfect together. When you're holding me like this, I FEEL perfect. I just wanted to capture it."

"You are perfect, and no picture could capture everything that makes you so."

"Just so you know I've thought about it. Thought about something else, too."

"I'm almost afraid to ask."

I giggled. "You remember how the first time I saw you naked, I asked why you didn't have pubic hair?"

"Yeah. You want me to grow it back?"

I shook my head. I know what that does to Dan. I felt the stirring beneath me. "Not even. I want us to shave mine."

"Uh, you don't have much as it is. It's fine and light red. Doesn't get in the way."

"You shave yours. I want to shave mine. Try it. If we don't like it, I'll let it grow back."

"Okay, my kinky little pixie..."

"What's kinky about it? You've been that way ever since we met."

"You got me there. Might itch."

"Read about that. Willing to risk it." I know what he's thinking. Me. Small titties, kind of thin. Hips aren't really broad, not like Tina's or, wow! Susan's. I kind of look like a kid, fifteen or not. And with a hairless pussy...

We've had the talk after somebody at school told me that he might have a thing about young girls. I asked him outright when we got home together.

"Nope," he'd said. "Got a thing about Cindy. Inside is more important than outside. Never was attracted to young girls in a sexual way. You're just a perfect package who happens to be (at the time we talked about it) fourteen."

So right now it's a curiosity thing with me. And if Dan LIKES it? It's ME!

We took a quick 'we smell like an orgy' shower, dressed and went back to the office. Nikki and Dan 2.0 were already back there, joined by Stoney and Jo. Susan was sitting by Jason.

Nikki snickered. "Hour and a half."

"Who appointed YOU timekeeper?"

"Why does..." she started to pop off something saucy, but halted when she saw Terri and Rachel headed our way. Beck was behind them.

Beck said, "Afternoon at the library. I saw the email. It's not a joke?"

"Nope!" Nikki and I said, almost in unison.

"So," Beck said. "Short version. Bachelor's degrees."

Nikki let the cat out of the bag. "Master's candidates."

Stoney said, "Well SHIT!"

"Stoney!" Jo squealed. "We're HAPPY for them."

"Yes, I really am," Stoney replied. "Cindy. Nikki. Congratulations. Does this mean your husbands get even BIGGER pedestals to put you on?"

"Nah," I said. "I'm just a simple little Alabama girl. A plain little pedestal suits me just fine. And you're a fine one to talk. I can only imagine the pedestal you keep Jo on..."

Jo tittered, "I have TWO, actually! One is stone, carved with ancient Celtic symbology, the other is hewn oak, carved with the runes of my Norse ancestors. Stoney has taken possession of them from my parents."

"See! That's what you get for your wisecracks," my Dan said. "This is NOT a safe crowd for popping off."

"I stand in awe," I said.

"So what's your master's thesis?" Stoney asked.

"Remember when you were home-bound and you called Dan to talk about engineering stuff, and I asked you about dI/dT?"

"Yeah?"

"Mitigation Techniques in the Propagation of DC Pulsewidth Modulation in High Energy Electrical Systems."

Beck was shaking her head. "I can't believe I'm listening to a fifteen year old talking about HER master's thesis." She looked at Nikki, who was smirking. "Not that being sixteen makes it any easier."

"We're only a little bit jealous," Tina said.

"Oh, yeah," interrupted Nikki. "Professor Simpson asked about HER again."

Terri perked up. "ME? Really?"

"Yes," Nikki said.

"What does that big ol' college want with my precious little girl?" Alan said.

"Oh, Daddeeee!" Terri squeaked. "They're just curious."

"No," Nikki retorted, "I'm pretty sure that Doctor Simpson thinks Terri's a better graduation prospect than some of his current students." That got a combination of giggles, smirks, nods of assent and from Alan, a slide into 'Father-Protector' mode.

"Sure," he said. "It's funny, but this is my daughter."

"And MINE," Tina added.

"And MY little niece," said Susan, reinforced by a chorus of 'Yeah'.

"Look," my Dan said, "We're getting in this kinda deep, folks! I mean, it's bad enough that fifty percent of our engineering staff is under the age of eighteen. Exactly what do I do with an engineer who isn't yet TEN?"

Terri's head whipped around. "Uncle Dan, what makes you think I wanna be an ENGINEER?!?"

Alan's jaw dropped so hard I heard a clank when it hit the floor.

"Omigod! Terri!" Tina squeaked.

"Well?!?" Terri said. "I know ever'body here's into engineering, but I just might wanna do something else."

"Like what?" Tina asked.

Terri's eyes flashed. I saw it. I know the little thing's playing us now, so I just hang on for the show.

"I dunno," Terri said. "Do I have to make a career choice? I'm not even NINE yet!"

I had to turn my head to make sure she didn't see me smirking.

"'Sides," Terri continued, "I read about Leonardo da Vinci. Do you think he's a good example? Wasn't an engineer. Knew LOTS of stuff."

Beck turned, bounced her head against the wall. "She wants to be da Vinci."

I whispered as I consoled Beck. "Wouldn't be so bad if she wasn't capable of it."

One of the emails I sent out went to Mister Bill, Dan's old boss and my adopted grandfather.

I got the phone call, stepped out of the room.

"Mister Bill! Thank you for calling me! Can you BELIEVE it?" I squealed.

"Cindy, with you, I believe it. Dunno what it is, but I've always thought there was something different going on with you. I'm so very proud! You said you're doing the graduation ceremony in the spring with the end of the spring semester?"

"Yessir," I said gleefully. "I may be wearing a master's hood and robe."

"Seriously? You're going for your master's?"

"Nikki and I both are. You remember Nikki, right?"

"Of course I remember. She keeps showing up in the pictures you send me."

"I'll be there, darlin'," Mister Bill said. "Would not miss this for the world."

"Oh, you make me happy saying that."

"You and your husband, the two of you have brought something rare and unusual to my life."

"Thank you, Mister Bill."

"No, thank YOU, Cindy, for keeping me in your thoughts!"

"Always," I said.

Afterward, I walked back in. Dan cocked his head. "Phone call. Mister Bill congratulating me on the news."

"Ah, yes," He said. "I'm sure he's just as happy and shocked as the rest of us."

"Says he's gonna be here for graduation."

"I need to call 'im," Dan said. "I wonder what he's doing? Work, I mean."

"Mister Bill wants us to work for him?" I asked, kind of excited, because I liked the way he'd made me a little part of the project, like a mascot. I wondered how it would play out this time. After all, I've been a degreed engineer for like four whole hours.

"Okay, that's an evil giggle," Dan said.

"I was just thinking of working for Mister Bill as an engineer instead of a curiosity."

"Actually," Dan said, "we have those four substation projects in Georgia. Somebody will have to run those projects."

My Dan and Alan have both worked with Mister Bill. I think it'd be a good thing. Dan and I have talked about the whole 'project management' thing. The powerplant where Dan was working when we first met was a much bigger and more complex project than our substations, but we do have four of them spread over a corner of Georgia, and Mister Bill's managed multi-discipline projects. And I get to learn from him.

My head's a swirl of thoughts. Future. Was so simple when Dan and I first got together, when we first got married, and I think that is because I was so filled with the wonder of loving and being loved and cared for. Now all that's still there, but there's a parallel path right alongside it. I can't go back to being the kid with a stupid TV set and a few books. Dan spoiled me forever. Sometimes I look at things and I find myself thinking of all the parts, the work it took to develop them, the processes to make them. Other people see power poles and I'm thinking of voltages and capacities and available fault currents.

"Like a chef eating a doughnut," Dan says.

"You've forever ruined doughnuts for me," I told him. "And romantic movies. And trailer parks. And airplanes. And construction sites."

Can't beat my Dan. Well, I CAN, but that's a purely recreational activity.

Alan's turn:

Talking with Tina about Terri. We've included Terri's mom in the conversation when we could, but it's not that easy to do. Her medical condition would make a good case for multiple personalities. The guy she married, Martin, despite a sleazoid status he earned by boinking her before she decided she wanted to divorce me, is approaching sainthood status by hanging in with her though this. At any rate, in her more lucid moments, she understands and agrees with us about Terri's accelerated education.

Tina and I are desperately trying to determine what to do next. No doubt about it, Terri's too much for elementary school. Or middle school. Or high school.

High school. I picture my eight year old (Almost NINE, Dad!) daughter in a high school where she'd be waist-high to most of the student body, and half their age. I get the shakes. She's not going NEAR a regular high school.

That brings me to the conversation between Tina and me.

"I'm lost," I tell Tina. "I just don't know what the right move is. It's nothing I've ever dealt with."

"Me neither," my auburn-haired wife said. "Nikki and Cindy..."

"I know, but Cindy's got eight years head start."

"Don't you wonder what Cindy was like when she was Terri's age?" Tina answered. "Just that Cindy's mom basically ground Cindy into hiding herself - her abilities. I guess Nikki was the same way. Doesn't matter what kind of seed you have if you don't give it room to grow. Those two Dans gave 'em room to grow."

I nodded because I'm looking at Tina and she's only a little bit less astronomical in academic capability. Of the four, Tina's the organizer. Don't know why. She just is. I've watched the four 'sisters' working together. 'Together' is the operative term. They're a team, formed without even trying. Around a table, Tina's the record-keeper, Susan's the hardware person, Cindy and Nikki the idea sources, and when an idea's on the table one, the other, or both, will explain the principles and the theories and the experiments.

Remembering some of my own experiences over the years, what I saw with them bordered on the miraculous. Nobody ACTED like a prima donna, even though I know settings where any of them would be qualified. Instead, I watch each of them asserting, then falling back, discussing, explaining, defending, learning. Synergy. Just like the psychobabble of all those management conferences, except this wasn't feigned or forced.

"So back to the question again. What do we do with Terri?"

she giggled. "First thing, I think we should talk to Mizz Greybill and see if the school board will validate Terri's GED score. Make our daughter a highschool graduate equivalent."

"Terri has said she wants that, even though Doctor Stanton says that if we do decide to let her play at Auburn, the high school diploma's irrelevant in her case," I reminded her.

"Oh, yes. Little smartie says she wasn't to have something on Cindy." She giggled softly. "And Cindy's completely happy with it."

Since we started the conversation while lounging on the sofa, her giggle made me want to pull her closer. I took her hand.

"Oh, sir," she giggled. "I am afraid that you are being forward with me. I have no experience with worldly men." Her exaggerated 'Southern Belle' dialect was over the top. My Tina. World's WORST role player.

"Come, little child," I said, playing right into her game. "I am only trying to make you feel good. You should be happy."

"Oh, SIR!" she said. "Your nearness makes me feel very happy. I have strange feelings, sir. I don't know what to DO! I am aflutter!"

"Allow me a small kiss to help you quiet those flutters, little flower," I said.

She can fake that frightened, demure look soooo well, moist lips, parted slightly, like the was breathless, eyes wide, looking slightly scared. "Just one small kiss could not be a wrong thing, sir..."

The kiss evoked memories of that first tentative kiss so many months ago. We were both almost scared of each other's reaction to the huge change in our relationship, from friends to mates.

Her soft "Oh, sir...", breathlessly delivered, brought me back from brief reverie to pleasant present.

"Have I frightened you, little dove?"

"Oh, but sir ... I am aquiver. I fear the pleasures..."

"Fear nothing, young princess," I said. "Perhaps another might help..."

"Yes, please, sir ... Another ... help."

Tina can kiss. In CAPS. "My dear, where, may I ask, do these quivers manifest themselves?"

"Here, sir," she said, playing innocent, her fingers pausing over her breasts.

"May I examine you ... your problem interests me." She nodded, doe-eyed. I gently caressed her breasts through her blouse, savoring the soft, rounded mounds, flicking my thumbs over the nipples.

She sucked a breath in. "Sir, there is another area that is affected, worse..." and she spread her thighs.

My fingers traced up the inside of her jeans-clad thighs. I heard the hitch in her breathing, then found myself enveloped in the arms of my crazy teen wife, giggling "Dammit, Alan! Take me to the bed and just DO me!"

Worst role-play ever.

Afterward, sticky, still quivering - both of us, now, "You're awfully brave. We didn't mark the calendar as private time," I said.

"Sometimes it's worth the risk." Giggle. "You always have been."

"You too, Christina," I said, formally. "You're essential to my life."

"And you're essential to mine," she smiled, standing. "Now, what about our daughter?"

"We know two people who study prodigies, Doctor Stanton, and Dan and Cindy's friend Jim. We need to talk with them. Gather data."

"Synthesize a solution," she said, then giggling, "Of course you spell that C-Y-N-thesize."

"Cindy's entirely too big an influence in this community," I said. "I give up."

"Come over to the Dark Side, Alan," she said. "Cindy bakes cookies."

I laughed. "The horrors of this whole mess," I said.

"I know," she said. "Horrible."

"You make me crazy."

"I know. It's supposed to be that way." She's smiling as she gets dressed. A couple of drops of cologne are applied. "I hope this helps. We don't have time for a shower."

"Every time a couple disappears for an hour everybody else assumes they're having sex."

She cocked a knee, turned and skewered me with an eye, then smiled. "Okay. Let's examine that idea. Two days ago, we got away. What happened?"

"Sex."

"That day late last week. I got back from class, you followed me home..."

"Sex."

"Last Monday. I thought the washer was making a funny noise. You can to listen..."

"Sex."

"D'ya see a pattern developing? And those aren't even the times where we put the privacy block up on the community calendar." She giggled. "Is a girl to assume you want to CHANGE that?"

"I could do without the knowing smirks when we walk back among the group," I said. "It's disconcerting."

"Uh, oh, yeah," she giggled. "And you're subject to extend some of that to our friends as well."

As we walked out our door, we almost got run over by Terri and Rachel.

"Dad! Tina! We need more seeds for the bird feeder!" Terri blurted. Rachel was behind her, nodding agreement.

The bird feeder was part of the educational environment for the two of them. We had carefully maintained lists of visiting species with photos and descriptions including taxonomy.

"And we need to do something about the squirrels."

"What's wrong with the squirrels?" Tina asked.

"Uh, they eat all the food and scare the birds off," Terri said.

"It's s'posed to be a BIRD feeder, not a squirrel feeder," Rachel added. "We looked at videos on YouTube. Lots of ideas, but we think..."

"That we want Cindy and Nikki to work on it with us."

"Oh, that's gonna be rich," I said. "I can just see the headlines: "Teenaged girls build proton-beam squirrel repellent."

Chapter 56

Susan's turn:

Sometimes I feel like a kid on a bicycle looking into the sky at a jet overhead. I mean, we're both going somewhere. We're both using mechanical transportation. But nothing I could hope to do with that bicycle is going to get me six hundred miles an hour.

I related this all to Jason the evening after that pair, Cindy and Nikki, announced their newly printed degrees.

"But, baby," he said soothingly, "You have a very good bicycle."

And I don't know if he's talking about my REAL bicycle, or he's talking about ME in one of those cute sexual innuendos he uses, or he understands the metaphor I'm using. Since his hands are roaming, touching those magical spots he's learned about me, I can infer that he's not on the sex channel, so he's talking about my mind.

"You are no slouch, my blonde hillbilly princess." I'm no hillbilly, but we go back and forth about Texas and Tennessee all the time. It's fun to play with words with somebody you love as much as I love him. "Other than math, when's the last time you really sweated a class?"

"Cindy and Nikki shoved me through the math," I said.

"I know that," he replied. "I have the same little bootprints on my own ass. It's so disheartening to sit there and look at one of 'em helping you understand differential equations. I feel like a housecat looking at a tiger." My guy sighed. "Look, Susie, love of my life ... If we weren't associated with those two, you'd be at the top of the stack. You're like a Douglas fir growing next to redwoods."

I snickered. "Since when do YOU know about tall trees?"

"Hey!" He snorted. "I'm from East Texas. We KNOW trees!" Now his hands got a little more mobile.

I giggled. "You know little Tennessee girls, too."

"Nope! Just this one!"

So, okay...

Our class schedules diverge the next morning, so I walk over to the office while Jason drives to the campus. I'm joined by the house elves, Terri and Rachel.

Rachel's the subtle one. "Good morning, Aunt Susan." (You can imagine the glee I enjoyed when I announced to my very Baptist family back in Tennessee that I have a Jewish niece. Of course, they've met Sim and Beck and Rachel since then, and it's just another bit of happiness, like watching Mom and Dad navigating the menu at the Desai restaurant.)

"Good morning Rachel. Terri. What's on the agenda for today?"

"Math," Rachel said. "We're exploring things."

"Yes," Terri said. "Use of mathematics to define spatial relationships, you know."

"X, Y, Z," Rachel added.

"Yeah," Terri pushed. "We still have that three-axis servo table, don't we?"

I'm thinking 'Oops! Terri's talking hardware.' This could be good.

"Uh-huh. What do you have in mind?"

Rachel stopped walking, so Terri and I stopped with her.

"Picture this," Terri said. "A targeting environment..."

(Huh? Eight years old, talking about a 'targeting environment?)

"We can assume that in this environment, all our targets will appear on a relatively fixed plane. Always somewhere on that plane."

"Oooo-kay..." I said. I was thinking fast.

"Yeah," Rachel said. "Like if the targets were all going to be on a wall. Never anywhere else."

"Now assume a point-discharge projector..." Terri said.

"We're talking about squirrels on the bird feeder, aren't we?"

"See!" Rachel said. "I told you she'd figure it out."

"We think that the servos on that table can change from X-Y-Z to altazimuth."

"Huh?" I said.

"Like one of those gun terrent thingies," Rachel popped.

"Turret," Terri corrected.

"Yeah. 'Turret'. Like on Star Wars."

"Eight year old girls are supposed to be playing with pretty ponies," I said, just to gage the rise I knew I'd get. "Not be talking about turrets."

"Tell ya what," Terri said, "If you help us, we'll put a pretty pony on it for you."

"We hear that all the time, too," Rachel spoke.

"Hear what?" I asked.

"Eight year old girls don't do that," Rachel's head bobbed.

"Yeah," Terri said. "Eight year old girls don't read these books, at the library. That's always nice."

"People don't know what your brains are capable of doing," I said. "I've never seen anything like either of you..."

"'Specially Terri," Rachel interjected. Rachel knew there was a difference in capabilities. I could identify with Rachel. Terri was closer to Cindy or Nikki. Maybe on the high side of those two. That's almost scary.

I walked with them to the office, a social call for the three of us.

"Hello, wife of Jason," Alan said. He was standing by the office coffee pot, stirring a cup.

I huffed, "I am perfectly able to be defined without reference to my husband!"

"Yeah, uh-huh ... Been Susan 'n' Jason ever since you two first met."

"Well, that's true, but nonetheless..." I giggled. "Besides, you need to be nice to me."

"Really? Got a reason?"

"I'm an endangered species in this office, an actual non-degreed person."

"We don't have degrees," Rachel helped.

"You're not even NINE," I squealed.

"I'm going to go take the official GED (Auth. Note: high school equivalency test) on Friday," Terri said.

"I'm not quite ready for it," Rachel demurred. I know how Rachel feels. She handles it well, mainly, I suppose, because she and Terri are inseparable. It's something else I can identify with. I never was one of those 'I'm smarter than you' kids in school, and I knew several who were. My daydream is to see one of those run into Nikki or Cindy one day. It always seemed to me that I had more fun helping people along. When I got tied into the Community, Tina first, then the rest, I found myself among kindred souls.

Cindy was steeping a cup of tea in the lunchroom. "Look out," I told her. "They're on a roll this morning."

"X-Y to altazimuth," Terri said.

"Huh?" Cindy said. It's hard to catch Cindy flat-footed. "Terri, what are you two up to?"

"Tell 'er, Rachel."

"Non-lethal area denial device targeting squirrels."

Cindy squealed. "Mizz Beck! Come see what your daughter's doing!"

Beck's voice sounded as she came up the hall. "She's with Terri and Cindy. World domination is within the realm of possibilities." She confronted Terri and Rachel. "What did you do with your free association time this morning?"

Terri smiled. "I'll let Rachel tell you."

"Mom, you're going to think this isn't learning, but we looked at some simple first person shooter games on the Internet."

"Why?"

"Your turn," Rachel tossed to Terri.

"We're investigating a problem."

"What problem?"

"Squirrels on the bird feeder," Rachel offered.

"And how do computer games help you do that?" Beck is taking the lead in home-schooling Terri and Rachel. We all pitch in, sure, but the actual ownership goes to Tina and Beck and their husbands. I know there are some people who use that 'home-schooling' thing as a cop-out and some use it to guard their children from unwanted influences. We don't. Terri and Rachel would be about as well served in a normal classroom as a space shuttle in the WalMart parking lot.

Ask a question ... Terri sighed, "We wanted to think about targeting in two dimensions."

Beck's not dumb, not by a long shot. "The world's three dimensional."

"We're reducing the problem," Rachel said.

"Yes," said Terri. The squirrels have to use one single path to get to the feeder. They can't get above it. They can't climb to it. They come along the top of the fence. Makes one dimension go away."

Alan was listening now. "Which one of you came up with that?"

"We both did," Terri said.

"How much help do you need?" Cindy asked.

Terri bounced backward against me. "Susan's gonna do some machine work. Dad..." She eyed Alan, "won't let me solder."

"Something bout my eight year old daughter with an eight hundred degree tool in her hand..." Alan said.

"We'll watch her very closely," I told him. "For heaven's sake, it's called a 'Princess iron'!"

"You're not helping," Alan snipped.

"She can wear Kevlar gloves. Heat resistant."

"And safety glasses," Alan said.

"Thank you, Daddy" Terri smiled sweetly. She's cute when she's winning. She wins a lot.

"We have ideas," Rachel said.

"I think Robert Oppenheimer said exactly the same thing," Alan said, shaking his head.

"Tina-mom is going to document for us. Cindy, you and Nikki can help me put the blocks together."

In those old monster movies, this is where you start yelling at the guy, "Do NOT go down into the basement!"

That afternoon I had my husband back.

"How was your day, my baby?" he asked.

I told him about Terri and Rachel.

"Charming!" he said. "When I was that age, I was playing video games and Dad was taking me hunting and fishing. They're designing an autonomous weapons system..."

A lightbulb went off in my head. "I gotta call Cindy," I blurted.

"Oh, lord," he laughed. "I did it again, huh?"

"What?"

"Triggered a totally random thought."

I kissed him on the nose. "Yes you did. And I love that about you. Lemme call Cindy."

I picked up my phone. "Call Cindy," I told it. Held it to my ear.

Answered with a giggle. "What's up? Thought you 'n' Jason would be..."

"In a minute," I said. "Got needs. But he said something. Have you talked to Terri and Rachel today?"

"Yeah. We're on the road with their project. Why?"

"Last month, that guy from the Air Force that was telling us about targeting, remember?"

"Yeah, and..."

"And he was telling us about that fruit sorter software and how it stored a part of an image of what the good fruit looks like, and..."

"Color, mainly," Cindy said. "It keys off of color."

"And then that facial recognition program?"

"I see where you're heading. But this is Terri's project. We need to let her get there."

"She asked about the facial recognition thing already. She knows that much." I shifted to my imitation of Terri. "If it can recognize a face, then it can tell the difference between a squirrel and a mockingbird..."

"Oh, god," Cindy said. "I feel like we're looking at the first caveman when he figured out how to start a fire..."

She said "And if we couple it with a search function and a database of squirrel pictures, it'll know when if finds a squirrel..." That's what Terri was talking about.

"How'd they get there?" Cindy queried.

"They played computer games, analyzing what they had to do to run the score up." Terri said something about seeing a high speed sorter on one of those 'how they do it' shows. So she had that idea..."

I laughed. "And it figures! I thought I came up with a bright idea before THEY did."

"That's hard to do these days. Those two ... Terri's bad enough, but she and Rachel sort of complement each other..." Cindy sighed.

"Cindy," I said, "That's how WE work..."

Giggle. "I know."

"So can you get that software? We might be able to run some sims..."

"We can ask," Cindy said. "Facial recognition software might work, too."

"Terri needs to get Nikki in on this. Nikki's doing software things. She knows some guys at school who might help."

"Let's not take this away from Terri," said Cindy. "She ... she and Rachel are onto something. They need to work these things out themselves."

"I know. It's just exciting seeing them at work." I looked at my husband. He was shaking his head.

Okay, it's time for Susan to stop fretting over two pre-teens capable of world domination and attend to the joyous practice of two happy people playing with each other's sticky bits.

You know, when I was still in high school in Tennessee, I heard all manner of conversations from some of my more promiscuous and less restrained contemporaries as they talked, sometimes quite descriptively, about their frequent interludes.

I remember hearing some of them use words like 'fun' and 'really good' and things like that. I also remember some who described it as painful or indifferent or something to be endured.

Naturally, though, I talked with people I trust. I cornered Mom into the 'R-rated' version of The Talk. I also talked with my sisters even though they went to some lengths to treat me, pre-marriage, as somewhat frail and helpless. From those sources I gleaned that there was a gulf between what I heard at school and what my family (including my adopted sisters) thought.

There are limits to vocabulary. I can't describe all the happiness I've experienced. Last Thursday I was sitting in a classroom, listening to an instructor drone on about something I already knew. Just like it did all through school, my mind started wandering. When I was little, it was daydreams about castles and princes and, to use a Terri-ism, anthropomorphized animals. Thursday it was a replay of some of the wild ride my life has been for that last two years, including a honeymoon. I knew exactly ZERO girls who were virginal on their honeymoons. I was. I'd heard some of the lewd 'scared virgin' stories. I gave myself about 3% chance that I was one of those. That other 97%? Every GOOD source said that I should expect things I'd never imagined.

So sometimes poor ol' Jason comes home and is completely blindsided by what I do to him. With him. For him. For US.

Of course, Sir Isaac Newton says that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, as evidenced last Monday. He had to go get some guys set up on a project in Georgia, involving an overnight stay. I had Monday classes so I couldn't go with him. I was in the apartment waiting when he came through the door.

I started giggling when he kissed me and spun me around to herd me toward the bedroom. Yeah, like I needed herding, right?

"You, little punkin!" He laughed, "I've been thinking of you for two hundred miles!" He was working to get his clothes off as he talked.

"Only two hundred?"

"Only if I count the miles I drove with an erection."

I turned around for him to unhook my bra, then finished shucking clothes off. By now he's naked, too, and the fireworks begin.

Mom called one day for something. We talk a couple of times a week, sometimes more.

"So, would it be nosey if your mother asked how you're accommodating the physical requirements of marriage?"

I giggled. I love Mom. This is classic 'Mom'. I squealed "Mom! You wanna know about my SEX life?!?"

"I just want to know that my daughter is happy."

"Mom, did you expect to find me sitting on your doorstep weeping that Jason is making me do NASTY things?"

"Certainly not."

"Thanks, Mom," I said. "Happy. Deliriously happy. Now I know about all those strange noises I used to hear at night when I lived at home."

"Susan!"

Nikki's turn:

"Nikki Granger!" Doctor Embert called. "Do you have a minute? My office."

Co-workers on the government-sponsored railgun project looked up at the voice.

"Sure! I'll be right there!" I shut my computer down, went out of the lab to her office.

"Stories, Nikki. You know how we are about security on this project. But I hear stories."

"What sort of stories would that be?" I asked. "I can think of several."

"Can you push that door closed?"

'Oh, ' I thought, 'this is serious.' I closed the door and turned.

"Sit, young padawan," she said. "Your face. You tell me with your face that you're worried now."

"I ... uh, yes ma'am. I guess..."

"Don't be. Just that I've heard some questions about targeting software."

Okay, let's obfuscate just a little. "We don't have anything to do with targeting on this project," I said.

"But you and Cindy have been curious. You two being curious is reason for concern." She read my face again. "Happy concern. Like a winner's envelope from the lottery. So what's going on?"

"Terri made us do it."

"Ah. The Terri-dactyl," she said with a wry smile. "It's not enough of a shock to sensibilities that I got you at fifteen and Cindy at fourteen on this project, but now I've go Little Miss 'Almost NINE!' to contend with. My grad students are accusing me of running a middle school already..."

"Stevens," I injected. "He told me that. Right after we showed 'im about that new conductor arrangement. He bought both of us a Coke when it worked, though."

"Oh, let me tell you, Nikki, if bringing Terri in ... What is it she's working on?"

"Non-lethal area denial device targeting squirrels." I thought about how it sounded. That's their term. That guy from the Air Force was sort of talking, side-bar, you know, about targeting systems. We talked. Never thought it would come to anything." A little defensively I added, "We, Cindy and I and Terri and Rachel..."

"Rachel. Terri's friend?" Doctor Embert's eyebrow rose.

"Co-conspirator. Too smart to be her minion." 'Minion' (the little yellow guys from Despicable Me) were all over the lab, as was one memorable Photoshop of Gru with Doctor Embert's face superimposed. I continued, "We talked about various systems already in use that might work. None of it is close to being classified."

"Nikki, it gets sticky..." She paused, laughed softly. "Sticky Nikki. I'll have to remember that. What I was saying is that sometimes it's not the individual components that are classified, it's when they're put together into a system. The same bolt design that ties a servo into the guidance of a cruise missile can bolt your toilet to the floor. That sort of thing."

"We've been talking in very general terms."

"Would you do me the service of allowing us to review where you're at right now, and get some ideas of where you're going?"

"And Terri and Rachel?"

"Lord help us. It's THEIRS."

"And a little child shall lead them," I said.

"Isaiah, Chapter 11," Doctor Embert said. "Those things I learned as a child have returned." She smiled. "To bite me in the butt."

"I will need to talk with Terri's parents."

"I suspect that Tina will be able to smooth things over with Terri's dad."

"Terri's got TWO very protective parents between Tina and Alan," I said, "but they know they're in for a wild ride with her."

"You know we won't abuse them, don't you?" Doctor Embert pointed.

"Like you did with US," I laughed.

Back in the lab, one of the other guys, a physicist named Garret, stopped me. "Closed door session with ol' Embert, and we hear LAUGHTER?"

"Serendipity," I countered.

"See!" He laughed, "That's what I'm talkin' about! You go around using words like 'serendipity'."

"And not only do I USE the word, I know where it came from."

"Elitist!"

"Redneck!"

A disconnected male voice from the other side of the room yelled "If you two don't start playing nice I'm gonna have to separate you!"

"Yes, Motherrrrr," Garrett falsettoed to general mirth. It's a good group we have, although there have been some stressful moments as well the occasional harsh flurry of words. That we got on so well was evidenced by the fact that we'd had several of the team join us for Saturday evening socials at the apartments.

"Kinda 'G' rated", was one comment.

"'Course it is, dude," Cindy replied. "We got little kids there."

"YOU are a little kid!"

"I know. So get used to it."

Which means that they, at least some of them, have met Terri 'n' Rachel. There were Terri Addison - pTerri-dactl business cards spread around. I think that's cute.

"First eight year old I've ever met who had 'er own business cards."

I whispered to Garrett, "Doctor E was asking about Terri."

His grey eyes flashed. "As what? Visiting lecturer?" He had survived a conversation with her about transmission of electrical pulses, using that 'it's just like a water hose' analogy. She pushed him until the analogy failed, sitting around a picnic table eating barbecue.

"Is she for real?"

"Who? Doctor E or Terri?"

"I know about Doctor E. Terri? Is she for real?"

"Nope," I said. "Completely fake. We sit her down every evening and school her on college-level math and physics."

"How does something like that even come into the world?"

I giggled. Garrett tries so hard to NOT sound like a nerd and I go out of my way to make sure he remembers his place in the universe. "Uh, didn't you ever get that 'birds and bees' talk?"

He knows what I'm doing, gets this hugely exasperated expression. "See! This is why I hate working with KIDS! I'm having a serious conversation here..."

"Oh, you wanted the OTHER answer..." I smirked.

"I don't think there IS an answer," he sighed. "Her dad's an engineer. Pretty smart fella, I think."

"We're not sure about her mom," I said. "Nobody here's ever met 'er. Consensus is that she was conceived during a neutrino shower. Altered some DNA."

"Could be. How would we ever know?"

"DNA map both parents. Apply comparison techniques to compare parental DNA to the daughter. A+B should equal C. Anything that doesn't come from A+B has to be a mutation."

"D'ya know the term 'rhetorical question', dear?"

"Use of the term 'dear' is soooo condescendingly sexist," I tossed. "And if you wanted it to be unmistakenly received as a rhetorical question, you should have phrased it differently."

"I don't think it's that easy, anyway," he said.

"I suppose not, but..."

"You don't ever ask the question of yourself?"

"I have. Have you?" I have lain awake some nights wondering what happened to make me different. I can't come up with an answer. Mom never struck me as particularly smart, or did Grandma. I never knew my father, and Mom was a little young to be boinking Albert Einstein.

"Yeah, I have," he said. "Can't come up with any good answer. In my case, A+B should've gotten me a good 130 IQ on the best day. Dad's an engineer. Mom's a manager with a financial outfit. Me? I use science to toss bits of metal at high velocities." He raised his eyes to look at me. "With the help of friends, of course."

One of those friends showed up in late morning, red hair bouncing in time with the spring in her step. I think I'm pretty upbeat, but Cindy brings a new level with her. She didn't make it past Doctor E's door either.

Another closed door session, some more laughter, causing heads to shake. Cindy came bouncing out, smiling, tossed a few pages of a printed document onto the table near us. "I analyzed the patterns, guys," she said. "We're still getting some ringing on that pulse, but it went down when we tried the Siemens approach. I'm thinking about a large-diameter coaxial conductor."

We bounced the idea around, listened to her justification, discussed counterproposals, then accepted the premise and started talking about dimensions and materials.

She stated, "If we accept the premise that our fast rise time is an analog to DC acting like radio frequency, why not try silver-plating? Skin effect puts the current on the outer part of the conductors, and we can do just a few microns of silver to get resistance down."

I'm thinking of how this looks to some of the other team members because this string of technical thoughts is coming from a wayward forest sprite.

When we shut down for the day, Cindy and I headed out to catch a ride home with Susan.

"So okay, Cindy, what did Doctor E tell you?"

"That she's onto us about Terri's project."

"I got that," I said.

"Yeah, I figured you did. I told her that you and I can't speak for Terri, so she's calling Tina and Alan."

I squealed a little. Just a little, mind you.

"And I told her," Cindy continued, "that if she caught them before Friday that she'd be dealing with an elementary school student. She asked me about Friday, what it meant. I told her that Terri's taking the GED and she might well be a high school grad."

"At eight," I said.

"Yeah, the school board and the university both sent letters to waive that 'age 16' requirement."

We shared the information with Susan on the way home, marched straight into the office, ostensibly to greet our husbands, you know, because HUSBAND!

And got Alan. "What are you two doing to my daughter?"

And he's smiling.

To Be Continued...

Posted on 2012-12-27

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