CommunityChapter 49
- 4 years ago
- 23
- 0
Tina’s turn:
It usually starts just like this – an informal gathering. On this particular morning it was me, Beck, Mizz Lee and Mizz Patel sitting around having coffee together.
“I appreciate your invitation,” Mizz Patel said.
“We think you’re due the honor, Aneeta,” Mizz Lee returned. “Your efforts have been the gateway for many in this community, including the last two.”
“I fear I am enamored of these bright minds,” Mizz Aneeta returned. “We make provision for the world to recognize their abilities.”
I smiled. Abilities. Like my Terri. “I’m thinking we need to have a commemorative event.”
Mizz Lee looked at me, then surveyed the gang. “Excellent idea. This is a milestone. Of course, Auburn will confer official diplomas in the spring, so Terri and Rachel can receive their diplomas in front of the assembled students, but this is about us.”
“Yes,” Mizz Aneeta said. “I think that you – us – I’m part of this now, WE need to do this for our community.”
Johanna laid the bomb on the table. “Okay, listen up. We have socials all the time here. This bunch gets together to celebrate a particularly adept splinter removal. This, though, is momentous. How about...”
“Formal,” Mizz Lee said. “Social graces. Set the table. See what we can do to bring a little of a formal setting. Our girls need that as well as the math and the technology.”
Mizz Aneeta’s face lit up. “Brilliant. Mizz Lee, revered teacher,” she said, echoing a title that the Munchkins used, “you bring us something that is getting lost.”
“There used to be ‘finishing schools’ for young ladies wherein they were taught the social graces,” Mizz Lee continued. “We have brilliant, no, PAST brilliant young ladies, but we need to prepare them to live in a world where manners coexist with intelligence.”
I sighed. “I feel a class coming on.”
Beck doubled down. “And NOT just for our two prima donnas. All the munchkins.”
“Agreed,” I said as lights started going off in my head. “And maybe not just the Munchkins ... But who teaches?”
“I may not be ready for the banquet hall at Buckingham, but I think I could get through the basics with them. Formal setting, manners. Our girls HAVE manners. It’s part of their upbringing. We have to keep them in check because they do get exuberant.”
Johanna giggled. “Okay, Mizz Lee. You’ve gone and done it again. You’ll get the BIG classroom, because I think you’ll need it when word gets out...”
Mizz Lee sighed, a hint of smile there. “All I wanted was grammar and Shakespeare...”
“Mizz Lee,” I said softly, “You said this was your last and greatest class. You’re still here, you’re still THE teacher among us. We’d love it if...”
“I’ll do it.”
More conversation took place. We discussed the venue. Yes, the pavilion would survive white tablecloths and formal settings. Yes, between Henry’s wife and Grandma Desai, we think we could do a formal meal in a formal setting.
I giggled. “I guess Susan ‘n’ Jason’s barbecued ribs aren’t on the menu...”
Mizz Patel’s eyes twinkled. “I love the ribs, but no, we’d best do multiple courses. No finger foods. Maybe next time we can do a North African feast – a whole roast sheep with cous-cous.” She smiled. “I’ve done one of those with my husband in Tunisia. All fingers, all the time.”
“Here we go,” Johanna said. “Scope creep. For this one, though, the standard upscale American/British models.”
“Could be a college course,” Mizz Aneeta inserted. “Manners used to be expected. Now they’re quite rare.”
“We see that every day,” I sighed. “Manners went the same place as common sense. Our bunch, though...”
“One of the reasons I am here,” Mizz Lee said.
“And we deeply appreciate it.”
So the dinner’s a thing. It’s blocked out on our schedule, resources are being marshaled.
“Tina,” Mizz Carmela tagged me, “we’re going to spend a fortune getting formal settings.”
“Oh, Carmela,” I said, “how about calling Susan’s dad. He’s in the rental business. Maybe he can help.”
“Good idea,” she said. “I don’t know where I would store finger bowls and oyster forks.” She gave me her wry grin. Carmela’s Henry’s wife. She RUNS our pavilion’s food and drink and everything else. We didn’t give that position to her just because she was with Henry.
“We’re not gonna get ‘oyster fork’ deep into this, anyway.”
She smiled. “Those people at the country club did. I laugh. Tractor salesman, worried about which fork to use...”
“That’s it,” I said. “Mizz Lee’s going to ask YOU to help with teaching about table settings.”
“Me? with those girls?”
“And Derek.”
“Poor Derek. He is the long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.” She smiled. She knows a bit about Derek. Her husband Henry tells her about Derek’s research into lawn mowing. “I will help in any way you wish.”
Wheels went into motion. We pushed the date a couple of weeks out because we had to marshal a lot of resources and clear calendars.
And shopping. This group doesn’t fall into that tired old stereotype of a bunch of female shopaholics. That doesn’t mean that we’re poorly dressed, it’s just that shopping usually means having a specific list of needs in hand and locations pre-researched as to the best establishments likely to supply them, balancing accessibility, quality and price.
We need to shop. Special event.
Nikki’s turn:
Shopping. This dinner, it’s going to be a celebratory event. Not quite ‘state dinner at the White House’ formal, but a couple of orders of magnitude more formal than anything we’ve pulled since we’ve been a community.
Mizz Lee quickly passed the torch for planning to a little company that does ‘events’. Money changed hands.
“Don’t give it a second thought,” Alan told her. “We make a living like that – providing a lot of services people COULD do themselves, but it’s just easier to write a check. You relax, let those people DO it.”
“A sizable sum,” Mizz Lee sighed.
“We make sizable sums every day. It’s not every day that we put together an event that celebrates my daughter’s college graduation,” he continued. “We need YOUR sense of propriety and gentility to keep this on track, to help us learn. And you have enough to do, teaching us the niceties without fretting over the details of logistics.”
“I am willing to try ... the whole event.”
“You still are doing the whole event, we’re just giving you some tools to help.”
“Thank you,” she told him. “This place is special because the people are special, and my girls – well, actually my friends – I want to give them something memorable.”
So we WILL be memorable, okay?
And KA-CHUNK – the venue moved from our pavilion to a hall suitable for this growing event.
Invitations. The western bunch. And the (we hope) soon-to-be Western bunch, so that means Lotte the Pilatus makes a trip to southwest Louisiana with ALL her seats in place.
Rather than a mass migration somewhere to do the shopping, we chose the approach Yamamoto tried using to capture Midway Island in World War II. I told Cindy and Dana this as we flew off toward Atlanta.
“You need to get with Haley Simon at our western office,” she giggled. “She’s got a thing about history.”
“I just hope we’re more successful with OUR version than the Japanese were,” I laughed.
Cindy gets – you guessed it – a forest green sheath of a thing. Dana, honey-headed lovely, chose a tawny golden thing, a tittering sales-lady cooing as she held it up. I nodded. The look just clicked. Me? I ended up with something halfway between pink and magenta.
We got back. Susan’s sticking with a light blue. Damn that blonde hair of hers. She looks good in it, a little softer, a little bit more rounded, mommy-ish, like her own mom. Tina’s doing royal blue.
Big meeting after the shopping weekend. Tina sticking with a matronly brown. Kim’s going with that taupe thing she loves.
Let’s see – Mizz Donna –her big ol’ Bill demanded that she wear a red dress. Aunt Jenn and Laci chose blues just diverged a noticeable bit from one another. We’re almost a rainbow.
Rachel picked a medium grey.
Carlita from Louisiana did a forest green two shades darker than Cindy. Her brunette ‘sister’ Brindy was in a pretty maroon thing. Our other two Louisiana girls, Haley and Deena, wore identical dresses that I found out later they’d bought for Haley’s wedding, choosing the same dress in two separate shopping events, strictly by accident.
And heaven help us (and more specifically, Jerry Stengall) but Terri did basic black. The dreaded Little Black Dress. You’d expect a young teen to not look quite right. You’d be horribly wrong. Or completely right. Depends on your state of mind. Blonde hair. Blue eyes. Infectious smile, and something that communicates outside the normal energy spectrum. She looked perfect.
And then the day is upon us.
Mizz Lee had THREE photographers on hand.
It’s a smiling crowd that files into the banquet hall this evening. The place is glittering – white table linens, glittering silverware, our places marked by calligraphed place tags.
Alan emceed the thing. “Ladies and gentlemen, let us begin this celebration. I have asked Judge Charlie Peebles, jurist emeritus of the State of Alabama, to deliver for us a blessing.”
Charlie Peebles’ turn:
I’m pushing ninety too hard some days but I’m invited to a dinner by my adopted granddaughter. Thankfully, this time Cindy and Dan flew down to get us in a bigger plane, two engines, a much easier thing for me to ease into and out of. I still marvel at the accomplishments of Cindy. She just seems to be on top of the world. Seeing her relinquish the pilot’s seat to her husband, she sat in back with us, bringing us up to date on the goings on, up to and including a new baby brother.
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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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Bill Carmody's turn: Interesting turn of events, I think. Two years ago I had Dan Richards on my power plant project. I knew him and Alan Addison from a previous power plant project where we were engineers, all three of us, on the same project. They're technically beyond reproach. Now I'm on THEIR payroll. 'Their' is, of course, 3Sigma Engineering. We're redoing several rural substations in Georgia. I ride herd on contractors, mainly, and make sure that they adhere to plans, and I...
Bill Hardesty’s turn: I’ve just become Bill 3.0. Cindy officially conferred the status upon me. “Bill 1.0’s my adopted dad. Bill 2.0’s Haley’s husband in Louisiana. Since you’re part of this now, you shall be Bill 3.0.” Which is fine, except to Herself, the Vickster, I’m ‘Billy’. “Cindy said you were ‘Billy’ when she first met you.” “I was. I like to think that I’m mature enough to be ‘Bill’ now.” Sparkly eyes. “Not ‘William’?” “Bill.” Snicker. “Billy.” That snicker is one reason I’m...
Beck’s turn: First thing I did when we got home is call Mom. “Hello, my lost daughter,” Mom said, using her best ‘poor me’ voice. “Did somebody go into the hospital? It is not yet Saturday.” “Mom, your GRAD-daughter...” ““GRAND daughter,” Mom corrected. “My grand-daughter the millionaire...” “Your grand-daughter the research scientist...” “What has become of her now?” “She’s holding a letter in her hands that says she’s graduated college with a degree in engineering.” “My...
Teresa’s turn: Mom’s totally destroyed. I’m standing on a pedestal, a seamstress, a REAL seamstress, is taking measurements for my wedding dress. “Mom, stop crying, for heaven’s sake...” “Every time I think about you getting married,” Mom sobbed. “It’s the expected progression in life. Grow up, leave home, get married...” “Finish college is in there somewhere,” Vicki said. She’s my co-conspirator. We’re getting married the same day. She’s tagged my little brother, a big surprise, since...
Susan's turn: I'm waiting for the aliens to show up. Here's how I figure it will break down. Nikki and Cindy will work with Terri and Rachel on the Star Wars squirrel denial system. They'll actually GET that 95 gigahertz transmitter, and in the process of modulating its output so that it only severely annoys squirrels instead of cooking them on the spot out there in the yard, they'll transmit a signal into space where it will be picked up by an alien spacecraft. The aliens will come...
Bill Carmody’s turn: Yesterday’s wedding was a delight, especially watching my NEW daughter (!) and Cindy, my original daughter, looking and acting very much like twins. Can’t help but grin, just thinking about it. Both of ‘em have a little fire in their eyes, and when they’re together, you can nearly SEE the sparks flying between them. Couldn’t have asked for a more unlikely development, right up to matching green dresses they bought together for the wedding. And my phone buzzes --...
Tina's turn: "What's so funny?" my husband asked. "Stoney and Jo are coming back and they're still flyin' that Pitts." "Did they buy it?" "She says 'no', but two trips, you gotta wonder." I giggled. I know the real reason. A combination of scheduling conflicts and weather had kept us from holding the weekend airport social and landing contest. The social, however, now had a few outside participants. I mean, it was bound to happen. We don't exist in a vacuum. On any given...
Cindy’s turn: 0700 for a wake-up. The alarm caught me when it went off. Sometimes I’m drifting between sleep and awake, but not this morning. I finally got to sleep, found out that Dana’s a kicker, so I kicked back. When the alarm went off, I let it roll for a bit, listening to the whines and other sounds of the gang waking up. I killed it, turned to get out of bed, but was a bit slow. I saw a T-shirted Rachel flash by muttering “bathroom...” Well, at least with two rooms we can split the...
Tina's turn: I keep telling myself that Bot-bot is not a real pet. I only wish I knew what was going on in my little girl's mind. Parse that statement, won't you? I have a stepdaughter who's ten years younger than me, who is probably past me in some ways, academically speaking. I know she does things with technology that all of us in the community wonder about. What went on in her head that caused her to take a mobile squirrel repeller platform and convert it into a pet? Yeah, I know,...
Tim's turn: I'd be a janitor for 3Sigma after seeing how Vicki and Kim fit in here. I'm THAT happy. That whole 'divorced dad' thing is horrible. I mean, you talk with your daughter on the phone once or twice a week, trying to stay up with what's going on in her life, and then you get a week or so for Thanksgiving or Christmas and you get a few weeks in the summer. A week was BAD. I don't know little girls. Until this past year, I didn't have my own place, so we cribbed up at Mom and...
Donna's turn: Do you know how to bring on pure pandemonium in my daughter's little community? Let me tell you. Saturday nights are the big night for music. Everybody's usually there. Well, sometimes we add Stoney and Johanna, sometimes Jason and Susan are off visiting one set of impending grandparents or the other. This particular weekend, though, we're all together. Me and Bill, we have our own swing there. So we laugh and sing and dance and then there's a break and my Bill stands...
Terri's turn: I really DO love my mom. I'm speaking of my natural mom, the person who carried me for nine months, then gave birth to me. I did not and still do not understand why she left Dad for Mister Martin. I know both men and there's no comparison. Tina tells me that there are things that go on in people's hearts and heads that are not easily defined. Defined. If you define 'step-mom', it means the woman who marries your dad. That's Tina. Dictionary definitions are so...
Nikki's Turn: Mommyhood hangs over us all. Don't get me wrong, I am in no way disparaging FOUR new mommies. Let's run down the list. Susan 'n' Jason have little JW – Jason Wallace, named after him and his dad. Alan and Tina have Katherine Genevieve – after nobody in particular, but Terri is forbidden to call her Kathygen. Johanna and Stoney have Randall Stonewall, and Mister Bill and Mizz Donna have Cindy's half-sister Elise Ann, a whole two days old. I'm likely to be the next. My...
Still Nikki’s turn: I squeezed Dan’s fingers. “A bit of bad luck, this,” I said. “Baby, be so kind as to hand me my iPhone. I need to get the news out.” Dana’s turn: We’re a pretty connected group here. I mean, everybody’s always texting and posting updates during the day, so when I got one from Nikki, I knew where she was supposed to be – on campus with the munchkins. I thought I’d see another ‘you won’t believe what Terri (or Rachel or Vicki) just did’ post. It wasn’t. I’m at the...
Derek’s turn: This is trouble. Wonderful, happy, delightful, ecstatically wonderful. But trouble. I knew what was going to happen when Rachel called me to help her feed Dana’s cat. Empty apartment except for me and Rachel and the cat, and the cat gets petted while I’m sitting next to Rachel and the cat leaves and Rachel turns to me. I like kissing her. I like holding her. We talk about everything. Tara says we’re too young to have a past, but I’ve lived through a car wreck and the loss of...
Cindy’s turn: It was just another morning in the office when the phone rang and as Maddie was occupied, I answered it. “3Sigma, this is Cindy. May I help you?” “Cindy? Good, it’s you I wanted to talk to.” “Hello Mizz Patel. What’s going on today?” “Would you mind if I drive out to your office? I’d like to talk about something in private.” I noted that she didn’t have her normal happy lilt. “Of course it’s okay. You’re always welcome here.” This was unusual for her though, so I added,...
Tara’s turn: We did it. Derek and I talked. He agreed, but honestly, I’m the adult in this equation, actually his legal guardian, and he would have had to go along with my plan. However, a certain pre-teen Jewish princess seems to have gained my little brother’s eye. I think that if we HADN’T decided to move, he might’ve hitched a ride back here. The apartment. Cindy and her Dan used to live here. It belongs to the corporation. They told me I could paint it any color I wanted, but honestly,...
Dana’s turn: I’m lying in bed in that wonderful cusp between awake and asleep at the end of a very good day. Cindy’s done her presentation at NASA, and to my knowledge, they haven’t yet recruited her for a space mission. Nikki’s been, well, Nikki, and she’s a superstar in her own right, maybe a little more sane than Cindy, but those two are a binary system, both bright in a way I never witnessed until I found her sitting across the table from me and Ed one night at dinner. And...
Nikki’s turn: I managed the stress of Mom’s interaction in my life quite well, I thought, right until Mizz Donna met me at the plane and hugged me. Then the floodgates opened. “What was I supposed to do, Mizz Donna?” I sobbed. Poor Dan. He’s standing behind me, wanting to do SOMETHING. “Darlin’,” she said comfortingly, “You did the right thing. World’s full of assholes. I used to be one, so I know...” I heaved a wordless sob. Mizz Donna was hugging me, Dan’s hand was touching my...
Kara’s turn: The world NEEDS a pregnant fiddle player. That’s what I told Dear Old Dad when I broke the news to him. “Dad,” I said, “I have a wonderful, successful husband and it is only right that we present you with grandchildren.” I heard a definite sigh over the phone. My dad. I’m trying really hard to conjure (one of Johanna’s words) a vision of business-suited Dad bouncing a grandbaby on his knee. “You make me regret that I didn’t make myself a bigger part of your life, Kara...
Nikki’s turn: We’re still talking about new toys, right? Cindy was PIC for the flight back from Colorado with the new plane. Fair enough. After all, Cindy IS ‘Cindy of the Skies‘. When we landed, though, we had the entire community standing there waiting on the arrival. It’s a big deal. Cindy exited first. Me? I stood in the door, my butt still inside indescribable luxury and newness, and said, “Okay, who wants a ride?” We have seating for eight – one of their ‘executive’ options – plus...
Cindy’s turn: Tina started this volume. I get to finish it. Christmas season. Or Chanukkah, because we have a sizable Jewish contingent now. It’s been quite a good year in a million ways. Okay, SEVERAL million ways, financially speaking. 3Sigma’s original business, engineering, is now engineering and construction, and we regularly berate ourselves because we’re bursting the seams on our SECOND building since the company started. Millions going into various accounts, and some of the happiest...
The two weeks that comprised the end of term one holidays in New South Wales, which also included Easter this year, had come and gone so fast. It only seemed like yesterday that I had left the mercurial Clare on what had effectively been the last school day of the term for Clare and I; the government schools still had the Friday to negotiate. My wife worked through the break, as was usual (she referred to bank her leave and use it during our summer holiday period). However, my daughter and I...
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