CommunityChapter 49
- 4 years ago
- 23
- 0
Kimberly's turn:
It's like that day that I was interviewing with the math dudes - it's over. I'm flat on my back in the back seat of Tina's car and my head WAS hurting but Tina and Cindy talked me out of it.
Mizz Patel ... Doctor Patel, really, but she's Mizz Patel to us, I guess, just called Cindy and told her that I have survived the mathematical portion of the 'let's get Kimberly through college FAST' process.
Tim's astonished. "This thing doesn't happen except in fiction," he says.
"And I'm just a brown-haired figment of your imagination," Nikki told him when he said it. "Look! Letter attesting to my status as a degreed electrical engineer. And Cindy's a year younger."
I didn't help. "And Terri's got business cards with a title from Google."
"Nope," he said. "It was bad enough that I'm dreaming that YOU are in my life, Kim. The rest of this? Some heck of a weird dream."
"Been asleep an awfully long time, haven't you?" Nikki asked.
I giggled. Checked. No Terri or Rachel around. "Parts of him wake up pretty often."
Poor Tim. I wonder how cola feels coming out of your nose.
It's like that, though, sometimes. The sisters are very open about the joys of their lives and loving – in the physical sense – is one of those joys.
"The swim will do you good," Tina said.
Yeah, we made plans to have a little swim party this afternoon. There's a pool. A bunch of friends. Result? Party. In the pool.
Wanna race? Tina gives me a good run. Tim smiles. I remember blindsiding him with our first visit to the pool at our old apartment.
Which beings me here. Tim and I talked about this at length. I mean, the guy had a GOOD job after some years as a road warrior, and I stepped into his life and I would have been happy being Little Miss Engineer's Wife and gone about getting my own degree and going to work and living life.
But...
Tim was pacing like a tiger in a cage. Sure, the caged tiger's got all the food he needs and shelter and veterinary care, but when you look in the cage you see the tiger and KNOW what the essence of the tiger is, and it's NOT that cage. Tim would have done that for me – stayed caged.
Then I got to looking around the Internet about girls and engineering and found an article on line about a sixteen year old with an engineering degree. That led me to 3Sigma Engineering and email exchanges and then Skype and ... Well, here we are.
Tim's back to doing a rainbow of engineering, and I'm immersed in the openings of a college experience that Aunt Jenn finds astounding.
"Doesn't happen like that, kiddo," she told me. "Gotta be something wrong somewhere. Your friend Cindy ... seriously? A bachelor's at sixteen?"
"Nikki''s seventeen. Same degree. And it's Auburn, not some mail-order degree mill."
So my two aunts are coming in this weekend. They're getting a hotel room, mainly because that little trailer's just not the place I really want to stick four adults, regardless of what the sales brochure says. That's one reason. I'm sure that there are others. Cindy tells me about the sounds that carry from one end to the other in these things.
So here come Laci and Aunt Jenn. Also showing up this weekend is the legendary Johanna and her Stoney. I've seen pictures. I've seen the videos. I've been warned.
So anyway, Tina and Cindy bring me to the office. Well, the apartments, actually, which is across the parking lot.
"You coming in with us, or you going to get Tim to console you?"
"I need consolation."
Cindy said, well, go to our apartment to change into your bathing suit. Bring Tim with you. I promise nobody will walk in for half an hour. Evil little thing giggled. "Don't leave spots on the furniture."
"Tina, how long has she been this evil?" I asked.
"Ever since I met 'er," Tina laughed. "Always tags something onto a happy comment. Like SHE hasn't left spots..."
"I am the epitome of decorum," Cindy said, chuckling.
She was still giggling when I went in the office, grabbed Tim by the hand, and dragged him off.
Walking across the parking lot, he commented, "You seem to have a purpose in mind."
"I need to change into my swimsuit and you need to put your trunks on and Cindy graciously loaned us their apartment with a thirty-minute promise..."
"What kind of trouble can we get into in thirty minutes?"
"I expect NO trouble," I said. "I need to be comforted."
"Comforted..." he repeated.
"Yes. I was attacked. I have looked at integrals and derivatives and transforms and matrices and odd squiggles on a whiteboard and subjected to fired broadsides of numbers willy-nilly in the defense of my college aspirations. The stress is enormous. I need comforting."
"Comforting..."
"The only admonition is that we do not leave spots on the furniture."
"I could eat you senseless..."
"And hold me afterward? Caress me? Pat me on my head and tell me you love me?"
"Absolutely."
First time I ever had a screaming sixty-nine on somebody else's sofa. Didn't leave a spot. Not the tiniest drop escaped either of us and I was soooo much more sedate when we walked to the pool. Saw Cindy and her Dan headed toward their apartment. Gave her a thumbs-up.
The water felt good. I can still swim and knifing through a couple of laps then hanging on the side of the pool is just a bit down the list of things that relax me. Having Tim swim up behind me and press me against the pool wall helps. Hearing the laughter of Terri and Rachel, and seeing Beck in her suit, coming to join us, that's good, too.
The pool gets crowded when everybody shows up. Everybody showed up. Conversation was like a shotgun blast hitting a balloon bouquet. If you couldn't shift quickly, it was chaotic. If you COULD shift quickly, it was STILL chaotic.
I got in on snippets of engineering, the BIG story of two pregnancies, the ongoing saga of Terri and Rachel and Bot-bot, now the subject of a very popular YouTube video, the latest news from Cindy's mom's honeymoon, Beck and Nikki comparing notes on the recipes of Jewish and Cajun grandmothers ... The list goes on and on.
It's like what we used to have with me and Laci and Aunt Jenn and Tim, multiplied several times over. NOT boring.
I'm also Terri's lab assistant. That's what I call myself. I look at the other girls and they all have hardware and software experience that I don't have, so Terri takes me under her wing.
"You had stepper motor control explained to you by a ten year old?" Tim laughed.
"Well, this is what she said. We're using stepper motors for some of the functions. Terri says that we either can TRUST the motor to move the number of steps we tell it to move, and leave it at that, or what she personally likes - feed the actual position back to the controller."
"Terri said that."
"Learned it from Nikki."
"Oh, that's peachy," Tim laughed. "It's soooo much better when she gets it from a seventeen year old..."
"A seventeen year old graduate engineer with a master's degree."
"I'll be in my closet, weeping softly," he said.
"She explained to me the distributed control functions of Bot-bot. I said, you mean, like ganglia? She said 'Yes. Exactly!' Like ants. Ganglia will keep it walking even if the head's cut off. She saw it on National Geographic Channel or something."
"She should be playing with Legos or something..."
I laughed. "I dunno. Her, a set of Legos and a D-cell battery and we're liable to solve cold fusion. Anyway, we're talking about changing Bot-bot over from tracks to a hexapod carriage."
"I dunno. That four-track thing she did, it works well. Darned thing can climb steps."
"You don't think all of this is toooo crazy, do you, baby?" I asked him.
"This is geek heaven," he said. "Absolute geek heaven. It's like a greenhouse for brains."
"I think the same thing. Did I mention that I'm on the payroll now?"
"Payroll?"
"Yep!" I said. "I'm an engineering assistant. I'm going to tag along with Nikki on that packaging machine project. See if I can transpose some of Terri's technology into an industrial setting."
"They said that they were considering it. Nikki and Cindy thought that you needed to spin up pretty hard..."
"So I started out with Terri. And Rachel."
Another thing – college IS different. Back home, in high school, I was a known quantity – avoided at first for who Mom was, then later because I was married. Here, I'm an unknown.
Cindy left me in the Engineering Building to go take care of something and after I finished talking with Mizz Aneeta, I was waiting. This random dude walks up.
"I saw you with that Cindy thing, didn't I?" he asked.
"Yea, that 'Cindy thing' is like my sister, but go ahead and talk."
"I'm sorry. My name's Rick. Rick Becker. He extended a hand.
I shook it. That much contact with another male, I'm okay with. "Kim Duncan."
"Are you one, you know, like Cindy and Nikki 'an them?"
"In reference to what?"
"They're ALL graduating. Cindy and Nikki are getting master's. None of 'ems been here more than two years."
"Well, then, no, not exactly. I just graduated from high school this year."
"You're eighteen?"
"No, sixteen."
"You ARE one..."
"I don't suppose you're single..."
"Nope. Married."
"Damn!" he spat. "I don't work up enough nerve to talk to girls very often, and..."
"And I'm married and frankly, Rick, you oughtta talk to more girls. Im sure you'll find somebody entertaining."
"Look, Kim, I'm an engineering student. I don't want to be entertained. I want to be liked and talked with and enjoyed and vice versa..."
"Do you go to the Greenhouse? That study group?"
"Yeah. Mostly guys..."
"And the girls?"
"I dunno."
"Oh, don't pull that 'awkward' crap, Rick. Ask one..."
"Well, some of them weren't, you know..."
"No, I don't know. Weren't what?"
"Exactly pretty..."
"Ah-hah! You're picky. Apparently I'm at the bottom of your range..." I smirked.
"Not really. You're really pretty cute."
"Thank you. Nice of you to say so. My husband thinks so too."
About that time Cindy showed back up. "Rick, you're not hitting on Kim, are you?"
Rick looked guilty. "I know how to pick 'em, don't I?"
"Yeah. You hit on me. You hit on Tina. You hit on Nikki. You hit on Susan. I'm surprised you didn't hit on Jason and complete the set..." Her eyes were twinkling while she was saying it.
"Jason?!? That's COLD, Cindy! I'm just tryin'..."
"Oh, Rick, relax. We all think you're a nice guy. I told you, ask Maddie..."
"Maddie's..."
"Our friend. Decent. Smart. Cute. But if you're lookin' for a roll in the hay..."
"Cindy ... I never..."
"You're a guy, Rick. You're automatically tainted by your gender."
I was smiling. Cindy's gutsier than I thought.
"Maddie," he said.
"Better hurry. She's going back to Louisiana at the end of the semester. If you're nice and you present yourself, she'll spend the summer thinking about you."
Terri’s turn: I’m telling this. It’s noon on a hot July Saturday and I’m standing in front of a roomful of people looking at me. I’ve done the ‘roomful of people looking at me’ thing many times. I guess the first couple of times I was nervous, but now I’ve done it in front of Google’s R&D and Raytheon’s R&D and a team from DoD. None of those was as impactful on my young life as this. I’m wearing a simple-lined linen dress, one that’s been worn by wives before me – Kimberly, Kara,...
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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...
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Tara’s turn: So nobody actually TOLD me about the status of Terri and Jerry. I didn’t pay attention to any of the relationships involving the Munchkins because they’re all pre-teens and they’re not supposed to be HAVING relationships, right? Wrong. How could I be so wrong? I mean, first I have the evidence in my own household. Derek’s enamored of Rachel. I saw that, but silly me, I wrote it off as one of those cute things that happen with kids. I can hide behind the fact that I was new to...
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Johanna’s turn: I have become the musical mommy. I’m not complaining, mind you. Dad and Mom smile at me and tell me that their prayers are answered, that I’m married, my husband loves me, we’re successful, and ... my life is as filled with wonder as I told them. Little Randall is a good baby. That’s good. I’ve heard horror stories about crying all night and teething issues and ear problems and serious diseases. Randall is none of these. The community crèche is devoid of that. There’s a...
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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...