Chapter 23

Ed’s turn:

My wife is a college student. Okay, that’s not that big a deal, right? Lots of men my age can quite possibly have wives in college.

Most of them, however, do not have wives with their fifteenth birthdays less than a month behind them. And they don’t have my Dana.

Dana, who’s just waltzed into my life and now I’m pulling my old life up by the roots in less than three months. Moreover, so is her great-grandmother, and her great-grandmother’s ... Well he WAS her boyfriend, now we’re going to be standing in the hall of the local Episcopal church next Saturday watching the two of them get married because...

“Jerry and I agree that it makes sense. We love each other. That is something that you two can understand, I’m sure. It makes sense that we occupy the same home, and while cohabitation might not have the stigma today that it once did, Jerry and I are children of a different age.”

And then they’re moving there. Mizz Lee, MY favorite teacher, has determined that it is her personal calling to be the English teacher to the youngsters of the community.

That’s where I am today – at my old and soon to be former employment, frantically tying together loose ends. I guess I didn’t notice how many friends I’d gathered in the place because a bunch of people came by my office or cornered me out in the facility to express regret that I was leaving.

Yes, I admit to more than a little remorse. The place has been for me almost home and family and friends, a stance that’s not that difficult to understand when you know that I’m an only child, that Dad died in an accident when I was eight and Mom passed away from cancer three years ago.

I like to think that the two of them would have been amused by Dana, and would have ultimately understood us being married. Of course, I also pictured Mom and Dad as seeing Dana as the grand-daughter THEY were hoping for.

Mizz Lee and I accompanied Dana to school upon our return from Alabama. Met with a vice-principal.

“It is simply the correct thing to do, ” Mizz Lee started. “Mizz Vickers, I’m sure you’ve heard from her teachers... ”

“And the librarian, ” Mizz Vickers returned. “And I looked at her school record and part of me died a little when I saw her ACT scores and her grades. But I had no idea ... Dana, you have advanced entry into university?”

“Yes, ma’am, ” she said.

“I find it somewhat disturbing, though, that you’re married.”

Mizz Lee started to open her mouth but Dana’s, well, Dana.

“Mizz Vickers, it’s a matter of equivalency. The normal age for entering into college is eighteen. I am entering college. It is not unusual for a young lady to be married and in college. I am in college and married... ”

“You’re fourteen.”

“Please, ma’am, I just turned fifteen.”

Mizz Vickers slowly smiled. “Oh, I feel MUCH better.”

“Sahara Cleaves is pregnant, Mizz Vickers. She’s in my classes. I’m not pregnant. I doubt that she’s in a position for anything close to a stable relationship. I have a husband who cares for me and provides a great learning environment.” Dana sighed. “Bree Winston had an abortion. There’s a list, you know... ”

Mizz Vickers sort of sagged. “I know some of those stories, Dana. Perspective. You seem set on providing perspective.”

Mizz Lee spoke. “I am her great grandmother. I worried when she came to live with me that she’d be the stereotypical teen. Mizz Vickers, she’s not. Nor is she the standard ‘good teen’ unless you broaden your definition. I broadened my definition.”

“I can see that, ” Mizz Vickers replied. She was losing this one. “Regardless, it has no bearing on this meeting. Dana, you’re enrolled in the Auburn School of Engineering?”

“Yes, ma’am. And they seem to indicate that I will graduate in two years IF I spend summers working through some classes.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Not to be contradictory, Mizz Vickers, ” I said, “because two months ago I would have agreed with you, but I had a contractor, a young engineer, with a MASTER’S in electrical engineering come to my facility. She had just turned eighteen. From a freshman in high school here... ” I named the school, “to a master’s at Auburn in TWO years.” I sighed. “She’s defending her doctoral dissertation this week.”

“That would be Nikki, uh, Dominique Granger, ” Dana said. “I have her business card. And if you don’t wish your foundations shaken, do NOT look at the website on that card.”

“Mizz Vickers, ” Mizz Lee said gently, “I have visited there, met those people. Dana will be among peers there. It is a group of truly remarkable and intelligent people, including many teens.”

“We don’t segregate our students like that any more, you know, ” Mizz Vickers said. “By abilities, I mean.”

“I know, dear, ” Mizz Lee said. “I spent forty years in the classroom myself. Several of your teachers and some of your school board members are my former students.”

“You were a teacher?”

“Yes, dear. I opened the way for Dana to learn. So has Edward, her husband. And this next step is logical. We simply want you at the school to know what has become of her.”

“I thank you for the courtesy, Mizz Lee. I am beginning to feel that we’re losing a treasure, though... ”

Walking out to the car, Mizz Lee said, “That was almost unpleasant.”

“Cindy went through worse than that, Gramma. D’you know that they went on a job in Tennessee and her husband got arrested for child molestation?”

“I did not know that, ” Mizz Lee said.

“It happened. Even though they carry copies of their marriage paperwork. And she and Dan got accosted at a school function over Dan leading young girls astray.”

“I’ve seen Cindy, ” Mizz Lee said. “It would be easy to arrive at that conclusion.”

“But if you KNOW Cindy, then you start to question who led whom, ” Dana smiled.

Mizz Lee’s eyes connected with mine. You don’t spend, as she said, forty years in a classroom and NOT learn something about human nature, particularly the variety of human nature that might apply to young girls.

“Whom, indeed, correct, Dana?” Mizz Lee said.

Dana interlaced her fingers into mine and swung my hand with hers. “A tortuous path up the mountain brings one to breath-taking vistas, ” she said.

“What was that phrase Dan 1.0 said to Cindy?” I asked. “Use your powers for good, not evil?”

“I am using them for good. The two people I love most are both smiling, ” she said.

“Because we love you unconditionally and we’re used to your eccentricity.”

“Edward!” Mizz Lee laughed.

“Truth, Mizz Lee, ” I said. “When you were this age... ”

“My mother would have worn my bottom out. Which she did on numerous occasions.”

“Thought so, ” I laughed.

I drove back to work. Mizz Lee went home. Dana trudged back into the school.

That means that when I got home...

“Everybody wanted to know what I was doing in the assistant principal’s office, baby, ” she said.

“And you said... ”

“That it’s entirely possible to go to that office and it’s NOT a bad thing... ” she giggled. I imagined the reactions of her classmates.

“Word’s gotten completely around that I’m married. I’m soooo famous.”

“What about leaving for college?”

“Nobody believes that. I talked with my math teacher about it. I thought that she’d be interested. Told her about the interview. You know, baby, I think I went over her head with some of that stuff.”

“I don’t think that the math requirement for education majors is as rigorous as it is for math majors or engineers.”

“I would conclude that from seeing the look on her face.”

“What about social studies and English?”

“I gave ‘em copies of those papers.”

By now we’re in familiar configuration, me lying back in my recliner, Dana curled up in my arms, not nearly worried about how her neat young body stimulates me.

“Moving, ” she says. “What are our logistics?”

“I talked with Alan. We argued about borrowing the company’s box truck, but that’s a looong round trip. He said just get a moving company to do it. They’d foot the bill.”

“Neato, ” she squeaked. “All we have to do is load up some luggage for the gap between the time we move over there and the time our stuff arrives, and then we hop in our car and off we go.”

“You sound excited.”

She bumped her forehead to mine, connecting those grey eyes to mine. “Only one thing is more exciting, my Ed... ”

Yes, it’s pretty exciting, and I KNOW what the most exciting thing on the planet is. She’s sitting in my lap. And while were having a tender moment, my stomach growls.

She giggles at the noise. “I suppose that living on love is gonna be noisy, huh?”

“Yeah. Got a solution, smart girl?”

“Option one – grilled cheese and canned soup. Option two. Omelets and whatever veggies we stuck in the freezer. Option three – we decide while we’re backing out of the parking space.”

“Mexican?” I queried.

“That place we went that has that good salsa verde?”

“You got it, doll.” If it takes a tamale or two to make this cutie happy, I’m a tamale-buying fool.

“Gramma and Jerry are out tying up loose ends, baby.”

“I think you just as well get used to calling him ‘Grandpa’, ” I said.

“Yeah. I think it’s neat that she’s getting married. Being married is a pretty cool deal.”

“I think so, ” I replied.

“We don’t have to rush off to dinner, just yet, do we?” she asked. I noted the twinkle in those grey eyes. “D’ya have any idea how many people think our relationship is based on sex?”

“A lot, I imagine, ” I answered.

Giggle. “You’re right. But you know what?”

“What?”

“Sex is just part of us, isn’t it?”

“It is.”

“So if we kinda get undressed and mess around... ”

“I don’t wanna mess around, ” I said.

I watched her face change.

“I’m dead serious. I want to approach this in a very serious manner.”

“You – you’re horrible to me.”

“I know, ” I countered. “So why do we still have clothes on?”

“Come on, you!” she said, grabbing me by the belt.

There’s a word – exuberant. Fits me and Dana quite well. Never since the first time have either of us given the other the slightest hint of ‘I’m not in the mood.’

Me? Once I got past the ‘Dude, you’re a CHILD molester’ thing, there’s no way. I’m not forcing her. The closest I’ve been to that is to reach over in the morning and touch her gently, tracing the curve of her side. And this wasn’t one of those moments. I followed like a happy puppy.

It’s wonderful. I could hardly call myself ‘experienced’ before Dana. Now I cannot get my mind to imagine any way that making love could be better. She can be giggly and demure one moment and demanding and insistent the next. Her hands guide me. She tells me what she wants. Sometimes she just puts a bit of herself within reach of my hand or my mouth or...

The two of us, naked. I get pushed back onto the bed and I find myself mounted.

“Foreplay?” I ask.

“Doesn’t feel like YOU need it, and I know I don’t need it, Ed. All I have to do is think about you. Gosh, you feel good in me.”

“You’re my Dana, my perfection.”

She is. A short time later (odd how that moment manages to crush eternity into a few breathless moments) we’re done, both of us, and I’m stroking the perfection of that honey-colored hair, admiring the colors of each soft strand.

“You love me, don’t you, ” she said softly as I caressed.

“Love you, adore you, worship you... ”

“Good, ” she said softly, “because all this stuff, sometimes it’s scary, you know... ”

“I know, little one, ” I said. “Going from the comfortable to the unknown... ”

“That’s more you than me, ” she said. “I’ve been pretty much uprooted since the first part of November. You, you’ve been working there, living here, for years.”

“And then you showed up and life got MUCH better, Dana sweetie. Nothing I’d change. You? You could be an eighth-grader... ”

“No, ” she said softly. “I couldn’t. I didn’t fit. Ed, that’s us ... me, at least. We didn’t fit good with the crowd.” She brushed her lips across mine lightly. “I think we had the wrong crowd.”

“And you think that we’ve found the right crowd.”

Another brushing kiss.

“I do. I found you. I have Gramma. We have that strange group we’re getting ready to join. And Ed?”

“Yes, my little love?”

“I talked with Mizz Donna – Cindy’s mom – about Mom. Mizz Donna says that it’s entirely possible for people to grow out of being stupid.” She smiled at me. “And I need to learn to sing or somethin’.”

“Huh?”

“The MUSIC, baby. LIVE music by people we KNOW. Cindy sings. Nikki sings. Kara PLAYS. Don’tcha think I need to do SOMETHING?!?”