Chapter 29

Cindy's turn:

I was sitting in my Dan's office when his phone rang. It has to be somebody with whom we have a close relationship because most business calls are routed through the front desk. Today Beck's there. Tina's off somewhere being pregnant and herding three young girls around.

"This is Dan Richards," Dan said into the phone. "Oh, hi, Brother Jones!" Pause. "Okay. Ken, then." Pause. "Yeah, we might be able to get something together. Hang on, I'm putting you on speaker. Cindy's here."

Dan punched the 'speaker' button on his phone. I heard Brother Jones laugh. "Gosh, Dan! What'd you do, warn me so I wouldn't say something obscene in front of Cindy?"

"Hi, Pastor Ken," I said.

"Hello, Cindy. Okay, I'm asking for a little favor."

"Go ahead," Dan said. "I think I can trust you," he chuckled.

"Well, this one's kind of a disruption to y'all's routine. I know you get together on Saturday night and play music, right?"

"Still do. Outside, weather permitting. In the new building if it's too hot or nasty or whatever."

"Well, I have a dilemma."

"Okay, we're listening..."

"I am associated with a local retirement home. They have a family group that comes in on Saturday evenings and plays a little music."

"Sounds nice," I said.

"Well, that bunch is heading out of state. Sick parent. Won't be back for Saturday. Would it be an imposition to ask if you could fill in?"

I looked at Dan. Didn't see a 'no' forming, so I dove in. "Just me 'n' Dan? Can we add people?"

"Add whoever you want. I'd LIKE for you to arrive early and hang around afterward a while to socialize. Heaven knows that a lot of those old folks would appreciate the attention."

"That makes sense," Dan said. "Goes without saying. What kind of music?"

"The same sort of mix you guys played when I visited. You did something for everybody, I think."

"Well, if that's what you need, then we'll fix you up, Ken," Dan said. "Might just be me 'n' Cindy, but..."

"But nothin'!" I blurted. "Stoney 'n' Jo are here. Kara 'n' Bert. Nikki and the other Dan..." I paused. "Is that too much?"

"No. Heavens, no. Bring 'em all. The residents will be glad to get visitors."

"I'm putting together the recruiting message right now," I said.

"What time?" Dan asked.

"Is five-thirty too early?" Brother Ken asked.

"No, that's fine. Don't worry. We'll get there early to set up and you'll have somebody. Maybe more than you bargained for."

"Thank you," Brother Ken said.

"Don't thank me yet. You're the one who unleashed a redhead."

"I'm not THAT bad, Brother Ken," I squeaked. Okay, maybe sometimes I am. I have friends and family that love this stuff as much as I do, whether the 'stuff' in question is making music, cooking, familying (is that a legitimate verb?), learning or working. I see that this request is going to fall all the way across the spectrum of what makes my life good.

"I am sooooo scared," Brother Ken said. "See y'all in church!"

"You betcha," Dan answered. He hit the 'disconnect' button, then looked at me. "You're smiling."

"Of course I'm smiling. This is good on so many levels."

"I love having a happy Cindy. I suppose we sort of need to see who's coming with us and work on a playlist."

"Not that we'll stick to it," I said. "Somebody'll say 'Can you play... ' and we're off to the races." I sighed. "Now, back to this book..."

I was studying. Yes, studying. To a little Alabama girl who was all about getting a highschool diploma three years ago to a doctoral candidate, it's a leap. It meant that I've absorbed a lot of material from books and Internet and actual lab work.

Today it's an older book. I'm trying to see where the science was before it got to where it is today. What's the Newton quote? "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." That's me, climbing onto the giant's back, hoping to see through the fog. This is some esoteric stuff. Still, Doctor Embert swears that Nikki and I are neck and neck, both on track.

That makes me a semi-working engineer and a full-time student. That 'student' part though, is up for discussion. I've never been a traditional student since I got out of middle school. Of course, some of my off the campus work with Los Alamos, a couple of conferences, one to Stanford, one to MIT, I happily accepted credit hours for those.

The guy in that chair over there makes it possible. Dan's my rock and my refuge and my comforter and my cheering section. Well, okay, maybe he's the head cheerleader. I have others. Mom, late to the game, but making up for lost time with extra enthusiasm. My 'dad', Mister Bill. Mizz Helen and Mister Charlie. And all the rest of them.

I've worried way too much about the kinds of things I saw tossed towards achievers in school and even here in college. I worried. Tina and Susan and all our husbands stopped with four-year degrees. I felt like I was standing out.

Talked with Nikki, who occupies the other end of our boat. We're in the same boat, you know.

"You definitely ARE standing out, kiddo," Nikki says in her 'mature' voice, she being a whole year older than me. "So am I. If we were back home with an ordinary mix of people, yeah, we'd probably see some jealousy. We aren't there. We're here."

"Yeah ... But..."

"Our world is sort of insular. We're isolated. Even in school, you and me, we're in a program that's above the crowd."

"Where the 'crowd' is engineering majors."

"Yeah," Nikki said. "Just getting into the program thins out a lot of the ignorant. But stop worrying about us. We're family here."

First reply to my email about the Saturday music came in. Johanna. "We'll be there." In the next hour, I had Kara's (for her and Bert, naturally) and Nikki's Dan. Nikki's at the lab on campus today. Since she didn't reply immediately, I surmise she's into something good.

"Kim 'n' Tim will help us, but Jenn and Laci have a cabin down on the coast. They don't want to break the reservation," I said. "Sim and Beck will be there, and that gives us the Munchkin Mafia."

"Okay," he said. "We'll make sure we have something for them to sing."

Wanna know what gets me going? Dan being a nice guy gets me going. I had to get up out of my chair and go over and wrap my arms around him.

"D'ya know how much I love you?" I said, giving him a promissory kiss.

He smiled. "Still? With all this craziness?"

"This isn't crazy, baby," I replied. "Helping people out? Good. Better since this a bunch of people at a retirement home. I've heard stories about some of those places."

I caught movement in the corner of my eye. Looked towards the door. Tina's face.

"Did you hear all that?"

"Yeah. And I got the email. You need roadies." She smiled.

I giggled. "Even round ones." Tina's belly, thirty-odd weeks into pregnancy, was prominent. She and Susan were racing to the finish line, a month and a half ahead of Johanna and a good two months ahead of Mom.

If there was jealousy anywhere in this community, it was the twinges I get from seeing a happy herd of pregnant women. Still, I'm not the age I would want to be if Dan could get me pregnant and I certainly can't be mad or morose over the good fortunes of four prospective mommies.

"Three weeks. I got three weeks," Tina said. "I'm good for this weekend."

"Poor little thing," I laugh. "Working right up to your delivery date. Your husband's such a beast."

"I knowwww," she giggled. "Makin' me climb all the way up that pedestal..."

"Where'd you leave the munchkins?" I asked.

"They're in the lab."

Inwardly I still get a giggle out of 'in the lab' when the subjects of the statement aren't yet eleven. "What's the project?"

"Playing with composite materials. Jerry's in there with them."

Jerry is a student in mechanical engineering. He's one that we picked up from the greenhouse study sessions, a rarity in that he actually was from the area.

Tina continued. "You know the trouble you can get into with that stuff. Some of those epoxies aren't very friendly to the skin. And the fibers..."

"I know. Is this part of the Bot-bot upgrade?"

Tina nodded. "They think they can knock off twenty pounds on the chassis upgrade. Changing to the latest battery technologies, well, there's an argument."

"Yeah," I said. "I got in on some of that. Keep the capacity the same and take the weight savings, or use the new power densities to extend Bot-bot's time between recharges."

Tina laughed. "Exactly the sort of conversation you'd expect for a bunch of pre-teen girls, right?"

"Would've been right up my alley, given similar circumstances," I returned.

I did walk over to the lab to see what the little ones were doing.

Jerry was watching as the three girls stripped off chemical gloves and the cutest little Tyvek suits.

"What're we doing?" I asked Jerry.

He looked at the trio. "Don't ask me, ask them."

Terri pointed. "New chassis. We used a reverse 'lost wax' technique."

"Explain," I said.

"You tell 'er, Rachel," Terri replied.

"We did a mockup out of Styrofoam. Cut and overlaid strips of carbon fiber and Kevlar, using an epoxy that's compatible with the Styrofoam."

"Are you gonna leave the Styrofoam?"

Vicki piped in. "I think we should. It adds structural rigidity." She looked at Terri. "Right?"

"And almost no additional weight. Big gain."

"Where'd that come from?"

"Jerry says it hit the mainstream from Burt Rutan's early work. That's as far back as we went in research."

"I give up," I said.

"Don't give up," Jerry laughed. "You 'n' me, we're 'adult supervision'."

"I'm only seventeen," I reminded him.

"Oh, yeah ... right ... Master's degree, doctoral candidate. Definitely NOT an adult."

Terri piped in. "Cindy, you're my wonderful aunt and a source of inspiration."

"And you use big words to confuse and confound people," I countered.

"Works on me," Jerry said. "Now, what did we learn about our materials today?" He surveyed the munchkins. "Vicki?"

"Epoxies can cause many different adverse reactions. Loose fibers from composite work are dangerous."

"Good," Jerry said. "Rachel, tell me about mitigation."

"Proper protective gear," she said. "Always check compatibility. Rubber gloves come in many different materials and they do not all protect for the same things. And vacuum the area with a HEPA vac."

"What's 'HEPA' stand for? Terri?"

"High Efficiency Particulate Air," Terri parroted. "I wanna look into some materials on the effects of those particulates on the body."

"And there we go, off on another tangent," I tell Jerry.

"Like herding ducks. You think you have 'em going in the right direction, one of 'em sees something curious, and off they go on another path."

"We need to wait until the epoxy cures anyway. Drive us to the library, Jerry." Terri.

"Yes, library, please," Rachel said with Vicki nodding behind her.

"Public? Or University?"

"University," Terri said.

"Good!" Jerry laughed.

"What's so good?"

"University library. The public library is used to seeing a bunch of little kids running around. They're an anomaly in the university library."

"You DO know I have a university ID," Terri stated.

"Of course I do. I also know how many people are shaking in their boots that you'll show up in their classes. I was one of 'em."

"And it was an interesting class," Terri said.