Chapter 2

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 grand-daughter is not thirteen.”

“Sim’s driving us home right now. He’s barely sane. Your grand-daughter is in the back seat with a huge grin. And we just got out of a meeting with people from Auburn where they conferred her degree. She is working on her master’s thesis. She may be in master’s regalia in May.”

“Your father and I shall be there.”

A thought crossed my mind. I wonder if Cindy of the Skies would want to fly that shiny new plane into the New York airspace?

Okay, that’s the happy part of paradise. The snake in my Garden of Eden is in the unlikely form of a thirteen-year-old boy who is my thirteen-year-old daughter’s constant companion.

I and my wonderful husband dearly wanted a baby. That’s how we ended up with Rachel, named after her grandmother and every other generation of Hebrew women back to antiquity.

For seven years we were happy that we had a bright, personable daughter. Then we moved into the 3Sigma apartments. My dear bright Rachel met Terri Addison and became the Salieri to her Mozart - the real story, not the one in the movie. They collaborated with each other, boosting, urging, cooperating, catalyzing from sunrise to sunset, and a couple of nights each week they spent the night at our house or the Addisons’ and I think that’s when they plotted world domination.

My Rachel slipped to the #2 slot in the ‘smartest kid I know’ rankings. For the last five years I’ve been frequently astounded. A couple of million dollars in the bank will do that to the mother of a nine-year-old.

I was in paradise. Me. My beloved Sim. And my daughter Rachel who seems to grow daily in capabilities, like she’s feeding on psychic energy from her blonde friend.

Right up to the proud day I sat in temple and watched my Rachel deliver her bat Mitzvah speech.

I already knew she had a boyfriend, a late arrival to the community. The evil creature is named Derek Helton. He was smitten the first time he laid eyes on my Rachel. She’s equally smitten with him.

A week after Rachel’s bat mitzvah, Derek stood for his bar mitzvah. He’s had my Sim and one Major Aaron Kettler, USAF, for his spiritual guidance into Hebrew manhood.

I was sitting beside his sister, as proud for her as I was for him. Like Captain Smith on the bridge of the Titanic on April 14, 1912. My daughter’s first ‘puppy love’, okay.

At least she saved me the privilege of watching my husband have a heart attack. She caught me in one of those tender ‘mother-daughter’ moments that evening.

“Mom, I was very proud of Derek today. He looked very nice. Poised.”

“He comported himself almost as well as you, dear. His speech...”

“We worked together, Mom.”

“Really? I thought I detected that, but I wasn’t sure.”

“Mom, I know it stresses you, but Derek’s The One. Just like Dad is to you.”

“Rachel, you know the story of me and your dad. I was the same age...”

“Derek and I are the same age...”

“Dear, that age was twenty-one.”

“Mom,” she said, “I am now a woman, according to what happened last week. Derek is a man. Mom, why can’t we be married?”

That’s when my heart stopped.

The next day I parked at the office. I was early. I put the kettle on to boil in the kitchenette. I do tea. Most of the office does coffee, and it’s great coffee, but I get the jitters from too much caffeine and right now all the thoughts in my head do not need the enhancement of coffee-induced jitters. I’m trying to calm myself when Dan Richards – Dan 1.0, Dan the guy who MARRIED a girl a year older than my Rachel.

“Good morning, Dan.”

“Good morning, Beck. How’re things?”

“Dan Richards, much of my trouble is your fault.”

“Beck, I’ve improved. My paperwork is not causing any heartaches.”

“No, but your ‘We got married when she was fourteen’ example has.”

“I’m sensing that you’re stressed.” He looked around. “Let’s go to my office. No sense in having witnesses to my death.”

I followed him. This is a great place to work. I’d hate to leave it for the sake of my daughter’s virtue.

We got to his office, closed the door. Dan doesn’t do that ‘sit across the desk and look intimidating’ thing, not with me. I consider him the best of friends, but...

“Dan, I’m worried here, and nearly outraged. And certainly conflicted. Sim is a bit more philosophical than me, and I’m delighted with the things that Rachel has accomplished, and at such an early age. But Rachel looks at you and Cindy, and thinks it’s entirely normal to be married at fourteen! I’m nearly convinced that the whole lot of you have concocted some sort of cult here, abusing young girls!”

“Beck, I can understand your views, and before Cindy I would have agreed with you. And I certainly didn’t seek it, but having lived it, let me tell you what I have concluded.”

I stared at him. “Go ahead. Dazzle me.”

“I’ve about decided that a man has no say in male-female relationships, at least with really smart girls. It’s my observation that a girl or woman targets a man, overwhelms and captures him before he knows what’s happening. It happened to me, and to the rest of us, and each of us was nearly frightened to death. And now, look at poor Jerry -- he has no chance at all.”

“But Dan, why have you all congregated here? Can’t you see how this looks like a cult?”

“Beck, again, you have to look at the Sisters. This entire community was their idea -- it would never have occurred to us guys. When we ran across Alan and Tina at that concert, I thought ‘Great! Nice to see ‘im.’ And I would’ve just gone on to the next project, bringing my Cindy with me. Did that happen?”

“Obviously not.”

“Why didn’t it happen, Beck? If you haven’t heard the story, let me tell it to you. Cindy and Tina bounced on a hotel room bed, excited to meet each other, and THEY decided that THEY should stay together. Tina dragged Susan in. They BOTH dragged Nikki in. Next thing I knew, three engineers and a very adept technician were trying to launch a business from Auburn, Alabama because we had FOUR wives in college.”

He sighed. “That’s the truth, Beck. Not us guys. We’re guys. Engineers. Itinerant engineers. ‘Feral engineers’ is what the girls call us. We’d’ve just roamed the country doing just what we were doing, but we married girls who chose US and here we are. Didn’t make sense to us, not at the time, not with the vision WE had. It made perfect sense to Cindy and Tina and Susan and Nikki. And when it came to the Munchkins, it made sense to them because they were among their intellectual peers. But weren’t you all in favor of this bunch, as recently as a year ago?”

“Yes I was, Dan. But that was before Derek showed up. Rachel thinks it’s entirely normal for her to start an actual relationship with him!”

“Beck, I don’t think you have to worry about Derek doing anything to Rachel. The reverse may not be true -- I just don’t know. From what I’ve seen, I’d conclude that he’ll do anything she wants him to do. And somewhat related, I have to ask: Did Sim have any idea what you were doing when you captured him?”

And blushing, Beck said, “Of course not! And Rachel is entirely too much like I was, but much younger than I was. And THAT has me worried, more than anything else.”

“Beck, I had a long talk with Mizz Lee about Dana.”

“The ‘choose your battle’ talk. I’ve heard about it.”

“Look, if Derek appeared to be the normal thirteen year old boy, I’d be grabbing MY daughter and heading for the hills. As it is, though, that last bonus distribution, he put a hundred K into investments. Tell me, when Sim proposed to you...”

“A 1998 Toyota and a fresh diploma.”

“I like Sim. Great guy. But...”

“My point, Dan Richards. He was kinda handsy.”

“No doubt. You’re pretty and he’s a normal male.”

“Uh, I kinda wanted him to be handsy...”

“Not that he needed encouragement.”

“Direction, maybe,” I said, then dammit, I realized that I was being carefully guided. “Dammit, Dan, you’re...”

“Just talking about how relationships might progress. Derek will NOT do a darned thing that Rachel does NOT want...”

“Neither would Sim.”

“And that stopped the two of you...”

“What’s Cindy’s phrase? ‘Married before the Lord?’ We...”

“And then when you got the timing and everything else lined up – married in the eyes of the state and society...”

“But before that happened, you’d already chosen him and he was happy with that?”

“You make it sound like I drove that point.”

“Beck, one day I had this neat, cute friend who needed help with homework and a bit of relief from a really crappy life. I don’t know when I was targeted, but I was targeted. Ask the other guys. Sometimes it was obvious. Sometimes not. But always inevitable.”

“Dana’s story...” I said.

“Yeah. One of my favorites. ‘Do you have a girlfriend. No? Want one?’ And look at them now.”

“And I’m supposed to be Mizz Lee to Rachel...”

“We’re not a teenie-loving cult here, Beck...”

“I know that, Dan Richards. I’m soooo confused...”