Chapter 23

Derek’s turn:

Tara says I shouldn’t be so obvious.

She’s talking about Rachel. The first time I saw Rachel Weismann, I recognized Hermione Granger in the first Harry Potter movie, same face, same crazy hair. But Rachel’s eyes are blue and her hair is more brownish. In the movie, Hermione’s is more red. Kind of like Mizz Tina’s.

“You’re too young to be in love,” Tara said. We’d been living back in Auburn for a month when that conversation happened.

“I am a little younger than Cindy was when she got married,” I said. “Everybody knows the story. It’s not a secret.”

Tara’s doing her best to be a stable influence on me, trying to play parent and big sister at the same time. I love her for trying. I mean, I love her because she’s my sister, you know, but I know kids who have big brothers and sisters who treat them like dirt – both directions. I don’t have that. The tragedy of losing Mom in the car accident and Dad some time later made us close.

I mean, I was hurt bad in the wreck too, and Tara quit college to take care of Dad and me. Sacrificed. I know about sacrifice. I saw my sister do it for me.

So now, she’s trying to help.

Terri says I’m beyond help. Terri Addison is the legendary pTerridactyl, lead designer for 3Sigma Robotics. She’s MY age. Which happens to be Rachel’s age.

“And you’re telling me this, why?”

“Because you’re so obvious,” she said.

“Oh, sure, YOU get to lecture ME about being obvious. When you go looking for Jerry, there’s almost a trail of saliva...”

“GROSS, Derek Helton. That’s just GROSS! And I do NOT salivate.”

“I’m just exaggerating for effect,” I said, remembering a language skills lesson we’d had with Mizz Lee, our wonderful English tutor. “The real truth being that you are hardly in a position to lecture me about interpersonal relationships. Besides, Rachel LIKES me.”

“That’s a good thing,” Terri replied. “Otherwise, the way you act, you’re a candidate for the receiving end of justifiable homicide.”

“You use too many big words,” I laughed. It’s a running joke. We ALL do. Gets us a lot of odd looks from, as we call them, ‘muggles’, people of normal intelligence.

And Rachel DOES like me. She says we’re firsties. First girlfriend. First girl I held hands with. And first girl I ever kissed. We have had a serious talk, Rachel and I.

“Mom and Dad are not going to buy into us getting married when I’m fourteen or fifteen or whatever,” she said.

“I sort of understand that. I can’t earn a living...”

“Dad’s still unsure about this whole community. He can’t understand how all these young girls make choices like that. And YOU are a young boy.”

“I know. Tara says ‘puppy love’.”

“Mom says that, too. Says it can be very intense.”

Tara reminds me that I need to be a gentleman. “Dad would expect nothing less of you. Rachel deserves nothing less of you.” Tara knows Rachel and I have kissed. I guess she’s okay with that. Lately, though, I get feelings. I know what’s happening. I need a dad to talk with.

Tara’s dated several guys, but none of them came close to what she needs, and I watch – they’re pretty good guys. One of them worked with Mister Wally as an ag pilot. One is a technician with 3Sigma.

All of them seemed to be nice people. None of them meet my sister’s expectations. She even approached Jerry before she knew about the Jerry-Terri connection.

Jerry’s a nice guy. It’s difficult to get him without Terri, though, but it does happen. He tells me that patience is required. “If you love ‘er, it means doing things right,” he told me once.

There’s that ‘love’ word. It’s the one that Tara tells me I may be too young to understand or exercise. I mean, is it ‘love’ if it’s supposed to be the natural order of things?

“What’s ‘love’, Tara?”

“You think of your partner before yourself. Your happiness comes after her happiness, but that’s where your happiness is generated.”

“That’s a circular statement.”

“You hang around with a rough crowd,” she laughed.

“Mizz Lee is a good teacher,” I said. “I love being here, Tara.”

“Me too...”

That’s not the only thing that’s going on in my life. I can fly. I have an ultralight airplane, and Cindy Richards gave me primary instruction and now I can fly. It would be a MUCH bigger deal if everybody else around her didn’t fly, too. My fellow munchkins – that’s Terri, Rachel and Vicki – were flying before I got here.

The other kids in the home-school group talk about riding dirt bikes and four-wheelers. We fly. I love it. Tara gets nervous when we’re ALL in the air together. We’ve been lectured about flying too close to one another, but last Sunday afternoon we all went up, got away from the home airfield, then flew back in formation. We’re not exactly the Thunderbirds or the Blue Angels but for a bunch of pre-teens, I think we’re pretty good.

I’ve also been bombardier for the flour-bombing contest a couple of times, once for old Mister Barton and his Aeronca Champ. That plane was built in 1946 and it still flies. It’s older than him. Flour-bombing is a silly game. It’s fun. We put a big cross in the grass next to the runway, then each contestant gets to fly over at a thousand feet and drop a two-pound bag of flour, trying to hit the cross. It’s not easy. It’s just fun. I haven’t been on a winning team, but Mister Barton and I came in second. He says ‘skill’. I say ‘luck’.

So that’s my life right now – school, family, fun ... and work. And all I need to do is figure out how to get Tara a good guy.

Tara’s turn:

Moving here at the drop of a hat, that wasn’t as Dad used to say, ‘Classic Tara’. I was always conservative and measured in my approach to life, a fact that stood me well academically in school. It also served me well after that accident that took Mom and rendered me the caretaker to Derek and Dad.

Derek recovered, and a lot of his ability today is because I was relentless in getting him up and about doing the physical things he needed to do to return torn muscles and broken bones back to full functionality. I knew that if I persisted, his hatred would go away, but if I allowed him the path of least resistance, the physical impairment would not.

Dad’s passing was sad, but was no surprise. The damage to his lungs when he went back into the inferno to rescue Derek and Mom, that damage, was just too much. He went downhill, despite the best efforts of doctors.

Dad took care of us to the very end. His insurance included a huge accidental death payout, the maximum his employer supplied, plus a supplemental. “I always wanted you and your brother and your mom to never have to worry about anything if I got killed,” he told me when we knew the end was inevitable.

One of the last things he did was write a letter to Auburn, the college I’d just entered when the news came of the fiery car wreck.

Dad died. It almost killed me. There I was, me and my young brother. By this time he was at about ninety percent in his physical capabilities. His mental capabilities were beyond measure, and I was trying to think about how I was supposed to guide the lives of the two of us with the big empty places once occupied by two loving, caring parents.

Dad’s letter came through. A chance encounter on the day of new student orientation. Dad’s letter to somebody at Auburn, kicking out the keystone that held off the avalanche. The appearance of Cindy and Nikki as the vanguard of the Community was more assertive than I’d been with Derek. Cindy flat out told me, “It’s time for you to get off your dead butt and get it in gear, dear. This is your LIFE, and it ain’t no rehearsal.”

I’m glad she did.

I’m back up to speed. No, check that! I’m overspeeding, driving toward that engineering degree I’d had in mind when I came to Auburn the first time, intent on following in Dad’s footsteps.

I have an apartment, provided by 3Sigma where I’m officially an ‘engineering assistant’, giving me and Derek a place to call our own. I have a car. I have friends beyond measure.

I’m twenty-three now. I need a mate. I don’t need, in the delicate terminology of some of my contemporaries, a fuck-toy or a friend with benefits. I sit at the table on Saturday evening in the community pavilion and I see couples. I see them and I think of Mom and Dad and I think ‘Tara, you deserve no less than that. Accepting less than that would dishonor your parents and five thousand years of tradition’.”

I’m Jewish. Mom and Dad, natch. Rather rare in Georgia, and somewhere back in the family history our Middle-European name had been changed to ‘Helton’, but the fact never changed.

Extra burden, right? Marrying within my faith is going to severely limit my choices. That limit has played a part in NOT getting serious about several prospects. I’ve dated several great men since moving here, but Beck, my equally Jewish sister, says “Be picky, Tara. It’s okay to have fun, to have friends, but the ONE you finally settle on, you and I know about how serious we need to be.”

But it’s ONLY a part. More than one guy fell off the list because he wanted access to something I was raised to reserve for marriage. Another, well, he was very attractive, physically. He was a pilot with the ag aviation service with Mister Wally, but he was going back to the Texas panhandle and I wasn’t going to do THAT.

“Do Jews have convents? Because I’m beginning to feel like a candidate,” I told Mizz Donna while I was bouncing little Elise on my lap. Mizz Donna’s lap has all but disappeared under her baby bump.

“Baby bump? I’m smuggling pumpkins,” she laughed. “And no, I don’t think Jews have convents and you just hang on. If I can find a husband, I know you can, darlin’. You’re a catch.”

“Thank you Mizz Donna,” I said. “I’m just impatient, I guess.”

“God works in His own time,” she said. “And sometimes in mysterious ways. Go tell Grandma Desai to tag Shiva on your behalf.”

Ecumenical? Yes, we are. Donna, like several in the community, is Christian – Baptist, to be exact. Some practice harder than others. Sim and Beck are Jewish and I am their adopted Jewish sister. Sim has taken it upon himself to see to Derek’s upbringing, something I’m very grateful for.