Chapter 20

Haley’s turn:

Giggle. “You always look like a bug!” That’s Deena’s comment when I have a soldering iron in one hand and a pair of tweezers in the other and a pair of magnifying viewers on, trying to solder a teeny tiny little wire to a teeny tiny little pad on a circuit board on the lab bench in front of me.

“That’s okay,” I said. “Next time you’re jumping around with your burnt finger in your mouth, the video’s going on YouTube.”

“This is why Dad says he likes power engineering.”

“Oh, I know. Those outdoor circuit breakers in the storage yard – nothing in ‘em you can’t work on with a sledgehammer and a pair of pliers.”

She snickered. “You heard DAD say that.”

“It’s almost true. The wires – LOTS of them, but compared to this stuff, they’re huge.”

“This thing’s five volts. The LOWEST voltage in THAT thing is one-twenty-five DC. It’s rated for seventy-two thousand volts.”

“Poh-tay-toe, poh-tah-toe,” I snarked. “Parts is parts.”

“You’ve definitely been hanging around Dad too much.”

“I married ‘im, remember? He didn’t adopt me so you’d have a mature older sister...”

“Mature? You?” Deena squeaked.

“If you two don’t stop, I’m gonna have to make you kiss and hold hands,” came Maddie’s disembodied voice from up the hall.

“Oh, PLEASE, Brer Bear, don’t throw me in that briar patch,” I thought.

“Yes, motherrrrrr,” I retorted. Then to Deena, “Now, let’s see if this thing’s gonna work.” We had a temperature sensor embedded in a bit of silicon rubber. A temperature-sensitive fingertip.

The little embeddable microprocessor board had Bluetooth communication. We powered it up, watched my laptop as it connected and showed us the diagnostic screen for the embed. Then we pulled down a text-based menu to a place where we can monitor THAT particular input.

“That’s seventy degrees – ambient temperature,” Deena noted. “Touch it.”

I put my fingertip on it, saw the screen immediately start counting up until it got to ninety-four. “I have a cool fingertip,” I said.

Deena’s eyes flashed but she didn’t say anything, just a blue-eyed smirk. She knew my fingertips pretty well. I know hers, too.

We spent another hour discussing ideas as to how to mount that new sensor. Came up with an idea, but now it’s pushing five and Maddie’s already gone. We arm the security system and turn out the lights and head home ourselves.

I know what’s causing that slightly sad look on Deena’s face. She’s gotta spend this weekend with her mom.

“I love ‘er, you know,” she said. “It’s just that we have less and less common ground. I can’t BE Mom, and I think that’s what bothers ‘er.”

I know what she’s saying, but I viewed it as an outsider. The ‘in’ groups of girls, the ones that were always in the right cliques, the cheerleaders, the organizers of proms, always in some extra-curricular activity, dating THOSE boys who were equally well placed—I was not among them.

With a lawyer ‘dad’ and a pushy mom who’d been on the merry-go-round herself, Deena was expected to be that in her first year of high school.

So, okay, Deena’s not IN high school, she’s in college, and Deena’s supposed to be doing the same thing in a much larger arena with lifetime consequences. And as far as her mom knows, Deena’s never even been on a date.

What we do on campus – the hard-charging academics, it’s even the WRONG academics. Apparently the really HOT guys aren’t in engineering, which is something I can’t understand because I’m hooked up with one and I’ve been wined and dined and loved until I was zooming past the Andromeda galaxy. By a nerdy engineer.

So has Deena.

“I don’t wanna miss this weekend, Haley. Y’all’re gonna do that thing at the airport.”

“So bring your mom...”

I think I actually SHOCKED my sister/lover.

“Oh, that’ll surely happen.”

“It could. I mean, it’s US, the Johnsons, the Gleasons. I think that Dan ‘n’ Cindy are coming in, so, them and his sister and her husband...”

“I know. They’re coming. He’s gonna be running the crawfish boil.” She huffed. “And I’m gonna miss it.”

“If you were gonna meet friends at the mall, she’d drop you off, right?”

“Yeah...”

“So this is like that. Get ‘er to drop you off. We’ll get you home. Just like if you went to a movie or something...”

“Except I’m not at the mall being seen by my peers who are envious that they’re NOT me.”

“I can’t help you there,” I said. “I kinda like the version of you that I get to see.”

She smiled demurely. ‘Demure’? I’ve seen every square inch of her body. It’s FUN.

“I’d ask Dad if it was okay if Mom showed up,” Deena said.

“Let’s see...” I stated. “Outdoors. Buncha NOT lawyers and movers and shakers in local politics. I’m thinking your mom’s not gonna want to hang around.”

“Yeah, I know,” she said almost sadly. “Mom’s good for ‘Mom and me’, but I don’t think ... even if she brought Harv.”

“No drinking, either,” I said. “Maybe beer, but not for anybody that’s flying.”

Deena’s REALLY regretting having to go away for the weekend. I feel bad, because I’m selfish – I get Bill all to myself for a couple of nights, and my OTHER mate is SAD.

“Sometimes it just really sucks,” she said.

That’s ‘upset Deena’. She’s usually careful with her language.

Sometimes there’s justice in the universe. While we were hashing out Deena’s feelings, her phone rang. I recognized the ringtone. Her mom.

“Mom,” she said, punching the phone. “Hi, Mom. I ... we’re on the way home to get my stuff, then Haley’ll drop me off.” Pause. Little whine. “No, Mom, I understand totally. He’s gotta do those things if he wants to get ahead.” Pause. “Okay. Me ‘n’ you tonight. You gonna bring me home in the morning or do you want Dad ‘n’ Haley to come get me?” Pause. “No, seriously ... They’re planning a social at the airfield.” Pause. “Mom, I can’t really fly by myself and Dad hasn’t got his private license yet. I’ll be careful.” Pause. “NO, that one just flew an airplane back across the Atlantic from Europe. Like Charles Lindberg, except cuter.” Pause. “Okay, Mom. See you in about an hour. Love you.” And she dropped the call.

“What’s THAT about?”

“Her ‘n’ Harv are invited to some party. ‘Member what I said about her being in HER kind of place?”

“Yeah.”

“Her kind of place. And would I mind if I had to stay here tomorrow instead of with her.”

“I noted the sadness when she told you.”

“Don’t you get snippy with me, evil stepmother. The UNIVERSE conspires for me to be there tomorrow...”

I laughed. “I hardly think that the universe cares where YOU spend your Saturday.”

“Uh-huh.” She flopped back against the seat. “I feel better now.” Giggle. “You get Dad all to yourself tonight. Tomorrow y’all have to catch me up.”

We bopped in the door, caught Bill changing shoes, changed to his car and went to drop Deena off. En route, Deena brought him up to speed on the scheduling change.

“You’re okay?” he asked her.

“Yeah. I was just whining to Haley about missing the party.”

“Not much of a party,” he said.

“I’ve talked to that bunch in Alabama. They do pretty regular fly-ins. This is our first.”

“Well, they don’t do theirs in the heat of the summer,” Bill said. “So this one’s liable to be it for a while. Start back up in September or October, if there’s an interest.”

“Can’t imagine there won’t be,” I said.

“They have more room. We’d have to fill in a crawfish pond.”

“Don’t do that,” Deena instructed. “John’s supplying the crawfish for tomorrow...”

John Saucier was the enterprising crawfish farmer who leased the acreage on both sides of the airstrip, starting halfway down on both sides. We’ve watched him doing his thing, weird little boat running back and forth, John or one of his hired guys – he’s a real farmer – picking up each trap, dumping the unfortunate crawfish into a tub. Later they get graded for size and sacked up for sale.

John’s one of those guys who just makes the world work. “Dem cooyons (Auth. Note: ‘coo-YAWN’ is Cajun French for stupid, foolish person) from de gummint say ‘don’t grow rice’ so I grow crawfish.” And he’s going to add taking care of the land – fences, levees, ditches – in lieu of paying cash for his lease. The occasional bag or three of crawfish helps.

We pulled into Deena’s mom’s driveway. She popped the door open, leaned in the driver side window and kissed Bill on the cheek, then went inside as we were backing out. A mile down the road Deena called.

“Y’all come get me when you’re getting ready to head to the airfield,” she said.

“Got it,” I replied. “Have fun.”

“You too,” she snickered.

Then Cindy.

“Hey, Cin,” I said. Bill’s head swiveled when I said her name.

“Y’all still doin’ that thing tomorrow?”

“Yep. It’s on,” I said. “Bill talked with your brother-in-law. He’s coming. Y’all still are, ain’t you? You HAVE to...”

“Oh, we’ll be there. Would’ve flown in today but something came up.” There was a little hint of a tone in her voice.

“Nothing BAD, huh?”

“No, but we’re gonna make an entrance.”

“Pilatus? You got TWO, you know.”

“Nope. Better’n that.”

“Better?” I squeaked.

“Yeah. One of the customers that was ahead of us in line for the Stearman rebuild backed out. We got pushed to the front of the line. Picked it up this morning, and now it’s here at our field, being admired by everyone. So, tomorrow afternoon I’ll be landing ‘er at Dukes Field. Don’t tell Mister Dukes. Just make sure he’s there.”

“I’ll call ‘im when I get off the phone with you.”

“Good. You can tell Bill, but let’s keep it a secret, okay?”

I giggled. “They told me you were evil, but it was a GOOD evil.”

“I try. See y’all tomorrow. Probably mid-day.”

“It’ll be going good then. We’re planning on having the first batch out of the pot about one-thirty.”

“Save me some big ‘uns.”

“‘Kay, sis. Bye!”

“What evil is Cindy working now?”