Chapter 26

Sandy’s turn:

I am Sandra June Gleason. The ‘June’ part is from Mom’s grandmother. It fills in a block on forms. I never met the lady. Mom said she was worth emulating, though. I hope I’m doing that. Mom’s not around to tell me. Mom’s health went bad and she passed away when I was ten.

Ever since then, I’ve lived with Dad and his wife, often referred to as ‘The Evil Stepmother’, always with a smile.

I missed Mom because she was, after all, Mom, but after she’d cut me loose for a couple of weeks with Dad and Nina, right after they got married, I decided that living with Dad and Nina was my goal. Dad’s an engineer. Mom dropped out of college. Mister Harry was about the same. He sold used cars. Mom worked as a receptionist for a company. Neither of them could understand my drive for academics.

Dad understood, and after I started talking to Nina on the phone, when she graduated high school, she wanted college. “Like your dad, Sandy. I want to be an engineer.”

She was smart, like Dad, and when I moved in, they brought me into their world and I found out that it was the world I’d been wanting. NO, it wasn’t ALL books and academics. They have an active lifestyle, so I found myself on bicycle rides and kayak excursions and swimming.

And music. Piano. I wanted one. Mom and Harry weren’t in favor. I talked with Nina, we BOTH hit Dad. Piano. Admonished about the costs of pianos and the propensity for ten year old girls to be flighty in choosing priorities.

Wasn’t me. To a lesser extent, wasn’t Nina either, but Nina had several other priorities in her life. I was one. Dad was a BIG one. And after a glorious summer vacation, we both started back to school, me in the last year of elementary, her in the first year of college.

Since work at my grade level was just about as easy as getting water at the sink, I paid a lot of attention to a) the piano and b) Nina’s college stuff. When I finished that grade, they shoved me up, not to the next one, but TWO grades. I agreed with the counselor who held the meeting with Dad and Nina. I didn’t need to be idling along.

Every advanced placement course that showed up, I took. I got selected for a session with the ACT in the seventh grade, something that I found funny, that both Dad and Nina found a bit scary, and after some apparent success I started getting letters from colleges.

Sandy likes living at home, at least I did at the time, so the only ones I paid attention to came from the local university, the one Dad had graduated from and which Nina was currently attending.

College campus is a wild place, especially if you’re outside the normal parameters of student population, which was me, two years ahead of time. In some circles I achieved minor celebrity status, which means I had to work my butt off.

College stuff. Nina’s turn to sit down beside ME and return the soothing words I’d given her from time to time.

And I found help on campus. Sitting in the hall waiting to talk to one of the engineering instructors and there’s this dark-haired pixie-looking thing, the same engineering text open on her lap as I’m asking for help with.

“Excuse me. Electrical Machines? Are you having problems as well?”

“Somebody is having problems,” she said. “I went through analysis of an example problem on this worksheet and did NOT come up with the answer given. I do not expect to have problems in this class...”

“My dad suggested that I get the instructor to work it with me,” I said. “Dad got the same result I did...”

“My Dave did, also. I compared it with the book, I compared it with Dave. And now, show me what YOU did ... If you please...”

“Uh, sure. By the way, I’m Sandy Gleason.”

“Carlita Johnson.”

“Your accent...”

“Guatemala. I have been in America three years.”

“You speak very well. I doubt that three years in Guatemala would do as well for me.”

She smiled. “You might be surprised. But I was raised in an orphanage run by an American family...”

“Interesting,” I said.

“It is a long story.”

“Is it something you tell? I’d like to hear...”

Our conversation was interrupted by the expedient of the professor’s teaching assistant opening the door. “If you two are here about Number Four on last week’s worksheet, the solution on the website is wrong. We just posted the correct one...”

“I am inconvenienced,” Carlita said. “Not only am I inconvenienced, but I have inconvenienced my husband.”

Well, since she’s getting expressive, so will I. “Me too. Dad. Step-mom – both engineers. All three of us came up with the same answer and it WASN’T yours...”

“We screwed up. I’m sorry,” he said.

My turn to step up. “Okay, then how about letting me take the final and I’ll forget this...”

Carlita flicked her eyes to me, then him. “I am in favor of that solution. Otherwise I shall ask you about your answers for the remainder of the semester.”

“You two think you can pass the final?” he asked.

“If you use the correct answers to the questions,” Carlita said. “Apparently that is a difficulty.”

“Carlita, my friend,” he said, “Be nice.”

“Yes, my friend,” she said. “I would be even more nice if I passed this class and moved on.”

He looked at me. “You, Miss Gleason?”

“Me, too!”

“Friday. Nine AM.”

I looked at Carlita, then at Len – Leonard Schooler, the teaching assistant. “Len, you’re getting soft...”

“I prefer to think that I’ve been beaten into submission, though still I struggle...”

Carlita laughed out loud. “Come, new friend,” she said. “Let us retire to a venue where we may discuss our new-found powers.”

Over coffee at the ‘not-starbucks’, a locally owned coffee shop with excellent coffee cake, I got to know more about this ‘Carlita’ thing. Half an hour in, I met Brindy as well.

Brindy’s a pleasant-looking, slightly plump – I think the operative term is ‘curvy’ – brunette.

“We belong together,” Carlita said. “We may as well tell you because rumors float around about our status. We are married.”

‘Okay, Sandy,’ I thought. ‘Brave New World. Kumbayah and rainbows ‘n’ shit.’ The latter statement was Dad’s. ‘You can get over this. Carlita’s worth a friendship.’

“To each other?”

Brindy nodded. “And to Dave.”

“Dave is my engineer husband. Brindy is--what does that TV show say? ‘Sister wife’?” Carlita said. “If it presents a difficulty, that is regrettable, but we understand.”

“No, we don’t,” Brindy said. “People have friends who are into lots weirder stuff than me ‘n’ Lita ‘n’ Dave.”

“People put up walls,” I said.

Brindy sighed. “Some people get freaked out. I’ve actually lost somebody whom I thought was going to be a friend when she found out about my marriage arrangement.”

“You didn’t lose much, then.”

“Perhaps so,” Carlita said. “Still, I don’t like causing turmoil. But I am rathering that you knew NOW than finding out later and...”

“Changing my mind? My mind can be changed,” I said. “Use me. Talk bad about me. Take advantage of me. Lie to me. But who you live with, that’s not going to upset me. I mean, we BOTH know...”

“Dane,” Brindy smiled. “‘Course HE plays that whole ‘flaming queer’ thing for effect.”

“Yeah, and he goes out of his way to make people uncomfortable sometimes. I don’t need the drama,” I said.

“Exactly,” Carlita inserted. “His friend, though ... He’s a nice guy. We’ve collaborated on things before.”

“It’s a matter of ‘I get to choose’,” I said. “And I choose to work with one and not the other. Drama, like you said.”

“People can be hard to deal with,” Brindy sighed. “So anyway ... we’re good?”

“Good,” I said. “Now, my step-mom ... I’ll talk to her. Y’all need to come visit for dinner. Your Dave, he’s sociable, I take it?”

“He is. Our Dave...” I noted Brindy’s tone when she said ‘our Dave’ “ ... is genuine ‘good people.’ And if you invite US over, then we get to invite YOU over...”

“I’ll make tamales...” Carlita laughed.

“I like tamales,” I said. “You...”

“One does not live in a little orphanage and NOT spend time in the kitchen. I learned. They are MY recipe.”

“Dad barbecues. And he’s GOOD at it.”

“Dave barbecues, too,” Brindy smiled. “And he’s good, too. We may have to have a contest...”

“There,” I said. “Reason to get together.”

So that’s ONE set of data. There’s another.

Carlita cornered me over a cup of coffee one morning. “Haley and Deena Simon,” she said. “They just stepped onto the field.”

“I don’t know them.”

“I know OF them. The friends I have in Alabama...” Carlita said, “they are interesting. Haley is sixteen and married. Her husband knows my Dave. He is also an engineer.”

“I bet he knows Dad,” I said. “They might not have monthly meetings, but a lot of ‘em know each other.”

And Carlita’s the gateway into the wonder world in Alabama, a mythical land wherein one finds magic and munchkins and pixies and entirely too many redheads. I know, because they FLEW me there for a Jewish wedding, just like that, drop of a hat, “pack your bags, bring a nice dress.”

You can bet that I pushed Dad and Nina pretty hard to join 3Sigma. I know Nina wasn’t too happy with her job, but Dad had been at his for years and it was a difficult decision.