Chapter 15

Vicki’s turn:

Marriage is everything I imagined it to be. And then some. Oh, I know that there’s a segment of the population that would look at me and my Billy and see all sorts of things wrong – me a tender exploited teen, him a predator, all that. It’s kind of in the news about sex trafficking. Matter of fact, one of the newest additions to our group was in the middle of that, hauled out of Central America to be sold off.

Camila’s lucky. They were saving her virginity for the added value she’d carry. I’m not sure of the particulars of how Dave Johnson, husband of Brindy and Carlita (but not in that order), might end up with Camila, but Haley giggles and says that she’s integrated into the bunch there.

Me, though? Happily married college graduate, okay? If you just take time to work with those facts, we’re entirely normal. Less normal is that I’m still only fourteen.

Still – married. In love. Devoted. Topsy-turvy in a way, because I’ve GOT my degree and I’m dragging, pushing, coercing, bribing and otherwise incentivizing my husband towards his own.

Oh, whatever can I do to reward good behavior?

Just as the original sisters – Cindy, Tina, Susan, Kim (MY Kim!) and their contemporaries formed an unshakable bond around ages and interests and circumstance, so have we – me, Rachel, and Terri.

It’s made kind of easy because we’re all tightly interwoven among strands of 3Sigma Robotics but we slip outside that venue and get together sometimes.

“Married life ... More to it than meets the eye,” Terri says.

Rachel sort of makes a whine. “At least when YOU acknowledge you’re married, you have the law on your side. Me ‘n’ Derek...”

“Your families recognize your marriage,” I said. “And we know exactly how long before you can legally formalize it.”

“Yeah, but it still irks me.”

“You’re the only one I know who has a husband YOUR age,” Terri said.

“Yeah,” I reinforced. “It’s rough being married to an older man...”

“Uh-huh,” Rache giggled. “Who locks whom in the apartment on Saturday morning?”

“Mutually agreed-upon,” I laughed. “Besides, this marriage thing shocks me sometimes. I mean, finding out that the perfect guy you married has a habit of leaving skid marks in his drawers”

Terri rolled her eyes while Rachel snickered. “Tina never told me THAT particular hurdle to nuptial bliss.”

“Yeah, but she told you that every couple has rough spots,” I answered. “Like Alan trimming his own toenails.”

“Yeah, but that’s Tina’s hangup. And they worked it out.”

“I worked out Billy’s skid marks, too. But the first time ... Ewww!”

Terri smiled. “Marriage involves two imperfect creatures seeking perfection in their joining.”

“Good one,” Rachel tittered. “I’m giving that one to Mom and Dad. Where’d you hear it?”

“Made it up on the spot,” my sister said.

“That’s us,” I said.

“But,” Terri stated, “we had a pretty set idea that our mates were well into our own concepts of perfection.”

“I don’t know about that ‘perfect’ thing,” Rachel said. “Just some indescribable idea that my soul wasn’t gonna be complete without HIS soul.”

“You are talking about Derek here, right?” I snickered. Derek, while he’s perfect in Rachel’s eyes, still has flashes of being an archetypical teen boy that she ignores and we see. Maybe she doesn’t ignore them. Maybe she sees them and is wired to see them as completely charming. As Dad says, ‘Never be surprised as to what causes another person’s heart to beat faster’. It’s gotta be true, otherwise everybody’d’ve been drooling over my Billy.

Bill Hardesty’s turn:

Can you say “Force of nature?” I thought perhaps you could, but it’s much more than that.

Lord, how life changes, entirely defined by (and revolving around) Vicki. I thought I was a pretty strong guy, and pretty smart, although my grades at Ditchwater U. didn’t show it.

Then came Vicki, who is putting me thru academic (and physical) “boot camp”, I suppose you’d call it. Yup, coming up on finals for the fall semester at Auburn, and I’m pulling a 4.0. Umm, yeah, and THAT has everything to do with Vicki. Calculus, physics, chemistry -- she’s done it all, multiple times. She pushes me about “reading ahead”, and doing ALL the end-of-chapter problems. Makes my head hurt, and the other students in my classes think I’m a genius.

See, it’s all about “inspiration”, which is more correctly spelled “Vicki.” Physically, she wears me out in bed, and I won’t talk about the detail, except to say that a fourteen-year-old girl has LOTS of energy -- more than a twenty-year-old guy, even on my best day.

Further on “inspiration”, lots of heads turn with bleach-blonde girls running around campus, with silicone boobs, tight T-shirts, and tramp-stamps on their backs. Then there’s Vicki, skinny, honey-blonde, sloppy Auburn T-shirts or company polos, khaki shorts. She doesn’t even try to “look” sexy, and radiates “desirable” without any of that crap. Positively incandescent. A little bit of star stuff, right there in front of me.

‘Star stuff’. I read now. As in “You NEED to read,” she says. “Not just textbooks. Fiction. History. Expand your mind to other worlds, other possibilities.” So I read. ‘Star stuff’ comes from that. I need more words to say how she affects me.

A couple of oddities I didn’t expect: There is no more “me time”. It has become “us time”, because she demands that it be this way. We sleep, shower, eat, cook (except at the Pavilion), wash dishes, clean house, do laundry, all that. All TOGETHER, all the time. Same for homework, where she teaches me (better than ANY of my teachers). She says, “The Bible says the two shall become one flesh, and I take that seriously. I don’t think we can become one MIND, but we need to work on that.”

Secondly, while we have a TV, we rarely look at it, but we DO use it for the Classical Music Channel, because we need that while cooking or eating, and doing homework problems.

Further, there’s flying. Vicki coached me thru all the ground-school exercises, and Cindy instructed me until I could solo the 152. Now I’m slowly building hours, along with Dana. We take turns, but she’s significantly ahead of me.

Now THAT is a wild story. Little kid is sixteen, already has her BSEE, and got begged to join the Auburn Women’s Soccer team, where she tore up opposing teams. I’ve never tried to play soccer, but I know a little about it. I recognize athleticism and talent when I see it, and she’s GOT it!

So, let’s see: There’s Dana who’s smarter, faster, more agile, and flight-hours ahead of me. Vicki who’s smarter, faster, more energetic than me. Cindy who’s smarter, faster, on faculty, and just advised me that I’m being transferred into the College of Engineering for the spring semester. Hmm. I’m starting to sense a common thread here, which is: If you want your career to get REAL, you’d better get hooked into the “smart girls”, somehow.

And having said THAT, you only get hooked into the “community” when THEY decide. It ain’t your choice -- it’s THEIR choice. And once they choose, YOU have no alternative.

Don Matzke’s turn:

It’s a delight to have Geno back in the office, and a bigger delight to turn over scheduling and FAA paperwork to him. Frankly, he looks MUCH healthier now than when he was here before.

It’s funny: Sonya brings him his lunch every day -- watching his cardio health, of course, and his weight. Lots of vegetables, broiled chicken, a few other things. The way she’s treating him, he’s good for another thirty years, I’ll bet.

My cardio health is better too, thanks to a certain “aerobic exercise” regimen with Teresa. No, I won’t say more.

But we have a problem at the shop: A PC-12, which Cindy characterizes: “I got a scratch-and-dent-discount on it.” Somewhere, somebody probably believes that. But nobody here is qualified to fly it. Our ATP guys aren’t familiar with the Pilatus turboprop and none of them are type-rated for the PC-24 turbojet because it’s so darned new and at that, rare. Ours will be the first any of them will ever see.

As of right now, we ‘borrow’ one of the folks from the Auburn bunch. Wally’s been in on one of those. As long as it’s cargo, we’re in the clear. Things get a bit iffy with passengers. In the PC-12 and the smaller Cessna jets, a commercial pilot can fly passengers, but the bigger planes require that airline transport pilot rating.

Geno was talking with me yesterday, when we arrived at a conclusion: We need to find “somebody new” that we can send to training classes to get rated for PC-12’s, PC-24’s, and Citations. THAT means classes in Orlando and Dallas.

Dunno how that’s gonna work. I was distracted, thinking about it at breakfast this morning, with Teresa sitting across from me. She had a worried look on her face, so I said, “Teresa, you look a bit worried. What’s going on?”

She smiled and said, “Two things, Don. First, I have an accounting exam this morning. That’s easy, but the second thing is, you’re distracted, and you’re looking worried, too. What’s going on?”

I said, “Tee, I’m trying to figure it out. We need a new pilot, somebody who’s Pilatus-rated, and it’s REALLY hard to find people who fit that qualification. Cindy has thrown us a kink, here.”

Teresa said, “Did you ask Cindy? Maybe she has an idea.”

I said, “No ma’am, I haven’t asked, but I’m pretty sure she expects us to figure it out. It’s part of why she pays us, I think.”

Teresa said, “When I hit problems that I don’t know how to fix, I call Dad. Maybe you should call him. He’s a Harrier pilot -- maybe he knows someone.”

I said, “Tee, that’s an evil idea. Do you think he’d be interested, really?”

She said, “Probably not, but he might know someone. Call him and see.”

I thought about that, all the way to the office. I stepped into Geno’s office with a fresh cup of coffee and said, “Morning, Geno. How brave are you feeling, today?”

He grinned and said, “Matzke, I know you and I strongly suspect you’re stirring up trouble. What do you have in mind?”

“Well, sir,” I smiled and said, “my new wife proposed a solution to our need for a new pilot. It’s a long shot, but it might work. Probably works best if you make the call, rather than me. If it works, this guy could be the answer to our bizjet problems.”

Geno asked, “This guy -- is he Pilatus qualified?”

I said, “Nope, but he could do the training without disrupting our pilot scheduling. And no question in my mind he could do the work -- he’s a Harrier driver.”

Geno grinned, and said, “By God, I’m just a C-141 driver, but I always wondered how those guys did it. More to the point, WHY they did it. You really think there’s a chance?”

I said, “If I call him, he’ll tell me to shit in my hat. If YOU call him, there’s a chance.”

Geno said, “Let me guess: You’re talking about Jim Hardesty?” He laughed. “Yeah, after you snagged Teresa, I suspect he’s ambivalent about you. He was smiling at the wedding, though.”