Chapter 11

Meyer Residence

French poetry and literature was the most vexing class Cindy had ever taken. Here she was, a senior and a 4.0 high school student, and she was paired off with a freshman that didn't even have a grade point average, yet. She knew she was in real trouble. The teacher had paired them because of her accent problem that she had never realized she had. At first she thought that wouldn't matter. She thought, who cares if the accent and pronunciation is a little different than Parisian?

Unfortunately, it mattered a lot in poetry. That little prick, Edward. Damn, she kept associating young with small. The kid was certainly bigger than she was, and that even made her mad. He could recite poetry from memory, and it all flowed together in perfect rhyme. When she tried it, disjointed was the description that came to mind. She had to give him a little credit. After that first clash, and the pairings for practice, he hadn't made any smart remarks. He even tried to help her. That first day in class, she just knew that he was born in France of french parents. She was dismayed when she finally came to realize that he was totally American.

Two weeks ago, he had given her this dumb cassette and told her that he had isolated her pronunciation problem to certain letter groupings. If she practiced the words on the tape, it might help. That first night when she got home, she had listened to it. Then she set up another recorder and recorded his word followed by her pronunciation of the same word. She went on to the end of the tape. Then she played back the comparison. It was terrible. Where in the world had she picked up such habits and why hadn't she ever been corrected by high school french teachers?

After two weeks of hard, every night study and work, even she could hear the improvement. The little bastard and that french teacher even complimented her on her improvement. She was both resentful of Edward and proud of herself.

But that next Saturday was the clincher. There was a package in the mail and another cassette with a note from Edward.

Dear Cindy:

Found this in my pack rat material from when I first took french. It has six different speakers, three of whom are females with sexy voices. I thought this might help since they all have Parisian accents. I wanted to get this to you right away. I'll drop by your house Sunday afternoon to explain the best way to use it.

Edward

Oh, God no. You can't do that. Don't come here, I won't open the door, she thought. She went down hurriedly to her father's basement.

"Dad, there's some stupid kid that says he's coming here this afternoon. He's from my french class."

"So, let him in. I don't understand why you don't have your friends over anytime you want."

"Daddy, most of the furniture has been sold off, and the furnace shut down. Or don't you remember?"

"I certainly remember. It's even colder down here than upstairs. Just tell them we're temporarily, financially embarrassed. Come here honey and look at this new device I've perfected. Of course, it's just kludged together but it works fine.

"Oh, Daddy, that stuff is boring. Why do you keep working on that stuff? It's money that we are short of, not new tricky little gadgets."

"I hope to be able to sell these some day, Honey."

"Well, I'm going to let this kid into the house. But when I bing the intercom, I want you to come up and meet him like a caring father."

"I will, just bing."

When she left the basement, Phillip felt for her. Being without a mother must be terrible. And it wasn't that he was uncaring, it was that he couldn't really relate to girls. But, another device he was working on required fine tuning so he slid easily back into his work and tinkering mode.

The intercom binged and it took him a minute to remember why she was calling him during his work session. Then he remembered, a kid was coming over from her french college class. Well, a promise was a promise, so he stopped what he was doing and hurried upstairs. Cindy was just walking him into the library, one of the few completely furnished rooms left. Unfortunately, it was probably the next one to be sold off.

Phillip took a hard look and the boy and smiled. "How are you Edward Bradford? I'm surprised to see you here. So you're in Cindy's french class. That's wonderful. I knew you'd take advantage of the credits program since you practically set it up single-handedly."

"Thank you, Sir. I didn't know your last name or realize you were Cindy's father."

It took Cindy a full minute to realize that her mouth was wide-open. The two of them were meeting like old friends. She knew her father was on the school board and that they had to work especially hard on the credits program to get it in place by this semester. He had frequently talked of a young boy who was responsible for it and was always rattling their chains on the school board.

She also remembered that her father had only taken the rather meaningless job because they had assured him that there was practically no work involved. She also came to realize that Phillip admired the boy and worked assiduously in the closed executive sessions to advance the credits program.

Cindy was just realizing who this kid was. She didn't read the school paper often but she was aware that some 'student from hell', according to an attributed remark from a school board meeting, had shoved the credits program through with some sort of threat. Now she remembered that another article had mentioned the 'student from hell' being elected freshman president and that there was mentions of voter fraud. It caused her to smile. A large percentage of the whole student body had faked being freshmen just to vote and show their appreciation for his efforts.

But, the kid that made it possible for her to even attend a college class and who had come over to specifically help her, was heading downstairs with her father.

She waited ten minutes expecting Edward to come out of the basement boored to death. Finally, she opened the basement door and listened. They were having an animated conversation about his gadgets. She went down a couple of steps and sat down, listening. Edward of all people was interested in gadgets too. Finally, they were coming back upstairs. She beat them up the stairs, barely.

"I have this acquaintance, who's the president of****Corp., that might be interested in what you've developed," Edward said. "If he is, he'll probably send someone down to take a look. I'll call you if he's interested, Phillip."

"Thanks, Edward, I appreciate it. I couldn't get anyone else to even listen to me. Here, let me walk you to the door."

Edward turned at the last minute, remembering why he had visited. "Cindy, sorry I was distracted. If you do the same things you did with the pronunciation tape, I'm sure it'll turn out well. I need to get home to call****Corp. See you Wednesday. Bye."

Phillip turned to Cindy. "Nice kid and knowledgeable to boot. Knows a lot about hardware and software. I hope****Corp. is interested." He headed back to the basement.

Cindy just stood there dazed. Yeah, nice kid. Got a thumbs-up from that lez Jennifer. And the rumor mill has him taking out Jennifer's lover. Edward had to be actually licking them to get dates with those two. She shuddered slightly, and felt wet. Damn, she thought, I must be getting incontinent.

Bradford House

Edward identified himself to the President's secretary and was put right through, even though it was interrupting a meeting.