Chapter 1: Summer 1988

The moment Mr. Oldham handed me my summer schedule I could see that cramming everything I had to do into ten short weeks was going to be difficult. The schedule itself didn't look very time consuming, twenty hours at his office and four hours per week attending to charity work. The hours I was to spend at his office were to be chosen at my own discretion. I was to report to Denny Austin in accounting. Mr. Oldham had gone to the trouble to volunteer four hours of my time each week to a charity of his choice. I was to report to a Mrs. Patrick for instructions. Mr. Oldham was not one to waste words or time explaining the obvious, nor was he one to waste paper. On the back of the schedule was a lengthy reading list

On the surface Mr. Oldham's schedule appeared very manageable. It was the other demands on my time that were unwieldy. Golf each Tuesday with Suzanne was a given. My position at school would demand two full days of summer meetings. Alice was coming home for one week. Curtis Jones wanted me to attend his little league games and there was Cindy. I was committed to spending as much time with her as possible before she left for college.

Having Suzanne living with us full time was a major adjustment for Mr. Oldham and me. "Put some clothes on," she said the first time she saw me come into the kitchen wearing my shorts. "You don't see me scantily dressed with a ... with something ... hanging out."

I had to admit I didn't see her dressed scantily. She never left her room without being fully dressed.

"Betsy and Molly never complain about how I'm dressed," I said, trying to justify my lack of clothes but Suzanne had spoken. We both knew I would change my ways.

She didn't have to remind Mr. Oldham about his dress. He was a born neat-freak and always looked like he was ready to leave for work. Suzanne complained that he was always hidden behind a newspaper but it didn't change his habit of reading the newspapers at breakfast.

I phoned Mrs. Patrick, thinking I would introduce myself to her, spend the morning with Curtis and the afternoon hanging out at the tennis courts with Cindy. Mrs. Patrick gave me directions to her house and said she would be ready for me in thirty minutes. I called Josh and asked him to fill in for me with Curtis. "He's not getting much playing time," I warned. "If you see Cindy, tell her I'll be back by lunchtime."

"Is this how it's going to be all summer?" Cindy sounded irritated when I called her. It was after eight p.m. on Saturday and this was the first chance I had to talk to her.

"I'm filthy. I'll take a quick shower and pick you up," I offered.

"I'm not going anyplace with you until you answer my first question. Is this how it's going to be?"

She was still in a huff when I knocked on her front door. Cindy was adamant; she wouldn't leave her house with me until I explained where I had been all day. We sat at the kitchen table, drinking coffee. Her parents were amused at our little spat and wanted to hear about my day.

"Mrs. Patrick is a matronly looking grandmotherly type but she was dressed for work when I got to her house. She jumped into her station wagon and told me to follow her. We drove around picking up canned goods and other groceries that had been left at drop-off places. Then we drove to this homeless shelter that Mrs. Patrick helps operate. She told me to unload both cars and bring the stuff inside. Next she told me to move the cars away from the loading dock. I came back from parking the cars and she showed me where to store everything we had picked up. I kept thinking she would tell me I could leave but every time I finished one job she had something else for me to do. I chopped vegetables for soup until I thought my arms would fall off and then she had me go to a bakery that was donating bread and rolls. They even threw in a few pies. When I got back it was time for lunch and she put me in the serving line, ladling out soup and handing out rolls."

"Was it the soup you made?" Cindy asked, showing signs that she was forgiving me for being away all day.

"I didn't really make the soup. I just cut up stuff and threw it in a big kettle. But no, I think this was soup from the day before because it didn't have any celery in it and I chopped up a ton of celery."

"Is that Doctor Alex Patrick's wife?" Mr. Baldwin asked.

"I don't know. I did hear that her husband's a doctor," I said.

"He's a podiatrist. My mother had him look at her feet and she may have gone back once or twice," he said and Mrs. Baldwin nodded. I knew Cindy's grandmother had passed away a couple of years before.

"Did you have something to eat?" Cindy asked, like she was becoming concerned.

"Yes, we sat down with some of the last people to come in. Mrs. Patrick told me about the place, how many beds they have, how many meals they serve and where the donations come from. There's a charity auction coming up and she's planning a golf tournament but that's in the fall after school starts. That's the only time she can get the club to donate the course."

"You didn't tell her you were going to play tennis this afternoon, did you?" Cindy asked, accusingly.

"I couldn't. Wait until you meet this woman. She's a little bundle of energy, bubbling over with excitement about the work she's doing. She asked me to sweep and mop the floor in the dining area. After I finished I looked for her to see if I was finished for the day. Someone said she was upstairs so I went to find her. A man was giving her a hard time about something she wanted him to do. I didn't like seeing her having to take guff from someone she was trying to help so I stepped between them and told him to do whatever she told him to do. We got that settled and I made the mistake of asking what else she wanted me to do."

"Don't tell me," Cindy said, exasperated but beginning to find humor in my ordeal.

"She wanted me to help her move some beds around so we could sweep the place out. She's not very big but she worked right along with me. We got that done and she said it was time to start the dinner meal."

"Don't tell me you cooked," Cindy laughed.

"I did whatever the cooks told me to do," I said, not wanting to boast about the things I had done to assist them.

"So this is how it's going to be. I'm going to be a widow every Saturday," Cindy said, making her parents laugh. I laughed too, not divulging that I had only committed to four hours per week and had given over ten hours of my time that day.

"You can come to the charity auction," I offered.

"You've already signed me up to help, haven't you?" she asked. I nodded. At least she was laughing with me.

"Show me your summer reading list," she demanded, shocking her parents as much as me. Cindy had never showed interest in my reading list before.

"Jessica's coming home from school tomorrow and I want to be the one who tells her what you're reading," she explained. I handed her the list, forgetting my other assignments were on the other side of the paper.

"Plato, Descartes, Voltaire, Rousseau, Hobbes, and more Shakespeare!" she exclaimed before turning the paper over. Oh, Shit! I thought.

"FOUR HOURS! Charity work is four hours each week and you worked all day and half the night."

Her parents were laughing at her but Cindy wasn't amused. I wasn't either. "I'm not going with you to pick up Jessica," she said to her parents. They didn't argue with her. Cindy was adamant. She vowed to monopolize my day. "I'll come early and bring my swimsuit," she said, a warning glint in her eye.

Josh brought Jeannie home just as we were saying goodnight. "You get to go with mom and dad to pick up Jessica," Cindy said to her sister.

Jeannie didn't answer, but I could tell she was thinking of a something to say.

Wanting to avoid an argument between the two sisters, I said, "You guys come over when you get back. Bring Jessica and your swimsuits." And that is how our impromptu pool party got started.

Cindy kept her promise. "I brought your orange juice," she said when she entered my room. I jumped out of bed and begin undressing her. She laughed, knowing what I was up to. Ever since my toy soldier wallpaper had been installed, undressing Cindy the second she entered my room was the only way I could prevent her from lapsing into uncontrollable fits of laugher.

It only took seconds to strip her of her T-shirt and shorts. She wasn't wearing a bra and her panties were the slim-cut ones that she usually kept in my closet because her mother didn't know she owned them. I paused to take a sip of orange juice. She posed for me, turning one way and then the other, keeping her eyes fixed on mine. Her eyes dipped to my cock and a smile crossed her face. I took another swig of orange juice and set the glass down.

"I'm sorry about yesterday," I said as I pushed her toward my bed.

"I'm sure you'll show me how sorry you are," she said, pushing my shorts down and raising her ass so I could lower her panties. We knew each other pretty well by that time and there were no more surprises. She could push my buttons and I could push hers. We liked to try new things but the noises were the same. I knew her noises and she knew mine. Cindy was insatiable. "Show me again how sorry you are," she said.

Mr. Oldham and Suzanne were already in the pool when we went downstairs and Ned and Penelope joined us. Jeannie and Jessica showed up and we all jumped in the pool. Josh came later. "You missed a great time," I said. "There's nothing better than being in the pool with three Baldwin sisters." Shit, what am I boasting about? He's only fourteen and he's had sex with two of them. He'll be hitting on Jessica next.

Ned cooked for us and I got to spend a few minutes with Jessica. She seemed a lot older but she was interested in what I was reading. She seemed to know everything else about me, how I was doing at school and what Cindy and I were doing together.

"I'll dress in Sammy's room. I left my clothes there," Cindy said when it was time to leave.

"Sammy, make sure you dry her real well," Jessica said to me, turning a deep color of red when she noticed Suzanne listening. Suzanne smiled as she walked away and Jessica looked like she would like to become invisible.

I didn't know what to expect at the office but I decided to get started early on Monday morning. As it turned out I had to wait for Denny Austin to show up. We didn't exactly hit it off at first but I respected him from the beginning and I believe he came to respect me. Denny was the analyst and was accustomed to working alone. If it hadn't been for my relationship with the boss I doubt if he would have given me more than a passing glance. He spent about thirty minutes explaining what he did and what he expected of me, which was not much. After that he showed me where to work and left me on my own. At lunchtime I told him I was leaving and heard him acknowledge me with a grunt. He was so engrossed with his computer screen he didn't look up.

That afternoon we hung around the tennis courts and got into a game. Cindy and I played mixed doubles and stayed on the court until a couple home from college knocked us out. Cindy was fuming that we had lost our place on the court until Jessica quieted her down. I invited them to come to a little league game. Cindy gave me a vicious look.

"That's not the reason I'm doing it," I said, knowing she thought Curtis was blackmailing me to watch his game or he would tell his mother about us fucking in front of the television. I glanced at Jessica to see if she was paying attention.

"I heard," she said and this prompted Jeannie to ask what we were talking about.

"See, now you've got the brat curious," Cindy said and this made Jeannie ask again.

"What made you tell her?" I asked Cindy as I pointed to Jessica.

"What did you tell her?" Jeannie asked, becoming impatient with all of us.

"I'll tell you later," Josh said to Jeannie.

"You told HIM?" Cindy asked me, feigning embarrassment. I don't think she would have cared if everyone around the courts knew we had been caught fucking by a ten year old.

"I had to tell him. He's been helping me show Curtis some things," I said as I backed away from Cindy who was becoming very combative.

We had to eat early because the game was to start at six p.m. and Curtis said he had to report to his coach at five-thirty. Jessica shared the passenger's bucket seat with Cindy and Curtis sat in the back with Josh and Jeannie. His uniform looked like it had been freshly laundered.

"What position do you play, Curtis?" I asked. He said he played wherever the coach told him to play.

"Which position would you like to play?"

"I don't care. Third base I guess," he said, sounding uncertain about his choice.

"Did you really see my sister..."

"JEANNIE!" we all, Cindy, Jessica and me shouted at the same time.

"You're the one that said I was curious," Jeannie said to her sister.

We took our seats in the bleachers and watched Curtis' team warm up. "He looks completely out of place," Jessica remarked and I had to agree with her. "We're going to have to work with him," I said to Josh.

"What's gotten into you?" Cindy asked. "One minute you say you're too busy to see me and the next minute you're wasting time with a kid you hardly know. He's not going to say anything to his mother and what difference would it make if he did? Do you really care? I don't."

"That's not it. I don't care if she knows either, not really," I answered. I couldn't explain why I wanted to help the kid. I did care what his mother thought of me but that wasn't the reason I felt a need to make Curtis see the value of athletics. His father wasn't going to do it. Cindy had turned her attention to Jeannie.

"And you," she said to Jeannie. "Don't remind him of what he thought he saw. You're a blabbermouth. That's exactly why I didn't tell you about it. If' blabbermouth here hadn't told your puberty boyfriend you wouldn't know anything about it."

"Don't call Josh my puberty boyfriend. There's not as much difference between our ages as you and Sammy. You're two years older than him," Jeannie fired back at her sister.

"Girls, you're both beginning to give me a headache," Jessica said.

I put my arm around Cindy and told her to calm down. Jessica smiled at me. "Good luck," she said.

Curtis didn't get into the game until the fourth inning and had one turn at bat. He struck out. I held my breath when a fly ball was hit to right field where he was playing. He only had to take three steps to his left. The ball hit the base of his glove and bounced away. Josh and I exchanged a look. "He needs work," he said and I agreed.

Denny Austin looked like he had been there all night when I got to the office on Tuesday morning. "Don't ask," he said as he handed me my work assignment. The instructions were easy to follow and there was a diskette containing spreadsheet files. I was to add data from other sources into formulas that would calculate 'what if' scenarios. He's put a lot of work into this so I won't disturb him, I thought. But the next time I looked up he had disappeared. Ah, that's why he spelled out what he wanted me to do; he went home. Why did I tell him I was good at spreadsheets? How in hell am I going to finish this today? When Suzanne called to tell me she was leaving I tried to beg off from playing golf, but she said she would see me at home. I spent another fifteen minutes copying the files onto new diskettes and slipped them into my pocket.

We changed our clothes, had a quick lunch and headed for the club. This was the first time I had played since the summer before and I was awful. "You're just rusty," Suzanne kept telling me. I told her about Denny Austin leaving that morning because he had worked all night. "He's being pulled in three directions at the same time. John wants him to supply historical statistics, marketing wants him to concentrate on economic forecasts and his wife wants him to pay attention to her. He needs help but he won't admit it. If he gives you any shit, tell me, not John, okay?'

"Yes, ma'am," I said. I guess she could see that I was nervous about doing an acceptable job.

"What made you decide to move to the house?" I asked. She gave me a look.

"You're the one that suggested it. Don't you remember? I got lonely staying in the apartment. Besides, John says he needs me."