Chapter 2

I finished my laundry before lunch. At one, I was pulling up into the park near the kiddie playground. I got out. No Nina. I started walking. Fifteen minutes later I had a mile under my belt and had completed a circuit. And Nina's car WAS there. And Nina was walking her charges to the swing set. She released them to go play and then she came to sit beside me. I was sipping on a fountain drink.

"Did I bum you out last night? Dan?"

"No, Nina. You needed to talk. I listened. 'S what friends do."

She eyed my drink. "Can I have a sip?"

"Sure," I said, "if you don't mind drinking after me."

"I'm too thirsty to worry about boy cooties," she giggled, and she sucked on the straw. And before she finished, she looked at me and sucked it one more time, then released it and licked her lips. And handed it back to me. And grinned.

"It's not nice to tease old men, Nina," I said.

"Was that teasing? I didn't think it was teasing." She giggled. "You know," she continued, "I really enjoyed last night. It was a perfect first date. Well, almost perfect. I got all sad there, but it was a good first date." She looked at me a little more intently than I expected. "Can I call it a date?"

"You can. If you want. I had a good time, too, Nina. It's been a long time since I had a day with somebody as pretty as you. You were stunning."

"Uh," she feigned hurt. "I'm not stunning now?"

"Of course you are. You're enough to melt hearts."

She changed the subject. "So where's your Kindle?"

"I left it at home," I said. "Thought that since you were here, I'd have somebody to talk to."

"You do," she smiled. "I like talking to you. So what do you like about being an engineer?"

And off we went on career discussions: what my day was like, what I used from school, how I learned, who I worked with, and all sorts of things about engineering.

"So what made YOU decide to take up engineering?"

"I like learning stuff and doing things. Our guidance counselor gave me one of those aptitude tests, and it said that I had the personality traits to be an engineer. And he said that with my grades, I was smart enough."

"No,"I said. "You're gonna be a lot smarter than a lot of other engineers."

"You think?"

"Yeah, I think..." And looking over her shoulder I saw two little blonde kids approaching. I knew our time was up.

Little Haley whined, "Miss Nina! We're hungry. And thirsty."

"Okay, you two," Nina said. "We'll go home and feed you." She turned to me. "Bye, Dan. Can I call you later?"

"Sure," I said.

And as she walked the kids to her car, I heard little Haley singing, "Nina's got a boyfriend" in a teasing song.

I thought that silly. Flattering. I'd known Nina for a week. Seen her four times, counting today. And there was that twenty years disparity in ages. But what red-blooded guy wouldn't look at her and entertain a thought or two ... I pushed those thoughts away. Since that pretty teen with the striking hair was gone, I headed to my own car and drove home.

Kicking myself. I had a pretty good world going for me up until a few days ago, and now all of a sudden I was feeling alone again. I walked in the house, headed straight to the shower, and performed my evening ablutions. I popped open a can of chili for supper and put some dried beans to soaking for tomorrow.

Dinner behind me, I retired to my recliner and flipped on the TV. I flipped through the channels and found nothing interesting enough to occupy my attention, so I left it on the most interesting of the rejects and put my laptop on my lap and started surfing the net. Remembering that I'd left work abruptly, I remoted into my company email server and checked the email. Nothing new there, but I saw that email from NinaS8421. I copied the address to my personal email program and did a new message.

"Nina- Here's my personal email address. It goes to my cellphone, too. Just in case you need to get hold of me when I'm not at work. – Dan."

And I hit "send". And immediately asked myself "why". I went back to surfing the web, looking at curiousities and funny videos and things. No. No porn.

It was a few minutes after eight when my cell clanged. I looked at the display, hoping that it wasn't work. I have some horrible stories about "Uh, Dan, we need you out here right away. Half the plant's dark..." The display had four letters on it: N-I-N-A.

"Hi, Nina," I said.

"Hi, Dan!" In my mind's eye I could see the smile that accompanied that tone. "I just got in the car. I'm on the way home. Just wanted to call you."

"Be careful while you're driving, Nina..."

"I am, Dan. Uh..."

I beat her to it. "What's your day look like tomorrow?"

"Nothing," she said. "Well, Grandma and I go to church. But we're home at noon. Why don't you come over and meet her?"

"Meet your Grandma? You sure? I mean, HOW are you going to introduce me?"

"My friend. My mentor. She knows about mentoring. Why? Should I tell her something different?"

"Oh, no, Nina. That sounds good."

"And then if you want, we can go for a ride or something..."

"That works," I said. She dutifully gave me her grandma's street address and I wrote it down.

"12:30, okay?"

"Okay, punkin," I said.

"Uh, Dan..."

"Yes, Nina?"

"Is "Punkin" a good thing?"

"Yes it is. EVERYBODY loves punkins..."

"Okay ... I'm pulling up at Grandma's. I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"

"I wouldn't miss it for the world."

Thirty minutes, maybe forty-five, and the sound popped up on my computer's speakers indicating incoming email. I clicked the email program to the top of the stack and there was, indeed, an email from NinaS8421. With an attachment. A picture.

Nervously I clicked the message open.

"Dan—

Thank you for giving me your personal address. Maybe there are things you shouldn't get at work. Like jokes and links. I know Grandma can't get some of those things.

So now I can send you stuff. Like this picture. Grandma took it. Says it's one of her favorites.

I hope you like it.

Nina"

I clicked on the picture. Nina. Pre-blonde banded hair. Not quite a profile, she was caught turning toward the camera, her eyes and mouth formed into a smile, her hair swinging, the motion caught, trapped, the freckles a whimsical punctuation to a bit of photographic perfection. I opened the picture in my photo editor and printed it on 5x7 photo paper. When the picture came out of the printer, I stuck it in my briefcase.

And the email dinged again.

"Dan—

I thought you might like these too...

Nina"

And three more, one of them a longer shot, giving her whole body, another delightful face picture, a third of her sitting, wearing a dark sweater, her face like the sun...

"Okay," I said to myself. "I can do this." I opened up my picture folder and selected a few for her: Me at work, crawling out of a transformer, a smudge of oily brown on my cheek. Me behind my desk at the office. Me kayaking with my friends last summer. And I sent them.

Ding.

"Dan—

Thanks. The one with you in the kayak, that's going on my desktop...

Nina x"

And I caught the "x". But surely, I thought, that was just reflex to a teenaged girl ... But desktop?

Phone clanged. Nina.

"Hi, punkin," I said. Okay, "punkin" was as innocent a pet name as I could come up with. Like a little sister or something ... I was trying, wasn't I?

"Hi, babe," she said. I was "babe" now. But that was just friendly, right? Right! "I just wanted to talk to you one more time before I go to sleep."

"I like hearing your voice, Nina..." True, I would have probably liked hearing ANYBODY'S voice on some Saturday evenings. Sometimes loneliness was tougher than other times. But this was MORE true.

"I'm listenin' to Beethoven," she said. "But I want more. From you ... uh, your collection. You said you'd let me load some on my iPod."

"Oh, sure! We can do that. Tomorrow, if you want."

"Maybe," she said. "Either that or we do that riding around you talked about."

"Whatever YOU want to do. Tomorrow's your day, okay?"

Sigh. "Okay, Dan. I better go to sleep," she said. "G'nite, babe."

"G'nite, sweetie." I hung up. "Sweetie". Like in little nieces and such, right?

I closed ... started to close the laptop, but I went back to that directory that said "Nina". And I looked at the pictures. I closed my eyes. Okay. Shut the stupid computer down, Dan.

I went to sleep after the nightly round of cat-petting.

I didn't sleep too late. I was up, breakfast out of the way, a cup of coffee, and catching up on current events, that kind of Sunday morning routine. And the clock crawled. Finally, about a quarter to noon, I did a quick shower and then dressed up. Not too dressy. A good pair of jeans. A polo shirt. Sneakers. With socks. I holstered my cellphone and got in the car. At 12:28 I pulled into the drive behind Nina's little Honda. "Okay, "I told myself, "Here goes."

I got out of the car, walked up and knocked on the door. Nina opened it. "Hi!" she grinned. She turned and said loudly, Grandma, he's here!" And she escorted me into the house with her hand on my bicep.

"Dan," Nina said, "This is my grandmother, Helen Sayers. Grandma, this is my friend, Dan Gleason."

"I'm pleased to meet you, Dan," Helen said. "Nina has been going on about you for a week."

"Nina is a bit of work," I said. "I'm pleased to meet you, too, Mizz Helen."

Helen smiled. "Don't do "Mizz Helen" with me. I'm not THAT old..."

"Okay," I said, but my poor ol' momma would beat me if I hadn't started out that way."

Helen laughed. "So Nina tells me you're an engineer?" She motioned toward an overstuffed chair. "Sit!"

"Yes ma'am. I am an engineer."

"There you go again. And you're helping her with her school work?"

"Uh, she doesn't need much help. We're just reviewing. And I'm showing her what she's in for next year."

"That's what she tells me." She fixed her gaze on Nina. "Nina, could I have a couple of minutes with Dan, please, dear?"

I was nervous now. Hadn't done a darned thing but send her grand-daughter a few pictures of me, fully clothed, but I was nervous.

"Don't be mean to Dan, Grandma. He's a nice guy." And Nina left the room.

Helen fixed me in a serious stare. "She thinks you're a nice guy, Dan. She's known a whole lot of guys who weren't nice. Her mom's uh, friends."

"I AM a nice guy, Helen. I have helped Nina with schoolwork, and taken her to dinner once, and we've talked about everything under the sun," I paused, "including the Sun. She's a terribly bright girl who's given me only the tiniest idea of what's gone on in her life. And she says that the past two years, living with you, are the best she's had."

Helen sighed. "Lord knows I've tried, Dan. I'm surprised she made fifteen without being on drugs and pregnant. Did she tell you about her mom?"

"Was she not supposed to?"

"No," Helen said. "I didn't know if she'd open up to anybody about that. What'd she tell you?"

"Prison. Drugs and prostitution."

"That's the truth. And some more truth is that she's lived with me on and off all her life. Her mom would get a home, bring Nina there, some guy would move in, and Nina would end up back here. Last one before her mom went to jail, I had HIM picked up for tryin' to molest Nina. He tried. Spent a week in the hospital with a stab wound in a very uncomfortable place."

"Really? Nina?"

"Slept with a knife under her pillow. He crawled into her bed naked, figuring she was her mother's daughter, and she took a couple of whacks at his, uh, his manhood."

"Wow." And I cringed a little bit, as any man might. "But Helen, she's sweet and bright, and funny. It seems, just from what little I've seen that she's good with kids. And she's very well-mannered, from what I saw at the restaurant Friday evening."

Helen sighed. "I've tried to teach her right from wrong. Church. How to get along with others. "She's a good girl, Dan."

"That's the side I see, Helen. Are there bad sides?"

"Dan," she said, "the only bad side is that she is very hard-headed and she will stand up for herself. That's the only trouble she's had at school. Two years ago when she started at this school, some girl made some comment about how her mom was in jail and Nina was the same thing. Nina put a fist in the girl's face. Fortunately a teacher saw it and knew that the girl had been goading Nina for a week. Nina got 'counseled'. But they don't mess with Nina, either. Boys neither. One of the football players decided that she needed his special attention. He got HERS. Missed two games with bruises to, you know..."

"Remind me not to get Nina mad at me," I said.

"Yeah," Helen said. "I can laugh now ... But Dan, she's ten days shy of her eighteenth birthday, and two weeks from now she's going to graduate from high school, and she wants an education. I've done my best with her so far."

"It appears to me that you've done darned good."

"I like to think so. But here's the deal. You came along."

"Me? What'd I do?"

"If I believe her, you've done absolutely nothing but be a friend. Frankly, I'm more than a little surprised. She hated men. Until YOU came along."

"B-but ... I didn't do anything."

"That's what she said. Said the first day she met you, she was watching you walk and you walked past a bunch of women and didn't turn and stare at them. Then you were sitting there reading and the same thing: women would walk by and you just looked up and then went back to reading."

"Okay. I don't do that leering thing that some guys do."

"Impressed our Nina, it did. So you're her friend now. She said Friday was her first date, ever."

"She told me that, too."

Dan," Helen said, "Do you have a girlfriend, a significant other, a whatever they call them these days? A woman in your life?"