Chapter 60

Cindy's turn:

I sort of felt bad about keeping that information from Dan, but I wanted to make sure it WAS news. He says I'm sandbagging sometimes, holding the best stuff back. I don't do it intentionally.

He made a big deal about me helping Mizz Crockett with her math stuff. I have to admit that it was strange at first. Mizz Crockett is my math teacher. Middle school math. Gets all the way up into entry-level algebra. That's about it. This school year, before Christmas, she gave up having to teach me anything ... And she's been using me to help kids that want help. Kind of like a teachers' aide.

I enjoy it, mostly. And I get some good friends out of it. Kaylee Spears is one of them. She was pretty stuck up at the beginning of the year, but then I helped 'er over a rough spot and got her caught up and now she's my friend. Her Dad's a lawyer and her mom works at the bank, and they're kind of friends with me and Dan, too.

It was just about as interesting when I had a couple of the athletes, you know, football and basketball players. Even in middle school, those guys are angling for spots on high school teams and they need grades to play. And when math's a problem and Mizz Crockett's buried trying to get her whole class through the curriculum, she asked if I minded trying.

I wish I could say that I turned them into 'A' students, but I didn't. I did get enough through to keep 'em on their teams and when you got the athletes on your side in school, bullying and picking is not a problem.

It was funny, though, when Mizz Crockett asked if I was interested in seeing some of the course-work for one of the math classes she was getting ready to take. She's working on her masters' degree. I was curious, naturally. It was interesting. I mean, where I was in math, we used the normal symbols like pluses and minuses and stuff. I knew about the signs for roots and absolutes because Dan showed me those. But then she started showing me Greek letters like sigma and theta and things like that.

"I think this is what they're doing with this," she said, explaining sigma. And I swear, it was like all of a sudden I just understood. Some of it is like that. It's like you're looking at 1 + 1 = 2, and you think, well, silly, what else WOULD it be?

But I thought that, well, maybe it was hard for some people, but surely Dan could do this stuff just like I could. Mizz Crockett, though, at first it was like she wanted me to just look at what she was doing, but then I saw that when she was asking questions, she was asking me to explain what I could understand about some of the problems in her books, I was actually TEACHING her.

Then she admitted it to me. Of course, this was after Mister Jim had announced the plans for me to graduate from high school. She went with me to his office.

"Jim," she said, "you need to know something about Mizz Cindy."

Yes, it was "Mizz", not "Miss", because the whole school knew I was married, too.

Mister Jim looked at me kind of funny. "Uh, is it something BAD?"

"Oh, no, Jim. Cindy's..." she took a deep breath. How do you tell one of your peers that you're being tutored on your masters' program by one of your students? "Cindy's teaching me advanced math. Calculus. Trig. You name it."

Mister Jim looked amused. "Seriously?" He looked at me. "Cindy? What do YOU say?"

"Mister Jim, she taught ME! She showed me how to read those funny symbols and what they meant, and the rest, it's ... it's just the way it's supposed to ... it's GOTTA be that way."

Mister Jim looked at Mizz Crockett. She laid one of her books on his desk and opened it to the bookmarked page. He looked, then he whistled a long, low note. He looked at me. "Cindy Richards, you UNDERSTAND this stuff?"

I nodded.

"Okay. When the bell rings for next hour, can you come by and talk with me?"

"Am I in trouble?" I asked.

He smiled at me. "Oh, come on, Cindy. You don't get in trouble for knowing math. The universe might be in trouble, but you're not. I just want to talk with you a little about this and see where we can go with it."

"Honestly, Jim," Mizz Crockett said, "she's ... I just wish I could do like that."

That's the day we started with the next level. When I showed up at his office, he and I talked.

"Cindy, I knew you were smart. Everybody does. Even the people at Auburn. But this ... this is above where I thought you might be. Do you mind if we call those folks at Auburn and talk to them?"

I shook my head and said 'no'.

"Do you wanna bring Dan in?"

"Not right now, Mister Jim. This is gonna put me UP the ladder, if it works out, huh?"

"Yes, it's gonna put you up the ladder. They might just throw the ladder away."

I smiled. I liked where this conversation was heading. "Then let's not get Dan involved until we know something for sure. I don't mind surprising him if it's gonna be a happy surprise.

Mister Jim sent me back to class that day and the next day he caught me first thing in the morning. "Come by my office after first period. We're going to talk to some people at Auburn. The math department and the engineering department."

Poor Dan. He didn't suspect a thing. We did our normal stuff. In the early evening he was reading and I was messing around on the computer. I did my regular Skype with the sisterhood and we both talked with Tootie for a while. He talked with Alan. And all the while he was doing that, I was looking at on-line courses in advanced math.

I did ask Dan about his old college books. He said they were either sold long ago or stored in boxes at our house back in Louisiana. "OUR house," he said without hesitation. He asked me what I was interested in and I told him that I was playing with some coursework on line.

Of course you should know that this didn't interfere with the rest of our lives. I LOVE Dan. I love being loved by Dan and I love having friends and laughing and talking and listening to music and enjoying food and flying, but sometimes I can close my eyes and replay some of those math ideas, too. I don't know if other people do that. How do you ask somebody about that?

Mister Jim and I did a lot of talking over the next couple of weeks with people at Auburn. We even Skyped with some of them. I spent an hour with a man from the mathematics department. He kept asking me questions and and they kept getting harder and harder and I kept trying.

"That's not the way most people look at that problem," he said after I sort of sweated on one, explaining what I thought.

Mister Jim was silent.

"I'm sorry, Doctor Wilkins," I said. "But you must understand that I learned this stuff here in my middle school."

"Miss Richards," he said, "most people do not learn this material at all. Mathematics majors learn it, but they explain it very differently from the method you used. I am very surprised hearing this come from somebody who hasn't been in college for several years."

After that session, I asked Mister Jim why he hadn't participated. He laughed. "Cindy, I can participate in a lot of different things, but when you and Doctor Wilkins were discussing those problems, I was completely, totally lost."

That's when I really started understanding that I was different. Before, it was just that I was doing things that everybody did, just a few years sooner. Now I was seeing that just maybe there were things I could do that ... I tried explaining that feeling to Mister Jim.

"Cindy, yes, I see what you're saying," he said. "We really need to let Dan in on this stuff."

And by the time we got Dan in to talk, Auburn wanted meetings. Dan was at a place in his work that we could spend a week there. And when Dan said we could go, Mister Jim made the phone calls.

When the school day was over, we had dinner with Mister Jim and Mizz Ann and Teresa and Billy.

By the time we got home, I found out about yet another development. We were riding home in our truck and my cellphone started sounding off with the sound that I gave to Tina. I popped it up and looked. There's a picture of Alan and Tina and this little blonde girl, and the email says, "Congratulations! You're an aunt. You need to meet Terri."

I showed the screen to Dan. "Who's the little blonde girl?"

"My new niece. Well, I guess she not NEW, but I just found out that she's coming to live with Alan and Tina."

"I need to talk to Alan, I guess," Dan said.

"Why?" I asked.

"Sweetie," he sighed, "I know that Alan has a responsibility to his daughter. I just wonder if that's going to change our business plans."

"I don't see how," I said. "Don't you think that his daughter will fit in with us? I see us as four families, you and me, Nikki and her Dan, Jason and Susan, and the new, improved, Alan and Tina, now with an extra Terri!"

My love laughed. "That's a totally Cindy way of looking at things," he said.

"Oh, don't worry, baby! We, me and my sisters, we'll talk. But looking at this text, can't you SEE the 'happy'?"

"I'm sure here's plenty of 'happy' there, little one. But a man has to make plans in his life to take care of who he loves, and I worry that Alan's plans may change with Terri in the picture."

"Then you need to call 'im," I said. "But I'm thinking that right now Tina is figuring out a way for Terri to fit into OUR plans." I giggled. "I never had a little sister. Or a niece. D'ya know she's only six years younger than I am?"

"Second grade?" Dan asked.

"I think so. She's been subject of conversation before. You know, we DO talk about our husbands and what we know about them. And Tina's already spent time with Terri. Likes 'er."

"That's good. I still need to talk with Alan, though."

I know my Dan. He cares about people. Alan was his friend, and he was thinking about what Alan might be thinking. Still, he's MY Dan, and I get to say things to him. "Just be supportive. Like you are with me!"

"No other way to be, sweetness," he told me.

As soon as we got to our trailer, he got on the phone.

"Hey, Alan, how's things?" he said into the phone. Pause. "Yep! News travels fast. Cindy showed me pictures!" Pause. "Uh-huh." Pause. "So I'm the SECOND one to call you?" Pause. "Okay. I'm just trying to be supportive here." Pause. "Yeah, I was wondering that." He paused for a while. "Look, I understand that things can change." Pause. "Uh-huh! I already got the 'This is NEW and this is different and it's gonna be GOOD!' from the little redhead sitting next to me." Pause. "Yeah, well you KNOW we'll help in any way we can." Pause. "By the way, if you haven't heard the 'Cindy' version of the story, next week she's going to Auburn for some interviews and evaluations. They want a longer look at 'er." Pause. "Yeah. Masters' level math. You know, the stuff that used to make me wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat." Pause. "Okay buddy! Whatever you need! Talk to you later!" Dan punched his phone off and stuck it back in the holster.

I smiled. "So now what do you think?"

"Just like you said. He's already lining up things. Susan and Tina are excited. You're excited. Nikki's excited. And plans haven't changed, other than they'll need an extra bedroom."

"Well, while I'm at Auburn next week, we can do a 'feet on the ground' look at our new building. Maybe Tina and Terri an' Alan can come down and see it." I knew we'd done a lot of sending pictures back and forth between four different families. Yes, I counted Jason and Susan as a family, okay?

"You can try setting that up, but next week might be short notice. Tina and Alan aren't going to be quite as flexible now that they have Terri."

I smiled. My sisters would have this figured out. "Let me send an email," I said.

"Okay," he answered.

I picked up my laptop and booted it up. A lot of people don't know what to do with the time between the time you push the 'on' button and the time it's ready to use. I don't have that problem. I set the computer aside and slid over to Dan for some recreational snuggling.

He chuckled when, after just REALLY kissing and cuddling, I pulled away and said "Email!"

Opening the mail program, I saw several from the gang, including some more from Tina and Susan with a lot of pictures attached.

I tapped out my message before I opened up theirs, then Dan and I browsed through the pictures.

"They look happy, cutie," he said.

"I think so." Maybe I'm an optimist now. I wasn't last summer. I was living every day knowing that things weren't good and that they could get a lot worse and I woke up every day wondering if this was the day things went completely 'wonky'. That's Dan's word, 'wonky'. He also says 'off track' a lot. Dan's an engineer and the first time he used 'off track' in a conversation I said, "Track? That's the wrong kind of engineer, huh?" I worried every day that Mom would come home all beat up again, worse this time, or even worse, she wouldn't come home at all, or that she'd bring home some guy who'd make a real move on me.