Chapter 61

Cindy's turn:

Oh, gosh! It's almost a madhouse. There's so much going on.

Monday morning we're up early, up the road, drive-thru at McDonalds for breakfast. "Purina Road-warrior Chow," Dan says. Dan's lived on the road and in RV parks for years. I think this last one might've done it for him.

Auburn University is ahead of us. I have a nine o'clock appointment. Mizz Patel from the engineering department has set it up for me.

"Do not worry, dear Cindy," she said when we were talking from Mister Jim's office at school. "This has nothing to do with you coming to Auburn and entering our Department of Engineering. We will have you here. These people are interested in seeing how far along you will be when you start with us."

"Who all will I be talking with?" I asked.

"From the latest reports and the conversations we've had this week, it will be people from the mathematics department. You've already talked with one of them. There will also some language arts people, and a person who works with our extremely gifted program."

I had talked with one of the mathematics people. Poor Mister Jim. He looked at me very strangely, shaking his head, when I was talking with Doctor Wilkins. I'm not bragging, but this guy really pushed me over the edge on math. I hadn't talked much with Dan about math, but with Mizz Crockett, I kind of ran right past where she was with math. Mister Jim told me that I was waaay past what he had to take in college. Dan looked at some of my on-line work and showed me where he thinks his experience left off.

I also found that one of the interview sessions was to be with a psychologist who specialized in work with gifted students. I guess I should just give up fighting it. People think I'm gifted. I must be gifted.

Driving along with my Dan. Mozart on the stereo. I love his concertos. One finished and I hit the 'off' button. "Dan, serious. Am I THAT different?"

His right hand was on my shoulder. He sort of tugged me into his side. "Baby, you MUST be different. Out of three billion females on this planet, YOU alone fit that spot in my heart."

I giggled. "I know about THAT. You know what I mean."

"Okay. You want the truth about intelligence. I'm afraid I can't really comment. Last summer, when we first met, you asked the first questions and I gave you simple answers, thinking you were a typical young teen. Remember?"

"Uh-huh."

He continued. "You weren't satisfied with simple answers. You'd dig. Ask pointed questions. Take what I said, put it together with other thoughts, then come up with more questions. Didn't take long before I knew you were above average. Now you're off the end of the scale for me to be able to judge. Friday night you showed me those articles on the computer. You've moved past me in math. I might be able to get there, but I'd have to sit in a classroom and then study like hell to get there."

"Okay," I said. "But am I weird?"

"That's the magical part," he said. "Jim and I even talked about it. Both of us have known very smart people and most of them have had personality issues. As best as I can tell, the only personality issue you have is being in love with a guy much older than you."

"You should see that guy with my eyes," I said. I mean it.

"But you get along well with others. I can see it. Everybody I know of says the same thing." He turned enough to kiss me on top of my head. That's apparently a favorite move for him. I find it utterly charming. He kept talking. "It's just that you're, I don't know, PERFECT! Weird? NO way! Different? Definitely!"

"Okay," I giggled. "'Cuz I'd hate to think that all this love was in just one direction."

"I will love you when the stars blink out in the skies."

"And the embers of the dead stars will grow cold and Cindy will still love Dan." It's fun little game to play. We do the premium version, too. It involves clean, tight sheets on the bed and absolutely NO clothing on either player.

We pulled into a parking space in front of the specified building at Auburn with fifteen minutes to spare and went inside. Dan had his new iPad, so I knew he was prepared to sit and wait. Better than that, he had his computer in the truck, so if there was going to be a considerable amount of time, he could sit in the truck and work, dictating some specifications he was working up for a client.

Client? Yep. Dan's the de facto CEO of 3Sigma Engineering of Alabama. That's since we're in position to sign papers for the new building, and signing those papers requires a corporate officer. And since Dan's in the corporation now, he's doing work under the new banner. And I'm married to a CEO. That's worth a giggle in conversation in school.

Mizz Patel took charge of me when we walked in. "Mister Richards, she will be in interviews with one or two members of the mathematics faculty today."

"What about lunch?" he asked.

Mizz Patel looked at Cindy. "Do you have a cellphone?"

"Yes, ma'am," I said.

"At lunchtime, we will know where you will be. You can call him."

"I will be sitting under a tree working on my computer," I said.

"If you can find a spot," Mizz Patel laughed softly. "Our trees are very prized for study."

Following Mizz Patel, I entered the 'belly of the beast'. That's one of Dan's phrases. His language is another thing that rubs off on me. She ushered me into a room and introduced me to Doctor Wilkins, who I already met, and his associate, another PhD, Doctor Ramathani, and she left me in their evil clutches.

"Ram," Doctor Wilkins said, "We don't need to start with anything near high school level." And off we went. Doctor Ramathani goes by "Ram", not like the sheep, but with an 'ah' sound, and Doctor Wilkins' first name is Brendon, 'Bren' for short, and by lunchtime I was Cindy and they were Ram and Bren and I explained some math that six months ago I did not know existed in this universe.

Ram would scribble some things on the whiteboard and ask me about them and I'd get up there and scribble right back, except he's been making those symbols for decades and I've only had a couple of months, and sometimes it was like learning to ride a little bicycle, you know, when you still have the training wheels on it and you don't really need 'em.

Ram glanced at his watch and in that sing-song Indian accent, said, "Bren, we can go to lunch and take Cindy."

"Can I call my husband?" I asked.

"Oh, of a certainty, Cindy. I wish to meet the man who is YOUR husband!"

"Where are we going?" I asked.

Bren laughed. "We could adhere to your stereotype, Ram. Cindy, have you had Indian food?"

I nodded my head affirmatively. "Dan took me to a place in Mobile!"

"Okay, you've HAD Indian food. More important question. Did you LIKE Indian food?"

"Specific answer," I said. "Yes! Very much. And you, Doctor Ram, you can suggest some things to try!"

Dan met us there, and we did indeed have an interesting meal. Ram knows the family that runs the restaurant on a first-name basis. We got a dozen little dishes to sample. I enjoyed myself immensely. I watched Dan, listened to him joining the conversation, being questioned about his work. My Dan doesn't meet strangers.

After lunch, Ram and Bren and I jumped back into the interview. At the end of the day, they thanked me for my participation. "Come back here tomorrow, please, Cindy. We want to give you a few tests."

Dan was waiting outside for me. "Okay, princess," he said, "how'd it go?"

"Pretty good, I think. Really. I think Doctor Ram was skeptical at first, but after about thirty minutes, he started getting into the talks. Tomorrow they want me to take some tests."

"Owww, my head hurts, baby!"

"Why?" I asked.

"Because I have this little doll who spent a day talking with two math PhD's and tomorrow they want to give her tests."

"And that person wishes to have a light meal and one method or another that might relax both body and mind." I was thinking of the kind of food that the Sommers sisters cooked up, and I imagine that in a college town there's a place like that, but tonight wasn't the night to try to find it. We settled for a place that had good reviews on Yelp. Then it was time to check into the hotel.

We KNOW what to do in a motel room, Dan and I. We'd had dinner, so that was out of the way. There was the nightly Skype sessions with my sisters. These aren't very good with hotel wireless, so we didn't do the video I enjoyed so much, but I can picture every one of them, including Tina's Terri. Yeah, I think of her as 'Tina's Terri' more than I do 'Alan's Terri'. I guess a lot of that is because I see her face and Tina's face squeezed together in front of the camera when they Skype.

Of course, Dan's over on the bed with HIS computer, doing the same thing with the other three guys. He explained where he was on the first project of our new company, and what I was up to at Auburn and in turn he caught up with what was going on in Louisiana and Tennessee. Sometimes I think we're riding an avalanche, but our conversations end with a giggle. Dan's conversations aren't as bubbly, but they're still good, because he's smiling when he closes the computer.

That means ... Shower! Big, steamy, hot loooong, soapy, loving, shower! And we're squeaky clean a half-hour later and I'm drying my hair while Dan shaves., then he helps me brush it out. And neither of us has a stitch of clothes on. Don't need 'em. Not for what we have in mind.

The room has two queen beds. One to play in, one to sleep in. We turn back the covers on the 'play' bed. You know, in one of those quiet, lazy, drifting times after we've just made love, I was laying full length on top of Dan, toying with the hair on his chest. "This is magic, baby,"

"Mmm-hmmm," he said. "You take that whole 'Tab A – Slot B' thing to a new level."

"Mmmmm, Dannn," I sighed. "I don't ... you're the very first. The only..."

"Trust me," he said. "You're magic to me."

Tonight we relive the magic. Like every other night. Let me tell you, sex is INTERESTING! I love knowing ways that I can make Dan sigh and shake and quiver and lose control, and I'm very happy that he can do the same to me. Sometimes he makes me come so hard that I pass out. He knows this, and I can't find words to explain how it is to open my eyes and see him holding me, usually kissing me ever so gently.

That's wonderful. Somehow I can't see Mom ever having somebody LOVE her like Dan loves me. That's sad. But I wouldn't trade a lifetime of what she had for ONE day of loving and being loved by my Dan.

We found something interesting on TV for a while, and then he starts just kind of mindlessly caressing me, first my neck, then my shoulder, softly, gently, like he's reading a sonnet in Braille from my skin. Kinda wakes me up too ... I wiggle just a little and the hand that was on my shoulder, it falls onto my breast. My sigh is the suggestion that I just MIGHT want to...

I find myself laying back, this GUY, my GUY, halfway atop me and there's just one thing that can happen next. I push a leg under him. Just ONE leg. That means one leg is on one side of him, the other leg's on the OTHER side of him, and HE is in between them. That's how we start, anyway. It doesn't last long like that, then we roll over, still deliciously coupled, and I'm astride him, riding for all I'm worth, the whole universe condensed to the little globe that encompasses the two of us.

This is the one where I pass out. When I come to, he's sitting up, and I'm in his arms and the look in his eyes, oh, gosh, I'm with Dan forever.

The next day, after a nice breakfast, I'm back at the college. Bren and Ram do just like they said, bringing me into a room with a desk and chair. Doctor Ram places a stack of paper in front of me.

"This is a selection of work that I and Bren think would indicate a sufficient grasp of knowledge to satisfy the math requirements for your engineering degree. It's graduated. The problems will get harder, the deeper you get into the stack."

"Cindy," Bren said, "If you were getting your master's degree or, heaven forbid, your doctorate, you'd have to present a thesis and defend it in front of faculty." He looked at Ram. "After you left us yesterday, Ram and I talked. We, that's US, him and me, we felt like we'd just sat through one of those sessions, and you did quite well."

"Really?" I said. It came out in a squeak. I embarrassed myself with that.

Bren smiled. "We're not saying you're at master level in math. Maybe with a bit of a push and a tug and some direction, you'd be there. But I and Ram are going to look at what you do here. If you put on paper the knowledge you discussed with us yesterday, well, he and I will have something to discuss with Mizz Patel."

I knew better than to ask if they were serious. This whole exercise was getting serious. "Uh, can I get a cup of coffee before I start?"

"Uh, sure," Bren said. "Let's go get you one."

They took me to Starbucks. Not my favorite, but the very idea that they wanted to get me something better than the kitchenette back at the math building, that made me feel good.

I sat down and started the tests with my big cup of cappuccino. As I started on the first page, it's like time stopped, you know, like some wormhole in the space-time continuum. At eleven, my bladder was starting to talk to me, so I got up and pushed the door open. "Doctor Bren?"

"Oh, hi, Cindy. Finished?"

"Not quite," I said. "I need the restroom."

"Up the hall to your left. Door's on the left."

It was a real relief. After I finished a 'download' (Dan's term) I cleaned myself up and washed my face. Refreshed. I realized that I'd been working harder than I thought. I could tell from the stickiness on my face, the remnants of sweat. I went back to Bren's office.

"I'm all better. You didn't say 'time limit'. Is there one?"

"I'd like to go home at four," he laughed.

"I'll be finished before then," I smiled. "One way or the other."

I was finished at noon. I walked out of the room and placed the papers on Bren's desk. "This is it," I said. "I've never done anything like this before in my life. Can I call my husband? I need lunch and maybe a Mozart concerto and a blue sky."