Chapter 63

Dan’s turn:

Tuesday of a tumultuous week. Today was ‘graduation day’ for middle school. I question the need to ‘graduate from middle school’ in the first place, because it’s not the end of anything. You don’t stop your education in middle school, not if you want to do anything above menial tasks.

Cindy was excited, though. Yesterday was the rehearsal for high school graduation and Cindy had to be there for that. Excited? Yes, Cindy is excited. She was excited last week, too, after four days of interviews and tests at Auburn, culminating in a very favorable outcome. Cindy has tested and interviewed out of a lot of college courses and from what Mizz Patel said, I’m looking at this little redhead propped up on the sofa with her laptop, doing who knows what, and she’s a couple of years from getting a degree at the age of fourteen that I didn’t get until I was twenty-three. Of course, I couldn’t go toe-to-toe with two professors from the university’s math department, either.

We send out for barbecue to be delivered to the park office and share lunch with Helen and Charlie.

“I’m having Eletha fix us up a big meal. You said everybody’s coming in for Wednesday,” Charlie said.

“We could just go to a restaurant,” I countered.

“Oh, come on, son. You know what it’s going to be like any place you decide to go on Wednesday?”

“Yessir, you’re right, there.”

“So just everybody come over for early dinner, then we’ll all troop to the school.”

“Baby,” Cindy said. Yeah, after nine months in each other’s arms, I was ‘baby’ to a fourteen year old, and I was quite happy with that status. I was also happy with her sense of decorum. She did not flaunt our marriage in general company, not until she knew her company. With Charlie and Helen, we were family, and she could be ‘baby’ to me and I could be ‘baby’ to her.

“Baby,” she said, “I think that’s a good plan. It’s a chance for everybody to meet Mister Charlie and Mizz Helen, and it makes life easier. That way, we graduate me, then Thursday we fly up to Tennessee for Susan and Tina’s graduation, then get up Saturday morning and fly back to Louisiana for Nikki’s.”

Mizz Helen said, “It’s a good thing you all can fly. That Tennessee to Louisiana trip would be a killer. You could make it if you drove all night. Or all day.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “I knew that some day it would pay off.”

“Got a way to haul your cutie around the countryside,” Charlie said.

“Best part of life, ever,” I said. “That I have this cutie to haul.” I emphasized that statement by hauling Cindy against me. She tossed her arm around my waist.

“Only thing is, I wish my sister-in-law could’ve made it. Tootie, you know. But her father-in-law’s in the hospital so she’s kind of committed there.” Cindy sighed. “I wanted her to be here.”

“Maybe for your college graduation,” Helen said.

“Uh, yeah ... Two years from now,” I laughed.

“There’s a picture,” Charlie said. “Cindy, darlin’, you should’ve heard the Wednesday morning old lawyers’ club when I told them about you. One of my old cohorts wanted me to talk to you about changing to study law. I told him that last thing the world needed was a REALLY SMART lawyer.” He chuckled at his own joke. “But if you EVER gave that a thought, you tell me. I know some people who’d roll out a red carpet for you.”

“Stop, that, Mister Charlie,” Cindy squealed. “Mizz Helen, your husband is tryin’ ta turn my head!”

“Stoppit, Charlie!” Helen laughed.

Still giggling, Cindy tugged me by the hand, headed to the door. “Six o’clock! Middle school!” she said over her shoulder. Walking hand in hand towards the trailer, she giggled softly. “We have plenty of time. I need something that will make me relax.”

“Make you relax?” I asked. I pretty much KNEW what she had in mind.

Green eyes twinkled affirmation as I opened the trailer door to let her in. By the time I had the door locked behind me, she was at the foot of the bed, undressing. Giggling, she said, “Dan, you know it’s not just about sex, but...”

She squealed as I rolled her over onto her back. “Get your clothes off, guy,” she squealed. “You can’t do ANYTHING with clothes on.”

I buried my face between her thighs. Her breath escaped with a hiss. “Ohhhhh. There is THAT!” And another long sigh, her pelvis moving against my tongue.

I stood, stripping my clothes off. She sat up, ‘helping’, which meant that there were a couple of times my knees almost buckled. I have a million reasons to be happy with my Cindy. One of them is that she knows every sexual button on me, and happily pushes them all.

An hour later, the score was Cindy – 4, Dan – 2 and we shared a little nap in each other’s arms. We ate a light snack, then a couple of showers occurred. After that, I was in my ‘businessman engineer’ uniform: slacks, matching sports coat, shirt and tie. Cindy was Cindy. In a purple academic robe with white trim, the high school colors. I whipped the camera out and got pictures. Lots of pictures.

Got to the middle school. Cindy was the only purple in a sea of blue and gold polyester gowns. Blue and gold were the colors of her middle school, but between Dan Hardesty and Mister Bresser, the principal, they decided that Cindy, middle school student, should be in her high school colors to emphasize exactly how special she was.

Oh, I was plenty proud. It bothered me not at all to endure the squeals and laughter of a long succession of her classmates who came up to greet her, and I was personally happy to be greeted by name by so many of her teachers, and a few of the parents, including the Spears, Don and Barbara.

I had the big camera, already mounted on a collapsible tripod, and I took pictures of them with Kayla and Cindy, then set the timer and took several of me standing beside them, my Cindy in front of me That got me an avalanche of “Cindy, can we get a picture with you?” and an equally long list of email addresses to forward them to.

I reaped one of the advantages of having Charles Peebles, District Judge Emeritus, as a father-in-law. VIP seating. That was good. The tripod went up in front of me. I guess there were a few hundred cameras in the place, moms and dads taking pictures of their little snowflakes. I was taking pictures of my wife.

Okay, middle school graduation. They didn’t have those when I was in middle school, but today EVERYBODY is special, and we have a ceremony and present an award at every turn of the calendar. The band and chorus did a pretty good job of the national anthem. A Presbyterian minister did his best to deliver an invocation without actually, you know, INVOKING any recognizable deity.

It was Principal Bresser’s time in the spotlight. He greeted the assembled crowd, introduced the evening’s speaker, a state assemblyman, who, thankfully, spoke briefly. He introduced a bevy of students who achieved 4.0 grade averages in middle school. My Cindy wasn’t one of those. Until THIS year.

He introduced the school’s all-star athletes, including JJ James, smiling tonight. Cindy was sitting next to him, his six foot plus football-player bulk making her look all the more tiny. JJ. I met his older brother, Demarcus. It was like addressing a huge, good-natured bear. I could only imagine what JJ would look like in four years when HE was a high school senior. We’d seen Demarcus and some family winding through the crowd on the way into the building.

Finally, Mister Bresser came to my favorite subject, Cindy. “Folks, this is Cindy Richards. She would be graduating from middle school this year with the rest of her class, but you notice that Cindy’s wearing the wrong colored robes. Most of you know that green and white is the high schools’ colors. That’s because tonight, Cindy is a middle school graduate. Tomorrow night she will be on the stage at the high school stadium, where she will graduate from high school. And she has a full academic scholarship to Auburn University, a particularly fine institution. I know. I graduated from it. I just wish I would have hit it like Cindy has.”

Then he went through the faculty, and finally read through the long list of names, presenting each student with a certificate attesting to them having completed eight grades of school. And then it was over.

Heading out the door, we saw no need to hurry. It was a big crowd. Angling gently forward, a hand touched my shoulder. I turned, eye-level with the chin of Demarcus James.

“Hello, Mistuh Richards,” he said. “Hello little Cindy!”

“Hi, Demarcus,” I replied. Standing next to him was his younger brother, JJ, fresh off the stage where he’s sat with Cindy. And hovering near the two of them was a black woman who had all the earmarks of ‘Mom’.

My suspicions were confirmed. “Mistuh Richards, Miss Cindy, dis our mom!”

Okay, I had to stop for that one. “Hello, mother of JJ and Demarcus, I’m Dan!”

“Hello,” she said. “I’m Janita. I’ve heard a bit about Cindy, right, JJ?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. She saved me.”

“Uh-huh”, Mizz Janita said. “Boy let hisself get behin’ in math, and Lord knows, that ain’t my subject. Then ‘is grades started comin’ back up. I aksed ‘im what dat was. And he tol’ me dis little white girl was helpin’ him an’ some others.” She touched Cindy’s cheek. “Cindy, if JJ ain’t said it enough, I’m givin’ you a mama’s thank you.”

“Oh, gosh, Mizz James,” Cindy said. “How could I NOT help ‘im? I knew the stuff and he wanted to learn. Said ‘is momma would be so disappointed if he failed.” Cindy grinned at Demarcus, a move that meant she had to turn her head skyward. “An’ ‘is big brother would kill ‘im.”

By the time we found a clear spot in the crowd, Cindy, Demarcus, JJ and Miss James huddled together and I took pictures. Finally a good Samaritan took my camera so I could be in the shots. Cindy had a lot of friends, and I had a camera-full of similar shots, but none had the physical presence of me, Cindy, Huge Demarcus, only slightly less imposing JJ, and their mom, smiling brightly.

We didn’t get in a hurry to leave, not with all the cars that were destined to leave the overcrowded parking lot. Cindy and I found Charlie and Helen, meeting up with Barbara and Don. Don, of course, knew Charlie, having tried cases before his bench.

We all chatted. My wife and Kayla were appropriately giggly for a pair of fourteen year olds. Both of Kayla’s parents were interested in Cindy’s Auburn exploits. Don pulled me aside.

“Buddy, do you realize how impressive that is?”

“Tell me about it,” I said. “She went head to head with a couple of professors from the mathematics bunch. Do you know what that would be like?”

“I can’t even begin to imagine,” he laughed. “And if I did, it’d be some sort of nightmare.”

“Myself,” I replied. “I busted my hump to get my engineering degree. Math wasn’t easy. And that little redhead there looks at it and says, ‘Well, duh! It’s like 2+2=4. What else COULD it be?’. Stuff that I spend nights and weekends to learn.”

The little redhead in question sidled up beside me and took my hand. “Mister Don, when Dan tells me that, I get nervous. I don’t wanna be some kind of freak.”

“Hon,” Don said, “You’re no way a freak. Gifted in a way that we just can’t imagine. But not a freak.”

“Oh, no, Cindy,” Kayla said. “Freaks are weird. They don’t get along with others. You’re everybody’s friend, if they want to be a friend.”

“Thanks, Kayla,” Cindy said. “You make me feel good when you tell me that.”

“Well, if I hadn’t been so stuck up at the beginning of the school year, we could’ve got me an ‘A’ in math that first six weeks, and I’d have a perfect 4.0. So we can’t be talkin’ about people who don’t have their heads on straight.” Kayla giggled. “Mom says I learned a lesson. And it wasn’t math.”

Barbara smiled at me. “Precious daughter takes a big step up the maturity ladder, Dan.”

The result of that statement was a smile from Cindy. “I got a friend out of the deal,” Cindy said.

“Yeah, but my friend’s not gonna be with me next year in high school,” Kayla said.

“But you can do this stuff on your own. And you have friends who can help. Y’all just get together and do it,” Cindy said. “‘Sides, there’s Skype and email and texting. And we will come back here, you know.”

Don said, “And you better make sure that you two let us know when you visit, too,”

“Oh, we will,” I said. Seeing the traffic leaving the parking area thinning our, we made our way to the truck and then drove off.

I gave my little cutie a squeeze. “Milestone, baby,” I said. “I’m married to a real, live, middle school graduate!”

She squeezed back. “And a very happy one, at that, and I know how we can be even happier.” She held my hand up to her mouth, kissed it, then gave it a little bite.

I knew what that meant, but I also knew that I owed a certain little someone a real chocolate malt, product of a mom and pop drive-in. by this time she’d discarded the robe and was down to the Cindy I adored, wearing jeans and a cotton shirt. Seeing her sitting beside me, sucking the thick malt through a straw, eyes laughing, I was very happy. But I don’t think I was happier than Cindy.

Finally home, we hung clothes and ran the routine of showers and ended up in at giggly tangle on the bed, adding the magic of lovemaking to all the other happiness of the day. Finally we settled in together to sleep.

I was assisted into slumber with a soft kiss. “Dan Richards, you have no idea how much this all means to me. You made my world magic.”

“Oh no, little love. You were a little magical thing just waiting to be turned loose on the world.”

“And neither of us knew this when we started.”

“Mmmm-hmmm. I knew you were magic on a lot of levels, little one,” I said. “Good night.”

“Good night, love,” she said softly, underscoring her words with her body softly snuggling against mine.

The morning was a rare one in the middle of the week for us, in that we didn’t have to react to the alarm clock. Instead, I eased out of bed to make a bathroom call, felt her stir, and when I crawled back in bed, she sleepily tugged me over to face her, then buried her face into my chest. Very pleasant. Her movements told me she was drifting between sleep and awake, so I cuddled her gently for a while until she moved upward and her lips met mine.