Chapter 21

The exchange of email with Tina's physics teacher, Mister Graham, went through a couple of cycles between Monday and Tuesday. I circulated the results to my boss and the game was set: student tour on Friday.

A few sessions around the coffee pot and I and my fellow engineers had an educational itinerary set up that would merge the 'oooh' and 'ahhhh' stuff with a little bit of a look into the world of heavy industry.

Wednesday afternoon I got a call on the radio. "Alan, can you come to the trailer? Your new tech is here."

I buzzed my golfcart back up the road to my office trailer. I walked in the door and heard the administrator say, "That's Alan Addison."

"I told her, "You forgot the 'impressive' part," laughing. The guy standing in front of me had sandy hair and was six feet tall and maybe twenty pounds overweight. To him I extended a hand. "You're Jason..."

"Ellerbee," he said, giving my hand an authoritative shake. "Dan Richards says you need some help?"

"We do. Lost my lead tech. His dad's back home in bad health. He had to go."

"Bad news," he said. "Hate to hear it." He looked genuine when he said it. "So where are we at on the work?"

Business-like, he was. I looked at his feet. "Those steel-toes?" Safety toe shoes were required out in the field.

"Yep!" he said, waving a hard hat. He made a bit of a show of pulling a pair of safety glasses from his pocket. "Let's roll!"

We drove and walked through various areas of the project as I showed him work already done and work left to do. "Dan says you're the guy for this."

"I like to think so. If Dan says good things about me, they must be true. Guy's too darned smart to fool."

I laughed. "He wants you to THINK that," I said.

Jason laughed. "He SAID you'd say that."

Sense of humor. I figured that he was going to a good one.

We adjourned to my office and put together a plan for him to pick up work where Mackey left off.

"So where are you livin' around here?" he asked.

"Me an' my wife live in an RV park fifteen minutes from here."

"Oh, yeah ... Dan told me about you an' him an' your wives meeting. He's doin' that too." He paused. "You've, like, MET Cindy?" he asked.

"Oh, yeah. She's my wife's new sister."

"Right. He told me YOUR wife's seventeen. What's with you two and the young wives? Radiation from that nuke job?"

"Parallel development," I said. "What are you doing for a place to stay?"

"Hotel for the time being. Per diem'll cover it. Until I see how long I'm gonna be here. If it's a couple months, I may try an apartment."

"I know a realtor in town if you want some help. She's the mom of one of Tina's friends." Kathy Carter, Susan's mom, was a small-town multitasker: Book-keeping for a few clients, a little real estate sales.

"Great," he said. "When are you going to have an idea about Mackey coming back?"

"I'll give him until the end of the week. He was talking about the family farm." I explained, "Mackey's family was running a farm with his dad supervising the operation. Mackey was the son and heir and was expected to step in. He'd thought he had a few years before his dad needed the help. A stroke ended those thoughts."

"I don't mind doing this," Jason said. "The next one off the block after the Alabama job is somewhere in the Dakotas. Little further from home than I wanted to range. But I don't like to feel like a vulture, either."

"Don't, then. Mackey's a good guy, but he's doin' what sons are supposed to do." We went through the technical things that we needed to cover to provide continuity in the loss of a key player in my power business. I was busy making mental notes to make sure that we didn't let anything fall through the cracks. End of the day came.

We headed back to the office. I shut my computer down. "This desk is yours," I said. "Still got Mackey's stuff in it, though. Just keep track. If he's gone for good, we'll box it up and send it to 'im."

Jason dropped off his hard hat. "What'd'ya do for dinner around here?"

"Oh, there are a few places. Where're you stayin'?" I asked. He named the hotel. "Tell you what ... if you go get checked in, there's a catfish place right up the highway from there. We'll meet you there for dinner. Sixish?"

He smiled. "Sounds good."

I followed him out of the gate past the security guard and got on the highway. I pulled my cell phone out and called Tina.

"Hi, baby," she said.

I could picture her smile when I heard her voice. "Don't cook. We're gonna have dinner with my replacement technician, sweetness."

"Uh, Alan, I hope you don't mind if Susan tags along..."

"Susan?"

"Yeah, she's over here and we're working on a research paper. Two of 'em, actually. We were waiting for you. Thinking pizza. But goin' out is okay, too." She paused. "Susan, Alan's meeting a new technician for dinner. You wanna come, huh?"

"Sure!" came Susan's answer.

"Okay. I'll see you two in ten minutes."

"Okay, love of my life," Tina lilted.

Gave the ride home an extra incentive. I pulled up at our trailer behind Tina's and Susan's cars and walked in to see the pair. Tina was up, having heard me drive up, and she met me right inside the door for a welcoming kiss and hug.

"Mmmmm, hey, baby," she purred.

"Hi, Mister Alan," chirped Susan. "Me an' your wife had a fight, you know..."

I looked at Tina. "You and Susan? Over what?"

We had to choose a subject for our research papers and since electrical engineering is in our future, we both chose Nikola Tesla."

"Who won?"

Susan giggled. "Both of us. Teacher said she was gonna read 'em BOTH and they'd better be different."

"Easy," I said. "Tesla did so much..."

Tina interrupted. "Uh-huh. So Susan's gonna do the early life and his AC power stuff, and I'm going to do his later life and the freaky stuff that he was working on in his later years."

"How much do you need?" I asked.

"Ten pages, type-written, with references," Susan said.

"There are whole books on Tesla, kiddo," I said.

"So what time are we meeting this guy?" Tina asked.

"Catfish joint at six. I got time to change shoes and stretch out."

"I'm in the way," Susan said, from the sofa.

"Hardly, little girl child," I laughed. "I'll just stretch out on the bed. You two keep doing what you're doing. We're always happy to have you around."

I pulled my work shoes off and pushed them out of the way, then got horizontal, lying on the covers of our bed, letting my back stretch. I closed my eyes, listening to the two of them conferring over the sound of computer keyboards and mice.

A bit later I looked up to see them shutting computers down. "Let's go," Tina said.

The three of us loaded into my pickup, Tina squeezing against me quite a bit more than the space in the front seat dictated, but I was okay with that. We pulled into the parking lot at the restaurant and I looked around for Jason's truck. It wasn't there. Walking to the door, I called his cell phone.

"I'm five minutes out. Dozed off," he said. "Just get us a table and I'll see you in a bit."

"Okay, buddy. There's gonna be three of us."

"Three?"

"Yeah. Me, Tina, and Tina's friend Susan."

"Okay. Be there in a bit."

We went inside and got seated. Ordered a couple of appetizers and some drinks and spent the time talking. I kept watching the door and I saw Jason walk in. I waved him over.

He walked up to the table. "Jason, this is Tina, my wife. And this is Susan, her best friend. Ladies, this is Jason Ellerbee. He's gonna work with me on the project."

"Hi, Jason," Tina said.

"Hello," Susan said. Her blue eyes brightened and she smiled.

Jason sat down. Susan nudged a basket of chips in his direction.

"Have some. This place has good salsa."

Jason's brow knit. "Chips an' salsa in a southern catfish joint ... Hmmm..."

Susan giggled. "Oh we're VERY multicultural around here." She smirked. "An' one of the cooks is named Pedro..." Snicker. "That's 'is wife waitin' tables over there."

And so dinner proceeded. Jason was the new guy, so he got questioned mercilessly.

"Did you go to college?" Tina asked.

"Yes."

"What was your major?" Susan's question.

"Electrical engineering technology."

"Really?" Tina asked, "Why not the whole 'engineering' thing?"

"I listened to bad advice from my loser buddies," Jason said. "Told me that the math was too hard."

"So why don't you go back?" Tina asked.

"Too busy earning a living now," Jason said.

"Do ya WANT to?" Susan asked.

"I've thought about it. Almost could..."

"Why don't ya?" Susan said.

"What is this? Give Jason a break, ya'll!" I said.

Jason smiled. "'S okay, Alan. Sometimes I ask myself the same thing."

"I don't know if Dan explained about this bunch, Jason. His wife, Cindy..."

"Yeah, little redhead. They call 'er the 'Engineer's Apprentice'! Dan says she's graduatin' in May. Fourteen. And going to college in the fall. Electrical engineering."

"Yeah, that's her," I said. "Tina and Susan are her sisters now. All THREE of 'em are going to the same college. All three for electrical engineering."

"Oh!" Jason said, surprised.

"You're looking at two of the top five in their graduating class, a couple of ACT's in the thirty range..."

Jason's eyes brightened. He looked at Susan. "You? What happened to the 'dumb blonde' thing?"

He was shooting back. Good!

Susan giggled. "I, sir, am the EXCEPTION that proves the rule!"

"She has her moments," Tina giggled.

Jason proved to be quite a conversationalist and his presence gave the girls a fresh audience for talking about their 'community' plans.

He looked at me. "So that's what Dan was alluding to? He was being pretty obvious about me coming to work on some new venture."

"That's right," I said. "Wives and Susan in school. Me and Dan in business. We need some good techs that can think on their own."

"Told 'im I'd think about it." He grinned at Tina and Susan. "I don't know, though ... pretty scary bunch, this is..."