Chapter 23

Susan's view:

You know, just a few months ago I was just a high school senior. I had a mostly normal life. Okay, little bits of departure from many of the contemporary norms were there. Mom and Dad were married to each other. I was eighteen and a virgin. I was in the top level of my graduating class and I didn't take the easy courses. I had a best friend and she and I decided to attend the same college for the same course of study. Okay, so that's pretty normal-sounding, right?

Then the avalanche started. My best friend adopted a sister who adopted me and then they introduced me to Jason and then they dragged another sister into the group and we got tossed into Auburn on the fast track (well, a couple of 'em are faster'n me) and I'm married and there's a new business and...

It is like an avalanche. So many things happening. This morning I woke up twice. The first time was when Jason got out of bed at five because he had to drive over to meet the area manager for another piece of the utility company's business. He snuggled back on to the bed with me for a second after he was dressed, kissing me and telling me he loved me. I would have gone with him today but I have some tests scheduled. I'm trying to knock back a few of the peripheral subjects and if I do, I think I can have just about all the first year math, English, social studies, and a couple of electives out of the way. I'm gonna end up a mostly sophomore if things work out. But anyway, that's why I didn't get up and leave with my Jason. After I heard the front door close behind him, I buried back into the pillows with his kiss still tingling on my lips.

I did get up at seven. The house was quiet. Sometimes that's a good thing, but not today. And I know a trick. IPhone. Punch the button and wake Siri up. "Tina," I say. I've tried really hard, but as much as I strain my ears, I can't hear her phone ring next door.

"Good morning, Sis!" is the first words I hear.

"Didn't you say that Alan was on the road this morning, too?"

"He's flying to Houston," she pouted. "You and I, we have tests, so here we are, right?"

"Yes, Jason left at five-thirty," I said. "What's for breakfast?"

"Come over. I think Terri's been clamoring for waffles."

I could hear the squeal in the background. I know that if Alan leaves early, Terri ends up in the bed beside Tina. I think it's cute, and I also think it is a window on how well Tina has connected with Terri, her step-daughter. I grew up in contemporary society and I have a lot of friends who've been subjected to what is euphemistically termed 'blended families'. Some of those haven't been happy at all, including one of my high school acquaintances who was molested by mommy's latest. I knew kids who absolutely hated their step-parents for any of a dozen reasons, and I knew a few that had pretty good relationships.

And I know Terri 'n' Tina. And I thought Cindy was a catalyst. Well, really, Cindy still IS a catalyst, but Terri's, well, Dad used to use some expensive paint at his rental business. You'd get this big can. It was the polymer-based paint. It had everything you needed to coat and protect the equipment. Looked beautiful, slick, shiny, colorful. If you dipped a brush into it and painted, it went on like a bit of perfection. And never hardened. Never dried. Something was missing. That was the little bottle of activator.

If Cindy is the catalyst, Terri is the activator. I don't know what the deal is, genetically speaking, but Alan has sort of sandy blonde hair. Terri's blonde. 'Me' blonde. Mom says Terri (her adopted grand-daughter) looks like me at that age. Terri, according to the Community, is my 'mini-me'.

So I went to have breakfast with Tina and Mini-me. When I hit the sidewalk, I saw Cindy heading towards me. And Nikki. And they were giggling.

"We're engineering widows," Cindy said.

"Going to drown our miseries in breakfast breads, cold milk and coffee," Nikki added.

What a group. I mean I'm the oldest one. And we need a bigger waffle iron. Tina's proud of her big mixer and we broke the task up and ended up with a tub of waffle batter.

"Bottlenecked the process," Cindy said. "One waffle iron. Three minutes per cycle."

"I'm gonna go get mine," Nikki said, heading for the door. She was back in a minute and we started up two waffle irons and kept the products in the oven until we had enough for everybody. It was far from a wild teenaged party. We do maintain sanity and decorum, but the laughter flows easily too. And all G-rated, because Mini-me was there with us. When we loaded the breakfast dishes into the washer and cleaned the mess up, the last step was coffee. Eight o'clock was time for me and Tina to get in gear. Today was our test day, wherein if we achieved success, we'd both knock out another six semester hours of coursework.

Cindy and Nikki's day was tomorrow. Today they were both into books that were a few steps up the ladder from what Tina and I were working on. I think that the staff is giving up on those two. I mean, it's almost like the staff says "You need to know THIS to get your degrees and they send Cindy and Nikki home with books and next week those two are sitting in the office or standing in front of a whiteboard laying out the subject.

It's funny. One of the instructors, Ken Simpson, who proctors some of our tests, asked me if I was jealous. "I guess, maybe a little tiny bit, but it's kind of like being jealous of Neil Armstrong on the moon and you're still trying to get a good handle on landing a light plane. I fly. Neil rode the fire to the moon. I excel. Cindy and Nikki soar."

"You have a good attitude about it," he said. "I look at 'em and want to go down the hall and bang my head against the bricks."

"You know," I said, "That's what they don't want to happen. Me neither. It's not a competition."

"It is, sometimes, I guess," Ken said. "At the higher levels. For tenure. And grants."

Ken," I said softly, "I went on a couple of jobs with my husband Jason. We go to these utility substations and gather data so we can feed it back into the big job, which is to update and verify the system protection of the power grid." I giggled.

"What's funny?"

"It just occurred to me that last year at this time I no more worried about the power grid than I did about the pigment composition on the Mona Lisa. And now..."

"And now?"

"It's what I wanna do. D'ya know that Nikki's talking to them about channel issues for the communications?"

"She's fifteen."

"Almost sixteen," I said. "She's just doing what she CAN do. That's what we're all doing: What we CAN do." I smiled. I think I had him. "Isn't that what YOU do?"

"On my better days," he replied.

"Well, I know what you mean there, Ken. Now, this Introduction to Engineering..." And we worked through a few questions I had. Got another work assignment. Felt like next week I could test though it. Naturally, when I left Ken's office, I ran into Tina.

"How'd yours go?" I asked her.

"Linda's in a mood," Tina said. "I almost let her get to me."

"Take a deep breath," I said. "That's what Mom always told me. Usually while I was arguing with her that it wouldn't work, it worked. Ken's okay today. He asked me if I was jealous of Nikki and Cindy."

"No way," Tina gasped.

"He did. I told him only like I was jealous of Neil Armstrong."

"Good one. If I use it, then he'll really think we're collaborating."

A lot of what we're experiencing in school is that we're, that's US, the Sisterhood, are just, well, different. I guess there's a lot of gaming going on out there, students who figure out ways to pop out these phenomenal ACT and SAT scores and work themselves into advance placement status, and then when they get to college, they don't measure up. It appears to me that we were subject to the carryover of that particular phenomenon. Until we proved ourselves.

Of course Tina and I were a bit more subdued in the process of proving that. One of the math professors, Doctor Ramathani. Horror of horrors to some of his students and teaching assistants, he's on a first name, phone call basis with Nikki and Cindy. Doctor Ram had me in to see if my advance placement math was a fluke or a fake. I almost broke down about halfway through the session.

"Oh, Susan," he said, "Stop fretting."

I love that sub-continent accent. His was thicker, more lush, than Doctor Patel's. His face was genuine with compassion.

"I ... Did I disappoint?" I quivered.

"Certainly not, Susan Ellerbee. You passed the point that validated your advanced placement status before lunch. I'm just about ready to sign your paperwork crediting you for sophomore level, fall semester."

I think people were startled by my squeal.

The next thing on the agenda this afternoon was a stealthy visit to a neat little bakery. The goal was a cake. A birthday cake. A HIDDEN birthday cake.

Tina was tracking locations of the whole community, husbands, wives, the Weismanns. Nikki and Cindy were doing their best to keep a lid on the secret: tomorrow is Mini-me's, Terri's, eighth birthday. She's expecting a celebration then. There were a few misleading hints dropped.

Her party is today. And right now, she's at home with Cindy and Nikki and EVERYONE else is gone, even her best friend Rachel. And we're all going to show up at once. That is, after Tina and I decorate the engineering office's back section with a big banner that says 'Happy Birthday Terri'.

Of course I get a phone call from Jason. "Why exactly am I forbidden from going to my own house?"

"Because you're my astoundingly handsome and intelligent husband and you know I would never ask you something without a good reason."

"So what's the reason?"

"Little surprise party for Mini-me."

"Good enough. Did we buy her a gift?"

"You betcha," I said. I giggled. "And I got something special for you, too, tonight." I can feel him turning colors over the phone. I just love this guy.

Three of our husbands had military backgrounds and it showed as we carried out our operation with military precision. Precisely at five, the back door to the office opened, Cindy entered, Terri trailing her, with Nikki bringing up the rear. They walked through the back room into the back section of the office and we all yelled 'Surprise!"

Terri put her hands on her hips. "Tomorrow's my birthday!"

"And you wouldn't've been surprised tomorrow,"Tina said.

"Happy birthday, Terri-bug," Alan said to his daughter, scooping her up.

"Honestly, Dad," she said, "Best birthday ever."

"Best one I've had with you in soooo long, baby," Alan said. I saw the tear in the corner of his eye. I know Terri did. And Tina. They're meant to be a family.

The cake was was a perfectly executed representation of "My LIttle Pony". Terri saw it, went over to Cindy, looked her in the eye and announced. "This cake has 'Cindy Sue' written all over it!" And she hauled Cindy in for a kiss. We all got 'em.

The next day was the day I got my wedding gift from Dad. I was there when the truck brought it and we'd made arrangements with a rigging company to have the equipment there to unload my new lathe and vertical mill and a cabinet full of tools and hardware. And a drill press.

The two guys from the rigging company were more than competent. "We move stuff over to the college all the time," the leader told me. "Who's getting this stuff?"

"Me," I said. "My wedding gift from Dad." That got some looks. I showed them where everything went. Got the machines placed precisely as they should be. I had good teachers with Dad and Mister Len. I had Mister Len on the cellphone telling me exactly how to level those things, too, and bolt them down.

"You got that grout that I told you to get, right, sweetie?" he asked.

"Yes, Mister Len. I got Terri here helping me. She said to tell you hi!"