Chapter 34

Alan's Turn:

One might imagine that in the aftermath of the restaurant robbery, things might be in a turmoil. To a certain extent, one would be right. I'm fortunate. I have immediate family, my Tina and my Terri. I have my full family, and Tina made sure that she talked with my sister about the incident. And I have the Community.

"You gonna be okay, buddy?" Dan 1.0 asked.

"Yeah. Am I supposed to be all weepy or something?"

He shook his head. "Not like you had any choices."

"You didn't either, did you?" I asked him, remembering the story of him and Cindy.

"I didn't start the fight," Dan said. "Neither did you."

Dan 2.0 rolled his chair into the middle of the office. "I saw the video. You made the right move. If you'd've hesitated, I think Malati would be dead or in the hospital."

We'd all seen the video.

Things went back to normal. The restaurant was shut down for a good cleaning. We had a few people drive through the parking lot, probably out of curiosity.

Dan 1.0 and Cindy were excited about flying back down to Houston and bringing a new couple back.

"Music. They do music. And he's an electrical engineer. The work I'm doing for that bunch in Houston? He was the principal engineer. Got in a car wreck. The company won't let him back to work until Christmas, while he recuperates. Look!"

He produced his phone and pulled up pictures. Cindy and another redhead, taller, hair a brighter red. And blue eyes. Then another of the same redhead with a guy, looked younger than me, and he had a noticeable scar on his face.

"They're staying in our guest room. We'll bring 'em in on Friday, fly 'em back on Monday."

My wheels started spinning. I knew the scope of the job that Dan 1.0 had picked up. It was pretty stout stuff. An affiliated engineer in Houston might be a good thing. Oh, well, he's already working. Of course I didn't know an electrical engineer who was worth a damn who wasn't, unless he refused to move to where the jobs were.

"He's sharp," Dan said. "With excellent tastes in music and women."

"Well, buddy," I said, "if you wanna bring him here then he probably will at least be interesting to talk with."

"And her," Dan said. "You don't know the half of it."

I laughed. "Yeah, we do know about that other half, don't we?"

And while we were talking we didn't know what sort of twists were taking place in our happy community.

(Author's note: The following is another bit of writing by one of my readers. I think it's a great twist.)

Ann Hardesty's turn:

Jim had to attend a middle school counseling conference not too far away, so we decided to take a few days extra to enjoy ourselves while we were down there. The drive wasn't bad, but it would have been nicer with the plane that Jim has been drooling over. I think this trip might put him over the top. (He's been talking about it, and frankly, I'm kind of encouraging him.)

The kids were happy to stay with their cousins, so we headed south toward the Texas Gulf Coast, with five days ahead of us to relax and enjoy the beach and other sights. Yes, we packed Jim's suit, and a couple of my "go to concert" dresses, so we'd be able to enjoy some big city culture while we were there. The local university was actually my alma mater. I knew they still had an excellent music program, so we hoped to get to attend a concert while we were there.

Jim asked why I'd packed our instruments, his guitar and my violin, and I told him I thought we wouldn't spend all our time running around, but might have time to practice a bit, and that always unwinds us from whatever tension we'd run into on any given day. Since Cindy and Dan had moved to Auburn we had kept in contact, and we were looking forward to our next concert on Judge Charlie's birthday. That old guy had really started something when he got Cindy and Dan together, and they've touched so many lives since then.

I know Jim and I wouldn't have gotten nearly as deep back into the music without them, and I'm even getting back into the classical scene. That little redhead sure knows how to stir things up, in a good way, and we love and miss the both of them.

Jim's turn:

I'm really not too keen on the big city. I only agreed to come down here because the committee on "special" student curricula had heard about how our efforts with Cindy had paid off, and they wanted to know how I'd come up with the idea in the first place.

After all, "special students" were traditionally the slower ones, maybe with learning disabilities, or with behavioral issues. None of these things applied to Cindy, so I don't really know what triggered it. All I can say is I saw something special there and I didn't want to see another possibly good student get plowed under and wasted by the system. Then the "possibly good" turned into absolutely phenomenal! And here we are. I even had to write a paper on it, (thank God Ann minored in English) and that led to this trip.

I'd been so wrapped up in making sure I have all my state reg compliances in order that I hadn't paid as much attention to what Ann was planning for us to do when we got here, and when I saw she had packed our instruments I just said "Okay, we've got the room in the van, so why not?"

So, here we are, the conference is over, and we've got four more days here to simply relax and enjoy ourselves. And I've got the perfect mate to do that with. Did I tell you how much I love this woman? She's even helping me do the pros and cons on buying the plane I've been looking at, and she's coming up with even more pros than I am! See what you've got me into, Dan?!?

Ann scored a couple of tickets for tonight, to a local university orchestral concert, and we're getting ready now. I'm glad we started early, because she's still so gorgeous that I can't keep my eyes off her, or my hands, especially in the shower! Gotta stay focused! God, I love this woman! "I love you, woman!"

"Mmmmm – I love you too, big guy, but you're gonna have to hold that thought! You wanted to get there early to get a good seat, and now we won't have time to stop for dinner before we go!" Ann was smiling, "As much as you know I'd like to just stay here, we did come down for some cultural enrichment too!"

"I'll culturally enrich you later, ma'am, if that's what you want," I said, "but you're right – we'll have to catch a late supper after the concert."

We did make it to the concert in time to get very nice seats, but we were a little disappointed that the crowd didn't seem to be as big as we had thought it would be for a fair-sized university production. I guess the public is getting too apathetic about good music, and seems to be stuck on the crap – excuse my bias, I'm married to a concert fiddle, whoops!, VIOLIN player – anyway, yes, the crap they hear on the local radio station, not to mention the internet.

I'm just thankful our kids have taken an interest in making their own music. Bill is 'teaching himself" the guitar, and doing quite well at it, and Theresa has started voice lessons with a lady from our church. She's overcoming her shyness too – Cindy had a lot to do with that, when she dragged out Teresa into singing duets with her in our little Bluegrass group.

So we're sitting here, thoroughly enjoying this concert, when right at the end of the program the conductor says they have a surprise – one final selection, not on the program, will be the Mozart Concerto for Flute and Harp.

They rearranged the chairs a little in front, and this cute redheaded girl carrying a flute came down out of the woodwind section and sat in the one chair. The other chair remained empty, and she just sat there smiling. Reminded me of Cindy a little, with that red hair, and you could see those freckles plain as day. She was smiling and looking pleased as all get out.

The conductor continued: "But I'm sure you may be wondering right now how we can do that, as it's plain to see we're short one essential instrument for that – yes, the harp is not here. We've got one on order, but it hasn't shown up yet, so we've had to make use of another stringed instrument."

Then he looked off to the side of the stage and said "Mister Jackson, bring out our harp substitute!" And out comes this tall, good-looking guy, walking with a noticeable limp. He looked a little beat up, check that, a lot beat up, with a nervous smile a mile wide on his face, twisted a little around a noticeable scar. But nobody is looking at that right now – we're staring at what he's carrying – a banjo. A banjo! Just like the one I play in our bluegrass concerts.

I'm thinking we've walked in on a taping of a Hee-Haw reunion, but the conductor continued: "No, this isn't 'Honey, I Shrunk the Harp," and that comment got a rather nervous chuckle from the audience. Then I saw a look go back and forth between the little redhead and this guy. I nudged Ann, and she whispered that yes, she had seen it too – there was something special between these two. Then the conductor continued, "Our solo performers for this piece are our lead flautist Johanna Jackson and her husband Randall, known to us as Stoney.

Stoney is not a student. He's an engineer. We shanghaied Stoney after hearing what the two of them have done with this piece. I think you'll be pleased with it, and I'm sure Mister Mozart would approve as well!" This got another tentative chuckle from the audience, and we all settled to hear what these two had to offer.

"By the way," the conductor continued, "you may remember our Veterans' Day concert earlier this year, when Johanna played the piccolo solo on 'Stars and Stripes Forever' -- Stoney was there in part, as it was his uniform jacket she was wearing. We're proud of our real hero, returned from defending our country." That brought a real murmur from the audience.

"And now we present him and his beautiful wife in a special version of the third movement of this lovely Mozart work."

Dead silence. The audience was eagerly leaning forward to hear what these two had to offer. Jo stood. Stoney remained seated. He looked up at her and there was 'that look' between them again, as the orchestra sounded those first three chords.

Ann's turn:

I won't try to describe what it was that I heard then, because there was a fusion then of what we were seeing with what we were hearing. These two were obviously so much in love that we felt we were almost intruding on a very private moment between them.