Chapter 44

Cindy's Turn:

Nuts! I think it's just nuts! The word is one I picked up from my husband. He uses it because he doesn't use a lot of other, coarser, words.

There are others: 'chaotic' comes to mind. 'Barely expected' works too.

It's like this: Nikki and I both ended up sitting in Doctor Wilkins' office – that's 'Bren' – of the math department.

"Ram's vacationing back in India, or he'd be here too," Bren told us. "He's in on this. So's Doctor Patel. Big part of it is her idea. She wants to broaden your experience base."

I glanced sideways at Nikki. Nikki has this smirky thing she does. Kind of like a smile, just not quite as obvious. She was wearing it now.

"We'll do it, won't we, Cindy," she blurted.

"It" was a little jaunt into being teaching assistants for a couple of math classes in their department.

"Would've made a bigger impression if we'd've done it when I was fourteen," I said.

Bren laughed. "Believe me, it's going to make a plenty big impression now. The two of you. And some students who want to get over a few bumps." He smiled. "Doctor Patel says that both of you were quite successful at tutoring in your schools."

"Yes," I said, "But you need to realize that we had students who recognized that they needed and wanted to learn."

"And that's what we're giving you."

"Plus a paycheck," Nikki injected.

"Stipend, Nikki. It's a stipend."

"You go ahead and call it what you like, but we know, don't we?" Okay, this time she passed up the smirk and got that crazy grin. Cute. I imagine it gives her Dan the shakes. I have a similar one that equally affects my Dan.

So that was a week ago. Now I'm sitting in the cubicle of Jeremy Call. A real teaching assistant. "You make my heart hurt, Cindy. You and Nikki. I'd say 'head', but I know about Nikki and I don't want to sound coarse."

"Oh, Nikki understands, Jeremy. And she's not one of those frail little flowers that goes to pieces at the first mention of a bad thing."

"I guess I didn't think of that. She did survive."

"Oh, no," I said. "Nikki didn't survive. Susan survived. Nikki triumphed. Yes, I'm proud of Nikki. She's my sister and she saved my OTHER sister."

"So that business aside, I walk in and Doctor Wilkins, whom I'm told you call 'Bren', and Doctor Ramathani, whom you call 'Ram', have recruited you to do remedial work with some of our sophomore class?"

"They asked. We said okay. I don't mean to step on toes, Jeremy. Really. I've been helping kids for the last couple of years. We were doing it off campus."

"Yes, I heard about that 'greenhouse'. Started out with engineers and then some of our math students found out."

"We thought it was going to be kind of like an off-campus refuge for study groups. Nikki was doing one last year in her home. I had a corner of the library..."

"IN a MIDDLE school..." He shook his head. Looked down. When he looked back up, he was grinning. "There's gotta be a portal here somewhere. Some kind of wormhole. Sixteen..."

"I'm fifteen, Jeremy..."

"Oh, make it worse, Cindy ... A fifteen year old girl got recruited to tutor college math."

"But it's only sophomores."

"Doctor Wilkins wants you to degree out in mathematics. NOW."

When Bren and Ram hit me and Nikki with that, we were astounded. Bren said, "Purely for the honor of saying you did it and we had a part in it. You'll get your engineering majors too."

"I know," I said softly to Jeremy. I didn't tell him that I was blocking out a master's thesis in electrical engineering on feedback mitigation in high frequency DC pulse strings. Nikki and I played with some ideas on our railgun, then brought it into the university's project.

I guess I looked worried.

"Oh, Cindy, don't get concerned. I think it's funny. I'm not jealous. Really, I'm not. I guess if I was small-minded, I could work up a good case for it, but I'm not, and if two PhD's think you and your brown-headed sister are a good fit to give some of our students a push, then I'm for it."

"Good!" I squeaked. "I don't want to hurt feelings. Math is neat stuff, okay? But where I really connect is when I take a real-world object, see how it works, and apply math to it."

"Cindy, you're not hurting MY feelings. But I wanna see the looks on some of those faces when you and Nikki start off in that classroom."

"Uh," I stuttered, "I don't see us doing much 'classroom' at first. Introduction, maybe, then assessments of who's having trouble with what, and then individual and small group work to get ahead."

He shook his head. "See! You already have a plan!"

"Would it help if I showed up for the first class in my sari? I've been adopted by the Desai family."

He laughed. "Now I KNOW you're messing with me..."

"Kinda," I said. "Wanted you to lighten up. But I really am adopted by a real Indian grandmother. And I DO have a sari. And a bindi. And if I wore it, it would be out of respect for her, who fought tooth and nail to get her children educated, and in honor of Doctor Patel, who's helped me."

"That's the story I got from Doctor Ramathani. Ram. He told me to just drop any illusions and let you to have a run at this."

We talked a little more. I left him, headed to meet Tina and Susan. I didn't tell Jeremy that we had a track on another bit of disruption in his universe. At the end of the week, we're flying to Houston and bringing Kara back.

Dan Richards' turn:

I was sitting at my desk, cutting and pasting documents together for a client's new engineering standard when my phone rang. I picked up.

Maddie's voice. "Dan, there's a Mr. Sevinsky on the phone to speak with you."

"Thank you, Maddie. Let's see what trouble we're in now."

She giggled. The story of Kara Sevinsky was out. I was expecting the call.

"This is Dan Richards," I said. "Can I help you?"

"This is Evan Sevinsky. I suppose you know why I'm calling." At least he didn't sound like he was in a murderous rage.

"Kara's dad," I said. "Yessir, I've been told to expect your call. You can call me Dan if you wish."

"I go by Van, then, Dan. I have questions."

"I know I would if I was in your shoes," I said.

"My daughter is not one who is taken with wild explosions of fancy. I have friends who tell horror stories. Kara is nothing like that. So what do you know?"

Okay, I'll avoid the negatives that had been relayed to me about reluctant fathers and bimbo stepmothers. "I hear that Kara is a precocious musician and a student with academic abilities that belie her age. She has indicated an interest in joining our little community here in Alabama."

"What is it that you do? For money?"

"I and three associates have a surprisingly successful engineering house. We're mostly electrical right now, but we're examining options for spreading out."

"Academically. Where are you?"

"Three of us have bachelor's in electrical engineering. One had a bachelor's in engineering technology, but he's fleshing it out to electrical engineering. With any luck he'll graduate with his wife."

"That's the next point. Kara tells me that your wife, uh, Cindy, is fifteen?"

"And working on a master's in engineering. Age hardly applies."

"The law thinks otherwise."

"Believe me, Van, I know. But I have papers from the State of Alabama, signed by a judge, allowing her to marry. And in case Kara missed it, two of my associates are in similar positions, both academically and maritally."

"So Kara tells me. Now, she says that you have a couple of single girls, both college students, living in an apartment there?"

"Yes, we do. One of them is working in our office as a part-time admin. They are good girls. My associate, Dan Granger, Nikki's husband, has sworn to treat Maddie, Nikki's school chum and our admin, as his own daughter."

"I know how college girls can be," Van stated. "It's one thing when you're a young man in college, it's a whole different perspective when it's your own daughter."

"Something I totally understand. We told the two girls that they were not to have parties and males sleeping over, to treat the place as if their parents were living with them. And they do."

"And that's where you're proposing my Kara should live."

"Just finished a couple more apartments on the complex. One of them's a three bedroom unit. We'll move Maddie and Anita into it with Kara. She'll have her own room and a couple of pretty smart and decent housemates. And the community here."

"And your plan, subject to my approval, is to FLY down here Friday, pick up Kara, and keep her there for a week?"

"Cindy and the girls have talked to the university people. They represent your Kara as another bright..."

"Past bright," Van said. I noted that there was a dash of paternal pride in his tone.

I continued, " ... they'll interview, and in her musical skills, audition, and then make a decision."

"It's a strange opportunity. But you're in the middle of a semester. How's that going to work?"

"If she ranks with my Cindy, they'll get her started on credits under non-traditional means, like interviewing and testing and self-paced studies. Quite possibly she'll be another one outside the traditional four-year structure."

"Ah, yes. She tells me about Cindy and the others."

"Cindy thinks Kara's in that class. And my Cindy hasn't been wrong yet."

"I'll have her packed and waiting for you, then. And naturally, I reserve the option to show up at random times to visit my daughter."

"I expect nothing less. Warn us, you get a social. Just show up, you still get a social, just a bit more impromptu."

"Huh?"

"Social is what we do. It's about family and support and reinforcement. I'm happily married to an academic rockstar, and part of what keeps us going is that she's got a group, a family, to live in. If somebody's happy, and that's usually the case, we get together and share it. If something bad happens, we get together and share it."

"I guess we ... uh, I went the other way. Great grandfather came from Poland, a ghetto, to New York, another ghetto, and Grand-dad got out of there in the great upheavals of World War II. I never had the roots like the Old Ones did, to family and community."

"I guess you're the same way that many of us are. Three of us are seven hundred miles from our ancestral homelands in South Louisiana. Add one wife to that. And you know, that's much of modern society. Interesting ... Uh, did Cindy relate to Kara that we have a Jewish family in that community?"

"The subject never came up. We didn't talk about ethnicities."

"Oh, we're very multi-culti here. Sim and Beck and their daughter Rachel are Jewish."

"Observant?"

"As observant as you can be for a Hebrew in Alabama. Shabbos. Pesach. Hannukkah. Keep kosher, mostly."

"Then they have me beat. I never pushed it on Kara. She barely knows we're Jewish."

"Cindy never mentioned it."

"Is it a problem?" Van asked.

"Is it a problem?" I retorted. "Sim Weissmann and I have had conversations. Cindy and I are mostly Baptist, but not radical about it. Did I mention that Cindy's adopted grandmother..."