Chapter 47

Tina's turn:

Summer in Alabama. Not much different than summer in Louisiana except maybe there's not quite as much humidity to go with the heat. That's one thing. I have several things, though.

Summer vacation? You know, that three months of dead time that populates the lives of America's school kids? Okay? I'm not having one. Classes. College classes. All of us were, me, Cindy, Nikki, Susan, Jason. Okay, then not 'all' of us. Anita and Maddie were taking off for the summer. The rest of us were hurtling at best speed towards completing the requirements for that baccalaureate degree.

For me, Susan and Jason, that meant a lot of actual classes. My dear friends Nikki and Cindy were pestering department heads: "Gimme your book and two weeks, then test me."

It wouldn't be so bad except they never fail. Never. Give my History of Europe – Renaissance Through the 19th Century to one of those two, and they're sitting there telling my daughter what's going on in it and two weeks later there's an entry on their transcripts and Terri is questioning me about equivalencies between the formations of modern Italy and modern Germany.

Terri. The evil stepchild. We laugh. We love each other. Honestly, if I had my own child, I'd want her to be Terri. But Terri, though, is almost unique. I'm walking around a campus of a major university and people there, faculty people, know the name of Terri Addison.

You don't just walk across campus and HAPPEN to run into Doctor Stanton, but I did. "Mizz Addison, would you be so kind as to call my office and set up a time for us to talk?"

I wonder how many people on this campus have been asked to 'talk' with the staff psychologist.

"Sure, Doctor Stanton," I said. "Unless you want to sit under that tree over there."

"Oh," he smiled, "we can do that informally. I'd still like to see you."

"Is there a problem with me?" I asked.

"Oh, certainly not. I'm told that you're making remarkable progress. I wish to talk about your daughter."

We walked to the shade of one beautiful oak tree and sat in the shade.

"So!" I said. "The Terri-dactyl..."

"Cute!" he laughed. "She's just about like that, too ... If a real pterodactyl showed up on campus. Might not be as disarmingly cute, though. What are you doing for her education?"

"Seriously?" I said.

"Yes. You're home-schooling her, so I understand."

"Well, there's home schooling and there's HOME SCHOOLING. Terri, well, tell me how YOU think that would shake out."

"She's terrifically bright. Genius. I have trouble grasping..."

"Me too," I said. "Look here!" I showed him the spreadsheet that Beck and I used for our daughters.

"Who's Rachel Weismann?"

"Doctor Weismann? Your sociology professor? His daughter. Bright."

"Appears to be."

"Doctor Stanton..."

"Harry," he corrected.

"Okay. Harry, we're ... We're serious about this. I know that in some cases 'homeschooling' is an excuse to keep a kid out of public schools for some odd reasons. We're doing it because we don't think..."

"That either of these little jewels will be well served by 'No Child Left Behind' or whatever the Flavor of the Month is. I understand completely. But Terri..."

"Terri is scary." I heard what I'd just said and couldn't suppress a giggle.

"You're laughing about it. Have you looked at..."

I interrupted. "We gave her the sample tests for her GED. I'm apparently the stepmom of a ... an eight year old high school graduate. Susan gave Terri's paper to one of the English profs..."

"I got an email," Harry said. "Asking me if it would be wise for Terri to be interviewed." He sighed. "Absurdity. A college language professor wants to interview an eight year old girl. Wants to know if I think it will damage the child's psyche."

I laughed.

"That's what I thought. Nikki and Cindy are teaching math now. It's absurd, surreal enough, we have classes at this university led by a fifteen and a sixteen year old. I'm wondering what universe exists wherein an eight year old will stand before a classroom full of college students and LECTURE on literature."

"Despite the fact that she KNOWS what she's talking about," I laughed.

"Got one from a history professor too," he laughed.

"Synchronicity between Clovis Points and Similar Artifacts in The Old World, " I chuckled.

"Yeah. Where'd she get that?"

"Cindy. And Doctor Lasce. Neither of them mentioned synchronicity. That's all Terri's doing. She said that if there were people who'd been in the Americas developing this distinctive style, then what were people in the Old World doing in the same time frame? Said toolmaking was an evolutionary process with divergences for geographical isolation."

"In those words?" he asked.

"And smiling while she said them. Doctor ... Harry, she KNOWS she knows. Scary Terri."

"But you say she could pass the GED," he said.

"No doubt. 100%."

"An eight year old high school graduate," he said, shaking his head. "I've never seen one before."

"My daughter," I said. Wasn't too much of a leap for me to eliminate that 'step' qualifier. I loved her dad. I loved her. The only tiny detail was that she hadn't emerged from my womb.

"I'd like for you and your husband and Terri to come by and talk, if you don't mind. Can you talk with them and then set something up? I mean, it may just be this conversation repeated. Or maybe we get to look at next steps."

"There's no manual for this stuff?" I asked Doctor Stanton.

"Yeah, uh, right! 'Chapter 3 of the Precocious Acquisitions Manual: What to do with intelligent eight year olds.' No, young Tina. Your Terri is in a class by herself. We ALMOST had something for Cindy and Nikki. Terri? No way. Actually, if I had to give sworn testimony, I'd say that three of them were 'once in a century' finds."

"I'll talk with Alan and Terri," I said.

"Oh, please do," he laughed. "I so much love giving those department people fits. If Cindy and Nikki and you and Susan popped bubbles, Terri will change their atomic compositions."

I laughed. "Thank you, Harry. Doctor Stanton."

I was still sitting under the tree, musing, reading a text book when I heard Susan's voice.

"What are you doing here?"

"Enjoying the shade."

"Why here?"

"Was talking with Doctor Stanton."

"That psychologist guy?"

"Yeah," I said.

"What'd he want?"

"Wants to talk to me and Alan and Terri," I said.

"Ohhhhh, Terri ... I knew something was coming. Tina, she's ... she's almost scary."

"Scary Terri," I said. "The Terri-dactyl."

"Yeah, well," Susan said. "Since Jo called her 'Terri-dactyl' she's run with it."

"Only eight year old with her own logo," I laughed.

"And possibly the youngest student on campus, bumping our Miss Cindy from her throne." Susan laughed.

"You know what, though? Cindy and Nikki will be positively tickled about it."

"They're like that, for sure," Susan said. "It's refreshing. Remember our valedictorian?"

I remembered the student in question from our senior year of high school together. The term 'arrogant shit' comes to mind, and honestly neither Susan nor I gave that kid a thing in IQ points, but a careful choice of coursework and the kissing of much ass lifted his grades above Susan's for the top spot.

"Yeah," I said. "Did you see HIM holding study sessions and helping out other students?"

We both knew the answer.

"So what are you gonna tell Alan?"

"Something he already knows," I said. "Terri's off the charts and keeping her down is like trying to hide the sun under a bucket."

"Everybody knows it, Sis," she said.

"Yeah, but what does it mean? We sort of let her go off on her own and explore. What happens if she doesn't take well to structure? We all love her. Somebody else might not."

"We keep track. We don't let our Terri get in a bad place. Besides, what's that old Stephen King movie with the little girl?"

"Firestarter?"

"Yeah," Susan giggled. "Somebody pokes 'er too hard, she turns on the flames."

"Just don't want her hurt."

Susan patted my shoulder. "Tina Addison! Now with added 'Mommy Genes!"

"Yeah, I guess it's just like that."

More wisdom from Susan. "You have to walk a line though. You can't be one of those helicopter moms, hovering around so she never gets a chance to bump a knee or push her limits a little. And when that knee gets bumped, you have to be there to do the hugs and the doctoring, then turn 'er loose to go again."

"You say this from experience."

"You've seen my bicycle scar." I had. It's down her right calf, the result of a tumble over a picket fence at age eight. "Mom didn't make me stop riding bicycles. She and Dad lectured me about risks and about the limits of 'I double-dog dare you' from your friends."

And deep down I hoped that Terri would be as balanced as Susan. Well, make that the 'now' Susan, not the slightly naïve Susan I'd met at the beginning of high school last year. Today's Susan? Confident, fulfilled. Still funny, bubbly, a little flighty in conversation, but underneath the flightiness was some solid intelligence. A string of completed college credits was testament to that.

Around to the other side of the campus, we collected Nikki and Cindy. I recounted the story to them.

Cindy was doing that giggly thing she does from time to time. "Tina, you KNOW it's true. Have you ever had her ask you a question and you gave her some stuff to study, and she didn't come back with more than you started with?"

"Yeah," Nikki said. "Maddie says that Terri asked her about one of her accounting classes, and by the time they finished, she says SHE had a better understanding than when Terri walked in. She's like that. Everybody says so."

I laid out my concerns.

"We'll all watch for her. We already do," Cindy said. "But you know it's really a case of who's watching whom."

I smiled. I mean, it's not like nobody in this car will put themselves on the line to protect others.

One more consideration. Dinner. "Since we're all here, who's cooking?"

Cindy laughed. "You know, it's a hoot. I was reading about communal kitchens in the Stalinist Soviet Union where one kitchen served a block of apartments. We're just about there."

"Everybody has a kitchen."

"Everybody has a cook or two, too," Cindy countered. "Except all those cooks are busy sometimes."

Nikki was busy thumbing a text into her iPhone. Started smiling. "Beef brisket in the smoker. Ready at five, according to my husband. We all do side dishes. Beck's got a big pile of that pilaf she does."

"That'll work," I said. We have options for food. Most days we don't have the communal meal thing going, but we break up into small groups sometimes, sometimes it's just too easy to walk across the yard into the Desai place, and this is a college town, for heaven's sake, so there are plenty of options for just about any imaginable cuisine.