So this week, Monday came on Tuesday. It was a 'take Cindy to work' day. I enjoyed these, and it was apparent from the reactions of my coworkers that they enjoyed this, too. Our breakfast at the little roadside restaurant was one of those things where we found a table and as soon as we sat down, we were joined by Bill and another one of the engineers, Phil, the guy that was doing our controls.

"So, Miss Cindy, how was the concert?" Bill asked.

Cindy beamed. "Oh, Mister Bill, it was magnificent. They played one of my favorite pieces. It was so perfect that I was in tears."

"She was," I said. "She was moved more than I was. And I've been waiting to see that performance all my life."

Bill smiled. "Well, I'm glad you all had a good time. I hope we have as much fun today."

Phil laughed. "Dan, you and me might be good at our jobs, but we ain't no Bach!"

Cindy wasn't gonna let that one go by. "Maybe not Johann Sebastian, but maybe a son?"

"Bill," I said, "do you remember Alan Addison?"

"Yeah, you and him worked together on that project in Arizona? That the one?"

"Yeah, that's the one. We ran into them in Charlotte."

"Them?" Bill asked.

"Yes sir," Cindy chirped. "It's 'them'. We met him and his new wife. Got pictures and everything."

"Bill," I said, "it won't do you any good for us to tell you about it. Wait'll you see the pictures."

We ate our breakfasts, lingering only slightly over the coffee. Work waited on us. To be honest I was kind of excited about it. These big generators were my reason for existence. Not very many people get to play with toys this size. We'd done our work correctly. I and my crew knew exactly what we were supposed to do and we had the tools to do it with. I expected things to go smoothly. After all, that's what they paid me for.

Cindy looked cute, bundled up against the raw cold of the early morning in February. We walked into the office. Cindy stopped for a few minutes to chat with Sara, excitedly relating some of the weekend's events as I fired up my computer and started checking the backlog of e-mails. There wasn't anything to stop the day's events. I'd already touched base with the controls engineer. Our mechanical engineer and an engineer belonging to our client wanted to talk about what was going on for the day.

"Boilers are checked out. The turbine's on turning gear. We've had steam on it since four o'clock this morning. We're about ready to bring her up to speed." At least that's what our engineer said. The client representative nodded his head in agreement. He'd better nod. This was his first start up of a steam turbine generator.

"Okay, then," I said. "I guess I'll go to the control room and start the festivities." Cindy was standing patiently in the background. "Come on, Cindy! Let's go see if Mister Jerry's new toy starts." Jerry was the client's chief engineer.

Cindy smiled over her shoulder at him as we walked out the door. She looked cute in her hardhat and safety glasses. And if somebody had checked, she was wearing a little pair of steel toed shoes. Of course, being an escorted observer, she could've gotten away with no steel toes. But we bought those before the client was on the project and Cindy was taking a much more active part.

The ride to the control room was brisk in the front seat of an open golf cart. The warm air inside felt really good. And I knew that when I walked behind the control panel, MY technicians had a coffee pot going. There were already several people in the control room: start up crew, the client's new operators, a handful of our interested engineers. On the control console, a binder was open, several pages into the startup procedure. Yes, I was a major author of that startup procedure. I was proud of that.

The procedure bringing the turbine up to speed was the responsibility of the mechanical guys. All I had to do was stand back with my arms folded and stay out of the way. I thought that's what Cindy was gonna do, too, when somebody pulled a chair up at the console, a little off to the side and motioned for her to sit in it. "So you can see what's going on."

The client engineer sidled up to me. "The guys say that's your wife?" In a low voice.

"Yes, she is. You're looking at a girl who'se gonna graduate high school when she's fourteen and in the fall of next year, she's gonna be enrolled in engineering school at either the University of Alabama or at Auburn." I was sure he'd heard that part of the story, too, but I was proud of my Cindy.

"Yeah," he said, "Bill Carmody told me all about 'er. I've heard of kids like that. I mean, you know, really smart. Just never really got to see one. I wonder if they're all that cute?" He looked at me, smiling. "Phil told me about her programming the test console."

"Uh-huh," I said. "She surprised 'im. But you just wouldn't imagine how fast her mind grasps technical things. Did any of them tell you that she's flying a plane, too?"

"Oh, no. Seriously?"

"Yeah, we own a plane. Little single engined job. She's too young to get a license, but age is the only thing that keeps her from getting one. She's an old soul in a young body."

I guess I was talking too loud. She turned, flashing a smile under those green eyes. "It's not polite to talk about person behind her back."

"Just tellin' Mister Jerry about you, that's all." I smiled at her.

We patiently watched while the mechanical folks brought the turbine up to speed. That took a while. They bring it up a few hundred RPMs, let it stabilize, check temperatures and vibrations and flows, then advance another few hundred RPMs and repeat the process. I was looking for 3600 RPMs. When they got up to 3300, that's when I got interested.

My procedure called for this first production of electric power from this generator to be under manual control. I stood behind the console operator, viewing the control screen for the electrical part of the turbo generator. I could see that the icon for the excitation system that would make my generator start generating was properly in the 'manual' position.

"Coming up to full speed," somebody said.

I can hear the pitch change is high-pressure steam rushed through thousands of precision blades, spinning tons of steel and copper. I saw the magic number '3600'. "Get your readings," I said, "and say when." A minute passed.

The mechanical engineer looked up. "Looks good," he said. "Let's see if your shit works."

"George! Watch your language! Cindy's here!" That was Bill. He was here to watch the festivities and now he was taking care of his adopted grand-daughter.

George turned bright red. "Oops! Sorry, Cindy. I don't mean to be coarse."

Cindy giggled. "That's okay, Mister George. Dan says not to expect too much out of mechanical guys." Her comment caused titter of laughter to run through the room.

"Now that the social proprieties have been addressed," I said, turning to the operator, "go ahead and start increasing the excitation. Let's get it up to thirty-five hundred volts."

I remembered working in powerhouses where that procedure would've involved turning a large wheel. That was the old way. This was state-of-the-art. A mouse moved the pointer on the screen and a couple of clicks were made and I watched the voltage climb. 25 percent. "Okay," I said, "let's go to seven thousand."

That was easy. At seven thousand volts there was no sign of any problem. "Okay," I said. "ten five." That was close enough to seventy-five percent voltage to satisfy me. Again the right number showed up on the screen and there were no problems.

Cindy turned and smiled at me. She smiled at Bill. "Here goes," she said.

The operator looked at her and smiled, then looked at me. "Thirteen eight?"

I nodded in assent. "Here goes!" the operator repeated Cindy's comment. A couple more clicks on the mouse and we were at full rated voltage. We looked at the display and saw no adverse indications. "Okay," I said. "We contracted for fourteen four. Let's get there." And we got there.

Along with the mechanical guys, I scanned the indications for any problems. Saw none. "Okay! Let's let 'er cook for a couple hours," I said.

George was following along in the startup manual. "And after that we tie to the grid?" He looked at me.

"Yeah, I guess we should, I mean, if you folks want to sell some electricity," I said.

"Yeah," he laughed, "it's a big beautiful toy but I think my boss wants to make money off of it."

Bill looked at his watch. "Let me get Sara to order some sandwiches for this crew. Looks like we're gonna work through lunch."

"Looks like it," I said.

The operator looked at Cindy. She had a smile a mile wide. "What'd'ya think?"

"I think it works like it's supposed to," she smiled. "We do good work, don't we?" With that infectious grin of hers, she got smiles from the room.

My lead technician stuck his head around the control cabinet. "Got doughnuts to go with the coffee," he said.

I laughed. "And that's exactly why you're the lead technician," I said.

The rest of the day was just as exciting. It was a good kind of excitement, you know, where months of work in preparation all come together and things work like they're supposed to. You walk out of the place, feeling satisfied.

Midafternoon, Cindy and I were back in the office trailer. Cindy went to Bill's door, peeking inside to see if he was busy. He looked up and saw her. "Hey, Princess," he said. "Whatcha got?"

"Got those pictures of me and Dan and Alan and Tina from the concert," she smiled. "Thought you might want to see."

"I sure do," he said. He followed Cindy back into my office where I had the pictures up on my monitor.

I turned the monitor so he could see. First thing he said was, "Cindy, you sure do look nice in that dress."

"Thank you, Mister Bill," Cindy said. "That's sweet of you to say so."

He bent a little bit closer to the monitors to get a better view. "That IS Alan Addison," he said. "And that's his wife? How old is she?"

"Seventeen," Cindy chirped. "And I think she's my sister. We adopted each other." She giggled. If that giggle melted my heart, then it vaporized Bill's.

Bill straightened up, smiling. I flashed the second picture up, the close-up of Cindy and Tina.

"I can see where just about anybody would think that," he said. He looked at me. "When you an' Alan worked with me in Arizona, wasn't he, like, a recent divorcee?"

"Wasn't that recent but yes," I said. "He got divorced about the same time as my wife had her accident. We hung out together."

"How long's he been married?"

"'Bout as long as me and Cindy," I said. I gave him the synopsis of the Alan and Tina story. He looked amused as he left.

Cindy pulled out her cell phone. "I'm gonna call the Hardesty's and see if we can bribe our way into their house with pizza," she said. She dialed Jim's office. "Hey, Mister Jim. It me! Cindy!" Pause. "Yes sir! We had a wonderful time. I'm here with Dan and we were wondering if we could save Mizz Ann from cooking supper. We'll buy pizza." Pause. "Okay, great! We'll be there when we get off work." She looked at me. "Dinner with the Hardesty's." She smiled.

I finished up some loose ends around the office while Cindy gave Sara a hand with some filing. Then it was time to go. On our little golf cart ride to the parking lot, we noticed that the wind shifted around. Welcome to winter in the South. A couple of clear days ... a couple of rainy days. Repeat. For months. We got in the truck and as I was driving down the road, Cindy was ordering pizza for delivery to the Hardesty's. We didn't even go by the trailer to change clothes or shoes. Didn't bother me any. I thought Cindy was cute as a button in her 'Little Miss Engineer' costume. As a matter of fact, I had a few new pictures on the computer from today's festivities.

After she finished ordering the pizza, she turned to me. "I'm gonna call MY sister," she said. She poked at her cell phone, then held it to her ear. "Hi, sis," she chirped. "How's everything?" Pause. Pause. Little gasp. Pause. "You're okay? Alan's okay?"

I looked at her, trying to decipher the sound of concern her voice. Her eyes were wide.

"They went to supper last night. Alan got in a fight the parking lot. Some guys jumped him."

"No kidding? Alan? Is everybody okay?"

She nodded. "Yeah, babe, they're both okay." She put the phone back to her ear. "I just told Dan. You sure everybody's okay?" Pause. "I can't believe..." Pause. "No, I didn't go to school today. They were startin' up a new generator at the project. They let me come out an' watch." Pause. "Uh-huh, it's like MY project. Well, really, it's Dan's. But I've been watching it grow all along." Pause. "We're gonna have supper with our friends, the Hardesty's." Pause. "Yeah, that's right! The ones with the music!" Pause." Okay, sis! I'll e-mail you some pictures when we get home." Pause. "'Kay. Love you too!"

"Alan got in a fight in the parking lot? I wonder what brought that on?"

"Why don'tcha call him? Later, I mean." She looked at me. "He's YOUR friend. An' almost brother-in-law."

"Okay, sweetie," I said. "As soon as we leave the Hardesty's. Don't want to call them too late."

She giggled. "Uh ... Yeah, not too late. I didn't think about that."

"Uh-huh," I said. "That goes both ways, sweetie. We haven't been worried about people disturbing us, either."

"Uh, Dan," she giggled. "We CAN be ADULT about this."

That statement amused me. "Coming from a 14-year-old girl," I said.

She punched me in the arm. "Old soul," she giggled.

"You weren't supposed to be listening," I laughed.

"Might be an old soul, but it's a young body. Good ears."

I gave her a squeeze, relishing the feel of that little body against mine, even though it was in the front seat of a pickup truck going down the highway in Alabama. "Lots of other good things, too," I said. I watched her face for an expression. Beautiful expression.

We pulled up into the Hardesty's driveway. Cindy bounced out and together we walked to the front door and knocked. Teresa answered it.

"Come in," she said. "I want to hear about that concert."

"It was wonderful," Cindy said. By this time Ann had maneuvered her way down the stairs. "Hey, Cindy. Hey, Dan. Y'all saved me from a Tuesday night casserole." She laughed. "I appreciate not having to cook. And the kids appreciate not having to eat a casserole."

Jim came in from the back of the house. "But, baby," he said, "I LOVE your casserole." He looked at me. "Dan, you look like you could use a beer."

I smiled. "That would be a perfectly wonderful thing," I said. "Pizza'll be here in a minute. A beer sure sounds good with that."

"Yeah," he said. "Sit down. Tell me about your trip."

Cindy said, "Let me go get the laptop out of the pickup truck. We got some pictures."

"Jim, it was a wonderful trip. But sometimes some of the most unexpected things happen. I ran into a guy I worked with a couple of jobs back. Him and his wife. When you see the pictures..."

Cindy returned with the laptop, took it out of its case, and started it up. "We left to go to a concert," she said, smiling. "Was a beautiful concert. And I ended up with a sister."

By this time, Ann was back in the den, so Cindy was sitting there with the laptop on her knees with Jim on one side and Ann on the other. Once the computer booted, Cindy went right to the folder full of photos. She proudly showed the pictures of her and her newfound sister.

Ann cooed. Jim just looked and shook his head, then looked at me. "So this is, like, your buddy?"

"Uh-huh," I said.

"She DOES look kinda like Cindy. How old is she?"

"Seventeen," Cindy chirped. "Mister Jim, she was having the same kind of problems I was having." She related Tina's story.

Jim looked at me. He shook his head. "What is it with you engineer types? Do ya'll, like, come from some kind of strange parallel universe where this kind of stuff is NORMAL?"

I started to say something in Alan's defense, but before the words got out of my mouth. Jim was smiling. "Worse than that, Jim," I said. "We flew in the airport right behind 'em. They were in a Cessna 182. BOTH of 'em are licensed pilots."

Cindy flipped through the files and pulled up pictures of their plane. "See?!?"

The sound of a car in the driveway announced the arrival of pizza. We retired to the dining room, me, Cindy, Ann, Jim, Teresa, and Bill, and had a happy meal together. After the meal, we spent another half hour on small talk. Talked about the possibility of putting together another concert at the RV Park. Then it was time for us to leave.

Once we got in the truck and backed out of the driveway, Cindy poked me in the shoulder. "Baby, brother-in-law." She had that adorable smirk. The 'you know I'm right' look. Pure Cindy.

I pulled my phone out, flipped it open, scrolled down to Alan's number, and punched it up. It rang once. Twice. Three times. I was getting ready to hang up. Alan answered. "Hey, Dan! Tina told Cindy..."

I laughed. "Just as well get used to it, old son. I think we created a monster." I paused for a second. "A pair of 'em. So what's the deal? You punching up people in the parking lot?"

Cindy was leaned up against me so she could hear the conversation. Alan said, "Three drunk rednecks, and I only had to fight two of 'em."

"What happened?" I asked.

Alan gave me the story. "Typical drunk bullies," he said. "Prob'ly never had anybody put up a real fight. The first one was a high school kid, about my size. His big brother outweighed me by 40 or 50 pounds. Both of them were drunk. And they tried, one at a time. Wasn't much of a fight. The big guy went to the hospital., Set of knuckles in the throat."

"Wait, wait, wait!" I blurted. "Wasn't a fight the way you got hooked up with Tina in the first place?"

"That wasn't exactly a fight." He sighed. "Anyways, those guys were known troublemakers. Sheriff's Department arrested two of 'em. And we're okay."

"Well, I'm glad to hear that," I said.

"So anyway," he said, "how's work? You get your generator running?"

"Yep! Sure did! Cindy was there watching."

"Tell 'er I said hi," Alan said.

I turned to Cindy. "Alan says hi," I said.

She was twisted sideways in her seatbelt, holding onto my bicep with both hands, her chin on my shoulder. She smiled sweetly and said loudly, "Hi, brother-in-law!" Giggle.

"See what I mean?" He said.

"Okay, Bud," I said. "Since you're okay, I'll let you go back to doing whatever it is you do for entertainment in Tennessee on Tuesday night."

"Prob'ly the same thing that you're planning on doin' on Tuesday night in Alabama," he said, laughing. "Bye, dude!"

"Bye, son," I answered. I hung up the phone. And I looked at Cindy. "I wonder whatever he might mean about Tuesday nights in Alabama?"

She smiled sublimely. "I can think of several things. We'll just have to see what comes up..."

"Uhhhh, is that a lewd remark?"

"Sir! I'm just an innocent young girl! How dare you suggest that I make lewd remarks!" Her eyes twinkled. "But, yes, it certainly was." Giggle.

One of the bad things about small trailers in the wintertime is that even if it's warm, the simple act of opening the door long enough to get two people inside drops the temperature considerably. We were home and it was shower time. I pulled clothes out of our little clothes dryer and started folding them while we waited for the trailer to warm up. Cindy took time to put the kettle on, boiling water for a late night hot beverage. We alternated between herbal teas and hot chocolate.

I let her get her shower first. That way, she was assured of hot water all the way through. Me, I've had experience in my past, and what I used to call my misspent youth, i.e., my days in the Army, where a cold shower was not unexpected and ANY shower was wonderful.

But you have to remember, Cindy and I had been conducting the same drill for some months now. She was aware of the limitations of the little water heater. So she conserved. When she walked out of the tiny bathroom she had a terrycloth robe on, not out of a sense of modesty or anything, but rather because the trailer was cold. I took my place in the shower, being VERY careful to save a little hot water to shave with. As was normally the case, I finished my shaving just in time to brush out Cindy's sleek red hair.

I could hear the kettle at a gentle boil. "Tea? Or hot chocolate?" I asked.

She was putting her hair dryer away and she looked over her shoulder. "How about that red chai stuff?"

I fixed us each a mug of hot tea and we sat on the sofa at opposite ends, our legs tangled together under a light blanket, our concession to the chill. It didn't make sense to heat the trailer up to where we didn't need the blanket, since we were just going to lower the temperature when we went to bed anyway. Cindy turned the TV on in a futile search for something worth watching. We finally settled on a show with some wildlife in it.

"So what you think about the start up?" I asked.

"You know" she stated, "when we were at the concert, I was amazed at that so many people could come together with all the different pieces and make something work like that? That was music. Today I saw the same thing, except it was steam and electricity and steel. Orchestration! And you had a part in it." She smiled. "And all those guys made me feel like I had a part in it, too."

"Yes, cutie," I said. "Just remember, today everything went right. I mean, that's not a matter of luck or anything. We worked hard to make sure that things came together right. But you ought to see one of these things when something doesn't go right. Somebody pushes the button and you hear a loud noise that you didn't expect to hear. I've been there! Those same people that were smiling for us today can be capable of some truly horrible expressions when things don't go right."

"Dan, baby," she said. "I'm not so naïve, you know? I can imagine how it is after millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours, and things DON'T work. But that wasn't today!" She continued to smile. "I saw that the first time I went to work with you. And that's when I decided that I wanted to do what you do. And you tell me that I've got the potential to do that."

I looked at the cute face at the other end of the sofa as she sipped her cup of tea. She had me wrapped up on so many levels. 'Smitten' didn't come close to describing how I'd been about Cindy almost from the beginning. "Baby doll," I stated, "you have the potential to put me in your shadow."

"That's not what I want to do, baby," she smiled. "I watch you. You don't do that to people. Out there, you act like it's better if everybody comes along together. That's why guys come looking for you. One of them told me. Said Dan's the best guy to ask about how something works or why you do something. And that was way before you and I got married. One of the first few times I went out there."

"Well, baby, I try to do that is much as I can. It makes my job better if I don't have to get up and go stick my nose in something every time somebody's got a little bit of a question or a sticky spot."

"I guess some guys would worry that they were teaching themselves out of a job. You don't worry about that?"

"No, baby," I said. "There's always room for knowledgeable practitioners. And you know, that whole karma thing, what goes around comes around. I didn't get where I am because people were keeping knowledge to themselves."

We kept talking for a little while longer, caught the 10 o'clock news, then put the mugs in the sink and headed for bed. That terrycloth bathrobe disappeared. The little redhead who crawled in bed with me was clad in a cotton nightshirt. ONLY a cotton nightshirt. And so many cute things under that thin cotton, things that not only did I wanna play with, she wanted me to play with them, too.

Very happily, she also wanted to play. The teasing and tickling, and the giggling morphed into a very satisfying melding of our two bodies. Satiated, we went to sleep facing each other, my arms around her, hers folded between us. The last conscious sensation I had before I slumbered was a sweet smell and the soft feel of that outrageous red hair.