Monday. I'm not a Monday-phobe, but when the alarm went off I was immediately plastered with a t-shirt-clad Cindy. Kisses. And she started to slide down in the bed. Nothing but the most sterling amount of dedication kept me from just calling in sick. "No, baby."

"Awww, just little bit? An' you can do me?"

"Okay. Just a little bit."

We had our little bit. Got going five minutes late, purposefully moving around the trailer, two cereal bowls, the coffee going, clothes, faces washed, her hair beautifully brushed. TV on to catch the morning news and weather. At seven I was out the door headed to work and Cindy was ten minutes from getting on the bus to school.

I hummed through the day, invoices, change orders, field sketches, pointing out things to the construction crew I dealt with. It wasn't even hard. It's what I had been doing for years and I was good at it. That's why I was here. But four o'clock couldn't come fast enough for me. I didn't need to lose myself in work anymore. I had a life. A five foot three inch, redheaded, green-eyed, freckled life. I didn't hang around after four.

I guess Cindy and Helen were watching for me when I turned my truck into the park, because Cindy waved me to the office.

I walked in. Cindy was leaning halfway across the counter, her arms folded under her, a position that accentuated a pair of small, but very much delectable breasts. "I was just tellin' Mizz Helen about our weekend."

Helen smiled. "Sounds like you're giving her the world."

"Nah," I answered, "I'm just showin' her parts of it. She decides what she wants to get and how to work for it."

"She said you're buying her a ring?"

I looked Helen, then at Cindy. Cindy smiled. "I want to. She wants one. We decided that it won't LOOK like an engagement ring."

"But it is," said Cindy.

"Sweet girl," said Helen. "Take care of her, Dan..."

"It's my life's goal now. Not to change the subject, but we're still doing nine o'clock at the school?"

"Uh-huh," answered Helen. "I may even put on a dress."

"What? And ruin my image of you?"

"Hah! You ought to see me dressed up to go out with the judge. Maybe we can double date some time."

"Nuh-uh," I said. "I ain't rubbin' his nose in this."

"Ain't like that, Dan. He's interested. Wants to make sure things are good between you and Cindy..."

"They're good!" chirped Cindy. "Real good." And the little thing looked at me with a wink that would have been an exaggeration in a vaudeville act.

"Okay, you," I said. "D'ya have homework?"

"Of course. About twenty minutes worth. Let's do some laps at the pool."

"Okay, Helen, I guess I'll see you at school in the morning, then. Let me go drown this girl."

And we went to the trailer, swapped street clothes for bathing suits. I had the same old trunks I've worn for two years. Cindy looked like something off a magazine cover in her new bikini. I swallowed. I extended a towel to her. "Wrap this around you while we walk to the pool," I said.

"But, Dan, you've seen more than this."

"Yeah, I have. But nobody else has. Humor me. For a little while, at least."

"Okay," she said. We walked to the pool. She shed the towel as soon as we were inside the fenced enclosure. And she was in the water.

I went in with her. We did a few laps. I'd coached her into a pretty decent crawl stroke, and she cut the water alongside me for fifteen minutes of swimming, then we both hung in the water on the deep end of the pool, cooling. I felt her sidle against me, her hip bumping mine.

She took a deep, cleansing breath. "That's a good exercise, huh?"

"Yeah. We need something to get rid of all the fried catfish."

Giggles. "Well, we do other exercises, too, you know. We get quite aerobic, don'tcha know..."

"You're an evil, lusty little girl. I may just have to keep you to myself so you won't get in trouble."

Her laughter tinkled in my ears. "I'm already in trouble. I let myself fall in love with some ol' guy an' sometimes I love him so much I can't see straight."

It's a good thing we had the pool to ourselves, because I couldn't stop myself from kissing her. And the kiss got me a squeeze on the bulge in my trunks.

"Come on! Let's get out. We have to figure out supper."

We were toweling off beside the pool. "Let's make Monday a salad day."

"Salad?" I asked.

"Yeah, you know ... green stuff. Like they serve before your fried catfish platter?" Her green eyes glittered mirthfully.

"Oh, yeah ... salad. That's a twenty mile drive."

"What else are you gonna do?" she asked.

"Take you to supper, get your homework done, watch TV, and then go make love to the most remarkable woman I've ever met."

Smirk. "She sounds great! When am I gonna meet her?"

"Where'd you learn to be such a butt?" I laughed.

Walking past the office, we caught Helen locking up. I waved. Cindy unwrapped her towel to show Helen her new bathing suit. My cellphone was ringing when I walked in the trailer. Helen.

"Yes ma'am," I answered.

"Lord, Dan, don't let her wear that thing on weekends. You're gonna have to pack a gun."

"Tell me about it. The one-piece was bad enough. I may just have to make her wear a gunny sack."

"You just make sure you watch her. I don't think SHE'd do anything. But half the population is male..."

"Yeah, I know."

"Okay, seeya tomorrow. Nine."

"Yes'm. Bye."

"What was THAT about? Me?"

"Yeah. You an' your bikini. Mizz Helen said the same thing I did. I need to watch you."

She wrapped me up in a hug. "You can watch me naked. I'm takin' a shower."

Just under half an hour later I was feeling civilized, freshly shaved, and Cindy was charming simplicity, face glowing, hair perfectly combed and shining, jeans and a simple cotton blouse. We left to chase the elusive south Alabama salad.

On a tip from one of the secretaries at the project, I headed to a medium-sized town fifteen miles away where there was a little restaurant run by two elderly ladies who struggled to make a living providing a genteel setting and food that didn't involve vats of boiling oil. They cooed over the image that my Cindy presented. There were two or three other couples in the place, and we got royal treatment. And the place actually had some good-looking vegetable dishes. We had our salads. With a nice vinaigrette, thank you. And steamed asparagus with fresh hollandaise. And portobello mushrooms stuffed with rice pilaf.

We left with promises to return.

Back to the trailer. Homework. Took longer to write the answers than find them again. And we talked about where you could go with the math and science she was studying. I didn't need to talk to her about English. She was blossoming in language skills in our daily conversations. After homework, the stereo came on, not the TV. And books came out. We passed an hour at opposite ends of the sofa, our legs tangled in the middle, reading.

Until bedtime. Pre-Cindy, I was usually in bed at ten and asleep by ten-thirty. With Cindy, We were in bed by nine-thirty, and worn out by ten-thirty. I used to take a sleeping aid. Cindy's enthusiastic body WAS a sleeping aid. Just like tonight, when we sixty-nined each other to orgasm, then cuddled into blissful slumber to the soaring strains of the masters.

Tuesday mornings weren't much different from Mondays. The routine was the same. Right down to the kiss before I left.

I just puttered around the project when I got there, knowing better than to get too involved in anything that I couldn't interrupt. At eight-thirty I was out the gate headed for Cindy's middle school. At least it was Alabama and a big pickup truck wasn't too out of place in the parking spaces. I walked into the unfamiliar surrounds of the middle school in my standard work outfit: safety shoes, canvas cargo pants, a denim shirt, and a pocket protector full of pens and pencils. Hey, what do you expect? I'm an engineer!

I announced my intentions and signed in, and in a few minutes I was summoned by a member of the school's administrative staff. I followed her to the counselor's office. Entering, I smiled at Helen and Cindy and introduced myself to the counselor, a guy about my age, stocky, a little shorter than me. Haircut was just a little bit on the civilian side of whitewall. I looked on his wall for the expected evidence. Yep! There it is. Honorable discharge for a Marine first lieutenant. And a framed picture of a younger version of him with a flight suit, standing next to a Harrier. I shook his hand. He pointed me into a chair next to Cindy.

Inwardly I was already cheering that I wasn't facing down some be-spectacled product of the education establishment who'd NEVER been outside the greenhouses of academe.

He spoke. "I was just telling Mizz Helen (why was she Mizz Helen to everybody?) that we got Cindy's test scores back."

I glanced at Cindy, then Mizz Helen.

He started his spiel. "First, we want to say that Cindy is a whole lot different student than she was the last two years. Last year she was a, let's see..." He flipped up a page on the stack on his desk, "oh, a C student. So far this year, it's all A's. We're very happy. And as you know, all our students took a screening test on the second day of class (I didn't know that) and based on THAT score, we selected her to take these tests. Mizz Helen ... Dan ... Cindy's in the wrong classes." He looked at me. "You're smiling."

"Yessir," I said, "you see, Mizz Helen asked me if I'd tutor Cindy at the beginning of school. Sort of help her with her homework. She doesn't need help with homework."

"How so?" he asked.

"Math. She brought home a lesson on squares and square roots. She caught that, really fast, I thought. I'm an electrical engineer, so I thought I'd give her something to chew on. I asked her to do me a square root of a negative number. She gets it. I know degreed engineers who don't get that. Do you know trig? Polar to Cartesian conversions? I use 'em at work. I showed her ONCE."

He smiled. "Yeah, that's what I thought after talking to her teachers."

Helen interrupted. "So you're sayin' that Cindy's smart?"

We both spoke at the same time, "Yes."

"So what's the bottom line," I asked. "What kind of programs do you have for her here?"

"Folks," he said, "we're just a rural Alabama school system. We don't have much. I suppose we could talk about moving her up a couple of grades, but I personally don't care for that. I can offer it, though, for ya'll to talk about." He directed his eyes to Cindy. "Little lady," he said, "d'you have any idea what you want to be?"

Cindy smiled and looked at me and then at him. "An engineer. An ELECTRICAL engineer."

He looked at Helen. Helen said, "Well, Dan's probably the first guy she ever knew that had a job that didn't involve a chainsaw or a tractor."

He looked back at Cindy. "Little lady, that's a big bite to chew on. But I just think you can do it." He paused. "Dan ... Mizz Helen ... Ya'll think about that movin' up thing. Trouble is, she'd be stickin' out like a sore thumb in high school, and you know that high school is more than just what happens in the classrooms. Besides, if she's in the top one percent here, she's going to be in the top one percent there, too. And outrunning THOSE teachers. So I'm gonna look at some programs you might be able to do at home, and get you some information. Ya'll got internet, I'm guessing?"

"Yessir," chirped Cindy.

"Some of these programs are web-based. I wish I could say I knew all about them, but I don't get a chance to deal with kids like Cindy very often. Any of you got any questions?"

Mizz Helen is the one who surprised me. "Mr. Hardesty," she asked, "since she's keepin' up so well in class, can we, like, be a little more flexible with her schedule. Say, if I wanted to take her out for a few days or a week?"

"Mizz Helen, she's NOT keeping up. She's so far ahead that she's lookin' back. I got a math teacher that trembles when Cindy walks into the room." He nodded toward me. "Dan, you shouldn't have told her about great circles and rhumb lines. Middle school math teachers don't generally understand those things."

I laughed. "I'm surpised that jarhead pilots know those things either."

Hardesty smiled wryly. "Ex-military?"

"Yeah," I said. "Army. Combat engineers."

"Figures," He snorted. "Here's my card. Call me sometime an' we'll get together an' tell lies to each other."

I took his card. "You know, I'll just do that!"

Helen snorted, "Well if you two get finished with your secret handshakes an' stuff..."

"Awww, Mizz Helen, you know how I am..."

"Yeah," she said. "Tell your momma I said 'hi', y'hear?"

"I sure will." He opened the door to let us out.

As Cindy, Helen and I walked up the hall to the front office, I told Cindy, "Now don't let your head swell. You're still polite and decent to the others. An' teachers. Okay?"

"Yes Mr. Dan." Public venue. I was "Mr. Dan." We left her at the office so she could return to class.

I walked Helen back to her mini-van. She looked at me. "None a'that surprised you at all, did it?"

"Nope. Pretty much what I expected. Except I think we'll get more help from former Marine lieutenant Hardesty than from some college girl who's never been in the real world. You know him?"

"Yeah," Helen said. "Me an' his momma were a couple a'years apart in school. She married my cousin.

"Figures," I laughed.

"So what're you gonna do about Cindy? About school, I mean?"

"I'm going to try and walk a delicate line, push her here and there, let her run with some stuff, guide her a little, and let's see what happens. I'm interested in what Hardesty comes up with, though."

I drove back to work and finished my day out. Stopped by the office trailer and stuck my head in the door. Told the secretary how much we enjoyed the restaurant. And then I went home.

Cindy was in the office again. I walked in. She was sitting in a chair, her feet propped up, smiling, a cola can in her hand. "So whatcha think?"

"I'm not a bit surprised, if that's what you mean," I said. "And what DID you ask your math teacher?"

Sweet smile. It covered up an impish mind. "Told her I was confused about the difference between a great circle route an' a rhumb line route on a long trip, an' could she explain it to me."

"Uh ... baby..."

"Welllll, she SAID she wanted us to be interested in math an' ask 'er stuff."

"But you already KNEW the answer, right? We talked about that." I thought about how many young teen girls ever got to the point of wanting to discuss spherical geometry.

"Yeah, I know ... I won't do that again. Not to her."

"Look, babe, you're starting on a long journey. You're going to need help from a lot of different people for a lot of different things, and if you start jerking them around and embarrassing them, well, they'll just pull their heads in and let you go try on your own."

The glum expression. Not one I saw often on her. Especially not lately. "You're a sweet girl. We all know that. But you're also a very intelligent girl. And your teachers should just about applaud when you show up because you're a joy to deal with, not start duckin' an' runnin' because you're gonna beat'em up with that brain of yours. So let's not do that."

"I'm sorry." She looked at me with those green eyes. "I am." She batted those long eyelashes.

I melted. Helen laughed. "Heck of a speech there, Dan," she said. "By the way," she said, "You wanna meet the judge for dinner Friday evening?"

I looked at Cindy. "You up for the big time, babe?"

"Certainly. You're gonna be there to protect me, right?"

I turned to Helen. "Put us down for a 'yes', then. A judge, huh? I'll try not to drag my knuckles in the dirt."

"Smartass," shot Helen. "You two go home an' let me close up. Ain't nobody here that I need to be concerned with." She was right. The park was empty.

As I was driving my truck the short distance to the trailer, Cindy said, "Dan, I think I wanna go through Mom's old trailer. Just one more time. Okay?"

"Sure, cutie. Let's get your key."

We retrieved her key from inside our trailer and drove across the park. At least Helen had left the air conditioning on so the place didn't smell too stale. Still, it reeked of old cigarettes. Cindy didn't even look in her tiny area at one end of the trailer. "I got all my stuff when I left," she said.

We went through the cabinets. Helen had taken all the food out. The canned goods when to the nearby church to help the needy. So did every useful bit of bed linens and other items. There was a large cardboard box filled with junk. The corner of a scrapbook showed on one side. I pulled it loose. Baby pictures. "I thought you didn't have any pictures, babe," I said.

"I didn't," she retorted.

"Look." We did. Together. An infant. A toddler. Then the annual school pictures, up until two years ago. "Can we keep this?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Just one more thing. Help me lift these mattresses." We lifted the mattress on her mom's bed. Dust. Nothing else.

"Okay," I told her. "Let's go. We're finished here." We locked the door behind us and got in the truck. "You okay, baby?"

Her face was tinged with sadness. "You know, Dan, I tried to make her happy. To make us a family. I know some kids at school who just have a mom an' they didn't have to go through what she did or didn't do with me. An' she was gettin' worse every week. An' she left so fast. A hug an' a kiss an' she said 'You'll be better off." Not 'I love you', just 'you'll be better off."

Once inside our home, I held her in my arms, and let her cry. When she finished, I kissed her gently on both cheeks. Both eyes. Said nothing. Waited for her.

"Dan, I love you. That's over. I love you. Forever."

"That's more than I ever dreamed of, baby. I love you too. Forever." Then we kissed as if we were mating, melding with our mouths and tongues.

Finally a sigh escaped her lips. "Don't sit down," she said. "It's buy one, get the second at half price at the catfish joint."

"Huhhh, after THAT kiss? I'm, what, like an appetizer?"

She surveyed me with cool green eyes. "Oh, no, guy! The catfish is the appetizer. I intend for you to be the main course."

"Then we'd better go see about our appetizers, huh?"

In less than five minutes we were buckled in the truck, headed up the road.

"Dan, what's all this 'advanced class stuff gonna look like?"

"I dunno. I never took one..."

"But you're smart. Didn't they do this stuff to you when you were in school?"

"Nuh-uh, babe, when I was your age, schools weren't so much into putting kids in groups for special treatment. An' Dad, bless his heart, he didn't push, so C's were just peachy with him. I got into college, got an ROTC scholarship. The Army paid for me an' I paid them back with five years of my life."

"So you don't know what I'm gonna be doin'?"

"I have my suspicions. We'll wait an' see what Mr. Hardesty comes up with. I'm thinkin' we can get you college credits for some stuff you take while you're still in high school."

"But I'm in MIDDLE school!"

"Not in the courses I'm thinking you'll get. Don't worry. First, you're smart enough to do it, and second, I'm here to help you." I chuckled. "You're already a long way past most of the people in college anyway. They're just going through the motions, and YOU understand WHY things are right - other than 'that's what the professor said". You'll do fine."

"Thank you. You make me feel smart. Instead a' weird."

"Get used to it, Cindy. "Smart" is weird to a lot of people." We ordered. Sipped our drinks. Talked.

"This sure isn't Beethoven, huh?"

"What kind of music do YOU expect at a catfish joint in Alabama?"

"I know. This is what Mom listened to. Some of it's not bad, but most of it is. Bad. Real bad. Like it's made out of some weird plastic, to sound like music." Those green eyes fixed on me.

"It's not exactly my favorite either, but it's hard to get away from it, you know ... I generally ignore it."

Our dinners arrived and we laughed and chatted and ate. "You know," Cindy said, "I really liked that place we ate yesterday..."

"Yeah, me too. I was surprised. Just goes to show that you never know what's around the corner."

"Uh-huh," she grinned, "Or right there in the RV park..."

"That goes both ways, little girl."

We continued our meal with me listening to her explain the reactions of her classmates when she returned from the counselor's office today. And the reaction of her math teacher when Cindy apologized for putting her on the spot. "You know," Cindy said, "I've tried helpin' some of the other kids an' it doesn't work..."

"Why?"

"Uh, two things. Miss My Daddy's a Lawyer isn't really happy about takin' advice from the poor kid from the RV park. An' I just lose patience when they don't get somethin' that's so freakin' obvious"

"I understand the first part. All she has had to go on is her daddy's coat tails. Not her own talents. But the second part, well, I had the same problem until I figured out that most people don't catch onto stuff nearly as fast as I ... uh, WE do. But you shouldn't stop trying. And you should stop sayin' "freakin'" because everybody KNOWS the word you really mean. And you've got too good a mind to use words like that. You have an actual vocabulary."

"I'm sorry..."

"Don't be sorry to me. I've heard every word there is, and said 'em myself, in complex and innovative patterns. But YOU, my dear are a young LADY. With a brain AND looks, and there's no sense in you having a nasty mouth. It's like hearing "Moonlight Sonata" with a drum solo."

"Okay. I get it."

I winked at her when she said that, and she giggled. We pushed our plates aside. I paid the check and we were in the truck headed back. She started punching buttons on the sound system. "Where's that one we started the other day. Name begins with an "M". An' not Mozart."

"Mendelsohn?"

"Yeah. Oh, you're looking for "Fingal's Cave."

"Yeah, that's the one. I'm starting at the beginning." That's what was now pouring out of the speakers. I glanced away from the road. Cindy was leaning back, her head against the headrest of the seat, eyes closed. Smiling.