"You really were zoned out," Dad said and laughed. "We were talking about giving you money for the trip."
"Oh, sorry. Um - Yes please?" I said holding out my open palm with a big smile.
"Do you think three hundred will be enough?" Mom asked exchanging a look with Dad.
"Yeah, and I have some money from tutoring and birthdays," I told them. It was probably around three thousand by now, but I didn't say that out loud nor did I mention how much had come from Ava. Dad put two hundreds and some twenties in my hand. It looked like he'd given me a little more, but I didn't count it.
"Okay, we'll pay to get your oil changed in your truck before we leave Monday," he said.
"Thanks, but you can do that when I get back, since I just had it done," I said.
"See, he is responsible," she said and grinned widely.
Dad mussed my hair and said, "Yeah, I guess he is at that."
~ Tim ~
The Monday morning of their departure came more quickly than I could have realized. My weekend had disappeared with study for my tests. We saw one another at meals and not much else before it was time for them to go. At the cab, they both hugged me tightly and gave me final instructions for locking up the house before I went to Aunt Ava's. I wished them a safe trip and watched the car drive away a few hours before their flight. I felt bad about not getting to see them off at the airport, but I had a test today and with all the security, I'd just have been their driver.
Back inside the house, I quickly ate breakfast and headed out for my first final of the week, Calculus III. I breezed through it, returned home and began studying for history. It wasn't my best or favorite subject, but so far, I had a decent B grade. The last final would be Chemistry II and I wouldn't need to study for it at all. I'd already turned in my last essay paper in English III, which was the final for that class. Around dinnertime was when I started missing them. I guess that was at least partially selfish, because I wasn't a very good cook. Mom and Dad liked cooking, so I didn't do much more then help mix a salad or slice vegetables for them.
I made a batch of macaroni and cheese to go with some microwaved leftovers. Sitting at the table, I began day dreaming about the beach again. Of course, it started with Ava's cooking. She was probably as good a cook as Mom and I secretly thought she was better. I still wouldn't be able to go to bars yet, but she might let me have a beer or some wine. The dry overcooked mac and cheese was pretty horrible and just sat on my plate. I picked at the meatloaf and broccoli, which I like fresh, but reheated is kind of disgusting. Last time I'd seen Ava, she'd made some biscuits that just melted in my mouth.
In fact, every time that I'd seen her either here or at her place, she'd gone out of her way to make some special dish for me. These weren't just desert items that most kids would like, but things she knew I liked. I was probably about five when she made clam chowder for me at her Mom's home. That memory turned into other seafood dishes she'd prepared over the years. She was from a different generation than my Mom. They were literally born in different decades, and it showed in their cooking. Mom was still from the generation where vegetables were cooked until soft. Ava would make them exciting and crunchy by just cooking them enough.
After dumping the remnants of my dinner into the garbage disposal, I thought about the possibility of meeting girls at the beach. Maybe I would meet someone else vacationing from college. Ava had a few neighbors with cute girls around my age, at least they'd been girls the last time I'd seen them. Most of them had been teenagers that were a couple years ahead of me, so they hadn't given me much notice. Things had changed a little since then, though. I'd gotten taller and been working out in the garage with weights, plus I had a mustache. It wasn't causing the women on campus to gravitate toward me, but I thought it might at least give me some additional notice.
Swimming at the beach every day would be great, and I couldn't help thinking how tanned and cut I'd end up being with nearly three months at the beach. The ideas kept bubbling to the surface as I imagined all of the different ways I might enjoy my time. Besides being at the beach, Ava had a pool and a pool table. I wasn't sure why she kept the pool table after Jon died, but she'd gone to the effort of moving it into her mom's garage, so maybe it reminded her of him. I'd been allowed to play on it a few times and she was fastidious about keeping it clean and clear. As I thought about it, I guessed it was possible she played, and I'd just never seen her. She was fit and youthful for an aunt, so I could easily imagine her leaning over to shoot.
It was a certainty that she loved her new pool; she'd shown us pictures of it a couple of years back when she was visiting. It was long enough to do laps in and that was probably part of how she stayed in shape. Somehow thinking about all the ways Ava and I might interact, I was suddenly envisioning her dirty blond hair from the back. It was darker from what I remembered and as she turned to me I realized it was from being wet. The yellow bathing suit she had on left very little to the imagination. The wet bikini top's triangles were nearly transparent, and the strings were so thin that it hardly looked like anything covered her firm breasts. I felt myself becoming erect and worried aloud, "What if I can't control that when she's around?" Staring out the back window as I finished washing my dish, a tinge of anxiety crept into me about this trip.
~ Ava ~
Sitting beneath the shade sails on my back deck, I looked out over the water as another year of teaching was in the rear-view mirror of my mind. It carried a kind of melancholy because the kids I taught were all advancing to middle school. The thrill of watching someone learn something new was always what'd motivated me to teach, while the loss of watching them go often impelled me to quit. In a sense, my seven years of teaching had given me enough loss for a lifetime.
The mental battle over quitting was due to the loss of my husband, Jon, a little over nine years ago. It'd been devastating although we barely had a life together. I was two years into college and everything stopped. During my mourning, April invited me to come stay with them. That was when I really got to see how eight-year-old Timmy's brain worked. When I finally went back to school, it was his gift for learning that made me want to follow in my mom's footsteps and become a teacher. If I'd have known how similar the loss of kids graduating would feel, I might have chosen a different career.
Watching them go on to learn more and live their lives is a joyous event, but it also takes them away. Don't get me wrong, I don't miss all of them. I'd be an awful liar if I said I missed the ones that have no intent to learn and seem hellbent on disrupting the ones that do. However, there really are just a few of those in grade six. Most of the ones that are causing trouble just want attention or aren't picking up the information as fast or already picked it up and should be in a higher grade or advanced class.
There wasn't much segregation by students' abilities in elementary school, at least when I started teaching. Now though they were beginning to test kids earlier and break them into groups. That's good in many ways, but also causes various kinds of friction. Most teachers want to teach the advanced kids, not just because they are smarter, but they believe the behavior problems are less frequent. Parents all want their child to be in the advanced class, so they will get into good schools. I'm of the mind that you teach people from where they are in any situation. That requires small enough groups that you have time for each individual and most public schools don't have that kind of funding. I usually get the mixed group of kids and I like to think I do pretty well preparing them for middle school.
Occasionally, the really good kids would come back to see me from middle school, high school and just this year I'd even had some in the English courses I taught at the community college. When they did, the delight was indescribable. There hadn't been any returning visitors this year but there had been several last year when Tim graduated high school. It almost made up for my not getting to see my sister's boy walk across the stage. He had a place in my heart.
April is several years older than me, but had married a younger man, Don. They both had striking blond hair and blue eyes. Tim had started out with blond hair, but it'd gradually turned light brown by the time he was five. They came down for a beach vacation the year I graduated high school and brought Tim with them.
That's actually when I met Jon, he was Don's lunkhead of a best friend. I probably wouldn't have dated him if we hadn't of met while we all played cards at my Mom's house. I'm pretty sure it was a setup, April was always on the lookout for me. Don had invited Jon, who had been stationed nearby, over to visit several times while they were down those few weeks in late May and early June.
Jon was older than me but about the same age as Don. When I first met him, I didn't think he was my type. If I'd met him away from April and Don, I would never have given him the time of day. He was strong and manly, but I'd thought I wanted a more thoughtful boyfriend. She attempted to convince me to go out with him over my better judgment several times during their stay.
I didn't actually go on a first date with him until they'd returned home. A few days later April called me to check if I'd gone out with him yet. Coincidentally, I had just gotten back from a very nice dinner and an interesting movie. I'm sure I chatted with her for an hour about how it'd gone. He'd been to see the movie we watched before but thought I'd like it. I'd have called it a chick flick, but he didn't see it that way. He was full of surprises and that's what brought us together. I moved into his small off base apartment while I attended college and we lived together for a while until he convinced me to marry him. We had the whole family there for a beautiful ceremony on the beach, just before the towers came down. A month later he was shipped off to war. He came home for periods of time, but kept getting called back up for another deployment.
I've definitely missed having a man around the place, but just never seemed to meet anyone that measured up to my expectations. Now, Tim was going to be here any moment and my heart hadn't slowed much since he'd called me from the beach shop. He couldn't wait to buy a new swim suit and a boogie board. He said he was looking forward to seeing me and down deep I knew I could really use his company.
~ Tim ~
Early Wednesday morning at near daybreak, I set out for the beach. It was kind of thrilling for the first hour, but as the miles counted up on my odometer, I could understand why Dad was worried about me driving this distance. When I was a little more than three quarters of the way there, I took a break to get gas, a bite to eat for lunch and coffee to keep me awake.
