More than I Deserve

That was the last of my problems with the intern program. A month into the program, I no longer showed up in a shirt and tie or a business shirt. I had taken to wearing work clothes, just like the other workers. It made sense since I was usually covered in oil and dirt by the end of day.

Halfway through the summer, the differences were clear. When one of our production lines went down unexpectedly, almost the entire plant gathered to see what would happen. Several of the engineers got together to figure it out and I was called from across the plant to work on the fix. The other interns were pushed out of the area of focus. As they stood on the sidelines, I was a part of the team that fixed it.

I was the one who discovered that several raw castings had fallen into the conveyor system and damaged the gearing. We powered down the conveyor and several of us, armed with long pry bars and crowbars, pried the castings free. Then we disassembled that section of the conveyor. We surveyed the parts that could be reused, the parts that could be repaired and then reused, and the parts that were too badly mangled and would have to be replaced.

We estimated that the plant, at least the production arm would be down for a day and a half to two days. Some of the workers in skilled trades would actually be on overtime to repair parts. Others with a great work ethic would be kept on to aid in cleaning up their departments or other areas of the plant.

The rest would have two days off. Most of the workers didn't mind the time off in the middle of the summer. Most of the interns loved the chance to take two days off just before the midsummer break.

It was a great time for me. I showed the plant manager some of the castings that we'd pried out of the conveyor.

"Notice anything about these?" I asked. He picked them all up and inspected them carefully of the course of a few minutes.

"Is it a variation on dimension or weight?" he asked.

"Neither," I said. "It's random. If you look at the lot numbers each of these came from completely different lots spread out over a long period of time. I think they all fell off of the conveyor at some point in the process and as each fell in, the conveyor slowed marginally. We compensated for that by raising the speed of the conveyor to reach our production rate, but they finally built up to the point where it could no longer function.

For months we've probably been running the conveyor at a faster rate than we should have just to maintain our production speed. That of course would show up in increased energy costs because running the conveyor at a higher rate uses up more juice. I've identified several places along the conveyor that are the likely points were they fell in. If we put up side rails or barriers in those points we can decrease the chances of this happening again."

"Bobby, do that," he said. "But make that your second project. Right now I need you to keep helping the guys to get the plant back online. Every hour of lost production is costing us a lot of money."

We all pitched in and worked really hard to get the plant back online. And when we'd finished I got to outline my plan for making it less likely to happen again. I passed out my drawings for the guards and side rails for the conveyor system and had no shortage of volunteers who were willing to help make and install them.

After the meeting, the coordinator of the intern program came over to me. "You know, this might be a good project to get the interns involved in," he said.

"I thought of that," I told him. "But by the time their midsummer break is over, I'll have had the pieces made, installed and tested, and be working in a different area of the plant."

"You're not taking the break?" he asked. "No one told me that."

"Working here for the summer is a fantastic opportunity," I said. "I can't afford to waste two weeks of it hanging around in bars and doing nothing."

"But you don't even get paid for it," he said as I walked away.

Away from the plant, my schedule was equally regimented. I usually had both breakfast and lunch in the cafeteria at the plant. I tended to grab drive-through meals on the way home most nights. I lived in the same dorms as the other interns but rarely saw them.

I was on great terms with most of them, but we seemed to be circling the same planet at different orbital levels.

I even went in on Saturdays. Saturdays were great days for me. There was usually only a skeleton crew there, who were involved with short run production jobs, maintenance schedules for various systems or programming and QC tasks.

Sunday was the only day that I didn't go in. Most of the time, I studied. But I also found time to work on my car and handle things that I couldn't get done during the week.

And halfway through the summer, I'd finally gotten over Mona enough to do something about our situation.

I spoke to one of the attorneys the oil company kept on a retainer. She was a really nice woman who had me explain the entire situation to her. I think she took pity on me because even over the phone she could tell that I was on the verge of tears.

She explained the entire process and my options to me. Since Mona and I had been married for less than two years and had almost zero assets at the time of our breakup, the divorce process was more of a formality than anything else.

There would be no support given either way. We would both simply sign papers and walk away.

Of course nothing ever goes that smoothly. Mona started making demands immediately. She was angry. She wanted to see me. She refused the divorce. She wanted counseling. There were things that we needed to talk about. There were things that I didn't know about that she needed to explain. She demanded a face to face meeting.

She also had lots of questions. Where had I been? Why hadn't I called her?

My lawyer was convinced that I should go to a one time meeting with Mona, if only to clear the air.

I explained to her that I simply couldn't do it. It had taken me seven months to get to the point where I could even talk ABOUT Mona without my heart stopping and my stomach churning. I was simply not strong enough to look into the eyes of someone I had loved that dearly who'd betrayed me so badly.

I finally agreed to write Mona a letter. If she signed the papers, she got the letter. If not the divorce would go through any way. There is no law that says you have to stay married to someone. I was just glad that we hadn't been together long enough to gain any assets or have any children.

In the end Mona signed the papers and got the letter. It was short and sweet. I wrote ten words. There were two short sentences. And both were lies.

"Mona. I don't love you anymore. I've found someone else."

I have no idea why I wrote that. Maybe it was an attempt to save my pride by letting her know that I wasn't pathetic. I could find someone else just as she had. Or maybe it was an attempt to piss her off. At any rate it was what I wrote and like spitting into the wind, it came back to me.

Sundays were also the one day of the week that I got an actual sit down meal in a nice restaurant in the small town near the plant. True, I usually had my head buried in a book or a car magazine, but it still counted as down time.

It was on one of those Sundays that my life changed. I was sitting at a table alone working out several formulas in the text book for a class I would be taking in the fall. I usually bought all of my books and skimmed through the chapters before I took a class. Not only did it make the classes easier, it allowed me to figure out in advance where I would need help.

"What cha doin' Hon?" The voice was so melodic she may as well have been singing. Even though I had barely spoken to any women since the day I walked out on my marriage, I looked up.

I had to see the face that went with that voice. Female voices are tricky. Some of the secretaries at the plant had voices that could get you hard over the phone. They sounded like phone sex operators. But often the woman with a voice that could start your motor running had a face that could stop a clock.

And this time it was weird. The voice was very melodic but also raspy and scratchy, like she smoked too many cigarettes and drank too much hard liquor. I looked anyway.

The face that looked back at me caused my pencil to drop from my fingers.

It was like the face of an angel. It was surrounded by a halo of red curls. Her super bright, blue eyes showed a lot of intelligence and a touch of humor. She seemed like the kind of woman who would never be unhappy for more than a few seconds.

Like a lot of the women in the region, she seemed not to realize how beautiful she was.

"Why are ya staring at me like that?" she asked, the smile never left her face.

I was tongue tied. I had never made talking to women a priority. I'd met Mona and we never really went through all of that awkward relationship stuff. We'd just gravitated towards each other and the next thing you knew we were just always together.

Then we were married and planning a life together. Now I couldn't stand the thought of ever seeing her again. To be honest, I hadn't given being in a relationship again any thought at all. And I had especially not expected to fall for another waitress. It was too much of a coincidence.

"You're so ... Pretty," I blurted out before my mind could take control of my mouth. As soon as I realized what I'd said, we both turned as red as her hair.

And in a great display of her brain power, she regained her wits before I did. She started laughing. "I guess I'd better bring you something to drink," she smiled. "You clearly ain't seeing straight. I've heard that's an early sign of dehydration. I ain't nothin' special. You can throw a rock in any direction and hit ten or twelve hillbilly girls who are prettier than me before it hits the ground."

"I am sooo sorry," I said. "You caught me completely off guard. I just spit out what I was thinking or part of it at least."

"Lem'me guess," she smirked. "The rest of it involved you bending me over a sofa 'er somethin'..."

"Of course not," I spurted angrily. Her eyes narrowed and her mouth tightened up.

"Well what was it?" she spat. "Believe me, I have five brothers. I've also worked in this diner since I was sixteen. Some a them truckers that come in here ain't afraid to tell ya exactly what they want from ya. So ain't nothing you say gonna surprise me much."

"Just that you're probably the most beautiful woman I've ever seen," I said quietly.

She shifted her weight and put her order pad down on the table and just looked at me. Then her face softened and she broke out on a smile.

"You're serious ain't cha?" she laughed. She walked away shaking her head. But she kept coming back; Even after she'd brought my meal. And she had tons of questions.

"What language is that?" she asked looking over my shoulder.

"It's math," I laughed.

"Ain't like no math I ever saw," she smirked. "You got all a them letters and little squiggles in there. What're ya doin' anyway?"

"They're stress calculations," I said.

"That's one a the biggest problems in the world today," she said. "People have too much stress!"

I burst out laughing and I couldn't stop. I must have laughed for three or four minutes. There were tears running down my cheeks when I finally stopped. It was the first time I'd laughed at all in nearly eight months.

Her emotions were mercurial. In a fraction of a second the flames in her eyes were back and her tiny mouth was even tighter than it had been before.

"Are you laughing at me?" she hissed. Even that struck me as funny and I started laughing again. She was too tiny to do me very much damage. Her nostrils flared and her tiny fists balled themselves up.

Her long legs tightened and her breasts were thrust forward.

"I'm sorry," I said, waving my hands in abject surrender. "It's a long sad story that I won't bore you with. But trust me, you made my day. I haven't laughed in so long it seems like forever."

She swung her head forcefully to the side and her long red ponytail swished as it flew over her shoulder from the motion of her head.

"I get off in fifteen minutes," she said angrily. "I'll have time for your long story then. And if I don't buy it you'd better start running, because my brothers will beat the hell out of you for pissing me off."

I finished my meal and paid for it. I left her a healthy tip and headed for the door.

"I gotta change first," she said grabbing my elbow. She refused to let go of me. She dragged me back through the diner. She pulled the clip off of her ponytail and all of that long red hair streamed out. I was hooked. There was no way I could have left if I had wanted to.

And when she looked back at me with those huge, guileless blue eyes, all of my anger and rage from what had happened with Mona faded to nothingness. I truly believe that was the moment that I began to live again.

There are moments in our lives where everything just comes together. It can be the moment when you throw the winning touchdown, or sink that three pointer from the top of the key. It can be winning that debate or playing the perfect guitar riff, but it's always that magic moment that changes your life, forever.

Mine came then. "Are ya staring at me again?" she laughed. "Ain't ya in enough trouble?"

"I guess to me it's worth the ass kicking," I shrugged.

"God you're stupid," she laughed. "Do ya really think that I would EVER let ANYBODY hurt you?"

I was floored. I had never been a person who believed in anything resembling love at first sight. I felt a tightening and a burning sensation in my chest. Skeptics among you would probably call it nervousness induced heartburn, or perhaps acid reflux from the meal I had just eaten. But the romantics out there know, like I do what it was.

The hole in my broken heart had closed in until it was just large enough for her to fit into.

She turned around treating me to the sight of a slim but mouth watering ass over those long legs. The upper region of her lower extremities had been obscured by her apron until then. I was in awe of the way her inverted heart shaped ass blended into that tiny waist.

"I've got two questions for ya," she said with her back to me. "Number one ... What's my name?"

"Samantha," I said. "Your name tag just says Sam, though."

She turned around and kissed me. "You got that one wrong, Honey," she said. I was dizzied by the kiss and wanted more. At the same time I began to wonder what she'd have given me if I'd gotten it right.

"Mah name ain't Samantha, Baby," she gushed keeping her eyes tightly closed. "Now, what color are mah eyes?"

"They're the brightest shade of cornflower blue I've ever seen. They're huge baby eyes that make you feel like no matter how shitty your life is, that everything is gonna be fine and ..."

She interrupted my words by planting her mouth back on mine and this time her wet, strawberry tasting tongue sought mine. My temperature rose quickly and she started laughing.

"Do you have a hammer in your pocket?" she laughed. "Cause the handle is poking mah tummy!"

I was really embarrassed and jerked my pelvis away from hers. She put her hands on my ass and pulled us back together.

"So did I get the second question right?" I asked. My arms were still around her and I felt weird just standing there holding onto a woman that I had only known for a few minutes.

"Nah ... Ya blew that one too," she said. The humor in her eyes and the love in that scratchy voice had me squirming.

"So why are you hugging me like this if I didn't pass the test?" I asked.

"Robby, you have to stop looking at everything like it's a math problem," she said. "Life ain't like math. Sometimes there's more than one right answer. Sometimes life just comes along and knees ya in the balls and fucks up all a yer plans."

"You know my name?" I asked.

"Robert James Thompson," she said. "Everybody in town knows your name. The guys in the plant think you're a good guy. They don't have much to say about the rest a your crew though. They call 'em a bunch a whiny little bitches that might someday come in and try ta fuck up the way they do things at the plant without actually knowin' what they do or how they do it."

"Huh?" I said.

"They're Engineers," she said as if that explained everything. "Engineers always think they know everything. Every time we get new engineers at the plant, they wanna come in and change everything around. They do it just ta show how God Damned smart they are and that their way is better. It usually isn't and things tend to go back to the way they was over time. But the engineers get their point across anyway."

"What's their point?" I asked. She rolled those blue eyes like I was the dumbest kid in the class and then kissed me again before answering me.

"It's like dogs, Robby. There's always a battle for dominance. Engineers have to come in and show that they're in charge. It's just like those assholes ya came here with. They walk inta the plant like they own it and start telling people what they think before they even know what the hell is going on. They ain't even engineers yet, but they already try ta order everyone around.

And outside of the plant it's worse. They act like their shit don't stink. They show up in the bars outside of town and act like the people there are supposed ta bow down to them. They go after every girl that ain't nailed down and some a the ones that are. But we got a way a handlin' them.

Inside a the plant, all a the guys pretty much ignore them. If they can't ignore them they just tell them that they have ta follow the chain of command. They have to go to their supervisor first and have him tell them ta do it otherwise they can't do it. Or they act like their machine is so loud that they can't hear them. My favorite one is when they tell them that their machine can't do what they want. They tell them that they need a metal stretcher or a fraction welding brake for that ..."

"I've never heard of a metal stretcher," I said. "Or a ..."

"That's because there ain't no such thing," she laughed. "But a guy who can't admit that he don't know everything can't ask what it is. They just go running around the plant asking where one is. And everybody there knows what's going on and points down to the other end of the plant, while laughing at them behind their back." She squeezed me even tighter as she laughed at the thought.

"And outside a the plant, we pretty much do the same stuff. We charge them fifty percent more for everything they buy and only the sluttiest girls in town have anything to do with them. Let's just say that more than one them guys will end up carrying a case back ta school with 'em. We got some downright skanky whores around here."

It suddenly hit me how stupid I'd been. I realized at once why a woman that looked the way she did wanted to have anything to do with me. I could already feel the crabs and probably fleas working their way through my clothes.

"Well thanks for the info," I said. I dropped my arms and tried to gently move away from her. She wouldn't let go of me. She looked confused.

"Ah ain't done with you yet," she said.

"Come on you've had your fun," I said. "I get it. You're showing me how stupid you think I am by telling me what you're doing and I'm so dumb that I'm not supposed to realize that you're talking about me."

She looked at me strangely then.

"Go call your brothers," I said. "After they beat me up I can get tested for STDs at the hospital while they fix me up."

She looked at me again and set her mouth. Then she punched me in the face. Her eyes had flashed that bright blue color again.