Team Manager CHAMP!
Chapter 32
THE CREW FELL HEADLONG into May, scrambling to get class projects finished, final exams taken, and Senior festivities attended. DMACC commencement was held on Saturday the sixth and Dennis happily accepted his AA degree. He stopped to wish several people he knew a good life and then ran to meet his girlfriends, including Brenda and Ardith. Of course, Peg, Dot, and Tom were also there to congratulate him.
“Just one more week!” Natalie said, dancing around with Dennis.
“We’re all ready for that,” Amy joined.
Peg was sulking a little, but Dennis reached over and placed his mortarboard on her head.
“You’re my favorite grad!” he said. She beamed and hugged him hard.
“I have a grad’ation hat!” she said, happily showing her mother.
“We’re celebrating at our house this evening, so all of you prepare for dinner and cake,” Dot said. “Next weekend, Lana’s parents are hosting our celebration.”
“That’s great!” Brenda said. “I’m staying up here. Our finals were a week ago and there’s no reason to move back until all of us can go.”
“Will you be up here, Ardith?” Dennis asked.
“No. I’m teaching a May term class. Three weeks of Latin immersion. Technically, I shouldn’t be up here today, but I’ll be heading back in the morning. And I won’t miss commencement at Bartley next Sunday.”
“Latin immersion?” Dennis asked.
“Who knew Salter needed a Latin teacher?” Ardith laughed.
On Sunday afternoon the fifteenth, Dennis, Natalie, Amy, and Lana lined up for commencement and filed across the stage at the high school to the applause of their families, friends, and classmates. That evening, they all gathered at the Browns’ for a big dinner and celebration of the four new grads. Amy’s parents had come to graduation, but were upset that they didn’t know she was planning to leave school early. They’d already said they wouldn’t approve of her going to college a year early. Gransy had stepped in and shook her guardianship papers in their faces, telling them they had signed away their right to make those decisions. They threatened to put the house in Bartley on the market at once. Gransy told them to go ahead and do it.
Everyone was a little shook up about the confrontation, but Amy’s parents had not been invited to the Browns’.
“Let’s have a picture of all the grads with your diplomas,” Natalie’s dad said. He’d been taking photos at every opportunity and made a comment about being glad they didn’t need to buy film any longer. He’d been uploading photos to the cloud as fast as he snapped them.
The teens lined up and held their diploma folders in front of them. John, Randy, Gransy, and Dot all snapped photos.
“Now open them up so we can see the goods,” Randy said. The teens opened the folders, showing the diploma inside.
“Dennis? Where’s your diploma?” Dot asked.
Dennis turned his folder to face himself and found a note.
“Your diploma will be issued when your last class at DMACC is finished. Ms. Morris.”
“No. No-no-no,” he said. “I specifically told Ms. Duval I didn’t want to wait for the class at DMACC. There’s no reason for them to do this.”
The news put a bit of a damper on the celebration, but everyone still had cake and ice cream and there were hugs and kisses all around.
“I need to see Ms. Morris,” Dennis said as the secretary entered the school office. He’d been waiting at the door until the school opened Monday morning.
“Um… She’s not here yet,” the secretary stammered.
“I can wait. When do you expect her?”
“Not until 7:30. She has a pretty full calendar. Let me see when you can get in to see her.”
“Please don’t stall me on this,” Dennis pled. “It’s very important that I see her as soon as possible.”
“Well, have a seat and I’ll see if she can see you when she gets here. I’m not trying to delay anything. It’s just this office is incredibly busy the last week of school.”
“I understand. It’s just really important.”
“Could anyone else help you?”
Dennis just shook his head and sat down in the waiting area.
The principal arrived about seven-twenty and Dennis stood up immediately.
“Ms. Morris,” the secretary said, “Dennis Enders says he needs to speak to you urgently.”
The principal looked at Dennis and smiled.
“Dennis. It’s so unusual to see a senior back in the school the day after graduation. Come on back and tell me what is so urgent. Not some new crisis with the facility or intruders, I hope.”
“No ma’am,” Dennis said as they entered her office. “It’s graduation. According to your note, I didn’t graduate yesterday. I really need my diploma.”
“Oh, you’ll get it. It’s just a formality. By holding your diploma until your last class at DMACC is completed, the school district continues to pay. The diploma will be issued then,” she said, as if calming an unreasonable child.
Dennis supposed perhaps he was an unreasonable child and tried to calm himself. He hadn’t slept all night.
“I appreciate your thoughtfulness,” he said through forced calm. “But I’ve already paid my tuition for the summer term and don’t require assistance from the school district. What I need is my diploma, dated the same as my classmates. It’s very important.”
“What can be so important that you are willing to pay an extra $550 to get it? If Salter U is a problem, I can make a call and resolve it with them.”
“It’s a personal matter, ma’am. It is personally very important to have my diploma dated the same as Natalie’s, Amy’s, and Lana’s. It’s a promise we made… to each other,” Dennis explained.
Morris opened a desk drawer and pulled out a folder. She motioned Dennis to close the door, which he did.
“You can see that you aren’t the only one whose diploma we are holding. It’s amazing how many students come up to the last week of school and then discover they are missing a credit. That obviously wasn’t the case in withholding yours.” She looked up at him after she had separated his diploma from the folder. “Dennis, I have to ask, are you being coerced by a teacher or former teacher or any other school employee to get your diploma on a certain date?”
“Coerced? No ma’am!”
“Are you planning something that would be illegal if you didn’t have your diploma by this date?”
“What difference does that make? To me and to my girlfriends, this date is significant. I just want the diploma I’ve earned.”
“I see. The school, as you know, has been under a magnifying glass regarding the staff and student relationships. You helped bring that down on us. Not a factor of blame, mind you. Your participation in the election campaign, however, didn’t help matters.” She looked at the diploma and reached in her drawer for a pen. She dated and signed the piece of paper. “It would have allowed plenty of time to let things blow over if we waited until August to issue this. The district attorney was not allowed to register for two campaigns at once. She was so certain of a victory that she did not register for re-election as DA. In November, she’ll be gone and we’ll have a new thorn in our side. Um… District Attorney, I mean.”
“I appreciate your concerns, but we have rigidly kept everything in our lives absolutely legal. I don’t believe the District Attorney will have the reach to harm any of us. But, the date on that scrap of paper you are holding is vitally important to that,” Dennis explained.
“Please don’t ever come back in the future and complain about being abused,” Ms. Morris said. “You and all of us have been through enough. Is there anything that could come back to haunt us?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Then here. Congratulations on your graduation. I’m sorry we caused you concern.”
She handed Dennis the document and he quickly checked the signatures and the date before accepting her hand in agreement. He breathed a sigh of relief as he left and headed out the door.
He paused in his car long enough to text his girlfriends, including Ardith.
*Diploma in hand. Dated May 15. All is well.*
Then he headed over to the Kellys’ where he was working on getting a new crop in on Abe’s field.
“Did you get everything worked out?” Randy asked when Dennis showed up. It was only eight o’clock but he already had the tractor out and ready to roll.
“Yessir. Signed, sealed, and delivered.”
“Good. The planter is set up to drill alfalfa. The seed is all here and you shouldn’t have any problems now. The rains of April have all the farms in the county a little behind, so I’ll be heading out to take care of the fields back home. When you get this planted, you can start on the field you’ve been taking care of for me the past couple of years. We should be able to get that one sown with wheat this week, since you won’t need to wait between disking, fertilizing, and planting. It’s nice to have you back full time.”
“Thank you, Randy. Um… Not that I mind, but why are you still managing Abe’s field. Are the new owners paying you for me?”
Randy started laughing.
“You’re normally so bright. When you are slow to pick something up, I’m surprised. I bought the place, Dennis. I just couldn’t stand the thought of this little bit of paradise going to someone who wouldn’t care for it. When the opportunity came up to rent it to the Kellys and you were here to work the fields, it just seemed like too good a deal to pass up,” Randy said.
“Oh! Lyle Kelly said something about that a while back and I thought he just meant you were managing it. I guess a lot was happening and I didn’t get everything straight,” Dennis said. How had he managed to misunderstand that? He shook his head.
“Well, we didn’t intend to tell you kids about it. But I figured you could use the income and this is just the right size plot to learn to run a farm on.”
“I appreciate learning,” Dennis said. “But, um… you know I don’t plan to go into farming as a career, don’t you?”
“Yes, don’t worry. But by the time you’ve mastered things out here, my son will be ready to start taking responsibility. I’m actually thinking of turning the place into a teaching farm and working with a few kids who want to learn every year,” Randy said. “Of course, if you did decide to go into farming, the fifty acres you’ve been tilling would just be a start. The other two hundred acres have been lying fallow for the better part of a decade since Abe entered it into a land bank. It’s still good farmland.”
“I appreciate the thought, and I promise to help Nils learn everything I have. I’m sure he’ll do great.”
“Dennis, while we’re on the subject of farm ownership, I guess there is something else you should know.”
“Yes, sir?”
“The five hundred acres you’ve been working at my place—well, that was what I could acquire of your dad’s farm. I couldn’t get the house and surrounding field, but this field was one his dad acquired before he passed away and gave to Will and Dot as a wedding present. I… never told him that I bought it. I didn’t think he’d appreciate it. I just couldn’t stand the idea of it going to some factory farm or being developed for country estate housing.”
The news was a real shock to Dennis. He’d known where his family’s house was and assumed the whole farm was the part that surrounded it. He’d never known that there was more to the farm than that.
“Should you ever decide you’d like to acquire that piece of your history, I’ll sell it to you for what I paid for it. Property value has already gone up significantly since I bought it. Until then, it’s just a part of your heritage. Farm it with the same pride your daddy did.”
With graduation out of the way, thoughts turned to weddings. Dot and Tom were set to tie the knot on Sunday, June fifth. Invitations had gone out and Dot and Peg had pretty much moved in with Tom in his home out in the country. Most of the time, Dennis had the house in Bartley to himself. A lot of the time, however, he spent the night at Amy’s house with Brenda, Natalie, and Lana. A realtor had shown up at her house with listing papers and put a sign in the front yard. Amy’s parents had wasted no time in getting the house on the market.
The crew all got invitations to Donnie and Chris’s wedding before school was out. It would be the twenty-fifth of June. Donnie had surprised Dennis by asking him to be one of his groomsmen. Dennis accepted gladly. He chuckled a little when he found out he’d be walking with Chris’s friend Jennifer in the procession.
The surprise to everyone was that Tori and Brandon disappeared the day after graduation. A week later, they invited everyone out to the McDonalds’ house for a reception at which they revealed they’d eloped to Las Vegas.
“The good news was that you can get married quickly and easily in Vegas if you don’t mind having Elvis as your preacher,” Tori laughed. “But there is absolutely nothing much to do in Vegas if you’re under twenty-one… except go back to your room and screw your heads off. Which we did.”
“In fairness, we went to see a couple of shows, too. Most of them are acceptable for underage adults,” Brandon added. “And the pool was great. Just seeing Tori walk along the edge in her bikini sent a whole bunch of older couples scurrying back to their rooms. I was the only one who took her to my room, though.”
“You’re stuck with me now, Bud,” she laughed.
“So, what’s your plan from here?” Dennis asked.
“We’re heading cross-country for a graduation trip and honeymoon,” Brandon said. “We haven’t decided if it will be California or Florida—or maybe both. But in sixty days, we’ll be back for our induction into the Air Force in Des Moines. We’ll ship out for recruit training the next day. Since we are entering as a married couple on the buddy system, we’ll go to the same basic training camp, even though we’ll have different groups.”
“I thought you’d chosen the Marine Corps?” Natalie asked. “I mean, you don’t even get to train together, do you?”
“Our recruiter suggested that we would have a better chance of being stationed together in the Air Force. We could still study in our chosen specialties, which is aircraft maintenance. We’ll be on the same base for basic training and there will be some time for fraternization. From then on, though, we’ll go where they send us,” Tori said. “That’s why we’re trying to get as much sex as possible in before we ship out.”
“Don’t forget your conditioning exercises,” Dennis said. “There are a few other muscles you need to keep toned or you’ll wash out.”
“We do conditioning exercises second thing every morning,” Brandon said. “You even came with us to Las Vegas. We’re working through your elite level exercise routines. If we find we can’t hack the Air Force after that, we’re pretty worthless.”
“If you find new exercises I should be drilling people on, let me know,” Dennis said. “Good luck, you two.”
The party went on a bit and John McDonald called Dennis to his side.
“Dennis, I’d like you to meet my son-in-law’s father, Oscar Blankenship,” he said. Dennis looked up at a man who looked like a slightly older and taller version of Brandon.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Blankenship.”
“And you,” Oscar said. “I was worried when I brought Brandon here for the last semester of his high school. His mother wanted to keep him in Sioux City, but we talked and he wasn’t happy there. The idea of coming to a new town where he could remake himself appealed to him.”
“He’s really been a great addition to our community,” Dennis said. “I think he and Tori will be really happy together.”
“I’m not too worried about that. I’m concerned to have them going into the Marines, but that’s a father’s prerogative.” He looked out at the friends all gathered around his son and his new wife. “I wanted to personally thank you for all you did here,” he said at last. “I talked to Lon Stackhouse and he told me you’d had concerns about AgCentral. He bemoaned having taken the wrong approach with you when it came to offering you sponsorship. But despite your doubts, you made the calls that broke down what was happening at Warner and cleared our name. The check was just a reward, and we aren’t asking or expecting anything further from you. But, like everyone else at AgCentral, we’re proud to have our name on the new athletic pavilion and to have been a part, however small, of your success this year.”
“Thank you, sir. It’s not always easy to figure out what is right or wrong and I guess I was suspicious of everyone back then. I’m glad you’ve managed to fix the problems at the farm. I just wish it didn’t smell so bad,” Dennis laughed.
“We’re working on that, as well. New technology, you know. With cleaner air, even the pigs are getting on better. It’s not a full solution yet, but I think we’ll be a cleaner operation in the future.”
Of course, the unspoken date on the crew’s mind was June fifteenth, thirty-one days after graduation. Starting on Friday the seventeenth, they’d arranged to have a cabin in northern Minnesota for a weeklong retreat. Just the six of them: Dennis, Natalie, Lana, Amy, Brenda, and Ardith.
There were a number of late-night conversations during that month before their retreat. Some were one-on-one and those often ended in orgasms shared over the phone. That might have technically pushed the boundary of what was allowed, but as long as they kept it quiet the only evidence was their call log. More often, the crew sat together with the phone on speaker with either Ardith or Ardith and Brenda on the other end.
These conversations were less sexually tense—though that tension was not lacking. They had more to do with getting to know each other on a more intimate level.
“So, is Salter your dream job?” Amy asked. “I can’t even imagine what I’ll do for a career yet.”
“Fortunately, you’ve got time to figure that out,” Ardith answered. “Yes, I’d say it is, though I never expected it to happen, or to happen so soon. It seems like I’m too young to have my dream job already. Over the next three or four years, I’ll be evaluating whether it is, indeed, my dream job, or if it’s the right job, but the wrong place. When Amber Steinbeck died last fall, she’d been with the Crusaders for thirty-five years. I don’t know for sure that’s my future. It sort of depends on you.”
“I think we all have to agree to support each other and not hold anyone back. If a world class opportunity comes up for any one of you, I’ll do my best to go there with you if I can,” Dennis said.
“It’s most likely the opportunity will come to you or Ardith,” Natalie said. “I just want a chance to teach junior high girls how to play ball. There’s lots of places I can do that.”
“I agree,” Lana said. “I don’t have big career objectives. I just want to be with my loving family.”
“People change,” Brenda said. “I thought I could just stop the clock by staying in Bartley and going to DMACC. The clock didn’t stop. I’m thankful you all did your best to speed yours up. Honestly, I don’t know what we’d have done if Ardith hadn’t gotten the job at Salter. When I left Bartley, I didn’t think there’d be a ghost of a chance that I could play for a Div III team. I was seeing my kind of probationary period slowly coming to an end.”
“It’s still a choice that we’ll all want input in. I knew that the only way I’d keep from breaking a law was to leave Bartley,” Ardith said. “It could have been any one of you and I’d still be guilty. I’d have to register everywhere I went as a sex offender and would probably be kept away from any contact with high school students. I know this has been a really difficult few months. It was killer for me. But when Brenda held me at night and told me a little about each of you and what you meant to her, I realized it was worth the temporary inconvenience and um… frustration. I just love each of you so much I want to hold you.”
“Honey, we want to hold you, too. Sometimes, I thought school rules were really dumb when all I wanted was a hug, but the school’s rules said I couldn’t get it from you,” Amy said.
“It’s going to be better at Salter, but people are still going to be looking strangely at us,” Brenda said. “I spent a lot of time explaining my relationship to my teammates. It’s not technically against the rules for a player to sleep with her coach here, but my… our teammates wanted to make sure I wasn’t being manipulated. If I was a sub, I think all hell would have broken loose.”
“Fortunately, I don’t think any of us can be considered a sub,” Dennis said. “Life will be better for all of us.”
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