Chapter 39

We were all standing around in the kitchen, smelling the spaghetti sauce simmering as Brenda tossed the salad, and put the pasta pot on a burner to bring it to a boil. The table was already set for four places. Brenda had taken out two bottles of red wine, from Uncle Bunny's large wooden wine cellar box, and she had found a corkscrew in one of the drawers. She was just starting to heat up the garlic bread, when the door bell rang.

"Get it, Kenny." Brenda looked at me, knowing that I might not agree to do what she was asking.

"She's your guest, Brenda, you have to go let her in." I gave Brenda a steady look, knowing that she was already fully occupied with her cooking. Joyce turned away, going to the front door to let Emily in. A very good compromise, I thought. I hadn't really cared who opened the door, as long as it hadn't been me.

When Joyce returned to the kitchen with Emily, Brenda and I both greeted her warmly. I was trying to act like there was nothing unusual about Emily coming over to join us for dinner. I had decided to play it very low key, like I had no agenda, or anything at all planned, that included Emily.

If we were going to discuss her joining the group, it would be because Emily brought the subject up herself. I'd already told both Joyce and Brenda this. We'd all treat her like we normally would, but none of us would invite her to start discussing her willingness or lack of same to be a part of this thing I was forming. It was a good plan. I knew waiting her out was the right approach.

"Did you come over tonight to tell us you've changed your mind, Emily?"

I spun around and looked at Joyce, hardly able to believe my ears. How could she do that to me? We'd just gotten finished talking about how we were going to handle things. I saw Joyce and Brenda passing looks across at each other, and then Joyce moved across the room, to where Brenda was standing. This left Emily and I standing together on one side, and Joyce and Brenda standing over by the stove.

"I'm not sure that Kenny still wants me to be here with all of you. Do you?"

That put me right on the spot. This was exactly what I had been trying to avoid. I needed to get some time alone for myself, time for me to try to figure out what Joyce was up to. I hadn't planned for having to make things up as I went along. Was she trying to screw things up for me?

By throwing off the timing of everything, and bringing up the subject of Emily joining us first, she had thrown the whole situation I'd planned for, into a state of complete disarray. I had been rehearsing a whole different scenario in my head. Now, I was going to have to start from scratch.

"I need to run over to my house real quick. There's something I forgot that I need to get for tomorrow. Lend me your car keys, Joyce."

"You haven't answered Emily's question, Kenny. Do you still want her to join us, or not?" Joyce had never done anything like this to me before. This was no accident on her part either. It was deliberate. What I couldn't figure out was what it was she wanted to happen by doing things this way.

"Joyce, I'm not sure why you've decided to change everything up like you have, but I'm not going to play whatever game you think you're playing here. I'm not sure what you intended, but, whatever it was, it isn't going to work. Turn off the stove, Brenda. I want all of you to leave my house."

"What did I do? I didn't do anything. Joyce didn't tell me she was going to do this." Brenda seemed upset that I was blaming her as well as Joyce for what Joyce was doing.

"Is that right, Joyce? Is it just you that is screwing things up for me?"

"Why is it screwing things up, Kenny? If you just tell Emily we all want her to join us, this thing will be over and done with. All she wants is for you to invite her again. How hard is that?"

"Suppose I really don't want her to join us now? Now you've embarrassed her in front of her friend. We could have just had a nice dinner, and no one had to get their feelings hurt, but now, thanks to what you've done, you've ruined any chance for that to happen. Why do you think I asked both of you not to bring the subject up tonight? I'm sorry, Emily. I didn't want for this to happen."

"You don't want me to join now?"

"No. I've thought about a lot of things, mostly about the reasons why we can't get along for any length of time. I thought I could make changes in the way I treated you, so that you'd have less reason for wanting us to have fights. Something happened earlier, with Joyce, Brenda and me, something that made me realize that treating you the way I'd need to, just wasn't going to work for me. I'd either need to stop loving you, or else start feeling bad about what I was doing to you. Either way, it couldn't be good for us."

"Brenda said you were just waiting for me to ask you if I could join. She said that was all I had to do."

"She was probably right when she said that, but things got changed. I don't want us being together, not if it has to mean I need to treat you bad."

"I never said I wanted to be treated bad. I don't like you treating me bad. I don't like it when anybody treats me bad. I don't like what you're doing, having three girl friends either, but you aren't giving us any choices about that."

"After tonight, I might wind up to being back to no girl friends again. I thought I could trust you, Joyce."

I looked up, away from Emily, and over to Joyce and Brenda. I realized that I'd spoken the truth to Emily. I hadn't formulated the truth in my conscious brain, not until I'd actually spoken the words to her. Treating someone you love, badly, had to produce conflict inside you, even if you thought you were doing it because it was what they needed. Emily might say she didn't want to be treated badly, but her actions over the three years I'd known her, didn't support her claim.

I turned around and left the kitchen, leaving the three girls behind, realizing that I was going to need to make some major revisions in my plan. It was a twenty minute walk to my house, but I still walked outside, welcoming the chance to be alone with my thoughts. I didn't trust myself, not as far as what I might say to any of them, feeling as I did right then.

I had cut across the open fields, taking the shortcut to my house. The walk had calmed me down somewhat, but that only lasted until I was halfway up my driveway and noticed Joyce's Lincoln and Emily's Cadillac parked up in the circle.

I turned around, retracing my steps back to Uncle Bunny's house. The door was locked, and the alarm had been set when I got there. I checked the kitchen, and the stove and oven was turned off, and the food was either gone, or else it was all put away. I thought about seeing if Brenda had left it all in the fridge, but, instead, I went back out into the living room and secured the front door before heading into one of the guest bedrooms to go to sleep. I figured I would hear if anyone came into the house, and be able to hide before they thought to look for me in a guest bedroom.

I wondered how differently things might have turned out if Brenda hadn't attacked Joyce like she did. Seeing her overpowering Joyce had stuck in my mind. Subconsciously, I think I'd realized right then, that this was not all that different than what I was planning to do to Emily. I'm certain that Joyce had enjoyed being overpowered, and she had enjoyed what Brenda made her do. It wasn't even Emily I was worrying about, it was me. I was worrying about how doing what I was planning would change the way I felt about myself. In the end, I realized I would need to pay too high a price to have Emily. I didn't want to live with all the conditions necessary for us to have a chance at a successful relationship together.

I waited until nine in the morning to walk back home. I hadn't slept that well, keeping one ear open to hearing them, in case they decided to come back, looking for me. When I got home again, the Cadillac was gone, but Joyce's Lincoln was still parked where she'd left it the night before. I went to the kitchen, and asked Gerta to fix me a real big breakfast.

"Where's Hans?"

"He drove your Mama and the girls to Springfield, to go shopping. She told me to tell you that everything was going to be all right."

"All the girls?"

"The three that came here last night and slept in Joyce's room. Joyce, Brenda, and Emily."

"They spent the night together?"

"That's what I said. You should see Joyce's room, and her bed. Girls didn't act like that where I come from. One of them wet the bed too. The mattress is being aired out now. We're just lucky it's Helga and Diane working here today. If it was Edith, or even Jeanine, there would be talk all over town about what happened here."

"You think you know people, Gerta, and then something like this happens. What time did Dad leave? Did he say anything about the girls?"

"He left before seven. No, he didn't say anything in front of me. They all had breakfast together, and he was asking Joyce something about the railroads or something like that, just business. Your Mama was in a good mood, but she always likes to shop. I heard her talking to Dave over at the golf school, telling him he needed to look after things today."

"I don't know what to think now, Gerta. I had this all planned out, and now, nothing turned out like I planned it. If those girls all did stuff together, without me telling them they could, they've forced my hand. I can't let them get away with disobeying me like that."

"I love you, Kenny, but you don't learn too well sometimes. What made you think those girls were going to do only what you said they could?"

"Not Emily, but Brenda and Joyce both promised they wouldn't do that. We had an agreement."

"This agreement, it was one where you were going to be the one who decided things?"

"It was one where I asked them not to do certain things. I wasn't deciding everything."

"Hans and me, we have an agreement just like that. We each get to decide certain things, and it works out good for both of us. This morning, before we found out he'd be gone all day with your Mama and the girls, we decided some things. I gave Hans a list of what he had to get done today, and he decided in what order he'd do them. Then, your Mama comes down, and she decided what Hans and I had decided didn't matter, because she needed him to drive them to Springfield."

"It's not the same."

"Are you sure? Maybe the same thing happened to your girls that happened to Hans this morning. Maybe they had all decided to do what you told them, but your Mama told them to do something different. Who do you think they would listen to then?"

"Why would she do that? She told me she approved of what I was doing."

"Maybe she was worried about how you were doing some part of it. All I know is Joyce called over here five or six times yesterday. In the morning, then in the afternoon, before you left Omaha. She called again, before you called me to get the food for your dinner, and then twice more after that, right before they all came over here."

"So, this whole thing was Joyce and Mama?"

"More your Mama, I think. Joyce does whatever she tells her to do."

"Like you do?" I looked at Gerta. She started smiling at me. I knew she was pleased with my question.

"Exactly like I do."

"Mama wants me to know she was behind what happened last night?"

"Yes, and for you not to worry about it. Today she will lay down the law to those girls, all of them. She likes what you're doing, except for with Emily. She's worried that Emily might spoil everything for you. That's why she had Joyce spoil your plans."

"Did she tell you to tell me that too?"

"No. I'm not sure I agree with her about Emily. Hans and I both like Emily for you. Your mother thinks she's too strong for you to handle now."

"She thinks Emily is too strong? Or Mama thinks she's too strong for me?"

"Emily."

"Emily isn't that strong. She's not as strong as Brenda or Joyce."

"Maybe strong is the wrong word. You can dominate Joyce and Brenda, make them do what you tell them to do. With Emily, your mother is afraid you don't have the will to control her yet, because she isn't so easy to control. She's also afraid you won't attempt to control her, and that would cause you problems."

"Does Mama think I need to dominate every girl I associate with?"

"Someone has to be the dominant one, Kenny. That is the nature of all relationships. There is no such thing as equals, in any two person relationship. It just won't work. Someone needs to break the tie votes. All three of those girls can be equals to you, but each of them will find their place with the other two. Your Mama wants Joyce, then Brenda, and last, Emily."

"That won't work, because of what we'd all have to do to try to keep Emily on the bottom. I disagree about part of what you said. I don't think it matters so much their order. Joyce is first in a lot of things, but Brenda and Emily all have things they can do better than Joyce too. I don't want to dominate Emily. I thought I could, but now I don't think so."

"Your Mama has decided."

"She can just get undecided again. My way might work, or it might not. It probably won't. Her way definitely won't work, because I won't cooperate with her on attempting it. For her way to work, she needs me. I don't need her to try my way. I'm going back to Uncle Bunny's, with a lot of my things. Tell Mama she needs to call me. It would be better if she does this before she does too much more meddling. Tell her to send Brenda back home too. To her house, not mine."

For some reason, I felt better knowing that it was Mama who had interfered in my plans. That didn't excuse Joyce from responsibility for what she had done, but it explained it better for me. Brenda, she was just being Brenda. She never stopped to consider the consequences of her decisions.

One thing hadn't changed for me. I was still determined to take care of my happiness. I had never been fixated on there being only a single path to achieving that goal. I was more than willing to embrace some change. One of the changes I was considering was to allow Emily to be an outside participant in our group. She would still be a part of us, but not necessarily in the group.

If there was going to be a group, Mama would first have to promise to stop meddling. I was going to insist that she let me make my own mistakes with this. She had this idea that she knew what I needed, better than I did myself. I needed to figure out how to change her mind about that. I thought the key to doing that was Joyce. She had used Joyce against me, and I planned on doing the same thing with her. Joyce needed to learn that her primary loyalty had to be to either me or Mama. Right then, I didn't care who she picked, but she wasn't going to be in my group, if her answer to that question wasn't me.

I spent the day moving between the two extension projects, speaking with both contractors about the cost overruns. I ended up approving some cost changes, but, I disapproved more than I allowed. The contractor building the girl's extension got pretty upset and belligerent with me, right up to the point where I told him I'd have my lawyers shut him down so quick that his head would spin off his shoulders.

I knew he'd been trying to screw us with some of the padding he'd been adding to his costs. I told him he'd need to produce receipts for all the materials, and then show where either my mother or I had authorized a single change to his original written bid for the contract. He was seventy five per cent done with the building, and I was still holding forty per cent of our agreed payment for the work. When I left, I warned him that I'd have every inspector checking closely for any sign that he wasn't living up to what he'd promised to build for us.

At the boy's extension, it was more a case of honest cost overruns, and poor contractor oversight of some of his subs. He was attempting to correct his sub problems by billing me for the extra labor costs he had incurred with his own crew, because his subs failed to finish on time. I pointed out the unfairness of this, and we quickly arrived at some compromise plans where I released some money to him to continue to keep everyone paid, but this money would come out of his profit, not be added to my costs. He was happy to find a way to ease his financial situation.