Chapter 59: The Nanny

August 9, 1988, Chicago, Illinois

"Can I show you something?" Jeri asked just after 7:00am.

"Sure, we're supposed to get together now, anyway. I think we have to go to your desk; I haven't installed Windows on my machine yet."

"You should. Then I could just put the executable on the server and you could run it directly."

"We'll need to order a copy of Windows for me. You know my position on software licensing. I'll ask Elyse to get me a copy tomorrow. I already have the necessary development tools."

We sat down at her desk and she brought up a couple of mock-up screens. You couldn't enter any data or even view existing records, but it gave me a very good idea of exactly what Jeri had in mind and how it might look when it was completed.

"How long did this take you?" I asked.

"I worked on it all of last week in my spare time and finished it yesterday morning."

"You're going to have to teach me about Windows programming. When I first got my Mac, you could only do development on a Lisa. That's changed now, but I haven't had a lot of time to mess with it, and my extra time has gone into messing with Unix systems."

"IIT didn't have you do any kind of Graphical User Interface programming?"

"No. I took a graphics class, but that didn't involve the kinds of stuff we're going to need to do. Remember, the Mac only came out in 1984 and I started at IIT in 1981. As I said, you'll have to teach me. Let's take a look at the code."

She opened her editor and walked me through the source code until Dave came in and we had to stop to get on with our regular work.

August 12, 1988, Chicago, Illinois

"You're doing really well for it only having been six weeks," I said to Jacquelyn when we finished our run.

"I have an incentive!" she grinned. "My first date!"

I chuckled, "Perhaps. When does school start?"

"What do you mean, perhaps?" she asked, crestfallen.

"I wasn't backing out! I just meant you might get asked out before you reach your goal. You're looking really good."

"I still have this flab around my middle, and my butt is still huge!"

"But it's smaller, and it's getting smaller every week! You've lost what? Twelve pounds?"

"Thirteen!" she said firmly.

"Thirteen, then. Another seventeen to go. But remember, you'll be trim and fit and look like you lost even more than that. So when does school start?"

"Chicago Public Schools start on September 6th."

"Well, my rough guess is that it'll be sometime in November or early December when I take you to dinner and a movie. You might find boys asking you out before then."

"You think so?"

"They'd be fools to ignore a smart, sweet, pretty girl like you."

"You really think that?"

"I do," I said.

She smiled and ran up the steps and into the house.

August 13, 1988, Chicago, Illinois

"Francesca's mom is getting married today!" Jesse announced on Saturday morning.

"Yes, she is! Did your moms get you a suit?"

"Yes! With 'spenders!" he said proudly.

"Suspenders," I corrected.

Jessica laughed, "Just what we need, TWO Steve Adams!"

"My name is Jesse!" he insisted.

"But your middle name is the same as your dad's first name — Stephen."

"Jesse Stephen. Matthew Stephen. Birgit Stephen!"

Jessica, Kara, Jennifer, and I all laughed hard.

"No, it's Birgit Elizabeth," I said.

"Why?" he asked as the girls continued with fits of laughter.

"Because she's a girl. Stephen is a boy's name."

"He does have a point," Jennifer said. "In Russian it would be Birgit Stepanovna, right?"

"Don't confuse the issue!" I said with a grin. "He can learn Russian later!"

"Russia! Yes! Soldiers! I had fun!"

"I only wish you'd taken a video camera, Steve," Jennifer said. "Seeing Jesse try to do those traditional Russian dances would have been hilarious!"

"Not as funny as Steve trying to do them blitzed on vodka!" Jessica giggled.

"Now THAT I would have paid good money to see!" Jennifer said.

"I think it's time for karate," I said flatly, with feigned annoyance.

"I'm taking Jesse for his ice skating lessons," Jennifer said. "Whatever possessed you to suggest THAT to him?"

"We were talking about ice hockey, and I mentioned Katt and Mikael and showed him some pictures of Katt. I think he's in love!"

Jennifer laughed, "He's in love with EVERY cute female. God help us all when he's a teenager!"

"I love Francesca!" Jesse said.

"You can see your girlfriend later!" Jennifer said. "Time to go ice skating!"

"Yes!" he grinned.

They walked out of the house, and Jessica, Kara, Stephanie, and I headed for karate. Jolene wanted to talk, but I put her off until Sunday morning because we needed to get home, shower, eat, and get dressed for the 2:00pm wedding. We'd just finished dressing and gone downstairs when Jennifer and Josie came in with Jesse.

"Wow!" Kara exclaimed. "A suit and suspenders? He's SO cute!"

"I'm cute! Yes!" Jesse said, looking very proud.

"And an ego as big as his dad's," Jennifer sighed. "Where did I go wrong?"

"I think it had something to do with strip chess, if I recall correctly!" I chuckled.

"Strip chess? What's that?" Jesse asked.

"Oh NOW you've done it, Buster," Jennifer said. "Let's see you get out of THIS predicament!"

"It's a game Mama One invented where you take clothes off when you lose a piece. And then afterwards, you kiss and stuff! She liked to play it with me when we were younger!"

"Bastard!" Jennifer hissed, almost under her breath.

"Mama One?" Jesse said.

"Steve Adams, I'll get you for this!" Jennifer said, but she was laughing.

Josie, Jessica, and Kara were laughing so hard they were crying. And that meant that all three of them had to go 'fix their faces'. None of them wore a lot of makeup, but mascara streaks weren't the look they were going for.

Once they came back, my wives and I got Birgit into her stroller, and went out to the sidewalk to wait for Elyse, Matthew, Jennifer, Josie, Jesse, and Stephanie. St. Thomas the Apostle Roman Catholic Church was just over a half-mile away on South Kimbark, between 54th and 55th streets, but because Kimbark, onto which the coach house faced, didn't go through, we walked down Woodlawn to 53rd street.

"Where are the pictures of Jesus and his friends?" Jesse asked when we walked into the church.

The only church he'd ever been in was Saint Innocent of Moscow Orthodox Church, and it dawned on me that he was expecting all churches to be like that.

"They do things differently here," I said. "They have statues and windows with pictures instead."

"I like the other church!" he said.

"Do you want to go back there?" I asked.

"Yes!"

I saw Jennifer roll her eyes and Josie shake her head.

"I guess we'll be going to church again soon, Tiger," Jessica said softly.

"I need to talk to the moms about it first," I said quietly.

We found seats on the bride's side, and Jesse looked around the church for his girlfriend.

"Don't see Francesca," he said, a bit too loudly.

"We need to whisper, Jesse. I think she's in a room with her mom," I said. "She's going to be the flower girl. And Frankie is going to be the ring-bearer."

"What are those?"

"Francesca will carry a basket of flowers and drop some of them on that red carpet, and then Frankie will carry the wedding rings."

"Rings like Dada, Kara, and Jessica?"

"Yes, but they might not look the same."

"Mama One and Mama Two don't wear rings! They have bracelets!"

"Yes, they do! Different people do different things to show that they are together."

"I want to give Francesca a ring!"

"We'll talk about that later, OK? Now we need to sit quietly and wait for the wedding to start."

We sat quietly for about ten minutes until the organ started playing and the ushers brought Carol's parents and Stan's mother down the aisle to their seats. Next came Francesca with her basket of rose petals, and Jesse waved to her like a madman. I half expected him to call out to her, but he didn't. Francesca just smiled and continued on her way up the aisle. Frankie followed next and set the pillow he was carrying on a small stand in the front of the church. From there, the wedding Mass proceeded as normal, and about fifty minutes later, Stan and Carol were a married couple.

We had about an hour to kill before the reception started. It was about ten blocks away, which meant we could make the walk in less than thirty minutes. There was a park across Kimbark, but the kids weren't dressed in play clothes and we didn't want them to get messy. After a quick conversation, we decided to walk home so that we could take the cars to the banquet hall. That would make it easier to get home with the kids after the reception.

We needed three cars to get everyone to the reception, given we had three car seats and six adults. I shook my head when a teenage kid parking cars had to call a man old enough to be my grandpa to park my car. The kid didn't know how to drive a manual transmission!

"What is the world coming to?" the older man asked, shaking his head as he got into my car.

The reception was a standard affair — mediocre food, a cake that had enough sugar in it to kill a horse, and a DJ spinning records for dancing. Jesse and Francesca wore themselves out on the dance floor, and more or less collapsed against the wall, holding hands until it was time to head home. Jesse gave Francesca a kiss, and then I picked him up to carry him to Jennifer's car.

"He completely wore himself out!" she observed.

"No kidding! By the way, at the church, he said he wanted to give Francesca a ring!"

"They're a bit young to get engaged, let alone married!" Jennifer laughed.

"Sure, but he could give her a friendship ring, you know, just like a silver band or something. We'd have to clear it with Carol first."

"Those two are going to be screwing like bunny rabbits as soon as their hormones kick in!" Jennifer laughed.

"Assuming Carol doesn't take out a protection order against Jesse!" I said.

"She needs to mellow out," Josie agreed. "I still think she should have told Francesca months and months ago instead of three weeks ago."

"I'm pretty sure that Jesse told Francesca," Jennifer said. "But the kids were smart enough not to tell Carol!"

"We are in SO much trouble when they get older!" Kara giggled.

August 14, 1988, Chicago, Illinois

"Sorry about yesterday," I said to Jolene when she arrived at the dojo on Sunday morning.

"It's OK. You had a wedding to go to. How did it go?"

"A typical Catholic wedding. I've seen my fair share. The reception was pretty much the same as they always are. So, did you talk to Hope?"

"I did. We had a really good talk. Want to know the funny thing?"

"Sure."

"She has a major crush on you! I think it's from your party when you told her she could call you by your first name."

"God help me!" I chuckled. "That is the LAST thing I need!"

"I know, right? You already have that doctor's kid who has a crush on you!"

"Fawn? A crush? You know, I never thought about that, but that would explain quite a few things!"

"It's harmless at this age, well, assuming you aren't a pedophile."

"Fawn turns sixteen in a couple of weeks," I said. "That may be young, but I don't consider being interested in adolescent girls pedophilia! Was your boyfriend a pedophile or a child molester?"

"You probably don't want to ask me that question now that I have a fourteen-year-old, but I'll admit that it depends on the circumstances and the kid."

"Good. Because I don't think the woman I had sex with was a pedophile, despite me being fourteen and her being twenty-three. It's cute that Hope has a crush, but you have nothing to worry about."

"Good."

"The same is true for Fawn. Doctor Barton has nothing to worry about."

"It's good to know you aren't one of those sickos with 'mother-daughter' fantasies. I've run into a couple of men like that!"

I chuckled, "It's one thing to have a fantasy, it's a whole different thing to act on it. I have a small set of 'never, ever going to happen' fantasies tucked away in my brain. But I have the self-control to keep them there."

"I don't think I want to know!" Jolene smirked.

"I wasn't offering to share," I said. "So, does Hope understand our relationship now?"

"I think so. She won't say something like that again. It's lucky that nobody else was around, especially your wives."

I chuckled, "Are you kidding? They know you and I were together. I wasn't cheating. And it wasn't blind permission, either. They know who I'm with."

"You have a VERY strange life."

"Tell me about it! Now, let's get to work!"

When I arrived home after our practice session, I showered, and then had lunch with Jessica and Kara. The three of us and Birgit settled onto the couch to watch the race from Watkins Glen. Jessica wasn't particularly interested, but she enjoyed cuddling, and neither Kara nor I were going to object to that!

The race was pretty typical for a road course, with a number of lead changes and quite a bit of shuffling in the pack. On lap 31, Bill Elliott took the lead for the first time, following a wreck by Geoff Bodine. Bill led nine laps before surrendering the lead to Rusty Wallace for three laps, but then took it back and led another ten. Bill pitted when Patty Moise stopped on the track and Harry Gant took the lead. Bill couldn't get back in front, but managed a third place finish behind Ricky Rudd and Rusty Wallace, but ahead of Earnhardt who finished sixth.

Bill didn't lose any ground in the points race because he led the most laps, giving him the same number of points as Wallace. He was still 11 behind, but he was now 47 ahead of Earnhardt, who I thought presented the real challenge in the long run. The next race was at Michigan, and I'd be there with Kara, Dave, and Julia. The two additional tickets that Emily had sent had gone to Terry and Penny. They'd had a small lover's spat over who was going to drive and, as I'd expected, Penny had won. The girls held all the cards in those kinds of debates.

"That didn't work out too badly," Kara said. "Bill's still in second and we'll get to see him next weekend at Michigan, his favorite track."

"Let's hope so!" I said. "I need to get the grill ready. The Jaegers and Fergusons should be here soon."