Chapter 18

Deena’s turn:

“No, Mom, I’m not mad. I just wonder what’s going on. I mean, we were doing every other weekend. I plan around that.”

“Did it mess you up?”

“Uh, no, I guess not. We went sailing with some friends. They have a boat...”

She sighed, loud enough to let me know that this was drama for my sake. “Flying. Sailing. College. Dammit, Deena...”

“It’s not a competition, Mom,” I said. “Really. You’re my mom. I love you. Mommies’re forever...”

“Baby...”

“Mommmm...” with just a hint of a whine.

“I wanna do things with you. This is soooo hard...”

“Look, Mom. You ‘n’ Harv got to go off and have yourselves a vacation doing adult things...” I was thinking ‘and me and your EX and my sister got to stay around here and do things that pass for ‘adult’ as well, but it’s wise not to say that. “And I’m okay with that. I would’ve been a detriment. I’m sure you and Harv did stuff that would’ve been a lot harder to do if you’d’ve had to accommodate me...”

“Baby, that doesn’t mean...”

“I know, Mom. I’m growing up. I know that adult relationships have things going on that aren’t suitable for your teen daughter...”

“Boy friend? You got one yet?”

“Mom, I’m in college. What would I do with the average fourteen year old boy?”

She hissed, starting to say something.

“Oh, yeah, PLENTY of ‘em would want to do THAT.” I chuckled. “Dad’s got GUNS.”

“Your dad loves you, baby,” she said.

Another time to keep my mouth shut, because my answer was ‘in ways that make the universe spin’, but she doesn’t need to know that.

“Dad’s very protective of me. And I LIKE that. Haley’s, well, Haley’s SANE, Mom. I know you thought ‘teenaged bimbo’ but Haley’s right there with me in college. We’re different, she and I, a class to ourselves, and I only wish I had a sister like Haley.” I giggled. “Actually, I do. ‘Cept she’s also my stepmom.”

“Don’t remind me, Deena. Your dad. A teenaged bride. I get the shakes.”

“Y’all’re divorced, mom. You didn’t stay celibate. Why would you expect that of him?”

“I expected him to marry somebody his own age.”

“He did that. Haley’s timeless.”

“She’s gotta have something going for her. She’s so mousy-looking...”

I ignored that. Haley’s short and kinda flat-chested and brown-eyed and she’d not be worth a second look in a line-up of girls her age, but I KNOW her and she’s positively scintillating, kaleidoscopic, endlessly fascinating, both physically and mentally. I fell in love, okay? But I can’t tell Mom that.

“Haley’s a great person. I think she’s cute in that ‘I’m NOT trying’ sort of way. She’s smart, she’s funny, and she and Dad make a great pair.”

“Still. I get...”

“You can’t be jealous, Mom. You have Harv...”

“I know. It’s just that when I think of you living over there with THEM...”

“How’s what they do any different than you and Harv?”

“That’s not what I mean...”

“What do you mean, then...”

“She’s YOUR age...”

“Two years older, almost.”

“Close. And she’s having an active sex life...”

“So what’s the point? You think I need a bad example for ME to have an active sex life?”

“I would hope you didn’t...”

“Mom, d’ya know how many of my contemporaries...”

“See, Deena? Vocabulary. You just tossed ‘contemporaries’ into an informal conversation.”

“Would you rather I be ‘he’s like’ and ‘knowhutI’m sayin’ and crap like that? I’m in COLLEGE. But lots of girls my age, they’ve been having sex since they were twelve...”

“And you, my precious daughter?”

“I will NEVER have sex outside a committed relationship,” I said. Unsaid is that I’m IN a committed relationship right now.

“That’s a difficult line to put in your life, baby...”

“I know, Mom, but it IS a line. Marta,” I said, naming a daughter of one of her friends, “Has something that they’re having trouble getting rid of. Some kind of super-bug. Deena ain’t risking that.”

“I worry about you.”

“You’re my mom. You’re supposed to worry about me,” I said. “I’m supposed to tell you that you raised a good girl and I’m not going to go around boinking random boys and getting exotic diseases and wrecking my psyche so I’m ruined for good relationships forever.”

“Don’t make fun of me, Deena.”

“I’m not, Mom. I’m serious. I’m a good girl. Just different from other fourteen year old girls, is all.”

“Okay, baby. So, we’re on for next weekend?”

“Yeah. Even if all we do is hang around the house together while Harv’s out playin’ golf.”

“Okay, baby.”

“I love you, Mom,” I said.

“Love you too, baby.”

I rolled sideways. I was lying halfway across Haley.

“What was that?” she asked.

“A mommy with a guilty conscience,” I said. “Know how I noted this was two weekends in a row...”

“Yeah.”

“This is the phone call to make up for that.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah. You heard my half of the conversation. I guess she’s really confused that I’m not a fourteen-year-old mall rat like everybody else my age. Dunno if she wouldn’t be happier if I came home on Saturday night and spread out a bunch of nail polish and fashion accessories...”

“Maybe that’s where she’s comfortable.”

“I KNOW that’s where she’s comfortable,” I said. “What I’m wondering is how she snagged Dad?”

“I love my Bill,” Haley said, “but he’s NOT the most adept at dealing with the female of the species. I snagged ‘im without even trying.”

“He NEEDED you,” I laughed. “What could he possibly need with somebody like Mom?”

“She’s pretty. You got those looks,” Haley said. “And she probably paid attention to him, and he misread that and thought she loved him.”

“She might have, at first,” I said. “But Mom’s, well, she likes to be IT and with Harv she gets to be IT with a different crowd of people. Can you imagine Mom at Dan’s barbecue?”

“Or on Dave’s boat? With Carlita and Brindy and Sandy?”

“You understand, then,” I said. “Dad’s lucky he found you, you know...”

“He has YOU,” Haley replied.

“Dad would have NEVER ... there had to be you and me first. You’re the catalyst. You and me – we’re perfect for Dad...”

“Bill,” she asserted.

“Okay, he’s Bill. But you gotta know that he’ll always be ‘Dad’ to me. DNA or no DNA.”

“I love ‘im, you know,” Haley said. “For soooo long...”

“It should be that way. I love both of you”

“You have to,” Haley smiled. “How would this work if we didn’t?”

“Not good at all. I love being able to crawl into bed and having BOTH of you.”

“Kinda like that myself. We wear poor Bill out, though.”

I giggled. “You’d’ve had to work extra hard to do that by yourself,” I said.

“Oh, baby, I DID it. Buncha times.”

“No doubt. You’ve done that to ME.” Mom says ‘mousy little thing’. If only she knew ... and I kissed her.

“To you and our Bill,” she sighed.

“Who else?”

“You, you little blonde thing, you make me jealous, sometimes.”

“Be jealous. Only person who will EVER get me is you or our Bill.”

“You said ‘our Bill’.”

“He is. Still, he’s ‘Dad’, too. But our Bill.”

“So once we determine that we can’t live on pure sex...” she said.

“We’ve tried,” I giggled.

“ ... We have to think of what’s for dinner...”

“Grilled cheese sandwiches,” I replied.

“Oh, he’ll KNOW what’s up if we serve ‘im grilled cheese,” she laughed.

“Poor Dad,” I giggled in return. “Forever imprinted. You say ‘grilled cheese’ and he gets an erection.”

“Erections’re useful, you know...”

My brown-haired sister/lover/wife. How did THIS thing find all my buttons and know how to push them?

Haley’s turn:

“Grass strips’re cheating,” Rob said. “Don’t get lured into the trap.”

“Trap?” I asked back.

“Yeah. Grass has some ‘give’. You can slide just a little bit, so if you’re not exactly straight when your wheels touch, you slide just a little and you think ‘Hey, I’m pretty good.’”

“Excellent analogy,” I laughed.

“‘Analogy’. Last time I teach an engineering student,” he retorted.

“No, I understand.”

“Do you?”

“Yes, I do. But we can fly over there, five miles, and we have ten thousand feet of concrete. This is a Cessna 152, not a B-52.”

“Okay. We go back over there, and you act like the runway ends just past the hash marks. I’m STILL gonna judge you on technique. Okay?”

“Hai, sensei.”

“Dammit. No more engineering students,” he laughed, shaking his head. “Okay. I see you’re competent to fly a Cessna 152.”

“Thank you.”

“So if you want our lessons to start here, you’re gonna pay for an extra half-hour of MY time for me to drive over. Otherwise...”

“I pull my cute little red and white airplane up to YOUR FBO and you come out and teach me to fly.”

“Yeah. Like that.”

“Got it. Now, this exercise – turns about a point...”

“It’s about you and the wind. You fly an airplane in relation to the wind. You’re part of it. But you also fly in relation to the ground...”

“All that ‘rectangular course’ and ‘tracking’stuff.”

“Traffic pattern. Same thing with turns about a point. Just like your traffic pattern, except we take out the straight parts, so you’re constantly varying your angle in relation to the wind, so you maintain an equal distance from a point on the ground.”

“Got the picture.”

“Okay. Let’s try one.”

Having an idea in your head is just a TINY bit different than applying it in the real world, but after a few tries...

“You’re getting the idea,” he said.

“I have a mental picture. Vectors – wind, velocity, airplane, velocity, ground, fixed.”

“That’s what the books say,” he laughed. “You have to visualize it and make it happen.”