Chapter 30

Haley’s turn:

Terri looks like a gem. Smiles. I remember my own turn at the wedding thing. I can totally understand. She’s fourteen and getting ready to be married. That’s perfectly fine with me. When I was fourteen I considered myself married as well. And we all know about Cindy.

While there were quite a few people there at the dinner that I didn’t know, I could tell they’ve been in on this before, with the exception of a couple introduced by Alan as his pastor and wife. They were absorbed into the bowl of conversation, though, and circulated around.

I caught a few moments with Cindy. “Me ‘n’ Mom ‘n’ Johanna are doing the solo for the wedding,” she said. “Wedding Song – There Is Love. We’ve done it before. Johanna’s flute.”

“I don’t think I’ve heard that one,” I said.

“You can find it on YouTube,” she countered.

“I’ll look tonight,” I said.

“Or you can wait and hear our version tomorrow.”

“Terri’s okay?” I asked.

“Terri?!?” Cindy laughed, “Look at ‘er!”

Terri was making the rounds with Jerry in tow, both of them smiling broadly. Nothing fake there. I guess that’s how I looked around Bill before Mom made her revelation as to what she was seeing.

I note that Deena’s over there talking with Vicki and Rachel and Derek – her age group. She saw me, waved me to come over.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“Rampant jealousy,” Rachel said. “Terri’s getting married. I can’t...”

“Why not?”

“Fourteen...” she sighed.

“Uh...” I started.

“Derek’s fourteen, too...”

“Y’all...”

She shook her head. “No. Not yet.”

There’s a word to turn over in one’s mind – ‘yet’.

I glanced over at Bill. He’s got his cellphone to his ear and his face is NOT happy. Okay, curiosity gets to me. I start in his direction.

“What’s up, baby?” You stopped smiling.”

“That was Carl. Him and Sunny got in a fight. Killed a guy.”

I and the others nearby gasped. “CARL?!?”

“And Sunny. Together.”

Cindy’s Dan said, wide-eyed, “Do we need to get legal help together? Judge Charlie’s sittin’ over there...”

Bill shook his head just as Jason’s phone rang. He looked, announced to the little bunch, “Sunny.”

He talked animatedly for a bit, then hung up. “Damn!”

“They need help?”

“She says ‘no’.”

Bill shook his head. “Dammit! I feel like I should be doin’ something!”

“I know,” Jason reinforced. “Never figured those two ... She’s kinda independent-minded, but everybody she’s worked with says she pulls her share of the load.”

Bill, still looking a bit stunned. “Yeah, but ... Killed...”

“Self-defense. Witnesses. Already been with the DA...” Jason took in a breath. “Sunny?!? Well, she said they were okay. Carl was in the truck with ‘er. I guess they’re okay then. I’ll call ‘er in the morning and double check.”

“Yeah, me too...” Bill replied.

“They KILLED a guy?”

“Yeah,” Jason inserted. “Sunny said the guy grabbed Carl and jerked ‘im up. Sunny hit ‘im in the head with a sugar dispenser and Carl gutted ‘im with his knife...”

“Wow ... Gonna have to look at those two different now,” I said.

Jason looked at me with a kind of strange look. “Nikki killed a guy who was trying to rape Susan. Shit happens, you know. Or look at Dan and Cindy. Both of them. Guy tried to break in on Cindy. She shot ‘im. Few weeks later, a coupla guys came to get even. Shot Dan and Cindy’s trailer up. Dan shot ‘em. Protecting Cindy.”

“I had no idea...”

“I do. I’m eternally grateful to Nikki for protecting HER friend and MY wife.”

“I had no idea,” I blurted. “I didn’t mean anything bad about Sunny and Carl, though. I like both of ‘em. Carl’s been my buddy ever since you hired him.”

“I wasn’t saying you were being negative, Haley,” Jason said. “Just sort of had a flashback to that phone call when I got the news about Susan. I was on the job. She was on campus. You can’t begin to imagine what was going through my mind...”

So, okay ... that was a wet blanket on the happiness of the occasion, but nobody else knew yet, and so I sort of stepped back, went and found Dana. Talked with her. We’d been contemporaries in the local system, even though she was only in the school in the town across the river from me for a few weeks before escaping to Auburn.

I’m just a little jealous about the ‘Auburn’ thing on one level. I mean, I stay – make that WE stay – in touch with the goings on as much as we can with email and instant message and phone calls and Facetime, but every time we show up here, I get caught up in what seems to be a smorgasbord of activity.

I can put that behind me, though, because we’re forming up our own version in Louisiana. We’ve gotten a core group of engineers together to do the business, along with a few good technicians, and I have my own inner circle of sisters with me and Deena and Carlita and Brindy and Sandy, and yes, I guess I include Nina in the mix, even though she’s older, but on the other hand, the Auburn bunch has Johanna, who’s a bit older than the rest.

I guess then, that we’ve actually formed two different clans to a tribe, or two different families of a clan, or something like that. I muse briefly.

“Your mind’s going three hundred miles an hour right now, isn’t it,” Dana said, popping me back into real life.

“Yeah, I was just thinking,” I said, and started explaining my excursion.

“Happens to me sometimes,” she laughed. “I think it does to everybody around here, us girls, at least. Ed sees it, sometimes. He’s used to it.” she smiled. “There’s just ONE time that it’s guaranteed NOT to happen...”

“Oh, I KNOW,” I said. “Nothing breaks through then...” Her grey eyes sparkled in response. “And according to Terri, tomorrow’s HER first...”

“Really?”

“Oh yeah,” Dana said. “Good girl. Everybody KNEW about her and Jerry, and there’s no way either of them would risk the loss of respect and honor. The Community’s like that.”

“That’s the way I see it,” I said, “but that’s asking a lot of self-restraint.”

She smiled. “I didn’t have that much self-restraint. Knew who I wanted. Went after ‘im.”

“Me too ... I still get tingles replaying some of it.”

“I thought it was just ME!” Dana squeaked. “C’mon. Let’s go circulate before I grab Ed and drag ‘im off into the bushes.”

“That would be anti-social,” I laughed.

As we went past Bill I snagged a little kiss. This is a fun group. The unpleasant thoughts about somebody getting killed are pushed back in my head. I suppose there will be further discussion when we leave. We’re headed for a hotel tonight, which is the optimum situation because the three of us seem to thrive better together.

Around ten I noted the crowd thinning. I hunted down Terri, found her standing beside Jerry in the middle of a group.

“Well, little sister, your last night as a single girl, huh?”

She smiled. “Might be my last night on earth.”

“Or Jerry’s,” I countered.

Tina smiled. “She’ll do fine. She has her father’s powers of resilience.”

Her comment caused Alan to turn red.

“Well, we’ll see you here tomorrow, right?”

“We’ll be here,” Terri said.

I herded Deena out, Bill following us to our borrowed car.

I sat in the front seat beside Bill, as expected. We drove to the hotel.

Into the hotel room. King-sized bed. That was a bit of an oversight. We should’ve gotten a pair of queen beds, ostensibly for me and my husband to share one and Deena to have the other. Oh, well ... just make sure we don’t invite somebody to our room.

Big bed. Bill does his classic boneless flop backward on it. Boneless? Well, there’s soon an exception as Deena and I surround him. I reached for his zipper but ran into Deena’s fingers already there.

“You two...” Bill sighed.

“I’m just kinda thinking that tomorrow’s Terri’s first time ... I remember mine ... Kinda gets me goin...” Deena bent over and kissed him, then when my lips replaced hers, she kissed the side of my head.

“We need to peel ‘im,” I said. “Entirely too much clothing.”

“Y’all’re gonna kill me,” he said.

“Bill,” Haley giggled, “You know it’s not all about sex, but...”

“ ... We don’t have anything we NEED to attend to, we’re here out of town for pure fun and friendship, and this is just FUN!” I finished for her.

“Yeah,” she nodded enthusiastically.

“Well, if we absolutely MUST...”

I was into it. “I dunno about you, but I kinda NEED to...”

It’s like that. It’s three people who love each other, having fun together.

Sad part, though, is that the hotel room shower is essentially a bathtub with a curtain, and while the unlimited hot water’s nice, there’s really not room for much more than showering. Two people get in each other’s way. There’s no room for more than a few soapy gropes, so we run through the shower in solo sequence, but that means naked people passing in the close confines of the bathroom.

Giggles ensue.

Finally, everybody’s cleaned up and smelling good. Deena and I have collaborated on Bill’s aftershave. We like it.

First order of business was turning the covers down to the foot of the bed.

Second order is the happy mixing of various tabs, Bill has one at each end, Deena and I each have one, and slots belong to me and Deena, so there’s a bunch of interesting variations with tabs and slots and things get wet and excited and very, very happy.

The absurd part is that after a round of happy orgasms, we’re snuggled in a cluster and Deena turns the TV on.

“Just something in the background while we go to sleep.”

“You’re nuts,” Bill said.

I giggled. “Maybe so, maybe not. You ‘n’ her can watch the giraffes. I may get an urge for one more round ... she needs TV, I need a pacifier...”

“Baby,” Bill says, “that last one was number three for the night. I don’t know if I can do another one.”