Chapter 32: True Love

Medway High School, Arva, Ontario

7:57am, Monday, December 10, 1979

“What the heck has gotten into you, Mike?” Bruce Smythe laughed after I landed from throwing down a 360 spinning dunk on a fast-break during our early morning pickup game.

“Just glad this is the last week of school ... before exams,” I laughed as I ran past my friend.

“He’s happy he made it with a couple of gymnastic chicks over the weekend,” Jon laughed and shared a high-5 with me.

“I can’t help it if, ‘I thought I was the Duke of Earl, when I made with a red-haired girl ... in a Chevro-leeeeet. Oh! Yeah! We were keeping the faith! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!“ I replied and sang as I waited for Wayne to bring the ball up the court.

“God! Mike! You have got to stop doing that!” Tempe shouted as she sat with Lynette, Shannon and Zupena on the gym’s stage, watching us play.

“You love it! And you know it!” I replied as I focused on Wayne as he crossed half court.

Because we knew we were probably going to have a killer practice after school (TR was known for that after huge wins), we didn’t feel like going a hundred-miles-per-hour in our pre-school pickup game. We still played semi-tough man-to-man defense, but nobody was killing themselves on the court.

Wayne’s ball-handling was improving by leaps and bounds as I normally pressured him with all I had in practice. Today, he pulled a ‘John LaPlante’ on me, and had me tumbling backwards after he did a crazy behind the back to a hard cross-over move near the top of the key. The guys ... and later on, Lynette, Zupena and Andi ... didn’t let me forget about my ‘ass-over-tea-kettle’ embarrassment; even though Wayne missed the open jumper he created for himself.

After we stopped and headed to our lockers, the trash was flowing fast and furious from my friends. I finally countered with, “What?” I as I opened my locker. “Didn’t that 360 dunk count for anything?”

“Only two points,” Zupena smartly replied with her gym bag over her shoulders.

“But having your ankles broken was priceless!” Lynette laughed.

“It was a good thing Eda wasn’t here to see Wayne to do that to you, or it would be even worse for you,” Tempe chuckled.

“And knowing you, you, and you, I’m sure she’ll find out about it, first thing at our band practice, tonight,” I laughed as I pointed to Sammy, Lynette and Tempe.

“Me! Well, I never!” Sammy cried indignantly at my accusation.

“Oh, you never, alright! You’ve never miss an opportunity to get at me,” I laughed with my Music and English books under my arm.

The others just laughed at my spot-on comment to Sammy, who simply smiled at my statement.

“So, with it being the last week of classes before exams, how much work do you think we’re really gonna have?” Andi asked as we had about five minutes before homeroom.

“Depends on the teacher, I’m guessing,” Lynette replied to her friend’s question. “I’ll bet Quigs keeps on trucking with math work.”

“Chid will do the same, won’t he, Mike?” Kalena asked with a smile on her face.

“Ohhhh, I would bet my soul on it, Tox,” I replied with a laugh.

“You have one? Or is it broken like your ankles were, earlier this morning?” Lynette zinged me good. She knew enough to scurry out of my reach, too, as the others around us laughed at her well-timed comment.

“You’d better run!” I laughed as Lynette grabbed Zupena and Shannon’s arms to pull them off down the hallway towards their homerooms.

“Later, gators!” Shannon shouted as those girls walked down the side hallway.

“In a while, crocodile!” Andi fired off in response.

“So, anybody got any thoughts on the final week of the NIS program?” Sammy asked as our crowd made its way into our homeroom.

“Well, they kinda been focusing on the four-year-students these past couple of weeks, maybe they’ll end the semester with one more round of those guys,” Jon replied with an eye roll.

“Wouldn’t it be nice if they put that thing on hold ... this last week before exams,” Andi added.

“Don’t count on that happening, though,” Geoff laughed. It was kinda easy for those of us, who already had our number called like Geoff, Sammy, Tempe, Andi and me in our homeroom.

After listening to Mr. Williamson brag on our girls’ gymnastics and our boys’ basketball results from Friday and Saturday, he began his dreaded call for this week’s NIS student participants.

“We aren’t going to have any grade thirteen students this week, as they really need to focus on their classes in preparation for exam week,” our vice-principal said through the class speakers. He then shocked most of us in our class by saying, “Our first all-female NIS partnership will be Kari Kendell and Sharon Jumper.”

Tempe quickly turned to me and whispered, “I wondered if they would try to pair those two girls up.”

“Yeah, it wouldn’t be right to ask either of them to partner up with a guy. Although, I’m kinda worried how some people will deal with those two girls as partners,” I replied with a slight look of concern on my face.

“I bet they went to Mr. Williamson and told him about their sexual orientation. I can’t see Mr. W just doing that on his own,” Sammy added to our conversation. She, too, had an idea that Kari and Sharon weren’t into guys from her time posing in Ms. Stenn’s art class.

Our VP’s words on which eleventh graders were in this week’s program quickly took the steam out of that novel NIS situation. “Because of the upcoming NIS concert involving our school’s semi-famous rock band, Mike and the Time Bandettes, we are going to include the following eleventh graders in this week’s program: Andrew Werring, Beth Grayson, Ian Hobbs, Kate Van Dorn, Wayne Psotkin and Kalena Kharlamov. Just for clarity sake, these people will be playing, either in the jazz band at the concert or as special guest performers. The NIS concert organizers asked me to include as many of those school musicians as possible in our NIS program before the concert.”

“Oh! My! God! Tox!” Andi Whiting said as Kalena was the only person from our homeroom to be called out as a NIS participant this week.

“I’ll be good with it. I’ve volunteered enough to have that stripping fear under control,” Kalena said as she pushed up from her desk.

“We’ll be here for you, Tox,” Sammy added and lightly touched Kalena’s arm as she walked past on her way to the door.

“Yeah, we’ve got your back, Kalena,” Tempe immediately followed Sammy’s statement. I was real proud of how my time-travelling daughter handled the ordeal of her NIS calling. I also smiled at my friends, who were right in step with helping one of our own.

“I can’t believe that A&W is gonna be in the program before I am,” Heidi laughed as she peered at our friends.

“You don’t think they’d pair Ian and Kalena together, do you?” Elizabeth asked. She wasn’t the only one wondering about that adopted sibling question.

“I was just thinking the same thing ... as Tox walked out in the hallway,” Tammi said with a confused look on her face.

“I doubt Mr. W would do that,” I replied. I then added, “Even if they were partnered up, they really wouldn’t have to do any relief sessions together as they can ask anyone for help with that.”

“But what if they have to pose or do some ‘sciency’ type stuff together?” Tempe asked.

“Mrs. S wouldn’t do that to them, and I think they could decline any science experiment that troubled them,” Elizabeth replied.

“Yeah, you’re probably right, Lizzie,” Tempe said.

In music, the Little-man, Mr. Ballows put us on the spot by asking, “Do you three have any ideas of what you’d like the Jazz Band to play at your concert?”

Sammy and Lynette turned back to me to see if I was going to respond to our teacher’s question. I just gave them a cringing look and negative head shake as I really didn’t have a clue as to how to fit them in on any songs. When I saw a ‘light-bulb’ go off in Lynette’s eyes, I knew she just came up with something.

“I’ve been toying with a song that I haven’t even shared with my band that would probably sound good with some brass, the Jazz Band’s backing instruments,” Cano said as she turned back towards our music teacher.

“Do tell, Ms. Robertson,” Mr. Ballows said with a smile.

“Well, I haven’t gotten it all down in my head, yet, but this song is definitely bluesy, and I think a big band-ish type sound would work with it,” Lynette replied.

“Do you want to share it with us?” our teacher asked.

“Can I like run it by Mike, Sammy and our band, first? I promise I’ll get with you on it by say Wednesday,” Lynette replied as she nodded back up at me, with Sammy right beside her.

“Sure. We just have to make sure the Jazz Band has time to practice this and any other songs you’d like them to play with you guys,” Mr. Ballows said.

Sammy then offered up, “I bet Lisa and Eda’s striptease song could use a touch of brass to spruce it up.” She turned back to look at me after she said that to the Little-man.

I immediately tried to hear Love Shack in my head. After a few subtle nods as I replayed the music, I said, “Yes, their song could definitely use a horn section, Sammy.”

Just then, our NIS friends walked buck naked into the music room. We had seen everyone naked before, except for Andrew and Beth. No one was surprised that all three guys were sporting hard-ons as it always seemed to be both scary and exciting when you saw naked teenage flesh for the first time in the main conference room.

“Welcome, welcome,” Mr. Ballows said as the six naked students made their way to the storage areas and pulled out their instruments from the cabinets. Andrew and Kate snagged their trombones, and sat alongside me in the back row. Ian and Beth pulled their smaller trumpet cases out and sat a couple of rows in front of us. Wayne grabbed his tenor saxophone, and Kalena easily pulled her flute case from the upper cabinet to sit a few seats down from Heidi, Lynette and Sammy.

“As usual, ‘Do any of you need relief before we get going on things?’” the Little-man asked. All six NIS students gave him a negative response of some sort, so our teacher then said, “As you well know, our written exam is next Tuesday morning. It shouldn’t take too long to complete as you all should know most the material we’ve covered in class. Make sure you’re familiar with transposing music, as it will be a major chuck of the test. Also, if you haven’t signed up for your playing slot, do it ASAP, please and thanks. You have the pieces and the scales you’ll be asked to play.”

As a few students were asking exam oriented questions, I asked my fellow trombone players how they were doing.

“I’m good, Mike. I think this is gonna be pretty hard on Beth, though,” Kate offered as we scanned the room and saw the Beth kinda of cowering in her seat, next to Ian.

“Yeah, like me, she hasn’t volunteered before, so stripping in the conference room was a major test for her. She’s from a pretty conservative family, and even though she’s obviously seen people naked, she hasn’t done any real NIS stuff,” Andrew replied. Before I could ask, Andrew added, “Wayne’s her partner, but we’ll all keep a close eye on her.”

“Yeah, we all will, Andrew,” I replied.

When I looked over him to Kate, she just smiled and said, “I’m Ian’s partner.”

“And lucky me, I’ve got Tox as my partner. I don’t think any of us have classes where there are not at least three of us in it, so we should be good,” Andrew added.

“You’ll have a bunch of volunteers later this week, too,” I said with a nod.

“No doubt. No doubt,” Andrew said with a smile.

The rest of our Monday was relatively uneventful at school. I was super happy to see that a few tenth grade boys, including Desi Kilkenny came to the defense of Sharon and Kari as they walked in the second floor hallway. A group of ninth graders were making fun of them for holding hands as they walked between their fourth and five period classes. I had seen a couple of teachers waiting in the wings to act, but I believe they wanted to see how the students handled things before they felt like adding their authority into the situation.

“Hey, people are allowed to be who they wanna be, and be with any person they desire,” a friend of Desi berated the younger students.

“Yeah, maybe you haven’t seen it yet, but girls are giving each other relief in classes, so unless you wanna spend more than your week in the program, you better keep your damn traps shut,” Desi added with a slightly menacing tone in his voice. Desi, at six-two, was a fair bit taller than the ninth graders and used his physical size to his advantage over the smaller kids.

“I’m, uh, I think we’re sorry for bothering you, two girls. It’s just kinda different to see two cute, naked girls holding hands ... that’s all,” the apparent leader of the ninth graders replied.

“Okay. Just know that if you do something like this again, with me or any of my friends, I’ll blow this whistle so fast it will make your head spin,” Kari replied with a stern look on her face.

“We can’t help who we are or who we love,” Sharon quickly added in a softer tone than Kari.

“I’m sorry. I won’t be making fun of you or any other girls,” the smallest ninth grade boy replied. “Just so you know ... you two are super good-looking.”

“Thanks,” Kari and Sharon said with smiles now on their faces.

“Classes, everybody!” Mr. Connors called out just before the one-minute warning bell sounded to start the next period.

As Desi and his group of friends continued on down the hallway, I nodded at him and gave him a small ‘thumbs-up’ sign to let him know I, and a few of my friends appreciated him sticking up for those NIS girls. A simple smile and nod was more than enough to show that Desi and his friends knew they’d ‘done right.’

As my teammates and I expected, our basketball practice was ‘balls to the wall‘ tough. We did very little in the way of learning new plays, but had tons of scrimmaging and ‘murderous’ conditioning drills after our incredible victory on Friday night. While I didn’t think it was all that fair that our ‘man-defense’ unit had to do the same conditioning drills as our less active ‘zone-unit’, I was pretty proud that each position player on my unit finished the final suicide drills before the corresponding ‘zone-teammate’. Because of that, we got to head to the showers, while the ‘zoners’ had to stay and shoot free-throws until all eight of them each made consecutive charity points. We heard that it took them seven cycles before they completed that shooting requirement.

As we exited the showers, Coach Williamson came into the locker room. He said, “The bus for Regina Mundi leaves at two o’clock. I would like to surprise our hosts by having everyone in a coat and tie, please.”

Regina Mundi was a Catholic boys’ school south of London at that time. All the students there were required to wear blazers and ties. I still remember pitching ‘holy-heck’ with my mom, who tried to get me to go ther, instead of to Medway like all my older siblings. I told her that if she could get them to waive the ‘tie-requirement’, I would go there. I also said that another name for a tie was a ‘noose’, and that I would purposely get kicked out if she made me go there.

“You’re kidding, right?” Jon Lunby said to Coach W with a smile as he dried off with his towel.

“Do I look like I’m kidding?” Coach W laughed, while giving Jon-Jon one of his beady-eyed stares. He then said, “You guys can look sharp for ONE STINKING DAY, can’t you?’

After a few groans, we agreed to dress in our best, tomorrow. I really had to think if I had a good sport coat to wear since they weren’t high on my list of clothes to purchase since my Energists’ provided boost in stature. I knew what I was going to be doing as soon as I finished getting dried and dressed while Lynette had her volleyball practice.

Shannon was waiting for me outside the varsity locker room. The cheerleaders had their practice at the same time we did, and she told me they were going with us to RMC, tomorrow.

“Wanna go clothes shopping with me?” I asked as we headed for her locker in the front hallway of the school.

“You’re seriously asking a girl if she wants to go clothes shopping with you,” Shannon laughed in response.

“Hey, this will be a quick in and out deal. I know what I want and know exactly where to get it,” I replied.

“Ha! You may know what you want, but that doesn’t mean you’re gonna get it ... at least if I’m going with you,” she seriously said as she gave me a hip-check.

“What? You don’t think I can pick out a good blazer?” I countered with shock in my voice.

“We’ll see, won’t we,” was the response I got as Shannon side-stepped along next to me with a huge grin on her face.

Shannon drove her 280Z over to Sammy’s house and then rode with me to The Hudson Bay store (or The Bay). On the drive to the large department store, I asked if she needed a nice dress to match my new ‘Sunday-Go-to-Meeting’ clothes. She beamed with joy at the thought of getting a pretty new dress to match my new outfit.

At the department store, I told Shannon to go hunt out a dress that would look good with a navy blazer and light blue dress shirt. She asked, “What color tie are you going to wear with it? That’ll make a difference in the dress I get.”

“You pick the dress and we’ll get a tie to go with it, ‘kay?” I replied with a smile. I then added, “Don’t worry about the cost, either.”

Shannon’s eyes got real big at hearing that last statement. She then closed the space between us and wrapped her arm around my neck. Shannon looked up in my eyes and said, “I appreciate you getting me a dress, Mike. However, I’m not going to go all crazy because you can afford the best thing in the store, now.”

“Please pick out the dress you like, but don’t look at the price tag. If you look good in it, then that’s what you should get. Heck, it might even be a bargain basement deal,” I replied and leaned down to give her a kiss.

I had a salesman help me get a good quality dress shirt and blue blazer. I think Shannon would be impressed by the Ralph Lauren shirt and blazer we picked out. The blazer was a simple two gold button jacket, which had three gold buttons on the cuffs. The shirt had very thin navy pinstripes, which matched the blazer. The salesman thought my choices were excellent, and I told him, “One of my girlfriends will be the judge of my selections.”

“One of your girlfriends? You have more than one?” he surprisingly asked.

“Yes, Ms. Shannon is one of my five girlfriends. Are you able to help with women’s dresses?” I replied with a smile.

“Oh, yes. I’m actually subbing in the men’s department, today. I’m a manager in the ladies’ department,” my salesman replied with a smile on his face. He then said to one of his associates, “Winnie, please cover for me in the men’s area?”

“Okay, Dan,” the college aged girl replied.

When we came upon Shannon, Dan gave me a slight elbow and said, “She’s just ONE of your girlfriends. My gawd, I’d be in heaven with just her on my arm.”

“She’s a beautiful girl, isn’t she,” I softly said as we watched her pull a few dresses from the wrack and hold them up in front of her body.

“That she is. Let me go see what dresses she has come up with,” Dan replied as he increased his pace towards the blonde beauty.

I just hung back to see how Shannon interacted with Dan. She showed him the five dresses she had pulled from the displays. Dan took three of them and led Shannon to the dressing room. While Shannon was trying them on, Dan came over to me and said, “Your young lady has a keen eye for fashion. I was impressed with her selections.”

“Hopefully, what I picked out will meet with her approval,” I laughed.

“Oh, I think she will love your Lauren shirt and blazer,” Dan chuckled.

After a few minutes in the dressing room, Shannon simply called out, “Mr. Dan, can you come here, please?”

Both of us walked towards the dressing room with Dan going into the short enclosure. I heard Shannon ask him, “If you can, could you get me a black or navy, 34B or C, strapless bra, please. The dress I like requires one.”

“I will be right back with several options, Ms. Shannon,” Dan quickly replied.

I slowly wandered around the women’s dresses as Dan scurried to the lingerie section and brought back an arm load of strapless bras for Shannon to try on with her dress. When he went into the dressing enclosure, I heard him say, “I have several brassieres for you, Ms. Shannon. Are you decent?”

“You can just set them down on the bench, Dan,” Shannon softly said as I heard the curtain being pulled open.

“Oh, my. I’m so sorry,” I faintly heard from Dan right after the curtain was opened.

“No! No! It was my fault. I didn’t even think about that mirror,” Shannon laughed before I heard the curtain sound once again.

When Dan walked out of the dressing area, he was red-faced and stared at me. He then said, “I didn’t intend to see your girlfriend’s breasts. I’m so sorry about that.”

“It’s okay, Dan. We’re students at Medway,” I softly said with a grin, “and both of us have been in the Naked-in-School program. While Shannon isn’t an exhibitionist by nature, she isn’t going to have a cow over someone seeing her boobs.”

“You two have been in that program, and you survived, huh?” Dan said with a smile. He then froze in his tracks and put his hand over his now opened mouth. With his other hand, he pointed to me and said, “You’re Mike, of Mike and the Time Bandettes? You’re gonna do that naked concert in January, aren’t you?”

“That would be me, Dan, and yes to your concert question.”

“Oh! ... My! God! I just love your songs I’ve heard on the radio,” He exclaimed and had to hold onto a dress wrack for support.

“Thanks, Dan,” I replied with a smile.

Just then, Shannon came out in a navy blue, knee length ruffled skirt, spaghetti strapped dress. She had released her long blonde hair from its prior pony-tail and fluffed it out over her bare shoulders and upper chest.

Both of us just stared at the gorgeousness that walked out of the dressing enclosure. As Shannon walked towards us, I just smiled and shook my head at her as she twirled around, sending her ruffled skirt in a puffy circle about her lean legs.

“Put your blazer on, Mike. I wanna see if this dress matches well with it,” Shannon asked. I quickly did as she requested and put the blazer over my black and silver polo shirt.

“It matches perfectly, Ms. Shannon,” Dan emphatically stated as we stood side by side. “With the pinstriped shirt he’s getting, too ... Wow! You are one beautiful couple.”

“Dan, would you be so kind as to get me a tie that matches Shannon’s dress?” I asked the smiling salesman.

“Silk or...”

“We trust your judgement, Dan,” Shannon quickly interjected as she turned her smiling face towards me. When Dan hustled off to the men’s department, Shannon then said, “I love this dress, but it is a lot more money than I want you to spend, Mike.”

“I told you not to look at the price tags,” I faux scolded Shannon. “Besides, you look stunning in it, so I don’t give a rip about its costs.”

“But, Mike!”

“The only ‘butt’ I wanna be around right now is your tight one,” I replied and playfully gave her ‘tight one’ a light swat. “Go change and bring that dress and that new bra out with you. Do you want to see if they have a matching panty for it?”

“Will you check and see for me?” Shannon said as she ducked back into the dressing area.

“I can’t if I don’t have the bra,” I laughed.

“Come get it, silly,” Shannon laughed as I heard the curtain sound close or maybe open.

When I went in to get her new brassiere, I got a similar eye-full that Dan had obviously received. Shannon’s firm boobs looked magnificent in the dressing room mirror as she reached over her shoulder to hand me that navy strapless item.

I used my Time Bandettes’ credit card to get our purchases as I felt I could write off my new ‘dress clothes’ as a business expense ... at least that was my thinking. Shannon was all bubbly on the drive back to Sammy’s house as she still couldn’t believe I would spend nearly five-hundred dollars on her dress and lingerie. I also had Dan get her a couple of pairs of top of the line navy thigh-highs to complete her outfit.

“Can I bring my dress in to show Sammy and the others, Mike?” Shannon said as I pulled up behind her sports car.

“Yeah. It’s your dress, Shan,” I laughed as I opened the door to my Barracuda.

“Well, I won’t if you think it will start something with the others ‘coz you bought it for me,” Shannon said when I opened her car door.

“The only thing I expect it to start are some ‘Ooohs’ and ‘Aaahs’,” I laughed.

Sammy had already gotten back to her house from her Wushu practice, as well as stopping over at Montcalm to get Eda and Lisa for our band practice. I knew Lynette would still be a good twenty, twenty-five minutes from getting there with her volleyball practice still underway.

“Hey! Shanny!” Lisa shouted from behind the kitchen island.

“Ohhhh! Shannon went shopping at The Bay. What ya get, Girlfriend?” Tempe called out. Sammy must have run by the L-W Gymnastics Club to pick her up after her own Wushu practice.

“Well, hello, Mike. How have you been?” I said to no one in particular. I then answered my own question with, “I’m kinda tired after a hard practice, and then going shopping with Shannon, thanks.”

“Ah, poor little Cuda is feeling neglected. Come here, Sweetums and let Sammy cheer you up,” my redheaded friend replied in her best mothering tone.

“Hi, Mike. Bye, Mike. C’mon, Shannon. Let’s see what you got,” Lisa laughed as she and Tempe quickly pounced on Shannon and pulled her down the hallway towards the back bedrooms with Eda trailing slightly behind.

“Does Sweetums want something to eat?” Sammy laughed as she went to the other side of the kitchen island.

“Yes, please,” I replied in a silly child-like tone.

Just as Sammy was getting some more Ritz crackers from the pantry, Lisa cried out, “This is so not fair!”

“What did you do, Mike?” Sammy asked as she quickly turned around to stare at me.

“I just bought Shannon a cocktail dress to wear. We have to get dressed up for our game, tomorrow, so we...”

“Why haven’t you bought us anything that pretty, Mike?” Tempe fumed as those two girlfriends came storming down the hallway.

“And when have I had the chance to take you shopping?” I said as my petite blonde and busty brunette girls stared at me all puffed up with their hands on their flared hips.

“Exactly! We’re you’re longest running girlfriends and we get nothing from you. That’s just not right. The first chance you get to take Shannon shopping, BAM! She has a Camuto dress,” Lisa exclaimed with her right hand waving on down the hallway.

“You got her a Camuto, Mike? Nice!” Sammy quickly said. I turned and glared at her because she obviously wasn’t helping my situation with that kinda comment.

“I told Shannon to pick out a dress that would go with my new navy blazer. That’s all,” I said, trying to placate my two upset girls. “We have to get dressed up for our road basketball game, so I let her get a dress.”

“And a new bra and panty set,” Tempe huffed.

“And a couple of pairs of Berkshire thigh-highs,” Lisa added for good measure.

“Wow! Damn! Girl!” Sammy honestly said as Shannon walked out into the living room in her new outfit.

“I’ll second that, ‘Damn! Girl!” Eda exclaimed as she stepped out from behind Shannon.

“I’m, I’m sorry for all this, Ma-Mike,” Shannon glumly said with her lips all puffed out like she was about to cry.

Tempe and Lisa turned to look at our crest-fallen girl and immediately rushed to comfort her. “Oh, gawd! I’m, we’re sorry, Shan. We didn’t want you to cry. Please don’t cry,” Lisa pled as she crushed Shannon into her torso.

“Yeah. We were just messing with Mike. Honest,” Tempe added as she pulled Shannon down to give her a kiss on her cheek.

“You look stunning in that dress, Shannon. Please, don’t be mad at us,” Lisa added as she sounded like she was going to tear up.

Sammy snapped her fingers at me and nodded in the girls’ direction. I just smiled at her and mouthed, ‘I’ll let them work this out.‘

“I told Mike I didn’t want him to spend this much money on me,” Shannon sniffled as the four girls, Eda had joined in with them, hugged and wiped each other’s tears from their cheeks.

“Nah-ha. You’re definitely worth every penny, and that dress is to die for, Shannon,” Tempe said.

“You know you can borrow it,” Shannon quickly said as she wiped a tear from her cheek.

“Tempe, Sammy and E might be able to wear it, but there’s no way that dress would contain or cover all this this,” Lisa laughed as she cupped her double-Ds in her hands.

“Yeah, and it would definitely be a mini-dress on Zupena ... maybe even on Cano,” Tempe replied as the girls seemed to be back on solid ground with each other, and hopefully with me.