Chapter 3

“Dude, where is she?” asked Jerry, when they got close enough.

“Don’t you guys have a life?” I harped. They didn’t seem drunk tonight.

“Yeah, but it’s not as interesting as yours,” said Don. He grinned.

“We just wanted to see her,” said Phil. “You get to see her whenever you want, right? So share the wealth, man.”

“I see her on Friday nights,” I caged. “It’s not like I hang out with her.”

“Well, we’re going over to Kelsey’s,” said Don. “We figured if you were finished here, you might want to go.”

Kelsey’s was a bar that a retired fireman had bought, and which sort of catered to the fire science crowd. They had pictures of fire scenes on the walls, and men fighting fires, and old fire engines, stuff like that. There were helmets and axes on display, and one wall that listed the names and dates when firemen were lost in our state. Lots of other people went there, but we considered it to be “our” bar.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Bring her along,” said Phil. “Nobody believes us when we tell them how hot she is.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “That’s not her scene.”

“He knows what her scene is,” sighed Don.

The doors opened and we all turned to look.

Mrs. Gaskill was with my mother.

“No way,” said Jerry. “There’s two of them!”

“Oh look,” said Mrs. Gaskill in a high voice. “We have an escort!“

The four of us just stared at her.

“Well,” she said, her voice normal again. “Aren’t you going to make introductions, Bob?”

“Wait,” said Jerry. “You mean she knows you too?” He stared at me as if I’d grown a third eye.

“Mr. Jenkins is one of my most promising students,” said Mrs. Gaskill.

“Man,” sighed Don. “I have to take art next year.”

“Introductions?” prodded Maureen Gaskill.

I stammered out names. She fixed her eyes on Phil.

“Phil...” she said, her voice lingering.

“Yes ma’am?” he replied, suddenly on his best behavior.

“You’re the one with the enormous penis ... right?” She smiled gaily.

You know how they say if you want a bully to leave you alone, stand up to him? Well, if you want a braggart to find a little humility, have a truly gorgeous woman ask him about the size of his manhood.

“Maureen,” came my mother’s warning voice.

“I’m just teasing,” said the gallery owner. She looked at each of the three stooges. “Your friend told us all about you.”

“What the fuck?” came Phil’s not so happy voice.

“Bobby says you brag about it all the time. Is that true? Or is he lying?”

Phil turned on me with anger on his face.

“Well you do,” I said.

“You’re not supposed to tell them that!” he growled.

“You would, if you were drunk,” I argued.

“Well I’m not drunk,” he said. “But I will be in about an hour. Thanks for nothing, Jenkins.”

“So you’re going to go have a drink?” Maureen’s voice was still innocent and light.

The three stooges, like most men who are overwhelmed by a devastatingly beautiful woman, didn’t believe they really had a chance with her. Good looking women are great for a fantasy, but most men are too intimidated by them to actually try something with her. Especially when someone has torpedoed you by telling the woman you like to brag about how big your dick is. In this case all three of them thought Maureen was making fun of them. They turned to leave, as one.

“Gee, I guess we’ll just have to go find our own drink,” said Maureen, sadly.

“Maureen, stop it,” said my mother.

“Stop what? A drink sounds good right now. And you must be tense from posing for so long. Bob, do you have any idea where Jennifer and I could find a nice, quiet place to get a drink?”

The three stooges turned around, again as one, and stared at us.

“Don’t drag me into this,” I said, holding up both hands.

It sounds like I was all cool and collected, but I wasn’t. What I was, was curious. I didn’t know Maureen Gaskill, other than the couple of times I’d seen her. But I sensed she wasn’t some ditzy, empty-headed brunette. She was a smart, sophisticated woman, and the way she was acting made it clear, to me at least, that she was playing at some game. I didn’t think she was vindictive, or mean. She wasn’t trying to “put my friends in their places.” So that meant she might actually want to go out for a drink ... right? I remembered my mother saying her friend was looking for a boy toy.

So I thought about how my reply could make her state her real intentions. I thought too long, though.

“I don’t need a drink,” came my mother’s voice. I recognized tension in it.

“A drink will do you good,” said Maureen.

“I know a place,” ventured Phil. He sounded on edge. “But it’s not quiet.”

“Is there dancing?” asked Maureen.

“There’s music,” said Phil. “Country music.”

“I know how to two-step,” suggested the woman.

I don’t know about the size of his dick, but Phil had some balls. He walked up to within ten inches of Maureen Gaskill and just looked at her.

“Are you playing with us?” he asked.

She smiled, not at all uncomfortable at his closeness.

“Trust me, tiger. When I’m playing with you, you’ll know.”

To say that our night at Kelsey’s was epic would not be too far from the truth. It certainly went down in the annals of the place.

It started, of course, with the three stooges (and me) bringing two certified hotties into the place. To the non-regulars, the reaction to that must have been puzzling. Four guys and two women walking into a bar doesn’t usually result in hooting and hollering and a rush of bodies whose intent is to find out as much about the two hotties as possible. Even some of the girls drifted over to see what the deal was. We have half a dozen women in the program, but after the initial stages, when romance might be investigated, they usually settle into a sisterly kind of relationship with all the guys. And the guys protect them as a brother might, too.

I heard Maureen introduce herself, to include that she owned the ‘G’ gallery. Then she put her hand on my mother’s elbow and I cringed. I was about to be unmasked.

“And this is my friend, Jennifer Hart,” she said. “Jennifer is in real estate.”

Hart? Where had that come from? I saw my mom dart a look at me, and then she was smiling and shaking hands, being herded off to the bar. It was clear neither she nor Maureen would be buying any drinks that night.

The other change they wrought was the dance floor. Kelsey’s had a parquet dance floor, but it was from an earlier incarnation of the bar. It was covered with tables now, and nobody ever danced on it. This was not acceptable to Maureen, however, who intended to demonstrate that she did, in fact, know how to two-step. There was minor chaos as tables and chairs were moved, some ending up being stacked on top of each other. Mickey, the owner, objected at first, but he was overwhelmed. About half of our class (most of whom were there) came from rural parts of the state, and they had two-stepped a-plenty before they went to college. The urge to do it again was irresistible. Within twenty minutes Maureen and four of my classmates were holding an impromptu class in line dancing. Mickey was resigned to the temporary furor and came up with a CD of country music to dance to. He was selling a lot of drinks, so I guess he decided there was a silver lining to this particular chaotic cloud.

My mother had been surrounded, mostly by young men, since she came into the place. She was smiling a lot, but I could tell she was uncomfortable. She’d gotten knocked up at fifteen, was home-schooled until she went to real estate school, and hadn’t dated at all. She wasn’t used to the crush, and the odors, and the noise. She didn’t know what to do, or how to act. She’d been dragged there by a friend who thought it would be good for her. At least that’s what I thought.

So to give her a break, I threaded through the crowd and hooked my arm through hers.

“What are you doing, Jenkins?” asked one of my classmates named Todd. “I was talking to her.”

“She’s my old babysitter,” I said. “I just need to talk to her for a minute.”

“This is her?” asked Todd, his eyes wide. He’d heard all about “my old babysitter” from the three stooges, but hadn’t put two and two together. “Shit, man!” he rasped.

I had to put my arm around her as I led her away. It felt odd, yet normal at the same time, for my hand to be on her waist. I took her toward the patio, which Mickey called “The beer garden.” It was chilly outside, but a lot more quiet. She backed up to a trellis and leaned against it.

“I shouldn’t be here,” she moaned.

“You’re doing fine,” I said.

“I don’t know what to do.”

“Just be yourself.”

“How can I do that? Maureen re-invented me as Jennifer Hart! I’m living a secret identity!”

“What’s that about, anyway?” I asked.

“I told her who you are,” she said.

“What?”

“I had to,” she said, reaching to touch my elbow. “When I took that job, I had to sign a form that said I wouldn’t flirt or exchange personal information with students. It could cause her problems. So I had to explain and see if it was all right.”

“So she changed your last name?”

“She said you show so much promise that we can’t let this derail you.”

“Mom, you basically told her I come there to see you naked!” I hissed.

“I worried about that, but she put me at ease.”

“And how did she put you at ease?” I asked.

“She says lots of artists have painted their mothers nude. She made it sound like it’s no big deal.”

“But she gave you a secret identity.”

“She didn’t want to cause you problems,” she explained.

“Well, I guess I owe her for that,” I admitted. “Are you at least having fun?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Sort of, I guess. But I don’t know how to act.”

“Like I said, just be yourself.”

Erica, another of my classmates, came outside with a beer. She gripped the front of her shirt and fanned it back and forth.

“Dancing is hard!” she said. She saw who else was out there and came over to us.

“So you’re the woman he gets to see naked,” she said, boldly.

“I suppose I am,” said Mom.

“You must be very brave. I could never do that ... stand there naked in front of a bunch of strangers.”

“It’s actually a little boring,” said Mom.

“Not for him, I bet,” grinned Erica. “And you were really his babysitter?”

“I bet I changed his diaper hundreds of times,” said my mom without a pause.

Erica gave us a calculating look.

“Some people say there’s something going on between you two.”

“They do?” asked Mom.

“It’s none of my business,” said Erica. “But he’s a good guy. Of course, if you are involved with him, you already know that.”

“I do,” said my mother. I think it was just an automatic response, but Erica’s eyebrows went up.

“You dog,” she said, looking at me. “I’m going to dance some more. See you later.”

This is how a rumor, spread by the three stooges, can gain traction, and new “evidence” of a relationship be discovered. Erica was just as much of a rumor monger as the rest of us. All she had to do was whisper, “He really is doing her!” to three or four people, and by the time the night was over, everybody was convinced I fucked my mother ... I mean Jennifer Hart.

Maureen Gaskill knew how to have fun. I’ll give her that. And she knew how to share that fun. The line dancing soon involved more people than the dance floor would hold, but that was okay. The people who weren’t dancing drank, and that made Mickey happy. My mother got dragged onto the floor and taught - despite her pleas that she wasn’t a dancer - how to do the steps. An hour later, she looked like a natural. I got taught, too. When we weren’t dancing, we tended to stand or sit together. It wasn’t to show we were a “couple”. It was just natural, I think. But it reinforced the idea that we were a couple.

Phil forgave me, because Maureen Gaskill teased him all night long, and then left the bar with him. They were both weaving. I went outside and snagged her keys, telling them I’d call a cab. I didn’t have to. One turned and came up the street and I flagged it down. Word had gotten around that fares could be had that night at Kelsey’s. I was somewhat astonished to see, as the cab pulled away, that Phil had a lip-lock on the best looking woman he’d ever gone out with.

Note of interest. When I later asked him how his night went, Phil was uncharacteristically circumspect about it. I knew he didn’t get shot down. He wasn’t acting like that. I suspect she told him if he wanted another shot at her, she’d better not hear any lurid details of how he spent the night. All I got out of him was that he did spend the night. I had other information, but we’ll get to that later.