Chapter 202

May 12, 2018 (Saturday)

Dear Ms. Diary,

“This feels almost like withdrawal ... not that I know what that feels like.”

I turned my head to look at Heather who had whispered those words almost in my ear.

After I glanced at the time – 6:52, I shrugged and whispered, “Yes. We’d soon be on our way to pick up those at the Jacobs house. I do appreciate the extra half-hour of sleep, though.”

“Agreed, but I’m going to miss the fun at Armoire.”

“As am I. But this afternoon will be fun.”

After breakfast, we donned wider tubes and gym shorts, broke out soccer balls, grabbed a tape measure and some markers, went out into the yard, and stared at the goal we had drawn on the fence.

“I think squares of one foot seem reasonable, as that’s about the diameter of a ball, and it’ll be easy. Also, the goal is 24x8, so we don’t have to worry about partial squares.”

Everyone agreed with Liya, so we began drawing the grid on the craft paper, having only just begun when Heather said, “You know we’re going to have to replace this, and probably frequently.”

Civia responded, “I think I see what Heather means. Before we do a lot of work on this, we should probably shoot ten or 20 shots ... and hard ones ... to see the effects they have on the paper.”

I responded, “Why don’t you grab two or three of the hardest shooters and each of you take four or five rockets?”

She stated, “Meka, Rhee, and Char, and we might as well do some aiming practice as long as we’re doing this. Let’s say, each of us takes four shots, one in each corner. Meka you start with upper left and we’ll work clockwise for five shots each from there through Rhee and Char to me.”

I grinned at Civia and her take-charge attitude as Meka was setting up, then I stepped to Civia and gave her a one-armed hug pulling her into my side. Her response was interrupted by Meka’s shot slamming into the extension above the fence in the top-left corner of the goal. Unsurprisingly to some of us, the paper tore.

Civia called out, “Hold up. We’ve already got our answer. Do we have other options?”

“Shucks,” Gracey complained. “I knew rain would be a problem, but I didn’t think about this. We’ll need a solid surface, and I’m not sure what that should be. We need a materials expert. Who would that be?”

Maren replied, “The closest I can think of is Jeff, who’s sort of an engineer.”

“Yes, but that’s electrical, not structural.”

“I know, Civ, but no one else is anything like close. Besides, it would be a good excuse to invite your parents and mine to have lunch with us here, although we’d have to scoot them out the door before we begin the process of taking the final portrait photos.”

Civia nudged me, so I looked at her face which looked hopeful.

I responded, “Does Maren call you, Civ, frequently?”

“She’s started that just recently. I think I like it, so, yes, everyone in the LA can use it if you want.”

To the group, I stated, “Let’s see if ... Charlie has any ideas since he’s here.”

I walked in the back door of the W and, since I could hear a conversation in the living room, headed that way. Mom and Nira were sitting in the west couch, nude, and they showed surprise when they saw me.

“Hi, favorite daughter of my womb.”

I rolled my eyes at Mom, then said, “I need to borrow Dad for a minute to see if he has any ideas that could help us solve a minor soccer problem. If that doesn’t work, we were going to invite Jeff and Kalina for lunch, although we’d have to kick them out ... along with you guys ... so they don’t see us set up the official portrait photo.”

Nira beat Mom to respond, “We’d love to have Jeff and Kalina over for lunch, and we could probably entice them ... What about Emma? She’s probably there.”

“That would be fine, but we’re mostly interested in getting Jeff here wearing his engineer hat. We have a materials question, but we do understand that that’s not an electrical engineer sort of thing, but he’s the closest we’ve got.”

Mom jumped in, “I like that you consider him part of ‘we.’ I understand that he’s a parent of one of the LA members, but it’s still nice to hear.”

Right then, Inez walked in, saying, “Good morning, Beth. What are you girls doing out there?”

“We’ve run into a snag with our shooting-practice plan, and we’re hoping Dad has an idea for a solution.”

“He’s in the bedroom. You can go on in.”

Since Inez was also naked, I was prepared for Dad being in that state when I looked in and said, ‘Hey, Dad.”

“G’mornin’, Cupcake. What do you need?”

“How do you know I need something? Maybe I came in just to say ‘hi’ to my parents.”

“That’s nice. Hi. Don’t let the door hit your cute butt on the way out.”

“Da-adddddd,” I whined, then took three quick strides and slammed into him, wrapping my arms around him and plastering my mouth to his.

He responded by kissing me back and putting both hands on my butt and squeezing.

I leaned back and asked, “Did I give you permission to do that?”

“Yup, last summer or so.”

“I love it, Dad, but we hope you might have an idea to solve a problem with our soccer goal. Could you put at least a trunk on so we can explain it to you out there?”

He donned a short and a T and walked out with me.

“Hi, girls.”

The girls had obviously set something up, as on Kim’s cue, they all called out a sing-song, “Hi, Da-add.”

Dad smiled, but responded, “You’re all getting too big to put over my knee, except for Heather, Liya, and Cera. Are you sure that you want the punishment for all of you to fall on their three butts?”

Rhee spritely answered, “Okay. But can we get some drinks and pull some chairs up to watch?”

I noticed Maren just staring at Dad, but before I could ask her, she said, “Charlie, why couldn’t you have been my dad? You’re so much nicer and more fun than either of Mom’s husbands.”

“Mainly because I’d already met Sandy and I was living in the East. But I’d be very happy to be your pretend dad if you want.”

She gazed at him for a bit, then asked, “May I hug you?”

“You never have to ask. If you’re ever in need of a hug and I’m nearby, feel free to step up and hug me.”

For the second time in a few minutes, Dad had a teenaged girl slam her body into him and wrap her arms around him. She did not kiss him, though.

After Maren extricated herself from Dad’s arms, Liya said, “Dad, our plan with the paper doesn’t work, as it tears too readily. If we’re going to do our planned shooting practice, we need something better that we could attach at least semi-permanently to the inside of the fence. Wood would probably work, but do you have any thoughts on other materials we could use?”

“No, but Jeff said in passing during a discussion that he has to take a general engineering course that covers at least the basics of the various disciplines.”

“I’ll call,” and Civia proceeded to call her dad, briefly explained our problem, and then invited the three of them to join us for the morning and lunch.

“And you then have to vacate the premises so you don’t see us set up for the portrait.” She listened, then, talking to Charlie, asked, “Dad, Dad asked ... Ooh, that’s funny. Dad asked if you four would like to do something with them this afternoon and evening.”

“May I talk to him?”

They talked for a bit, came to an agreement, and after Dad handed Civia’s phone back to her, said, “They’ll be over in 45 minutes or so.”

Civia stepped into his space, wrapped him up, looked up at him, and said, “I absolutely love that I have two such wonderful dads.”

After Civia stepped back, Maren mimicked Civia, including wrapping him in her arms and said, “I know you and I don’t have as much history as Civ and you have, but I still greatly appreciate that I seem to be balancing out the negatives that were my two previous fathers with Jeff and you. Thanks for everything you do for ... us. Sometimes, it’s so hard to believe how much better my life has become after Beth invited us to dinner that first time. Thanks, Charlie.”

Dad squeezed her a little more tightly and responded, “Thanks to you for being yet another wonderful addition to our extended family. Sandy and I are so much happier than we were this time last year, and we were pretty happy then. While some of that change has been due to ... our marriage expanding, a lot of it is due to this incredible group of girls that’s calling our compound home, even if not each of them is a permanent resident here.”

“What’s the problem,” Jeff asked, book in hand.

When Civia explained, he replied, “Wood would work and would be the cheapest of the reasonable options.” He looked at Charlie and added, “Particle board would not work, plywood would be okay, but, if you don’t care too much about the expense, I suggest two things. You could get a few sheets of plywood and ... What’s the dimension? 24x8?” When he received confirmation, he added, “That’s exactly six sheets of 4x8 plywood. However, if you’re thinking of attaching something like that directly to the fence, I suggest a springy, buffering layer between it and the fence to reduce the impact on the fence. I’ve seen Rhee’s and Meka’s rockets.” After we chuckled, he finished, “Even more, if the expense wouldn’t matter too much, I suggest digging it into the ground and mounting it independently of the fence, that is, with no direct connection to it, but keeping the insulating layer, which could be Styrofoam or something like that.”

Everyone digested Jeff’s words for a bit but were interrupted in that effort by his big smile, saying, “I thought you were going to make me delve into the materials text, but I worked construction when I was in high school and worked on more than a few privacy fences like this.”

Dad looked into the sky for a few seconds, then responded, “I can see if our builder has a couple of people that need a little job. I assume that if this is going to be semi-permanent, we would need to do something to waterproof the plywood.”

Discussion continued for a bit, long enough for the six Moms to join us.

I watched as Maren slid innocuously into Emma’s side and whispered, “This is where we ... you and I ... belong. It’s ... so wonderful having all these ... I don’t even think of any of them just as friends anymore but as family. We belong here, Mom.”

“We do, Honey. We do.”

“We’ll need to get this done quickly, but well,” Brit said nearly immediately after the various parents went out and about to leave the compound to us. “Lana and I have discussed this and we’ve drafted Cera to help paint. I’m going to paint all the fancy stuff, Lana’s going to outline the simple stuff, and Cera’s going to do much of the filling in, although all three of us will probably do some of the last. Remember, we need to do four coats of everything, and that’s going to make the two lacy bras and Celeste’s lacy decolletage time-consuming.

“Civia and Maren, we’re probably going to have to be even more casual about ... bare butts than we were last week. This is your last chance to object, as we’re a bit time-limited for painting.”

Maren responded for both, “Brett and we have an agreement about butts, and neither of us would be upset if he accidentally saw other parts of us. Let’s not worry overly much about that and get going.”

“Thanks, girls. Brett, I’ll paint your brief somewhere in the middle of all this, as it will take longer to dry than the body paint.”

“You’re the boss, Brit. Just tell me where you need me and when. Also, I thought I’d get a bunch of prep done for dinner since there’s nothing for me to do out here other than trying not to see parts of Civia and Maren that I shouldn’t see.” He turned to them and added, “If you want, feel free to be naked out here. I’ll send a text to everyone before I come back out here. Brit or someone, please text me when you want to paint me.”

The two younger girls slammed into Brett, one on each side, and squeezed him tightly. He smiled softly, put an arm around each of them, and pulled them more tightly into his sides.

“I didn’t realize even a month ago how good of a fit you are with us. I wish we didn’t have to treat you differently, because, essentially, you’re not much different than the other ... female girls.”