Nineteen

SUNDAY AFTERNOON, I was getting a little anxious. After a weeklong, 3,000-mile roundtrip to Boston, I was bringing my girlfriends—my family—home to my parents’ house in Nebraska. I pointed out sights to them as we entered Nebraska. From the time we turned west on U.S. 30, I was like a three-year-old at the steering wheel, even pointing at the horses and cows in the field.

“There’s where I went to high school,” I said. “Man, it’s changed already. Big renovation this year.”

“Aw, that’s sweet. I didn’t show you my high school back in Lexington,” Melody said.

“We were in a hurry to get you out of town!” Lissa said. “But we’ll go back and you can show us around like tourists. Maybe at Christmas.”

“Oh look,” I said. I’d driven around the streets of Fremont acting like I was just cruising for the benefit of my girlfriends. My real goal was in sight now. “There’s the YMCA. You’ll love it there. It’s where I learned to play racquetball. Three courts.”

Lissa and Melody dutifully looked out the window and I plunged ahead.

“I know ... Let’s get a game in tomorrow morning, Lissa. I bet half the town would show up to see us play.”

“Don’t embarrass your girlfriend,” Lissa scowled. Uh-oh.

“I’m sorry. Really. I couldn’t stop him,” I whined. Yeah, Melody doesn’t have a corner on the whining market. I’m pretty good at it.

“Stop who? What?” Melody asked.

“Tony?”

“Dad,” I said. “He’s so excited to have you here to visit he arranged to have a court for us tomorrow morning for a kind of local exhibition.”

I pulled into the Y parking lot and got out of the car, motioning the girls to join me as I approached the front doors. The Y closed early on Sunday afternoon, so they were locked up. Plastered against the glass of the door, though was a big poster that Dad had made up at Kinko’s. The pictures were what he’d managed to download from the Internet.

“U.S. Women’s Open Champion Lissa ‘The Ice Queen’ Grant vs. National Intercollegiate bronze medalist Tony ‘Tornado Alley’ Ames in an Independence Day Exhibition Match...” Lissa read from the poster. “Oh, Tony.”

“Really, I couldn’t,” I complained.

“You are so going to get spanked,” Lissa threatened.

“Hey! What do I have to do to get spanked?” Melody asked. We both looked at her and broke out laughing.

“Just get naked,” I suggested before I thought about what I was saying.

Melody pulled her t-shirt over her head and went for her bra.

“Okay.”

“No, no, no, no!” I said, “Sweetie, this is Nebraska!”

I rushed her to the car and got her inside as Lissa followed laughing at us.

“What would Saul and Deborah think?” she asked as she climbed in the front seat.

“Oh yeah,” Melody sighed. “They’d want to watch, wouldn’t they?”

“You, girl, might look and sound innocent, but you are just plain born evil,” I laughed as we pulled away from the Y. I was relieved to see her smirk at me and pull her t-shirt back on. Rule one: No sex play when the car is running. It was only about ten minutes before we were out of town and I’d turned on the county road where we lived.

“It’s so beautiful out here,” Lissa said. “So peaceful.”

“What’s that?” Melody asked, pointing out the front window toward the west. The sun was in my eyes, so I wasn’t too sure what she was pointing at.

“Well,” I ventured, “I’m not sure if we’re looking due west or slightly southwest. I think it’s Wyoming, but it might be Colorado.”

They were only three or four hundred miles away, and it was pretty much flat from here to there. That got me a well-deserved smack in the shoulder from two directions, but I didn’t care because I was turning into our driveway.

“Tony, it’s beautiful!” Melody exclaimed when she saw that we were at my folks’ house.

“The pictures don’t do it justice,” Lissa added.

“What can I say? They’re only photographs.”

“You should paint it.”

“Maybe I will one day.”

Before we got out of the car the screen door banged on the porch and Mom and Dad were rushing to meet us. They had us wrapped up in so many hugs and kisses that we were never sure who was welcoming whom. Now that I had my family with me, it was sure good to be back.

Dad, of course, had already reached the car to try to grab suitcases or backpacks. I saw him just standing by the open door and went to join him. I pulled out Lissa’s and my backpacks and Melody’s small suitcase. Dad was still looking inside the car.

“I should have bought you a bigger car,” he said.

“Everything fits, Dad,” I answered.

“Yes, but what about your things?” Oh man! The car was packed as full as we could get it with Melody’s things and nothing of mine was in it except the camping equipment. “I think we’ll go down to U-Haul on Tuesday and see if we can get a small trailer,” Dad continued. “You’ll have to be careful because it won’t drive the same when you’re towing. Not as good gas mileage either, but ... You are moving back to Seattle, aren’t you?”

“Yes. Of course, Dad. Why would you even ask?”

“Well, you just got a fat envelope from Lincoln yesterday and it looks a lot like your acceptance packet did last year.”

So much had changed since I applied to transfer to the University of Nebraska over the winter break, I couldn’t even imagine going there now. I had a life in Seattle. Six months ago—just six months—I didn’t. I looked at the two women who were my life as they continued to hug and chat with Mom.

“I hope you weren’t planning on me moving back,” I said to Dad. He joined me as we moved luggage toward the house.

“I’d have you committed if you did, son.”

We went into the house through the kitchen and the girls oohed and aahed over the smells coming from the stove. Mom assured them that some of what they smelled—like the four big pies that were cooling on the counter—was for the barbecue tomorrow.

“Tony, take the girls’ bags right on up to the guest room,” Mom said.

“Mom...”

“Tony,” she said. That look ... I swear it’s stopped trains. I took the bags up to the guest room with Dad trailing behind me.

“Uh ... that one’s mine,” I said to Dad as he set my backpack down in the guest room.

“Mmmhmm.”

“But...” I looked at the queen-sized bed in the guest room and thought about the twin in my room, comprehension beginning to dawn. “Oh.”

I was back down in the kitchen when I heard the sound of tires on the gravel outside sliding to a stop. I looked out the door at the plume of dust that was still settling behind the red pickup. Mom was out the door before me, though, and was waving a wooden spoon in her hand scolding our visitor. The girls followed me out the door.