Chapter 30

That long weekend, Friday evening through Monday Joe and Connie decided to escape LA and visit Joe’s home town. Despite his folks’ objection, mostly his mother’s, they decided to stay at the downtown Minneapolis Marriott. Joe figured he could be naked with his wife there and they could enjoy making love as loudly as they wished and Connie agreed.

Because of the late flight in, Joe picked up a rental at the airport and they drove to the hotel immediately, getting a night’s rest after some gentle lovemaking in order to wake up early on Saturday for Joe to show Connie his former home.

In the morning after a nice breakfast at a diner not far from the hotel they did a walking tour since many of the highlights he wanted to show her were in walking distance. After walking east to show her the historic First Avenue nightclub, they headed west through Loring Park to the Walker sculpture garden and the Walker Art Museum with its modern art. He bought fixings for a picnic at an upscale deli and they headed to Lake of the Isles, one of the most picturesque of any urban lakes. After seeing the lake and the fancy houses that surrounded it, they headed to the Uptown area so he could show her the mundane duplex where he once lived and his favorite local record store before they decided to make use of the Metro bus to bring them back downtown.

Resting in their hotel room became making love which ended up being somewhat of a quickie fuck. His folks expected them for dinner.

“You made it,” his mother, a tall still pretty woman with Scotch Irish heritage who grew up in rural Missouri, one of the oldest of a large brood who ended up having to take care of her younger siblings with the father abandoning them and ended up taking command of things since muttered in her passive aggressive way.

“Pleasure to finally meet you,” said the tall Ashkenazy Jew from Brooklyn with similar aggression.

“Wow,” Joe grumbled. “Shall we go?”

“Your mom made us a nice dinner, Joe. And I hate to think of our child missing out on his or her grandparents. Lord knows the child’s not going to be seeing much of my side of the family.”

“You’re pregnant?” Joe’s mom exclaimed. “You know already?”

“How about you invite us somewhere we can talk?” Connie chuckled.

“You’ll need to remove your shoes,” said the future grandmother, heading across the entrance area to the living room.

“You should feel honored,” Joe smirked. “The VIP room.”

The soft thick beige carpet met Connie’s feet most agreeably. “Oh wow,” she said, “they’re like Buddhist altars.” She approached the pair of three tiered configurations holding various Buddhas from all over Asia. “And a lovely temple bell,” which she rang carefully.

“Joe’s father has always loved to travel, especially Asia, and once my kids grew old enough, I joined him,” Joe’s mother explained. “Neither of us are Buddhists, or anything really, although we do some Jewish ceremonies, mostly just Hannukah and mostly for the kids. But we’ve been invited to Passover saders from time to time. A lot of Bill’s travels were work oriented, studying cross cultural psychiatry.”

“Sounds fascinating,” Connie smiled and Joe could see his father appreciated the praise.

“Would you like something to drink?” Joe’s mom asked. “Nothing alcoholic of course.”

“You can go ahead. Maybe some tea?”

“That sounds nice. Bill?”

“I think a scotch if you really don’t mind.”

“I don’t.”

“I’ll have one too Dad.”

“Sure. On ice?”

“Neat I think with a glass of water.”

His parents strolled off and he and Connie settled close on the couch. “I see what you mean,” Connie whispered.

“We’ve never had a great relationship. My choices seemed to have disappointed my dad, and my mother ... I think she prefers her kids needy like my older brother. Although my younger sister can do no wrong by them maybe because she’s following in my father’s footsteps studying medicine and looking towards psychiatry. And my mother gets to help out with her tuition. I took loans out to get into MCAD although I did manage a grant. Assistance can be hard to get when your folks are upper middle class.”

“Makes sense,” Connie tapped his hand. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” Joe grinned. “And you’re right about the whole grandparents thing. My parents adore Sarah. You know I think my dad’s retiring soon.”

“Meaning they might want to move where the grandkids are.”

“Yep.”

Connie wanted to ask more when her in-laws entered the room bearing drinks. Bill handed his son a couple coasters for his drinks and Joe obediently placed his drinks on them. His mom brought out a nice tea pot with matching tea cups and saucers.”

“Korean,” she explained. “I wasn’t about to pretend to learn Japanese tea service.” Both she and Connie laughed. They poured themselves some tea, neither requiring the milk or sugar also brought. “I could cut some lemon,” she offered.

“Just plain is fine for me.”

“Me too.”

Joe’s folks settled into armchairs across from them.

“I don’t want to say the wrong thing,” Joe’s mom admitted.

“It’s Joe’s, Mrs Solomon.”

“Call me Peggy.”

“Okay Peggy. I don’t know how much you stand on convention. I don’t which is why my family rejected me.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“I suppose I rejected them first. Very religious, fundamentalist, which you said you’re not religious at all.”

“Agnostic I’d say.”

“I think we appreciate the ceremony of many religions more than the strictures,” Bill explained.

“I agree,” said Joe, “along with some of the myths and stories and archetypes.”

“Yes.”

“Nevertheless I might be testing you,” Connie smiled. “To tell you the truth, even if it’s nice to be accepted, ultimately it doesn’t matter does it Joe?”

“Nope.”

“You can tell I’m a bit older than your son.”

“I didn’t want to be rude.”

“On the wrong side of forty, and I know I don’t look it, being short and blonde and cute sort of helps with that, but you can see I’m at the age when being pregnant can be a lot more problematic. Joe stepped into my life and agreed to help with that, and...”

“You had to marry him?”

“Exactly. I don’t want just a baby but a father for the child. I think it’s important for the child’s development and I wasn’t interested in some surrogate or some occasional visitations, but the real thing, and thankfully Joe is very much that. We figured out we’re very similar people, not prone to big emotions, not all that romantic, more practical, you know? That’s not to say I don’t love the big guy, because I do.”

“I love you too,” Joe smiled.

“You might wonder what took me so long, and I’d say a combination of the mother instinct not kicking in until it was getting to be on the edge of too late, and, perhaps the lack of a romantic nature, in all the relationships I’ve had, and I don’t know if you’d classify me as a slut because of the number, it has more to do with all those years of sexual activity and no one struck me as relationship material. I’m definitely no nymphomaniac, though I like sex enough, and most particularly with Joe, which you probably didn’t need to hear,” Connie chuckled. “So basically Joe agreed to get me pregnant and marry me in that order. Once the rabbit died or more precisely the cross appeared, we set the date at the end of the week and had ourselves a very nice civil wedding.

“Now to add to the lack of convention, the age thing and the agreement thing, you know about Joe’s relationship with Lindy.”

“We’ve heard rumors,” Peggy muttered.

“They never met her?” Connie asked Joe, both of them on the edge of laughter at the passive aggressiveness.

“It wasn’t any of their business,” Joe shrugged.

“We thought Carol was nice,” Peggy said to Bill.

“You might have thought so, but I think Dad would disagree.”

“I never said anything.”

“You didn’t have to. Carol was a lovely girl, but a bit big boned,” Joe explained to Connie, “Wouldn’t you say Dad?”

“You could have done better,” Peggy admitted.

“And now you meet the wife nearly fifteen years older than your son,” Connie shook her head. “What do you think they’d think of Lindy?”

“Plain,” Joe simply said.

“Probably. Maybe if they saw her in a swim suit.” Both she and Joe laughed. “Speaking of Lindy, and by the way she’s got one the best bodies I’ve ever known, and you probably don’t want to know how well I know it.”

“Probably not,” Joe agreed.

“They’ve been together for over a year now,” Connie continued, “and I have to admit their love for each other is deeper than our love, which is fine, because she’s still part of his life and mine as well. In a way I stole him from her, in fact I even put some effort into stealing him from her revealing my bitch nature to Joe, which he’d actually witnessed before and still somehow accepts me.”

“We all have our weaknesses,” Joe nodded.

“So true,” Connie sighed. “Although your son’s is less clear.”

“Giving into temptation,” Joe offered.

“You mean Kate?”

“Yes, but everyone including you since we moved to LA.”

“I guess I could see you thinking that, or maybe it’s just my acceptance of you, but it was part of the deal, and I’m certainly not surprised how much women like you, Joe. You’re a mensch and like I said a great lover. And besides Lindy, and since I’m the usurper in that relationship, it sort of doesn’t count, you always manage to come home to me.”

“True,” Joe agreed.

“I’m sure you’re tempted to spend the night with Kate.”

“Also true,” Joe admitted.

“And yet you haven’t. You see, mom and dad,” Connie smirked, “I tend to share the women in Joe’s life, some enjoy their bisexuality more than others. But Kate is an outlier.”

“She’s definitely rigidly heterosexual,” Joe agreed.

“So it sounds like LA is a hot bed of perversity,” Peggy stated.

“My parents would definitely agree with that assessment,” Connie muttered. “But like I said, it really doesn’t matter what you think. So tell me about this cross cultural psychiatry, Bill.”

They managed to stay civil through dinner, a very nice pot roast, Connie revealing her remarkable charm. Once the confrontation she deemed needed to be sorted, she found his folks, her in-laws, intelligent and likeable and she charmed them to feel the same about her.

At the end of dinner, with Connie helping bring the plates into the kitchen from the dining room, helping Peggy wash them as well, the dining room adjacent to the living room also more a VIP space, the family usually ate at the kitchen table, Bill asked Joe, “I was thinking we could go see a play tonight.”

“Where?”

“The Guthrie?”

“What are they doing?”

“Some new play called Featherweight. It’s gotten very good reviews.”

“But probably not as popular as the usual classics.”

“I got tickets nevertheless.”

“Sure.”

Joe and Connie had dressed up somewhat nice to visit the parents, so were presentable to attend the play. The play ended up being a dark contemporary comedy about revenge served cold and had been done with the usual skill in every aspect by the highly respected repertory company. Though no classic like the usual plays done there, plays or adapted stories like the annual chestnut profit leader A Christmas Carol a hundred or more years old, it would most likely be forgotten in a hundred years, it was very funny and everyone enjoyed it.

“Thanks,” Joe told his dad after, walking ahead of the women along the Mississippi River. “I wanted to show Connie the best of my hometown, and you certainly helped.”

“I figured as much. By the way your mom and I like Connie, she may not be a spring chicken, but she’s no shy kitten either. And to be completely honest, I envy your life in sin city.”

Joe laughed. “Spoken like a true man. You’re not worried she’s another Lily?”

“Too charming and not nearly as angry. So you’re doing well?”

“I have been for a while, but yes, things have definitely improved recently.”

“I guess I was wrong wanting you to put away your childish games.”

“Literally, games and comics too have brought me unexpected success, but it’s your heritage isn’t it? A good Jewish son becomes a doctor or a lawyer.”

“We really wanted what was best for you, and being a writer and an artist rarely pans out as a career. Having a fallback plan seemed the wiser choice which, with wisdom coming with age, we thought you were too young and naïve to see.”

“But I did have a plan. I would have finished my schooling if we hadn’t sold the game.”

“At MCAD.”

“Where they have placement, and my training there as a graphic artist and my degree would have gotten me work, probably in advertising. Thankfully I didn’t have to go there, and anything else I would have done as what you call a backup plan would inevitably take me from what I love to do. How many great artists or writers had to give up their art so as not to be starving artists? How much culture has been lost because of necessity in a society that has long given up on patronage where the successful ones are the ones who know how to write a great grant or something? I guess I’ve been fortunate to choose to pursue commercial art to which I seem to have a knack, and perhaps had some luck, though I believe it had more to do with talent and hard work and a bit of scheming.”

“Scheming?”

“You have to figure out the right people to present yourself, and then make sure you take as much advantage as you can with every opportunity you create. We sold games to a gaming company, but I made sure we kept getting better contracts. I wrote a script for who I knew was a talented director itching for an opportunity to finally show his talent on the big stage of Hollywood, and encouraged him to shoot sample scenes, demonstrating both his talent to make the best of a miniscule budget while also showing my script to be doable, and delegating on top of that, having my girlfriend campaign to get a production company behind it. Each step higher I try to make both vertical and horizontal, broadening each success with suggestions to make it more successful which helps generate a higher step and so forth.”

“So you’re an idea man.”

“I wear as many hats as is necessary. For instance the animated movie I’m working on I’m producing, directing, writing, and acting in. I also drew the characters and the background. There’s delegation in all these hats I wear except probably the writing part, but I’m also open to suggestions for that as well.”

“Sounds like a lot of work.”

“It is, but I very much enjoy it, and there’s other hats I wear and will be wearing, including drawing new comics, working on the next game once this first animation film is over, and there’s more delegation for the next one, and producing a band.”