Chapter 45

Wednesday, Nov 25, 2020

Thanksgiving was rapidly approaching, just one more day. We were all looking forward to it, our very first ever on-the-farm Thanksgiving. Fourteen people, that’s how many of us were going to be there: Dani and me, both our sets of parents, Jenny, Jodi, Jon and Tammy, Alan and April, and Janet and her husband, Jason, quite a crowd.

Jon and Jodi hadn’t even known the farm existed, we took them out the weekend after giving the key to Dani’s parents. Talk about surprised! The look on their faces that first time was priceless. Maybe not quite as much so as that October day when we took parents out and given them the key, but damned surprised, nonetheless. They were quite impressed, and I thought about future grandkids, how much they’d enjoy their great-grandparents’ farm. Who knows, someday, either Jon or Jodi might even end up living there. We hadn’t even thought about after Dani’s parents were gone, that seemed far, far away (at least we hoped).

We’d found a store in Seattle that specialized in old-style, rustic furniture, mostly log and leather, all free shipping. It was expensive, but we told Mom and Dad that it was all part of the gift, that with Dani’s four-percent royalties on the movie, we’d certainly be able to afford it. Amanda, Dani’s agent, had assured us that within a month of the movie’s opening, we’d have more income than we’d ever imagined. The furnishings turned out beautifully, like the house had never been before.

Besides, we still had over a hundred-thousand dollars extra in our checking account from Dani’s initial salary (not even accounting for how well the stores were doing), even after buying the farm and the remodel. Gotta spend it somewhere, we reasoned. I was starting to understand how someone who suddenly had a huge windfall, like a lottery, suddenly found themselves broke and bereft. Thankfully, though, it sounded like Dani’s windfall would be ongoing, at least for a while.

I reasoned that once Dani’s royalties started coming, we’d contact Mark in Seattle, the financial guy we’d met in Reno (the guy who’d made that original phone call to Amanda, Dani’s agent), and talk to him about investing for us. And maybe...? Nah, I was getting just a little too perverted. I did wonder, though, if he’d found a woman since then. When we met him, he was still despondent about losing his wife ... and stuck on Dani.

The other part of the housing arrangement was that Jon and Tammy moved out of their little apartment and into their grandparents’ house, win-win all the way around. Jodi would have a nice nest egg, too, once she finished her schooling and became a working woman, one more year.

Dani and I did discuss that premiere night, the spanking part of it. We learned some things about each of us; namely that we’d liked it, both of us ... a lot. “Yes, it hurt and was a shock that you did it, but the orgasm after was...” and she rolled her eyes, “just mind-boggling,” she said.

I had no clue when or if such an opportunity might arise again. Just have to make it happen, I figured, wondering, ‘what else’. “Yeah, was, wasn’t it,” I agreed.

I helped Jess (Dani’s mother – Jessica) with her turkey. It was twenty-three pounds, thirteen ounces, put in a five-gallon pail of iced brine. It’ll soak until probably around eight in the morning, then into the pellet grill. Sarah (my mom) had three pies baked plus another chocolate pudding pie, hopefully enough for fourteen.

Alan and April, I was still in a bit of shock at that, not that I should have been. She wasn’t the significant figure as in my dreams, but her real-life involvement in our lives was beginning to materialize, nonetheless.

Thursday morning, Jake (Dani’s dad) put the turkey in the pellet grill, set it at 275 degrees, and left it to cook, anticipating six hours. Sarah and Jess set to work making all sorts of goodies.

Dani and I helped tidying up, and at eleven left for Pasco to pick up our guests, about a fifty-minute drive. First, we went by Jenny and Richard’s to pick up Jenny. Richard had traded with another doctor for Thursday’s on-call, so he’d have Friday night and the weekend free for the movie and whatever our wives had planned afterward. The only problem with the plan was that Richard would be alone Thanksgiving Day and the next day until evening, not that he hadn’t done it before, one of the minor annoyances of being a pediatrician in a small community.

Jenny had been hinting that the ‘after’ might be a little risqué, and we were looking forward to it. Dani had feigned ignorance when I asked her about it. I was just a little nervous about how Janet and her husband might react to ‘risque’, as nothing in my dealings with her had been even remotely suggestive. She’d seemed as strait-laced as they come. To be honest, I was a bit nervous about Alan, too, after what Dani did to him on premiere night. Dani was acting apprehensive as well, acting like she truly didn’t know what Jen was planning.

Anyway, after we picked up Jenny, we headed to Pasco International Airport (ha, the runway isn’t even big enough to fit an international-sized plane). Their (Alan and April, Janet and Jason) flight had left Tampa at about nine, about an eight-hour flight with the layovers, but with the three-hour time difference, scheduled to arrive at two-fifteen on a commuter-sized jet after changing planes in Boise. We were hoping it wouldn’t be late as our parents were planning on dinner at three-thirty (if the turkey was done).

Thankfully, their trip didn’t turn out like it had for John Candy and Steve Martin in ‘Planes, Trains, and Automobiles’, and their plane arrived at promptly two-fifteen, with lots of hugs and thank-yous for coming and inviting them. The hugs between Jenny and Alan were a bit more, umm ... pronounced. They’d known each other in high school and hadn’t met since. With how attractive both were, there were quite a few extended ‘looks’ from others between them.

Dani introduced Jenny to the rest of the crew, we picked up their luggage, then the car rental at Hertz, and we were soon on the way back to the farm, Jenny riding with Alan and April, Janet and Jason with me and Dani.

When we got out of the car at the farm, Alan looked around, at the barn, the corrals, the house, “So this is the farm you’ve been talking about so much,” he said.

Dani smiled, “It is, 247 acres, was my gramma and grampa’s. Mom was raised here and I spent so much time here as a little girl. We were so thrilled when we discovered we could buy it and get it back in our famiy.”

The farm’s terrain is flat, the grass winter-brown, so unlike the ranch in Montana, but it’s beautiful to us, especially the house and barn.

“Needs some critters on it, doesn’t it?”

“Uhuh, I want a horse, actually a couple,” Dani said. From what she’s said about her horse in Montana, I had a pretty good idea which horse she was thinking about. Unfortunately, that wasn’t happening, but come spring, we’d see what we could find. There are lots of ranches with horses in the area, no doubt we’ll be able to find a couple good ones. We’d have to repair some fences first, though, maybe build a board or log fence, it’s safer for horses. That was something Wade hadn’t touched, the fences around the pastures.

My dad was just slicing the turkey, and Sarah (my mom) taking dinner rolls out of the oven when we went inside. Again, Dani made introductions. It was disgusting how our mothers drooled over Alan Ryder! Maybe he didn’t notice it (probably used to it), but I sure did. Dani, too, from the look of mischief on her face. You’d have thought a couple of seventy-plus year-old women would have outgrown that juvenile ‘crush’ thing. Dad and Jake acted like they found it quite amusing. I wondered how they’d feel about it after they saw Alan and Dani in the movie tomorrow.

Dinner was fantastic. We’d had to bring another table and several chairs from home and set them all up in the living room. Jon, especially wanted to hear about football, especially that 2003 Super Bowl win, Alan’s two touchdowns, 184 receiving yards. “I might have won the MVP, if it hadn’t been for our defense; five interceptions, three pick-sixes. Dexter Jackson won it, two of those picks and I don’t know how many blocked receptions,” he said.

We learned that April had grown up in Tampa and gone to cosmetology school there before going to work for Artistre Studios. Now, she was the head of the department with three people working under her. “At twenty-nine,” she noted with obvious pride.

She was also single, divorced two years earlier. Interestingly, in my dream, she was married.

I told her (and our family) about my dream, what ‘April’, Alan’s friend, had done for Dani in my coma, taking her to the studio and suggesting she do that short commercial that started the whole thing with Dani and the studio. She was fascinated, listening to it. “You made these painted eyepatch things, for Dani,” I told her, “they glued over her eyelids, making them look like real eyes so that she wouldn’t look blindfolded. Alan thought it would be fun if we took her out to dinner that way.” I didn’t mention that they were over Dani’s eyes for several days, or what it had done to her when she and Alan fucked.

I also omitted the story of the strip club the night we met ‘Onna’ and the rest of that night in April’s bed.

April sat there looking stunned at what I’d just said, got up and rummaged through her purse. “You mean like these?” she asked, opening a pouch and showing us two perfectly painted eyepatches. “I have no idea why I brought these. I just felt like I needed to for some reason.”

They looked ... incredible! Like looking into real eyes, even more so than in my dream. “That’s ... them, exactly like what you’d put on Dani in my dream,” I told her.

Everyone was amazed, how the hell had I known? How many times had that question been asked? And never answered. It just kept happening.

The question that wasn’t asked, thank God! Was ‘What did Dani do when she was blinded by the glued-on patches?’ There’s so much of that that I haven’t even told her. Janet knows more than anyone else from those two days we spent poring over my dreams. She’d wanted to know so she’d know how to help me deal with any questions that came up.

The seven of us; Dani, me, Jenny, Alan, April, Janet, and Jason went on a walk around the farm. It was cold, late November, but Dani loved showing everything off, she was so proud. We went in the barn, and Dani pointed out the newly rebuilt loft, telling what had happened on that loft the summer in-between high school and college with Jenny and the neighbor boys. “It’s one of my last memories of the farm, Grandpa and Grandma sold it shortly after that,” she said, her face dropping into sadness, “I cried and cried.”

I was still looking forward to that reenactment, more than a little happy that now, thirty-some years later, we’d come full circle, the farm back in our family.

Speaking of Jenny, Janet especially was taken with her, said that the studio might be able to use a beautiful dancer. Jen laughed, “Sorry,” she said, “not interested, I have everything I want right here.”

She did, too, she’d turned down so many big offers, her whole career she’d been turning down offers.

Soon, we were back in the house, and Jenny put together a big plate for Richard, including at least half the chocolate pie, “His favorite,” she explained, “I’ll grab some whip cream on the way home.”

“Be back tomorrow, early,” Dani told her friend, “I want to take a drive, show off some of our beautiful eastern Washington, we’ll take Mom and Dad’s van so there’ll be room for all of us.”

Yeah, this couple drove a nearly new minivan, just the two of them, a Toyota Sienna. Why they needed that, I’ll never know, but they liked it so that’s all that mattered.

We let Jenny take our car since she’d ridden out with us. She was followed a little later by our four guests, going back to their hotel. “I want to leave by nine tomorrow, breakfast at eight,” Dani told Alan before they left.

At least, now they’d know the way.

Dani and I went back inside and spent the next hour helping to clean up the dinner mess. Shortly after, my mom and dad, Jodi, Jon, and Tammy all went home.

That night was our first all-nighter at the farm. We were ... well, we tried at least, to be quiet. Not so sure we succeeded. Had to initiate the bedroom, you know, Dani’s old bedroom from many years ago, even her old full-sized bed (did have a new mattress, however). I seriously doubt it had ever been enjoyed quite as much as it was that night.

Dani’s mom was up cooking pancakes and sausage in the morning. We didn’t know if our four guests would be there for breakfast, but I doubted it, with the free breakfast at their hotel. Jess said she’d just fire up the range again if they showed up hungry.

Jenny was back for breakfast, the others not so much. “Richard had a quiet day yesterday, not a single call,” she said, “he could just as well have been here. Has to stay home today too, though, but he’ll be free tonight for dinner and the movie.”

The two Tampa couples were there at quarter till nine, already breakfasted at their hotel, so we took the minivan and headed North. What I wanted was to show them Dry Falls up in Northeast Washington. We drove past the Potholes area right before Moses Lake, giant holes in the ground, most with a small lake in the bottom, ripples from the ice-age floods, sometimes thousands of feet wide, a hundred or more feet deep. We went past Moses Lake, then Soap Lake that’s supposedly more laden with minerals than any other lake in the world. People soak in it, swearing by its healing properties.

Dani and I have never been there for that purpose, only driven past. We didn’t see anyone in the swimming area, too cold, not exactly the kind of day to soak in a lake.

The valley upstream was formed by the floods, hundreds-feet tall vertical bluffs on both sides, until we arrived at Dry Falls. In the last ice age, 40,000 – 50,000 years ago, huge ice dams in the Montana area had formed and burst numerous times, unleashing water flows more than ten times all the rivers in the world combined down through Eastern Washington, the Columbia River Gorge to the ocean. Dry Falls was formed by those floods, more than twice as high as Niagara, five times wider.

Now, it’s dry with no more than a very small stream, nary a drop over the falls themselves. But what a sight to behold, nearly impossible to imagine as the pictures represent, well worth the two-hour drive from the farm.

Dani and I have been there a few times over the years, and our guests were totally blown away with the enormity. It was too cold and windy for long on the observation platform, but there’s an observation building, too, with a little souvenir store. April bought a little stuffed talking monkey. Why a talking monkey, you might ask? You’d have to ask April for that one. She just thought it was cute. Girls!

We never talked about the movie on that trip, didn’t want to give any of it away to Jen. The only thing she knew about it were the scene that had been shown on GMA and Fox and Friends, and that Dani had told her it wasn’t quite like a Hallmark movie. Methinks she’s going to be more than a little shocked by her best friend when she sees it.

We got back to the house after a long day, anticipating a very exciting evening ahead. The plan was dinner, then the movie, then several of us back to Jenny and Richard’s for ... exactly what, I wasn’t sure. All Jenny said was that it’d be a little risqué. I wondered exactly what she meant by ‘a little’.