Chapter 15: The Problem with Magic and Speedos

“Mom. Tommy and I would like to go to the movies. Can you take us, please?”

Shelly’s mother replied with an immediate, “Why can’t you go with Ellen instead?” as she stared disappointedly at her daughter.

Shelly let out an exasperated sigh, rolled her eyes, and said, “I already told you, it’s because she’s not back from vacation yet! She won’t be back until Tuesday. And before you say anything else, yes, once she comes back I promise to spend a lot of time with her. --- Ok? But in the meantime, Tommy and I would like to go to the movies. So, can you take us? You know it’s only fair, Mom. Mrs. Bridges drove us all the way to Kings Island. The least you can do is drive us to the movies.”

“What movie are you going to see?”

This time Shelly let out a huff and felt like answering with one of her sister’s patented off-the-wall remarks such as: ‘Deepthroat’ or ‘Debbie does Dallas’, but instead she just answered with the frustrated truth, “I don’t know yet! I’ll tell you when we decide. --- Ok?”

The mother just stood there and gave her daughter a suspicious look, but the daughter stood her ground and just glared right back at her. Finally, Shelly’s hands went to her hips and then threw down her challenge, “Mom, I can’t believe you! It’s just a movie. You’re not even going to allow us to see a movie together?”

“Ok, I’ll take you, but I want to know exactly what movie it is, when it starts and when it ends. Ok?”

“Ok, fine, and thanks.” Shelly replied, as she tried to keep herself as calm as possible but inside she was screaming, GOD DAMN IT, MOM! ---- Why are you being so obstinate when it comes to Tommy and me?

After she had gone to her bedroom and calmed down some, Shelly texted Tommy, and after checking the movie listings, they decided to see ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’.

When the time came, Shelly and her Mom drove to Tommy’s house to pick him up. Shelly got out of the car and went to the door. She was greeted by a smiling Tommy. Shelly reached for his hand and gave him a light kiss on the lips. “Are you all excited about the movie?” she asked him with a sneaky smile.

“Sure am.” He replied with a grin.

She giggled and said, “Me too.” Then she pulled him toward the car. “Come on, let’s go.”

“Hello, Mrs Fields.” Tommy greeted the person in the driver’s seat, as he got in the back seat with Shelly.

The greeting was acknowledged by a cold, dispassionate “Tommy.” The mother hadn’t even turned to look at him.

Shelly stared at the back of her mom’s head and did a slow burn, thinking, Why do you have to be so mean to him? --- He didn’t do anything that I didn’t want him to do.

The car left the curve and from there, Shelly’s mom, Shelly, and Tommy made a mostly silent drive over to the mall’s theater. Practically the only conversation that went on was a silent one between both Shelly and Tommy. They kept glancing at each other, both had unmistakable grins as they thought about the extracurricular activities they planned to perform while in the movie theater. When the mother dropped them off in front of the theater, Shelly said, “Thanks Mom, I’ll call you when the movie ends. Ok?”

The mother replied with a silent nod of her head.

Tommy followed Shelly out the door and after he shut the car door he leaned down and looked through the open passenger window. “Thanks for driving us, Mrs...”

But before Tommy could finish his sentence the car was already moving away from the curve. Tommy stood there kind of stunned and just stared at the receding car.

“Come on, Tommy.” Shelly reached and grabbed Tommy’s hand to distract him from her mother’s rude behavior. “I’m sorry about my Mom.” And to try to make up for it, she leaned in and kissed him on the cheek.

It was the kiss that got Tommy out of his doldrums. He turned back toward her, smiled, and felt his muscles start to relax now that he realized it was just the two of them.

They bought their tickets, some popcorn, and one coke to share between the two. They then walked into the theater eager to resume the carnal activities from their first movie date, but when they entered through the doors both their hearts dropped.

The theater was crowded, over three-quarters full and people were still filing in. Disappointed but not undaunted, Shelly led them to a bare spot at the very upper corner of the theater, while Tommy followed carrying both the popcorn and coke. They had placed themselves as far away from the other people as possible, to the very corner seats of the theater, only leaving one empty seat between themselves and the side theater wall.

But the seats continued to fill up. Soon there were people directly below them, and there were only two empty seats to Tommy’s left, and worse, people were still filing in.

The theater was almost completely packed when a mother arrived with her two young kids. She had a boy, who was about seven years old, and a younger daughter, who looked about five. Seeing the two empty seats beside Shelly and Tommy and the empty seat on Shelly’s right, she made a beeline toward them. She took her kids down the aisle and stopped right before Tommy and asked, “Excuse me, but can you move over one?”

“Ehh, yeah. Sure.” Tommy replied, and stood up off his seat, after picking up both the popcorn and coke.

Shelly let out a visible sigh, stood up, and moved one over to the right. Now they were directly against the wall and the very corner of the theater. The woman placed the seven year old boy next to Tommy, placed herself in the middle, and the little girl on her left.

Shelly leaned over and grumbled in his ear, “We should have picked a different movie.”

Tommy snickered and whispered back, “We could still sneak over to some other theater.”

Shelly sighed, shook her head, and responded despondently, “No, we’d better not.” She then further explained. “I already told my mom that we’re going to see this one. Knowing her, she’ll probably quiz me on it afterward.”

Tommy snickered at Shelly’s explanation.

Shelly leaned her head on his shoulder, grabbed his arm and hand in hers, and asked, “Have you heard any more from Emily?”

Shelly had already known that Emily was better at keeping Tommy appraised of what was going on in Europe than her sister did, which Shelly again attributed to her sister’s natural laziness.

“Yeah, she told me they rented a car and went through the French wine country. She said your sister sampled a bit too much wine and got a little drunk.”

Shelly giggled and grinned as she tried to picture that. “I sure wish I had seen that.” She then sighed, “I wish we were in France together.”

“Maybe we’ll get to go there for our graduation too.”

“Yeah, sure.” Shelly replied sarcastically. “My mom would never allow that.”

To which Tommy replied, “Maybe not now she wouldn’t, but by that time, we’ll be going out with each other for almost five years.”

Shelly’s face broke out in a huge grin when she heard Tommy’s matter-of-fact declaration. One that asserted that they’ll be together through all their four years of high school. She turned toward him, leaned to her left, and gave him a light kiss on the corner of his lips.

When Tommy felt the lips, he turned his head slightly, smiled, and added, “Maybe we’ll even get Emily’s dad to take us too.”

“Yeah, right!” was Shelly’s sarcastic reply, but her mind was still relishing what Tommy had said before. She reached out and grasped Tommy’s upper arm with her hand and snuggled her head against his bicep.

When Tommy felt the pressure from Shelly’s head, he turned and gave Shelly a light kiss on her brow. Shelly glanced up at him and smiled. She then received another kiss, this one on her lips. Shelly’s lips immediately responded and before they knew it, they were giving each other a most passionate kiss and were slowly exchanging tongues through their two open mouths until they heard the mother on the left give her son the sharp admonishment. “Brandon! --- Mind your business!”

The mother’s rebuke fatally interrupted Tommy’s and Shelly’s all too brief makeout session and when they looked over to their left they saw the seven year old boy looking at them. His body was leaning all the way forward and his face was studying them. He had a large mischievous smirk on his face.

The mother gave two teenagers a dirty look and then she reached over and roughly pulled her son’s left shoulder back into the seat of his chair. By this time the younger sister had noticed all the commotion and she too was also leaning all the way forward trying to find out what her brother had found so interesting.

Shelly sighed and leaned back in her seat. A frustrated teen smoldered, as she thought that the only good thing about being caught was that the mother was a stranger, so there would be a slight chance any news of this would get back to her mom. So she went back to leaning her head on Tommy’s shoulder, brought Tommy’s hand toward her lap sandwiched between hers and tried to think of more pleasant thoughts like how four years from now they’d still be coming to this theater to watch movies together. Hopefully, movies that are much less popular than these Harry Potter ones. She whimsically envisioned.

They mostly stayed that way and ate their popcorn and drank their coke until the previews started. Shelly sat herself up in the normal position as she was getting a crimp in her neck, and then they did something that they hadn’t planned to do. They actually watched ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’, all the way through to the end, and with no interruptions.

When the movie was over, they walked hand in hand into the lobby. Neither one wanted the date to end, so instead of calling Shelly’s mom to pick them up, they just slowly strolled about in the lobby looking at the upcoming movie posters and enjoying each other’s company.

Tommy asked, “When do you want to get together again?”

“Well, Ellen is coming back from vacation tonight, and we plan to go to the mall together.” Looking up eagerly at him, Shelly asked, “Do you want to come along?”

As much as he didn’t mind Ellen, the thought of going to the mall with two girls to go clothes shopping really didn’t appeal to him, and anyway, he didn’t want to hog all of Shelly’s time, so he said “Na, I think I’ll just stay home and read.”

Shelly’s face cracked into a big smile and she teased. “Are you going to read one of your books or one of your stepmom’s?”

Tommy snorted back and replied, “I don’t know.” He shrugged his shoulders and grinned. “Depends on what’s available. And besides, it’s not like you don’t have your own reading material.”

Shelly responded with a smirk of her own. Gazed into his eyes and stepped closer until It was obvious from the way they were gazing into each other’s eyes, that they weren’t thinking about smutty book passages but making some of their own. Their lips came together. At first, they kissed lightly, then not so lightly, and once again their mouths and there was an exchange of tongues, but after about two minutes they did break apart, as they became self-conscious of the fact that they were making out in the wide open space of the theater lobby.

So they walked on, holding hands and stopping at the movie posters. One of the last movie posters was promoting the upcoming ‘Mission Impossible Four’ movie. There they stood and commented on what they liked, what they didn’t like about the previous ‘Mission Impossible’ movies. Tommy then asked Shelly if she had seen any of the old TV series and was surprised when his girlfriend’s response was “I can’t believe her!”

“Huh?” A confused Tommy uttered back and tore his eyes off the poster to turn toward Shelly.

He noticed that Shelly had turned herself completely away from the poster and was facing the main entrance. She then added to her unexpected response with frustration. “She’s already here!”

Tommy looked in the direction of where Shelly’s attention was drawn to and that’s when he noticed Mrs. Fields standing right outside the theater’s paneglass window. Her hands were cupped to the theater’s glass, as she tried to look inside the lobby.

Shelly squeezed Tommy’s hand in anger and stamped her right foot into the carpet floor. “I told her, I’d call her when we’re ready!” she said vehemently. “Can’t she leave us alone for one second?”

“I guess not.” Tommy deadpanned back, disappointed that his time with Shelly had abruptly come to an end.

Shelly let out a resigned sigh. “Come on, Tommy.” She looked back at him resignedly. “We better go, before she calls the cops or something.”

As Tommy and Shelly came out of the theater, the mother glanced at the couple. She noted that they were still holding each other’s hands, which she wasn’t too thrilled to see, but instead of commenting on that, she instead asked her daughter, “So, how was the movie?”

Shelly ignored the question and instead posed one of her own. “Mom, why are you here? I told you we’d call you!”

“I don’t know why you’re so upset. I should think you’d be happy. This way, you didn’t have to wait around.”

Shelly just rolled her eyes and thought derisively. Yeah, sure I should be!

Tommy just stood in place and kept his mouth shut. He wasn’t going to say anything, knowing whatever he said Shelly’s mom would just use it against him.

“So, how was the movie?” The mother went back to her original query.

“It was okay.” Shelly responded curtly, allowing her disgruntled mood to spill over into her response.

“What was it about?” Was the next question posed by the parental unit.

Surreptitiously, Tommy couldn’t help but smirk at the mother’s question, he glanced over to Shelly, as he tried to keep his amusement from showing on his face. He could tell Shelly was still seething by the death grip she had on his hand, but instead of Shelly expressing any more of her displeasure, she dutifully gave her mother her synopsis of the whole movie which seemed to satisfy the mother.The three got back to the car and the ride was quiet all the way until they reached Tommy’s house. When they got out of the car, Shelly walked with Tommy to his front door. That’s where they stopped, embraced, and kissed one another goodbye. That one kiss led to another and then another, each one lasting longer than the previous, when out of nowhere a car’s horn shattered their intimate space. The blast was quickly followed by a woman’s holler. “Shelly, get back here! It’s time to go.”

Shelly did another slow burn, but Tommy only smirked and said, “You better go. I’ll text you later. Ok?”

“Ok.” and gave her boyfriend one last peck on the lips. “I’ll see you.”

The next day Shelly was sitting with a girl at the mall’s food court. It was Shelly’s best friend, Ellen. Ellen was on the taller side, she was also lanky and, to her great disappointment, she had two very small training bra-sized breasts. Her hair was a mousy brown and curly with a medium cut. She also had a bunch of freckles on her face. Ones that she had always detested.

They had both decided to eat first before they went shopping, as it would give them time to catch up and share stories.

The reason Shelly was here with Ellen was because Ellen was her BFF who she sorely missed due to Ellen’s three week vacation. Shelly also wanted to prove to her mom that she still had a life outside of Tommy. Although to be fair, it was a now uneven split, but there was no way the teen was going to tell her Mom that.

When her mom found out that Shelly was going to spend the day with Ellen, there was no “Where are you going?!” or “What will you be doing there?!” Her mom didn’t even ask her what time she was expected back nor give her a deadline to be back. All to Shelly’s consternation, since these were the very things she had to deal with whenever going out with Tommy.

“So, tell me all about your vacation. Did you have a good time?” Shelly asked while dabbing one of her french fries into her ketchup.

“Yeah, it was nice. You basically already know what we did. We went to Disney World, Universal Studios, and then hung out at the Beach.”

“So you see any good looking guys?” Knowing Ellen was always scanning the boys.

“Yeah, there were a lot at the beach.”

“Meet any?” Shelly said hopefully.

Ellen shook her head then she deftly changed the subject from any further talk of her non-existent love life by saying, “Can you tell me something? Why do all the males that wear those tiny bikini briefs at the beach have to have the big, fat, old ones? You know, the ones with the hairy backs with hair going down to their asses? Can you answer me that? --- Huh?”

“Shelly smiled broadly and snorted at her friend before answering her with a shake of the head.