Chapter 25

Saturday went according to plan. The weather was perfect and Franklin picked me up when he dropped Karen off. Then we picked up Kim and went to the stables. Franklin left us there and told us he’d be back in four hours.

Kim and I went through the same grooming routine and then walked our horses outside. We started with walking and she made corrections to my posture. She taught me how to get my horse to trot and made corrections on posture. Then she tried to teach me how to get my horse to lope and made corrections on my posture. We took a break from lessons and let our horse walk along a trail.

“Ghost and Diva are buddies, you know,” she said as she came along side me. “We’re in their happy place.”

“I’m riding a boy horse,” I said.

“A stallion. He has all his equipment.”

“Whew.” I leaned forward and said to Ghost, “Hang onto it, buddy. There’s no going back if they get that.”

“That’s not going to happen. Ghost is from good stock. They’ve already put him to stud.”

“So, Ghost is special?”

“You wouldn’t be riding him if I didn’t know the owners well. Yeah. Ghost is special. And he is fast. Really fast. Enjoy it.”

“You and me, buddy. I’m going to be a stud when I grow up too, just like you.”

“Great. Going to make babies with anyone put in front of you huh?”

“Ghost, you dog, you.” Ghost didn’t seem to care if I was saying good things about him or not. Kim cared that I was enjoying horseback riding with her.

We passed under some huge live oak tree, dripping with Spanish Moss.

“Okay. I’m hooked.”

“It’s nice, isn’t it?”

“Really nice. Better with a friend.”

“Definitely, better with a friend.”

“How much is a horse? How much does it cost to buy one?”

“It depends on what you want. Ghost is easy to ride and has a nice gait but he would be expensive. Ghost is an Andalusian and there aren’t a lot of them around. And that’s why they have him for stud. People want them as polo ponies but they’re good for dressage, too. Ghost is special. Good bloodlines and proven track record. I think he’d probably cost around ten. Diva is an Appaloosa and I got her at a bargain price of two.” Then to Diva she said, “Shh. You’re worth way more than that. I practically stole you.”

“I don’t see the difference. I mean, why would Ghost cost five times what Diva does?”

“And they both cost the same to board, Baby, and you’re riding Ghost for free. Enjoy that. At least for a while.”

“You know what I’m really bad at? Money. I don’t think I waste it but I just don’t know what much of anything costs. I’m learning but there’s a lot I don’t know. Franklin and Karen gave Sally and me a lesson on budgeting and if it weren’t for that, I’d be completely clueless. Plus, just about anything we want, we just go buy. I don’t think Mom wastes money either but it’s never been an issue. But, like, what’s the minimum wage?”

“I think it’s three-ten and hour or something like that.”

“Let me think,” I said and then did the math in my head. “So, Ghost would cost about a year and a half, maybe two years before taxes. If you worked full time at minimum wage, it would take two years of that to buy Ghost.”

“I think that sounds right.”

“But if I was serious, and asked Mom for a horse, I bet it would be no problem. And your folks don’t do too bad either, right?”

“No. They do pretty well. The house is paid off. The cars, the boat, the cabin, I think it’s all paid off and I think they’re both going to retire in a year or two. They have plenty of money. What I mean is not that they have plenty. They have enough, but I don’t know how much. A lot.”

“My dad left us enough. More than enough. Am I ever going to understand money, you know, like an electrician or an accountant or something? I wonder if that’s why Franklin works.”

“Ask him. He enjoys it, right? I don’t think it’s about the money. He doesn’t need it so it’s for some other reason.”

“Remember when Franklin and I spent the day with Habitat, helping build houses? I worked all day with a guy that did roofs. He was a roofer. He was an expert, I mean, really good. But that’s all he did. I can’t imagine doing that every day. It seems like it would get really boring. But Wash, that was his name, he was really happy doing what he was doing. I wondered if he would have been just as happy as an electrician or plumber or even a car salesman. Was it just him, you know, his demeanor, or was it that the job was so satisfying?”

“It sounds like the answer to that is the key to life. Here’s a guy doing a job neither of us could imagine doing. I mean, you did it for one day but if you did it for a month, you’d probably be pretty good at it and bored after that. Right?” she asked.

“I think that’s part of the deal. I think I need to be learning all the time. Why would I keep reading the encyclopedia? That’s crazy.”

“Unless you just like learning. So, whatever you do has to be fresh. I think both my parents’ jobs and Franklin’s are like that.”

“I bet Dane’s is like that too.”

“Who?”

“Dane. Mom’s date last night. He’s a thoracic surgeon.”

“How did that go?”

“Good, she said, but no details. We’ll have to ask when we get back. I think I’m getting closer to at least figuring out the key ingredients to a job. Either complexity or something where I’m learning new stuff or maybe solving problems in new ways.”

“We need to start heading back. Franklin will be here soon. Fun?”

“Definitely enjoyable. I think I’ll see if there’s a western on TV when I get home.” She laughed at that. Here I was, reading Zane Grey and riding. This seemed wholly inappropriate for an Aquaman. “Kim, thanks.”

“For what?”

“This. I like this and I never would have known.”

“I can’t tell you how happy that makes me.”

“Oh. Of course. It would kind of suck if I didn’t like something that was important to you. I guess I felt that way about you bringing the squad to cheer us swimming.”

“Oh, Honey. We just wanted to see a bunch of athletes in Speedos. Swimming wasn’t necessary.”

“You are bad.” We laughed because it was funny, and at least a little bit because a lot of that was true. Who knew?

Franklin picked us up and we speculated about Dane and Mom’s date the night before. I told them what I knew about him and what Mom was wearing and that was about it. Mom was in the library reading Tarzan when we got there. We gave her the third degree.

“He was nice. He’s a Yankee. He went to Johns Hopkins. He’s been here two years and still doesn’t know that we put groceries in a buggy. He’s forty and never been married and has no kids. He’s funny. He played lacrosse in college and I don’t even know what that is. Any other questions?”

“Going out again?” Franklin asked.

“Yes. Definitely. At least I think so. Maybe I should get some tips from Kim, you know, on dating a younger man.”

“He doesn’t mind that you’ve been married before or have kids?” I asked.

“Well, since he already met you before he asked me out, I’m going to guess not. In fact, he asked if you liked to fish. He scheduled a week off soon, but I don’t remember the dates. He said he’s going into deep water to look for marlin and wouldn’t mind some company.”

“I don’t think he’d be asking Jack to go fishing with him if he wasn’t more than a little interested,” Franklin said.

“Of course, he’s interested. You should have seen what Mom was wearing last night. Yowzah.”

“Yowzah? Yowzah?” Kim said. “I don’t think I’ve gotten a yowzah from you.”

“You’re always a yowzah but Mom was showing off.”

“A little, maybe.”

“Let’s get to the important stuff,” Kim said. “Do you like him?”

“I do. He’s charming and witty and he made me laugh. I asked him to tell me a doctor joke. Oh, my gosh. One after the other until I was crying.” Then she looked at me for some reason, and without provocation, said, “No. Not on the first date.”

“What did I say?”

“Come on, Aquaman. Let’s go see if there’s a western on,” Kim said and dragged me away. We found one but Kim wouldn’t let me watch the last half of Red River. I had to see it from the beginning. We snuggled together in the love seat and I might have dozed off. Mrs. McTighe came and picked up Kim and I found mom in her greenhouse.

“That’s it, Buddy. He seems nice. I like him. We’ll undoubtedly go out again. I didn’t need to worry about getting an apartment and our house didn’t throw him off or anything. In fact, he didn’t say anything at all about money, other than making a joke about having paid off all his student loans.”

“You looked good last night, Mom. Are you glad you’ve been working out?”

“Yes. He even remarked on it. He asked what I did to stay in shape. When we got back, I showed him your gym and he was very impressed.”

“Sweet. I’m happy for you, Mom.”

“I’m pretty happy about it. How bizarre. You help a guy dock his boat and then this.”

“Did you tell him it was my job to find men for you?”

“No. He just thought you were being a nice guy. He’s pretty observant. He thought you were sixteen or seventeen, which is a pretty easy mistake to make. He guessed you were seventeen and he guessed I was thirty-five.”

“Did you tell him about Franklin?”

“After I thanked him for the compliment. He didn’t want to guess. Men hate that. When I told him how old Franklin and you were, he seemed genuinely puzzled. That felt nice. Did you have fun riding?”

“Yeah. I like it. I probably like riding the way Kim likes lifting.”

“She genuinely likes it. She says it has given her more confidence during cheerleading. You’ve introduced, Me, Sally, and now Kim to lifting and we all like it.”

“I’m glad. We’re all seeing results, too and that’s kind of a big deal. Hey, how did the birthday planning go?”

“Done. Just waiting on a call back. Once Karen got going, we just hung on. Going to be fun.”

“Do I need to do anything?”

“Nope. Show up.”

“Sweet.” We talked a little more and I asked about the party but she thought it would be fun if I were surprised too. I wasn’t sure that sounded good but, what the heck. They were doing all the work.

I went inside and called Sally and we caught up. I told her about Dillon being disenrolled and how Mr. McClusky had handled it. Rory was turning out to be a pretty stand-up guy. I was happy about that but figured beyond that, the less I knew the better. That part of the equation was starting to make sense.

Sunday was my opportunity to go shopping for Kim’s birthday and I called Karen to see if she would help. She laughed then said she would. She picked me up after lunch and I thought we were going to a jewelry store. Wrong. We went to a sporting goods store where, after a bit of education, and Karen making the purchase on my behalf, I walked out with a Winchester Model 70 bolt action hunting rifle and an eight-power scope to go with it. Mrs. McTighe told Karen that Kim had wanted one for a long time but she already had a rifle and had decided to wait. It didn’t seem too expensive for a rifle but wouldn’t have mattered if it would make Kim happy. Karen assured me it would. We laughed at my purchase and more so that I had asked Karen to help me. Karen knew less about guns than I did, but she knew Mrs. McTighe.

She took me to the ice cream shoppe afterwards to celebrate my purchase and our respective relationships. She asked how Kim and I were doing. After I told her, I added how Sally and I were doing and that I felt we were in a very different stage in our relationship, one that I hadn’t known existed. She told me it was special that we were still talking openly and that Kim understood. I told her that Kim and I had decided to take the word “if” out of our planning. When we got married, after college, we would have been dating for seven years, an eternity.

She asked what other options did we have? I told her.

“I think we should plan as though we were going to get married the day after I turn eighteen. If I graduate from high school in three, and that’s what I’m planning, I’ll be about to wrap up my freshman year of college first. That’s four years from now. Then, we can live together while going to college. A lot of people have jobs while they’re going through college. We wouldn’t need jobs. We’d be able to devote our time to school and each other. Do you see any problem with that?”

“I probably should. I don’t though. A lot can happen in four years.”

“And that’s why we took the “if” out of our planning.”

“What if you want to go to two different colleges?”

“We’ll compromise. There’s over a thousand colleges in America. I’m pretty sure we can find one that we can agree on.”

“What if she got in an accident and was paralyzed? Would you still want to marry her?”

“I love her.”

“Not what I asked. She would need someone to care for her. What if she needed someone to wipe her butt every day for the rest of her life?”

“Dang, Karen. That’s not going to happen.”

“What if it did? What if you got in an accident and you couldn’t have sex? Or she couldn’t.”

“No one plans on that kind of stuff because it doesn’t happen very often. If it did, we’d deal with it.”

“I’m just saying that so far, it’s all been strawberries and cream. Maybe you should think about how you might handle adversity.”

“Like losing your parents, or dad?” I asked, knowing that we had both dealt with that. I didn’t know what hardship was and that was the best I had to offer.

“Like that. Might be worth a conversation. Get all morbid and if you make it through that and are still optimistic, then you’d probably be better prepared for adversity if it did happen.”

“Did you and Franklin do that?”

“Sort of. I mean we talked about it but you can’t manufacture adversity. We’re living on our incomes now, though.”

“Not on inheritance money?”

“Nope. We’ve managed without touching it. We’re going to do that through our first three years of marriage and then splurge.”

“Wow. It’s tempting, though, right?”

“You have no idea. But we’re fine. I think it will be a good confidence boost for us.”

“I bet. Hey, what about your mom and dad? I’ve never heard you mention them.”

She looked over at me with a pretty serious face. “Nope.”

“Is that, nope, I guess I haven’t or nope and don’t ask again?”

“The latter.”

“Gotcha.” I wanted to let it go, but it was hard. “We’ve talked about some pretty serious stuff.”

“Yes, we have.”

“But not this.”

“Not this,” she said and I let it lay. If she wanted to tell me, she would. “There will be a lot of my friends and some of my relatives at our wedding. Not them.”

I knew she wanted to change the subject so I told her about Fling. And then I told her about anonymous and how she found me and thanked me. She asked a few questions but I could tell her mind was elsewhere, probably on her parents.

She dropped me off at home and I took Kim’s present in. I parked it in the game room and went looking for wrapping paper. I had just started to wrap it when Mom came in. She stopped. She stared. She started to speak. She didn’t. Three times. No words came out.

“It’s a hunting rifle. Karen knew the exact make and model. Kim’s mom told her. She’s wanted it for a long time.” She looked over my shoulder as I situated the wrapping paper.

“Nothing says true love like a Winchester Model 70 bolt action hunting rifle,” she said, reading the box.

“It’s a pretty sexy gun.”

“Ah ha. That’s what I was thinking.”

“Do you think I should wrap the scope separately or together with the rifle?”

“Together might just be too much sexy for one package. The paper might spontaneously combust.”

“That’s what I was thinking, but then the scope would be pretty anticlimactic. I’ll wrap them together but put a fire extinguisher next to the package ... for emergencies.”

“You are wacked,” she said and left me to wrap in solitude. I could have used some help. Packages I wrap tend to look like a T Rex with arthritis did it. A bow would have to disguise that. I parked it in the library, picked up Volume twenty and started reading about umbrellas. An umbrella used for snow is called a paraneige. Who knew? I read for about an hour and got bored.

I jumped in the pool before dinner and swam a few laps. Our pool seemed a lot smaller than it did before I joined the swim team. I thought about what I would look for from eight graders. I figured that if anyone looked like a possibility, they’d probably stand out. I wondered if I would have. Water was still too cold for a pool party. Swimmers are used to cool water. Water temperature above eighty or eighty-two and swimmers tend to warm up too fast and wear out quicker. If you’re not swimming laps, you need it warmer. A week with the heater on would probably be enough.

The following week was pretty funny as the squad knew about Kim’s surprise party and wanted to talk about it. Too bad for them, Kim was always around. The varsity was getting ready for their cheerleading competition and the JV team was supposed to be there the entire time to watch and learn, and fill in if someone got sick or injured. Fling returned to normal, which meant she was pretty much hyper all the time but it wasn’t directed at me.

Kim was really quiet all week and I wondered what the deal was. I finally thought I was onto something and figured it had to do with her upcoming birthday. That, and she’d said she would wait until she was sixteen to give me her virginity. I called her on it and told her not to paint herself into a box. She didn’t understand what I meant.

“Kim, it would have sucked if the boy who shall not be named had taken Fling’s virginity without her permission, right?”

“Yes. Where is this going?”

“It’s an important thing, I think. No one should lose it under duress, right?”

“No. Of course not.”

“Even if it’s self-imposed duress?” That got her. “You’re off the hook. I know what you said about being sixteen first but it’s okay. Really. If you gave that gift to me and then later regretted it, I’d feel like shit and so would you.”

I probably shouldn’t have been having that conversation with her in the middle of the cafeteria at lunch, even if we were being super quiet. No one could hear. But they could all see. When I said that, Kim wrapped me up and kissed me with a kiss worthy of a two-week suspension. Neither of us noticed how quiet the cafeteria got. We were busy. It was a good kiss. A super good kiss. And when we broke from it and looked at each other we finally realized we were on center stage. That’s probably because somebody started clapping and then we got a pretty big round of applause. Kim turned red. I know I turned red and we both left in a hurry. As soon as we were out, we started laughing.

I swam with eight graders all week. I’m happy to report no one drowned, although it was touch and go for a couple of them. There were two kids that could swim freestyle pretty well. I told them why I was there and asked if they could do the breaststroke, butterfly or backstroke. They could do the breast and back strokes and one of them made an effort at the butterfly. For the rest of the week, I worked with them to see if I could coach them well enough to turn them into candidates. By Friday, they could at least swim butterfly a length of the pool. They’d improved their breathing and had respectable freestyle and backstrokes. I wasn’t sure if either of them were breaststroke candidates. They both said they’d like to get better at breaststroke. I was pretty sure they both meant they wanted to get better at boob stroke. Still, it was fun for me to coach them and they got something out of it.

Friday afternoon I walked Kim home after our workout. The cart had gone back. Mom was going out for the evening and was getting ready so we walked to Kim’s house. It was five when we got there and a message on the machine said her parents would stop for Chinese on the way home and be there shortly after six. Perfect.

We spent a little time on first base and laughed about how carried away we’d gotten in the cafeteria earlier. We went to second base and speculated on how that would have gone over. Not well, we concluded. It started getting pretty hot and heavy and I felt like Kim was relaxed with me. I was glad of that because I thought she had been feeling the pressure of her upcoming birthday and I didn’t want that. I pushed her back on the bed, pulled her shoes off and then sat between her legs and pulled her shorts off. I looked up at her and my eyes sort of wigged out.

“What did you do?”

“Oh. I trimmed. Summer is coming. Bikini season. I don’t exactly want my bikini to look fuzzy, so I trim. Why?”

“I don’t know. It’s kind of sexy, I guess.” She had trimmed her bush so that it was only an inch wide and what was left had been buzzed close. Her hair wasn’t very thick to begin with but now, I could see exactly what was what. I started playing with her and the visual was really different.

“Well?”

“I’ve decided. I like it. Super sexy.” I took a deep breath and smelled her excitement. “I love this you know. Right now. I know I’m going to eat you up and give you a great orgasm. I know what I’m going to hear and taste and feel and smell and I love it. I’m rock hard right now because I know all that is going to happen. And you do too.”

She was propped up on her elbows, looking down at me. She put her legs over my shoulders and started to pull me closer with her feet. “You like to, don’t you? You like me to eat you up, but you genuinely enjoy licking me, don’t you?”

I licked her and she shuddered. “I do.” I licked her again and parted her lips with my tongue. “You don’t want to fool around, do you?”

“No. I want you to make me cum right now. It’s been a week. I need you to.”

I did. When my lips latched onto hers, she fell back on the bed and spread her knees wide. I used everything I’d learned to bring her to a fast orgasm and it worked. She hadn’t been kidding. I had a magic technique down that never failed. With a couple of fingers inside her, I’d suck on her clit while flicking it with my tongue. It was like flipping a switch. I’d done it before but never just gone for it like that so quickly. She came hard, grunting in a way I hadn’t heard before. Her legs sort of twitched and after she’d cum, she rolled over on her side and her legs wouldn’t stop twitching. I put my hand on her thigh and she started to push it away then held it tight to her. I don’t think she could decide what she wanted but I knew she felt good.

“That was fast. Good. You’re good. I said that’s what I wanted, didn’t I?”

“I aim to please.”

“You don’t aim at all. You just let it go flying. I aim it. Come up here.”

She played with me and aimed me and she pleased me. She aimed to please. We had both cum in a very satisfactory manner and it had probably been less than twenty minutes. When we finished, I cleaned up and we hugged naked. Skin on skin.

“You feel wonderful, Baby. I could just stand here and enjoy being with you forever.”

“If you do that, Mom and Dad will get home and we’ll both be in trouble too deep to measure.”

“Foo. One day.”

“One day. I love you, Jack. This is nice but we need to get dressed.”

“Okay. Make sure you don’t put on any of my clothes and I won’t put on any of yours. They’re everywhere.” Our clothes were all over the bedroom. We got dressed and walked to the front door together. “I hate the walk home.

“Spot’s mom is taking me to the DMV on Monday afternoon so I can get my license. Next week, we ride.”

“Nice. It’s not the walk, though. I don’t mind that, unless it’s raining. It’s the alone part. Love you, Baby.”

“Love you too. Scoot.”

I scooted.

Friday evening and all-day Saturday were pretty much dedicated to setting up for the party and answering the phone. Karen stayed so late, I thought she was going to spend the night. By the time we hit the sack on Saturday night, I thought we were pretty close to ready. Of course, I’m a guy and I was really wrong, so said Mom. I’d spend Sunday morning with Kim, making sure they had the extra time.

Sunday was the big day. The plan was for Franklin to take Kim and me to the stables until three. We’d go back to her house for a quiet party with her family and mine. That’s what she thought. Franklin dropped us off at the stables at eleven and I groomed and saddled Ghost while Kim got Diva ready. I’d really grown to like Ghost. He was easy to groom since any dirt showed up against his white fur. Is it fur on a horse or is there a different name? Coat, I thought. Kim called it a coat. We went to the arena and Kim taught me how to maneuver around the barrels at a faster and faster pace. Bumping your knee into a barrel because you cut it too close is not a good thing. I banged them both up.

After my fourth time around, she timed me. Then she did it in half the time. I tried again but she had years of experience on me. It was fun to try, though. She said that guys didn’t barrel race anyway so it was okay. She explained the rodeo events guys compete in. I preferred barrel racing. I’ve never heard of anyone dying from hitting their knees on a barrel too hard. Trying to throw a rope over a calf’s head while riding at full speed sounded like a great way to fall off and get trampled.

She taught me some other skills and I even made a couple of low jumps without falling off. I thought it had a lot more to do with Ghost than it did with me. Three o’clock rolled around and Franklin picked us up. On the way home, I told Franklin about my new experiences riding and he asked plenty of questions. He said he needed to run to our house to pick up Mom and we drove there. He parked in the driveway and ran up to the house to get Mom.

The two of them walked out together and they got in the car. Then Mom acted like she’d forgotten something.

“Kim, would you help me a second? I need something from the gym and I forgot. Sorry, guys. It will just be a minute.”

They got out of the car and so did Franklin and I. When Mom was about to raise the garage door, I called to Kim, she turned back to me.

“Sorry, I forgot what I was going to say.”

She turned back around and thirty of her closest friends hollered “Surprise,” to her. She was completely surprised and hugged all the people she’d seen two days before. Then we streamed around to the back. Of course, there were balloons and streamers and signs everywhere. Happy Sweet Sixteen and all that. Karen had stations set up in the back yard for a bunch of different games. There were some of the standards like cornhole but she’d found and rented some booths you would normally find at a fair. She had a shooting booth with moving targets and a horse racing game that you won by squirting water at a target and moving your horse. There was a large tent that hid a special game we wouldn’t see until later.

There was a buffet table with drinks and snacks and a caterer was setting up. Mom and Karen had pulled out all the stops. Kim seemed thrilled and she talked with everyone, especially those she hadn’t seen in a while. There were quite a few that I didn’t know, mostly horse-riding friends but there was a cousin or two as well.

I grabbed a seat to simply watch for a few minutes and Franklin plopped down next to me.

“I can tell something’s on your mind. What is it?”

“That obvious, huh?”

“Yeah. Kim’s occupied and obviously having a good time. So, what’s up?”

“Kim and I were talking the other day and, in the conversation, I told her I didn’t really understand money, you know, the value of things. I’ve been riding Ghost and when I asked her how much a horse like that would cost, she told me. I didn’t know if it was a good price or bad. Then I did the math and realized that it would take a year and a half or even two years of work at minimum wage to pay for the horse.”

“And you’re looking at this extravaganza and have no idea what it cost.”

“Exactly. I know Mom didn’t have to take out a loan for it or anything, but this is a long way from pin the tail on the donkey.”

“That’s a fact. Is that troubling or just mysterious?”

“Karen told me you two are living on your income and not touching your inheritance for a couple of years. I thought your car must have been from the inheritance.”

“Nope. Making payments.”

“Crazy. What about the money you gave me?”

“That was an exception. Karen and I talked it over and since we weren’t going to use it, we thought we could bend a rule.”

“Is all that so you can understand money better?”

“A little of it is. Mostly, we want to prove to ourselves that we can make it on our own. I think it will help us have a better perspective when we do start using money from the trust. Mink coats and Italian shoes probably won’t be on the shopping list.”

“But Mom...”

“Mom knows. Mom has paid her dues, so to speak. Don’t feel like you have to do what we’re doing. She’s doing this because she can and she can’t think of a better way to spend the money than on making you and Kim happy. Kim is happy.”