Chapter 35: Dinner In The Lioness’s Den

The walk home took almost as much time, thanks to Detective Barney, who had to investigate everything. But it gave me time to think of Karen.

I would come up with an excuse to invite Karen to dinner, maybe next week, and perhaps that would get my mother off my back. Anyway, if she was going to learn about the real me, she’d have to learn about my family, too. Warts and all.

I was pleasantly surprised by her insight into the connection phenomenon, that it seemed to be induced by the impending orgasm, not by the physical penis-vagina linkage. I wish I had thought of that. She’ll make a good scientist or mathematician when the time comes.

Back in the house Barney had a drink and headed for his dog bed. I had a drink and decided I’d watch cable. But I dozed off and when I woke realized I was really tired, so I locked up, turned off the lights and went to bed.

In the morning I felt a lot better. I fed the dog and took him for his walk, had some breakfast, and did some calculus until it was time for work.

Nothing to speak of different at Marco’s, except I was finding it a little easier to converse fluently, without having to think as much about vocabulary and syntax and pronunciation. Small steps, I guess.

On the assumption that it was the idea of peeking into their epicenters and watching the construction of the spoken sentence that was helping me formulate my speech, I continued to do that periodically to observe the process.

After work, I went to class, where I found several new people starting. Master Kim motioned me over. “New kids starting class. Could hardly get things done today, phone ringing so much, people wanting to ask about classes. Want to know if ninja studied here.” He looked at me with a raised eyebrow.

“No, no, that wasn’t me, sahbum. I never even talked to those newspaper and television people. They just made that stuff up. I wouldn’t do that.”

“Kim knows. Just funny, that’s all, like movie. Maybe I buy you all-black do-bok, you wear mask. We put your picture on sign.” (The do-bok is the Korean name for the martial arts uniform.) He was having fun now, laughing at my discomfort.

“New students good for school,” he said. “Maybe you help me out, help teach new students, run class. They get excited if they study with ninja, keep coming to class, keep paying money.” He laughed again, very pleased with himself. “You okay with helping to teach?”

I was surprised that he would ask. Normally that stuff was done by the higher belts. “Sir, I would be okay with it if I didn’t feel like I would be taking a place away from one of the advanced students. I would not feel right about that.”

He waved his hand in dismissal. “Not to worry. Already talk with black belts, they agree you good practitioner, and think you can teach good.”

I bowed in respect. “Then I would be honored to help, sir. At least until school starts again, then I’ll have to see what my school schedule looks like.”

He nodded. We worked out a class schedule that fit with my work schedule, and told me what he wanted me to cover, then dismissed me.

For some reason, I was very pleased and gratified by this. It was a great display of confidence in me that he would allow me to run a class. If I did it wrong, I would be damaging his school’s reputation. Worse, I might get one of the students injured. I’d have to pay attention. Still, I felt my chest swell up with pride. I thought, I have to tell Karen.

Nothing more to tell, really, about the rest of Thursday and Friday. Friday I had no work at Marco’s, so I just cleaned up my trash and packed my stuff.

Mid-afternoon the family finally pulled into the driveway, looking exhausted. Andrea was her usual charming self, and stomped off to her room. Aunt Betsy and Uncle John looked like they had just survived Hurricane Andrea. I helped them bring their bags inside, then went to collect my stuff.

I did a final check of the room looking for condom wrappers, stray bras, and the like, but came up empty. I had everything in my backpack. They thanked me again for the dog-sitting duty.

I said goodbye to Barney, who was excited that there were now more people around and would likely forget me as soon as I walked out the door. One more wave goodbye to my aunt and uncle (Andrea was still sulking in her room), and I was off.

I biked home, thankful that it wasn’t raining yet, as the forecast had predicted. It being Friday, I didn’t work till Monday. I put my bike in the garage and went in the back door.

“I’m home.” I heard a voice from upstairs, my mother, probably telling me she’d be down in a bit. I got some orange juice from the fridge and looked at the paper while I drank it.

“You’re back! Did they say how their trip was?” My mother had popped in to the room, and gave me a kiss on the cheek.

“They looked like they were ready to kill each other, so I’d say not well. I think Andrea is going to find college challenging, if only on the social level.”

“Well, not everyone has to go to college, I suppose.”

She filled me in on all the minor stuff that had happened while I was away from the house. I told her about Kim allowing me to teach a class, and she was impressed.

Then she asked if I was going anywhere with my friend, Karen, this weekend, and I silently admired the easy way she had slipped that into the conversation, as if the thought had just crossed her mind.

“No, we hadn’t made any plans. Maybe I’ll hang out with Jeffy this weekend. But now that you mention it, maybe I could invite her to dinner sometime. Would that be okay with you?”

She really needed to work on suppressing the facial cues, if she was ever going to work for the NSA interrogating spies. Her eyes flashed, and there was just the slightest twitch of her cheek. Her antennas were up and focused.

“Of course, that would be delightful. Did you have a day in mind?”

“No, it just occurred to me now. I’d need to see if she has any other plans, what days would work for her.”

She told me to find out and let her know, when it was convenient for Karen, and she’d throw something together. By ‘throw something together’ she meant that she would spend the day in the kitchen preparing the best holiday meal she could conjure up.

While she didn’t have Aunt Betsy’s acquisitive and ostentatious nature, it didn’t mean they didn’t share some common traits, and showing off for guests was one of them.

So the meal would be impressive, and she would spend the dinner hour downplaying how much work it had been. Well, this was one of the family warts Karen would have to observe. I’d warn her beforehand.

At dinner, in addition to the usual gossip like Andrea’s college tour, they also prodded me for all the details about the encounter with the thieves at Marco’s. My mother was again horrified that I would consider taking on two armed thugs, even though she had said she understood why I did. My father asked whether they had been on drugs, and I said I thought so. Mindy was shocked that I had not wanted TV and the papers to interview me. What was wrong with me, anyway?

And my mother casually dropped the bomb that I was thinking of inviting Karen to dinner. My father was mildly interested, Mindy was all ears and started asking questions about her, but it was my mother who was focused, watching me, trying to figure out what I was thinking.

I really needed to do something about her obsession with my romantic life, it wasn’t quite right. I suppose it wasn’t harmful, just annoying and a little neurotic. But it wasn’t doing her any good, and it would really be annoying when she started in on Mindy.

However, I decided to wait and see how she and Karen interacted. It might be that her preoccupation would be eased if she got to know Karen. If not, I could always linkcast her an overwhelming desire to take up a hobby, like knitting. That’ll keep her busy and out of our hair.

I watched a little baseball on TV after dinner with my dad, though I thought they were playing badly tonight, so I lost interest. I went upstairs and read instead until bedtime.

The next afternoon I called Karen, and told her I’d broached the dinner topic with my mother, and how she’d gone all quivery like a hunting dog pointing to a flock of birds hiding in the underbrush, which amused her. We discussed days she might be able to come for dinner, and she thought Tuesday would be best, if that worked for my mother, otherwise Thursday. I told her I’d let her know after we peeled my mother off the ceiling. She was laughing as she hung up.

So it wasn’t much different than I joked about. I told my mom Tuesday would be best, if that worked for her, and I could see her eyes get that faraway look, and her mind shift into overdrive, already planning the menu, what would need to be purchased, how long it would take to prepare, and of course the house had to be cleaned, perhaps new towels for the bathroom.

Not much different than if she were preparing dinner for the President. I’d seen this before. We should stay out of her way until it was over.

I went to the movies with Jeffy that night, Marla was busy, she had said, and I thought maybe Marla had already gotten another bite on her line and was setting the hook and playing the fish into the boat.

I asked Jeffy if he’d run into Kate McGregor recently, how was she doing. We talked about her for awhile and that may have revived his interest. My guess was that Jeffy was water under the bridge, as far as Marla was concerned. Best that he have someone else on the back burner.

At work on Monday, I thought I had a breakthrough with Spanish conversation. While I still didn’t have the speed and fluidity that Marco and his dad had naturally, I was not struggling with trying to formulate the syntax and recall vocabulary and grammar, they seemed to occur now without thought, though I still stumbled occasionally. If I could get the speed up, I would feel a little more relaxed. But definite progress.

After work, I went to Kim’s to teach my first class, about fifteen kids, mostly newbies, mixed ages. Kim had parked himself at his little desk in the corner ostensibly doing paperwork, but really keeping an eye on me and the class in case it required intervention.

The kids were very eager, and of course all expected to be full-fledged ninjas by the end of class. I gave them the overview of how long this was going to take, about making mistakes and learning from them, about discouragement, and so on.

Then we did a lot of basics, starting with stretching, and some kicking, mostly to loosen the legs. I showed them how to fall without hurting themselves.

After that, some simple punching and blocking, and we finished with an easy wrist lock, which some kids were a little too enthusiastic about, so I laid into them about not injuring your classmates who were here to help you learn. Apply only enough force to get your opponent to stop their attack. By that time we were a little past the end of class, so we stopped.

As they dispersed, I asked Master Kim for some suggestions, and the only thing he mentioned was perhaps thinking about what I wanted to cover in class before I started the class so that I didn’t do too much. “For first time teaching, good job.” High praise from Master Kim.