Chapter 16

Shortly after their talk they are standing in his room getting ready to head out to eat. Bucky is digging in his dresser for clean clothes and Jackie has just lifted her back from the floor to the chair in his bedroom. His attention is automatically drawn to her ass as she does that ‘girl thing’ of simply bending over at her waist without bending her knees and is digging around in her bag. She pulls out of her bag a matching bra and panty set, white, lace, and silky, and then bends over again and proceeds to pull out a weird looking skirt thing.

Standing up with her back to him she again “does that girl thing” of crossing her arms in front of her, grabs the hemline of her t-shirt, and pulls it up over her head. He watches as the shirt slowly rises up her body and is amazed at how perfect and wonderful her body has become after all these years. He is just as amazed when the hemline of the shirt catches ever so slightly on her erect nipples and then he watches as her nipples ‘pop’ free. It is then that he realizes she has turned her body just enough so that he can see her perfectly in profile and then as the shirt pops up and off of her head his eyes follow it and he sees the smile on her face along with the twinkle in her eye. Smiling at him she says “See anything you like?”

Bucky just smiles and says “This isn’t getting us to breakfast.”

Jackie chuckles and responds “So get dressed then.”

Bucky laughs and turns back to putting on his underwear and jeans. Meanwhile Jackie reaches over and grabs her bra and wraps it around her body, slipping her arms through the straps, fastening the clip in the front, and then settling her boobs in the cups. With a final bounce and wiggle she reached over for her matching panties and then one leg at a time slipped them up her legs until the gusset was nestled between her legs nice and snug. Reaching over for the skirt like thing she put first one leg in and then the next and then moved a flap in front and snapped it into place.

Seeing Bucky’s questioning look she said “What? What’s wrong?”

“That. What is that?”

Looking down at what she was wearing, just a bra, panties, and her skirt thing, she said “What? What’s what?”

“The skirt thing. What’s the skirt thing with leg holes?”

Still looking at him strangely for a moment she finally understands what he’s talking about and then laughs and says “Oh, hah, I get it. It’s a ‘skort’. I take it you’ve never seen a ‘skort’ before.”

Shaking his head no Bucky replies “No, never. What the hell is a ‘skort’?”

Smiling at him Jackie says “A skort is a cross between a skirt and pair of shorts. It has all the benefit of letting a girl look dressy but not show off her pus if she sits weird.”

Amazed Bucky says “Wow, who’d a thought.”

Just shaking her head at him Jackie goes to put on the shirt she wore to bed the night before but just as she is about to pull it on over her head, Bucky says “Hold on, wait a minute.” Jackie pulls the shirt down in front of her chest with a semi-hurt look on her face and asks “What? I can’t have your shirt?”

Smiling at her Bucky says “No you can, but I thought you might like one that fit a little better. That one is from when I first went to Basic and was, well, a lot heavier, this one I got about a year ago and will look nicer on you.” And with that Bucky turns back towards his dresser and pulls out a t-shirt that is exactly the same, but instead of a double-XL, it is only a Large and tosses it to her. It still has ARMY written across the front in big black block letters, but once she slips it on over her head and down over her torso it hugs her body like a glove and shows all of her curves in all the right places. She takes a few steps across the room gives him a kiss on the cheek and says “Thank you. I love it.”

Thinking that she is also going to give him back the other shirt he puts his hand on it, only to have her pull it out of his hand as she turns away. He instantly says “Hey, can I have that one back?” To which she just smiles, shakes her head ‘No’ and then puts it in her bag. Bucky just chuckles himself, turns towards his dresser and grabs a shirt for himself to wear.

Soon they are both dressed and carrying their footwear to minimize any sound they may make leaving the house, they walk down the stairs and out the door to his car, stopping on the stoop to slip on their shoes first. Once in the car it is just moments before they are back out onto the main street and headed back towards Bowdoin College and where they were the night before.

About 10 minutes later Bucky pulls them into the parking lot of the local Denny’s restaurant, they park, and then walk in hand-in-hand. Greeting the hostess like an old friend they are shown to a booth near the back and sitting side byside started to look over the menu. Bucky just to refresh his memory, and he almost always gets the same thing, and Jackie seriously because, as she said “its been ages since I’ve been to a Denny’s that I can’t remember what they have”.

A few minutes later Bucky sees one of his favorite waitresses coming towards them and a huge smile lights up his face. Standing up he meets her when she is almost at their table and gives her a huge hug. Bucky turns to Jackie and says “Jackie meet Mamma Juliette, one of the main reasons I come here to eat. Mamma Juliette meet Jackie, someone I’ve known for a longtime and someone very special to me.”

Hearing Bucky introduce her to Mamma Juliette she can hear in his voice how special she is to him so she also stands and gives the woman a hug. The older woman looks like a typical elderly Italian woman, short, squat, and round, but with a smile on her face that would make anyone around her happy. After giving her a hug Jackie says “It’s a pleasure to meet you ma’am.”

Looking up at Jackie Mamma Juliette grabs her face in both hands and says to her “Oh hush ya now young lady, if ma Bucky ‘ere says youse special to ‘em then youse special to me. Now youse just start calling me Mamma Juliette or Mamma, just like every’ne else. Ya ‘ere.”

Smiling down at the older woman Jackie says “Yes Mamma, I will. Thank you.”

“Good, good. Now youse two sit ya selves down and be comftable and I’ll getya drinks going while ya decide whatcha want ta eat.” She looks over at Bucky and says “I’m assuming youse what ya normal then? Ya?”. When Bucky gives her a nod she looks over at Jackie and says “And you love? What’ll you ‘ave?”

Still smiling at her Jackie says “I’ll just have some coffee and orange juice please. Thank you.”

After writing it down in her pad Mamma smiles and says “Alrighty then loves, it’ll be just a jif. You’all just sit tight and I’ll be back soon.” And then she wanders off talking to other customers, some getting hugs, some getting pats on the cheeks, some getting a dirty look or two because they didn’t clean their plate followed by a laugh or two from her.

Jackie had watched Bucky watch Mamma go and could see the love he had for her in his eyes and knew there was a story there, and wanted to pry it out of him, but wasn’t sure if it was her place to ask. When Bucky turned back to look at her he could see that she the questions in her eyes and decided to answer some of them.

Looking back at Mamma Juliette Bucky sighed and said “So, when we first met my dad was still stationed where I grew up, Bangor, Maine a few months later he found out that he was being transferred to Manchester, NH right after my Freshman year. He was there for about 18 months when they closed the MEPs station and he started having to work out of Boston a few days a week, but was still mostly working out of Manchester until about Christmas my senior year. He then found out he was being transferred here to Topsham and we would be living in base housing in Brunswick. My mother didn’t want to move me midway through my senior year so he traveled A LOT that year, but we made it work, but once I graduated we moved here within days.”

Jackie smiled and said “Such is the life of military family.”

Bucky looked over at her and said “Yeah, that’s exactly it. We hadn’t moved for 15 years of my life but then within 3 years I had moved twice and was due to move again when I returned from AIT and went off to college. I was a more than a little upset at having to move. You know how us teenagers get; angry, alone, generally pissed at the world at having to start all over, but I was 18, a high school graduate and leaving for Alabama in a few weeks. Since I was leaving in a few weeks I couldn’t really meet and date anyone, why make friends, I couldn’t get a job, I wasn’t quite sure what to do for those few weeks.”

About this time a different waitress came over and delivered their drinks. Cheryl, another friend of Bucky’s, dropped everything off and said “Hey Bucky, how you doing this morning. Mamma said to get these out to you. She’s sorry she couldn’t do it herself but she had to take her break since John went on his, you know how those two are. She’ll be back in a few to take your order, although all of us probably already know what you’re gonna have, I don’t think you’ve ever gotten anything else, but you might surprise us someday. Okay sweetie, see ya later.” And with that she walked away.

After Cheryl left the table Jackie sat there for a moment and then said “Who was that verbal buzzsaw. I swear she probably said 200 words in like a minute and a half.”

Laughing at her Bucky said “You have just met Cheryl DeLeslie. She is probably the faster talker I have ever met. She works here as a waitress part-time to augment her disability check. Her regular job, before she was unable to work, was as an Air-Traffic Controller down in Portland. I’ve never asked what happened, but I guess there was an on-the-job incident that has caused her some problems and because of it she’s unable to work as an ATC operator right now so she’s getting disability from that, but since it’s not enough she works here part-time to make up the difference.”

Jackie turns her head to look over at Cheryl and says “Wow, did she ever think to be an auctioneer?”

Laughing even louder Bucky says “I’ll have to mention that to her next time she comes around. She’ll get a kick out of it.”

Shaking her head Jackie waves her hand in a ‘come on’ motion and then says “So, you were saying”

Bucky nods and says “Oh yeah, so I was wondering what I was going to do for the those few weeks and my mom eventually got pissed at me moping around the house and basically told me to ‘get the hell out and find something to do’.” Laughing Jackie interrupted with “I can see my mom saying the same thing.” Nodding Bucky continued with “As they had sold my car before we moved up here, I took her car out for a ride and wound up on the base in front of a civilian flight school offering flight lessons, and that is where I met Mamma Juliette’s husband John.”

Surprised Jackie said “So you’re gonna be a pilot?”

With a smile Bucky said “I hope to be, but we’ll see what happens when I get to school.” Shrugging he continues with “So anyways I get out of the car, open the door, and walk right into a class already in progress. Just as I’m about to walk out the instructor, her husband, says ‘Wait, don’t leave, sit and join us.’ So I did and for the next 20 or so minutes I learned about Thrust, Lift, Drag, Weight, or basically the 4-principles of Flight. Once the instructor was done with his speech the told the other 5 students to work on some equations in their book and came back to speak to me. Talking to him let me know that it was only the first class and that I had only missed the first 15 or 20 minutes and that it would be nothing to make up.

“When he asked me why I had walked into the building I was honest and said I was bored before going off to training in a few weeks. He asked when I was due to report and when I told him he said that the class would be over the week before hand and there was no reason I couldn’t take if I wanted to. He gave me a packet of information and I went home. I talked it over with my parents and decided to take the class. The class was Private Pilot Ground Instruction and John was an excellent instructor. He helped me make up the time I had missed in the first class and was willing to stay after class to help me and some of the others understand concepts that were confusing to us.

“All of the other students were older than me, but were all Military like I was. We were all there to learn how to fly for one reason or another and not to mess around. After 4 weeks of instruction we took our tests, put them into envelopes and sent them off to be graded hoping they would be all be passing grades. The following week I was off to Alabama to learn how to fix Helicopters, and strangely enough some of the concepts taught were the ‘Physics of Flight’ so my Ground Instruction helped there also.”

Jackie had nodded her head a few times as Bucky had been telling his story, she was waiting for the ‘other shoe to drop’ because she knew it was coming somewhere.

“I arrived in Alabama the last week in July, spent 3 glorious months there having all sorts of fun, but that’s a story for another time.” Bucky said giving her a wink, and then said “and then came home to decide if I wanted to goto school in January or look for a job.” Bucky sat back in his seat a little, looked up at the ceiling, sighed a little, and then said “One thing I haven’t said about Mr. John, which is what almost everyone called him, is what he did for the Navy. You see, Mr. John was a radio operator during Korean war and the early part of Viet Nam, but when he wasn’t overseas he was stationed here in Brunswick at the massive radio transmitter site.

“He and Mamma Juliette met when they were teenagers, they both grew up on the same street and block in New York and before he went to Korea he told her he loved her. When he came home from Korea she had waited for him so they got married and moved up here where he was stationed. When he went off to Viet Nam for a few years, she stayed here and waited for him again. When he came home this time he said he was done with the Navy life and decided to retire, and so he did.

“When he asked Mamma Juliette if she wanted to move back to New York she said ‘No, I like it here better’, so they stayed. While he had been in the Navy she had been working at a local Italian Store and Deli, when he retired from the Navy he started working there also, but also still worked on the base teaching other sailors about radio communications, how to fly, which he had learned at some point, and other skills he knew. Eventually the owner of the Italian store got older and wanted to retire so asked them if they might want to buy the store from him. They did.

“That was about 10 or 15 years ago and they eventually expanded the shop when the owner of the other shop in the building retired also.”

Jackie got a puzzled look on her face and asked “So why are they working here?”

Bucky nodded sadly and said “And that’s where the ‘shoe drops’. I hadn’t been back from training more than a couple of days and went over to their store to say ‘Hi’ and to talk to Mr. John about seeing if he could arrange a flight or two for me, only to see the door locked and the Closed sign in the window. This was shocking because they were never closed and certainly not during the middle of the day. I was standing there when one of their longtime employees came walking towards the door with his head hanging down and he was fumbling with the keys in his hand.

“He about walked into me and would have if I hadn’t said something to get his attention. He finally looked up and said ‘Oh, hey Bucky, good to see you.’ I said ‘Jim, what’s going on? Where’s Mamma and Mr. John?’ He looked at me like I had 2 heads and said ‘You don’t know?’ Then he grinned and said ‘It’s like they won the lottery dude, someone offered to buy them out so they took it. They retired. I’m just here to get my shit and then I’m going on vacation myself. They gave all of us a couple months pay as severance’ and then he opened the door and walked in.”