Chapter 13

That summer, for the first time, most of the crew had jobs. Alex was working at McDonald’s, Jodi was at a Dairy Queen and Felicia was working for her dad as a ‘gofer’ at an architectural firm downtown. Trish and I continued mowing, trying to do as many yards as possible — we averaged just over three yards a day for the days we worked that summer. We didn’t earn as much as we’d originally figured on, though.

Jenny’s parents didn’t want her working — she couldn’t very well tell them she wanted money for college since they didn’t want her ‘wasting’ her time continuing with school after high school. Previously her summers had largely been spent with Felicia and Jodi but it was harder that year for them to get together so we started dropping by when we could.

We were out walking with her in a park near her house one afternoon when Trish suggested, “Hey, would you like to help us with lawns? It won’t pay much — not split three ways — but it’s better than nothing, and it will get you out of the house!”

“I don’t know,” she said, sounding a bit down. “I’ve never been allowed to work in the yard except for helping Mom with her garden. I don’t think I’m big enough to handle one of those mowers.”

“Excuse me,” I interjected, “you’re no smaller than I was a couple of years ago when we started doing this. Really, you’re not that much smaller than me now. Besides, even if you can’t push the mower there are other things to be done — we trim and rake each of the yards and edge around the walkways. Mrs. Garrison even pays us extra to edge around her driveway. You’re plenty big for doing any of that stuff.”

“It would be nice to get out of the house — okay, but you don’t need to pay me for it and my parents can’t find out what’s going on.”

“Sorry, sweetie,” Trish replied, “If you’re helping us, you’re getting paid. I agree completely about your parents, though. Do you think they’d have a problem with you spending the days over at our place? You could keep some old clothes there to wear for working and it would get you out of the house even more.”

“I don’t think they’d mind me being gone — I always was before during the summer. I don’t know about the money, though. You guys would be giving up some of your college money and that doesn’t seem right to me.”

“Well,” I replied, “we can do more yards with three people working than we can with two, so we may be able to make as much anyway. Even if we don’t, though, if you’re helping us then you deserve to be paid just like we are. Remember, don’t let your father do your thinking for you — if you’re working, you deserve to be paid.”

“And also remember,” Trish pointed out, “we asked you to work with us, you didn’t come to us for help. We did it because we wanted to — we like you, we like spending time with you and we want you to have a chance to earn a little money, too.”

With that she finally agreed. She’d ride over in the mornings so we could mow before it got too hot, then we’d lounge around until she either rode home or Trish took her home — the Impala’s trunk didn’t have any problem handling Jenny’s bike. We also discussed what clothes she should wear, and she suggested that we keep her money at our place since there was no telling what her mother would do if she found it while cleaning.

The next day she was at our place at 8:30, ready to go! She already knew our parents but we had to explain to them why she was going to be helping us with our work, and why she’d be spending so much time with us outside of work time.

Once Jenny had changed we got started on the yards. Jenny, of course, didn’t know how to do any of the work but it wasn’t difficult to learn and by the end of the day she was doing fine raking and trimming. Mowing wasn’t hard except on the steeper banks that terraced each yard, but that old mower was pretty heavy so we decided to wait until she’d gotten used to the work before letting her use it.

After we’d gotten the day’s yards out of the way we headed back to take showers and have lunch. We let Jenny shower first, then we showered together — all in good clean fun, mind you. Lunch was ham sandwiches and chips with our parents before they left for work.

Our normal after lunch routine was to head down to the pool and spend some time lounging around, and Trish and I were all in favor of including Jenny. Except that she didn’t have a swimsuit. It wasn’t that she didn’t have one with her. She didn’t own one. She’d had one for swimming in 7^th and 8^th grades but she’d outgrown the top and since she never went swimming she hadn’t replaced it.

That was an easy problem to fix so we all hopped in the car and headed out to the mall where she found a not-too-conservative bikini. Trish got one, too. It looked like the trips to the pool might be kind of hard after all.

By the time we were done finding their suits we decided it was too late to really relax at the pool that day, so we’d just spent some time window shopping at the mall. That was fine by me — I wasn’t a huge fan of shopping, but once in a while was okay. Trish and Jenny took turns leading each other through different stores but they both stopped at a jewelry store and looked at one particular piece. A pendant — delicately filigreed silver with two small sapphires. As soon as I saw it I knew it’d look beautiful on Jenny — the blue of the sapphires wasn’t the deep, rich blue that you see in the best sapphires, it was the paler blue of her eyes.

While Jenny was busy staring at it Trish looked up and motioned with her head at the display case. I did a quick inventory to make sure that I had enough money on me then barely nodded at her. Seeing that, she managed to shuffle Jenny off to another store, though not without a few longing backward glances.

Once I was sure they were gone I bought the pendant and a matching chain — fortunately silver was cheap back then and the sapphires weren’t a more desirable color — tucked the box in my pocket and rushed off to catch up to the girls.

It took a while but eventually they were pretty much shopped out and Jenny needed to get home so we headed back to our place to pick up her bike.

On the way to her home Trish asked, “Do you think your parents would let you stay over tomorrow night?”

Well, that was news to me! I wondered what she was up to but had long ago learned to trust her when she took charge.

“Probably, but why?” Jenny answered.

“Because, silly, we like you and we’d like to have you stay over!”

Jenny was sitting between us on the big bench seat and when I looked over at her, her eyes were misted.

“I’ll ask when we get to my place. Thank you. Do you need to ask your parents?”

“No, they’ll be fine with it,” Trish replied. “I think that they’ve decided we’re trustworthy.”

Jenny was right — her mom didn’t mind — so she’d be spending the next night at our place. Which meant I’d be spending the night in the guest room. Oh, well.

“Are you upset that I invited Jenny to stay over tomorrow night?” Trish asked as we were making dinner.

“Of course not! I like her — a lot — and her home doesn’t seem very loving. She needs a little tender loving care and I think you’re probably just the person to give it to her.”

“I agree she needs some love, but I don’t agree that I’m the best one to give it. I think we both need to. I don’t know what it is about her but I think she needs both of us to lean on and to love her. Damn! How could her parents not love her? She’s such a special person!”

“I know you love her and you know I love her,” I replied. “You also know I want to help her if I can. Spending a night in the guest room is small potatoes if it will help her out.”

Trish stood looking at me for a second then said “Tell me something, if I weren’t in the picture what would you think about Jenny?”

I took a moment to think about that one — the thought of Trish not being in the picture hadn’t occurred to me in a couple of years. After thinking it over I said, “I don’t know what she would think of it, but I could see us married. I love all three of the girls but Jenny’s special even in that company. You’re not planning on leaving the picture, though, are you?” I tried to keep my voice even when I asked my question but I’m sure that Trish understood.

“No, I’m not leaving and I still want to marry you as soon as I can. I just wanted to know for sure how much you liked our little, blond friend.” She then wrapped me up in a nearly bone crushing hug and dragged me off to bed where she proceeded to demonstrate just how much she still wanted me.

The next morning, before Jenny showed up, we told our parents that she’d be spending the night. They were actually a little surprised that we’d give up a night together to have Jenny over for no other reason than we wanted to have her over. Still, it didn’t bother them so when Jenny got there we stashed her extra clothes in our bedroom before getting ready to go to work.

That day was a long work day, four yards and one of them was Mrs. Garrison’s, so we didn’t have a chance to shower before sitting down to a late lunch. After lunch our parents left for work and we hit the showers, Jenny first then the two of us together. After that we grabbed swimwear and headed for the pool.

When the girls came out in their bikinis I gave them the full, comically exaggerated, double take. They deserved it! Trish’s suit was a warm, reddish brown that went well with her eyes, hair and complexion. Jenny’s was green and it worked beautifully with both her blue eyes and her nearly white hair. They took lounges on either side of me then they lay down on their stomachs, turned their heads and just looked at me.

Got it!

“Could I interest either of you lovely young ladies in some suntan lotion?” I asked, wiggling a bottle of Coppertone in my hand.

Trish giggled and said, “My, you catch on fast. Yes, kind sir, I would appreciate the application of some of that lotion to my back.”

“My pleasure, my dear — most definitely my pleasure.”

Rubbing it into her back brought some little sighs and a happy smile to Trish’s face. The look on Jenny’s face was more wistful than happy, though. At least it was until I offered her the same treatment. Then it was all smiles — particularly after Trish nodded to her to let her know that she was fine with it. More sighs. Her smile was more contented than happy, but contentment is good.

Once I was done I just held up the bottle and cleared my throat meaningfully at Trish. She surprised me a bit when she said, “Jenny, would you like to do Jeff’s back.”

Well, that didn’t take long — she snatched the bottle from my hand just as she was saying, “Sure, I’d love to!”

If Trish was fine with it I figured I was as well so I just stretched out on the lounger and let her work me over. Instead of standing on the deck and bending over me she straddled my upper legs and reached up — occasionally brushing her breasts against my back, apparently accidentally. A glance at Trish showed that she was watching and grinning broadly.

“Thank you, my dear,” I said when she finally decided she was done.

“Anytime. I’d be happy to do that anytime.”

We all relaxed a bit in the sun for awhile then moved under one of the canopies — suntan lotion only did so much, after all. Maybe an hour later we decided it was time to head home so we all went to shower and get changed back into real clothes for the hike up the hill.

It was still a bit early to be starting dinner — nothing fancy, just burgers — so we decided to relax on the sofa in the living room for an hour or so. Trish and I sandwiched Jenny between us, sliding up to her until we were just touching shoulders, then we both leaned our heads on her shoulders and sighed. I could feel the motion of Jenny’s head through the tightening of the muscles in her shoulders as she turned her head from side to side to look at us. Eventually she must have just decided to go with it so she dropped her head over onto Trish’s and I felt her relax.

An hour later we were still in the same position — Trish and I slouched a bit to get our heads down to Jenny’s shoulder level and Jenny’s head lightly resting on top of Trish’s — when I announced it was time to make dinner. When we all straightened up it was easy to see a change in Jenny — her eyes were bright and the smile on her face was wide and happy.