Chapter 8

Between being forced to spend the night in a sleeping bag on the floor and not having Beth with me I didn't think I'd ever get to sleep. After tossing and turning for what seemed like hours I finally drifted off. Some indeterminate time later, I woke up realizing I'd had too much Coke and coffee that night. I got up and followed the night light we'd plugged in just outside the bathroom to make navigation easier for everyone. As I passed the closed French doors to my studio I could hear Beth and Gail giggling. What did those two girls have to talk about that could keep them up all night?

After finishing my business, I opened the bathroom door and bumped right into Beth's mom, obviously waiting her turn for the little room. In the dim illumination of the nightlight all I saw were her long legs—almost as long as her daughter's—disappearing under what I recognized as one of my pajama tops and that little imp who resides in my head wondered if she had anything on underneath.

"Oops, sorry," I whispered as I stepped out of Bev's way. As she closed the door she glanced down. "Why, thank you, Tommy," she said with a wink.

Why did she thank me? That's when I realized an unintended, unexpected, and unwanted "friend" had decided to make an appearance. I tiptoed my way back to my sleeping bag and lay there in the dark, staring at the ceiling I couldn't see. How the hell was I going to tell Beth about this? It didn't even occur to me NOT to tell her. Not with her ability to read my mind.

I must have drifted off because the next thing I knew I was getting kicked in the kidney.

"Oops! Sorry, Tommy," Kev said as he stepped over me.

I dragged my sorry butt out of my bag and pulled on yesterday's clothes. As soon as the ladies were done in the bedroom, I'd change into something more appropriate for heavy labor—one glance out the window told me I'd be spending most of the day behind the snow blower.

I stopped in the kitchen to grab a cup of coffee and a kiss. Fortified by my morning pick-me-ups I pushed the back door open enough to squeeze through, shovel in hand. I started by shoveling out the drift just outside the door and then aimed for the garage and the snow blower.

There was probably an average of eight inches of the white stuff, with drifts getting close to four feet. Shoveling a single path the thirty feet to the garage took almost an hour, including burrowing through the drift outside the passage door. Once more I wished the garage was attached to the duplex.

I filled the big red monster with gas, opened the main garage door, and shoveled just enough to get the blower outside.

Kevin walked out in his high-tops and parka. "Hey, Tommy, do you have another pair of boots I can borrow?"

"Nope, just the Sorels I'm wearing. If you'll give me a bit I'll blow a path to your car. You DO have a pair of boots in the car, right?"

The look on my brother's face gave me the answer.

"Well, you're just going to have to shovel in what you've got. Didn't Dad say anything about keeping a pair in the car?"

"Yeah, but I guess I didn't think buying a pair just for the car made any sense. I guess I goofed, huh?"

"Ya think? Go ask Dad if you can use his." Since everybody had parked in the driveway I could blow a path down one side of the cars which would give my brother access to my dad's survival stuff. Until then, Kev would just have to freeze his toes.

A half-hour later I'd cleared a path on both sides of the cars and started on the end of the driveway. The plows had been through and left a mountain of snow—too much for the blower, so it was back to the shovels. Kev had scrounged Dad's boots out of their car and joined me.

"Oh, jeez, Tommy. I just thought of something. I'm gonna have to do this all over when we get home!"

We finally scooped out enough snow that I could get the blower to clean things up.

"I'm going in for a while," Kev announced.

"Not yet. Start shoveling behind the cars so everybody can get out." With a theatrical groan he tackled the pile behind Bev and Chuck's BMW, being very careful where he swung the shovel. I think he was worried about what would happen if he scratched Chuck's baby.

Eventually we managed to clear enough snow to allow everyone to get their cars out of the driveway. Getting home might be a bit more problematic—not all the streets were clear yet.

Kev and I got in the house, kicked off our boots and walked into the kitchen to find lunch waiting—ham sandwiches, of course. Looked like there wouldn't be a lot of leftovers to worry about!

"Boys, that was a pretty good job out there. Do you hire out?" Chuck said with a grin. He'd offered to help Kev and me, but I told him we could handle it, so he and Dad went back to discussing G spots, er, codes.

My brother got a panicked look when he thought of doing their long three car driveway until Chuck let him off the hook, "Don't worry, Kev. I've got a service to plow it out." My brother got a hopeful look only to get let down by a shake of Dad's head.

Eventually everybody packed up and headed home, leaving Beth and me to relax for the first time in two days. We sat down on the couch intending to watch a little tube and woke up just in time to see Greg and Cindy pull in. I went out and helped Greg clean out the rest of the driveway.

"Should we do George's?"

"Oh, lets wait for tomorrow. I'm still tired from doing my folk's house," he said. Sounded good to me.

That night, when Beth and I climbed into bed, I was still trying to figure out the most painless way to tell her about my encounter with her mom and wasn't coming up with anything.

"Tommy, you wouldn't believe what Mom told me!" she said when we were snuggled in. "She said she saw you last night and you seemed to be having a problem with your shorts. Sort of like that first Friday night in my room?"

"Um, err..."

My lady started giggling. "Tommy, are you embarrassed? You are!" Her giggles turned into a full-throated laugh. "Tommy, don't be. Mom was thrilled that she could still have that effect on a younger guy."

"I can't believe it happened. I didn't mean anything, it just happened."

"Oh, I know why it happened. Remember, I've seen your reaction to girls in guys' clothes before."

I couldn't think of a good answer to that so I wisely kept my mouth shut and just pulled Beth closer for my best Christmas present.

The next morning Greg and I walked out to the garage to get the blower so we could do George's driveway. When I opened the door something didn't look right.

"What the heck?" Greg said, staring into the gloom. "Looks like something's blocking the back window."

We fired up the snow blower and cleared a path to the alley. I glanced at the back of the garage and saw why no light was getting through the window—the alley had been plowed leaving a six-foot pile up against the back wall of the garage. I cleared the snow away from the window and hoped the wall would stand up to the pressure against it.

"Greg, Winter's just started. If we get any more snow where are they going to put it?" He just shook his head.

We did George's driveway and sidewalk in a couple of hours and were ready to quit. After putting the blower away, we trudged to the house, set the shovels next to the door, and walked into the nice warm hall.

"I don't know about you, but I'm ready for food!" Greg said.

"Let's get the girls and run out for something."

"How about just staying here?" Beth was standing in the kitchen. "It's too nasty on the roads. I'm sure we can find something here."

I glanced at Greg.

"Sounds good. Let me run up and grab Cindy."

Ten minutes later the four of us were munching on sandwiches—ham, of course—and the rest of the leftovers, including some goodies Cindy brought down. As we finished eating Cindy giggled, "You guys want to hear something funny?

"You know the family that claimed your kitten? Well, it turns out we're related! Fran Kowalski and my dad are distant cousins of some sort. How's that for weird?"

"You know," Beth said, "I wondered about the last names being the same, but, well, you remember how crazy I got when they took Pye? I guess I just sort of zoned it out." I cringed, thinking back to how torn up she was when she lost her kitten. And how she took it out on me.

We were lucky the rest of the week—no more snow!

Beth's improv group was having a New Year's Eve performance so that took care of having to plan a party or anything. Greg and Cindy were coming, as were Kevin and Gail, so we figured on a fun evening.

"So are you really going to sit in the back row?" my lady asked me as we were waiting for my brother and his lady to get to our place.

"It IS tempting, but I could just see you talking one of the group into finding me anyway, so I might as well sit down front." The grin I got in response was all the answer I needed to know I was right.

Kev and Gail showed up just as Cindy and Greg walked downstairs.

"Ready to go?" I asked.

"Yeah. Where are we going to eat?" This from my brother.

I looked at Greg. "How about Annie's?" Beth and I had discussed this earlier. A lot of the places around the campus would be jammed and we thought Annie's wouldn't be too bad—at least we hoped not.

"Sounds good to me," he replied. Cindy's enthusiastic nod told me they were okay with the idea. Gail and Kev made it unanimous.

Kev offered to drive. Since there wouldn't be room for all six of us, Greg said he and Cindy would meet us there.

We lucked out—Annie's wasn't totally jammed. We were seated right away and our server came over to take our orders. My brother obviously remembered his last experience and ordered a malt and two glasses. Along with our burgers we decided to split one order of fries amongst the six of us.

"You sure you don't want an order of your own?" I kidded Kev, who kicked me under the table at the same time my lady gave me the elbow.

After we'd eaten we told Cindy and Greg we'd meet them at the auditorium. In nice weather it wouldn't have been a bad walk, but between the snow still piled all over and the falling temperature, driving to one of the on-campus lots sounded like a better idea.

As we waited in the lobby for Cindy and Greg, Gail looked at Beth. "Is this the kind of show where they drag people up on stage?"

"Oh, we rarely have to resort to dragging," Beth said with a straight face. From Gail's look I don't think that was a whole lot of reassurance.

Greg and Cindy walked in about then. Beth left to get ready and the five of us took our seats—right down front and damn the torpedoes!