40: New Sister

We got back to school the twentieth of April and for four weeks just about everything revolved around the prom. Renee, Candace, and Donna were great. They were the only upper classmen in our dating group and were taking two of us guys to the prom. But the freshman girls were just as excited as the upper classmen. Each of the upper classwomen designated a "court" to help them get ready for the prom. Of course, Rhonda was Donna's princess and she chose Samantha and Liz to help her get Donna ready for the prom. Renee asked the other cheerleaders—Sora, Brenda, and Rose—to help her. Candace looked around and declared that Whitney, Cassie, Rachel, Denise, and Sugar were her court and they would have the best time getting ready. Lionel and I just rolled our eyes and asked the other guys if they wanted to play basketball the day of the prom. We all agreed.

"Okay, here's the deal," Lamar said as he pulled Lionel and me aside. "We rent a limo. It's forty-five bucks an hour with a four hour minimum. That comes out to sixty bucks for each of us. We pick up our beautiful ladies and ride around for an hour in the limo, just cruising and having fun. Then we go to the prom. The limo has to wait for us, so we just spend two hours—no more and no less—cruising the prom, showing off our ladies, and dancing. Then we get back in the limo and cruise for another hour while our ladies cuddle up to us and we drink champagne. You know, that non-alcoholic kind. I ain't springing for liquor."

"So what happens then?" I asked. "That only gets us to about eleven o'clock. Is the night over?"

"Oh! No. I got my car and I'll take Renee on a nice romantic drive to Tower Hill. Bunch of seniors go there every year after prom and watch the sun come up. Too cold to go swimming, but we play in the sand all day. I figure Candace will drive little bro around and find some place to make out. I'm sure Donna will drive you to wherever you need to be, whenever you need to be there."

"Lamar, about taking Renee out all night," I said. "Do we need to do something to excuse her from our agreement? I know you guys are both seniors and maybe you shouldn't be limited by our kind of childish rules."

"You got that dead wrong, Little Brother," he said. It was cool that Lamar was calling me 'Little Brother' just like he did Lionel. "I really like Renee. This is my opportunity to show her that a real man respects her boundaries and the agreement we made. I promised to abide by the agreement when I asked her to the prom. I'm not going to break that promise."

"You're cool, Lamar."

"Are you available Friday for a little date, Brian?" Candace asked. It was Saturday afternoon and there were fifteen of us in the attic with books spread out in front of us. There'd been a bit of chatter about the upcoming prom when everybody got there, but we recognized that we really needed to study. Sora and Rose were both in my English Comp class and we were working on our essays that were due on Thursday. I still needed to spend some time with Rose on our Geometry assignment. I was surprised that Candace spoke into relative silence to ask me out. It was loud enough for everyone to hear and look at us. I glanced at Donna and she smiled and went back to studying her Civics. Lionel never looked up at all.

"Sure, I guess," I said. "I'm going to need a break by then. We can make whatever plans we need to at school. Sit with me at lunch Monday?" I really didn't want to go into details of planning a date with everybody trying to study. It was obvious no one was going to continue until we'd finished this conversation.

"That sounds perfect. I'll talk to you Monday," she said.

When I found Candace at lunch on Monday she wasn't with our group and she wasn't with the drama group. She was sitting by herself at a corner table. I almost didn't see her. I walked over to join her.

"Excuse me, Miss, but is this seat taken?"

"I'm waiting for my boyfriend," Candace said.

"He's a fool for letting you sit here all alone in a joint like this," I said as casually as I could. I set my tray down on the table. "I'll stick here with you to keep the riff-raff away while you wait."

"That's so kind of you, sir. Since he hasn't shown up, I suppose you'll do. In a pinch."

"If you pinch me, do I not bleed?" I asked. Candace snorted. "I know it's 'If you prick us, do we not bleed?' But being a gentleman, how could I say 'prick' in front of such a fine lady."

"Yet you do, my lord. I pray you tarry; pause a day or two before you hazard; for in choosing wrong, I lose your company: therefore forebear a while." The school production of The Merchant of Venice was just two weeks away. Candace was Portia and I'd run lines with her a few times. In order to understand what the heck was going on, I'd read the whole play.

"Madam, you have bereft me of all words." I'd said some of the lines often enough that I knew them, but I didn't really know the order. It just sounded appropriate.

"So sweet," she smiled. "Do you really want to go out Friday?"

"With you, Candace? Of course I do. I can't believe you can switch from musical comedy to Shakespearean tragedy so easily."

"It's not a tragedy, it's a comedy."

"Strange sense of humor."

"Let's not quibble about Shakespeare. I want you to myself Friday."

"You have me, love. After all, I practically proposed to you on national TV."

"That was local and hardly a proposal, but this is. I propose we cook dinner for your parents Friday night."

"That's our date?"

"Just the beginning. When your parents are sated and no longer able to object, we'll go for a walk."

"A walk."

"In the woods."

"A walk in the woods."

"Sounds like a play by Ionesco, but I promise, not so absurd."

"Candace, you are way beyond me."

"I'd like something else for our date."

"What's that?"

"I'd like you to get permission to cut school that day."

"Why?"

"Because I'd like you to be with me in court."

"We can't really get married, Candace. I'm only fifteen."

"No, but you can be with me when I officially get my name changed."

"Really? You're really going to do it?"

"The paperwork is all filed, the notices have run in the paper, and Friday, May first is the date I have my final hearing."

"That's so cool!"

"Yeah. Except..."

"What?"

"I should have talked to you before. Brian, I don't want you to think this means more than it does. I'm not really proposing to you and I never expect you to have the kind of feelings toward me that would result in our ever getting married. But..."

"Candace? But what?"

"I like your name. I like the fact that we've been so close and yet so free all this year. I liked it so much that I filed my name change to be the same as yours. We'll be like brother and sister, only not related and not bitchy to each other. It's just the name, Brian. You aren't responsible for me and your parents aren't, but ... oh God! I was so stupid!" I'd never seen Candace so shaken up. She was always so confident. But she was changing her last name to match mine? I was shocked, but at the same time it was thrilling. She liked me enough to change her name to mine? We really could be brother and sister. I'd like that. Oh shit! She was crying. I had to do something.

"Candace. Sweetheart," I turned her face toward me. She looked miserable.

"I'm sorry. I should have asked."

"You really want your name to be ... Brian Jones?" She looked at me like I'd just landed from Mars. I held off as long as I could and then just started cackling. She snorted some tears and some snot and started beating me on the chest. I just wrapped my arms around her and held her to me. "I love you, Candace Frost," I said. "I'm going to love having a new sister."

"It won't be Candace, either," she whispered. "I wanted something elegant. I'm changing my first name to Elaine."

"Elaine Frost," I whispered. "And the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role goes to Elaine Frost. I think it works."

"You are the biggest dope I ever met!"

"Fair lady, you drop manna in the way of starved people."

I figured I'd better tell Mom and Dad what was going on before Friday. After all, I was asking permission to skip school on Friday to go to court with my new sister. Mom and Dad were pretty calm about it. They asked me if I felt obligated in any way to Candace because of it and I said no. I sort of figured we wouldn't even be boyfriend and girlfriend after school was out and she graduated. Shit. Joanne wouldn't have dated me as a junior when I was a freshman. I couldn't imagine that a college freshman would continue to say she was the girlfriend of a bunch of high school sophomores. I'd pretty well resigned myself to losing both her and Renee when they graduated.

"I don't think you should mention it to Betts," Mom said. That was the extent of the conversation. I had permission to "call in sick" on Friday.

Friday was cool. The court hearing was at eleven and really only lasted about fifteen minutes. The judge asked a few questions and asked Candace's parents if they had any objections. They said they thought her choice was good and the whole family was thinking of changing their names to match. I swear, her parents and her disabled brother, Cam, were as funny as Candace was. He was there in his wheelchair. He'd been injured in an auto accident when he was a freshman in high school and was paralyzed from the waist down. He had the same fiery red hair that Candace had and was as sharp and funny as his sister. He made a crack about not losing a sister, but gaining a brother. Then he wanted to know if Candace could move into my house and I could move into his. God! What a guy! Candace hugged him. Cam even thanked me for the great jack o'lantern salad she'd made him after the fair.

No. Not Candace. As of twelve o'clock noon on May first, she was Elaine Frost.

We had lunch with her family after the hearing and they were damned cool.

"I don't think our name was really Jones anyway," her dad said. He was on his second Canadian Club and Coke at the restaurant we went to. Her mom had already taken the keys. "It was probably something unpronounceable and the immigration authorities just said 'Oh. Jones.' Whoever heard of a redheaded Jones?" Mr. Jones was as redheaded as Elaine and her brother. Of course, her mother was very nearly as red.

After lunch, we left them at the table and went shopping for dinner. Elaine had very specific requirements for dinner and even went to a meat market to have them cut exactly the steaks she wanted. I'd never seen one pound center cut tenderloins before. A filet mignon was more commonly six to eight ounces. I had no idea how she was going to cook a steak that thick. We got potatoes, fresh asparagus, and broccoli. We got home about two o'clock.

"We don't have to start preparing things for an hour yet," she said, leading me into the family room. "I hear that chair is a great place to make out." So even Renee talked about what happened on her dates. Damn! Still, I let Elaine push me into Dad's recliner and let her sit in my lap. She brought the kitchen timer with her and set it beside us. "I don't want us to forget to go fix dinner. May I kiss you, Brian?" I agreed and while my classmates were still fighting Algebra, History, and English, I was making out with Elaine.

She was a soft and sensuous kisser and I lost myself in the touch of her lips and tongue. We kissed for a long time, but I really wanted more. She kept building up, but she hadn't given me permission to do anything else. I remembered what she said the first night we dated and knew it was fatal to reach for her breasts without her permission.

The realization crashed in on me like a ton of bricks. In all the dating I'd done in the past few months with sixteen girlfriends, I'd always just assumed that when they were ready for anything more, they'd give me permission. I never even thought about the fact that I could ask. Fuck!

"Elaine? May I touch your breasts while we kiss?" I croaked.

"If you had said Candace, I'd have said no," she answered. She pulled my hand up to her breast. "Please touch me brother-lover. I've been waiting for you to ask."

We made out for a long time. I loved caressing her breasts, even though she was still dressed sort of professionally for her court appearance. I lost all track of where I was and all I could feel or think was Elaine. Then the timer rang.

"Everything gets cut on the diagonal. Quarter inch slices for the potatoes so they look like long ovals. Four inches long for the asparagus. Break the broccoli apart into florets and if any are more than an inch across, cut them in half." I worked as Candace/Elaine's sous chef, chopping and washing and cleaning things up. She got everything ready to cook and turned the oven on to pre-heat.

Mom and Dad got home a little after five and hugged us both. Elaine was prepared for them and started shaking martinis. Mom and Dad heard the sound, grinned, and rushed to get ready for dinner. They came out dressed casually, but elegantly.

"You two look so cute," Elaine said. "Please relax with your cocktails and we'll have dinner on the table in half an hour. We couldn't start cooking this until we knew you were here."