Candy and Buster sat in lawn chairs outside the motor home and watched the sun set over the lake. She had her top off to "let the little girls breath.”
“Is the kid going to be able to breast feed with those piercings?” Buster asked.
“Probably, but I ain’t going to breast feed anyway.”
“Why not?”
“Don’t want him to starve,” she laughed.
“Did you say ‘him’?”
“Just a feeling. Mother’s tuition.”
“You gonna stop smoking?”
“Do I need to?”
“That’s what they say. Bad for the baby.”
“Then I probably will,” she said, snuffing out her Marlboro in the grass.
“And what about drinking?”
“You mean booze?”
“Yeah. Bad too.”
“Okay, I’ll stick to beer,” she said, sipping a Bud.
“I think they consider beer to be booze too.”
“Jeez are you going to be ragging on me for seven more months?”
“Just looking out for Junior.”
“Then, I suppose,” and she tossed the half full beer to Buster.
“And I hear lots of sex is really good for the woman’s health,” he smiled.
“Now you’re just making shit up,” she said.
“Figured I was on a roll.”
“Well, I guess if I’m not going to be drinking or smoking I gotta find something else to do with my time.” And she took him by the hand and led him inside.
As she shut the door, she hung a sign on the door handle. “If the RV is rocking, don’t come knocking.”
**
With Rose off working and shopping all day, Reuben used his Saturday to tend to the roses he’d been neglecting of late and to run some errands. He returned home just in time for supper, which was also at 6:00 on the dot.
He opened the kitchen door and lifted his nose to drink in the smell of fried chicken. The bucket of KFC on the table caught him off guard as Rose wasn’t the fast-food chicken type. He was caught more off guard when Rose beckoned him from the living room: “We’re in here.”
The “we” surprised him. More so when the “we” turned out to be Rose and Slug sitting on the couch drinking iced tea.
Reuben gave her an apprehensive peck on the cheek and Slug a hearty handshake.
“Slug, you’re out?”
“Thanks to your lovely bride here,” he growled in his nicest growl.
Reuben looked at Rose and with his hands at his side, opened his palms and shrugged his shoulders to signify “what the heck?”
“Sit down Reuben,” she said. “We need to talk.”
Slug gave him a reassuring nod and Reuben sat on the edge of the recliner across the room from them and flashbacked to his collegiate day-of-reckoning with Dean Alma. His usual ice-coolness was beginning to drip down his armpits.
“Reuben, you know I love you,” she began. “You’ve been the best husband a woman could have. You’re kind to me, you’ve provided well for us, you’ve loved me, doted on me and treated me like a queen. That’s why over the past several years, I’ve looked the other way when you’ve taken imaginary classes and pretended to take up new hobbies; while I knew full well what you were really doing. I always had full confidence in your ability to pull these things off. But you aren’t the only smart one in this family.
She paused to take a sip of tea. Slug gave him another “hang in there” nod.
“As such, I became aware that this last motorcycle stunt of yours seemed to have you in a delicate pickle with the Black Lords. So, given my particular friendship with Mr. Slug, I thought it might benefit you to have our friend back on his home turf to keep things from getting out of hand.”
Then she offered an open hand to Slug to take it from there.
“So she drove to Denver this morning and bailed me out. We got here about five minutes before you.”
“That’s why we are having KFC tonight. I’m sorry,” Rose said.
Slug continued: “While I’m not happy my top two lieutenants are going to be spending the next couple decades in prison, I am glad to know that they weren’t as loyal to me as I thought they were. It was better for me to find out under these circumstances than under other circumstances later that might’ve had more dire effects on me and the Lords.”
“So we’re good?” Reuben said, looking at Slug, then Rose, not sure whom to address first.
“We’re good,” Slug said. “You got nothing to worry about from my boys.”
“And we’re golden,” Rose said endearingly. “I only ask if you have future summer plans like this that you are more open with me about them so I don’t have to resort to my other means.”
Not wanting to ask what her “other means” were, though he was racking his brain as to what they might be, he concurred. “I promise.”
“Can we kill that chicken now?” Slug asked.
“Let’s kill the chicken,” Rose said. And the trio retreated to the kitchen.
**
Even by Larry’s standards, he was putting on the ritz. He made pasta noodles from scratch, his own Alfredo sauce and Caesar salad. A candle flickered in the middle of the dining room table. His finest China and cloth napkins were set for two. Norah Jones softly warbled through the Bose speakers.
Auburn Thrice showed up at the tick of 7. In a white floral pattern blouse and knee-length pink skirt, she looked like a spokes model for Georgia peaches. Her blonde hair shimmered and her skin seemed illuminated in the setting sun. She looked so angelic Larry almost felt guilty as he opened the door - almost.
“You are heaven on earth,” he said, giving her a soft kiss on the lips.
“Thank you, Laurence, and you’re looking dapper as well.”
He was decked out in black dress pants and bright purple dress shirt, the collar held together by a turquoise Native American-made bolo tie. His usually unruly red hair was slicked back with half a bottle of hair gel.
Larry motioned to the dining table with one arm, the other around her waist. “I threw together some pasta Alfredo, if you’d care to join me?”
“Actually, Laurence, I’ve been thinking about this night all weekend and I’m too excited to eat. I don’t want to offend you, but could we go to your bedroom first and eat later?”
That was about the dumbest question Larry had ever been asked, but didn’t tell her that. Instead, he kept his composure and blew out the candle. “Let me turn down the water. It wasn’t quite ready for the noodles anyway.”
Turning off the stove, he attempted not to appear too eager and nonchalantly led her to his bedroom at the rear of the bungalow.
There too he’d gone all out and washed the purple satin sheets and added a couple throw pillows. He turned on the lights and dimmed them a bit.
Auburn moved to the foot of the bed and turned to face him. She pulled the blouse over her head, somehow barely moving a hair on her head. She reached behind her waist and unclasped her skirt, which floated to the floor like the closing curtain of a Broadway musical. She wore nothing else.
Larry’s mouth fell open as he his eyes moved up and down her nude body. He was transfixed. He’d never seen anyone so beautiful, so perfect, so blonde, so pure. This was the best weekend of his life.
Then a police siren sounded in his driveway. “Whoop, whoop!” was the short signal, not the long police chase type. It was the “I’m here. Pay attention” siren.
Larry’s stomach sank like a guy who hit all the winning lottery numbers but lost his ticket. “Just ignore it,” he said. “Probably at another house.”
“But yours is the only one up here,” said Auburn, who’d somehow dressed even quicker than she’d undressed.
“Stay here. Let me go see what’s up.”
Before he could get to the door, somebody was already knocking. He didn’t need three guesses as to whom.
Larry opened the door and stood firmly in the doorway to prevent entry. It didn’t work. Diedra Deeds busted through him like a bear through a young willow tree. In blue nylon sweatpants and gray “Colorado Buffaloes” sweatshirt she didn’t look as appealing to Larry as she had in the past.
“Hey, Laurence,” she said overlooking the table. “Expecting company?”
A tongue-tied Larry stood mute.
“He has company,” Auburn said from the bedroom door. “Who are you?”
“I see college has put some spunk in the school board president’s daughter,” Diedra said. “I’m Laurence’s girlfriend.”
“No, no, no, no,” Larry sputtered, waving his arms like trying to put out flames.
“I thought I was your girlfriend,” Amber said, arms crossed in the universal sign that meant trouble for a dude.
“She’s lying,” Larry said.
“Oh, that wasn’t you I was sleeping with last week and the weeks before?” Diedra twisted the knife.
“Laurence! Is that true?” Amber said.
“But she’s not my girlfriend, just a friend.”
“With great benefits,” Diedra said.
“And to think, Laurence, I was saving myself for you!” Amber marched to and out the door.
Larry was shell-shocked at his change in fortune.
“Easy come, easy go,” Diedra said. “What’s for supper?”
But Larry wasn’t having any more of it. “Nothing for you.”
“Oh, but Laurence, you know better than anyone what I can do for you on a full stomach.”
“I’ve lost my appetite for food and women,” Larry said. “I’m going celibate.”
“Well you know how to find me,” she said. “And I for damn sure know how to find you. Toodles.”
And then Larry was alone. He sat down at the gorgeous table for two, put his head on an empty plate, and wept real tears that would’ve made the original Laurence Olivier proud.
- THE END -
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