This is a continuation of "A TROUT FOR EMMA WIGHTMAN." For continuity, read the earlier story first to become familiar with the characters.
Chapter 9 -- A Nice Italian Dinner
"You're invited for dinner at my house," Louisa told me. "Saturday was suggested."
"That's nice! What brought this on?" I inquired.
Louisa and I had been spending a lot of time together. The wedding we had attended brought us together, and the sparks were still flying. At every opportunity we were getting together, and on most occasions we had sex. It wasn't always easy for us to find a place to meet, as we both still lived at home. However, we grabbed every opportunity that came along and used it to full advantage.
"Remember, we were at my house last week? Louisa said. "We'll I think my mother figured out what we were doing. In fact, she asked me if we were getting it on."
"What did you tell her? How did she react? I asked.
"I didn't really answer her, and then she broke into tears," Louisa told me. "Dinner might be a little tense."
"Well, we may as well deal with it sooner than later. What do you think is on the agenda? I replied.
"I'm not sure," said Louisa, "but I don't think they plan on congratulating us. They're old style Italians."
"Sort of like the Italian version of hard-ass Baptists?" I countered. "I'm not really looking forward to a big confrontation, but it might be inevitable."
"Looks that way," she agreed.
Saturday came, and the meal was very nice. Home-made pasta, pesto sauce, fresh beans, barbecued salmon, salad, and white wine were in abundance.
After Louisa's younger sister left to see her friends, I started to get a few questions along with some unsolicited comments.
Luigi, her father, wondered what I did for a living. "So you don't have a regular job, I hear?"
"That's right. I'm self employed -- I do home maintenance and repairs, and I'm the local animal removal guy." I explained. "Sometimes I work the salmon or herring season on the seine boats as well. I don't think I'm cut out for working at the paper mill everyday like most other guys in town."
"So tell me," he asked, "why does everyone in town call you 'Swede'? Louisa tells me you aren't even Swedish?"
"Well, my name is hard to pronounce. The first teacher I had in school started to call me 'Swede' and I guess it just stuck."
Luigi continued, "How come I've never seen you in church?"
"I used to go to the Anglican Sunday school years ago, but about all I do now is go with a couple of friends to the Christmas Eve service at the Foursquare church."
"You mean you aren't Catholic?" Luigi asked.
"No -- I've never set foot in a Catholic church except of one funeral."
Maria, Louisa's mother, seemed pretty shocked. "Louisa," she asked, "how can you be seeing a boy that's not Catholic? Your grandmother would turn over in her grave."
Louisa didn't have anything to say. She looked like she might cry any minute.
Luigi concluded, "This is a big problem for us."
I figured that I'd better explain the lay of the land to him, so I replied, "It doesn't affect Louisa or me that much, in fact, not at all. We've never even discussed it."
"Well, I think you two had better talk about it," said Maria.
That seemed to be the end of the inquisition. I wasn't sure if the big problem was that I was fucking Louisa, or if the issue was my not being Catholic or Italian.
Louisa and I went for a drive up to the lake after that, but she wasn't ready to snuggle up or make out. Tears welled up, and she said, "This is a big deal to them. I don't know what they will do."
I explained how I felt. "Well, they are going to have to figure that out because I'm not about to start adapting to what they want. If we give in on this then the next thing will be something bigger, and so on and so on until they are telling us when to shine our shoes."
I didn't hear any more from Louisa's parents, but I knew that a storm was brewing.
Chapter 10 -- Louisa the Match Maker
I never had enjoyed digging. I could do it, and I was pretty good at it, but I had done enough of it. That's where Alan came in. I had a project started - installing automatic lawn sprinklers - and it began to entail a lot more digging than I had first envisioned. I looked up Alan. As usual he needed money, and he was willing to dig for me.
Alan was a nice young guy, a good worker, and strong as an ox, but he was a bit different. He was pretty shy, and had a hard time looking you in the eye until he got to know you pretty well. Sometimes he couldn't figure things out that you would expect him to understand, but he could do a few things better than most other people. He was a natural at target shooting, but he couldn't open a combination lock. When we were in school I used to have to open his locker for him most of the time. He could track game better than most hounds, but he couldn't work the gearshift on a truck. Sometimes he walked on his tippy toes instead of normally on the soles of his feet like everyone else, but he could swim like an otter.