© 2012, All rights reserved – mimaster
~*~*~*~*~*~
There was more food than I would have ever imagined...more than I'd seen for any Thanksgiving spread I'd ever been to. Sure, my mom had brought three dishes with us, and Ann's sister in law, Shelly brought two. Still, it seemed like Jean had to have been cooking all week with all things she'd prepared. It was way too much food, especially since there were just eight of us. But then again, it
was
Thanksgiving; a meal where the leftovers were going to be picked over all day long.
I could see it in my dad's eyes as he ate his second helping. He was already contemplating what he'd have later in the afternoon as we watched football together. Marlin had the same glazed look in his, carefully following the plan of attack he'd devised with lethal precision as he selected items during his second trip to the kitchen.
We'd been at Ann's parent's house for an hour, and it had gone much, much better than I could have hoped for. Jean was the perfect hostess, greeting my parents with huge hugs, welcoming them into her home, and as she put it, into their extended family. I saw a little tear in Ann's eye as that settled into her heart, her big white smile hiding it from everyone but me. Marlin gave my dad a huge handshake, and sweetly gave my mom a kiss on the cheek, thanking them both for coming.
With that out of the way, it left just Alan as the last proverbial hurdle to jump. That was a concern, and not because he was a track star in high school. But when he came around the corner with Shelly on his arm, I was surprised, in many ways.
First, it
wasn't
a surprise that his wife was a knockout. Alan had always been good looking, no matter his height. But now he could actually be categorized as handsome. A lot of that had to do with him being bigger. He'd grown a little taller, standing around 5'9". He had also packed on some pounds, in a good way. His shoulders were broader, and he had more definition to his frame than the skinny kid he'd been in high school and the few years that followed. He'd also cut his dark black hair shorter and far more stylish than the ragged way he used to wear it...which was namely a mullet.
He looked great. But anyone would be kidding themselves if they didn't admit that one of the reasons he looked so fantastic was the woman hanging on his arm. Shelly was a tall, leggy, athletic, blue-eyed blonde with long, silky hair...and lots of it. She had her tresses pulled up high on her head, showing off her sexy neckline. She was at least a 36C, and she was showing off a lot of cleavage in the plunging front of her short, black dress. For whatever reason, she had dressed to kill, or at the very least, to stun.
And Ann was just that, her mouth dropping when she saw how her sister in law was dressed, walking toward us in that tight dress and her 4-inch black heels. Ann looked at her conservative maroon dress, which now seemed drab in comparison. But I was so proud of her and how she handled it. She simply reintroduced me to her brother, and he in turn introduced me to Shelly.
As I sat there later, eating my turkey and all the fixings a man could ever want, I looked around the table. There was talking and laughing to go along with the meal. It not only felt good...it felt right. I'd been so concerned about Alan, and then Jean, that I hadn't given them enough credit. Perhaps Alan had changed. Or, more likely, it was Shelly that helped him change. And perhaps it was my mom who helped both Ann and Jean, by finding a way to relieve the tension in the Franklin home to begin with.
~*~*~*~*~*~
I thought about what my dad had just said, telling me in a sense that I should consider myself lucky that Ann was about to start her period, instead of it falling on the following weekend. The same weekend I would be getting married. When he said it, I reeled from the enormity of it. Sure, it wouldn't have been world ending, but the prospect of not being able to make love to my bride on our wedding night would have been devastating in a way.
As that mulled around in my brain, I thought about what else he'd said. How I needed to be grateful to my mother, because she'd allowed me to sleep with Ann in their home. I looked at mom, sitting in front of me, her sweet face smiling at my dad as he drove. Of course, one of the reasons she was smiling that way was because she'd gotten laid just like I had that night, as well as not long before we left for the Franklin's. And from what I knew...just as many times, if not more.
Oddly, that thought didn't freak me out. It didn't bother me that they'd had sex. It was one of those 'more power to them' moments. What did intrigue me was that I was certain that my sleeping with Ann hadn't been the plan when she'd invited her to go shopping with her.
"Okay, so how did it go from you and Mom spending the day together...to, whatever it was that happened last night?" I asked her as we rode with my parent's on the way to celebrate Thanksgiving with her family.
She shrugged, her innocent smile disarming as she said, "It's just how it is, Neil. I don't plan everything. Sometimes things just happen."
"So...what happened?"
"Well, like I said, your mom asked me to spend the day with her, so...she took me shopping in Fort Wayne."
"Shopping...that's it?"
"No...it was more like a girl's day out. First we went and got a manicure and a pedicure...that was really fun. Then, she took me to lunch at this really nice little place downtown. And
then
we went shopping."
"It still sounds pretty benign, Ann. How do you get from that to last night?"
"Well, your mom is really good about getting me to open up and talk about what's bothering me."
"She is?" I said, thinking that it took me decades to get that comfortable with my mom, and here Ann was, able to talk to her from the start.
"Sure I am," mom answered with a laugh.
"Funny...I don't remember it that way," kidding her.
"You do too Neil. But it's easier with girls. I always wanted a girl."
"You have one now," Ann said happily.
There was a catch in her breath, but she recovered and said, "Thank you, Anna. I had such a good time yesterday."
"Me too...especially that last store we went to," she winked.
My mother started giggling like a little girl and said, "I still can't believe you talked me into that."
"I don't recall talking you into anything. I said 'Let's go in here', and you said, 'Okay'."
Mom grinned and said, "Well, you made it sound like I had to."
"What store?" I asked.
"The lingerie store we found in the mall," Ann replied.
She said that she'd dragged my nom into a boutique of sorts, but apparently not kicking and screaming as she would have liked me to believe at first. Ann had gone in on a whim, just to see what they had. But once they got inside, it was my mother that got excited about being there.
"I was just browsing. But your mom was pressing me, telling me I needed to find something for our wedding night. I told her I'd already bought what I needed, and I was pretty much set, at least for a while. That's when she said I should get something for last night."
"What?" I said, looking at my mom.
She shrugged her shoulders and said, "She told me she was upset because she's about to start her period, and that was going to ruin your weekend. I couldn't have that."
