"No," I said, putting a finger to her lips. "She isn't. Your mom is not evil. She did what she did because she loves her daughter. Give her a little time to get used to you being an adult and a lot of grace when she treats you like a child. I wish I had a slightly manipulative, occasionally underhanded mother looking after me."
Looking up at me with tears cascading down her high cheek bones, Mary gave me one last kiss.
"There is absolutely no way I deserve you," she said. "But if you sneak into my room tonight, I'll give you what you deserve."
We startled when the front door rattled a couple of times before opening.
"Two-minute warning you two," Frank said. "We're locking up for the night."
"Did you know your dad keeps a loaded pistol in his nightstand?" I said after Frank left.
"No. And more importantly, how do you know?"
"He told me. It's a nine-millimeter Sig Sauer with a laser sight and ten round magazine. He also said that the upstairs hall floor creaked a little, so I shouldn't be concerned if I hear him walking around in the middle of the night. Good chance we'll be sleeping alone tonight."
-
When my body automatically woke up at 5:30 the next morning and refused to go back to sleep, I put on shorts, t-shirt, and running shoes, slipped out the back door, and set off to explore.
Following a network of paved running paths, I wound through the neighborhood, passing houses of similar size to the Spencer's and a few even larger. A portion of my run cut through a golf course and, when I came upon a good-sized alligator resting next to one of the many water hazards, my detour around the large lizard might have led me through the manicured back garden of one of the smaller mansions.
The run did me good. I didn't sleep well the previous night. My overactive mind kept searching for a way to impress Mary's parents and never came up with a workable plan. Three miles at a moderate pace put my brain in a better place and, by the time I got back to the house, I realized that the only person I had to impress was Mary. Yeah, life would be a whole lot easier if my future in-laws liked me from the get-go, but it wasn't a deal breaker. All I really had to do was not give them a reason to reject me. Be polite, be helpful, and don't do anything stupid.
I was showered, shaved, and dressed by the time Martha came downstairs. She didn't see me at first. I had made myself a cup of Keurig coffee and was partially hidden in the breakfast nook, silently watching as she started her morning routine. There was a graceful efficiency in the way she moved and, when she reached above her head to fetch a stack of plates from an upper cabinet shelf, the morning sun backlit her sheer night gown revealing the outline of her braless breasts... not the magnificent masterpieces of womanhood hiding under her daughter's nighty, but certainly boobs most women ten years younger would be proud of.
If Mary takes after her mother, I'll be ogling a similar sight in my own kitchen two decades from now.
"Anything I can do to help?" I asked.
Martha spun around in fright, the plates spilled out of her hands, I dropped my coffee cup in an unsuccessful attempt to save the plates and was thereafter banished from the kitchen. So much for not doing anything stupid.
After the morning kitchen fiasco, Martha suggested (insisted) that Frank and I do some male bonding while she and Mary decorated the Christmas tree.
"I don't care where you take him," I overheard Martha say to her husband. "Just get the son of a bitch out of my house so I can talk some sense into our daughter."
"You ever done any shooting?" Frank asked me after his not so discreet conversation with his wife.
"Yes sir. A little, back home on the farm."
"What did you shoot?"
"Whatever we could eat. Pheasants, quail, the occasional wild pig."
"How about sporting clays?" he asked.
"Is that like skeet where a machine throws a clay pigeon in the air for you to shoot at?"
"Pretty much. Care to give it a try?"
An hour later, Frank, his younger brother James, and I were loading our shotguns into a golfcart at a shooting venue nestled in scrubland thirty miles inland.
Both Frank and James had Italian made, double barrel over/under guns that had to cost at least five thousand each. I declined Frank's offer to borrow "one of his older guns" and retrieved my Winchester model 12 pump action from behind the seat of my truck. I got some good-natured ribbing when I first pulled my grandfather's field gun out of its case but, when I broke my first fifty pigeons without a miss, I knew I'd finally done something to impress them.
From their conversation, when they weren't talking trash about their shooting skills, it was evident that Frank and James weren't only brothers, they were also business partners.
"Nothing fancy," James said when I asked what type of business. "We make packing material. Cardboard boxes, bubble wrap, grocery bags... all the stuff that people take for granted."
"We've got a half-acre facility in the Tampa area and are thinking about opening a new plant in Texas," Frank added.
"Sounds interesting," I said. "Any chance I could get a tour while I'm here?"
Yeah, I was doing a bit of brown nosing, but I'd always been interested in how things were made, so going to a working factory for me was kind of like visiting an amusement park.
"I don't mind if you don't," James said to Frank. "The number three conveyer shit the bit again this morning so one of us has to go there anyway."
It was a twenty-minute drive from the shooting range to their cardboard box factory. The building wasn't much to look at from the outside and the machinery on the inside had seen better days. Thirty workers stood idle around a non-functional conveyer belt while James tried to get a repairman on the phone.
"Mind if I take a look?" I asked Frank while his brother cursed as he waited on musical hold.
"Knock yourself out. I'm losing a hundred-fifty bucks every minute this damn machine is broken."
It took me five minutes to figure out what was wrong, ten minutes to convince Frank I knew what I was talking about, and fifteen minutes to get the conveyer running again.
"That's just a temporary fix," I told the brothers. "You're going to have to replace the sprag clutch sometime in the next month or it'll quit on you again."
"That conveyer is so old, I don't think they make parts for it anymore," James said.
"Then you'll have to make your own parts or replace the conveyer," I said.
"Can you do that?" Frank asked. "Can you make a new clutch?"
"I'd need access to a machine shop, but yeah, I can."
-
Mary Spencer
"Are you two having sex?"
That's the first thing Mom asked after Robert and Dad left to go shooting. Not "how did you sleep?" or "what courses are you taking next semester?"
"Are you having sex?" The way she asked, it was more of an accusation than a question.
"Yes," I answered. "We are. Several times a week. I've been spending more time in his bed than the one in my dorm room. I sleep better when I'm in his arms, I eat healthier when he cooks for me and, ever since we've been dating, my grades have improved. You might as well quit paying for my dorm room and the meal plan because, when we go back to school in January, I plan to move in with him."
"Is he going to pay your tuition as well?" Mom asked. "Because that's the only way we'll let you live with him. And is he also going to pay for your medical insurance? Your birth control prescription runs out the end of this month. Assuming you've been taking them, you'll be needing a refill."
"Strong words for a woman who had me at eighteen. And remind me, how old was Dad when he knocked you up? Thirty, wasn't he? Six years older than Robert is now."
"Your father was a successful businessman when you were born. Robert is a starving student. Yes, he is charming and good looking, but he is also the first boy you've seriously dated. All I'm asking is for you not to rush into anything. I don't think you realize what a catch you are. There are thousands of young men at Auburn. With your looks, personality, and family connections, you can have any one of them."
"So that's it. You're not worried about Robert's age. You don't think he's good enough for me."
"Yes sweetheart, that's exactly what I think. And I don't blame you for sowing a few wild oats these next couple of years. I expect you to be discreet with your personal affairs, but it will do you good to explore what's out there. That's why I'm going to keep paying for your dorm room and food. When you get bored of Robert or he tires of you, I want you to have an exit plan. A safe place to go when you're no longer comfortable or welcome in his trailer."
"I understand what you're saying," I said. "I don't agree with you. If anything, I don't think I'm good enough for Robert, but you're my mom and expected to think I'm too good for the rest of the world. So how about we agree to disagree on our opinions of Robert and see what this next semester brings. You have to know that I plan to keep seeing Robert. I won't completely move in with him but, as long as we're happy, there's no reason why we shouldn't continue dating. If what you say is true, if he gets tired of dating a girl six years younger than him and dumps me, I'll accept it as a life lesson and move on."
