"Thank you, Phil."
I looked at Ellen. "Ahem. That's my honest answer. Is it the right one, Ellen?"
"If you're really in any doubt, I'll try to make it plenty clear tonight. In spite of present limitations. I'd say before then, but we've both got a busy day ahead."
We all went our various ways. Ellen and I showered. She asked to give me oral sex, and I said no. But as she washed me, with soap for lubrication, her motions turned me on so that I cameâspraying the walls of the shower, not her, since she was reaching around from behind me. She turned me around to kiss me. "Phil, I love you. Thank you for letting me."
We wound up kind of short on time for breakfast, so it was hurried but good. We were both a few minutes late for class anyway.
I used my break between classes, and the hour after my last class, to speak to the professors whose classes I'd missed the day before. Whether or not they technically had office hours, I knocked at their office doors. One professor, who notoriously was never in his office except by prior appointment, I ambushed early on as he left a class.
No one of these discussions took very long, so I was done after only those two hours. Of course, the hour after my last classâwhich met at noonâwas when I normally was able to eat my lunch, so I was pretty hungry before I got around to eating. Only one professor, Professor Goldberg, had actually assigned anything except reading from the books on the official reading list. She asked us to do research on specified online sites, digging somewhat to find answers to particular questions, and to produce not a paper but an outline of a paper.
I ate the last couple of items from my lunch after my last class, when I'd talked to the last professor, while Ellen was in her own last class. I hurried home to get dinner started. I got things ready and the longer things cooking, set a timer for getting the shorter ones started, and studied while everything cooked. I was making chili, which really doesn't take a huge amount of time for prep, but needs a good bit of cooking time, and you have to be nearby. I got the beans cooking, the tomatoes ready, and most of the vegetables cut up. I used commercial salsa for part of the tomato, since that was spiced about right for the chili to be the way I wanted it. I was making it in my biggest cooking pot, so there would be leftovers. I'm not going to bother you with more cooking interruptions. Just remember that they were there.
I worked hard on the outline, since it was due the next day. But the material was pretty simple and straightforward. This felt more like a project for learning to use the internet and other resources, early high school or even middle school level, than something for an upper-level undergraduate history class. I got the outline done, delving somewhat deeper than the specific questions asked for, trying to go behind the material presented in those web pages, following up on some footnotes, and in one or two cases searching on my own for answers to my own questions. I tried not to exceed the instructions too far, but to make it feel like less of a mickey-mouse job.
Ellen arrived and interrupted me. With a kiss, which certainly made up for the interruption. "Phil! If we can get all of my stuff moved, every bit, by Saturday night, they'll waive any penalty completely, and we won't even owe another month's rent! It seems that they have a long waiting list still from the beginning of the school year, with a couple of people constantly calling them to ask about when something will be available. And of course most of the leases run until sometime after the end of the academic year. I think they've been tearing their hair out, from what she said. I'm guessing, but I think the school may have negotiated a better rate for us than they usually chargeâor at least than they think they can get right now. They want to be able to start cleaning and painting on Sunday to let someone move in on the first. Or probably before."
"That's wonderful! I hope you told them yes."
"Don't be ridiculous! I told her maybe, probably, but that I'd have to check with you. She pushed me to, um, be as persuasive as I can. I'm not used to women using such crude language, by the wayâguys, yes, but not womenâand she offered an incentive when I told her that! She said to tell you they would knock ten dollars a month off your rentâour rent!âif I convince you and we add my name to the lease. Maybe I should have pushed for more."
"I get you and a lower rent too? Something doesn't add up." She laughed and hugged me pretty hard. "It does sound like they are really desperate, though."
"I don't know how much is that they really want to get this guy off their backs, how much may really be compassion for himâshe said he has two people and a toddler in an efficiency somewhere now, at a higher rent than they'll charge himâand how much is the extra they hope to nick him for. But there is one more factor. Apparently when you called because of that drippy faucet, whoever came in and fixed it reported on how clean and neat you keep things. He was pleased not even to have to find a place to park dirty breakfast dishes, it seems."
"I'm glad I called them, then. If I'd been sure it was just the washer, and if I'd known what size washer, I'd have tried to fix it myself. And of course, I might have made a mess of it, but also that means I didn't get to learn anything by doing it. But I can understand very well. I've been hearing a few stories about the mess some people have left in apartments, the security deposit wouldn't have covered everything in a couple of cases. Holes knocked in the walls, mold in the fridge, all that kind of thing. And I'm hearing from other tenants, not from the landlords. Cigarette burns in the carpet. You name it."
Ellen said, "The one thing is, we've gotâI've got a lot of people I need to contact about the address change, right away. I'll email the school, and a bunch of friends, that's all OK, and most of those people wouldn't send snail mail anyway. Unless they send a gift.
"Butâ. My parents are going to ask me why I'm moving upstairs in the same building. I don't want to lie to them, and say, oh, the people next door make love too loudly or throw big parties, something like that. But if I say, I'm moving in with my boyfriend, they're going toâwell, to be a little upset. And they'll want to meet you right away."
"I'll call my parents tonight, then, and try to nail down whether they'll be home at Christmas. Although their schedule sometimes changes unpredictably. And they will want to meet you, too. I think they won't get bent out of shape, but they'll feel we're moving too fast, I think. If we can visit your parents for a few days, and then mineâor at worst, the other way aroundâI think we can manage."
All of this was interrupted a little by dinner preparationsâmy cooking and Ellen's clearing my stuff off the table and getting it set. We were eating in good time. Ellen had managed some studying the day beforeâI never did ask her when and how she had managed, upset with me as she wasâso her homework situation was better than mine. So she left me doing kitchen work and moved a lot of her things up.
After I cleaned up and washed dishes, I got everything I could wrapped up. But it occurred to me that the purpose of doing an outline is usually either to show the structure of something one was studying, or to prepare the structure for something one was going to write. So I went ahead and wrote the paper, in two draftsâexcept of course I actually did one draft and then read and edited it.
My parents were actually home, so I called them right after dinner. At least it wasn't France or China or Indonesiaâonly three hours ahead. I called Mom, but Dad was there too, so I got both of them. I explained about Ellen's moving in with me, which disturbed them a little more than I had expected, it seemed. I described her as my girlfriend, but hinted at complications stemming from how things were done in high school. I insisted on stopping at hints. I did not want to try to explain my relationship with Ellen and Jenny and Sam in a few minutes over the phone, but if Ellen and I did come for a week or so at Christmas there was a good chance that Jenny and Sam would make time to come by, too, and I didn't want that to come as a complete surprise.
I pushed meeting Ellen as a motivation for them to take charge and say no if someone wanted them to be elsewhere from Christmas to New Year and a few days beyond. I did say that we hadn't talked to Ellen's family yet, but that we were likely to be visiting them during for a few days during that break, no matter what. They weren't willing to commit to being home for Christmas break, but I thought they would try, and we agreed that Ellen and I would try to arrange it with her folks for us to go there at the beginning of the break.
Ellen called her brother first, saying that when she called her parents their first act would be to call their son to complain about her scandalous behavior. He offered moral support, in the form of encouragement to her and a promise to remind their parents of her intelligence and good judgment. He wasn't going to let on that he'd already known about me. Then she called her parents, and if my parents were disturbed, hers were outraged. She listened and spoke respectfully and refused to back down one hair, and by the end of the call they were looking forward to meeting me. I'd never heard anything like it. I'd often been accused of mind-reading, but this had me wondering whether psychologists practiced long-distance hypnosis or mind-control. She assured me that their apparent mellowing was no more than a bowing to the apparently inevitable, and warned me that whenever I met them I would be strongly quizzed about plans for earning a living, marriage, and grandchildren.
