Joel hated returning home from touring the country for one very simple reason: cleaning. He knew it was inevitable that his girlfriend Jenna would be tearing their new home apart from top to bottom, as Thanksgiving was quickly approaching and this would be their first time hosting the holiday for both of their families. That meant that Jenna's infamous Aunt Edna would be eating green bean casserole in this dining room and evaluating the sheen of the wooden floor paneling with her professional eye; and that meant that Jenna was freaking out big time. Worse yet was the thought that, for the first time ever, his mother would be tasting Jenna's cooking. No doubt, there would be comments made about how he was 'losing weight' and not being 'properly fed', and then within a matter of minutes his sweet, gentle mother would have his docile, overly self-conscious girlfriend in tears. Great. Suddenly cleaning seemed like the least of his worries.
"I can't seem to get this stain off the floor here," Jenna was crying as she scrubbed the aforementioned wooden paneling in their dining room. She was on hands and knees in her baggy pink sweatpants, alternating between scrubbing and wiping her nose with the back of her hand. "What am I going to do if I can't get this stain out?"
Joel stood with his tattooed arms crossed over his chest and evaluated the situation. Having just woken up was not aiding his case; in fact, he could barely think straight. He took a deep breath and let out a long yawn. "What kind of stain is it?"
"It's not a stain," Jenna sniffled. "It's wax."
"You said it was a stain," Joel raised an eyebrow and tried to clear the sleep from his brain. "How did we get wax on the floor in the dining room?"
Jenna glanced up from the corner of her brown eyes and a smirk formed across her saddened features. "We were christening the table, remember?"
He remembered this all too well. It was only their third night in the house and Jenna had cooked a special meal for them, which they had eaten in veritable silence at the huge mahogany table in this room. When the silence had become unbearable, he had volunteered to do the dishes. Jenna had stood up and begged him to stay. Somewhere in the interim, he had ended up pouring hot candle wax over her porcelain skin and their brand new silk tablecloth. And apparently, the floor as well. Shit. "How do we get wax off the floor?"
"That's what I asked you," Jenna frowned as she continued to scrub. "I got most of it up, you can't even really tell that it was there. But I know it was there and Aunt Edna the fucking bloodhound will figure it out in a split-second."
Joel nodded and craned his neck to see the spot that Jenna was scrubbing. The truth was, you could not see anything there. He shrugged. "It looks good enough for me. I mean, it's only a small spot, Jen. Not a big deal."
"What if your mother sees it?" Jenna questioned, wide-eyed. "She already thinks that I don't feed you."
"She what?" he stammered with a laugh.
"She told me that I don't feed you enough," she lowered her eyes and stared at the floor. She had stopped scrubbing and was now sitting with her legs crossed and her back propped against the blood red wall. Nervously, she wiped her soapy hands off on her pink pants. "When your mom called the other day to ask if she should bring a dessert, she told me that you're getting too thin and therefore, I must not be feeding you."
"Well, that's my mom for you," he shrugged.
"She said that low caloric intake leads to low sperm production, and that she was hoping for some grandchildren before she died," Jenna glanced up through her eyelashes while pouting.
"WHAT?" Joel choked on a scream.
Jenna giggled. "Yep, that's what she said. So apparently, we're not going to have children because I'm starving you."
Joel considered this thought with a frown. "That's just plain stupid." And yes, it was. He loved his mother more than anything, but this was just plain stupidity through and through. He hadn't lost a single pound of weight in the three years that he had been with Jenna. And forget the entire sperm count discussion. That was just something that your mother should not worry about.
Jenna shrugged. "I'm just worried that if the house isn't clean, she'll tell me that I'm killing you with dust exposure and that I should be arrested for premeditated murder."
"Don't be like that," he sighed. "It's Thanksgiving, Jen. We're supposed to be happy." He took a deep breath and sat beside her on the floor, bringing her small body to rest in his lap as he stroked her long black hair gently. "I love you. This is supposed to be the best time of our lives. We have this beautiful new house, we're telling our families that we're engaged, and we're showing them that-"
Jenna sighed. "That's another problem, baby."
"What?" Joel cocked an eyebrow and met her gaze.
"My dad refuses to come to dinner," Jenna lowered her gaze to her wet t-shirt. "He said that he doesn't even want to meet you, because he already knows that you're not good enough for me."
Joel formed a surprised "Oh," as he began massaging a slow circle on Jenna's back. He fiddled with her bra strap nervously and sighed. "Well, we can't force him to come."
"I know," she sniffled softly. "But it's important to me that he meet you. I was really hoping that, you know, that he'd change his mind about the whole thing and give us his approval."
Joel nodded. Yes. He understood that Jenna came from a traditional, somewhat old-fashioned family in which the bride's father had to give the groom-to-be his permission to marry his daughter. Sadly, Joel had not asked permission before he proposed, and that had set Jenna's father off on a rampage. And having a wife-to-be trapped between loyalty to her father and her family and to her husband-to-be was never a good situation. Dr. Phil here they come.
