Chapter 8 -- Parents Visit
I discovered that awkward moment when I was introducing 'Mom and Dad'. I didn't know whether to use their first names -- Nora and Hal, or say Mr. and Mrs. Wolcott, or even Mom and Dad.
Dad saved me as he put his hand out to Dave and said, "It's Hal and Nora, please -- all of you. Matt you can use our first names, too, if that's any easier for you." He laughed.
"Thank you."
The twins were ecstatic about their rooms, but resigned to give up one of them for mom and dad's visit. The other room still needed a bed. That didn't curb their bubbly nature. Fortunately, they didn't give the slightest hint that anything sexual had gone on during their visit eight months earlier. They were incoming college freshmen with that wonderful air of innocence. They'd be living with relatives 'off campus'.
Anna and I, along with Dave and Penny as our boyfriend and girlfriend, took the twins, mom, and dad out to dinner. There was polite conversation about our unique housing arrangement. Since Dave was the real estate mogul that had found us the place, we let him wax eloquent about the local housing market and how he'd discovered this perfect deal for three close couples and two college students.
Anna played the dutiful girlfriend to Dave, occasionally answered questions asked of him before he could. Penny was doing the same for me. We suggested favorite drinks and meals for each other. It was obvious that we'd been living together for quite some time. None of that seemed to bother our parents; it was what the situation was and nothing to get upset about.
The twins seemed not to mind being shuttled off to be with Dave and their older sister. They'd bond with Anna after a long hiatus. They unpacked a few things so they had some clothes, and then eventually bid goodnight to everybody and went off to the other part of the large house.
In the morning, I could tell that Dave had fucked all three women staying with him. He was obviously in recovery mode, and also needed that caffeine hit first thing in the morning before he went off to his real estate office. Apparently, the fucking went on well into the night. I was sure my parents didn't notice.
Anna had to open up the store where she worked. She took our mother with her explaining that she could use her car to come back to the house and enjoy the pool whenever she was ready. Mom expressed interest in joining the homebound contingent for lunch.
I had a Zoom conference for two hours in the morning. My dad had never seen a Zoom call, so I let him sit outside the camera range for a bit as the engineering team I was on talked about a shopping center project that PR2 Engineering had just been hired to work on by the architectural firm. It was a big deal for our firm. I was totally responsible for the electrical part of the project, and I'd even gotten one person to report to me. Marie, of course, was our project secretary.
Marie sat in on the Zoom call with me since she was also on the project team. No one asked how we happened to be sitting next to each other for the call when we weren't in the office. Eventually, Dad got bored and went out by the pool to read on his iPad.
I took Dad, Mom, the twins -- who'd just gotten up, and Marie to lunch near our house. Dad asked a lot of questions about my job. True to form, Marie answered some of them before I could, surprising my parents. She was as 'wifely' as Penny. She knew my thinking about the job and the other players on our team.
Anna didn't get home from her store until six o'clock. The rest of our group plus my parents were having cocktails beside the pool at that point. Our parents were starting to see the benefits of three pairs of siblings who were cross-dating combining rental payments and taking on the huge home. The pool and patio, along with the expensive furnishing, were really nice.
They finally got a tour of the complete house when Marie took them through the part of the house where she ostensibly lived with Ryan. I couldn't see any glitches in our facades, and that worried me. I expected to see a few hiccups that we'd have to explain away somehow. I worried that if we were too perfect, my parents would see things as contrived.
The next day, I think our parents got organized. Mom had 'that talk' with Anna, and dad had 'that talk' with me.
The questions started with, 'How serious are you about Penny/Dave?' and went on from there. I was so grateful for Penny's revelations about what our fatal flaws might be, because I played that card.
I told my father, "Well, I do love Penny, but ... well ... she's terribly self-centered. If you watch her, you'll see how she always tries to be at the center of whatever is going on. I'm not sure I could stand that as a steady diet. This living together is an experiment for me to see whether she'll change or I can get to a place where I don't care about her narcissism."
Dad really had no sage advice to offer at that point, other than to trust my instincts. He confirmed that he didn't want to see either of us hurt by having us get married and then later deciding to divorce over some differences we didn't deal with enough before marriage.
I had a talk with dad about whether marriage was even a requirement in a long-term relationship these days. I had more points for remaining two independent entities than he did for getting married. The government and court system have biased things so that especially from a man's point of view, it is almost dangerous and an economic disaster to get married.
Mom's talk with Anna took a similar path. Anna told her in a judgmental tone, "Dave is in real estate; however, he comes at the sales as though he's a sleazy used car salesman. I'm trying to gage his ethics about customers and a sale, just yet. If I find him wanting, I will have to reevaluate what we'll be in the long-term. In the meanwhile, we haven't talked seriously about anything other than living together like we are in this great house. I love it here."
