"Wake up, Greg," Linda knocked, checked to see that the door was unlocked and peeked through as she opened it slightly. "Mom's getting breakfast on."
I came down to the kitchen and sat opposite my little sister as Mom served up delicious waffles and coffee.
"So, your cousin Penny and Audrey are finally making it back East. "Apparently," Mom explained as she put out the food, "They've settled all the business with Uncle Sid's estate and what not."
"Oh", I said, helping myself to waffles, syrup, and fresh black coffee.
"Cousin Audrey is here too?" I inquired.
Linda, in that sarcastic half laugh, half cough-cough of hers pointed at me with a piece of half bitten toast in her hand, "You remember Audrey isn't your real cousin right?"
"Uh, yeah?"
"Do you remember Penny babysitting you and Linda?" Mom prodded me.
"Uh, yeah, sure around the time that you and Dad split up. I remember Audrey a little bit."
"Audrey's not our real cousin," Linda repeated with a half-smirk and a rolling of the eyes.
"Yeah I remember Mom telling us something about that," I snapped back, irritated.
Mom held her coffee in both hands and went on, "My brother Sid was a terrible womanizer. He even had a thing going with Audrey. But then he eventually strayed away from her also. Apparently, one day he walked in on Audrey and Cousin Penny together and well, ya know. He basically banished them from the family and ran off."
"I hardly remember them at all. I was too young," Linda went on, "You were about twelve or thirteen maybe?"
"I think."
"Audrey is in real estate now and found a small rancher for her and Penny," Mom explained.
"Oh, OK," I said, "Penny's still a nurse?"
"Sounds like a big ole soap opera," Linda wisecracked, "They about a hour and ten minutes away. They want you and Mom to help them finish moving in and stuff. You and your Nurse Penny. Hehehe."
"Oh shut up. You don't hafta go?" I asked
"I've got the big paralegal exam coming up," Linda replied, tongue sticking out rudely.
"Oh, Greg it'll be fun. Of course Penny was your favorite cousin. They could use the emotional support. They were estranged from my nasty, self-centered brother but it's still a shock with Penny losing both parents. I'm sure they'd appreciate seeing us again"
"Yeah, Ok. So when do we do this."
"Weekend after next," Mom said.
"They sent pictures," Linda chirped as she gobbled up the last of her breakfast and went into the den to fetch her laptop to show us the photos Penny had emailed.
Penny had shared a few pictures to Linda's email account showing a nice sized camp trailer towed by a pick up truck. Penny now in her thirties looked similar to how I had remembered her as a kid, tall and slender with shoulder length dark hair trimmed in bangs.
"That must be Audrey's truck. They be haulin' all their stuff in that thing, right?" Linda turned up at Mom looking at the screen over her shoulder.
"Yeah, Audrey's a real tomboy for sure," Mom replied.
The pictures showed Audrey in a couple different poses wearing clingy tank tops, shorts and a green and white truckers cap. One ankle sported a tattoo of some sort of winged dragonfly type creature. She was attractive strawberry blonde women, but as Mom surmised with a touch of slight disdain in her voice, rather husky and big boned compared to Cousin Penny. Kind of ironic that a kind of copper haired gal becomes partner to a woman named Penny, I thought.
Upstairs in my room getting some things organized for our upcoming family reunion and Linda stops in and sits at the desk chair at the foot of the bed.
"Those gals seem pretty handy with moving and all, so they basically just need you to help Mom adjust to seeing her niece again and adjusting to their new, uh, domestic situation."
"Uh yeah," I answered, "We'll be fine. Sorta awkward at first. Mom just needing to get used to Audrey now being part of her family."
"Well Audrey being in real estate, maybe she can help with you getting your own place somewhere close between our two families. Close enough so you can still help with the business but away from your smart ass little sister," she laughed, tongue sticking out.
"Yeah."
Truthfully, I enjoyed running the family lawn and garden business after moving home after college. Liked it more so than Linda did, who seems hell-bent on finding a "nice boy' and settling down with some sort of paralegal or other desk job. But I needed some separation space between business and family and self.
"That camper trailer they got is pretty sweet. Maybe you could go live there, go on a fishing trip with the ladies".
"Oh shut up", I shot back.
"Make sure you let Cousin Nurse Penny know you'll bring a case of beer and your mattress timer. I think we still have it in the basement," her eyes widened while taunting me. I threw a pillow at her.
"Shut up and get out!"
"Hehehe," she shut the door behind her laughing as she skipped down the hallway.
As annoying as it was for my sister to bring up my childhood years with Penny babysitting us, quite truthfully I was becoming intrigued with reuniting with her as an adult. I had shoved the bedwetting trauma in the back of my mind. Penny babysat us a lot when Dad up and left. Mom and Linda were at their wits end with my nighttime problems, but Penny being rather smart and tech savvy was patient and clever enough to discover a solution. It's no wonder she went into something like either medicine or teaching. I think Linda and I, and Mom, were glad my overly vocal sister wouldn't be going, but still, things were going to get awkward but interesting soon, it seemed.
I drove Mom over for moving day and we agreed to stay over for dinner. Penny assured us that although the house was small there'd be plenty of sleeping room once you include the pullout sofa and sleeping sections of the camper trailer. Both Penny and Audrey were attractively dressed in trim fitting jeans, Audrey in a burgundy blouse and Penny in a light blue spaghetti strap top.
They prepared us a hearty pasta dish with homemade bread, salad and plenty of wine, some red, some white. They had set up lounge chairs outside for an ice cream and coffee dessert and planned to finish the tour of the property by showing us around the camper trailer and surrounding yard.
During dinner, Mom sat at the head of the table with me at the other end with Penny sitting back relaxed against the kitchen wall opposite Audrey. Penny would cheerfully stroke lightly at my knee while Mom would chit chat the usual stuff about how I had grown so fast and how great it was to be together again, with occasional anxious comments here and there about Uncle Sid's unsavory behavior.
"Do you have a girlfriend, Greg", Penny asked.
"Uh, well my high school relationship didn't last through college".
"That's understandable," Audrey commented in a friendly assuring manner.
"He needs to find someone nice like you gals", Mom interjected laughingly.
After heading outdoors to look at the camper trailer and other surroundings, Mom seemed to warm up to Audrey. Since our family was used to being in the nursery and lawn and garden business, the two of them seemed to bond over the fact that they both were very skilled at being out and about in nature, horticulture, lawn care, home remodeling etc. The property had a nice bit of surrounding acreage. The lakefront was a short walk away so there was an outdoor beach shower stall. So things didn't seem so cramped for the overnight after all, especially as I was the only male present.
Upon finishing our dessert and coffee out in the pleasant spring breeze, Mom started getting tired and amiably allowed Audrey to take her inside to fix her bed for the evening. Things seemed to go well as Penny rose from her lounge chair and said, "Well honey, you and I got a lotta catching up to do. Since your jr high years I guess it's been?"
"I think so, Pen. Great to see you and Audrey again. She seems really nice."
"Yes, this place is lovely. I think we'll be very happy here. C'mon."
She motioned for me to come around to the other side of the camper as she opened the screen door and came out with a few cups of cold beer.
"Aud and I got a kegerator in there. Time to unwind a bit," she said handing me a beer and nonchalantly sliding her fingers through her soft brown hair.
She pulled out a joint and lit it just as Audrey came back around. "Your Mom... Aunt Edna is sleeping like a baby" Audrey said with a smile.
"You don't mind, do you honey?" Penny said as she passed me the joint.
"Ah no. It's fine. Thanks", I puffed and passed it on to Audrey.
"She's sleeping in our room," Audrey continued, "You can pick the pullout couch at the house or the master bed in the camper."
"Doesn't matter to me. I'm fine wherever," as I took the joint from Penny for a few more puffs.
"Hey, I got an idea! We'll play quarters for dibs on sleeping arrangements," Audrey exclaimed as she poked Penny playfully, causing her to puff out smoke with a loud giggle.
"Uh oh," Penny said, "Dunno if that's fair. Don't know about me or my baby cousin but Aud holds her liquor pretty well." She smiled at me with a wink.
Audrey went up inside the camper while cousin and I finished our beers and the rest of the joint.
"I'm goin' back into change," Penny said, "See you inside in a bit".
I went out to my car to get shorts and a T-shirt.
Inside the camper the ladies were setting up cups for our drinking game as we sat around the dinette style table surrounded by a u-shaped upholstered seating area. I sat back up against the small side window between the two of them.
Even though I'd hardly known Audrey much, she and cousin sat at the table dressed very relaxed-casual. Penny wore what appeared to be nothing more than a button front baseball jersey of quite long nightshirt length. Audrey's choice of attire was a zip front short sleeve, short legged zebra striped "onesie". While getting cups and drinks and snacks set up they'd both leaned over, revealing a glimpses of cleavage. Even though I found myself among family the sans bra look and the fresh aroma of Penny's shampoo (er maybe it was intermingled with Audrey's) was getting me a bit aroused.
We bounced shots round and round and Penny was quite skilled, picking out Aud to take a drink who in turn made me pay dearly for every shot missed. The combination of tipsyness and boredom seemed to overtake us all and Audrey eventually suggested something new. Pulling out her smartphone, she started explaining a game app called "Three's A Crowd."
"Uh oh!" groaned Penny, rolling her eyes.
Three different color cups of red blue and yellow were set in front of us. Audrey continued to explain the game, shaking the phone to start a turn. "If it lands on your color you either drink, or, follow the instructions on that color. Then you shake and pass it to to the next color for that person's turn. Seemed fun and simple enough, I thought, smiling with a curious nervousness.
Penny nodded toward me, slyly pursing her lips "We found out about this game at a club we used to go to".
Audrey handed the phone to Cousin Penny holding a blue cup (mine was yellow, red-headed Audrey's cup also red, appropriately enough).
Penny read the instructions for her turn: "Tops or bottoms?". She leaned slightly toward me, winking and smiling. "Who needs to wear a bra in warm weather like this?" she said.
