“Hi Mom.” Brian said.
“Hi Mom.” Dan said.
So “Hi Mom.” Rick joined in.
“I’m glad you came with.” Mrs. Banks told Rick as he helped hang the coats up in the back hallway. In the front room Genevieve and Little Dan noisily competed with each other to be the first to climb up into Dan’s arms. “You shouldn’t spend any holiday alone.”
“Well, the Wards invited me to their house...”
“Dan told me you turned them down.” Mrs. Banks put her hand on Rick’s arm. She knew what it was like. “I know what it’s like to spend the holidays away from your family. I hope you’ll feel a part of our family tonight.” There was a deeper tone than simple friendliness in her voice and she waited for an answer from Rick.
“Oh - thank you. I really appreciate that.” Even though it made him just a little bit on edge. But the answer satisfied Mrs. Banks and they went into the frontroom.
Dinner went well. Genevieve said grace. The house was warm and smelled of pumpkin pie and cinnamon. Rick drank a very little wine and managed a mouthful or two of Dan’s macrobiotic stuffing.
“Rick, how are things in Ohio?” Mr. Banks asked.
“Okay, I guess. My parents called me this morning. Nothing much going on.”
“How often do you get back there?” Bea asked. “Umm -- never. I haven’t been back since I came out here.”
Dan saw that the topic was difficult for Rick and quickly added: “It’s real tough to get any time off from the farm. Even to come here tonight. It ain’t like leaving a cat with litter pan and a bowl of food. You wouldn’t believe how much manure a cow puts out in a day.”
“And this is the man who never wanted to change a diaper.” Brian said.
“Your brother Ken visited this summer though.” Bea said. Like every other man who came into contact with her, Ken was bowled over and more than a little tongue-tied. But that part was just Ken.
“Yeah, twice.”
“He stayed a week one time.” Dan said. “He has a - a - fake arm.” Imitating the hook with his fingers. “He got it cut off in a - which piece of life threatening equipment that we use every day did he tangle with?”
“A corn chopper. A long time ago.”
“You never told me that could happen.” Dan said, trying to keep the conversation swerved.
“I told you to be careful.”
“There’s a difference between careful and having to pay somebody to itch your nose for you...”
”But your family visits you, don’t they?” Mrs. Banks was not about to be put off.
“Oh yeah, not much this summer, but my parents come out three times a year or so, they bring my little brother Merrill, sometimes my little sister Maddie comes with. My oldest brother Pat comes out every other month generally.”
“Where do you put everybody?” Brian asked.
“The couch is a sleeper sofa. Maddie just likes to roll out a sleeping bag in front of the woodstove...”
“But what about the holidays? And your birthday?” Mrs. Banks was openly concerned.
“Well, my birthday’s in January. So if they come out for Christmas, we celebrate my birthday then. Or we do Christmas at my birthday.” Rick wasn’t comfortable with this line of questioning but didn’t think it would be polite to tell her to back off.
“But -” Mrs. Banks tried again and Dan came to his rescue.
“Don’t harass him.” Dan joked. “He’ll never come back.”
“I wish you could say longer.” Mom Banks said.
“Well, we could stay here and have pie, or we could go to Lynne’s house and have pie with the two prettiest women to come along since Bea became a landed immigrant.” Dan told her.
“Tough choice, I know...but you be careful driving Honeybunches. The roads are getting slippery.”
“They’re already real slippery.”
“And here’s some food for you to take home.” She handed them stacks of Tupperware.
“Okay.”
“And call me when you get home tonight.”
“Okay.” Dan kissed her and Bea goodbye.
Mrs. Banks hugged Rick and kissed him. “Now remember, you have a standing invitation to dinner here anytime you want. Any day, any holiday, with or without Danny.”
“Thanks Mrs. Banks...I really appreciate that.”
“And don’t hesitate to call if you need anything at all.”
“Okay Mrs. Banks.” But Rick knew he’d never take her up on either offer. Dan was ready to go. “Come on, come on. Lynne and Carly are gonna leave their familys’ dinners to meet us at Lynne’s house. Carly don’t like it when I’m late.”
“ ‘Doesn’t’” Mrs. Banks said.
“ ‘Doesn’t, doesn’t’. Come on, come on.” He tugged on Rick’s jacket sleeve. They said more goodbyes and went out to Dan’s car. Mr. and Mrs. Banks went to the front window to wave and watch them leave.
“Rick’s about the same age Christina would’ve been.” she said.
As they got closer to Lynne’s neighborhood, Rick said: “I’m not really
comfortable going here tonight.”
“You’ve only been telling me that for a week.”
“Couldn’t they have come to the schoolhouse?”
“Rick - you got to get off the farm at least a couple times a year.” “But we’re just going to have pie and tea and conversation and leave, right? Nothing more?”
It took all of Dan’s self-control not to sigh. “It is entirely up to you and Lynne how romantic you want to get. But it would seem to me that a guy who ain’t been on a date in at least four and a half years wouldn’t mind spending some time with a lady as pretty as Lynne.”
“It’s not the time I’m worried about Dan.”
Lynne’s house was set in a block of houses in the Kensington-Bailey section of
Buffalo that had been built around the time of the first World War. Once all quite similar -
if not identical - to each other, the passage of time and owners had resulted in a
neighborhood of assorted houses and landscapes.
Dan rang the doorbell, Lynne answered. “Hi! We just got here a few minutes ago ourselves. Come on in, let me take your coats.” Dan gave her a fast kiss and went past her into the house calling for Carly. Rick hesitated, wondering if he should kiss Lynne, how he should greet her - what the hell he was going to do once the pie was gone.
“Hi Rick. I’m glad you could make it.” Lynne smiled shyly and looked at her shoes. “I wouldn’t have missed it for anything...you look good - pretty I mean. I mean...” Rick wished Dan would come back and rescue him. “Um, did Carly pick your clothes out for you?” He knew it was a stupid remark, but it was all he could think of. Thank God she laughed.
“No, not this time...come on in before they eat all the pie.”
“My parents teach at the University in Tucson. Mom’s English, Dad’s Chemistry.
We moved down there about fifteen years ago but I came back to go to college at Buff
State and I stayed to teach at St. Michael’s Academy.” Lynne said. She and Rick had been
maneuvered into the love seat, Carly and Dan were on the sofa.
“I went to ECC, then I transferred to UB for Physical Therapy.” Carly said. “I did one of my clinicals in New York City.”
“After high school, well a few years after school, I went to KBI for computer programming.” Dan said. “My parents thought I should go to college, but...” He shrugged. Then they waited for Rick. He chewed on his blueberry pie and didn’t look around for a minute. Dan didn’t realize that this was an equally uncomfortable discussion for Rick or he would’ve steered around it. He thought Rick must’ve gone to college, and he wanted Lynne to be impressed.
“I didn’t go to college.” Rick said and Dan felt bad that he’d let the conversation go on. “ A couple years after high school I moved out here to Aunt Marie’s farm and God knows, I haven’t been off it since.”
“That must be why you got so many books.” Dan said, steering. “You should all the books Lynne. Tons of ‘em.”
“Really?” Lynne was as grateful as everyone else in the room that the topic had been turned. “I’ve got a library set up upstairs...would you like to see it?”
“Sure.”
“Great - come on.” They went through the kitchen, up the stairs to the second room on the right. There was an overstuffed chair in the middle of the floor, and bookshelves on every wall. “I come up here whenever I want to get away from school work and the real world.”
“Do you think you’ll ever read all these books?” Rick asked. “You must have a couple hundred books here.”
“I have read them all.” Lynne informed him. “A book doesn’t get on these shelves unless I’ve read it.”
“Wow...” Rick perused the wooden shelves, set up on concrete blocks. “These aren’t paperbacks either, we’re talking some major blocks of paper...hey, you have Dosteovsky.”
“ ‘The Brothers Karamazov’. I also have some of Chekov’s plays and short stories.”
“ ‘The Three Sisters’? I read that one. I never had a chance to finish ‘Karamazov’.”
Lynne smiled. “I must say, I am impressed. When I told Dan I read Chekov, he assumed I meant ‘Star Trek’.” They both laughed. “You can borrow my book if you’d like to finish reading it.”
“Can I? I would like to finish it.” Rick fingered a few more books. Lynne sat on the arm of the chair and watched him.
“Do you read a lot?”
“When I can I do.” Rick said. “In between mastitis, blizzards, dehorning and total exhaustion, sometimes I get Aunt Marie to buy me a book. I ask her to surprise me, but I really like the big ten thousand page epics.” He hefted another book and turned away from Lynne as he suddenly realized how alone they were, and how close.
That closeness was intensified when Lynne got up and stood right next to him. “I like the big epics too. I read ‘Gone With the Wind’ the summer before I went into seventh grade.” She reached across him to retrieve a book. “I read ‘David Copperfield’ unabridged in fourth grade.”
“Oh yeah?” He turned to face her.
“Yeah.”
They kissed.
Home
Chapter Eight
Chapter Ten
