Chapter 8

Life was not all fun and games for Dad and me on the road. There were disagreements, fights and sullen silences – the latter mostly on my part – but over the summer, we re-forged the relationship that had faltered throughout Mom’s losing fight with cancer. That wasn’t all that was reworked. With all the sitting and good eating we were doing, Dad’s waist started to expand. Okay, mine too. We first noticed it after camping at Mt. Rushmore. It was obvious that we needed more exercise. We were used to being active, working construction during the week, and this inactivity was killing our physiques. To address the problem, we started running every day. Sometimes that meant we’d pull a less than ten mile hike and run a good portion of it. Sometimes that meant treadmills at the hotel fitness center.

We also started lifting: weights at hotels, logs or boulders in the wilderness. Regardless, we were back in shape by the time we hit Chicago at the beginning of August. It had been two months on the road, and if you thought we’d be tired of each other by now, you’d be wrong. I was learning all kinds of things about Dad that I had never known, and my Skyping with Grandma had gotten to the point where there were some meals I could now make as well as Mom once had. I still didn’t have the secret potato salad recipe though, and if this went on too much longer, I was going to lose it over that.

Chicago beckoned, however, putting a hold on Skyping and cooking. We came in from the north, angling to make a trip to Six Flags in Gurnee, Illinois. I found out that for me, roller coasters were great, but do not involve me in anything having to do with dangling from heights. Not going there!

Dad, of course, called me a ‘Nancy boy’ and other pejoratives until he got violently ill following one of the Hi-rise drop type rides. We agreed to never speak of it again. When evening came and we were done with the park, we travelled south toward the city.

The Emersons lived in Chicago on Kimberwick Lane. That’s where all the Nouveau Riche resided, and you better believe that’s with capital letters! The housing prices reflected that. We were invited to stay at their McMansion for the duration. Dad winced as we approached their house. I started laughing, knowing exactly what was causing his pain. The house was jarring, out of sync with its surroundings.

His finger stabbed out at where I sat in the front passenger seat. “Not a word. Do you understand? Not a word!”

I was laughing too hard to say anything, but I held up three fingers in the universal sign for ‘Scout’s Honor.’ Since he knew I had never been a Scout, he simply snorted disgustedly.

We arrived to find a full-blown crisis in Chicago. Apparently, my girlfriends’ cousin had finally been allowed to date when she turned sixteen earlier this summer. Of course, since there had been unofficial pairing up for quite some time before the official announcement, Amanda had secured her date in plenty of time for the church social on Saturday. We arrived on Thursday, I’m sure I failed to mention that.

Well, yesterday, that would be Wednesday, her date, a young lad named Allan Trimble, had broken it off with her. Amanda’s friend Brittany, (good Lord, there was a proliferation of Brittanys in my generation), had let Amanda know that Allan would be going to this social with her, instead of Amanda. What to do, oh, what to do?

It was obvious that Amanda needed a date. Not just a date, but one who would make Allan look like so much scum scraped off the bottom of a shoe. I didn’t find any of this out until the next morning.

“Hello, Emersons! We’re here to take you up on your offer of a place to stay in Chicago, and hopefully some home cooked meals.” They knew we were coming; Dad had been talking to them for a week about our arrival.

“Tim, Tim, Tim, Tim, Tim!” I was to learn that I was the answer to all of Amanda’s problems. Dad got brushed aside as Mrs. Emerson’s family understood that the crisis was averted. Well, actually Dad and Mr. Emerson got brushed aside. Apparently that was fine with them, since once the baggage was removed from the Tahoe, they vanished into whatever man-cave Bill possessed, leaving me afloat in a sea of estrogen. I guess I’m lucky that I was wearing a clean shirt and shorts, since I was poked, prodded, weighed, but thankfully not found wanting by the womenfolk of the house. That consisted of Mrs. Emerson (Angie), her twin daughters Tara and Sandy, Mrs. Emerson’s sister Kathryn Black, and the twins’ grandmother, the matron of the clan, Mrs. Emily Swift. The only one missing was the young Ms. Amanda Black, who apparently was devastated and crying at home, unwilling to leave the comforting arms of her daddy.

“Do you have any formal wear with you?” Mrs. Swift came directly to the point.

“Excuse me? Any what?” I bent down to greet Tara and Sandy, “Hey squirts.” They opined that they thought I had grown an inch or two, as they found it harder to hug me and they were still the same size as they had been two months ago.

“Formal wear!” Mrs. Swift’s voice grew more strident.

I gave Mrs. Emerson a hug as soon as her daughters released me. She agreed that I seemed taller and somehow bigger than she remembered. We talked for a moment about inconsequentialities but were interrupted by a blast of, “FORMAL WEAR YOUNG MAN!” from her mother.

“Oh, Mother, calm down. We’ll get to that. Let the poor guy say hi to his friends.” Mrs. Emerson admonished the older woman, “Besides, he hasn’t met either Kathryn or Amanda yet. There’s plenty of time.”

“Speaking of which, there’s not much time,” she continued, turning to me. “I’d like to introduce you to my older sister, Kathryn, Amanda’s mother.” The older of the sisters was brought forward to meet me.

“And this is my mother, Mrs. Emily Swift.”

I shook her hand, making the standard polite, ‘nice to meet you’ noises.

Kathryn Black though was a different matter. I smirked to myself, capturing her hand, and instead of shaking it, turned it and raised the back of it to my lips, “Enchanted,” I murmured. She smiled shyly at the attention until she remembered who and where she was, and what they wanted of me.

“Oh, no, he’s too smooth, he can’t possibly be sixteen. There’s no way he’s escorting my Amanda. I can’t be mother to the only teenager to ever return pregnant from a chaperoned church social!”

Mrs. Emerson smiled, “Wait ‘till you see the video, it’s hilarious.”

I leaned in conspiratorially, “There’s another one that’s even better.”

She started laughing heartily, causing her twin daughters to pester her as to what was so funny. “Nothing, it’s time for bed. Give Tim a goodnight kiss and go get ready.”

I knelt down to receive my kisses, startled to realize that it was nine o’clock already. Dad and I must have spent more time than I thought at Six Flags.

Angie asked Kathryn to take all of the rest of us to the man-cave where the guys were hiding. When we arrived, I could tell from the guilty looks what they were doing. Dad had his phone out and there was an image of Roxanne frozen on the big screen TV where he had cast it. Bill’s man-cave was bigger than the one that Mom had allowed for Dad, impressing me.

“It’s the testosterone ratio,” Bill later explained. “The higher the ratio is in favor of the women, 3:1 in my case, the bigger the man-cave. You,” he gestured at Dad and me, “had a 1:2 ratio, hence the smaller man-cave.” I really didn’t like his logic, but I couldn’t refute it. I figured that time would tell.

Kathryn refused to be distracted, “Is this,” she asked, “the famous video I’ve heard about?”

Bill flashed a guilty look at me, and then Dad before answering, “Yes ... well it’s one of them. James tells me there’s another one which will blow the socks off my feet. I haven’t seen it yet, so I can’t attest to that.”

Bill made a living as a lawyer, a corporate lawyer, but a lawyer no less. He made sure that he would not be taking the blame for the second video, should it exist, and should it ever be shown.

Angie showed up with her twins, leaving no doubt that they were daddy’s girls when they made him take them upstairs and put them to bed. Having seen to her motherly duties she looked around at us, asking what was going on. Her head kept turning until she saw the image frozen on the TV.

“Oh, YES!” she shouted, “Play it James, play it from the start.” She turned to her sister and her mother, “This is amazing!” She changed her mind just as quickly, “Wait, James. I have to go make some popcorn.” True to her word, she left us abruptly.

Dad snorted a laugh at that, getting up out of his seat. He reverted to being a southern gentleman. “Ladies, I am known as James McKenzie. I wonder if you would allow me the pleasure of your names.” Only he didn’t say pleasure, it came out as pleazhuh.

Kathryn was growing more flustered by the moment. I guess the McKenzie men were her kryptonite, as she simply floundered helplessly. Her mouth opened and closed but made no sound. She stood there at a loss for what to do.

I picked up on Dad’s playfulness, “Father, let me make known to you, Mrs. Emily Swift, the grand dame of the family and mother of Mrs. Kathryn Black, and Mrs. Angelina Emerson.” (I guessed on Angie’s first name.) I took the hand of Kathryn’s mother and placed it daintily in Dad’s upraised palm. He gently grasped her fingers, bringing the back of her hand to his lips, “My pleazhuh, Ma’am.”

Returning to my duties, I captured Kathryn, thoroughly enjoying her discomfort, and brought her to Dad. “And I have the honor of introducing to you Mrs. Swift’s daughter, Kathryn Black, of the Chicago Blacks.”

Dad winked at me before taking the hand I offered up to him and gently kissing it.

“Nevuh befoauh have I beheld such beauty Ma’am. It is indeed my great pleazhuh to make your acquaintance.”

Ever seen someone swoon? I have. I was close enough to catch her, laying her in the chair that Dad had gotten up out of. Mrs. Swift was laughing her head off at our antics. Kathryn simply slumped in the chair, repeating what sounded like, “Not my Amanda,” over and over.

It was clear I was forgiven for anything that I may have done to cause offense, when Mrs. Swift came over to me, still laughing, “Is your father always like this?”

“No, Ma’am,” I replied, “he usually doesn’t let his southern gentleman out to play.”

“Oh, so you’ve practiced this,” she hazarded.

“No, Ma’am, I had no idea he was going to do that.”

“Then heaven help us,” the grand dame stated, “and my granddaughter Amanda. She won’t know what hit her.”

Mrs. Emerson brought back enough microwaved popcorn for all of us to enjoy before her husband made his re-appearance, only to find to her disappointment that we wouldn’t be watching the video(s) tonight. Regardless of whether any alleged videos might exist. We visited instead, until the other guests had to leave.

Dad and I were put up in separate rooms that equaled or surpassed any of the hotels we had been in, to date, on this trip. Ms. Kathryn was escorted home by her not-so-elderly mother, the watching of videos touting my prowess with the ladies having been postponed to such a time as when Kathryn wasn’t feeling quite so poorly.

I was looking forward to sleeping in on Friday morning, but alas, such a luxury was denied me. Tara and Sandy found my room, it wasn’t hard, after all they were accustomed to living in their own house, and proceeded to try to tickle me awake. In return, I found that the comforter on my bed made for a wonderful restraining device, rolling up a young lady at each end of it, and performing a dual sack-of-meal carry, one twin on each shoulder, with a rolled up comforter middle draped down my back, as we made our way into the kitchen.

They were squealing and screaming, and otherwise carrying on as I caught their mother unaware, how, I don’t know, given the amount of noise they were making. She turned from her duties at the stove, picked up the tablet on which she had been following a recipe, and immediately snapped several pictures. Before returning to her culinary pursuits, she must have uploaded them to Facebook. I know they went somewhere on the internet, or through the internet, since after heading back upstairs to get a shirt to wear, I returned in time to overhear a voicemail from Amanda.

“Ohmygod, Ohmygod, Ohmygod! Is that him? He’s gorgeous! What do I say to him? He can’t be real. Is he real? Call me back when you get this.”

Mrs. Emerson flushed red when she realized I had heard the message. “Uh, Tim, are you sure you want to do this?”

My attention was captured by her breakfast setting. There was close to two pounds of crispy bacon on the table set for six, and I snagged a couple of pieces. I guess she must have remembered Yellowstone, or heard stories from Ranger Lewis. “Do what? No one has explained to me what I’m expected to do. All I know is that it requires formal wear, which I clearly didn’t bring with me.” I gestured to my attire which at the moment consisted of underwear, sweatpants and a t-shirt. It occurred to me suddenly that in this household I might be under dressed for breakfast.

“By the way, is there a dress code for breakfast?” I finally asked.

“You’re fine,” Mrs. Emerson answered, fanning herself, I’m sure due to the heat of the stove.

Dad came down following his nose which had detected bacon, in clothing almost identical to mine. He stopped short when he saw Mrs. Emerson prepared for the day. “Is there a dress code for breakfast?” he asked me out of the corner of his mouth.

“I don’t know. She says not, but that may just be because we’re guests.” I replied sotto voce.

He shrugged, “Tomorrow, pants, shirt and socks, for sure.”

I agreed.

“So what’s on the agenda for the day?” Dad posed to Mrs. Emerson.

Her fan was waving double time, “Well, after breakfast, we need to get Tim outfitted. That should take most of the day. You and Bill can do whatever you want while we’re in the city.”

Outfitted? Was I going to some sort of safari themed event?

“By the way, what exactly is Tim going to be doing that he needs to be ‘outfitted’?” Dad asked.

“Oh, yes, that’s right, we haven’t explained the situation.” She proceeded to do so. I had some problems with the whole plan.

Leaving the kitchen, I spotted two young ladies in what I would have called a formal living room, watching TV. I guess to them it was just the family room.

“I need my girlfriends to come here,” I said in a strident tone of voice before I uttered the four relationship words known to strike fear into any heart, male or female, although to be fair, it’s usually male. “We need to talk.”

Tara and Sandy found places to either side of me on the love seat I occupied. I asked them if they understood the situation that their cousin Amanda found herself in. They each responded in the affirmative. Not being sure that they really did, I asked them to explain it to me. It was a little tentative, but they got the gist of it right.

I then asked if they understood that they were agreeing to allow their boyfriend to go on a date with their cousin to help her out. They weren’t so sure about it after I explained what kinds of things happened on a date. I kept it to a pre-teen level: hand holding, dancing, kissing on the cheek, hugging etc. I explained that their older cousin might start thinking about me as her guy, but that I would always be Tara and Sandy’s first boyfriend, no matter what happened between their cousin and me.

When I said that, they shifted from wavering about the whole thing to being adamant that I needed to help out Amanda. They clearly loved their cousin, and they didn’t want to see her humiliated by some icky boy, even if it meant they lost girlfriend status with me. I pulled them to me, giving them one-armed hugs, kissing each forehead, and telling them that they were wonderful to do this for Amanda. They ran back to watch TV, waiting for the call to breakfast.

Mrs. Emerson looked at me curiously as I came back to her, “What was that all about?”

I explained that I needed my current girlfriends to know that their status with me might change if I escorted their cousin on a date. I needed their permission.

“You really did that?” There were tears in her eyes. “Thank you. None of us even thought about that. We just assumed...”

“Yup, really did that. Now, about that breakfast...”

I got a swat with a towel along with instructions to take a seat. Dad was included as well. We left the head of the table for Bill, and the foot for Angie, but that was not to be. I had to take the foot so I could have a girlfriend at each hand. Dad and Angie ended up seated across from each other with Bill at the head. I have to admit that it was nice being spoiled. I never ran out of OJ or bacon, although I had to ignore the touch of dirty little hands all over my breakfast meat and juice glass. The sacrifices I make.