Shelley looked it over. “You know, it doesn’t seem so bad when you put it down like this.”
I nodded. “No, it’s not. It’s just a huge pile of piddling little things that will drive us nuts, but it’s really straightforward. We follow the plan and we get it done in plenty of time.”
“You figured this all out by yourself?”
I shrugged. “It’s not all that much to figure out. You were there when we smoked the Camels the other day. You know how much time that took. Multiply it out to smoke 50 packs and we’ll be within this time frame. Some time will be spent going over to the college, but we can cover that in the time we have. You just have to work backwards in an organized fashion.”
“I don’t know…”
I placed a hand on hers and smiled. “You’re overthinking things. You think I’m so smart. Okay, honestly, I am smart, but even more importantly, I’m organized. I manage my time. I get my shit done on time. That’s my secret!”
This was also the God’s honest truth. God knows I screwed off on my first time through, just like every other kid on the planet. I spent my entire time in high school farting around, and wasn’t much better in college. I did, however, manage to get through college finally knowing how to learn and how to study and with the desire to actually do so. I went from a 2.61 in college to a 3.61 on my next degree, and then 3.98 on my next two degrees, and by then I was already married with children. I just had to stop screwing around.
Shelley didn’t look convinced, but I just laughed and told her that if we followed the plan, not only would we get the project finished, we’d win it and ace our science classes. She calmed down and gave me a very hot kiss before bouncing off to class. Several people noticed and looked at me curiously, but I just smiled. When pressed by the guys, I just did what I told her I was going to do, and said we were just friends.
One of the mouthier assholes in the class, Jerry Bruce, then started asking all sorts of personal questions about what Shelley had done with me, and what her tits and pussy were like. He was pretty graphic and disgusting, which made a few of the guys nervous, as if he was daring me to fight. I just looked at him and asked if he talked about Amanda Burns, his supposed girlfriend, that way. “Oh, yeah, she’s got great tits, and really sucks my cock so good!”
“Really? Congratulations! You won’t mind then if I ask Shelley to talk to her about that, and ask Amanda for tips. Do you think Amanda will be able to tell her, especially when Shelley lets everybody else in class know how good Amanda is?” I asked.
Jerry’s eyes bulged out and he started sputtering, “No, you can’t do that!”
“Jerry, maybe you ought to watch what you say about other guys’ girlfriends, hmmm?”
“Fuck you, Buckman!” He stomped off.
His romance with Amanda didn’t last much more than another 24 hours. She heard all about this from somebody else (not me!) and slugged him in the cafeteria the next day. So much for true love.
Chapter 11: Working at Shelley’s
I went over to Shelley’s on Saturday and we started smoking cigarettes, sucking down almost an entire carton. Her parents were home all day long, and had the disconcerting habit of wandering down to the basement at odd moments to ‘look for something’, in other words, to check on what we were up to. This kind of kept any of our own romance limited, although we did get in some pleasant French kissing. Likewise, we smoked another couple of cartons on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday (total, not each day), and since Shelley was on a self-imposed lockdown, we didn’t get much else done, although she gave me a sizzling blowjob each day.
Thursday was completely out. It was Thanksgiving, and both her family was coming to her house, and the entire Buckman clan was coming to ours. This was a major deal, and nobody was smoking cigarettes that day. I don’t know how crazy it got at Shelley’s, but the Thanksgiving feast was a major production at our house, the biggest of the year. Of the three Buckman offspring, Dad was the only male, the most centrally located, the only college educated, and the richest with the largest house. It was his duty to host the affair, and do it in grand style, an idea which suited my hilariously snobbish mother to a tee. (Where she got her snobbishness was a totally different question, one which us kids often debated, since Mom was just a middle class girl from Highlandtown, not Nob Hill.)
Mom had a 12 place setting (six pieces each) formal china service from Pfaltzgraff which was kept in the hutch in specially padded containers. We would drink from matching Steuben crystal stemware (three pieces each) and eat with Oneida flatware (nine pieces per setting). Needless to say, all the serving bowls and utensils matched. We would wipe our fingers on Irish linen napkins, initially held together by silk ribbons, and the table cloth would be matching Irish linen. Thanksgiving dinner was held by candlelight from a silver candelabra.
That was the grown up table. The kids’ tables were a whole lot less formal, mostly whatever Corelleware was available. One of the great delights of growing up was being the oldest and occasionally getting to dine at the grownup table. By the time I was actually old enough and married and could expect this treatment, Mom went to a buffet format. There is simply no justice in the world.
This year we were expecting our family (six including Nana), Aunt Nan’s family (five), and Aunt Peg’s family (four including Grandpa — Dad’s father). That made it 15. By the early Nineties, Nana and Grandpa would be gone, but both my sister and I would have families, as would a couple of my cousins. The number peaked in the low to mid-20s at that point and the formal meal became a true zoo!
Hamilton and I were used as slave labor during the preparations for the feast, which consisted of turkey, both regular stuffing and oyster stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, two types of cranberry sauce, Brussels sprouts, sauerkraut, green beans, and rolls. After dinner we had at least three types of pies, as well as sundry other things both before and after. You could feed third world nations with what we had at that table. It was the most marvelously gluttonous affair imaginable, and my mother hosted it every year from the time she got married until the time my father’s Alzheimer’s became unmanageable, almost fifty years.
Friday, however, was an entirely free day. The women of the family, my mother and my two aunts, would go on an all day shopping frenzy on Black Friday. Suzie, at only eight years old, was still in the amateur ranks; she wouldn’t be able to go with the pros until she was a teenager. My father took the day off and could watch the kids, but Shelley’s parents both had to work! We would have her entire house to ourselves, and Shelley had told me in no uncertain terms to get there early.
I left the house at nine, just after Mom and the ladies left wearing their finest holiday hobnailed boots and brass knuckles, the better to fight off the maddening hordes. I rode my bike up to Shelley’s and parked it around back, and then knocked on her back door.
I wasn’t quite sure what Shelley had in mind. I didn’t really expect her to open the door wearing a lace teddy and high heels, and she didn’t. She did, however, have on a blouse and a short denim skirt, and was barefoot. She opened the door and I slipped inside. “Brrrr, it’s freezing out there!” she commented.
I thought it was just a normal November day, but I had spent damn near fifty years in upstate New York, where it snowed six months of the year. Maryland is a tropical paradise compared to that! As soon as I got inside, Shelley unzipped my coat and slipped her arms inside and around me. I quickly noticed she was missing a bra. “Maybe I can warm you up,” I replied.