Oh, shit, I had never seen him get physically angry with any of the kids either. This was really serious. “Oh, crap!” I muttered.
“Really!”
I looked at her. “So, what happens now? Are we still together, or have you dumped me, or what?”
“I’m here, aren’t I? Christ, you’re an asshole!” She gave me a few more minutes of grief. I sat there and ate it. I guess I deserved it. Better to have her yelling at me then ignoring me. She finished by yelling, “If I was going to leave you, I wouldn’t be here, would I!?”
I was saved by the bell, the washing machine bell, so I quickly went and threw my wet clothes in the dryer and started another load. When I came back she was pretty much over her stewing, so I sat back down next to her and tentatively lifted my arm up. She must have been over her mad, since she moved in next to me and snuggled against my side. “Just don’t do that again.”
“What? Get into it with Mark and your father, or leave?”
“Leave! If you had waited, I would have come back with you. You can kill Mark for all I care.”
“That never even crossed my mind. Listen, Marilyn, I’ve already fucked up my relationship with my own family. I know your family means a lot more to you than mine ever did to me. I won’t get mixed up with that. You should leave me if it’s me or them. I’m not worth it.”
“I hate it when you speak like that. You’re worth it and more.”
We snuggled together quietly until the bell rang again. We had to wait until the dryer was finished before putting the second load in the dryer. We took the first load back to my room, at which point Marilyn started ripping me again about the squalor that Joe and I were living in. “It smells in here! You need to change the bed immediately!” We had an old rickety ironing board behind the door, and that was set up and Marilyn started ironing the clean clothes. I was assigned to take a load of bedsheets down to the basement. I returned to receive orders to find some cleaning rags and a bucket of soapy water. I was about to wash the room down!
“You’re really getting into this ordering me around shit, aren’t you,” I commented.
Marilyn glared at me and waved the iron at me. “You earned it! Get to work!”
I snickered and turned away. “Yes, ma’am!” I looked back for a second. “I bet you like being on top, too!” That got me a screech of outrage and a face full of laundry.
I wasn’t all that hungry, and I kept downing aspirin and Tylenol the rest of the afternoon, while I cleaned and Marilyn supervised. She had me dusting the whole room, washing down everything, even dusting our textbooks. Meanwhile it was up and down the stairs to do loads of laundry. At one point Swayzack was passing through and I warned him away — Hurricane Marilyn was coming through!
By late afternoon I forced her to stop, saying we had already cleaned the room twice, and put away everything and went downstairs. “You hungry? You didn’t have any lunch,” I asked.
“Neither did you.”
“I don’t think that would have been very pretty. I think I could handle something now. Want an omelet?”
“What’s that?” asked Marilyn.
I shouldn’t have been surprised, since I don’t think I ever saw the Lefleurs cook a breakfast. “Fancy scrambled eggs. Want some?”
“Okay.” I led the way to the kitchen and pulled eggs, milk, and American cheese out of the giant wall fridge. I also spotted some leftover ham from the Sunday meal I had cooked a week ago. I yanked that out as well, along with the butter. These I placed on the counter, and then I started grabbing spices off the pantry shelf — red pepper, garlic powder, some dried onion, oregano and basil. Marilyn was watching curiously as I brought out a small frying pan and a mixing bowl. I put the frying pan on the stove with a low flame, and melted some butter in it, while in the mixing bowl I broke three eggs and added some milk. I also prepped a slice of cheese and cut up into small pieces some of the ham.
Marty wandered in as I was pouring the eggs into the frying pan. “What’s for dinner?” he asked.
“I told you they’d starve without me,” I commented to Marilyn. To Marty I said, “Three egg omelets. Want one? Marilyn’s first, but after that I’m taking orders.”
“Yeah, sure!” I already had a reputation for making omelets almost as good as Ricky’s, which was only appropriate, since I learned to make them from Ricky on the first trip through. “Can I let the others know?”
“Go take some orders.” I looked over at Marilyn and said, “If you want some toast, you should probably put some bread in the toaster.”
Marilyn looked around for the bread, and Marty pointed her towards it before heading over to Grogans’. A couple of minutes later he was back with Swayzack and Ghormley. I had already flipped Marilyn’s over, encasing the melted cheese and ham, and was busy mixing some more egg. Marty and Bill wanted ham and cheese omelets, but Mike only wanted cheese, and no peppers. I ran an assembly line for about fifteen minutes before I was able to start on my own.
Marilyn stayed and watched while she ate. “How was it? Like it?” I asked.
“It’s very good! I still can’t believe you can cook.”
“Want any more?”
“No.”
I poured my own egg into the pan. “It’s like I told you. I lived on my own for two years before I ever came here. I had to learn how to cook.”
“Yeah, you told me. You also told me you used to cook dinner for your girlfriends in order to seduce them. Don’t remind me.”
“Jealous? I suppose I should be flattered. Besides, that was long before I met you, and it was only one girl anyway,” I said with a laugh.
“Hmmm… Still sounds fishy to me.”
I grinned. “How’s that seduction thing working, anyway?”
Marilyn smiled back. “You’re wining and dining me with scrambled eggs?”
“Dining you, at least. I think I’m leaving off the wining for a few days.”
“We’ll see.”
With the five of us eating together, it was simpler to run the dishwasher for a few loads. The house had an industrial type dishwasher, and I showed Marilyn how it worked. By then I was actually starting to feel sort of human again, and after dinner we went upstairs. I put some Moody Blues on the stereo, Days of Future Passed, and lay down and stretched out on my bed. I turned towards her as she turned towards me, and we came together slowly and softly. We spent some time taking each other’s clothes off, and then we made very gentle love. After all that had happened, it felt really good to be with her, alone in that big house, without any cares or worries.
Afterwards, we made love a second and then a third time, and it was still just the evening. Sated, at least for the moment, I pulled some pants on, and Marilyn pulled my shirt on. “That looks better on you then on me,” I commented.
“That’s because it’s so short,” she said with a giggle.
“If you don’t like it, you can always take it off. I won’t mind. Really, I won’t!”
“You’re such a jerk!” she said, smiling.
“I never noticed earlier. What did you bring with you? Where’s your stuff?”
“I packed a quick bag and threw it in the back of my car. It’s out back. Can you get it?”
I nodded and headed out and downstairs. I was barefoot and bare-chested, and damn near froze as I grabbed her bag and brought it back up to the room. Marilyn was still wearing just my sport shirt, and curled up on a beanbag chair in the corner. She’s not tall, and not what you would call leggy, but they were all on view that night and looked very tempting. “Here you go! I hope you have something in there to keep us warm, because it’s absolutely freezing out there.”