“Never going to happen.”
“You are far too trusting.” We were interrupted by the waitress returning with our beers, and it gave us a chance to think some more.
“Carling, you can’t run from this. You can’t go through the rest of your life hiding from my parents. You are the bravest person I know! How is it you are frightened by my parents?”
“Brave, there’s a joke. That worst case scares the hell out of me.”
“You have to do this, and you know it, and the sooner you do it the better. They won’t ban me from seeing you, but they damn well might ban me from seeing you until after they see you again!” she replied.
I hadn’t thought about that, and it was entirely possible. Hell, I would do it, why wouldn’t they? I rubbed my face wearily, and drank some of my beer. “Shit!” I muttered.
“You know I’m right!” This was one of Marilyn’s more annoying habits. No horse was so dead it couldn’t be beaten some more. She kept harping on me another minute or two.
I finally shut her up by waving her to silence. I gave it a little more thought as the waitress came back with our pizza. I took some time to put slices on our plates. Finally, after a bite of pizza and some more beer, I told her, “Okay, but it sure better not be like last time.”
She beamed at me and started promising me the sun and the moon. I waved her to silence again. “Listen, here’s the ground rules. I’ll talk to your parents. They can ask me any questions they want. Mark is not invited. If I ever hear another word out of your asshole brother again, I’ll rip his head off and shit down his neck and you can feel free to tell him and your folks exactly that.”
She had a worried look to her face at that comment. “Well, I can say…”
“As far as I’m concerned, you can use my exact wording. Your brother ever wants to start up with me again, I’ll break him six ways to Sunday. It’s bad enough I have to put up with shit from my own brother. I sure won’t put up with shit from yours!” She had a wry mouth at that, like she was sucking on a lemon. I pushed on. “Tell your parents not to be so insulting, either. I don’t call them red necked white trash; they don’t have to call me stupid for serving my country.”
“I’ll talk to them. We’re not white trash!” It was my turn to give her the wry look. I knew way more than I should about her family.
I agreed to visit Christmas Eve and stay one night, or two if it went well. Then I would come back to Kegs. Marilyn was coming to Kegs on Thursday, December 26 either way. We were flying out of Albany on Friday morning. I still hadn’t told her our plans, just that we would be flying and she couldn’t bring more than two suitcases. I steadfastly refused to tell her our destination, but just reiterated she wouldn’t need a passport, or much in the way of undies or pants. I even teased her about the swimsuit I was going to buy her. “You know, I know some places where there are nude beaches. Maybe I’m taking you there?”
Marilyn’s eyes bugged out and her lips flapped in panic. Finally she sputtered, “You wouldn’t dare!” I just gave her a smug smile and shrugged my shoulders. That got her to stick her tongue out at me. “I know you aren’t doing that, since then I wouldn’t be wearing a swimsuit!”
“You ever hear the story about the emperor’s new clothes?” She nodded in confusion. “I hired the tailor to do a swimsuit.”
Suddenly Marilyn was nervous. Then her face brightened. “You’d never do that, since you’d have to wear a matching suit, and they’d never let you walk around with your thingy sticking out like that.”
That was the God’s honest truth, and the best reason I would never do this with her, but I had to brazen it out. “It depends.”
“It depends on what?”
“It depends on how well you’re taking care of business keeping Little Carl tired out!” We traded raspberries over that.
Chapter 39: Sin City
After dinner, we went back to the frat house and watched some TV in the living room, and then went upstairs, made love, and went to sleep. We got a little more action the next morning, and then our holiday weekend was over. We got up, cleaned up, dressed, and did another load of sheets and towels while eating breakfast. A little before noon a call came in on the house phone. It was Joe Bradley down at the Albany bus station looking for a lift back.
Marilyn agreed it was time for her to take off, also. We kissed good-bye, and then she climbed into her Challenger and I got in the Galaxie. By the time I got to the bus station, I found Arnie standing there with Joe, so I loaded them both into my car and brought them home. On the drive back, Joe asked, “So, how’d the visit at Marilyn’s go?”
“Don’t ask,” I replied.
“That good, huh?”
“That bad.”
This was a subject Joe never really understood about me, my relationship with my own family. His family was fairly tight; even though he was living away from home, he often visited them, riding the bus down to the Port Authority and then taking a local bus off into the wilds of Bergen County. I met them once or twice when they would drive up at the beginning and end of the school year, but the only thing I remembered about them was that he had a sister still in high school so achingly gorgeous that most guys would drag their balls through broken glass just for the privilege of being spit on by her. “So what happened?”
I glanced in the rear view mirror but Arnie was already snoozing for the fifteen minute drive home. I shrugged my shoulders. “I got into it with her father and one of her brothers, and told them both where to head in. Then I left and came back here. Marilyn showed up an hour or two later and spent the rest of the week here. She left to go back right after you called.”
“They must have loved that.”
“I don’t know and I don’t ask. I just say thank you.”
Back at the house I helped Joe move his shit back upstairs. He immediately noticed the improvement in our hygienic standards. “Hurricane Marilyn came for a visit,” I commented.
“Maybe I can send her down to my sister’s room at our house,” he replied.
“Don’t be surprised if she gives you some shit the next time we’re all here. I had to put up with her on a rampage, and so should you!” He just laughed and waved aside the very notion.
The rest of the semester went quickly and quietly. In three weeks time we had finals, and as soon as they were finished, people started streaming out of the place. A few brothers would be coming back in a couple of weeks for another J-Term, but I was skipping J-Term to go on vacation with Marilyn. There was already a rumor going around that J-Term was being ended after this year, and that they would simply have the regular semester start a few weeks earlier in the future. I knew this to be true.
Christmas Eve was a Tuesday, so I drove out to Utica a little before lunch. I got there about two, and spent a quiet hour with Marilyn before we all bundled off to church. For the Lefleur family, everything was done Christmas Eve. After Mass, we would have a big dinner and then in the evening Santa would visit and they would do presents. Santa actually visited, too, since they had somebody come in every year. You were practically required to be there Christmas Eve, on pain of dismissal from the family, and the only year we got out of it involved an ice storm. Before long, the kids were getting married and bringing wives and fiancés and girlfriends, and eventually their own children. It was the loudest and most obnoxious gathering imaginable, with screaming kids everywhere. I often hid out in a side room and read a book, just to keep my sanity. No such luck now. I sat there on the couch next to Marilyn and just tried to let it all wash over me.
On the plus side, Mark must have had the riot act read to him. He never said a peep to me. There were several conversations with Big Bob and Harriet and Marilyn, although really they were between Big Bob and me. Marilyn and her mother just sat there on the sidelines and listened in. The first was on Christmas Eve, over dinner, when Big Bob semi-apologized for what he said about my going in the Army, to the extent that he said, “I just don’t understand. If you’re so bright, why are you going into the army?”