What Were They Thinking?
8 Behind the Scenes
I SUPPOSE Hayden and I agreed too quickly to Brian having a Halloween party and inviting all the signers of the agreement to spend the night. What I saw was Jennifer and Courtney coming for the night—accompanied by Anna.
What was relatively simple for the kids to think up and plan was significantly more complicated for the parents. To a kid, all you need to do is invite your friends over and make some food. Hayden and I had to talk to every parent of every teen in the group. Again.
It was getting easier. After we organized the calling list, I had Brian type it up on his new computer and print out copies for every member of the group and every parent. Not everyone was equally enthusiastic. Paul and Amanda Lenox volunteered to help in any way they could. They were used to having Brenda’s massive parties each spring and apparently, they had often extended into a girls’ sleepover. Rex and Maria Davis, Rose’s parents, were a big help as well. We were seeing more of them as the kids got older.
On the other hand, Jim and Jill Swift, Doug’s parents, were as aloof as ever and suggested we just write down Doreen as the contact. Lily Cortales continued to distrust her daughter and by extension all the other kids in the group. Jack Raymond, Denise’s father, was torn. Even on the emergency contact list he wanted it specified that if someone else picked up his daughter, they would keep her for the night and not risk coming into their neighborhood. I didn’t think the neighborhood was that bad, but Jack was worried. And, although Candace’s mother, Alice, was accepting, her father, Fred, was even a little belligerent about taking his little girl away. It seemed he had a bit of a drinking problem. We kept his name on the list of contacts given to the adults but struck it from the list for the kids.
The Fishers were an interesting couple. Carl had been one of Brian’s best friends for several years. He was a big, ungainly, sandy-haired boy who was truly just getting his feet under him. I knew his older brother, Bill, was friends with Jessica and that he’d done his share of bodyguarding Brian over the years. The younger brother, Rich, was already as tall as his brothers. He seemed like a quiet boy but I really only saw him peripherally. Z and Cora, their parents, were busy. They just shrugged when I spoke to them about the party and the agreement.
“Boys will do what they will do,” Z said. “I’ve told them all about condoms and how to use them. One of them knocks a girl up, he’ll have to support her. They won’t live here. You can put our names and numbers down but don’t expect any kids to call us in an emergency. They’ll never grow up if we sit around ready to catch them every time they trip.” That was that.
I had to take Evelyn Gordon with me to talk to the Harrises. Ken and Claudia were nice people but hard for me to read. They had every concern that I felt good parents should have. How would the party be chaperoned? What would be the sleeping arrangements? Who was paying for things? Yes, they knew about the agreement but did we really think fourteen and fifteen-year-olds could control themselves when faced with the reality of their hormones? Ken, especially, didn’t want to think of his little girl spending the night with boys in the room. He was a construction worker and knew what boys were like. He’d already had a talk with ‘that Doug boy’ and warned him about proper behavior. Claudia ended up convincing her husband that they should give it a try and Ken agreed after telling us he would be up and ready to come get Rhiannon at a moment’s notice.
Maybe the surprise of the group was a pair of the most unusual parents I’d ever met. I had seen Irene and Lech Nowicki at school events but had never had the opportunity to get to know them. Evelyn had told me that Hannah spent a lot of time with Liz over the summer and they seemed to have a good time. Her parents were two of the loudest and most jovial people I’d ever met. And they were almost as old as my own parents.
“Liz is our last,” Irene laughed. “Unless Lech gets randy at the wrong time of month again.”
“That was an accident,” Lech said, looking like the fact that he had a fourteen-year-old daughter was a complete surprise to him. “She came along six years late. I thought we were past all that!”
“Well, one more time for old time’s sake,” Irene sighed. “I don’t think it’s going to happen again. Twelve is quite enough, thank you.”
“But you have to look at this party… the whole dating agreement… from our perspective,” Lech said. “There is not much our little Liz could do that we haven’t seen with one or more before her. We’ve done our best to scare the hell out of her, so now we’ll see if it takes.”
“She’s a good girl, Marilyn,” Irene said. “But she has a wild gene in her. I’ll consider us successful if she graduates from high school before she’s pregnant. Maybe this agreement thing will slow things down a little. We can only hope. So, what can we do to help with your little party?”
The other surprise was meeting Regina and Malcolm Evars, Sugar’s parents.
“A night with the house to ourselves?” Regina exclaimed. “Baby, get your rest, we’re going to have a party, too. Just you and me.” Her husband, just as rotund as Regina was, actually giggled.
Well, ultimately there was only one other set of parents I needed to meet and I was looking forward to it.
“Isn’t Hayden with you?”
“I took the afternoon off work to drive down here but he couldn’t get time off. I used to think we never had time when he was farming but having a regular work shift means everything has to be arranged around his work schedule.”
Anna led me into her lovely home and I met Bill and Crystal Price for the first time.
“If anyone understands how difficult it is to work around an immovable schedule, it’s us,” Crystal said as she took my hand. “Since we opened the restaurant, we haven’t had a moment to call our own. We are just so thankful that we have Anna… not only for our daughter but as our friend.”
“There have been a few nights when we sat in the kitchen here and polished off a bottle or two of wine while we cried about how hard life is,” Bill said. “We’re covering operating expenses and the restaurant shows a profit on paper but we’ve lived off an inheritance for seven years and we have to start paying ourselves sometime soon.”
“That must be incredibly hard.”
“The hardest has been what it’s done to our relationship with Courtney,” Crystal said. “It’s almost like shared custody. Anna has been as much a mother to her as I have. I love my daughter, Marilyn, but I don’t think I’m a very good mother.”
Bill poured wine and I had a fleeting thought about the hundred-mile drive I’d have to make back to Mishawaka later in the night. Just before I accepted my first glass.
“Anna, we trust you. Will it really be okay to let the girls be with this group on an overnight?” Bill asked.
“They’ve already been on one overnight with two of the other girls and Brian,” Anna said. “They survived. And I think they came home better for it.”
“What’s the story, though? I’d just come to accept the fact that our daughters were lesbians and would never date boys.”
“It’s obvious to me just from the first meeting that the girls are very close to each other,” I said. “When I saw the five of them together, though, I saw something that… I don’t know them well… But it looked like they were open to much more than I’d ever think fifteen-year-olds would be. I think they are still exploring what it means to have a relationship and as long as they were exploring it with each other and with my son, it seemed like they weren’t limiting themselves to that.”
“We all want our children to be mature and willing to have new experiences. It’s just a lot to take in. I feel like I missed so much of Courtney growing up and now I look at her and see a young woman instead of a little girl. It seems that when she’s home, she has her head buried in some computer she building,” Crystal said as Bill poured us all more wine. “You’ll be there, too, won’t you, Anna?”
“We certainly hope so,” I said. “I mean Hayden and me. I think it will take at least the three of us to chaperone this party. I’m considering whether to ask Evelyn Gordon to join us.”
“If I’m invited, of course I will be there. I was sort of hoping I would be,” Anna smiled at me.
We continued past dinner time and finally ordered Chinese carry-out. I called home and Hayden told me that he and Brian had eaten and Brian was studying. He made up a story to tell Brian about me being called to my cousin’s house in Louisville for a bridal shower and wouldn’t be home tonight. I’ve never actually heard of a bridal shower being held on a Tuesday night but hopefully my son had too many irons of his own in the fire to notice.
The girls were at Bill and Crystal’s house and after checking in with them, it was determined that no one would drive tonight. Bill opened another bottle of wine.
“Are you okay with this, Marilyn?” Anna asked as we stood on opposite sides of her bed. “I mean, I had to give Bill and Crystal the guest room. I could strip the girls’ bed and make it up if you’d rather not be in here.” She was blushing and by the heat in my face, I could tell I was, too.
She’d loaned me a pair of pajamas and found a toothbrush for me. I was scrubbed clean of my makeup and part of my embarrassment was knowing that my face showed much more age than Anna’s fresh face. I just wanted to hold it between my hands and kiss her.
“I think two grown women can safely share a king-size bed,” I squeaked. “Heavens, Anna, there’s enough room in here that Hayden could join us.” Oh, damn! “I mean… I’m not… It wasn’t…”
“Let’s turn the light out, Marilyn.”
“I have to warn you… I’ve never slept in the same bed with anyone except Hayden,” I whispered into the darkness as we pulled the covers up. “I don’t know if I toss and turn or if I snore or… I don’t want you to think badly of me, Anna.” I could feel the flush in my cheeks accompanied by moisture from my eyes. I felt Anna’s hand touch mine and clasped it.
“We’re a little… tipsy,” she whispered. “I’m not going to attack you in the night, dear. I’m just glad you came to visit and to help me convince Bill and Crystal.” She pulled my fingers to her lips and gave them a little kiss. I returned the gesture. “Goodnight my… friend,” she breathed.
We didn’t release our hands.
“You must wear proper sleepwear at all times. That means pajamas with a minimum of shorts on the bottom and a full shirt on top. Boys and girls. No panties and T-shirts. No boxers. Pajamas.”
“Um… Mom?” Brian said. “I… uh… need to buy a pair of pajamas.” He looked up from the ‘House Rules’ that I’d typed and printed on his Macintosh. I wondered when the last time was that he’d worn anything to bed.
“Just keep reading. We’ll deal with what you need to buy after we are clear about the rules,” I said sternly.
“Boys on one side of the room and girls on the other.”
“Mom, that just isn’t going to work,” he complained. “It’s not like we’ll be humping if that’s what you are afraid of.” I was shocked at the way he cut right to the chase. “Here’s what we figured out at the ranch,” he continued. “We sleep in a wagon wheel. We all want to be close enough to each other to touch our hands. Is that so bad? We’ve got enough room upstairs for all sixteen of us to stretch out that way if I move my bed down to the end of the room with my desk and just spread our blankets all out on the floor at the other end. Mom, it isn’t practical to have us split at opposite ends of the room.”
“You still have to have the door open at the foot of the stairs and be lights out and quiet by two a.m.”
“I’m good with that, Mom. We aren’t trying to get away with something. We just have important things we need to discuss all together.”
“Quietly. If it starts to sound rowdy, the boys will move down to the family room and the girls will stay upstairs.”
“Okay, quiet. No problem as long as you aren’t too crazy about someone suddenly laughing or something.”
“It’s not laughing I’m concerned with,” I muttered. Too quiet for my son to hear, I hoped.
“Anna!” I said as she came to the breezeway. “Is he making you stand in the cold? Brian, where are your manners?”
“I was just getting her bag, Mom,” he said, picking up Anna’s little suitcase. “I’ll take it to the guest room while you show her around.”
I took Anna’s hand and led her out of the chaos of the kitchen to the family room to show her the decorations. There were already kids arriving and we walked in just in time to hear one scream as she reached into a candy bowl and encountered a slimy hand. Anna and I doubled over laughing as Hayden rushed into the room ready to discipline whoever was being unruly. We both turned and hugged him.
“I am so glad they are still young enough to simply pull childish pranks,” I laughed. “We’ve been so focused on the agreement and the overnight party, we forgot that they are children at heart. Oh, God! I hope they don’t grow up too fast.”
The kids played silly Halloween games, including bobbing for apples and eating donuts off a string. It made me want to cry. Hayden, Anna, and I just sank into the living room sofa together with a sigh of relief. There were more than thirty kids there and they were having fun. What’s more, the cleaning, decorating, and cooking had been done by my son and his friends.
We maintained proper vigilance and at ten o’clock the people who weren’t staying overnight were headed out. Perhaps it was a little unusual for a party to break up so promptly, but the dating group had a reason to get them out. By a quarter past, there were ‘only’ the sixteen of them.
I heard the John Deere fire up and sputter as it pulled away from the barn toward the house.
“What now?” Anna asked.
“Mmm. Now we have to bundle up. It’s a little chilly outside. Have you ever ridden on the fender of a John Deere?” I asked.
“You’re kidding!” she said. “I’m changing to jeans. I’ll be right back.” The kids got their coats and blankets and headed out the back door to the hay wagon Hayden was pulling up. It wasn’t likely any neighbors were going to call the police out here in the country.
I glanced back and saw a haphazard pile of blankets over the kids as they started singing camp songs and laughing. I showed Anna the proper method of hugging Hayden as he drove and we rode the axle. That proper method included having our arms wrapped around each other as well as Hayden as he periodically released a hand from the wheel to give one or the other of us a hug up closer.
We sang along with the kids for nearly an hour. Nobody wanted it to end but Anna and I were freezing. We didn’t have a blanket to cuddle under.
With two and sometimes three at a time using the bathroom, it still took nearly an hour to get the kids ready for bed. Anna and I stood at the stairs and checked each teen to be sure they were properly attired before we let him or her upstairs. I was happy to observe that most of the girls had underwear under their pajamas. They all wanted to be daring and sexy but lounging around with boys and no underwear is a little more daring than these girls were willing to be.
We followed them upstairs, much to their surprise, and looked at the layout. They were sitting in a circle with the boys pretty well distributed among the girls.
“Okay, just remember that we are putting our trust and the trust of all your parents in you, kids,” Anna said. “Your whole dating group could come collapsing down around you if that trust proves misplaced.”
“We’ll be good, Anna-Mom,” Hannah said. That was cute.
“We agreed on lights out and quiet at two o’clock. Sometime after that, we will do a bed-check,” I said. “A lot of negotiating was involved to get the wagon wheel sleeping arrangement approved. Don’t be piled on top of each other when I come up.”
“Yes, Marilyn-Mom,” Jennifer and Courtney chorused. Hayden nudged me aside so he could step into the attic. He hadn’t participated in the sleepwear inspection, but he obviously wanted to say something to the kids.
“I want you all to know that I’m proud of you,” he said. The kids all quieted and focused on him. “It might surprise you to know that your parents, all of us, still remember what it was like to be teens and in love. Or in hormones. It might even come as a surprise to find that we still are. In love. And sometimes in hormones. But we’ve all learned to pace ourselves and behave appropriately for the circumstances. You’ve volunteered to take that burden on long before any of us would have expected. So, we’re letting you have free rein up here for the most part. We are all adults here.” The kids shifted a little but kept their attention fixed on Hayden.
“That being said, don’t make me be a dad! If I find any of you forced, uncomfortable, pressured, naked, or disrespectful of each other, I will be a dad. Don’t make me do that.”
“Yes, Papa-Hayden,” Rose said.
“We’ll make you proud, sir,” Lionel added.
“I know you will, kids. We’ll get out of your hair so you can have your meeting. Try to keep the noise down.”
We left and went downstairs.
Anna was crying when we got to the living room. She turned and looked at us.
“What is it, Anna? Why are you upset, dear?” I asked, reaching for her. She took my hand and then threw herself into a hug with Hayden.
“It’s so hard being a single mom!” she cried. Hayden and I just wrapped her in our arms until she could speak again. “It’s not like I feel incomplete or incompetent. Even after nannying Courtney for the past seven years and having Bill and Crystal as backup, we never seem to be as coordinated in our approach as the three of us were tonight. It felt so good to know that we were all three in sync and that there was a dad and two moms and every one of those kids could depend on us. I just love it so much.”
A dad and two moms. Oh my.
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