The Rock
19 Now and Forever
IT WAS MORE of the same and all different. Our team went to semi-state last year and fell to the Concord powerhouse. Of course, most of Concord’s varsity had graduated and they were eliminated in their Sectional this year. Give them another year or two, though, and they’d be back.
Last year, I’d been new on the varsity at playoffs, a lot like Brent and Trent—the sophomore twin forwards who had been called up from JV—were this year. It was exciting, sure. But aside from being used as a tackling dummy at Regionals, I didn’t have time to really feel the excitement of being on a team that was going places. Even three years ago when the team went to the State Championships—the last year that everyone played in the same class—we didn’t have the record that we had this year.
By some miracle, Logansport had made it out of the Northwest Regional and we’d play them at Warsaw on Saturday. Before that, I had to get through classes both at St. Joe Valley and at IUSB. I’d managed to stay awake through the entirety of James Joyce’s Ulysses that we had to read for Ms. Hammer’s English Lit. I had to admit, that last sentence of 4,000-some words with no punctuation or capitals was a real challenge. But then Nikki got hold of me and read the whole section aloud, adjusting that slight English accent that she’d showed me years ago to an Irish brogue. She was really good at accents. There was a certain lilt and rhythm to her voice that just really brought it to life. ‘Yes’ will mean something… more to me now, I think. Especially since Nikki insisted that I suck on her nipples while she was reading.
Then I sucked elsewhere and she kept yelling, “Yes! Yes!”
“I hope you are choosing a good poem for the state competition this year,” Ms. Streeter said when she caught me in the hall.
“I hadn’t thought about entering this year,” I said.
“Don’t worry about it. I already submitted your entry. Just find something good. Talk to your muse.” She was off and gone before I could protest. I didn’t think much about it. I had basketball to think about first.
“Look at this, gentlemen,” Coach said as he sat us all in a classroom. This was strange. We were dressed for practice Wednesday, but he had us go to his government classroom. He had a projector set up and turned off the lights. He started showing a film.
It didn’t take long for us to figure it out. We’d never watched film of an opponent before. Here was Logansport in their Regional championship game. We all thought it was a fluke that they won their Regional. The film showed otherwise. These guys had started their season slow, but they’d come into the tournament just as they really hit their stride. We all saw ourselves when we watched the film. They were using our strategy. New players came onto the floor at every buzzer. They shifted their offense and defense smoothly. Like liquid. We were going to play ourselves on Saturday.
Friday night, I got home to find Whitney waiting for me. I was beat. Coach let us out of practice early so we wouldn’t be too tired on Saturday, but the whole week had been exhausting.
“My cónyuge,” I said. I reached to kiss her and she wasn’t there. She just slipped to the side and slapped me on the back of the head. “Whitney, honey, I’m tired. I’ve already worked out twice today. Do we have to work out again?” She didn’t answer. She was walking toward the back yard. I guessed my evening wasn’t over yet. I dropped my bag and followed her.
She gave me about half a second to prepare and then came at me with a flurry of punches and kicks that mostly glanced off as I slid past her and responded with my own attacks. We’d been working on our water techniques ever since coach introduced them to us. In a way, it was almost like dancing and sometimes it was flat-out erotic. This time it was earnest. If Whitney actually landed some of those punches, I’d be bruised and sore before the game tomorrow.
I started taking the sparring to her more aggressively. Whitney was still better than me. She was devoted to the art. For me, it was meditation and fitness. For Whitney, it was life and survival. She’d been training now for ten years and teaching me for nearly four years. I fully expected her to put me on my back pretty soon.
I wasn’t expecting how it happened.
We’d been flowing past each other with punches and kicks that seldom made contact. I knew she’d pulled a few of her punches when I failed to block or evade her. She came at me with a roundhouse kick and as I slid under it, I saw an opening and punched straight out at her stomach. I bounced off and landed on my butt. Whitney stepped back and bowed to me. I got back to my feet and returned her gesture.
Then she kissed me.
“As much as I’d like to strip you and make love right here on the grass, my feet are cold,” she said. Northern Indiana in mid- to late-March was pretty much cold and sloppy and my feet were freezing, too.
“Then let’s go get a shower and warm each other up while you tell me what that was all about,” I suggested as we walked back to the house with our arms around each other.
Of course, it wasn’t possible to do that just now. Anna had dinner on the table. Hannah, Jen, and Court all had questions about school. Samantha wanted to know if I thought it would be okay to take the horses out in the morning. Rose just wanted to sit on my lap. Mom and Dad wanted to know if we could please eat now because they were hungry. Anna had made a huge pot of beef stew with tons of root vegetables. So that was why she wanted me to make a double batch of country-style bread this morning! We broke off hunks of bread and dipped it in the rich meaty broth.
With ten of us crowded around the table eating like we hadn’t seen food in a month, you can imagine it was a pretty lively gathering. There weren’t enough chairs, so Rose stayed on my lap and when Anna finished putting the food on the table she perched on Dad’s knee as they shared a bowl. Suddenly, there were inexplicable tears in my eyes.
This was my family. They weren’t all here, but I had such a warm feeling of love surrounding me that I knew this was the way life was meant to be. We had ups and downs and little squabbles, but we loved each other.
Dad caught my eye and I could see that he’d felt the same wash of love I had. He pulled Mom and Anna closer to him and just sat back to bask in the glow.
Whitney and I finally got our shower—helped by a dozen hands—and then we were left alone for a little while to finish what our foreplay had started. I thought that was a little strange at first since none of us thought a thing about making love with the others present. I’d even been sitting at my desk studying while Jennifer, Courtney, and Sam got tangled in such a knot I was afraid we’d need a magician to untie them. But it was nice to have quiet while Whitney and I kissed and I slid into her. My first lover. Every time it was still a mystical experience.
“What lesson were you teaching me this afternoon?” I asked as we basked in the afterglow. “You knocked me on my butt without touching me.”
“Water breaking on the shore,” she said. “I found out that Coach Hancock and Coach Phillips of Logansport served together in the Marines. They were MPs.”
“How did you find that out?”
“There are still some advantages a girl has when dealing with men,” Whitney grinned. “Even after watching us and teaching us, Coach still thinks of me as a girl first. And when I plopped down in his office after our workout this morning, it didn’t take long for him to open up to my little questions. I also asked my coach at PHS a couple of questions about Coach Phillips. She was even more willing to give me the scoop on a fairly new coach at the varsity level.”
“What is ‘water breaking on the shore’ supposed to mean?”
“Both teams have been using the flowing water style of shuffling players and avoiding contact. The advantage you have had all year is going to go away. They’re good. It took longer to develop them this season because Phillips wasn’t their JV coach and hadn’t worked with them for years like Coach Hancock did with us,” she said. “Water meets water. No advantage. But you have an advantage. You can also be rock. If you are always rock, they’ll just flow around you like you do with teams like Warsaw. But if they are expecting you to play the same game, you can surprise them by not moving. You are water until the last moment, and then you become rock and let them break against you.”
“Like you were. I was expecting you to slide around my punch and instead you were so solid I knocked myself back on the ground. Water breaking on the shore,” I said.
“Yes,” she said. “Now don’t think about that anymore. A rock has risen and I have an ocean waiting for it.” She rolled another condom on my reawakened cock and mounted me. I will never get tired of lying on my back looking up at Whitney’s muscular torso and tiny breasts as she throws her head back in orgasm. Just stroking up and down her chest and stomach is a sensual experience without a comparison. Apparently, Rose felt the same way as I saw her hands join mine. Whitney allowed herself to become lost in the sensations as Rose and I stroked her and loved her. Before we finished, the other girls were finishing in the bathroom and Nikki, Liz, and Mary had arrived.
“Whitney, I love you,” I said as I came in her. There was a sigh that reverberated throughout the room.
About ten, Josh and Cassie arrived. After Whitney and I had made love, we’d moved to the floor with the other girls and this was a night that found all of us on the foam mats and no one in the bed.
Whitney had correctly predicted the shape of the game. With both teams shuffling players in at every buzzer, neither team had an advantage in the confusion. Both teams were stealing the ball effectively. But our offense wasn’t getting shots. Neither was theirs. The first quarter ended in a single digit tie. I don’t think I’d ever heard of that in tournament play. At this level, we were supposed to be the best.
It broke in the second period. They broke. On the rock.
They’d become so used to us flowing around them as they flowed around us that when the guy guarding me met me coming down the court to try to steal the ball, he slammed right into me. I got a foul shot. Every couple of minutes, I’d shift from water to rock and someone would foul me. I started calling plays as we went down court that we hadn’t used in a while, giving a solid pick to Josh as he came around me to sink a three.
I kept expecting to hear my name as I was replaced at a buzzer, but Coach left me at the point. Fourteen other guys were shifting in and out around me, but I was a rock. The Logansport team started avoiding me and that left me open to take a couple of top-of-the-key shots that gave us a solid lead at the half.
“Don’t get over-confident out there,” Coach said in the locker room. “Our play has adapted, thanks to Frost. I see what you are doing out there, and it’s working. But they are capable of adapting, too. We’re going to keep doing what we’re doing until it doesn’t work anymore. Just watch for rocks in the stream, guys. Now let’s go win this championship!”
“Trojans!”
They did adapt. But they did it poorly and too late. Their team just didn’t have the experience of playing any other style and their defense fell apart. We were sinking shots from all over the court. We were up by twenty as we went into the last five minutes and Coach finally pulled me. The rest of the team brought it home.
When there were no class divisions, semi-state was where the sweet sixteen became the final four. With the new structure, each game was the deciding factor in who would play for the championship the next week. There would be four games at Market Square Arena next weekend, but each one would determine the State Champion for a division. In class 3A, we were going to play Evansville Central.
The hair on the back of my neck stood up.
It wasn’t like the students at Evansville Central High School had personally caused the pain that Hannah still carried. The ‘boyfriend’ who abused her had dropped out of the school soon after he and Hannah first started dating. I’m sure the rest of the kids there were very nice or something. But why didn’t anyone see the new girl and reach out to her? Why did they leave her to be abused when she was alone and isolated?
I was carrying a grudge all week and was ready to start taking players out as soon as we got to Indianapolis. I guess I’d been a little vocal about it with my family and girlfriends. I’d gotten a few rolled eyes. Still, it was a surprise when nobody came to my room Friday night. I was afraid I’d offended my girlfriends and started to go back downstairs when I met Hannah coming up.
“You need rest before you go to Indy and do battle tomorrow,” she said simply, pushing me back toward the bed. “It was determined that I was the one most likely to let you rest.” She went to the far side of the bed and dropped her robe. “Is this okay, Brian?”
Okay? Yeah. She might think she was the one most likely to let me rest, but I was pretty sure I’d lie awake all night just to hold her. I just nodded my head and crawled into bed next to her. She cuddled up next to me with her hand on my chest and her mouth next to my ear.
“Do you remember in seventh grade when you were rushing down the hall and knocked my books out of my hand? You said, ‘Sorry. I didn’t see you.’ You picked up my books and handed them to me and then continued on down the hall.”
“Um… Huh? We didn’t meet until eighth grade.”
“No. You just didn’t notice until eighth grade. That really happened in seventh grade. I was really happy because you’d actually spoken to me and gave me back my books. It was the third week of school and you were the first person at St. Joe Valley to speak to me.”
“Oh no. Oh no. Hannah, I’m so sorry. How could I be so stupid? That must have been terrible for you.”
“Seventh grade was pretty bad. But then I discovered that if I wanted to have friends I needed to do something and Sarah told me the first week of school the next year to ask you, so I did. You became my boyfriend that night.”
“I’ve never regretted that, precious.”
“Me, either. But when I moved to Evansville, I didn’t want any friends. There might have been some kids that would have accepted me if I’d given them a chance. I didn’t.”
“You’re telling me it wasn’t their fault.”
“I’m telling you to focus on playing the game tomorrow and don’t think every player is Tommy Westerling,” she whispered. “Brian, I know what you think about me not needing to be punished, but I was overwhelmed with guilt. I… chose the life I had in Evansville. Nobody forced it on me. Oh, my parents forced me to go there, but they didn’t force me to isolate myself and take up with a boy I already knew by reputation wasn’t nice or smart. It wasn’t the basketball team that beat me up, Brian. You already took care of that bastard. Just play ball tomorrow.”
I shifted and rolled toward Hannah slightly so I could hold her in my arms. Holding any naked teenaged girl in my arms had predictable results, but with Hannah’s soft breasts pressed against my chest and her lips near mine, it was almost more than I could take.
“I don’t think I’m ready to… do it, yet,” she whispered. “I will be one day, I promise. But can I just… um… touch you with my hand? I really do want you to get a good night’s sleep tonight.”
“Hannah, you are my loving girlfriend. I know we haven’t made any statements like that to anyone or to each other. We haven’t declared openly that we are compañera but I love you and I still don’t want to just use you for my own gratification. I can make it through the night.”
“But that’s just it, Brian. I want to do it for me, too. I want to feel you and know that even though we didn’t make love, I brought you pleasure. It’s really for my gratification. See?”
How do you answer that? I wanted to make her happy but for me that meant pleasuring her. Did she seriously just want me to lie there and let her jack me off?
“Um… you could kiss me while I do this,” she said softly—almost shyly. “And touch me a little, too.”
That was the encouragement I needed. As her hand wrapped around my cock, I pulled her into my arms and kissed her. As we kissed and she manipulated me, I explored her body with my hands. She made little purring sounds, humming into my mouth as her tongue touched mine. I held her breasts and touched her little nipples. Eventually, I strayed to her pussy. She stiffened a little but let me part the sparse hair and touch her. She was a little moist but I could tell she was nowhere near as turned on as I was. I decided to just pet her fur and not to try to manipulate her button. As soon as my finger moved to her outer lips she relaxed and before long, I came in her hand.
We didn’t get up to clean up. She wiped most of my spend up with a tissue and just rubbed the rest into her skin. We held each other as we drifted off to sleep.
My eyes came open at four-thirty and I was inordinately pleased that Hannah’s opened a few seconds after mine. She smiled and shifted, grimacing slightly.
“I think I’m stuck on you.”
“Well, I’m sure stuck on you, love.”
“I mean literally. I didn’t know that stuff was like glue.” She pulled away and I could feel us coming unstuck. She kissed me lightly and looked across me. Rose’s blonde head was cushioned on my other shoulder.
“I don’t know when she got here,” I whispered.
“Just after you went to sleep. She kissed me,” Hannah said just as softly.
“I don’t want to wake her.”
“You won’t. Even if she is awake she’ll pretend to be asleep. She knows this is our special time. Talk to me, Brian. Even if it’s too quiet to hear, I’ll lie here and listen to you.”
“Thank you for straightening me out last night, love. I’d really gone overboard on hating everyone and everything that might have hurt you. I found I was ready to go back to Evansville and demand justice. You showed me that wasn’t just. Sometimes my anger scares me. I know how dangerous the words ‘I’ll do whatever is necessary’ are. I’m really like you. I need to be sure I know what is necessary before I jump in with both feet. And fists. I always felt so powerless when I was growing up with Doug and Carl and the girls protecting me. Jessica arranged all that. Even when we were really little, she protected me from Betts and Drew. I was thankful, but resentful at the same time. I wanted to become the protector. Help me stay in balance, precious one. Like you did last night, help me.” I’d whispered so softly to not disturb Rose and didn’t know for sure if Hannah actually heard me. Her breathing on my left shoulder was slow and steady. It took me exactly twenty-one breaths before I lost count and fell asleep.
The next time I woke up, Hannah was gone from the bed and Rose was sucking on my cock. Oh! I caught my breath and when she realized I was awake, Rose pushed herself up and straddled my waist then slowly sat back on my cock.
“Oh, Rose. You are so good to me.”
“This wasn’t for you, exactly. It was selfish of me. I just wanted to be connected to you and feel you in me. It’s almost time to get up for breakfast so we can head for school to catch the bus. We’ve got a long trip ahead of us.”
“I’m going to sleep all the way,” I moaned. “Rose! When you do that… with your muscles inside… it’s all I can do not to come. You feel so good.”
“I love you so much, Brian. At least we don’t have to be ready for the game until five. I know Coach wants us to be there in plenty of time so we aren’t rushed, but I wish we weren’t leaving at nine. I’d do this all morning,” Rose said.
“You’d have company,” Jen said as she crawled up on the bed beside us. Courtney appeared on the other side. “Well, I guess you have company anyway.” The two girls went straight to work massaging us as we made love and alternately sucking each of our nipples. If their intent was to hurry us along, they were succeeding. I grabbed Rose’s waist and pushed up into her as far as I could go. Rose cried out and spasmed around my cock. I let loose inside her as I moaned my own counterpoint to her melody. She lay down on me, staying connected.
“Mmm. We have such good assistant lovers,” Rose moaned.
“It’s hard to take our time with those two hurrying us along,” I laughed. “Oh! Oh, my God.” Jennifer and Courtney had moved down between our legs and my balls had just been licked right up to where I was sure sperm was leaking from Rose where we were joined. Rose added her voice to my chorus.
“I don’t think they’re done,” she sighed. “I’m going to… I’m going to… again. Oh.”
Between the rhythm of Rose’s pussy fluttering on my cock and someone’s tongue fluttering on my balls, I had a quick trip back to the top and over the edge. I quickly deflated this time and was slurped into someone’s mouth. Rose moaned again.
“Oh! She’s licking your sperm out of me. Oh god!” Rose zipped back to her peak and I held her and kissed her ears and shoulders as she shuddered through another orgasm. When the quaking slowed down, Jen and Court flopped down next to us again and hugged us both.
“I forgot,” Courtney said. “Hannah sent us up to tell you breakfast is ready.”
After what Hannah did last night and Rose, Courtney, and Jennifer this morning, I settled down to relax on the way to Indianapolis. We needed to be at the arena at five. Our game time was six-thirty. The 4A championship—still considered to be the ‘real’ State Championship—would be played at eight-thirty. There was an awards ceremony after each game. With luck, we’d have our championship trophy and be on the road home before the 4A tip-off.
It seemed that a lot of the guys were looking at me strangely when I got on the bus. Man! Had I been telegraphing that much tension this week? Apparently so. When I laughed at something Josh said and then high-fived the rest of the team, the tension seemed to break. Rose had already claimed a seat for us and I settled in. When the bus started moving, I promptly fell asleep on her generous pillows. She just held me in her arms all the way to Indy.
The Bourbon Knights had already taken the 1A championship by the time we got to Indy and Richmond was well on the way to its 2A title when we walked into the arena. The Pacers hadn’t had a winning season in years, but it was still a heck of a thrill to play on their court.
I was on the bench when the first tip was controlled by Lionel and our team started working its magic. Just before I went to take my first rotation, Coach turned to me.
“Is your head in the game, Brian?”
“Yes sir. Sorry if I was telegraphing something else this week.”
“Good. Take the point and get our team flowing. They’re shooting over our heads. Take the team into the air.”
The air? I didn’t have time to wonder if Coach really wanted us to try to adapt a different element. What he was telling me was to get the ball in the air more. Pass, shoot, rebound. I got the message. So did the rest of the team.
I took the ball on the first inbound pass and launched it down court to Lionel. He shoveled it out to Carl and the ball was in the net before I crossed the centerline. The Bears came back at us with their own version of a fast-break but Bert and I were already down court waiting for them. I got a hand on the ball and knocked it free. Bert snatched it up and pegged George under the basket. George used the backboard to get the ball in the net. Suddenly, we were in control of the game and up by four.
Evansville scored but nowhere near enough times to touch us again. We were flying. Because we were rotating players at every buzzer, we could run fast breaks all night. As soon as they started covering the tall guys under the basket better, Bert and Josh and I started popping them in from the three-point line. Yeah, we missed some shots, but we were out-rebounding them two to one at both ends of the court.
We never looked back. We were flying high and at eight o’clock we were in the locker room with our big trophy and getting dressed for the trip back home. St. Joe Valley had won its first ever state championship.
Our families mobbed us when we headed for the bus. There was no big bus to take all our family to the game this time. Instead, families and fans would be following the team bus home with horns blaring and lights flashing the whole way. It was chaos back at the school when we pulled into the main parking lot and all the cars circled us with their lights pointed toward the bus. Everybody rushed the bus, still dancing and cheering the victorious team. Indianapolis Ben Davis took the 4A title—as if any of us cared.
“Brian, we have a problem,” Harvey said when he called me Friday afternoon.
Oh good. I haven’t had a problem in almost two weeks.
After the tournament and celebrations, life got very peaceful very fast. The weather had been good enough that the girls had the horses out almost every afternoon when we got home from IU. It was still daylight and I could study, cook, and even go for a ride myself. I’d been spending extra time with Hannah to make sure she could pass the subject exams that Ms. Hammer would give her. We were less than two months from being high school graduates. I really needed a problem.
“What’s up, Harvey?”
“The girlfriend we had set up for your final show tomorrow flaked out on us. Since this was the last one, we don’t have another lined up to take her place. Can you bring one of your girlfriends to do the taping tomorrow?” he asked.
“Oh. That doesn’t seem so bad. I’ll find one. No sweat.”
“Great, Brian. I’ve got an idea to run by you that I think you might like. We’ll talk about it after the taping tomorrow.”
This was going to be perfect. Hannah had been testing every recipe with me or for me since she was out of her cast. Anna was making dinner tonight since the family had finally gotten tired of beef stroganoff after having it three days straight. We finally got it right, though. I was going to get Hannah on the show at last.
I looked up at her where she was studying on my bed. I was at my desk. Jennifer and Courtney were on the floor. We had high school spring break for the next week but, of course, IUSB had its spring break while we were in the tournament. We only had another month of classes there. We were already planning which days next week we were going to cut in order to play with our casa.
“Hannah? Could you help me tomorrow?” I asked.
“Help you what?” Damn. She could have just said ‘yes.’
“Um… I need a girlfriend for the show. The one the station had arranged just canceled on them. You’ll do it, won’t you? You’ve helped on the recipe all week.” She wrinkled up her nose and the left side of her mouth.
“I’m too fat for TV,” she said.
“NO! No excuse,” Jennifer howled. “You are perfect. I bet you don’t weigh more than a couple pounds different than when you were a sophomore.”
“Really? Why do I still feel fat?”
“Because you got used to feeling that way,” Courtney said. “I read in Redbook that women have a hard time telling when their diets are working because they get used to feeling self-conscious about their weight and don’t even realize it’s changed. Come on. I’ll show you.” Courtney bounced up and took Hannah by the hand to lead her to the bathroom. Jennifer came to me and kissed my cheek.
“Don’t worry,” she whispered. “It will work.”
I have to admit that Anna’s baked chicken was to die for. And she made enough that by the time we were all fed—all fifteen of us—there was still chicken, potatoes and gravy left over.
“This will make great hot sandwiches tomorrow if you bake bread, Brian,” Dad said.
“I think you’re right, Dad. But I’m going to bake after Hannah and I get back from taping tomorrow morning. I think it will be better if I do that heavy seven grain bread and I have to be here to punch it down for a few hours.”
“When have you three decided to cut classes and take a break this week?” Anna asked. She looked at Jennifer, Courtney and me.
“I’d like to cut all week,” Jennifer moaned. “We’ve got this paper due in comp on Wednesday, though.”
“I’ve got a unit exam in Mathematical Modeling on Tuesday,” I said. “I think I could take Thursday/Friday off, though.”
“Well, I promised you all a reward for helping get my house ready for sale,” she said. “It sold and is slated to close on the 30th.”
“That’s wonderful, Anna!”
“How many of you are holding acceptance letters for IU?” Six of us raised our hands. “And I know Liz is going down to pursue her cosmetology certificate. Sora is already there. That’s eight. Hannah?”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do yet. I’m pretty confident I’ll graduate now, but I haven’t made any college applications and my grades aren’t good enough anyway. I really fu… messed up. I’m sorry.”
“Well, let’s just say for argument’s sake that you decide to join your family there. That’s nine of you.”
“Plus Doug, Rhiannon, Doreen, Carl, Brenda, Louise, Lionel, and Sugar,” I said. “They’re all going down even though Sugar doesn’t plan to attend and Doreen has a job offer. That’s eight more.”
“Hmm. Seventeen. Plus visitors. And Lamar and Renee. Where are you all going to live?” We all sighed. Anna looked at each of us at the table. “I might have a solution, but you all need to go take a look at it.”
“Really? I thought we were going to have to live in dormitories or something,” I said. “We’ve been looking through want ads and there just isn’t anything for rent that we could afford.”
“Well, I have this sudden influx of cash that I need to reinvest. You’ve been looking for rentals but I’ve been looking for something to buy. My real estate agent might have found something that would work—at least for members of this household. I don’t know about the other eight, plus Lamar and Renee,” Anna said.
“You mean you’d just buy something for us to live in?” I asked. That was incredible.
“Not exactly. You’d have to rent it. But I also checked the housing costs at IU. If you spent your housing allowance on a rent of about one hundred dollars each monthly, I’d have a nice, tidy investment income and you would have plenty left over to buy food and gas. Gas because you’d be living a few miles off-campus. You’d have to drive in to school each day.”
“Wow! Mom! You’re the best! We could all live together?” Jennifer asked.
“I’m sure you’d have to work some things out among yourselves. But if you are interested, I could set up an appointment with the agent on Thursday,” Anna said. Mom and Dad were grinning ear-to-ear. I had a feeling none of this was a surprise to them. The rest of us were so excited we could hardly wait to see what Anna had found. We agreed that we’d cut classes on Thursday and we’d all take two or three cars to Bloomington to look at the campus and our possible new home.
Miss Polly: I love beef stroganoff, Brian, but I hate curdled cream. If you add sour cream to the stroganoff while it is still hot enough to eat, it curdles. If you let the stroganoff cool before adding the sour cream, it’s too cold to eat. I just know you wouldn’t come on the show with this recipe and give us curdled sour cream. What’s the secret?
Me: Hannah and I have been experimenting with this recipe for quite a while. I asked her once a few years ago to come and help me make it and she scoffed at me.
Hannah: Did not! I just told you that you didn’t need my help for that dish.
Me: Well, we sure found out different this week. Here are three pans with hot water, just below a boil. I’ll start with this first one and stir the sour cream in. We’re getting the results you described, Miss Polly. Look. The cream dissolves in the hot water and then those nasty little clumps appear. We thought we’d try one of the current rages. Lots of chefs are extolling the benefits of using live-culture, full-fat yoghurt. Let’s see what happens.
Miss P: Oh no! It’s curdling, too.
Hannah: That’s exactly what I said when I tried it Wednesday night.
Me: We were shopping at the new Meijer Super Store and they have quite a number of more exotic dairy items. Here’s one that caught my attention. First, just have a little taste.
Miss P: That is sooo good! What is it?
Me: It’s called crème fraiche. It is a lightly soured cream, so a near relative of our usual sour cream. Watch what happens when I stir it into the hot water.
Miss P: It just blends. It’s smooth and creamy.
Me: Our stroganoff is ready for that last step. Let’s stir the crème fraiche into it and serve.
Miss P: This is the best stroganoff ever. So rich and creamy. If crème fraiche is just sour cream, why did it make a difference?
Me: I had to do some research in the chem lab to find an answer to this. The yoghurt is only 4% fat. A lot of people have moved that way because they are health conscious. Since sour cream is about 18% fat, yoghurt is a good choice if you have to watch your fat intake. But it is the fat coating the proteins that keeps them from clumping together—what we call curdling. There just isn’t enough fat even in sour cream to do the job. Crème fraiche has about 35% fat—double regular sour cream. That’s enough fat to keep the protein from curdling at higher heat. Some recipes just need the full natural fat of dairy to make them right.
Miss P: Brian, Hannah, this is the last of our season of ‘Young Cooking.’ Thank you both for your work. Brian, we hope to see you again next season.
Me: Thank you, Miss Polly. [Turn to face Hannah. Note switch to camera 2.] Just remember, Hannah, girlfriend. No matter what. I still love you. And I will always love you. [Tears in both our eyes]
Miss P: Oh my! You are the missing girlfriend he’s been saying this to forever.
Me: She is. And I love her.
Hannah: I love you, Brian. No matter what. I love you. [Kiss]
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