El Rancho del Corazón
42 Diva
THE FIRST WEEKEND of November was a little chaotic. Whitney’s first exhibition game was on Saturday night the third. They played veterans of the Hoosier Ladies team, so it was great to see some of the women who had made women’s basketball a real sport at IU. It was also great to watch Whitney play with women who were uniformly of the same caliber she was. She played the entire first half before another team was rotated in for the second half.
For the next week, we decorated for the holiday. Not Thanksgiving. Christmas. We were filming the Christmas holiday special on the tenth. We had a Hearthstone Entertainment board meeting to decide how we were going to handle it. Definitely not religious. That wasn’t even an issue. But we would have festive decorations. Sora suggested we measure and get a Christmas tree that would reach the beams. Everybody got into that. A 15' tree!
The real issue revolved around who we would have present for our ‘family’ celebration. We didn’t want to have our casa celebration on film. I wasn’t going to sit at a table with Josh and our thirteen women. And even though we asked them, none of the other casas wanted to participate that way either. So that left us with trying to find guests that we could entertain.
“How about your family, Rose?” Hannah asked. “If you were the day’s girlfriend, we could have Rex, Maria, and Ross as guests.” Rose considered it for a minute.
“What if Ross and I were guests and Mom was girlfriend for a day,” Rose countered. “It would be nice to have Brian cooking with an older woman, wouldn’t it?”
“His mother-in-law,” Courtney added. “I like it.”
“We should let Ross bring someone,” Whitney said. “We probably don’t want to make any big statements about homosexuality or bi-sexuality, so it would have to be a girl, but they could be like brother and sister.”
“Lexi would do that,” Samantha said. “Especially if we told her she could spend the weekend upstairs.” Everyone laughed, but in the end, we agreed to have the Davis family plus Lexi. Hannah made the calls and they agreed.
They all arrived on Friday evening. We went over the basics of what we would cover and how the filming would go in the morning. Ross and Lexi left to go to Casa de la Tierra for the night. We’d prepared our guest room for Rex and Maria.
“We have some other opportunities,” Hannah said when we’d all gathered with hot chocolate in front of the fire. “I think they would come under the banner of Hearthstone Entertainment, but I don’t think they are necessarily my responsibility. I’m just a TV producer. Jen and Court actually have more experience in this than I do, but it would have to be agreed to by all of us. It’s nothing urgent, but since we’ve got our lawyer here, it seems like a good time to bring them up.” Rex was all ears.
“What have you got, baby?” I asked. Hannah came and sat on my lap.
“I really like having board meetings like this,” she giggled. “Well, we’ve been having groups for the filming from various sororities. When Dawn asked the first time if they could hold a party here, I sort of passed it off because she’s… well, I think she’ll take advantage of anything that is put in front of her. But every group that has been here to film, including Lonnie and the production team, has asked if we would host a party for them. When I said this was our home, they moved to the next step and asked if we would cater at their houses. I said that had to come before the owners. While it is a possibility in the future, we don’t have people dedicated to that kind of work. I think it should wait until everyone is comfortable with school before we consider that.”
“That sounds like a lot of work,” I said. “The only time I could see doing something like that would be on breaks. But can we even do that? Court, Jen, and I have State food handler’s permits, and Elaine plans to take the test during the holiday break. But I think everyone involved would have to take the test and we’d probably be subject to Health Department inspections here, too.”
“That would require a separate kind of business license,” Rex said. “I don’t think you’d have any difficulty getting it, but I agree that you’d have to develop a good relationship with the Health Department. And once they set foot inside here, they would be able to inspect your television show, as well. I’ll do some research and see what we can find out.”
“How about cooking lessons?” Hannah asked. “That was the next spin-off that Renee and Sora brought up. They noted that we are already set up for instruction at the counter with up to twelve people. They were being prompted by their activities coordinator—I think her name is Lisa—to have a sort of cross between the television show and a party. They would come and receive instructions on cooking something, and then they could hang out and eat what was prepared.”
“We were thinking that it would be a good bonding activity for when the new board at the chapter house was installed. We’d come here, have the cooking lesson, and when we sat down to eat, we’d have our planning session. Those groups are always smaller than a dozen people, and we actually have a budget for events like that. It’s not unusual to spend twenty-five to fifty dollars a person for a meeting like that,” Sora explained.
“Pretty gray,” Rex said. “If you decide you’d like to explore that kind of service or business, I think I’ll have to get an expert to advise you on the legal ramifications. You are still serving food. I’d better go over our insurance, too, and make sure we are covered against complaints by even your television guests, or, worst scenario, a case of food poisoning.”
It was big and scary. None of us was sure if we wanted to go that direction. Least of all, me.
Cooking with Maria was a blast. Jen had made up a new apron that said ‘Brian’s Girlfriend’s Mother’. I wasn’t sure how that was going to affect me having so many girlfriends, but the girls were already talking about all wanting their mothers to do a show with me. I liked them all, so I hoped that would work.
In order to have something unique for our holiday meal, we did a leg of lamb glazed with pomegranate sauce and served with twice-baked potato casserole. We kept the vegetable simple with roasted asparagus spears. Everyone had room for pie and ice cream.
“What I’d like to know, Brian, is why I’m in the kitchen cooking with you instead of my daughter,” Maria laughed when we got everything in the oven. I sputtered a second and Rose came onto the kitchen set.
“Mama,” she said, hugging Maria, “I wanted you to see what a good catch I got.” We laughed and I turned to the camera.
“Just remember, girlfriend: No matter what, I still love you.”
Sunday afternoon, Whitney had her second exhibition game. She was definitely a starter and played most of the game against the Latvian National Team that was touring the United States and playing all the Big Ten teams before the official season opener. There were a few mess-ups where a player was obviously supposed to be someplace she wasn’t, but the team was really coming together.
“What position do you play?” I asked Whitney late that night. She’d scored twelve points, six of which came on three-pointers. But she was playing under the basket, too.
“Lou’s experimenting,” she said. “She wants my long shooting, but she wants my height under the basket for rebounds. On offense, I’m a guard. On defense, I’m a forward. Sometimes we get confused.”
“It’s going to drive your opponents batty!” I laughed.
We had an eight-person audience and two girlfriends from Phi House for the show on Saturday morning. In addition to the usual questions regarding whether we could cater and do parties, Sydney posed some other ideas.
“We’ve watched every episode,” she said. “We even had to borrow a tape of the first one from Gamma House. Why are you exclusively using sororities?”
“We didn’t intend to just use sororities,” Hannah said. “But when Gamma started talking about what they were doing and we have members of Kappa, we just got a flood of responses from the other houses. It was easy to pick them while we were getting started. Do you have some suggestions about how we could reach others?”
“There are lots of great women on campus who aren’t members of sororities,” Sydney went on. “And some of them are really interesting women. We’d be happy to help organize a search for you.”
“That would be great,” Hannah said.
“Of course, we’re not experts in broadcasting or marketing,” Ashlee said. “But we also think it would be cool to see some guys on the show. We love the little girlfriend aprons, but as women who watch the show, we wouldn’t mind seeing some of our boyfriends learning to cook, too.”
“That’s a neat idea,” I said. “I had a bunch of the guys on up in South Bend. It was kind of a novelty, though. I mean, we grilled steaks. How typical is that?”
“Yeah, but teaching a guy how to cook for his girlfriend—that would be hot.”
It gave us a lot to think about.
Hannah, Sam, Jen, Court, Liz, and I loaded up as soon as we could get everything cleaned up. We were off to Indy to see Elaine in Manon. We’d all watched her in musicals, but I never imagined what her voice could really do. It was a college production, so not all the voices were grand, but the baritone who played her brother was a show-stopper. And Elaine was just plain magic.
This time we’d made arrangements in advance, and after we had the post-show greeting, the girls took off and I stayed with Elaine.
“Where can I change clothes so I can help with the set strike?” I asked her.
“Oh no no no no, cónyuge,” Elaine said. “This is opera. Opera singers don’t get their hands dirty in manual labor. They hire the theater tech crew to do that. We go party.”
“Party?”
“Remember what I told you about the difference between a theater party and an opera party? You are about to find out what party food is all about. And you are driving tonight. This is fair warning. I plan to have a couple glasses of wine,” she laughed. “I’ll be out in ten minutes.”
I hung around outside the dressing room as actor after actor came out and headed for the party. I could hear the tech crew pounding in the theater above. The dressing room door opened and Elaine dragged me inside.
“I need help carrying my flowers,” she said. At least a dozen bouquets sat on the dressing tables. I hardly noticed that. Elaine was naked.
“Elaine? Do you go to the party like that?” I squeaked.
“Only this party,” she laughed. She turned the bolt in the dressing room door and turned down the lights. “I’ve never made love in the dressing room. Take me, Brian. I’m so horny I could die.” That was a pretty clear invitation and since I didn’t see anyone else in the dressing room, I started stripping off my clothes. Elaine spread a beach towel on what looked like a fainting couch and lay back on it. “Come to me, lover. Come to me.”
I sat beside her and began kissing her, working my way down to worship her nipples and then her navel. Elaine was pushing at my head to get me to the good stuff and when I got there I found her wet and savory. Realizing how ready she was, I latched onto her clit with my lips and began whipping it with my tongue. After the first time she came, I ripped open my condom and positioned myself over her. For the first time I could remember, I looked at her pussy as I was getting ready to sink in and thought about what it would be like to be bareback in her. She pulled at my sides and I slid smoothly into her. We rocked together, but Elaine had lost her urgency and wanted slow passionate lovemaking.
“I love you,” I said. “I love you, my incredible, brilliant, talented cónyuge. I want to be your groupie. I want to follow you everywhere you perform and applaud you from the wings. Then I want to come back to your dressing room every night and make love to you. You are my songbird. I love you.” I couldn’t really say much after that, because our breath was becoming shorter and we used what we had to kiss and then to call out our orgasms.
The party was great and had lots of good food, like Elaine said it would have. We only stayed an hour, though, and got back to Bloomington in the middle of the night.
I loved the fact that IU took an entire week off for Thanksgiving. Of course, we had to finalize our plans. We weren’t sure how the other casas were handling everything, but ours had decided that everyone should return to their families for Thanksgiving Day and then come back to the casa that night. We would have a pretty good caravan of people coming from Mishawaka down to Bloomington. It was hardest for Hannah, who would be returning to her parents’ home for the first time in eleven months. But they were close enough that Sarah and she could drive down Thanksgiving morning and back that evening. It was only fifty miles to French Lick.
It was also tough on Whitney. Her official opening game was Friday night and there were three days of practice before Thanksgiving.
It took some serious negotiating, but all our parents finally agreed to have a noon meal so we could all start back to Bloomington no later than four o’clock. Cassie’s parents hadn’t even suggested anything else. Josh and his dad would be with them for dinner, then they would pick up Mary on the way down. We figured we’d all get in between nine and ten o’clock.
Bill and Crystal Price were coming up to our house, so Jen, Court, and I would all be together. Some of the other parents were doubling up, too. The Nowickis were going to the Duvals’ for Thanksgiving Dinner. Liz was going up with Elaine and Rose on Tuesday so she could be there when Nikki flew in. Samantha was riding with Whitney and Sora.
On Wednesday, I didn’t shower right away after forms. I grabbed my jeans and jacket, shoved my feet in my boots, and saddled Jingo for a long ride in the woods. When he’d delivered the last load of hay this fall, Mr. Jacobs from next door asked why he’d never seen us ride across his property. It never would have occurred to me to ride onto his property without asking his permission. He said there was a makeshift gate in the back corner of the woodlot and we were welcome to use the trails in his woods as well as our own. He said that when he and the Wilkersons had younger kids and horses, all the farmers along our stretch of the road had opened up trails through the back woods, just like we’d done with the neighbors in Mishawaka. We were welcome to use the trails but warned to keep the gates shut. I’d never had time to go out along the trails and determined that before we went north I needed some serious time alone on my big boy.
“What do you think, Jingo?” I said as I was leading him through the first gate and closing it. It took me a while to find it since the trail was a little overgrown there. “I know Jennifer has been out here on you. You’re taking good care of her.” I sighed as I remounted. “Better than I am. How did Solomon handle it? Buddy, he had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines. At one a night that’s three years’ worth. At three a night, that’s still a year. Every fucking night! I’ve got seven cónyuge, a novia, five compañera, and three amiga. Every day I feel like I’m neglecting someone. Granted, I’m not fucking Cassie or Mary, but Mary wants me to take her virginity this weekend. I just don’t know if I should do that. And Renee has said she is waiting for the right opportunity to finish what we started the night before she graduated. And did you see Angela’s ass? No. Of course, you didn’t. I remember back when we were at camp, how big I thought she was. Well, I’ve grown up. I know, 5'6" isn’t big for a guy, but that’s all the taller she is. And she just stripped off her clothes and joined our forms like she belonged here. Does she? Shit, I’m hard just thinking about her.”
We came to the next gate in the fence and I dismounted to open it, led Jingo through, and closed the gate. I wasn’t even sure who owned this property. I needed to stop by and introduce myself.
“Add that to the list of things I need to do. Besides letting all the women I love know how much I love them, I need to keep the clan healthy and together. We should probably head back so we can leave for Mishawaka. I want to at least call the younger clan members this afternoon and see how they are doing. And I need to plan the rest of the season’s shows. Cooking is becoming a chore. Thinking up or finding a new recipe every week to demonstrate and keep the banter going is draining. Half the time I’m thinking about the chem lab or the physics lab. I really blew it by taking three science courses at the same time. I guess the good part is that I see how they’re related.”
We came to the edge of the woods. There was a road that ran along this end and I figured I’d have to turn around and head back through the woods. I dismounted again and just hugged Jingo. I felt so inadequate. There was so much I had to do. I just knew I was ruining something. Eventually, I found another gate at the corner of the woods that would let us out onto the road. We went out and rode along the edge of the dirt road toward the county road we lived on. It would probably take less time to get back along the roads than through the woods. It was time to start north.
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