Diva
Three
MELODY’S PHONE RANG at 1:01 a.m., just after we’d walked into the house. We were headed to the boys’ room to see if everyone was there. No one was, but Lissa greeted Melody on the phone and asked her to put it on speaker so she could talk to both of us.
“We’re still at the hospital, but will probably be leaving soon,” Lissa started. She sounded drained.
“How are they? What’s wrong?” Melody asked.
“We’ve been worried all night,” I added.
“It turns out there’s a nasty bug that’s hit in past couple of days and is spreading like crazy through the pre-school and elementary schools. We must have seen a dozen people we knew in the emergency room. It’s crazy here. Their temperatures peaked at 104 degrees and the doctors pumped them full of antibiotics, but it will be at least a couple of days before they are fully healthy,” Lissa said.
“When will you be home? Should we come and get you?” I asked.
“I’m not coming back tonight,” Lissa said. Melody and I looked at each other and I could see worry creasing her brow.
“Lissa?”
“We’re taking the boys to Jack’s house. I can’t bring them home with all of you there. The doctors say it’s really contagious. You can’t risk being sick the last week of school and at National Singles. We’ll be lucky if you haven’t already caught it,” Lissa explained. It was logical but we weren’t happy.
“But Jack’s there. You could come home,” Melody pled.
“Sweetheart, I can’t leave my boys tonight. They won’t let go of me and I wouldn’t leave them when they’re sick anyway. I’ll stay there.”
“With Jack?” I blurted out before I could stop my mouth. I was worried sick about the boys, and I understood that Lissa needed to be with them, but she’d be there with the boys and with Jack. It was like they were still married.
“It’s not about Jack, Tony,” Lissa said sharply. “I can’t expect you two to understand, but please just accept that I need to be here. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
Melody recovered first and managed to stop Lissa before she hung up.
“We love you, Lissa. And we love Damon and Drew. Give them a hug for us and tell them we love them. Please?”
“We love you, too, Little One. I’m sorry I snapped at you, Tony. It’s been a hard night. I love you both.”
After a little peck on the lips, Allison had gone straight to the guest room and Melody and I retired to our bed. Our bed—but Lissa’s bed. It felt so strange to get ready and crawl into Lissa’s bed without Lissa in it. Even when Melody came into my arms, she seemed hesitant and unsure.
It wasn’t like we hadn’t made love without Lissa, nor that Lissa hadn’t made love with each of us without the other. But it was strange being in this bed without her. Even with two of us sharing it, it felt big and empty.
“Tony?” Melody said in a very small voice.
“What is it, Meddy?”
“I’m afraid.” I didn’t need an explanation but we both needed to give it voice. I could feel the fear gnawing at me.
“So am I, dear.”
“Are you afraid Lissa won’t come back to us?”
“Yes. Afraid that she is sharing this crisis with Jack instead of us and that anytime Damon and Drew are involved, she’ll be with Jack. Afraid that we aren’t as important to her as we want to believe.” Afraid that she was with him right now. No, I didn’t imagine that they were having sex while Damon and Drew ran a fever in the next room. Just that he was the one holding her and comforting her while she watched over her babies. I was afraid we could never compete.
“I keep thinking of how she tried to break up with us and we wouldn’t let her. Are we clinging to a fantasy?”
“No, sweetheart. That can’t be. What we have is real for all three of us. We just need to be patient and show her how much we love her.”
“Tony, would we…would we…still be together without Lissa?” Tears were flooding down Melody’s cheeks and I held and rocked her trying to ward off the dark clouds that threatened to engulf me. I couldn’t answer. I held her fiercely and kissed the tears escaping from her eyes. I found her lips and we devoured each other—not hungrily, but desperately—hanging on to what was real in the face of what was imagined.
I wasn’t quite hard and she wasn’t quite wet, but we forced ourselves together, needing to be joined. As we rocked back and forth, our bodies took control and we slid more freely, my hardness penetrating deeply. I rolled her on top of me so I wouldn’t crush her and held her to me tightly. Our climax came, as the poet said, “not with a bang, but a whimper.”
“You guys are sure a lot quieter when there’s only two of you,” Allison said when we appeared in the kitchen Saturday morning. She’d already made coffee and was staring at a bowl of cereal when we finally pushed ourselves out of bed. Neither of us wanted to get up, but we couldn’t bear to stay in the bed any longer. Allison looked at us long and hard as I poured two cups of coffee and got out the milk and sugar for Melody.
“Oh, you poor kids,” she said after a minute. She came around the table and pulled both of us to her and squeezed. We no longer had tears to shed. We were too exhausted. We both just rested our heads against Allison’s ample bosom. “You are really in love with her, aren’t you! And the boys. I saw it the last couple of days, but now it’s written all over your faces. Don’t worry; it will be okay. You’ll see.”
It was funny, being comforted like little kids by a woman who was only a couple years older than we were. This was going to be a long hard day if we didn’t snap out of it. Hey, the boys would start getting well and then Lissa would come home and we’d all be fine again, right? I smooched Melody while Allison kept hold of our shoulders. She smiled a little and her eyes shifted up toward our comforter. I grinned and, as if on cue, we both turned our heads toward Allison and nipped at her nipples, prominently standing out in unfettered glory under her t-shirt. She yelped.
“You guys! I almost wet my pants! You scared me.”
“Oh,” I said. “Sorry about that. Next time we suck on your nipples we’ll try not to startle you.”
“Next time? Oh, shit!”
“Sorry we’re so sour this morning,” Melody said. “Thanks for helping us and giving us a hug.”
“You’re welcome,” Allison said, starting to breathe again.
“But, yeah. Next time,” Melody finished. Allison rolled her eyes.
“My god, what did I get myself into? Just come out to play some racquetball for a week. We’ll have a couple of parties. So sure, I thought to myself. Sounds like fun. I wonder why they didn’t tell me I’d be running around in a house full of naked women, listening to the most incredible sex I’ve ever imagined, and getting my boobs bitten by not just a boy, but a girl, too! Why didn’t they mention these little details before I got here?”
“Oh, Allison,” Melody complained. “If we’d told you all that it would have spoiled the surprise and you might not have come.”
“Oh I think I’d have come… several times. I just might have packed lighter.”
We all got a chuckle out of that and began the process of pulling ourselves out of the morose depths and back into daylight. We had work to do. Lissa, Allison, and I would be leaving for Chicago on Sunday. I wouldn’t be back until summer, so I needed to clean out my dorm room. We wanted to rush over to Jack’s house and visit the boys, but we knew they’d all had a hard night, so we decided to wait until later in the day. We didn’t want to disturb desperately needed sleep, so moving out of the dorm was the first order of business after breakfast.
It wasn’t that big a job to move because most of my stuff was already at Lissa’s. Melody and I found some comfort in the fact that we were moving things to Lissa’s house and Melody decided that she was going to move the rest of her things at the same time. That was more challenging because she still had things in my dorm room and in her original dorm room, as well as what she’d already moved to Lissa’s.
Sandra came to help us gather things from Melody’s dorm room and load them into Lissa’s SUV. She said that Kate had convinced Amy to take her roller skating around Green Lake and show her Amy’s dance moves. We decided that when we were all loaded we’d cruise by that direction and see if we could spot them.
We didn’t see them and finally Allison, Melody and I got things back to Lissa’s house and took all our crap downstairs.
“Geez, you guys have a lot of stuff for living in a dormitory. I forgot what it was like to have to move out in the spring.”
“Where do you live now?” I asked.
“I rent a two-bedroom apartment with three other girls. It might as well be a dormitory with two single beds in each room and no weekday overnight guests allowed. The only good thing is it has two baths—or I guess they call it one-and-three-quarters. There’s only a shower and no tub in the en suite. But I’ve got good roommates and the gal I share my bedroom with has a boyfriend with an apartment, so most weekends she’s at his place and I have my own room.”
It was fun to hear more about Allison’s life at KSU.
“You don’t have to move out in the summer?” I asked.
“No. We just re-upped our lease so we don’t have to move out until after we graduate. It’s a real relief to have a permanent home instead of temporary housing.”
Melody and I looked at each other. It was the big question on both our minds. Were we moving into permanent housing?
Lissa, Melody, and I had talked about it a lot. We all three said we wanted to live together, but we had our family obligations, as well. After the tournament, I’d be headed to Nebraska to spend time with my parents and reconnect with old friends. Melody’s mother and father planned to meet her in Chicago next weekend and spend a day with my folks before they went back to Boston. Lissa, of course, had a job and two kids. She’d be coming home from Chicago and we’d be in three different parts of the country for the first time.
We had agreed that Melody’s and my things would stay at Lissa’s house until we got back and then we would decide on permanent living arrangements. I just hoped I wasn’t moving back to the dorms.
“Maybe I should stay in the car,” Allison said when we pulled up in front of Jack’s house. It was located close enough to Lissa’s place that they were in the same school district, but in vastly different neighborhoods. Jack lived in a small, older home that looked like it was out of a 1950s TV show, complete with a big front porch and storm door. We grabbed Allison’s hand and dragged her along with us as we approached the door.
We knocked and waited. Finally, Jack opened the door. He looked terrible. He held up one finger in a wait-a-minute gesture and lowered the glass pane on the storm door so he could talk to us through the screen.
“I’m sorry, guys, but you can’t come in. Lissa’s orders. This bug is really bad and she doesn’t want you exposed to it.”
“Is everyone all right?” Melody asked. Well, of course not, if what Jack was saying was true.
“It’s pretty bad,” Jack said. “Neither of us have had much sleep. One or the other of the boys has been up all the time.”
“What can we do to help?” I asked. “Can we see Lissa?”
“Lissa will come out as soon as she can. Are you guys willing to run an errand for us? We could use some groceries. I wasn’t prepared for a siege and I don’t think I should go out if I can help it.”
“Of course!” I said. At last, I felt like we could do something! I really didn’t care what. Jack hadn’t unlocked the storm door, so there was no way I could even sneak in. He left and came back a few minutes later with a list and a hundred-dollar bill.
“Lissa’s in the shower with Drew,” Jack said when he got back. “Having the steam helps keep his nose and lungs open. She said she’ll come out when you get back with the groceries. There’s also a new prescription that the boys’ pediatrician called in to Walgreen’s. Here’s my insurance card. It should cover the costs, but if anything costs more than what I’ve given you, just tell me.”
“We’ll be back soon,” Melody said.
“You guys are real friends,” Jack said warmly. “I know you want to be with Lissa and the boys, but Lissa is adamant about not exposing you if we can help it.”
We went to the grocery store and picked up several cans of chicken soup, especially the kind with little letters in it that the boys like so much. Milk, juice, cereal… with three of us shopping, we were in and out of the store in fifteen minutes. It was a longer wait at the pharmacy. I couldn’t believe the line of worn and tired looking parents who were standing in line for prescriptions and there were even a couple of whiny, sniffling kids being towed along. Melody insisted that Allison and I go back to the car because we had to travel the next day. Melody said that if she got sick it would have less impact.
“Maybe I could move in with Jack, too,” she joked. It wasn’t funny.
When we got the medicine and groceries back to Jack’s house, Lissa answered the door and took the bags from us, but didn’t allow us in. I touched her hand lightly when she took the bags and when she came back from the kitchen she brought a bottle of hand sanitizer and insisted that I use it immediately. She squirted some on each of us and then closed the door again quickly.
“I miss you,” Lissa said, looking at Melody and me. “Sorry to expose you to all this mush, Allison. I’ll get more hand sanitizer if it’s too much.” We all laughed a little. It was so good to be back with Lissa, even on opposite sides of the storm door.
“Well, at least we’ll all be back together tomorrow,” I said. “Do you want us to pack for you?”
“About that, Tony,” Lissa said, looking down at her feet. “I’m not going to Chicago with you.”
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