Triptych
Twelve
MELODY LEFT EARLY SATURDAY MORNING to go visit Amy on the other side of the mountains. Lissa left to pick Kate up at about one o’clock, asking me repeatedly if I was sure it was okay to leave the boys with me.
“We’ve got plans,” I said. “If we’re not home when you get back, don’t worry. Just text me and I’ll let you know when we’re coming back.”
She finally left and I got the boys dressed for our outing. About half an hour later Jack showed up.
“This was a great idea, Tony. How much do I owe you for the tickets?”
“A hotdog and a bag of peanuts,” I laughed. “Really, Jack. I’m just glad you agreed to join us. I know it’s not your weekend, but…”
“I wouldn’t have missed it,” Jack said. “I try to think of everything, but sometimes two heads are just better than one.”
We looked at the boys sitting next to us. It was still early in the game, but both boys had met a major league player and had a newly signed baseball in their gloves. Their hats were almost as big as their heads and Jack and I had smeared them liberally with sunblock. We were in cheap seats on the second deck, but I figured that just meant we were closer to the sun.
“That’s something I wanted to talk to you about,” I said. “I remember, when I was about eight, my dad took me on a trip to Kansas City to see the Royals play baseball. We went to a double-header against the Twins. The Royals lost both games miserably, but I didn’t care. I was with my dad going to a real baseball game. I wanted to share that, too, but I’m…”
“…but you’re not their dad,” Jack finished for me. “Tony, there’ve been conflicts between dads and stepdads for centuries. We’re doing a pretty remarkable job of not having many. What you did today by inviting me along was the right way to do it and I’ve got to say thanks. Maybe Drew’s a little young for it, but it’s never a good idea to make the older wait to do something just because the younger isn’t ready. With two of us here, if Drew gets too tired to go on and Damon wants to stay, we can split up.”
“I was afraid you’d think I was overstepping my… well… I don’t have any authority or responsibility or anything. I’m really just a babysitter when it comes down to it.”
“Is that what you feel like, Tony? Just a babysitter?”
I looked at the boys. I hadn’t been paying much attention to the game, but they both stood up and yelled just as Justin Smoak put one over the fence. Everybody was standing and the boys couldn’t see anything. Jack and I reached for boys at the same time and Damon was up on my shoulder at the same time that Drew was perched on Jack’s. Both boys were screaming as loud as the rest of the crowd put together. The organ was playing; fireworks were going off on the big screen as a picture of a baseball flying through the air with the cover coming off streaked across the board. When we got settled back in our seats, Damon stayed on my lap and Drew on Jack’s. I looked at Jack.
“No. That’s not what I feel like,” I said. Jack held out his hand.
“Partners?” he asked. I shook the offered hand.
“Partners.”
“Well, well, well, young lady. You finally got home,” I chided Lissa. Ten o’clock wasn’t that late but the boys were in bed asleep and I’d had a good hour to focus on drawing in the quiet house. With Lissa out on a date with Kate, and Melody across the mountains with Amy, the house seemed very big and empty after the boys went to bed.
“Oh, Tony,” Lissa sighed. “It was so nice.”
“Come here, lover, and tell me all about your big date,” I said.
Lissa cuddled up with me in the recliner. That had become my favorite spot for one-on-one cuddles with my wives and I could hold both boys there while I read. Lissa curled up in my lap and gave me a long, slow-burning kiss.
“I can taste Kate,” I said. “How long were you two making out?”
“A bit,” Lissa said. “Can you really taste her? She has such sweet lips.”
“So do you, darling. I suppose, though, that I just imagine I taste her. Now, tell me all about it.”
“We need to figure that out,” Lissa said.
I stroked her cheek and let my hand trail over her shoulder and down her arm until we intertwined our fingers. Lissa had chosen a summery dress that hugged her curves and left her shoulders bare. It was unusual to see her in yellow, but her hair seemed to reflect the brightness. I hadn’t turned on a lamp yet and we could still see the mountains silhouetted against the horizon on the other side of the Sound. I nibbled her ear and she squirmed delightfully in my lap.
“What do we need to figure out?”
“How much we tell each other about what happens on our dates,” Lissa said. “I don’t mean we should hold anything back from each other, but Kate is in an interesting situation. She wants to be with all three of us, but she wants to get to know each of us individually. It wouldn’t be fair to her to tell you everything she said to me, because then she would feel like she had nothing to share with you when she takes you out. Does that make sense?”
“I can definitely see your point. Did you talk it over with her?”
“Yes, a little. In fact, most of what we talked about was how dating worked. She hasn’t had any more experience dating than I have. She didn’t say much about her home, but I got the impression that her choices for dates before she came to college included horses, cows, and pigs. I’m not sure if she was being literal or figurative.”
“Probably both. I looked up her hometown area online and there’s nothing there. The population of the town is forty-nine and she said she lived way outside of town.”
“Kate’s really smart and a wonderful artist, but dating isn’t the only thing she’s inexperienced at. She’s so hungry to do things. It’s almost like taking the boys out. Everything is new,” Lissa explained. “Speaking of which, what did you and our sons do today?”
Our sons. Wow! I hugged Lissa close and gave her a kiss. Then I told her about Jack and the boys at the baseball game.
“What a wonderful idea!” Lissa said. “I want to do it, too!”
“Why don’t we do a ballgame next weekend? Just for the four of us?”
“Wait. Which four?”
“A date.”
“Okay. Are the Mariners in town?”
“No. But the Aquasox are.”
“The who?”
“It’s our farm team up in Everett. A lot cheaper than Safeco and just as much fun, I’m told. It probably would have been a better place to take the boys for their first time out, but they had fun and it wasn’t too crowded.”
“Who gets to ask our girlfriend?”
“We’d probably better let Melody in on it first, but speaking of girlfriend, you cleverly diverted the conversation away from your date.”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. But, there’s just one thing. Did she give you a kiss to share?”
Wow! We spent half an hour as Lissa attempted to get the exact nuances of Kate’s kiss correct as she practiced on me.
“It was so much fun!” Melody squealed when she got home from visiting Amy.
She pulled into the driveway at about two o’clock Sunday afternoon. Lissa and I had spent a quiet morning as the boys played in the backyard on this bright and sunny day. Amy had to go to work at noon and Melody left to drive back home after having schnitzel at Amy’s drive-in.
“And look at the drawings!” She pulled out a small portfolio that held new sketches for the company logo. “Amy will do the whole website design, too. And she has an idea for our market launch at Opens.”
“This is great!” Lissa said. “We can go to market in the fall if we can get the fabric problems and financing worked out.”
“And that’s where I come in,” I said. Both Lissa and Melody looked at me in surprise. “My agenda yesterday was more than entertaining the boys,” I continued. “We took them to Red Robin for dinner after the game and Jack and I talked a little business. After I told him all the details about the little bleaching catastrophe and my portrait appointment, we agreed that it would be a good thing to have a studio someplace that was appropriately set up to do our necessary manufacturing and where any of us could paint or bring in models. Jack is investigating the possibilities.”
“Wow! You didn’t tell me about any of that last night.”
“We had other things to discuss, and I wanted to wait until all three of us were together.”
“But the whole bleaching thing would still leave the studio smelling bad, even with good ventilation. You couldn’t bring people in there to paint. I’d be worried about you even spending time there without wearing a mask,” Melody said. “Excuse me for being paranoid, but I got a serious wake-up call this week.”
“But think of it this way,” I said. “We need to get fabric and get the bleaching done in the next month so we can send it to manufacturing. By mid-September, it would be empty and with a little de-fumigation, it would be ready for art until you’re ready to start next season’s fabric.”
We were off and running with our plans. The business was really beginning to gel, though we decided that it would be better to start smaller than we originally intended. If we only sold on-line and at racquetball tournaments instead of trying to distribute through the retail channels Lissa had contacted, we could get started with a smaller inventory and an initial investment of less than a hundred grand. That still was a lot of money to come up with, but it beat the hell out of a quarter mill. Funding was still a major problem, though, and if we were going to have merchandise by October, we needed to get fabric in the next two weeks. The race was on.
“Hello?”
“Hi Tony. This is Eric Barnes. How you doing today?”
“Uh…” Who the hell is Eric Barnes? And why is he calling me on a Sunday night?
“Oh. Damn fine to meet you, Eric?” he said. Oh, yeah. The guy from the Tent City rally.
“Oh! Hi, Eric. Sorry. I didn’t recognize your name at first. Hey, what’s up?”
“Well, now that we know each other… anyway… I was calling to invite you to a party Friday night. Some of us are getting together and I thought it would be a great way for you to get to know some other guys from SCU and help us plan the volunteer effort for Tent City this fall.”
“Oh. Well, uh… when was that?” Holy shit. Is he asking me out? I try not to make snap judgments about people, but everything about him told me he was gay.
“Friday night. It’s going to be at the apartment of one of my buddies. You’ll like him.”
“Thanks, Eric. Really. But I’m not sure… well, I mean I’m not…”
“Oh, crap! Hey, I know you’re not gay. I’m not asking you out for me. Bring your girlfriend. I didn’t think you’d get freaked out by being asked to a party by somebody like me. You just seemed like a nice guy.”
“It’s not that I’m freaked out, Eric. I just didn’t want you to think that I was interested that way. Please, tell me more.”
“All right. Here’s the skinny. We’ve got a pretty good social justice group. There isn’t much we can do to just go out and change the world, but there’s a few things we can do to change what’s around campus. Yeah, a lot of our members are gay because we know about social justice issues first hand. But we’re not just about gay rights. Lots of people don’t fit in the shoes society has chosen for them. Some of those people are homeless and we’re going to do what we can to help them.” He took a deep breath, but didn’t really give me time to respond before he plunged back in.
“So, we managed to get approval to host Tent City on campus for three months. That’s the maximum time the law allows them to stay in one place. They arrive September thirtieth and have to be in their new campground on the first of January. But they can’t just show up and pitch tents. There’s tons of administrative stuff that needs to be done, as well as security,” Eric said.
“Is there something for a racquetball player with no special skills to do?” I asked.
“It’s up to us students to provide everything that’s needed,” Eric said. “We have to coordinate meals, shower facilities, restrooms, security both for the camp and for the campus, and even medical volunteers. But that doesn’t mean all we do is work. That’s why we thought that having a bit of a party to celebrate getting approval would be a good way to start.”
“Wow!” It was cool and I had said that I was going to be more aware and take a more active part. Beth and I always joked about the fact that we might not be popular, but we were the ones who would change the world. I believed Beth would, but I didn’t see how my drawings were going to change anything. Here was an opportunity that pretty much came knocking on my door. “It sounds like fun, Eric. Where and when?”
He gave me the details and I said that I’d have to check with my wives, but I thought I could make it. He laughed.
“Wives, huh? Why don’t you just bring your girlfriend? I’m serious. We’re going to have a good time and get to know each other. There’s going to be plenty of work coming in September,” he said.
“Okay. I’ll let you know how many of me to expect.”
I disconnected and Lissa and Melody looked at me quizzically.
“There’s this gay guy I met at SCU,” I started, “who just invited me to a party Friday night.”
“Go! Go!” Melody squealed.
“It was just a party invitation, not a date,” I scowled. “He told me I could bring my girlfriend and totally didn’t believe me when I said I’d ask my wives. Want to toss a coin or shall we all go and shock the hell out of them?”
“What kind of a party?” Lissa asked. So I told them all about SCU hosting the Tent City and that I had decided to volunteer if I could find something I could do.
“You should ask Kate,” Lissa said. Melody and I both opened our mouths, but nothing came out. “She does a lot of volunteer work,” Lissa continued. “She works at the food shelf twice a month, helping hungry people get groceries for the week. She would really be into this.”
“Great idea,” Melody said. “Then it’ll be my turn.”
Going to a party where I didn’t know anyone wasn’t my idea of a great date, but I finally agreed, since we’d all be going out to the ballgame the next day and Kate could spend the night. Of course, we hadn’t asked her yet. I got her on the phone.
“Hi Kitten,” I said when she answered.
“Ooo. Hi Tony. I miss you.”
“Hey, I miss you too. Did you have fun with Lissa yesterday?”
“You know I did. Did she give you the… uh… kiss… I gave her for you?”
“Yeah. It was dreamy. Oh…” I looked over at my wives and they were caught up in an intense lip-lock. “Did you give her one for Melody?”
“Of course!”
“Well, I think she’s delivering it now. We should be able to talk for a while if it’s anything like the one you sent me.”
“Not a second under half an hour!”
“You mean that whole thing was from you?”
“I got a little carried away. Do you mind?”
“Not a bit. I can hardly wait to be the transfer agent. Which brings me to why I called.”
“You want a kiss?”
“No. Er… Yes, of course. But that’s not the main reason. I’d like to ask you out a couple of times?”
“A couple of times? How’s that work?”
“Well, while you were romancing Lissa, I had the boys and Jack out at the Mariners’ game Saturday.”
“Fun!”
“I thought you’d say that. So we’d all like to go to the ballgame with you next Saturday afternoon. It won’t be the Mariners, but from what I’ve heard, it can be even more fun. We’ll go up to see the Aquasox in Everett. Would you like to go?”
“I’ve never been to a baseball game. I’d love to go.”
“That’s great. So how about spending Friday night with us?”
“Tony…”
“I’ve been invited to what could be a cool party Friday night and was told to bring a date,” I cut her off. “I understand you’ve been involved at the local food shelf. Are you familiar with Tent City?”
“Yes.” She seemed cautious.
“Well, it’s going to be located at SCU from October through December and I’ve been recruited to help with the infrastructure. It’s a get acquainted party for volunteers. Would you like to go?”
“Oh! Yes! That sounds great. Yeah.”
“Wonderful! That’s why I was suggesting that you could just crash here Friday night and then we’d have a head start on Saturday. We’re planning a lazy, fun weekend.”
“I think so, but… Tony… no pressure, okay?”
“No pressure, Kitten. We’re all agreed.”
“Thank you. You don’t know how much that means,” she breathed. “I’ve got an idea. When’s the game?”
“Two o’clock, I think.”
“Can I draw you in the morning? I mean all y’all? You know, the drawing we were talking about a couple of weeks ago.”
“That sounds great.”
“Well, I’ll let you get back to your girls,” Kate said.
“Oh, there’s no hurry. If I got it right, they have at least sixteen more minutes before I can interrupt.”
Kate and I used the time to joke and catch up on what else was going on. I told her we were going to be looking for studio space and she’d be invited to use it once it was set up. Occasionally, I updated her on what was happening with Lissa and Melody.
“Are they still kissing?” Kate asked.
“Mmm. Yeah. Lissa just slid her hand up under Melody’s t-shirt and…”
“I didn’t do that!”
“I wondered. Seems like Lissa’s improvising.”
“Tell her to stick to the script or we’ll have to rehearse more.”
We laughed and a few minutes later I was beckoned over to join my two lovers.
Comments
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