Odalisque
Thirty-two
IT WAS COLD when we got home and there was an old station wagon and a camper trailer parked in front of the house.
“It looks like Kate’s family has arrived,” I said. “They’re earlier than they expected.”
“I’ll go downstairs,” Wendy said.
“Don’t be silly, Tiger. You might as well meet them now as later. You are going to meet them.”
“Yes sir.” I stopped cold. Oh shit!
“Wait. I’m sorry, Wendy. That wasn’t very considerate of your feelings and I kind of ordered you to come in with me. If you really don’t want to meet them right now, you don’t have to,” I said. “I know Kate will want to share her family with you just like I did.”
Wendy wrapped her arms around me and we stood in the garage for a couple of minutes like that.
“Are they as nice as your family?”
“They’re different than my family, but nice? Yeah. Did you know that even before Kate had made love to us on our birthday that her family just gave us a room—or a wagon—together? And her mom figured out that there were more than two of us in the relationship before Kate ever said anything. She’s a little spooky, but nice,” I said.
“Thank you, Tony. I’ll go in with you. I really just wanted you to tell me to. I’m sorry. I’ll be stronger.”
“Things take time, Tiger. It doesn’t happen overnight. You’re really doing well.”
I wrapped my arm around her waist and we opened the door.
“So, we camped in Ellensburg last night, just to see if we could actually all sleep in that thing,” Ken said. That explained why they’d gotten here so early today. “It was a wee mite crowded until the kids all decided to sleep in the back of the wagon.”
“It was much more comfortable,” Sunday laughed. “And no one was snoring next to our heads.”
I was surprised to find that in addition to Sunday and Willow, the family had also brought Rainbow, the other fifteen-year-old I’d met at the camp. They looked more mature than when I saw them over Labor Day. Willow was still a little shy and tentative when he spoke, but Rainbow was proving just as delightful as Sunday. It was funny to see them all sitting on the floor in the same bib overalls and T-shirts that Kate had worn the entire first year in college.
I looked at Wendy. She was sitting next to Gypsy on the sofa, absently shuffling a deck of cards. I knew what was going to happen there and hoped that Gypsy was as kind to her as she’d been to me. Kate sat beside Wendy and Oke sat beside Gypsy. Ken was in the other big chair and I sat in the recliner with Lissa and Melody on the arms. For now, the boys seemed content to play on the floor with the trucks they’d brought home from Nebraska.
“So how is your drumming coming along?” Ken asked, glancing at the stack of drums by the fireplace. The boys immediately lifted their heads and zeroed in on their own drums.
“Kate dances!” Damon said.
“Hey, buddy, so do Mommy and Melody,” I laughed. “And you!”
“Good, good,” Ken said. “We brought a couple of drums with us. We’ll have a pow wow later on.”
“Sounds like a good way to welcome in the New Year,” I said.
“A few drums?” Rainbow said. “That’s why we slept in the station wagon. There’s no room in the camper.”
“That reminds me,” I said. “I can spot for you if you want to back the camper in next to the house. We’ve got that RV pad next to the garage that I never could figure out a use for. I was thinking of putting a basketball hoop at the end for the boys. But there’s power and water on that side of the house, too.”
“That will be great,” Oke said.
“We have rooms inside, too,” Lissa said. “Wendy has one of the downstairs bedrooms, but we have the upstairs guestroom and the other bedroom downstairs. It doesn’t have much in it at the moment, but we have an air mattress that we can inflate.”
“That would be good,” Gypsy said. “Papa Ken, why don’t you take the guest room and let the children have the air mattress.”
“I see your method,” Ken laughed. “That would leave just… hmm… you and Oke in the camper, right?”
“What do you think, Papa Oke?” I asked. “Sound like a good plan to you?” He just grinned and patted his wife.
“Well, we should do it while it’s still light out. We’re all going to our favorite restaurant tonight,” I said.
As we were getting up, I watched Gypsy motion to Wendy to draw a card and show it to her. Gypsy nodded her head and set the deck of cards on the coffee table. She glanced at me and headed for the front door with her husband. Everyone moved to ‘help’ with backing in the camper. I passed the coffee table and couldn’t help but quickly lean down and flip up the top card. I put it back and cut the deck, then headed outside.
How could she be the queen of diamonds and still be so different?
Kate disappeared with the three teens and Melody and Wendy went to help her. We got the camper backed in and leveled. Oke hooked up the water and electricity and the camper lit up. I got a chance to look inside and saw that there were half a dozen drums stacked in the living area. It really wasn’t that big a camper!
We got ready to go to Carmine’s. Kate came into the bedroom with Melody while Lissa and I were getting dressed. It had taken a while to get Lissa extracted from Grandpa Ken’s stories, but he had his duffle bag in the guest room and was supposedly getting ready, too.
“They’re so cute!” Melody exclaimed.
“Isn’t her family wonderful?” I said moving over to give Kate a kiss.
“Not just her family, the kids,” Melody explained. “You’d think they’d never seen clothes.”
“You saw how I dressed the whole first year of school,” Kate laughed. “We just don’t have much occasion to dress up out in the boondocks.”
“Oh my gosh!” I said. “Do they need clothes for the restaurant?” The thought hadn’t occurred to me.
“Don’t worry, sweetie,” Melody said, claiming her kiss. “We already stole clothes of yours for Willow.”
“Rainbow can wear my clothes,” Kate said, “but my little sister is a good two inches taller than me. I had to borrow something from Lissa’s closet for her. Mine’s a little thin at the moment because of the things I’ve given… er, loaned… to Wendy.”
“We got Wendy some cute things today,” I said. “She insisted on buying her own work clothes, but I told her the other stuff was all mixed in with my costumes and props and I didn’t really know how much it cost. I did buy her a pair of good shoes for working in the restaurant, though.”
“You know, she doesn’t have to stay downstairs tonight, Kitten,” Lissa said. “She’s welcome with us any time.”
“She’s still a little self-conscious about my family all being here,” Kate sighed. “I think she might slip into bed with us New Year’s Eve, though.” Kate looked at the three of us in various stages of getting dressed. She didn’t have a stitch on. “I was… um… wondering…” Kate began. I could see she was struggling with something and pulled her to me to sit on my lap on the bed. Melody and Lissa knelt in front of us.
“What is it Kitten?” Lissa asked.
“If it was okay with Wendy to share the bathroom, could I, maybe, rent the other room?”
“Kate, are you still so unsure of us that you don’t know you have a place in our hearts and in our home. Anyplace you want,” Lissa said.
“I love you so much,” Kate continued. “I want to be closer. I want to be with you. But I want a space that I can call my own where I can go and no one bothers me. Where maybe I can take one of my lovers for a little special time by ourselves,” she whispered. We’d all been on the receiving end of a little of Kate’s special time. I understood.
“Are you… um… planning to have Amber move in, too?” I asked. “Private space just wouldn’t be the same without a voyeur.”
“I was thinking you’d want to install a little spy camera in my ceiling and a big screen TV at the foot of your bed,” Kate laughed.
“That’s not a bad idea,” Melody said.
“I was kidding!”
We took all three cars to Carmine’s. I was counting out how many seats we needed and debating whether I needed to get a bigger car. We could officially count seven in our household now. The Mazda only seats six and my Escape can only carry five. I took Wendy and the teens with me in the Escape and Kate rode with her parents and Ken. Lissa, Melody and the boys took the Mazda.
Carma had fixed a big family table for us and didn’t even ask what we wanted to eat. We placed our drink orders and food just started arriving at the table. Every few minutes a waitperson would stop by our table and hug Wendy. I think the whole kitchen staff made it out at one time or another during the evening. Dressed in a pair of Kate’s black leggings and a pretty knit top, Wendy was on top of the world.
All the Holsinger clan was suitably impressed with the food.
“We haven’t been to Seattle since we brought Katarina here for school,” Oke said. Now that he had a couple glasses of wine in him, his speech was not as hesitant as it usually was. I noticed that back in Oregon when he was stoned, too. “You really like living around all these people, Lyubitshka?” He used Gypsy’s pet name for his daughter.
“Sometimes I miss getting away from everything,” Kate said. “But there is so much to do here! I have art and friends and music and the zoo!” We all laughed about that. Kate loved the zoo.
With thirteen people at a long table, there wasn’t much way to have a single conversation with the group. There were half a dozen conversations going on at the same time. Gypsy was on one side of me and Melody on the other. Kate and Wendy were on the other side of Gypsy and Lissa, Ken, and Oke were across from us. The teens occupied the other end of the table with the boys at the end between Melody and Lissa. Gypsy leaned close to me.
“What did you think?” she asked me. I knew what she was referring to.
“I thought you were the one who interpreted the cards.”
“She fits.”
“She’s so different. It’s not like with Kate. Or Melody and Lissa.”
“Perhaps not with you, or not now. But look.”
Gypsy leaned back a little and I looked past her at Kate and Wendy. It was obvious from my angle that they were holding hands under the table as they joked with Sunday. Gypsy must have caught the glint of a tear in my eye.
“It grows, Tony,” she said. “Give it fertile soil and it grows. Grow with it.”
I couldn’t help myself. I wrapped an arm around Gypsy and squeezed her to me. I caught Oke’s eye across the table and he smiled at me, nodding.
The meal was incredible, and being a Friday night, the band started setting up and clearing the dance floor. One thing about Kate’s family: they loved music. When the band started to play, Gypsy and Oke were up on the dance floor in a flash. Ken was quite smitten with Lissa and asked her immediately to dance. Melody promised that she would be fine with the boys for two songs, but no more. I kissed her on her cheek. She leaned into me.
“They are about to be left alone,” she said just above the music. “You’d better dance.”
“Are you sure?” I asked. “I hate to leave you alone with the boys.”
“It’s only for two songs,” Melody smiled. “If it’s more than that, rescue me!” I kissed her soundly and stood.
The three teens were already on their way to the dance floor when I bent my head between Wendy and Kate.
“I would love to take Kitten and my Tiger out for a dance,” I said between them. The look I got from both girls melted my heart. Their smiles lit up the room. They didn’t say anything, but both reached up to kiss my cheeks and then stood to join me. I watched at the end of two songs and saw Ken, Lissa, Oke and Gypsy return to the table. Gypsy didn’t sit but took Ken’s hand and led him back to the hardwood. Lissa sat next to Melody and Oke slid down next to Damon. It looked like he was having an animated discussion with him, so I stayed on to dance another couple numbers. By that time, Ken and Gypsy returned to the table and Kate said she needed water. I walked to the table with Kate and Wendy and immediately pulled Melody to her feet and back to the music. The band switched tempo to a slow number. Melody collapsed into my arms and I guided her slowly around the dance floor.
“Look,” Melody whispered as we moved on the dance floor. She turned me so I could see Kate’s brother, sister, and their friend dancing. The three were clutched together as they swayed to the slow music.
“It’s a good thing we’ve gotten Carma used to multiples,” I chuckled. “See? They’re both in love with her.” I referred to Sunday and Willow both being in love with Rainbow. I wondered how that would work out.
“They’re in love with each other, too,” Melody said. Sunday leaned into her brother and under the guise of whispering in his ear, let her lips brush against him. He and Rainbow both smiled at her.
“I wonder how that will work out.” We spun ourselves around and looked back at the table where we could see Gypsy looking lovingly—maybe even protectively—at the teens. She knew. It was something that I’d completely missed when Kate and I visited the family on Labor Day. Maybe it had only developed over the past four months. They were all sixteen years old now, and kids grow up fast in the country.
I got a chance to dance with Lissa for a little while after she joined Melody and me.
“The boys are fading fast,” she said. “We never keep them out this late. We’d better head home.”
“I’m with you,” I answered. “I’m pretty exhausted, too. Let’s go put everyone to bed.”
“Wendy?” I called softly as I knocked on her door. She opened it almost immediately and stood before me in a bra and panties. I was going to have to get used to this, I suppose. But damn! “I just wanted to make sure you were all right, Tiger,” I continued, forcing my eyes back up to her face. She took hold of my hand and dragged me into the room, closing the door behind us.
“Look, Tony! I have a room of my own! I didn’t know you bought this for my room,” she said, patting the top of the vanity. Even for having only moved into the room this afternoon, it was incredibly neat. The bags and packaging her new things came in were neatly folded and stacked next to the door, ready to be taken to recycling. Lissa had a complete bedding set for the room that matched the curtains on the window. The bed was turned down with two fluffy pillows and a stuffed tiger—one of Wendy’s Christmas presents—perched on top. She opened the closet door. It was sparse, but all of her clothes were hung on padded hangers from Lissa’s abundant supply. I recognized many of Kate’s things among the items we’d purchased today.
Wendy turned from the closet after I’d made and appreciative sound and flung herself into my arms. She wrapped her arms around my neck and pulled me close for a kiss that was not one a landlord would normally receive.
“It’s so perfect. Thank you so much,” Wendy said. “Someday I’ll invite you in as a guest. We couldn’t have overnight guests in the camp.” I laughed and began to extricate myself, but Wendy pulled me closer and rubbed herself against me. Someday I’d probably accept her invitation. “Tony, don’t worry.” I looked at her and was caught by the intensity of her green eyes, flecked with gold. She really was a tiger. “I won’t steal Kate from you,” she continued. “I couldn’t. Not for your sake and not for hers. She not only loves you, Tony; she needs you. She needs you even more than I do. You’re my hero. You’re her god. I will love living in my new room—starting tonight. But that doesn’t mean I won’t come sneak into bed with you upstairs sometimes if I’m welcome.”
“Tiger, that’s more than I’ve heard you say at one time since the fire. I’m so glad to have you back.” This time, I kissed her.
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