Team Manager CHAMP!
Chapter 33
DENNIS STOOD BESIDE TOM and Peg stood beside Dot as Rev. Donnelly conducted the wedding. It was small, but all the couple’s closest friends were in attendance, including Dennis’s girlfriends and their parents or grandparents when they were available. Elsa Brown joined Peg next to Dot and State Trooper Ray Lenin was next to Dennis. Several other members of the State Police and the County Sheriff’s office were also present.
Perhaps the most surprising guests were Dot’s parents, who had managed transportation from their retirement home in Sioux City, over two and a half hours away. Dennis was thrilled to have his grandparents there. He’d talked to them before his graduation and agreed that he’d much rather have them attend his mother’s wedding than his commencement.
The height of the ceremony was Peg singing Ave Maria, chosen because it was her mother’s favorite of all the pieces she sang in church. Everyone in the church stood through the singing, simply because it was so beautiful.
And Peg glowed when she sang. There was never a question about how much she loved singing for Jesus.
“Margaret, I simply had no idea how beautifully you could sing. I was moved to tears.”
“I sing to Jesus, Gramma. He always listens.”
“Yes, my sweet, he does always listen. Come. Do you know ‘Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring’?” her grandmother asked.
“Mmmhmm. It’s pretty.”
“Come and sing with me.” Gramma and Peg went to the piano in the front of the church while people were still gathered at the door to greet the newlyweds. What they soon heard drew everyone’s attention to the front of the church and they all listened in awe as Peg’s voice rose and her grandmother accompanied on the piano and harmonized with the music.
When the music finished, Peg and her gramma sat together on the piano bench and hugged each other.
“I didn’t know Gramma could sing like that,” Dennis said as they sat at the reception in the basement. It was a simple affair catered by the women in the church.
“I haven’t heard her sing in years. When I was little, she would sing all the time,” Dot said. “When I first heard Peg sing, I felt like a little girl listening to my mother again.”
“We learn so much in such strange times,” Dennis said. He looked over to where his grandparents were sitting with Peg and were engaged in a conversation about favorite songs they loved. Occasionally, they would break into a few measures of perfect harmony. Peg was in heaven to be able to share this with her gramma.
“Do you sing, Ms. Dottie?” asked Natalie.
“Oh no, dear. I guess that talent skipped a generation. I sing when I feel my voice will be well concealed by the rest of the congregation.”
“Where are you going to honeymoon?” Brenda asked.
“Well, we’re just going to take a few days and drive up to Minneapolis,” Tom answered her. “We don’t want to be too far away.”
“I’m sure Peg will be fine with the Browns,” Dot said. “But it’s still nice that we won’t be too far away.”
Just then Peg came up to their table, beaming with happiness.
“Mommy/Daddy, Gramma will sing with me in church tomorrow morning!” she exclaimed with glee. “Will you wait to go ’mooning until after church?”
“Yes, honey. I think we can wait until then. I’d love to hear you sing with Gramma,” Dot said after a quick glance at Tom.
“It’s not even three hundred miles up to Minneapolis,” Tom said. “We don’t need to leave until after church.”
Dennis lost the rest of the conversation as he sank into thought. It wasn’t about the wedding or the honeymoon. His mind was replaying Peg’s greeting. “Mommy/Daddy.” His sister had completely accepted Tom as her new daddy. It suddenly seemed so soon after his father’s death. It had been almost two and a half years, but just now it felt like it had only been yesterday.
He felt a tear at the corner of his eye and took a deep breath to fight it off. Next to him, Lana reached up with a corner of her napkin and dabbed at his eye. He turned and smiled at her. She nodded as if she understood exactly what he’d been thinking.
He thought about his own response to Tom. He hadn’t hesitated to call his stepfather when he was in trouble at the athletic pavilion. But was he really a father figure to him? He respected Tom. He liked him. He was happy his mother had found love and company after the hard life they’d lived, and knew that his father would approve, too.
But when Dennis needed to talk to someone—thought of what man he was closest to—it was Lana’s father, Randy, who immediately came to mind. He stood up.
“I need to circulate around and visit some of the other guests,” he said. His mother smiled at him and nodded her thanks.
He did visit with several other guests, including some of Tom’s colleagues and the deputy who had rescued him at the pavilion when the thug was bringing his gun around to Dennis. Eventually, he found himself standing next to Randy. The Armors were next to him and Natalie’s father nodded greetings as well.
“Doing okay, son?” Randy asked. That was the key Dennis was looking for. He breathed a huge sigh and nodded. It was all okay. Peg had a new daddy, but in a very real way, so did Dennis. That they weren’t the same man made little difference.
The arrangements were a little confusing. Dennis took his grandparents to his little home and got them settled. Peg had insisted she wanted to be there, too, so there really wasn’t an opportunity for Dennis to have one or more of his girlfriends stay with him that night. He got Peg settled and then found his grandfather looking through the cabinets in the kitchen.
“Whatcha hunting for, Grampa?” Dennis asked.
“I know your mother must have some little something to drink here. Will always had something squirreled away,” his grandfather said.
“Up here,” Dennis said, reaching into the cabinet over the refrigerator where his mother kept her bottle of sherry. He got glasses and poured his grandmother and grandfather a drink. He made tea for himself and joined them in the living room as they watched a Saturday night comedy show.
“So, twelve girlfriends?” his grandfather said.
“Um… Only five now,” Dennis said, realizing how ridiculous it sounded to use ‘only’ in front of such a statement. His grandfather laughed and his grandmother smiled and shook her head.
“Only five. How will you survive?” Grampa said. “And you have none with you tonight? What’s wrong?”
“Um… We didn’t want to seem disrespectful. Having Peg decide she wanted to come here instead of to the Browns’ tonight, changed our plans a little. We were going to leave the house to you, but Peg can be a handful if her nighttime routine is disrupted. She’s gotten better, though. I think having Tom around has really helped her settle since Dad died.”
“A sad day that was,” Gramma said. “If I hadn’t been so ill at the time, we’d have been here with you. I hope you realize that.”
“I do. I’m just glad you recovered so well.”
“The treatments still take a lot out of me, but I’m getting stronger all the time.”
“Now about these girlfriends,” Grampa said. “Call them and have them come over. Can you do that? I met so many people at the church today, I’m sure I don’t remember which were your girlfriends.”
“Um… If you’re sure. I think they are still all over at Amy’s. I’ll call.”
Dennis made the call and fifteen minutes later, even Ardith joined the party at Dennis’s house. So, to his surprise, did Gransy.
“Ah… Don’t tell me you are a girlfriend, too?” Grampa asked.
“No. I’m more like a den mother,” Gransy laughed. “These six keep me young.”
“I think they’d age me. How do you keep up?” Gramma asked.
“They’re pretty good at moderating themselves. But you know. Sometimes one of them needs a Band-Aid and a kiss to make it better.”
“So, you are all planning to live together, from what Dottie told me,” Grampa said. The girls had all fixed their own evening drinks, ranging from pop to tea to hot cocoa. They looked at Dennis to answer.
“Yes, sir,” he said. He hadn’t anticipated a cross examination this evening and wished he’d poured himself a glass of sherry. “Um… Ardith and Brenda are already at Salter U. The rest of us will join them there this fall.”
“You’re college girls?” Grampa asked, looking at Brenda and Ardith. Ardith scrunched down a little.
“Um… Sort of,” Brenda responded. “Well, I’m going to be a junior next year, but with the AA degree Dennis earned at DMACC, he’ll be considered a first year junior, too. Um… Ardith…”
“I’m a little older,” Ardith finally said. “I coach the women’s basketball team at Salter. I used to be a teacher at Bartley.”
“Ah. I’m beginning to see the situation,” Grampa said. “I suppose that now Dennis and the other girls have graduated, they’re fair game.”
“Grampa, that’s not a good way to phrase things. Ardith isn’t a predator. She moved away to keep any possibility of inappropriateness away. And we still aren’t able to express any affection. Except Brenda can because she graduated two years ago,” Dennis said.
“I didn’t mean that as negatively as it sounded,” Grampa said. “Sorry. Sometimes I let my old man inside do the talking instead of the young man who envies you all.”
“That’s the truth,” Gramma said. “I happen to love the old man, though. He’s a little hard to handle when he forgets his age. Now let’s have no more judgmental comments. We wanted to meet you all because Dottie considers you all her children and that makes you our grandchildren. I love having such a big family at last.”
“I wouldn’t be too surprised, though, if Dot and Tom don’t pop out a new grandchild, too,” Grampa laughed. Everyone looked at him. Dennis had honestly not considered the possibility that he might end up with a half-brother or half-sister.
“Wow! That would be…” He looked at his girlfriends. “That would be neat!” They all agreed and had a good chat.
“I need to get going,” Ardith said. “I’ve probably stayed later than I should anyway.”
“Ardith, don’t rush on account of us old folks. It’s time for us to head to bed,” Gramma said.
“I’ll catch a ride with you, Ardith. If any of the girls want to come back, they can walk. It’s a beautiful night,” Gransy said.
The girls all looked at each other.
“Is it okay if we stay?” Brenda asked Gramma and Grampa.
“Oh! Do you have your things with you?” Gramma asked.
“We all kind of have things here,” Natalie said.
“Well give us oldsters a few minutes in the bathroom. Then the house is yours,” Grampa said. The two grandparents hugged each of the girls and Dennis, then held hands as they headed toward their bedroom.
“I’ll head to the car while you say goodnight,” Gransy said as she went out the front door.
Ardith looked at her boyfriend and girlfriends and then they all pulled together for a group hug. While in the group, each one got a nice kiss goodnight and Ardith smiled at them.
“Soon,” she said, and extracted herself from the hug to join Gransy.
Everyone was up early to go to church Sunday morning. Tom and Dot arrived about the same time as the rest of the crew and among them, they nearly filled two pews. Ardith and Gransy joined them as did a couple of the Angelines, who were thrilled to see their former coach. When it came time for Peg’s usual solo, Gramma joined her. Ms. Thompson smiled at them and then just began the piano introduction. Then the two joined in what had become Peg’s signature piece, “His Eye Is on the Sparrow.” It had always been a favorite since the first time she sang it, but to have Gramma’s voice singing in counterpoint to her moved everyone in the congregation to tears.
I sing because I’m happy.
I sing because I’m free.
For his eye is on the sparrow,
And I know he watches me.
“I believe we have discovered where Margaret got her amazing voice as she was joined this morning by her grandmother. We are truly blessed to have you among us this glorious June morning,” Pastor Donnelly said. “Thank you so much for your gift of music.”
After church, everyone said their goodbyes. Tom and Dot were packed and headed for I-35 to go to Minneapolis. Gramma and Grampa caught their ride and left for Sioux Falls. Ardith went back to Salter to review offers she was making and to firm up the next season. Several of the teams they’d played this season had been young and would all be back the next year. It would be a struggle to rebuild the Crusaders. Peg left with the Browns, where she’d be staying for the next week.
Dennis and four of his five girlfriends went to his house.
“My precious girlfriends and boyfriend,” Brenda said as they all flopped in the living room. “I need to tell you all that I am irrevocably in love. You all know that I love you to the depth of my soul, but I’ve fallen completely in love with Ardith, too. I think I only have a little head start on you and you will all fall in love with her as hard as I have.”
“I think we’re well on the way,” Natalie said. “It won’t take much of a push for me to fall in.”
“I love Ardith,” Lana said. “You all might not know that when I was recovering from being with the cheerleaders, she spent a little extra time with me each week, just to check how I was doing and ask me if I wanted to talk about anything.”
“Really? That’s so sweet!” Amy said.
“She kind of helped me sort out my feelings for Dennis and the rest of you. I could tell even back then that she really cared about each of us. And she admired Dennis and Natalie and Brenda and Amy. I could tell there was something special about the four of you that was different than the rest of the girlfriends. She helped me decide to become a girlfriend,” Lana said.
“That’s one more great reason to love her,” Dennis agreed. “Um… I’m a little worried about something, though.”
“What’s that, lover?” Amy asked. She moved slightly and cuddled under Dennis’s arm. She kissed his cheek.
“Well, it feels like we’re putting a lot of pressure on ourselves with the trip up to Minnesota on the seventeenth,” he said. “I mean, a week away with my girlfriends at a cabin on a lake sounds like heaven to me. I have visions of everyone running around naked and jumping in the water to play. But um… we’ve all reached a point where that seems reasonable. We’re expecting Ardith to be able to dive in with us at the same level. Only Brenda has really ever been on a date with her. And stuff. I don’t think it’s fair to expect her to make love to all of us as soon as we get to the cabin.”
“It does kind of feel that way,” Natalie said. “I think we need to just enjoy each other’s company without any expectations. We simply have a barrier lifted to exploring our relationship. The state has made everything about sex. That’s all the thirty days is about. It just means that the state can’t interfere with us as we explore how we feel about each other. I hope maybe that will include sex, but if we never get further than holding hands up there, I’ll be plenty happy with being able to do that.”
“Believe me, Ardith feels the same way. Even the first night she and I were together, there was a degree of tension that we had to overcome before we moved on to another level,” Brenda said. “And we’d been out on half a dozen dates. Just know and understand that she wants it all as much as we do. She just doesn’t want to spoil it all by moving too fast.”
“And there’s always rule number one,” Dennis said. “No means no.”
“‘No’ means no. ‘Stop’ means no. ‘I’m tired’ means no. ‘Not now’ means no. ‘I’m not sure’ means no. ‘I don’t know’ means no. ‘I’m not ready’ means no. ‘I’m not protected’ means no. ‘No’ does not mean ‘convince me.’ If it’s not a yes, it’s not consent,” Lana said. “I wrote that down and memorized it after Ardith said it when you took me to meet her the first time. Then I watched you all to see if it was true. It was, and one day I found that I didn’t want to say no. But even when I was exploring my sexuality and could have been convinced, Dennis always maintained the rule. If I didn’t say it was time, it wasn’t time. You all don’t know how excited and petrified and turned on and scared I was when I called Dennis and asked him to spend the weekend with me when it was time. I love you all so much it still terrifies me!”
Dennis’s marketing sales class at DMACC had started the previous week, so he had to go into Boone once a week for the in-person part of the class. He’d explained to the professor that he would be absent one week and agreed to do all the online work in advance and to review the recording of the lecture/discussion as soon after as possible. His task this week was writing a marketing proposal for a new fitness program.
He’d had the experience of starting his fitness website without the benefit of making any marketing decisions. He’d taken the “Build it and they will come” approach to developing the whole program. He was certain the course would help him move the site to the next level if he did all the steps required in class.
He was deep in his study and writing when his phone rang.
“’Lo?”
“Dennis, it’s Coach Neil. I’m wondering if you’d be available for an hour this afternoon. We have a candidate I’d like you to interview.”
“A candidate?”
“For the coaching job that you are vacating,” Neil laughed. “You weren’t planning on coaching the Angelines next year, were you?”
“Oh! No. That reminds me. I still have keys to turn in. What time?”
“Two o’clock. I’ll see you then.”
“Mikayla?” Dennis said when he entered the office. “Are you the candidate?”
“For some reason, these folks think I might be able to fill your big old shoes,” the recent grad said. “But they want you here so I can try them on.”
“Well, I don’t know, Mikayla. You always impressed me as having tiny feet,” Dennis laughed.
“Let’s move into the conference room,” Neil suggested. “We all have some questions to ask.”
They moved to a conference room where they were able to seat all the present coaches and Mikayla at the table. It was a fast-moving interview. Mikayla was a bright and bubbly person, not afraid to exchange wisecracks with the other coaches.
“What do you think your biggest handicap would be in taking over the Angelines?” Dennis asked. Mikayla got very serious.
“I know the image that I present. People look at me and immediately think ‘There’s a fat black girl. What does she know about basketball?’ I admit to being big around. I’m five-five and weigh 180. But, I’m not fat. You ask my teammates and my coaches and you’ll find that I kept up with every exercise, ran every lap, and shot every shot they did. I grew up with that philosophy and joined a school and team that supported it. The way to win is to outlast any opponent. Getting people to see that instead of looking at my shape and color will be my biggest handicap. But I’ll outlast the critics.”
By the end of the meeting, Dennis was sure Mikayla got the job.
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