Spitfire and Messerschmitt

Chapter 5 :: On to the Weekend

The lights were out when we got home and there was no Wanda in my bed. I sat down on my bed, still dressed.

I told myself that I had to think about this rationally. I have a sister every guy at school thinks is drop-dead gorgeous. Most of them would like to get in her panties. I'd been there, done that. I'd done it so well; she had to ask me to stop.

Would I have helped Emily if she was fat and ugly? I shivered again. Maybe not yesterday, but today I'd do it for anyone, anyone at all.

The next thing I knew, someone sat down next to me. I opened my eyes and saw Wanda. I also saw that it was daylight.

"You reverting to form, little brother?" Wanda asked, laughing.

She was wearing jeans and a blouse; I had a feeling the bra was a not very subtle hint that we would not be doing anything together anytime soon.

"What form is that, big sister?" I asked.

She shook her head. "You were six, I think. You figured out a way to save a lot of time every day. No bath, and no change of clothes; you didn't even take your shoes off before going to bed. You told Mom that you could spend an extra hour a day reading."

I cast my mind back and came up empty. "I said that?"

She nodded, "Yep!"

I sighed, and she leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. "Get a shower, little brother, get dressed. Hustle to the kitchen; today the women of the house are making their men-folk breakfast."

She stood and left.

Who, I asked myself, could make up something as stupid as that? I had an awful feeling that the answer was a stupid six-year-old boy.

Waffles. What can I say? I love waffles with a passion I can't describe. My dad is a French toast fan; we had our choice. Mom, Wanda and Emily worked, while Dad and I ate. Actually, while we stuffed ourselves.

Mom came into the dining room from where she'd been working in the kitchen, as we were finishing up eating what they had made. "I haven't been doing really good with my wifely duties of late. This is a form of an apology."

"Cook breakfast like this, and I'll do my husbandly duties a whole lot more often!" Dad said. I blushed, and then blushed again when Mom sat in his lap and kissed him really hotly.

"I am declaring a day of rest for our wicked children and myself," Mom went on. "No one is to stir today; we listen to music, we read... if anyone wants to talk, the weather is the topic d'jour."

"I wish I could take the day off," Dad said. "I really do."

"That's why you're not on the list," Mom told him. "In any case, if you stayed home, along about ten you'd be like a grumpy lion with gas and a sore foot. You run along, we'll be okay."

Dad and I carried our own plates and things to the dishwasher; it wasn't much, but it was what we could do. Dad nodded toward the outside as he was about to leave. I followed along behind him.

"Davey, a couple of things."

"Yes, sir."

"You've duffed off on getting my car cleaned up. Do that first thing this morning. I can only go so long car-pooling with your mom. Pretty soon I will borrow Wanda's car for a few days." If I was the proximate cause of that, I'd hear about it for the rest of my life. So, I was going to stir today, after all.

He looked at me steadily, "Do you know how to cook anything?"

"Bacon?" I said trying to be helpful. "Hamburgers, hot dogs."

"Nothing," he told me. It was true. "Well, we'll change that soon enough. You're of an age where it's time to start looking towards the future. Cooking, laundry, all of that. You don't want to be totally hopeless when you get out on your own."

"Yes, sir."

He waved at my right arm. "Let me see that." I wasn't sure what he meant, less sure when he asked me to flex. "I'd say you've been working out, but I'll be damned if I've ever seen you lift anything heavier than a fork."

"My closet," I told him. "I chin myself. I started doing that a couple of times a day. And I swim nearly every day." In fact, until the last couple of days, I would get up early, clean the pool and then swim laps. It started out as something to do, but that morphed over the summer into something I found that was kind of relaxing. I could empty my mind and didn't have to focus on anything.

"I know about the swimming. And, by the way, you do a damn fine job of keeping up the pool. If, before it cools off, you want to have friends over and have a pool party, you may."

He climbed into Mom's car and drove off, leaving me speechless.

When I was eleven and Wanda was fifteen, she made a full-court press to get permission to have a pool party. She'd tried everything and had failed. Too many liabilities, Dad had told her. Mom had sided with Dad and it hadn't happened.

After a second, I decided that father-son bonding was just great, but basic fairness trumped that. I turned around and marched into the house, where the others now occupied the dining room table and were having coffee.

"Wanda, we need to talk."

Mom shook her head, "We're taking the day off."

"Dad wants me to wash and vacuum his car; I was supposed to do it Sunday," I said, paused, and added, "and he told me if I wanted to, I could invite some friends over for a pool party."

It was like predicting what happens when a rock falls. Wanda was out of her seat, saying, "What was that?"

"Yeah, I gotta wash Dad's car."

She knew I was jerking her chain, but couldn't help herself. "He's letting you have a pool party?"

"That's what he said," I told my sister.

"Davey! Wanda! You will take the day off!"

Wanda turned and looked at Mom, she didn't have to say anything.

Mom sighed, "Well, good intentions... look, Wanda, I know what Phillip is doing; I wish it wasn't so, but I do. It's not fair... but you've never once cleaned the pool. Not ever. Davey has."

I cut in. "Wanda, this week, you and I have come to an accommodation." Well, I couldn't think of what else to say, I couldn't very well say much in front of Emily. "Your friends are my friends, big sister. Every last one of them." I smiled at Emily as I gestured to her, "And I think my one and only friend has gotten a recent exemption from the general ban, so she can invite people as well."

Wanda turned to Emily. "We have a pool; my parents are paranoid that someone is going to sue us."

"Depth of pockets, dear," Mom interjected.

"Whatever!" Wanda exclaimed sarcastically. "I've wanted a pool party since junior high; the answer was always no."

I shook my head, "I never asked, Wanda. He just told me."

"Think it through, Davey," Mom said.

I started to say something and then closed my mouth. Think it through? Dad knew full well what Wanda wanted; he knew how many friends I had. Telling me I could invite them was a hollow promise; I could invite a half dozen or so at best and I would be lucky if any showed up.

Wanda must have been thinking too; she turned to me. "Little brother, in the last couple of days you've changed from a pain in the ass to the bright spot in my day." Wanda turned to Emily. "Girl, I think we are in luck: we have a first class guy here! I haven't seen the better; damn sure I've seen a lot worse!"

"We weren't going there," Mom cautioned Wanda.

It was Emily who spoke. "It happened, Mrs. Harper. It's history; it can't be changed. Wanda has helped a lot, making me understand. Davey, too."

"What with one thing and another," Mom told Emily, "I wanted you to relax and unwind. Stress is like having a bad cold; you might not notice it taking a toll on you, but it does. Believe me, it does. It's important, Emily, to rest. You need to get in the habit of thinking you're not alone any more." Mom pointed to Emily's midriff.

Emily nodded.

Mom looked at me. "You're going to take care of your dad's car, first thing?"

"Yeah," I told her.

"Good! While you're at it, finish up in the kitchen. Wanda, you and Emily relax. I'm going to sew."

I put things in the dishwasher, washed pots and pans, washed and vacuumed Dad's car, then unloaded the dishwasher.

When I went back inside, Wanda and Emily were snuggled together, kissing on the couch in the family room. Emily blushed, but Wanda didn't. "Davey's cool, Emily."

Emily blushed more. Wanda chuckled. "You are so cute!" Wanda turned to me. "Pammie and Karen will be here in a bit. I've convinced Mom we should go shopping."

I nodded.

Wanda turned and kissed Emily on the nose, Emily's bright red blush deepened.

I heard Wanda whisper to Emily, "I swear to you, you can trust Davey just like you trust me!"

I contemplated things, decided that I had only about twenty pages of the Boxer Rebellion to finish, then a fat tome on dreadnaughts. I went into my room, sprawled on my bed, and read. I resolutely kept my mind off what might be happening on the couch in the family room.

Pammie and her cousin came over and the four of them left to shop. I wondered what Wanda was going to say to Pammie and then decided it wasn't any of my business. Then I started wondering what it would mean if Wanda was lying to Pammie about Emily: that could get sticky.

My father had said it; I'd paid attention, but it really hadn't hit home. You reach a certain age and your better half starts leading you around. Be it what's between your legs or the person you've found to share with. On top of everything else, my conscience was kicking in. What did I owe Pammie? Absolutely nothing. But no one, not even someone I owed absolutely nothing to, should be lied to; not about something like that.

Later I heard Wanda and Emily return; there were no other voices, so I assumed Pammie and Karen had gone on home. After that, there was silence for a long time. I dropped off after a while and dozed, then woke up again and continued reading about dreadnoughts. I wished there was a comparison chart with relative prices between then and now; it would, I thought, have made the expenditures on the big warships more understandable.

Dinner came and went; this time I was the sole person in charge of cleaning the table and the dishes. I didn't mind; I read sitting on the counter in the kitchen as the dishwasher finished.

I went back to my room, book still firmly attached to my hand and read more. I was halfway through -- that really impressed me. Moreover, the book impressed me. Were all the monarchs of the late nineteenth century descendants of Queen Victoria?

Around eight, my cell phone went off. I stared at it, curious who it could be. I decided it was my dad, and picked up.

"Davey," Pammie said, "how are they hanging, boy?"

"Hello, Pammie," I replied, at a loss what she could possibly want to talk about. Then, I realized it was going to be about Emily. I shivered again.

"Wanda said she told you about what happened to her," Pammie told me.

"Yeah," I told her. "She said you were really there for her." Maybe if I praised Pammie, maybe it would make it better.

"I was. You know, I think, how I feel about Wanda."

"Yes," I said, without elaboration.

"When she was hurt, I hurt. This summer, I thought I could help again; I was just trying to help my friend, you understand?"

"I understand; I told Wanda and I told you how I feel. I said it's not my business. Wanda is my sister, there's not a thing I wouldn't do for her."

"We see eye to eye, then," Pammie told me.

"We do," I agreed.

"Wanda said you and I, both, might be hurting for the same reason because of recent events. That maybe we could help each other out."

I stared at my phone in astonishment. What did Pammie mean? It couldn't possibly be what I thought it meant: that she wanted to bed down with me. I made what I thought was a perfectly logical conclusion; I'd forgotten this was Pammie.

"I told her there are some things in life, worth passing up. I've made up my mind about what I like and what I don't like, Davey. Do you understand?"

"I understand," I told her. Now I was confused. She was saying she was gay, and that my jumping to a conclusion was a dumb idea. Then another curve ball came, catching me off guard again.

"Still, I'm not in a position where I can be really on the cutting edge, so to speak."

"Pammie, what is it you want?" I was getting exasperated.

"Chuck Bradshaw." A name wasn't what I was expecting, or was it a name I knew.

"He's a second baseman, one of the football players that does baseball in the off season, he'll be back Friday, too."

"I'm not sure I can help," I told her. "I might have been told I'm on the team, but I haven't met most of them, and I'm a freshman."

She giggled. "Oh, that's okay. Next week, you find time to tell him you overheard Wanda and me talking. Tell him that you heard me tell her how cute I think he is."

"Do you?" I asked, not wanting to lie this time.

She laughed, "I suspect cute tushes aren't your thing. Trust me, Chuck has a cute tush."

"I guess," I said, which reduced Pammie to giggles.

"Good! Now, sweet dreams, Davey. And Davey," she said after a short pause, "we girls are sisters; maybe not all of us as close as we could be, but we are. When one of our sisters gets hurt like Emily got hurt... we rally 'round her. All of us. We all do what we have to do to get her past it. Just like I did for Wanda.

"We expect that from our sisters, Davey. It's not often a guy helps and then he usually screws it up. You did good, Davey."

Again, cell phones are really good. One second there is someone on the other end, the next they are gone. No clicks, clanks or clunks, no cue as to whether or not there is anyone still on the other end, no dial tone either.

I slept in on Friday morning, no breakfast of choice that day. I slept in, right up until someone was knocking on my door to wake me up. I went to the door and opened it, sure it was either Mom or Dad.

"Davey, tell me about the mess on your dresser," my dad told me.

I glanced at my dresser. The top was a little messy, but there was a reason for that. It wasn't dirt, not by any means.

"I toss my pocket change up there. I've done it for a couple of years."

There was a long wooden compartment along the top, about three feet long and four inches wide and maybe two inches high on average, along the top. Mom had told me it was for jewelry. I had none, so I'd tossed my change in there. Lately, the change didn't fit, and was overflowing onto the top of the dresser. Dad was right; it was a mess.

He handed me something. I took it, curious. A coffee can, complete with a plastic lid.

"Put the change in there. Set the can on something, don't put it directly on the wood."

"Yes, sir."

"Tomorrow, the poker game will be here. I was wrong about the Judge's wife; she had a serious asthma attack and nearly died. She won't be getting out of the hospital until the middle of next week. She's better, but not entirely out of the woods. So, for a couple of weeks I'll be hosting the poker game. Since we're short a player, I've decided you'll step in, at least this week. Nickel, dime, quarter, three-raise limit. No wild cards. You know what I mean?"

He'd given me several poker lessons, so I nodded.

"And if I'd rather do something else?"

He grinned. "Nothing is more important to your future."

Later, Mom came into the family room where I was listening to Sarah Brightman and reading. "Your father told me he spoke to you about tomorrow night."

I nodded.

"Make sure the bathroom is clean. In a bit, I'll be going to the Piggly-Wiggly. You will come along and buy chips and dips."

"Not with my money," I told her. I wasn't the happiest person in the world about playing poker with a roomful of adults, even if it was some bizarre notion on the part of my father about what I was certain was some rite of passage.

"What money is that?" she responded, "You spend every penny you've ever gotten on books."

She turned and walked away, and I contemplated the coffee can sitting on a book on my dresser. One hundred and forty-nine dollars and sixty cents. Dad had said nothing about pennies, so I'd put them in an old sock, the unholy half of an expired pair. The total had been a surprise; picking up the can had been a bigger surprise. According to my bathroom scale, it weighed six pounds; it felt like twice that.

Mom, Wanda, Emily, Pammie and Karen and I ate dinner, and then the girls went to Wanda's room to get ready for the evening. I'd told Wanda that I still wanted to go; she acted surprised, as if she thought there had never been any doubt.

Jack knocked on the door while we were debating seating arrangements, as there were going to be six of us and Jack's car only seated five. Someone was going to be on someone else's lap. I was finally nominated to be on the bottom, Emily on the top.

Wanda opened the door and I heard her say hello, then I heard her say, "Good grief, Jack! What did they do to you?"

There was a bass rumble that I couldn't make out the words to. Wanda opened the door and Jack came in. I saw Pammie's eyes widen in disbelief, so I turned to look.

Jack had been large and imposing before camp. Now... I couldn't tell if he was scary or laughable. He looked like a cartoon of Dr. Frankenstein's mad assistant. Jack had put on thirty or forty pounds, a good portion of that in the face. His brows beetled, there were dark shadows under his eyes, and his jaw was square and jutting. He looked just like any picture you've seen of a Neanderthal, minus a lot of the hair.

He made to hug Wanda, but she fended him off, literally straight-arming him, as he got close. "What did they do to you?" Wanda demanded again.

"Hey, you have to be competitive! Everyone does it!"

I realized what Wanda was thinking. Drugs. He'd been on drugs. Steroids, I guessed. God, he looked strange!

"Aren't you glad to see me?" Jack asked, his voice now tinged with anger.

"I expected to see my boyfriend, not something out of a bad caveman movie," Wanda told him.

"I just bulked up over the summer! It's no big deal! After the season, I'll lose some weight."

"Pammie," I said suddenly, "have you ever seen my book shelf?"

Pammie looked right at me, started to say something and then figured it out. "No, I haven't. Why don't you show us? I could use a good book to read."

I led the way through the family room and into my room. Pammie pushed the door shut after Karen and Emily came in.

"He made my skin crawl," Pammie said, her voice hushed. "God! He's creepy!"

Karen and Emily traded looks, not really sure what Pammie meant. I, on the other hand, nodded emphatically.

"Christ, they're going to take one look at him at the first practice, they're going to do a drug test and he will be busted!" Pammie went on, "Scholarship and all of that, gone! Poof! What a stupid fool! He had a way out of here! He didn't need to bulk up!"

I just stood there, nodding. I wasn't as sure as she was about the details, but I didn't see anything wrong with her scenario about Jack's future.

The door to my room opened and Wanda walked in. "Sorry that took so long."

She stopped talking, wiped the corner of her eye. "I suppose I'm a big hypocrite, I was going to break up with him; I should be happy, right?"

"We understand, Wanda," Pammie told her. "He went off the deep end. Guys!"

Wanda nodded, looking a little less upset. "I just want you all to know, it was never about you. I was thinking about breaking up with Jack, I think, since the start of summer, even before he left. Recent events just helped me decide quicker."

Pammie hugged Wanda, and then Wanda hugged Emily.

It was a much quieter group, as we headed to the movie. They had settled on a movie called Blue Crush; I'd not seen it or heard of it. Almost at once, I was bored out of my skull. A bunch of psychedelic colors over ocean waves; maybe it's something in our water, but psychedelic and West Texas just don't go together.

Oh, I realized, a few seconds later. A girl dreaming. That made even less sense; I dreamed almost every night, nothing psychedelic about my dreams. Even before the picnic, a lot of my dreams had been erotic, and since then, mostly erotic. Nothing psychedelic about them!

The girl started running along the beach; I wasn't sure if I thought she was cute or ugly, but I sure didn't like the running stuff. A few seconds later, I was jealous. She was chinning herself on a bar that looked just like the bar in my walk-in closet; except hers was between two palm trees, a killer beach all around. I'd be doing a lot more chin-ups if I had a bar like that!

Then she was brushing her teeth; how do you spell boring? She turned and walked into another room, wearing a colorful t-shirt. And no bra. I could tell she wasn't wearing a bra and what beautiful breasts she had! Her breasts were much more to my taste than Wanda or Pammie's. I had seen Wanda nude a couple times, wearing a top without a bra a couple more times. Those were the first times I could remember seeing her without a bra. Except for the other day, until Karen had gotten Pammie's bra off, I'd never seen Pammie without a bra. Or any other girl.

I wasn't hard, but I my interest was definitely up. Then she woke up two other girls; there was a flash of a face and it really didn't register on me. A while later, I got a better view of her. Much younger than the other girls. The three older girls, I thought, were out of school, older even than Wanda. The face of the younger girl stuck with me, I was intrigued.

A while later, I got my first good look at the girl's face; it was a whole-body experience. One second I was interested, then my body reacted viscerally. I had the most painful erection of my life; it seemed to spring to full size instantly. My heart was hammering, I felt sweat popping out on my forehead -- and this in an air-conditioned theater!

Her braids -- I was fascinated by her braids. I loved her small breasts, even if it looked like she was wearing a bra underneath her bikini top.

Then, a second later, she was off screen, but the waves were there.

The girl had struck a chord in my psyche; I'd been really surprised. But the sight of those rolling waves, the rush of sound. God! I wanted to be there! My body ached with the need, I wanted to cry. West Texas is about as far from the ocean as you can get in the universe!

I'd been to Galveston and Houston, I'd seen the ocean -- at least, I'd thought I had at the time. I hadn't seen anything. Little dinky waves; I remembered making bigger ones a couple of times in the bathtub.

My body was a mass of hormones and conflicting emotions for the rest of the movie. Every time the younger sister was on the screen, I was hyper-intent on everything she said or did. And, yeah, when she was on the screen, I was as hard as a rock. And when there were waves, I might not have been hard, but was I intent!

I wasn't going to go to college in Texas; that was never going to happen. If I could, I wanted to go to college in Hawaii, maybe someplace in California, close to the ocean. For the first time in my life there was something I wanted that transcended mere "I want that." This feeling was in my gut, so deep in my gut I didn't pretend to understand. Every time one of those waves crashed, I felt a deep, abiding comfort, joy and wonder. So very many emotions.

The movie wound down; there was some sort of romance. I thought the guy was a jerk. Then, when I heard how he treated other women, I was appalled. Never me! Not me! Wanda and Emily had been hurt by scum; the guy on the movie wasn't quite scum, because I guess he was in love with the main character. But he sure behaved like scum!

The lights came up and everyone got up, including me, although I was a little slow. It was Friday, I thought. I could come back over and over again and watch the movie. Mom had been disparaging about my lack of money; well Saturday was allowance day, and in any case there was that big coffee can of money on my dresser. The five dollar cost of the matinee, divided into more than a hundred and fifty dollars. Thirty times, plus another twenty bucks on allowance day. Oh yeah!

We were walking out to Wanda's car while I was ruminating. It was Pammie who picked up on my distraction first. She punched my arm. "I bet all those bikinis really got your attention!"

I shrugged, not really thinking about it. The bikinis exposed a lot of skin, but now I'd seen the Promised Land. Skin was no longer going to suffice. The bathing suits did a really good job of covering up what little they did cover up; it wasn't as erotic as all that, at least not for me. It was when the girls were wearing clothes, and you could see nipples and the outlines of breasts; that had been sexy. Penny was the character's name, the younger sister of the star of the movie. There hadn't been nearly enough shots of her where I could see her nipples.

Pammie laughed, "Oh yeah! I think Davey really liked the movie, Wanda!"

"If I'd known there were football players in it," Wanda said darkly, "we'd have gone to see Triple X."

Pammie laughed at that, and then punched my arm. "Been a real eye-popping week for Davey, hasn't it? You know Wanda, we owe your brother a little something."

Wanda looked at Pammie; there was some sort of communication between them that seemed to move at light speed. "Mercedes," Wanda said, "Mercedes would be perfect."

Pammie howled with laughter, "Yes, Mercedes is perfect! You are so cool, Wanda! Wicked, wicked... but cool."

I had no idea what they meant. Wanda dropped Pammie and Karen off, and then the three of us went home. They went towards their end of the house; I was a little surprised. Dad was home; it didn't seem like a smart thing for the two of them to be cuddling together, much less anything else. I made a mental note to mind my own business, but to be there if Wanda or Emily got in trouble.

I dreamed that night. I knew I was old, I could feel it in my bones. I was standing on a beach, much like the one in the movie, watching waves like those in the movie. A Hawaiian, like those in movie, came up and got in my face, "We don't like old geezers, come to check out the babes, man!"

I laughed. I remember that laugh. I remember taking my eyes off a wave starting to bulk large and sneering at the boy. "Boy, I'm old! It don't work any more! Hasn't worked for a long time! My mind, boy, that works just fine!" I waved at the wave, starting to curl. "That's the finest thing in the universe, boy! If you were smart, you'd be out there sitting on top of that! Yep, if you were smart, you'd be out there!" I laughed in his face, and turned towards the wave as it curled and rolled, until finally it was froth a few yards from my feet.

I remembered, in the last seconds before I stopped remembering anything, thinking that I'd beaten a few waves over the years and quite a few of them had surely beaten me. In the end, it was a draw. And when you could draw against the ocean, you were pretty damn good.