Chapter 2
Gretchen had all three girls in the kitchen for a quick bowl of soup before their pickup. Clover was displaying a long face and lack of enthusiasm for anything, wearing her backpack slipping off one shoulder. She finally dumped it on the ground and climbed the stool to have her soup.
“So Mom, you going to get a bikini? Asked Rebecca. She started to pick the chicken in the chicken noodle soup from her braces.
“What makes you think I don’t already have one?” Gretchen answered with a quick smile. “Or, maybe I’ll go to the nude beach. What do you think about that?”
“Dumb,” moaned Clover. Nobody looks good with all their clothes off. Who wants to see all the veins and flabby butts and boobs that hang to their waist?” She blew on her soup and slurped without looking up.
Rebecca and Angie giggled. “Oh. My. God. She said flabby butts,” repeated Angie and the two younger daughters snickered again.
“Well, these aren’t your grandparents you know,” Gretchen was going to continue, but Rebecca cut right across her.
“Gramma’s boobies are flat as pancakes and she has to scoop them up like biscuit dough to put them in her bra and nearly falls over doing it.”
The girls laughed again.
“Shut up you guys. That’s not nice. Gramma can’t help it. That’s why I’m not ever going to have any children. I want to be skinny and tall and have nothing that gives me a black eye when I run, like boobs.” Clover droned on. Her little sisters thought she was hilarious.
“Okay, now let me explain a couple of things first.” Gretchen was entertained, but knew she had to give them a primer or the week-long stay with their dad and his new fiancé would turn out to be a disaster, and perhaps ruin her trip. She didn’t want to get midnight calls from the girls in tears, and knew it was a distinct possibility.
“Give them their space,” said Rebecca.
“Tell Joanie her cooking is fabulous,” said Angela.
“Try not to listen when they start screwing and you hear dad grunting like a pig,” said Clover.
Gretchen had to smile at that one. She couldn’t help but add her dose of humor. “Are you sure that’s your dad you’re hearing?”
“Oh Mom! I’m gonna tell!” teased Rebecca.
“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” quipped Gretchen. Listening to the girls banter and tease each other, she was proud of the way they’d turned out. They had a healthy respect for relationships, and took the breakup of their father and mother in style, all of them knowing full well their father had been on TV and they’d even seen the video posted by one of those celebrity shows, their father doing Jell-O shots without his shirt on, lapping them up between the dancer’s enormous boobs. Gretchen explained that men went crazy for boobs, that they could be led around by the nose with the chance to just look at a woman’s enormous boobs, and that their father was no different.
The fact that he played for the Portland Trailblazers was just something he did. Unlike the effect he had on everyone else around him, to the girls, he was just dad who had a weakness for bad behavior and pretty blonde girls much younger than he. He was special only because he was their father and not due to anything he did on the court or in the bedroom.
Gretchen hadn’t accepted a penny of Tony Sanders’ money. She allowed him to set up college funds for the girls, but she wanted him to feel as useless to their upbringing as she did the night she watched the video of him in her living room. And that’s when she decided never to keep anything from the girls. They had a right to know.
The doorbell rang.
“Okay, it’s show time!” Gretchen spouted. Now is the time to go for a quick pee if you need to.”
“Mom, they have bathrooms at the arena,” said Clover. She opened the front door before Gretchen could answer.
Joanie was one of those girls who could have made toothpaste commercial. Her dazzling white perfectly straight teeth matched the whites of her enormous blue eyes. She had flawless tanned skin with an eternal rosy glow to her cheeks. Angela had asked Gretchen once why her cheeks sparkled and she had to explain it was in the blush Joanie wore. Her lips were extra full and plump and the rosy color matched her blush.
“Hi there girls!” Joanie said as she jumped up and down like a cheerleader. “We’re going to have such a wonderful time! I can hardly wait to have pool fights and pajama parties and ice cream Sundays with you guys, so we can do some real girl talk and get to know each other!”
The enthusiasm Joanie expended was not returned. It was as if all the basketballs on the court were half deflated. The two younger girls looked up to their tall sister, who was about four inches taller than Joanie. “Yeah. That sounds great, doesn’t it?” Clover said, looking back down on them.
The two little ones nodded obediently.
While Joanie was getting pumped up picking up backpacks and duffel bags of things, Clover rolled her eyes at Gretchen and then put her finger down her throat, careful not to let anyone else see the action.
Gretchen frowned, and then grabbed Clover and gave her a hug and kiss on the cheek. “You take good care of your two sisters, Clover. I’m putting all my faith in you,” she whispered in her ear.
“I’m only doing this for you, Mom, so you can take a vacation that you sorely need. I hope you wear that bikini, and you meet a nice Hawaiian boy who,” she wiggled her eyebrows and leaned in, “you know, treats you fine.”
Gretchen laughed and hugged her again.
“Joanie, they’ve been really looking forward to spending some time with you and Tony. Thank you for doing this. You sure it’s not too much?”
“Oh no!” Joanie wrinkled her perfect unlined brow. “Growing up I was always the one who took care of all the pets. We had chickens, too, and three dogs and a parakeet named Scooter. I love taking care of children and animals. I’m really good with them. You’ll see, huh, girls?” She kneeled down like a coach was encouraging her scrappy team, held up her palm and the little ones gave her the high five. Clover waited and fist-bumped.
Gretchen watched them all trudge down the stairs to Joanie’s SUV. She was prancing around the vehicle, opening up the hatch and the doors, helping to load the duffel bags in her pink running suit and matching pink shoes, her hair up in a pony tail held with a pink scruncci with a pink flower at the end of it. Her ponytail wagged from side to side as she bounced, her chest also in motion. Gretchen could only imagine the fantasies Tony must have watching her do anything.
Well, good for him. That was never me.
Joanie bounded up the steps and gave her a hug, which nearly threw her off balance. “Now. You go away and have yourself one heck of a time and don’t you worry about a thing.”
Gretchen hugged her back and nearly sneezed from the heavy perfume she wore. “Thanks, Joanie. I appreciate this. You call me if anything comes up. Don’t be afraid. You won’t spoil my vacation,” she lied.
“Nonsense. What could come up?”
Her eternal smile and peppy face bounced with the rest of her body back down the stairs, where she perched herself behind the wheel, waved and began to roll out the driveway.
Gretchen saw the three faces of her precious joys of her life framed by the SUV windows, and missed them already. As they waved, they looked sad, but Gretchen worked on herself to blow kisses and look like she didn’t have a care in the world.
But the truth was, she’d never known anything else but being their mother. Now, playing a single woman on her own, even if it was for one week, seemed so far from her comfort zone, she almost called the car back and changed her mind.
But a promise was a promise. She’d promised Kate she’d go and help her with their toddler, Grady. She also was looking forward to hanging out with Tyler’s sister, the famous romance novelist Linda Gray, who was also single and about Gretchen’s age. If she lived her life anything close to how she wrote her books, she sounded like she’d be a whole lot of fun.
And of course, there were to be some unattached SEALs floating through here and there, Tyler had told her. What could be wrong with that, even if they were all too young for her? Wasn’t like she’d be looking for a long-term relationship, especially with those boy scouts. But a little dancing, some stargazing and lying out on a white sandy beach was just what the doctor ordered.