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Wes Boyd’s Spearfish Lake Tales Contemporary Mainstream Books and Serials Online |
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Wes Boyd’s Spearfish Lake Tales Contemporary Mainstream Books and Serials Online |
They found Sonja in her room, getting things out of closets and drawers, while Gina was folding and packing them. “We shouldn’t be much longer, Dad,” Sonja said when she saw them.
“No rush, take your time,” Bob said. “I’ve been thinking about this. I’ve got an idea how we can settle this once and for all, but I’m not sure how you and Scott are going to like it.”
“And?”
“Oh, hell, I’m not sure how to say this, and it’s probably stepping way the hell out of line to say it at all. On the other hand, Zivah has been way the hell out of line on all this ever since it came up, and I’m coming to agree with Scott that the way to deal with it isn’t to run and hide, but to confront it.”
“I don’t want to do that,” Sonja said. “First off, it could turn into a hell of a scene, and there’s too damn much risk that I’d say yes just to shut her up. We all know how big a disaster that could be. Second off, while I know you and Gina will back me up, I just don’t think that between the three of us we can get enough cards on the table to stand off Mom if she’s in one of her moods. And if she’s not in a big enough one now, she never will be.”
“Right,” Bob smiled, “and I don’t disagree with you in the slightest. That means we need to get some extra cards on the table.”
“Dad, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m not sure I do, either. So, just for the sake of supposing, we set up the confrontation very carefully, and here’s where I step way the hell out of line. What if your husband was at the confrontation, and . . .
“Husband?” both Sonja and Gina exclaimed. Sonja managed to add, “Scott?”
“News to me,” Scott said, hardly less surprised – Bob hadn’t let on what he’d been thinking about to him, either.
“Dad, we’ve been talking about it a little, not very seriously. We, well, we haven’t even . . . ”
“I know,” Bob said. “Remember, we’re just supposing on this. We can deal with some of the details later. So just suppose we manage to set the confrontation up somewhere and that hole card gets dropped into the pot. What is your mother going to say?”
“Something on the order of, ‘the hell with your husband, you need to do your duty in Israel.’”
“And if he says, ‘Not just no, but hell no. I won’t allow my wife to do something that could endanger her American citizenship.’”
“Well, she’d be surprised, but . . . well, she’s not going to drop the idea easily.”
“Right, but there’d be more people she’d have to talk into it, and those are people she doesn’t know. Plus, you’d have Scott backing you up. Maybe have his folks there, too. They can put their feet down, too. That might make your point pretty clear. Then, maybe to get your point across, you take off on that trip out west you were talking about. I’m sure if we think about it we can find some more ways to stack the deck.”
“He might have a point, Sonja,” Gina smiled. “No matter how hard-headed your mother might be, and I know she can be damn hard-headed, if a mother isn’t at least a little happy that her daughter is getting married she doesn’t deserve to have a daughter in the first place. Just supposing with Bob, if the first inkling she had of it was if she were to walk into your wedding, well, that ought to take at least some of the wind out of her sails.”
“Well, yeah, I can see that,” she agreed. “But that makes some pretty big assumptions, especially about Scott and me. We’ve talked about getting married, sure, but we’ve been going slow since I think we were pretty well agreed we wanted to wait till we were out of college.”
“Yeah,” Scott nodded. “That’s part of the reason we haven’t pushed each other, I think. We haven’t even . . . I mean . . . you know.”
“God, you kids are square,” Bob shook his head. “I don’t think it was eight hours after the time Zivah and I met when we were getting it on.”
“And you see where it came out,” Sonja snorted. She’d heard the story many times before, and had even passed it on to Scott: her father and Zivah had been at college, and it was a pretty white college in those days. Though they’d been total strangers – and not very compatible, at that – their dark skins had pulled them together, or pushed them together, or something like that. They’d moved in together almost immediately, but didn’t get married until she got pregnant.
“When you get right down to it, I think it came out pretty damn well,” Bob snorted right back. “Granted, she’s being an asshole about this, but I came out of it with a damn fine daughter.”
“Well, yeah,” Sonja conceded. “But if so, why are you trying to marry me off so quickly?”
“Just greasing the skids,” Bob smiled. “You’re both heading that way and you know it. What’s more, I happen to think it would work out pretty damn well. Now, get off your high horse and look at the advantages.”
“There are advantages?”
“Several of them, if you stop and think about it. Oh, I agree, you wouldn’t hurt anything by waiting till you’re out of college if this deal with Zivah hadn’t come about, but now there are several things that would work out a lot better if you were.”
“But Dad! This is pretty quick. And how would I know if Scott was interested?”
“I think you know,” he grinned. “I’m not saying you have to do it, but you might want to consider it as an option a little sooner than you thought. It’s not like you have to have an answer right now. Soon, yes, but not this instant.”
“Scott,” she replied a little sheepishly. “What do you think about this?”
“This has come out of midair just as much for me as it has for you,” he replied, “but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea. It does mean we need to do some talking about it.”
“But Scott! What would your parents say?”
“I don’t know,” he replied, thinking quickly. Right off the bat he could see a number of pretty positive things to the idea. There were several negatives, of course, and everything needed some thought. Lots of thought, for that matter. “That’s one of those things we’d have to talk about,” he continued finally, “and really, we’d have to talk about it with them. But I’m not ruling it out because I do want to marry you someday, Sonja. That’s not a proposal, it’s a statement of intent, and we’re going to have to work out the details.”
“Well, yeah, I’d pretty well thought that too,” she agreed, “but thinking about it and doing it are two different things.”
“Look,” Gina said. “Sonja, I think you’re pretty close to being packed up. Maybe Bob and I can go downstairs and throw together some lunch while you finish up and talk about it. Whatever you decide or don’t decide, you need to be out of here in a little less than two hours, and you might as well do it on a full stomach, and without Bob and me throwing in our two cents worth.”
“That’s probably not a bad idea,” Scott agreed. “We’ll be down in a little bit.”
In a few seconds both Bob and Gina were heading down the hall. “Holy crap,” Sonja shook her head. “I never, ever, thought I’d see that happen.”
“Well, me either. But your dad is right. There are some advantages, and this deal with your Mom is one of them. No matter what else happens with her, if it were done right that issue could be put to bed once and for all.”
“I can see that. Oh, she won’t be happy since she won’t have gotten her way, but in time it could blow over. Unless there’s a damn good reason to draw the line, she’d keep coming back at it. Damn it Scott, I’m an American. I don’t want to be an Israeli. There’s nothing there for me. I respect my mother’s Zionist views, but that doesn’t mean I have to share them as zealously as she does.”
“When you get right down to it, that’s a good enough reason right there to tell her no.”
“It sounds good, but actually telling her . . . well, I haven’t looked forward to that for years. You know what happened when I found out she’d registered me without my knowing about it.”
“I know. I was there. I never thought it’d get this far, though.”
“Me either,” she sighed, sitting down on the bed. “The hell of it is, Dad is right. Mom may be able to bully and bullshit me, but it’d be a lot harder if she had to do it to you, too.”
“I know,” he laughed. “When Gina brought up the idea of having the confrontation with her at our wedding, well, the thought crossed my mind that she’d really have to be an asshole to screw with that, especially with my folks, a bunch of friends, and a few others there all watching.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” she grinned. “In fact, I thought it’d be really neat to do it in a Methodist Church. That would say a lot about how Jewish I really am. When you get right down to it, I’m at best a quarter Jewish, although that’s about all she seems to need.”
“I really hate to get into the religious hair-splitting, and we’ve talked about it before. Let’s not get into it again since we’ve got other things we need to discuss more. We’re pretty well agreed that this has a good chance of working. It’d get the message across. She might not like it, but there it is. Let’s examine the other angles.”
“You mean about our getting married, leaving my mother out of it? Scott, I, well, like you said, I’m not ruling it out. I do love you, Scott. We took our time getting to where we are, and you may be the nicest guy I’ve ever known. For a while now I’ve pretty well believed we’d be getting married when we get out of college, and I have to admit, there’s a part of me that’s saying, ‘Why put it off?’”
“Yeah, me too,” he said, coming over to sit down on the bed beside her, “and, when I think about it in the context of what we were talking about when you got me up this morning, it puts a different spin on it.”
“God, was that only this morning? It seems like days ago.”
“Yeah, only this morning. Maybe it’s fuzzing my thinking a little bit, but it’s part of why I think this needs some serious thought. I mean, if we know the direction we want to go, there’s a part of me that’s saying it might not be the worst idea I’ve ever heard.”
“Oh, I agree there would be some compensations,” she smiled. “It would cut out a lot of awkwardness and messing around. But Scott, I don’t think I want to get rushed into it like this.”
“Well, me either,” he agreed. “But then, it has some obvious advantages, too, even when you get past this deal with your mother. I don’t know about you, but I’m getting damn tired of living in a dorm, and having to eat dining-hall food.”
“I know. I am, too. We all know kids who feel the same way, too. You’re saying we should get an apartment together?”
“Well, yeah, I guess I am.”
“We wouldn’t have to be married to do that,” she pointed out. “We both know kids who’ll be living together at school this fall.”
“Leaving your mother out of it for a moment, what would you think if I suggested we do just that?”
“It could be fun, and there’s a part of me that would really like to do it. But I don’t think I’d want to admit to Dad and Gina that the two of us were living together, ‘without benefit of marriage,’ as they used to say.”
“Right. And I’ll tell you what, Sonja, I don’t think I’d be all that crazy about bringing it up to my folks, either. Maybe I’m blowing smoke, but I think they’d all be happier if we were married if we were living together. That was one of those things bugging me about this whole idea of taking the trip out west. I don’t mind the idea of sneaking around on your mom, but sneaking around on your dad and Gina, as well as my folks . . . well, I suppose it would be all right but there’s something about it that doesn’t feel quite right. It’s not the same situation.”
“You’re right there,” she sighed. “I don’t mind sneaking around behind my mother’s back since she went behind mine when she registered me for the Israeli draft in the first place. I mean, if that’s how she wants to play the game, I guess I can play it that way. But Dad and Gina and your folks, well, I think we need to be pretty up front about it. That’s the kind of people we are, I guess.”
“Yeah, when you get down to it, we’re both pretty straight. That’s one of the things I’ve always liked about you, Sonja, and it’s one of those things that makes me think that if we did this, it probably would work out pretty well in the long run, no matter that we did things a little awkwardly.”
“Oh, I think you’re right on that. But let’s get practical. We’d still be going to school for two years. Just supposing, as Dad would say, that we get married. We’re still in school, and neither of us would be working. Just what would we use to live on?”
“Damn good question, and I can’t give you an answer right now, other than to say that when you take way overpriced dorm fees and meal plans into consideration, I can’t believe that the two of us can’t live nearly as cheaply as one. Maybe not all the way, but part of the way.”
“You might be right on that,” she nodded. “From all the stories I’ve heard, two can live as cheaply as oh, about five. But we could live pretty frugally for a while till we get out of school, and under the circumstances, I wouldn’t be surprised if Dad were willing to help us out. I don’t know about your folks, though.”
“Well, me either. But I think they’d be a lot happier if we were married and living together than if we weren’t married.”
“In spite of the fact that Dad lived with Mom for God knows how long before they got married, I think he’d feel the same way,” she agreed. “All right. I know I want to marry you, Scott. I don’t know if this is the best way to do it, and given a choice I’m not sure if I’d rather wait till we’re out of school, or what.”
“And I want to marry you, Sonja, and I share some of the same doubts. I know this is not the most romantic way possible to say this, and I’d really rather not do it this way, but let’s get the big question out of the way, and just put the timing issues to the side for a moment. Sonja, will you marry me?”
She looked at him in surprise. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Of course I’m serious. Sonja, ever since not long after I first met you I’ve known I wanted to marry you. You and I share an awful lot. I love you Sonja, and I can’t imagine it being any other way. Remember a few days ago when I was talking about Vicky hitting on me? You and I didn’t have any formal agreement at the time and it still seemed like cheating to think about even going out with her. I don’t want to do anything different, Sonja, not now, not ever. Will you marry me? Right at the moment, I’m not saying anything about the timing, but will you?”
“Of course, Scott. I think I’ve known for, oh, a year and a half or so that it was what I really wanted. I just, well, I didn’t want it to get in the way of school.”
They looked at each other for a moment in silence, then fell into each other’s arms for a long and serious kiss – and all either of them could have said was that it felt like the right thing to do. Eventually they wound up laying on the bed, their hands wandering freely over each other.
It was several minutes before they pulled apart. “You know,” she whispered to him, “This is my bedroom and my bed. If Dad and Gina weren’t downstairs . . . ”
“Me too, lover. But the clock is still ticking, and we’ve only solved the basic question.”
“You mean when? Right now, doing it pretty quickly isn’t the worst idea I’ve ever heard.”
“True,” he smiled at her, his face only inches from hers. “But honestly, I think that question is bigger than the both of us. We need to have everyone signed off on it, not just us.”
“You’re saying no eloping, then?”
“Definitely not. Like I said, I don’t know your mother, but I think we’re still going to need a confrontation with her, and if we have to, then we might as well stack the deck every way we can. Besides, I think both of us are going to want everyone else on board with this, because we may need them when the time comes.”
“I’ll tell you what, the more I think about it, the more it seems like the right way to go about it. I guess maybe we’d better go down and talk to Dad and Gina.”
“Yeah,” he said, “and I think more than just them. Having to do everything back and forth is just going to make things more complicated.”
A few minutes later, after adjusting their clothing, they were back downstairs. “So,” Bob asked, “did you work anything out?”
“Part of it, I think,” Sonja said. “Scott asked me to marry him, and I said yes. However, there wasn’t any agreement about timing.”
“Well, that’s making progress,” her father smiled, “and congratulations. Scott, I know I don’t know you very well, but I think you’re going to do a fine job of taking care of my little girl.”
“I intend to try, and when you get down to it that’s all I can promise.”
“You didn’t say anything about the timing,” Gina asked. “What’s the deal on that?”
“Still up in the air,” Scott told them. “Gina, have you started lunch yet?”
“Not really. We didn’t know how long you were going to be. We thought, uh, you might be up there till you had to leave.” The smile on her face revealed what she thought Scott and Sonja would be doing during that time.
“Good,” Scott replied. “Can you arrange to have Dom and Al taken care of this afternoon, so that if you get back late it won’t matter?”
“Probably,” Gina nodded. “They’re playing with some neighbor boys. I can call their folks and make it work. Do you have something in mind?”
“Yes,” Scott grinned. “Sonja and I want to take the two of you out to a late lunch or early dinner or something.”
“There’s several good places around here,” Bob put in. “That shouldn’t be a big deal.”
“It’s a little more complicated than that,” Scott grinned. “I think we need to have my folks in on the discussion so we can thrash everything out in one pass. Go ahead and call your neighbor, Gina. Then I’ll call my folks and we’ll see if we can work out some way to meet halfway.”
