It wasn’t long before Marilyn was doing the final preparations for dinner, with Vixen helping. She seemed a little bossy about it to Jack, but he figured that it was her show to run and that was how she did things. He offered to help, of course, but both the women told him there wasn’t much he could do, and to just stay out of the way, which seemed reasonable to him. They carried on their conversation a little, but there really wasn’t much of it between the talking about cooking.

Still, it smelled awful good, and Jack couldn’t wait to tie into it. It was a long time since breakfast, what little he’d had, and his stomach had been growling off and on for the last hour. He thought about sticking his nose into the living room for the sake of something else to do; he knew Mr. Hvalchek was in there watching something on the TV. It sounded like the NASCAR pre-race show on cable, but he really wasn’t all that interested in that when he could watch Vixen. Her shorts were rather tight, and her bubble butt was especially nice to contemplate; the shorts showed off her legs well too – not particularly long, since she was a fairly short girl, but nicely shaped. And, of course, she was still wearing the camouflage camisole he’d watched her put on earlier, and it was still nice to look at.

He was perfectly aware that Vixen was showing off for him, at the limits of what she could get away with around her mother anyway. In any case, it was something nice to look at. Very nice indeed. Once again, the question came up in his mind of whether she was more interested in birds or in him, and on the evidence the latter seemed likely, even if she was developing an interest in birds. Whether it worked out in the long run or what, he found it pleasant to contemplate having a girlfriend, even if that girlfriend being Vixen still seemed a little unlikely after all the time he’d known her. When he got right down to it, he didn’t have much room to complain.

He helped where he could, carrying things to the table, but that was about the extent of the assistance he could give. Eventually, Vixen’s mother told her to go drag her father away from the TV set, and before long the four of them were seated around the table. After a brief prayer on Mrs. Hvalchek’s part, they tied into the food. It was good, in fact, very good; the beef was tender, and Mrs. Hvalchek had done something to the gravy that gave it a special tang that was missing in his mother’s efforts.

Jack knew Mr. Hvalchek, although not well, so no real introductions were needed, and Vixen didn’t introduce Jack as being her boyfriend. “So, Jack,” he said after a while, “Marilyn has told me that you and Vixen have been spending some time out bird watching. That doesn’t sound all that interesting to me.”

“If you’re not interested in it, then it’s not interesting,” Jack replied. “I find it fascinating. There’s a lot to learn and I know there’s no way I could ever learn it all.”

“Yeah, I suppose it’s like that with anything,” Vixen’s father shrugged. “Do you play football?”

“No, I have no interest in it,” Jack said. “I don’t even watch it on TV. I’ve never been to a Spearfish Lake game, not that they’re worth watching with their record.”

“Yeah, it is pretty dismal,” Mr. Hvalchek replied. “Boy, ever since Harold Hekkinan gave up coaching, they haven’t been able to hit a bull in the butt with a bass fiddle.”

“I don’t know him,” Jack said. “Didn’t he used to be principal at the high school before he retired?”

“Yeah, but he gave up coaching when he became principal,” Mr. Hvalchek replied. “Good man, he was my coach when I was playing. I don’t even want to think about how long ago it’s been. You follow NASCAR any?”

“A little, sometimes,” Jack replied. “If we should happen to catch a Sunday afternoon in the spring when the weather is too lousy to go out birding, sometimes I’ll flip it on. I watched the Bristol race, I think it was, last spring. That was pretty good, better than watching basketball anyway.”

“Bristol was pretty good,” Mr. Hvalchek replied. “I don’t know that it’s going to be the same since they redid the track. It’s too easy to pass, now, and this new car is a piece of junk that doesn’t pass very well anyway. Pocono is on this afternoon. That can get pretty good, but not like Bristol. Marilyn, you timed it about right. They should start engines about the time we get done with dessert.”

“That was the intention,” Mrs. Hvalchek replied. “I know you don’t like to miss the starts.”

“Yeah, at Pocono sometimes that’s the only real good action,” Vixen’s father conceded. “The track is really too big. I like it when they’re on the short tracks. Jack, have you ever seen a short track race in person? ”

“Dad took me down to the track in Camden a few times when I was younger,” he replied. “We haven’t gone for a while, but I recall it being kind of fun.”

“I try to get down there once a month or so,” Mr. Hvalchek said. “Sometimes they have a real ripsnorter. They’ve got a 200-lap enduro coming up here pretty quick. Those are real different from regular racing. They have a real crowd of cars, and when a car gets piled up, they don’t call a yellow but a red flag to stop everything. Then they get the driver out of the car, don’t clean up the wreck, and just start everybody going again. It gets to be a real zoo after there’s a couple dozen dead cars laying around the track.”

“Boy, I’ll bet,” Jack replied. “Sounds like fun, in an evil sort of way.”

“Yeah, it is,” Mr. Hvalchek smiled. “Maybe you and I’ll have to take a run down there and catch it. Vixen too, if she wants to go.”

“I might, Dad,” she said. “I think Jack would enjoy it.”

“It might have possibilities,” Jack conceded. It did sound like it might be sort of fun in a way, and would be something to do with Vixen. He was well aware that if things continued as they had been, it wouldn’t hurt to be on good terms with her parents, and her father was clearly a sports nut.

“Well, let’s think about it,” Mr. Hvalchek said. “It’s a week from next Saturday, I think. It’s a night thing, so we wouldn’t get back till late.”

“You three go and enjoy yourselves,” Vixen’s mother said. “I’ll just look forward to having a quiet evening around the house while you watch the roaring cars and stuff yourself with that awful track food.”

“Hey, you don’t get chili dogs like that anywhere else,” Mr. Hvalchek grinned. “That’s half the reason for going out to a good short track race. So, Jack, you play any other sports?”

“No, I don’t,” Jack replied. “I thought about going out for track one year but it would have cut into my birding. First things first, you know.”

“You’re missing out on a lot of fun of high school,” the older man smiled.

“Yeah, I’m missing out on hanging around with jocks, talking dirty, especially about girls, and being put down because I like other things, like birds,” Jack replied, tiring a little of the direction of the discussion.

“Yeah, well, if your interests don’t run that way, you might be right,” Mr. Hvalchek conceded. “They say that one of the things about having a daughter is the fear that she may meet someone like you were at that age. It’s sort of like what goes around, comes around. You seem like you have your head screwed on pretty straight, and that’s good. At least I don’t have to worry quite as much about Vixen being out with you all the time.”

“Well, I hope to not disappoint you,” Jack said.

“Oh, you probably will, but that’s part of growing up, I suppose, so I guess I’ll just have to accept it,” he laughed. “Just don’t do anything you’ll have reason to be sorry about later.”

“I try not to,” Jack replied, but wondered about Vixen just a little bit. After all, she seemed to be pushing herself at him pretty hard, and who knew where that could lead?

“Can’t ask for much more than that,” Mr. Hvalchek smiled. “So what are you two going to be doing after we’re done eating?”

“We thought about going out birding again Dad,” Vixen said after being quiet for a while. “We’re going to go over to a friend’s tonight, hang out a little and play some games, maybe.”

“You’ve got plenty of time for that,” he said. “How about you two hang around a little and watch some of the race with me?”

“You mean, sleep through the race, don’t you, Dad?”

“Been known to happen,” her father smiled. “Sometimes, the first ten laps and the last twenty are the only parts of the race worth watching, so I’ve been known to take a nap in the middle.”

Jack thought about it for a moment. Mr. Hvalchek seemed like a good guy, and it probably wouldn’t hurt to stay on his good side. Hanging around watching the race for a while would at least be sociable, and besides, it was hot out there and bird activity could well be a little low. Besides, he wasn’t sure how bad he wanted to be out in the heat anyway; the house was cool, probably from central air conditioning. “I suppose we could hang around for a while,” Jack said. “If the race turns out to be good we might as well watch a little of it. If it gets dull, we can either go out, or I can show Vixen how to set up her birding database and records.”

“Gentlemen, start your engines!”

As it turned out, Mrs. Hvalchek had timed the dinner pretty well. She and Vixen were still clearing up the last of the dirty dishes and loading the dishwasher. Jack offered to help, but Mrs. Hvalchek said, “Oh, you’d just be in the way. Go keep Bob company.”

“Yeah,” Vixen added. “I’ll be along in a few minutes.”

With that much of a hint, Jack decided that he really didn’t want to hang around the kitchen, as nice as it was to look at Vixen’s butt as she bent over the dishwasher. That was really something . . . but he didn’t want Mrs. Hvalchek to catch him leering at the admittedly entrancing sight, so maybe heading to the living room wasn’t a bad idea.

Mr. Hvalchek was just settling into his recliner, getting ready for a big afternoon. From the discussion he’d picked up around the dining room table, Jack got the impression that Mr. Hvalchek worked pretty hard doing physical stuff out at the plywood plant, so when he got a day off he liked to spend it relaxing. Jack really couldn’t blame him much for that.

The couch had a decent view of the big-screen HD TV mounted on the wall, so Jack settled down on that as he watched the colorful cars pull out of pit lane. He was not real familiar with NASCAR drivers, and probably couldn’t have named more than half a dozen of them at the most. Someone he was sure he’d never heard of before was on the pole and from the way the announcer talked the guy wasn’t normally a front runner, so it seemed likely that there’d be some action right at the beginning.

All in all this dinner had gone well. Mrs. Hvalchek was a good cook and she’d done a great job; Jack had probably eaten more than he should have, but after only a couple quick bowls of cereal before dawn, he’d been hungry and Mrs. Hvalchek had continued to push the food at him. So as a result, it felt good to just lean back on the couch and relax and watch the cars make a long, slow parade lap.

“Mark my words,” Mr. Hvalchek said, “Jimmy Johnson will be leading at the end of the first lap and Gordon will be right there with him. They’ll blow past those two guys with them so quick it won’t be funny.”

“Could be,” Jack said, not really having an intelligent comment to reply with. “Those guys are pretty good.”

“Yeah, they’re pretty good and this is their kind of track,” Mr. Hvalchek replied.

The field of cars was just coming out of the last corner before the green flag and the pace car was pulling into the pits when Vixen came in and joined him on the couch. Jack held out his arm, and she sat down so he could get it around her, while she snuggled up close to him. That felt good, Jack thought. He didn’t mind having her next to him; although it had come quickly, he’d gotten used to having her up close to him in an awful hurry. “Did I get here in time?” she whispered in his ear.

“Yeah, the first lap might be interesting,” Jack smiled.

“Good,” she said softly. “I thought you were crazy for wanting to stay and watch this, but at least I’ll be able to snuggle up closer to you than I can in the Jeep.”

“Thought of that,” Jack lied. “I just couldn’t say anything.”

“You’re thinking good then,” she smiled. “It just feels so good to be up close to you.”

“And they’re off!” the announcer said in an excited voice. “Johnson gets a good jump on the start, and he’s leading into the first corner . . . ”

It would be unfair to say that Jack had his attention riveted to the screen, because he was much more aware of the warmth of Vixen up close to him. Certainly, he enjoyed that much more than watching the blue car pulling out in front of the green and white car as they headed down the long straight. Even the noise from the TV really didn’t hold his attention much, mostly because he was very comfortable with the feeling of Vixen’s body turned slightly toward him, her head on his shoulder. A person could get used to this, he thought . . .

Marilyn Hvalchek wasn’t a big fan of car racing, but she could tolerate it and knew her husband enjoyed it, although she was aware that he actually slept through most of the races. Well, he deserves it, she thought as she puttered around the kitchen. From the noises she was hearing from the living room, it sounded like the first couple of laps went pretty well, but then there was a wreck and a caution flag, followed immediately by a bunch of commercials. It seemed to her like there were more commercials than there was racing, and while sometimes they were funny she’d seen them over and over again since the start of the season, so they weren’t quite as funny as they’d been a few months before.

After several minutes, the commercials stopped and it sounded like they were getting ready for the restart. I better go in and keep the kids company, she thought. Bob is probably zonked out by now anyway.

There were a couple more things to finish in the kitchen, so she took care of them before she headed into the living room. Sure enough, Bob was sound asleep, snoring a little. Can’t say as I blame him, she thought. Sometimes these races put me to sleep, and at least it makes for a nice Sunday afternoon nap. She glanced over at the couch to see that NASCAR had worked its magic on more than just Bob. Vixen was sitting on the couch, leaning up close to Jack, turned toward him almost on her side, her head on his shoulder. He had nodded off, and his head rested up against her head, they were both clearly sound asleep as well. At least Jack wasn’t snoring . . .

Look at that, she thought. I’ll have to tease them about sleeping together. That’s sure what they’re doing! No, they’d probably be embarrassed if I brought that up, maybe I better not.

She took a closer look. Vixen had one arm around Jack’s back somehow, and her other hand resting on his lap. That’s awful close to his package, she thought, but I don’t think she’s touching it. Jack had his arm around her, his hand resting on the bare skin above her waist. That really is a little scanty for her to be wearing with her boyfriend, she thought, checking out her daughter’s tight top and breasts pressed up against Jack’s side. She glanced at her daughter’s fanny; from across the room it was clear that she was wearing thong panties, since they showed right through the fabric of the shorts that were tight across her butt.

Yeah, they’re sleeping together, she thought. But are they really sleeping together? Oh, God, who knows?

They’ve only been going out a couple of days, Marilyn thought, so maybe not. But Vixen sure has taken to Jack quickly! And, to be honest, him to her as well. When they go out bird watching, I wonder how much bird watching goes on, and how much other stuff goes on. Sure, they haven’t stayed out late, but they’ve sure made up for it by being up early, at least this morning. Getting up early probably doesn’t lead to a lot of fooling around, but who knows?

It was an uncomfortable thought. Vixen was her little girl, and her little girl shouldn’t be fooling around with boys like that. On the other hand, she had to face the reality that Vixen was almost eighteen and would be there before the end of the year. She remembered back, all too long ago, when the scene on the couch could almost have been her and Bob, except that they’d never have dared do something like that around her mother’s house. But yet, even though she’d been a good Christian girl, she and Bob had done their share of fooling around when they’d been that age, and they’d been only a couple years older before they’d decided to tie the knot, right after Bob got his job at the plant. No, not even that much older when they’d been fooling around like that, they’d still been in high school, although a lot of the fooling around had been in Bob’s old Camaro. They’d had some good times in the back seat. They’d had better times later, but it had seemed so exciting fooling around, exploring each other.

“To everything there is a time and a purpose under Heaven,” it said in the Bible, Marilyn thought. When she considered her own history, it was clear that her little girl wasn’t so little any more. All she had to do was to look at them asleep on the couch to realize that.

It had really been a shame about Vixen’s acne, Marilyn thought. She’d missed out on a lot of the high school fun because of it, fun that she’d had when she’d been that age. It had made her daughter a sad and lonely girl, and there hadn’t been much she’d been able to do about that. Now, all of a sudden, it seemed to be ending. Jack doesn’t seem to care much about her face and how it looks, and that says a lot about him – he can look past that awful face and see the bright, interesting girl who lies beneath it. What’s more, he’s been able to bring out that bright, interesting girl in a way that has never been done before.

Marilyn knew she’d tried to raise a good girl, a Christian girl like she had been. For the most part, the latter part of it hadn’t worked, and Bob had something to do with it. He didn’t take his religion nearly as seriously as he took his stock car racing, and she should have been able to do something about that. But what is done is done, she’d laid the groundwork, and if the girl ever came around to Jesus it would have to be her own decision on her own time. It was sad, but that was the way things were.

Over the years, Marilyn had tried to teach Vixen about being a good girl, about not going too far with boys, and staying in control. As far as she knew, for the most part Vixen had at least respected those teachings, but to look at the two of them sleeping on the couch gave her pause to wonder just how good a job she’d done.

Vixen had the potential to make something of herself, Marilyn thought. She could be something more than a small-town mother and housewife who held a dull and pointless part- time job. Marilyn had once planned on going to college, but she’d let herself get trapped into that life. She’d become used to it and comfortable with it; she was comfortable with Bob, even though he’d really never thought much beyond being a factory worker. But Vixen wouldn’t be comfortable with that and she knew it; she planned on going to college, to become something more than a small-town housewife, although doing what wasn’t quite clear yet.

And Jack had a lot of potential, too. Marilyn wasn’t sure about what kind of life being involved with birds would bring, but when they’d been talking out in the kitchen, Jack had been talking about going on to advanced degrees, maybe a doctorate. He might wind up as a college professor, just one of many other options. He certainly wasn’t cut out to be a small-town factory worker. Though it was hard to see what the future might bring, perhaps the two of them together had a lot of potential. It would be a shame to ruin that by letting things get out of hand and doing something rash.

So the question of whether they were sleeping together was a real one. It seemed likely that if they weren’t now, the possibility of it happening sooner rather than later was there. Marilyn knew that in spite of what she’d tried to teach her daughter, the hormones were flowing and things could happen. She could probably prevent it, but at the cost of alienating a daughter who had often seemed too distant as it was. It was too early to tell about the long run, but maybe if she was supportive of Vixen’s relationship with Jack, she might actually get a little closer to Vixen, rather than drifting apart. While Marilyn looked forward to having grandchildren, she wasn’t all that anxious to be a grandmother anytime soon – it would be better if that could be held off for a while. Later was better than sooner in this case.

It would be best if Vixen didn’t have sex with Jack, not for a while. But as she looked at the pair sleeping together on the couch, she realized that it could happen, and sooner than she wanted. Really, other than making a pest of herself, there was little she could do to stop it. About the best she could do was expect that it was going to happen and try to limit the consequences.

That meant that they were going to have to have a little talk, just the two of them, and as soon as possible. She was going to have to say some things and do some things that she really didn’t approve of, but didn’t see any way to avoid. It would have been nice if it didn’t have to happen that way, but at least she could be grateful that the Lord had allowed those uncomfortable things to be put off this long.

The two of them, and Bob, were just a little inspiring, she thought. Maybe she ought to sit down in her own chair, and maybe the race could put her to sleep as well.

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