Lazy Talks
By the time we drove back up to the Big House that morning – Puck had spent the night on Irish’s (recently Rose’s) cat-clawed celeste leather love seat – it was almost ten. And somehow I had still only scratched about six hours’ sleep out of the night.
Somehow most of us ended up, three hours later, lounging around the living room playing “Twenty Questions” (I really don’t like games), with Frances passed out on the couch under a blanket. Joe had left for Jaya’s. Dad and Mom napped. Rose was joining the English family for games (so many games these families play!) walking out the door in her overkill parka and Grandma’s red leather gloves. And Carrie flipped on a stage production of “The Phantom of the Opera”.
When Dad rejoined the living room circle, he and Francis went back and forth about the failed Toyota Tundra transaction. Dad was holding out for a black model. Apparently there weren’t any left available in the city.
“I might get the Mosquito instead,” Dad mused, thumbs tucked into the pockets of the jeans that Carrie is always trying to convince him to throw away.
“The helicopter?” Francis didn’t sound as impressed.
“One seater.”
They bantered, but Francis still had a beef with Dad’s opposition to non-black trucks. “Have you seen it in Gunmetal Gray, Dad?”
Dad laughed, “God probably just didn’t want me to get this. It didn’t work out.”
“That, or they just don’t make that many in black.”
It was an ongoing intervention/negotiation which bled into thoughts about purchasing land and then to the remains of the barbecue chicken pizza which only Dad and Ricky had eaten. Dad walked back into the kitchen for another round.
“I think Dad’s softening up to getting the truck again,” Francis suggested, pleased. “He wasn’t as aggressive towards me this time.”
Carrie scoffed. “He said you were an irritant, Francis.”
I guess Francis finally gave up on the argument – for the afternoon at least – and drove out to Troy to meet up with his best bud. Before he left, he hugged Mom and Dad goodbye as usual. No feelings too hard over the lost truck.
And Puck had been running around with the neighbor boy all afternoon while Oso the Bær made him a sling shot out of a forked stick and a flat bicycle tire tube from Joe’s collection. Actual non-eve holiday days tend to be pretty quiet around here.
The only other bit of interesting news, and we had already heard this a dozen times since yesterday, was that Irish had pierced Cherry’s nose with a safety pin. This is what happens when you send a sixteen year-old to Iowa for New Year’s.