Too Close for Comfort
Sunday, October 28, 2007
After church, Dad, Mom, and OLeif stayed behind for a conference. Collette returned Frances, Linnea, and Puck to the house. Joe was at a football game. And Rose had slept through church after her exhausting day.
“Collette,” she said, trying not to laugh, “stop writing things about me. I’m not that crazy.”
“Well…”
“I’m not!”
But even Rose had to admit that she had her moments.
Carrie was IM-ing Rose. Nothing like watching the sun set over the Atlantic by a lighthouse before heading to the café for lamb on the barbi.
Collette and Rose waited for Dad, Mom, and OLeif to return while Puck napped. They had been discussing how it was slightly odd that so many kids within the circle of home-schoolers had married each other. Of course Collette couldn’t say much: she and OLeif had been pretty much the first to go. Sometimes Rose was creeped out by the volume of people becoming related overnight. She almost believed that everyone was going to end up being related to one another. (Collette had still not yet convinced Rose that Curly was not her brother-in-law.)
“Man, if this keeps up, people are going to start growing eyeballs on their noses. Like back in the days of Akhenaten.”
Collette laughed at her. “Rose, that was not the same thing.”
“Yeah, but he was deformed. All those paintings of him, people think were just artistic interpretations. But he really looked like that.”
Rose put a pot of mashed potatoes on the stove for lunch.
“Come and get it!” She yelled out to Frances and Linnea. “Well, last night one of the dishwasher’s asked me to smash a cupcake on Shakespeare’s head. And I said, ‘No! I’m not going to do that.’ And they said, ‘We’ll pay you.’ And I said, ‘How much?’ And they said they’d give me three dollars. So I did. And then I told Shakespeare, ‘I’m sorry, but I have to pay my library fine.’ It’s pretty bad. They won’t let me check out any more books until I pay it down.”
“How bad is it this time?” Collette asked.
“Twenty-six dollars.”
Rose’s face was perfectly sheepish.
Then Rose put on “Karma Police” and talked about still wanting to take scuba diving lessons. Frances poured himself a large glass jar of chocolate milk and sprayed a mountain of whipped cream on top. Linnea gabbed with Amelia for an hour on the phone about Webkinz and other things. Then Dad, Mom, and OLeif returned just in time to greet Mrs. English, Diana, Eleda, and Lonnie who had dropped in for a visit. After the initial welcoming exchanges, they sat around the living room and caught up on life during the past few months.
“Oh,” groaned Diana. “I have another bridesmaid dress to buy. Joan’s getting married in January. This is ridiculous! I have so many bridesmaid dresses already. Another trip to David’s Bridal. I have to find something in Cornflower Blue.”
“Well, you’ll just have to open your closet and show her all her color selections,” Mom laughed. “Surely by now you have enough for her to choose from.”
“Yeah, I should do that,” Diana sighed. “I’ve spent too much money on those things and I’ll probably never wear them again.”
Meanwhile, Puck, who was giggling and sticking out his tongue at everything, rolled around on the rug and tugged on Diana’s shoes.
“You want to eat my shoe?” Diana asked him. “That probably doesn’t taste very good. You know, I got these shoes from Eleda.”
“Yeah,” 10 year-old Eleda grinned, “they’re too small for me.”
Puck next moved to Eleda’s shoes (after Linnea had left with Amelia for a Halloween-type candy bash at Amelia’s church). Puck enjoyed untying the laces.
“Puck, don’t pull on that one,” Eleda picked him up. “Pull on this one.”
Puck squirmed and wiggled and laughed at her and continued to chew on whatever laces were at hand.
Diana had potentially exciting news. After a year of writing for the Naperville newspaper, she was setting her prospects for New York. Maybe Boston or D.C. And maybe as early as January. Collette still thought it was pretty amazing that out of all her acquaintances growing up, Diana was practically the only one who had truly followed her career dreams.
The visit had soon ended, however. Diana had to drive back to Chicago. OLeif and Rose were soon leaving for separate discipleship groups after finishing the first stage of Rose’s senior photo shoot. Joe was at Fright Fest with friends. And Dad, Mom, and Frances dropped off Collette and Puck at home after picking up four boxes of the traditional sausage supper.
Busy Sunday.