The Lassiters Ch. 6 The Twins Are Growing Up Pt. 4

Weaving a tangled web…

Lori had scarcely been able to believe it when she got a call on her cell from Brian, asking her to come to their house a week from Friday for dinner. They’d talked for a while about a lot of things, mostly things they had in common like music they liked, TV shows and movies they thought were funny, their favorite places, favorite foods. She couldn't wait until she had the chance to call Melanie afterward. He'd asked for her cell phone number way back when she met him at My Muse, and she'd gladly given it and asked for his, but she hadn't heard anything from him until this call.

“Oh yeah? So did he say anything like, ‘Hey, kid, what were you and your weird friend doing in front of my house the other night?’” Melanie cracked.

They giggled because they had gone back to his house on another night to see if they could get a glimpse of him. They could hear the baseball game through the window and it was pretty obvious that was what had his attention. The girls had hoped he’d get thirsty and walk across the room to get a drink or something to eat at least, but nothing doing.  She’d even brought Errol’s binoculars with her, too.

“All I can say is he must have a cooler full of drinks and a pizza right in front of him!” Melanie had snickered at the time, “Well, I’m not waiting until the game is over. I’m starving. Pizza Bungalow, here we come!”

The fact that Brian had called her at all was the most romantic thing that had ever happened to Lori. So far, anyway. His voice was even better than she’d remembered. In the back of her mind she wondered why he was interested in a 16 year old, but it was just too exciting, she wouldn’t let herself ponder that for more than a second. 


She did feel guilty for deceiving her parents; she’d never done that before. But she would have to come up with a lie to get out of the house for the evening. She’d called Melanie to tell her and to ask her to join in the conspiracy. Though Melanie thought Lori was crazy to like “an old fogey” as she put it, she agreed to help. They’d had plans to meet Holly and Elle at the Arcade, grab something to eat somewhere around there, then they were maybe going to cruise around in Bluewater Village. Lori hated to drag Holly and Elle in on her lie, but when she texted them they agreed they would carry her secret to the grave. They came over to the house the next night  to map out their plan up in Lori’s bedroom. She had many friends, but these three were her closest and best friends. 

Melanie Flynn, of course—they’d lived next door to each other since they were born.They knew all of each other's secrets.

Lori met Holly Ferguson and Elle Broke when Melanie and she began dance lessons at the age of four. 

Through Brownies and Girl Scouts, through piano lessons and dance class, not to mention elementary, middle school and now high, they’d been the “fantastic foursome”. Sometimes they quarreled among themselves, but they always made up and they were loyal to each other when any of them had problems. Such as hiding certain activities from their parents in the name of “true love”, which was how Lori was thinking of Brian by now.

Sometime in the afternoon, Lori went downstairs to figure out how to feed everyone--they all were broke this Friday night. So the girls amused themselves in various ways as well as joking around with Trey.

Lori was actually thinking of asking her mother to cook something. Ordinarily Melora would have done that gladly. However; she was working on her recipe blog refining a recipe she had made earlier, and no one liked to interrupt her when she was doing that. "Woe be unto him..." her father liked to say if he saw one of the kids tiptoeing over to Melora at a time like that. So Lori decided she would make spaghetti and meatballs; she'd done that before. She cooked up a big batch, too. Twice. She burned it the first time.

The four girls and Trey sat down to a delicious meal by evening.

The next week time seemed to drag by to Lori, but finally it was the much-anticipated "Fabulous Friday" as Melanie had dubbed it. Lori had managed to get her parents to loan her their car, and she was gone before 5. They didn’t have a problem with her using their car usually, but they didn’t know about the cruising that would go on afterward, or so Lori thought.

“Be home by 1:00, little girl—even though Sam’s stays open on Friday until 2,” John said as she was leaving. He was referring to Sam’s Snappy Service, the old-fashioned drive-in restaurant on the highway between Pleasantview and Bluewater Village. All the kids met either there or at Sonic Drive-in on the far side of Bluewater, so the teens and early 20's too, cruised the highway between the two restaurants all evening (and into the morning) on Fridays and Saturdays. Lori opened her mouth to protest but then thought, bad enough I’m lying about where I’m going, no sense in adding to it by saying we won't go cruising, too. For a moment she was overwhelmed with shame. She had always been a very honest child. But the excitement of her fantasy romance carried her away as soon as she walked out the door.

Melora and John enjoyed having the place mostly to themselves and played SSX3 for quite a while. Then wanted to try out their brand new sauna, which was in a little wood frame building in the backyard. Since Lori was gone and Trey was up in his room, they had decided to enjoy the privacy of the sauna for more than health reasons.  

Unfortunately, hardwood benches and steam so thick they couldn’t see each other made it the most uncomfortable and least romantic experience they’d had in some time. So much for that idea. But at least they could have saunas now without going to a salon somewhere.

Trey was home and upstairs playing his new hand-held game Le Tournament Decahedron XS instead of out with his friends because he was grounded for the weekend. He’d come home from school and his grades were slipping for the first time in his life. That wasn’t why he was grounded though. John had discussed his grades with him and wanted to know if there was any problem they could help him with, stressing that next year Trey would be a senior and if he still planned to go to U after that, he’d have to get his grades back up to where they were. John had just wanted to talk to him about it; to find out if Trey needed a tutor or any other kind of help. Trey became defensive and then insolent, however; so John took his keys and said,

“Okay, kid, you’re home for this weekend.”

  

When Trey started to grumble that it was his car, he’d fixed it up, John just said, “You want to make it next weekend too? “

Trey shook his head, frowning.

“I’m the one paying the insurance, and I’m the one who bought the car for you to restore, so knock it off.”

Trey had stomped up to his room but he had shut up. He spent most of the evening playing the new game and messing on the computer. He made a couple calls to friends, too.

Meanwhile, the plan was for Lori to go directly from home to Brian’s house—she was to be sure to let him know that her friends were expecting to meet her afterward—Melanie had insisted she do this for safety’s sake. Afterward she really would meet the girls at Galaxy Arcade and they’d still go cruising in Melanie’s car.

“Now listen to me, Lori, you’d better be here by 10 or we’re coming to get you,” Melanie warned Lori.

Brian was waiting for her outside the house. He smiled and hugged her. Lori was a little nervous when she went in the house. His sister, Bridget, came out from the kitchen smiling, but then she appeared startled. Lori thought, 'Oh, no, he didn’t tell her I was coming!' It was just a split second though and Bridget came forward and greeted her in a friendly way. A mouth-watering  aroma permeated the house; blackened catfish, one of her favorites. It wasn’t as good as her mother’s, but still it was delicious.

During the meal Brian was quiet, but Bridget asked a lot of questions. She told Lori that she and Brian went to school with her older sister and brother. Lori thought about that; then they must be close to David's age; or even Grace. Grace was 32 now. She automatically answered the questions Bridget asked about Grace and David.  She knew Brian was probably around 30, but evidently he was even older, like Melanie had guessed. But then she looked over at Brian and he had this crooked smile that was so cute. Lori decided once more that age could not matter if two people were soul-mates.

After dinner Lori helped clear the table but then Bridget smiled and told her that was okay, she'd finish the cleanup; Lori could go out and visit with Brian.

Brian asked her if she knew how to play chess and she shook her head feeling dumb. 

"Well, would you like to learn? I'd be glad to teach you. " 

So they did that for a while until Brian could see she was starting to feel a little brain weary.

"That's enough for now," he told her. 


Bridget was playing SSX3 and grinned, "Come on over here and play with me, Lori, it'll rest your head compared to chess." 


So they played while Brian watched and cheered Lori on. She was pretty good at SSX3 but Bridget beat her. She could feel Brian hovering behind them and it gave her a tingly feeling.                                         

Finally, Lori had to leave to go to the Arcade; she didn’t want Melanie to show up all protective and breathing fire like an avenging angel.

Unhappily, Brian hadn’t said anything at all to indicate his heart belonged to Lori. She reasoned that was because his sister was right there. But when she was leaving, he was joking around with her and suddenly asked if she was ticklish. She shrieked with laughter and ducked as he tried to tickle her. He stopped and grinned, saying,


“I guess you’re going to meet your boyfriend, now”.

“I don’t have a boyfriend”, Lori blushed but was eager to relay this information.

“Really? I thought I heard you were going steady with Mike Lomax,” he said in a lazy voice as his blue-gray eyes gazed into hers, making her heart seem to literally flutter.

"Oh, no, we’re just good friends!”  Lori's mind raced furiously:

Huh? Where had he heard that about Mike? It wasn’t true, of course, but did that mean he’d been asking about her?  Who would know about her, anyway? She was hardly the talk of the town. The realization that he was trying to find out about her encouraged rather  than frightened her. When he hugged her this time, she let herself hold on to him for just a second more.  Then she backed away quickly. She didn’t want him to think she was clingy or anything.

She got to the Arcade by 9:30 and told the girls everything that had occurred as they drove to Bluewater Village. Melanie had plenty to say, but Lori was too dreamy-eyed to listen. She was home before midnight, still she felt none too virtuous. Her parents were asleep so she crept silently up the stairs to her room. What a night...

Next update: The Lassiters Ch. 6 the Twins Are Growing Up Pt. 5