The Lassiters Ch. 3 Brickstone Chateau Pt. 1

The Lassiters left in the morning wearing their snowsuits and boots and carrying their suitcases. The trees were iced and they glittered in the sun while the snow crunched underfoot. “Come to the Tropics” sounded like a wonderful dream, but that’s where they were headed. They couldn’t wait!

Dreamy Lori lagged behind, but she made it to the shuttle okay. She couldn't help but wonder how their snowman would fare.

They were hungry by the time they reach their destination and the first thing Melora did was to make omelets while the kids and John changed their clothes and put their coats at the back of the closet. They had a beautiful view of their private beach from their dining table; it couldn’t have been more breathtaking.

John had bought the home furnished. This was not an unusual practice since most homes in the islands were sold that way. It was extremely expensive to have furniture shipped to the islands and most people bought and sold homes furnished. At any rate, in this home was a beautiful white baby grand piano and Lori took one look at it and instantly appropriated it.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, Baby, but didn’t we give her lessons a couple years ago?” John asked Melora.

“Yep.”

“And didn’t she quit after about 4 lessons because she didn’t want to practice?”

“You got it,” Melora grinned, “that’s when we sold our upright piano. Oh, well, try to live with it, Sweetie, she’s sounds bad now, but maybe she’ll get real interest in playing this time, who knows.” 

They had to grit their teeth because every minute she was not otherwise occupied Lori was banging away at that piano. One time she started it quite early in the morning and woke her parents—which finally caused John to yell down to her. 

"For the love of Mike, will you give it a rest down there?" 

The piano stopped with a discordant crash and then...silence. A few minutes later they heard their youngest child chattering away to the inmates of her dollhouse so they knew she had recovered. They heard nothing from Trey except the clicking of his keyboard as he checked in with Facebook. He knew better than to play SSX when his parents were sleeping. The twins would rather have been outdoors anyway, but they were not allowed on the beach without one of the adults. 

Luckily, Melora and John were not usually late sleepers and were anxious to get on the beach too. And they did spend quite a bit of time out on the beach that day, exploring. The water was heavenly. Fortunately; the kids had taken lessons for a couple years and were strong swimmers. They all tried their hand at combing for shells (especially Lori, who half-hoped she would find a golden crab).  She did not find one, but she did find beautiful shell earrings. Trey made a sandcastle and kicked it down, then built one again. Melora sunbathed and John joined her.

Trey also found a telescope in the yard and played with that a lot. The twins both asked when, when, when would they get to go to the pirate ship?

“It’s too late today,” John said, “We’ll need an early start for that one. Let’s go to the boardwalk for supper tonight and see what goes on there.”

Lori wanted to wear her new earrings and they did not show with her braids so she asked her mother to put her hair up in pigtails. More convenient for the beach, she thought, and she definitely could now see her lovely shell earrings.

They all washed off the sand and headed for the Twikkii Island Boardwalk. There was only an hour or so of daylight left and they ate Luau Ribs at the snack bar. Delicious. They saw a fire dancer down on the beach and, while Melora hit the souvenir stands, the kids and John went to watch the performance.

Meanwhile, Melora bought tropical clothing for all of them, some little souvenirs to take home and, best of all, jewelry. Little Lori was not the only one who was crazy about baubles, bangles and beads.

John paid to take the lessons to learn the dance and Melora and the kids alternately cheered and booed him. He finally learned it, but would have liked to actually master the dance. Perhaps later in the week.

Also at the boardwalk were pinball machines and video games, so the kids ran around breathless, begging for coins from John to play just one more game. It was extremely late when they arrived back home. It seemed impossible that only early that morning (okay, yesterday morning) they had waved goodbye to snow.

Trey and Lori shared a large bedroom with twin beds and their own bathroom. They had a dart board, a computer, a dollhouse and toy box in the room as well. There was a big hall between the bedrooms with enough room for a chess table and chairs. John and Melora's bedroom had a lovely view like the dining room downstairs and a massage table in front of it. Neither knew how to do a very good massage unfortunately, but they hoped to remedy that when they went to Whitesands Hot Springs sometime during the week.

The two upstairs bathrooms were elegantly appointed, the colors in all the rooms were pastel and airy; really Melora wouldn’t have changed a thing except maybe to get rid of the jungle décor in the downstairs bathroom. John said it was kind of tacky, but he liked it. As for the kitchen she liked that very much with it's aqua blue walls and white trim.

They got a late start in the morning and decided to just enjoy the place that day and not try to rush around anywhere. The kids were never bored although they still hankered to get to that pirate ship. John promised they would go the following day. So on this day Melora went out on the deck to paint the beautiful scenery and John dug for treasure, looked for shells and swam.  He also did stop once to take Melora’s picture.

The kids frolicked in the waves like little otters. 

Then they played on the beach until Melora told them they needed to go in and have some quiet time out of the sun. No use getting too much exposure all at once and getting sick or sunburned or both. So Lori commenced bashing the piano keys while Trey played Don’t Wake the Llama in the next room.

 

When the light was pretty much gone Melora came in and fixed some maple glazed pork chops for supper. John said they must all get to bed early tonight so they would be fresh when they left to go see the Jumbok Ruins and the Pirate Ship. Trey and Lori were excited but yawning after being outdoors nearly all day so they went to bed with no complaint.

So far, they were really enjoying paradise and had practically forgotten about the cold weather and snow they'd left behind...

 

Next update The Lassiters Ch. 3 Brickstone Chateau P. 2

 

The Lassiters in Winter Ch. 2

Winter was now in full force in Pleasantview. At the Lassiter home, things were quieter; Grace and David were 26 and 25 respectively and each had found a new home, Grace’s was house was older, while David’s was a modern stucco over on Professional row. 

It was fall when they left and everyone had gathered around the dinner table to be together one last time. In actuality, they had spent two days moving all their belongings to their respective new homes. But this was the night they would finally move into the homes. True, Grace and David could and would come by to visit any time they cared to and naturally at the holidays they’d be over, but they would probably never live there with the twins again. It made Trey and Lori very sad, but they both enjoyed the evening as much as they could. Grace and David had been there ever since they twins first opened their eyes as babies. Neither Trey nor Lori could remember their older sister and brother as anything but young adults. Actually Grace and David had been 16 and 15 when the twins were born. 

The twins sleeping in their nursery next door to John and Melora's room, this was right before their birthday. Upstairs you can see Grace sleeping and behind her room the new room for the twins. 

They had helped the twins with their homework when Melora or John were unavailable, wiped their respective noses and been just down the hall or outside the door when they slept upstairs. Sometimes David had taken them for a spin in his car or Grace had helped them make cookies. Grace and David were very happy and excited about moving and even Melora and John seemed happy, so the twins just looked at each other and tried to smile, too. They had one of their school friends over, Tina Traveler; so they especially needed to put on a good show.

L to R: David, John, Grace, Lori, Melora, Trey and Tina

After dinner Grace and David left amid tears and hugs. John said it was silly, they were only going to be a couple miles away, but Melora could see him blinking a tear away. It was the end of one era and the beginning of another.

From now on it would be just John, Melora and the twins in the big house by the ocean. It meant extra time for the twins, so that was good. They were ten years old now and only a couple more years and they would be teenagers. Melora wanted all of them to enjoy these last years of real childhood for the twins. The snow had been coming for a week or so, just little flurries that hardly stayed on the ground and then it began to snow in earnest one afternoon and by nightfall Pleasantview became a winter wonderland.

John and Melora had been working on improvements and changes inside and just got these finished. They took down the wall between Lori’s room and what had been Grace’s room and made it into a large bright room for Lori. She could get her dollhouse, little oven, desk and even her ballet barre in there. It was much bigger than Trey’s room (which is David’s old room), but that was okay because they took down the walls of Trey’s old room and now most of Trey’s stuff was in there. Large things like his train set, the kids’ activity center, and John’s putting green (which he hardly got to use since the kids tended to monopolize it). That big room was also where the kids worked out to the radio.

Some things never change; the kids continued to invite kids home after school. Their parents were happy that the twins were such social beings but, “Must it be every day?” Melora wondered as she cooked up what seemed like enough food for an army at nearly every weekday supper time. 

Lori with Skylar Scott. This was before they got the train set moved upstairs.

Lori playing Miss Mary Mack with Tina Traveler

John had been thinking of buying real estate as a business opportunity (he was always looking for business opportunities—that was his nature). He found what he thought was a good deal on a home on Twikkii Island. John had owned a beach house on the east coast in South Carolina for quite a few years, but decided to sell it back when the twins were born. As the snow fell, the idea came to him that not only should he buy the house on Twikkii, but that they should take the twins there for a week to get away from the weather and the sooner, the better. Melora loved the idea. 

Lori was all wide-eyed with excitement when Melora told her they were going on a 6-day vacation to the islands.

 Now, Lori was a bookworm, just like her friend Lucy Burb, and she read for fun all the time, but she still loved to have Melora read to her occasionally. A couple times a week Melora did just that. The night before they left on their trip, she read Lori a book about a family going on vacation that discovered an enchanted golden crab. He transported them to many exciting journeys. Melora could not even finish the book that night, but put it away to enjoy over many more nights. Lori went to sleep with visions of magical crustaceans in her head.

Lori, as usual, reading a book before the school bus arrives

Trey was very excited, too, his Dad told him that where they were going there was a real pirate ship they could go to and pretend they were on the high seas. Trey kissed John goodnight (something he was starting to think he was too old for, but forgot about that this night). Then he, too, went off to dream of sailing on the Jolly Roger, calling out things like “Avast, ye swabbies!” and “Shiver me timbers!”.

The little family of four would leave early in the morning for their new second home nestled on Twikkii Island.

For the next installment of The Lassiter story click here