Family Dynamics (Pam of Babylon Book Five) (24 page)

Bernice embraced her friend. Having recently been subject to the greatest humiliation, she could afford to be compassionate. “I’m so sorry, Nelda. Poor Steve. You’ve had an awful year.” Nelda reached up and hugged her friend back. Bernice was trying to think what should be done next. Arrangements would have to be made for the baby. Nelda sure wasn’t in any shape to take care of Miranda. “I guess we should call Pam and tell her what happened.” She dialed Pam’s number, but no one answered. Bernice didn’t want to leave that kind of message on an answering machine. They’d call back later.

“Miranda’s an orphan,” Nelda said, sobbing. “It’s so sad! I need Pam!” Bernice went to the phone again to call the beach. She let it ring until the answering machine came on, intending to leave a cryptic message so as not to alarm her daughter-in-law.

“Pam, this is your mother-in-law. Where are you? I have tried calling your cell phone twice and now this number. There’s been a terrible accident, and your mother is hysterical! Call me at once!”

Chapter 28

A
cross the river in Hoboken, Deborah Phillips was puttering around her new apartment. It was really her boyfriend Zach’s place, but she was sure they were together for good, and she was settling in. It was tiny, on the ground floor of a four-story brownstone. It had the original kitchen that stretched across the back, windows overlooking a cobblestone terrace and expansive yard. The yard was theirs alone. Back in the apartment, the bedroom stretched across the front of the house, but without windows, light coming from the kitchen was the only natural light in the unit. She discovered that cooking for Zach was relaxing, so in spite of serving food all day at the restaurant, she enjoyed planning dinner for that evening. She often got ideas from what people ordered, and she’d think of different ways to fix it or serve it with different accompaniments. Zach complained that he was gaining weight. But he seemed so content that it fed her compulsion to “home-make.”
Where did it come from?
Beverly Phillips kept a neat house and served a home-cooked meal each night, but she wasn’t passionate about it. Deborah was embarrassed that she’d taken it for granted; just one week with Zach and she understood the dedication and energy it took to take care of a family. She wondered if she’d ever be able to take care of children, too. Then, last week, she’d invited her birth mother, Natalie, over on Sunday afternoon. They shopped on the way back to the apartment, and Deborah watched as Natalie examined each vegetable and cut of meat carefully, talking about the best way to prepare it.

“Do you take this much care when you’re shopping for yourself?” she asked. Natalie thought for a minute.

“Gee, I guess I do,” she answered. “I’ve been alone all my life—I mean, besides my parents, and I pampered them, too. So it only makes sense that I’m worth taking the time to make things nice if I would do it for others. Besides, who wants to eat food that doesn’t taste great? It’s like chocolate. Why waste the calories on cheap chocolate? If I’m going to blow it, it’s gotta be great!” Deborah thought about what she’d said. It made sense.

As she organized Zach’s kitchen, she decided she was going to try to do things Natalie’s way. She would aim for honesty and excellence. She thought of Natalie’s appearance, how she was comfortable with her curly hair and ample figure and dressed to please herself.

Deborah knew she dressed for other women and was determined to stop it. Zach liked a certain look that Deborah thought was strange—a sort of ethnic, artsy look. She sat next to him one night with a
Vogue
magazine and tried to figure out what he found attractive. There wasn’t one thing except for an panty ad that he admitted liking. He dug through his bookshelf and came up with a book about India, pointing to page after page of sari-clad women.

“See that little bit of midriff showing? Wow! That does it for me!”

Deborah started laughing. She smacked his arm playfully. “You’ve lost your mind,” she said. “Let’s find something that won’t make me look like I come from a foreign country, OK?” When Natalie visited last Sunday, Deborah watched her move around the Hoboken apartment and couldn’t help but compare her to Beverly, who watched every calorie, spent a small fortune on dry cleaning, got her hair cut and colored every four weeks, wore the best minimizer bra on the market, and never, ever ate after eight at night.

Natalie was definitely a wash-and-wear gal. She didn’t own a blow dryer, wore denim from the 1970s, often went without a brassiere in spite of having the biggest breasts Deborah had ever seen, and wore socks with Birkenstocks—an absolute no-no in fashion. There had to be a happy medium between her adoptive mother and her birth mother, and Deborah planned to discover what it was during the summer. She was determined to be a self-assured,
real
woman by the time school started in September.

While Deborah was peeling potatoes in Hoboken, Natalie was taking the train up to Ashton and Ted’s for dinner. In the time since they met, they’d become inseparable. Ashton called Natalie at least three times a day. They shared recipes, watched the news while on the phone together, and tried to meet in midtown at a German restaurant they all liked at least once a week. Ted went to her apartment for lunch almost every day, and she moved in with them on the weekends.

That evening, Ashton stood at the kitchen sink prepping vegetables for their salad. He reached down to push peelings into the garbage disposal, and that action, so totally removed from any memory he had of Jack, was a sudden and rare reminder of Jack’s absence. Something about his slender wrist. Jack often teased Ashton about his thinness, telling him he was too fine-boned to be a man, that he should’ve been a woman. “You really are feminine,” Jack teased “I could’ve gone home to Pam if I wanted a woman.”

“I’d have a vagina if I were a woman, goofball,” Ashton had answered.

“Prove it,” Jack would say, all the while grabbing Ashton’s crotch. Ashton counted back the number of months he hadn’t thought of Jack or allowed him to creep in with depression or sadness. Ted, and now Natalie, had eradicated Jack for him totally. He was free of the torment.

“Whatcha doin’”? Ted came into the kitchen and hung his head over Ashton’s shoulder.

Asthon turned to look up at him. “What am I doing? Well, I’m sitting in the den reading a book. What does it look like I’m doing?” Ashton teased, laughing.

“I’m hungry. Can I have something to eat?” Ted pleaded.

“No, you can wait until Nats gets here,” Ashton said firmly, finishing the salad. “Go turn the news on and find out what the weather’s going to be tomorrow. I want to go to Costco.”

Ted left for the den. “It’s ridiculous to buy all that giant-sized crap for three people,” he complained on his way to the den.

“No, it’s not. We’ll share it with Deborah and Zach,” Ashton yelled back. He and Natalie went to Costco one other time, and it was thrilling. They bought enough toilet paper to last a year and all the meat they could eat in a month. “That reminds me. I have to call Deb and tell her to have Zach drive in on Sunday. We can load the car up.” Ted turned the TV on, secretly happy that Ashton was taking over the domesticity of caring for a child and the child’s mother. It was not his forte, although he had to admit there was something about Natalie—a quality of sincerity and kindness he was not used to responding to—and when she was around, he and Ashton were kinder to each other, more tolerant and patient.

Deborah kept both on their toes. A runner for fitness, she challenged them when they were all together. Due to pride or embarrassment, or a combination of both, they’d run with her in Central Park, pushing themselves so that she wouldn’t be ashamed to be seen with them. The next day, they’d be in agony as a result of the unexpected exercise, getting ice bags and heating pads for each other with promises that they would simply tell her they weren’t going to run anymore. Then, the following Saturday she’d be there, and they’d both be ready with sneakers and water bottles.

“Maybe if you ran one or two times during the week, it wouldn’t be so terrible for you,” she admonished. “Mother tells me you go to her house for lunch every day. Maybe a run around Battery Park might be more productive.”

So their lives filled up with these new people. Things that formerly occupied the time fell away, and neither missed whatever it was. Natalie arrived, and Ashton ushered her into the dining room. “All I want to do is put my nightgown on and get into bed to read,” she said.

“Then that’s what you should do,” Ashton said. “I made your favorite!” He’d prepared a faux Thanksgiving dinner, with chicken where the turkey should be and all the accompaniments. The meal was delicious, as usual, and the threesome talked nonstop, solving the problems of the world while the wine freely flowed. Maybe too freely. After dinner, Ashton refused offers of help as Ted retreated to the den and Natalie went to change her clothes. The first thing she did was take off her bra. She wasn’t self-conscious of her gigantic breasts and thought nothing of going braless in front of Ashton and Ted. But when she walked into the den, Ted noticed right away. He quickly looked over as Ashton walked in, having confessed a fascination with them. And sure enough, he was watching them move under the fabric of her summer nightgown. They were awesome. Each one seemed at least a foot long, but big around, too, so they stood out from her chest rather than collapsing to her waist.

“My husband wants to touch your boobs,” Ted said out loud, slightly slurring his words. Natalie stopped what she was doing and looked at Ted, then down at her chest.

“Ted! For Christ’s sake!” Ashton shouted. “Ignore him, Nats! He’s sick in the head, and drunk.”

“Did I hear you correctly?” she asked, somewhat taken aback, but amused. “Hey, all you had to do was ask.” And before either man knew what was happening, Natalie peeled off her nightgown and stood before them in the nude. She had also removed her underpants, and of course, both men’s eyes went right to the black triangle below her belly.

“Ah, ah, I didn’t mean for you to….” Ted stuttered.

“Shut the hell up,
dear
,” Ashton said. Natalie was full of herself as she’d never been before, totally comfortable with the size of her body and with nudity. She was enjoying every second of vanity, first putting her hands on her hips, and then arms stretched out straight. She slowly turned around to display her body. “Feast your eyes, men.” Her buttocks were big, heart shaped mounds, but smooth and firm. She didn’t have any dimples in her thighs like women were known to complain about, and Ashton tried not to imagine what she hid between them.

He went to her, pointing at her breasts and said, “May I?” She laughed, shaking her head yes. “Jeez, I don’t know what to do,” he confessed. She grabbed his hand and placed it on her breast, and although it was warm and soft, it didn’t do anything for him. He was terribly disappointed, and Ted could see it.

“What did you think it would do? Squirt milk at you?” Ted asked. Ashton looked at him exasperated.

“
Shut up
, Ted. I’m trying to figure this out.” He stared at them for a few seconds and then realizing it was hopeless, bent over to hug Natalie, careful not to crush her breasts.

“Thank you, dear, my curiosity is satisfied,” he said. She kissed his cheek and bent over to pick her gown up, shimmying it over her arms and back onto her body. He noticed that she didn’t shave her underarms, which so fit the picture of who she was.

“God, I was hoping for more action then that!” she said, and everyone laughed. “I’m drunk.”

“Us, too,” Ted said.

“Speak for yourself,” Ashton replied. “Come over here and watch TV with us.” He patted the sofa next to where he was sitting.

“No, I just came to get my bag. The striptease was incidental. Don’t think I’m doing it every night!” If she was embarrassed or uncomfortable, the men couldn’t tell. Ted was barely able to keep his eyes open, and Ashton was standing up out of respect for Natalie. As she exited the room, Ashton grabbed her arm, pulling her to him and hugged her again, kissing her cheek.

“I love you, Nats,” he said.

“Me, too,” Ted mumbled. She smiled and left the room.

“I should kill you,” Ashton hissed at Ted, elbowing him as he sat down on the couch.

“Why? I didn’t do anything wrong,” he said, cowering, and then put his head back on the sofa. “Besides, it was a good reminder why I’m gay.”

Ashton elbowed him harder. “Shut up! She’s just in the kitchen. You are a real piece of work. Why in God’s name would you put her
and
me on the spot like that? And don’t use grapes as an excuse.”

Ted shrugged his shoulders. “What’d you think?” Ted asked, ignoring Ashton’s questions. “Is it everything you hoped it would be?” Ashton was pensive for a few minutes.

“Actually, if she’d given me a little more time, I think I could’ve gotten into it. Her skin is awesome. She’s really voluptuous. I might have to tell her so she doesn’t feel bad. She might have regrets now, about stripping in front of us. She may have expected us to react in a sexual way. Hmmmmm. Interesting thought!” But Ted was snoring and didn’t hear a thing.