Dinner

Chet and Bell pulled up. “Hello you two love birds.” Bell called to them. They got in the car and drove away to a celebration dinner. Chet and Bell were the first two people Oscar told, other than Esther. Who doesn’t tell their best friend about their bride to be?

Oscar was extremely happy that Cindy hadn’t said a word about his engagement. He wasn’t ready for everyone to know. He knew the day was coming when he’d get that phone call from his mother. She would find out. But he was hoping no time soon.

Over the course of the next couple weeks everyone treated him like he was made of glass; which in a way was nice, because people left him alone.

He and Esther had sat down for dinner. “Do you want to do anything special for Labor Day?” She asked.

“Did you have anything in mind?”

“No not really.”

“I’m boring Ess. My life isn’t exciting. I haven’t been out to the movies in years. Chet and I would go out to eat on occasion. We have to do five outside of the class room events. So I picked the boring ones that no one else wants to do.” He picked at his piece of chicken and didn’t make eye contact. He played with it but didn’t eat it, “and I’m so tired of eating chicken.” He put his head in his hands.

“So now, are you ready to tell me what’s really wrong?”

He looked up at her in defeat. She wasn’t mad. The look on her face was one of quiet concern. “That’s the problem Ess. I don’t know what’s wrong.” He took a deep breath, “everyone at school is treating me like I’m diseased. At first it was nice. But now it’s getting old. I can’t sleep.”

“Labor day is this coming Monday isn’t it?”

He sighed, “yeah.”

“What time do you think you’ll be home Friday?”

“Six at the latest.” He looked at her. “Why?”

“Pack you a little bag Thursday night, put it in the jeep and when you get off work Friday, we’ll roll.”

“Where are we going?”

“I’ll let you know Wednesday so you’ll know what to pack.”

The chill of fall had started biting the morning air. Fog lay on the ground as the light of day took it’s time heating up the Earth. Oscar knew that it wouldn’t be long until his beloved winter came back.

Winter Season

Tongue click

She rubbed her fingers through his hair, “feeling better?”

“Yes, I always feel better when I’m with you.” A car was approaching them. “Oh dear lord.” He thumped his forehead on her shoulder.

“Is that tongue click?”

“Good guess.”

“How do you want to handle this?”

“With as little interaction as possible.”

She slowly drove by, as she did she yelled out the window, “don’t jump.” Oscar hadn’t given her voice enough of an irritation value.  His version of her sounded better than the real thing ever would.

Cindy giggled as she approached them, tongue click, “I saw that in a movie once.” Tongue click, “I’ve always wanted to say it.” No tongue click, she was panting slightly. She held up her finger to indicate that she needed a moment.

Oscar was cold, “what brings you our way Cindy?”

Pant, “I needed to apologize for today.” Deep breath, “what I said today was totally out of line.”

“How much ah dressin’ down did you get from the superintendent?” One of Oscar’s hands was at the small of Esther’s back. The other was lying on her thigh.

Tongue click, “oh my. He was mad.” Tongue click, “if he said it once he said law suit ten times.” Tongue click, giggle, pant.

Oscar noted Cindy looking Esther up and down, her eyes resting on Oscar’s hand that was visible. “Cindy Morgan, Esther Morrison my fiancée.”

Cindy didn’t say a word. She just looked at Esther like a deer in the headlights. Esther hopped down off the rail and extended her hand to Cindy. Cindy finally remembered herself and accepted Esther’s hand.

“Wow! This is sudden isn’t it?” Cindy was blinking rapidly and there was no tongue clicking going on.

Esther looked at Oscar then said, “when you know it’s right, go with it.”

Oscar hid his face from Cindy. It was all he could do not to bust out laughing. He just grinned and winked at Esther.

Cindy turned red and giggled. “Okay.” She got in her car, backed off the bridge, turned and left.

“That was interesting.” Esther watched her car drive out of sight. “If I didn’t know better, I would think she had the hots for you.”

“Come on.”

“No, think about how she acted.”

“I really don’t want to.”

They started walking back to the house hand in hand.

Winter Season

No panic attack

“I’m sure they sit around and talk about everyone.”

“And the most humiliating part was the superintendent was sitting beside me.” He paused talking but not pacing. “Gay!”

“What did the superintendent say?”

“Nothing, I can only speculate that he was too shocked to say anything.”

Oscar finally sat on the couch, “what did you do?”

“I left.”

“I’m very proud of you.”

He wrinkled his eyebrows. “Why?”

“No panic attack.” She smiled.

“I’ve been too pissed to have a panic attack.” He laid his head on the back of the couch.

“So what are you gonna to do?”

“What can I do?”

“You could file a grievance with the school board. You do have a room full of witnesses.”

“Yeah, but there were other teachers involved than just Cindy. If I get one, I want them all.” He looked at Esther, “let’s go for a walk. I need to get rid of this energy.”

She smiled, “sure.”

This time they went walking toward town. They lived about twenty minutes from the city limits and another fifth teen minutes to the school. Once you got past their property lines, Mr. Cox owned cattle. He was getting along in years but his daughter was interested in keeping up the family tradition that went back to his great grandfather. Past the farm, there was a bridge. Esther sat on the rail of the bridge. The view all around was amazing.

He moved to where he was standing between her legs, “a penny for your thoughts.” He smiled.

“I just can’t get over how beautiful it is here.”

“The last time you were in Kentucky; where were you?”

“Richmond, Lexington area. I know Kentucky has amazing scenery. But I never saw anything like this.” She paused for a moment. “This is just gorgeous and peaceful.”

He put his hands around her waist. “You’ve lost some weight.”

“A little. It’s this diet of yours. We have to keep you from being in pain.” She smiled, and touched his nose with her finger. “If you’re gonna be in pain, at least it should be fun.”

He had to look up to see into her eyes, the way they were positioned, his forehead was at her chin. “How come you never made it down to this part of the state?”

“Too much going on.”

“We might have met sooner.”

“I would wager not. Everyone I knew was either a cop or a criminal.”

He nodded, “good point.”

Winter Season

Not gonna eat that

Oscar came home about 3 o’clock. She thought it was odd but then again, school hadn’t started yet. When she opened the door, she didn’t see him, she saw a thunder cloud. “What’s wrong?”

When he came in, he started pacing around the living room. “Let me tell you about these amazin’ people that I work with. Traditionally today, we have lunch catered in, cake and ice cream to celebrate everyone’s birthday. Things get too wild throughout the year so we all just decided to do it on the first day of in-service. Lunch was Mexican. Not much there I can eat. Cake and ice cream were chocolate, I wouldn’t eat it. My ulcer is doing better but I’m in no mood to test it. One of the teachers,” he threw his hands up in the air. “Cindy. In front of God and everybody walks over to me with a piece of cake and says,” he put his hands on his hips and changed the tone of his voice to an irritating squeak like register and every tenth word, sometime less, clicked his tongue on the roof of his mouth. Beginning with the clicking noise, “Oscar, ain’t you gonna eat,” tongue click, “your piece of cake?” Tongue click. “No, I said. I don’t want any cake.” Tongue click, “well you only picked at lunch and now no cake,” tongue click. “You might offend someone.” I replied, “It’s not my intention to offend anybody, but I don’t want the cake.” Tongue click, “well, I think your just being rude. I mean after all,” tongue click. “This is for us all.” Tongue click, “and seems to me you’re not being a team player.” Tongue click. He pointed at Esther, “I tell you never in my life have I ever wanted to shove a piece of cake into anyones face as I did that cow.” He started pacing again, “Cindy, I have an ulcer. Chocolate aggravates my ulcer. I’m not gonna eat that. She lets out a long sigh and holds her chest.” He held his chest like she did. His hand was palm down in the center of his chest. Tongue click. “Oh my stars, she giggled!” He hissed. “She turns and looks at some of the other teachers in the room, giggling!” Tongue click, “You know some of us have had several conversations about you,” tongue click. “We’ve speculated that you were gay.” Tongue click, “until you brought the new lady in town to the Christmas Bizarre.” Tongue click, “Oh and the prom. She giggled again.” Tongue click. “Then we thought maybe you had A.I.D.’s, that was why you are so skinny.” Tongue click. “Another thought was an eating disorder.” Tongue click. He started pacing again. Tongue click, “I am so thrilled that it’s just an ulcer.” Tongue click. “Why didn’t you tell us,” tongue click, “that you had an ulcer? We would have made a white cake too.” Tongue click.

“Gay, A.I.D.’s, an eating disorder. So they sit and talk about me?”

Winter Season