Empty Nesters Ch. 02

"Yes, that would be nice. I'll need some clothes from the boxes out there for the trip to Paris," she admitted. "All I packed in the roller-bag was summery stuff. I remembered how warm it'd be here from that trip six years ago."

There it was, the trip that had started the whole thing. The end of my divorce had come just before my thirty-second birthday. It had been a painful but graciously swift ending to a twelve year marriage. Having it completed several weeks before my birthday made the birthday slightly less painful. I could remember my joy when Katie had arrived. Right up until this moment, I still felt that some part of my drunken encounter with Katie had been due to the divorce. Now, however, I could see that it must have been our deep desire to care for one another. The event was recast in my memory as a fortuitous moment.

"You know, I think that trip was a blessing," I told her.

"Me too."

"The pork was really good. I almost went for a second piece, but held off. The soup really hit the spot on this dreary day. The asparagus was just perfect al dente." Our mom used to cook everything until it surrendered all texture and flavor. I wondered where Katie had learned to do all of this.

Katie smiled at the complements, "I'm glad you liked it."

We both ate everything she'd put on our plates. "I can get all of this cleaned up," I offered.

"Okay, I'll let you do that and I'll start bringing in some boxes," she said.

"Well, I wanted to do that for you."

"I'll just get the ones that might have fall type clothing, okay?" she asked.

"You're excited about this trip. I'm really looking forward to it, too!" I exclaimed.

I quickly loaded the dishes and pans into the dishwasher and started it. We hadn't run it since the first meal I'd fixed her, so it'd gotten pretty full. Then I headed out to the minivan. She had pulled several boxes out, but thankfully hadn't moved them into the house.

"I've got a hand-truck," I said, entering the combination on the buttons for the garage door opener. Just inside was the green hand-truck. I brought it out and stacked 3 plastic boxes on it.

As I wheeled them into the house, she directed me, "Just put them in the guest room for now. I'll go through them and sort them out eventually."

I repeated the process a few more times until I was done. Then I closed up her van and the garage. Back in the guest room I found she'd segregated out two boxes that had clothing. She was pulling some out on the guest bed and looking at them with a slight frown.

"I kept only stuff I really like," she said a little dejected. "I might need to go shopping before we leave."

"That's not a problem, Katie," I told her. "I'll take you shopping." I thought about it a bit and then offered. "You know, we should pack lightly. Only taking what we absolutely need. Then we can buy some things there and bring them back."

That got a big smile. "Yeah, that's right, we're going to be right there in the midst of fashion."

"What do you really need that you don't have? I'm thinking I should get a medium weight leather jacket that has a removable lining since we don't really know how cool it will be."

"I definitely need one of those too. I guess I should get a pair of slacks and a fall dress. I have undergarments and blouses I can wear."

"I might get a new pair of comfortable shoes and we might want to break them in before we leave Sunday," I told her.

Her mood was definitely ticking up a notch. "Comfortable walking shoes are a really good idea. We're probably going to walk everywhere. How many days are we in Paris again?"

"I think that one is the longest stay after Amsterdam," I offered. Picking up the sheet with the info. "It's two weeks total time: four days in Amsterdam, two days in Brussels, five days in Paris and three days in Nice. We're pretty much on our own, it's not some group tour thing."

"Yeah, I'm going to want to walk all over Paris."

"I know five days seems like a long time, but we may not even get to see everything you want," I warned her. "There's travel time between cities that eat some of that time. But like I said, if you fall in love with some place, we can take nearly a whole month to go there. Like Paris in the spring time might be a really cool trip."

"I don't want to take all your time up on trips for me," she seemed to waiver. "I'd like to go on some trips you want to do too, like that dive trip you told me about."

"Katie, honey, honestly, I like going all kinds of places. We'll get you scuba trained and take a dive trip."

"Oh, hmm, okay, yeah. I could probably do that training while you're on the rig too, couldn't I?"

"Yeah, there a several places here in Corpus that do it in a pool. They usually do it in a two week period, but they might even have some faster paced ones."

"Okay. Cool. Well, let's go get some coats and shoes," she beamed at me from the bed.

"You want to drive your van?" I asked. "That might be better than me pointing out places as I drive you there."

"Yeah, I just need to get dressed."

"Me too," I agreed.

We both went back to the master bedroom. I cleared a few of my emptier drawers by combining. Then I got dressed in some jeans and a polo shirt.

She noticed what I was doing and caressed my back lovingly. "You're so sweet to make more space for me."

"Well, I guess this is kind of your official move in day. All of your stuff is out of the van. You only took that one drawer for your undergarments and we haven't gotten you a dresser yet. I can't believe that is all you have left. I couldn't get my stuff in a thirty-two foot truck."

"You'd be surprised at what you don't really need, Dan."

She'd gotten on a nice flowery blouse and a khaki pair of slacks. We were both ready to go. "Okay, do you remember how to get to that outlet mall I showed you?" I asked as I opened the door for her.

"I think so, but you can give me hints if I'm getting it wrong, right?" she pretended to plead.

"Of course. I'm not testing you," I said as I locked the front door behind us.

She unlocked the van and we got in. She drove us right to the outlet mall. I guess she'd been paying closer attention than I'd thought. Katie always had a better sense of direction than I. She was smarter about a lot of things. School had always come easier for her too. I wasn't jealous, it just made me admire her more. My big smart sister who took such good care of me. I was feeling pretty good about being able to take care of her a bit.

At the outlet mall she parked in front of the leather store. It was a fairly large place, not quite Texas sized, but they had thousands of jackets and coats. They even had a large and tall selection for me. I often had issues finding jackets that fit my 6' 3" frame. Katie tried on dozens of jackets. Several were quite fetching, but didn't taper the way she wanted or came too low. I browsed for ones I thought she might like and tried to help.

After maybe twenty minutes of searching, she finally took one of the ones I'd offered. It had just a bit of taper, didn't come too much past the waist. It was fairly stylish to me. The black leather really looked good against her blond hair.

"I really like that one, Katie. It looks good, it has a removable lining and should be flexible enough for different situations. Let's take the lining out and make sure you still like it," I said, giving her a hand to get it off.

"Yeah, thanks." When she put it back on, her face was all smiles. "It's a little looser with the lining out, but it feels like it'd be light enough to be comfortable even on a warmer day."

With hers picked out I set out to find something similar. I didn't want to be all matched, but I didn't want to clash. She helped find me ones she liked for me too. I ended up picking one that was very similar, just didn't have the taper hers did. XXLT was just the right length in the sleeve and coat tail. Mine came down a bit further than hers, kind of mid butt. We paid and took those to the van. Then we were off to the shoe outlet.

The shoe outlet had way more women's shoes than men's. Here we split up. I went looking for a slip-on style that had some decent support and cushion in the sole. I found some nice ones that had a waterproof edging that would be good if there were any rain. When I found her she was trying on a pair and had several boxes stacked up. There appeared to be a pile of rejects and contenders.

I showed her what I'd gotten and she smiled... "I have a pair very similar that I'm going to try next."

She ended up picking those. "I guess we are going to be coordinated," I teased.

"Hey, it just means we have similar tastes. Speaking of which, I'm getting hungry. I guess I hadn't realized how much time had passed since our lunch."

Looking outside I saw it was now dark. "Yeah, I don't know where the time went. What are you interested in eating?" I never see it coming. I always put my foot right in my mouth.

She giggled at me as we walked to the check out. "I made the lunch, you pick something for dinner."

"Okay, I think there's a sushi place near here. Is that something you like?"

"I've never had it. Can you believe it? But I'll give it a try," she offered.

Outside we put on the new shoes and put the old ones in the back with the jackets. I had her drive the short distance to the sushi restaurant. The place was packed, although it was starting to clear out. It was a Friday night and it was after the main dinner rush. Inside the hostess seated us at a table for two and gave us those sushi check lists... I never use them, I guess I'm contrary.

"I like salmon and tuna. Sometimes I'll eat yellow tail or cooked eel or shrimp, but I don't eat any raw shellfish," I explained. "I'm pretty tame on this stuff, but they have some super rolls that have mixtures and combinations of those things. And I like most of those."

"You order stuff and I'll sample whatever you get," she said a little timidly.

When the waitress came over she introduced herself, "I'm Pam and I'll be taking care of you tonight. Do you know what you would like?"

"Pam, I just like to order a-la-carte if that's okay. We'll have 8 pieces of salmon nigiri, 4 pieces of tuna nigiri, 4 pieces of cooked shrimp nigiri, a crispy bagel roll and a shrimp tempura asparagus roll."

Pam repeated the order back and asked, "Would you like something to drink?"

"I'd like a soda water with a lime," I said. "You want the same?" I asked Katie.

"Yes, that'd be perfect."

"Okay, I'll have that right out to you." Pam said.

As Pam left us, I remembered my thought from earlier. "Katie?" I hesitated. "You haven't said a word about Zane or Adam." I paused some more thinking she might jump in. Nothing. "How are they dealing with your divorce?" I had a flood of questions, but didn't ask them all at once. But a stream of them were bouncing around in my head. Are they okay? What are they doing? Do they know you're here? Did you tell them you were going to stay here a while?

She sat and thought. There was a long silence. Finally, she answered, "They are doing as well as can be expected. This divorce took us all by surprise. Zane is a super smart girl - um woman I mean. She's in graduate school studying bio-chem. Adam started in a bio-medical graduate program this fall, too."

"Wow, that's super!" I couldn't figure out what the long pause was about. She wasn't offering anything more. "I guess they both got their smarts from you," I offered.

"Yeah, I guess so," she said absently.

"I just got Tommy off to our old school. He's a good kid; I hope his fall semester as a freshman goes well." I wondered how he was doing there. Katie and I had been so involved with ourselves, I almost hadn't thought about him.

Pam was back with drinks and several pieces of sushi. "Here are your drinks and this is the first batch of sushi: salmon, tuna and shrimp. The rolls will be out in a few more minutes."

After she left I said, "So this is how I eat these. I like this place because the pieces aren't too large." I placed a few pieces on my plate. Then I poured some of the low sodium soy sauce in the little tray and added a pinch of wasabi. I mixed the two together. I place one piece in the mixture with the chopsticks for just a second or two. "You don't want to leave it too long or the rice will come apart. Then the whole thing into your mouth at once."

"I can do the chopsticks. What is the green stuff?"

"Oh, I should have said that. It's a little spicy, kind of like horseradish. Actually, it's exactly like horseradish, unless you're at a really high end restaurant they just dye the horseradish green. I guess real wasabi is too expensive. Anyway, you probably want to go slow at first, unless you like spicy things."

She dipped her chopsticks in my sauce and tasted it. "Oh, that's not bad, kind of tangy." Then she repeated my example with a piece of salmon. Watching her chew it up, I worried she might not like it. However, she began to smile and my worry disappeared. "Hey, that's pretty good. Its raw fish right?"

"Yeah, it's raw. But fresh salmon is yummy. It almost has a buttery flavor to me," I said.

"Yeah, it is buttery. So is the tuna similar?"

"I don't know how to describe the tuna. Some people really like it some don't. Almost everyone seems to like salmon. You've probably had seared tuna before though right?"

"Yes, I think I have."

"So, you probably know sort of what it's like and the shrimp are just cooked shrimp flattened out on the rice."

I watched her eat one of the tuna. She seemed to like it. "I like these too, but not as much as the salmon." Then she tried the shrimp. "These are just shrimp, but there was some spice on there."

"Yeah, sometimes they bomb the shrimp or even the fish. Depends on who's making it," I said.

We continued eating the sushi in silence. Pam showed up with the two rolls all sliced up and presented with some sauce on top. The crispy bagel had a spicy mayonnaise and the tempura shrimp with asparagus had a tangy sweet and spicy sauce.

I let her try each first. The shrimp was an easy win. The look on her face from the crispy bagel was priceless. "It tastes like a bagel with cream cheese and lox," she said in slight disbelief.

"Yea, they use a smoked salmon for it. There is also cream cheese and a green onion all wrapped in rice and a tempura batter they flash fry."

"Wow, I liked them all," she said surprised. "I can't believe I never ate it before now. Makes me wonder what else I've been missing out on all this time, jeez."

"Hey, don't do that. No regrets. We'll keep doing new stuff, okay?" I really wanted her not to dwell on missing out on things, but open her mind to trying things. She'd been doing it some already... Pushing me to have sex at the beach. I just wanted to expand the realm of possibilities.

"You're right. I'm glad you brought me here though. Thanks for sharing this with me, Dan."

I paid the bill and over tipped, but not as much as the seafood place. These guys had plenty of business. We walked back out to the Odyssey holding hands. I was glad we'd decided to put the shoes on tonight. I could feel the stiffness of them. The night was cooler than the previous nights. The storm had given cloud cover most of the day. Now it was clear and the heat could escape.

Katie said, "Now is the real test. Can I find my way home in the darkness?"

"You sure seem to get us straight here. I think you know more than you're letting on."

Sure enough we were home in minutes. We were getting the stuff out of the back of the van when the thought came back to me. I decided I should ask her inside. At the door I struggled to get the key in the lock. I didn't usually stay out past dark, so I didn't have much experience locating the keyhole.

"You never seem to have that trouble with me," she teased.

Jeez not even in the door and she's randy. Jim was clearly an idiot. I guess I should be glad since I was the benefactor. It still made me a little sad that she'd gone all those years. No regrets, I needed to follow my own rules. What we had now was what was important.

Finally, with the key in the lock I'd gotten us into the house. "I guess I need an automatic light out there. Maybe I can get it installed before I leave for the rig," I said hopefully.

"It'll be fine if not. I guess we should pack."

"Yeah, we should do it today and then get anything we're missing tomorrow. You should use your roller-bag, just don't fill it full. I think I'm going to use my back pack and a tote. My strategy for trips is to take a week's worth of underwear but only three or four changes of clothes. I'm leaning towards three on this one. We can always buy anything we need."

"Yeah, lighter will be better," she agreed. "I'm not sure about the roller bag. It's kind of bulky."

"I think I have a smaller one." I went out into the hall and pulled down the attic ladder. Just inside the attic I found one that was smaller. Handing it down to her I said, "I think that'll probably hold your clothes and even your jacket."

She took it and agreed, "Yep. I can get all my stuff in here and still have some room to bring back a few things. Maybe some sexy night wear." Her hand crept up my crotch as I was descending the ladder.

"You are insatiable," I said smiling. "I wouldn't have it any other way of course."

"Okay, I'll give you ten minutes to pack. Then I'm coming to get you," she said.

"You're on," I answered back.

In my room I quickly put six pair of underwear and socks in the ends of my medium size duffel bag. Then I got two polo shirts, two dress shirts, a pair of shorts, a pair of jeans and two pair of slacks (one khaki & one navy blue). I put my shaving bag in which was always packed for just such trips. There was just enough room for my jacket. That'd leave my back pack open for some items besides my little laptop.

Katie wasn't too far behind me. She came rushing into my room. "Are you done?"

"Yeah. Looks like you are too; that was fast. Have you been practicing?"

"No, just excited," she said, rubbing my crotch. "It's going to be fun, I just know it."

"You'll be there, so I know it'll be fun for me." I returned her advances and brought her in for a deep kiss.

When we finally broke the kissing and groping session, I said, "Sorry, I've got to use the restroom. Pam kept my sparkling water full the whole meal."

"Yes she did. I'm going to visit your guest bathroom."

When Katie returned, I was at the right most basin of the master bathroom brushing my teeth and she joined me in my nightly ritual. I finished up and proceeded to the bedroom where I stripped down. I placed the dirty clothes in the hamper. Looking at it I guessed we should probably do some preparations tomorrow.

I climbed into bed and watched Katie strip down. When she scooted in beside me, I said, "We'll have to get the house ready tomorrow. Clean out anything that might spoil from the fridge. Do any wet laundry... All that jazz."

"Yes, but that shouldn't take too long. We need to go somewhere and walk a bit to break in our shoes, too," she replied.

"I was thinking maybe the park. They have a walking trail that is nice. There'll also be plenty of walking in the airports Sunday," I said, hugging her close.

Despite our state of arousal, we were both pretty tired. I was sensing she was pretty tense. We didn't discuss it, but the anticipation of the trip was taking a small toll on Katie. I knew she was excited about the trip, but there must have been some anxiety about it too. It was going to be her first trip out of the country. She was probably putting a lot of trust in me to make sure it went right.

I touched off the touch-lamp beside the bed and told her, "It is going to be fine. I love you."

She didn't say anything back, but pressed her backside into me and relaxed a bit. I massaged her shoulders and felt how tight they were. She was asleep after a few minutes of my gentle kneading. I drifted into my own slumber hoping the trip could live up to her expectations.