Living Dolls: The Director's Cut

Everyone had a good laugh as Andrea stood up. She leaned in just as Gail had, and with her back to the other girls, I gave her left breast, her particularly sensitive left breast, a gentle squeeze.

"Mmmmm," she closed her eyes and moaned against me.

"See you at the rehearsal, Andy," I said, kissing her cheek.

"Next," I said loudly, to cover the sounds from the living room, "a request for Julie Pinsky. The gentleman is immature, insecure, and –"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Julie got up. "I enjoyed your sister last night, Thompson."

Sitting at the table, Karen blushed, and I got my cheek kissed again before Julie exited. That left Sue, Shelly, and Karen at the table.

"Well," Sue grinned ferally, "shall we—"

"Ah, ah, ah." I held up my hand to stop her from saying something that she might not want overheard in the living room. "I'm not done yet. I have a request for Sue Waggoner, from a tall, geeky-looking, barely coordinated—"

"Joshua!" Sue shrieked. I never got that kiss. She was through the door before I could even tell her I'd see her tonight.

I looked back at the table. Shelly looked a little sad, aware that she alone would be without a date tonight. Karen looked a little angry, aware that I'd put Shelly in a position where this had become painfully obvious.

"Excuse me a minute," I said, ducking back out of the room. I took a quick look at everyone in the living room: Andrea holding Mr. Pinsky's hand, a big smile on her face; Julie and Gordon; Gail and Chris; Sue and Gunner. I handed the clipboard to Steve – after we'd coordinated our attack, I'd changed into clothing that resembled what Steve was wearing – and he went through the door with his head down.

"Sorry," he said, following the script. "Next up is a request for Shelly Johnson, from an idiot who can't believe he didn't have more faith in her back in college and is here to beg her forgiveness."

Karen told me afterward that she knew it wasn't me from the word "sorry," but that Shelly didn't know something was amiss until the word "college." At that point, she simply stared at "me."

"Steve?" we all finally heard her whisper.

"Shelly Havelmeyer, I love you," he said. "If you can forgive me, I'd like to—"

At that point, all we heard was the scrape of a chair on the floor, someone running, and a body hitting the wall between the kitchen and the dining room. Peering in nervously, I saw Steve and Shelly locked in a kiss as Shelly pressed him against the wall. I smiled at Karen, and beckoned her out with my finger.

By the time Steve and Shelly finished "talking" in the dining room, Karen and I were the only ones left.

"Gail said to tell you that she'll set two extra places tonight at the rehearsal dinner for you two," I told the new couple when they finally emerged. "She and Chris had a few last-minute things to do with the Pinskys, well, the Pinskys-to-be, and Sue and Gunner – let's just say that Sue's parents are gone for the weekend. But Sue assured me that they'll be at the rehearsal dinner, too. Meantime, though, they have been apart for two entire days."

Everyone laughed.

"And where are you two headed?" I asked. "I mean, you've been apart for what, almost two entire decades?"

"Almost," Steve said with a smile at his reclaimed love. "But I think we want to take it a little more slowly. So, if you don't mind, Shelly offered me a cup of your coffee."

"Sure," I said. "Have a seat. I'll be happy to get you one. I notice nobody offered me a cup of coffee."

"It's your house, moron," Karen said.

When I returned, Karen and Shelly were nowhere around. Probably doing the laundry. Probably a good idea. Steve was reading the paper I'd brought in before.

"Here you go," I said, handing Steve one of the cups. I went back to the kitchen and fetched myself a bowl of cereal and sat down in the other wing chair. "Are you looking at the sports?"

He handed me that section with a grin, and I began reading about the game. Apparently, not much had changed after I turned it off and began playing with Shelly and Andy.

I heard a giggle from across the room and looked up to see both women staring at me intently. Well, staring at me and Steve.

"What?" I asked.

"You both do that little thing where you bite your lip and arch one eyebrow when you're concentrating," Karen said.

"Yeah, we're actually twins," I said. "But Steve has premature aging disease. He'll be sixty in an hour and a half, so maybe you better take him home now, Shelly. Do you have any Viagra? You got about fifteen minutes before you need that."

"Seriously," Shelly laughed. "You could be brothers."

"Well, I was adopted," Steve said. "But his parents would have to be pretty old by now."

"They are in their early fifties," Karen pointed out. "What is it?"

After a few more seconds, I became aware that I was staring off into space, and that three people were staring at me.

"You know," I explained slowly, "on Karen McCarthy Day last winter – that's the day we celebrate Karen McCarthy's birthday, whether she's here or not – I asked Dad why they never had any more kids. And he said that until I came along they thought they couldn't have any more."

"So you mean Mom and Dad had a kid before you?" Karen asked breathlessly.

"I don't know," I shrugged my shoulders. "I guess they could have. I never followed up on it."

Encyclopedia Brown strikes again.

"Say," I said with a smile, "why don't we just ask them when they get home. 'Hi, Mom, did you give your first son up for adoption? When you were, like, seventeen? Oh, and by the way, is this him?' That'll be fun."

"Hang on a minute," Karen said, just before dashing upstairs.

I did hang on, two or three minutes, in fact, until it occurred to me, and my stomach, that I still hadn't eaten any breakfast.

"If you guys don't mind, I'm just going to get a bowl of cereal while we're waiting for Red to come back," I said. "Some of us were inside pigging out on bacon and eggs while others of us were outside trying to reunite people with their college sweethearts."

I didn't have the chance, though, because we heard Karen thundering down the stairs.

"Oh my God, you guys, you have to hear this," she said. She looked back up the stairs.

"Come on, come on," she gestured impatiently.

"Yes, mistress," my mother said as she came down the last few steps.

Whatever it was we were supposed to hear was going to have wait, though, because Mom took one look at Steve sitting in his chair and her face glazed over.

"Stevie," she whispered, her eyes fluttering. She fell backward, her head slamming into the railing.

Steve jumped to his feet and ran over, pulling her head into his lap. Shelly and I, who knew better, simply glared at Karen.

"Turn her back," I said.

Karen looked down at Steve and leaned down to touch Mom.

"Sorry," she said. "Living doll."

Steven found himself with a plastic doll in his lap.

"What the hell is this?" he looked around wildly at the three of us. That ate up another fifteen minutes before we were able put the doll on the couch, where Karen again turned her into Mom.

"Mom," she started immediately. "You can't see anybody else in this room. Only me, okay?"

"Yes, mistress," Mom said.

"I want you to tell me, without crying," she glanced over at us, "about your first son."

"Stevie?" Mom said.

"Stevie."

You know, it was no wonder she hated my grandparents. God damn fuckers. Grandpa Thompson had been the only one who'd taken her side, and the combined wrath of Mom's dad and the two harridans that Mom and Dad had for mothers had been enough to overcome his resistance to the idea of spiriting his young, unmarried son's new baby away for an illegal adoption.

At this point, we realized that Mom and Dad would be home within the hour, so we carefully scripted the way that they would find out about Steve. He and Shelly would be upstairs waiting; Karen and I would sit Mom and Dad down and explain, very calmly, that we had found out about their earlier child. When they'd digested that, we'd explain that we'd actually found the child. And finally, we'd bring him out.

It was a great plan, with no chance for success. When I took the cereal bowl that I'd finally scored back into the kitchen to put it in the dishwasher, I heard the front door open and Mom yell out "We're home!"

"Shit," I muttered, rinsing the soap off my hands and drying them off before I headed for the living room. When I got there, completely unnoticed, I found my mom standing directly behind the chair that Steve occupied, facing the couch where Karen and Shelly were sitting. Dad stood a few steps behind her. I was behind both of them.

"Shelly," Mom said calmly. "What are you doing here?"

A fleeting smile played across Shelly's face.

"I'm in love with your son," she said to Mom.

Mom's head came back a little.

"Shelly, do you think that's wise?" she said.

"In fact, I think I'm gonna marry him," Shelly added, making a kiss at Steve. Evidently they hadn't fully agreed on that bit about taking it slowly.

Mom's head pivoted to the left.

"And what do you think of this, Karen?" she asked, in her best judgment-free psychologist voice.

"I'm in love with your son, too," Karen grinned. "We're already planning on getting married. June 23rd. The Moose Lodge."

"And Jason," she put her hand on Steven's shoulders and looked down at his head, "what do you think about all of this?"

See, this is what cheesed me off. Brother or not, this guy's losing his hair faster than, well, faster than the Eagles can lose to the Cowboys. My hair is very thick, very full, very not 34 years old. And Mom's standing there staring at the top of his head, asking him a Jason question.

"I think it's great," I said from directly behind her.

Mom whipped around and stared at me.

"As long as little Stevie understands that I get the redhead."

Steve had stood up and Mom now turned back to look at him. She stared, looked back at me, back at him, and then she reached out to touch his face with her hand.

"Stevie," she murmured.

I caught her easily, even as I heard the sound of Dad hitting the floor next to me.

"Well, we hadn't figured on that one," Karen sighed.

Gail and Chris's wedding was beautiful. Andy and Gene's wedding was beautiful. Shelly and Steve's wedding, which we somehow slipped in the following spring, was beautiful.

_________________

Today is June 23rd. Time for Karen and Jason's wedding. I hope it'll be beautiful, too. It's just a hope, of course, because, as usual, I have been kept completely in the dark.

Yesterday, the whole gang had assembled to watch Karen and Julie graduate from high school. Karen – surprise, surprise - had ended up the valedictorian of the class.

And now the whole gang is waiting for another ceremony. Gordon is adjusting my bow tie in the house we've rented next door to the Moose Lodge.

"So you really haven't seen what she's done to it?" he asks, again.

"No," I say, again. "Apparently everyone else has. I take it you have."

"Well, of course," he smiles. "I was there yesterday with the maid of honor."

"Oh, for Chrissakes," I say, "tell me you didn't boink her in the Moose Lodge where I'm getting married."

"I didn't," he admits. "It was hard, though. All right, my friend. We are ready to go. One more trip to the john and I'm your man."

"My best man." I give him a big smile.

He leaves just as Sue sticks her head in the door. She looks ravishing in her bridesmaid dress, just as her boyfriend Joshua looks handsome in his tux.

"Hey, studly." Her eyes travel up and down. "Lookin' good. Have you seen the flower girls?"

"Sue and Julie?" I ask. "They're right out there."

She joins me at the window and we watch the two eight-year-old girls, their blonde and brunette heads bent together while they look at something in the grass, trying desperately but unsuccessfully to follow the instructions they were given not to get their beautiful white dresses dirty.

"I always wanted to be a flower girl," Sue sighs.

"And a bridesmaid," I point out. "At the same wedding."

We stand there and watch them a little longer.

"I'll go round 'em up," she says.

"So just put them back in the closet after we've left, okay?" I finally tell her.

"You bet," Sue says. "I just love that you invited them."

"Invited who?" Gordon asks as he returns.

"Those two little dolls out on the lawn."