Mandy and Me Ch. 08

"Sounds good to me," I said. "Do you wanna drive?"

"I was a little leery about this road, drivin' in," she shook her head. "I'll take it from the lake back to the house, if it's alright with you. It's a much smoother road, and I'd rather have that for my first time, drivin' this tractor."

I climbed into the driver's seat, and gave her a hand to help her up onto the fender. When she was situated, I reached for my pack of cigarettes and shook a couple up and loose. Giving one to her and taking one for myself, I lit us both up and then started the engine. The clearing was just big enough for me to turn around without backing up, and then we were following our tracks back into the woods.

Having driven the road already, I knew its condition and was able to drive a bit faster on our return trip. Almost before we knew it, we had arrived back at the lake, and I pulled up close to the fire ring and shut off the engine.

Mandy got the basket and blanket and headed for the rear end of the trailer. She spread the blanket on the back of the trailer and we sat to enjoy the sandwiches and coffee while we chatted. After we finished, I picked up the basket and thermos to put them back at the front of the trailer. Stowing them away took me a couple minutes, and then I turned my attention to making sure that the tools were all properly stowed. That took a few more minutes.

"Honey, c'm'ere a minute, I wanna show you somethin'," I heard my wife call.

I walked back to the rear of the trailer, and what a sight awaited me. Mandy had gone and grabbed the blanket, again, spreading it out on the ground, and was laying there, on her side, utterly naked and smoking the last of her after-lunch cigarette. Obviously, she captured my undivided attention.

"What are you doin, Sugar?" I asked her.

"Since I'm layin' here, naked as a jay-bird, I'd think that'd be rather obvious to you, Honey," she laughed. "But, since you asked, I was thinkin' that, since it's getting' kinda close to Christmas, I thought you might enjoy a little 'piece on earth' while we're out here by ourselves. After all, this is where you got that first piece o' ass, from me, ain't it? I just wanna keep that memory alive."

"Woman, your capacity for imagination never ceases to amaze me," I chuckled, walking over to the blanket as I began to undress. "You get to tell Grandma why we're late gettin' back, though. 'Course, knowin' her, she probably put you up to it."

"No, this was all my idea," she said, laughing, as I stretched out on the blanket, next to her.

"So, now what?" I asked her.

"I've been lookin' forward to this, all mornin'," she smiled, "so I'm wet 'n' ready for you. Just climb on top, slide that big boy into me, and make slow, passionate love to me."

I did just as she asked, and it really did bring back memories of the very first time we'd made love, in that very place. It was relaxing and enjoyable, and I would never be able to sing certain Christmas carols, again, without having to repress a snicker at the memory of this little interlude.

As I thought, we were much later getting back to the house than I'd said we'd be. When we arrived, Mom and Grandma both came out on the porch to see what we had. Both of them were excited by our choice and thought the tree would be beautiful. The house had ten-foot ceilings, so we needed to cut the tree down to about eight feet. I cranked the saw again and cut the trunk where they wanted. After trimming limbs again, we were ready to put the tree in the stand. Once we'd cleared the trimmings up, Mandy and I carried the tree to the front porch and through the door into the living room. Placing it in the proper location in front of the living room windows was a long, drawn out process, with each woman wanting it moved here and there, or turned a particular way, for the best effect.

Finally, the tree was in place and the decorating could begin. As I expected, each of the ladies had her idea of what was the best place for each ornament and light, with much good-natured bickering between them. I retired to the kitchen early in the process, and made another pot of coffee, got a cup, and went out on the back porch. I dropped into one of the wooden chairs, there, perched my coffee on a side table, and lit a cigarette, wondering how long it would be before the three women noticed my absence.

As I expected, it wasn't long before Mandy came out, looking for me. She took her usual place in my lap, stole a sip of my coffee, wrinkling her face in displeasure, since there was no cream and sugar, and then plucked the pack of cigarettes and lighter from the table and lit one.

"Why'd you disappear, Honey?" she asked me as she exhaled her first drag. "Grandma said that you should be the one doin' most o' the decoratin', since you were so late getting' us back with the tree."

"And I suppose you didn't bother tellin' her the real reason why we were so late, gettin' back, did you?" I chided her. "As I recall, you caused it all, an' I told you then it was your responsibility to tell folks why."

"So, 'fess up, Mandy," Grandma's voice came from just inside the kitchen door, where she'd apparently been standing, listening to us. "Why were y'all so late, gettin' back? Did y'all stop at the lake, for a bit, for some monkeyshines?"

"Yes'm, that's what we were doin'," Mandy said, shyly, as she blushed and looked down at her lap.

"Don't worry about it, Baby," Grandma laughed, stepping out onto the porch to lean against the railing. "You're not the first one that's ever done it, and most likely you won't be the last. I'm not worried about you and my grandson. After all, you're married, and you were just doin' what most young folks would do, in your place."

"Thanks for understandin', Grandma," Mandy looked up at her and smiled.

"To tell you the honest truth," Grandma nodded, "I knew what you were plannin', when I saw you grab that blanket on your way out the door, this mornin'. Patsy figured it, too. In fact, we were guessin' just how late y'all would be. And, by the way, girl, you didn't get all the grass outta your hair."

"We can't put nothin' over, on you, can we, Grandma?" Mandy giggled, blushing, as combed her fingers through her hair.

"Sugar, Mom told me, a long time ago, that any time I thought about doin' somethin', she'd already done it and knew all about it. Grandma knows even more, 'cause she's been around longer. Your mom's probably the same way, too."

"Yeah, she is kinda that way, I guess all moms are," she agreed "Now, back to why I came out here, you're needed in the living room to put the top decorations on the tree. C'mon Honey, we're almost done, 'cept for your part, and I've even got the ladder set up for you."

It was time to cooperate with the inevitable, and get the job over with. We headed back to the living room, where Grandma took her seat, serving in her capacity as supervisor. I climbed the ladder and placed each ornament as directed by Mom and Mandy. Within about half an hour, the last of the ornaments were in place, and Mom started to hand me the tree topper we'd always used.

"Wait a minute, Mom," I waved her off. "And hand me that pair of pruning shears, please. I've got to trim some twigs back, here at the top, to get a straight spike to put the topper on."

Mom handed me the shears, and the trimming took only a minute or so. Then I put the topper in place, climbed down the ladder and moved it, and plugged the light cord into a nearby outlet. Mom turned off all the other lights in the living room, and then I flipped the switch that controlled the outlet, and the tree blazed with light and color. All three ladies cheered their approval as the tree lit up the darkened room. Mandy, though, was like a little girl, squealing in delight about how beautiful the tree was.

"I've gotta call Mama so she can see what we've got," she said excitedly, as she reached for the phone and dialed her folks' number.

"Mama! You've gotta come over to our house, and see what I've got!" she blurted out, after a few seconds. Then, "Okay, Mama; see you soon."

She turned to me, then, and wrapped me in her arms.

"Thank you, Honey, thank you!" she told me, wrapping her arms around me, giving me a kiss that took my breath away. "I've never seen a tree this pretty, in my whole life! Thank you for thinkin' of usin' a holly! It's just so beautiful!"

Mandy was waiting on the front porch, when Maggie's car pulled into the yard some fifteen minutes later. Still acting like a little girl, she ran to the car and met Maggie there.

"Mama, you've gotta come in and see what Mike got me, for our first Christmas tree; it's just so beautiful!"

She led her mother to the back of the house, and into the kitchen, and then made her close her eyes, as she took her by the hand and guided her into the living room.

"Open your eyes, Mama," she said, then, and we all heard Maggie's gasp.

"Where did you ever find a holly, and who had the idea of usin' one for a Christmas tree?" Maggie asked. "I've never seen anything like it, before."

"Mike and I went into the woods past the lake, this mornin', and found the tree," Mandy said. He knew where they were, and we looked 'til we found the perfect one. Isn't it beautiful?"

"Is there another one, a little smaller, out there?" Maggie asked.

"There are a few in the three to four foot range," I told her, "but none of 'em have berries on 'em. They're either too immature to bear fruit, or they're male trees that won't have the berries. Everything else we saw there is over fifteen feet high. Have y'all looked on your property? There's likely some holly, there, since birds eat the berries and scatter the seeds. The problem is findin' one out by itself, so nothin' affects the shape. A lot of time you'll find 'em growin' right alongside another tree, which messes up the shape."

Now that she'd seen our tree, Maggie obviously had her heart set on having a holly tree in their living room, as well. In a way, it was my fault, since I'd been the one who'd thought of using a holly in the first place, and so I figured I'd better do my part to bail Charles out. There was one nice fifteen-foot female, standing a bit apart from the rest of the trees, and I'd been thinking of using it, until I'd spotted the shorter tree. I could cut it, and lop off the bottom eight or nine feet, and set that piece aside to trim down for firewood.

All in all, it seemed like a pretty good solution to the problem. Maggie would be happy, because she'd have her holly tree, and Charles would be happy because he wouldn't have to take some of the time he'd budgeted for remodeling their kitchen, to go looking for one. Now that I knew exactly where that stand of holly was, and the condition of the road going back in there, it probably wouldn't take more than a half hour to drive back out there, another ten or fifteen minutes to drop the tree and do the trimming, plus a half-hour to drive back home. It had been the looking for a usable holly, plus our leisurely lunch and about an hour of lovemaking that turned Mandy's and my Saturday trip into the half-day excursion.

I went back outside and drove the tractor and trailer back down to the shop, refueling the tractor before putting it, and the trailer, away in the rear section of the old building for the night. While I was there, I looked the space over, mentally planning the next phase of my shop expansion. Even with storing the old tractor and its attachments, and the trailer, I was only using about half of the building, now, so there was plenty of room to grow. Plus, if push came to shove, there was still the old standard barn, a little farther out. It needed a bit of work to put it back to being weather-tight, but there'd be plenty of room in there for parking the farm machinery, thus freeing up more space in the shop building.

Thinking about expanding the shop brought my mind around to some of the reasons I'd probably need the extra space, and that reminded me that I needed to put together a quote for Tim Johnson. I already knew what I'd need, for raw materials, since I refused to compromise on the way we built our cabinets.

I stopped into Mandy's office to make myself a note to call the lumberyard, first thing in the morning, and get prices on ¾" veneer core birch plywood, ¾" BC grade plywood, and ¼" BC grade plywood. I also made a note to get a price on lip mould, so I could offer Tim an economical upgrade on the doors, if he was interested.

After making sure everything in the shop was secure, I headed back to the house to see what the ladies were doing about dinner. We would be hosting Maggie and Charles for breakfast, the next morning, again because Maggie had no kitchen in which to cook until the new cabinets and appliances were installed. Maggie's new cabinets were already loaded in the shop trailer so that Larry and I could deliver and install them the next afternoon, and I was pretty sure that the new appliances were all stored in a small shed near the Reynolds farmhouse. I walked through the back door and into the kitchen, to receive a hug and kiss from Mandy.

"Go wash up, Honey," she instructed me. "Dinner's almost ready. We'll have it on the table by the time you get cleaned up."

I headed back to the bedroom to get a quick shower and change clothes, and returned to the kitchen as Mom and Mandy were putting the last of the food on the table. We sat down, filled our plates, and dug in.

"How long do you think it'll take, to get Maggie's kitchen back together so she can work in it, Mike?" Grandma asked.

"That depends on a couple of things, Grandma," I mused. "The cabinets are all finished, and loaded in the shop trailer. If there weren't any hold-ups in gettin' the old kitchen torn out, an' the prep-work done for the new stuff, Larry an' I oughta be able to get her cabinets all installed by tomorrow afternoon. Beyond that, it's up to her. I reckon it'll take her a day to empty the boxes of kitchen stuff back into the cabinets."

"That long?" Mom asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Unless she's got it all planned out, already, as to where she wants stuff to go, it'll take her a bit of time to do it," I grinned. "Charles an' I planned this remodel to give her about a third more cabinets than she's been used to havin', so she may want to re-think where stuff goes. She also said that she wanted to paint the inside of the cabinets. That means at least one coat each, of primer and paint, and dryin' time, between coats. If she can work out of boxes, for a few days, to do her cookin', she oughta be able to use the new kitchen by day after tomorrow."

We finished dinner, and Mom and Mandy were in the process of clearing the table and cleaning up, when the phone rang. Grandma went to the living room, since that's where the phone was located, to answer it.

"We really have to look at gettin' a phone put in the kitchen, Sugar," I told Mandy. "We spend almost as much time here, as in the living room, you know. More, if you count the time spent in cookin' meals."

"While we're at it, we oughta get an extension in our bedroom," she suggested. "There's probably gonna be times when one o' your crew has to call in sick, or somethin', early in the mornin', and you need to be able to hear the phone ring."

"Good idea," I agreed. "Mom, would you want an extension in your bedroom, too?"

"No, Baby, not right now," she said. "It's not that far from my room to the living room."

The thought occurred to me, then, that I might be able to surprise Mom by getting a separate line put in, for her to use, especially if the phone company hadn't re-issued our old in-town phone number to someone else, yet, but my train of thought got derailed by a sudden exclamation from Grandma, in the living room.

"Oh, no, Junior!" she gasped loudly, and we immediately went quiet so as to hear anything else she said.

"What are you gonna do?" Grandma asked my uncle, next. Then, "When are you comin?" Another pause. "Well, let us know if there's anythin' we can do, okay?" Finally, "Alright, Baby; I love you, an' I wish you the best. See you soon. Bye."

Mom was already on her feet, by that point, heading to the living room to find out what had happened with Junior, and Mandy and I weren't far behind. Grandma was sitting in her chair, shaking her head and blotting tears from her eyes with a tissue. Mom and Mandy immediately perched on the arms of the chair, putting their arms around Grandma to comfort her, quietly telling her that everything would be all right. I knelt at her feet, taking her hands in mine.

"What happened, Grandma?" I asked. "What's going on, with Junior?"

"He an' Kathy are splittin' up," she sighed. "Apparently, after they got home from visitin' us, last weekend, they had a big fight over his sellin' you his part of the farm the way he did. He said she was madder than he'd ever seen her, and that he had to up and leave the house to keep from beatin' her within an inch o' her life."

"Did he really say that, Mama?" Mom asked her.

"No," she paused, and managed to come up with a soft smile. "His exact words were that he had to walk outta there 'fore he lost his temper an' did somethin' I raised him better than to do, which was raise his hand against a woman."

She paused, for a moment, sniffling and blotting at more tears.

"I wondered if they might be in for a fight, when Mike told me the deal that Junior gave him," Mom mused. "Kathy always did strike me as the greedy type, when it came to money. Did he say anythin' else, Mama? Does he have any plans?"

"He's already talked to an attorney, 'bout filin' for a divorce," Grandma nodded. "Seems he found out she'd been runnin' around on him for a long time. He said he's comin' home, an' that he'll be here by Christmas Eve, if not a day or so before. He'll be callin', again,' in a few days."

"I'm kinda surprised you're cryin', over this, Grandma," Mandy offered softly. "The way you were talkin', a few days ago, it sounded like there wasn't any love lost, twixt you and Kathy, and you thought Junior'd be well off to be rid of her."

"What I thought, or think, don't make a difference, child," Grandma sighed. "When they first started out, Junior loved that woman just the way you love Mike, an' she loved him, back. Somewhere along the line, somethin' went sour in her, an' she apparently started steppin' out on him. That's the kind o' thing, can tear a body apart, inside, when they learn of it. No matter how mad Junior is, at her, for cheatin' on him, he loved her once, and the tearin' apart of that love is makin' him hurt. I'm cryin' for him, not her."

"I think I understand," Mandy said slowly. "I said I'd have no problem sharin' Mike with Mama Patsy, an' I still stand by that. But, if I ever found out he was carryin' on with some floozy in town, it'd rip the heart right outta me."

"That's just what I mean, girl," Grandma said, giving her a wistful smile and gently stroking her cheek.

"Did he say whether he's comin' home to stay or is he goin' back down there?" I asked. "Not that it matters, but I'd really like to have him here all the time."

"So would I," Mandy said. "I didn't get to spend much time with him, because we were so busy with the wedding and all, but I really did like him and I'd like to really get to know him better."

"You'd really like him," Mom told her. "Back in the day, before he married Kathy, he'd visit us. He and Bill didn't look nothin' alike, other than size, but both of 'em were a lot of fun to be around. Junior used to kid around all the time, just like Bill did, every time I saw him. They were perfect brothers, and – if I hadn't fallen for Bill, so quick, it woulda been a hard choice between the two of 'em, for which one was best. He changed, some, a few years after he married Kathy, and some of the life seemed to go out of him."