Men in Her Life Ch. 05

The bridesmaid who will stand to Marva's right admits, less than ten days before the date of the wedding that she is pregnant and her dress is so tight she is uncomfortable and fears she will pass out during the ceremony. Marva tells her to bring the dress by Saturday morning, a week before the big day. Although it is difficult to let the dress out, the side seams have no room to make the dress any larger. The only allowance is the center back seam. By removing the zipper and using every bit of the zipper placket, Marva manages to get almost an inch. It is just barely enough. The girl says if she doesn't have to wear the dress too many hours, she will make it.

More than a month before the wedding, Charles finally yielded to Marva's encouragement, and ultimate badgering, and went to the tuxedo rental store, but they were unable to find a jacket in their store that would fit him. The manager found a jacket in another company store and ordered it sent to the local store. The manager called two days later and said the large jacket was needed at another store in the interim, but it would be in the local store three days before the wedding, cleaned, and ready to be picked up. Marva calls the local store at least once a week, to make sure the arrangements to get Charles tuxedo to town have not fallen apart. When Marva goes to the store to pick up his jacket, the manager is in the process of offering the jacket to another customer, for one night. Marva was not very kind to the store's manager and was eventually offered a reduction of one-half the rental fee. Only when she actually has the tuxedo jacket hanging in his closet, in front of the trousers, does Marva breathe a little easier.

Tuesday, before Saturday's wedding, Charles rolls over and tells Marva, "You are not touching that treadmill today or for the next five days. I'm not taking a chance on another muscle strain. If I have to do that damn wedding, you do too."

"Okay," she says, without emotion.

Her listless response disappoints him. "Hey, Baby, are you alright?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"Tummy?" he asks, prepared for morning sickness, which has not been a bad problem, but she hates it.

"No, not really."

Frustrated, he demands, "Alright, then what's wrong?"

"Your mother gets here today."

"Yes, so she does. And you are nervous about meeting her." It is not a question, it is a simple statement and despite what he has told her, she cannot bring herself to look forward to the first meeting of her future mother-in-law.

"I don't know what I can do to make meeting her any easier for you. I've tried to tell you she is not a monster. She's just a selfish woman, like you will meet, on any street, in any city, in every country, in the world. She will be gone in a few days and you won't need to concern yourself with her for another six months."

"Are you going to tell her?"

"Nope," he answers easily. "You asked me not to. I'll let you tell her what you want her to know, when you want her to know it."

Sitting up, waiting to see if her stomach will tolerate standing and walking, she admonishes him, "Charles, you should be the one to tell her."

"Alright," he agrees. "You tell me when you want her to know and I'll tell her whatever you want me to say."

"You're being too easy about this," Marva complains, beginning to suspect something is going on she does not know about.

"No, I'm just tired," he admits, "And I want my Baby back. She's been down in the dumps for a few weeks and I'm really missing her." His current construction project has been tentatively delivered to the customer and the work crews are going through the final punch list of things the customer finds wrong or wants to change. Twice, Charles has spent a whole day in meetings with the final inspectors arguing that the original plans and specifications did not call for what the customer wants done. Both times, the customer agrees and consents to pay the additional material and labor costs, which also increases the profit margin on the project. Charles tries not to smile too broadly, at least until the meetings are ended, but he does not bother to hide his enthusiasm from Marva and although the business details are complicated, she listens patiently, asks few questions and allows him to use her as a sounding board for his wins and defeats.

"Well, I'm going to feel wonderful on Sunday. How about that?" She asks him. "All I have to do is get through today, and tomorrow, then my two days off and the wedding day, and then the day after that is MY DAY."

"You tell me what you want to do to make the day special and I'll do it. You go take a shower and I'll start the coffee, or roll over her and give your sweetie a kiss and if you're extra especially nice, I'll nibble on your ear."

Jumping up and running to the bathroom and heaving. Charles is right behind her, holding his large hand against her belly to lessen the strain on her muscles. His other hand is on her forehead, giving her support.

"Ugh," Marva complains, when she can stand up straight. "How long does this morning sickness stuff last? I'll be urping up my toenails in another month."

Turning on the shower, Charles almost lifts her into the tub and turns to go make the coffee. Marva calls him back, "Charles, when I'm so fat I can't see to do it, will you polish my toenails for me?"

"I guess so," he says, but does not sound like he enjoys the thought. "Or, I'll send you for a manicure on your toes."

"It's called a pedicure," she tells him, from inside the hollow sounding shower enclosure. "You know "ped" as in foot? And I'm not going to pay the prices those people charge for painting my toenails. That is a ridiculous waste of money."

"We will see," the same comment he makes when she speaks about money, the cost of something, or what he thinks she should do with her salary, which is just sitting in a bank account. He will not allow her to spend it, not even for a loaf of bread. "A fingernail shop would do a lot neater job than I would. I've watched you do it and my hands are so big, I'm not sure I can hold that little paint brush," he says, walking out the door.

Marva laughs at some of the words men use to describe things women take for granted, like a fingernail shop or calling a bottle of nail enamel, paint, and the brush, a paint brush.

Showered and dressed she is on her way to the kitchen, where she finds Charles with the newspaper spread on the table. "We made the front page," he says, excited and almost laughing.

"Let me see," Marva's excitement matches his, exclaiming, "Oh wow," as she reads the headline, "$12 Million Tinker Toy," and then again is breathless at the amount of money Charles has been dealing with. She skims through the article, which accompanies the photo of a gigantic metal structure which does look like the old fashioned wooden circle and sticks of a child's simple erector toy. She pays little attention to the reporter's descriptions of the millions of dollars for this project and millions of dollars for that project used to illustrate how large The Tester Constructor's project is, in comparison.

As she leans over the newspaper, Charles runs his hand up and down her back. When she straightens, he asks, "Are you going to talk to Rowe today?" He has asked the same question almost every day for the past two weeks, wanting to know if she is finally going to give notice that she is going to quit her job.

Marva did not fully understand everything that Charles tried to explain and perhaps his explanation was not as informative as it should have been, because he did not fully understand it, he merely appreciated that the job was done without his needing to do the work. But Millie is a badger, an agitator, persistent, and untiring, when she thinks she is right. One of the employees working on the big construction project is a gay male, Rawson Adams. He and his partner, Rudy Lawson, have lived together for several years. Millie received an endorsement to the company health insurance policy, and she read it. Although she didn't fully understand all of the insurance terminology, one phrase caught her attention. She included a note in Rawson's paycheck and said she thought the company's health insurance policy covers the dependent or a resident of the household of an employee if there is an "established" relationship. Millie interpreted it to mean that two adults who live together constitute an established relationship. The note to Rawson asked if he would like to see if Rudy could be included on the company policy. The two men jumped at the chance.

The insurance company tried to say that the intention of the terminology was to allow step-children, or long term foster children, to be covered as members of a family. Millie wrote some stinging letters that said they could not refuse to insure someone, unless the endorsement specifically excluded them. The application was approved, greatly because the two men could provide proof by using their driver's licenses, which show they had lived at the same address for a number of years. Millie listed additional items of proof, the couple was willing to provide, upon request, including joint bank accounts and ownership of their home. The ultimate result was a reduction in the two men's monthly health insurance costs by several hundred dollars.

When Millie called the bank to arrange for the household account for Marva, she also applied to the insurance company, to include Marva on the company health insurance, because she was part of an established relationship. As Millie views it, she takes care of the office work and Charles takes care of construction. If an employee adds to his family, usually by marriage or birth, Millie adds the new addition to the company policy as soon as the employee returns the forms she sends them. The insurance company said the men's application had been approved because they could show they had lived together for several years. Millie wrote back, sending copies of the bank account documents showing that although the relationship was new, it is 'established'. She did not bother to explain everything she was doing. She was just relieving Charles of a time consuming chore so he could concentrate on his job. It took her an additional two months, but Millie won that battle, too.

The day Millie left Marva's insurance cards on his desk, Charles looked at them for a full five minutes before he dared to ask Millie how she had managed to arrange for Marva to be insured under the company policy. Millie's smart mouth, which he often has to grit his teeth about, told him, "I do my job right and as long as I do, leave me the hell alone." She turned and walked out of his office, swaying her hips like a 1940's movie star and he laughed so hard he almost spilled his coffee.

He took the cards home that night, gave them to Marva. She just looked at them, not really understanding the importance Charles seemed to feel the cards deserved, until he showed her the date her insurance coverage began was within the first month she lived with him, the original date of the application Millie sent to the insurance company. She still did not fully understand until he reminded her that it was at least three months before she became pregnant, which means she does not need to keep her job with Thomas Rowe, just to make sure she and the baby are covered by insurance.

Since that night he has asked, carefully, but he has asked, if she is ready to quit her job, leaving unsaid that he wants her at home full time. Each time she gives the same answer, "Ah, I don't know. I'd really rather wait until the wedding is over and I know my trainee can handle the job."

Worried that she seems so tired, he suggests, "Why don't you see if he will give you tomorrow, too?"

"I might do that," she agrees. "If you promise not to tell Elizabeth I have an extra day off. She will find something for me to do."

"You got a deal," he answers. He almost screamed last night when Elizabeth called wanting Marva to pay for the fabric and make ten dozen small satin roses and sew them onto the front drape of the tablecloths. He finally lost the wild look in his eyes when Marva told him she told Elizabeth "No, and don't ask anyone else either. You should have thought of this last month." When he asked, "Where does she come up with these ideas?" Marva said, almost at the same time he did, "The internet."

Recalling their conversation, and thinking about how much Callie said Elizabeth now owes on two credit cards, which she began to use when she exhausted the money her parents borrowed, Marva says, "Elizabeth is going to have to work for ten years to pay off everything she owes for this dumb wedding."

Charles asks, "I thought I heard Aunt Polly say Elizabeth has already quit her job. In fact, I know I heard her say that. She said Elizabeth and Bryan are going to start a family as soon as they are married and Elizabeth doesn't want to work while she is pregnant."

"Good gracious," Marva chuckles. "Then don't tell her she can go to gift registry dot com and list all the things she wants for the baby. She should have found a millionaire for a husband. Bryan's never going to be able to support her." Holding her hands up, Marva hangs her head, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't say things like that. It's their business, but I don't like to see my brother loaded down with that kind of materialism."

Standing to go take his shower, Charles kisses her and tells her, "You better eat something before you go."

Marva shakes her head and walks to the refrigerator, taking one of the small bags of fresh vegetables she keeps ready for snacking, "Ah, I think I'll just take these and eat them a little later." She rubs her tummy, "It's not ready for anything heavy."

As he walks across the kitchen, he reminds her, "Don't forget to call Millie and tell her how to get to that place you found to get my plans copied. She said you give good directions, with street names and all I do is, tell her to turn right at the service station."

"Yes, dear," she says, with a heavy submissive tone in her voice.

"Marva," he warns, turning to look at her. But he cannot keep the grin from his face. "Just call her, okay?"

"I sure will, sweetie" she says laughing as she closes the kitchen door.