Thankful

I must have been in Texas.

I took full advantage of a lull in my unsought notoriety as D.D. and Uncle Billy took advantage of the impromptu audience to break into a two-man comedy routine and slipped away to take my seat beside the girls once more.

Only, Dwight Douglas Lewis wasn't done humiliating me and followed after me minutes later.

"Howdy, ladies."

Pris popped to her feet in a swirl of her denim skirt. Olivia, her eyes wide, did as well. Kelly joined them, albeit more slowly.

I will grant Mr. Lewis this much. If Kelly's size or appearance startled him, he didn't show it at all as I climbed to my own feet with my ears threatening to spontaneously combust.

"I just wanted to stop by and tell y'all, you should be real proud of Nick there. Why, I'm plumb ashamed to admit I heard the insult to you as sure as he did, but I didn't do a thing about it. Nick here, though, he surely told them we didn't cotton to people talking about our ladies like that and laid each of them out with one punch a piece."

All three heads turned to look at me as I blinked at Mr. Lewis and wondered what the hell he was talking about while he shook each of their hands and mine once more.

"Well, anyway. I just wanted to tell y'all that. And to shake Nick's hand again. Y'all enjoy the game."

"Nick?" Pris asked as he made his way back out the door and out of our lives.

"It, uh, wasn't like that, of course," I said, cheeks burning.

"And what was it like?" Pris asked, arching one eloquent eyebrow.

"Fine," I sighed. "So, it was sort of like that, I guess. But, there was only one. I hit him three times, not once. And I gave that little speech to his friend after he was on the floor."

"What did he say?" Kelly asked.

I glanced up at her and away quickly.

"I think I'd rather not say."

"Oh, my God!" Olivia broke in, finding her voice finally. "Do you even know who that was?! That was D.D. Lewis!"

"Er, yeah. So, he said."

"Oh, my God!" Olivia repeated in a completely different, much more exasperated tone. "D.D. Lewis? Outside linebacker for Doomsday II?"

"Um," I glanced at Kelly next to me and Pris on the far side of Olivia. "Okay."

"Oh, my God," Olivia said in disgust. "Never mind. Freaking D.D. Lewis comes up to you admiring something you did and you just don't even have a freaking clue. Freak."

My newfound reputation was saved as Pris interrupted my lashing back at Olivia, only much more loudly.

"Look! Laurell's on the big screen!"

Of course, we all looked. And sure enough, there was our cousin blown up for all to see and looking too beautiful to be real. As we watched, the camera panned across Tina and caught half of Michelle as well before fading to another view. But, it had remained on Laurell for several seconds. And what we had seen, so had many others, both in the stadium and at home through their television sets.

"She is so pretty," Kelly whispered wistfully.

"So are you," I said, not really thinking.

Kelly peered at me, causing me to blush and turn away to look out the window.

A decision was somehow reached that all of them would seek the facilities themselves and they wandered away en masse, leaving me alone in our row of seats.

"How you enjoying the game, Hoss?" Uncle Billy asked, sliding into Kelly's seat.

I wasn't quite sure how to answer since I hadn't seen much of it.

"Eventful," I finally said. "Hey, did you catch Laurell up on the big screen?"

"Was she really?" Uncle Billy asked as he glanced out the window. "She'll be really happy about that, you bet she will. When we get home, I'll have to check the VHS and pull it out to put on her highlight reel for her if I can."

Since that didn't seem to call for a response, I didn't offer one. Uncle Billy sat beside me, neither of us saying anything else until the girls returned. At which point, he popped up like a jack in the box with a little bow to Kelly and a joke about keeping her special seat warm.

The second half of the game was just as boring to me as every other football game ever. Everyone else seemed to enjoy it as the Minnesota Vikings would take the lead and then the Cowboys would catch up to them. Olivia became enrapt, often jumping up with Pris to stand at the glass, looking down. More and more of the glitterati made their way down to watch.

Kelly seemed about as uninterested as I was. And I was just ready to have it over with and done so we could go home.

Naturally, the game went into overtime.

I had to fight to keep from cheering when Minnesota put the game to bed. I would most likely have been lynched on the spot if I had.

But, of course, we weren't quite ready to go just yet. Instead, there seemed to be just a little more milling around and visiting necessary for those of us in the skyboxes as the stands below us emptied out. Another half hour of sitting there, listening to the quiet murmur of voices.

Finally, a half hour after the game ended, when the skybox was virtually empty, Uncle Billy came to collect us.

It's probably just as well we were among the last to leave because I'd managed to all but forget the damn elevator. Until, that is, I saw it once more.

"Uh, no," I said, looking around wildly. "Where are the stairs?"

"Ain't no stairs, son," a stranger said. "Now get in."

"No," I said, shaking my head and backing away from the packed elevator. "Go ahead without me. I'll see you at the bottom."

Kelly had been looking at the number of people packed inside and backed away to stand with me.

"We'll, ah, we'll wait and take the next," Kelly managed.

Olivia had stepped in but walked back out to wait with us. Pris quickly stepped out of the sardine can behind her.

"Take this load down," Pris said. "We'll see y'all at the bottom."

The stranger who'd been operating the buttons grumbled something I didn't catch and the doors closed.

"I forgot all about your problem with elevators," Pris said. "It doesn't come up much in Lubbock."

"No, it doesn't," I said. The only three places I ever went that even had elevators, I took the stairs.

"Well, grow a pair," Olivia sneered. "You heard the man. There aren't any stairs."

"And you're a dumb ass," I shot back. "When they built this place, they were required to put in stairs. They can't have elevators on multi-story buildings without also providing stairs. There are stairs around here someplace."

"Sure, Nick," Pris said. "But, we probably shouldn't make everybody wait while we look for them."

"Then, leave me here and I'll find my own way home," I said. "Or call fire and rescue, because I'm not getting back into that death trap."

As usual, Olivia accepted the challenge.

Before the doors could part at the bottom enough for a normal sized person to escape, I popped through like a cork. And ran headlong into Uncle Billy.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Where's the fire?"

"Under your youngest daughter's bed tonight while she's sleeping," I spat. I honestly don't know whether I was more incensed at the manhandling Olivia had given me or just how easy it was for her.

"Ollie?" Uncle Billy asked, his voice a warning.

"What?" Olivia asked, still laughing. "He was having some trouble with the elevator. I just helped him out."

Pris wasn't laughing, but she was smiling just a little too big. She'd built up a lot of goodwill with me over the years, but that smile tested it.

"I'm not sure it was necessary to pick him up like a stubborn child and carry him on, Ollie." Kelly wasn't so much as smiling. "We could have found some stairs."

I think if I'd been more rational during that moment, I might have fallen in love with Kelly right then. Hell, if I'd been a bit more rational, I most likely would have already been half in love with her before we loaded up to head to Texas Stadium.

But, rational rarely entered the equation for me when other people, particularly my family, especially Olivia, were involved. I resented Kelly defending me almost as much as I resented Olivia for picking me up and carrying me into the elevator.

No. That's not true. I resented that I needed someone else to defend me.

We shook out into a straggling line and made our way to the van where I pointedly sat in one of the cabin seats behind the driver and ignored everyone else as best I could. As Uncle Billy drove us over to pick up Laurell and Michelle, I tried to comfort myself that the torture was two-thirds done. Thanksgiving dinner and the football game were parts of history. That just left the last trial to pass; shopping on Black Friday.

And I would never, ever voluntarily submit to the hell of Thanksgiving with the relatives ever again.

Mom may have tried to speak to me during the much faster ride home, but I wasn't in the mood to hear. If I heard, I would have to tell her of my newfound resolve. There would be plenty of time to tell her during the three hundred sixty-one days until the next time she tried to drag me back.

I hadn't realized quite how late it was until at home everyone headed back to the forbidden hallway, leaving me alone in the front room. I would have been glad to see them gone, except they went to rest because General Aunt Regina would marshal the forces before the sun was up to conquer as many of the malls in a one hundred mile radius as she could manage tomorrow.

It did, however, give me time to fume.

I didn't bother to fold out the couch. I didn't bother retrieving something to read, nor did I turn on the television. Instead, I sat there in the corner of the couch and imagined all of the horrible things I might do to Olivia, from poison to explosives.

Kelly found me there mere moments before I might have lain down.

"Hi."

I glanced back to see her standing there in a t-shirt and, what might have been, sweats perhaps.

"What are you doing up?" I asked. "Aunt Regina is going to be dragging us all out of here in about three or four hours."

"I could ask you the same thing," Kelly said as she came on into the room and took Uncle Billy's chair. "Isn't the wake-up call going to come just as early for you?"

"Not really," I shrugged. "I don't get to sleep very much. Three minutes less than three hours each night."

"Really? I don't sleep much either. Well, I can't sleep at all when I'm away from home. But, even at home, I don't sleep very much at a time. Do you have nightmares, too?"

"You could say that I guess."

We sat in silence for a few minutes. I wasn't in the mood for company. Kelly seemed to not know what to say.

"Would you mind if I turned the television on?"

"Suit yourself," I shrugged.

Kelly turned the television on and immediately switched it off the talking heads discussing the game. Thank God for small favors. I felt a certain amount of hope as she flipped past the music video channels and headed to the movie stations. After all, I'd enjoyed the one she had picked that morning.

But, no. Kelly settled on some dancing movie with Patrick Swaying-hips playing the male lead.

What is it with girls and dancing?! Or with girls and Patrick Swayze for that matter?

Despite myself, I was drawn in. To this day, I blame it on nothing else going on. That and Jennifer Grey was kind of cute.

"When I was a child, little more than a baby, really, Daddy said I was cute as a speckled pup," Kelly said. "My parents gave me a puppy when I was five. A puppy speckled like me. I named her Dotty and I loved that puppy very much. When Dotty got a little older, Daddy said she was the ugliest dog he'd ever seen."

The words fell between us like a crystalline gift, all sharp edges, and shards that could cut both of us to the quick. Her eyes remained on the screen. I wondered if she even knew she'd spoken aloud.

For once in my life, I didn't need Pris to explain to me that Kelly identified with the dog, Dotty. Or that when her father called the dog ugly, Kelly felt he was calling her ugly as well. The sins of the father visited on the child of his loins indeed.

Just as with the movie, despite myself, I was drawn from my sour mood into the conversation.

"There are so many lights here," I said softly. "Can you even see the stars when you look up at night?"

Kelly glanced at me, her brow furrowed. I could tell she didn't see the connection between what she had said and what I was saying. Not yet.

"I was just wondering how much you knew about the stars and the constellations," I shrugged.

"What? Like the big and little dipper?"

"Well, yes," I said. "Although I was thinking specifically about Cassiopeia. Legend has it that there was once a queen in ancient Greece who was so beautiful that even their gods were jealous. Poseidon, I think it was, took her from the world and set her in the sky as a punishment for her pride.

"In reality, what happened was that an astronomer looked up and saw the most beautiful conglomeration of stars and named it after the most beautiful woman of legend," I went on. "You wear that constellation on your left cheek in photo negative."

Kelly's hand went to her cheek as her eyes widened.

"I'm just saying," I shrugged. "I don't think anyone has ever looked up at the stars in the heavens and said 'how ugly.' And I don't see how anyone could think it of you who wear the stars on your skin."

Embarrassed, and certain she would ridicule me now, I stopped talking and forced my eyes from that very skin back to the television screen.

Kelly didn't say anything and after a time turned her head back to the screen as well.

The upside of not getting to sleep for very long was that it gave me plenty of time for my studies and my chosen style of leisure. One of the downsides was that no matter what was going on, my internal clock insisted on winding down at the same time each day. And that time was fast approaching.

I was dimly aware of Kelly saying something as my eyes drifted closed while the final dance scene was starting. But, her voice was coming from so far away, I couldn't make out the words, much less the meaning.

They say that we actually have several dreams each time we sleep and none of the dreams last very long. I don't know about all that. It just never was my particular interest to study sleep and dreams.

However, I only ever had one each time I slept, that I could remember anyway. And it seemed to stretch for the whole duration. From the time I first saw her in July until that Thanksgiving night, my dream each night had been about Tina.

Olivia was wrong. I didn't dream of going to the stars. I worked towards that while I was awake. No, my dreams were of a beautiful woman finding something in me she was attracted to. And for the space in time of that four months and twenty-five days, the woman of my dreams wore Tina's face, hair, and body.

Until that night.

Instead of golden bronzed skin slathered with tanning oil, I dreamed of fair skin spangled with dark stars and shimmering with a sheen of sweat from lifting weights.

And oddly, instead of the dream ending in mocking, derisive laughter, it tapered off into being looked at fondly and a caressing hand on my arm.

Exactly two hours and fifty-seven minutes after my eyes slid closed, I opened them. But, for the first time, I wasn't really aware I was awake for a moment as the caressing touch on my arm continued.

At some point, while I slept, Kelly had moved from the recliner to the couch where I was propped in the corner. Her left hand was holding mine, and her right hand was caressing me, just as I had been dreaming.

On the screen, Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey dancing had given way to Jon Bon Jovi getting by on a prayer.

"Um, good morning," I said.

"I'm sorry," Kelly quickly let go of my arm and sat up a little straighter. "I didn't mean to wake you."

"You didn't," I responded. "Like I said, three minutes less than three hours is all I'm allowed. All I've ever managed. Now, much as I would like to sit here with you, I'm afraid I need to eat something. And then I guess I should probably shower and sh-... uh, stuff. You probably should too before Aunt Regina starts getting everyone up and the line for the showers starts."

"Okay," Kelly said.

It may have been my imagination, but I thought she looked and sounded a little sad.

"Um, Kelly?" My heart felt like it was beating too fast. "When you finish, could you come back and sit with me again while we wait for everyone else?"

"Would you like for me to?" Kelly asked.

"Would I have asked if I didn't?"

"Would you have?"

"Are we going to stand around answering questions with questions?"

"Would you like that?" Kelly asked, grinning.

"Yes," I said, smiling. "No. And maybe. In that order."

The sound of a giggle, I think, is much more welcome than laughter, or even the more moderate chuckle.

Kelly wandered on back to the forbidden hallway as I stopped off in the kitchen. Rather than cracking open two jars of baby food, as usual, I took out the dish Aunt Regina had made especially for me. I still didn't know what was in it, how it was made, but it was every bit as good as it had been the day before.

I took my meds and ran through my shit, shave, and shower routine and was back out sitting on the couch before Kelly reappeared.

As I sat there, in the same spot I'd awakened in, I couldn't help but think of the way I'd woken up. At the time, I'd been so focused on the feeling of her hand caressing my forearm, it hadn't really registered what else I'd been feeling.

Kelly's left breast had been pressed against the back of my right arm.

At least I thought it had been her breast. Whatever it had been had been firmer than I thought breast tissue should be. But, then it wasn't like I had a wide range of data to judge from despite trying to dodge them as much as possible when my female relatives hugged me.

Perhaps I was wrong. With the difference in our heights, it might have been the ridged muscles of her abs I'd seen while she was lifting that I felt.

But, just the idea I might have felt a breast brushing against me for the first time that didn't belong to a female family member was a heady thought. And caused an issue I'd been rather hoping to avoid.

My digestive system had issues. Through some concatenation of medicine and luck, my reproductive system did not. Whether that "luck" was good or ill would have been open to debate. The equipment was all in working order, but I'd all but given up finding anyone to help me use it. At least until I was rich enough for a gold digger or three to look past my appearance. And, in fairness, my personality or lack thereof.

In the meantime, if I didn't take care to make sure the problem was handled, I ended up making a mess on the sheets just about every night.

At home, I took care of the build-up of need alone in my room while the rest of the house was asleep. Pris and Mom, neither of whom was stupid by any stretch, knew full well what was going on and ignored it so long as I wasn't crass enough to do it where they might encounter it. Somewhere such as the bathroom Pris and I shared.

I'd made that mistake just once and gotten an earful about just what the residue I accidentally left behind in the shower felt like between Priscilla's toes. Punctuated by slaps on the back of the head, the shoulder, the stomach, and anywhere else uncovered as I tried to protect myself and swore on my life it would never happen again.

At Uncle Billy and Aunt Regina's place, I was out in the open most of the time. When I absolutely could not avoid it any longer, I took care of things in the toilet while the house slept. But, I tried to avoid it as much as possible. I had thought Pris was going to kill me that time. The thought of all of my cousins, and maybe Aunt Regina and Mom, joining in was usually enough to hold the need at bay.

Kelly, even without incidental contact with her breast, had been well on the way to making things more problematic. That particular delight threatened to shatter my self-control altogether.