American Woman: Book 4

Chapter 50

As Prince and I hauled the girls to the dining room and get them situated, Lenny and Mayte come from off the elevator. "Just in time."
Prince tells them as he straps Waverly into her highchair. "Were y'all out taking a stroll in the snow or what?" He chuckles.
"Yeah actually." Lenny affirms. "We both haven't seen snow in awhile so we decided to go out in it. But I've now had my fill for a few years."
"Me too." Mayte agrees. "I've forgotten how cold it gets here, even this late in the season. I don't know how I used to live here. No offense." She laughs.
"You get used to it, I..." Prince pulls out my chair and forces me to sit. It was his attempt to shut me up before I ran my mouth so I stopped and took the seat.
"Maria has been slaving away all afternoon. Maria! What did you fix?" Prince yells out to her, desperate to get food in front of us as a distraction.
Maria scurries in carrying a large dish of meatless lasagna. "Sorry Jensen, I hope you and Devon are ok with no meat. When three adults don't eat meat, you kinda have to cook to the majority." She runs off to retrieve the salad and breadsticks.
"Three?" I say, mostly to myself.
"Yeah, I jumped on the bandwagon recently." Lenny butted into my thoughts.
"You're kidding?!" I chuckle slightly, not able to imagine him giving up meat.
"I still eat fish and sometimes chicken. But I've given up everything else." He explains.
"Even bacon?!" I exclaim, knowing how he used to devour it for breakfast when we were married.
"Yeah." He sighs.
"Geez and I'm technically the crazy one." I laugh, making everyone uncomfortable. Thankfully Maria entered the room again and Devon screamed for a breadstick. I grabbed one from the basket and tore it in two and blew on it before handing half of it to her. "Oh um...the baby needs to eat something. Um..." I say to Prince.
"She normally eats some rice cereal and somr smashed fruit, like bananas..." Mayte began before I interjected.
"What?!" I asked wide eyed, feeling my anxiety hit the roof.
"Let's see what we got!" Prince suggests, yanking me up swiftly from my chair and ushering me towards the kitchen.
"Calm down." He says as soon as we were out of sight. He pulls me into a tight embrace and whispers in my ear. "What's the problem, momma?"
Just his deep voice seemed to lower my blood pressure immensely. "She is already giving Waverly solid food. I didn't start that with Devon until 6 months." I shriek quietly.
"Ok. Well she's almost four and a half months, so is starting it a few weeks earlier really that big of a deal?" He honestly asked.
"It is to me! I just feel like she has upped and changed everything and made parenting decision she shouldn't be making!"
"Well honey some of that is my fault. I told them to just do what they felt was best and to not bother us with specifics. It is unrealistic to tell them to call and ask before making every little decision and I was more concerned with your well being than minor details with the girls. I knew they wouldn't do anything to harm them so anything passed that I just left to their own judgment."
"Well beginning to feed a baby real food is kinda a big one! I hope she wasn't stupid enough to feed her peanut butter or honey or something!" I growl, taking a deep breath. "But really I guess at least she has been feeding her which is more than one can say for what I was doing. Maybe I shouldn't keep freaking out that she's cut the skin off apples, or put chocolate syrup in Devon's milk, or given Waverly fruit when I didn't even feed them!"
"It's ok to feel that way baby. They are your kids. I get it. But you do need to cut her some slack. I mean she's never had children and I'm sure she did her best. I guarantee she didn't do anything without checking with someone or a book or something first. And I'm sure Lenny gave the go ahead on all of it so you can't just get frustrated with her only."
"But he's a man. We all know men are clueless and stupid when it comes to kids...."
"Hey!" Prince exclaims. I shoot him a "really!" look. "Ok, yeah, normally we are. But he's a father and she probably trusted he knew. And again they didn't do anything harmful, just maybe different than the way we would do it. But it's ok. Think about how nervous and unsure we were about everything when Devon was a baby. I'm sure that is how she has felt. I just don't want to constantly be jumping down her throat about silly things when I know she tried her best."
"Ok, I guess you're right. I'll get some rice cereal ready if you want to mash up a banana." I suggest.
We return to the table to find they have already filled their plates and Devon's. "We waitin'" Devon said in a sassy voice.
"Well excuse us." Prince chuckles. "We had to get your sister's food ready."
"Babies!" She says in an exasperated voice while shaking her head.
"You know it wasn't too long ago when you were a baby." I said while scooping some lasagna onto my plate and Prince's while he started to feed Waverly.
"I not baby now! I be tree soon! You no feed me!" She exclaims, shoveling the fork into her mouth.
"My god she's so much like Zoe was, its crazy!" Lenny chuckles. "I think that's why her and Zoe got along so well. She found a mini version of herself."
"She is like Zoe was as a little girl! I never really thought about it but you're so right!" I exclaim, making the connection. "That girl was something else, even at like 4, she was already talking and acting like a teenager, I swear."
"Remember that time we were having a meeting with that insurance lady and she sits down and says "'hello, I'm Zoe. I'm not his wife.' She couldn't have been more than 5 or 6!"
"Yes!" I say, belly laughing. "Or when she told her Kindergarten teacher she wouldn't be back the next year bc she had to move on with her life."
We spent the next several minutes going back and forth with some of our best memories of things Zoe had said or done. All four of us got a good chuckle out of it. I went a little too far though when I mentioned what she had said one time when she in second grade. "One time we were at the park after school and someone had obviously told her something about sex bc she comes running over to us. There were people all around and before she even reaches us she starts yelling out, "so-in-so said her dad puts his weiner in her mom's pee-pee. Do y'all do that?!"
"Jensen!" Prince shrieks, motioning towards a thankfully oblivious Devon who was chowing down.
"Oh crap! Sorry!" I wince.
"Well what did y'all say?!" Mayte asked.
"I think we just scooped her up and left." I chuckled.
"Yeah, but she wouldn't let it go in the car and kept asking so we said no. Which was the truth. I've never stuck it in anyone's pee pee." Lenny joked.
"I don't even want to think about that conversation!" Prince exclaimed. "So did you ever sit down and talk to her about it?"
"Yeah. I mean kinda. Lisa did most of it I think. But when she was about 12, after I knew she knew what it was we talked about it. I just told her stuff about protection and finding the right person and those kinds of things." Lenny explained. "I didn't want to tell her not to do it bc I figured that was a sure fire way to get her to run out and try it. She's 16 and I honestly think she's still a virgin. Thank God."
"But she's beautiful so..." I begin.
"Yeah but so are you and Mayte and both of you were kinda older, right? I mean y'all didn't do it in high school anyway." Prince interjects. "So there is hope."
"Yeah I was 19." I reply.
"Me too!" Mayte laughs. "By a much older man."
"Me too!" I giggle, knowing we were making the men mad. "How would you feel about Zoe having sex with a man in his 30s in a couple of years?" I ask, while excusing Devon from the table.
"Shut up Jen!" Lenny warns. "I wouldn't be thrilled. Now I see how both of y'all's parents must have felt. Especially your dads."
"See, y'all should have thought about that. Especially you Lenny. You already were a father." I accuse jokingly.
"That was different. I knew your parents my whole life. I wouldn't get with a 19 year old now!" He defends himself.
"Well I'd hope not, you're 40!"
"Listen, as I recall that 19 year old girl was begging for it." He smirks.
"You wish!" I laugh. "Begging is a bit strong. Willing yes. Begging no."
"Oh just willing huh?" He rolls his eyes. "Well good thing I put a ring on it that night. Sure fire way to get laid." He laughs.
"Awe! You lost your virginity on your engagement night?! I never knew that!" Mayte chimes in. "That's much more romantic than my way."
"Hey!" Prince interjects. "I was gentle and loving...."
"Oh well yeah. It just wasn't a big romantic gesture or anything. He just said 'I think it's time' one day after a rehearsal. And I cluelessly said 'time for what?' And he said 'to go on birth control.'" She laughed.
"Oh my god! That's not creepy at all!" I said in slight disgust.
"What?! I didn't want to get her pregnant! And I had known her since she was 16! I waited three fucking years! So don't say I'm creepy!" He defended himself.
"You waited three years?! No she waited three years. You had plenty of action going on while you 'waited.'"
"Alright Jensen. I was a dick. I think everyone at this table already knows that. The point is we all hope our daughters don't become sluts or get involved with men like us." He chuckled.
"Exactly." Lenny agreed.
"Oh you guys aren't so bad." Mayte responds. "You two are way better than a lot of men I've met. Believe me, we could have done way worse."
"I agree." I add. "So who wants dessert? Devon? Want some chocolate cake?" I yell out.
I heard her little feet thundering back to the table. She hops back into her seat and licks her lips. "Me!"
After we all ate some cake, Prince and I started getting the girls ready for bed. "See that wasn't so bad." He said while we got pajamas on the kids.
"Actually no. I enjoyed it. Reminded me of old times. The four of us were so tight at one point. I'll always miss that. I've never had friends I was closer to than when the four of us were hanging out."
"Me either. Maybe they can come visit from time to time." He suggests.
"Yeah. But not together I'm sure but that would be cool if they could. But they may not feel the same way about it all."
"That's true. Let's just enjoy the next few days with them and if it happens again cool and if it doesn't just know that that chapter is officially over. We will just have to befriend Amy and Shawn or Kim and Brian..."
"Oh my god! I haven't even thought about them. Are they all still around?"
"Um yeah." Prince asked with a slightly confused look on his face. "I know you don't like Shawn bc of the painkiller dilemma but it was really all my doing. He's a good guy. Don't know how he manages to stay married to Amy but that's none of my business."
"I don't know. I just wasn't sure if they were all still employed by you or not. I'm still having a hard time remembering what was real and what was imagined." I admit.
"It's ok momma. You can always just ask me. They are all still on my payroll but none of them, especially Brian and Kim obviously, has done much lately bc of everything going on. Having so much time off is what I assume led to Brian finally popping the question."
"Oh really?" I exclaim. "That's great! When are they getting married?!"
"No idea. They've only been engaged for maybe a month."
We got Waverly a bottle and down pretty quickly and read Devon a couple of books and tucked her in. "I'm glad you're back home baby girl. Mommy and daddy have missed you so much." Prince tells her as he pulls the sheet and blanket over her.
"Me stay here?" She asked.
"Of course." I chime in. "You are back home now to stay. Everybody is staying here."
"Mayte and Lenny stay here?" She asked.
"Yes. For a few days. They want to come to your birthday party. But then they have to go back home." Prince explains.
"Ok. They kiss." She randomly blurts out as she lays her head on the pillow and closes her eyes.
"Did she just say they kiss?!" I shriek.
"Yeah." Prince chuckles. "Who knows what she is talking about. I can say with almost 100 percent certainty there is nothing going on between Lenny and Mayte. I haven't gotten that vibe at all."
"Oh me either." I agree. To further prove our feeling, we came back into the living room to find them sitting in two separate places not even really acknowledging each other. I bet they'll be glad to get their separate lives back. We sat down with them in the living room and chatted for a little while. They mostly told us things the girls had done while in LA. Thankfully I was able to sit back and listen and not get stirred up for the most part. Prince sat with his arm behind me and anytime he felt my body tense up from something they said, he would tenderly stroke my back or make some gesture to calm me down. I loved how well he knew me and I appreciated how attentive he was to my needs right now when I'm so vulnerable. As much as I was enjoying our time with Lenny and Mayte, I was glad when they turned in for the night. I was more than ready to go to the bedroom with Prince. But not to go to sleep...