Chapter 11: Working at Shelley’s

I went over to Shelley’s on Saturday and we started smoking cigarettes, sucking down almost an entire carton. Her parents were home all day long and had the disconcerting habit of wandering down to the basement at odd moments to ‘look for something’, in other words, to check on what we were up to. This kind of kept any of our own romance limited, although we did get in some pleasant French kissing. Likewise, we smoked another couple of cartons on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday (total, not each day), and since Shelley was on a self-imposed lockdown, we didn’t get much else done, although she gave me a sizzling hummer each day.

Thursday was completely out. It was Thanksgiving, and her family was coming to her house and the entire Buckman clan was coming to ours. This was a major deal, and nobody was smoking cigarettes that day. I don’t know how crazy it got at Shelley’s, but the Thanksgiving feast was a major production at our house, the biggest of the year. Of the three Buckman offspring, Dad was the only male, the most centrally located, the only college educated, and the richest with the largest house. It was his duty to host the affair, and do it in grand style, an idea which suited my hilariously snobbish mother to a tee. (Where she got her snobbishness was a totally different question, one which us kids often debated, since Mom was just a middle-class girl from Highlandtown, not Nob Hill.)

Mom had a twelve-place setting (six pieces each) formal china service from Pfaltzgraff which was kept in the hutch in specially padded containers. We would drink from matching Steuben crystal stemware (three pieces each) and eat with Oneida flatware (nine pieces per setting). Needless to say, all the serving bowls and utensils matched. We would wipe our fingers on Irish linen napkins, initially held together by silk ribbons, and the tablecloth would be matching Irish linen. Thanksgiving dinner was illuminated by candlelight from a silver candelabra.

That was the grown-up table. The kids’ tables were a whole lot less formal, mostly whatever Corelleware was available. One of the great delights of growing up was being the oldest and occasionally getting to dine at the grownup table. By the time I was old enough and married and could expect this treatment, Mom went to a buffet format. There was simply no justice in the world.

That year we were expecting our family (six including Nana), Aunt Nan’s family (five), and Aunt Peg’s family (four including Grandpa - Dad’s father). That made it 15. By the early Nineties, Nana and Grandpa would be gone, but both my sister and I would have families, as would a couple of my cousins. The number peaked in the low to mid-20s at that point and the formal meal became a true zoo!

Hamilton and I were used as slave labor during the preparations for the feast, which consisted of turkey, both regular stuffing and oyster stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, two types of cranberry sauce, Brussels sprouts, sauerkraut, green beans, and rolls. After dinner, we had at least three types of pies, as well as sundry other things both before and after. You could feed third world nations with what we had at that table. It was the most marvelously gluttonous affair imaginable, and my mother hosted it every year from the time she got married until the time my father’s Alzheimer’s became unmanageable, almost fifty years.

Friday, however, was an entirely free day. The women of the family, my mother and my two aunts, would go on an all-day shopping frenzy on Black Friday. Suzie, at only eight years old, was still in the amateur ranks; she wouldn’t be able to go with the pros until she was a teenager. My father took the day off and could watch the kids, but Shelley’s parents both had to work! We would have her entire house to ourselves, and Shelley had told me in no uncertain terms to get there early.

I left the house at nine, just after Mom and the ladies left wearing their finest holiday hobnailed boots and brass knuckles, the better to fight off the maddening hordes. I rode my bike up to Shelley’s and parked it around back, and then knocked on her back door.

I wasn’t quite sure what Shelley had in mind. I didn’t really expect her to open the door wearing a lace teddy and high heels, and she didn’t. She did, however, have on a blouse and a short denim skirt, and was barefoot. She opened the door and I slipped inside. “Brrrr, it’s freezing out there!” she commented.

I thought it was just a normal November day, but I had spent damn near fifty years in upstate New York, where it snowed six months of the year. Maryland was a tropical paradise compared to that! As soon as I got inside, Shelley unzipped my coat and slipped her arms inside and around me. I quickly noticed she was missing a bra. “Maybe I can warm you up,” I replied.

“I sure hope so!” She tilted her head up, so I could kiss her. Just in the time we had been working on the project I had grown another inch, and I was now taller than her.

I kissed her back, taking my time about it and being thorough. After a few minutes, she pulled away and took my hand, and led me into the living room. She had already laid out a comforter on the floor in front of the fireplace, although no fire was laid. I took off my coat and kicked off my shoes and followed her to the comforter.

She was already seated on one side of the comforter, her legs drawn up beneath her, and was grinning. I sank down next to her and lay back, tucking a couple of throw pillows under my head. “I have to admit, this is a lot nicer than the couch downstairs,” I said.

Shelley giggled. “No kidding. That thing is awful!”

“And your parents won’t be back until...?”

She grinned. “Not until after five. They both work in Baltimore and never come home for lunch or anything. They’re gone all day. Why? Did you want to go downstairs and smoke some more cigarettes?” She stretched out next to me and threw a leg over mine.

“Uh, not right away.” I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her on top of me. “Maybe later.”

“Maybe a lot later!”

She lowered her lips to mine and gave me a scorching hot kiss with her tongue thrusting halfway down my throat. I began to run my hands up and down her back, and she began moaning loudly. I was in no hurry and wanted to treat her like I was sure no other guy had ever done before.