Amy Inspired - Bethany Pierce [33]
“Pamela!” he called.
“Lynn!” she said back. She was perched on the floor, playing with one of the babies. (It had not taken her long to find the nearest baby to hold.)
“I thought you said Amy was dating a college prof?”
Thankfully, she didn’t mention my ex-boyfriend. “No, she is a professor, Lynn.”
He crossed his arms and leaned back to consider me in this new light. “College professor, really? That’s impressive.”
“I’m adjunct slave labor, actually.” I darted back to accommodate the two-year-old that had bounded into my lap.
“They take good care of you then? Dental? Vacations? The works?”
I smiled meagerly. “It pays the rent.”
“Get down, Lynn,” Uncle Lynn commanded, picking up his namesake from my lap.
He had promised to open a trust fund for the first grandchild to bear his name. My cousin, Lauren, never cared for the name Lynn, but she had always been opportunistic. She was planning on a big family; she had names to spare.
“That’s Lynn?” I asked.
“I know. Seems like she was just born yesterday.” He nodded at Lauren. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they started working on numero quatro soon.”
“They’re not wasting any time.”
“It hits you. You’ll see. That biological clock is not some story. Won’t be long before Brian and Marie start to make announcements.”
I studied my brother. He was sporting a Reese’s peanut butter cup shirt and snapping pictures of his own knee.
As the recipient of student loans that more than covered his rent three times over, Brian was the most extravagant gift giver of the night. He bought each of the little girls a new collector Barbie, bought me a new DVD player, and bought Mom her first cell phone.
She turned it in her hands, suspicious of its size. “It’s so tiny!”
“I’ve started you on the same plan as Amy and I,” Brian explained. “Now you can call us for free.”
“For free?”
“Anytime, anywhere, and it won’t cost you a cent.”
When he said it like that, it didn’t sound like such a good idea.
Brian explained, “You only have one hundred minutes to use between nine and five on weekdays, but after five you can call anyone you want for free anyway. Or on weekends.”
“Oh, I see.” Mom said, uncomprehending.
“Does that make sense?”
“Yes, of course.”
“I thought with your converting the house line to business you could use another phone for personal use.”
“But it’s so tiny! Lynn, look at this. Can you believe how tiny it is?”
Uncle Lynn could not be impressed. He himself Facebooked.
Before leaving that night, I helped Grandma clean the kitchen. She set me to work dividing the leftover cookies for everyone to take home. While I was busy lining a row of gingerbread men atop the peanut butter blossoms, she brought up what she perceived as the precarious state of Brian’s virginity. A First Fundamentalist Sunday school teacher raised during the Depression by men who kept pornographic magazines under every other couch cushion, she was an unpredictable mixture of wholesome innocence and bawdy street smarts. Conversation with her was like shaking the Magic 8-Ball: You never knew what maxim would pop up.
“Do you know that Marie is staying over at his place a lot?” she said.
“I didn’t know.”
“Do you think he’s all right?”
“I’m sure they’re fine, Grandma. It’s a half hour drive from her apartment to his, and there’s a lot of ice and snow this time of year. And you know the sort of schedule they keep. He probably doesn’t want her driving on bad roads when she’s tired.”
Grandma considered this. She didn’t believe Marie slept on the couch any more than I did. “He’s nearly twenty-five, the poor boy,” she said. “Men can’t help it. God made them the way they are. It’s not like us women have to do anything. We could just walk into a room and they’re ready to get it on.”
I ripped a long sheet of aluminum foil across the silver razor teeth of the box rim. That Grandma forgave Brian’s behavior in advance bothered me. Why was a man’s impatience for sex biologically justified, while a woman’s virtue was a matter of course? I had yet to hear the church forgive a woman’s lust for being