I decided against making a salad to go with it. Melanie had bought a large bag of fresh green beans, and Mary had shared a recipe I wanted to try. It was fried in a pan with bacon and garlic to give it some color. Then you added chicken stock to finish and topped the whole thing with parmesan cheese.
I’d made two lasagnas, one with the roasted vegetables, and the other with meatballs for Greg. He contended that lasagna shouldn’t be ruined with green stuff.
Dad came into the kitchen, sniffing like Duke does when bacon starts to cook.
“What are you making?”
“Lasagna,” I said, and then whispered conspiratorially. “There’ll be leftovers.”
“I heard that. That’s not on your diet, Rob,” Mom said, sauntering in.
She wore a cute dress. It looked like Dad would be spending some money tonight if her attire was indicative of the class of place he was taking her. He had on a sport coat.
“Where are you guys going?” I asked.
“The country club. Don’t wait up for us,” Mom said as she dragged my dad out the door.
Everyone began to arrive. My grandmother had brought Yelena, whom we were reintroducing to the idea of grandkids for when Yuri finally got busy. Lacy, Pam’s mom, came next. She volunteered to make a Caprese salad to help out. Both of Little David’s grandmas came. They’d been getting along better over time. Mitch still didn’t want anything to do with his son, but his mom did, so I invited her.
The back door crashed open, startling my guard dog.
“Unca David! Unca David! Come help,” Mac called.
Worried something was wrong, I ran to the back door, only to find that Ashley had just arrived. Greg and Angie were helping her get Carol, Allen, and Dawson out of their car seats as Kyle and Nate supervised. Greg handed me Carol, who grabbed my neck and gave me a big slobbery kiss. We’d been teaching them about kisses, and I wondered if it was such a good idea as I wiped the wet spot she’d left.
I noticed that both Angie and Ashley wore skimpy dresses.
“Where do you two think you’re going dressed like that?” I asked in my best judgmental dad voice.
“I asked the same thing,” Greg said.
Ashley looked a little worried. Angie, not at all.
“Ignore them. They have SDS,” Angie told Ashley.
“SDS?” Ashley asked.
“Swinging Dick Syndrome.”
Greg and I ignored Angie. Peggy came outside and smoothed down her short skirt while looking worried.
“Do you think this is too short?” she asked.
“Yes/No,” was said simultaneously by me/Angie.
“Quit being so bossy,” Angie said, glaring at me.
“You could all come in and eat. There’s plenty of food,” I offered.
“Not on your life,” Peggy said and turned to the girls. “It smells delicious, but we can have some when we get in later.”
I started to wonder whether my leftovers would survive if they came back drunk and hungry. I might have to hide some of the lasagna if I wanted to take it for lunch.
“Let’s go before he tries something else to get us to stay,” Angie said.
I waggled my eyebrows at her. Greg slugged me in the arm to remind me she was married. Angie handed me Dawson and left us to babysit while she and the others went to dinner and clubbing for a girls’ night.
◊◊◊
I’d had the brilliant notion of calling Greg and Ms. Lawrie, our nanny, to come to help. She’d worked at our daycare before we hired her and could juggle all the little ones with ease. Greg had more experience than I did with interpreting ‘kid speak.’ For example, when Coby grunted and held out a hand, Greg knew it meant the ball he’d been chewing on had rolled away.
First of all, gross! Because it was Duke’s ball. How Greg deciphered what Coby wanted filled me with awe.
With those two busy watching the kids, Lacy and my grandmother were able to go to the basement and raid the wine racks. The grandmothers kicked back and had a glass while I finished getting dinner ready. Frankly, when I had my own grandkids, this was how I wanted to watch them.
Dinner was a success. The only incident was when Allen somehow dumped his juice on his head and needed a bath. Fortunately, mine were all about the same size. I borrowed some of Coby’s clothes to change my dirty boy.
While I gave him a bath, the grandmothers cleaned the kitchen for me. When I came down, Grandma Dawson pulled me aside.
“Mayor Duke has a volunteer project I was hoping you would help with.”
“Sure.”
“Great,” she said and thrust a piece of paper with an address on it into my hand. “If you could get it taken care of before Monday, that would be ideal.”
Her little smile told me I’d been had. I trusted my grandmother not to take too much advantage of me, or I wouldn’t have agreed so readily.
“I might need a few details,” I suggested.
“Duke announced a beautification initiative yesterday,” she said, and left me still hanging.
“First I’m hearing of it,” I admitted.
