Best Laid Plans: A Summer Camp Swingers Novel

“Paul just got home,” she said into the cordless handset, “so I’d better go. Okay, I’ll tell him. I love you too. Have a nice dinner with the crew. Call me in the morning. Bye.” She pushed the button to hang up and collapsed the antenna. “Sorry about that,” she said. “Your dad had a reverse seniority trip, so he’s in Fort Wayne tonight. Shreveport tomorrow night.”

“Oh. That sucks. I mean, good for him and all, but I was looking forward to seeing him.”

“He’ll be home Friday. What time’re you leaving Saturday?”

“Nine in the morning. My flight leaves a little before eleven.” I could fly standby for free—a perk of being a pilot’s kid—but I tried to avoid stops and layovers, where I might get bumped by a paying passenger. I also had a dress code and code of conduct, so it wasn’t as carefree as most people thought.

Mom’s face fell, but she knew the realities of flying standby as well as I did.

“Sorry,” I said. “If I leave later I’ll have a couple of stops or a four-hour layover in Dallas. Not the worst place to spend a few hours, but still a thousand miles from anywhere I want to be.”

“I understand.”

I nodded toward the front of the house. “Where’s Erin? I thought she was staying home for spring break. Her car’s in the driveway, but she isn’t here.”

“She’s in Florida with Leah and friends.”

“Oh? She decide to spend some money after all?”

“No, your dad and I paid for it. She’s doing well in school and we’ve been getting along better, so…”

My eyebrows rose.

“We thought she deserved a vacation. It’s her senior year. She’s actually turning into a responsible adult. What can I say?” she added with a shrug. “Maybe we raised her right after all.”

“Yeah, after you made all those mistakes with me!” I laughed.

Mom rolled her eyes and stood. She wore a simple V-neck sweater and jeans, although she made them seem comfortable and attractive at the same time. She wasn’t a Playmate or anything, but she didn’t look forty-two either. And I privately admitted that she might’ve been the reason I was dating a blue-eyed blonde myself. Christy wasn’t a carbon copy, but they had enough in common to make me wonder about the old cliché that men marry women like their mothers.

“It’s great to see you,” she said as we hugged. Then she held me at arm’s length.

I couldn’t help but notice that her nipples were hard. They cast little shadows in the soft light from above, but I tried to ignore them.

“You look good,” she said.

“Thanks. You too.”

“You aren’t eating enough, though. Christy still doesn’t cook?”

“Don’t start, Mom. She cooks. Just not very often. Besides, we live with a semi-professional chef, so Wren does most of the cooking in the house.”

“Yes, but you do it when it’s Christy’s and your turn.”

“We do it together. I just do the planning. She’s a really good cook, Mom, I promise. And I’m eating enough. Too much, if you ask me, since I’m always making snacks for her, and I usually end up eating too.” Her metabolism was twice a normal person’s, and she had to eat five or six times a day or she’d lose weight. She struggled to maintain even a hundred pounds, so losing weight was officially a Bad Thing for her.

“But if it’ll make you happy,” I continued, “I’ll eat a snack. I skipped lunch anyway. I was trying to get here before rush hour.”

“We have milk and cookies.” She grinned and headed toward the kitchen.

I discreetly admired her figure as I followed her. My friends in high school had thought she was hot, and I had to agree with them. I smiled to myself at how they would’ve reacted if they’d known she was a nudist and swinger too. I hadn’t known about the latter until I was fifteen, but I’d had a thorough education since then.

“The cookies are in the pantry,” she said. “I’ll pour the milk.”

“Whoa, hold on. Cookies and milk? I didn’t think you were serious. Mom, I’m not in kindergarten.”

“Neither am I, but I like them. I can’t eat them very often, but I thought since you’re here…” She shrugged when I didn’t take the bait. “That’s all right. It’s getting harder to keep weight off anyway. I even bought one of those aerobics workout tapes.”

“Not Jane Fonda,” I said immediately.

“Are you kidding? Your father would divorce me!”

Anything to do with Jane Fonda had been banned from our house since 1972, the year she’d gone on her “aid and comfort” tour of North Vietnam. She’d taken chummy pictures with an antiaircraft gun crew, the same nice folks who’d done their best to kill men like my father and who’d succeeded with many of his friends. I was nine years old at the time and vividly remembered his cold fury. He wouldn’t divorce my mom for real, especially over something as trivial as a workout video, but “Hanoi Jane” was still persona non grata with us.

I changed the subject. “How ’bout an apple instead? Do we have any peanut butter?”

“Are you still on a health kick? Is that Christy’s idea?”

“Mom! Relax about her. I’m just trying to eat healthier.”