Len and Norma Lose a Body

Chapter 7

Lauren was lying on the couch flipping through the limited tv stations and finally settled on the Noon Farm Report. Her dad would insist on listening to it anyway as soon as he came in. As soon as she heard her parents enter the door leading into the kitchen she turned the volume way up so that her dad could listen to the news while he was eating his dinner before tossing the remote on a couch cushion and wandering to the kitchen to once again complain about farmer-vision.

"Dad can't we please get a dish? We have like 2 channels," Lauren was getting tired of asking for this, and noted that even she could detect how whiny it sounded, but her dad didn't seemed annoyed at all. Actually it wasn't as if he had even heard a word that had come out of her mouth. He was smiling from ear to ear and was bouncing around the kitchen with obvious enthusiasm.

He finally found what he was looking for in a drawer that held all their kitchen junk and Michael pulled out a tattered and stained take out menu from The Café. "This calls for a celebration!" Mike held the folded menu up and looked at his wife. He was already dialing the phone, "I know how you love chicken balls," and then he laughed like an 8th grader, "ah I said balls," as he finished dialing and put the phone up to his ear.

Sharon shook her head and laughed at her husband who was being completely and utterly ridiculous now. She took two steps forward and took the phone out of Mike's hand. Somebody on the other end had already answered and you could hear the faint, "Hello, Café, Hello, anyone there?" hang in the air before Sharon quickly responded, "Sorry wrong number," and promptly hung up.

Lauren watched and listened trying to pick up what was happening here, but before she could interject her mom started again. "Mike, hold on, Chinese food would take like an hour to get, plus we'd have to drive into town to get it. I have lunch here. It's no big deal anyway," Sharon said blushing.

"No big deal! No big deal!", and for the first time since they had entered the house Michael directed the comments directly to Lauren, "My wife is practically a genius and she's saying that it's no big deal!"

"What?" Lauren said a little more harshly than she meant to. Being out of the loop was starting to annoy her; she didn't like being left in the dark.

"Your mom got accepted to do her Masters," Mike's gaze didn't leave his daughter's face as if he was looking for some sort of explosion of excitement.

Lauren shrugged her shoulders apathetically, "So?"

"So? Sew buttons, young miss. Your mom is going to be the smartest lady you ever done met," Mike explained in his best hillbilly voice.

"You're going back to school? I can't wait to get out," Lauren said completely unenthused.

Her mom took the opportunity to play it down and get Michael to see what it was, "See I told you it was no big deal. It's going to be a lot of work." She stretched out "a lot" as she said it and demonstrated with her hands how much work she thought it was going to be; it looked heavy. Even though the attention that Michael was showering her with was a little over the top, she felt at ease for the first time in two weeks and enjoyed that Michael was making such a fuss over her. He agreed that yes they would have what she already had in the fridge for lunch, but they would order Chinese for supper.

Lauren, unsure of why having a bunch more work dumped on your plate was cause to celebrate, sat down to eat her dinner with her mom and dad as the Noon Farm Report played as a soundtrack to each of their silent thoughts as they picked their way through their meal. Michael's mind was a mixture of pride for his wife, calculations of time and seed for his afternoon and visions of steaming hot Chinese food. Sharon was pretty much at peace as she sat through dinner and decided to pick up a bottle of wine, or maybe two, at the LB in town this afternoon.