Lauren: Thanksgiving

By the time we're on the plane to Savannah, I've forgotten about the shitty week I had at work.  Mostly because I hate flying with Alex.  He drives me crazy because he's far too laid back and I'm far too rigid, and our travel styles don't mesh at all.  I like to get to the airport with plenty of time to spare, he prefers to roll up to the gate as the flight is boarding.  I like to check in and pay baggage fees online ahead of time, he prefers to do it at the stupid little computer kiosks at the airport.  I'm ready to kill him by the time we're in our seats on the plane, and when he leans over me to look out the window, I snap.  "Can you please not touch me for 5 minutes?" I hiss.

He sits up and gives me a look.  He doesn't say anything, but he moves out of my space.  I turn my head and look out the window, sucking in a deep breath.  Once I calm down, I turn back to him and say, "I'm sorry.  I'm done acting like a bitch."

"Does flying make you nervous?" he asks curiously.

I frown and say, "No, why would you ask that?"

"You always get extra bitchy when you're nervous," he points out.

"I do?"

"You do," he confirms with a chuckle.

I consider this and realize he might be right.  "Well, maybe," I admit.  "I guess I didn't even really notice, I just know I get really cranky when I fly.  I'm sorry I was such a brat."

"I accept your apology," Alex replies.  We spend most of the flight in comfortable silence and I realize that I am a little nervous.  I almost wish he hadn't drawn my attention to it, because knowing I'm nervous makes me more nervous.

The flight is actually a really good one, and I'm excited to get to the hotel when we land.  This is our first real trip together (I'm just not counting going to Wisconsin and staying with my mom or going camping), and now that I'm off the plane that I didn't even realize scared me, I'm in a much better mood.

We take a cab to our hotel and check in, and I'm pretty impressed with the room.  I'm standing and looking out the window when Alex walks up behind me.  He slides his hands over my shoulders and squeezes gently.  "You're still so tense," he comments.

"Well, apparently I'm afraid of flying," I reply, laughing.  I turn around and face him, sliding my arms around his neck.  "Maybe you should help me relax."

"Are you propositioning me?" he asks, feigning shock.  "How inappropriate."

"You're the worst," I reply, rolling my eyes.  "Shut up and kiss me."  At least he can still follow directions, because he does kiss me, pressing me back against the cool glass of the window behind me.  When we separate to take off some clothing, he tugs me over until my back is against the wall next to the window.  Within minutes he's on his knees in front of me with one of my legs over his shoulder.  I push my hands into his hair, tugging and moaning when I come.

We have sex against the wall, then again in the big, comfortable bed.  After, we spend about 15 minutes on our phones, trying to figure out where we should go for dinner.  In the end, we decide to order to room service and be lazy.  I'm not mad about it.


Our "us time" in Savannah goes too quickly.  We don't get a chance to eat at all the restaurants I'd picked out (as if Alex would do any research or have any plan for what he wants to do).  We don't get to a lot of the things I thought would be cool, actually.  But we have a lot of fun.  We don't bicker at all, except in our normal playful way.  I actually relax a little and neither of us get irritated with the other, even when we get confused and maybe a little lost when we try to find Forsythe Park like the tourists we are.

We're having such a good time wandering around and exploring the city that Alex tells his parents we won't be to their house until after dinner time on Wednesday.  When we get there, they are clearly irritated.  Sharon, his mom, greets him stiffly.  "Hello, Alexander."  I have to work really hard to be conscious of what my face is doing, because the last thing I needed was to side-eye his mom and get caught.  "Lauren," she continues, glancing at me briefly before hugging Alex.

"Mom, no one's called me that since I was 7," Alex complains.  "Not even you."

"Alex?" His dad's voice carries from outside the foyer.

"Don't yell, David," Sharon scolds him when he makes his way into the foyer finally.

"Hello, son," David greets Alex, much more warmly than Sharon did.  "And Lauren, it's good to see you.  I'm so glad you guys made it down here.  Have you enjoyed the city?"

"Yes, very much," I answer politely.  "Thank you."

"Have you eaten?" Sharon asks.  "I can warm you up something.  We have--"

"We ate, Mom," Alex answers, cutting her off.  "Thank you.  Can we see the house?"

Sharon shows us around the house, which is very nice, in a Pottery Barn catalog sort of way.  I feel like I'll get a dirty look if I touch anything, much less sit on something.  So I keep my hands to myself and trail behind them, feeling seriously inferior already.  It certainly doesn't help when Sharon turns to me and says, "We unfortunately only have one guest room, but we set up an air mattress for you in the office, dear."

Alex jumps in before I can even collect myself and respond.  "Mom, Lauren isn't sleeping on an air mattress."

"Alright," she replies cooly.  "Then you can, and she can have your bed.  It doesn't matter to me."

I see Alex's jaw tick, and he says, "No one is sleeping on an air mattress.  Please don't be ridiculous."

"Oh, let the kids sleep together, Shar," Alex's dad calls from the bottom of the stairs.  "You're not preventing anything by shoving Lauren in the office on that god awful airbed."  I'm not sure if I should be horrified or thankful, so all I do is stand there.  Sharon shoots a very angry look down the stairs before finally shrugging and continuing the tour.

Luckily, we only have to deal with his parents for a couple hours before they go to bed.  As soon as their door closes, Alex looks at me.  "I'm really sorry," he says.  "She was in fine form tonight."

"It's fine," I reply, glancing at him and then away.

"It's not," he says, shaking his head.  "She was ridiculous.  Thank you for being so polite to them."  I shrug, uncomfortable with the conversation, and suggest we go to bed too.

When I wake up in the morning, Alex is already out of bed and I hear noise from the kitchen downstairs.  I'm getting dressed when Alex comes back into the room, freshly showered and dressed.  "Do you want to shower?" he asks me.

"No, I think I'll shower a little later in the morning if that's okay."

"Should be fine," he replies.  "My mom has all sorts of fun things for us to do today."  He grimaces as he says it, and I can hardly wait.

Sharon puts us to work cleaning the already immaculate dining room and helping her prepare some of the food.  She criticizes and corrects nearly everything either of us does, and I'm exhausted by the time I manage to sneak away for a shower.  When I come back downstairs, she's chatting happily away about the neighbor and his daughter and how lovely it is that they'll be joining us.  Barely 5 minutes later, a chime alerts us to the fact that someone's at the door.  "That must be Henry and Carolyn," Sharon says excitedly.  She heads for the door, almost forgetting for a second to walk at a composed, stately pace.

When I see her, I almost groan out loud.  Carolyn is tall with perfect hourglass curves and legs that are obscenely long.  Her auburn hair is smooth, shiny, and has just the right amount of wave to make it interesting.  Its color complements her piercing blue eyes really ridiculously well.  For some reason, when I heard "neighbor and his daughter" I imagined a kid, not someone roughly our age.

"Hi, it's so nice to meet you both," she says sweetly, shaking Alex's hand and then mine.  "Thanks for sharing your Thanksgiving with my dad and I."  Her voice has just a hint of a lilting southern accent.  It's lovely, and the perfect way to tie a pretty bow on a beautiful package.

"It's nice to meet you too," Alex says.  He subtly elbows me and I smile and murmur something similar.

Once we sit down at the table, Alex's mom focuses all her attention on Carolyn.  "So, Carolyn," she says brightly, "Your father tells us that you're a pediatric nurse?"

"Yes, I work in pediatric oncology," Carolyn answers with a polite and friendly smile.

"Oh, that must be so difficult," Sharon gushes.  "How do you do it?"

"It is, but it's also really rewarding.  I love working with the kids and doing anything I can to make their days a little brighter."

"Did you hear that?" Sharon asks, turning to Alex.  "What a lovely girl she is."  Carolyn smiles demurely and looks down at her plate.

The rest of dinner is basically 20 questions about Carolyn's achievements.  By the end of dinner I know that she had graduated summa cum laude from Auburn, was philanthropy chair of her sorority, is in the process of applying to graduate school to become a nurse practitioner, was captain of her high school's tennis team, and volunteers at the local animal shelter on the weekends.  I want to vomit.  Every time she reveals another tidbit displaying how perfectly perfect she is, Sharon turns to Alex and nudges him or makes a comment about how wonderful it is.

Sharon effectively pretends I don't exist throughout dinner, despite Alex, David, and Carolyn's attempts to include me in the conversation.  I am seething by the end of dinner, and raging mad by the time we've finished dessert and Carolyn and her dad excuse themselves and go home.  It's taking everything I have to keep my mouth shut.  Once they're gone, Alex looks at me and frowns.  "Are you okay?" he asks.  "You don't look so good."

I jump on it and say, "I actually really have a really terrible headache."

"Oh, you should go lie down for awhile," Sharon suggests, only too happy to get rid of me.

"Yeah," Alex agrees, though he looks concerned.  "That's not a bad idea."

I look at the clock and see it's already 8:30.  "I think I might just go to bed," I agree.  "Dinner was wonderful, thank you so much.  I hope to be feeling better in the morning."

"Oh, don't worry," Sharon says, her voice overly kind.  "Just get some rest.  We'll be fine just spending some time with our son."

I make my escape and get ready for bed.  I lay down, hoping I might fall asleep.  But laying in the dark with no distractions gives me too much time to think about what had happened tonight.  The more I think about it, the angrier I get.

By the time poor, unsuspecting Alex comes to bed, he's walking directly into the lion's den.  I'm more awake than I have been all day, and I'm so angry I don't know what to do with myself.  Not at Alex, of course, but at his mother.

"You're still up?" Alex asks.  "How's your head?"

"My head is fine," I say.  "How'd you like the lovely and talented Carolyn?"

"Um, she was nice," he replies, sounding confused.  "Why do you ask?"

"Just curious if you think she's as good of wife material as your mother does."

"Whoa, what?  What are you talking about?"

I snort.  "Your mom invited her here because she thinks she'd make a lovely wife for you."

"Are you jealous?" Alex asks, sounding surprised.

"Jealous?!" I hiss, furiously.  "No.  I'm fucking pissed off!"

"I don't understand, Lauren.  You're mad at me?"

I take a deep breath and say, "No.  You didn't do anything to upset me.  I'm angry at your mom, Alex.  She invited Carolyn here to try to tempt you away from me.  She wants you to meet a nice Southern girl, break up with me, move down here, and marry into a nice wealthy, upstanding family."

"Okay, so let's pretend for a minute that you're right about my mom's motivations," he replies.  "Do you really think I could be tempted away from you?  Jesus Christ, Lauren. I was in love with you for 8 years before we started dating.  A pretty girl at Thanksgiving dinner isn't going to ruin it."

"That's not the point," I snap.

"Then what is the point?  Because I guess I'm still not understanding."

"The point is that it was ridiculously disrespectful.  Your mom has absolutely no respect for me, and she demonstrated it tonight in front of an audience."

"I don't agree with that at all, and I think you're overreacting," he replies.

"You're going to take your mom's side over mine?" I ask, aghast and furious.  "Alex, you know your parents don't like me.  You yourself apologized last night for how she acted yesterday!"

"I'm not taking anyone's side, because there're no sides to take," he says, exasperated.  "And I'm starting to get upset that you keep basically saying that my mom is an underhanded, manipulative woman."

"Well, I'm getting upset that you're refusing to even consider that this was purposeful and disrespectful!"

"Please keep your voice down," Alex scolds me.

"Are you for real right now?" I ask.

"Yes," he whispers loudly.  "Unless you want to explain to my parents why you lied about having a headache.  Would you like to go accuse my mom of blatantly disrespecting you?  If not, I'd prefer to keep this a private argument, which means I'd appreciate it if you were more aware of your volume."

"I can't even believe that we're having this conversation," I say.

Alex gets into bed.  "Well, I'm pretty done with it myself."

"Fine," I snap.  I roll over in a huff and get as close to the edge of the bed as I can.

"Goodnight," Alex says tentatively.

"Goodnight," I reply angrily.  He decides it's in his best interest to not respond, and he's quiet.

Of course, like a typical man, he falls asleep right away.  Irrationally, I'm irritated about this.  It hardly seems fair that he should be able to fall asleep immediately while I sit here angry, tossing and turning.  Finally, after about an hour, I manage to fall asleep.