Chapter 99

December 1, 2017

Dear Ms. Diary,

As I was heading downstairs for breakfast, a text message came in from Heather: “Clothing competition week of 3-9 Dec – sexy and inexpensive (total barefoot cost <$25); can be somewhat revealing on 5^th as B-Day present for Dad.”

At lunch, we confirmed details of the lunch-table gang’s get-together at our house tomorrow. Although neither Meka nor Katie will be here, Meka offered to pick everyone up in the morning if they would get rides home from their parents or others. At home, we warned everyone that we would have guests for the day tomorrow. Hopefully, everyone will remember that and not cause a scene.

December 2, 2017

Dear Ms. Diary,

[Written December 3]

After a scrumptious breakfast for ten made by Dad, Sandy announced that the four adults were going to spend the day out on the town, although first they would run a major shop for groceries.

“And I’m paying for it,” Inez stated.

“You’re a guest. You’re not paying for our groceries,” Sandy riposted.

“While I may not be family, I’m certainly more than a guest. You’ve been paying for all of Gracey’s and Liya’s needs – on the grocery angle – for a month. I will pay for the grocery trip.”

Before Mom came back at Inez, I interrupted with, “Before we wind up with pistols at thirty paces, Inez has valid points, and...” I gathered quick nods from my sisters... “the girls’ vote is unanimous, 6-0. Thanks, Meka, for making the math simple.”

There was a bit of chuckling.

“All right, all right. If you’re gonna get our daughters to gang up on me, you win, Inez.”

Sandy followed that with a grin at and a hug of Inez.

Meka piped up, asking, “Who’s riding with me to pick up Brett and the other girls?”

Rhee answered, “Since Beth and I know the pre-grocery-run planning stuff at least a bit better than the rest, we should stay here to help with that. Is that okay with everyone?”

Everyone agreed, so Meka and the three others took off, and the six of us put together the shopping list. Meka and company returned before the adults.

During the last half of the high-school soccer season, the team had introduced Brett, Brit, and Cera to the huggy nature of the team, a feature that had surprised me and my sister-friend-lovers. Yes, that’s how our premier team is, but my sisters and I didn’t expect that on this team. I do think that we – just being the way we are – might have increased the scope of hugginess, but Meka told us that last year’s team did hugs a lot, although, perhaps, not quite as much.

The upshot is that the three assistants that we met at our lunch table early in the school year were now people we hugged nearly every day. Of course, the Go5 members definitely enjoy having Brett being a regular hug recipient. He had been quite tentative when he began helping on the team, but he now seems not to be at all concerned about hugs; they are de rigeur. Oddly, this sort of crept up on me and, looking back through the diary, I confirmed that I had not previously mentioned something that I should have highlighted a few months earlier.

There were hugs all around when the BBC and Civia arrived. We showed them around the house and were sitting on the Monstrosity when the adults returned. With so many hands, we made light work of both getting the umpteen bags and boxes into the house and then of putting the groceries away, although once the stuff was in the house, Civia entertained the BBC. Once we were done putting stuff away, the four parents prepared for running around together in town, and the Go5 returned to our guests.

Rhee asked the other eight of us, “What do we want to do? It’s pretty raw outside, so I’d prefer inside stuff. I’d suggest giving our guests the preference, but I’m not sure they’d know the options.”

Civia responded, “We could play games, with the YouTube game being a possibility. However, I might like to start by learning a bit more about everyone. Could we do what we did at the Veteran’s Day weekend?”

The BBC, as a group, looked a bit confused, so Liya replied, “We asked general questions of all participants so that everyone knew the same basics, such as family members, schools, likes and dislikes, stuff like that.”

With that, we spent the next hour or so learning about each other. We were surprised that, although Brit has stepbrothers, Heather was still the only one of us with genetic siblings.

“This just gets weirder and weirder,” stated Heather.

“A lot of the girls on the premier team have siblings, but it might still be a minority,” I responded. “Liya, do you know more about the high-school team than I do?”

“Jess has siblings -- multiple, but Jules has none. Obviously, the Parker sisters have siblings; at least one each.”

There was much chuckling.

She continued with, “Other than Meka and Katie ... and Abby, the only others I know about are Addiah and Makayla, and both of them have brothers. I think. At least one each, although Makayla said something that made me think she’s got two brothers, but I’m not certain.”

“That is weird, with everyone at the lunch table with regularity being an only child, except for Heather,” Brett said. He grinned, then said, “You’re weirder than we thought, Heather!”

“Why, thank you, Brett. I like being the weird one, although I’ve spent most of my life wishing I were an only child.” She looked around quickly, then said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be a downer.”