Operation Get Rid of Mom's New Boyfriend (9 page)

Sammi was so moved by her
daughters’ change of heart that her eyes became moist with tears.
“Girls, thank you so much for deciding to give this thing a chance.
I don’t know what to say.”

“
How about, ‘Dinner is
served?” Kennedy suggested, scooping noodles onto the last plate.
“I’ll get the sauce while you get your date.”

“
I’m right on it,” Sammi
said as she exited the kitchen.

Kennedy immediately grabbed
the hot sauce and crushed red pepper.

“
Girls,” Sammi said,
sticking her head back into the kitchen.

“
Uh…yes…Mom/Mother/Mommy,”
the girls said nervously as Kennedy hid the condiments behind her
back.

“
Thanks again. You don’t
know how much this means to me. And believe me; I understand that
this is not easy for you girls. It wasn‘t easy for me either. But I
know we can get through anything as long as we just love and
respect one another.” Sammi wiped away a lone tear before it fell
from her eye. “Oh, let me get out of here before I ruin my
make-up.” She carefully wiped under her eyes as not to smear her
make-up. “You girls make me so proud.” Once again, she exited the
kitchen.

With blank faces, the girls
stared at one another. Then suddenly Kennedy smiled and wiped her
forehead. “Whew, that was close.”

“
Tell me about it,” Daryn
agreed.

Joy let out a sigh of
relief.

“
Now hurry up,” Daryn told
Kennedy, who then quickly began covering Bo’s noodles with the
secret added ingredients. Daryn was right behind her wearing huge
oven mittens with the pan of sauce.

Kennedy got a ladle and
began spooning spaghetti sauce on top of the mounds of hot sauce
and pepper. “Joy, go ahead and put sugar in the punch, but put
that
other kind of sugar
in Mr. Bo’s special glass that we set aside for
him.”

“
What other kind of sugar?”
Joy asked with a puzzled look on her face.

“
The kind that looks just
like sugar, only it ain’t sweet,” Kennedy told her.

Joy thought for a minute
then said, “Ohhhh; I get it,” as she retrieved the container of
salt and followed her oldest sister’s instructions.

Moments later, Sammi
entered the kitchen, followed by her date. “Girls, I want you to
meet Bo. Bo, this is Kennedy, my oldest,” Sammi pointed to each of
her daughters, “Daryn, my middle girl, and Joy, my
baby.”

“
Hi, Mr. Bo,” the girls
said in unison as they each sat in front of their plates with fake,
innocent smiles plastered on their faces.

It wasn’t hard for the
girls to see why their mother had taken such a liking to this Bo
character. He was a nice looking fella if the girls had to admit it
themselves. However, they would never admit it themselves; not out
loud anyway.

“
Hello, little ladies,” Bo
greeted. “It’s an honor to meet you.” He smiled and his sparkling
white teeth shined like something out of a cartoon.

“
Have a seat,” Sammi
instructed him as she pointed at one of the two empty settings at
the table that could seat up to six people.

“
You first,” Bo replied as
he proceeded to pull out the chair of one of the empty
settings.

“
Nooo, not there!” all the
girls yelled.

Bo and Sammi were startled
by their loud outburst.

“
That’s Mr. Bo’s plate.
Uh…we…uh…really piled the food on Mr. Bo’s plate,” Kennedy
stammered. “You, know, with him being a big, strong man and all.”
She flexed her muscles and puffed out her cheeks.

“
Uh, well, okay,” Sammi
said, looking at Kennedy strangely.

Both Sammi and Bo sat down
in their seats assigned by the girls.

“
Shall I open with prayer?”
Bo asked.

“
Sure,” Sammi smiled, proud
that she had a praying man. Even though Sammi and the girls didn’t
go to church as regularly as they had when Mr. Soul was alive, they
still frequented the church Mr. Soul had been a member of. As the
head of the family, Mr. Soul had always prayed over his family’s
food before they ate their meals. That was something that the girls
still did. So for Sammi, it was nice to see that Bo would fit right
in, in that aspect anyway.

After Bo said the prayer he
playfully added, “Now let’s dig in.” He admired the food before
him. “I hope it’s as delicious as it smells,” Bo said, picking up a
forkful of spaghetti.

“
Me, too,” Sammi said.
“It’s one of my best dishes. I hope you enjoy.”

“
I’m sure I will.” Bo put
the forkful in his mouth while the girls sat watching him chew,
waiting for some type of reaction. After a few seconds, Bo could
tell that he was being watched. He quickly looked up from his plate
to find the three sisters staring at him. They each immediately
looked away and began digging in their own plates.

Bo decided to strike up a
conversation. “So, girls, I hear you all go to the same school.
Must be nice.”

“
Yeah,” Sammi answered for
her daughters, whose mouths were full. “I was really glad to find a
school that went from kindergarten all the way up to twelfth grade.
That means the girls can always be there to watch out for each
other.”

“
I would have liked being
in school with my siblings all of my school years, but
unfortunately, I’m an only child,” Bo informed them.

The girls weren’t the least
bit interested in Bo’s family life. However, Sammi was.

“
Isn’t that a coincidence,
girls? That both Mr. Bo and I are an only child?”

“
Pure twist of fate?”
Kennedy shot.

There was a moment of
awkward silence again.

“
So, Bo, how’s the food?”
Sammi asked.

“
Oh, it’s delicious,” he
said as he scooped up another huge forkful and began to
chew.

The girls looked from one
to another with confusion. They couldn‘t figure out why he was
enjoying a meal that should have set off a five alarm fire in his
mouth. Kennedy shrugged.

“
It‘s a family recipe.”
Sammi smiled proudly as she took a bite of her own food.

Bo licked his lips. “Well,
it’s the best spaghetti I’ve ever had. I mean this sauce is…this
sauce is…” Just then, Bo’s eyes watered up and his face turned beat
red. “This sauce is…”

“
My sauce is what?” Sammi
smiled as she batted her eyes. She just knew a compliment was
coming.

“
It’s hot!” Bo managed to
shout as he began to choke.

“
Oh, my goodness! For
goodness sakes,” Sammi said as she stood up and went to Bo’s aide.
She felt helpless, as Bo couldn’t even talk. He gripped his hands
around his own throat as if he were choking himself. Thinking quick
on her feet, Sammi handed him his glass of punch.

The girls sat there
watching the scene unfold, kicking each other under the table with
excitement that their plan was playing out just as they had
imagined.

“
Here, drink this,” Sammi
told Bo.

He took the glass from
Sammi and began gulping it down. Within seconds, all the red punch
went flying out of his mouth and all over Sammi‘s outfit.
“Pah-yuk!” Bo choked. He managed to get up and go over to the
kitchen sink. He turned the water to cold and began chugging right
from the faucet.

The girls couldn’t hold it
in any longer as they each burst into laughter. They laughed so
hard that tears fell from their eyes. They were holding their
stomachs and keeling over. Joy laughed so hard that she fell out of
her chair. It was when she looked up to see her mother towering
over her, dripping in fruit punch, that her laughter, along with
her sisters’ laughter, stopped.

They had pretty much
expected what Bo’s reaction would be after he dug into his extra
spicy plate of food and after he drank his bitter drink.
Nevertheless, it was their mother’s reaction that they had failed
to prepare themselves for. That was one glitch in their operation
they’d have to repair, but for now, it was too little too late.
There was no time to prepare for their mother’s wrath.

Chapter Ten

No Apologies, No
Regrets

“
Girls, how could you?”
Sammi said in a disappointed tone. Her voice was shaky. It sounded
as if she wanted to cry, but the girls knew she wouldn’t. They
hadn’t seen her cry since their father’s funeral. Her eyes had
watered, tears had threatened to fall, but each threat had been
idle.

Just a couple minutes ago,
Sammi had walked Bo to the door, apologizing for her daughters’
actions the entire time. He’d left without telling her that he
accepted the apology. The rawness and burning in his throat as a
result of the pasta sauce had prevented him from being able to
speak.

As Bo walked out of the
door, he had put his hand to his ear and mouth as if it were a
phone, signaling Sammi that he would call her. She knew in her
heart, though, that he wouldn’t. Sad thing about it was, she
couldn’t blame him. There were, though, three other people she
could blame.

Kennedy, Daryn and Joy each
sat on the couch silently with no reply to their mother’s question.
They were slightly moved by Sammi’s obvious frustration with them,
but the feeling of victory deep down inside them was too
overwhelming for them to truly show it. They hadn’t intended to
hurt their mother, but the look on her face proved that they had.
So even though their faces expressed some regret, they still
couldn’t help but to rejoice over the success of the evening;
according to their plans anyway. Of course, their mother saw things
differently.

“
So not one of you has
anything to say?” Sammi asked her daughters. Again, there was no
reply. “Not even that you’re sorry?” Sammi shook her head in
disgust.

Kennedy finally spoke up.
“But we’re not sorry,” she declared. “We’re sorry that you are sad
and I guess a wee bit angry.” Kennedy placed her index finger over
her thumb and held them just a tad bit apart. Sammi tightened her
lips at Kennedy’s downplay of her level of anger. “Okay, a lot
angry,” Kennedy admitted. “But we’re not sorry that we did it.
There was no way we could just let some strange man think he was
going to barge into our house and take Daddy’s place. So, no, Mom,
we’re not sorry. The only other thing besides hurting you that we
could possibly be sorry about is that you brought him here in the
first place.”

“
Whoa, hold up!” Sammi
said, putting her hand up. She rattled her head as if she were
shaking water out of it. She was double-checking that she had heard
her oldest daughter correctly. “Since when do you determine who I
bring into this house?” she said to Kennedy and then looked to the
other two girls. “Since when do any of you determine
such?”

Kennedy could tell by the
way Sammi’s voice was rising that she’d better not respond. This
was probably what she’d heard adults refer to as a rhetorical
question.

Daryn looked over at her
older sister. She could tell that it was killing Kennedy inside not
to be able to speak her mind, for fear of disrespecting their
mother more than they already had. “Mom, look, we’re sorry that we
upset you. We didn’t mean to; honest. But-”

“
Well, you did upset me.”
Sammi cut Daryn off. “And you embarrassed me as well.”

“
So now we’re an
embarrassment?” Kennedy stood up and said, not being able to bite
her tongue any longer. “Is that why you’ve been kickin’ it with
this cat for months and we’re just now meeting him? Because you
were embarrassed of us?” Kennedy shook her head. “Well, that
explains a lot. First we’re invisible, and now we’re just a
complete embarrassment. Let me guess, next you’ll be sending us off
to boarding school.”

“
Boarding school?” Joy
stood up and exclaimed while looking back and forth from her
sisters. “Did she say boarding school?” She then looked at Sammi.
“Did I hear the words boarding school? Because Rebecca Joe’s big
sister said that when a woman sends her kids off to boarding school
when she gets a new boyfriend, it’s because she wants to be with
him more than she wants to be with her own kids?” She said this all
quickly and in one breath. Her chest was rising up and down as if
she’d just run a marathon she was so out of breath.

“
Is that true, Mother?”
Daryn stood up and asked. Now all three girls were standing like
stair steps. “You don’t want us around anymore? You like Mr. Bo
better than us?”

Sammi’s eyes remained
watered, but she refused to shed tears. She did not want the girls
to think they were getting the best of the situation. They were,
however, getting the best of her heart. “I can’t even believe you
girls would ever think anything like that. What kind of mother do
you think I am?”

Kennedy crossed her arms
and poked out her lips. “Harrumph.” She looked to her sisters then
back to her mother. “You tell us.”

Sammi’s blood began to
boil. The heat from the burning fire inside of her quickly dried up
any pending tears that had been threatening to fall from her eyes.
She couldn’t believe she was a grown woman having a stand off with
some kids; her own kids. Well, she wasn’t having it!