Chapter 13.1: Straits -- Bringing Up Flex
Chapter 13.2: Straits -- Sabbath
Sisi met me at the door. "Mom wants to know why you were such a bad boy with Julia last night."
I glanced over her head at Julia, who shrugged at me through their kitchen door, then at her mother, who was curled up on their couch with the newspaper. Mrs. Cisneros gave me a look that said I should have known better.
Then I turned back to Sisi. "Good question. I guess a hug wasn't much of a way to say good-night. Of course, I could give you a good morning kiss, instead."
I made a kissy face at her and she giggled and backed away.
"Mo-om!"
Ms. Cisneros laughed.
Julia gave us all a smirk from the kitchen.
I followed Sisi in and made my way over to the kitchen, with a stop to give Mrs. Cisneros a hug and an air-kiss to the cheek. She patted me on the back and gave me an approving nod with her kiss.
I gave Julia a hug and we spontaneously air-kissed both cheeks. As we went went cheek-to-cheek the second time, she whispered, "Mom's horrified."
I chuckled, then without checking her mother's expression, drew back so we could give each other a quick peck, lip-to-lip.
Behind me, her mother cleared her throat. "That's a little better. Not much."
"Let me help you with those tortillas," I suggested, still grinning. Pretty soon we had a decent Sunday breakfast set out, and Julia's father wandered in.
"Julia's putting you to work already? You need more pay. Nice looking spread." He sat down and proceeded to put together a breakfast taco.
I laughed, and Julia rolled her eyes, so I snuck my arm around her waist and drew her in for another, more prolonged kiss.
"You need a little practice on that, too, Son."
Julia's shoulders fell, and she turned to face him. "No Papá. No es para sus entretenimiento. We'll kiss how and when we want."
"Heh. I'm afraid that one was at least partly for their entertainment, or I would have given it better attention."
Julia snickered and relaxed back into my arms, and her dad gave me a stern look before breaking into a chuckle.
"We'd better eat breakfast if we intend on making your church on time." I held a chair for her and she sat down. I took a chair next to her, and we started putting our breakfast tacos together.
Her mother came in and sat down, still chuckling, and Sisi and her brothers followed, and her dad asked me to say grace.
After I asked a blessing, we dug into our tacos.
"By the way, Denny called last night to tell me Motorola wants to talk with me some more down in Austin next Friday."
"What about classes?" Julia asked between bites.
"In the evening. I can leave right after classes and eat lunch on the road. They offered to fly me in, but Denny pointed out that I'd want to visit the surplus shop on Saturday, and they said they could pay my mileage if I wanted to drive."
Julia chewed thoughtfully for a few moments and swallowed. "Are you going to stay the night with your brother?"
"That's the plan."
"Do I get to come, too? -- to look at disk drives. I can sleep on their living-room floor in a sleeping bag, if they'll let me."
I looked up to see what her parents thought, and they seemed to be waiting for my response.
"I'll ask Denny. It would be kind of fun to wander around the surplus shop with you."
Her dad shook his head and gave her mom an inquiring look. "¿Qué prioridades tienen?"
She shrugged, "Dejarlo a ellos."
"¿Tienen un templo Mormón en Austin?"
"Dang. Eloping does sound kind of fun. But no, no temple in Austin. And eloping to a temple is kind of hard to do, anyway, since we'd have to ask the bishop for permission and stuff. Ouch."
Julia was snickering, but she poked me again.
"Hey. Just answering your dad's question."
Sisi and Mario looked a little lost. Tito rolled his eyes. Julia's parents joined Julia and me in laughing comfortably at the joke.
Then her mother asked, "So was that a proposal?"
Julia closed her eyes. "Mom, Dad, patience. We have to work through a lot of things before we can really seriously consider getting married. We may have known each other for several months now, but we've only been seriously dating for a little more than a week."
I gave her a hug, and she leaned her head on my shoulder. I kissed her forehead.
"I guess it is beginning to seem like we've been friends forever."
She nodded.
*****
"It looks like they slipped out already."
Pat and George had sat in the back during the sermon, but they were now nowhere in sight.
"Julia! Are you bailing out on choir this Easter?" Their choir director, Valerie Jones, approached.
Julia looked over at me, and I looked back.
"Choir?" I raised my eyebrows and Julia raised hers back, giving her head a tilt.
Valerie looked from Julia to me. "You know, you have a good voice, and we can use men. You're welcome to join."
So we stayed after and practiced with their choir, and made a tentative commitment to sing with them for Easter.
*****
"I'm sure I saw Mike around here." Julia looked both ways down the north hall of the meetinghouse we shared with the other ward, but, if he had been there, he wasn't any more.
"Should we check every classroom?"
"I guess, if he doesn't want to talk to us, we shouldn't."
"Ah, Joe, you've been making yourself scarce."
I turned around. "Sister Fulmer. I guess I have. Sorry. Julia, Sister Fulmer is leading our choir this year."
Julia laughed. "Am I invited, too?"
"Sure! We'd love to have you. You can sing alto, too, right?"
"I can."
And we stayed after for choir in my ward, as well, tentatively committing to the ward's Easter cantata.
*****
Back at my house after the young adult evening, I got on the phone in the kitchen and dialed Denny's number. Julia went to the extension in Dad's study.
"Reeves Mortuary. You stab 'em, we slab 'em."
"Denny!" we heard Denise chide on the other end of the call.
"Mpphh." Julia suppressed a snort.
"Hey, can I reserve a couple of lockers for next Friday?" I joked back.
"I'm not sure I like this analogy," Julia complained, laughing.
"Two?" Denny questioned.
Julia answered, "I can bring a sleeping bag and sleep on the floor somewhere."
"I guess you're the beautiful Julia we've been hearing about."
Julia leaned around the corner and mouthed at me, "Beautiful?"
"Dad," I mouthed back.
"Well, I am Julia, whether I'm beautiful or not ..."
"Yeah, she is," I confirmed.
"Sleeping bag, huh?"
"I get to meet Julia?" Denise's voice filtered in from the background. "She can have the couch. Joe can sleep on the floor with the boys."
"Ya heard that?" Denny asked.
"I get the floor in the boys' room and Julia gets the sofa."
"That means you're coming to talk with my boss's bosses on Friday?"
"Sure. Any idea what they want to talk about?"
"I'm not supposed to say."
"Come as I am, then."
"Yep."
Chapter 13.3: what?
[Backed up at https://joel-rees-economics.blogspot.com/2020/06/bk-33209-straits-sabbath.html.]
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