Chapter 79: College
After my aunt's embarrassing moment, we later went to The Bait Shop, the club where Alex worked and closed the night there (or at least the four of us did. Summer and I still enjoyed the rest of the night just the two of us).
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The next day, I stopped by the Dunphys' after a morning walk.
We decided to head to Mitchell's earlier. Claire was driving while I was in the passenger seat, Luke, Haley, and Alex were in the back. Phil was showing a house to a client.
Haley was complaining about spending Valentine's Day alone when Claire answered the phone through the car's Bluetooth system (Phil had installed it).
"Hi, honey," she said.
Phil, on speaker, replied, "Hey, I just wanted to tell you how great you were last night."
Claire tried to stop him. "Uh, Phil-"
"Sorry I got the oil everywhere, but hey-" Phil apologized.
I raised an eyebrow. I've been getting a lot of TMI from those two lately.
"Uh, sweetie-" Claire tried again.
"They're not our sheets, right?" Phil laughed.
"Honey, remember when you told us that the speaker makes everyone in the car hear?" She gave a strained smile. "Well, the whole family just heard that."
"Uh…" Phil paused for a moment. "Guess… I guess the Bluetooth works."
Luke, from the backseat, asked, "Why did you have oil?"
"Because, buddy, we were making French fries," Phil made a horrible excuse.
"Wow, I did too yesterday," I affirmed. "To the point where I could already work at McDonald's."
and I went further, "and I also fried some donuts. Donut for dessert."
Claire just stared at me from the corner of her eye. Phil coughed on the other side of the line.
"In your room?" Alex looked at us strangely.
but Luke cut her off, "Cool!" and said innocently, "but I prefer pie over donuts."
This time it was me caught off guard, coughing and laughing, "I think we're going to hell, Claire," I murmured
"Why don't we listen to some music?" Claire turned up the sound system and switched to a pop radio station.
Then she asked me, "Why the disappointed face?"
"Well, I was hoping a suggestive song would start playing, just to add the fun," I smirked.
"Sometimes, you just want to watch the circus burn, huh?" Claire scolded.
"Sometimes?" I argued. "If it's not happening to me, I'm okay with it all the time!"
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We arrived at Mitchell and Cam's house and sat on the couch. Claire was obviously already holding Lily (she continues to be the star among the women).
Alex, Haley, and I sat together on the sofa. Alex grabbed my arm excitedly, "I can't wait for next month. We will take a full tour through MIT and Harvard!"
She was talking about our trip to Boston in March.
MIT, huh - that brings back good memories, I thought.
Haley snorted, "You are such a nerd! We're going for St. Patrick's Day parties," she said, clearly excited for different reasons.
"I'll take you two to Newbury Street - good cafés, great stores, and dinner at the Seaport," I told them.
"And yes, Alex," I smiled at her, "we can make a full tour of both, with almost unrestricted access, considering some professors offered to guide us."
"I hear Seaport??" Cam approached us.
"Yeap, there are great restaurants there," I confirmed.
The trip will be taken with the whole family. Marissa and Summer are also going; Alex Kelly hasn't confirmed yet, and neither have Seth and Ryan.
A little later, Gloria, Manny, Jay, and Phil arrived as well, and we had lunch.
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After lunch, I was with Mitchell, Claire, and Cam, and they were having a glass of wine.
"I cannot stand hanging out with his Ivy League friends," Cam was talking about Mitchell's friends.
Claire agreed, "Oh, they're the worst."
"They're not that bad," Mitchell tried to soften it.
"They are the worst!" Claire emphasized again.
"Are you kidding me?" Cam looked at Mitchell. "Debbie can't go two minutes without mentioning Columbia University."
He added, "And that little guy with the lazy eye from Harvard."
"Brown," Mitchell corrected him.
"Whatever. Honestly, I wish that tart would go back to Columbia... and take her weird little Brown friend with her," Cam chuckled wickedly.
But Gloria and Manny, who happened to be walking by at that moment, stopped and stared at Cam because of the comment.
The rest of the family had also fallen silent and heard the whole thing.
Cam tried to explain himself to Gloria: "So when I said 'Brown people,' I wasn't talking about your, uh, brown people. I was talking about people who go to a university. Not your people."
Gloria raised an eyebrow
Realizing how bad it sounded, he quickly corrected himself, "N-Not that your people couldn't go to college."
"Of course they can go. Who's going to build the college for us?" I chimed in to help him.
"Exactly," Cam agreed, but then hastily realized what I had said. "I mean - no!"
Gloria put her hand on her hip and stared at me.
"Come on! This is too funny!" I exclaimed. "What are the odds that Cam, while talking about universities, would land on a sentence that fits you and Manny perfectly?" I laughed.
But after that, I cleared up all the misunderstandings, though Cam was still acting a bit awkward around Gloria.
Mitchell changed the subject to break the tension, "Lilly said her first word."
Claire's eyes lit up, "What was it?"
"Mommy," Mitch replied, but quickly clarified, "It's because of the doll she got as a gift. When you press it, it says 'mommy.'"
Cam added, "Lilly loves that doll. Or she would totally said daddy first" he declared, probably more to convince himself.
"Let me guess," I joined the conversation, "you two freaked out because that would be an 'M' word as the first word of a child with two dads."
For their faces, it seems I hit the spot
"But you don't need to worry," I comforted them, "if Lilly ends up like Claire, she'll still be calling daddy even when she's this old," I finished.
Both dads laughed, while Claire stabbed me with her eyes hard enough to make a hole.
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