Done Adulting Vol. 1 Ch. 124

“Was that really necessary,” Jamie asked as Amanda cleaned the lubricant from between his cheeks.

“Sorry. Mom just wanted to make sure you’re not getting sick,” Amanda said as she threw the wipe away and wrapped the thermometer in a wipe to wash later.

“A guy skips one meal ...”

“She’s just being careful.”

“Where is she anyway?”

“Upstairs wrapping presents. We’re not allowed in,” Amanda tittered. “Do you want some help wrapping yours?”

“Sure. I never was good at that.”

“Let’s get you dressed again first.”

“Actually, can I go naked for a while?”

Amanda ran her hand over his butt. “Are you getting a diaper rash?”

“I don’t think so. Just want some air.”

“Sure.” Amanda got a sweater from his dresser. “Arms up.” She pulled his sleeper off him and replaced it with the sweater.

“May I have some socks, too?”

“Are your toesies cold,” she asked as she wrapped her hands around his tiny feet. “O my goodness, they are freezing.” Amanda got a pair of his wool socks out and slipped them on his feet. He chuckled.

“Does that tickle?”

“No, I was just thinking how funny it is. Where I’m from nobility would fight for the job of dressing the king.”

“Har-har.” She rubbed his feet between her hands for a few seconds before putting him on his feet. She thought for a moment and took a diaper from the changing table, unfolded it and set it on the floor. “Do you mind sitting on this, just in case?” She wasn’t sure anymore what risk of an accident she took leaving him naked.

“Um, I guess not,” he frowned. Amanda’s lips curled into a wry apology, but she didn’t take the diaper back.

“Why don’t you get the gifts out of the closet, and I’ll go steal some wrapping stuff from Mom.” When she came back, Jamie had his small pile of presents arrayed on the floor, and he was sitting on the open diaper with his legs wide enjoying the air.

“Is that all of them?”

“All of them except yours.”

“I convinced Mom to crack the door to slide me a roll of wrapping paper. It’s like she’s running a secret operation up there.”

“Must’ve got something she’s really excited about giving.”

“The big question is which one of us it’s for.” Jamie did most of the work, leaving Amanda to fold the paper over the sides of the boxes. That was the part he could never do well. It was never crisp and sharp like it should be. Jamie wrote the labels, thinking maybe he should use some of his abundant free time to work on his penmanship.

The last one to wrap was Cheryl’s. It was already wrapped in brown paper from the frame shop. They just needed to wrap it in something more festive. “This turned out really well,” Amanda said.

“You don’t think it’s kinda presumptuous?”

“Not at all.”

“Ella helped.”

“Did you tell her who it’s for?”

“Of course I did. She knows all about Cheryl.”

“That’s good.”

“What? You thought she’d be jealous?”

“Maybe.”

“You and her think the same thing – that Cheryl probably doesn’t have those feelings for me anymore, if she ever did.”

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

“Good, I guess.”

“You wanna talk about it?” Jamie sighed and climbed into Amanda’s lap. “So that’s a yes then,” she said with a smile. Of all the ways that Jamie made her feel like she must be one of the top-five people in the world, that he trusted her with his feelings, and especially on the subject of Cheryl, was among the most noteworthy. She knew he didn’t talk with their mom about her. Whether that was because, despite being closer to Becky in actual age than Amanda, he felt more comfortable talking about relationships with someone also had never been married or because it’s easier to talk about these things with your sister than your mom.

“She’ll be here two days after Christmas,” Jamie said.

“Yeah.”

“So she’s here already.”

“Mhmm. In quarantine. You can call her, if you want. Offer is still on the table.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. I’m not sure we should start talking about stuff not face-to-face.”

“That’s smart. She probably agrees. She could have called too.”

“Do you think it means anything that she hasn’t?”

“Probably just that she’s thinking the same thing as you. Plus, you’ll get plenty of time to see her. She’ll be here for four days.”

“I’m glad she decided to stay at the agency quarters.”

“Makes things a little easier, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you still worried about her reaction to seeing you as Jamie?”

“I am Jamie. I just, well, you know.”

“I know. And we’ll be discreet while she’s here.”

“It’s not her first time in the dimension.”

“It’s not?”

“No. But I don’t know how much she’s seen. I don’t know if she’s ever been to San Siena.”

“Well, maybe we can show her around some.” They sat in silence for a few minutes. “Are your toesies warm yet?”

“Mostly.”

“Wanna go do something?”

“Like what?”

“I dunno. Bake Christmas cookies?”

“I think one more cookie is gonna make me diabetic.”

“Play outside?”

“It’s muddy.”

“Give me a back rub?”

“Okay.” Jamie got off her lap, Amanda laid down, and Jamie climbed onto her. When he was done and she was content, he laid down on top of her.

“Kind of a slow day, huh, Jamester.”

“Yeah.”

“They can’t all be gems, I guess.”

Becky smiled when she walked past the door. “Hey, Amanda?”

“Yeah, Mom?”

“I don’t know if you noticed, but there’s a naked bear on your back. A bare bear.”

“Good one, Mom.” She came into the room and bent down to feel Jamie’s forehead.

“He didn’t have a fever, did he?”

“No.”

“Are you hungry yet?” She sat down on the floor next to them, tugged Jamie’s sweatshirt up, and ran her fingers up and down his back. Like he always did, he shuddered when her fingernails brushed the small of his back.

“A little,” he said.

“We could go out for an early dinner.”

“Don’t wanna cook,” Amanda asked.

“It’s time I told you the truth, Manda. I only started cooking because if I didn’t feed you they’d have taken you away from me.”

Amanda chuckled. “Not your favorite chore, huh?”

“I’d have thought my baked chicken would have made that clear a long time ago.”

“Yeah …”

“’Yeah’ what?”

“The breading is always soggy.”

“I know. Sorry … What about you, Jamie? Early dinner sound good?”

“Mhmm.”

“Ooh, I know,” Manda said.

“What?”

“After dinner we can drive around and look for good light displays.”

“We could still put up lights,” Becky said. Jamie had insisted his Christmas would be just fine without them. She wanted more than anything to make this his best Christmas ever. She had a feeling his previous ones hadn’t been all that great, but she never directly asked.

“I think the ones on the boxwoods are enough,” Jamie said. He didn’t want her to go to any more effort on his account. It wasn’t like he could see the lights – they would be outside, and he’d be in. “No need to go all ‘Griswold Family Christmas.’”

“What’s that,” Becky asked.

“A Christmas movie.”

“Maybe we can try to find it and watch it.”

“That’d be fun.”

“We can try the library,” Amanda suggested. “They have stuff from his world. If we leave now we could make it before they close.”

Amanda quickly got Jamie dressed. They were in luck at the library. A shelf in the back corner of the little section had an array of Christmas movies.

“What’s a ‘Hallmark Movie,’” Becky asked.

“You’ve seen it,” Jamie said.

“Um, pretty sure I haven’t.” She’d never seen any movies from his dimension.

“It’s about a woman with an important job who lives in a big city and goes home for Christmas even though she’s addicted to her work and doesn’t want to go back to her hometown. She spends the first two days there in a bad mood staring at work emails until her younger sister/former best friend she hasn’t seen in forever drags her to the only bar in town where she runs into the guy she almost dated in high school and who wanted to date her but they always missed the connection.

“Now he runs a diner/bookstore/bed-and-breakfast/organic farm/custom carpentry shop/public interest law firm and is a shirtless veterinarian for an animal rescue. They reconnect, hit it off, and he tells her how unhappy she seems, and then they fight, and then she admits it, and then she’s all conflicted about staying or leaving or staying; and then Christmas is over, and she leaves, and he’s sad, and then she’s back the next day and says she doesn’t want to be a lawyer/marketing executive/music producer/CEO/senior vice president of global sales development/corporate attorney for a puppy poisoners anymore, and then he proposes, and the movie flashes forward to her happily running a bakery/clothing boutique/organic farm/children’s clothing line in their hometown while raising babies.”

“O,” Becky said, “I think I have seen that. Except it was Harvest Day. I kinda liked it.”

“I know, and so do the good people at Hallmark.”

Amanda looked at the cover. “If it’s Christmas, why are there leaves on the trees?”

“Bad production values.” They took the Hallmark movie, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, and A Christmas Carol. They were cleaned out of Christmas cartoons, which was fine with Jamie. He didn’t need the sound of singing Chipmunks stuck in his head. When they went to check out, the librarian recognized Jamie.

“Hey! I remember you. The little boy who’s so good at reading.”

“That’s him,” Becky said beaming with pride.

“I thought you were going to come back and do story time again.”

“O, well, I guess we kinda forgot,” Amanda said. She looked at her mother. “You remember that day, in the park?”

“That was the same day,” Becky asked.

“Yeah.”

“We’d still love to have you back,” the librarian said.

“What do you think, Jamie?”

“Sure. We could make it a regular thing even,” Jamie suggested.

“Once a month?”

“I think we could manage that,” Becky said. The librarian gave Becky her card.

They picked up a pizza on the way home, and all three of them changed into their pajamas to watch the movie together. Jamie sat between them. About twenty minutes into the movie, Amanda couldn’t take it anymore. “Look at all the little humans! They’re so cute!”

“You’ve never seen a movie from my dimension before?”

“No,” Becky said. “Do you think he’d wanna be adopted,” she asked Jamie.

“Yeah, you don’t wanna adopt Randy Quaid.”

“I wanna help him put his lights on his house,” Amanda said as she watched Chevy Chase.

“Why?”

“Because he’s just so helpless and incompetent,” she cooed. “Look at him – he’s gonna get hurt on that ladder all by himself.” She wore a face like a sad puppy.

Jamie hadn’t envisioned their reaction. When he laughed, they “oohed” and “awwwed.”

“O, I’m sorry,” Becky said toward the end, “But even I would spank his little fanny.” Jamie looked at her like she’d lost her mind. “Kidnapping your cousin’s boss is a major no-no.”

“Maybe I’ll watch this again tomorrow, alone,” Jamie said under his breath. Not that he didn’t enjoy it, but he was too busy watching the show going on to his left and right to really concentrate on the movie in front of him. He began to suspect watching that many humans interacting in their natural environment was to Becky and Amanda what watching a YouTube video of puppies was to him. “Weird,” he said when the movie ended.

“Well,” Becky said as she switched the TV off, “Did you enjoy that?”

“Yeah. Did you guys?”

“It was really sad when the dinner didn’t turn out and that little started crying,” Amanda said.

“Um, okay,” Jamie replied. “You do realize it’s a comedy, right?”

“Ohhh,” Amanda said.

“Really,” Becky asked.

“Uh, yeah.”

“Well that makes more sense.”

“What did you guys think it was,” he asked, perplexed.

“I thought they were just having a horrible Christmas.”

“Why’d you think I was laughing?”

“Um, some perverse pleasure in watching their holiday get ruined,” Amanda confessed.

“Manda!”

“Well, at least I thought that was really out of character for you.”

“I think it’s bedtime,” Becky said as she shifted Jamie to her lap. “You ready?”

“Yeah,” Jamie yawned. It had turned into a long day.