Time Frame: late January, 1985, between Spiderweb and A Little Sex, A Little Scandal

Disclaimer: Warner Bros. and Shoot the Moon still own the characters, no matter how much I wish they were mine. The story is all mine.

Author's Notes: This story was originally posted on 09/07/2002 in response to the challenge to write a story entitled "Black Socks and Bermuda Shorts."

Thanks: Dot Matrix, Skye Walker and Racoon—I couldn't have done it without ya. Well, I did, sorta, but then you came along and made suggestions, and I could have ignored you, but the suggestions made sense, so I listened to you, and, of course, you took what I had and improved upon it. I tip my fortune cookie to you.

Black Socks and Bermuda Shorts

"Amanda! Where are you?"

"Up here, Mother!" Amanda answered. "In my room!"

As she made her way upstairs, Dotty started discussing her afternoon. "I had the most wonderful time with Mr. Landry. Guess where he took me? To see a matinee of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington at the Rialto. Can you imagine? It was as if he knew how much I adore Jimmy Stewart. Then, we had the most fascinating conversation on the way to lunch about his years in New York. New York. I've always wanted to see New York." Reaching Amanda's half-open bedroom door, Dotty attempted to open it further, but was hampered by something wedged up against it. Giving up, she turned sideways to slip into the room. "I mean, I've been to New York, but I've never really seen it, not through the eyes of . . . " She stopped mid-sentence and gaped. "It looks like the Salvation Army exploded in here."

Amanda stepped out of her bathroom clutching the bunched together waistband of an oversized pair of pajama bottoms. Surveying the sea of cardboard boxes that were stacked on her bed and floor, she asked her mother, "Would you believe I've already taken a couple carloads to the school for the P.T.A. rummage sale?"

Dotty, already poking into the box closest to her, nodded. "I'd believe it. I think we both inherited the packrat gene from your grandmother." She pulled an old tube of lip gloss from the box and held it up for her daughter's inspection. "Why would anyone keep this, I ask you?"

Shrugging, Amanda smiled. "I don't know. Maybe it just fell in there." She pointed to a large garbage bag that was behind the bedroom door. "I think it belongs in there." As Dotty tossed the tube into the bag, Amanda walked into the center of the room. "Remember these?" she asked, pulling the waistband of the gray pajama bottoms she was wearing to show Dotty that they were at least two sizes too big for her. "You bought these for me when I was pregnant with Phillip."

"I remember," Dotty nodded. "You were wearing a pair of Joe's sweatpants to sleep in, because nothing of yours fit. I decided you needed something of your own to wear. These," she smiled and reached over the box she had been rummaging in to trace one of the tiny red flowers on the pajamas, "were just perfect. The minute I laid eyes on them, I knew they were for you." Her smile turned into a grimace. "If only you hadn't insisted on wearing that . . . that . . . awful top with them instead of the matching one."

"You mean this top?" Amanda asked, picking up a pink and red baseball shirt from a pile on the bed. She held it in front of her chest and grinned at her mother's eye rolling. "I know you hated it, but it was really comfortable. I wonder . . ." Tossing the top back onto the bed, she lifted her hooded sweatshirt over her head, set it on a nearby box and slipped the baseball shirt over her head. Smoothing the material, she nodded in satisfaction. "Yup, it's still comfortable."

Dotty raised an eyebrow and wagged a finger at the more than a little baggy shirt. "But it doesn't fit quite as well as it once did, dear," she wryly remarked. "It now fits you like a tent."

Tugging on the hem of the shirt, Amanda had to act quickly to catch the pajama bottoms as they slid down her hips. With a sigh, she noted, "I guess it's time to let someone else get some use out of these."

Her mother agreed with a nod then turned her attention to a box marked 'summer clothes.' While Amanda changed back into her sweatshirt and a pair of blue jeans, Dotty randomly pulled out outfit after outfit and, with detailed comments about who had worn what and how cute he or she had looked, sorted them into 'keep' and 'discard' piles. Upon reaching the halfway point in the carton, she stopped her running commentary and exclaimed, "Oh, my gosh!"

"What is it, Mother?"

"I had no idea these were still here." She pulled a pair of Bermuda shorts from the box. "I bought these for your father for our trip to Hawaii. He swore that he would never wear them, and I insisted he had to wear something 'hip' on vacation, and he said he wasn't 'hip' . . . " Dotty sighed deeply. "It's true, you know. Your father never was what you could call hip, but I was determined that he wear something modern when on the beach. Nobody there knew him, so it was a perfect time for him to try something different."

"So, did he wear them?" Amanda asked as she carefully folded her pregnancy clothes and placed them in a box labeled 'PTA' in bold black marker.

"Yes, but he was so annoyed with me for making him wear them that he wore them with the wildest Hawaiian-print shirt he could find and a pair of black dress socks with rope sandals."

"You're kidding!"

"No, I'm not. As a matter of fact . . . " Dotty rummaged in the box and retrieved a shirt that was bright enough to signal planes. "Here it is! And he topped the outfit off with the largest straw hat the souvenir shop around the corner had."

Amanda laughed. "He must have been quite a sight."

Dotty laughed, too. "Embarrassed me to death, that man, but I loved him dearly. I never asked him to wear these shorts again." She folded the shirt and shorts and set them on top of Amanda's discarded baseball shirt and pajama bottoms. Giving them a little pat, she stared thoughtfully at her daughter. "Maybe he didn't 'accidentally' drop the camera into the ocean after all. There was a picture of him in that outfit on the roll of film."

"I think I'd have done the same thing." She pointed at one of the piles of clothing her mother had made. "Are those going?" At Dotty's nod, Amanda put the stack into the box with her father's wild Hawaiian vacation outfit and closed the lid. "I'm going to take these boxes," she indicated the one she'd just closed and two more by the door, "to the car, then make one more trip to the school before my appointment at Mr. Emelio's. I'll get home just in time to start dinner. It's homemade Beef Stroganoff tonight, you know."

"That's right - Jamie's 'reward' dinner for getting A's on both his math and spelling tests."

"Yeah. Could you believe that he tried to convince me that getting 80's on them was enough for a special dinner?" Assuming her son's pleading look and plaintive whine, she mimicked, " 'But, Mom, everyone else gets stuff from their parents when they get B's. How come I have to get A's?' "

Dotty picked up her 'keep' pile and set it on the bed. "Let me guess. You told him 'Everyone else doesn't live in my house.' "

Amanda's eyebrows arched. "How did you know that?"

"I seem to remember someone telling you that same thing when you were Jamie's age." Dotty sighed and rubbed her stomach. "I'm not sure I'll enjoy dinner. I ate far too much at lunch. Mr. Landry's idea of a 'light lunch' was an all-you-can-eat buffet."

"Well, there's some Alka-Seltzer in my medicine cabinet. Maybe that'll help," Amanda offered.

"Maybe. A little 'plop, plop, fizz, fizz, oh, what a relief it is' couldn't hurt," Dotty agreed. "I'll take some now and will probably be as right as rain by dinner. I'd hate to miss your Stroganoff! Next to your poppy seed cake, I think it's your best dish, and with two bottomless pits in the house, I know there won't be any leftovers."

"Thank you, Mother." Amanda lifted one of the boxes. "Could you just put that other box on top of this one for me?"

As Dotty settled the second box in Amanda's arms, she said, "You know, you really are working too hard. Today is your day off, and you've spent it doing all this work for the PTA." Picking up the last box to be taken to the school that afternoon, she followed her daughter down the stairs and out the back door to the car. "You should take some time to pamper yourself. A trip to the salon is a start, but it's nowhere near enough."

With a laugh, Amanda replied, "Pamper myself? Can I do that? Are mothers allowed to do that?"

"Of course they are. I'm a mother, and I pamper myself all the time. You should let Mr. Emilio do something wild and crazy with your hair that takes hours, so you can sit and read or take a nap while he works his magic on you. And you could borrow my brand new strawberry-peach bubble bath, light some candles and take a long soak tonight."

"That sounds heavenly, Mother. I might just do that." She closed the station wagon's back door and gave her mother a hug before slipping into the driver's seat. "I'll be back in a couple of hours. I love you."

Dotty stepped to the side of the driveway and called, "I love you, too, darling," as Amanda backed out of the driveway. After watching her drive away, she walked back into the house, shaking her head and murmuring, "What are the P.T.A. volunteers going to say when they see the contents of some of those boxes?"

The End