Ch 3- Okay night, but only if you promise!
Lovey was in the very least glad that the four of them were going down to The Country Club, as the prestigious institution was aptly named, in two separate cars. Thurston had brought along an extra set of bubbly champagne that evening, hoping the romantic setting in the back of the car would allow him and his girlfriend to have some special time together. But merely minutes into the ride he realized he would have no such luck. Lovey sat patiently with a sweet smile on her face, her hands folded properly in her lap. She gazed out the window occasionally and made no attempt to make conversation or gather him in her embrace as she had earlier in the afternoon. This met only one thing: Lovey was seething mad. Her anger was boiling like a tea-kettle ready to blow its lid off.
Eunice and Horace frequented The Country Club. Horace was used to his girlfriend talking a mile a minute but, tonight there was no ceasing to Eunice's complaining: and it was getting on his nerves. He laughed it off, usually finding Eunice's incessant worrying quite cute and decided to justify how irrational she was being. He liked Lovey Wentworth.
"Horace, how could you do this to me?" Eunice huffed, sharply raising a perfectly manicured eyebrow.
"Eunice, I know that Mrs. Wentworth has been cruel to you, and your family, but I've met Lovey and she is actually very nice!"
"That can't be Horace! You must be teasing me!"
"No, she's very kind!"
"She could never be kind to me! Her mother thinks I am Irish scum!"
"Honey, let's just wait and see how tonight goes."
"Oh, alright I'll try to be on my best behavior," said Eunice rolling her eyes and wishing she didn't have to act like a proper young lady. All of those cruel things that Mrs. Wentworth had said were going through Eunice's mind: the woman was so...indignant, now that she thought of it. How could her daughter have a nickname like Lovey and be kind?
"Horace, does she know I am your girlfriend?"
"I don't think so. Maybe Thurston told her." He answered, seeming to completely disregard her concerns.
"Oh Horace, is she really a nice person, to everyone?" Eunice asked, he noted that she seemed pleading...desperate even.
"Well everyone in the Social Register, I think." He said this allusively on purpose...he enjoyed toying with her emotions a little bit.
"But that doesn't mean she'll be kind to me Her mother thinks that my ancestors were peasants and she treats my family as such!"
"It's that bad?" He rolled his blue-grey eyes. She sounded like she was having a panic attack.
"Yes!" She didn't think she could possibly convey this convincingly enough.
"Oh it is! I didn't realize it was that bad. Does gossip hurt that much?"
"Yes it does! And if we talk about this anymore I'll start to cry!" Eunice sounded as if she was starting to cry. She dabbed her eyes with her lace handkerchief.
"Thanks for clarifying the whole situation," said Horace, realizing that Eunice wasn't being that over dramatic and that Mrs. Wentworth's words really caused his girlfriend pain. Now he was beginning to worry about the dinner hour, which was fast approaching now.
As the car pulled up to The Country Club, Eunice's heart began to pound and her palms were suddenly drenched. She was not prepared to be insulted and humiliated by Lovey.
"Horace, I can't do this. I can't face her! I'm going to faint" Eunice was very pale.
"Oh Eunice honey, you'll live! Just do this for me ok?"
"Oh all right I'll do whatever you want, but I warn you if she insults me, I'm not letting her get away with it!"
"Just don't make too much of a scene."
"Oh Horace, I promise you I won't burn the place down." Eunice replied sarcastically as he encircled his arm around her lower back. Before Eunice knew it she was face to face with Thurston Howell and Miss Lovey Wentworth.
"Hello, I'm Eunice Smith. It's a pleasure to meet you." Eunice was trying to sound as genuine as possible. She smiled a fake sweet smile and extended her hand. Lovey shook it.
"A pleasure to meet you as well!" Lovey burst. Eunice was taken aback at how nice her supposed enemy was, or seemed to be. The men and the women gently parted ways as they were seated at their table.
"So are you enjoying your classes at Vassar? I've heard about it. I don't think it would be as good as Radcliffe though. Your instructors are female. We all have Harvard instructors here you know." Eunice said pridefully. Lovey would've said it was more like gloating.
"I really don't see why that is a problem. I enjoy having women professors. I think Vassar women have better minds. We don't need male professors." Lovey replied, fluttering her eyelashes gently but swiftly.
"Better minds, how dare you suggest such a thing. Radcliffe is associated with Harvard! How can woman possibly be good at teaching the sciences and more complex things like Psychology?"
"My Psychology professor, Dr. Hartley, is wonderful! She's the first woman to become a psychoanalyst. It's so fascinating! It is a shame that she will be leaving to set up private practice in Chicago. I shall miss her classes very much! Maybe someday I can do psychoanalysis",said Lovey.
"On who, your Mother?" Asked Eunice, immediately regretting she had said that, her blue eyes grew wide in amazement of herself…she was ashamed…she was proud too.
"Oh darling! Lovey laughed. "You talk but, a case like you?" Lovey continued to giggle sweetly. Thurston's ears perked up from across the table and he sensed trouble immediately.
"A case like me? Just what is that supposed to mean?" Eunice said angrily. Both women stood, Thurston knew now for sure that there was trouble afoot.
"Well dear," Lovey began, looking Eunice up and down as she circled her newfound acquaintance. "You do have a rather," Lovey laughed as she drew a breath, "...interesting social standing..." This was beginning to be funny for Lovey.
"Why , you're just as...as...as rude as your old prune of a mother!"
"Rude! No one's ever accused me of being rude in the whole of my life! Thurston I think I'm going to faint!" Lovey, placed the back of her palm over her forehead, feigning weakness and signaling Thurston to reach out and catch her as she fell ever so gracefully on to The Country Club's harloquin marble-tile floor.
"I'll catch you Lovey!" He panicked.
"Horace I've never been so insulted in my entire life!" Eunice cried.
"You've never been so insulted? Thurston are you going to let this...this PEASANT girl talk to me like that?" Lovey was enraged.
"Peasant girl!" Eunice rolled her eyes. "I've had enough of that old tired rumor if we want to bring up social standing let's talk about your family!"
"Nonsense, the Wentworth's are flawless."
"Would you two shut the hell up!" Horace barked he couldn't stand it anymore.
"I beg your pardon!" Eunice and Lovey asked at once, both deeply offended by both his language and assertion. Other members of The Country Club glared at Horace and began to talk in scurried hushed whispers. Their voices faded back into the calm quiet that was the essence of The Country Club as he began again.
"I've had enough of this! You two should actually have become fast friends! The rumors either way are ridiculous and don't have much of a bearing on who either of you really are."
"Well I may not know Lovey, which is the worst suited nickname for this rude young woman, but I know her mother is a rude, narrow minded bigot. Who hates my mother and I."
"...Now that you mention it..." Lovey became excited, "we do have something in common!"
'What?"
"My mother hates me too!" Lovey burst excitedly.
What?" Eunice spat...not that she ever spat but...
"Well, she and I have never really...never really...?"
"Clicked, Lovey my dear." Thurston finished.
"Oh yes clicked! That's it!"
Yes!" Thurston Howell added. "It really is the most interesting story." Thurston liked to tell stories...and even stories within stories.
"Oh really?" Eunice had thought that Mrs. Wentworth would've loved her daughter. Lovey seemed so much like her.
"Yes! Mother hates my independent streak! She hates that she can't marry me off isn't that marvelous!"
"Independent streak?"
"Yes. She keeps comparing me to Lysistrata!"
"Oh!" Eunice smiled with delight, fluttering her eyelashes now...she loved the Greeks immensely.
"Lysistrata, isn't that a mouthwash?" The waiter, Henry, asked excitedly.
"Oh you blithering idiot!" Horace was annoyed. "Just bring the wine list!
"Lovey you know what?" Thurston said, breaking back into the present day for a moment. "He looks just like Henry!" He indicated, pointing straight at Gilligan.
"Oh yes he does!" Lovey squealed. "He has the right voice and the right nose for sure!" The young sailor smiled at this. "Gilligan...do you by any chance have any relatives named Henry?"
"What was this place called again?"
"The Country Club."
"Not The Country Club dear, The Country Club." Thurston said more pointedly now, really turning on the snobbiest part of his accent.
"Oh yeah! That's my great Uncle Henry! He was the family moron!" Gilligan explained.
"I guess looks aren't the only thing he got from Uncle Henry." Thurston said very quietly as an aside to his wife. She laughed and hit him playfully. It may be true...but it wasn't a very nice thing to say about their poor Gilligan.
"Could you get back to the story Mr. Howell?" Mary Ann requested. Her bright brown eyes shone with anticipation at hearing the rest of the tale. She marveled at the kind of glamorous life they'd lived and longed to hear more about it...especially the parts that took place in the twenties...a fascinating era, when her own relatives had been making moonshine…not dancing at decadent country clubs and parties that could've easily rivaled anything F. Scott Fitzgerald could've ever conceived.
"Well..." Thurston began again. The castaways could practically see the scene around them fade back into the old, highbrow country club. Only now it was several hours later. The Howells and Eunice were having a good time, and of course...Horace was good and drunk by now.
"Plus Eunice darling you re in wonderful company..." Lovey gushed. "After all the Howells aren't good enough for the Wentworth's either."
"Even the Howells?" Eunice was surprised, she felt in especially good company.
"Yes its dastardly isn't it who ever heard of a Howell not being good enough I mean really!" Thurston was always insulted at the mere thought. He'd been kind of non-committal before. But this is how he knew he loved Lovey...he could tolerate this kind of disdain for the Howell name because of her.
"Oh my! Who does your mother approve of?"
"Well..." This was not going to be easy to explain.
"And how did you ever get together?" Horace had to ask...before he passed out cold on the table...again.
"Oh Horace, I do wish you would stop drinking." Eunice said, picking him up by his hair and letting him fall back on his face again.
Lovey was deeply troubled by this and flinched at the sound of Horace's head hitting the table. Other couples were dancing and they were just mulling through family histories. She wondered why Eunice was even with Horace and was now worried for her new friend.
"Tell me...what is he talking about? Why were you not together? You seem so...wonderful together." Eunice put this carefully.
"Oh, tell them Thurston!" Said Lovey smiling sweetly. "It's such a fascinating story!" She loved the story, and a request to hear it always made her happy no matter what else was going through her head.
"I'll drink to that." Horace mumbled raising his shot glass.
"Oh Lovey I don't really think it's all that fascinating. We were six." Thurston blushed.
"Fine, I'll tell it!" Lovey declared, waving him off.
"Oh you met when you were children, how darling! Horace and I did as well!" Eunice squealed, batting her eyelashes as she leaned across the table ever so slightly, wanting to hear every bit of Lovey's story.
"Lovey nobody wants to hear this!" Thurston quickly interjected.
Eunice raised her eyebrow ever so slightly and wondered why he wanted so badly to keep this story hidden. She heard Horace snicker slightly but try to slyly stifle his laugh with a cough. She laughed. He wasn't as drunk as he led them to believe. He was having a dull evening and was using his usually drunken state as an excuse. How rude! But she had to laugh...a little to herself. "Oh Thurston don't be so modest! He just doesn't want me to tell you the sweetest story..." Lovey explained.
"Lovey no!"
"But it's darling! And it's the reason I love you so much."
"Lovey I'm sure these people aren't interested in..."
"Sure we are." Horace, who already knew the story, volunteered, sitting back up and pouring himself some coffee. He was prepared to stay up all night, but only if the night promised that Thurston would be embarrassed.
"Oh do tell it Thurston!" Lovey urged, back in the present day as all the other castaways, the Douglas' and Blanche leaned forward in their seats.
"Yeah Mr. Howell, that was the part I really wanted to hear." Gilligan commented excitedly.
The castaways were curious to hear a childhood story that would embarrass the Wolf of Wall Street and make him fall in love with a girl...not because they sought to victimize him or anything, but because they knew that deep down inside he was not too dissimilar from his teddy bear, Teddy, that he had a pure, warm heart...they liked it when Mr. Howell slipped and displayed his very human side and it was always Lovey that made him do it...
"Well..." Thurston hesitated. "I don't know Lovey is it really that important? Say this is a rousing story! What if I told about the time we rigged the..."
"Thurston!" Lovey gasped. She didn't want anyone to know that Thurston had once rigged the World Series it was so disgraceful!
"The time you and I got drunk and rigged the World Series!" Horace offered, he could go for hearing that again...and Blanche would be impressed that was for sure.
"Horace!" Eunice was disgusted. That incident had been the straw that broke the camel's back for their relationship, and had taught their son Oliver the dangers of bartering...the reason he had such trouble with that Haney character... It would be painful for her to hear that again.
"You rigged a World Series?" The Skipper barked. He had trouble believing this. The Professor was skeptical as well...given the laws of motion and the rules of the game he didn't think this was physically possible.
"Skinny Mulligan and I rigged a World Series once!" Gilligan burst happily. He was sure his tale of 10 year old boy's rigging the game was much more phenomenal than the idea of drunken millionaires doing so.
"Shut up Gilligan." The Skipper said, noting the ridiculousness of his notion, "You were saying Mr. Howell..."
"Saying?" He asked.
"About when we met Thurston." Lovey said matter of factly.
"Yeah, I'd like to hear too!" Blanche said as she looked at herself in her compact mirror. Eunice rolled her eyes. She'd like to trade the mirror for a book and see how she faired. Maybe she'd ask this Professor fellow to help her with that later on... Maybe the Professor could transform Blanche, like Professor Higgins did Eliza Doolittle. Oh the joy of being an English major, thought Eunice.
To Lovey, Blanche's voice carried with it, a tone of audaciousness too great for even someone on the Social Register. Ginger Grant also cringed...being originally from the south...she knew that kind of woman...all too well...that couldn't be a friend of the Howells? What was she even doing with Horace? As for her money, and being from the south...she'd certainly not be accepted with the Ewings of Dallas, a prominent oil family she knew of...that was for sure… "Horace, I think now would be a good time for you to see my golf clubs." Thurston said as he got up and headed for the Howell's private island country club.
"But Thurston," Horace laughed, "you were in the middle of telling us a story, and I think it seemed like it was going to be a good one too."
"Horace he wasn't telling us a story...he was avoiding telling us." Lovey added.
"Come on Horace, come golf with me...I'll make you a drink." Thurston decided to give him an offer he knew he couldn't refuse.
"A drink...fine with me." Horace agreed getting up to follow his friend. His ex-wife sighed, more like groaned and allowed her face to fall into her hands, wishing that Thurston hadn't offered his friend a drink, as the castaways, particularly Mary Ann and the Professor looked on worriedly.
"It seems like old times." Lovey remarked as she pat Eunice on the back consolingly. "Oh I said something wrong didn't I?" Eunice smiled anyway, she always adored Lovey's ditziness...it was endearing.
"Shu listen!" The Professor said harshly, causing all conversation to come to a stop. Horace and Thurston turned around.
"Drums!" Mary Ann knew what that met.
"Yes...if I remember correctly. That's a kind of drum only used for..."
"Headhunters." The castaways said all at once, their eyes growing wide. Eunice simply fainted. Blanche ran into the jungle and from the sound of it, lost her lunch.
"Hey that's what you did the day you met Lovey!" Horace laughed, pointing at his friend. Thurston gave him a sharp look as they all turned their attention back to the distant drums of war.
To be continued...