A/N: Feel charitable today so here's another one. I'll post Monday maybe depending on travel.
REviews would be appreciated. They overcome the piss-poor hit ratio.
Reparata
We were deciding between a dog and a child and the real question was: do we ruin our carpet or our lives. -
Rita Rudner
Chapter 9
They were sitting at a red light not far from their home on Willow Glen when the sun caught Penny's diamond and sparked an idea.
"I want to get married this weekend, Sheldon. We can catch a plane right after the house warming or first thing the next morning and we can be in Vegas and have a nice mini-vacation honeymoon."
"But you haven't bought a dress! We can't just take off without some firm ideas – "
"You did. You stormed into that apartment and laid out an action plan and you didn't take hours or days to think about it. You acted in the moment. It was so genuine and so unlike you that I was stunned, Sheldon, and Leonard – when you told him to move – he moved!"
"I suppose we could do that. Is that what you want? Don't you want something, um, planned?"
She reached over and intertwined her fingers with his hoping that he'd understand her unspoken message.
"Moon Pie, nothing about us has been planned. I don't want to spend a fortune on a dress that I'll only wear once, okay? It's a waste of our money and we'll need money for the baby."
She knew it. He didn't get it. She shouldn't have been so roundabout. Sheldon Cooper dealt in facts and certainties; hints were far too subtle for a mind as locked into the concrete as his was. For a brilliant man, he could be as perceptive as a pet rock.
He gently retrieved his hand from hers and leaned back in his seat, deep in thought. She kept saying we. 'Doesn't she understand that there is no 'us', no 'we', now or after the baby comes?'
Ugh. The housewarming party. She had so much to do and so little time. Unconsciously, she stepped on the gas and her little VW Jetta flew across the intersection and down the road toward their home.
"Penny! The light was still red!" He had a death grip on shoulder belt of his seat belt and his voice was pitched in the highest registers.
"Relax. No one was coming and besides, I have tons of stuff to do to get ready for the party."
"I gave you an outline of the party and had you read it you would have seen that I've engaged a caterer as well as a wait staff. All you need to do is be there, Penny, beside me as we greet our guests."
"If it was buried inside those 20 pages of 'things to do and not do' then yeah, I didn't read it. A caterer? Can we afford that? Sheldon, you have to get a grip on your money, sweetie."
"Then I suppose you are dead set against a trip to the mall to secure something appropriate for the newly engaged young woman welcoming her friends into her home for the first time?"
She made a U-Turn and sped up, laughing as he held on, his knuckles white and the whites of his eyes clearly dominating his face. "Relax, Moon Pie. I got this under control."
Sheldon did not shop. He decided on exactly what he wanted, what store carried it, the location of said store and the quickest way into and out of the [gasp] mall. He would search online for the layout of the mall and find the closest entrance to the section wherein lie his objective. In and out in the least amount of time (and hassle). Malls were breeding grounds for teenaged flash mobs and diseases.
Penny loved to shop. Sheldon knew that from their single sojourn out to purchase him a new suit. He would have been in and out in less than an hour (including tailoring time). Penny's path through the mall, although she did avoid the shoe stores, took them 4 hours and he had to return to check on the alterations the following day.
Penny walked barefooted out of the changing room and said, "What do you think? Too risqué for the Willow Glen Lane crowd?"
Sheldon's mouth had dropped open a little and he suddenly had a case of dry mouth and his tongue seemed to have grown attached to the roof of his mouth.
"N-no. It looks nice. You look nice. It's nice." She grinned and then walked over and said, "Get up for a minute, sweetie," and sat down beside him and crossed her bare legs and wiggled her bare toes. "Does it show too much when I sit?"
"N-no. It's looks very nice." It was a sheath dress that plunged decadently down the front and had virtually no back to it and ended just above her knees. The color…sea green, just like her eyes. He wanted to drag her into the changing room and try to finish what they'd started but he was, after all, Homo Novus, and so all he did was make his idiot comment.
'Ah-ha! Flaring nostrils, dilated pupils, sudden dry mouth, stammering and almost never blinking…perfect.'
"I can wear those low black heels and it'll be just fine. I'll be right back unless – "
"Unless what?" Short sentences. Little or no danger of blurting out anything embarrassing.
"Unless you want to help me change?" She giggled at the look on his face and stood up and grabbed his pants by the belt loops and kissed him chastely. "Lighten up, Moon Pie. You look like you're trying to swallow your tongue."
He watched as she walked back into the changing room. His damned eidetic memory filled in the spaces covered by her clothing and for an instant he saw her naked, walking slowly towards her hotel room bed, smiling at him over her shoulder, beckoning him to join her.
Penny turned and threw her fiancé a glance and a smile over her shoulder and walked into the changing room not realizing what mental picture she'd inadvertently recreated for Sheldon.
When Penny came out dressed in her slacks and blouse he blinked and then took her by the arm to the cashier and paid for the dress, not even blinking at the price.
She stood on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek and murmured "Thanks, Moon Pie." Sheldon just blinked and took back his credit card and they left the boutique.
"Shelly, you need a new shirt and tie. There's a men's store right over there. C'mon, my treat."
A new shirt and tie became a couple new shirts and two more ties and several pairs of Dockers.
"But Penny – " he started to protest but she stopped him with a glare.
"No husband of mine is going to run around town looking like last year's 'Bad Dresser of the Year' winner. You're going to be a husband and father and you need to start dressing the part. You're not 18 any more, Shelly." She plucked his credit card from his fingers and paid the bill. After all, it was her treat.
He just sighed, resigned to his fate. Ilsa had been just as bad about some things. She was the one who convinced him to grow a beard and get that horrible tattoo that he'd suffered through several painful laser treatments to have removed years later. Inked for life, my ass!
