Zero Regrets

(September-December 2017)

SEPTEMBER

2: Housemates

Tuesday, September 5

"There she is!" Wendy said, tilting her head as a car rolled into the driveway outside and honked once. "Go help her in with her stuff." She closed the oven door—she had been checking on the dish cooking there—and reached for a kitchen towel to wipe her hands.

"Nobody helped us in," Dipper said, but he went through the hallway with the washer and dryer, the space that Stan had identified as a mud room, and opened the door into the garage. Out in the driveway, Mabel had just pressed the button to roll up the big garage door, and even as it clanked up, she rolled Helen Wheels forward about two feet, but then braked.

Waving, Dipper walked out to meet her as she rolled down her window. "Hey!" she yelled. "No fair! You two have hogged the garage! Where am I supposed to park?"

Dipper came up to the driver's window. Tripper, in the back seat, woofed a greeting. "That's why there's a big wide concrete apron. There's enough room for you to back into it."

Mabel gave him a pop-eyed look that combined astonishment and outrage. "Park outside? But Helen Wheels will be all exposed to the elements!"

"This is California," he pointed out. "We don't have all that many elements. No snow, not even all that much rain. You used to park in front of the garage back home!"

"Yeah, but then I was a teen living with Mom and Dad and now I'm a homeowner—"

"No, you're not. We're renting from Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford, remember, not owning."

With an exasperated huff, Mabel grumbled, "OK, I'll park here, but just for tonight, and if Helen Wheels gets stolen, you owe me a new car!"

"I'll take that risk. Come on, Wendy and I have dinner almost ready."

Mabel perked up. "What are we having?"

"Wendy's made lasagna—"

"I gotta get parked! Let's get a move on, Brobro!"

She easily backed into the space, then popped the trunk and hopped out, opening the back door to let Tripper out. "BRB, Broseph! I'm gonna introduce Tripper to the back yard. He probably needs to pee."

Tripper stood on his hind legs, and Dipper ruffled his ears. Then the dog and Mabel trotted into the house, Mabel saying "You're gonna love it, Tripper!"

It took Mabel four trips and Dipper six to unload all of Mabel's luggage to her room. By the time he finished, Mabel was sitting at the table, watching Wendy at the stove, and the two were talking away a mile a minute. "So was it hard?" she asked.

"I'd say it was pretty hard," Wendy said. "But you gotta suffer through it. You'll find out."

"Uh—" Dipper said.

"Orientation, Dip!" Wendy said. "They had us running all over campus—ID cards, parking stickers, computer accounts, finding classrooms—"

"Oh," Dipper said, relieved. "Yeah, definitely difficult."

"Dipper, how about taking care of the garlic bread?" Wendy asked. "Mabel, what do you want to drink?"

"Lemonade!"

"No lemonade," Dipper said. "We'll have to see about buying some if you want it. We've started a grocery list, so I'll add that. Meanwhile, how about one glass of wine and one of water on the side?"

"Wa-wa-wa-wine?" Mabel asked.

"We're home," Dipper said patiently. "In California, it's legal for eighteen-year-olds to drink at home. You're not planning on driving any more tonight, are you?"

"Nope! Bring on the vino!"

Wendy worked on the salad while Dipper sliced bread and spread it with butter and sprinkled garlic powder on it. Glancing at Mabel, Wendy said, "Hey, Mabes, do us a favor and set the table, please."

"Work, work, work," she complained, but she got up, found the plates and salad bowls, then the silverware. "What about glasses?" she asked.

"Wine glasses on the top shelf, cabinet against the wall," Wendy said. "Water glasses on the bottom shelf."

When Mabel had the table set, the doggy door flapped and Tripper came in, panting and looking happy. "Guess he likes the back yard," Dipper said.

"Oh, yeah!" Mabel confirmed. "First thing, he ran all around the fence, checking out the boundaries. Hang on, I gotta give him food and water. Where are his bowls?"

"I think I put them down on the floor at the foot of your bed," Dipper said. "There's a new bag of his dry food there in the cabinet next to the dishwasher."

"Got part of a bag in that great big tote. I'll find it!"

She ran to her room and then came back with a couple of ceramic bowls, one red, one blue. "Feed him on the porch, you think?" she asked.

"Sure," Dipper said. "Only if he doesn't finish his food, be sure to bring the bowl back inside. We don't want to attract critters."

"The back yard is fenced!"

Wendy said "Raccoons and possums and even coyotes don't mind fences, Mabes. And we don't want to have a bunch of ants." The timer dinged. "Dipper, pop in the garlic bread for toasting. Mabel, hurry up, dinner's almost ready!"

Mabel put the bowl of food on the porch. Tripper ran to it and started to eat with eager smacks while Mabel filled the water bowl and took it out.

By the time she got to the table, Dipper and Wendy had served up squares of lasagna, together with tossed salads and bread plates of toasted garlicky goodness. The wine glasses held deep purple wine.

"Only half full?" Mabel demanded.

"About four ounces each," Dipper said. "Make it last. You don't gulp it. You sip it. This is Schiava, by the way—"

"Hey, that reminds me, Grunkle Stan bought you guys some expensive champagne! Did it help?"

"We didn't need an anesthetic," Wendy said with a grin. "We actually haven't even opened it yet. We'll save it for a special occasion."

"Mm!" Mabel said. She had just taken a tentative sip of the wine. "Hello, sweetie! What's this made from, cotton candy?"

"Special grapes. It's a sweet Italian wine," Dipper said. "The guy at the wine store said you'd probably like it."

"Don't get addicted," Wendy warned. "We've just got this bottle and the champagne, and we can't buy any more until next spring."

"Huh?" Mabel asked.

"Graunty Lorena went with me and bought this for us," Dipper explained. "Wendy has to be 21 to buy wine legally in California. So this is just special-occasion stuff."

"OK," Wendy said. "Salad dressing. We have Italian, ranch, Russian . . .."

Mabel eagerly ate three helpings of the lasagna, praised the garlic bread, finished off her glass of wine, and after the meal she first brought in the dog's food dish, licked clean, and then his water bowl. She found a place in the corner for the water bowl, showed it to Tripper, and explained that was where it would be when he got thirsty. And she reminded him he could use the doggy door if he needed to excuse himself.

"But remember to latch it before you go to bed," Dipper warned her.

"No critters allowed inside, huh?"

"Right."

By then it was six P.M, and Mabel went to her room to face-time Teek. Dipper and Wendy cleaned up and loaded the dishwasher and then relaxed in front of the TV in the living-room part of the great room.

Mabel joined them after half an hour. "So," she said, sitting next to Wendy, "did you two enjoy the hot tub, hmm?"

"It was a lot of fun," Wendy said coolly. "Can't use it all that much, though. We have to watch the water use here. This is kinda a dry area."

"How's Teek?" Dipper asked, trying to switch the conversation to a new track.

"He's good," Mabel said, whipping out her phone. She flicked through some photos and then held it up. "This is Teek and his roommate. His name's Les. He's kinda hunky. Teek says Les already has lined up a girlfriend."

Dipper looked at the photo. Teek was smiling, and beside him a burly guy grinned at the camera. Then there were shots of the guys' dorm room—pretty standard, two beds, movie posters on the walls, two compact desks, and that was about it. Then shots of the campus—the classroom buildings one- and two-story brick structures, the dorms four or six stories tall, a production building that looked like a Quonset hut and that—Mabel said—included two small TV production studios and a larger movie studio.

"He got into Beginning Screenwriting and History of Cinema 1," Mabel said. "He's real excited about those two. Oh, how about you guys?"

"We pre-enrolled," Wendy said. "We have three classes together."

"When do your courses start?"

"Tomorrow," Dipper said. Let's see . . . on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, our first class begins at nine. The we have one at ten and our last one's at one PM. We're out by two. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, we start at nine-thirty and our last class is from one to two-fifteen."

"Cool," Mabel said. "I've planned my schedule so my classes are back-to-back, and I'm out every day by two. Good, because Tripper won't be so lonely."

"Why back to back?" Dipper asked.

"Because that's the way it was in high school!" Mabel said. "It's what I'm used to."

"Are you gonna be able to get to class that early every day?" Wendy asked.

"Oh, sure. I'll get up at like six-fifteen, leave here—how long does it take to drive from here to Olmsted?"

"I'd allow half an hour," Dipper said. "It's not that far, but traffic might slow you down."

"OK, so leave here at seven-thirty. Yeah. That's do-able. Hey, are you guys gonna run every day?"

"We'll see. We haven't started yet," Dipper said. "We kind of have to see how traffic is. Or there may be a way to run back in the forest preserve. If not, I found out that we can run at the track on campus. We can be there at eight, get in an hour of running, and then shower and change in the gym."

"The track coach wants Dipper to go out for the team," Wendy said. "He knew about how great Dip and the Piedmont team were in the state high-school track and field competitions."

"Do it!" Mabel said. "Do it, do it, do it!"

"I'm thinking about it," Dipper said. "I'll at least go to try-outs next Wednesday afternoon."

"Good," Mabel said. "'cause I'm definitely gonna audition for one of the plays at Olmsted! They do a main-stage production and a black-box one every semester!"

"Black box?" Wendy asked.

"Small theater," Mabel told her. "Kind of like a practice theater, small auditorium, seats like a hundred people. Main stage is for five hundred or about that."

They talked on into the evening, but around ten, Mabel yawned and said, "Long drive. Guess it's time to turn in. I'm gonna go out into the back yard with Tripper."

"Turn on the porch lights," Dipper advised. "Wendy and I made up your bed for you, so all you have to do is unpack—"

"Nah, I'll just set the suitcases on the floor," Mabel said. "Time to unpack tomorrow."

Dipper and Wendy were ready to turn in as well.

Ten minutes later, Mabel tapped on their door. "Hey! You two busy? I need a little help."

Dipper got out of bed, pulled his jeans back on, and rolled his eyes. "Be back in a minute."

"I'll save your spot," Wendy said.

Dipper opened the door. "What's up?" he asked Mabel.

"Do you know how to lock the doggy door? I tried, but I can't make it work."

"Come on and I'll show you."

Not that it was tricky—you just had to slide three bolts closed, but the door had to be aligned just right so that all three would fit the sockets. "Hold it with your left hand," Dipper said, meaning the little knob at the bottom of the door, "and then you can wiggle it back and forth until the bolts line up with the locks."

Once that was squared away, Mabel and Tripper went off to her bedroom and Dipper returned to his bride. She threw back the covers and revealed that she was ready.

He got ready, too, and went to bed.