Dallas, Texas

"Phone call for you Miss Sue Ellen", Teresa walked into the living room as Sue Ellen and Miss Ellie drank their tea and chatted; they hadn't had much time alone to talk when she and JR returned home from their vacation last night, so it was nice that they both had a free afternoon today. "Excuse me", Sue Ellen stood and walked out of the living room into the foyer, "hello?" she used her polite, proper voice to answer the phone, however, as she heard the slight giggle on the other end, she knew it wasn't necessary. "Polite as ever, your mama would be proud", Sue Ellen laughed as her friend finally spoke, "thank you. You know what my mama says; there's no such thing as being too polite, though I do believe my efforts are wasted on you", she was relaxed as she spoke, though she realised that it probably wasn't entirely appropriate to speak so casually when she was in an open space where her mother-in-law could hear her. Gasping in a mock-offended manner, Paula then laughed, "if I were your mother, I'd revoke your social privileges for that comment. However, luckily for you, I'm not and it would ruin my plans too if you weren't allowed to leave the house, so I'll ignore that for now", she laughed and then continued to speak.

"Now, because you seem peppy, I'm going to assume that you're not ignoring me and the fact that you didn't call me back simply means that the message I left with your niece earlier in the week never got to you. She did say something about a vacation though so I'll give you a pass, as long as you tell me all about it when I'm there. That actually brings me to the reason I called; it's President's Day on Monday, so Roger and I have decided to come back to Richardson for the weekend to visit our parents; my mama's been nagging me about not seeing enough of her grandson and Roger's mother seems to think we purposely avoid them. We'll be arriving tomorrow night and since I have a feeling that the proud grandparents will want some time alone to spoil their little grandson, I'm fairly sure that I'll have some time to myself. That brings me to our friendship; since I can't remember the last time I saw you, I know that it's been much too long, and since it would be a crime not to attempt to plan something when I'm going to be so close to Braddock, I am calling again. So please tell me that you're free sometime over the weekend? Or does the great and powerful JR Ewing have some extravagant date planned out for the two of you?" she joked about JR and Sue Ellen's past, not knowing that Sue Ellen had recently rediscovered the passion and excitement she'd originally felt for JR Ewing. Sue Ellen laughed at her old friend's comment, "well, the great JR Ewing may have something planned, Lucy told you right, we just got back from a five day anniversary vacation in Mexico; but as much as he loves me, I'm sure he can deal with being without me for a few hours. If you tell me a time when you're free, I can arrange to meet you somewhere", she smiled as she spoke, her life was good and she was happy. Making arrangements for Sunday afternoon, the two women said their goodbyes and went back to their prior activities; Sue Ellen smiled to herself as she re-entered the living room, feeling like a college girl again; her relationship with JR was exciting and her friend was right, they were well overdue for some girl time.

Hours later, Sue Ellen made her way upstairs to ready herself for JR's homecoming, he'd promised her a night out and she was determined to look nice for him. He hadn't told her the exact details about what was happening at Ewing Oil, but she knew that he and Jock were signing some important contracts concerning his future ownership and control of the company and it pleased her greatly to know that he was getting exactly what he wanted. She knew how hard he had worked to get where he was and how frustrated and disappointed he had been in the past when it appeared that Bobby was treated better than he was. The fact that he'd been a terrible husband in his pursuit of power was irrelevant right now, because they really were trying to start anew and she still believed that a wife's job was to support her husband, especially in his career. Things were different now too, she knew that Jock had drawn a hard line with JR and she knew that JR understood how serious she was about his fidelity and commitment to their marriage. She may have been infatuated with him, but she wasn't stupid, she'd forgiven him for cheating this time and they had moved on, but she was stronger and wiser now and she had made it perfectly clear that she wouldn't tolerate him going back to the way he used to be, this was it, there were no more second chances.

In pursuit of moving on from their previous issues and improving their relationship, they were both trying to be better spouses, because even though a certain sector of society believed that it was archaic and simplistic to say that men and women had certain roles and should stick to those roles, neither of them actually minded living that way. The only bad thing about their set roles as husband and wife were the silly confines that they believed came with their titles; unfortunately they had lived much too long following those traditional 'rules'. When she married JR, Sue Ellen had committed to being a good wife and she honestly intended on doing just that; JR had entered into marriage with honest intentions too, however he was much weaker than she was in terms of commitment and fidelity. The combination of the power imbalance in their relationship, their misunderstanding and miscommunication of what they each expected from the other and how they actually behaved had caused them problems. However, now that they were starting anew, neither saw anything wrong with playing the traditional husband and wife roles, they were both fairly traditional people and enjoyed the role that they had been assigned. For their marriage to work now, they just needed to make sure that they didn't limit themselves to such conservative boundaries, worked on communicating better with each other and didn't disrespect the other by acting in a way that was inappropriate for a husband or wife. It was simple and complicated all at once, because it was easy to make those commitments, but living them was a little harder; however, they were both determined to be better people now and it was a real determination, not just a surface-level commitment.

To be continued…

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