Well, this one is considerably longer. Let me know what you think. More TM fluff to come. Have a great life.
As it turned out, Ellie did drive to the airport. And Michelle tried her hardest not to be a backseat- or passenger seat- driver. Ellie's earlier comment had hit her hard, and she was still digesting it.
"Oh, there's a spot!" Michelle said, pointing to a parking spot.
"It's handicap," Ellie said bluntly.
"Oh. Sorry." Michelle continued to scan the parking garage. "Over there!"
They parked and walked into the airport, then stood near the baggage claim. Michelle scanned the flight arrival board for Kerry's flight. "It says it's on time..."
"I see her!" Ellie said, pointing at the escalator. Michelle turned, and sure enough, there stood Kerry, talking to a bald man who seemed to be encroaching upon her personal space.
"Do you think she knows that guy?" Michelle asked Ellie without averting her stare from Kerry.
"I don't know, but I think that he wants to know her and she doesn't particularly want to know him."
Michelle laughed, then called to Kerry as she reached the bottom of the escalator and walked toward the baggage claim. Kerry turned sharply at the sound of her name, then took notice of her sisters, flashing them a huge grin.
Ellie half-ran to Kerry, who pulled her into a hug. "Hey babe..." Michelle, who chose to walk to her sisters, walked up from behind Kerry and put her arms around her shoulders. Kerry jumped and jerked her head around. "Chelle!" Kerry turned around to hug Michelle.
As Kerry was loading her suitcase into Michelle's car, Michelle glanced over to Ellie and raised her eyebrows slightly. Ellie smiled, and Michelle tossed her the keys. Kerry shut the trunk and got into the backseat. It wasn't until they were pulling out that she jumped.
"Ellie's driving!"
Ellie turned around and smiled, then proceeded to back out of the parking spot. Michelle spoke up. "She's had her permit for a few months now. She's a pretty good driver."
"Yeah, you called me when you got your permit, I just forgot about it until just now." Kerry paused. "My baby sister's growing up!"
They picked up dinner on the way home and ate it in Michelle's living room- Michelle and Kerry sitting cross-legged, facing each other on the couch, and Ellie on the floor beneath Michelle.
"What's your lover doing tonight?" Kerry asked after their conversation about gerbils had ended in an awkward silence.
Michelle smiled. "He's hanging out with his brothers."
"But he'll probably call her within the next half-hour or so," Ellie said.
"Why's that?" Kerry asked.
"Because they can't go more than three hours without talking, unless they're sleeping, but even then, you never know."
Kerry laughed, Michelle playfully messed up Ellie's hair. "You're such a dork!"
But before long, just as Kerry began explaining her recent cucumber-on-the-subway incident, Michelle's phone rang. Michelle jumped up to get it, but Ellie was faster.
"Hello?" Ellie turned to her sisters and said, "It's Tony." She paused again, listening to Tony talk on the other end. "Yeah... mm-hmm...I don't know... c-h-a-r-t-r-e-u-s-e...yes I'm positive... okay here she is."
Michelle, who was standing directly behind Ellie, grabbed the phone from her and shoved Ellie back towards the living room. "Hi...no...yes...no...NO...Tony, I don't even think that's legal!...well, maybe in Mexico or something... okay...sure...alright...I love you too... bye."
Michelle set the phone down on the counter and walked back over to her sisters. "Do you guys want to go get ice cream?"
"With Tony?" Kerry asked.
Michelle smiled and nodded. "He needs a break from his brothers. He said he'd meet us at Danielle's, the little ice cream place down the street in fifteen minutes."
Kerry looked to Ellie, who was sitting on the opposite end of the couch. "What do you say, Elle?"
"Sure."
They walked down to Danielle's. They had apparently beat Tony down there, so they sat down at a corner table, right next to the window, to wait.
"So Ellie," Kerry began, "do you still only eat ice cream out of a cup, or have you matured to conedom?"
Ellie smiled. "I do some of both."
"Well if you remember," Michelle said, "the reason why she used to only eat out of a cup was because whenever she tried to eat out of a cone, she got more ice cream on herself than in her mouth, and it wasn't her choice- she wasn't allowed near ice cream cones."
Kerry laughed at the memory. "That's right!"
Suddenly, there was a knock on the window from outside, and the three jerked their heads around just in time to see Tony sprinting to the door, away from the scene of the crime.
"Wow, you're a sly one," Michelle said sarcastically as Tony reached their table and sat down in the empty seat next to her.
"Nice to see you too, sweetheart," Tony said before kissing Michelle.
"Tony," Michelle said, breaking off the kiss, "This is Kerry!"
Tony turned from Michelle to see, for the first time, Kerry. "Hi! I'm Tony. I'm marrying your sister tomorrow."
Kerry laughed. "I didn't think I was going to get to meet you before the wedding, but I'm Kerry Dessler, and I guess I'm about all the pain-in-the-neck in-laws you get."
Michelle and Tony both smiled. "You and Ellie here," Tony said, kicking Ellie from beneath the table.
They ordered their ice cream; Ellie got hers in a cup, then got some on her shirt anyway. Tony got double chocolate fudge brownie, Michelle got vanilla (and Tony teased her for being boring, so she got sprinkles on it), Kerry got rainbow sherbet, and Ellie got strawberry.
As they were sitting at their corner table, eating ice cream, a teenage boy entered the store, and upon seeing them, approached their table.
"Hey Ellie!"
Ellie looked up from her strawberry ice cream, startled. "Oh, hi Christian." Tony, Michelle and Kerry all sat quietly, surprised.
"When do you leave? You said that you were going out of town for the break, right?"
"Yeah, I leave tomorrow night." Ellie motioned to Michelle and Tony. "This is my sister, Michelle, and her... Tony, and they're getting married tomorrow, and I'm going back to New York with my other sister Kerry."
Christian gave the others at the table a collective hello. He and Ellie talked for a minute or two more before leaving to sit by his friends across the store. The minute he was gone, Ellie's older sisters both moved in on her.
"Who's he?" Michelle said, speaking quietly enough that Christian, still walking, couldn't hear her.
"This kid in my English class." Ellie answered, turning back to her ice cream.
Kerry and Michelle stared for a minute when they realized that Ellie wasn't going to say anything else. "Come on!" Kerry exclaimed. "You can't leave us hanging there."
Ellie shrugged. "We worked on a project together."
"Ooh, what kind of project?" Kerry said.
"An English project." Ellie said definitively.
"Right." Kerry grinned.
Their conversation turned back to the wedding; to their ice cream; to whether or not a plaid tie matched a plaid shirt because they were both plaid. But as they got up to leave the ice cream parlor, Christian, from his table with his friends, called to Ellie again, and waved her goodbye, wishing her a merry Christmas, happy new year, and a fun time in New York.
Tony walked in the opposite direction from the Dessler girls. They had invited him to come back with them, but he admitted that he had left all of his brothers at his apartment and had better get back there before they ran off with the place. "Besides," he had said, "I'd better go to bed early- I've got a big day tomorrow!" As he kissed Michelle goodnight, he whispered in her ear, "And a big night tomorrow." Michelle tried not to blush.
Walking back to Michelle's apartment, Michelle put her arm around Ellie's shoulders. "You like him, don't you?"
"Who?" Ellie asked.
"You know... whatshisname back there..."
"Christian!" Kerry interjected.
"Oh." Ellie said.
"You do you do you do!" Michelle said, sounding rather like an eleven-year-old.
Kerry laughed at Michelle's giggling. "He is cute, Ellie girl."
Ellie smiled. "He's really nice to me."
As Ellie stared at her feet, Michelle and Kerry exchanged a smile above her head. "I'm glad," Michelle said as they entered the lobby of her building.