Chapter Four
July 1960

"What on earth do you think you're doing?!" Friedrich exclaimed as he physically pulled Lida back from William's arms. "You keep your hands off her!"

William didn't recognize Friedrich; William wasn't usually at the bakery when Friedrich was there. William immediately reacted to Lida's startled gasp. William put his hands up in a defensive manner that was also strangely aggressive. "Let go of her!" William ordered. "You have until the count of three to release my girlfriend!"

Friedrich pulled Lida farther behind him even as she resisted his almost painful hold. Friedrich stopped in his tracks and fixed William with Georg's eyes. "You say three, Mister, you'll never hear the man count ten."

It was clear Friedrich was not budging. "You explain yourself. You were accosting my sister. Lida, explain this!"

Lida pulled her arm back from Friedrich and moved closer to William. "He's my boyfriend, what are you doing grabbing me like that?"

"I didn't know he was your boyfriend, and God forbid Father saw you doing this out here! Does Father know about this?" Friedrich knew Georg, he knew he might not like the idea of his girls having boyfriends, but he appreciated the respect of at least being told.

"No," Lida replied. "He didn't need to know. this kind of just happened, but I'm very happy and William is a good man. I can't believe you just did this!"

Friedrich took a few breaths to calm down. "I'm sorry I was rough," he sighed. "I saw you with your hands on my sister and she's still very young."

"Friedrich, I'm 22!" Lida protested. "If I'm not mistaken, that's two years older than Rosa was when you guys got married."

Friedrich arched his brow, "Rose was your age when I married her?"

"No," Lida replied. "She was my age when Georg was born! I'm 22, I'm an adult and I can do as I please. Go home, please."

Friedrich shook his head, "No, you're coming with me now. Twenty-two or not, you need to come home. Now!"

"Go," William prodded gently. "I don't want you to have any arguments in your family on account of me. We'll set something up soon, I'll go and speak to your father with you. I'm sorry, Mr. von Trapp, for being disrespectful to your family. May I give her a kiss goodbye?"

Friedrich shook his head, "I think you've done enough of that. Let's go, Lida."

"I can't believe you embarrassed me like that!" Lida declared with a flare of temper. "I'm a grown woman."

"And as a grown woman you should have more respect for yourself than to do things like that in public!" Friedrich scolded. "You are a young, beautiful woman, and men have only one thing on their minds at your age. I know I was one once and Kurt was worse!"

"Will is not like that," Lida defended. "He's a gentleman. He only kissed me on our third date."

"You've had more than three dates with this guy and none of us know about him?" Friedrich was growing more agitated by the moment.

"Cathy knows," Lida replied. "And Jules, but that's it!"

"Oh, Cathy and Jules, the only two people in the family that know less about men and dating than you do! You need to introduce him to Father and Mother and you need to do it sooner than later. I won't tell them about this, they'll get upset. Mother doesn't like open displays of affection, not even from Father. I don't understand how you think it's okay to have so many dates and not introduce him as your boyfriend."

"Papa would never give his permission," Lida replied. "And I'm a 22 year old American woman, I don't need my father or my brother's consent to go on a date in broad daylight!"

"In this family, you do," Friedrich insisted. "I only took Rosa out once before I spoke to her uncle and let him know that I liked her and intended to date her. Out of respect, for her. That fact his guy didn't even broach the subject..."

"He did,' Lida corrected. "He did today, we were going to see Mama and Papa after church on Sunday and it was his idea. I don't want him near Papa yet, I have to make sure Will cares enough for me to put up with him!"

"What do you mean "put up with him?" Friedrich asked. "Father goes overboard sometimes, especially with you three younger girls, but he's only doing it to protect you. I'm only trying to protect you."

"I don't need protection," Lida insisted. "I was fine until you walked up to us and went all wacko on me. I didn't introduce Will to Papa yet because Will's father fought for Germany, and you know how Papa is about anything to do with the Germans even still."

"That's no excuse," Friedrich countered. "Not at all. Set up a proper meeting, tell Mother and Father you are dating and invite him to the house. Have a few of us around as a buffer. And Lida, do it soon, because I won't lie for you."

Lida was fuming when she got out of the car at the farm. She slammed the door extra hard to prove her point.

The Following Sunday
Trapp Family Farm

Lida telephoned Will and told him she had to put the meeting off for a few more days. She wanted to tell her parents first, she felt like that would be better than ambushing them. Friedrich had been right about that. Even still, Lida was still angry with her brother on Sunday and Friedrich was none too fond of her at the moment.

The tension was noticed by even the youngest von Trapps at the table, though it was the oldest one that they were the most concerned about. Georg did not take kindly to his children squabbling and he certainly didn't like it when they weren't speaking to one another. That only happened a handful of times in their lives but each time Georg brought the hammer down.

Lida and Friedrich couldn't resist taking shots at each other. "Sam, ask Lida to pass the bread," Friedrich said to his brother-in-law, not wishing to address his sister directly.

Sam just looked at Friedrich but did as he was asked.

"Tell Friedrich, if he wants it, he can walk over and get some from the stove," Lida put the final piece of bread on her plate.

"I'll refill the basket," Maria offered, feeling the intense vibe in the room. She didn't want Georg to get upset and lose his temper. A recent trip to the physician for his 70th year check up had delivered a diagnosis of high blood pressure. Georg didn't seem to mind; Maria was nervous of it.

Maria's attempt at peace seemed to go unnoticed. Julia giggled a little bit at her older sister's gumption. "I can't believe Lida did that," she commented to Gretel.

"Well, Lida does a lot of things I can't believe," Friedrich replied, mostly to himself.

"Friedrich," Kurt spoke up now. "What is wrong with you the past few days? You have a rolling pin up your butt?"

"You don't know anything about it so, no one asked your opinion," Friedrich hastily replied and then it was on.

One half of the family automatically sided with Lida, the other half with Friedrich. Maria stood with the breadbasket in her hand at the entrance to the crowded dining room with close to 40 people in it. Only Max seemed oblivious, preoccupied with the thick slice of rare roast beef he had on his plate. He knew after 50 years of friendship with Georg when to keep his mouth shut.

The sniping went on for about five minutes before they heard it. The silverware clanged and the water glasses shook as Georg lowered his fist onto the table with a fair amount of force. "Enough! Everyone stop talking at once!"

This particular tone only came out a handful of times since Maria had ever so wisely put Georg in his place the day of the rowboat incident, but when it did, all of the older kids still reacted to it by quickly stopping whatever they were doing and facing their father.

The younger three also knew Georg meant business when he spoke like that, but they hadn't been privy to the military toughness like the older children were. Their reactions took a few seconds longer.

"That's enough!" Georg repeated. "I don't know what started all of this, but Lida, Friedrich, the two of you haven't said a word to each other all day, at least not a civil word. I suggest that both of you take the time that you'll be doing the dishes to work this out and get it settled before anyone leaves this house tonight. Friedrich, you are 37 years old you should know better than to provoke the situation like that."

"Father," Friedrich began but Georg wasn't finished talking.

"And Lida, you are 22, you are old enough to act like a lady, always," Georg reprimanded. "Get it together and act your age. Both of you."

Friedrich rolled his eyes as Georg returned to eating. The rest of the family followed suit. Rosamaria put her hand on Friedrich's leg. She felt responsible for what happened, Friedrich had told Rosa after a considerable amount of probing what he had seen. Rosa felt badly; Lida had fallen for this man on her watch and now it was causing conflict for her husband. Friedrich smiled at his wife, "It's not your fault," was written in his gentle gaze.

When the meal was over, before Maria served dessert, Georg ushered the entire family into the large living room and accompanied Julia's piano playing on the guitar. Even the littlest ones knew when Georg put someone on dish duty they had to stay away from there, so they contented themselves with games and listened to the music.

Lida washed and Friedrich dried, still barely a word spoken. "Just tell me one thing," Friedrich finally said. "Why all the secrecy? Why not after a date or two dates didn't you go to Mother and Father and say, "I met somebody"?"

"Because if I did that, they would want to meet him," Lida replied. "And I wasn't ready for Papa to go off on Will like he did on every other husband. You're a boy, when you found Rosamaria, everyone was happy for you. You didn't need to ask permission to go on dates with her."

"Sure, I did," Friedrich replied. "But that came from her uncle and trust me Frank wasn't too thrilled with me at first. I hadn't lost the rest of my accent yet, my only saving grace was that I was a Catholic war vet."

"You still haven't lost your accent all the way," Lida mumbled and rolled her eyes. "None of you has and Papa hasn't lost his prejudice either. When he asks about Will's family, he's going to say that his mother is British and his father was Austrian, but that he fought for the Reich. It won't matter that Will never met his father; any chance we have will be finished. I know Papa isn't going to approve and I don't want to argue with him. He's so old-fashioned though, and Mama is…She's just strange when it comes to any of us being alone with men. Like it's still 1938, but it isn't. It's 1960 and even without that, I'm 22, I'm not a baby anymore."

"Father is old-fashioned, and Mother is too on certain things, but it won't matter if you're 22 or 37, they are still your parents, they still love you, and you owe them some respect," Friedrich's words were firm. He wasn't going to give in on this.

"I've thought about it, Lida," Friedrich said as he dried dish after dish. "If you don't tell them soon, I will. If he's got nothing to hide, if he's a good man like you say, he won't want to see you without the support of your family."

"Friedrich, how many families do you know that have 38 people at Sunday dinner?" Lida pressed.

Friedrich put the towel down on the edge of the sink. "Lida, in all seriousness, do you have feelings for this man? Does he make you happy? Does he make you laugh?"

Lida nodded, "He makes me feel so…complete. It's like there was always a part of me that didn't quite fit in with all of you and now I've found the missing piece. Everything clicked right from the very start. Isn't that how it was with Mama and Papa?"

Friedrich laughed, "Mother made Father's blood boil she made him so mad, there wasn't much laughter in that courtship either. It was a very hard time in Austria and both Mother and Father were often upset. You were still a baby when we had to leave home, you don't remember home."

"I wanted to go there," Lida confessed. "Then Rosa opened the bakery and that was too exciting not to take part. To answer you, Friedrich, I do care for Will a lot. I want to see what can happen, but I don't want Papa to turn this into a courtship, it's not. That's not what I want necessarily. I just want to go out on dates and have fun."

"Then tell him that," Friedrich replied. "Tell him straight out. He'll probably be a little put out at first, but he'll get used to it. He got used to Curtis and if you can get used to Curtis…Were you here the day, I don't think you were, when Curtis implied that Mother's back pain was because she'd gained some weight? I thought she was going to crawl in a hole and Father was going to knock Curtis in the teeth, but it was okay, he simmered down."

"I still can't believe Marta was going to break up with Curtis just because Papa didn't like him though," Lida passed Friedrich another dish.

"Marta would never fight with Father, she's too polite. It bothers her that Father doesn't like Curtis, she's just too polite to say anything about it. Marta likes him, Marta loves him, and all any parent really wants is for their child to be happy. Georg or Luka could come in here now and tell me they want to go to Mars, and as long as they were happy and safe, I'd find a way to cope with it. That comes with being a parent, Lida. You're grown up, but you're not grown up all the way. Not yet, or you'd never make a decision that could be hurtful to your parents' feelings, especially Father's. He's given you everything he truly has, that's why I got so angry about you keeping them in the dark. It's not fair."

Lida sighed, "Will you come with me when I talk to them tomorrow?"

Friedrich shook his head, "Not on your life. I'm gonna stay out of Dodge I think is the expression."

"You're so useful, Friedrich," Lida replied, pretending to be put out by her brother once again, but Friedrich knew better. He hoped that the talk would go well, but if it didn't, he didn't want to be anywhere in the vicinity when Mount von Trapp erupted.

A/N: Did anyone guess it was Friedrich? Originally, it was Georg, but I didn't like how it came out. Then this idea came to me on the way to work and I had to go in the bathroom and voice record it so I didn't forget it. Sorry if there are typos, I tried to fix all of it.

Chapter Five coming soon. Writing on the fly so I don't always know what life and the muse are going to do, but I hope to drop each week and perhaps more if things keep flowing.

Till next time.