Page 49 of Space Balls: Houston, We Have Liftoff
Vance’s lips twitch, but he’s still pouting from when I took him out in the first round. He may be able to put shit together in space, but he sucks at video games.
My stomach churns from my sudden movement, so I sit back on the well-worn sofa. If I’d known there were going to be three kinds of pie for dessert, I wouldn’t have had seconds on everything at dinner. But not wanting to be rude (and unable to help myself), I still managed to eat a slice of each flavor before settling in to whoop on some Bodaway butt in a knock-out round of Fornite.
“Just you wait, Aunt Rosie.” Jase, sitting on the floor next to his brother, waves his fist in the air with mock anger. “I’m gonna practice so hard that when Christmas comes, I’ll take you down!”
Aunt Rosie. Christmas. His words hit me like a gut punch from his little fist.
I blink back a sudden wave of emotion. Seriously, between the blushing and the wet eyes, it’s like I’ve become a different person.
“Practice never hurts.” I grasp for my normal smart-ass self. “But you’ll need more than a few weeks of it to beat someone onmylevel.” I point to Vance, sitting in the recliner. “Just ask your uncle how to overcome such overwhelming defeat. He’s gotten loads of practice since meeting me.”
“Har, har,” Vance mimics his nephews’ earlier sarcasm. Then, lightning-fast, he pounces on Jase and Jacob, wrapping a long arm around each and pulling them to the floor. Then the tickling starts.
Matt gets pulled into the pile by his older son, letting Jase hold him down so Jacob can jump on top. Brit and Helen watch from their spots next to me, sipping on their wine, wide smiles on their faces, giving me the impression that what I’m witnessing right now is a rare sight.
I’d jump into the wrestling/tickling pile myself, but as I’ve already reached under the hem of my shirt and popped the button on my waistband, I’ll sit this one out. Besides, I’m gonna pass out in a food coma if I don’t leave soon.
“Ahhh, no…. Uncle Vance—ahh!” Jase’s peals of laughter ring out over the video game’s soundtrack.
“Get ’em, Vance, get ’em!” Brit eggs him on. She catches my eye and mouthsThank you.
I don’t know if she’s thanking me for the turkey again or for something else, so I just smile.
Then I ponder how serious she was earlier at dinner and whether I should book us a flight to Vegas.
Because I can’t remember the last time I had this much fun at Thanksgiving, and I very much would like to find out what a Bodaway Christmas is like.
Vance
Rose fallsasleep during the car ride back to my place.
It’s odd sitting next to a sleeping Rose. She’s usually so vibrant, reverberating spontaneity, fun, and enthusiasm for life.
Rose snore/snorts, turning her head toward me. “Victory…” she mumbles.
Smiling, I make the turn toward my apartment.
The quiet is nice too. It’s peaceful occupying the same space as her. It reminds me of this cool astronomy project NASA is doing at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. They’ve been studying the star R Aquarii, which, originally thought to be just one star, is actually two—a dense, white dwarf star and a cool red giant star.
R Aquarii is a volatile stellar relationship, or symbiotic stars. Stars so close that they interact with one another in a similar way.
The white dwarf is about ten thousand times brighter than the red giant, and has stronger gravitational fields, though it’s smaller. A red giant star is a dying star in the last stages of stellar evolution. As the star exhausts the helium within its core, the shell containing the gases burns carbon, getting hotter and hotter, heading toward supernova.
But because of the white dwarf’s gravitational force, it sloughs away the carbon layers of the red giant, pulling them onto its surface to burn away. Essentially extending the red dwarf’s life.
I’ve always thought I was doing just fine, great, even. I’m doing the work I love and living a healthy, satisfactory life. But today, going on a high-speed chase for a turkey, sitting beside Rose at dinner, hearing her regale the group with stories of my mother’s pole dancing successes to everyone’s horror, and then beating all our asses at a video game, I realized how much I hold myself back. I was a red giant until Rose’s strong gravitational pull burned away my blinders.
But, just as with the stars, I’m not sure how long both of us will last if this continues.
The wind through my 4Runner’s cracked window plays with her blond hair, which she put up in a messy bun during the tournament. I have a feeling if I tried to explain symbiotic stars to Rose, all she’d hear is me comparing her to a “white dwarf” and she’d straight-up junk punch me. She’s funny like that.
Her humor has made me laugh more in the past few weeks than I have all of last year, probably.
Tonight, I realized that I’d made myself a loner long before I met Rose. By not wanting a lasting romantic relationship, I’d inadvertently walled myself off from most any relationship with people. Even my family.
My SUV bounces over the speed bump in my apartment complex’s parking lot. Rose’s open mouth lets loose another snort/snore. There isn’t much lady-like about Rose, but she is definitely all woman. She’s one of a kind. And as much as I don’t want to dim her burning light with my dying one, I wonder if maybe we can’t prolong what we have going on.
I told myself that inviting her to Thanksgiving dinner with my family was to keep her from being lonely, but I have a feeling it was more to keep me from being alone.
