by Josan
Alex was trying to button his shirt, finish his coffee while Walter was in
the shower, calling out reminders of his schedule for the day.
Of course, the phone rang.
Alex had been waiting for an answer to a query he'd tossed out, not ten
minutes ago, to a colleague whom he'd managed to catch just before
the man had left for the office. He picked up the phone.
"That was quick." He jammed the phone under his ear, kept on fighting the
buttons.
Silence.
"Hello." Guessed it wasn't the call he had been expecting.
Still silence.
"Hello? Anybody there?"
He was about to hang up when a woman's voice asked, "Is that Walter
Skinner's residence?"
"Yeah, it is. Hang on." Alex tossed the phone onto the unmade bed, called
into the bathroom, "Walt! Phone! I think it's your new
secretary."
Walter came out, wrapping a towel around his hips. As he picked up the
phone, "Would you stop by the dry cleaners and pick up the
suits? It's on your way home." Got a nod from Alex, spoke into the phone.
"Hello, Mrs. Banburry. What... Oh," his tone alerted Alex, "hi,
Mom."
Alex froze in his tracks. Mom? What the hell was Walter's mom doing calling
at this time of the day? And it was Thursday, not Monday.
She always called every second Monday of the month, regular as clockwork,
during half-time of the Monday Night Football Game. The
only time, Walter explained, she could be relatively sure of finding him home.
The only time he, Alex, never answered the phone.
Maybe someone was dead? thought Alex. Except Walter seemed to be doing more
sputtering than anything else.
"Yes, Mom. I was..." He sat down on the edge of the bed. Grimaced. "No, Mom.
Mom, I... No, Mom, that's... that's not quite... Yes, of
course, Mom. Yes, well... I'll have to check... No, I'm not being... Sure, Mom."
By now Walter was rubbing his eyes the way he did when he had a headache
coming on. Alex slouched against the door jamb, slowly
finished buttoning his shirt, his eyes intent on his lover's face.
"Yes, Mom, I will. Yes, okay. Friday night. It'll be late, Mom, are you sure
Saturday... Right. Okay. See you then, Mom."
Walter hit the off button on the phone. Looked over at Alex. "That was Mom."
"I gathered that," said Alex. "Sorry. I was expecting Peter to call back."
Walter let himself drop backwards onto the bed, rubbed his face with the
heels of his hands. "Nothing to be sorry about." He turned his
head, smiled in an embarrassed way at Alex. "Have you got something on for the
weekend?"
Alex thought, shook his head. "Just the usual paperwork." It still tickled
him that he could say something like that. "Why?"
"My mother would like us both to come up for the weekend."
Alex gnawed on the corner of his lower lip. "Us? Both of us? I thought she
didn't know about us?"
Walter sat up. "Well, it seems that she does now. I hadn't told her about
leaving the Bureau, but she seems to know about that, too."
"How?"
Walter sighed unhappily. "I guess I'll find out Friday night."
Alex came over to his subdued lover. He bent down and kissed him. "We. We'll
find out Friday night."
Oh, oh!
The Phone Call
hey were behind schedule that morning. Walter's fault. He would start
something that Alex felt needed to be finished before the day got
any older.
Just goes to show, you can never hide anything from a mother!
How will our boys deal with this one? I wonder.
