Will's Redemption: Glad you liked the mix of sweet and smut. Thanks for reading.
Northernlass: : Definitely Willow's best ever. Thanks for commenting.
Finey Mc Fine: Yes, the 80's had good music. They won't get caught. That is not angst I wanted to create. Always feel like I won the lottery when I get a comment from you.
mmmh-Hot-Sauce: Glad you liked the 20 birthday kisses. Thanks for going on this crazy ride with me.
Learning to Laugh
PG-13
Joss and television networks own everything. I just like to imagine better lives for Tara and Willow.
Part 32
“Do we have to go out?” whined Willow. “I like staying like this.” She pulled at Tara’s arm as she was trying to leave the bed and brought her back to a prone position.
“Well, we’ve got to take Taffy for her walk, and I figured after than I’d take you out to dinner for your birthday.”
“Can’t we just take Taffy for two walks tomorrow?”
“She’s been nosing around the door for the last hour. I think she is feeling neglected.”
“Ok.” Willow kissed Tara and jumped out of the bed. “Sweetie, I really appreciate that you want to take me out to dinner, but I’d really prefer to just throw on sweats, take the dog for a walk and come back have a grilled cheese sandwich or something and return to my naked birthday celebration.”
“You haven’t had enough?” quipped Tara as she began to put on her jeans.
“No, have you? Am I asking too much of you.” Willow started to panic.
Tara walked over to where Willow was standing in her underwear and put her hands on Willow’s shoulders. “Sweetie, you are not asking for anything that I am not willing to give. I didn’t want to sound like a horn-dog and I’d promised that I’d take you out for your birthday. I didn’t want to renege.”
“Renege away sweetie. I feel like we need to take advantage of this being alone opportunity while we are here. Even at times are roommates are out, we still have lots of other people on our halls and very thin walls.” Willow pulled on her sweatpants and a sweatshirt.
“Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that. I think I now understand why sometimes people’s music seems to be up extra loud, they are probably doing ‘it’” Tara put on a shirt and a lavender sweater.
“Yeah probably. I hadn’t really thought about it either. I wish we could just stay here forever.” Willow said as she began to tie her sneakers.
“I don’t think Professor Walsh would be too happy if we took over his guest room, and I am pretty sure that he wouldn’t want his kids hearing us either.” Tara sat down on the bed and put on her socks and boots.
“Yuck, you had to put that in my mind. You know I was imagining it as this being our house and all we needed to do was take care of the dog and hang together.”
“If we ever want to have a place like this, we’ll definitely have to keep up our studies and probably both get advanced degrees. We need to go back and finish our undergraduate programs.”
“It’s my birthday, I want to live in my dream world that this is our house and all we have to do is take care of the dog, take care of our own needs and make love.”
“Definitely, we don’t have to think about the real world until Sunday. We’ve got a whole ‘nother day to spend how we want.
Taffy bumbled into the room as soon as Willow opened the door. “It’s ok girl,” Willow patted the dog on the head, “We didn’t forget about you. You ready for a walk.”
The dog began panting and jumping up and down. Willow put the dog’s harness on while Tara grabbed their jackets.
They left the house and began walking the dog down the sidewalk. They were walking beside the road when they came face to face with another dog and its owner. ‘’
“Is that you Willow?” asked the person.
Willow dropped Tara’s hand which she’d been holding.
“Hello, Professor Travis. I didn’t know you had a dog.”
“Yeah, it is not something that I usually talk about at school. What are you doing walking Taffy?”
“Professor Walsh hired us to house and dog sit.”
The professor looked Tara up and down, “Who is your friend?”
“Professor Travis, this is my friend Tara. Tara this is Professor Travis. He teaches Chemistry.”
“Hello, sir.” Tara outstretched her hand. He met it with his own and gave her a lackluster handshake.
Taffy and the professor’s dog were nosing around each other. “What’s your dog’s name?” asked Willow.
“Trent, he and Taffy have been friends for a long time. Professor Walsh never said anything about having a student house sit. Why didn’t you go home for Thanksgiving?”
Willow looked at the professor.
Why does he care? What do I say? It is not like I want my professors knowing my life story… It just didn’t work out this time. Well, we’d better get going, Taffy needs her exercise. Nice seeing you.” Willow began walking briskly away.
When they were far enough away from him for Willow to figure that he couldn’t hear her, Willow muttered, “Do you think he saw us holding hands?”
“Why does it matter, Willow are you ashamed of me.”
“No. Definitely not, no I am not at all ashamed of you. Want me to hunt him down and tell him that you are my wonderful girlfriend.”
“No, that is definitely not needed. I would have probably dropped your hand too if we’d run into one of my professors. I just think it isn’t fair. If one of us was a guy, we’d not feel ashamed,” commented Tara.
“The wonders of internalized homophobia, as well as, externalized homophobia,” responded Willow.
“I’ve never quite understood why it’s called a ‘phobia’. It’s not that people are afraid of gay people, it is more of a -ism ‘homoism’, I guess that doesn’t have quite as good of a ring. Gayism.”
“Orientationism?”
“Identityism.”
“I guess it is a ‘phobia’ because people are afraid that it is going to happen to them. What if he says something about it to Professor Walsh. I didn’t tell him that you were my girlfriend. I don’t want him to think that I took advantage of his generosity and used his house to do you know…”
“Didn’t you?” asked Tara trying to make the situation a little lighter.
“Yeah, but I don’t want him to know that. He may not hire me again. I was sort of hoping he may need a dog sitter for the Winter Holidays. I’d much rather spend some of the vacation in a house rather than having to move to whatever dorm they keep open for the vacation.”
“Speaking of that…” Tara commented.
“Of what?” asked Willow.
“Of the winter holiday break. I was sort of hoping that you’d come home with me for the vacation. I want to spend the winter holidays with you.”
Willow stopped and looked at Tara with an expression that communicated utter confusion. “I can’t… I have to… your family…go home with you. I can’t… I have to work.”
“You have to work on Christmas? What job do you do on Christmas? I know the theater can’t be open on Christmas. Do you have some secret job that you’ve been keeping from me?” said Tara with a tone of sarcasm and frustration.
“Not on Christmas per se, but the week after New Years until school opens again on January 21st.” Willow began walking rapidly back toward the house.
Tara ran to catch up with her. “Therefore, you could come home with my for Christmas and then take the train back to school.”
Willow stopped again and looked at Tara with an expression that communicated a lack of understanding of what Tara was saying.
“Do you not want to spend the Winter Holidays with me?” Tara said with a hint of sadness.
“No…” Willow stuttered.
“No?” said Tara flabbergasted.
“No, I don’t mean no, sure I’d like to spend the holidays with you. I want to spend every moment that I can with you, but go home with you? What about your parents? What if they figure it out?”
“Willow, there is nothing to figure out. They know you are my girlfriend, or at least my mom does. She told me to ask you. I don’t talk about this kind of thing much to my dad, but he is always ‘the more the merrier’ kinda guy.”
“You parents know about me?” Willow practically shrieked. She began walking even faster.
“Willow, slow down, breathe.” Tara took the leash out of Willow’s hand and put her hand on her shoulder.
“What…what if…what if they change their minds…what if they don’t’ like me? What if they think I’m not good enough for you,” Willow began to panic.
“Willow, breathe. I am sure that they will like you, what’s not to like. My siblings have brought some doozies home in the past, and my parents were nothing but nice to every one of them.”
“But none of them were a girl.”
“Actually, my brothers always bring home girls.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yeah, this will be the first time someone brings someone of the same sex home for the holiday. But nobody is going to care?”
“How do you know that? They could freak. I never imagined that my parents would freak, and look, total freak, disowned their only kid freak…”
“That’s what this is about, isn’t it Willow. You are afraid that my parents are going to disown me if they meet you. Do you want to talk to them, do you need my mom to promise you that she won’t disown me?”
“I don’t want to give them any ideas. What if they didn’t ever think about it before. I don’t want to give them ideas.” Willow sounded frantic.
“Willow, calm down. Let’s walk the dog home, feed her and sit down and talk about this rationally.”
They walked in silence for a few minutes. “I’m sorry Tara. I’m not handling this well at all.
“Willow, you are handling it the way you handle it. It’s ok.” Tara bumped Willow’s hip.
They continued to walk back to the house. Once they got back into the house, Tara began rummaging in the kitchen for something for dinner while Willow changed Taffy’s water and gave him some dog food.
“Are you sure you don’t want to go out?” asked Tara. “We don’t have to go anywhere fancy. We could just get pizza.”
“I don’t want to go anywhere. I just want to stay here with you.”
“Fine. Peanut butter and jelly or grilled cheese?”
“Which ever you want.”
“It’s your birthday.”
“Ok, do we have enough cheese for grilled cheese?”
“Yep. I wouldn’t have offered it if we didn’t” said Tara in a slightly snarky manner.
“Ok, sorry. Grilled cheese, please.”
Tara began moving around the kitchen finding the pan that she’d used before and taking out the cheeses that she’d found. She grabbed two plates and put some chips on each of them, and peeled carrots, cut them into sticks, and put the carrot sticks on the plates. As soon as the griddle was hot, she began to grill the sandwiches.
“I’m sorry that I was snarky. I just didn’t expect you to freak so much when I asked you to come home with me.”
“It’s ok. I know I overreacted. I’ve just been thinking a lot about my parents disowning me. It’s my 20th birthday and it’s been over a year since they’ve called me or talked to me. I guess that I just keep on thinking that they will call me and apologize or just to say Happy Birthday. Not that they’d have any way to know that I am here. Maybe I should have stayed in my room.”
“Sat by the phone to wait for their call?”
“That’s what I did last year. It really sucked. I got depressed.”
“Understandably. I can imagine you worrying about going to the bathroom, thinking you’d miss the call.”
“Yeah, I hardly drank anything.”
“I was kidding.”
“I know, but it was true. I took my phone of the receiver, so they’d get a busy signal when I went to the bathroom.”
“Oh, Willow. I wish I’d known you then. I would have sat in your room with you. You will never have to spend a birthday sitting and waiting for a phone call alone again.”
“Do you think they just never really loved me and took this as an excuse. Maybe they never wanted to have children.”
Tara took the sandwiches off the heat and walked over to Willow and enveloped her in a hug. “Sweetie, I don’t know. I’ve never met them, and I figure I’ll never meet them. I don’t understand how anyone could disown someone as sweet and beautiful and wonderful as you. It’s their loss. They must be really stupid.” Tara kissed Willow’s neck.
“My parents are really smart.”
“Maybe they are book smart, but they’ve got to be emotion dumb because they disowned you.”
“It’s not them, it’s me,” said Willow.
Tara walked back to where Willow was sitting. She took her hand and brought Willow’s face up so that they were looking straight at each other. “It is them. There is nothing wrong with you. You are a special, wonderful, beautiful, spectacular, awesome, kind, caring, smart, and amazing woman. It is their problem.”
“I don’t think so.” Willow struggled out of Tara’s grip and looked back down at the floor.
“Well, I love you Willow Rosenberg. I’m going to tell you and show you and do everything I can until you are able to see the situation the way I see it, and you can say confidently that it’s their loss, it is their problem.”
“Ok.” Willow looked up at Tara’s blue eyes. “The grilled cheeses smell like they are trying to burn.”
“Tara rushed over to the pan and flipped the sandwiches onto the plates.”
“A little crispy, but not too bad.”
“I like mine a little crispy. I love the color dark brown.” She smiled at Tara.
***
“How did you remember that I wanted this book?” asked Willow as she opened the wrapped present. They were cuddling on the bed watching television.
“It wasn’t too hard. You said it was one of your favorite authors. It wasn’t too hard to go back to the bookstore and purchase it. I was going to give it to you for one of the winter holidays, but then I found out about your birthday.”
“It can count for the holidays too. You keep calling them the “winter” holidays instead of Christmas. Doesn’t your family celebrate Christmas?”
“Yes, we celebrate Christmas, but we also celebrate the Winter Solstice. I told you that my mother’s family are Wiccan. My mom’s mother has always tried to make the Solstice a major holiday. It’s sort of the Solstice celebration with my mom’s family and Christmas with my dad’s family.
“If I come home with you, I’ll really meet your whole family?”
“Yeah.”
“And you think that they will like me?”
“I am positive they will like you.”
“How can you be positive?”
“What is not to like sweetheart.”
“I feel like this conversation is going in a circle.”
“Why?”
“When you say, what’s not to like, it makes me think about my parents not liking me.”
“Let’s keep that negative talk out of the room.”
“Ok. So holidays, when is Chanukah?”
“It starts the 8th and ends on the 15th. Exams start right after it ends.”
“Does the campus Jewish group do anything for it?”
“Yeah, usually there is a party either the first or the last night and we make latkes and eat jelly donuts.”
“Can I come with you? I’ve never had a latke.”
“Have you ever had a potato pancake?”
“Yeah.”
“Then you’ve had a latke. They are the same thing.”
“Oh. Well, I like jelly donuts.”
“Me too, especially raspberry ones.”
“Little did I know about you and liking raspberries. So, can I come?”
“Of course.”
“So, I am pretty sure that I have six more kisses to give you,” commented Tara looking at Willow in a seductive manner.
“Happy Birthday to me.”