CHAPTER TWO After Al left, Sam gave Tina the pill and glass of Deer Park water. She went to their bedroom to take a nap, and Sam went to the living section in the kitchen. He sat on the comfy, overstuffed leather couch. Arranged on the table were several magazines about either computers, which he knew belonged to Tina, or rock 'n' roll and the music industry, Tony's, or current news events. Sam thumbed through these magazines or a while, surprised at how much happened in the world since he began leaping in 1995. But, the biggest surprise was coming! He picked up the skinny, black television remote and pressed the round button in the first row to turn the large television set on. The screen flashed on, showing a cartoon-looking picture of Saturn with the words "Do you ever wonder?" written underneath. Oh, Sam wondered a lot since he began leaping, usually wondering why. Why is he leaping through time? Why can't he get home? Now he had even more to wonder about, mostly wondering how. How much had actually changed? (He was certainly very much sure things had changed, but was unsure about the extent.) How much do people like Al and Tina remember from their previous lives? How much had changed in Sam's own life? There are many wonders of the world: the pyramids, Stonehenge, the dinosaurs' extinction, why he keeps leaping, how Michael Jackson could be so popular for so long. But, according to Sam, the biggest wonder occurred when that screen of the planet and saying flashed to a picture of him leaping. His memories seemed to be captured on film, then shown as science-fiction on cable. Sam was watching the show for some time, when Tina walked into the room. She noticed his eyes permanently glued to the show. "Tony?" She rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Tony, do you know we have to leave in ten minutes?" She got no answer from the couch potato. He seemed more glued to the show than ever, even worse than how Tony, his brothers, and father are every Thanksgiving watching the big football game. Deciding she had to take drastic action to get him from watching, she walked in front of the television set. He moved his head, trying to see it behind her. She let out a big sigh as her eyes rolled up to heaven. "Theorizing that one could be too addicted to a stupid television show --" Sam turned away from the show, and toward the woman talking to him. "Sorry, uh, honey," he said. "I was just watching --" "This episode for about the zillionth time," she said. "Why you watch this show is beyond me." She turned the set off by pressing the power button on the set, the way she considered people did it back in the olden days when dinosaurs roamed the earth. "Since I'm doing this, let me spoil the ending for you. The cute guy saves the pig but loses the girl, and the looser gets his girl back. I think they also write a song for Buddy Holly in the process." While the show meant so much more to Sam, he was surprised that she was able to reduce it to "a stupid television show" about "the cute guy" and "the looser." He smiled at her cute and totally clueless take on everything. She smiled at him. "Now, Tony, can you get ready to go to your parents' house tonight?" She was already dressed in her red and white pants suit, which she bought on sale when she was two months pregnant and eventually grew into. "Yeah, sure," he said. He got off the couch, and walked down the hallway. One look at her husband in his stained gray T-shirt with the pink and blue WOLZ emblem and worn, torn and dirty jeans, she knew he was not ready yet. "Your mom sure is right," she commented. "When guys get married, they sure do lose all of their tastes in clothes. You with your dirty 'comfy clothes.' And, your father . . . well, I think your mother gave up all fashion hope for him a very long time ago, since he always comes into work looking more like a neon sign than a human being." Sam smiled, and wondered if she would always feel that way under all circumstances. He easily found their bedroom, since it was the first room off the hallway. On the wrought iron canopy bed, Tony's clothes were set out already, either by him or his wife. Sam quickly changed into the beige slacks and a gray pinstriped collarless shirt. He glanced into the wicker-framed mirror to check how he looked. Since he leaped in, he always thought of Tony as just Al's son, somehow forgetting who the mother was. But, one glance at what Tony looked like, and there was no doubting who she was. If Joey really took after his father, Tony really took after his mother. He looked exactly like a male version of Kelly, and was just as handsome as she was pretty. He had the same large brown eyes, hair color, and most of her other facial features. His honey blond hair was cut short around his ears, and also formed a thin mustache over his upper lip trying hard to make him look even more handsome and less boyish. His body was muscular, not Godzilla muscular like body builders but fit muscular, the body of someone who looked like he was extremely athletic. Still, like his mom, he did not look like someone who knew and boasted about how good looking they were. He was just handsome, and didn't think much of it. There was also that sense of sweetness and outgoingness in his eyes, which his mother also processed. "Tony, stop admiring yourself," Tina said. "Let's go." She smiled sweetly at him, while Sam realized that sweetness Sam noticed in his eyes, which Tony inherited from his mom, drew him toward her in the beginning of their relationship just as much as Tony's eye, which he inherited from his father . . . maybe even more so. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The family and Sam were in the large house suburban house, still small for the ever growing family who lived there. The father sat in his special, overstuffed chair watching a basketball game, the LA Lakers versus the Phoenix Suns, constantly yelling the screen telling the players what to do. The mother and the mother-to-be put the finishing touches on the supper they were going to eat that night, while the mother gave advice about everything from cooking to babies to her daughter-in-law; the mother made a fuss over the younger woman who was carrying her newest grandchildren. The three boys played in the driveway outside shooting the basketball through the hoop hooked up above the garage door. "Can you believe that, Tony?" the father exclaimed. "The Lakers stink this year. If they were as good as they should be, that nozzle would have never gotten that basket." "You're right, Al," Sam agreed, trying to act as interested in the game as his friend was. "The Lakers should have blocked it, before they got it in." "I'm telling you Shaq should pay more attention to his game, not his music and movies." "Well, Albert, I'm glad we have a son who pays serious attention to his music," Kelly said, as she walked out of the kitchen carrying a tray filled with vegetables and dip. Tina followed her mother-in-law out of the kitchen. She held some paper plates, napkins, and forks in one hand, as her other hand rested on her large belly. "Well, that and his family," she added, sitting on the couch next to "her husband." She never knew how close a family could possibly be until she became a part of her husband's family. She was glad that her babies were going to be raised in a tightly knit extended family, instead of the seriously broken home she came from. She had no idea what would happen or how she would cope without her Tony by her side, but she would be unhappy--at least, romantically. Sam looked at Kelly, (who was still gorgeous after all of these years and looked more like a woman around forty or fifty than sixty but he guessed Al looked much younger than his age as well.) "What do you mean 'my music', Kelly?" "Tony, you must be very dedicated to it in order to be the morning dj of the leading station in New Mexico," she responded. "As well as the best assistant-manger in all of New Mexico." "There goes your mom again boasting. If you're so great, kid, do you think you can get us tickets for 'Wet 'n' Roll Fest'?" Albert asked naming the latest event the station was sponsoring. "We can make it into a family day for us." "I can try," Sam agreed. "How many? A hundred, Al?" "Just me, your mom, three little brothers. And, of course, your wife," Albert stated. "And, Tony, when did you stop calling your father and me 'pop' and 'mom'?" Kelly asked, slightly annoyed. Sam could tell she was glad about the tickets, but bothered by his slip up. "Sorry, mom," he said. He felt awkward about calling a woman he dated a long time ago "mom" and his best friend "pop," even if he did leap into their son. Kelly sent her husband outside to start to barbeque, and looked through window calling for her son's to stop their game and come in. Al left because it was half-time. Joey rushed in, practically running over his father, for the same reason, followed by one of his younger brothers (the youngest decided to stay outside, helping Albert with the hamburgers and hotdogs). Joey swung himself over his father's chair, plopping himself down sideways. His younger brother, Angelo, made a comment saying his brother's rush was so he could catch the Laker Girls do their cheers, and Sam--having met Joey a year later when he helped his father---agreed with Angelo. Within minutes, Albert arrived followed by his youngest son, Sammy. He placed the large spaghetti platter holding the hamburgers and hotdogs in their buns on the large butcher block table in the dining room, and the entire family gathered around to eat. Kelly turned CD players on the stereo on and Frank Sinatra's "Love and Marriage" came on, the words saying how marriage cannot happen without love. Sam wondered how much love was in Al's marriages in his past life. But, definitely knew there were tons of love between Al and Kelly in his present life. Within that night, Sam gained an appreciation and love for Al's family, the ideal all-American family which somewhat reminded him of his own family when he was growing up. The patriarch, Al, who constantly tried to catch glimpses of the game through the open doorway, with his kind control for his kids when the younger ones' behavior got out of hand and love for everyone sitting there eating and the other members of his family far away. The matriarch, Kelly, with all of her sweetness and motherly charm, and who kept fussing over "her son" and daughter-in-law due to her pregnancy. Then, there were Al's three young sons: Joey, who spent the entire supper time stuffing his face with burgers and hotdogs and more time talking on the phone to his girlfriend than with his family; Angelo, who kept making smart-alack wisecracks (like when he said that "his Uncle David was as fat as a walrus that the last time he went to Sea World they threw a fish at him," which was prompted by an offhanded comment Tina made about feeling as large as a house); Al and Kelly's youngest, Sammy, with his dark intelligent eyes and who hung on every word everybody said taking everything in (Al had named his son after his best friend, and Sam guessed the name fit the eleven-year-old boy since the boy reminded Sam of himself as a boy.) Then, of course, the extended family . . . well what Sam could see of it, which was only made of innocently sweet Tina, who reminded him much of Kelly when she was younger. Sam smiled to himself. He was in love with the wonderful world he founded. Monica, (c) Summer, 1997