With the flight to and from L.A. being only a few hours, and plenty of time in between to rest, Kelly and I had decided to drive ourselves to the airport; so after we collected Marlyn and Marilyn's luggage, it wasn't long to get them home and settled in. Talking with Marlyn, we'd added a single bed to the double that was already in the spare bedroom, so that Marilyn could have her own place to sleep – once we'd rearranged the furniture a little.
After we got their bags in the bedroom, they joined Kelly and me in the den to catch up on what was happening in the Philippines, and about the factory. Before they could start, though, I gave each of them one of the digital keys for the house, and showed them how the door would open for them when they put it in the matching receptacle. Both were amazed at that, so I had to go on to explain to them about the house, and Mabel (Machine Access By English Language), the home automation system I'd built into it. Marlyn mostly understood it; Marilyn seemed convinced that it was some kind of magic – particularly when she discovered that she could talk to the house and get lights to turn on and off.
Both of them readily agreed when I asked if they wanted to meet some of Kelly's and my friends the next evening. It hadn't been any problem getting Paul, his two boys, Jan, Sandra, Susan, Robyn, Bill, and my secretary Sarah and her husband Al all over for a cookout – all of them wanted to meet Marlyn and Marilyn.
It wasn't very late when Kelly and I saw both of them starting to yawn.
Kelly suggested that to them that they should go ahead and go to bed – and to sleep late the next morning, if they wanted. After only a little hesitation, both decided that Kelly's idea was pretty good, and went back to try and recover from all their time in airplanes.
The next morning, Kelly and I were both up and moving around well before Marlyn and Marilyn found their way into the den. Kelly asked if they were hungry, and both admitted that food sounded pretty good. Kelly ran down the list of options, and both decided to give bagels and cream cheese a try – and loving it with their first bites. Marlyn joined us in having coffee while Marilyn was delighted to have orange juice. Marlyn looked a little perturbed at Marilyn's request for a third glass; I hastened to assure her that both of them were welcome to as much of anything in the house as they wanted. Marlyn looked a little doubtful, but I reminded her that things like orange juice were relatively cheap in the U.S. – and that it was good for Marilyn, anyway. She finally smiled and admitted that she'd forgotten how plentiful such things were in America.
The rest of the day, we pretty much just lazed around after showing Marlyn and Marilyn the rest of the house, and getting them both started on learning how to control Mabel.
Late that afternoon, people started showing up for the cookout. We'd asked all of them not to show up at the same time so as to not overwhelm Marlyn and Marilyn with too many new faces at once. They'd all understood, and agreed that the 'start' time was a vague suggestion, not something carved in stone.
The result was that Robyn and Susan showed up first – giving Kelly and I both their usual 'hello' hugs and kisses. The ones they gave Marlyn and Marilyn were considerably less personal, but no less sincere – and both of them fell in love with Marilyn all over again on seeing her in person.
Twenty minutes or so later, Sarah and her husband arrived – surprising Marlyn and Marilyn both; Black people weren't that common in the Philippines (other than the indigenous Negritos, who generally lived in fairly primitive villages). But Sarah's gentle disposition soon won them over, as did Al's good humor (despite his rather large muscular frame).
They were just as surprised that all the girls were apparently perfectly fine with the idea of giving him a kiss on the cheek and accepting a hug from him in greeting.
Next to show up was Sandra, whose greeting to Jan and I was a trifle less demonstrative than Robyn and Sandra's – as was her welcome to Marilyn and Marlyn.
She was soon followed by Paul and the boys, along with Jan. Paul absolutely flummoxed both of them by taking each of their hands to kiss.
Last was Bill, and his wife – both of them absolutely delighted to meet Marlyn and Marilyn after so long.
With everyone present, I got the grill fired up while Kelly got things ready to make a salad. Bill and his wife happily accepted the house rules for the cookout: it was strictly a self-serve operation. The informality of that surprised Marlyn, but she quickly got into the spirit of the thing. The whole deal was a first time for Marilyn, and she seemed willing to accept pretty much anything that happened – though she was initially a bit shy with everyone, it didn't take her long to get over it, and start having fun.
After perhaps an hour, Marlyn indicated that she wanted to talk to me a moment, away from the others. We moved to the kitchen, where she told me 'All of Kelly's friends – Sandra, Susan, Robyn, and Jan, they all wanted to know if it was okay with me if they came over here to spend time with Marilyn, or took her to different places to show her the United States!
They are being so nice to us!'
I smiled, and told her 'Marlyn, they are my friends, too. But yes, they are being nice to you – that is the kind of people they are. I told you, they really do like you, and they all just love Marilyn, and want to spend time with her. She is like a little sister to them, even though they just met her.'
'But why? I don't remember Americans being so friendly, when I was here before.'
I just smiled again, and told her 'Those girls are different than most Americans. You are my and Kelly's friend – so to them, you are their friend, too. They know that Kelly and I both love and care about Marilyn, so they feel the same way about her.'
She looked at me quizzically, and asked 'Why is that?'
'That's because all of us have a special kind of friendship. It is like being family, only closer. You'll see, I think.'
Happy that Marilyn would have so many people to spend time with, and watch out for her, Marlyn didn't seem inclined to question her good fortune. Instead, she just accepted the answers I'd given her, and went back to where the others were.
A little while later, I watched as Marlyn listened to Jan, Susan, Robyn, and Sandra as they playfully argued over who got to spent how much time, and when, with Marilyn – all of them wanted to be first to spend all their time with her. The final decision was that Susan got to take her shopping, first. Then Robyn and Sandra would take her to a local amusement park for the day. Jan would round things up by taking her to our area's children's 'discovery' museum – where the kids were *encouraged* to play with the exhibits. Then all four of them were going to take her to a swimming pool for the day (I pitied any male lifeguards – the four of them in swimsuits would give a guy eyestrain, trying to watch the rest of the crowd and them at the same time). At that point, Marlyn tried to talk them out of giving up so much of their time to be with her; they just looked at her as though she'd lost her mind. Then she made the mistake of trying to pay for some of the activities – and found out what the Goober look was. She came to me for help, and I just told her that if she managed to get her way about anything with any one of those four, she was doing better than I ever had.
By the time the evening was over, Marlyn and Marilyn seemed pretty comfortable with all of them – particularly Jan and the others. Paul and his boys were the last to leave; when they were gone, Marilyn came over to where Kelly and I were standing to give both of us a hug and thank us for finding her some friends in the United States. We both assured her that it had been our pleasure before she and Marlyn headed back to their room to get some more rest.
As Kelly and I headed for the kitchen to get some coffee the next morning, Saturday, we heard giggling coming from the den. We looked at each other, and said 'Cartoons!' knowing that it could only be Marilyn in there. When we joined her, we found that she'd discovered a channel that featured older cartoons on Saturday mornings, and was in near-hysterics at some old Tom and Jerry. Keeping her company was Cat, who was lying on her lap and purring loudly as Marilyn continued to pet her, even during bouts of giggles. Cat had taken to Marilyn on first meeting: Cat liked laps and being petted; Marilyn had a lap, and would pet Cat as long as Cat was in it. Perfect match.
All of us were surprised when Mabel announced a visitor about mid-afternoon. I told Mabel to show us who it was; when Kelly and I saw that it was Bishop Ferguson, we just grinned at each other before Kelly went to let him in. All four of us had been in the den, reading while trying to listen to music over Cat's purring (Marilyn would even rub Cat's ears while reading). When Kelly brought the Bishop in, Marlyn and Marilyn were both quick to put away what they'd been reading to meet him – then stunned when Kelly told them who he was. She showed him a seat and asked if he'd like anything – he said that as warm as it was outside, a beer sounded pretty good. Kelly looked at me, and I nodded that it sounded pretty good to me, too. She went into the kitchen, and then came out a couple minutes later with two beers and sodas for the rest of them.
