"You got asked out by a celebrity?!" Linda asked incredulously as she sipped her margarita. The sisters had stopped by El Burro, a local Mexican restaurant, after leaving the conferences. They were currently having cocktails while they waited for their orders to arrive; Jen had rather surprised herself by automatically ordering a taco salad. As Jon she would have gone for one of their burrito combination plates, but as Jen she found she was rather self conscious about her figure, especially considering the possible maybe date she had.
"She's not a celebrity, Lin" Jen declared while rolling her eyes. Alyssa was a rather successful author whose fantasy series had just been picked up for a show on HBO, making her something of the talk of the town, but she was hardly someone instantly recognizable. Although, that could change if her show took off. She was much more photogenic than George RR Martin at any rate. "She's just another parent I had a nice conversation with. And I don't even know if it's a date, coffee could just be coffee, y'know?"
"Please, you've seen Seinfeld, Coffee isn't coffee, coffee is sex," Linda retorted. Jen blushed a bit, "Look if it's a date, IF, then it's a first date, we're not going too...."
Linda stopped teasing and laid a comforting hand on Jen's arm, "hey, I didn't mean it like that." Considering she'd had an unplanned teen pregnancy, and the father of her child abandoned her five seconds after she told him she was pregnant, it was fair to say that Jen was skeptical of rushing into sex. Not that an unplanned pregnancy could happen with Alyssa, but more that she wanted the next time she was intimate with someone to be with someone she knew loved her back for real. "I'm happy for you, sis, really. You've been single way too long." It was true, after breaking up with Robbie back in highschool, Jen's dating life was rather dismal. She'd dated sure, but it usually failed to turn into anything serious; most people had been put off by her being a single mother, or just been looking for something casual. Her last date had been three years ago. Jen blinked, and had to fight to keep a tear from her eye; as she accessed her new Jennifer memories she felt crashing waves of emotion hitting her, the good and the bad. Jen just had SO much more life experience than Jon that it was threatening to be overwhelming.
"You okay, Jen?" Linda asked
Jen forced herself to regain her composure and gave her sister a small smile, "Yeah just... I've got a good feeling about this one. She seemed really nice, and I dunno, I really hope it goes well."
"Well at least one of us has something to look forward to, I don't even know what I'm going to say to Mike when we get home," Linda grumbled as the waiter dropped off their meals. Jen took a long sip of gin and tonic as she thought it over; Mike had really fallen into a bad crowd with the football team, and due to her Jon memories she knew just how bad. Biff and Steve were bullies and borderline hoodlums, and she feared the Mike of this reality might be the same. Jen loved her sister to pieces but she wasn't the best when it came to discipline in either reality. She tended to be very laissez faire about it until one of the kids got in trouble at school or something, then she came down very harshly and draconian for awhile. Personally Jen didn't think the hot and cold approach worked very well; you needed to be involved enough with your kid to know what was going on before things went off the rail.
Still, that ship had sailed a bit with Mike. "Well, first of all you should go in as calm as you can be; getting into a shouting match won't help and you'll both just feel hurt. It's obvious he doesn't care about his grades, so maybe try linking them to something he does care about? I think you've got to threaten to pull him off the team if his grades don't improve," she finally opined. Linda looked conflicted, "but he's so close to getting a scholarship..."
"Lin, no school's going to take him if he can't get his average up, no matter how good he is as a wide receiver."
Linda deflated a bit, "You're right, he's gonna hate it but you're right."
Jen squeezed her sisters hand, "you can blame the idea on me if you want. His mean old aunt can take the heat."
Linda rolled her eyes, "thanks but no. This has got to come from me..."
Conversation trailed off for a moment so Jen decided to change the subject. "So, speaking of my maybe date this weekend. What would I have to do for you to let me borrow that cute cashmere sweater I know you bought last week?
