Chapter Text
Laverne balanced the phone against her knee while she sat down on the front steps. Lenny had Joey on a blanket on the sunny front lawn and was patiently trying to teach him how to walk, his guitar sitting at his opposite hip.
“Shirl?” Laverne finally asked.
”Laverne! You sound like you’re calling from the bottom of Lake Michigan!” a pause. “You aren’t, are you?
“No! I’m on the porch!” Laverne shook her head. Lenny was holding Joey’s hand and gently dandling him, but he snorted at the half conversation he could hear.
“Did you finish moving?” Shirley asked.
“Yep, this week,” Laverne said. “The phone just got connected a couple of days ago. I’ve already been in to work, and now we’re settling in.”
”Good, I’d been worried you’d get lost halfway across the country.”
“Nah, we only do that when you’re in the car with us.” Lenny laughed, and Laverne shushed him. “So, tell me about Madrid.” Walter had been transferred yet again; since her marriage, Shirley had lived in East Germany, the Falkland Islands, and now Spain. “Okay,” Laverne said. “You tell me everything and I’ll sit here and listen,” she said. Tangling the cord around the tips of her fingers, she listened to Shirley detail her dreams and hopes and plans for her new home in Madrid as bugs buzzed and birds flew by.
”Honestly, Laverne. Well, we managed to settle into a little hacienda by the center of town, and I’ve been thinking of taking dance lessons now that Todd can walk…”
Active Annie Shirley was naturally less than enchanted with life as a housewife and thus was involved in a million different base organizations, alongside keeping home, baking pies and raising little Todd. She’d managed to get a movie night together, and was apparently trying to organize a group called ‘Military Mothers for Peace’. Laverne wondered how that was going to go over with the brass, but Laverne sensed that her best friend didn’t care. Todd and recently-born Bobby, too, were doing well, and Walter ‘as well as could be expected under the circumstances.’ Of the war or their new move, Laverne wasn’t entirely sure. Automatically, she told Shirley everything about her Pop’s plans to run for a congressional seat. Now that he was a councilman he had the leverage, but on a selfish level Laverne was kind of happy that she didn’t have to deal with Frank’s campaign, or playing the good political daughter-slash-hostess for him. Though she was fairly sure that he wasn’t running around telling people readily that his daughter worked outside of the home and did so willingly and with happy ease.
“Well, that’s enough about me. How are Joseph and Leonard?” Laverne smiled at the overly-formal address. Her best friend had learned how to address every man in her life by nautical and professional terms – even Lenny, whom she’d known since high school.
“Len’s doing fine. He’s been trying to make friends around the neighborhood lately. And your godson’s finally learning how to walk.”
“My goodness, already? How have the months passed by so quickly?”
“I dunno, Shirl,” Laverne admitted. “Sometimes I feel like I blink and a whole week’s gone by.”
“You know that I miss you, don’t you?”
“Of course.” Laverne had been missing her best friend for ages, and the distance was never going to be easy for her.
Shirley hummed thoughtfully. “Would you like to tell me about it?”
Laverne took a deep breath. All of her complaints were going to be about work, but she knew Shirley related and would be willing to understand. Her son took a single step and laughed, falling on his bottom.
“So it all started yesterday…” Laverne began.