“Honey, there are some clean shirts folded on the dryer,” Mable called after her husband then turned back to her daughters. “Now, come on, one of you has to know of a nice girl for Brooke. How about you, Sam? Are you single, available or interested?”

Sam’s face turned an impossible shade of red as she realized that her own sexual preference was now being drawn into the conversation. The girl turned looking to her roommate and then back at the matriarch. At the same time, the sudden turnabout caught Brooke in mid swallow and she choked on her iced tea.

The older woman sensed the action on the periphery of the table. “What? She’s not too young for you is she, Brooke?” Mable asked her flustered child.

“Well, ah… no, Mom, it’s not that. It’s just…”

She was cut off as Mable addressed Sam again. “Do you have any experience, dear? But then again, if you don’t you can be molded just like their father. I must admit that he has quite mastered the art of curling his tongue…”

“Mom!” All four daughters yelled in unison at their mother.

“What?” she asked them innocently then turned back to the blonde, unscathed. “So, Sam, tell me, what kind of women do you like?”

Sam was saved from answering the question as Henry reappeared back into the dining room and took his place at the head of the table, wearing a clean shirt.

“Dad, can you roll your tongue?” C.C. asked her father as her sisters glared in her direction.

“Why?” he asked, clearly confused.

“Oh, nothing. Just something Mom mentioned that I was wondering about.”

“Dad, you don’t have to answer that one.” Brooke arched her eyebrow and gave her sister a look that told her to be quiet. “C.C.,” she warned through a clenched mouth.

“What?” The youngest daughter tried to defend herself. “It’s a perfectly innocent question. I was just wondering if the tongue rolling gene is an inherited trait.”

C.C. was cut off as her mother placed a hand on her arm. Mable turned to the other side of the table where her other daughters were seated. “Don’t think that I don’t know when you girls are trying to change the subject on me. Brooke, I asked you a question.”

“Yeah, Brooke,” the pediatrician glanced from Sam to their sister, “what is your type? That way we can all keep an eye open.” Terri offered.

Brooke sighed heavily as she wondered if she’d ever make it out of the house without her mother going back to this topic. She looked over at Terri and answered, “The non-nosey kind. You know, the complete opposite of C.C.”

“Hey, I’m not nosey. I just like to be in on the news. Enquiring minds want to know,” C.C. defended herself as Sam just sat back and snickered quietly over the whole situation.

“Yeah, well inquire somewhere else, Sis. This tabloid is keeping its secrets.” Brooke shot back, her eyes glaring an undisputed warning.

“Now, girls…” Henry felt it was time he tried to calm down the situation.

Brooke and C.C. both looked at their father and apologized without hesitation. “Sorry, Dad.” The phrase sounded like one that was well rehearsed over time.

Mable looked down at her eldest daughter who was sitting on Henry’s right side. “Can’t you find someone, Randi?”

“I did. I married him and gave you three grandkids.” The confident woman answered without missing a beat. Randi really wasn’t in the mood at the moment to joke around. She’d had a rough week in court and was getting tired of the petty squabbling going on between her sisters.

“I don’t think she means for you.” Terri chastised her oldest sister.

“The lights are on but nobody’s home,” C.C. teased unmercifully to which everyone, including Brooke, laughed at the comment; the only exception being Randi.

“You know, I think we’ve heard enough from you C.C.” Randi was trying to calm her temper, which was on a rather short fuse by now. It was easy for anyone who had been around her a while to know. There was the telltale sign of uncontrollable twitching at the corner of her mouth. Unfortunately, all Randi needed to see was C.C. replying by blowing kisses at her and the sparks were flying as the charge was set off.

Randi jumped up from the table almost knocking her chair over, as she started to lunge for C.C. on the other side of the table.

Hearing the noise, Brooke sprang out of her own chair to step in front of the angered woman, stopping the ensuing massacre. Their youngest sibling could be a pain in the ass but Brooke, in all honesty, adored her.

Now, Terri got up and grabbed Randi from behind to halt her from attacking her sister. “Hey, I’m here for a family dinner, not work. Besides if anyone’s gonna pound her head in, it should be Brooke.” Terri leaned out from around Randi and winked at her blue-eyed sister. “She’s got more experience there.”

“Yeah, Mom, can I borrow the table?” Brooke asked with a twinkle in her eyes as she made a motion to step up on the seat of her chair.

Calmly wiping her mouth with a napkin, C.C. looked over at Sam, shrugging her shoulders. “Welcome to the Gordon family dinner. Complete with floor show entertainment.”

The young blonde just shook her head and giggled, not ever remembering having so much fun at a family function of any sort.

“Okay, everyone sit down now.” Mable slightly raised her voice, “I said now!” The older woman’s eyes roamed the room as she paused momentarily to gaze at each of her offending children, driving her message home on an individual basis as needed.

One by one the grown women shyly turned around to look at their mother and sulked back over to their appointed seats, without a word.

“I can’t believe all of this commotion over a simple question to which I still have not received an answer.” Mable seemed insistent.

“What was that question?” C.C. asked as Brooke threw a dinner roll at her.

Mable reached over, grabbing Brooke’s offending hand in hers and waited for her daughter to meet her gaze. “Brooke, honey, we’re all just trying to look out for your best interests.”

“Interests?” Brooke’s blue eyes became narrowed with anger. “You think that I can’t find a… a…” the pinned down woman stuttered.

“Well, there you have it. She doesn’t even know what to call it,” Terri threw in, casting her eyes to heaven above. “No wonder she can’t find one.”

“Don’t worry about it, Brooke. I think Mom’s just trying to say that you’re a little uptight and you need to get some,” C.C. stated compassionately then turned as Terri laughed and gave her a high-five across the table.

“A mate…” Brooke started as she glared at her sisters, one by one around the table, saying a different definition to each one, “A life partner… A lover.” She finished as she stuck out her tongue at C.C. in defiance.

“Well, her tongue is out but did she inherit the gene to roll it?” The baby of the family pondered as she placed her index finger against her chin and looked up at the ceiling as if in thought, unscathed by the gesture.

“I can…” a soft voice offered in the silence of the moment.

Everyone was surprised to hear the confession from Sam and focused their attention on her.

“See?” Sam rolled her tongue without thinking about it, right in Brooke’s direction. “I haven’t figured out quite what to do with it yet but, I’ve got the gene.”

Brooke merely raised her eyebrow in reply as C.C., Terri, and Randi started laughing and cheering.

“Henry, I need some more coffee. Would you mind making a fresh pot?” Mable asked of her husband as she tried to keep a straight face.

“Sure thing dear,” he smiled and got up from the table, heading toward the kitchen. “I could use a refill, myself. Would anyone else like something while I’m up?” he asked politely.

“Yeah, Dad…” the young woman said, waiting for her father’s full attention, “Look in Mom’s cupboards out there and see if you can find Brooke a honey.” C.C. requested as she grinned at her father.

“Keep it up there, Cjersti Chase, and you’ll find something,” Brooke threatened her sister.

“Ooh, elaborating on the initials are we? I’m so scared.” The girl mocked a shiver, then held her hands up in front of her face as if she were frightened.

“Girls,” Mable warned them, then paused to collect her thoughts. “Terri, do you know of anyone for Brooke?”

Terri rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Actually, Mom, my patients are all a little too young. That is, unless she’s into jail bait.”

Brooke smacked the sister sitting next to her lightly on her arm as an answer. “Thanks a lot, Ter. I don’t think so.”

“Ow, you brute.” Terri couldn’t help but tease her sister.

“Randi? How about you? Do you have anybody in mind?” Mable addressed her oldest daughter who was finally calm from the earlier excitement. She thought to herself that Randi was under too much stress at work as Henry returned with a fresh pot of coffee and began to refill the cups around the table.

“No. Actually Mom, they don’t allow conjugal visits where anyone I know would end up.” Randi rested her chin in her hand and thought for a moment. “But if she hooked up with one of Terri’s patients…” she thought for a moment then continued. “Nah, she’d have to like the name Big Bertha anyway.”

Mable looked last to her youngest daughter, to which C.C.’s face lit up with delight as she plastered the most devilish grin she could manage on her face.

Brooke began to protest. “You’re going to ask someone who I’ve bounced on their head more times than I can count to find me a partner? You have got to be kidding.”

Never giving her mother the chance to respond to Brooke, C.C. answered the unspoken question. “Well, I could look around but, do you really think that she could keep up with a 20 year old for longer than a night?”

Terri had just taken a sip of coffee. Hearing C.C.’s question, the woman could not control the liquid from coming back up and out her nose as she laughed. “A night?” She snorted then coughed. “A whole night? How about a quickie?”

Brooke, by this point, was more than a little aggravated. Terri, Randi, and C.C. laughed again at their sister and the torture she had endured since walking into the house earlier in the afternoon.

“Excuse me, I have never slept with any of you, thank God” Brooke shook her head in disgust. “And not just because that would be considered incest. I have better taste than that.” Brooke’s face was serious now, her head cocked forward slightly in challenge to what she was about to say. “Nor have you ever met someone that I have had any form of relations with, so you have no reason to doubt my capabilities.”

“Well,” the older woman fretted, “there was that one time at camp…” Mable began but was cut off by Henry.

“Mable, please. Honey, leave well enough alone.”

“Sex, Mom. She means having sex in a relationship.” Terri clarified.

“Oh well, forget camp then, unless…” Mable stopped and looked over at Brooke, a thoughtful expression on her face.

“What, Mom? Unless what exactly?”

“Well, didn’t you get to be friends with that one girl from…”

“Friends, Mom… not lovers. Could we drop the subject, please? I’m sure we’re making our guest uncomfortable.” Brooke looked over in Sam’s direction, apology written all over her face.

Sam laughed. “Hey, I’m fine. Besides it’s kind of refreshing to see such an open family.”

“You’re going to fit right in here, kid. Bring her back some time, C.C. I like her.” Terri looked across the table and grinned at their guest.

“Well, I’ll tell you what, Sam, if you ever wanted open, you came to the right house. Hell, if they were any more open, I’d have to have them all arrested for indecent exposure,” Randi elaborated as she winked.

Brooke got up from the table and stretched her arms high over her head in frustration. “Well, now that this dinner has been all about me and my love life, maybe the next one can be about someone else… Randi?” She looked at the sisters on either side of her, “Terri?”

“Hey, what about me?”

“You don’t have a life yet C.C., and if you keep it up I might not let you,” Brooke pointed out, smiling as she did so. It was time that someone else in the family got teased.

“Yeah, Chase. And what life you do have, it’s not like you’re ever quiet long enough for anyone to wonder about it,” Terri added as she stood up and joined Brooke by stretching. They looked to their oldest sister down the row, knowing that a memorable comment would be forthcoming. Randi never was one to disappoint.

“Yeah, C.C., you’re barely out of a training bra,” Randi chimed in.