Chapter 28

Cal was out of bed before sunrise the next morning. He was looking forward to a day in which he could get himself caught up because all the Annex tasks were done for the moment.

After his meeting in George’s office the prior afternoon he doubled back to his office to put the finishing touches on the package that he was planning to send to Mr. Tanaka.

Delores had it finished and waiting for him. She’d done a good job and there weren’t many changes to make. After that, it was a simple matter to pack it up in two packets and deliver them to the courier office before it closed.

As Cal brushed his teeth he thought that it might be a good day to have breakfast at the Bluebird and see if there was any new news to be had. Besides, he was curious as to how the Bluebird was getting along without Roxie. Perhaps, he thought, they were breaking in a new waitress.

It was not to be, however, as he’d promised his mother that he would help with the milking that week so that his father could recuperate from his heart episode the past Sunday. Cal dressed in his coveralls and boots. He put his business suit in a garment bag and his underwear, socks and shoes in a gym bag. He planned to shower at his parents’ house and go to the office from there. His mother was sure to feed him before he left.

As he drove out of town and onto the County Road it was still too dark to drive without headlights on. He looked at the sky as he drove and wondered if there might be rain later in the day.

“We could use some rain,” he said to himself.

The corn was up, as high as a man’s chest. Some of it might have been higher. The buckwheat in a few of the fields was still green, but some of it seemed to be acquiring a yellow tint. The rest of the fields were in hay, and was between the second and third cutting. So his rain comment was pro-forma; all seemed well, rain or not.

He turned his thoughts to the task at hand. He’d worked with Edwin—or more correct, Ed—the day before in the barn and it was good. Ed seemed a bit on the quiet side. Perhaps he was getting used to the new ‘peace’. Cal had to admit that he’d kept to himself, as well, for the most part. It would all work out over time.

He glanced to the horizon ahead, and as he knew it would, the barn came into view. It was a shape that never changed and Cal had known ever since he was old enough to know anything. Even though it was still too dark to see its color, Cal knew that it was red and painted it so in his mind’s eye.

“It’s strange how some things can look the same on the outside and change so much on the inside,” he thought to himself as he drove.

As soon as he completed the thought he wondered how it had crept into his mind. It was disconcerting to not understand the products of one’s own imagination. Cal was determined to figure it out.

Before he could work on that some movement at the cutoff to Ed’s cabin distracted him. He looked closer. It was a small sedan coming out that was unfamiliar to him. It turned and was heading toward him in the direction of town. As it passed he could see that the driver was a young woman. He thought that he should have known her but couldn’t quite put his finger on who it was. Perhaps if the light had been better...

Cal parked his car near the tractor that was near the barn entrance and walked in. At the other end of the barn he could make out his brother bringing in the herd from the paddock. He raised his hand to show his brother that he’d arrived and Ed waved back.

“Hey, Ed,” he yelled, “do you know that some one was coming out of your cabin as I was driving by?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Ed yelled back. “I know all about it. I’ll tell you about it later.”

Cal shrugged. It appeared that Ed had found someone to take Roxie’s place in short order. He would have thought that he would have missed her more. There was no time to figure it out. The herd needed to be put into their milking stalls. He guided the leader in while Ed stayed at the other end of the barn to make sure the stragglers followed along.

Cal got to work putting out hay and feed and then working to clean off and disinfect the udders. Ed followed along hooking up the cows. Before long the cows were ambling out on their way to the pasture. Cal and Ed were cleaning out the stalls.

“I’ll finish up and you can get goin’ to the office,” Ed said as he pushed a pile of manure onto the conveyor.

“That’s okay, Ed,” Cal answered, “I’ve still got some time.”

Cal looked at his brother and the look on his face told him that he wanted to tell him something.

“Dad refuses to call me anything but ‘Junior’,” he said. “I can use one name at a time, so I decided to give up on the ‘Ed thing’. Why don’t you just call me ‘Junior’, like everyone else?”

Cal thought for a moment. He had liked the ‘Ed thing’. But, it was his brother’s name, after all.

“I’ll tell you what,” Cal offered, “you tell me who was coming out of your cabin this morning and I’ll do my best to call you ‘Junior’.”

Junior took a deep breath and looked away.

“The reason I offered to finish up is so you’d get outta here before you remembered to ask me that question.”

“Nice try,” Cal answered back. “You don’t have to tell me if you’re ashamed of who it was, but it’ll get round sooner or later.”

“No, I’m not ashamed—exactly.”

“Whatever you say,” Cal said.

Junior looked away again. He shoveled another load onto the conveyor.

“It was Bonnie Tate,” he said. “She was goin’ into town to work her shift at the diner when you saw her pullin’ outta my driveway.”

“You mean Bonnie from the diner?”

Junior nodded his head.

“Don’t tell Ma or Dad,” Junior pleaded.

“You can make your own announcements,” Cal said.

“Don’t say nothin’ at the diner, neither,” Junior added. “Bonnie’s afraid to let her boss find out that she’s taken up with me.”

“I always thought of Bonnie as pretty naïve and not very experienced,” Cal said.

Junior shrugged.

“That’s true—or it was. It’s old news now.”

“You took care of fixing that, I take it,” Cal replied.

“Well, I was alone in the Dew Drop Inn last Friday night after Roxie dumped me. There Bonnie was, standin’ all alone, lookin’ at me. I figured she was fair game. So we got back to my place and then I found out that she was putting’ her big toe in the water for the first time—so to speak.”

“Big toe in the water, Junior?”

“Well, I convinced her to jump right in an’ get wet all at once—an’ she did.”

“So, what’s she doing at your place on a Tuesday morning?” Cal demanded.

“She’s been staying’ over,” Junior explained. “After she didn’t show up at her house on Friday night her parents threw her out. I told her she could bunk up with me for a while.”

“Real nice of you, Junior.”

The two brothers looked at one another for a few seconds. Cal was thinking that he’d wished he’d forgotten to ask his brother about his early morning guest. But, he hadn’t and there had to be some advice that he could bestow on his younger brother.

“Look, Junior,” Cal began, “aside from your weekend training session, Bonnie is pretty inexperienced. She’s not like Roxie. Things could get out of hand. It sounds like her family already thinks they are out of hand. I don’t know the family very well, but...”

“I know what you’re sayin’,” Junior said. “This time you might be right. She’s not like Roxie at all. Roxie’s a lot tougher. She knows how to bury her feelins’ an’ not let ‘em get in the way. Hell, you could kick her in the guts and she’d never let out a whimper.”

Cal shook his head.

“I wouldn’t know about that,” he said. “So, you’re missing Roxie already?

“Naw,” Junior answered. “I guess me and Roxie took the car around the track too many times. It just started wearin’ out.”

“Junior,” Cal said, “I’ve got to get cleaned up and into town. All I can tell you is to take it easy with Bonnie. Don’t let things get ugly.”

“Don’t worry,” Junior answered. “I figure that after a bit she’ll get to know my true self and want to move out as fast as she can.”

Cal had to laugh at the wisdom in Junior’s joke and his brother laughed along with him.

“Go ahead an’ take off,” Junior said at last. “I’ll finish up so you can get to that fancy office of yours on time.”

Cal was on the County Road on his way to his office. After he had showered he checked on his Dad and found him impatient to get back out in the barn. That, he thought, was a good sign that he was on the mend.

His mother had made him a full breakfast after he took a shower. She hadn’t said anything about it, but Cal knew that she was happy about the truce between Junior and himself.

Cal had to admit that he was happy about it, too.

“I let it fester too long,” he said to himself as he turned onto the State Road.

As he drove he began ticking off the items scheduled for the day he had ahead of him. There were several client appointments. He had to prepare for a court appearance later that week, a house closing in the afternoon and a zoning variance application to prepare. It was a good opportunity to catch up on his legal practice work while he waited for the in-progress items on the Annex Project to ripen.

It was too early to expect a reply from Midco. If he was lucky Mr. Tanaka would be receiving the courier package later that day. If he had returned to Japan, it would probably be an additional day.

“But, if he’s in Japan he’ll be away from Ross, too,” he reasoned, so Cal hoped that would be the case.

He let himself wonder how Jack Ross was taking the news of the preliminary agreement with Mr. Tanaka. He was sure to know by that time and he couldn’t have been happy. Cal wondered if Ross would try a final grasp at salvaging his role in the deal, or lick his wounds and get even later. George’s advice was leaning heavy on him. He had told Cal to not ‘wait and see’, but what else was there to be done.

“All Jack can do is ruin my political career,” Cal reasoned, “and if all I get to do in politics is see this Annex deal through it will be a lot.”

The final thought made him feel better.

“I’m playin’ with House Money!”

Cal marched up the steps to his office. It was just past nine in the morning. The smell of coffee brewing met him in the stairway. It told him that Delores had arrived only a few minutes before and was getting the office up and running.

“Good morning!” he said as he opened the office door.

“Good morning to you,” she answered back. “Milking all done?”

“Until tonight,” Cal said as he made his way to the inner office.

He set his briefcase down and turned on his computer. The mail hadn’t arrived yet, but he could clear any e-mails that had come in overnight. He reminded himself that it was too early to expect a reply from Mr. Tanaka, but he couldn’t help himself from checking, just the same.

While he waited for the computer to boot up he unlocked his desk and retrieved his client’s file from a drawer. The variance was to allow for a sign that was taller than the code would allow in the zoning district in which it was located.

“Just five hundred feet down the road and it would have been in ‘Commercial-2’,” he said out loud.

Cal knew the application wasn’t a sure thing. He’d advised the client of that, who told him to try for it, anyway. Indeed, the location was ‘Commercial-1 and the rules were quite clear. Cal’s argument was going to be that his client’s competitors each had bigger and taller signs.

He knew that approach wouldn’t work. His plan was to try for a compromise for a better sign, although smaller than the original plan

He was reviewing the applicable wording in the zoning ordinance when he heard a rap on the door.

“Cal, I know I don’t have an appointment, but can I see you for just a minute?”

It was Harry Collins and Cal knew it was about another eviction from one of his rental houses.

“Sure, Harry,” Cal said, “fix yourself a cup of coffee.”

Cal packed up the zoning client’s folder and put it on the credenza in back of his desk.

Harry Collins owned a string of old houses in the area that surrounded the college. Most were broken up into apartments, but a few were left as single residences or split into duplexes. His client had a large envelope full of papers with him. He set them on Cal’s desk and then went to retrieve his coffee.