Chapter 25

We stopped at Applebee's and picked up a chicken Caesar Salad to go, then headed home. We'd managed to kill a few hours of our day and had started the ball rolling on getting the exercise equipment we wanted. On top of that it was just a great day to be out on the bike, and now we could listen to music while the miles zipped by.

I spent the time while those miles zipped on in thought. The silent, me only kind, though I assumed Cooper would get at least a sense of it, the way things seemed to be working.

I wondered how we seemed to let ourselves get caught up in so much minutia. Buying a cell phone at the drop of a hat, same with a laptop and now a home gym. Thinking about doing the same for a waffle iron. Boom, just like that getting hooked up for internet and cable TV. It seemed like I was hurrying, when I had nothing to hurry about.

The introspective mood continued through the lunch, which we accompanied with another Anchor Steam. With lunch out of a to-go box and beer out of a bottle, the only cleanup involved was brushing my teeth.

"We should consider a training session this afternoon," Bud said, breaking our mutual silence for the firs time in over an hour.

"Works for me," Cooper chimed in.

"I agree..." I added.

"Why do I sense a 'but' at the end of that?" Cooper laughed.

"But I think we should sit down for a few minutes and talk out a few things."

Cooper agreed, of course, since he more or less knew what my concerns were. Bud didn't see it as a delay, so we sat down and turned the TV on, finding some mindless Sci-Fi movie on. We mostly ignored it while we had our internal conversation.

"Okay, what's on your mind?" Cooper offered me the opening.

"Tomorrow, we will have Mrs. Ibarra here for an undetermined amount of time. We need to find out how she was working for your parents, Cooper and decide if that same schedule works for us."

"Because while she's here, we need to be careful about being in the cavern behind the basement wall," Cooper finished for me, having sensed my concern.

"Too many instances of us seeming to disappear in the basement would begin to rouse her suspicions," Bud stated the obvious concern.

"Right. The laundry room is there, so there will be times when she will need to come down," I added.

"And if we're not there working out, she'll wonder where we went, and how." Bud finished laying out the concern.

"So what do we do about that?" I asked. "We do have some obvious options, but I have concerns about making decisions that might impact what she'll let us pay her. I don't want her to wind up with an effective cut in pay just because we want to limit the amount of time she's here."