Chapter 55

The trust had nothing to do with the operation of the marina. I set up an account for it and EZ made sure the money flowed into the accounts. Well that was the way it was set to work and it did for a while at least.

Ev and I settled up and he was happy with the results. He managed to keep his credit line with my name as cosigner for the loans. He made a lot of picture of the house barge and the Internet got full of them in a hurry.

All that happened before Wilson showed up. "Well hello Wilson," I greeted him on the dock.

"So this is where we live?" he asked.

"Not very glamorous but it's home." I led him into the entrance way with the circular stair up to the living room and bath. The two long rooms were bedrooms. One for him and one for me. The were narrow, but long enough for a bed and a small sitting area.

"This is really cute," Wilson said. He obviously was a little skeptical.

"Wilson if you want you can fix a frozen dinner, cook oatmeal, or fry and egg, of course you will have to go up to the kitchen and bath unit. Personally I'm doing as little cooking as possible." I explained.

"Now that sound more like it. So where do we eat?" he asked.

I found a good breakfast and lunch place, but for a dinner restaurant I'm still searching."

"I'll help you look, I suppose," he promised.

"Good for you," I said.

"God, it's good to see you again," Wilson said, "So when do we get started."

"Hell Wilson, you got to learn to relax, then you have to teach me how," I said with a laugh.

"Okay, tonight we relax," he said. "You have to know where to go?"

"As a matter of fact I do. We are going out tonight," I said

"Do I have to dress?" he asked.

"Well you can't go naked, otherwise you can wear most anything," I said.

We went to the Railroad Bed and Breakfast. It sported the piano bar with the mom and daughter act. The mom was probably fifty and the daughter was my age. "You have got to be kidding, I love piano bars but I haven't been in one in ages." Wilson said.

"After a couple of drinks, he was singing along quietly. The daughter noticed and demanded that Wilson Join them at the piano. He sat on the piano stool beside the daughter and sang duets with her. They weren't perfect because they had never sang together before, but they were good enough that people didn't want to let him sit back down with me.

"Wilson, you never told me you could sing," I said.

"Little theater before I moved to County Seat. We did 'Rent' last time." he said with a laugh.

"Well before they give you get a job here, let's hit the road," I suggested.

"Very well, but I will come back here, just you do with The Brits pub," he said.

"Then I don't have to worry about keeping you entertained," I said.

"You absolutely do not," he said with a grin.

"We drove home and he spent the first night on the house barge. I had been on it about a week. I pretty much knew where the bugs were. At the foot of his new but very plain bed was a tool box made of new wood by a local craftsman. It was what I called crate furniture. It was the design of a tool box used in every mill all over the state in the twenties. You could make it larger and smaller using the same basic set of plans. Not only did I love it, everyone who ever saw it loved it.

Much later, the craftsman who built it and I went into business together. I drew the plans in my head, he put them on paper then we put it in kit form. We sold them on line, Since I could afford to put the kits on the Craft TV show. We could hardly keep the kits in stocked. The popularity of the large wooden box kits was ridiculous.

On that day trunk number two of the hundreds made using those plans held Wilson's sheets and blankets. I did not make his bed for him. He had the pleasure of opening the packages with the new linens in them. Then the pleasure of making his bed, while I sat on the upper deck to have another drink and look at the marina. The dock was lined with solar lights, so there was no power bill for the marina itself. If we moved we could just shut the power off.

When a light failed, EZ could just switch out the whole light, or add a new battery to the one he took down. It was basically all the routine maintenance, he was responsible to do. For that, and making sure that the second trust, me, got repaid. He did that by making sure regular deposits were made to the trust account at the bank.

That bank account was audited by a bookkeeper regularly, so EZ had a check and balance as well as one for the account in general. That main account had way to much money for me to keep track of such a small part.

I was up at 5AM the next morning after going to bed after midnight. I took the trike for a ride leaving Wilson sleeping. The completely flat terrain made riding the trike a pleasure at first. I rode it all up and down the river roads and even into town for breakfast. I worked up a sweat, and the break I had while eating breakfast was badly needed.

When I got back, Wilson was still in bed. He finally got up in time for lunch. I had been on line doing a quick review of my finances. That job was going to get turned over to Wilson. He could do it a lot better. He should be able to spot anything wrong in the trust or even my private accounts, I thought.

When he woke up I asked, "So you missed breakfast what do you want for lunch?"

"Pancakes and Eggs," he said. He saw my smile. "What. I'm just getting a feel for the place."