Chapter 18

The new house was finished three weeks late. It was supposed to have been completed near the end of August and it was completed in the middle of September. Today was moving day, but it was rather a subdued event. The majority of their possessions had been destroyed in the June fire.

They had replaced most of their clothes and their weapons. In fact, they had purchased replacement weapons before they had shopped for clothes. The general consensus among the Metchettes was that they would rather fight in the nude with guns, than stand defenseless while fully clothed. This was a sentiment that Glen fully supported.

Cliff was upset that the gun rack that Glen had made for him had been destroyed in the fire. Their stay at the cabin was short, but Glen had spent most of the time working in his woodshop. It kept him out of their way while they worked on the magazine and them out of his way while he worked on furniture.

He helped them carry the last box of their stuff to the new house from their truck. He walked into the house and looked around. It was a beautiful house that was basically divided into two halves. The front half contained a huge living room which had a high cathedral ceiling. The rest of the rooms were on the back half of the house. The four bedrooms were upstairs and opened onto a hallway that over looked the living room with stairs coming down on each end. One of the bedrooms had been converted into a study. The kitchen and dining room were off the living room under the bedrooms. There were two bathrooms, one upstairs and one downstairs. The one downstairs was next to a spa room that held a giant Jacuzzi made for six.

The trio showed him around the house, proud of its design and size. It was basically bare of any furniture except for the two queen size beds in the bedrooms. Those were the beds that had been brought to the cabin when they had first arrived. Glen had taken his small twin bed into his bedroom.

After the tour, Glen went to the front door as though he was going to leave. Wanda and Sandra watched him with puzzlement. Cliff asked, “What’s up?”

Glen answered, “I have to go to the house and pick up something.”

Wanda asked, “Will you be back before the party?”

Glen answered, “Of course, I just need to pick up something.”

With definite relief in her voice, Sandra said, “Oh, that’s good. We wanted to break in the house in the proper manner.”

Laughing, Glen said, “We have to do everything in the proper manner.”

“I wonder what’s keeping CJ? She’s supposed to be here by now.”

Glen shrugged his shoulders and said, “Maybe she stopped by the cabin before coming here.”

Cliff nodded and said, “Well, we’ll start to get things ready for when you and her get here.”

Glen smiled and left the house. He got in his truck and drove over to his cabin. It wasn’t a long drive. In fact, it wasn’t even a long walk since their house was very close to the border of his property. He pulled up next to the U-Haul truck and parked. Smiling at the attractive woman standing by the U-Haul, he got out and greeted CJ. “Hi, CJ. He’s wondering where you are.”

She laughed and said, “I guess I’ll have to go over there now.”

“Not until you help me load this truck,” replied Glen as he opened the door to his workshop. She followed him into the shop and looked around in surprise. Glen pulled the sheets off the table and chairs revealing the quality craftsmanship that distinguished them from store bought goods.

“Wow, that is beautiful. Look at the color of the wood. They are going to love this. Where did you buy it?”

Glen, proud of his work, polished his fingernails on his shirt and answered, “I made it.”

CJ was very impressed and could hardly believe her eyes. She stated, “Oh, my. You really do care about them to put so much love into these housewarming presents.”

Together they carried the furniture to the moving truck where it joined the desk that CJ had bought as a present. He had made a dinner table and chairs for the dining room. There was a beautiful gun case that he had built for the living room. In addition, there were several other chairs that could be used in the living room and moved to the bedrooms when they got real living room furniture. He made one last trip to the woodshop to pick up the pillows for the living room chairs. A lady in town made them for him since his skills at sewing were pretty poor.

He put the box in the back of the truck and asked, “So which do you want to drive, my truck or the U-Haul?”

Pursing her lips, CJ said, “Well, I’ll let you drive the U-Haul and I’ll ride with you.”

Glen laughed and bowed in mock servitude. He responded, “Your wish is my command.”

They got into the U-Haul and Glen drove it the short distance to the Metchette’s new house. Glen backed it up in the driveway as Cliff, Wanda, and Sandra came out to see what was going on. With the help of a few hand signals from Cliff, he parked the truck right in front of the door to the house. He and CJ got out of the truck and walked around to the rear.

Wanda asked, “What’s this?”

CJ answered, “Oh, a little housewarming present from Glen and me.”

Glen opened the back of the truck as the trio stared at the contents. Wanda and Sandra moved together and started crying tears of happiness as they realized the magnitude of the gift. Cliff stood open mouthed as he examined the furniture in the room. While the Metchettes were staring in amazement, Glen climbed up into the truck and lowered down the box of pillows to CJ. Taking the box from him, she carried them into the living room. He then slid one of the chairs to edge of the truck. He climbed down and said to Cliff, “Give me a hand with this.”

Coming out of his trance, Cliff helped lift it out of the truck. They carried it into the living room and set it down. Glen opened the box and put the pillows on the chair. He tied the strings sewn into the pillows to the furniture. He sat down, appreciating the feel. It wasn’t the same as a full couch, but they could get that later.

Cliff and Glen made several more trips bringing in the rest of the furniture that Glen had made. Wanda and Sandra were crying tears of happiness, with CJ hugging each in turn. Finally, the two men went into the truck and wrestled out the desk that CJ had bought. It was solid wood and massive as hell. They managed to bring it into the house and set it along a wall where a plug for their Internet connection was mounted into the wall.

Cliff stepped back and said, “I’m overwhelmed. This furniture is absolutely magnificent. You built all of this.”

Glen shook his head and answered, “I built all of it except for the desk and the desk chair. CJ got that for you.”

Wanda and Sandra came up to Glen. They practically wrapped themselves around him. Wanda said, “We were worried that you didn’t like us anymore with all of the time you spent in the workshop. Now we know why you were out there all of the time. My God, it is beautiful.”

Sandra said, “I’m afraid to use it.”

Glen laughed and put his arms around the twins pulling them even closer. He said, “I built it to last. You don’t have to worry about ruining it. Heck, you both could participate in some pretty nasty activities on that table and it will stand up to it.”

Sandra was tempted to climb up on the table and pose, but she heard other cars pull up outside the house. The twins looked at each other in horror and ran to the kitchen. With guests arriving, they still had a ton of food to get ready. CJ laughed and followed them. For CJ, entertaining was always a challenge. To move in and to have an open house the same day had seemed like insanity to her. The twins had just treated it like an everyday event.

Glen and Cliff went outside so that Glen could move the U-Haul and Cliff could greet the guests. Glen got into the truck and moved it to the side of the house where it would be out of the way. Since he had forgotten to close the back door, it made a horrible clanging sound as it closed and then opened again. He parked it and got out. Walking around to the back of the truck, he looked inside the truck and made sure that it was empty. He climbed up the bumper and pulled the door down. He swung the latch and locked it closed.

Turning around, he was startled to find the Sheriff standing right behind him. He screamed, “Shit, you scared me.”

The Sheriff laughed and said, “You didn’t look around once. I was wondering what was on your mind.”

“Oh, I was just thinking about how much my life has changed since they came into my life.”

Dale patted Glen on the shoulder and gestured towards the house with his head. The two men walked up to the house talking about the nature of changes that Glen had experienced. More people were arriving, including various owners of businesses that they frequented. The head of the orphanage was going to come later. The priest of their church was already there. He had come to bless the house at the request of Cliff and the twins.

Glen went inside the house and was immediately met by Oliver. Oliver looked him in the eye in a way that made little alarms go off in his head. Oliver, in a very friendly tone of voice, said, “Hey, I saw the furniture. It looks great!”

Glen laughed and asked, “Let me guess. You want me to make the furniture for your restaurant?”

“Hell, no. There’s no way we could afford stuff of this quality.” Oliver ran a finger across one of the arms of a chair. His eyes were closed and there was a small smile on his face. He said, “You did very nice work on this. Very nice.”

Glen studied Oliver for a moment and then said, “Would you be willing to take a short walk with me?”

Oliver looked at Glen surprised at the request, but answered, “Okay.”

The two men went outside and walked around the property. Glen, worried about how it was going to sound, finally asked, “You like women and men, don’t you?”

Heart beating madly, Oliver stopped in his tracks and looked at Glen. He didn’t know what Glen was getting at, but he had touched upon a very private subject. He asked, “Why do you want to know?”

Glen knew by the answer that he had hit upon the truth. He answered, “I have a vested interest in your answer.”

Oliver frowned and tried to decide what that meant. Finally, he said, “Yeah, I do. Do you want to make something out of it?”

Glen smiled and said, “Yes, in a way I do.”

Oliver stepped away from Glen. He was getting nervous that Glen didn’t mean anything good by his line of questioning. He stopped and faced Glen ready to fight. He asked, “What are you planning?”

Glen turned to return to the house. He said over his shoulder, “You and Cliff. So much alike. Both of you need something that the other has and neither one of you realizes it. Tell Cliff about yourself.”

Glen walked back to the house leaving a very confused Oliver behind. Oliver stood there for several minutes thinking about what Glen had said. Was he hinting the Cliff shared his particular problem? He wasn’t sure, but realized that Glen had something in mind.

Glen returned to the house and found that it was loud as people talked in groups of three and four. Moving through the crowd, he found the twins by the food as they were still putting things out for people to snack upon. He moved to a corner of the room and watched with amusement as they scurried about trying to make a good impression. He couldn’t believe how much he loved them.

His attention was distracted by a woman that he had never met. She had come up and grabbed his arm. She said, “A penny for your thoughts.”

Glen smiled and said, “I can’t believe how much I love them.”

She smiled and said, “I thought you were Glen. I’m Mary Goodwin, the art director for the magazine.”

Happy to be able to put a face to the name, Glen turned to face her. He said, “Oh, it is so nice to finally meet you. I’ve really appreciated your work on the magazine.”

Mary answered, “You have no idea how long I’ve waited to meet you. From the way that Wanda and Sandra talked about you in Atlanta, I was sure that you were ten foot tall and strong as five men put together.”

Glen shook his head and answered, “As you can see, I’m normal sized and only as strong as half a man.”

She laughed with a reserved mirth. She was one of those women that cover their mouth with a hand when they laugh. Distracted by the gestured, Glen wondered why some women did that. She said, “Well, if they are subject to overstatement, I would have to say that you are subject to understatement.”

“What ever you say.”

“You saved their life three times from a serial killer. From what Wanda told me, you saved her twice from the church creeps.”

He sighed and said, “Only once from the church creeps. They had beat her up once and I was nowhere to be found.”

Mary didn’t know what to make of him. He didn’t act like most men that she knew. Most of the guys she knew would have boasted about their exploits. She decided to change the topic and said, “Did you know that we had a record month last July?

Glen hadn’t been paying attention to the business. He just edited the papers put in front of him. He had spent most of his time creating the furniture. He replied, “No, I didn’t know that.”

“It looks like the numbers for August may be even better.”

Glen stated, “Shouldn’t you know that by now? It’s the middle of September.”

“It’s not that easy. We have to take out of the statistics the effects of the guest accounts and temporary accounts. All of those accounts shutdown on the fifth of the month. We have to subtract out those accounts and the guest accounts from the previous month.”