Chapter 24

The summer after our sophomore year at KU, both Emily and Brenda got pregnant again. We had been expecting that it might happen after they both stopped nursing their babies. Their pediatrician had advised them that baby formula was just as healthy for the children, and that their chance of getting pregnant increased, if they weren't nursing at the time. I had serious doubts about some of that, but I knew they both wanted another baby right away.

Shirley had gone back on the pill after she had stopped nursing Leah. Something had happened to her milk, and she needed to stop nursing her. Joyce kept on nursing both sets of twins.

We still hadn't gotten completely settled back into our new home in Ridgeline. Half our belongings were in the new house, and the other half were in the rental house that Mama had gotten for us to store our things. All the women wanted to buy new furniture and home decorations. I left all those decisions up to them, but I did lead by example, by returning my old office furniture back to my newly rebuilt office, as soon as it was ready to be re-occupied.

Bea and Aunt Clara had moved back into Mildred's house, right after the funeral took place. While they seemed to get along well enough, it was readily apparent that Bea didn't have the same emotional feelings for Aunt Clara that Aunt Clara had for her.

In August, Bea started having an affair with a married man who lived and worked in Bolling. I heard about it right away, because Aunt Clara came to me, asking me to intercede, to force Bea to end that relationship. I told her I'd have a talk with Bea.

My original plan had been to simply tell Bea that it was up to her to not have her personal life interfere with the operation of the food distribution program. I wasn't going to take any position, pro or con, about the way she chose to conduct her personal life. Aunt Clara was quite a few years older than Bea, and the new boyfriend was in his mid twenties.

Before I had a chance to speak with Bea, she and her boyfriend moved into an apartment in Ridgeline together. He left his wife and a young son back in Bolling. Two weeks after that, Aunt Clara told me that Bea and her new love interest were both using drugs.

We were less than three weeks away from needing to return to Lawrence, to begin our junior year. I felt bad for Aunt Clara, but, Bea was a fully grown woman, capable of making her own decisions. If Bea really was using drugs again, I knew it was only a matter of time before this would have an impact on the food distribution program.

I went over to the warehouse, the day after Aunt Clara told me that Bea was using drugs again. I asked Bea if it was true that she was using drugs. She denied it, saying that Aunt Clara was simply jealous, and trying to get me to force her to go back to live with her again.

"Bea, I already warned you that I couldn't use you for this program if you went back to doing drugs. I want to just accept your word that you aren't using, but I can't. This program is too important for me to do that. I want you to submit to giving a urine sample at my doctor's office."

"Okay, but I'm pretty busy right now. We're right in the middle of moving things in, and Ted still needs to work some things out with his ex. Can I wait, and then do it next week?"

I thought, at the time, that Bea was going to try to get cleaned up again, and wanted a slight delay, enough to allow the drugs time to leave her system. I agreed to postpone the drug test, but only for up to one week.

Two days later, Bea forged Aunt Clara's signature on a $4,000.00 check, drawn on the distribution account. When Aunt Clara learned of the check forgery, she went over to Bea's apartment to confront her, but Bea and her boyfriend had pulled up stakes and moved.

I replaced the money in the account, and told Aunt Clara to forget about it. Bea was already in enough trouble, with her recent decisions, and she certainly didn't need any more from us.

Walt Connor took over the little bit of work that Bea still needed to do, helping Aunt Clara with the purchasing, and keeping track of who was on the waiting list for food deliveries.

Once a week, he drove over to Salina, to make the deliveries that Bea used to make herself. He told me that none of Bea's friends or family had heard from her, and all of them seemed more concerned with Walt assuring them that her leaving wasn't going to affect their free food deliveries.

It was my first weekend home from school in September, when Walt showed up at my house, with a reluctant Richard firmly in tow.

"Kenny, I wondered if we could speak to you for a minute about having Richard come to work with me? I know there's some bad blood at work here, but, I was going to be needing some help with the deliveries anyway, and Richard is just sitting around our place, not doing anything productive right now. I'd assume full responsibility for him. He wouldn't ever cause you any problems."

This wasn't a surprise to me. Brenda had already gotten a phone call from her father, questioning her about whether she might try to get me open to the idea of hiring Richard. She told me that her father was growing concerned about Richard's attitude over having thrown away his million dollar inheritance.

According to her, Richard was very depressed about losing everything. He mostly stayed at home, eating, and watching mind numbing soap operas, and children's cartoons on the television all day.

I didn't like Richard. I didn't trust him, and I didn't feel motivated much to help him. I'd offered in the past, and he'd spurned my offers.

"Walt, I was really hoping that you and Richard were going to find something having to do with fishing that the two of you could run together. Richard told me about that boat rental concession your friend wants to sell, over on the Republican River. That sounded to me like something the two of you could go together on, with Richard working there, during the week, and you going there for weekends."

"That was only for the summer, and we don't have the money necessary to buy him out anyway."

"I told Richard I could help you out with that."

"The truth is, Kenny, I kind of like the job you've already got me doing. I think Richard needs some work to do all day too. He needs to get himself started at doing something, instead of spending all his time worrying about all that money that's gone."

"Do you want to come to work helping your dad with the grocery deliveries, Richard?" I asked him the question, and then watched him standing there, staring back at me. He liked me even less than I liked him. I watched Walt give him an elbow to the arm, attempting to prompt him into answering my question.

"I'm supposed to act all polite around you, Parsons. Kiss your ass like a good dog, and maybe hope you'll throw me that job as a reward for my good behavior or something. I told my father I wasn't going to be able to do it, but he insisted I come over here with him anyway." Richard had integrity of a sort. I knew he was being forced to come to me, and that he'd rather have done almost anything but that.

"Would you rather be a driver for one of our companies, Richard? We could send you to school to learn how to drive the big rigs. The money is pretty good, and it's a trade that has a future. A class one driver can always find new work. You could save up and buy your own rig too, if you didn't want to work for one company." The next thing he said really surprised me.

"I'd rather learn how to be a cook, or a chef. I can already cook as good as Brenda can. Before, when I had my money, I was planning on opening my own restaurant. Not right away, because I knew I had to learn how to run a business first."

If ever there was someone I'd have picked as being least likely to want to be a cook, it had to be Richard. Brenda's cooking had really surprised me, but not nearly as much as Richard was doing right then.

Coincidentally, Grace was agonizing over needing to be with Jane when she went off to KU to continue with a nursing program that would lead to her becoming a Registered Nurse. She took her responsibilities at Gracerie's very seriously, and knew she couldn't go to Lawrence, and still continue to manage the restaurant.

The restaurant was now producing a steady profit, with a large, repeat business, clientele. The catering business that Marie and her sister had gotten started was growing steadily as well. I knew that Marie would take Richard on as an assistant if I asked her to.

He could pick up some of the knowledge he'd need watching and learning from Grace, or from whoever Grace hired to serve as her replacement, if she decided to go to Lawrence with Jane.

"Would you be willing to work at our restaurant in Bolling, Richard? You could take business management classes at the college there. Marie is a great cook, and you could learn quite a bit from her. You could also find out how a restaurant needs to be run, in order to make any money."

"I don't want to work for anybody else." There was something in his voice that told me he was looking for a way to get something from me, but that something wasn't a job. I'd wondered how Walt had convinced him to come over to my house like he had.

"Tell me what you do want to do, and how you're hoping to do it." He looked at me, wetting his lips, uncertain if he might be exposing himself to ridicule, and ultimately, to the disappointment of being turned down. Finally deciding that it was worth taking that chance, he began speaking.

"There's this school out in Monterey, California. They have small classes, five or six students at a time. They teach you everything, in a two year program. This kid I went to school with, at Army-Navy, his aunt and uncle own the school. It costs twenty five thousand dollars a year, including room and board, but they have two restaurants you work at, while you're learning. When you graduate, you know everything you need to know about owning and running a restaurant. A lot of their graduates get backing to open their first restaurants."

"You want me to give you the tuition money?"

"Loan us half of it. My mom said she'd kick in the other half, if my dad came up with his half first. He said if I came here and took a job with you, he'd ask you if he could borrow his half from you." Richard rushed through his explanation. I looked at Walt, and he nodded to confirm that was what he'd told Richard.

"When do classes start for this program?"

"They take one new student every quarter. Cody, that's my friend from the Academy, he said his uncle would take me first, after I come up with the tuition for it." Along with his natural pessimism, I noted that Richard had started allowing himself to hope, now that he'd managed to tell me what his preferred choice would be.

I had very little faith that Georgia would follow through with her promise. In the past, she'd made statements to Brenda, but hadn't backed them up with any money or action, when the time for it came.

"I'll loan you the whole thing, Richard, and back you in your first restaurant, after you graduate. You can pay me back out of the profits we make."

"Why would you do that for me?"

"I don't know. I guess because, in a way, we're family. Brenda and I are having another baby. Part of it is because of that, and part of it is because I can do it, and it won't make any difference in my standard of living, but it might make a huge difference in yours."

I could tell that Richard was trying to process this information. He had what he'd hoped for, but it came with a price. It made it harder for him to hate me when I went out of my way to help him out. Walt didn't have any problem with it though. He must have shared my concerns about Georgia's ultimate willingness to follow through with her promises.

"How soon can you loan me the money?"

"Go see Frank Clooney at his office tomorrow. I'll call him, and he'll send a check out to California. I'll have him make some inquiries, just to make sure the school is legitimate, but, if it is, the tuition will be paid. After that, it will be up to you as to whether or not you make a go of it."

"I'll make a go of it. You'll get your money back too, with interest. Whatever reason you've decided to help me like this, I do appreciate it. I know that's a lot of money to spend, but I'm going to succeed, you'll see."

After they left, I called Frank, telling him to investigate the school, and to pay the tuition if it was on the level. I told him to set up an account out in California that Richard could use for any extras that might come up that needed taking care of. I knew Uncle Bunny would have done the same for Richard, if asked, and I couldn't not do something since he wasn't around to do it himself. Frank was going to pay the tuition and allowance money as a scholarship anyway, so it would come out of income that was already tax free to me.

Brenda came into my office right after I got off the phone with Frank. She had spoken on the phone with Richard and her father, while I was busy with Frank. It wouldn't have mattered how much it cost me, not after she told me how much my doing that for Richard had meant to her.

A week later, Grace decided to stay in Bolling when Jane went off to nursing school in Lawrence. It wasn't even that long of a drive from Bolling to Lawrence, less than two hours each way. Jane was going to be staying with us there, so she would be coming home on weekends anyway. It was Grace that we would have worried about. We were all glad that she'd be at the restaurant, too busy to get herself involved in any mischief.

Emily's family took the news of her new pregnancy in stride. Jerry Carstairs was out in California, involved in trying to adapt his last book into a screenplay for a projected movie script. He'd been paid fifty thousand dollars to make the attempt, as part of the movie rights that he'd sold to one of the movie studios out in Los Angeles. Kitty and Gary were going to join him in living out there, as soon as their house in Ridgeline sold. After a month of having the house on the market, with no serious offers being made for it, Mama made an offer for her group home charitable trust to buy it. She wanted to turn it into a group home for very young girls.

For some reason, one that was always very unclear to me, Emily's family decided to leave their dog, Brownie, with us. I didn't trust Brownie around any of our children at first, because, he'd always been an outside dog, tethered on a leash, out in the Carstairs front yard. I came back from playing a round of golf with Shirley though, and found Derek holding Brownie's tail, and being dragged across the kitchen's tiled floor. If Brownie could take that in his stride, I figured he'd be pretty safe around the rest of our children.

Gary had graduated from high school that summer, and was offered a full basketball scholarship to Loyola Marymount. His grades came in pretty low for the second semester of his senior year, owing mostly to his increasingly improving, basketball inspired, social standing, but he still managed to keep them just high enough not to lose his athletic eligibility.

It seemed like we were getting a lot of our family relocating out to California, with Anne, Richard, and the Carstairs' family all planning on living out there.

I had been pursuing my pilot's license, and once I had it, I immediately started in obtaining enough flying hours and advanced training to qualify myself for multi engine and passenger carrying qualification. I was somewhat hesitant about carrying passengers when I flew. I really didn't want that much responsibility. The more time I had flying though, the more I started becoming a nervous passenger when anyone else was at the controls. The other pilots all laughed at me, but they all also admitted that they felt exactly the same way.