Chapter 21

Wednesday, August 4, 1999

The General Hardware Retailers plant was air conditioned, and that was a relief on yet another hot summer day. While truck bay doors were often open, they had trucks up against them most of the time and curtains that kept the company from trying to cool all of Hawthorne County. Air conditioning could only do so much in the big open space of the huge building, and it made for a wearing day. Jason was glad to get home, into the air conditioning of the house, get out of his clothes, put on a lightweight kilt he often used around the house instead of shorts, grab a cold beer and just chill out.

Even though he'd lived alone for several years now, he still hadn't mastered the trick of doing decent cooking for himself. It wasn't that he was a bad cook, because he was a good one though results were usually on the plain and wholesome side, but it was too damn much trouble to do it for just himself. Thus, dinners usually consisted of nuking some hot dogs or a TV dinner, or stopping off at the Chicago Inn. In recent months, if Vicky happened to show up before he got around to eating, she might cook something light for the both of them, or he'd do it himself, but he was pretty sure it wouldn't happen tonight.

Since back in June, there'd usually been too much going on over the weekends for her to make her weekly Weight Watchers meeting on Saturday morning, so it had been switched to Wednesday evening -- and there was no way she was going to eat anything before her weekly weigh-in. That meant he'd have to cook for himself tonight -- no big deal; right now it didn't seem important, for he could get around to it well before there was a chance Vicky would be back. For that matter she might want something when she got back, so it was no trick to put it off for a few hours.

That meant he had a few hours with nothing in particular to do. It wasn't that Vicky was over at the house all evening, every evening, because she wasn't, although she usually put her head in for a few minutes most nights. Almost every week there were several evenings that they'd spend a few hours together working on blades, taking rides around on the bikes, perhaps visiting with Kevin and Emily a little, or whatever. Vicky was easy to be around and he enjoyed it, but in the years of living alone, especially after Duane had left for college, he'd come to appreciate his alone and quiet time, too. A little to his wonder, Vicky respected that, even though he knew she usually preferred hanging around him to being alone or doing something else.

Not for the first time, or even the hundred and first he wondered just where this was going. He knew, of course, that Vicky was very reluctant to use the term "boyfriend" about him, just as he was reluctant to call her "girlfriend." On the other hand, there it was -- it was looking just like that to him, but what it meant was still not terribly clear. One of these days, he thought, they were going to have to sit down and talk it out, but that obviously carried with it unknown dimensions he wasn't sure he wanted to investigate just yet.

Maybe, he thought as he let a swallow of cold beer slide down his throat, I can bring it up a little this weekend, not let it get too deep, let it seem natural. They'd had a series of busy weekends, mostly bike riding back in June, then preparing for the Maple Leaf, and then the four weekends attending the renaissance faire in July. Next weekend, the two of them were going to take off for a fast trip to the eastern tip of West Virginia to meet up with Duane for an afternoon and evening.

Kevin and Emily would be leaving on a trip the other direction at the same time; they were going to ride their Harleys out to Sturgis, South Dakota for the bike rally. The trip had been planned and promised to Emily ever since Christmas, but Kevin was still working overtime out at Macy Controls as usual, so he just about had to draw a line in the sand with the management to get the time off, and then only managed a week. The two weren't going to do the whole rally, just take it in for two or three days and ride the back roads each way. It sounded like fun, and maybe something he and Vicky could do another summer -- there was no chance of it this year; she didn't have the vacation time built up. Though seeing Duane was sort of a father-son thing, taking Vicky at least gave her a little road trip. For a number of reasons, they were planning on taking her Stratus, rather than the bikes. It might make for a good chance to talk things out.

After thinking about heading out to the back shop and working with the forge, but rejecting the idea due to the heat, he finally settled on just making a ham sandwich and cracking a novel he'd been trying to work his way through for months, another W.E.B. Griffin thriller. Engrossed in the book, where Killer McCoy -- he had to make a copy of that Baby Fairbairn sometime -- was about to paddle ashore from a submarine into the occupied Philippines, he heard a light knocking at the door; it was Vicky from the sound of it. As he got up to let her in, he glanced at the clock; it was getting dark, and time for her to be back from her Weight Watchers meeting. As he opened the door, he could see Vicky was unhappy; indeed, close to tears. "Vicky!" he said instantly. "What's the matter?"

"One fifty-seven," she sobbed.

"Huh? I don't understand."

"I've barely eaten a damn thing this week and I'm up a whole fucking pound!" She let out a sob. "And it's my fourth week over one fifty-five."

"I don't know how bad I want you to lose very much more," he said slowly. "I think 150 would be fine, but you're shooting for 125, aren't you?"

"It's what I was in high school," she nodded, remembering being slim and slender -- but still heavier than a lot of the skinny girls on the cheerleading squad -- Emily had been one. "It seems like a good place to get back to."