Chapter 21

What I saw or realized next shall we say substantially impressed me. Bill Thomas didn't try to keep the center of attention. Everyone knew he was 'The Boss'. But he always seemed to deflect being one that was overbearing.

He asked, as his gaze went back and forth between us, "I hope you two like what the architects have planned?"

Grace sidled in next to him and they exchanged a sensual, yet brief kiss. Continuing, he explained, "I've ordered a disk of the drawings and 3-D mockups for you both to review."

She was quite a woman, I thought. Then I realized what a pair they were when she told us she'd had a hand in the redesign of the building. "I told Old Bill here," she began with a nod to her partner, "I thought it would be fantastic if we actually made that building into a real home."

"Yeah," Bill Senior added. "The original floor plan just needed a couple of interior walls to break up rooms that were 'Office' like." Then he tapped his hip to hers and they did that little wiggle intimate people do. They smiled at each other, then he pointed out, "It was really Grace who suggested it was too large for us..."

"We don't need a home the size of the Taj Mahal I told him," she added finishing Bill's sentence, "I thought it could be divided into a nice sized home with a smaller apartment. That way, it would be two intimate homes under one roof. Then once it was all made 'liveable' I suggested it would be perfect for you Claire ... and your Dad."

I was wondering where I'd fit into any of the plans when Bill Senior put in, "Oh Claire, we figured if you wanted Jimbo here to live there too, we wouldn't mind."

He got a firm 'Love Tap' on the butt from Grace for that one. "You Old Coot! Stop teasing Jim.

"Don't listen to him." Grace went on, "I only gave him a suggestion on the flight up here to Duluth that I thought it would make a great house. He ran with it and spoke to 'Punch and Judy' over there about it.

"We all talked about it during the trip and I mentioned to them what I'd just said. Bill Junior agreed it was a great idea and was on the phone to the architects real quickly."

It was hard not to laugh at what Grace had said. She'd called Bill Junior, 'Punch'. I didn't think the centuries old character I'd seen as a common hand puppet in my youth was much more than a bully who never got anything right. That didn't seem to be the least bit a part of Bill Junior's makeup.

Even from my brief contact with the whole Thomas Clan, I didn't have the idea any of them were anything like 'Punch'. As I tried to figure out just where that reference came from, Sandy put it all together. "Mom and Dad's favorite dress-up for Halloween is Punch and Judy.

"They're a hit at our company Halloween parties. They put on a show for the kids. It's so fun. They take one of my dollies and dress it up like a baby.

"The best-est part is when he's dressed up as Punch, Dad is walking around carrying the baby and he always bangs its head into things. Mom is always yelling at him not to crash the 'Baby's' head into a doorway, wall or anything.

"But he always does. It's just so funny."

Then Sandy made everyone laugh when she added, "Mom says dad did that to me ... banged my head into a doorway when I was a baby."

"Yeah," Bill Senior said. "Judy sure let me know my son-in-law had done that one."

By then the whole family had started to gather round. Of course, Josie was right there and brought the house down by saying, "It has to be hereditary.

"Bill, I'd swear you did that more than once to each of the kids.

"How Judith survived is beyond me."

The laughter peaked when Judy added, "And my head still hurts!"

As the chuckling subsided Bill Junior pointed out, "Lots of the kids often call me 'Mr. Punch' and joke about it with their parents."

Judy added, "A few of the investigators have picked up on it. I'm sure eventually pretty much everyone will call him 'Mr. Punch'.

Now that all seemed to me as if calling him 'Mr. Punch' took it all out of the negative realm and changed it into something that was even a little of an honorable title.

Things wound down a few notches and Claire suggested we get in a trip to the nearby Kmart to pick up the card-table set and some other things we might need. Grace suggested we take the stretch-limo so we'd have plenty of room for anything we might want to get.

That idea proved to be a good one. Women love to shop and I quickly got even more outnumbered as both Grace and Judy declared they wanted to go too.

'Hummm', I thought adding, 'Sneaky' to it.

The Town Car would have been tight with six in it. There was more to Grace than was usually showing.

She and Bill Senior as I'd thought all along were a good paring.