Chapter 56
In fact, Mike Strube had so many good pieces that Eddie couldn't fit them all into the back of his truck. "I'll have to make two trips," he said. "Either that, or I'll have to go into Chadron and rent a trailer."
"I got a trailer you can use," Strube said. "It's old and rusty, but it will get the stuff there. In fact, I'll even drive down there with you so you don't have to bring it back. I just have to leave a note for my wife to tell her where I've gone."
"Mike, that's asking too much," Dotty protested.
"I don't recall you asking, Miz Dotty, but I do remember me offering. Ain't many of us that served in the Pacific War left, and we gotta stick together, don't we, Senior Chief?"
"Yes, we do, Sergeant Strube."
"Well, that's that, then. Let's get this stuff loaded up and get on the road."
They were almost finished loading when Mildred Strube drove up in an old Buick sedan.
"Millie, come and meet some new friends," Mike called. A woman in her mid-sixties, dressed for 'town' in slacks and a loose cotton overblouse, came over to shake hands.
"Hello. I'm Millie," she said. "How much of that stuff in the barn did you buy?"
"Just about all of it," Eddie said. "I'm Eddie Michulka, and this is my friend Dotty Weller. It's just what Dotty was looking for."
"You're the ones from down in Alliance, the ones with the motel?"
"That's right."
"There's too much to get in their truck, so I hitched up the trailer, Millie," Mike said.
"I see. I have cold stuff in the car I need to get out of this heat, Mike, but once we unload that, I'll go with you to Alliance."
"That would be wonderful," Dotty said. "Let's go get those groceries put away before the ice cream melts; I'll help."
The two women made short work of the groceries; by the time they came out of the house, they were talking as if they'd known each other for years, not just minutes.
"How do women do it?" Mike remarked as the women walked across the yard together.
"Beats me, but they do. They get talking about their kids or grandkids and next thing you know they're best friends."
Jamie wanted pizza for lunch, so Abby phoned in an order and went to pick it up. When she came back, Jamie was on the phone. She heard him say, "That's great, Grandma; we'll look forward to seeing the new Cactus Motel. Oh, Abby's here with our pizza. We'll see you tonight and you can tell us all about it. Bye now."
He hung up and said, "Princesses bearing pizzas… one of my favorite things. I never expected to find such good pizza in the panhandle of Nebraska, but Morelli's is the best."
"Yes, it is. Here you are, J-Man; double cheese meat lover's, large cola, no ice."
"Great." He bowed his head respectfully while Abby blessed the food and then handed her a large slice.
"What did Dotty have to report?" she asked after she'd taken her first bite and swallowed.
"The shopping trip to the farm outside of Hay Springs was a rousing success. They got so much antique furniture that it took Eddie's truck, the farmer's truck, and the farmer's trailer to bring it all back. The farmer joined the Marines right out of high school in '43 and fought all through the rest of the war in the Pacific, so of course he and Eddie have a lot in common, and Grandma and his wife Millie are friends now. Eddie and Grandma are treating Mike and Millie to lunch at the pancake place before they drive back to Hay Springs. Eddie wants them to come down and spend a couple of days on the house once the place is renovated, though."
"Oh, wow. All of the furniture they need for Dotty's renovation plans in one place?"
"Yep. Lots of family stuff that nobody else wanted, so Mike ended up storing in his barns while he figured out what to do with it."
"And then along came Dotty Weller and…. Jackpot! This project is getting bigger by the day. It's a good thing Phillip is sending those clothes Dotty asked for."
"Yeah. Grandma said he left a message on the machine at the motel to tell her that Kendra had packed everything up last night and that he'd dropped it off at the Parcel Express office on his way to work this morning. He's sending it by air, which is more expensive, but it means she won't have to wait a week to get it."
"It's worth it; it's cheaper than going out and buying new clothes so she won't have to wear the same three or four outfits over and over again."
"That's true. You want that last slice of pizza?"
"No, you take it; I've had plenty. Gotta build you back up, J-Man."
"This is my idea of building back up, too."
He finished the last slice of pizza, but she could see he was tiring.
"One step at a time, Jamie," she said. "Grandma and Eddie aren't the only ones that can use a nap."
"Yeah. I didn't think just walking down the hall would take so much out of me, but it did."
"Have a good nap, then."
"You'll stay?"
"Oh, sure; I have Hugo and Henrietta to keep me company."
"New story?"
"I keep getting ideas for new ones, so yes."
"That's wonderful. You and your purple hippos have a good time, then; I'm going to take a nap."
He was sound asleep within five minutes.
The next day, Abby called Jamie's hospital room to tell him that she'd agreed to drive Kathy, her brother Larry's wife, to Scottsbluff for a prenatal appointment. "Daddy's just swamped at the shop, so Larry's helping him there, and Mom's doing Daddy's end-of-month billing. Dotty's going with us so she can look at paint and carpet samples; Uncle Eddie says he doesn't know beans about carpets so he's leaving it up to her. We're taking Mom's car so Kathy can take a nap in the back seat on the way home if she wants to."
"That sounds like a good plan," Jamie replied. "I'll miss you, Princess, but I'm glad you're able to drive Kathy and Grandma down there. I'll look forward to hearing all about it tonight."
"Count on it. I'll see you when I get back, J-Man."
Less than an hour later, Rosalyn Kozal, who was supposedly so busy doing the billing for her husband's auto repair business that she couldn't break loose, showed up in Jamie's room.
"Hi, Rosalyn," he said, looking up from the Alistair MacLean novel he'd been reading in surprise.
"I know, I'm supposed to have my nose buried in columns of figures, but it was kind of a fib. We needed to get her out of town so we could do some planning behind her back."
"Her twenty-first birthday party?"
"That's right. Having her gone most of the summer and then spending all this time with you has made it easier to pull off the surprise, so we thank you."
"Happy to help," Jamie said. "And here I thought I was just getting the royal treatment from my princess, when all the time I was helping the family pull off a surprise."
"Yes, you were. You see, right after she left for Washington in May, Ray found a classic '76 Camaro sitting in a barn outside of Berea, about ten miles north of here. It was in terrible shape and the farmer was selling it for parts, but you know Ray's a genius with cars, so he bought it, hauled the hulk home on a flatbed trailer, and went to work on it. He had to rebuild it from the chassis up, but he scoured junkyards and sale ads to get the seats and the parts he needed. It's at the paint and body shop across town now, getting painted Nebraska sky metallic blue, and we want you to drive it from the shop to the motel, where we're having the party, on the big night."
"Rosalyn, it should be Ray or Larry doing that," Jamie protested. "I didn't have anything to do with the surprise."
"No, it has to be you, Jamie, because we're going to tell her that the party is a surprise for you, to celebrate getting your stitches out. If you're already there when she gets there, she'll smell a rat."
"Got it. Hey, it's a good thing I told my parents to pack my tux when they brought my clothes out from K. C."
"You own a tuxedo?"
"Yeah, I needed it for work in my last job. I photographed a lot of very ritzy weddings when I was working in New York, and in those cases, even the photographer has to be in black tie."
"Oh, my. I was planning to suggest that Abby wear one of her formal gowns to your party, and if you show up in a tuxedo, driving her car…. Oh, my."
"It will be perfect. Too bad I can't play my part and photograph the event at the same time, but I'm not that talented."
"Oh, we'll get a photographer from here in town; he does all the local weddings and big celebrations. I'm sure he's not as good as you are, but he's pretty good."
"I'm sure he's just fine. I'm glad you came by to discuss this, Rosalyn, because you've given me an idea. I've been considering selling my BMW, you see. You can imagine how much it's costing me in insurance premiums, because even though I have no tickets on my record, I'm still a single male under twenty-five. I'm thinking that maybe a truck might fit my new lifestyle a bit better, and Abby's truck is in great shape. Does she own it, or does Ray?"
"Ray does, but he won't sell you that truck, Jamie; it's too old, even with the maintenance he's done on it. He's going to donate it to the high school so the boys in Larry's auto mechanics class can work on it."
"I understand."
"He won't sell you that truck, but there's a 1995 Dodge Ram on the back lot that he took in trade for a sedan that he specially equipped with hand controls. It belonged to a local bull rider, Dustin Sartain, who was paralyzed from the waist down in a bull riding accident about a year ago. Dusty's in a wheelchair, and he couldn't get in and out of that truck, so he needed a sedan with special controls. He'll be at the party; he and Abby were good friends, not sweethearts, just friends."
"I'm sorry he's been through that. What is he doing now?'
"He's going back to school at Chadron State to get his teaching degree, and then he's going to teach agriculture. He comes from a long line of ranchers, so it's a natural for him."
"That's good. Since Abby will be gone all day and I'm allowed to sign myself out on day pass now, would it be possible for me to go and look at the truck?"
"Sure, or I can get Larry or Ray to bring it over here."
"No, I don't want them to take the time, and it would be kind of nice to get out for a couple of hours."
"Then I'll be happy to drive you over to the shop."
Jamie wasn't supposed to drive until his stitches were out, so Larry Kozal offered to take him out for a test drive, because even from the passenger seat he could get a good feel for how the truck handled. He agreed, so they drove as far as Carhenge before they turned around in the Carhenge parking lot and drove back to Alliance. When they got back, Jamie said, "I need to move some money from one account to the other, Ray, but I can give you a check for the full amount within about a week."
"Just take it, Son. You can pay me after you sell the BMW."
"No, sir, I won't do that. Half down, half after I sell the Beemer."
"Deal," Ray said, and they shook. "I'll sign the title over to you effective next Friday, if that works for you, so you'll have it in time for your 'coming-out' party."
"Wonderful. When Abby gets back, I'll tell her the news. She'll expect to see me driving this when I show up for my 'surprise party', so it's going to be fun seeing her face when I pull up in the Camaro."
"Oh, yeah," Ray said. "Rosie says you own a tux, and that you have it with you?"
"Yeah. Like I told her, I needed it for my cover job in New York, and I guess when I asked my parents to pack for me when they came through Kansas City, I had some idea that I was going to celebrate getting my stitches out by taking Abby out someplace where I could wear it."
"And you can – it will just be at my baby girl's birthday party."
"That's right."
Ray said, "You should probably get off your feet, Son, and it will be lunchtime soon. Larry, drive Jamie back to the house so your mom can fix him lunch."
"Sure thing, Dad. Come on, J-Man."