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...I wonder if any of these people realize that a celebrity of The International Monitor is within their midst? I asked myself sarcastically...
I quickly paid the cashier and walked back out of the store again with a three-quarter-gallon jug of orange juice. Standing beside the bicycle, I quickly opened the jug and chugged about a third of it on the first pull.
...Riding a bicycle in the hot sun always made water or orange juice taste that much sweeter and now was no exception...
I upended the jug once more.
"Oh my God! That's my mom's bike. You're that guy, from Alaska, my grandpa Jimmy just sold it to! He told us all about you" An attractive young red-haired lady, with two little kids in tow, now exclaimed excitedly as she stopped beside me.
"Yes! How was the birthday party?" I asked smiling.
"Show him how old you are now, honey," the lady said to the little boy that was holding her hand.
The little boy smiled and held up his right hand with all five fingers extended.
"Wow, happy birthday, son! Did you get some nice presents today?" I asked as I smiled at the little boy and nodded.
"He got some really cool trucks and an Alice Mae airplane, didn't you son?" the lady asked smiling down at her son.
The boy remained quiet yet continued to smile widely.
" - I remember back when I was five" his older sister now said evenly, pulling on her mother's other hand.
"Oh, and how old are you now?" I asked the little girl.
"I'm seven and a half!" she said proudly.
"You're already half-grown!" I said to the girl.
"She's seven and a half - going on twenty-three, I think, sometimes," The lady said, rolling her eyes.
"MOOOMMM!" the little girl said in protest; as she tugged at her Mom's hand.
Looking at the little boy again I said "My wife and I got to go for a ride in the real Alice Mae airplane!" I said reverently and nodded.
"I'm Cinnamon Epps, by the way," the lady said holding out her hand.
"Tim Donovan," I said smiling and shaking the lady's hand.
Cinnamon now paused, just eyeing the bicycle, as she took her son's left hand again.
"If you ever decide that you want to sell back that bicycle, Tim, my mom would probably like to have it again, she's already regretting that she sold it" Cinnamon now said looking at the recumbent whimsically.
"Cinnamon, I may take you up on that. We're just visiting Odessa and we'll probably be heading home within a few weeks, I think. Your mom'd be welcome to have it back for what I've got into it, which is about four hundred and fifty dollars now, I put new tires on it today and a few other nic-nacks. I just need a bike to ride while we're here, and I have several other recumbents at home that I can ride, - Arizona, we're snowbirds. I could give you my wife's number if you'd like" I suggested.
"Oh, that would be great, thank you! Mom would love that!" Cinnamon exclaimed, pulling out her phone.
"My wife's name is Andrea, just send her a text, explaining about the bike, and she'll keep your number," I said as I rattled off Andrea's phone number to the girl.
"Awww, Tim, thank you so very much!" Cinnamon said.
A minute later, the four of us said a cordial goodbye.
Cinnamon and her two children walked toward an old Ford Bronco, hand-in-hand, the three of them. I knocked - back the rest of my orange juice and threw the empty jug in a garbage barrel. I then pedaled away from the grocery store, smiling at the interchange of conversation between Cinnamon and her two children. It was just after five PM now and I wanted to get back to the hotel before the Texas sun set...
...
"You just can't go anywhere without attracting women, can you?" Andrea teased, holding up her phone, as I walked through the hotel room door with the bike.
I said nothing, just kissed her.
"Cinnamon is probably a real knock-out, too, I bet. She just called me, about the bike, three minutes ago." Andrea said, setting down her phone.
"She's not as pretty as you are," I said evenly, as I parked the bike and leaned down to half-hug Helen, who was sitting on the opposite bed, with papers in her hand.
"That's a nice bike, honey" Andrea now said, looking at the machine.
"Yes, it is" Helen agreed.
"I love it!" I exclaimed.
"How many miles did you do?" Andrea asked.
"Only six and a half, but tomorrow's another day, Amiga," I said, sliding off my left boot.
"Keep your boots on, cowboy, we're going out to eat, in a few minutes," Andrea said.
"(sigh) Alright, but nothing too fancy OK? I'm ready to relax and watch a movie or something tonight and don't want to be out too late" I said, reaching for my boot again.
"Just the hotel's restaurant, honey," Andrea said.
"...Sure, that'd be great. How was your day with Lita?" I asked the ladies as I walked toward the bathroom to wash up.
"She'll be here on Friday - for the weekend, you'll like her, Tim" my wife answered.
"Lita likes trucks, so you'll both have a lot to talk about" Helen chimed in.
...
...Fifteen minutes later, the ladies and I sat within a cozy restaurant booth with the last of the Texas sun peeking through the large windows.
The restaurant's walls were decorated with a unique waterstained wallpaper that depicted gushing oil wells and rugged old bearded men out upon the lonely Texas plains during the turn of the twentieth century. The wallpaper, although relatively new, was made to look faded and worn.
" - Ladies, let's walk away from Prominent House NOW! It's going to cost around eleven million dollars for the oil company to demolish that place and the precious metals inside it don't even come close to amounting to that much, we could become legally obligated to demolish that damn place. The oil company, as well as the Feds, could hold us liable, let's walk away" I said abruptly.
"Not so fast, cowboy, Helen and I have been working on that very question. Herb Nelson, Helen's attorney, will be here on Saturday and we're going to run all of it by him before we make any decisions, Herb's a smart guy, Tim" Andrea answered.
"Andrea, I'm sure he is smart, but it's not his neck in the noose. All the oil company is going to do, is tear down Prominent House, once the place is theirs. It's going to cost millions of dollars to do so and we could get caught up in all that legal nonsense - please, let's just walk away." I said emphatically.
"Tim, for starters, they don't have to tear it down immediately. Attractive Nuisance laws and vagrant squatters aren't an issue, at all, out there. That oil field may as well be on Mars or a Military Base, as tight as the security is. What the oil company and Feds are mainly concerned about right now is the ninety-nine-year lease that will expire in five months, that's what this is all about. The tax laws are changing next year and the oil company and Feds are adamant that the house and land be in their hands, well before then. Whoever does tear down the mansion could do very well for themselves, financially, Tim." Andrea said.
"How could they do very well, financially, how?" I asked incredulously.
"Aside from the precious metals, I also noticed acres of marble in that place - and who knows what else, we've only seen a small portion of the entire place, so far. The oil company would, most likely, have contractors submit bids on the place when they do want it razed. Have you priced a hundred-year-old, inch and a half sheet, of marble lately, Tim?" she asked.
"No, but I don't think there's eleven million dollars worth of precious metals and marble in that house, at least not enough for any contractor to make any profit with, Andrea" I replied.
"Tim, let's hear what Herb has to say before we make any decisions, OK?" Helen asked.
"(sigh) Yeah, OK, that's probably a good idea," I said, closing my eyes and relenting.
"Tim, I won't let us get into any trouble, OK? Please trust me on this. We've got some very smart people on our side" Andrea said, taking my hand.
"Love is all about trust, isn't it?" I asked quietly.
"Trust; has a lot to do with it, yes" she answered.
...The ladies and I ordered steak dinners and talked of bicycling, music, and Danny Wickersham.
When our meals arrived, the three of us fell into a brief silence as we began to eat, I for one, was hungry. It now dawned on me that I had eaten very little throughout the whole day.
"Today's Thursday, we see Earl Billingsly on Monday at one PM. Want to do some sightseeing tomorrow when Lita gets here Tim?" Andrea abruptly asked me.
"I'd love to" I answered with a mouth full of steak.
Andrea's phone then abruptly pinged with a text message...
"...Ricky's back home now and working at Desert Valley Auto Parts, the junkyard in Casa Grande. His time with Harland Wyckoff did him a world of good" Andrea said, looking at her phone.
I stopped eating and closed my eyes with relief "...Thank God" I said quietly.
Obviously, the message was from Brenda, direct and to the point, as always.
"Ricky says the only thing left of the old neighborhood, and your Mom's house is the sidewalk and fire hydrant along Stony Brook parkway. Everything else is either gone or paved over for the new wastewater treatment plant there." Andrea said, rolling her eyes up at me.
I made no reply and remained still.
"You OK?" she asked gently, placing her hand on mine.
"Yeah, I guess so," I said.
"...I wish I could have met her, Tim," Andrea said quietly, of my mother.
This statement made me gasp slightly and Andrea squeezed my hand a little harder.
I quickly pulled myself together and said "...Hopping freight trains, this last week, I knew that's where Ricky was going, all along, Andrea. (***sigh***)...I can remember that fire hydrant since I was two or three years old, Mom never liked us to go that close to the street, we'd get scolded if we did....Some girls dressed the fire hydrant in pajamas once, during Halloween, I remember" I answered quietly with sudden rambling thoughts of the old neighborhood and the people who had lived there.
Inwardly I shrugged off my feelings for the old neighborhood and began eating again.
...My God, my emotions are all over the damn place right now, I thought to myself, closing my eyes.
"Do you need to go back there again, too, Tim? I'll go with you; if you do" my wife said.
"Yes, but not for a while, Andrea" I answered with another shrug.
"...How's your steak, honey?" she asked after a brief pause.
"Fine, thank you. - Helen, how's yours?" I asked, bringing Helen back into the conversation and neatly evading any further conversation about the old neighborhood or Mom.
"I'm good, and glad for the company of you both" Helen smiled.
"It's good to have you here, Helen," I said, smiling.
"I wish we knew who the duchess was, mentioned in Danny's safe deposit box note. There's no mention, anywhere, of a duchess in Odessa Texas - at any time, ever, that we've been able to find, Tim. Diane and Kelly have been pouring over old newspapers for a day and a half now - and nothing." Helen said, changing subjects.
"Try, countess, instead" I answered, disinterested in the subject, as I took a sip of Coca-Cola.
"Why, countess, Tim?" Andrea asked, as she suddenly stopped eating.
"That guy, Jimmy, who sold me the bike today, mentioned something about a countess living here once, I think that's what he said. Jimmy's in his eighties and he's been here since the mid-sixties" I shrugged without really thinking about any of it.
Andrea raised an eyebrow at this and then started eating again.
"When does Lita get here?" I asked the ladies.
"She'll be here around eleven tomorrow but says she'll be here all weekend. Tim, you'll like her" Andrea answered.
"I'm sure I will, Andrea. Where does she live?" I asked, inwardly disinterested.
"Phoenix, not far from us, really" Andrea answered.
"She works for a magazine, right?" I asked.
"She does now but she also takes on other freelance work. Right now Lita's writing an article for an outdoor magazine, for summer gear, tents, survival stuff, and so on. She's well thought of and sought after by several advertising agencies, Tim" Andrea explained.
"Can I get you, folks, anything else?" the waitress now interrupted us.
"I could use a little more soda, please" Andrea answered.
"Me too, - no ice, please," I said.
"Maam?" the waitress asked Helen.
"I'm fine, thank you though," Helen said as she studied her phone.
...I suddenly realized just how bored I'd been within the last week and on a spur of the moment began flirting with Andrea.
"Want to go to a cheap hotel room and watch a movie, later?" I asked Andrea teasingly.
"There aren't any cheap rooms in this place, cowboy," Andrea said, rolling her eyes.
"We could pretend there is, or maybe we could go into separate rooms and pretend like we're thousands of miles apart, and have phone sex" I offered, snickering.
Andrea rolled her eyes and snorted at this.
The three of us were silent again for several minutes as we continued eating.
"Here ya go, no ice for the gentleman," the waitress said as she set our colas down before us.
"Thank you" Andrea and I said in unison.
The waitress walked away and I coyly slipped my fingers into Andrea's waistband, out of sight from anyone else. I licked my lips as she looked up at me...
"Tim, please behave now, we're in public, OK?" Andrea said with a disgusted look on her face.
"Just having some fun with you, wife," I said, a little humbled now that Andrea wasn't playing along.
"Honey, I know, but cool it, OK?" she asked seriously; as if I were a teenager.
"Sorry," I said as nodded my head, as color came to my cheeks.
...There were several moments of tense silence between the three of us now as we continued to eat and I found myself staring at the wallpaper again, a little afraid to meet my wife's gaze for the moment because of my immature inuendos a moment earlier. My mention of cheap hotel rooms and the slipping of my fingers inside Andrea's waistband had not been viewed as "cute" as I had hoped it would be...
I took another bite of steak and continued staring up at the wallpaper in an attempt to hide from my own emotions of bitter disappointment in myself with my immature behavior toward my wife, within the last few minutes. I seemed to see my mother covering her face now with embarrassment, at me having slipped my fingers inside Andrea's waistband...
God, that'd been a stupid thing to do, I chided myself with sudden deep regret. I felt like a complete loser now. Inwardly I sighed heavily and continued staring at the restaurant's wallpaper.
...I spent the next seven or eight minutes mentally beating the hell out of myself as I stared up at the wallpaper...
...I slowly took another fork full of steak and stared at the wallpaper again. Squinting my eyes slightly, I noticed that there was actually an outline of the State of Texas within the wallpaper but this outline was in a slightly lighter shade of water stain and not immediately noticeable within the wallpaper. I now realized that the wallpaper's artwork was much deeper and more detailed than it first appeared to be.
...Glancing over at my wife again, I inwardly knew that I needed to say something relatively intelligent and mature to redeem myself right now...
"I'll bet that Ricky will really like working at that junkyard. Desert Valley Auto Parts is mythical," I said, trying to act like an adult again.
"Is it as awesome as Owen's place in Lake Havasu?" Andrea asked, without looking at me.
...God, please look at me again, woman, I thought inwardly...
"I'd say its - " I began to elaborate; when Helen cut me off in mid-sentence.
"- OH MY GOD! Here she is! She's The Countess of Knoff, from the Dutch East Indies, born in eighteen ninety" Helen said holding up her phone and showing the exact same tintype as the one inside Prominent House.
Helen then quickly rattled off the online dictionary's accounting of the girl, which I found interesting yet paid little attention to. It suddenly dawned on me that Helen's research of Danny was bound to go on for several more months, if not longer. With this thought, I now tuned out everything around me and began thinking logically and suddenly found myself contemplating whether or not I should fly home, ahead of Andrea. - I'll stay until after the ladies meet with Earl Billingsly, then I'll fly home, I decided with an inner nod to myself. I hadn't wanted to be a part of any of this Danny Wickersham wild goose chase at all, to begin with, yet now we'd already been away from home for well over a week.
Andrea and I had originally planned to be gone from Arizona City for a day and a half, long enough to attend Danny Wickersham's funeral. Maybe it was time for me to bow out of this Danny Wickersham nonsense and just let Andrea and Helen do what they needed to do.
Maybe I was feeling sorry for myself now, because of my behavior a minute earlier and Andrea's slight scolding of me for slipping my fingers inside her waistband - which was childish and stupid of me.
Realistically, I knew that I was just an unneeded third wheel in this whole soapbox of Danny Wickersham, and some time away from Andrea would probably be healthy for both of us right now. I really wanted to get back to work on the construction of our swimming pool again and spend some time with my little brother, Ricky. Maybe I could even get a part-time job at Desert Valley Auto Parts, myself.
That'd probably be a really good thing for me right now...
...The ladies and I continued chatting and eating for another half hour yet the ambiance of the evening, between Andrea and myself, was now ruined by my earlier childish behavior.
...
"Andrea, I'm sorry that I ruined your evening and for my behavior inside the restaurant, it won't happen again," I said, as I sat on the hotel room's bed and slipped off my boots, thoroughly exhausted and disgusted with myself.
"What behavior? What are you talking about?" Andrea asked, confused.
"Talking about cheap hotel rooms and slipping my fingers in your pants," I said embarrassed.
"Oh that, honey, just cool it when we're in public, OK?" she asked sitting beside me.
"Sorry," I said again, putting my head in my hands, ashamed.
Andrea put her arm around me and pulled me close.
"Tim, I knew who you were when I married you. You've still got some 'cowboy' in you, and I know that. I'd worry about you if you didn't pull a stunt like that, once in a while. Just don't make it a regular habit, OK?" she asked.
"OK" I answered quietly, relief flooding over me, with her forgiveness.
"When you're not bumming around with Helen and me, then I want your ass on that beautiful new bicycle. -You're not the same man, whenever you haven't ridden seventy or a hundred miles, each week, Tim," she said gently.
Andrea then pulled me closer to her.
"I love you, Andrea," I said.
"I love you too, honey" she replied.
"...Andrea, after we meet Earl Billingsly, I'm going to fly home. You and Helen don't need me here and I can do some work around the ranch and take care of Pippi and Wolfie. That swimming pool needs to be finished, too," I said with resolve.
"Tim, you're just bored right now - and I understand that, but I'd like you to stay. Helen and I value your input and we'd both like you to stay, at least, until we've been through Prominent House one or two more times." Andrea stated.
"My input? -my input amounts to exactly zero, honey. I didn't know Danny and I don't know anything about real estate either" I said incredulously, looking at her.
"Tim, I know that, but you're very observant and that's going to come in very handy for us within the next few weeks, in unraveling this whole mess. You observe things that the rest of us don't even begin to notice. I'm not blowing smoke up your ass, Tim, you are observant and you're also a real pleasure to have around" she said proudly, kissing me.
