Bikini Carwash (That Business Between Us) Read online

  “How goes the job search?” he asked her. “Any luck?”

  “Not yet,” Andi answered. “My interview with Guthrie’s was a complete waste of my time. I am so overqualified, they should have gotten on their hands and knees to thank me for applying. But the old biddy who was doing the hiring was just totally negative.”

  Her father nodded.

  “Well, I want you to know that I admire you going out there day after day trying. I never cared for that sort of thing at all,” he said. “It goes against my nature to make myself look good in somebody else’s eyes. And that’s what you’ve got to do if you want to get hired. I guess that’s why I always worked for myself.”

  Andi sighed. “I’d be delighted to work for myself,” she said. “I could be the first self-employed corporate contributions professional. All I’d need is fifteen or twenty million dollars and I could really find some wonderful charities to give it away to.”

  Her father laughed. Jelly did, too, just to be sociable. Andi was certain that she didn’t get the joke, but getting it wasn’t the point to Jelly, it was all about laughter.

  “I walked by your old place today,” Andi said. “I’m surprised that Guthrie hasn’t used that corner for a gas station or something.”

  Her father hesitated as he finished a bite. He had a strange look on his face, before he set his fork on the edge of his plate and pushed it forward and out of his way. “He hasn’t used it because he doesn’t own it,” Pop said.

  “I thought you sold that property to them years ago.”

  “I thought I did, too,” Pop said. “Hank agreed to everything but just never got around to signing the deal and paying me the money. So I still own it. I still pay taxes on it.”

  “Really.” Andi was intrigued.

  “Yeah, I don’t know what happened. I called the man and his attorney both a dozen times over two years and nobody would ever say anything more than it was still ‘in process.’ I finally gave up. I guess they just changed their mind.”

  “They changed their mind? Pop, don’t you know there are legal remedies for that kind of thing?”

  Her father shrugged. “Sweetie, there are things worth fighting for in the world and there are things that are not. I try to have the wisdom to recognize one from the other.”

  Andi admired her father’s honor and his willingness to turn the other cheek, but she knew people in town sometimes took advantage of that. He was a better man than Plainview often deserved.

  “The Guthries are lucky you didn’t sell it to someone else.”

  Her father shook his head. “Nobody else ever showed any interest. I guess there’s not much anyone could do with it.”

  “What do you mean that there’s not much anyone could do with it,” Andi said. “It’s on one of the busiest corners in the whole downtown area. Half the people in town drive past it every day.”

  Her father nodded. “Yeah, it does seem a shame that it’s just sitting there costing me money.”

  “I should open up some kind of business there,” Andi said, absently.

  “Yeah, you probably should,” her father told her. “When a person has a job and a regular check coming in, it’s always hard to risk that by going off on your own. But when you’re unemployed, well, what’s that old saying, ‘when you’ve got nothing, you’ve got nothing to lose.’”

  Her father’s words caught Andi’s attention.

  “You’d be okay if I opened some kind of business in that place?”

  “Sure,” he said. “If you can think of something to do with it, you ought to do it. You probably won’t get rich, but it sure wouldn’t hurt to have some cash in your pocket and to build back your savings. You’ll need it to move back to the city one day.”

  “I’m not moving back,” Andi reminded him. “I’m staying in Plainview.”

  “Well, then, you’ll need an income even more,” he said. “It may be a good long while before business in this town begins to pick up again. I’ll let you have the building for free. You can pay me after you make your first million.” He chuckled.

  Andi did too. It seemed pretty unlikely.

  “The building’s way too small for a shop or a restaurant,” she said. “It would be a good size for an office. But who needs an office with a drive-thru?”

  “That’s been my problem with it all along,” her father said. “I can’t tear the place down because it’s part of an architectural conservation zone. I can’t expand, because the lot is undersized and pie-shaped. I couldn’t add so much as a closet without getting into the easement of Guthrie’s property. It was fine for what it was, but I could never figure what else to do with it.”

  “Maybe it could be a drive-thru coffee place,” Andi suggested.

  “I don’t know how much demand there is for that kind of thing,” Pop said. “But it sure doesn’t hurt to look into it.”

  “Great!” Andi said, feeling surprisingly pleased and optimistic. She forked a big bite of casserole in her mouth and discovered why her father had pushed his plate away and why her sister was playing with hers.

  “Yuck, this is awful!”

  Jelly and Pop nodded.

  “You can’t cook, Andi,” her father pointed out. “You never could. And I don’t know why you keep thinking you can, ’cause you’re terrible at it.”

  “Mom was so good at it,” Andi said.

  “She was. But you’re not,” her father said. “So what do you girls think? How about some nice cheese and crackers? Maybe we can slice up an apple.”

  Jelly nodded enthusiastically.

  Andi was still mourning her epicurean disaster as she carried the casserole to the garbage disposal. “I don’t get it,” she said. “I did everything I was supposed to do. And it looks just exactly the way Mom’s used to look.”

  Her father chuckled with wisdom born of experience. “How things look, as often as not, completely fool us as to how things are.”

  The next morning Pete was sitting in front of the computer screen in his office, poring over a plan-o-gram from the distributor. The latest changes involved squeezing the books and magazines section to add more dietary supplements. The distributor was supposed to be doing constant research about what people wanted to buy. But Pete wasn’t sure if, in this tough economy, his customers were truly more interested in organic gingko than they were in John Grisham.

  He heard his father before he saw him. The booming voice that stood out in any crowd poured down the hallway. His father was talking with Miss Kepper, jovial to the edge of flirty, without ever quite pushing past what was acceptable between employer and employee.

  “I wish I had you with me at City Hall, Doris,” he heard his dad tell her. “Every two weeks they deliver a mountain of paper for me to go through and it’s really cutting into my golf time.”

  His father laughed as if he were joking, but Pete knew there was more truth to his words than he wanted to admit.

  Upon retirement, Hank Guthrie had run for, and been elected to, the Plainview city council. It was not that he had any great interest in politics or municipal governance. The day-to-day operations were run by a team of bureaucratic professionals. The five aldermen were elected ostensibly to oversee their work. The positions were compensated at the rate of one dollar per year. That meant, for the most part, the position of alderman was held by the affluent or the retired. Hank Guthrie qualified on both counts.

  Naturally gregarious, and a glutton for attention, sitting on the council gave Pete’s father an important position in the community, without any of the risk and headache of operating a business.

  “If my boy gives you one moment of grief,” Hank said to Miss Kepper. “Hand in your notice and come help me out. You know, I just don’t feel like myself without you as my right-hand man.”

  Alone in his office, Pete rolled his eyes. Why did he have to do that? he wondered about his father, not for the first time. Why couldn’t he just be kind to her without holding out this carrot that the two of them could b
e together? Pete sincerely hoped Miss Kepper didn’t take the bait. He would hate to lose her but, worse than that, he would hate for his dad to once more put her into a position that drew public attention. He could imagine a tabloid headline: Lovelorn Old Maid Persists As Grocery Owner Groupie Well Into Retirement.

  Pete could no longer concentrate on his work. He leaned back in his chair and waited. A sense of hunger swept through him and he glanced toward the refrigerator. He resisted the temptation. It was better not to be caught eating when his father came in. So he just sat there, tensely listening to the one-sided conversation between two people who’d known each other for more than forty years.

  Finally his father made his way down to the corner office that had once been his own. Hank was almost as tall as his son, still in robust health, tanned and good-looking and always impeccably and expensively dressed.

  “Hi, Dad,” Pete said, rising to his feet to offer a handshake across the desk. “Thanks for coming down.”

  Hank ignored his son’s outstretched hand. “What the hell is going on downstairs?” he asked gruffly and without preamble. “Why don’t you turn on some lights? The place is too dark. Do you think you’re running a stinking nightclub or something?”

  His father’s vehemence came as no surprise to Pete. Hank had never been the type to offer an attaboy to his only child.

  “There’s plenty of light, Dad,” Pete replied evenly. “It’s directed light, focused on the products and the aisles. There is no reason to light up the ceilings.”

  “Except that without it the whole store looks like a damn cave!”

  “It saves energy and it saves money,” Pete answered. “Our customers appreciate that saving being reflected in the price of their groceries.”

  “I don’t like it,” Hank said adamantly. “Guthrie’s is not some bistro grocery, we’re a family food market. I want it changed. And I want it changed now.”

  “No.”

  Pete’s answer was not loud, or angry or even emphatic. It was matter-of-fact. It was his store. He made the decisions. And every time he talked to his father, he had to reinforce that fact.

  The two men stared at each other across the width of the fancy mahogany desk. The passing of the Guthrie family torch had not been an easy one. Any success that Pete managed was hardly noted. And if up for discussion was usually noticed and discounted as pure luck. Setbacks, however, were placed squarely at Pete’s door. No mitigating factors like an economic downturn, erosion of the local market base or increased pressure from national competitors were allowed as excuses. Hank took a strange pleasure that was almost delight in the problems his son faced. It wasn’t that he wanted Pete to fail, but he certainly didn’t want him to be too successful. Hank needed to be the “star” of the Guthrie Foods family, even if only in his own mind.

  “So, how’s Mom?” Pete asked, finally breaking the silence.

  Hank leaned back in his chair, feeling more relaxed knowing Pete had been forced to speak first.

  “Oh, you know your mother,” Hank said. “She’s just back from somewhere, headed somewhere else. I think she was in Mexico and now she’s off to Japan.”

  Pete raised an eyebrow. “Actually she was in Peru and she’s going on a five-week tour of China.”

  Hank shrugged. “Well, whatever. If you want her to stay home, you’ll have to come up with some grandchildren. That’s about the only thing I can think of that might keep her in town.”

  “She loves to travel,” Pete said. “I think she should do that as long as she enjoys it. She spent a lot of years being the good company wife. This is her retirement, too.”

  “Retirement?” Hank offered a disdainful guffaw. “That woman never put in an honest day’s work in her life. She lived off her old man, then she lived off me. What’s she got to retire from?”

  Pete didn’t answer. It wasn’t worth it to tell his father what he thought. He thought that if his mother had any sense at all she should “retire” from being Hank Guthrie’s wife. She had certainly put up with enough already.

  Instead, he said more congenially, “You know, she needs to get away from this town sometimes.”

  Hank shrugged. “It’s all right by me,” his father said. “But I do get tired of eating at the country club. Where do you eat dinner?”

  “At my house, in my kitchen,” Pete replied.

  Hank shook his head. “There’s something wrong with that. I know you’re gun-shy on marriage after your last fiasco, but couldn’t you at least get some live-in girlfriend to cook and clean up?”

  “I can cook and clean up by myself,” Pete told him.

  “I suppose you can have sex by yourself, too,” Hank said. “Though in my day they said that would make you go blind.” The older man chuckled at his own joke.

  After only the smallest hesitation, Pete’s face broke into a wide grin. “Dad, you’re the one who’s complaining about the light downstairs,” he pointed out.

  Hank didn’t enjoy having the joke turned on him. Within a couple of minutes he made an excuse to leave, without even bothering to find out why Pete had invited him down to the store.

  Hank was in the doorway when Pete got around to his question.

  “I want you to represent Guthrie’s in the charity golf tournament,” he said.

  His father’s brow furrowed. “Well, I’m playing, of course,” he said. “But my intention was to represent myself as alderman.”

  “Could you wear a Guthrie’s shirt and hand in my check?”

  “You need to be out there yourself,” Hank said. “You are Guthrie Foods now and it doesn’t do the business any good for you to hide in here in the store.”

  “I’m not hiding, Dad. I’m working.”

  “Let Doris do that,” Hank said. “People need to see you out in the community. They need to see you taking leisure time. That’s the only way they’ll think you’re successful.”

  “I don’t care if they think I’m successful, as long as I am successful.”

  Hank still didn’t approve. “You’re as pale as a night-shift clerk,” he said. “And you’re getting too fleshy around the middle. Your golf game has always been crap. It’s not going to get any better if you’re here at the store all day.”

  “Just do it for me, Dad,” Pete said.

  His father made a dismissive sound, but agreed. Then he left without even a parting word to Miss Kepper.

  Pete stood at the corner windows just staring into the distance. He watched as his father left the building and walked over to his shiny new Lincoln that he’d illegally parked in a handicapped spot.

  “Figures,” Pete whispered to himself and shook his head.

  As his father drove away, Pete congratulated himself on having thought to ask Hank to golf for the company. Pete was not a big participant in charitable events. He believed in charity and made a point to give, but the last thing he wanted to do with his time was attend a gala or a golf tournament. Peterson, you’re just not a party guy, he reminded himself.

  Suddenly out of the corner of his eye he saw something that just wasn’t right. He stepped slighty closer to the window and squinted. There was someone moving around in the old car wash building. His first thought was to call the police. In his mind that idea was immediately followed by the curious question of “what kind of burglar breaks into an abandoned building in broad daylight?”

  Undoubtedly, it had to be kids, he decided. He would just take care of it himself.

  With a quick, “I’ve got my phone,” to Miss Kepper, Pete headed down the hallway. He took the stairs two at a time and breezed through the front of the store and out the door without so much as a glance around.

  He couldn’t remember if there was anything stored inside the place next door, but even if it was empty, he didn’t want anyone inside, perhaps vandalizing the place. Even if they were just trespassing, with his luck, they’d trip and break a leg and Guthrie Foods would be found liable.

  He began loping across the parking lot. Always
an athlete, he used to run every day. During his marriage, he’d gotten up to fifty miles a week. That time of his life was swiftly followed by what he thought of as the “divorce era” when he quit running completely. Now he jogged occasionally, but considering how winded he got just crossing the parking lot, he thought perhaps it wasn’t occasionally enough.

  Pete was breathing hard as he came around the corner of the little building. The windows were all boarded up. He glanced at the door, expecting to see evidence of it being forced open with a crowbar. Instead, it was casually ajar, with a key still hanging in the lock. That surprised him, but it didn’t stop him. He pushed the door open more widely sending a larger shaft of light into the crowded, tightly packed space. He caught sight of a man in a ball cap and coveralls picking up a big brown box.

  “Put that down!” Pete ordered in his most authoritative tone, sounding very much like his father.

  The shocked thief immediately set the box back on the floor. Then, inexplicably, picked it back up.

  “Who do you think you are? The packing police?” the thief asked.

  Pete was taken aback by the voice, obviously that of a woman. And a woman who sounded not the least bit guilty of breaking and entering.

  “I...uh...this is private property and you are trespassing,” he explained firmly if more quietly.

  The thief set the box back down and, stubbornly, put her hands on her hips. “It sure is private property,” she said. “But you’re the one trespassing. Bye-bye!”

  The last comment was offered with a snarky little wave. The disrespect in the gesture was jaw-dropping. He couldn’t imagine what this woman could be thinking.

  “Do you know who I am?”

  She huffed. “I’m sure you think you’re God’s gift to women, but I doubt if you’ll be able to verify that.”

  That statement left him almost speechless, enough so that he stammered over his next words. “I...I...I am Pete Guthrie and this building is owned by Guthrie Foods.”

  “Wrong!” the thief said, moving closer and into the shaft of light. “This property belongs to Walt Wolkowicz. You Guthries just think you own the whole town.”