Josh laughed too. Then he picked up a green jar, inspected it, set it down, picked up an orange jar, inspected that, and set it down.
“You should start selling this stuff at the farmers market,” Josh offered. “Help supplement your retirement income.”
“But then what would I give to my marry band of Blenders?” she asked with a smirk.
“You don’t have to give us anything,” Josh shook his head. “You know that.”
“I know I don’t have to…but I like to,” she grinned at him.
Ms. Mary was such a petite, almost frail looking woman, but Josh knew that looks could be deceiving. He’d seen Ms. Mary work in her garden. She was a little spitfire, and she could probably outwork many men.
“And you all get such enjoyment out of my jam,” Ms. Mary went on. “Seeing the looks on your faces when I give them at Christmas is better than any money I could make selling them to others,” she shook her head. “No, I won’t be selling the literal fruits of my labor. Plus, they add to our emergency stocks. Saving a little money on our food costs was a large part of this. And if I can help our group as a whole cut our costs by a couple bucks, then it makes me happy too.”
Ms. Mary was such a sweet soul.
Josh left her garage smiling…and carrying a small jar of raspberry jam.
“Done with the yard work?” Julia called from the kitchen as Josh came in through the back door.
“Yep. I’m heading for the showers, and then I’m going out with Michael and the guys,” he called as he kicked off his dirty shoes just inside the door.
“What’s it today? Golf or guns?”
“Shooting. We’re going to that range that Michael belongs to. You know, the one down south?”
“Ohhhh…okay,” Julia nodded, not really remembering but pretending that she did.
“He’s using his guest passes to get the rest of us in, so it’s kind of a special treat. It’s going to take us a while to get there, so we probably won’t be back until later this afternoon.”
“What time do you think? So I can plan dinner.”
Josh tilted his head to one side, considering. “We’re leaving at around eleven, and it takes about an hour to get there. We’ll do some shooting and then probably grab something to eat. So we should be back around four or so.
“Who’s driving?”
“Michael. He loves driving that Suburban of his. Don’t ask me why. If he wants to drop a hundred bucks on gas just to drive to the range, that’s up to him.”
“You guys will blow through a lot more than that in ammo,” Julia shook her head. “I never will get you boys and shooting your guns.”
“Hey, it’s better than drinking at bars or going to nudie joints or something, right?”
“I suppose,” Julia considered. “Should I make pasta for dinner?”
“Sounds good,” Josh nodded. “I love your meat sauce,” he came over and hugged his wife.
“The Italians would call it gravy,” she smiled.
“Whatever you want to call it, it’s awesome, and I’m totally looking forward to it,” Josh gave Julia’s butt a tweak that made her jump.
“I saw that!” came a voice from behind them.
“Whatcha up to, big guy?” Josh asked his young son, Justin, who appeared to be in the “bean pole” stage. He’d grown several inches already in the calendar year, but he’d yet to put the meat on his bones to fill out the extra growth.
“Just finished my homework for the weekend,” he beamed proudly at his parents.
“All of it?” Josh asked, wide eyed.
“It wasn’t that much,” Justin shrugged. “Just a math worksheet and some science questions.”
“Did you do your reading yet?” Julia asked.
“Aw, Mom,” Justin’s shoulders sagged. “It wasn’t assigned.”
“At least thirty minutes every day…even on weekends whether it’s assigned or not,” Julia reminded her son of the parental expectation.
“Okay,” he groaned, rolling his eyes as he turned around dejectedly and headed for his room.
“And no cartoon books or comics!” his mother called after him.
She looked at Josh and shook her head.
Josh just shrugged and smiled. “Can’t blame him for trying,” he laughed. “That’s a nine-year-old for you.”
“So what are you shooting today?” Julia asked even though she really didn’t care.
“I think I’ll take my forty-four. It’s been a while since I’ve shot it. And they have a trap range too, so I’ll take Dad’s old duck hunting gun along. I don’t think I’ve shot skeet in almost a decade.”
“Or longer,” Julia added. “I think I went with you last time. I actually enjoyed that. I’m not big into target practice, but once you get used to shooting a shotgun, especially at clay pigeons, it’s kind of fun.”
Julia started putting some dirty dishes into the dishwasher. “Who all is going?” she asked as Josh moved in to assist, Julia rinsing the dishes, Josh arranging them inside the dishwasher.
“Everyone but Monte. He said he’s got some stuff to take care of around the house since he’s actually home this weekend for once.”
Julia nodded. “Well then, I guess it’s good you’re taking Michael’s Suburban. It’ll fit all you guys comfortably,” she handed him a dish. “Is Patrick going?”
“That, I don’t know. He’s hit and miss on this sort of stuff. I know he shoots, but it’ll probably depend on whether his father can wake him up.”
“How he sleeps so late,” Julia shook her head wonderingly.
“No stress to keep him up,” Josh took another plate from Julia. “Think about it. No job. No kids. No house to work on. Hardly any bills, except maybe his cell phone. Hell, the guy lives a charmed life, and his parents pay for pretty much everything. Can’t blame him for not wanting to move out.”
“But doesn’t he ever want to meet a girl? Feel the excitement of venturing out on his own? Get his own place? Be able to come and go out from under the watchful eyes of Mom and Dad?”
Josh just shrugged and closed the dishwasher. “Everyone’s different.”
“I guess so,” Julia shook hear head, still not getting it. “I can’t imagine living like that. As soon as I was out of college, never for an instant did I think about living back at home.”
“That’s because you met me in college!” Josh laughed. “Plus, we were so busy with work at the time. With fifty, sixty-hour work weeks, it wouldn’t have mattered where we lived. We were pretty much living at work!”
“True,” Julia considered. “Still…I wouldn’t have wanted to move back home even if I was on my own. It just wouldn’t have felt right. College made me so independent. I think I would have gone nuts living with my parents again.”
“Well, it seems to work for Patrick, so, so much the better for him,” Josh wiped his hands on a towel he took from the kitchen counter. “Okay,” he said. “I’m off to shower.” He looked at his watch. “Justin will be reading for another twenty-five minutes. Care to join me?”
“Hmmm,” Julia pondered the idea, eyeing Josh with sudden interest. “Sounds intriguing,” she smirked.
“Oh…” Josh nodded, giving her a devilish grin, “…I can make it very intriguing.”
He held out a hand, which she accepted, and guided her upstairs to their attached master bath. He locked the bedroom door behind them, just in case Justin had a question about his reading material and decided to come barging into the bathroom out of the blue, which he’d certainly been known to do before.
* * *
The day at the range was fabulously freeing for the Blender men. The gun club offered both indoor and outdoor shooting options. But since the men had a variety of indoor ranges in the Chicagoland area at which to shoot, they decided to stay outdoors for the day’s target practice.
While it was a brisk 49 degrees, the sunshine radiating from a cloudless sky made it feel almost ten degrees warmer.
After a coupl
e hours of target practice, the men found a good mid-priced, truck stop-style diner where they could have a few beers, except for Michael who was driving. Meanwhile, the boys enjoyed sodas, and everybody had thick and delightfully delicious milkshakes with their burgers and fries.
While Patrick Trove didn’t make the trip, both 12-year-old Jack and his 14-year-old brother Andrew Franko did. Since the boys didn’t have a father around, the other men in the Blender community took it upon themselves to assist Christine in filling this void as best they could. While the absence of a husband had made life more difficult for Christine in certain ways, it had also made her a stronger, more independent woman. And it had forced her to learn many things she might not have pushed herself to learn otherwise.
Christine was much more schooled in the subject of sports than many of her friends or other women in the neighborhood. She’d learned how to handle a firearm in an effort to feel more confident in her ability to protect her home and her boys. And she’d become fairly adept at yard work and home repairs.
Christine took it as a personal challenge to successfully handle the pairing of both parenting roles. And she reveled in the exhausting position of single, working parent. However, this wasn’t to say that when given the opportunity to enjoy a few hours of alone time, she didn’t jump at the chance. And those hours, as few and far between as they might be, were often spent getting as girly as she could in a sudsy tub, lights dimmed, candles lit, maybe a little soft music playing, and a glass of red wine in hand. She could relax confidently knowing that the men supervising her children were doing so as if they were their own.
Christine had become a wife and a mother early in life. She’d met her ex-husband, Aaron, as a sophomore in high school. He was a senior at the time and had swept her off her feet. They’d married just after she’d graduated. He’d taken a job working as a mechanic at a local auto repair shop. Christine had given birth to Andrew shortly thereafter. And just as she was getting acclimated to married life and motherhood, she got pregnant with Jack.
But Christine eventually realized that she didn’t really love Aaron. She lusted after him, and the sex was great, but as she continued to search for some aspect of their relationship that was truly meaningful, she kept coming up short. Their whole relationship seemed built upon great sex followed by days of constant arguing. Their arguments were usually about the kids – Aaron wondering why they cried, why they wouldn’t eat their food, why they went through so many diapers. Their spats usually ended with Aaron storming out of the house, disappearing for a day or two, which as their relationship faded, began to stretch to four or five days or longer as he found consolation with one of his several mistresses.
After Christine had found out that Aaron was cheating on her, she’d kicked him out for good. They eventually tried, unsuccessfully, to reconcile things, mostly for the kids. The couple divorced when the boys were just four and two. Looking back on it now, Christine was glad the boys weren’t old enough to remember much about their father. It made things easier on them. If they remembered him, they’d ask about him – what he was doing, where he was, why he didn’t want to be with them or see them.
For several years, before the boys were both in school, Christine had found it extremely difficult to make it on her own. Child support from Aaron was hit and miss. Christine was only able to work evening shifts once a friend of hers could watch the boys. Money was extremely tight. One year, Christine had even been forced to swallow her pride and go on food stamps. But most of the time, the Franko family – minus a patriarch – was able to scrape by, but only just.
Once the kids were both in school, Christine was able to work full time. At the same time, she went back to school to take several business administration courses. Eventually, her perseverance landed her a better paying job as an administrative assistant at a marketing firm downtown. After several years, she had worked her way up to the position of office manager. It was a role that got her a better salary and some much-needed benefits that included several weeks of paid vacation each year and health benefits. Those health benefits were critical with two growing boys at home who had a propensity for sports injuries or hurting themselves when playing around the house.
Christine had never remarried. It wasn’t that she wasn’t looking, but with the frantic pace of her life, and the quality of man that she was looking for to help raise her boys, she just hadn’t found the right match. It was hard to find a man who could keep up with her. And searching for someone who was good enough, and who wanted to be a good dad to two boys that weren’t his own, didn’t make for the easiest of selection processes. Plus, most of her free time, which was already sparse to say the least, was spent with the Blenders, and all those men were already married.
But the main thing in Christine’s mind was that the boys had the Blender men to set good examples of what fathers should and could be.
CHAPTER 8
“So what’s the plan for Thanksgiving?” Manny asked the group currently lounging around the clubhouse. Most of the kids were in the living room playing video games while the parents socialized in the clubhouse portion of the Simpson home on a Friday evening.
“You even have to ask?” laughed Juan Mendoza. “We’ve been doing the same thing for years. You’d think you’d have it down by now. Although I guess you’re the most recent additions to the group, so we shouldn’t give you too much crap.”
“Well, yeah, but…well, I guess I just wanted to double check,” Manny said bashfully.
“Michael’s house is the only one with a big enough basement to fit us all for dinner anyway,” Victoria Hines took a carrot stick from a tray set on the clubhouse bar and dipped it into a bowl of ranch dressing before taking a bite. “Even if we wanted to have it at someone else’s house, we couldn’t, since all the Blenders wouldn’t fit at the same time,” she said between bites.
“Back in the day, it would have been fine,” Ms. Mary offered with a smile. “But now that all you youngins have sprouted little ones of your own, there’s no way in heck we could manage.”
“So who’s bringing what?” Josh Justak asked.
“We’ll put the sign-up sheet here in the clubhouse. Just add how many people are coming and what side you’ll bring. Caroline and I will make the turkeys and dressing,” Michael Trove said. “You guys think three turkeys will be enough this year?”
Answers to the affirmative issued from those lounging around the clubhouse.
“Probably more than enough based on last year’s leftovers,” Julia Justak said.
“No kidding,” Josh agreed. “We were eating turkey dinner for another three nights…not that I’m complaining.”
“Okay, so where pretty much set then,” Michael nodded. “We do the turkeys and the drinks, you guys bring the sides. We’ll provide the space as usual, and we’re good to go, right?”
There were more nods and mumbles of confirmation from around the clubhouse.
“Do you think we should load up on some extras since there are probably going to be some pretty good deals at the grocery stores for the holiday season?” Christine Franko asked as she dunked a stalk of celery into her happy hour Bloody Mary.
“Don’t buy any extra turkeys,” Suzana Mendoza groaned. “By the end of Thanksgiving, I’m usually so sick of eating turkey that I don’t want to see it again until next year.”
“It’s like when you drink too much when you’re young,” Margaret Simpson laughed. “I still have an aversion to tequila because of a prior bad experience.”
“I was thinking more along the lines of buying extra canned goods, maybe some gravy, hams, pork roasts, that sort of stuff,” Christine said. “And they also usually have good deals on potatoes, stuffing, rolls, pumpkin pie mix, whipped cream…those sorts of things. And a lot of that stuff will keep for decent periods of time if properly stored.”
“It’ll probably still be a week or two before the really good deals start to hit the stores, but I definitely think it’s a good idea,
” nodded Caroline Trove. “Our supply stocks in Ms. Mary’s garage have been growing nicely. Pretty soon, I think we’ll be able to start doling out some of the stuff we bought when we first began our grocery club.”
Fourteen-year-old Andrew Franko had come into the clubhouse to get himself a cookie and a soda.
“Don’t load up on junk food,” his mother chided him. “We’ll be eating dinner soon.”
“I know, I know,” Andrew answered as many typical 14-year-olds might. “Ugh! Look at that!” he pointed at the clubhouse television in what his mother figured was an effort to change subjects.
The television was currently muted, but the picture on the screen and its associated caption was enough to grab the attention of most of those inside the room.
There was a stock photo of a zombie followed by the caption: “Walking Dead Strike Chicago?”
“Wait,” said Andrew. “Somebody turn it up. I want to hear this.”
Josh, who was near the bar, grabbed the remote and mashed the volume button so that Andrew could hear.
By the time the volume was up enough, the related story had already begun. A news reporter was outside the emergency room entrance of an area hospital, talking into the camera:
“The victim is Todd Wilson, a local man from Buffalo Grove. He said that he was walking down the street when he was confronted by a stranger. He thought the man was simply asking for directions. Instead, the unknown assailant attacked Mr. Wilson, biting his hand. Wilson told doctors that at first he didn’t think the bite would require medical attention. However, after inspecting the wound, Wilson was surprised by the severity of the injury. He said, and I quote, ‘It looked like I’d been bitten by a wolf or a piranha or something…something with very sharp teeth’.”
At the emergency room, Mr. Wilson was first treated for the bite, receiving stitches for the wound. But Mr. Wilson soon began complaining of nausea, chills, and other flu-like symptoms. While treating Mr. Wilson, doctors noticed him displaying some unusual characteristics not commonly associated with the flu. Although the hospital refused to divulge the exact nature of these characteristics due to patient privacy, they were able to inform us that they were certainly not symptoms they’d ever seen associated with the average flu.
The Last Bastion (Book 1): The Last Bastion Page 7