“It’s incredible to meet you, Jake,” he said. “I’ve listened to you all my life. I’ve known that you were part of our family—you know, in a way—but I never thought I’d get to actually be face to face with you.”
“I’m just an ordinary person like everyone else,” Jake assured him. “Laura too.”
“He does put his pants on two legs at a time though,” Laura said, getting a laugh from all assembled.
“You’re not supposed to tell people that,” Jake replied.
Jake then shook hands with Julie. She did not seem quite as awed to be in his presence as her husband, but she did seem intimidated to some degree. Jake eased her mind with a little humor. “I think you might want to make it clear to Laura that she does have to give the baby back at some point.”
“No way,” Laura said. “He’s mine now. Look at these chubby little legs!”
They ate dinner a few minutes later, all of them gathering around the dining room table. Sarah had prepared a pot roast, mashed potatoes and gravy, and a medley of roasted squash. There were fresh baked biscuits to go with everything. There was no wine to pair with the meal. Instead, everyone except the teens drank Budweiser from the can. Before they dug in, everyone bowed their heads and Grace said Grace, her voice hesitant and unsure, but she finally was able to spit it out. And then they ate. Jake found the food to be absolutely delicious. He had seconds of everything, including the Budweiser.
After eating, all of the females, including Laura, collected the plates and went into the kitchen to start cleaning up. None of the males made any move to help and when Jake asked if he could, he was given some strange looks and firmly told “no”.
“Okay then,” he said, nodding his head.
The men retreated back to the living room. Jake took his turn holding little Everett, who really was a cute and chubby baby. He had some experience with the procedure, as he’d done his time holding Tabby and Kelvin when they had been this age. For his part, Everett seemed to enjoy being in Jake’s arms and did not fuss.
After the women finished the cleanup, Joey asked Jake if he was up for a little smoke out in the backyard.
“Uh ... it depends on what you mean by that,” Jake replied.
“Cigars,” Joey said. “What did you think I was talking about?”
“I wasn’t sure,” Jake said. “Sure, I’ll have a smoke.” He turned to Laura. “How about you, hon?”
Again, the strange looks were cast upon him.
“Uh ... no,” Laura said. “I’ll sit this one out. You go hang out with the boys. I’ll stay in here with the girls.”
“Oh ... okay,” he said. Interesting.
He, Joey, and Brian put on their sweaters and walked out into the large back yard. There was a decent sized patio out here with an overhead cover. A large firepit was the centerpiece. The makings of a fire had already been laid out. Joey used a lighter to get the fire started and then they all sat down in chairs around it, cold Budweisers in their hands. Joey produced a package labeled Backwoods and pulled three small cigars out of it. He passed them around. Jake looked at his dubiously and then took a quick sniff. It smelled like a cigar—not like one of the Havanas that he habitually smoked, but a cigar, nonetheless. He took the lighter when it was passed to him and fired up. It wasn’t bad.
“I’ve got to ask you, Jake,” Brian said as they puffed away and drank their beer.
“What do you have to ask me?” Jake replied.
“Did you really snort cocaine out of a girl’s butt once?”
Joey just shook his head. Jake gave his standard answer to the question, the same he’d given Chastity earlier. Brian, like his sister, seemed disappointed.
They sat out there for more than an hour, drinking beer, smoking Backwoods cigars, and talking. Jake was surprised to find that he was actually enjoying the experience. Laura’s brother and nephew were good conversationalists and had interesting points of view on such things as politics and popular entertainment. Both were very conservative and saw things through that prism. They were of the opinion that Slick Willie was the worst president since Jimmy Carter and that his policies would bring about the ruination of the American way of life. They were of the opinion that coming off the gold standard back in the day was what had caused all of the nation’s financial problems. Jake did not agree with much of what they were saying, but they presented their points articulately and with some intelligence.
“Does anyone in the family play music?” Jake asked at one point.
“Well ... yeah,” said Joey. “Little Bit does.”
“I mean besides her,” Jake clarified.
“Not as far as I know,” Joey said.
“Interesting,” Jake said.
“How so?” asked Brian.
“Well, I’ve always kind of assumed there was a genetic component to musical talent,” he said.
“A genetic component?” Joey asked.
“That’s right,” Jake said. “You see, my parents were both musicians to some degree. My mom was a professional violinist and my dad plays a pretty mean guitar himself, though he gave up on doing it professionally when he got into law school. Both myself and my sister have natural musical abilities; me as a singer, songwriter, guitarist, and producer, Pauline as a singer. And my best friend, Nerdly, who played the piano with us during the Intemperance days, his mom was a professional pianist as well. And Matt Tisdale, the Intemperance guitarist, his dad used to play the oboe and was quite good at it. So, I kind of assumed that Laura’s natural ability as a sax player must have come from some of those genes.”
“Genes don’t have anything to do with it, Jake,” Joey said.
“Why do you say that?”
“Laura’s always just liked music, ever since she was a baby. And when she picked up the saxophone back in school, she took right to it as if she was made to blow the horn.”
“What are you suggesting then?” Jake asked.
“Talent like yours, like Laura’s is not genetic at all. It comes from God.”
“From ... God?”
“That’s right,” Joey said. “God gave her that talent for a reason: so it would shape her life for her and guide her on her path. And look what it did. Because she had that talent, she met you and fell in love with you, and you her. Without that talent, you two never would have met. What you’re dealing with here is God’s plan.”
Jake nodded thoughtfully. “An interesting point,” he had to admit.
Two days later, Ron Standish, the ramp worker from Pocatello Regional Airport, drove to a local Walgreens after work and picked up the prints of the pictures he had taken on his last roll of 35mm film. He took them home to his little apartment just west of downtown. While he heated up two Hot Pockets in his microwave and waited for them to cool down to something less than the temperature of the sun inside, he looked through the pictures.
Most were of aircraft that had flown into and out of the airport. Some of the shots were taken on the ground, a few taken of them landing or taking off. The second half, however, were the shots he had taken of Jake Kingsley’s Avanti and of Dallas and Jake and Jake’s wife, the local girl who had done well for herself. He had had duplicates made, as well as digital copies on a CD, so he sorted out the ones that would go to Dallas and set them aside. He then began to flip through again, paying particular attention to the ones with the Avanti in them. It was such an incredibly beautiful aircraft! And he had stood right next to it, close enough to touch!
He decided that the shots of the Avanti were just too good not to share. He put the hard copies of the prints back in the little envelope and took out the CD. He carried the CD over to his computer desk—Ron spent a lot of time on the computer—and put it inside the CD-ROM drive. While it spun up, he went and retrieved his Hot Pockets and a can of Pepsi. He carried the food and drink back to his desk and sat down. After taking a tentative bite of Hot Pocket number 1 and finding it was still up there near Venus temperature, he opened up his file manager and used it to navigate to the CD-ROM. He transferred copies of all the photos to his hard drive and then opened the photo editor to look at the digital versions. One by one, he admired the shots again. The ones with just the Avanti in them, he renamed using the word Avanti with 01, 02, etc. as the differentiator. And then, almost as an afterthought, he added the one with he, Jake, and Laura in it. He converted all the renamed shots to jpeg format and put them in a separate folder. He then opened up his email server and pulled up his contacts list.