The Bikini Car Wash Read Free Page B

advantage of her crush on him, that he’d just never stopped.
    After graduation, the lovelorn young woman followed Hank to Plainview and he’d given her a job. The success of the grocery store chain in the 1970s and ’80s was due in large part to her hard work. Pete’s father had been appropriately grateful. But, it seemed, never inappropriately grateful.
    After an extended period of merry bachelorhood, his dad had married socially prominent Madeleine Grosvenor. And she had, in due course, provided Hank with his son and heir.
    All this, while Miss Kepper kept her nose to the grindstone and gazed longingly from the sidelines.
    Pete, at one time, had thought this was funny. Certainly his father found it very amusing. He’d been making jokes among his friends at the woman’s expense for years. Hank called Miss Kepper the Vestal Virgin of Guthrie Foods. He found it hilariously ludicrous that a woman would, for all intents and purposes, give up her own life and future to bask in the shadow of his personal glory.
    Back in high school, Pete and his buddies, in that inordinately cruel way young teens find so irresistible, had devisedtheir own unpleasant name for her. They’d called her “Miss Kepper-legs-closed.” In hindsight, Pete realized that part of his animosity toward the woman stemmed from a misplaced sense of loyalty to his mother. As well as a big misunderstanding of who uses who in relationships.
    Now, working with Miss Kepper on a daily basis, he’d come to like and admire her. And to feel sorry for her and guilty about her. Miss Kepper genuinely loved his father, without, as far as Pete knew, ever getting anything in return. And she treated Pete both with the respect of an esteemed employer and the inexhaustible protectiveness of a doting parent. For that, he could certainly put up with his father’s snide interference for a few hours once in a while. Hank’s infrequent trips to the store were now the only time that Miss Kepper ever saw him.
    Pete continued on down to the corner office. Inside, the perpendicular banks of windows gave him a perfect view of the corner of Grosvenor and Fifth Street. He had seen it so many times, he no longer even noticed it. Behind the desk were the portraits of the three other men who’d run this company, their names on little brass plates below their photos. Henry Peterson Guthrie stood in front of a tiny clapboard store wearing an apron and holding a broom. Henry Peterson Guthrie, Jr. sat for a formal photograph that made him look portly and presidential in wide lapeled pinstripes. Henry P. “Hank” Guthrie, III looked tall and tan in a Guthrie Foods golf shirt with a professional grade titanium club slung casually over his shoulder.
    Pete, otherwise known as Henry Peterson Guthrie, IV, didn’t wonder what his own photo might look like. He was inno mood to waste his time, energy or his cold hard cash having his portrait taken. When his dad had this job, the money came rolling in. These days every dollar had to be tracked down, hogtied and practically dragged through the door. And it was Pete’s responsibility to do most of the dragging.
    He crossed the room to the small compact refrigerator in the corner of the room. Opening it, he pulled out a bag of chocolate Mallomars from his stash inside. Pete ripped open the bag and set it on the desk before fishing out a cookie and stuffing it in his mouth. He closed his eyes for a moment, savoring the taste. Then, with a sigh, he pulled the cell phone out of his pocket and sat down at his desk to make the return call to the distributor.

Chapter 2
    ANDI’S BROW WAS covered with sweat, her T-shirt was smeared with grease and her hands now sported a number of minor burns as she sat the bubbling casserole in the middle of the kitchen table.
    She had never been much of a cook, but how could she be? Andi had been her father’s daughter. She’d spent all her after-school time helping him out at work. Jelly was the one who had stayed