The Inn

by D. R. Mather

  They walked down the stairs and out past the main entrance, then headed around the corner to the back of the house.

  “That’s quite a little pouch your developing there kid, I’ll bet you and Roland can’t wait for the big day.”

  It was strange how neither of them ever thought about the fact that the man who caused that bump was the same one who was talking about it. It was as if by some strange method, Kevin had handed it over to Roland and no one ever thought twice about it, not even Cindy.

  “Did I tell you yet that it’s twins?”

  Kevin slowed to a dead crawl and stopped talking. Something very painful hit him deep inside. It startled Cindy and she thought she had said something wrong.

  “Kevin, are you ok?”

  “Oh, ya, ya, okay, good as I can be. So you’re having twins, huh?”

  Cindy saw that it was still on his face, but read into it that she needed to forget it. “April is taking me down for an appointment with a local doctor I found. The doc said we can do an ultrasound. He figures I’m far enough along that we should be able to figure out the sex of the babies now.”

  Kevin knew in a flash what the ultrasound was going to tell Cindy but he didn’t want to ruin her surprise.

  “OH, and guess what? Marie is a registered MID-WIFE!” Cindy added.

  Kevin smiled at her. He knew. He’d known all along. That’s why he also paid for Marie to stay for another year. “That’s fantastic news Cindy, just great!”

  As they reached the back of the building, Cindy stopped and stared out over the pool area. “Oh wow, I had no idea this was even here!”

  “Will doesn’t tell a lot of guests from what I’m seeing,” said Kevin. As they walked around the pool, Cindy was commenting on the various things she was seeing. Kevin stopped her by taking her shoulders.

  “Cindy, if you want to talk to me all day, I’ll be more than thrilled to do that with you. However, I don’t think that’s what you wanted to talk about.”

  Cindy looked at Kevin and some inner sigh released. “You’re right, it’s just that I’ve always been kind of put off from telling other people about how I feel, but I feel I have to tell you about how I feel about what happened.”

  “You don’t have to if you don’t want to Cindy. You know that, right?”

  “Absolutely, I know that, I just wanted to thank you, and I didn’t know if I could ever find the right words to express it. I mean, you saved my life, you saved the babies lives and Roland’s as well. How do I thank someone for all of that?”

  “Cindy, you don’t have…”

  “No, I DO have to! Now you just stand there and take it like a big boy, okay?”

  “Okay kiddo,” Kevin laughed. “Fire away, I’ll be quiet until you cue me.”

  “Good, let me explain, before I met you, life just down right sucked. I wasn’t going anywhere. Not only that, but I wasn’t seeing a future of any type. Since that night that you came into the restaurant, everything about me has changed. Some obvious, some things not so much, some you can’t even see at all. I’m talking about the part of me in here.” Cindy pointed to her head. “All of this, you caused to fire up. I’m changed, I mean inside. I… you know… give a shit again. Because of you I was able to go back to school, which by the way, I’ve already signed up for the spring semester at the University of Colorado. Because of you I’m going to have two beautiful babies. Because of you, I met Roland, and because of you, Roland now has an associate professor position waiting in the spring at the same University. Something, I might add, he always dreamed about but never got the opportunity to fulfill. Because of you, we have a nice nest egg to get things started in the right direction. You’re the one who paid for us to live here for the next year. We didn’t do that, you did. Kevin, don’t you ever tell me I don’t have to thank you as I’ll be doing it my whole life; that’s something you’ll just have to live with. And all because you wanted a coffee and a cheeseburger. My whole existence has changed, and I just can’t find the words the tha…tha…” Cindy lost it. She started bawling and Kevin instantly grabbed her and held her tight.

  “Young lady, you just thanked me more than I ever deserved to be thanked, now no more tears okay? The words you said you couldn’t find, you found them; trust me, you found them.”

  Cindy leaned her head back even though they were still embracing and saw that Kevin’s eyes were watering. She pulled in tight again and laid her head sideways against him. She then giggled a little.

  “What?” Kevin asked.

  “Damn it, I told myself I was gonna keep my cool.”

  ”Honey, we both weren’t cool, and that WAS cool,” laughed Kevin. They stood and hugged for a minute more.

  ***

  Judy and Beth were at the back of the library, looking out of the window over the pool. Beth looked at Judy and asked, “What the hell is that all about?”

  “That Beth, I believe, is Cindy making amends with Kevin and thanking him for everything.” Judy turned away with a smile on her face. ’I believe when this is over, a whole lot of people will need to thank Kevin, a whole lot of people,’ she thought to herself.

  Stan was on the left side of the house, looking around the corner at Cindy and Kevin. He was pressed up tight against the stone building and Mark was right behind him, leaning over Stan’s left shoulder.

  “See Mark, what did I tell you?”

  Mark looked at Kevin and Cindy hugging by the pool.

  “Son of a bitch, you were right!”

  “Yeah, and I’ve already caught him kissing Beth and April.”

  “What? But April is going to be mine, as soon as I ask her, that is.”

  “It isn’t going to happen, pal. Kevin’s marking his claim on all of them. He already stole Judy from me, and it looks like he’s taking this one from her man as well.”

  “But you said April likes me, Stan?”

  “She did before that shithead came here,” Stan knew it was all lies, but he needed someone on his side. He saw fat pig Mark and knew he’d found his helper. Now it was just a matter of reeling in the fish with the right bait. Kevin and Cindy proved to be the right bait. Mark and Stan sank back around the corner and disappeared.

  ***

  Cindy was wiping the goop off her belly and talking to the doctor. April and Marie were standing alongside the bed because Cindy had asked if they could come in with her. It was a small doctor’s office and they weren’t into formalities anyway, so the doc gave the thumbs up to Cindy’s request.

  “OK, Doctor Banyan, what’s the verdict?”

  “Well, it’s definitely twins,” he turned and smiled at her.

  “Oh, very funny, I knew that much.”

  “What you have is a ‘one from’, meaning you have one from column A and one from column B.”

  Cindy actually squeaked. “REALLY?”

  “I’m afraid so Cindy, I hope that’s what you wanted to hear.”

  “Oh doc, that’s fantastic news. Roland will be so happy. I know I am!”

  April and Marie had joined her now and were discussing nutrition and things of that nature.

  “I take it Roland is your husband?” the doctor continued.

  “Not yet, but I’m hoping to change that soon. He wanted to be here, but his future career at the university needed him to come in for a bunch of paperwork. I’m going to get him after this.”

  “Well that’s great to know, I’m a family doctor and if I can get hooked up with all of you, maybe I can talk you into a long, happy stay in my care?”

  “Well doc, I won’t vouch for Roland, but you have me and the babies, that I can vouch for.”

  “Hey that’s great news! Now Marie, you and I can go over a schedule that we’ll use to get her through this, right?”

  “Is there a problem doc?”

  “Cindy, we have to be ready for anything. You’re carrying twins, that’s hard enough to deal with in the best of situations, but you’re up at the Colburn Inn and that’s a road located in th
e last area that gets plowed. I have your due date as February fifth. Up on that mountain you could be looking at snow most any third or fourth day in the winter. We are going to have to assume you’ll go into labor during or just after one of those storms comes though. If you can’t get to a hospital, then Marie is going to become both mid-wife and doctor.”

  “Don’t worry doc, I have a KEVIN!”

  “I see. What’s a Kevin?”

  They all chuckled.

  “Kevin is a ‘he’, not a ‘what’, and he’d never let anything happen to my babies.”

  “I see, sort of a ‘super’ Kevin then, is he?”

  “Doc, there isn’t any ‘sort of’ about it.”

  The doctor gave out a laugh “Weellll…let’s just get Marie ready in case ‘super Kevin’ is off saving a planet in some far distant galaxy, shall we?”

  Marie walked over to the doctor’s desk and they both broke out into some doctor language that Cindy couldn’t quite understand, so she and April chatted about nothing in particular.

  Roland was thrilled, to say the least. He had always wanted a boy and a girl. During the drive back, he asked Cindy if she had any names picked out yet.

  “Yes, I think I do, if you don’t mind?”

  “Honey, they are your babies for now, you get to name them anything you want.”

  She leaned over in the car and kissed Roland’s cheek. Then she sat back and said, “Tim and Anne.”

  “I like those names Cindy, Tim and Anne it is!”

  With that, they rode back to the Inn.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Kevin and Judy were in the front seat of his mustang; Alex was sitting in the back seat. Kevin drove silently because he didn’t have a clue about what the two of them were gabbing on about. It seemed his little fireball knew about computers. For Kevin, he got lost in the conversation shortly after Alex mentioned a laptop or a tower. Ever since that, Kevin couldn’t seem to get the Leaning tower of Pisa out of his head. He heard them talking but it made no sense to him. Something about a ram that was accessing their memory and Pee sees you and ICBMs?? Nope, not his area of expertise. However, he could have some fun, couldn’t he?

  “Careful there Alex, Judy doesn’t know the difference between Drano and bug spray.”

  Judy turned to him and lets out a “HEY,” then she smacked Kevin’s arm.

  Kevin turned to her, “You know, people who hit all the time end up working in a nursing home abusing the elderly and getting an exposé on the news shows about themselves. Do you really wanna be one of those people with their coat pulled up over their head while racing to their car with a team of reporters on their ass?”

  Judy caught on quick, “I’ll beat them all senseless if they don’t eat their pudding, damn it.” And so the rest of the trip became a laughing session.

  In the computer store, Judy wandered off saying something about getting a better hardened driver.

  Kevin looked at her and said, “What, don’t I drive hard enough?” She just walked off mumbling something about computer illiteracy and turned out of sight.

  He turned to Alex and he was in front of the laptop display.

  “Kevin, I think you should have a laptop. They are totally mobile and I’m thinking that might be more fitting for your needs.”

  “And why would you think that Alex?”

  “Dunno, I just do is all.”

  So they browsed over the selection and Kevin asked Alex a few general questions.

  “So Alex, this problem you had with your career, do you hold any animosity towards anyone for it?”

  “I can’t. It was my fault. I embezzled to cover my addiction, that wasn’t their fault, it was mine.”

  Kevin gave him an open question. “And if given the chance you’d…?”

  “I’d go to them on my hands and knees, beg their forgiveness; then hand them every penny I took,” Finished Alex.

  “I see, and does it give you nightmares?”

  “Funny you should ask, it used to, up until just after you came actually. Now I get very different dreams.”

  “Oh, and how is that Alex?”

  “I keep dreaming about you and Judy, and now Beth has been added to the dreams.”

  “Really? And what are these dreams about?”

  “Kevin, I’m not really sure. I know I feel fear, I can almost taste it, but I keep moving on, because I know I have a mission to do. However, I can’t tell what that mission is. Everything gets blurry then, like I’m not supposed to know yet. At least, that’s when I always wake up.”

  “Well Alex, I think I can shed a lot of light on it for you.”

  “Somehow I knew you could Kevin. I don’t know how I knew, I just did.”

  Kevin told Alex to get the best laptop he could see and once this was done, they both headed over to the register to pay for it. Kevin wasn’t done yet though, there was an ‘arm hitter’ who needed a bit of payback. He turned only enough to use the far side of his vision and caught sight of Judy near the end of an aisle, checking something out. Kevin leaned very close to Alex’s ear and whispered something. Then he whispered something to the cashier as well. A minute later, Judy came over and was about to come right up to them.

  “There’s my man!” she exclaimed.

  Alex whipped around and grabbed Judy around her mid-section.

  “JUDY MY BABY, I MISSED YOU SO MUCH!” He hugged her tightly and then kissed her on the lips.

  “GOD, get a room you two! We don’t allow that kind of behavior in here,” said the cashier.

  Alex let go and Judy stood there in shock.

  “WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!”

  Kevin, Alex, and the cashier all burst out laughing.

  Kevin turned to Judy, “Go on, hit a man on the arm while he’s driving and can’t defend himself.” He then walked off with Alex, both of them still snickering.

  “YOU’RE BOTH GOING TO PAY FOR THAT,” Judy yelled after them as she walked up to pay for her stuff. Now if only she could have gotten that stupid grin off her face they might have actually felt threatened.

  ***

  She jumped in the car and both of them were sitting there with stupid smirks on their faces.

  “YA, both of you laugh it up while you can, wait until I help Barb in the kitchen tonight, it won’t be so funny when you both spend tomorrow on the toilet from an EXLAX overdose.” Then she started laughing and they all joined in. She looked at Kevin and said, “Damn, I have to admit that one was good.” She stretched over and kissed him, hard and long.

  Alex decided that the dog in the next car required his undivided attention, and turned to look out the side window. On the way back, Alex made the mistake of asking Kevin what he did for excitement. Kevin was still in a joking mood.

  “I like to go down to the dog pound and pretend that I've found my dog. Then I tell them to kill it anyway because I already gave away all of its stuff. Dog people sure don't have a sense of humor."

  Both of them just stared at Kevin silently. Then it came – WHAP! – Yet another hit on the arm.

  “KEVIN, shame on you.”

  Kevin was snickering and Alex was outright laughing.

  “That’s it,” Kevin said, “I’m calling the reporters.”

  A bit farther down the road, Kevin suddenly pulled off to the shoulder of the road, put the gear in neutral, put on the break, got out and went over to Judy’s side. He opened the door and took her out, then got behind her and sat in her seat.

  “You drive, I’m sick of doing it all.”

  “But…but…I’ve never driven a standard honey.”

  She walked over anyway and got in. Kevin talked her through the basics and told her to just remember to touch the gas pedal VERY lightly. Kevin was smart; he had already pointed the front wheels back in the direction of the road. She did what he told her and puts the car in first while holding the clutch pedal down. She then released the clutch as she, ‘in her words’ lightly pushed the gas pedal. A few seconds later they were five or
six hundred feet down the road and stopped right in the center. Two very long black tire marks could be seen in the rear view mirror that covered the distance they had just traveled. Smoke was rolling out from under the rear tire wells of the mustang.

  “Hey, that’s great sweetheart, but I’ll teach you how to drag race later, for now let’s just do regular driving, okay? We don’t want Alex to poop his pants back there, you know?”

  Alex said one thing: “Too late.”

  Judy ignored Kevin and got a very stern look on her face, then started again. There were a few clutch hick-ups, and then they were off. The only thing Judy said for the rest of the way back was “CHRIST, what the hell have you got in this beast anyway?”

  Kevin only smiled. Later on, at different times, he would take her to empty parking lots and warehouse districts to get her good behind the wheel and not to just ‘drive’ the car. He wanted her to MASTER the car.

  As the three of them got back, Kevin decided he’d put the car away.

  “We don’t want to tempt fate, right honey?”

  Judy and Alex went inside and Kevin drove the car into the garage. As he got out, Mark popped up from the door and walked over.

  “Hey man, that thing sounds like a monster. Do you mind?”

  “Of course not Mark,” Kevin opened the hood. The area under the hood was just packed with engine.

  “Holy shit,” was all that came out of Mark’s mouth for a minute. He walked to the side window and looked in. He could see the red lever on the side of the shifter, and then walked back to Kevin.

  “A 1071 blower and supercharger. WOW.”

  “Yes indeed, you know your shit Mark.”

  “What’s it sitting on, is that a 429 BOSS hemi?”

  “You’re damn right it is, I’m surprised you can see the plugs with all the stuff on top.”

  “Oh I see them alright. Do you have any idea how rare that engine is now?”

  “I sure do Mark, I sure do.”

  “Did you dyno it?”

  “I sure did.”

  “What did it come out?”