Pound Foolish (Windy City Neighbors Book 4)

by Dave Jackson

  She turned to face him. “You what?”

  “I said, if he has work for you to do, he could drop it by the house, and you could do it here.”

  “Greg! That would . . . that would cut out all kinds of projects I might do. I mean, even last week, I was just working on contracts, but I had to use the firm’s contract templates and database and look things up in their files—all kinds of things I couldn’t do from home.”

  “Well, he said he’d see what he could do.”

  Nicole was livid. Turning her back, she scrubbed harder on the already-clean pan in the sink. All it needed was rinsing, but the water ran cold. Where did Greg get off micromanaging her life? She didn’t trust herself to speak for several moments. When she finally found her voice, she kept her back turned. “Yeah, I’d appreciate it if you put the kids to bed—and I can’t get any hot water again. I wish you’d fix that blasted water heater once and for all!”

  Throwing the scrub brush into the sink, she left the room and slipped out the front door. The neighborhood was dark, but she needed a walk—a long walk.

  Chapter 26

  When Harry Bentley called on Tuesday to see if Greg wanted to go to Bible study that evening, Greg said yes. It’d be a way to casually check on how Ben Garfield was doing selling SlowBurn. And he needed to talk to the guy who was a coach or something. What was his name? Dennis, no Denny—Denny something. Oh, yeah, his son was Josh Baxter. Yes, he needed to talk to Denny Baxter because he still believed that young people, especially young athletes, were a goldmine market . . . if only he could convince Destin of that fact.

  He also was eager to get out of the house for the evening. Sunday’s calm had only come before “the great summer freeze.” Nicole hadn’t said one word to him since Sunday evening that wasn’t absolutely necessary. Seemed like they couldn’t talk about Lincoln Paddock without her getting touchy, which confirmed his suspicions of that guy. And now he had a business connection with him.

  At the Bible study, the same guys who’d been there the first time Greg attended— and showed up to help carry stuff out of the Molanders’ basement—gathered again at Peter Douglass’s, as well as one other man—fifty-something, short and stocky, gray around the temples. Harry introduced him. “Greg, this is Pastor Joe Cobbs. Sometimes he can’t make it because of his responsibilities at SouledOut Community Church over in the Howard Street shopping center. But we like having him whenever he can drop by.”

  Greg’s eyebrows went up as he shook the man’s hand. “There’s a church in that shopping center by the Howard ‘L’ station?”

  “Sure is, southeast corner. Though you’re not the first person to miss it.” The pastor turned and spoke across the room. “Say, Deacon Douglass, do you think we could come up with some better signage for SouledOut? This young man has never noticed the church.”

  Douglass chuckled. “I’m sure we could do something, Pastor. I’ll look into it. All right, brothers, let’s take our seats and get into the Word.”

  Greg glanced around as the men sat down, Bibles in hand. He felt stupid. He’d been so eager to get out of the house that he’d come to a Bible study without his Bible. He glanced at Harry Bentley and gratefully realized he wasn’t alone. Harry didn’t have one either. “Excuse me, Peter, do you have extra Bibles? Harry and I forgot ours.”

  “Oh, no. I’m good.” Harry whipped out his cell phone and held it up. “I got mine right here. Estelle thinks I’m a pagan for reading the Bible on my iPhone, but I just tell her, it goes with me everywhere with over a dozen translations. Can’t beat that. I can search out anything a lot easier than in my paper Bible.”

  The guys laughed as Peter pulled a Bible from the bookshelf behind his chair and passed it across to Greg. “I think we’re in Second Corinthians chapter six this evening. Sound right to everyone?” There were quiet murmurs of agreement. “Josh, since you were the last one to arrive, would you open us up with prayer?”

  As the young Josh Baxter prayed, Greg began to feel an unusual peace. No one had even blinked at him forgetting his Bible, and Baxter’s prayer was simple, just asking that God would be with the guys who couldn’t make it and open the hearts of each of them who had. “Amen.”

  Man, these guys were so down-to-earth. Greg remembered Harry Bentley saying, “We’re just a group of guys seeking the truth in God’s Word, tryin’ to get it right.”

  What could be more basic than that? Greg recalled reading somewhere in the Bible about the Bereans, who were commended because when the apostle Paul taught them something new, they checked it out in the Scriptures to see if it was true. Greg had already spent an evening with these guys batting around a passage from the Bible, and he’d worked with them dragging soggy boxes and damp rugs out of the Molanders’ basement. They were just regular guys, and that made him feel comfortable . . . somehow different than the high-powered expectations of the Victorious Living Center.

  Peter Douglass asked for a volunteer to start their reading. Carl Hickman laughed self-consciously. “Ya’ll know I don’t read so well, but if you’ll hang in there with me, I’ll kick it off.” Greg was only half listening until Carl got down to verse four:

  “. . . as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.”

  “Okay,” Peter Douglass broke in. “Let’s stop right there and see what God has for us in this passage.”

  “Ha, ha, ha. One thing I know,” barked Ben Garfield. “God’s got a big surprise waitin’ for some of them TV preachers.”

  “And good news for us too,” Josh added.

  Harry frowned. “What are you guys getting’ at?”

  Ben snorted. “Huh. Those TV preachers are always sayin’ God wants you to get rich quick—usually if you send them a big fat check first. It stinks, I tell ya.”

  Most of the men laughed. Greg squirmed. He had to admit, Pastor Hanson usually said something about proving your faith through giving more. But was that what he really meant?

  “Oh, yeah,” Ben grumbled. “Everything’s suppose’ta work out fine if I believe hard enough. Rich I’m gonna get, troubles won’t find me, and health problems are what the other guy’ll have. But,” Ben pointed to his silvery hair, “see this? I’ve lived long enough to know life’s not like that. And I’ve never heard one of ’em preach on a passage like this. What was wrong with the apostle Paul’s faith that all this suffering came on him if it’s God’s will for everyone’s life to be easy peasy?”

  The room was silent for a few moments. “And I’ll tell you another thing.” Ben wagged a finger in the air. “Man is born to die, and death doesn’t knock on the door. It’ll come to every one of them preachers.”

  “Unless Jesus comes back first,” Josh added.

  “Right. Unless Jesus comes back first. But from what I’ve seen, death usually ain’t pretty or easy. Even Jesus died . . . in pain, and from what you guys tell me, he had perfect faith.”

  Silence again replaced Ben Garfield’s gravelly voice as Greg waited for someone to challenge the old guy.

  Finally, Peter prompted, “So, what’s the good news for us you see in this passage, Josh?”

  “Well, not everything in the passage is negative. Paul was just rehearsing what he’d been through. In addition to getting beaten, thrown in prison, going hungry, and living in poverty . . .” Josh looked down at his Bible and traced the words with his finger. “. . . Paul points out that he received purity, understanding, patience, kindness, and
sincere love. He had the power of God and weapons of righteousness, and sometimes he experienced glory and good reports so that he lived on, was able to rejoice, made many rich—though I’m not sure he’s talking about money-rich—and possessed everything.”

  Josh’s father nodded. “All right now. I see that.”

  “And I see something more,” added Pastor Cobbs. “Back in verse two Paul quoted God as saying, ‘In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you.’ Through everything Paul experienced—both good and bad—God was always with him, always helped him. That promise echoes again and again throughout the whole Bible. To the patriarchs, God promised, ‘I’ll never leave you or forsake you.’ And Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit, who would be with us forever. Before he returned to heaven, Jesus said, ‘Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.’ It’s the most important promise in the Bible, because it helps us through the hard times as well as the easy times.”

  “Yeah, yeah” . . . “Amen” . . . “Ain’t that the truth,” several men murmured.

  Greg stared at the Bible in his hand, trying to sort it all out.

  “You guys probably heard this before,” Harry said, “but I had to learn that lesson the hard way. You remember when I lost the sight in my left eye and how scared I was that I might end up blind in both eyes? Well, when I was goin’ through that, I thought there was nothin’ more important to me than gettin’ my sight back. I prayed for a miracle, I believed for a miracle. I’m sure I felt as desperate as Paul when he was beaten and left for dead.”

  “All right, now,” put in Carl. “You were goin’ through it. No doubt about it.”

  “Oh, believe me, brother, I wanted a miracle in the worst way. I would’ve gladly mortgaged my future to put ten grand in the pocket of one of those TV preachers if he could’ve slapped me upside my head and healed my eye. I was that desperate, don’tcha know—’

  “Now you’re preachin’!” interjected Carl.

  Harry sighed and quieted himself. “But it didn’t happen that way. In fact, every time I went to the doctor, somethin’ else was wrong, and it seemed like I needed another operation.”

  Greg looked hard at Harry’s left eye. Could he see out of it now? Seemed like he could.

  “I got to the point,” Bentley continued, “where I began doubting God’s very existence because he wasn’t doing for me what I’d asked him to do. And that thought exploded in me like a bomb! If God wasn’t there, then nothin’ in life had any meaning. Suddenly, somethin’ became a lot more important to me than being able to see. Was God real? Did he really care? Recovering of my eyesight seemed like nothin’ compared to me needing to be aware of Jesus’ presence. Was he really with me, or not? I had to know!”

  Greg nodded. Sometimes lately he’d started to wonder the same thing. Where was God in what he was trying to do?

  Harry chuckled. “And then my miracle happened. My eye wasn’t instantly healed. Oh, no, I had to go through several more procedures before I got my sight back. But when I realized how desperate I was to know that God was there, I realized he’d taught me something. He’d taught me that his presence was more important to me than my eyesight. That, brothers, proved God was with me.”

  “What?” Greg couldn’t contain his consternation. “How did that prove God exists?”

  “Oh, it was proof all right. Just think about it: A nonexistent being can’t teach you anything. But the fact that he’d made the effort to teach me something proved not only that he existed, but it proved he was with me and cared about me.”

  The room again fell silent for several moments.

  Peter Douglass closed his Bible with a thump. “Well, I think we got our lesson for this evening from the Word, brothers. We’ve got a miracle-working God, but he’s God all by himself. We don’t tell him what to do. We don’t schedule his miracles. He has his own purposes and his own times, and he hasn’t promised us a rose garden. But he has promised to be with us through the good times and the bad. As that second verse in the chapter says . . .” He fumbled with the pages as he reopened his Bible. “Here it is. ‘In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you.’ ” He looked around at the men in his living room. “That’s a promise, brothers, so let’s gather up the prayer requests, lay them before the Lord, and call it a night.”

  On the ride home, Greg appreciated that Harry let him wrestle with his own thoughts. At some point he might need to talk, but first he had to sort out what his questions were.

  He suddenly snapped his fingers.

  Harry jumped. “What?”

  “Oh, nothin’. I needed to talk to Ben Garfield about something this evening and completely forgot. I’ll give him a call tomorrow.”

  Chapter 27

  Just because Greg objected to accepting any favors that might obligate them to Lincoln Paddock, Nicole had to take the ‘L’ all week downtown to the AON building. She saw Lincoln only a couple of times in the office. He smiled and gave a friendly wave as he hurried to some meeting while she did the jobs assigned to her from various attorneys. However, after she picked up her check Friday afternoon and headed for the elevator, she saw him coming from the other direction, briefcase in hand. They met at the elevator, and he pressed the down button with his free hand.

  “Hey there, beautiful, how’s it goin’?”

  “Good. Everything’s good.” Nicole blushed as the elevator dinged and they both stepped in, pivoted the obligatory 180 degrees, and waited until the doors enfolded them into the already full car.

  Lincoln leaned sideways. “You ever wonder why we all get on and face the same way, even if there’s nothing to look at but blank stainless steel doors? Why not turn toward one another”—which he did—“and have a meaningful conversation as we descend from the lofty heights of Watkins, Ellis, and Katz?”

  She laughed. “Probably because”—she paused, facing him with an impish smile on her face—“you can’t start a meaningful conversation with someone when you don’t know where the person intends to get off.”

  “Today you’re in luck. There’s plenty of time because I’m headed all the way down to the parking garage. You want a ride home?”

  The door opened on the forty-third floor, and six more people forced their way in, pressing Nicole and Lincoln into a close dance. “Or, uh, maybe this is why everyone faces the doors,” he said, rolling his eyes. “What if I’d been talking to Ms. Krenshaw? I wouldn’t be able to breathe.”

  Nicole stifled a laugh. Delores Krenshaw was the section manager—Nicole’s de facto boss this past week while Lincoln was busy in court and having meetings with clients. Delores was huge, smelled of cheap perfume, and had refused retirement over the last six years every time the firm offered it to her.

  “Seriously, can I give you a lift home? Your husband told me you could take the ‘L’ when I offered to arrange a car, but today’s hot, and . . . where do you get off, at Jarvis? That’s gotta be over a mile walk from home, right?”

  “Yes, about that, but it’s okay.”

  “No, today you’re going to ride home with me.”

  They filled their rush-hour ride up Lakeshore Drive with work-related chitchat. Had HR put her on staff yet? No, she was hoping to mostly work at home as her husband had requested . . . did he think that was possible? No problem, he’d meant to speak to HR about it but had forgotten. Sorry. He’d be sure to take care of it Tuesday, right after the holiday. Were they going to take the kids to the fireworks Saturday night? No, she said, probably Sunday night, the actual Fourth. They usually went up to Evanston where the crowds weren’t so bad.

  Lincoln was so easy to talk to. She felt none of the tension that always seemed to develop with Greg. Before she knew it, the smooth-riding Town Car pulled to a stop in front of her house. She studied the front window. Was Greg watching? She didn’t think so but jumped slightly and turned when Lincoln touched her on the arm.

  “I just want you to know,” he said, his
hand still on her arm, “how much I appreciate you, Nikki. Even if Ms. Krenshaw’s telling you what to do, you’re really working for me, and that means a lot.”

  Nicole felt goose bumps rising on her arm and for some strange reason, her eyes began watering. “Thanks. It’s been good for me too.” She opened the door and started to step out, determined to escape before her voice failed her.

  “Oh, Nikki, one more thing. I actually have a project right now you could do from home. It’s in my briefcase.” He reached into the backseat for his briefcase and rifled through it. “Oh, no. I only have part of it here. But tell you what, I can log into the office server from home and get the database to go with this.” He handed her a thick folder. “I’ll copy it onto a thumb drive and bring it down to you. That okay?”

  Nicole glanced at the house, thinking of Greg’s discomfort with Lincoln. She held up her hand, rejecting the folder. “Why don’t you just call me when the whole thing’s ready? I’ll come up to your place to pick it up. It’d be easier for you to show me what you want me to do without the kids underfoot. Okay?”

  “No problem. I’ll give you a call.”

  She closed the door and watched the Town Car cruise quietly up the street to the cul-de-sac. Did she really need to be away from the kids to get instructions for the project . . . or had there been another reason she suggested going to his house? Heading up the walk toward her own front door, she relived the tingle of Lincoln’s touch on her arm.

  * * * *

  “Arlo,” Greg said, “can you hold on a minute? I’ve got a bunch of noise here.”

  “No problem, mon,” Arlo said, like he’d just come back from Jamaica.