Pound Foolish (Windy City Neighbors Book 4)

by Dave Jackson

  But it wasn’t like he could call and ask. His face flushed as he remembered Jared Jasper’s finger in his face, practically accusing him of getting his boys shot for trying to sell SlowBurn on that rough corner.

  Jasper’s last words flashed through his mind. “My kid used his college money to buy that junk from you. The least you could do is buy it back, ya know!”

  Greg swallowed. That was exactly what he needed to do. And if he was going to “clean house,” Jared and Destin were a couple of people he needed to speak to. He headed for the side door. No time like the present. Better do it before he talked himself out of it.

  As he came around the side of the house to the front walk, he noticed the Jaspers’ white minivan pulling into a parking space in front of their house, probably returning the family from church. He headed up the street. “Hey Jared,” he called, just as his neighbor started up his steps. “You got a minute? You too, Destin.”

  Destin, who was navigating the walk on his crutches, swiveled to look at him. Jared paused on the steps and looked up at his wife who was entering the house. She glanced back at him and shook her head as if in warning.

  Greg approached, but stopped a few feet from father and son. “I . . . I owe you both an apology for having pressured you to sell more of that SlowBurn, Destin. That wasn’t right. In fact, when you said you were using your college money to buy inventory, I should have stopped you right there.”

  Jared had come back down the steps and stood beside his son, his face unreadable. Destin shrugged. “That’s okay, Mr. Singer. I shouldn’t have done that without talking to my folks.”

  Greg wondered if Jared was going to tell him to bug off. “I had no idea where you’d be going to try and sell it, but I certainly was pushing you. So . . .” He swallowed. “I bear some of the responsibility for you getting shot, and I’m real sorry.”

  “Aw, no, Mr. Singer. I shoulda known that was a rough corner.”

  Jared finally spoke. “Appreciate what you’re saying, Singer.” The father laid a hand on his son’s shoulder. “Truth is, I should’ve been more on top of things myself. I’ve been too busy, but that’s changing.”

  Wasn’t what Greg had expected to hear. “Uh, still . . . about all that inventory you still have in my garage, Destin. I’m willing to buy it back. In reality, you’re not likely to sell it”—he waved a hand at the boy’s crutches and laughed nervously—“and it’s too much for any one person to drink.”

  “We’d appreciate that, Singer.” Jared extended his hand. “I’m sorry for going off on you the other day.”

  They shook hands. Destin untangled his hand from his crutch and shook Greg’s hand as well.

  Greg headed home with a lighter step. Couldn’t believe he’d offered to buy back Destin’s cases of SlowBurn when he still didn’t know if he’d gone in the hole big time at TopOps. Still, it was the right thing to do. He’d find a way to do it somehow. Seeking first the kingdom . . .

  He glanced across the street at the graystone two-flat where the Bentleys and Mrs. Krakowski lived. The old woman had given away the case of SlowBurn she’d taken so there wasn’t anything to buy back. But he should at least apologize to her for trying to drag her into his get-rich scheme the next time he saw her.

  Chapter 43

  Whatever made him agree to wait until nine o’clock on Monday to check his TopOps account? That’d be ten on the East Coast. But Greg guessed it didn’t matter. The whole weekend had been a lesson in patience. Waiting on the Lord . . .

  The doorbell rang at a quarter to nine. “Hope you don’t mind me being a little early,” Harry said when Greg opened the door. “Thought we oughta start with some prayer. And coffee. You got any?”

  Greg grinned wryly. “Just made a fresh pot.”

  “Good.”

  After Greg poured coffee—Harry took his black—they settled on either side of the kitchen nook table. “How you doin’?” Harry asked.

  “Pretty good. I’m feeling nervous, but I think I’ve gotten over the fear. Mostly just anxious to find out what’s next.” Greg paused for a moment. “You know, you were right about me needing to find a peaceful place with the Lord. I can already tell that knowing God’s gonna be with us, knowing he’s gonna see us through no matter what happens is more important than how things turn out with TopOps.”

  Harry nodded. “Yeah, I think that’s part of seeking first the kingdom. You wanna pray?”

  Greg felt a bit awkward praying aloud—almost like having to learn a new prayer language—but he thanked God for giving him a new focus, for revealing the presence of his Spirit, and bringing him peace. Harry then asked God’s blessing on Greg and his family no matter what happened with the money. The older man looked up after the amen. “Ready to go face the music?”

  “Yeah, let’s do it.”

  The computer seemed to take unusually long to boot up and connect to the Internet, but when they got to the TopOps site, Greg entered his ID and password, and then looked sideways at Harry before hitting the return key. “Here goes!”

  Harry nodded.

  Greg stared at the top of his account page. The balance showed $15,051.

  “What? How can that be? That’s what I had before my last bid!” He refreshed the page again just to make sure it wasn’t showing old information from his computer’s cache memory. Still said $15,051. Plus, the top of the page showed today’s date and time: 10:13 A.M., Eastern Daylight Time. It was a live page.

  Greg threw out his hands. “It’s all there! I don’t understand. According to this, I didn’t lose anything . . . didn’t win anything either. Nothing happened!” He turned to Harry, eyes wide and mouth agape. “I can’t believe it. You think . . . you think God saved me?”

  Harry chuckled. “Yeah, I think he did, Singer. I think he saved your butt.”

  “But how . . . wait, the connection must’ve broken an instant before I hit the ‘Start Bid’ button. But I sure thought I submitted it. I’m positive . . .”

  “I think the finger of God was a little faster than yours.”

  Greg blew out a long breath. “Incredible. That’s awesome.” His eye caught the notepad on which he’d been keeping detailed records of his bids. “Hey, I wonder . . .” He picked it up.

  “What’re you doing?”

  “I took notes on the exact time when I submitted every bid, even the one that crashed. See this graph on the screen? I can scroll it back to that exact time three days ago and see whether I would have won or lost—”

  “Wait a minute, Greg. Are you sure you want to do that? God saved you. Isn’t that enough? Don’t you think the information you’d find by looking back might be one of those ditches we talked about on either side of the path? If he saved you from a loss, you might be elated. But if you would’ve won, how you gonna feel then? You gonna think God cheated you? Either way, man, you might be chasing pennies.”

  Greg leaned back in his chair and studied the computer screen. Bentley had a point. He tapped his balance on the screen. “You’re right. This is a miracle. But it’s not the biggest miracle.”

  Harry raised an eyebrow.

  “I think . . . I think God did this to show me he hasn’t forsaken me, that he’s right here with me, taking care of us. That’s where I need to keep my focus—on the pounds, like you said. The important things.”

  Harry slapped his knee. “That’s what I’m sayin’, brother. God is good, all the time!”

  Awe held them in silence for several minutes, and then Harry said, “So you’re done with the bidding stuff, right?”

  “Oh yeah, no more of that for me. I’m through.”

  “But you did lose some money, didn’t you? How do you feel about that?”

  “I don’t know. Let me see.” Greg did some quick math on his notepad. “Looks like I lost about $3,600 to TopOps, plus I got charged a bank fee of $35 for going over on my credit card limit, and it cost me $30 to wire our home equity money to TopOps. Probably’ll cost the same to get it back. Altogether,
looks like I’m almost thirty-seven hundred bucks in the hole, plus I’ll be paying interest on that home equity money until I get it paid off.”

  “But at least you can put the fifteen grand back, right?”

  “Yeah. But . . .” Greg tossed his pencil. “I still feel terrible. Here I am out of a job, and I just blew a wad, a real wad, plus the weeks I’ve spent trying to make SlowBurn work.”

  Harry nodded. “Okay, that’s bad—but not nearly as bad as it might’ve been. Might take a while, but you can dig yourself out of thirty-seven hundred dollars of debt. Gotta admit, I’m not much of a money manager myself, but Peter Douglass is a pretty sharp businessman. I bet he’d be willing to help you and Nicole put a plan together, make a real budget.”

  “Ha, ha. I notice you included Nicole. Yeah, I’ll do that, and include her too.”

  “Of course, to make any plan work, you’ll need a job. Got any ideas?”

  “Nah. I scoured the Chicago area before I got into SlowBurn, even looked out of state. Didn’t find anything . . . wait a minute!” Greg felt like he’d just been slapped upside the head. How could he forget? “A guy I know at Potawatomi Watercraft called me a week ago. Said they had an opening up on the Chain o’ Lakes. I never called him back because the salary wasn’t what I was making at Powersports, and I was so high on the TopOps thing. But it wasn’t a bad offer.”

  Harry threw up his hands. “There you go! Let’s send up a prayer that the position’s still available—and then you make that call.”

  * * * *

  Nicole was so nervous about talking to Greg that she didn’t even bring the kids with her when she came back to the house to see him Monday afternoon. What was he so desperate to talk to her about? And what should she say to him?

  The scene in Lincoln Paddock’s limo office had been more than embarrassing. It left her feeling guilty, like maybe she needed to confess something to Greg. But that’d leave her in a weak position, more vulnerable that ever if Greg ended up bowling her over with some new scheme for getting rich. She couldn’t take any more of that, especially if meant him continuing to isolate himself in his own little world with no consideration for her and her needs.

  At least Lincoln cared about her.

  Or did he? She’d imagined his kindness meant he was attracted to her, but then he’d rejected her not-so-subtle advances, blaming it on his “moral standards” because she was married. Huh. What a claim for a playboy. It had to be her. She felt more insecure than ever. How had she ever let herself get to the point of even thinking about leaving her husband? It’s not what she believed. It’s not what she thought she’d ever do. But there she’d been, seriously on the brink!

  And it’d been Greg who nearly pushed her over the edge. Yet when he called the other night, he said he’d made some big mistakes. Well, that was new! And he’d said he was taking a break from Victorious Living Center. Perhaps there was some hope.

  Only the screen door was closed when she stepped onto the porch. This was her home, but after being gone for five days, she felt so much like a visitor that she almost pushed the doorbell.

  “Greg?” she called as she opened the screen door and stepped in.

  “Hey, hon, back here.” His voice came from the kitchen. She peeked into the living room before heading for the back of the house, surprised to see that the computer was off.

  He grinned at her as she came into the kitchen. “I made some iced tea. Want some?”

  “Sure. Is it sweet?”

  “A little. Just the way you like it, I think.” He handed her a frosty glass. “Uh, you mind if we go out back and sit in the lawn chairs under the tree? At least it’s not too hot today. Weatherman even said it might rain a little at some point.”

  Nicole followed her husband into the yard wondering what all his solicitude was about. Was he buttering her up for something? He had a notebook under his arm.

  Nicole sipped her tea as they sat in the shade, avoiding his eyes . . . though she could see him looking down at his hands, his tea forgotten, as though he was the one who was nervous. Finally he blew out a big breath. “I don’t know how to tell you this, Nikki, but I—I’ve made some pretty big mistakes lately . . . and the biggest one has been shutting you out of my life. I didn’t mean to, but I was feeling desperate after losing my job, and I bought into some wrong ideas about getting rich quick. I knew you were skeptical, so I started cutting you out and doing everything by myself. Wanted to show you I knew what I was doing. But . . . that led to some pretty big mistakes.”

  Nicole frowned. She knew SlowBurn hadn’t been making much money, otherwise Greg would’ve bragged about it more. Then the TopOps venture had come up recently, and he’d been so enthusiastic.

  She heard his voice get husky and glanced at him. With tears in his eyes, Greg explained that he’d drained their home equity line of credit, and had nearly lost it all.

  “What?” Nicole couldn’t believe her ears. “You drained our home equity line of credit? For that . . . that online gambling you’ve been doing?”

  She wanted to scream. She didn’t want to hear any more. No wonder he was confessing. He’d better confess! He’d ruined them!

  “Nicole, please listen . . .”

  It took her several moments after he explained how God had protected him from losing it all before the implications sank in. She finally found her voice. “So we didn’t lose it all, but you risked it all . . . is that what you’re telling me?”

  He nodded soberly. “Yes. That’s what I did, and if God hadn’t pulled my butt out of the fire, I’d be nothing but a burnt-out cinder right now.”

  Nicole buried her face in her hands, unable to trust herself to speak. She wanted to give full vent to the rage she felt toward Greg right then . . . but at the same time, she recognized God’s obvious mercy in the midst of his stupidity—to him, to her, to their family. Well, let God be merciful. I’ll give him the outrage and anger he deserves.

  But one little thing restrained her wrath. She deserved some wrath too.

  “I do have some good news,” Greg said, interrupting her imagined tirade. “I got a job offer.”

  She looked at him, rolling her eyes. Now what? Another crazy scheme?

  “No, no. It’s a real job with an actual salary.” Greg described the offer from Potawatomi Watercraft and how he’d just called back to confirm that it was still open. “I could begin tomorrow, but I told Roger I needed to talk it over with you first.”

  She raised an eyebrow at him.

  “I’m serious, Nicole. I—I’ve been talking to Harry Bentley across the street. He’s a real down-to-earth guy. He helped me see I’ve been making a mess by acting like the Lone Ranger. I was ignoring your discomfort with Pastor Hanson’s prosperity messages and didn’t include you in any of the decisions I was making. Harry told me how he and Estelle try to work together as a team. That’s . . . that’s what I want too.” Her husband reached out and touched her on the arm. “I need you, Nikki. I need your perspective. Probably wouldn’t be in this mess if I’d included you in in the first place. Guess I’m asking if you’ll forgive me and give me another chance.”

  Nicole hardly knew how to respond. Even though she knew Greg loved her and the kids, he’d always prided himself on being “head of the family,” basically making most decisions on his own.

  But what if he was serious? She asked some pointed questions, and he admitted he didn’t have many answers. “I know we need some help, Nikki. Financially and otherwise. Harry said there’s a guy in his men’s group who might be able to help us set up a budget so we can dig our way out of this debt. But I want us to do it together.”

  Together. Wasn’t that what she’d always wanted?

  A breeze ruffled the leaves of the tree over their heads as they started listing what they already knew were their fixed expenses and what Greg reasonably believed he could earn at Potawatomi, given the fact that part would be commission. “I was also thinking,” he added, “if that doesn’t cut it, maybe
you could go back to work—for a while, at least, if that’s something you’d want to do. You said there might be a more permanent position at Lincoln Paddock’s law firm.”

  Nicole suddenly felt slightly dizzy as Greg chattered on about realizing she might need a break from homeschooling, and maybe they could set up a plan with her mom or Tabby Jasper to watch the kids after school every day. “Guess I’ve been selfish expecting you to stay home full time when you’re trained as a paralegal,” he said.

  Finally, Nicole found her voice. “I—I don’t think working for Lincoln Paddock would be such a wise thing.”

  “You don’t? But I thought—”

  “Because . . .” How could she say it? It was almost too much. “Because you had some concerns about me working for him, and . . . and you weren’t completely off base.”

  Greg’s face suddenly clouded. “What? Did he hit on you?” He rose from his chair and stomped around for a moment. “I’m gonna rearrange that . . . that jerk’s face! I knew he was a cad.”

  Nicole held up her hand. “No, no. He’s not a cad. You don’t have to worry about him. In fact, he was the one who suggested that we not have any lunches alone, no rides in his limos.”

  Greg stopped and stared at her. “What do you mean? Has something happened already?”

  “Honey, please sit down.” Nicole had no idea how much to tell Greg. She didn’t want to destroy the miracle in their relationship that had been happening in the last hour—but would it be just as destructive to live with secrets? She sucked in a deep breath and let it out. “Greg, remember before we got married, when we talked to the pastor at my mom’s church?”

  He made a face. “You mean that one-shot counseling session?”

  “Yeah. He hardly even named the challenges we had to deal with in our first year of marriage. But he did ask one useful question. He asked whether either of us had been sexually involved with anyone else. He said we didn’t need to name names or share details but that neither of us should be surprised if something ever came up in the future.”