Year 3 with Jane and Tony Pt. 02

"We're going to Chicago in March! It's still cold there so you'll need some heavier pants, shirts and a coat," I replied.

After we got Mary suitable attire for Chicago in March, we hit the grocery store. I told Mary to buy what she needed for this afternoons bar-b-que, tonight's dinner, our meals for tomorrow and breakfast on Tuesday. As we rode back to the house I called Judy and asked her to please book another seat back to Chicago for Mary.

We all had a lot of fun at our bar-b-que and enjoyed the music that the Hawaiians performed. But before we knew it, it was time to return to reality and fly back to Chicago. The night before we left, Amy and Kaholo asked to speak with Jane and I. Amy said, "I hope you don't mind, but I think I'm going to stay here. I love Kaholo and I want to be with him for the rest of my life."

Jane and I hugged the couple and then Jane said, "We have no problem at all. We both understand totally and wish you both nothing but the best wishes. At the latest, we will see you both again next spring! Feel free to use the pool and beach all you want. We will send your personal stuff back to you as soon as we get home."

Amy rode with us to the airport and we all had a tearful goodbye as we left our friend. The parting was especially tough for Jenny, who became very close to Amy as roommates. Jenny asked us, "When we get home, may I share your bed again? I have rarely slept alone. I always shared a bed with Elsie and now Amy. I don't like being in bed alone, so would it be okay?"

Before Jane and I could answer, Cindy said, "Sofia and I will share our beds with you if that would help."

"You would do that for me," Jenny asked?

"Of course we would," Sofia replied. "We love you Jenny and we only want you to be happy, just like Jane and Tony."

Our flight home was uneventful. Judy sat with Mary and explained our household in her clear and concise way. She said that she would take Mary to the store when necessary until we got a van for her. She also told her that if she needed anything to just ask her and she would take care of it.

We arrived at ORD around 5am and got to our house at 6:30am. Evan, Sofia, Cindy and Jenny schlepped their stuff to Barb's while Astrid, Axel, Jane, Judy, Mary and I went to our house. When we got inside we told Mary that we would arrange a room for her at Barb's until the other house was ready for Judy to move in. When everything was finally settled, we would let her have the room that Judy was currently occupying in the basement.

Jane, Judy and I went to the new house to check out the progress. As we entered, we were blown away by how nice the downstairs looked. A little while later, Emily joined us by saying, "I thought I heard you come home. I hope you had a nice vacation." She then hugged us all.

Jane said, "Emily, this looks wonderful! I think you missed your calling...you should have been an interior decorator!"

Emily blushed and then replied, "Thanks, but it wasn't all me. Barb and Jake had great ideas too." Emily then led us on a tour of the place. The kitchen looked great as did the living room/dining room. The living quarters for Judy and Emily looked wonderfully comfortable and their separate bathrooms looked very nice. The four guest rooms upstairs were incredible! Each room was decorated by the themes of earth, wind, fire and water. "Jake's crew had a radio playing 70's soul and an Earth, Wind and Fire song came on. I thought to myself, the band's name would make excellent themes, so I added water for the fourth room. I told Jake and Barb my idea and they thought it was great. They called a woman named Aggie and asked her to do the stylized drawings on the walls for the namesake rooms. I think her work is absolutely marvelous!"

The furniture in each of the rooms fit in with the themes very seamlessly. Jake managed two nicely sized bathrooms upstairs that would be shared by the guests using the rooms. Both of the bathrooms were modelled after Jane's and mine. Emily then took us into the room that would be their office. The room had nice space and was very comfortable looking. Judy said, "I love what you have done in here. It looks so comfortable, yet, so efficient."

"That young woman, Karen the computer girl, had Jake's crew run all sorts of special wiring in here which she said would enable your internet and network connections to operate at peak speeds," Emily said. "She said she needed Tony to go with her to buy the necessary hardware, she could then have us up and running in just a few hours!"

When we had finished, Jane said, "Well, when do you guys want to move in and who is going to take which room?" Judy didn't have a preference, so Emily took the room towards the back of the house. Jane then said, "Emily, we have added another person to the payroll. We asked a young woman we met in Hawaii to act as our chef, to relieve us from the need to fix meals all of the time. Her name is Mary Alcott and if you'll come to our house we will introduce you."

I wanted to see how progress was going with our subterranean walkway, so we left the new house via the back door. There was a huge trench that had been dug in a straight line between the backs of the three houses. A giant pipe had been placed from behind Barb's house to about halfway to ours. As we were looking at it, Jake and Barb came out to greet us. After numerous hugs and kisses, Jake explained the process.

"Once we get the pipe laid between all of the houses, we will then build stairways into each house and your new 'garage'. It will have its own heating and air-conditioning system as well as an energy efficient lighting system. It's going to be pretty cool. Once we get the pipe in and covered we will then begin work on the garage/gym. I had and architect work up a plan for you to see when you have a moment."

Jane and I were very impressed with what had been accomplished in such a short period of time. We went into our house and found Mary in the kitchen checking it out. We introduced her to everyone while I made coffee. The 7 of us sat in the kitchen to decide where to go from here. I told Emily and Judy, "We need to get Mary a credit card so that she can buy groceries and what not. I'll leave it with you guys to determine accountability. We need to buy Mary a vehicle as well for her to transport her purchases. I was thinking of something along the lines of a small Ford Transit van. You do have a driver's license, don't you?" Mary smiled and nodded. "We should set up a payroll system for the three of you. Also, Jake, once Judy moves in next door, I would like to expand the basement room here for Mary's use. It has always been a sort of catchall room, but I think it's going to be Mary's permanent residence and I would like it to be as comfortable as possible for her.

"I've been thinking that all three houses could have dinner here every night, though we do have to give Mary day's off. I know, we can each take a turn making dinner on Mary's day's off, that way we can all keep our hand in. Besides, everyone should be able to enjoy Emily's tagine every now and then!" Emily blushed slightly at the praise. "So, Mary...should we go buy you a car?"

"Wait," Mary blurted out! "You were serious?"

"Well, yeah," I replied. "You'll need something to haul groceries in. Come on, let's go!"

Mary and I got into my VW van, fired it up and headed for a large dealership that was nearby. We parked in the lot and then walked over to where there were about 30 transit vans. We looked at the stickers to see what options were on each van and, kind of, narrowed down our favorites. After a while, a salesman came our way and asked if he could help us. I said, "Yeah. We are interested in these little vans. We've checked out your collection and have decided we want to test this red one and that blue one, if we could."

The salesman came back with the keys and let us rest drive the blue one first. Since Mary was going to be the primary driver, I let her do the driving. We did, about, a 5-mile test drive through the city's streets. I told Mary she should pull into a parking lot so she could checkout the rearview camera for backing out. When we returned to the dealership, we hopped into the red one and did the same test ride. Upon our return, Mary and I checked out the back doors on both vehicles to see which one she preferred; outward swinging or a lift back. The winner turned out to be the lift back which was the red one. I then told the salesman the red one was our choice. As we walked into the showroom, the salesman asked about a trade-in (none), finance packages (none) and extended warranties (again, none).

I asked the salesman, "So, what kind of deal are you prepared to give me if I pay for it right now?" The salesman said he would have to speak with the sales manager. He left and was gone for 5 minutes, returned and said we can knock $1,000 off. I shook my head and said, "You won't have to mess with a trade-in, wrangling finance papers and can have your money today. If that's the best you can do, I'll just have to check with one of the other 20 Ford dealers in the Chicago area. I'm sure they would be willing to do a little better than that. Come on Mary, there's another dealer about 10 miles away."

As we stood to leave, panic struck the eyes of the salesman and he cried out, "Wait, let me get my manager to come talk to you. I'm sure we can work something out for you. In the end, we came to a suitable agreement. I wrote out a check and told them to call the bank manager regarding sufficient funds. Everyone was pleased and Mary drove her new van home. When we got home, everyone came out to admire her shiny new ride.

As the school year wore on we adapted to our new family members and they to us. Mary turned out to be a superb chef and because of that, it was a good thing we were building a mini gym onto our garage. Jenny and Sofia began training most of us in martial arts just for the exercise. Though we designated Mary's days off as Saturday's and Sunday's, she would usually pitch in and help whoever was the designated cook anyway. The best part was having everybody together for dinner every night. I enjoyed everyone's company immensely, so it was great to see everyone every day. Judy and Emily were doing exceptional work on our behalf, as well. Jane and I were able to concentrate on our studies without any distractions which made for a less stressful term.

Another great thing that happened was that Emily began dating Bob Malkus, our attorney. They made a wonderful couple. Bob had been widowed several years ago and had dived into his work to distract him from his sadness. When he and Emily began dating, he became a new man. Near the end of the school term, Bob asked Emily to marry her and she accepted. Sue was overjoyed for her Mom's good fortune and told her Mom she would like to help with the wedding planning.

We all managed to get through finals week and we were all confident we passed everything with flying colors. Sofia and Cindy asked if they could work for Jake again over the summer. His answer was a resounding yes as he thought they did great work the previous summer. Jenny needed to go home and be with her parents and her sister. Jane and I paid for a plane ticket for her and told her that when she and Elsie returned in the fall that we would pay for their tickets back, including her parents. We also told Sofia and Cindy to bring their parents down for the week before classes. We told them we would pay for their airfare and put them up in the new house. Shelly continued living at Barb's and working at the pizza restaurant.

Before everyone left, Emily and Bob had a small ceremony at City Hall and then we had a small reception for them at Barb's house. Emily was going to move into Bob's place and would commute to the new house to work.

Additionally, we paid for Astrid and Axel to fly home for the summer as well. They hadn't been home since the start of our second year and we knew they were feeling very homesick. We dropped them off at O'Hare and hugged and kissed them goodbye until September. As Jane and I were driving home, Jane got a text from Astrid saying she couldn't believe we bought them First Class tickets. Jane replied by saying only the best for our best friends!

That night our house seemed so empty with just Mary there. After a while Judy came over and asked, "Are you two feeling a little lonely? I've never heard this place be so quiet! So, what are your plans for the summer?"

Jane and I looked at each other and then we both laughed. Jane then replied, "We have no idea! We were so busy helping everyone else that we never planned anything for ourselves! What are you going to do, Judy?"

"The same as I always do," she replied, "I'm working with you two! I have a suggestion, how about a trip to Europe to check out the properties near Nice and at Lake Como? You should evaluate whether you want to keep them or not. You can spend some time in both places and see what you think. So, how does that sound for part of your summer?"

"That sounds really good," Jane replied. "Would you like to join us?"

Judy laughed and said, "I didn't suggest this for me to go. But, I can if you need me to."

"I think it would be for the best," Jane said. "I think we should finish up in Stockholm again and maybe spend some more time in Copenhagen and see if we can find Vigga! Is there anywhere you two would like to go?"

Judy said, "I'd like to see Arles where Van Gogh lived and worked and Avignon where the schism Papacy was. Oh, and Prague is supposed to be very nice."

"I'd like to go to Salzburg and Vienna where Mozart lived and Prague, as well," I said.

Jane got out our European Atlas to look at our choices. "Well, we can fly into Marseilles and go to Arles and Avignon, then Nice and hang out there for a while. We can then go to Lake Como and hang out there for a week or so and then up to Austria. Oh look, if we go north from Como to Germany we would be really close to Neuschwanstein, that cool castle! We then head east to Salzburg and then to Vienna. I think we should rent a car from Marseilles to Vienna so we can admire the Alps up close and stay in some small villages. What do you guys think?"

I said, "So far it sounds wonderful!" Judy nodded as well.

Jane continued, "Okay! From Vienna to Copenhagen I think the train would be best. Spend a few days in Prague, a day in Dresden, a couple of days in Berlin and then Copenhagen. Spend a few days there and then fly to Stockholm for a week or so and then home."

Judy said, "You know, just north of Copenhagen is Helsingør...better known as Elsinor..."

"You mean Hamlets castle," Jane cried out!

"The very same," Judy said. "I hear they sunbathe nude there as well!"