“I know what’s going on here. You two are still upset about the election. First you haul Hugh’s kid off to jail on a trumped-up charge. Now this crap about operator certificates? Face it, boys, you backed the wrong horse. Adkinson lost. Sinclair won. Get over it.”
Ceepak simply smiles.
“Hire a certified operator, Bob.”
“We will.”
“Then it’s all good.”
And this time when we turn to leave, we turn and leave.
All the other rides we inspect during the week pass, even the ones owned by Sinclair Enterprises.
His other operators all know their height requirements and weight limitations. “Two fatties and one dude with a big butt” is never the correct answer.
After work on Friday, Ceepak invites me to join him at his mother’s condo for dinner.
“If you have no other plans this evening.”
I don’t. So I do.
Ceepak’s wife, Rita, is working the Friday night dinner rush at Morgan’s Surf and Turf, so it’ll just be Ceepak, Adele, and me.
Mrs. Ceepak lives in an Active Adult Retirement Community called The Oceanaire. You have to check in at the gatehouse and be announced before the guards will even let you drive along the winding road that snakes around The Oceanaire’s clubhouse and meanders through its manicured landscape of 25 semi-identical cape-style homes.
Mrs. Ceepak is waiting for us on the front porch of her unit. It’s brand-new; neat and tidy.
“You like spaghetti and meatballs, Daniel?” she says when we climb out of my Jeep.
“Yes, ma’am,” I say.
“Good. I know John does. Come on in. Let’s eat. And then you boys need to help me find a good lawyer.”
“Why exactly do you need a lawyer, mother?” Ceepak asks as we pass around the wooden salad bowl that has its own wooden salad-tossing forks.
I wonder if I’ll ever own the kind of stuff Mrs. Ceepak has in her snug and cozy little home. Silverware that actually matches. Serving bowls. Drinking glasses that aren’t movie souvenirs from Burger King. A framed needlepoint sampler and Princess Diana plates hanging on the walls.
Do you get the complete home starter kit when you finally decide to grow up and settle down? Or do you just collect stuff along the way?
“The lawyer’s not for me, John,” says Mrs. Ceepak as she passes the breadbasket, which is actually a basket lined with a checkered cloth to keep the bread warm. “It’s for a friend of mine’s caregiver. A gentleman named Arnold Rosen.”
“The one who lives on Beach Lane?”