Stiffs and Swine Read Online Free PDF Page A

while none of the supper club members minded seeing their names in print, they didn’t enjoy seeing their current weight or body mass index listed in black and white.
    James pumped his arms and legs rapidly for a few moments and then answered Bennett’s question. “Murphy and I are doing fine, thanks.”
    “She comin’ to Hog Fest with you?”
    “No,” James replied quickly. “She’ll be busy covering a wine festival, some equestrian event, and a yodeling contest while we’re gone. No time for pork,” he joked and then realized that he was relieved that he would be spending time alone with his friends during their jaunt to Hudsonville. Guilt turned his feet leaden and he had trouble moving the elliptical forward. He pressed the red STOP button, waited for the machine’s momentum to ease to a crawl, and stepped down from the pedals.
    “Maybe I’ll take her out for barbecue this week, since she’s going to miss all the fun,” James told Bennett and then gathered his towel, water bottle, and book.
    “A woman who will tear meat off a rib bone and get sauce all over her face is a keeper. Now go on home so I can finish this chapter on seventies sitcoms,” Bennett said, wiping sweat from the dark brown skin of his brow.
    Driving home, James prayed that today was one of the days Milla had come to call on his father. If the Henrys were lucky, she wouldn’t have booked a cooking class or a catering gig and would be filling their kitchen with tantalizing aromas as pots boiled on the stovetop and dishes bubbled in the oven.
    When James saw her minivan parked alongside his father’s old pickup truck, he smiled in expectation.
    “Hello, James!” Milla trilled as he walked in the back door. The aroma of garlic immediately assaulted him—a favorable sign that Milla was fixing something scrumptious for dinner. The diminutive woman, who was in her midsixties but had the energy of a young girl, pushed back a clump of pale curls from her forehead and grinned at James.
    “You look like a hungry man,” she observed, and she removed a bottle of white wine from the fridge.
    James kissed her cheek in greeting and then peered under the lid of a large skillet on the stove’s back burner. “How’s Pop?” he asked.
    Milla frowned and shooed James away from the stove. “He’s neck-deep in paint. I swear, he’s gonna start sleepin’ in that shed pretty soon.”
    James sat at the kitchen table and ripped the heel off a loaf of crusty homemade bread. Without bothering to butter it, he popped the warm bread in his mouth as he watched Milla move about the kitchen. It struck him that she looked as though she had always been there, cooking for the Henry men, but it was James’s mother who had once filled the room with a similar air of warmth and vitality. James knew that Milla’s ease within his mother’s domain was no cause for sadness and that his mother would be pleased that such a kind-spirited person now cared for the two people she had loved most during her lifetime.
    As if sensing the direction of James’s thoughts, Milla turned from the stove and said, “Is this okay with you, James? Me being here and all but takin’ over this kitchen?”
    “It’s more than okay,” he replied, pouring out glasses of wine for them both. “You’re a blessing, Milla. To me and to Pop.”
    Milla blushed. “Oh thank you, dear.” She sipped her wine, her cheeks pink from her culinary exertions. “I sure do love comin’ here, but it’s gettin’ harder and harder to commute to Quincy’s Gap, take care of my Fix ’n Freeze clients, and make sure Prince Charles is gettin’ enough attention.”
    James paused for a moment and then remembered that Prince Charles was the name of Milla’s Corgi. “Pop still doesn’t want to drive to New Market? Even if it means seeing you?” James asked.
    “Lord, James. I’ve barely convinced him to run into town for groceries. That’s as much progress as I’ve made. He says he’s gotta