The Bikini Car Wash Read Online Free PDF

now.”
    “No.”
    Pete’s answer was not loud, or angry or even emphatic. It was matter-of-fact. It was his store. He made the decisions. And every time he talked to his father, he had to reinforce that fact.
    The two men stared at each other across the width of the fancy mahogany desk. The passing of the Guthrie family torch had not been an easy one. Any success that Pete managed was hardly noted. And if up for discussion was usually noticed and discounted as pure luck. Setbacks, however, were placed squarely at Pete’s door. No mitigating factors like an economic downturn, erosion of the local market base or increased pressure from national competitors were allowed as excuses. Hank took a strange pleasure that wasalmost delight in the problems his son faced. It wasn’t that he wanted Pete to fail, but he certainly didn’t want him to be too successful. Hank needed to be the “star” of the Guthrie Foods family, even if only in his own mind.
    “So, how’s Mom?” Pete asked, finally breaking the silence.
    Hank leaned back in his chair, feeling more relaxed knowing Pete had been forced to speak first.
    “Oh, you know your mother,” Hank said. “She’s just back from somewhere, headed somewhere else. I think she was in Mexico and now she’s off to Japan.”
    Pete raised an eyebrow. “Actually she was in Peru and she’s going on a five-week tour of China.”
    Hank shrugged. “Well, whatever. If you want her to stay home, you’ll have to come up with some grandchildren. That’s about the only thing I can think of that might keep her in town.”
    “She loves to travel,” Pete said. “I think she should do that as long as she enjoys it. She spent a lot of years being the good company wife. This is her retirement, too.”
    “Retirement?” Hank offered a disdainful guffaw. “That woman never put in an honest day’s work in her life. She lived off her old man, then she lived off me. What’s she got to retire from?”
    Pete didn’t answer. It wasn’t worth it to tell his father what he thought. He thought that if his mother had any sense at all she should “retire” from being Hank Guthrie’s wife. She had certainly put up with enough already.
    Instead, he said more congenially, “You know, she needs to get away from this town sometimes.”
    Hank shrugged. “It’s all right by me,” his father said. “ButI do get tired of eating at the country club. Where do you eat dinner?”
    “At my house, in my kitchen,” Pete replied.
    Hank shook his head. “There’s something wrong with that. I know you’re gun-shy on marriage after your last fiasco, but couldn’t you at least get some live-in girlfriend to cook and clean up.”
    “I can cook and clean up by myself,” Pete told him.
    “I suppose you can have sex by yourself, too,” Hank said. “Though in my day they said that would make you go blind.” The older man chuckled at his own joke.
    After only the smallest hesitation, Pete’s face broke into a wide grin. “Dad, you’re the one who’s complaining about the light downstairs,” he pointed out.
    Hank didn’t enjoy having the joke turned on him. Within a couple of minutes he made an excuse to leave, without even bothering to find out why Pete had invited him down to the store.
    Hank was in the doorway when Pete got around to his question.
    “I want you to represent Guthrie’s in the charity golf tournament,” he said.
    His father’s brow furrowed. “Well, I’m playing, of course,” he said. “But my intention was to represent myself as alderman.”
    “Could you wear a Guthrie’s shirt and hand in my check?”
    “You need to be out there yourself,” Hank said. “You are Guthrie Foods now and it doesn’t do the business any good for you to hide in here in the store.”
    “I’m not hiding, Dad. I’m working.”
    “Let Doris do that,” Hank said. “People need to see you out in the community. They need to see you taking leisure time. That’s the only way they’ll think