Aggie's Broncs

CHAPTER 1

Why won’t you tell me where you are, Nickee? said Aggie into her cell phone. You know perfectly well I refuse to get involved in this battle over your marriage and your future, so won’t you please trust me? The phone tucked into the crook of her neck, Aggie brushed at the dirt she could feel on her face, merely managing to smudge garden soil into messy streaks.

Joan waved from the back gate. Quickly she tiptoed across the tidy rows of budding tomato plants to reach her mom before she hung up. If that’s Nicole on the phone, let me talk to her, Joan called. Why on earth did she abandon her child? What’s got into the girl?

With Joan failing to latch the gate, the old wood swung on rusty hinges, creaking and swaying and enticing the small boy playing nearby in the sandbox. Stevie tossed bucket and shovel aside to run on chubby legs through the gate to swiftly disappear.

Sweet Jesus, Joan! Aggie screamed, flinging trowel in one direction and cell phone in the other. Stevie will head straight for the busy street.

Omigod! Joan screamed. She whirled to chase her mom. On the sidewalk outside the tall old house that was once considered a mansion in Cheyenne’s heyday of eighteenth-century splendor, the two women stared up and down the block, alternately calling for Stevie and screaming their heads off. The frantic notes ringing in their voices could be heard throughout the once quiet neighborhood.

Here I am, Gwanny, little Stevie answered from between two cars parked at the curb. Are you mad at me?

Joan screeched and clasped her grandson to her bosom. Never never go in the street, Stevie. How many times have I told you that?

Lotsa times, Gwanny. I wasn’t going in the street. I was watching the ants.

Are you serious?

It looked to Aggie like her daughter was going to shake the child, rattle his teeth.

I’m vewy sewious, Gwanny. I’m weally vewy sewious.

Joan burst into tears while hugging the child to her bosom. Aggie stepped forward, patted first Joan and then Stevie. This was another scene Agatha had no intention of sharing with Nickee. The young mother had enough problems on her plate without hearing about their small trials and tribulations at home. Three generations of women, with one little boy making up the fourth, and all within the span of a mere forty-eight years. That’s what could happen when every single female in her family line gave birth while in her mid-teens. Good grief.

Nicole Jacquot Taylor had made Agatha a great-grandmother before Aggie turned fifty. Absurd. Now Aggie was fiftyish, Joan thirty-sixish, and Nicole barely in her twenties.

In the powder room off her sunny kitchen, everybody washed up, Aggie ridding her hands of garden soil, Stevie rinsing off sandbox sand, and Joan scrubbing gravel off skinned knees when she’d fallen to clutch her grandson. Now it was confession time.

In the kitchen, Agatha, or Aggie, which she preferred, busied herself over teapot, tea cozy, teacups, silver spoons, tea bags, and boiling water from a pot she’d left on the stove without remembering to turn off the heat. Thank goodness Nickee hadn’t revealed her location, Agatha concluded, or she’d have a devil of a time avoiding Joan’s prying.

Aggie comforted Stevie with milk and chocolate-chip cookies, which brought another burst of protests from Joan, who demanded that the child eat carrot sticks instead. Now tell me, mom. Where the devil did Nicole run off to? Why’d she leave her child?

With a quietness on her face and a calmness in her voice, Aggie forced herself to project nonchalance. What’s wrong with leaving Stevie with me, dear? You did the same thing, remember. I took care of Nickee while you buzzed about the country getting all those advanced degrees. I’ve forgotten, how many campuses were you at?

Oh, for heaven sakes, mom. Not ‘at.’ Don’t end a sentence with an ‘at,’ or with any other preposition. And you know perfectly well I got five degrees from five universities.

Joan, the Grammar Cop, the professor was called on her own campus, the University of Wyoming over the hill in Laramie. Aggie smiled. Yes, dear, I know.

I know your tactics. You’re stalling.

Aggie’s cell phone twittered like a robin. She noted it was Nickee again. Oh dear, if she revealed her granddaughter’s whereabouts, Joan would be sure to catch on and demand to be included in the information loop. Agatha spoke, then listened, discovering Nickee’s city of origin. Meanwhile, Joan gathered Stevie in her arms as if to protect her grandson from further desertion and abandonment.

Aggie passed the phone over to Stevie, telling him his mommy wanted to talk.

Hi, Mommy. Gwanny’s hugging me too tight. She thinks I’m not sewious.

Good grief, Joan muttered, an expression every single woman in the clan used whenever feeling stressed out. Gwanny wrested the phone from Stevie. Where the hell are you, Nicole, and when are you coming home to care for your son? Then Joan ceased sputtering to listen. She was more than ready to hear her daughter’s secrets.

A moment of listening and Joan, stunned, dropped the phone to clatter on the floor. Simultaneously, she released Stevie and he slid off her lap to fall splat beside the cell phone. He looked up at his grandmother with fascination written across his smooth young features.

Nicole just completed a ten-day course at the Missouri Auction School and wants the two of us to fly back there for the graduation ceremony, Joan said.

Us two, no more? Not her dad nor Granddad Jacquot? Nor Granddad Morissey? Your dad would side with Cowboy Billy, against you, said Aggie.

Right. But wait until I get back there. This time I’ll insist Nicole divorce Billy.

Next, Agatha called Randy. Semi-retired, her geologist husband continued to take petroleum consulting assignments around the planet for the big oil companies. Aggie sometimes caught up with Randolph Morissey at Heathrow between flights to and from Paris, Geneva, or Kazakhstan.

What’s up with Nicole? Randy bellered against the backdrop noise of the busy London airport. You find her?

Yes, dear.

Tell her to go visit her husband in jail. She should be prepared to stick by her man.

Yes, dear.

Agatha didn’t get a chance to tell Randy that she and Joan were headed back to Missouri for Nicole’s certificate-of-completion ceremony. He was in a rush, he said, and hung up on her. No matter. Aggie wasn’t asking his permission to make the trip, and she had no desire to get into a shouting match with him. Neither Randy nor Joan were likely to listen to each other, as they’d been singing the same song for over four years. From opposite sides of the fence, obviously. Joan wanted Nicole to get a divorce, return home and pick up her life; namely, the life the professor had planned for her daughter—enroll in college, get a degree followed by what she termed a decent career, take care of herself and Stevie and forget about marriage to a jerk.

Joan’s dad disagreed. As he had when Joan divorced Jack Jacquot. Marriage is forever, Randy insisted.

Well, fine, if you marry the right man the first time around, countered Joan.

Neither Joan nor Jack had ever remarried, though. Which led Randy and certain other family members to believe Nickee’s parents were still in love with each other, but too stubborn to admit it or to do anything about it.

Jack Jacquot still lived with his widowed dad up on their ranch out of Douglas, a large spread that made them a good living along with income from the sale barn, called a livestock auction market in the modern vernacular. Randy Morissey didn’t so much appreciate his granddaughter’s interest in ranching and auctioning off livestock as he understood the attraction. These businesses formed the framework of her father’s people’s trade, after all, so it was natural Nickee would want to spend time with the Jacquots. Besides, horses often appealed to young girls, and Nicole had been an expert rider since she was eight years old.

Better yet, Joan ought to get back together with Jack and then they could be a nice little family again, ranted Randy in Aggie’s ear. Just like Nicole, Stevie, and Cowboy Billy.

* * *

In the Albany County Jail over in Laramie on a thirty-day sentence for driving under the influence, William Edward Taylor, who preferred to be called Cowboy Billy over his initials of WET, steamed and stewed. His wife better be waiting for him when he got out next week. Nicole hadn’t even come to visit him, the bitch. He should read her the riot act. No more leaving Stevie with her gam, or he’d take out a contract on Aggie, maybe Joan, too. He smirked, thinking how he loved tough talk, as if he’d invented it himself instead of picking up the jargon in one or another jail and around the bars where rodeo cowboys hung out. Billy hated Nickee’s family so much he could chew screws, always had, always would, them always after her to dump him and return to the arms of people who loved her.

What the hell was he, chopped liver? Bill squirmed on the thin mattress, beat his fist against the hard cement block wall. The only good thing to come out of his incarceration was finding Jessie there with him. Also in the clink on a minor charge, but out on parole shortly no doubt. Billy and Jessie, high school buds, had dropped out of school together after barely skidding by their last couple of years. Man, that dude knew where it was at. Jessie promised to hook up with Billy later, after both of them were released. The two of them planned big, man, real big. Just watch them turn this state into mush; better yet, make mincemeat out of Billy’s enemies. Them folk would pay him some attention then. Everybody would, especially Billy’s big brother. Branson, the know-it-all golfer traveling on the PGA tour, would sit up and take notice when Cowboy Billy’s photo was plastered across the front page.

The gallery owner, mid-tall and mid-wide, even mid-age at forty five, was glad he’d gone on record for firing Jessie Jones before that smart ass could pull his boss down, too. Jessie had sat out his jail term over the hill in Laramie, no more wiser now than while employed by Milford at the Spinner Gallery about the true nature of his boss’s business. The kid was smart enough to carry out Spinner’s orders, but dumb enough, Milford figured, not to understand their ultimate purpose. So far as Jessie knew, he was assigned to cart valuable paintings from artist to gallery. What he wasn’t supposed to understand was their authenticity; that is, who really painted or sculpted them, and who actually owned them. Dealing in forgeries and stolen art was a good way to make money, but only periodically, and only if he watched his Ps and Qs, figured all the angles, anticipated the pitfalls and prepared for them.

When the little bell tinkled, signifying a customer’s arrival, Milford put on his public smile, this time glancing up as the big man ducked through the front door. Good to see you, Mr. Norman, Spinner said, squinting through thick glasses. You got any more finished paintings ready for me to display?

Steve Norman grimaced. You ever hear of painter’s block? Something like writer’s block. I’m stuck. Catching myself wandering around the galleries looking for inspiration.

"I was hoping you’d be ready for a one-man show sometime soon. How about your masterpiece? The Bronc, that what you call it? Or how about calling it A Bronco?"

The rancher and state senator towered over the gallery’s proprietor. Naw. You’re thinking of the Denver Broncos. Or the Spanish word for a wild horse.

What Milford was thinking was that he’d like to steal the arrogant westerner’s stock and offer the whole bundle of exceptional paintings out on the coast. Except the handsome bastard hadn’t made his mark as a well-known artist yet. Which meant forging Charles Russell’s name to a few of Steve’s paintings. Norman’s and Russell’s styles were similar.

Steve Norman meandered back out the door. Milford figured he hadn’t found his inspiration to resume his painting with anything he’d seen in the Spinner Gallery. The senator would likely go elsewhere; anything to keep from painting, and anything to keep himself out from under his wife’s nose. Milford knew the feeling. His wife and Steve’s would make a couple of good witches stirring some brew in a huge iron pot full of rats’ tails and frogs’ eyes.

Near the front window Spinner fussed over arranging paintings and sculptures, keeping an eye out for Caroline. His wife could drop in at any moment, checking to see whether he was flirting with Beth. Behind the partition that separated public from work areas, Beth, his part-timer, sat hunched over her computer. Milford liked the little hottie.

With the bank standing sentinel on one corner, and the old saloon on the other end, Milford had opened his art gallery in the middle of the block. However, he didn’t want to live in Cheyenne at all, dammit. The city boy turned up his nose in petulance.

He’d agreed to move to Wyoming from Los Angeles two years earlier while his wife looked after her ailing dad. The incentive—blackmail. If Milford didn’t comply with Caroline’s every demand, she’d rat him out. She had only lately discovered how he wheeled and dealed. Didn’t look like her old man would ever die, though. Not without some help. Not for the first time Milford imagined wife and father-in-law in a fatal auto wreck. Like waving a magic wand over his troubles, they’d be gone in a flash.

Life with the harridan, the slightly buck-toothed and slightly cross-eyed witch, sucked while waiting for her to inherit. Her alla time fussing at him to make it big in the art world. Goddammit, what did she expect of him, trying to make a killing in the sticks.

But, laugh out loud, what she didn’t know couldn’t hurt him. Spinner had a secret life.

Milford usually left the scarcely visited gallery to Beth during mid-day. Colonel Schwartzkopf’s daughter didn’t know much about art, but, as a business graduate, she did know how to keep accounts and run the place. The part-time arrangement was temporary. Cute little Beth Schwartzkopf Gifford wanted to open a travel agency soon. As for Caroline, she wouldn’t work the gallery, yet his wife expected him to tie himself to the grindstone all day long, six days a week, plus evening shifts. Meanwhile, Caroline hung out with her over-protective mama.

I’m out of here, called Milford on his way to the saloon. You need me, Beth, call my cell phone. He guessed that in his absence she would haul out the blueprints for her own business, a renovation of the old building next door. Milford couldn’t care less. What he didn’t want the pretty strawberry blonde doing was messing around in his affairs. Let her do her own thing every day in his absence, for all Milford cared. She was no more than a front anyhow, same as his legitimate business of selling art supplies and the very occasional painting.

Extremely near sighted and losing his hair straight back, and all around at once, he looked like Gene Hackman. Already he had too much face for his head. In the old Cheyenne saloon Milford took a small table up front where he could look out on the street. Oblivious of shoppers and business people alike, many of whom appeared to wear their cell phones plastered to their ears like picture frames stuck on walls, Milford waited for Jessie. Just then his cell phone vibrated.

I’m bringin’ my bud along, Mr. Spinner. You’ll like Elmo, the Okie, Jessie said in Milford’s ear. I met him in a bar over in West Laramie after I got outta jail. Elmo’s cool.

Milford chewed angrily on a toothpick. Couldn’t count on these lowlifes to play it clean. How’s that, Jessie?

You got some tough jobs? Give ‘em to Elmo. Wait and see.

They broke the connection and minutes later short, fat Jessie sashayed into the downtown bar, looking for all the world like he owned the place. Maybe the earth. Dumb jackass.

Coming up behind the former employee that Milford figured he’d have no trouble controlling, as usual, swaggered a tall skinny guy; sandy complexion, sandy hair, looking like the Oklahoma sand dunes. Milford neither rose nor offered to shake hands with either of these chaps. He knew zilch of the personal particulars in Jessie’s life and had no intention of asking. As for Elmo, this kid looked older, tougher, like he’d been around the block a few times.

Was that what Jessie had meant about Milford liking Elmo? Or rather, being able to use him? What did Jessie think was going down, something illegal? Spinner decided to watch his step, keep his cool. No reason for either kid to think the gallery’s typical assignments had anything to do with anything beyond sub-contracting: hire Jessie on a job-by-job basis to move precious art treasures; rough up naïve artists who refused to comply with Milford’s price offers; serve as bodyguard when he himself decided to come along. Made no difference if they decided to split the fee paid Jessie. If this Elmo critter was amenable, no skin off Milford’s ass.

That’s all there is to it, Spinner said, after explaining as little as possible. He hadn’t even ordered the recent jailbirds a drink. I’ll call you when I need you, he said, waving a hand of dismissal as he suddenly pushed back his chair and stood to leave.

Except, pausing, he had second thoughts. If he wanted to get rid of Caroline’s dad, say, speed up his death, maybe Elmo was the one he could look to. What was your last name?

No call for you to know. Elmo’s good enough. Call me Elmo.

Dumb shit. Didn’t the Okie know his name would be common knowledge over in Albany County? Pick up the phone, call his old pal on the sheriff’s staff. Crap, didn’t matter. Okay, Elmo. You hang with Jessie awhile, I may have some more jobs for you.

Elmo’s cold dead eyes shone as if back lit. Yeah? Name it. I’m your man. I mean, if you’re talking tough, man.

Rough, tough. Milford shrugged. I’ll think on it.

Glancing up, Milford spotted Steve Norman strolling by again, coming back this way this time. Again Spinner paused. No, he didn’t want to pass over the job of stealing Norman’s Bronc to these boys. Not yet. Steve had said the painting wasn’t finished. Besides, Elmo needed testing, first. See what he could do, whether he was smart enough to avoid the law; loyal enough to do as he was told and keep his mouth shut. Still, Spinner was impatient. Couldn’t wait too long to act, a few weeks at most. Milford could hardly wait to return to Los Angeles.

Behind the long long bar the bartender sneered. Cheapskate, Dollie muttered under her breath. She knew the art gallery owner rarely left a tip, and this time he didn’t even buy his guests anything, not even a draft beer.

Edging closer to the front of the saloon, Dollie Domenico Morton slowly wiped down the bar top as excuse for lingering up there near the smoky tinted windows overlooking the sidewalk. No other customers in the quiet bar at this time of afternoon. Maybe her hubby, one of the bank tellers, would drop by. Dollie loved Morton the Mutt with all her heart. That’s one of the names she called him, especially when she was mad at him, like now. Otherwise, he might be Harold the Historian, Harry the Huffy, or something sweet like HoneyLips. Newly married, she didn’t really know very much about him. Except he’d given her a second glance, and then a third, and followed up with a marriage proposal before she’d even capitulated at taking down her panties.

HoneyBuns was late taking his break. Or he wasn’t coming at all. Humph. Pushing back a hank of greasy, limp hair, mousy brown but with blond highlights she’d given herself, Dollie wondered what her HoneyLips was up to now. Lately he’d been talking about some woman over in the capitol. And rolling his eyes and licking his lips when he mentioned Nasturtium the Third. Like this morning before he left for work. He’d already got in the habit of waking up his new bride with a long list of instructions for the day.

Nasturtium goes by Nasty Three, Dollie, so whenever Wyoming’s Secretary of State comes into your bar, you remember her title and nickname, okay?

Sure, hon. But why would I call a customer anything?

Hiking up his pants, tucking in his shirt, Harold huffed and puffed like the big bad wolf, as if to scare his skinny wife half out of her britches. Dollie smiled at him. What else?

You didn’t know me last year when I worked on Nasty’s campaign team. But she’ll remember me as one of the important people she can lean on. So I want to keep up with what she’s doing and with whom.

Dollie didn’t care about Nasty, except as her life intersected with Harold’s. If her HubbyHoney had a thing for this really important lady, then Dollie wanted to know all about it. Arm herself good, ready to cut the wealthy powerful woman off at the pass, ambush her for sure. So of course she would eavesdrop on Nasty. No question about that, and she didn’t need orders.

Keep a sharp ear out for the gossip, Dollie. I want to know everybody Nasty Three meets and everything they talk about.

Why, HoneyLips?

Don’t call me that.

Okay, HoneyBuns.

Or that, either.

What, then?

Mr. Morton will do. Or the banker.

"Good heavens, I can’t call my own husband Mr, can I?"

I don’t know why not.

Besides, you’re a bank teller, not a banker. So what you wanna know?

Harold the Hurtful smacked his bride across the face, bloodying her nose. Then he smirked, sucked air, tipped up his chin. That’s for me to know and you to forget, dumb bunny. And, while we’re at it, I don’t want you using my name. Just call yourself Dollie Domenico.

Remembering Harold’s instructions now, Dollie Domenico sniffed. She couldn’t believe she wasn’t allowed to use her new married name; Harold’s name, for cryin’ out loud. But Dollie Domenico did as she was told, so she dutifully turned a sharp ear to the guys at the front table.

Tall and Skinny cussed a lot, using four-letter words like salt on his fried eggs. Short and Fat shushed the cusser, looking over his shoulder as if guilty himself of swearing in the Lord’s house. Dollie, the devout Pentecostal, didn’t appreciate the language, but orders were orders. She perked up when she heard the Secretary of State’s name mentioned.

What’s with this Nasty person? Tall asked Short.

You bein’ from Oklahoma, Elmo, you wouldn’t know. So I gotta clue you in about the powerful Vicente-Auld clan.

Say, what?

Nasty Three is the daughter of Nasty Two and the granddaughter of Nasty One.

Well, duh.

Nasty Two is a double cousin to Aggie Morissey and Lisa Schwartzkopf.

Dollie caught the latter two names. She wanted to tell Elmo from Oklahoma that Beth Schwartzkopf Gifford, Lisa’s daughter, worked for Spinner at the art gallery. Forgetting all about Nasty Three and her possible relationship to Dollie’s HuggyBunny, Dollie swiped the bar top faster and faster. She really liked little Beth, the adorable blonde with the sweet nature and the darling little twin daughters. The bartender couldn’t imagine how Beth could stand working for Milford Spinner, though. He had fat juicy lips that should make a girl upchuck. In fact, so did Jessie. Dollie idly wondered whether Spinner and Jessie were kin. Oh well, who cared.

Peering from beneath bushy, unplucked eyebrows, Dollie nearly fell off her four-inch high-heeled sandals. Morton her Muffin made her wear flats around him, so they’d be even-tall and she wouldn’t tower over him, so of course she saved her prettiest shoes for work, even though they hurt her feet something terrible.

Listening while pretending to work, Dollie got a big scare. She didn’t like the looks of Jessie, or the Okie, especially when they talked about hitting on somebody. She didn’t know whether they meant to strike a woman, like Harold the Horrible sometimes did her, or whether these guys were talking murder. This Elmo person could be showing off, while Jessie tried to beat him with his own string of lies. But Dollie wasn’t taking any chances.

In the small supply room behind the bar, Dollie Domenico used her cell phone to call Beth at Spinner’s Art Gallery. She meant to warn the young mother to watch over her little girls. But she didn’t want to scare Beth half to death. When Beth Schwartzkopf Gifford didn’t answer her cell phone, Dollie didn’t try the art gallery number. It wasn’t Milford Spinner she wanted to warn. That skinflint, who never left tips, could take care of himself. Dollie decided to call Nasty Three next. Elmo’s expression when Jessie talked about Wyoming’s Secretary of State was pretty vicious, too. Dollie wondered how one reached the Secretary of State. She didn’t know, so she called the governor and left a message for Nasty to call her back at the saloon. Somebody in the governor’s office simply gave out Nasturtium’s number right off the bat, so Dollie called that number, not realizing she’d get a long string of those automated instructions. No, she didn’t want to start a business, no she didn’t want to incorporate, and no she didn’t need a license for anything. (All she could think of was a marriage license but she knew she and Mr. Morton hadn’t gone to the Secretary of State’s office to have Nasty marry them).

Since Nasty Three didn’t pick up, and Dollie didn’t want to leave a message on her voice mail, she figured she’d better rethink her purpose here. Looking guiltily out the supply-room door, she supposed she’d better be minding the bar. Sure enough, in came a bunch of mid-afternoon drinkers. Dollie got busy doing what bartenders are supposed to do. Obeying orders when they made sense made her feel good.

CHAPTER 2

Four Years Earlier

What you wanna do, WET, is find yourself a rich wife. She’ll make all your dreams come true. BET smirked, leaning forward across the glass-topped, wrought-iron table on the broad back terrace to ruffle Billy’s carrot-topped head of hair.

Billy jerked away. He hated having his red hair ruffled.

Bill had a love-hate relationship with big brother, also his new house; his wife’s, actually. When Branson spoke, Billy sat up and took notice.

Branson Ellery Taylor, BET he called himself when riling WET, figured he had it made in the shade. That’s what he said, made in the shade, a no longer cool expression that nevertheless caught Billy’s attention. William Edward Taylor got stuck with the WET nickname the first time he wrote his initials in school. Or maybe it was because BET had ratted him out with the other first graders.

Billy wets his bed, that’s why I call him Wet.

God, how Billy hated his nickname, a handle that stuck all through grade school. Only when he discovered horses did the skinny kid start calling himself Cowboy Billy.

Yeah, Branson, I know. You really lucked out when you found Jyllis. What’s she going to buy you next, a LearJet to air-taxi you from one golf tournament to the next? The envy and anger coupled with his fair complexion turned Billy into a thermometer. He blushed deep red quickly, before ducking his head to hide his embarrassment. When was he going to learn how to razz big bro without revealing his feelings all over his face?

Branson shushed Bill as the click-click of Jyllis’ high-heeled sandals alerted the brothers to her arrival from around the side of the house. You boys unload the car, said the tall, slender blonde, pointing a scarlet fingernail out front. I’m exhausted from shopping.

Now it was big brother’s turn to blush and drop his glance. Billy wasn’t surprised, he figured the errand-boy jobs came with the good stuff. Not sure he could put up with the role, for the first time he doubted Branson’s advice. Now he held his ground, refusing to budge. Let Bet jump and run every time Jyllis crooked her little finger. That wasn’t Billy’s idea of a successful relationship. When he got ready to tie the knot, he’d call the shots, that was for damn sure.

Billy’s cell phone rang in Bet’s absence. Damn, it was Tom, their drunken uncle. The guy what had raised the boys, the man who made Billy mad every other minute. What, now? Bill said, thinking he had his own cross to bear. Bet, though, had two.

Bring me a case of Bud, Wet.

He wanted to say when he was good and ready, but sass his uncle, Tom would throw him out. Like last time, and Billy had no place to go. No job, no car, nothing.

Back on the terrace, Branson, slim and fit from practicing his golf swing a few hours every other day or so, sprawled on the chair. Heaving a sigh of exasperation, he jerked a thumb over his shoulder. Jyllis shops day and night, seems like.

She don’t seem to stay home and cook much.

She doesn’t have to. We’ve got a cook and maids to tend to all that stuff.

"Yeah, well. You gonna move Uncle Tom in here with