Schifflebein's Folly

CHAPTER 7: TRAN AND NGUYEN

A week later in the Schifflebein kitchen, Lloyd wore a baker's apron and a hot mitt and slid a full cookie sheet into the oven while cradling the kitchen phone between his shoulder and ear.

"Y—, yes, I'm still hold—." He sighed then said to himself, "Okay, let me rephrase that: I'm holding again."

He worked his way across the kitchen, lifting the long, curly, telephone cord over the heads of the four children, who were working assembly-line fashion around the large kitchen table.

Lucy stirred a bowl of cookie dough with a wooden spoon. With a rolling pin, Rudy rolled out a sheet of cookie dough onto waxed paper. Ray was carefully cutting cookie shapes from dough on another piece of waxed paper. Amy was placing Ray's cookie shapes on a greased aluminum cookie sheet and carefully dotting each cookie with colored candies from an open plastic bag.

Lloyd paced, phone to his ear. He reached into Amy's plastic bag for a candy.

At the County Building Inspectors' office, a burly hand was reaching into a bag of chips at the same time Lloyd was snitching a candy. The burly hand belonged to Inspector Abrams, who was one of four County inspectors sitting around a table playing poker—even though it was the middle of the work day. Nearby on a desk, a telephone blink-blink-blinked indicating a line on hold. The four inspectors studied their cards.

"He's still there?" asked Abrams, nodding toward the blinking phone.

"Dumb schmuck don't know when to give up," said another inspector.

"He's nuts. He's always been nuts," said a third. "Whose bet is it?

In Schifflebein's kitchen, Lucy reached into the plastic bag for a candy.

At the poker table, the fourth inspector reached to place a bet of ten pennies in the pot.

In the kitchen, Rudy put down his rolling pin and began folding the edges of the sheet of dough inward, corner by corner by corner.

At the poker table, Inspector Abrams nervously manipulated the cards in his hand, folding them over and over and over one another.

In the kitchen, Ray laid a series of newly cut cookies out onto a greased aluminum sheet as if dealing them around a table.

At the poker table, the third inspector dealt a card to each player.

In the kitchen, Amy placed a handful of candies, one at a time, on the cookies Ray had laid out.

At the poker table, Inspector Abrams laid down a ten-penny bet, one penny at a time. Then Abrams reached again into his bag of chips. "Guess somebody ought to talk to him," said Abrams.

"I had him yesterday," said the second man.

The third man folded his hand and placed his cards facedown on the table. "I'll do it. I got nothin' here anyway." And he left the table to answer the blinking phone. On his way across the room, he took a handful of chips from Abrams' bag.

In the kitchen, Lloyd had just taken a handful of candies from the plastic bag. He nearly choked on them. "Hel—ackht!—hello! ... Yes ... This is Lloyd Schifflebein again, and I just wanted to—Robert! Yes, of course I remember you. How've you been? ... How's the wife and kids? ... Oh ... Oh, I'm sorry ...You don't say! ... And the boat? ... And the dog! Gee, Robert, that's tough. Listen, if you need a place to stay until you get an apartment ... Oh, oh, really. Well, that's, uh, that's certainly convenient ... Yes, I remember Laverne, sure ... from Zoning, sure ... uh, red, red hair, yeah. Well, I hope things work out for you, Robert. It's good to hear your voice. Say, I wonder if George is there? He was supposed to sign off on some playground modules over a week ago, and I haven't been able to get hold of him."