The white phone in the kitchen rang five minutes before two pm. Jeff and Genghis were already in the kitchen. Jeff was putting coffee on while Genghis was rummaging through a floor cabinet. Jeff, picking the phone up, knew who it would be, “Good afternoon, Jeff Trent speaking,” he said. “Well sure, Twinkie, I’ll come by and get you. How did it go? Oh, . . . Okay, I’ll be there in about ten, fifteen minutes.” He said bye and hung up.
“How did she do?” Genghis asked. while standing amidst the pans and cookie sheets that he pulled from the cabinets.
“Not sure,” Jeff replied, “but I don’t think it went too well. She didn’t sound too happy.”
“Aw, poor kid,” the Doberman Pinscher said, while pulling an oven mitt from a drawer beside the stove.
Jeff, pulling on his coat, said, “She’s waiting for me in Grant Park. Same bench she met Trisha and Pimples that day I dropped her off for the movie.”
Genghis looked up at Jeff. “You know, if she had a bad day . . .”
“I know,” Jeff finished Genghis’s statement. “We’ll have to tell her about Trisha later.”
Jeff drove to Grant Park. The day was still cold, so he drove with the Thunderbird’s top up. He pulled to the curb of Seventh Avenue bordering Grant Park and saw Jennifer on the bench, coat tightly pulled around her and sitting slightly hunched over with legs stretched out in front of her, looking dejected. He turned off the cruiser and got out. She didn’t even notice that he pulled up. Jeff buttoned up his coat as he approached her. The leaves from the surrounding trees crunched under foot and as he got close, she looked up.
It seemed to Jeff as if she had been crying. “Twink!” he said, as he sat next to her. “Twinkie, what’s wrong? What happened?”
“Oh, nothing! That’s what happened,” she said, snuffling. “I hit about eight different stores and filled out about eight different applications. But none of them even gave me the time of day. Only two managers talked to me and that was only for about three minutes, the rest just said thanks, but no thanks!”
“I don’t understand, Twinkie. Why would they not even talk to you?”
“Well, I don't really have any prior employment. And I guess you wouldn’t know this, but there’s a little box on the applications that you have to check if you've ever been arrested before, giving them the okay to do a background check on you.” She looked up at Trent and her lower lip started to quiver. She then looked down at her feet. “Which I guess they would have done anyway. But, about four years ago I was . . . well, you know. Anyway, I didn’t know he was a cop. No jail time, but I did get two months community . . . I guess, they didn’t want me anywhere near their cash registers,” she said, as a tear rolled down her cheek.
Jeff took his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. “It’s alright, Jennifer, it’s alright.”
“I’ve made some stupid-ass decisions in my life, Jeff, and now they’re all coming back to bite me on my ass!”
“Twinkie, everybody makes stupid-ass decisions.” He looked down at her as she looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes. “Genghis and I have made plenty. You can’t let this defeat you.” He tightened his grip around her and could smell the eucalyptus shampoo she used that morning. “Jennifer, Genghis and I haven’t been here that long, but the one thing I have noticed is that the human race surprises me everyday. I watch the news reports, they do amazing things for each other when one is in need. You’ve just become complacent and you just don’t see it anymore. Someone will overlook that part of your past. Believe me, you’ll be surprised!”
“Yeah . . . I guess.”
“Did you go see Monica? She told me that Dave was short-handed.”
“No,” she took her hand and wiped at her eyes. “I didn’t even bother. I didn’t want to embarrass myself in front of her!”
Jeff pulled her close again. “It’ll be okay, Jennifer. I promise!”
“Really?”
“Yes, it will.”
“You got a pretty big heart for an extraterrestrial, you know that?” Jennifer said. “How many did you say you have?”
“Just the one.”
Jennifer laughed at her own joke and said, “You're one of a kind, Jeff Trent.” She looked up at him, “Well . . . you really are!”
“Come on, Twinkie. Let’s get home.” He stood up and held his hand out for her. “Genghis is trying to bake brownies.”
She took his hand, and he helped her off the bench. “Oh, my God, are you kidding me? How is he going to pull that off without opposable thumbs?”
“I’m not sure,” Jeff replied, as they both started walking back to the Thunderbird. “But I think we better get back to the house before he burns it down!”
Chapter Fifty-Seven
When Jeff and Jennifer opened the back door of the apartment they were met by a small cloud of blue-gray smoke that curled at the ceiling. They watched as it gently traveled down the backstairs and dissipated. They exchanged glances with each other.
Entering the kitchen, they found Genghis standing in front of the open oven door. Inside the oven was a cookie sheet of very well-done brownies.
“Well, that didn’t go as well as I planned,” Genghis said. He looked down at the oven mitt on the floor. It had a hole burned through the tip and was still smoldering. “You know, Codas canines are quite the little bakers.”
Jeff looked at Jennifer and said enthusiastically, “Oh, they really are, you know.”
“Genghis, what did you do?” Jennifer said, as she took a dish towel and removed the cookie sheet of burned baked goods.
“Got me! I followed the three easy steps on the back
