“Stop cackling at the man and give him your money instead!” The chief roared happily and handed the person at the end of the row an empty boot. “Enjoy your supper, but don’t forget to fill the boot! Any extra money and we can get one of these fine TV sets for the station. We’d get a dozen new volunteers durin’ baseball season alone,” he joked, and he took a satisfactory bite from his roast beef and swiss cheese sandwich.
“Oh, I’m getting nervous!” Lindy exclaimed as she dropped a ten dollar bill into the boot.
“That’s a generous contribution for a sandwich,” Lucy remarked, adding half that amount.
Lindy pointed at a smaller table, which seemed to have appeared from thin air near the firehouse kitchen. “I’m paying extra because I plan on having more than one dessert. Dolly’s made those mini apple crisp tarts you can wolf down in two bites. And if that wasn’t tempting enough, she also baked a tower of chocolate and peanut-butter brownies.”
“You don’t say!” Lucy ripped the boot back from Gillian’s hand and stuffed two additional dollars inside. “Sorry, Gillian, but I’m with Lindy. I need some sugar to take my mind off the time. I’ve never checked my watch so many times as I have in the last five minutes!”
“What we need is to allow our thoughts to drift for a moment,” Gillian counseled and turned to James. “What is the first thing you’re going to plan when you occupy your new home? What will make it essentially yours ?”
James described the few decorating plans he and Milla had come up with together. By the time he received advice from the other three women on what colors to use in each room and where to shop for furniture and accessories, and listened to Gillian’s insistence that he follow the basic tenets of feng shui when arranging each room, it was time for Jeopardy! to begin.
No one needed to yell for quiet in the garage. Even though the slightest sound echoed easily in a space with such a high ceiling and a concrete floor, only the strains of the game show’s theme music could be heard until the camera’s lens panned across the anxious smiles of the three contestants. Upon seeing their hometown mail carrier, the crowd hooted and hollered with such gusto that James felt as though he were attending a sold-out sporting event.
“There have got to be over two hundred people in here!” James exclaimed to Lucy.
“Isn’t it wonderful?” she replied, her shining eyes never leaving the television screen.
Alex Trebek introduced the contestants, beginning with a female physician from Akron, Ohio. Bennett was next, and when the famous host uttered Bennett’s name and town, the room erupted in proud whoops and applause. The last contestant, a Harvard law professor, was the reigning champion. When the camera zoomed in on his self-satisfied countenance, the townsfolk booed and hissed. The minister’s wife was giving the academic a thumbs-down gesture and James was amused to note that even the mayor had joined in on the censure by sticking her tongue out at the television.
Wasting no more than a minute on introductions, Alex reviewed the categories and the contest was afoot. The law professor, whose name was Harold, quickly took charge. After getting the first five questions right, someone from the firehouse shouted, “Wake up, Bennett! You can take this guy!”
As though he had heard the comment, Bennett seemed to jerk awake. He pushed his buzzer faster than Harold and swept the entire category on Official State Things. Barbara, the physician, rallied slightly when Bennett chose the category Bird Talk, but by the time the first round was finished, Harold and Bennett were tied and, unless Barbara really came alive in the second half, the game would be won by one of the men.
During the next commercial break, the townsfolk darted to the dessert table where they hoarded brownies and tarts and armed themselves with coffee.
“He’s gonna do it, by golly!” The mayor declared to her constituents as she poured milk into her coffee.
The crowd ate their treats hastily and chattered with their mouths full, too excited to pay attention to good manners. James found their boisterousness contagious.
“I haven’t had this much fun in ages!” Lindy exclaimed, and James nodded in agreement.
“Christmas wasn’t exactly a time of cheer for all of us,” he said. “It feels like we’re having a delayed holiday tonight.”
With a smile, Milla hushed them and pointed at the television. The quiz show had returned and Alex briskly turned away from the camera in order to direct the viewer’s attention to the next set of categories. Seeing nothing relating to popular culture, James whispered, “He can definitely win this thing.”
Indeed, Bennett whipped through the categories on Inventors & Inventions and The 1920s without interruption. In fact, the second question of Inventors & Inventions was “In 1858, Hymen Lipman was granted a patent to attach an eraser to this.”
Bennett’s contestant box lit up. “What is a pencil,” he responded and briefly patted his sports coat.
“I bet my pencil’s in his pocket!” Lucy blurted happily. “I knew it would bring him luck!”
As the minutes ticked by and Bennett’s score increased, Harold reinserted some of his previous acuity in the Children’s Stories category. Indeed, it seemed as though he’d answered every question until Alex read, “This character’s sisters are Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail.”
“Who is Peter Rabbit,” Bennett instantly replied as his free hand brushed his pant pocket.
“That rabbit’s foot you gave him is lucky too!” Lindy whispered to James in awe.
Barbara answered a few questions in the Lighthouse category, but Bennett and Harold took over on Government Agencies and Holistic Healing. By the time Bennett had answered the last Daily Double, which featured a question on herbal tea, correctly, he was leading his competition by three thousand dollars.
When the last series of commercials appeared onscreen, several members of the fire station’s audience began to pace back and forth in anxiety. James also felt seized by nervous energy. Deciding to replace the cup of coffee he had allowed to grow cold, he offered to fetch desserts for the women seated around him. He moved rapidly, fearing that the show would resume, but his haste made him clumsy and he spilled sugar all over the floor and nearly overturned the coffee urn.
Armed with a fresh cup of coffee and several brownies, James returned to the table just in time for Final Jeopardy.
“I missed the category!” He slapped his forehead in disgust and looked at Lucy in appeal. “What was it?”
“Sitcoms,” she replied, accepted a brownie, and stuffed half of it in her mouth.
“I can’t stand the suspense!” Lindy twirled her black hair around her finger. “Hurry, Lucy! Pass me one of those apple tarts!”
Gillian stopped nibbling at her fingernail. “Me too, please!”
Milla tugged on James’s sleeve. “Can you read the last question out loud? I can’t read those words fast enough.”
“‘The primary sponsor of this popular sitcom was Philip Morris tobacco,’” James read, and he exchanged befuddled glances with his neighbors. “Anybody know the answer?”