Road trip...? (Joshua)

Josh would not have considered Alzheimer's a mental illness, but apparently Minnie did as she made a point of keeping him up-to-date on the news pertaining to the mentally ill. He didn't particularly mind this -- in fact, he quite appreciated having a cause to attach himself to -- but he could have done without her attempts to set him up with the young women she knew. Or any women. In fact, he wouldn't have appreciated it if she'd attempted to set him up with any men, either, but she seemed to share his mother's blindness on that issue.

He had a sneaking suspicion that she had hoped he would take to his chauffer, but as he couldn't drive and was reluctant to continue his habit of bicycling in the snow thanks to his recent bout with the flu, he had accepted the offer graciously. One car ride (well, two if you counted each way separately) couldn't be taken as interest.

He flicked off the lights, shutting the door behind him as he stepped out and onto his sidewalk, snow crunching under his feet. He wished that the snow would hurry up and melt; it was getting rather out of hand, in his opinion, and besides, khaki pants and business shirts made up almost the entirety of his wardrobe and they were not exactly winter clothing. Even with coat and scarf he felt decidedly frozen.

He trudged down the sidewalk to his driveway, scanning the street for anyside of this Karina. Several of his neighbors chose to park cars on the side of the road, either because they had too many of them (this was especially true of families with teenagers) or because they preferred to use their garages as extra storage space; they weren't supposed to do this but the HOA was functionally apathetic to the obstacle course this created unless complaints were lodged, at which point they stuck reminders in people's mailboxes. Then people would park in their driveways and garages for a few days to show they'd received the notice, but they always went right back to parking in the streets before too long.

Josh had no car, so the obstacle course wasn't a problem for him (he generally just walked his bicycle around the cars on the side nearest the lawn until he hit the open road) but when he was supposed to be waiting for someone to pick him up it was a problem; what if she parked at the wrong house? He didn't make a habit of memorizing his neighbors' cars!

But luck was with him and as soon as he reached the curb he saw a car with a young woman standing outside, huddling for warmth. He didn't recognize her car, which meant nothing, but more importantly he didn't recognize her; he at least knew most of his neighbors by sight.

"Karina Ford?" He greeted her, hoping his guess was correct. "Joshua Bernstein. Very considerate of you to offer me a ride."

"I suppose she isn't particularly good at taking no for an answer," Josh conceded. He supposed it would be more difficult for Karina; being closer to Minnie's own age gave him an advantage she didn't have.

"Thank you," He slid into the passenger side, peering about with interest. Her car reminded him a bit of Sean's van; it was probably every bit as old, which meant she couldn't be the first owner unless she was older than she looked. "Your car has...character." He informed her, "I feel like I'm in college again." If her car was similar to Sean's van in more than looks then it would last forever; he was fairly certain that the hippie van was the cockroach of the car kingdom: nothing could destroy that thing, not even his mother backing into it with her convertible.

"My bicycle doesn't come with heating at all, so you're one better than me already." Spring couldn't come soon enough; he hated having to rely on other people for transportation all the time. Perhaps he ought to see if Sean was willing to resume those driving lessons once the snow and ice had finally been dispelled.

His nostalgia ended with the sopporific music wafting from the radio; he was sure nothing so classy had ever been played in the van. Paul Simon might be considered ancient history by people of Karina's generation, but he was a far cry from violin concertos. "I know you young people think people my age only listen to Bach and Rachmaninoff, but I assure you they had rock music when I was your age." He'd come to expect people to assume that, because he'd lived half a century, he would prefer music that was older than he was. Even his nieces and nephews occasionally reacted as though nobody over the age of 30 listened to popular music. They shouldn't, not when their grandmother had every Tori Amos album known to man and his sister played Rocky Horror Picture Show music non-stop, but apparently they always seemed to forget this was the case when dealing with anyone outside of the family.

"Business is slow," Josh sighed, "Pilot Ridge seemed like the perfect place for a civil rights battle, but hardly anyone here is the least bit interested in litigation for their rights. And then I have to share the ones that do with Blue and Gold. Not that they aren't a good firm." There just wasn't enough work to go around for both him and Cobalt, not in that particular area of the law. "I'm beginning to think I should branch out, there's always a need for personal injury attorneys. Or maybe real estate law, Jimmy Murdock does real estate law and he never lacks for clients, although I think half of them think he's a cross between a therapist and a priest and I'm not sure I could handle having people ask me for advice about their personal life." He would leave that to Sean. "Maybe I should do divorce, there are always people getting divorced, even in small towns."

Civil Rights Law was his passion, but it wasn't paying the bills quite like he needed it to, not when his parents' retirement community was eating away at so much of his savings.

"So what do you do for a living?" If he had to hazard a guess he'd say Hammel; as Cobalt had once observed, everyone and their brother worked for the Institute.