Catch Twenty-Two

by James, Marie

  He’s been around. Even though yesterday was Sunday, he was still on the property with his dad taking care of the cows. I avoided him of course, staying in my room and watching him from the window, hoping he would fall while working. He didn’t of course. His body is a machine. The boy doesn’t so much as wince when he lifts things that seem to weigh just as much as he does, and don’t even get me started on the way he lifts his shirt to swipe at the sweat on his face. We have athletes at Westover Prep, but I haven’t seen a set of abs like Ezekiel has ever before.

  Groaning in frustration that my mind has once again wandered to him, I flop over on my bed. I’d planned on spending the day sleeping, but Piper only seems to call first thing in the morning, and the bright sun seems to infiltrate the room no matter how tight I pull the curtains.

  I remind myself that I’m here to spend time with Nan, and that’s the only thing that gets me out of bed and into the shower. As I wash, I remind myself that I’m grateful it’s only been her and me at the supper table the last couple of nights. She’s only brought up my date to attend the county fair half a million times as if it’s next week rather than over a month away. I wanted to tell her that Ezekiel was a two-faced jerk, but I don’t think she’d believe me. If she’d seen him act any other way than he did the night he smiled in her face, I don’t think she’d try to set me up with him. That just goes to show how much of a master manipulator the boy is. It’s only three months. I’m certain I can keep my distance from him for that long. When the date arrives, I can pretend to have a stomach virus.

  I don’t bother drying my hair, opting to put it up into a messy knot on the top of my head. I don’t have a single person to impress anyway.

  “Hey, Nan.” I kiss my grandmother’s cheek as I enter the kitchen. “What’s on the schedule for today?”

  “I’m trying to decide what to make for supper.”

  I laugh thinking she’s joking as I look up at the clock. It’s not even lunchtime, but as she flips through a tattered cookbook, I realize she’s serious.

  “I could cook,” I offer.

  Being left alone so much by my parents made me efficient many years ago.

  “Well, Ezekiel’s coming to supper.”

  My stomach drops with the news, but my face remains impassive.

  “He loves eggplant parmesan, but I’m out of eggplant. I was thinking maybe a meatloaf. That recipe is easy to double, so I’ll have enough to send home with him.”

  My head tilts in confusion. She mentioned his mother the other night so I know she’s still in the picture. I also know how families are around here. The women are expected to have supper on the table when the men get home from work, but that doesn’t explain why Nan is always sending food home with Ezekiel. She makes meals for them even when he doesn’t stay to eat with us. I’ve been lucky enough to see him coming toward the house through the kitchen window each time, making it easy for me to slip out of the room until he leaves.

  I had said I’d be different here in Utah, but one scathing remark from the guy has me cowering in the shadows just like I did back home. I hate him for making me act that way, but self-preservation won’t let me act any other way.

  “Yeah,” Nan says like I’ve been carrying on a conversation with her rather than looking out the window to catch a look at the evil boy. “Meatloaf it is. Do you like mashed potatoes, dear?”

  “Love them,” I answer as I turn around and give her a fake smile. “I can peel the potatoes.”

  “First, I want you to take that lemonade out to Ezekiel. It’s supposed to get really warm today, and I don’t think he takes the time to drink enough liquids.”

  She doesn’t hide the glint in her eye fast enough for me to believe that I’m being sent into the lion’s den to make sure the beast stays hydrated. This is just another way for her to shove me in front of him with the hopes that we end up liking one another.

  Fat chance of that ever happening.

  With a slow, calming breath, I grab the cold glass of lemonade and head for the back door. The barn is about thirty yards to the right of the house, and the window in my room gives me the perfect view of who’s coming and going from the tattered old building.

  I wish I was in the safety of that very room as I walk toward the open barn doors. I guess I should count my lucky stars that I’ve been able to avoid him for a full four days.

  The doors on the far end of the barn are open as well, creating a wind tunnel through the center of the building. Empty stalls line the walls, and my hope fades that I’ll see a horse the deeper I go inside. When I spot Ezekiel walk from the end of the barn to the back of a pickup truck, I slide to the side and watch him. There’s no music playing, no other sounds than the wind whipping through the barn, and yet he seems perfectly content to carry large square bales of hay from some room in the barn I can’t see and toss them into the back of the truck.

  He doesn’t have a scowl on his handsome face, and his mouth isn’t twisted up in a sneer like it was the very first time I saw him. At first, I think maybe he’s happy to be out here working, enjoying the warmth of the sun, but as I watch him carry bale after bale, I realize how robotic he is. He’s merely existing, performing the same actions over and over. There’s no joy nor hatred right now, and I honestly don’t know how to feel about it.

  When he disappears into the back room, I step outside of the stall and walk closer.

  His movements don’t falter when he notices me. His eyes sweep over me, and then he goes back to work. I don’t even count enough for him to acknowledge that I’m standing there. He loads up two more bales of hay before I force myself in his path and hold out the glass of lemonade.

  “Nan said to give you this.” I shove it in his hand, but he merely sets it to the side before disappearing into the back room for yet another bale of hay. “Aren’t you going to drink?”

  “Did you spit in it?” he asks without looking in my direction.

  “What?” My head snaps back in disgust. “No, I didn’t spit in it.”

  Instead of focusing on the rippling muscles on his back, a strange noise on the opposite side of the barn draws my attention. All anger for Ezekiel is forgotten when I see four little goats in one of the stalls.

  They grow excited when I draw closer, bouncing around and spinning in circles until my hand is right up against the gridded panel keeping them closed in.

  They sniff and gum my hand, looking for some kind of treat when I hold it out for them.

  “I don’t have any treats,” I explain when they get louder, no doubt begging for something to eat.

  They practically walk all over each other, fighting to be the one closest to my hand. They bleat over and over, begging until I feel bad about standing in front of them with nothing to offer, but when I look to the side, I see a bag of feed.

  “Give me just a second,” I tell the little guys as if they can understand me.

  I grab the cup beside the bag and scoop up the food before heading back to the hungry little goats.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Ezekiel yells from the other side of the barn.

  “Feeding the goats,” I snap. “You work here, you should know what it looks like. These little things are starving.”

  Before I can angle the cup to pour the food through the fence, Ezekiel wraps his hand around my wrist.

  “They’re not starving. Goats will eat all day if allowed,” he snaps. “They’ve already been fed.”

  I try but fail to rip my wrist from his grasp. “A little more won’t hurt them.”

  “Goats don’t eat chicken feed, City Girl. Why don’t you go back inside and play on your phone? Don’t come out here and make more work for me.”

  The glare in his eyes as he looks down at me makes me release the cup when he reaches for it. He drops my wrist a second later. He genuinely hates me. I haven’t done a single thing to him, and he can’t even seem to stand the sight of me.

  I feel his eyes on me, and as much as my body is screamin
g for me to run away, I refuse. Just like I refuse to let the tears stinging my eyes fall in front of him.

  Instead, I walk over to where he set down the lemonade and grab the glass. Sweat pours down his face, and I don’t have a doubt that he was planning to drink the cold, refreshing liquid when I left. He watches me with narrowed eyes when I walk closer to him, but instead of handing him the glass, I turn it over and pour it on his boots.

  His eyes widen, nostrils flare, but he doesn’t say a word.

  “I’ll tell Nan you said thank you,” I say to him before walking away. As I near the open doors of the barn, I look back over my shoulder, finding him gawking after me like I’ve stunned him. “See you at supper, Zeke. We’re having meatloaf.”

  Chapter 5

  Zeke

  I didn’t expect her to turn back around as she scuttled away, but she’s got more backbone than I anticipated. That’s how she almost caught me with a grin on my face. Thankfully, I managed to keep my eyes off her legs this time, or I would’ve been busted.

  She’s a lot feistier than I gave her credit for, and it doesn’t even bother me that my boots are wet, sticky, and will be a pain in the ass to clean later. I think the smile sticks around until the hay is loaded on the back of the old farm truck. I catch myself grinning more than once, and even when I purposely school my face, it seems to reappear.

  It disappears for good the second I hear the rumble of my dad’s old truck as it makes its way up the Jacobson’s driveway. I can’t remember when Dad stopped smiling. I know it was long before the bank took the last track of land from him. Things were bad for years before I was privileged to the information. I think my parents didn’t want me to know they were selling off the cows at discount prices just to keep afloat. I didn’t know if they wanted to keep me a kid a little while longer or if my dad’s pride wouldn’t let him admit failure. He took over that land for his father when Pops got too old to work it, and it killed him to have to relinquish his legacy to the bulldogs down at the bank.

  I haven’t seen him smile since. Yeah, he plasters on fake grins for Mrs. Jacobson’s sake, but those smiles never meet his eyes. He no longer laughs or tells stupid jokes like he did when I was younger. Hell, he doesn’t even turn on the radio when he’s in the truck anymore. It seems he’s lost every ounce of joy, and each day the weight of his losses crushes him just a little bit more.

  “This is the wrong stuff, Dad,” I complain when I open the tailgate to help him unload. “Mrs. Jacobson insists on the other kind.”

  “Murdoch’s is out of the Blue Star, and I got exactly what I was going after.”

  The bags of feed in the bed of the truck are a step down from generic. Three years ago we were sent for top of the line stuff. Last year we had to step it down to Blue Star. If I’m correct about what he’s implying, then this ranch won’t be open much longer either. Dad tucks the invoice in the front pocket of his shirt as I reach for the first two bags.

  I slide one to him, but he struggles to pick it up. His face grows red, and a wince of pain crinkles the corners of his eyes before he gives up trying to lift the bag from the bed. I place my hand on his shoulder, and he stiffens under the contact.

  “Is it your back again, old man?” I chuckle as I place his bag on top of mine and grab both. “Go ahead and take that invoice to Mrs. Jacobson. I’ll be finished with this by the time you get back out.”

  He doesn’t meet my eyes before turning and walking toward the house. That’s the thing about farming and ranching. It wears your body out faster than it should. My dad isn’t even fifty, and he’s bent over most days like a geriatric patient shuffling to a table at the bingo hall.

  I make quick work of the feed, loading it into the back room of the barn.

  I let the memories of happier times fill my head. It hurts a lot less than the reality I’m living in now. I think back to when my dad not only smiled, but he stood up straight and was the strongest man I’d ever met. Of course, it doesn’t take much to impress a young boy who looks at his dad like he’s the best thing since Superman himself, but I always wanted to be like him.

  Before things got bad, he took pride in his work. He woke every day with a smile on his face and a kiss for my mom. He was eager to get to the fields and work the cows. He didn’t complain or gripe about the heat in the summer. Even the rain in the fall didn’t make him wish for better days. Those rainy days were spent with me and Mom on the back porch playing board games or just talking about mundane things.

  He still doesn’t complain, but his face and the permanent grimace he carries day in and day out says more than his mouth ever could.

  I don’t really mind working for Mrs. Jacobson. When I was offered the job, I bounced on the balls of my feet, excited to be employed because so many of the guys at school were looking for work and coming up empty-handed. It didn’t even matter that I knew I was obligated to use most of my pay to help with bills. It was expected. That’s what we do.

  I was happy until I finally figured out that this is what I was going to do for the rest of my life. This wasn’t temporary until I got out of high school any longer. This was it for me. Working the cows day in and day out. And from what Dad said earlier, things may be getting worse very soon. I don’t know what I’ll do if the Jacobson Ranch has to sell. We wouldn’t be guaranteed our jobs here, and that would put my entire family in a bind. We live on Jacobson land, so losing the jobs means we also lose the house.

  Frustration grows until I can’t help but kick the side of the barn after dropping off the last bag of feed. The goats on the other side of the wall bleat at me like I’ve personally offended them, but I can’t be bothered with worrying about the feelings of goats when there are bigger things to worry about.

  Without waiting for my dad, I climb in the cab of the farm truck and set out to drop the bales of hay in the east pastures. As if Dad were in the cab with me, I keep the windows rolled down and the radio off.

  The sun is setting by the time I make it back to the barn. Dad’s truck is already gone, and even the light shining from the kitchen window of the Jacobson house doesn’t tempt me to enter.

  Frankie has avoided me since I said those hateful things to her the first day we met, and I don’t blame her. I don’t want to be around me either. Who wants to spend time with a bitter guy who no longer has aspirations or the chance of a successful future?

  I’m supposed to have supper with them tonight, but instead of washing my hands and heading inside, I close up the barn and drive home. I’ll tell Mrs. Jacobson tomorrow that I was tired, and it slipped my mind. Lying to that sweet old woman is better than sitting beside her delicious smelling granddaughter while pretending to be infatuated with her.

  The pretending at the supper table isn’t the hardship. It’s sneering at her while we’re alone instead of holding her against my chest and breathing her scent in that’s the struggle.

  I don’t want her here, and I don’t particularly want to be around her, but for some reason I’m drawn to her. The first night we met, the only thing that kept me from pulling her into my lap was the manners I was raised with. If Mrs. Jacobson wasn’t in the room, I’m fairly certain that’s exactly where she would’ve ended up.

  I can’t even fathom where I mustered the strength not to kiss her by my truck that same night. Knowing that her lips would’ve tasted like the sweet tea she was drinking at supper and walking away from it was my own personal hell on the drive home that night.

  Touching the bare skin of her leg when most of the girls at school wore dresses down to their ankles was its own kind of torture. The sight of goosebumps on her skin when all I did was press my lips to the back of her hand was hard to walk away from, but it’s my only choice.

  Frances Young is here temporarily. In a couple months she’ll return to her middle-class life and never again think about the ranch hand working his ass off in Utah. Why waste my time on someone like her?

  But even as I drive home, I can’t help but think of the fir
e in her eyes when she turned that glass of lemonade over and poured it on me. She didn’t whine and complain, or ask me why I don’t like her. She didn’t yell and threaten to tell her grandmother I’ve been mean to her. No, Frankie is going to suffer in silence, and as much as I’d rather kiss her pretty lips, I think I’ll have a lot more fun this summer seeing just how far I can push her until she breaks.

  Chapter 6

  Frankie

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I tell Nan as she grins up at me from the kitchen table. “I’m not exactly what you’d call mechanically inclined.”

  If Zeke were in the room, he’d probably snort and mutter something about me being a city girl.

  I’ve somehow endured two more long weeks of sitting at the supper table with him and Nan as he pretended that he was attracted to me. Shamefully, I did the exact same thing.

  Two weeks of walking him to his truck in the evenings as he stepped close to me, making it look like we were mutually interested in each other while he whispered vile things in my ear.

  After the third time he insulted me as his warm breath ghosted over my neck, I stopped listening to his words and began listening to his body. While his mouth was saying despicable things about how he could never be attracted to me and how he despised the sight of me, the gentle brush of his fingers at my back told a different story. The way he inhaled my scent every time he leaned close betrayed the vile lies that were spilling from his perfect lips.

  But then again, maybe I’m delusional and building something in him that isn’t actually there.

  Maybe the way I see him look up at my window, as if he’s trying to catch a glimpse of me while he’s working is a figment of my imagination created in my innate need to see something positive in him.

  Maybe the way he lingers on the property long after his dad leaves for the day has nothing to do with me. Maybe the boy just doesn’t want to go home.

  Regardless of his unspoken thoughts, I’m still overly cautious about today.