by Natalie Dean
Missy nodded happily. It was happening. She really had a job! But there were a couple of details that she still was still missing.
“Um, Mr. Miller?”
“Bradley, please. My Pa’s Mr. Miller and even he doesn’t like being called that.”
“All right. Bradley, am I working full time or part time around here?”
“Geez, Ma didn’t tell you anything, did she?”
Missy shrugged. “She told me she had a job for me to do, and I showed up. That was all I needed to know at first.”
“Hah! That’s true. Yeah, it’s full time. And you can pitch in some overtime every now and then if Ben approves it.”
“Ben?”
“He’s the oldest brother and in charge of most of that stuff. I’m just taking care of things while he’s out with his new lady.”
“Ah. I see. And is it…”
“Time and a half? Yeah.” Bradley’s eyes crinkled mischievously. “It’d be mighty awful of us to do as well as we do and not take care of our workers appropriately.”
“Awful, but still pretty common nowadays. And, if you don’t mind me asking, what exactly… is the wage to start off with?” Missy wasn’t expecting anything more than minimum wage, but she was worried that maybe there was some sort of cheaper day laborer rate or something that was going on. Since she had been promised to be paid in cash, and she hadn’t even signed any paperwork yet.
“We start ya off with fifteen dollars an hour around here. After six months, if you’re doing well, we give ya a dollar raise. After that, we do a yearly review where you’re guaranteed at least a quarter raise.”
Missy’s eyes widened. “Fifteen dollars an hour?”
Sure, while she knew that was the going rate in New York and other big cities, that was a huge amount for her small town. Most people she knew were living pretty comfortably at twelve dollars an hour. She couldn’t imagine…
Wow. Her life was certainly about to change.
“We have health insurance and all that too. But I hope you don’t mind, I don’t wanna touch that stuff with a ten-foot pole. We’ll get ya rolling on that front when my brother comes back to town. Sound good?”
Missy nodded eagerly. “It certainly does! Thank you.”
“No problem! I’ll roll around later to check up on you.”
He walked off as if he hadn’t just completely rocked Missy’s budgetary world, leaving the young woman to stare over the stalls that were supposed to be her duty.
Fifteen dollars an hour.
Holy smokes.
Well, she needed to get to work if she was going to be earning that kind of rate.
“Oh, wow, hey there, don’t push yourself so hard on the first day.”
Missy blinked and turned around to see Bradley standing there with his arms crossed over his chest. For a split second, her heart leapt into her throat, sure that he was coming to tell her that they had heard about her reputation and didn’t need that on the ranch. That she didn’t belong.
But instead, a smile broke across his face as he whistled. “Geez, if you work this hard every day, maybe we won’t need overtime.”
Missy grinned weakly, trying to wipe off her sweaty forehead with the back of her hand, but as she did, she could feel something smear across her skin. Considering what she had been cleaning for the past… however long, she didn’t want to think about what it could be.
“I doubt that. I’m sure I’ll be nice and sore tomorrow.”
“Yes, that is typically how bodies work.” He laughed slightly, all the way to his eyes, and she understood why the girls in town got so giggly over the Miller boys. “So please, feel free to slow your roll for the rest of the day.”
“I’ll take that into consideration.” She looked him over once more, and when he didn’t leave, her curiosity piqued. “Did you need something else? Me to sign something?”
“Nah, it’s just lunch time, and I figure you should be shown to where a lot of the workers eat. Unless you want to drive home.”
“Oh, is it lunch already?”
“Technically, it started a bit ago, but I figured since you weren’t here from our normal start time that you wouldn’t be hungry yet.”
“You guessed right,” Missy said, setting her pitchfork aside. “But I sure am hungry now.”
“Yeah, if I knew you were going to go after this like a rabbit with a carrot, I’d have gotten you earlier.”
“Well, I guess you and me both learned something today.” Missy had stepped over to the sink and wiped her forehead and washed her hands.
“I guess so.” He stepped aside for her to pass him, which she did until they were out of the barn, then he took over the lead. “I see those muscles aren’t just for show.”
With that Missy gave him a bit of a smirk. “Us Dominics are hardy stock. Dad used to joke that we’ve been the bodyguards of many an important man throughout the centuries.”
“Huh, aren’t you in the wrong line of business then? I hear bodyguards pay a whole lot more than farmhands.”
Missy shrugged. “I don’t really like hurting things.”
“Fair enough.”
They came upon a neat looking shack; the door was thrown open and pleasant conversation could be heard from within. Missy followed Bradley inside and was surprised to see a large, doublewide table with over a dozen people sitting around it, stuffing their faces. Over against the wall was another long bar that was filled up with all sorts of food, bolstering fare that would give her enough energy to get through the day.
“Hello everyone, this is Missy,” Bradley said with a winning smile. A chorus of “hellos” came from the workers at the table.
Bradley turned back toward Missy. “Lunch is normally from eleven to one, and I figured since you’re a townie, you’ll probably stick around here.”
“Yeah, I would hate to drive back and forth,” Missy said, feeling self-consciousness prickling up her spine. With so many eyes turned toward her, she couldn’t figure out if anyone knew her. Or rather, knew of her.
No one in town really knew her that well. There were just words about her father, about her body—like she could help that, or worse, about her mother.
Mrs. Chelsea Dominic was a wonderful woman. Kind to a fault. Incredibly sarcastic. Missy remembered how her mother taught her that she could do anything. That she was unstoppable. That there was nothing wrong with loving all the strange creatures she loved. Snakes, rats, mice, even worms. Mom had taught her that it was the life in them that was so precious. That it didn’t matter that their outsides were scaled, or slimy, or covered with matted fur. That they were just as worthy of love as anything else.
“Nice to meet you, Missy,” one of the closer men said, a guy who looked to be middle-aged with salt and pepper hair. “Name’s Clint.”
“Nice to meet you, Clint,” she responded automatically, offering her hand.
He took it, and there were no looks of derision, not huffs or knowing glances. That seemed good. Usually, people couldn’t hide it on their faces when they thought those ugly, judgy things.
The darkness—the vile, stinking tint of it—always shone through those fake, pleasant masks that they wore.
“Here,” another woman said, tall and stocky not unlike Missy herself. “Name’s Janey. I’ll show you all the best food that Mrs. Miller and Tatum cooks us.”
“Thank you,” Missy said, eyes widening. “That brings up a couple questions. Question one, who’s Tatum?”
“Oh, one of the nieces descended from one of the Miller branching lines. Your other question?”
“Mrs. Miller, as in the Mrs. Miller cooks for us?”
Janey chuckled lightly. “Why do people always sound so surprised about that? Yeah, she cooks for us. Not every day, mind you, but most of them.”
“Huh,” Missy said. She didn’t know what to think of that. But it was a good sign, she thought. One of many.
She hoped that it all wasn’t too good to be true.
�
�All right, now that we’ve got all that out of the way, let’s get you some grub, right?”
Missy nodded and followed Janey as she led her along the buffet table. Soon, Missy’s plate was full, and she sat down with the others, several of whom kept up polite conversation with her.
It was nice. All of it. For once, she felt that she wasn’t being judged. She was just another worker with growing blisters on her newly worked hands. It was nice. Very nice.
She could get used to it.
The only question remaining was just what was going to come along and ruin it like life always did.
4
Missy
“Hey there, Sterling. Ow, don’t lick Mommy’s hand now, she’s got icky medical stuff on it.”
But the sweet little brown eyes didn’t even flick up to her as the sweetest of her little rats licked her fingers. Missy pulled her hand away and patted his head before filling up the food bowl he shared with his brothers.
People always hated rats, said they gave them the creepy-crawlies, but Missy understood what it was like to be judged just on appearances. They were clean little things, and incredibly affectionate. Sterling was an excellent fetcher while Salvatore, his black and white brother, was better at rolling over and playing dead.
Washing her hands once more, wincing as her blisters stung, Missy moved onto her hamsters. Those were mostly from people who bought them for their children then quickly gave them up when they realized how much work the little creatures were. That their cages were too small, and the animals were getting aggressive from pent-up energy.
She laughed as she put one of her three into an exercise ball, then sealed it up properly so Iggy could roll around her studio. Considering that hamsters couldn’t be kept together unless they were birth-siblings of the same sex, they took up a lot of her space. She had a tank for each of them with plenty of the stuff they needed to dig and have fulfilling lives with.
But as she loaded Sabby into the next exercise ball, she felt her back throb a bit, sore and abused from her first full week of work.
Not that she was surprised because boy, the work was indeed backbreaking. Her hands were covered in blisters and band-aids while she had some serious rub-rash going on between her thick thighs. It seemed that no amount of baby powder was getting her jeans to stop chafing her, so she was probably going to have to invest in some thick leggings that would stand up to the job.
Maybe she’d ask Janey. While the woman wasn’t as curvy as Missy, she was still somewhat thick, and no doubt had to find solutions to the dreaded swamp-thighs. Missy resolved to ask the farmhand on Monday, then went about cleaning cages.
It was a relief to not have to worry about her coworkers or shady glances. Although there were dozens of them, none of the farmworkers ever gave her trouble. They were all friendly and never made comments about her body—other than to compliment her growing biceps or tell her remedies for her hands.
But perhaps, best of all, no one ever told her to smile.
She liked that.
She liked that a lot.
Almost as much as she liked all of the animals. There were just so many! There were all the sheep, with an especially mischievous one named Blarney. They were dumb creatures, but fun nonetheless, and she liked their personalities.
Then, of course, there were the cows too. While they were usually off grazing in the fields or having fun with their cow-friends, they did occasionally wander in to check on the workers. Or at least Missy liked to think that was what they were doing. Their big eyes were so kind, so curious that she couldn’t help but attribute some human characteristics to them.
There were also the ducks, and the geese, and everything else. It was the best job that she had ever worked, even if she woke up sore every morning and hit her bed every night utterly exhausted.
Missy puttered around most of the day, taking care of her animals and cleaning the whole house. It was strangely relaxing, but by the time night finally rolled around, she found she wasn’t tired at all.
Huh. It seemed that her body was so used to pushing and pushing itself that having a day off felt strange. Missy drew herself a bath, settling in for a good soak, and it helped wick away some of the soreness in her back, hips, and shoulders.
But when she got out and dried herself, she found that she still wasn’t even remotely tired. The town was strangely quiet outside her door, with no lowing of the cows or honking of geese or any other sounds beyond the occasional car.
Sighing, Missy went to the window, opening it up to look at the sky.
Normally there was a great smattering of stars up in the velvet black, blinking softly at her, but with every year they got a little dimmer—drowned out by the light pollution of their growing town. It wouldn’t be too long before their small town turned into a fringe city. And then a real city.
Sometimes, Missy thought she would be better off in a bigger city, where nobody knew her, and her father’s reputation wouldn’t be a thing at all. There would be far too many souls and shakers for someone like her to even make a splash. She could blend into the ether of the city, being nothing else but another denizen.
But then she’d remind herself of what she loved so much about the small town. The space. The lack of hurry. And of course, the animals.
Besides, it was in town that her mother and father were buried, and she didn’t want to leave the only human family that she had. She was afraid she’d be far too lost if she left them.
But as she looked up at the disappointing sky, she realized that she wanted to see real stars. She bet if she got far enough outside of town, she could see what she was craving.
In fact, she was pretty sure she had seen a nice hill at the Miller Ranch. Surely, they wouldn’t mind her hanging out on the property for a little bit as long as she didn’t get up to any trouble?
Right?
She hoped so.
With some uncertainty, she grabbed one of her thick blankets and got into her car, heading toward the ranch. The drive was peaceful, with not a lot of cars on the road at midnight between Sunday and Monday, and she arrived without much fanfare.
She couldn’t help but think that she probably shouldn’t be at the Miller Ranch outside of work hours, but she couldn’t imagine the welcoming and kind family being mad at her. If they even caught her.
Caught was the wrong word. That implied she was doing something wrong. More like… stumbled upon her.
But despite the dubious rule-breaking that she may or may not have been committing, she felt completely safe as she found the hill she had in mind and went ahead and laid her blanket out.
She stared up at the night sky and, just as she had suspected, there were way more stars visible out in the countryside. The sky took on a beautiful sort of visage, and Missy let her head drift up into them.
It was a bit funny. Often space seemed so far away that it was impossible to reach, but the truth was that if she somehow managed to drive her car upward, it would only take her an hour to reach it.
Just an hour and she could be out in the celestial mist, touching things that were impossible to touch, being away from Earth and all its troubles.
But in truth, she would miss all of her animals, and pancakes. Definitely pancakes. And the cool wind when summer was just shifting to autumn, then the warm gust of growth as winter faded to spring. As much as she mentally complained about Earth, and as much as she hated feeling the glares of those who were judging her, she liked to think that there were nicer things to love and appreciate.
Missy continued to stare up, feeling herself start to relax and drift away. It was always easy to forget everything when she was alone and quiet in the night. Easy to forget the path her Dad had fumbled down and how he had overshadowed her own journey in the eyes of everyone else. Easy to forget how their gazes went to her chest first, then her hips, and no matter what she wore, they would always find her too much because of what they found there.
A noise sounded behind her, shattering her re
laxation. Scared of coyotes or other wild things that maybe had caught her scent, she jumped to her feet and whirled. But instead of a pack of creatures, there was a man standing there.
That didn’t alleviate her fears at all, and she tensed as they stared at each other. She waited for the shoe to drop, for him to announce himself as friend or foe—or even react to her at all, but instead, he just stood there.
“Uh, hello?” Missy called uncertainly.
He still said nothing. For a moment she worried that he was trying to scare her with his silence, but no… that didn’t seem to be accurate either.
Somehow, despite everything, she didn’t feel in danger.
No. She felt…
Curious.
Carefully, she approached him, talking to him the whole time. She wasn’t sure if what she was saying made sense, but it was just sort of general platitudes and offerings of comfort.
“Hey, are you okay, sir? Do you need help? My name is Melissa. Can I help you?”
But he didn’t react at all, no threatening moves, no sudden lunges. He just stood there, staring at her.
No.
Staring past her. And the closer she got, the more she noticed that tears were streaming down his tortured looking face.
Oh.
She knew who this was.
It had been hard to make out his features in the low light of the hill, but now she knew without a doubt that this was another Miller brother. He was the talk of the town about a year ago when he came back from the army. He’d gone off to war right out of high school, and when he finally returned home, there was something a little… wrong with him.
Or at least, that was how most people looked at it. Missy had read enough to know about PTSD. After her mother had died and her father had suddenly turned into a completely different person, she’d done a whole heck of a lot of research.
Not that any of it had done any good. But perhaps it would now.