9 Ways to Fall in Love

by Caroline Clemmons

  The older woman went into a coughing spasm but soon regained her voice. "Hon, I ain't got nothin' cooked today."

  Joanna smiled at her. "I didn't come to eat, Clova. I came to do my chores and see how things are. If there's a Sunday dinner when I come out, it's a bonus."

  "They told me they'd take my credit card." Clova laughed. This time, she did find something genuinely humorous in the statement. "Can you believe that?"

  Sometimes talking to Clova wrenched at Joanna's heart. The woman wasn't so old in years, but she was a throwback to another time. In Clova's world, if you needed to borrow money, you went to the local bank and did business with someone you knew and who knew you. You didn't charge a debt on an account with an obscure financier, the whereabouts of which you didn't know.

  Joanna found a laugh, too, though the circumstances weren't funny. "We live in a credit card world," she said, opening the door to her egg-washing room. “These days, most of my customers in my shop and my store pay with credit cards.”

  Clova remained outside on the egg-washing room’s small porch . With the space used by the three-tub stainless-steel sink, the egg-washing equipment, the large commercial refrigerator and the utility shelving, the area left was barely large enough for two people.

  "Well, I ain't got a credit card," Clova said defiantly. "And I ain't never had one. And I don't want one. Lane used to have some. The bastards charged him twenty-five percent interest. Lord God. I liked to never got 'em all paid for. Now he don't have none. And I say that's just fine. Whoever heard of a bank chargin' poor people twenty-five percent interest?"

  Joanna zipped up the coveralls she had lifted from the tiny closet beside the refrigerator. "I know it's an outrageous fee, but no one forced Lane to run up his credit card bills, Clova. He did that on his own. Why would you pay his debts like that?"

  "'Cause I pay all the bills that come to this ranch. Lane lives here, and he's part o' the operation. He don't get much in the way o' wages. Besides that, I've always felt a little bit sorry for him 'cause he ain't got no judgment about him. He ain't like Dalton always was. Dalton knew the right thing to do even when he was a boy."

  The conversation Joanna had just had with her sister drifted into her mind: …But when he found out I was a virgin, he wouldn’t.

  So Dalton did have an honorable streak. Or at least he’d had one when he was a boy.

  Pulling on a pair of clean cotton gloves, Joanna stepped outside. "Ready?"

  Side by side, she and Clova sauntered toward the chicken yard, with Clova continuing to talk. "Lane's more like his daddy. He gets to drinkin' and thinkin' he's a big shot and the next thing you know, he's spent money he ain't got. When I found out about them credit cards, I cut 'em up. If I hadn't o' stopped him, he could o' spent so much he got the ranch in trouble. His credit's so bad now, he couldn't get a credit card if he wanted to. It's a relief."

  Hearing of Clova's proactive approach to Lane's irresponsible spending was a surprise. And proof of the Lazy P’s importance to Clova. Joanna had rarely seen her oppose her youngest son.

  "I've got an idea," she said. "You’re already dressed up in your good clothes. When I get these eggs gathered up and washed, why don't we go to town and eat at Sylvia's? I'll buy you supper."

  Clova chuckled, bringing deep creases to the corners of her eyes. "Hon, you don't have to buy me supper. I ain't that broke yet."

  Joanna smiled. "I know. But look at all the times I've eaten Sunday dinner out here. If I tried to pay you back by cooking you a meal, you might not survive it. But I can buy you a steak."

  "I guess we could do that. Like you said, I still got on my good clothes and all."

  They walked across the gravel driveway to the chicken yard. At the gate, they stepped over the two electric fence wires that surrounded the chicken yard and headed toward the first bank of nests. Clova had let Joanna stretch the electrified wires around the area where the chickens lived. The wire didn't carry a strong current, but it was strong enough to keep the chickens in and most small, four-legged predators out. Touching it would give a human an unforgettable zap. Unfortunately, the damn bobcats had figured how to avoid the charged fence and electric wires near the ground did nothing to prevent an eagle or a hawk from having dinner on Joanna.

  "I've been thinkin', Joanna," Clova said. She began to help pick eggs from the nests. "You know this part here where you've got your chickens? It's part of a section o' land we've always called the peanut farm."

  Joanna did know that. Peanuts had never grown here in her lifetime, but sometime in the past, they must have. It was a square section of land, six hundred forty acres with highway frontage and very few mesquite trees. The small pasture where her hens presently lived used only a tiny corner of it. "Uh-huh."

  "I've been thinkin' 'bout going in to town to see Clyde and havin' him draw up a deed to that section. I was thinkin' 'bout just givin' it to you, Joanna."

  Joanna's heart skipped a beat. She couldn't stop a nervous twitter. "You can't do that, Clova. You need the grazing. And your boys would die. It's their inheritance. And I wouldn't take it, anyway. It's one of the best spots on your place. Why, it's got a windmill on it and water good enough to drink."

  Clova stopped, put her hand on Joanna's forearm and looked up, her dark eyes soft with sincerity. "I'm serious. This last sick spell I had started me to thinkin'. I'm gettin' old. I could catch somethin' and pass away."

  Her mind reeling, Joanna picked three eggs from a nest and frowned at seeing that one was cracked. "Clova, listen to me. In the first place, you're not old. And in the second, I won't take land from you for free. It's more than enough you're letting me use it without paying. Why would you want to give it to me when you have two sons to leave it to?"

  "Them boys ain't never done for me what you have. Dalton don't even come around 'cept ever' two or three years. And I can't depend on Lane for nothin'. He's got his daddy's weakness. Whatever he inherits, he's gonna drink up.

  “I don't know what'll happen to the place after I'm gone, but my grandpa and my daddy would stand at the Pearly Gates and shut me out if they saw I didn't do my best to take care of the land and keep this place all together. My great-granddaddy had a hard time gettin' to own it, bein' Indian and all. And he had a even harder time a-keepin' it. It meant ever'thang to him."

  She looked across her shoulder at Joanna and smiled, the light of affection in her eyes. "But I don't guess the elders would get upset at me givin' a little piece of it to somebody that's been good to me."

  A fullness rose in Joanna’s chest. She focused her gaze on her egg basket. She might break into tears if she kept looking Clova in the face. "I haven't been especially good to you, Clova. I haven't done any more for you than I would have for anyone I call a friend."

  Indeed, it wasn't in Joanna to expect a gift in return for favors done for a friend, but a selfish part of her dared to acknowledge that six hundred forty acres would be enough land for expanding her egg business and even keeping a cow or two. "Tell you what. Maybe you could figure out what it's worth and I could buy it. Or I could buy just a few acres from you. I don't need all six hundred and forty acres. You could let me pay it out over time."

  "That ain't what I wanna do. I feel like it's my fault you got all these worthless chickens and the struggle to sell these damn eggs. If I hadn't o' talked you into it, you wouldn't be doin' it. I feel bad that now you got that mortgage on your house and all and you’re working like a dog. If somethin' happened to me, I know them boys wouldn't let you keep these chickens or these donkeys here. They'd prob'ly run you clear off."

  "Look, Clova. I'm not your responsibility, okay? I made a conscious decision to take out the mortgage on the house, and I was stone-cold sober when I did it. Let's both think about it some more."

  "I'm done thinkin'. I thought all the way home from Lubbock. Practic'ly gave m'self a headache. This last little trick of Lane's has did it for me."

  "Clova, listen. Before you do anything hasty, I want yo
u to know I called Dalton. He wasn't at home, but I left a message on his voice mail. I asked him to come for a visit. He hasn't called back yet, but I'm hoping he will. If he decides to come home for a few days to help out, maybe we can talk to him about it. Sort of see how he'd feel about your giving away land he expects to inherit."

  "Inheritin' ain't a automatic right, Joanna. Just 'cause him and Lane are next in line don't mean they get it. Both of 'em need to show respect for it and do somethin' to earn it. Like I did."

  Joanna's heart would hardly hold the emotion that had bloomed within her. Her dad had never earned much money. He had driven a bread delivery truck for a Lubbock bakery until the day he became too ill to continue. He had left Mom a home and a small amount of insurance money, but she still needed a job to make ends meet. Love and affection were all he'd had to leave his two daughters. Everything Joanna owned she had earned from hard work. No one had ever given her so fine a gift as acres of land.

  "I still think we should both think about it some more," she told Clova.

  Together they completed the egg-washing and storing process, then Joanna drove them into Hatlow to Sylvia's Cafe. Sylvia herself was cooking, so they feasted on her special recipe of pot roast with fresh carrots, potatoes and onions and her homemade sourdough bread. Years back, Sylvia's husband had worked as a chuckwagon cook at a legendary West Texas ranch, and he had brought his recipes to Sylvia's Cafe. He had passed on, but his wife continued to cook in his style.

  They avoided discussing why Clova showed no enthusiasm for the possibility of her oldest son returning for a visit after so long. They didn't discuss where he had been or why. Nor did they speculate on the consequences if Lane came out of his latest escapade crippled. Though Joanna was still burdened by the comments about Clova and Dalton from the day's earlier conversation with her own mother and sister, tonight, with Clova, she talked about the food and music. They laughed about TV programs as if neither of them had a thing to worry about.

  Later, Joanna lay in her bed in the darkness watching the turn of the ceiling fan's dimly visible blades. Joanna Faye Walsh, landowner. She could hardly believe it. Wow, was all she could think.

  Owning land opened doors to all kinds of opportunities. Why, she could sell her house. Then she could buy a mobile home and put it on the land and maybe have a free-and-clear roof over her head again. That way, she could be near the hens and wouldn't have to make two trips a day to take care of them. She could even think about going into the broiler business. Didn't someone tell her just last week that a meal of free-range chicken sold for forty dollars in the fancy restaurants in Dallas?

  With highway frontage, maybe she could put up a small stand and sell eggs and fresh fruits and vegetables. She would go organic on the fruits and vegetables, too, following the latest hot trend. She envisioned baskets of plump, golden Parker County peaches and vivid Texas Rio and Ruby Red grapefruit; stacks of fragrant, sweet Pecos cantaloupes. And a parade of people stopping off to buy from her.

  She meant it when she said she didn't need six hundred forty acres. She truly did not need so much and she wasn't a greedy person.

  But how could she take land for free from Clova or anyone else? It just wasn't right. The land belonged to the Parker family. With West Texas landowners, the children inherited. It had always been that way.

  In the midst of that maze of thought, she drifted to sleep.

  * * *

  By the end of the week, Joanna had spent so much time at the Parker ranch, she was beginning to feel as if she had become a resident. So that Clova was free to make trips to Lubbock to spend time with Lane and do other chores away from the ranch, Joanna and Alicia had been feeding the Lazy P cattle every day. Alicia was on the Joanna's Salon & Supplies payroll. What task she performed didn't matter so long as it was something the teenager was willing to do.

  A few times Clova's neighbors had pitched in, but their help came in sporadic bursts. Thus, every morning at daylight, Joanna had put on her most ragged jeans, her most worn boots and a long-sleeve shirt, picked up Alicia and driven to the Parker ranch. After taking care of the chickens and the eggs, they heaved bales of hay four stacks high into the bed of the old beat-up ranch pickup truck. Then they bumped and crept across the pastures, pushing the dusty, scratchy bales off the bed's tailgate, with the cattle bellowing and following behind. They traded off driving. Alicia had never driven a pickup and thought it fun.

  Joanna had girded herself for a long haul, but that didn't keep her from collapsing at night, nostrils filled with dust, made worse by the drought, skin and hair caked with sweat and dirt. She went to bed with muscles stiff and aching and rose before daylight in the same state. In just a week's time, she had lost five pounds. In the past, when Lane wasn't around for whatever reason, Clova herself had somehow done this work alone every day, rain or shine. No wonder she was thin as a reed. No wonder she looked so worn.

  Alicia loved the cattle. She had begun to recognize them individually and was now giving them long Spanish names, all of which included the Spanish word for sweet: dulce.

  Joanna was fascinated by how quickly she, herself, learned to pick an individual white-faced cow from a sea of white-faced cows that basically all looked alike. Like her hens, the cattle had personalities.

  This morning, she found herself alone at the ranch doing chores of her own in the chicken yard. The back neighbor, the elderly August Hulsey, had called and reported a fence being down and Lazy P cattle roaming into his pasture. Clova and Alicia had taken the work pickup to do the feeding and at the same time investigate and possibly work on the downed fence.

  Compared to taking care of the cattle, tending the hens felt like a walk in a park. Joanna was exhausted. For all of her good intentions, she wondered just how long this could go on. But she couldn't throw in the towel. Clova was a friend. If Joanna didn't help her without expecting pay, she could think of few who would.

  Chapter 6

  Dalton Parker shoved on his sunglasses and left the Lubbock airport in a rented car the size of a roller skate. He hated cars. Had never owned one. He lumbered around LA in a ten-year-old three-quarter-ton Chevy pickup truck with a camper canopy mounted on the bed.

  He had spent the week putting his life in good enough order to be able to leave LA. As it was, his agent and his editor were in a fret about him meeting his deadline on the new book of images from the Middle East. He had assured them he was almost finished.

  He had been forced to leave his house in the care of Candace, though they had mutually agreed their affair was over. Once she clearly understood that a wedding ring wasn't in their future, she had been eager to move on to more promising pastures.

  Since she was homeless for the time being, he had made a deal with her to stay in the house rent-free in exchange for looking after it. But for all he knew, in his absence, she might set the place afire. He had learned over time never to underestimate a pissed-off woman.

  He bitched and swore at the traffic all the way to Lubbock Memorial Hospital. He didn't recall heavy traffic being a problem in Lubbock before he left this part of the country, but then, except for a few short visits, he had been away nearly twenty years.

  At the hospital, when he told a receptionist why he came, she summoned a nurse's aide, who hurried him to the far end of a long hallway, her shoes squeaking in quick rhythm against the shiny tile floor. At the ICU, a nurse with a military bearing if he had ever seen one, brusquely asked his name and checked to see whether it was on some list. To his astonishment, it was, and he wondered who had put it there. Who had been so certain he would show up?

  Inside the brightly lit ICU, Dalton realized he hadn't prepared himself for how severely injured his little brother was. Seeing the kid's pale face, the sunken eyes, his broken body bandaged and hooked up to monster machines by a web of tubes, Dalton was reminded of the horrors he had photographed and left behind on the other side of the world. His pulse rate quickened.

  Lane was semiconscious and recognized
him. When Dalton touched his hand, Lane attempted to grip his finger. Memories flew into Dalton's mind. In a way, he had been like a father to Lane. Earl Cherry had been drunk all of his only child's life and paid him little attention. As a little boy, eight years younger than Dalton and afraid of his shadow, Lane had looked up to his big brother as if he were a hero.

  As Dalton remembered that Lane had always wanted to hold his hand, a lump sprang to his throat. He took his little brother's weak hand, gently squeezed and continued to hold it. "Hey, buddy," he said quietly. "They don't make those power poles out of rubber, you know."

  An expression Dalton took to be a smile passed through Lane's drugged brown eyes, but words didn't follow.

  Only minutes later, a nurse came to Dalton's side and urged him away. Reluctantly he left the bedside, unable to take his eyes off his brother as he went. He stopped at the nurses' station. "What's going on with him? Is he gonna be okay?"

  "He's doing well, considering," the nurse answered. "His doctor's already been here today, but he'll be back tomorrow morning. You can discuss it with him."

  Dalton looked around at the array of machines and monitors stuffed in every nook and cranny of the large room.

  The nurse smiled as if she sensed his trepidation. "Don't let all of this worry you. It looks scary, but it's really life-saving equipment."

  "I know."

  And he did know. He had seen and photographed wilder-looking technical stuff and more of it at the Camp Ramadi hospital in Iraq. The battlefield itself hadn't shaken him nearly as deeply as what he had witnessed in those brightly lit operating rooms. There was just something soul-shaking by seeing a twenty-year-old lose both legs or both arms. Or all four limbs.

  "How long will he be in here?" he asked the RN.

  "That's for his doctor to say."

  "Who is he? And where is he?"

  "Dr. Naran. As I said, he'll be back tomorrow morning."