Saving Cecil

by Lee Mims

  The store, specializing in couture fashion, was so enticing I was lured inside. Once there, I moved from one spectacular garment to another, farther and farther back into the store until I noticed the bridal section. Dutifully, I strolled over to look at their “appropriate” wedding suits. A beautiful sales attendant, late-fifties with her silvery blond hair swept up in an elegant French twist, approached me. “May I offer Madam assistance?” Her accent was as French as her do.

  “Yes, you may,” I said, shaking her proffered hand. She introduced herself as Fanny. “I’m Cleo Cooper, Fanny,” I said. “And I’d like to see something in a wedding suit … perhaps ivory or maybe a light coffee color … ”

  “Non, non, non,” said Fanny, stepping back and eyeing me critically.

  “Pardon?” I said.

  “This would not be for you,” Fanny said, reverting to English. “You have the beautiful body, and youth is still very much on your side. You must revel in these assets on this your most wonderful day.”

  “Well, it is my second wedding.”

  “All the more reason for you to assert yourself,” Fanny said, with a wise tilt of her head.

  “Interesting you should say that, Fanny,” I said. “Because, frankly, wearing a suit to my wedding is about as exciting as a cup of chicken soup.”

  Fanny smiled knowingly and said, “Tell me. If you could be a food or a drink offered to your husband on that day, what would it be?”

  Without hesitation, I answered, “’96 Dom in a Waterford flute.” Although Bud is generally a Bud Light kinda guy, he has his elegant moments and when he does, Dom Perignon is what he always orders.

  “As I suspected,” Fanny said. “Follow me.”

  I did. We entered a large, opulent dressing room with a raised stage flanked on three sides with mirrors. “Please make yourself comfortable,” Fanny offered graciously, motioning to an ornate Baroque chair before disappearing from the room. She returned in a wink, cradling a gown with both arms.

  “This, madam, is you.” She held up the gown by its satin hanger, artfully flaring its skirt, allowing the hem to trail upon the lush carpet.

  My astonished expression was quickly replaced with a wry smile. Fanny slipped politely from the room, but not before discreetly pointing out that undergarments with this gown were unacceptable. I stripped out of my street clothes, but kept on my thong. When she returned with a soft knock, she helped me into the gown. I stepped up on the stage and looked at myself. Turning slowly before the mirrors, I viewed the gown from all sides. A wonderful feeling of calm and confidence enveloped me and I said to Fanny, “I’ll take it.”

  “A wise choice, madam.”

  Following a measuring session by a covey of tiny Asian women, I paid for my new treasure—gratefully without fainting upon seeing the price. Everything was moving along well until I realized there had been a miscommunication regarding the date of the wedding.

  Fanny had thought the wedding date was to be November 9th of next year, not this one. This brought about a slew of international calls dominated by French swear words. When it was all over, she calmly told me the floor sample would be remade to my exact measurements in about three weeks. At that time I’d be expected for another fitting to make sure everything was perfect.

  My trip back home that evening was uneventful. I spent the drive time planning out my weekend and looking forward to some quiet time with Bud. Every now and then, though, I thought of the gown and laughed and laughed.

  FOUR

  Monday was another sparkling fall day and Tulip paced around my kitchen. She was raring to go. That mysterious internal alarm she possessed, the one that alerted her to the possibility of field work must have gone off. She fidgeted impatiently while I finished my coffee and read the obits from the online edition of the Sanford Herald. I noted that the funeral for Clinton Baker, the young man accidentally killed on the Lauderbach farm, had been held on Saturday. It made me sad to contemplate such a waste of a young life. I closed my laptop with a sigh and Tulip scrambled for the door.

  Bud, who had just bounded down the stairs, followed me outside.

  “Okay, girl, load up,” I said unnecessarily to Tulip. She hopped into the cargo area of my old 1986 CJ-8 Jeep Scrambler and I pulled the fiberglass door closed and latched it.

  Before I could open my door, Bud wrapped his arm around my waist, nuzzled my neck and said, “What would you do if you came home this afternoon to find a shiny new Jeep Grand Cherokee waiting for you?”

  “We’ve been over this many times, Bud,” I said, giving him a peck on the lips. “I wouldn’t like it and you know why.”

  “Right,” Bud snipped. “You don’t want anything shiny and new that you can’t drive through the woods and swamps for fear of scratching or denting said shiny and new finish.”

  “Exactly.” I pushed away from him, giving him a harder-than-playful pinch on the abs before climbing behind the wheel.

  “Ouch!” Bud squawked as though fatally wounded.

  “What do you have planned today?” I asked sweetly.

  “You’re changing the subject, but I’ve been meaning to tell you. I probably won’t be here this evening or the next. Actually, I’m going to be in and out all week with business meetings, but we’ll keep in touch by phone.”

  “Okay then, I’ll see you when I see you. And, Bud, there better not be a new Jeep in the driveway when I get home this afternoon … or ever.”

  On my way to the site, I thought about our little driveway exchange and tried not to make too much of it. If our new marriage was going to be successful, it was paramount for me to keep old fears and anxieties at bay. Still, my old Jeep was very dear to me. It had safely carried me thousands of miles and gotten me out of many a sticky situation, literally. The fact that he was trying to push me around on this issue, yet again, was disappointing. The fact that he didn’t understand why the Jeep was special to me was infuriating.

  The issue was more than simple scratches and dents. The 1986 Jeep Scrambler had just come out when I’d met Bud. At the time I was struggling to finish my master’s thesis, doing pro-bono work for a gas exploration company, and trying to manage the overwhelming family issues present in my life. Those issues were the reason I couldn’t have the Scrambler in the first place. Normally, it would have been the perfect graduation gift from my parents. I know that because my dad told me so … from behind bars in the county jail while he awaited trial for murder.

  Fast forward to when Bud and I separated and I’d refused to take any alimony. After all, I was the one who’d left. In desperate need of transportation and scant funds, it seemed fate had guided me to the used car lot where I found the same model Jeep Scrambler. I bought it on the spot and from then on I thought of it as the magic Jeep. Over the years it became a symbol of my independence. That Bud couldn’t understand really ticked me off.

  And, it was a plus that I never had to worry about damaging it, squeezing down overgrown logging trails. The hefty V-8 engine had plenty of power, plus I’d added a few extras over the years, like my trusty wench mounted on the front bumper, and of course the addition of a backseat and my custom hard top. No siree. No one was separating me from the magic Jeep.

  By the time I reached the Lauderbach farm, I’d pushed the Jeep incident to the back of my mind, but I hadn’t forgotten it. Tulip whined with anticipation as we approached the drilling area and parked. I grabbed my hard hat from the backseat and joined the men at the rig. Following an introduction to Jackie, Tulip went off on her merry way to check out the site and see if she could find a cow pie or two to roll in. I wasn’t worried, there’s always water on a drill site and I kept a towel in the car just for her.

  “How’d your trip to DC go?” Jackie asked.

  “Just fine. Thanks for asking. We got my pylon put together, so now all that remains is the grand opening.”

  “You haven’t mis
sed anything here. We’re about 800 feet down in the Sanford.”

  “Very good,” I said. “That puts us about halfway to the Cumnock. I’ll start taking samples today. According to Greenlite’s drill plan, we’ll start making our turn at about 1,750 feet, so we have plenty of time to identify beds before we get there. Before I get started, however, I still need to run over and meet the Lauderbachs. I tried to call on them the day that kid got killed in the hunting accident but they’d gone to make a condolence call at his home. Seems he was one of their employees.”

  “Damn shame,” Jackie said, shaking his head. “No one that young should die. Why, he’d hardly started living yet.” We pontificated on the sadness of the event for a moment, then Jackie said, “You go do what you need to do. We’ll be drilling on ahead.”

  “Good enough. I’ll be back in a few.”

  Before leaving the site, I called Tulip to the office trailer. “You give real meaning to the term doghouse, girl,” I said as I poured her some water and cracked open the windows. “I’ll only be gone a few minutes, then you can go back to scouting for cow pies.” Office trailers are all pretty much the same, so, feeling right at home, she hopped up on the cot, turned around a few times, and prepared to take a nap until I got back.

  My second trip to the Lauderbach home was successful. Ruby, the sweet housekeeper I’d met earlier, greeted me at the door again. “Come on in,” she said. “Mrs. Lauderbach is in the sunroom. I’ll go ask if she can see you.”

  Standing in the high-ceilinged foyer, I was grateful that I hadn’t been on the drill site long enough to get my boots dirty. Site preparation for a drilling operation like ours rearranges practically all the soil on three acres or more. There are mud pits to be dug and numerous areas to be leveled for pipe and casing storage as well as the rig pad itself. If it rained … well, you get the picture.

  I checked my appearance in an impressive mahogany-framed mirror, featuring intricately carved fruit and game birds, and straightened my ponytail. A glorious antique grandfather clock, it had to be seven feet tall or more, majestically ticked away the minutes until Ruby returned and guided me to the sunroom on the east side of the house.

  I don’t know what I’d been expecting, but Mrs. Lauderbach didn’t fit any preconceived notions I might have had about what a dairy-farmer’s wife ought to look like. She was tiny, frail, and appeared to be weak as a bird. I pegged her at mid-fifties, but she was so thin it was hard to say for sure. Her hair was a soft brown, naturally curly with only a few gray strands, and her eyes were a vivid green. She rose to greet me.

  “Ms. Cooper,” she said and gestured to a chair beside hers, which was facing floor-to-ceiling windows. The top row had been opened, allowing the cool air outside to bring the room to a comfortable temperature and occasionally billowing the gauzy cream drapes stacked in the corners.

  I shook her hand, then sat in the comfy wicker chair and looked out at a lush green lawn, sloping gently to a picturesque farm pond. On the south side of the lawn were a fall vegetable garden, several rows of Muscadine grapevines, and several rows of fruit trees. On the north side, an array of outbuildings were well-maintained. Since smokehouses and chicken coops are no longer needed, I imagined these building were used for storage. Taken all together, the scene was reminiscent of a Grant Wood painting.

  “I’m so sorry I missed your visit last Wednesday,” Mrs. Lauderbach said. “But Clinton, the student killed in the hunting accident on our farm, was a close family friend.” She paused, composing herself, then continued. “Ruby told me she explained to you our relationship with him.”

  “Yes, she did,” I said. “It must have been devastating to your entire family. I’m so sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you for your kind words, Ms. Cooper … ”

  “Please, call me Cleo.”

  “Thank you, my dear, and please, call me Annette. We’re just one big family here at the dairy. All our employees have been with us for most of their lives. My father ran this dairy and his father ran it before him. One day, God willing, my children will run it when my husband and I no longer can. I understand you’re the person we are to contact if we have any questions about the well, about how it’s progressing, or if there are any problems.”

  “That’s correct,” I said. “If there is anything you want to ask me, just call this number,” I handed her my business card with my cell number. “If I don’t respond, it’s only because I didn’t hear the ring. It’s often very loud on site. If that happens, just leave a voicemail or a text and I’ll be right over. Of course, you can always come to the site, but I warn you, it gets pretty muddy sometimes.”

  “Oh, I may look a little worse for wear right now, but I can assure you, I don’t mind mud or muck,” she laughed, then leaned over conspiratorially and added, “We call it muck when it’s mixed with cow manure … ”

  She was interrupted when Ruby stepped into the room asking, “Would Ms. Cooper like to join you for some cookies and milk?”

  Cookies and milk? “Thanks, no, Ruby,” I said. “I need to get back to the site in a few minutes.”

  “Ruby insists I eat a fattening snack twice a day and a big meal three times a day,” Annette said. “She’s trying to put the weight I lost after the accident back on these bones.”

  “Oh?” I said, hoping she’d explain.

  “Yes. My husband and I were both injured in a car accident about nine months ago. Arthur still has a ways to go, but he’s getting there. We both will with Ruby’s help.”

  Ruby strode across the room, gave her employer a pat on the shoulder, then fussed with a wool throw that had fallen from her lap. “You gonna catch your death in this room with these windows open.” She then proceeded to huff about the room pushing the top windows closed with a pole made for that purpose.

  “Now Ruby, not all of them … ” Annette complained.

  “Yes, not all of them,” a new voice called from the doorway. A handsome man in a wheelchair pushed himself briskly into the room. “I think fresh air and sunshine are the best medicine, don’t you?” he said, addressing me.

  “No offense, Ruby, but I have to agree with this gentleman,” I said, standing and offering my hand as I introduced myself.

  “Arthur Lauderbach,” he said with a firm handshake. “Call me Arthur.” He instantly reminded me of the character Thurston Howell III, on the old sixties sitcom Gilligan’s Island—my kids loved those reruns—basically an adorable older gentleman whose complete devotion to his wife was obvious. Except for being in a wheelchair, he looked fit. I did notice, however, that his legs, clad in creased jeans, appeared painfully thin. “So you’re our go-to lady at the well?”

  I recited my credentials and gave them a timeline of how I hoped events would unfold at the well, ending with, “ … so according to indications from two previous wells dug back in the eighties, we expect to hit our target horizon, the Cumnock Formation at about 1850 feet. We’ll stop vertical drilling at 500 feet above this horizon so we can make a slow, gradual turn until we are drilling horizontally in the formation itself … ”

  I paused because Arthur’s expression became quizzical. “You can make a turn in a well?”

  “Yes,” I explained. “This stage of the operation will be accomplished with a steerable drilling head. Once we’ve reached the extent of our horizontal section, we’ll remove the drill pipe and lower steel casing into the hole, pump cement into it until it comes out the shoe end of the pipe, and fills the space between the casing and the rock. When that is completed, hydraulic fracturing will proceed.”

  “But how do you know there is gas down there? I mean, before we spend all that money,” asked Annette with a worried look on her face.

  “Well, first, if Greenlite Energy didn’t feel strongly about the viability of this new production field, they wouldn’t pull a rig off a well-known production field like the one they were drilling in Pennsylvan
ia to send it down here. You can rest assured they did their homework after you contacted them.”

  “They’ve studied the core samples from those first wells I mentioned and took their own samples from stream beds and road cuts on your land. Believe me, after compiling all the information available, they feel your property is a good bet. And, more importantly, there are a respectable number of wells already pumping gas into new pipelines in this area.”

  “God, I hope they’re right,” Annette said.

  “Now, honey,” her husband soothed, “don’t get yourself worried. We’re going to come out of all this just fine, you’ll see.”

  All this? Was there something other than a car wreck involved here? “Moreover,” I continued, “they like the fact that the land has been continually owned by one family, that you have enough in one contiguous tract that they can drill several wells, using the 160-acre well spacing standard. When we reach the target formation, the Cumnock, I’ll take samples and subject them to lab tests. At that point, you’ll know as much as anyone whether it’s worth the risk.”

  Both Lauderbachs looked like they were standing before a roulette wheel with all their savings on the table. A timid tapping at the door caught my attention. A young girl, early twenties, in jeans and a UNC sweatshirt crossed the room and gave both Lauderbachs a peck on the cheek.

  “Oh, Sara, you’re home,” Annette said, then introduced her daughter to me.

  “Nice sweatshirt,” I said, smiling. “Are you a student there?”

  “Sure am,” Sara beamed. “I’m a senior this year. I just dropped by to check on my folks, but I’m glad for the chance to meet you. I wanted to come out to the well and talk to you in person, look around a bit, you know, but I didn’t know if that’d be okay.”

  “Of course it is,” I said. “I’d be glad to show you around. It’s your farm, after all, and you can go anywhere on it you’d like. If you’re at the drill site, though, we want you to be accompanied by either me or one of Greenlite’s employees so we can be sure you don’t get hurt while you’re there. Was there something in particular you wanted to see?”