Oregon Trails

by Olivia Gaines

  K alinda slept most of the night with a smile plastered to her face. Paul knew this because he spent much of the night watching her sleep. The peaceful expression adorning her face gave him a sense of accomplishment as if he were the sole reason for the happiness she carried with her to bed. In his head, it was a fairly good reason, especially since one night prior in the same week, she was crying in her sleep. Yet, even as tired as he was, sleep wouldn’t come to him.

  He rose from the bed and headed to the back porch. The deck was one of his favorite additions to the house. So much could happen here...friends, a hot tub, and a grill – life.

  “I have a life,” he said softly.

  A shaking hand rubbed across his chest, trying to still his racing heart. “I have a wife. In a few years, I will have a family and railings will have to go up around this area—for my son or daughter’s safety,” he mumbled.

  Paul stood still, calming his breathing as he focused on what dessert Kalinda had made tonight. It also amazed him that in less than a week his life had been changed by not only having a wonderful woman to come home to each night, but experiencing the joy of eating. It had never occurred to him in the past to seek out special recipes or hire a new chef to cook him food or even learn to cook it for himself.

  “Food,” he said with a smile.

  A large part of his life that had become more of a burden than a joy was food because he ate only to provide nourishment. He now ate for both nutrition and the pleasure of consuming a delicious meal. Under the cake plate were several of the left-over cookies. He grabbed two and scarfed them down. One, he did it to make sure she cooked a new dessert tonight and two, he really enjoyed the damned cookies.

  “I am going to get fat as hell,” he said, laughing as he made his way back to the bed.

  P aul awoke to find his wife lying there staring at him. He crinkled his brow in confusion, wondering how long she had been awake. Then a sudden thought hit him, maybe I was farting and the smell jolted her awake .

  “Was I snoring and it woke you up?” he asked cautiously.

  “No, I was wondering when you got up last night and ate all the cookies?”

  “What are you talking about?” he said, trying his best to sound innocent.

  Her hand reached out and dusted the side of his face.

  “Were those cookie crumbs?”

  “Yes, Paul, they were,” she said to him.

  “Okay fine! You caught me. I just wanted to make sure they were all gone so you could make a new dessert tonight,” he said, blinking furiously, his bottom lip poked out. “Even if it will feed that damned Buster and George.”

  “Stop frowning,” she said to him.

  She laughed at his pouting.

  “Okay, next weekend we have our first set of guests. I am going to launch the website on Monday, send out the press releases, and make sure the reservation screen is up and ready to go. We can take payments on the site, but I am worried about double booking,” she said to him. “Also, when will the other trails be open?”

  “Shit. Can I get some coffee first before you require me to adult?”

  “You are funny,” she said.

  “No. I am serious. I need coffee, a shower, and to wash my mouth out,” he said to her.

  “If you weren’t so greedy, you wouldn’t have all those different tastes in your mouth,” she said with a wink.

  “You are so lucky that we have a schedule, if not, you would be my breakfast, Mrs. Darton,” he told her.

  Kalinda sat up in the bed, unsnapping the cream-colored pajama top then removing the matching bottoms. “Come do your worst,” she said to him.

  “This will break the schedule,” he said, reaching for her.

  “The way I feel this morning, Paul, you’d best hope we don’t break this bed,” she said, leaning into him, the feel of the chest hairs rubbing against her breasts.

  “Come here and do your best,” he played on her words.

  “Dear Lord, I am so into you, I almost can’t stand it,” she whispered into his ear.

  Paul didn’t hear the words. All he heard was that she wanted to make love which was just fine by him. He couldn’t think of a better way to start his day.

  Chapter 23

  G eorge arrived a little after eleven with a pink Louis Vuitton overnight bag that matched the pants he sported with pride as well as the ball cap that sat on his thick haired, handsome head. He was an attractive man, sporting the Darton features like a soldier with medals covering his chest. He too was tall and broad shouldered like Paul and Luke, but his chest was not as wide. At the wedding, she’d met his father, but the man didn’t make much of an impression on her. Jonah Darton seemed to float along in life, enjoying the Darton name and benefits, while Jeremiah did the heavy lifting. In her estimation, Jeremiah was the whale and Jonah was merely floating along for the ride. Sometimes it worked out. Other times it didn’t bode as well. She hoped the same could be said for the invitation to George.

  “Girl, this place is gor-gee-us! Is that your little house over there with the chairs on the porch? It is Keee-yooot!” George said as he looked about.

  “I think you are more gorgeous than anything around these parts,” she told him.

  “You got that right, Honey! Kalinda! Girl! I had to stop in town to see the woman with the huge bootie that Luke told everyone about,” George said with wide eyes. “That is some ba-donk that girl has attached to her body. I feel so sorry for her panties. I bet at the end of the night those suckers just collapse in the corner of her bathroom shuddering from exhaustion!”

  Kalinda found herself laughing out loud. The sound was so foreign to her ears that she stopped, tried to collect herself, and failed at his next statement.

  “Girl... the dude with one leg. The man with the one eye. The joker in the store. I lost it when I saw the blind man running across the street from the goats who were eating his pants nearly made me pee in my favorite pair of Louis’. It is like Santa said, ‘Fuck it,’ and decided the Island of Misfit Toys was too far away so he just dropped them off here,” he said with an index finger pointing at the ground.

  “George, where have you been all my life?” she wanted to know. It was the same thing she’d told Paul when she arrived.

  “Over there suffering in Portland, waiting for your marvelous chocolatey self to show up and give me new vision. Point my eyes, Honey, so I can help you two bring this trail mix to life,” he said to her.

  “Are you hungry? I have some pork loin left over that I could make us a couple bar-b-que sandwiches with some chips. I mean, that is if you eat pork,” she wanted to know.

  “I will eat a pig’s ass and intestines if you squeeze out the poop! Honey, I have even been known to spend an evening munching on a pig ear sandwich,” he said, arching an eyebrow. He lowered his voice to a level above a whisper, his hand pressed to side of his mouth like he was murmuring a secret. “I dated a brother one year. That man was country as hell with his big ole Mandingo elephant trunk, but he would rock you to sleep with a sausage made by Zeus himself!”

  Kalinda was still laughing as they walked into the house. The man had still not stopped talking as he entered the front the door with flourish. He commented on every little thing high and low.

  “Gurrrrrl! I love this country chic. Your home is adorbs. Look at this little table. My, my, it pulls out to seat how many, eight, maybe ten?”

  “It will seat ten once the leaves are open,” she said pulling the roast from the fridge. “What’s your pleasure, coffee or tea?”

  “I would love some tea, hot if possible,” he said, setting down his bag. George lowered his eyes, looking down at his pink booted feet. It was almost as if he was embarrassed to utter his next words.

  “Kalinda,” he said. “Thanks for inviting me. No one in the family ever invites me anywhere. It’s like they are all ashamed of me or something.”

  “George, based on what I know about people, not everyone is going to get you or your vision. You have
to do what you believe, grow it like a rare flower, and show them how wrong they were to not believe in your dream,” she said. “I believe in you and here is my list of what I need from you this weekend. Here is the payment for the work.”

  George looked at the list, then opened the envelope with the check.

  “Well, kiss me in my sparkle spot! You are paying me before I do the work? That is some serious trust,” he said, clapping his hands.

  “I need you to capture what you see so I can put it on our website. I am going to feed you and then we are headed out so you can see what it is we are trying to accomplish. This weekend, I want the pictures to match the story we are telling the world. Our message to weekend visitors is to get away from the crowded city, come out to Imnaha, and enjoy these wide-open spaces filled with fresh air and specialty boutique items...like this tea.”

  She held up the tea bag with her own special Wide Open Spaces tea tag.

  “Did you make this Kalinda?” George asked as she dropped the bag into the mug of hot water.

  “I did. I also made this trail mix and these cookies. Paul had a munching attacking last night and ate most of them, but I hid a few so I would have enough left for you to photograph. I don’t want to use stock photo footage unless it is our own,” she told him.

  George sampled the tea before it finished steeping.

  “Slap me sideways and call me Dolly,” he said.

  Kalinda reached over, slapped him, and then asked, “so what do you think of the tea, Dolly?”

  His eyes blinked several times.

  He tasted the tea again and reached for a cookie. The little sealed bag of trail mix he opened, allowing the contents to spill onto the countertop. George ate one candied coated nut, followed by a combination of the nuts and dried fruit.

  “This is pretty dang good. You also slapped me and called me Dolly,” he said with one eyebrow arched.

  “I just want to make sure that you understand you will get everything you ask for when you come here, George,” she said with a wink. “Now, eat up so we can get to work.”

  And work they did. They walked high.

  They walked low.

  George snapped photos of everything he possibly could until his index finger got tired. At four o’clock, the weary two headed back to the house and Kalinda started dinner. He snapped more photos of her going out back to the garden to pull a head of lettuce for dinner. He said nothing as he loaded the images into his tablet and began to edit the shots. Kalinda cooked in the kitchen, singing softly to herself while a pot of water for pasta was put on to boil.

  “Whoa! Paul can’t eat pasta,” George said adamantly.

  “It is gluten free pasta, so yes he can,” she told him and continued to work.

  “You seem so ...is happy the right word?” he wanted to know, watching her with a frown of almost disgust.

  “That is the right word. It appears that no one in your family knows what that looks like,” she said to him.

  “We sure as hell don’t. Aunt Beverly can’t even make a facial expression so if she is happy, hell, we can’t tell. She sits around looking like a librarian who accidently had a silent orgasm,” he said with a serious tight face.

  Kalinda was laughing again. She continued laughing as she set the table. She laughed even harder as Paul came through the door and looked at George’s hot pink pants covered in the designer emblems. She laughed until her side ached when Buster showed up and spotted George. The huge grin, which remained plastered to his face the entire evening irritated Paul to no end. When Buster flirted with George, Paul’s face contorted in a way that made her completely lose her calm. The funniest part came when everyone found out what the LS and DS initials stood for on the names of the kittens.

  “The beige one is Light Skinned and the other one is Dark Skinned,” she said flatly.

  “Oh, see now, you are wrong for that shit,” George said with a contorted expression. “Do you even know what color the skin actually is under the fur? On top of that, those are the most fantastically hood names ever for pets I have ever heard in my entire life. I love it. These two are going to be the Wide-Open Spaces Mascots!” He pulled out his camera and started snapping photos of the kittens.

  “Here, snap some of them with one of these,” Paul said, pulling a ball of yarn from the basket under the coffee table.

  “Puuuuurrrrfect,” George said, snapping away.

  The more George bent over, the more Buster smiled. He continued the silly gap- toothed grin all through dinner.

  “Why are your grinning at my cousin like that, Buster?” Paul wanted to know.

  “Because he is mighty handsome, talented, and full of all kinds of muscles.” He said.

  “Are you hitting on George?” Paul wanted to know with a concerned look on his face.

  “Honey, he is not hitting, this man is ramming his ill-intentioned thoughts into me and he hasn’t even asked for my number,” George said.

  “I’m sorry, I mean no disrespect. There are just so few options in these parts, outside of Joey Two Legs, and I want no part of that!” Buster said.

  “Joey who?” George asked gape-mouthed.

  Kalinda leaned over and whispered to George, “They call him that because he has a big ole penis.”

  George choked on the spit frozen in his mouth.

  “Well, slap my thigh and say that’s a lie,” George exclaimed.

  Buster reached over, real gentle-like, and tapped George on the thigh. “It’s not a lie though. He has a really big one that pokes out the front of his pants like an extra leg,” Buster said, still grinning.

  “Oh for the love of Pete,” Paul sighed, dropping the chicken breast he was eating back onto the plate.

  “Is there a Pete up here too with a big wangdoodle?” George wanted to know.

  Paul was up to his ears with the love fest. Talks about penises over the dinner table was unacceptable. He didn’t even want to discuss his penis with his wife over dinner. He sure as hell didn’t want to hear about Joey Two Legs’ or any damned body else’s. He changed the subject by asking, “George, why are you here?”

  All eyes were on George as he took a seat back at the table, moving purposefully, perching himself on the chair next to his cousin with one butt cheek half hanging off the cushion. Side by side the resemblance between the two cousins was uncanny. They looked more like brothers than Luke and Paul.

  “Do you remember that time in sixth grade when Rocket Malone cornered me in the bathroom, trying to see if I was wearing panties?” George asked.

  “Vaguely,” Paul responded dryly.

  “I remember it like it was yesterday. You walked in the bathroom, saw me cornered, and Paul didn’t ask any questions, guys. Paul started wailing on Rocket like a demon had ahold of him. You beat him up and three of his friends who weren’t even in the bathroom at the time to watch Rocket humiliate me – those boys had just come in to pee. You laid down the law, putting all of my bullies on notice that if they touched me, they would have to deal with you,” George said.

  “Yeah...and? I hate bullies,” Paul said.

  “So, do I,” George said to him. “I am here because of all the bullies in our family who don’t believe you can do this. I have watched and admired you for standing up for what you believe in my entire life. You stood up to your disease, your father, the industrialists, and everyone that has come after you. You even took a job as a mailman to live out here closer to your dream. Paul, I am here because I am standing beside you, too. I am putting your bullies on notice. If they come for you, they are going to have to deal with me, too.”

  The last part he added with pouty, lip gloss covered lips. In his head Paul was thinking, ooh, that’ll scare’em off. Yet something else tugged at his heart. Instead, Paul held his tongue, allowing the emotions to flow through.

  Paul sat quietly staring at his cousin. George was an odd man who also lived by his own rules and wore loud pink designer pants every other day. The happiness that lay with Pa
ul last night was still sitting at his side. He’d also seen the real George his entire life, but more importantly George saw him. His weirdo cousin was probably the only person in the family who truly “got him.” Paul also understood that his cousin was asking for him to accept him on a level deeper than just being blood-related.

  He decided he would go one better.

  Paul yelled out really loud, startling everyone at the table, “It’s kissy face time!”

  George jumped up shouting, “What in the entire pink season of reason?”

  “Don’t be shy, Georg! Get over here,” Paul yelled moving closer, grabbing for George.

  “No! Get away from me!” George shouted, moving quickly around the side of the table. Paul went after him. His cousin moved faster and soon, Paul began chasing him around the table. Out of room and options, George took off for the exit, running down the front stairs into the yard. The pink pants ran left, chased by Paul. The pink pants came flashing across the front door, still chased by Paul. Those pink pants could then be seen further into the yard closer to the gravel drive, and back into the grassy area of the yard.

  “That’s not something you see every day,” Buster said, watching Paul chase the pink pants across the front yard only to tackle George and pepper his face with kisses. George’s pink pant-covered legs were flailing as he tried to fight Paul off, squealing for Kalinda or Buster to come out and help him.

  “I agree with you, hot pink pants in May is kinda different I guess,” she responded. “Hey, did you bring your bill?”

  “This one is on me,” Buster said. “I think you just introduced me to the new love of my life.”

  Wait until Paul hears this. Kalinda, again found herself laughing. She laughed all the way to the bank over the next three weeks as the season opened and more people showed up than they were prepared to handle, including George, who came back with his camera to capture it all on film.

  Chapter 24

  T o Kalinda’s surprise, George stayed the entire weekend, helping Paul clear trails, plan new paths, and even shot footage of Paul explaining the understory of much of the old growth forest. The edited footage was added to the website, which launched Monday morning a half hour before the press releases went out. In less than four hours, reservations for every weekend were maxed out.