Stars Always Shine

by Rick Rivera

The puppy looked up at the big dog and then at Place. He informed it that they were all of the same pack.

  9

  In the milk barn, Jacqueline and Mickey lay on a rollaway bed. She snuggled close to him and pulled the blankets up and over her shoulders. They had spent a chilly and damp night in the barn, and the late October morning sun was slow to warm things up.

  She nibbled on his shoulder and pulled lightly at the hairs on his chest. “Are you awake?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Mickey answered as he stared at the cobwebs hanging from the ceiling.

  “Do you want to be really awake?” Jacqueline offered.

  “Sure,” Mickey responded unenthusiastically.

  “Well, thanks a lot!” Jacqueline said, feeling hurt at Mickey’s lack of passion.

  “I’m sorry, Jacqueline. I just have a lot on my mind. I’m wondering how they did this week.”

  Jacqueline left little kisses on Mickey’s chest as her hand rubbed its way down to his midsection. She hesitated and said, “Oh, let’s worry about the slaves later. We warned them.”

  “Yeah, but I’m not too sure about them,” Mickey said. “That Mitch seems kind of headstrong, like your donkeys. But maybe we ought to let her run things the way she wants.” Mickey stopped as he thought about the boldness of his statement and wondered how it would be received. “I mean, I’m learning a lot from the roping videos, but she does know some things about managing a ranch.”

  Jacqueline stopped her amorous advancement. She didn’t like the fact that Mickey had been thinking of Mitch. Her hand came up from his belly, and she pushed herself away from him. Sitting up, she grabbed a blouse and put it on quickly.

  “What’s the matter?” Mickey asked as he lifted himself up on his elbows. “What’s wrong, Jacqueline?”

  “Nothing,” she said, and she rose to get dressed. “Come on, we have work to do.” She left Mickey in semi-stiff anticipation, and swung the barn door open, letting in the cold air and the bright sun at the same time.

  After visiting Salvador’s outhouse where she draped layers of tissue around the opening of the rustic toilet seat to protect her sensitive skin, Jacqueline walked up to the ranch house. She held her yellow pad in one hand and shifted uneasily as she waited for someone to answer the door. From the back bedroom, Rosa and Coquette ran to the front door barking like junkyard dogs. How odd, Jacqueline thought, at the sounds of two kinds of barks. She knocked again, and not waiting for an answer, she walked around to the back door. She knocked again, and hearing only the deep barks of Rosa, she tried the door.

  The Airedale sprung ferociously at the small opening and welcomed the owner with snarling teeth. Jacqueline jumped back. She licked her lips and clenched her obtrusive jaw as she looked around.

  In the farthest pastures, Place knelt near a hose and painted glue around the cracked line that sprayed water wildly when he had turned the pump on. Mitch fed the calves in the pasture across the roadway from where Place worked. She wondered what surprises the Kittles would have for her this weekend, and she was glad that she and Place had Sundays off. They would leave the ranch early in the morning and stay away all day, driving out on Sweet Wine Road and then taking the coast highway north until they felt like turning around.

  As Mickey dressed himself, Jacqueline told him to tell Mitch, as soon as he found her, that they needed to talk immediately. “Did you look out back?” he asked her as he pushed a foot into a boot.

  “No,” Jacqueline replied, “I’m not walking all the way out there. Where the hell can she be? She has no business out there.”

  “Why are you feeding the calves?” Mickey asked when he found Mitch leaning on the pasture gate watching the chewing cattle.

  “Well hello to you too, cowboy,” Mitch said as she smiled broadly. “Your rope’s hanging on the gate of the corner pasture if you’re wondering. How’s Miss Jacqueline?”

  “Oh, she’s Jacqueline,” Mickey answered shaking his head. “She wants to see you pronto. Like right now.”

  “I’m sure she does. I’m sure she has all hell to throw at me for whatever she can think up.” Mitch turned and headed for the ranch house. She walked with clenched fists, and when she glanced over at Place, he blew her a kiss and offered a thumbs-up sign.

  Mickey ran up to Mitch, sensing that he needed to offer an explanation. “Now, Mitch, I know things have been a little tight around here, but you need to—”

  Mitch interrupted as she picked up her pace to add a degree of drama to the situation. She was surprised that Mickey was showing a trace of awareness and realization. Without looking back at Mickey she said, “Things are only tight when you folks show up!”

  “Wait a minute, Mitch!” Mickey ordered, not liking how his hired help talked back. He ran to catch up to her as she entered the stall barn.

  Mitch stopped and turned quickly, standing only inches from Mickey, who had to backpedal to keep from running into her. “What?” she said, shooting a bitter stare at him.

  He hesitated for a moment and then began. “Mitch, we’re under a lot of strain. This ranch means a lot to us, and we need to make sure things are going right. Jacqueline is really feeling the pressure because it was her money that got us in here. This is a major investment for us. To tell you the truth, we’re going to have a hard time with the payments. We can do it, but it’s taking everything we got. I’m just asking you to think about what we’re going through.”

  Mitch looked at Mickey’s pleading eyes. She felt a coursing anger from the narrow logic he expressed. It was a logic that demanded understanding for the owning parties while the others worked under the critical control of those who liked their proprietary position. She was willing to accept that they were all in this together and that together they would master this ranch and make up for the neglect that had deteriorated the property. She and Place were feeling the physical strain from the demanding work. They felt pressure too, but it seemed so unnecessary.

  “I’m sorry, Mickey,” Mitch said, softening as she bit her lower lip.

  As she approached the ranch house, Mitch could see Jacqueline standing at the edge of the deck with her hands on her hips. For a fleeting moment, Mitch recalled a childhood memory of taking a horse out of its corral without her parents’ permission and riding it bareback into the hills behind her house. In that recollection, it was Mitch’s mom who stood on the back porch with her hands on her hips, her short-fused patience starting to burn as she waited for her bullheaded daughter.

  “What happened, did Mickey catch you in the barn making out with your husband?” Jacqueline sneered.

  “No. I was in the barn with your husband,” Mitch shot back. “How are you, Jacqueline?”

  “Fine,” Jacqueline answered, feeling stung by Mitch’s impudent remark. “It looks like it was another slow week, huh?”

  Mitch walked over to the picnic table, and as she sat, she thought about how to handle Jacqueline Kittle. “What do you mean by slow?” she asked, maintaining the cool composure that reminded her of performing in the courtroom, and challenging Jacqueline with a straightforward look as Jacqueline looked down at her yellow pad.

  Jacqueline hesitated with Mitch, which was unusual for her. Having owned a bar and having been a landlady of other properties for many years, she was used to being the one who said things—anything, and made demands, and what she said was the last word. Not many people talked back to her. She had things some people needed like jobs and homes and loan money, and those employees and tenants and friends knew better than to cross Jacqueline with insolent talk or resistant actions. Mitch didn’t respond this way. She seemed not to understand the simple, implicit hierarchy of the relationship as far as Jacqueline was concerned. Jacqueline tempered her comments, or tried to, and said, “Why don’t you tell me what you and Place have accomplished this week?”

  Mitch was more than willing. She started with the work Place had done which, aside from the irksome hours spent repairing hoses and replacing stepped-on and stone-clogged
sprinklers, included his painting the entire perimeter fence. Slowly and tediously Place had circled the ranch, painting the single top boards that ran horizontally and the vertical wooden posts that connected the boards and the hogwire. There were also the reinforcement boards at the corners of the property that had to be painted. He had started on some of the fencing at the inner locations of the ranch that formed the numerous pastures, but he got no further than that. There was a lot of fence. Mitch wanted to recite a list of things that Place had done. Mentioning only the fence being painted did not seem like much work, and she felt that Jacqueline would be more pleased, if there was such a thing, if she had listed many little jobs Place had done. She switched to her week’s accomplishments and informed Jacqueline that the living room, the bedrooms, the den, and the hallways were freshly painted. All that was left for the inside walls was the wallpapering of the bathrooms and the kitchen. Along with sanding and varnishing the doors, those tasks would be completed next week.

  What Mitch really wanted to point out to Jacqueline was that without Salvador’s help, getting the ranch into operating business condition would proceed much more slowly. Jacqueline had no real sense of the time that certain chores and tasks took. One man working sixty acres wasn’t a fair fight, and Mitch knew that Place would eventually lose the battle, no matter how hard he tried to keep up. She decided instead to avoid that approach, thinking that perhaps Jacqueline would distort the true meaning and suggest that Salvador was just another lazy Mexican. Mitch stopped with the best tangible evidence she had and waited reluctantly for Jacqueline to respond.

  Jacqueline snorted, unimpressed with the progress, and said, “Are you sure I’m getting my money’s worth?”

  Mitch took in a long, calming breath through her nostrils and slowly exhaled through her slightly parted mouth. She ran a finger along a crack in the picnic table, thinking about why she had become a lawyer. Thinking about the injustices done to those who rarely had a voice, and now, in this setting, feeling so much like those she had tried to defend. She had thought that through her words and actions, some people would get the opportunity to explain that a human life is made up of experiences and events that tweak it one way when the rest of the world is going the other. She wondered what had happened to Jacqueline as a child, and she thought maybe something might have happened to her in previous relationships as an adult. Mitch wanted to tell Jacqueline that she understood, that things happen to people, and the hurt quite often doesn’t go away. Her training had taught her that most criminals come from backgrounds of being abused in some of the most hideous ways. They strike out at society in their anger and pain because they feel that nobody cares, which for them is a reality.

  “I’m not a counselor, Jacqueline,” Mitch finally said, “so I won’t pretend to know what’s bothering you. I don’t even know if you realize you are the way you are. But for hard-working, peaceful-living country folk, your attitude and timing seem to be way out of line. I’m not sure why you picked us to manage and work your ranch in the first place.”

  Mitch thought about her own background growing up in the country. Her father, an attorney, couldn’t handle the pace of life in Los Angeles, so he moved his wife and daughter out to the country. Her mother wasn’t happy there, but it was a beautiful life for Mitch and her father. As she looked out at StarRidge Ranch, Mitch remembered the little five-acre ranch and the horses she grew up on and with. When her dad wasn’t helping the local farmers and ranchers with legal matters, they worked hard at keeping that five acres looking like what today would be called charming. When their work was done, they would ride into the hills, where Mitch’s father would read Robbie Burns to her as their horses nibbled on grass or drank from a stream. They would watch and listen to Mother Nature go quietly about her business. She remembered too how much they had to learn when they first moved out to the country. And the neighbors helped.

  “Jacqueline,” Mitch said, “I want you to know that Place and I can help, but we won’t be treated like chattel. If you aren’t pleased with our work, just let us know. We can be out of here by the end of the day, and we’ll finish the day’s work before we leave.” Mitch’s voice was smooth, almost ironically comforting. The tone did not match some of what she said.

  Jacqueline began to cry—softly at first, and then painfully and profoundly. Mitch was surprised. She had never imagined Jacqueline as someone who could cry as openly as she now did. Jacqueline grabbed her gingham scarf from her head and continued to weep deeply into it as she covered her face. Mitch reached out and slowly rubbed her shoulder and moved her strong hand to Jacqueline’s neck, where she pressed with her fingers in massaging strokes.

  Jacqueline’s tears were the only real expression she allowed Mitch to see and hear. She was the victim, but nobody could understand that. She was the one who had to go through life with her fists clenched and her guard up. She was the one who grew up never being able to satisfy her parents or her first husband. And now with Mickey, she was always wondering if she would lose him to a much younger woman. But Jacqueline never realized how she precipitated her own experiences. She did not understand that her own feelings and experiences were made worse by conditions that no longer existed or that currently did not exist. She did not look inward to see if there were things about herself she should change. Hers was the unexamined life.

  In a pasture, as Place worked on another burst hose, Mickey watched as he talked about his hunting trip. “Yeah, me and the boys are going to Colorado for a week. We go every year.”

  Place continued working. He listened to Mickey, but he did not pay close attention to what he was saying once he realized he wasn’t saying anything important. He thought about how Mickey’s vacuous words were like having the television on with no one really watching it.

  “You like to hunt?” Mickey asked.

  “I can’t say that I like to or don’t like to hunt because I’ve never hunted before,” Place answered, and added, “I don’t think I would like it, though. I like animals too much.”

  “Well, so do I,” Mickey said defensively. “In fact, I like animals so much I was thinking of being a vet. But there’s too much reading, and you have to go to vet school for too long. Plus, I make a lot more money than what a vet makes. But you should think about taking up hunting, especially the way we do it. We really don’t hunt for more than two days, and we party the rest of the time. You see, mostly we’re hunting dear instead of deer. Get it?” Mickey laughed obnoxiously with his mouth open and his tongue waving wildly to indicate an action he thought was sexual. He pumped his arms in front of him and made rapid thrusts with his hips as he snarled his upper lip and his teeth clenched down on his lower lip. He laughed sadistically as Place clamped the coupler down on the hose and checked to see that it was not set too tightly nor too loosely.

  “What are you doing, anyway?” Mickey asked, as he diverted his attention.

  “I’m patching a hose,” Place said. “We do this at least once a day on this spread, Cowboy. You might think about learning how to do it. You’ll be running this ranch all by your lonesome after we leave.”

  Mickey suddenly grew nervous, worried that his hunting trip might be in jeopardy, and asked, “Why? When are you leaving?”

  “Oh, don’t get too uptight, Hoss. We aren’t leaving until you ask us to or until you’re ready to move in.”

  “I don’t know if Jacqueline has told Mitch yet, but after this weekend, she won’t be up until after the new year. I’m staying here all week to remodel that milk barn. You’re going to help me. Jacqueline will pick me up next weekend. We’re spending a few days up in a little cabin she’s owned for years in Pollack Pines, and then I’m going hunting and we won’t see you for about two months. You get our ranch for two months all to yourselves. Jacqueline’s going to try to bring our horses up so you and your old lady can have something to ride. You must be having fun, though just goofing off with nobody around.”

  Place was annoyed with Mickey. He talked too m
uch, and much of what he said was nothing that Place cared to know about, except maybe the latest development that the Kittles wouldn’t visit the ranch for two months. Listening to Mickey’s prattle seemed to anger Place, and he admitted to himself that he was jealous. He was jealous of all of the things Jacqueline and Mickey owned and could do. He wondered where they got their money, especially when what they exhibited most of the time was ignorance and illogic. Between them, they had no more than a year of junior college, Jacqueline having never stepped into a college classroom, and Mickey wandering through a year of disconnected course work until he decided there was too much reading to accomplish degree-requiring goals.

  Jacqueline’s tears began to come more slowly. She whimpered now, but the emotional pain she held in was released and eased as she confided in Mitch. “I’m under so much pressure, Mitch. I’ll try to be more understanding. But it’s Mickey who wants to know how much work you guys have done, and he sends me out here to be the bad guy.”

  Mitch felt guilty at the bitterness she had held for Jacqueline. She was confused now, because Mickey seemed like the easygoing one. None of her templates that fit people into certain patterns of human behavior that would give her a better idea of what they were really like worked for her here as they had when she dealt with defendants and other attorneys.

  She apologized to Jacqueline, although she knew it was not a sincere apology. It was more like a gesture, an expected ritual of communication. Something about this whole scenario, from the day of the interview, had struck Mitch as not being right with the already irrational world she had thought she was prepared for. And then Jacqueline surprised her again.

  “I’m thinking of letting the Mexican stay on,” she said.

  Mitch wanted to jump up and cheer. She wanted to shout it from the rooftop. She wanted to tell Place and Salvador the news, and at the same time. But she sat objectively as she waited to hear more of Jacqueline’s offer.