by Traci Briery
Phyllis blushed a deep red. "Pleeease," she protested. "So far it hasn't been so wonderful, anyways. See, people on soaps work godawful hours for five days a week. It's even worse when they're major characters. Thank God his character has just started. Still, it's been rough. And as for being married to him…"
"Is that part of why you need to 'get away from it all?' " Joanie asked. Phyllis blushed and shrugged.
"Well, yeah, kind of," she said, then leaned closer to Joanie. "Um… there's a little more to it than that," she said, her voice lower. "See, before this started, I asked him for… well, for more commitment, but he's been flaking out about it. And I'm getting impatient with him."
"So you have been thinking about marriage," Joanie murmured.
"Whoa, not that much commitment," Phyllis said. "I just wanna try living together, but he's even afraid of that. And now he doesn't have any time because of this new job."
"Oh, I'm sorry about that, honey," Joanie said, and Phyllis could tell that she meant it. Phyllis started drying the dishes that Joanie handed to her, then laughed a little.
"God, it's funny that I've told you that," Phyllis said. "This is practically the second time we've ever met, and I'm telling you this 'best friend' stuff."
"I'm a good listener," Joanie said. "Could be because I stopped trying to give advice to people, so they don't mind telling me things. But that's why you're here, honey; to say 'go to hell!' to some of your problems. For a week or two, anyway. Places like this are good for that sort of thing."
"I know what you mean," Phyllis said. "I didn't really notice it the first time I was here, but Wisconsin is so… I'd say serene, but that's almost a clichi, isn't it?"
"It can be 'serene,' " Joanie said. "It should be obvious that I'm happier here than in San Francisco."
"Oh, you're from there?"
"Raised the family there," Joanie said. "Then my husband and I got divorced, and the kids were getting out on their own, so I ran off to the Midwest to start over. I met your uncle a year later, and you know the rest."
"You two are really happy together, aren't you?" Phyllis whispered.
"He's a good man," she said. "It was never mad and passionate to begin with, but from early on we've been very… comfortable together."
"It shows."
"Well, that's a relief," Joanie said, smiling slyly.
"I wish the rest of the family was as good as Uncle Bill," Phyllis said. "He must be the only one who isn't completely fucked up. Oh! I'm sorry."
Joanie shrugged.
"You should hear the boys when they're working the herds," she said. "Shameful words for a lady like me to hear." Phyllis laughed with her step-aunt. Joanie wisely declined to add to Phyllis's previous comment about her family. Phyllis had always felt like an "outsider" in her own family, but Joanie really was one, at least. For some reason the New York relatives seemed to barely tolerate Bill's "country ways," not to mention his "country wife." It didn't matter that she had already lived the city life just like them. She could indeed empathize with Phyllis, but was not the sort to do so out loud.
Chapter Five
The sun had been up for hours before Phyllis lumbered into the kitchen in her robe. Joanie was there, just wiping off the rest of the breakfast on the counter. Phyllis yawned and fingered the morning paper, but it was a very local edition.
"Do you get the L.A. Times?" Phyllis asked.
"No, honey, just our little paper," Joanie said.
"Uh! What am I thinking? Like you'd get an L.A. paper out here. Um, where's Uncle Bill? I didn't miss breakfast, did I?"
"I'm afraid you did, but I saved you your portion in the refrigerator," Joanie said.
"What time is it?"
"Oh, it's about 8:30 now."
"8:30? Jeez, I haven't overslept like that in… I always get up at about six, sometimes earlier. I'm a morning person."
"Well, you know, we're about two hours ahead of California," Joanie said. "Over there it's still 6:30, right?"
"Hunh? Oh, yeah, yeah," Phyllis said. "Even so, I didn't have much trouble falling asleep, even if I still had two hours to go. Well, let's hope that I haven't turned into a lazy toad in only one day."
"But then you'll get back to California and find yourself getting up two hours early," Joanie said.
"That's all I need," Joanie grumbled. "So, I guess Uncle Bill is out doing chores and things now, huh?"
"Yes, he got started at eight. They're just sending the animals out for grazing now."
"What do you need to do today?" Phyllis said.
"Oh, I'll be looking in on our weanlings. See which ones we can take to the show for sale. I'll let you get ready before I go, if you like. Are you hungry?"
"Um… actually, I think I'm still recovering from last night," Phyllis said, leaning back and patting her belly. "I gotta watch myself around your cooking. I'll have to roll home."
"What, you? You're just a little stick, don't you know," Joanie said.
"No, seriously. I have to work twice as hard to stay this way. All the girls in this family are like that. You remember how fat Mom was at your wedding, right?"
"Well, I don't remember those sorts of things," Joanie said. "You can never ask the bride to remember details. It all comes across as a dream after a time."
"Or a nightmare," Phyllis mumbled.
"Now I thought we had a lovely wedding. Didn't you enjoy yourself?"
"Oh… yeah," Phyllis said quickly. "I don't mean your wedding. I just mean how some weddings turn into disasters."
"I see," Joanie said. Phyllis insisted that she needed no breakfast and left to get ready for the day. She returned in some of her good workout sweats, confident that they were just right for hard work on a ranch.
The ranch itself was close to twenty acres. Uncle Bill had once considered expanding it to include another ranch, but he decided to keep his business manageable for two or three people at best. The land had obviously been cleared of the sparse woods that surrounded the area, and no doubt it would be expensive to clear away more. So Uncle Bill kept things as they were. He had eighteen animals in all: two stud males, one "gelding," or castrated male, and the rest were the females and their weanlings. Phyllis saw the two males from a distance, and noticed that they were kept separate from each other. She figured out why on her own, but let Joanie talk about the place at will.
Joanie brought her over to a female. This was certainly much closer than Phyllis had ever been to such an animal. The llama could be considered "unusual" by those who are easily impressed. Phyllis knew a llama when she saw one, but it was fun to see the goatlike, camel-like appearance of one up close.
The female allowed Joanie to approach, then touch her. She stroked at the neck a little and leaned toward the animal. The female leaned her own face over and blew lightly at Joanie's face. Phyllis tried to reach out, too, but the animal took a step back and made a different blowing sound.
"Hmmm, figures she wouldn't like me," Phyllis said.
"Oh, don't worry, they'll get used to you," Joanie said. "I'll show you some weanlings; they're not quite so suspicious."
They walked past the female to a separate area where some much smaller llamas milled around. The entire ranch was fenced off, plus the separate areas for the various sexes and ages. Each area was fairly large, as the animals did need to eat all day. Most of the young ones were content to try out the moss and lichens growing around, and largely ignored their visitors. Joanie went inside the area to walk among them, and Phyllis followed cautiously.
"Some of these will be sold at the show," Joanie said. "We're not going all out this year, though. Bill has some pretty good studs over there."
" 'Studs,' " Phyllis echoed. "So… like… people pay you guys to breed with them? Like a stud service?" Phyllis asked.
"Yes," Joanie said, and went to one placid weanling to feel at its wool. "Here's one that looks ready, for instance," she announced. "We'll have to comb out a lot of this wool first. Say, if you really me
an you'd like to help, I could show you how to comb out the young ones."
"Um, really?" Phyllis asked, eyeing the animal warily.
"Combing can be a real pain and an awful mess, but it can be fun, too," Joanie said. "These young ones won't be much trouble for you. Now we wouldn't ask you to comb out an adult, so don't you worry about that."
"Well… I'd probably just mess up, wouldn't I?"
"Well, you can just watch me comb one out later, then let me know, okay?" Joanie said.
Phyllis shrugged, then laughed nervously.
"Sure," she said. "If I'm going to offer to help, I should back it up, right?"
"It's your choice, honey," Joanie said, then left the young female to her grazing. "Come on, I'll bet you'd like to see our looms."
"Looms? You mean like for weaving?"
"We have two," Joanie said, holding up her fingers. Phyllis followed her step-aunt to a building next to the barn. They went inside to see the two looms, and Phyllis was amused to find all the stray hairs stuck here and there between the strings. Joanie rattled out a quick lecture on how the wool was woven, but Phyllis probably would not have survived a pop quiz even if given only a few minutes later. Fortunately none of this information was necessary for her survival, but she was enjoying all of it.
"I think I've noticed the one big disadvantage to the country," Phyllis said after leaving the looms behind.
"Which is?"
"The dirt," she announced, and Joanie laughed.
"The dirt?" she said. "Heavens, I thought you were going to say the mosquitoes. They're the only thing I haven't gotten used to."
"God, yeah, they're terrible here," Phyllis agreed. "Are they always this bad?"
"No," Joanie said, then smiled. "During the summer they've been known to carry off people's pets."
Off in the distance somebody had parked his or her truck, and was talking to Uncle Bill and Roger. Phyllis and Joanie were already heading in their direction, so after a time Phyllis could see that a woman had arrived with one of her own llamas in tow. They reached the side of the house, where Joanie proceeded to fill a bucket with water from an outdoor faucet. The llamas tended to stand nearby the water trough, which was understandable. From the house Phyllis could see the other visitor better. She was a medium-sized woman with blond hair and more appropriate clothing for a ranch than workout sweats. Uncle Bill seemed to be examining her llama, until Roger led it away so the other two could speak further.
"Are they buying another one?" Phyllis asked. Joanie looked up.
"What's that?"
"That woman over there is selling her llama, right?"
"Hm? Oh, no, she's using one of the studs," Joanie said, now lugging her bucket over to the trough. Without asking, Phyllis helped her carry it over, even though it wasn't terribly heavy.
"She'll leave her dam here for a month or so, then come back, and hopefully the stud will have done his job," Joanie said. They reached the trough and emptied the bucket into it. Some of the animals began heading toward them at this sound. Behind them, Roger was leading the other woman's dam to wherever he took them to use the stud. Uncle Bill and the woman were now by the other male, looking him over. Phyllis caught herself smiling and shaking her head at the whole affair.
"God, this place is so bizarre, it's wonderful," she said.
"Bizarre?" Joanie said, heading back for the faucet.
"Well, I guess not really 'bizarre' so much as just… it's so different from L.A., you know."
"Oh, yes."
Phyllis caught a glimpse of a farm cat bolting away at the sight of them. Just a mouse-catcher, she thought. Not a pet.
"Of course, this may be nice and slow-paced, but there isn't much for the dance community," Phyllis went on. "I couldn't give that up."
"Too bad there isn't some happy medium for you."
Joanie said. "But, it's true that all the show business is in the cities, or actually, where you are now. Los Angeles."
"And New York."
"That, too. No ballets here, though."
Later in the day Phyllis watched Joanie give the basics on combing out a weanling's wool. The problem wasn't in the combing so much as keeping the animal still for it. The combing was done where the looms were kept, and there were special pens for the animals to stand in while being groomed. Joanie had been right, though; the young ones were more docile than the adults. Phyllis was eventually willing to give it a try the next day.
She did give it a try, but only created an unholy mess of the wool. Joanie agreed to take the weanling off of Phyllis's hands, and reassured her that no harm had been done. Phyllis took a long walk around the boundaries of the ranch, and stopped at the edge of some of the thicker woods on the northern side. All sorts of things could live in there. Probably a lot of animals that liked to eat llamas. No doubt Uncle Bill had some interesting stories about renegade bears, or whatever wild beasts lived around them. She tugged at the chain-link as if testing its strength, then moved on, apparently satisfied.
Phyllis made it back to the ranch house just in time to see the second half of Michael's soap. The "stars" almost always had their segments first, so his character was still a commercial away, she discovered. It always amused her how wooden the makeup made him look, but it was a necessary evil for videotape work. So far his scene was pretty straightforward with "Karen," or "Kathy," or whoever she was, but Phyllis knew it wouldn't be long before "Derek" went to bed with her. The thought of this momentarily put butterflies into Phyllis's stomach, but of course, they would only be acting. He wouldn't really fall in love with her.
Another day they made a brief stop into town, where Phyllis picked up the latest bestseller in paperback. She tried to get into this book, but her mind turned to mush after only a half an hour. This was when she realized that boredom was setting in. Incompetent at ranching chores, Phyllis had little to do except walk, sleep, or watch television. There was not enough room to dance, but she did treat her hosts to one of her simple routines after a day's work, as promised. The ground was not very accommodating for fancy turns, twists, or leaps, but they all thought she was the next Baryshnikov, or at least his female counterpart.
It had been an exhausting day for all except Phyllis, but she slept more soundly than the others. Boring or not, her vacation had helped her start getting a good night's sleep for once. She dreamed of being on a float in a parade, where she danced to the delight of the crowd, until somebody in the audience screamed.
Phyllis's eyes popped open, her ears filled with one of the more awful shrieks she had ever heard. Something was happening outside, and she soon heard much scuffling and voices from inside. She sat upright and listened some more, and recognized Uncle Bill's voice, then Joanie's. And still those shrieks from outside assaulted her ears. What? The llamas? What was happening?
She ran outside of her room to see Uncle Bill cocking his rifle that he had yanked from above the mantel. Joanie was trying to help him with a robe, and still the llamas were sounding their alarms. Her hosts were ignoring Phyllis, until she tried to follow Uncle Bill outside. Joanie caught her and pulled her back gently.
"No, honey, you stay inside," she said. "Let Bill handle this. Something's just spooked them, that's all."
"What is it? Why are they making that horrible noise?"
"You're going to have to stay inside, honey," Joanie repeated. "If there really is something out there, you'll be safe in here."
"Don't worry, I'm not going out there," Phyllis said, backing up to lean against the sofa. She folded her arms and rubbed her shoulders.
"You might as well get back to bed," Joanie said. "Bill will take care of it. Do you need a robe?"
"I guess I do; it's freezing!" Phyllis said, rubbing her arms even harder. Joanie turned to fetch a robe for her, when Phyllis screamed at the sound of the rifle firing.
"Goddamn it!" Uncle Bill's voice called from far off in the darkness, followed immediately by a long string of more colorful obscenities. Phyllis got up from
the sofa to back away even more.
"Oh, honey, don't you worry, Joanie said, obviously quite worried herself. "Bill is frightening something off, that's what."
"I thought we were all fenced in."
"Ummm…"
"Joanie!" Uncle Bill's voice called from far off. Only the light of his flashlight was visible. Joanie stepped out onto the porch.
"What's happened?" she shouted.
"Get the goddamned sheriff out here!" he called. Phyllis was almost too afraid to approach the doorway and peek outside.
"The… ? My God, Bill, what is it?"
"Whadda you think?" he yelled. "One of the males! Get somebody, quick!"
Joanie nodded and bustled past Phyllis to fumble with the phone. Phyllis stepped out onto the porch herself now and tried to peer into the darkness. She barely heard Uncle Bill yelling more obscenities to himself. His flashlight was pointed at something on the ground, and sometimes he stood up to scan the area with it. Sometimes a llama let out a stray shriek, and Uncle Bill would holler at it to shut it up, but hi vain.
In the background Joanie had reached the sheriff, but could give no specifics other than that something had happened to the animals. She hung up and returned to the porch just as Uncle Bill was making his cautious way back to the house. He shined the flashlight into the darkness again, and seemed satisfied of its emptiness.
"I didn't know what to tell them," Joanie said. "Something hurt one of the males, you said?"
" 'Hurt' isn't the word," Uncle Bill said. "That thing's been… Goddamn it!" he said, scratching his head. "That was the one breeding with the female."
"Oh, no," Joanie said. "Oh, Bill, what hurt it? What happened?"
"Hurt it?" Bill said. "That thing's been chewed up and spit out again."
"What??"
"Goddamn it!" he said. "Come on, let's get the others inside now. Goddamn, why didn't I just put them all in tonight?"
"It's not your fault," Joanie said. "What did it? What were you firing at? Surely not a bear?"
Uncle Bill had already turned away from them to go outside, and he waved away the question angrily, but not from anger at his wife. Joanie left to find warmer clothes and continued trying to reassure Phyllis that all was well. Instead, Phyllis stood on the porch and watched them usher the rest of the herd into the barn. Before this, she heard Joanie's horrified cry at the sight of the butchered male.