Chapter Forty-Five
Scarcer Than Hen’s Teeth
Jordan
Water runs in the sink, and dishes clatter at the wooden table – the good porcelain, not the plastic stuff.
The smell of steak and mashed potatoes is thick in the air of Margot’s kitchen.
Julius and I have been up since about five a.m., and it has not been as easy as I thought it would be.
My first few days were off to a rough start, considering I showed up on Saturday with a few luggage bags and no idea what I was doing, but after a week, we’ve developed a rhythm.
I toss my hat on one of the numerous hooks hanging down the side of the door.
My braids are frizzy like nothing else, my forehead sticky with sweat where the band of the hat meets my skin.
It’s the grossest feeling, possibly worse than the time I was dared to kiss a frog in the fifth grade, but more possibly not quite worse than that.
Ranch work is generally disgusting; things stop registering as nasty at some point.
Margot, who’s already had enough of my bullshit in the last three days alone, yells, ‘You’d better be taking your shoes off at my door, Jordan!’
With a chuckle, I kick my boots off at the threshold and push them aside onto the plastic tray, beside Julius’s worn, dark brown ones.
Gross and disgusting, maybe. Ironic that I find my peace in the very thing that has bogged me down all these years, definitely.
Except here, I get to throw myself into chores without having to worry about Mom, myself, lacrosse, tuition, whether tomorrow is going to be a breakdown or a work-till-we-break kind.
The scraping of dishes gets louder when I enter the small dining room, connected to the kitchen by a convenient half-wall.
Margot is bustling around with her ridiculous frilly orange apron, and sooner rather than later, very full bowls of said mashed potatoes hit the table.
I practically run to the sink to wash up. ‘Dinner smells real good.’
‘What’d you expect?’ Margot smiles slyly, patting my cheek as she walks past. ‘Lord, girl, you’re filthy!’
‘I’m working on it!’ I holler as I dry my hands on the chicken towel. ‘Let me get over there.’
I beat Julius to dinner, and just as he’s thundering down the stairs, I collapse into my chair.
Julius – technically my Tío Julius – has a way better cut of the bargain than I do.
He’s got people to do the dirty work around his ranch, including myself, so he’s freshened up in comparison, wearing a clean T-shirt and jeans.
He reaches around and gives Margot a hug and a kiss on the cheek before sitting down across from me.
Julius is about five years older than my mother, stocky, crooked-nosed, with the same hair as both of us, nearly black, except streaked with grey.
He’s tan and weathered from spending years and years out on the ranch, as is Margot.
Margot, though, doesn’t have the greys he does, except I know that this is only because of her brown box dye, which I found left out on Sunday.
Nevertheless, she is basically my mother’s one true role model, the person who helped my mom back on her feet after Benjamin Hawkins upped and made a mess of everything.
‘Tell me you haven’t been working my niece up the walls.’ Margot serves me a healthy helping of mashed potatoes, rushing right back to the kitchen to check on the steak. She glances back with kindly grey eyes, dimples etching themselves in her round face.
‘Maybe a little,’ Julius fibs, although it’s technically true.
He hasn’t been the one working me up the walls.
Breaking the horses is a nice distraction from everything.
I’ve started throwing myself into that because it takes time, attention, effort.
When I do that, I don’t have to think about all the shit that happened back in Massachusetts.
‘Go easy on yourself, honey.’ Margot returns with my steak, and Julius throws his hands up in mock surprise.
‘Her before me?’ he whines. ‘Seriously?’
We all laugh at that one. It’s kind of nice to be around here, even after a couple of years.
Last time, I was in high school – technically, coming off of my senior year, looking to make a break before I headed to college.
Margot and Julius were more than happy to have me for the summer.
So when I called them earlier last week, suddenly shaken, abruptly confused, Margot convinced Julius to take me in, at least until training camp starts.
This has always been one of the places where I leave my guilt about hoping for something more than what I have had behind, where I let myself absorb what a regular old nuclear family must feel like.
In record time, all three of us are happily working at our dinners, chatter exchanged round the table.
One of the heifers, now a cow, just had her first calf this afternoon, something I was fortunate enough to help with, so that’s the primary highlight of supper.
The Reapers also come up, what with the draft having just wrapped up, and a couple of new girls joining the team this fall.
One is from Texas State, which is fairly exciting.
The meat of the conversation, however, comes when Julius uses his gift of gab to casually weave in my least favourite topic.
‘But Jordan,’ he says, reaching for a scoop of broccoli, ‘how was Boston?’
He knows I wasn’t in Boston. I raise an eyebrow. He raises one right back. My mother’s brother, alright. ‘It was good,’ I snip, pulling at a loose strand of hair starting to poke out from my braid.
‘Oh, sure.’ Margot is joining in now, too. She folds her hands in front of her, giving me that warm smile of hers. Her hair, all taken up into a pretty chignon, bounces with her. ‘And summer camp?’
‘Good,’ I say shortly.
‘You plan on ever talking about it?’ Rather than just warmth, concern enters Margot’s voice. Her brow is furrowed. She may not be related to my mom, but she has the same demeanour when it comes to worry over me.
‘Probably not.’
‘It’s not our place to say anything.’ Julius’s tone is kind, yet firm. ‘But running …’
He’s right – he can’t really say anything.
It’s exactly what we all do in this family.
We run from our problems, the same way my mother threw herself into the ranch so she wouldn’t feel the pain, same way Julius moved to Montana when my abuelo passed away, so he wouldn’t have to deal with the grief.
It’s all we know. Doesn’t help that the Hawkins in me is a little too good at running, too.
‘Will you go back?’ asks Margot. She’s quiet, but she presses a pale hand to mine.
I smile tightly. ‘No, Auntie. I’m not goin’ back.’
‘How about home?’ Julius has the air of a dad who’s just trying to figure out how to navigate teenage heartbreak. Hesitant, yet well-meaning, his eyebrows draw together, and the corners of his mouth tilt down beneath his moustache.
‘Not yet.’ I take a deep breath. I immediately think about the stables – one of the best parts of my childhood, gone, gentrified, replaced, just like that.
It was never going to be the place I went back to after things ended with Rod.
I don’t know when it’ll feel like home again, but I’m hoping time will smooth that over.
‘I’ll head over for May and Colt’s party in a few weeks.
Then back to Rhode Island. They’ll need me by then, anyway. ’
‘Your mama’ll need you, too.’ Margot squeezes my hand.
My heart clenches, and I squeeze back, my eyes suddenly trained on my half-eaten steak.
I know she’s right. I’ll have to go back eventually.
But now, my entire world feels like it’s just splintered and fractured, and I need steady ground.
In Casas Creek, I have that. The moment I return to Oklahoma, I’ll have to contend with all the change and the memories, and the fact that I thought for a minute that I’d found the sort of man who’d convinced me it didn’t have to be all bad.
‘She’ll be fine. She has a new foreman. A whole army of ranch hands,’ I try and joke, but it doesn’t come out as lightly as I intended. ‘Besides. I wanna stay and help with the rodeo, you know that.’
Sensing the turn in conversation, Julius jumps right in. ‘You should do more than help,’ he suggests ominously, with a tap of the table. ‘Why don’t you compete again, huh?’
‘Oh, come on.’ I snort. I’m grateful for the diversion, although I sense Margot beside me wishing I’d nipped this thing in the bud. ‘I can’t just get right on back to doing that stuff. You know it takes practice.’
Julius, a former bareback bronc champion, swats the air. ‘That’s not true. It’s in your blood, mija. No need to come up with excuses.’
‘It’s in her blood till we gotta turn her round to her mother with her head split open,’ Margot points out wisely. She’s trying to be so serious, it cracks me up.
‘That’s why we wear …’ Julius stops himself with a raised hand. ‘I lied. We don’t wear helmets.’
Margot just throws her hands up in the air, her point proven, but Julius is still out to prove his.
‘You should,’ he says again, ‘you know. Even if it’s just for fun.
You’re still young. Granted, you’re probably supposed to protect yourself from injuries because of lacrosse,’ he adds, more to himself than anything else.
I watch my uncle calculate in real time, and then finally, a lightbulb.
His eyes crinkle with a smile. ‘Tell you what, you don’t even have to compete.
You could just do the flag this year. Practically guaranteed you won’t hurt yourself, so we can return you to Rhode Island without a scratch. ’
He turns to Margot for approval, and with a sigh, she nods, a grin creeping out. ‘I can’t lie, honey, I have missed seein’ you ride. There’s nothing else like it.’
I let out a laugh. ‘Can you guys see me in those sparkly chaps? I’ve never been a flag girl before.’ Probably for good reason – it was never the thing I was into. The pageantry, the prim-and-proper of it all: it’s the total opposite of riding rough stock.
‘I don’t know, but … I think it’ll do you good.’ Margot’s voice moves to an undertone of pity, which still feels warm and comforting coming from her, but makes me feel some kind of awful deep in my chest. ‘To get your mind off of everything.’
I’d love to. That’s why I’ve been slogging through my chores and then some.
Trying to move forward with things, same way my mom did, the way we all do.
But this one, as much as I hate to admit it, he was different.
In my head, he was supposed to stick around.
We were supposed to decide we maybe, just maybe, wanted this beyond just one season, wanted this for all of them.
And I craved every drop of it. The dogs, Tali, the horses out back.
It was, altogether, what Margot would have called ‘scarcer than hen’s teeth’.
Something about it all filled the gaping hole I’d resigned myself to embracing, cut the monotone life of self-preservation I’d been living.
I had gotten used to the numbness and the sting, until I realized that I could have more.
I could have Rodney Wilson, in all his sainted glory and his hidden struggles, his happiness, his sadness, and everything in between.
At least I thought I could. How the hell do you get your mind off that?
But at the end of the day, Margot means well.
She means so well that it practically hurts.
She’s only made me my favourite foods the past few days.
I think she was about to go out and find a KFC to get me those chicken and waffles combos I like.
Even Julius gave me the shit to do on the ranch that he knew I’d get something out of.
If the ‘teenage heartbreak dad’ vibe didn’t tell me how hard he was trying, I had no idea what would.
I sigh. ‘So. What’s a flag girl got to know how to do?’