Chapter 8
8
It’s the weekend now. I wonder if she’s gone through all the food she bought. She still hasn’t spent any time roaming the grounds or coming outside. I know because I’ve fallen behind on my work just to sift through all the CCTV footage, and her door doesn’t open.
I climb up the few stairs to her front porch, and when I raise my hand to knock, the door opens before I make contact.
“ Hijo! ”
Dad?
My dad wears one of his going-out shirts, and his salt-and-pepper hair is styled with some pomade. He opens the door wider, and there is Ava, one hand tucked into her back pocket, and the other one gives me a wave.
My God, is every man in my life hell-bent on befriending this woman? “What are you doing here?”
He goes to Ava’s side and elbows her in an affectionate kind of way, like they’ve known each other for years. But he could have only slipped in here a few hours ago at most because I checked footage up until noon today.
“I noticed Ava hasn’t been out and about so I paid our new neighbor a visit,” he explains.
She bends down and picks up a brown paper bag from Piggleton’s that’s sitting on her coffee table. “Your dad brought me some carrots and broad beans from his garden.” She dips her head deeper to peer inside… “Some herbs.”
Unlike my brother, I know my father’s intentions are pure and innocent. I can hardly get annoyed at him for making friends. He left his small hometown of over forty years, and officially left behind the walls that housed memories of my mom. Dad never remarried. He’s been a widower for well over a decade. One of the reasons that after my sister finally moved out of our childhood home, we knew we had to push for the move to Echo Valley. Our sister was always his favorite.
Dad is a total extrovert. He came from a big family and created one himself. Being on his own doesn’t suit him. I bet he loves having Ava here.
I eye up Ava holding the brown paper bag that now lies flush with one of her long, lean pins.
I dart my eyes back to Dad. “How long have you been here?”
“Oh…” He glances at Ava. “An hour?”
Her head bobs up and down. What the hell have Ava and my dad been talking about for an hour? Seems she has lots to say with everyone but me.
“Ava was asking me about the veggies, and I told her about how in Starlight Canyon everything grew so much better without all the fussing I’ll have to do here because of the heat.”
Dad just moved here a couple of weeks ago. We got it all ready for him in hopes of not hearing these little digs on Echo Valley. We had the veggie garden already planted. We got him a few quiet quarter horses to choose from, and the house even has his old rocker on the porch. He needs to slow down now, not drive cattle all day and pound fence poles until he has to knock himself out with painkillers to sleep.
Still, he misses it.
I miss my calluses, too, sometimes. There’s something honest about manual labor. I see why Santi and Gabriel didn’t want to end up behind desks.
Just then, as if Dad and Ava hanging out wasn’t enough, Santiago appears behind Ava with two beers in hand.
“Hey. Just brought Ava some welcome beer, but she doesn’t drink. Want one to mark Friday before we head off?”
I don’t know how I feel about my family getting all cuddly with Ava. On the one hand, Dad and Santi do have good intuition. If she was here under false pretenses, they might get a whiff of something being off.
And work aside, I’m not a monster. I don’t want her or my dad to feel lonely.
But Santi can fuck off.
Before I can even decline the beer, my dad glances at his watch and jumps at the realization it’s time to go. “No time for beer. Gotta get to Town Hall.”
Santi steps out past Ava onto the porch, sliding a well- pressed, long-sleeved shirt over his tight white t-shirt. Why didn’t he hang out at Ava’s fully dressed?
We head to my car because my dad’s a terrible driver and my brother thinks he’s a celebrity. Santi takes the passenger seat, with Dad and Ava in the back. It’s actually nice to have a woman around, especially one with as much life in her as Ava. Between four brothers, that’s very few who’ve made it here. We’re all so consumed by our work and projects, I can count on two hands how many women have actually stayed on the ranch.
We buckle up and head out of the gates.
Ava puts the window down ever so slightly, and as we drive, the scent of Ponderosa pine makes its way into the vehicle.
“So, what is the Town Hall meeting about then?” she asks.
Santi tells the story of our genesis in this place. “When we arrived in Echo Valley, we had nothing. But we knew it was where we needed to settle because Rio and Zo needed to be near San Francisco. I came a few times to visit these miserable country boys in the city. Found this little patch of scrubland and bought it with some winnings so my brothers could keep a horse or two not too far away. Echo Valley was the nearest place I could afford anything.”
“Crazy to say,” she stares out the window, “when I went through the town on the way to yours, it seemed like a pretty well-off place. Well-kept anyway.”
We’ve poured money and effort into the town over the years. When we first rolled in, paint was peeling and weeds grew in sidewalk cracks. But we soon noticed Echo Valley is full of industrious folk and maybe it just needed some community spirit to lift it up. We brought some of that small-town spunk here by gathering people at monthly Town Hall meetings.
Ava’s questions start coming, and it’s obvious she’s done plenty of digging on us. I respect a person who does their research.
“You spent your rodeo winnings just to make your brothers happy? And I understand you put all of the sales from your first thoroughbred winner into GhostEye, too?”
Santi ignores the comment because he’ll take credit for things he doesn’t deserve, but becomes strangely shy when he earns it. “Julia at Trailblazer was the first one we met here. Rio had the idea to rent out the space above her tack and feed store in exchange for manual labor.”
For years Julia gave us free internet and office space, heating and electricity. It took years of developing, failed attempts at getting seed money for our tech and millions of pots of ramen. Us brothers were able to pile every bit of cash we did earn into Monarch Hills and GhostEye, thanks to her being so generous. She paid for our first headquarters in exchange for us stacking shelves and piling hay bales.
One could say Santi and Julia were our first investors.
Santi continues to explain how in those earlier years, Julia became family, too. We had roasts together, got drunk on St. Patrick’s Day with her, and even helped her deal with her husband’s motoneuron disease; eventually, we helped her bury him. This whole town did. Echo Valley is a special place, and Town Hall has become like a family meeting once a month. We focus on what’s to be done in the town. Who needs help. Or we just shoot the shit. We started Town Hall to give back to Echo Valley, but truth be told, I don’t know which way it all runs anymore.
Ava is captivated by Santi’s story. She seems to be like that every time someone talks. Consumed by the present. Overwhelmed with interest. Never simply thinking about the next thing she should say like most people do.
“Wow, this place sounds like utopia.”
I glance in the rearview mirror, and her amber eyes are lit up by the sunset. She glows.
Dad pipes up, half joking, half serious. “But is it utopia like Gilmore Girls or utopia like a cabin in the woods, but you don’t know an axe murderer is on the way? The jury is out.”
Ava laughs. It’s more like a guffaw. It’s guttural and low and sounds like she’s actually saying ha-ha. It’s such a comical sound I feel the corner of my mouth lift.
“Dad, you’re going to love it here,” Santi mumbles. “If you stop complaining long enough to notice.”
“ Te estás ganando un coscorrón .”
Ava, to my surprise, responds to Dad’s warning.
“Since I’m sitting behind him, Luis, I can smack the sass out of him for you.” She laughs at her own wit.
Santi turns to the backseat. “Hey. Whose side are you on, Ava? I thought we were cool?”
Again that silly, cute-as-hell laugh fills the car with rainbows.
“Us newbies need to stick together,” Ava says, matter of fact. “It’s hard to be new in a small town. Right, Luis?”
I see her lean over and bump her arm into my dad’s.
Santi crosses his arms next to me. “I’m hurt.” He turns around, probably to give her a wink. “I guess I’ll have to try harder.”
Why does Santi have to flirt with anything with a pulse? It’s never annoyed me much, but this time it does. I don’t want him messing with Ava. She’s… valuable to this organization. I don’t need her getting twisted up with heartache like all the other women who cross Santi’s path.
“So… you speak Spanish?” Dad asks. “How is that? ”
She pauses.
Too long.
Maybe it’s nothing.
“Uh… I was homeschooled, but it was a cooperative. So I wasn’t just taught by my uncle. There were others who taught me, too, and some spoke Spanish. I learned from the time I was eleven so I’ve spoken Spanish more years than I haven’t.”
Yet another unique situation surrounding the mysterious Ava Scott. She was taught by teachers who spoke English and Spanish but homeschooled? Maybe she grew up in some sort of commune.
“You were raised by your uncle?” Dad asks.
“Yeah. It was just the two of us.”
I can’t see my dad’s face but I can tell he pauses to think the same thing I am. Why would a single uncle be raising his niece? And why would he homeschool her when I sure as hell know my parents looked at school like it was much-needed babysitting sometimes. If you were a single parent, even more of a requirement.
Santi heads straight in. “What happened to your parents?”
“My mom left me with my uncle one day and never came back.”
Dad’s voice is full of sympathy. “What happened?”
“We don’t know. She just disappeared.”
“That must have been a tough thing to cope with,” Dad’s words are filled with compassion.
I glance in the rearview again. Ava rolls the window down, closes her eyes, and the breeze flaps her red hair around a wistful expression. “Hardship prepares ordinary people for extraordinary destinies.”
“Mmm,” Dad agrees .
I go quiet thinking about what she’s just said, and I have a feeling Santi’s thinking, too. Maybe it’s true that hardship is preparation. But I’ve learned all too well there are plenty of cases where hardship didn’t need to happen so good would come of it.
Cancer took our mother far too soon, and I swear to the Lord above I still would have worked as hard, been as strong… I would have made her proud no matter what. I didn’t need her to be part of some hardship to make me work toward some extraordinary destiny.
But in Ava’s case, I leave it because I want her to believe beautiful things. It would be a travesty to pour a rainstorm over her sunshine. Anyway, who am I to say what might have happened? For sure, she’s extraordinary by any measure. Still so young, obviously extremely focused to have her skill level already. Very few people have her talent, or the grit it takes to get to where she is. Programming and cracking aren’t like other topics of genius. I have yet to see someone good at it who doesn’t work many, many hours to get there.
But despite her positive outlook and focus on the good, I don’t like hearing anyone didn’t grow up with what I had. My mom left this world far too early, and in the wake was a hell of a lot of emotional damage, but my childhood was filled with boisterous joy, two parents who cherished our family and demonstrated that love by working themselves to the bone for us. There was no denying I had a childhood everyone deserves despite some very dry seasons. And there were no questions about who we were as a family or what we stood for.
Despite my demons, I have a solid foundation. I never take my roots for granted. They keep me standing tall in the toughest of storms .
Moms are special forces. That Ava never really had that in her life is a goddamn shame. Moreover, no matter how hard her uncle tried, there’s no way that curious woman in the backseat ever stopped wondering why she was left behind.
I wouldn’t wish abandonment on anyone.
It sounds like Ava’s uncle was everything to her. There was a real affection in her voice when she spoke of him at Piggleton’s . I actually felt for her. She’s a grown woman, but we’re never too old to be homesick, and her tone and body language told me she misses him.
But one thing is for sure, it’s impossible to be lonely in Echo Valley. Even if you want to be.
“What you said about destinies,” Dad asks. “Is that your saying?”
“I can’t take credit. It’s CS Lewis.” She takes the opportunity to segue. “Do you like to read, Luis?”
Santi and I can’t help but both go stiff. She only went and mentioned books.
Dad’s hands rub together with enough enthusiasm to start fire. “Well, funny how you mention it. Apparently at Town Hall, it’s a chance to talk about projects, hobbies… clubs. I want to start a book club.”
Santi splats his hand on his forehead.
“I started up reading not long before leaving Starlight Canyon at my friend, Joy Hunter’s, book club. I really enjoy it.”
“What kind of books?” Ava asks. “I’ll join your club. I love to read.”
“It’s not going to be anything high falutin’ like CS Lewis.”
“I just like to be entertained, Luis. Count me in.”