The Stars in the Sky

Chapter 27: Marie Gets an Idea

For the rest of the week, the kids from Oakland rode horses, made crafts, took care of all of the different farm animals, and generally had a blast. After making it through the rough start with the terrible campfire, the earthquake, and the overt racial slur, the group seemed to have responded to these events by bonding. They became closer and more cohesive. I saw Emma talking with Truc several times at meals, which seemed like an absolute miracle, and James even smiled at me once. Enrique put his phone away for a good three hours on Thursday morning, which I considered to be the biggest victory of all.

At separate times during the week, both Maurice and Tricia came up to me individually and told me that this was the first time that they had taken the kids from their program to a farm and that they were going to do it again next year. It felt like a tremendous success, to have the group grow so close after just a few days on the farm. I think having it simpler here — no internet for the kids, no television, no distractions except for friends to talk to and animals to take care of — really made it a place to put aside differences and make connections. I loved it. It felt like a perfect world, even though I knew that didn't exist.

We had a closing campfire Thursday night, and this time the fire lit quickly, with Cookie in charge, and we roasted marshmallows. Everyone participated in singing my silly songs. I even thought I saw Will join in, although it was dark and he was sitting in the back, so I wasn't sure.

During the week, I noticed that while Will was a tough cowboy, he was also a kid-magnet. These children really looked up to him. Every time they saw him, they would call out, "Will, Will!" and he would walk over, all burly, and talk with them, his face smiling and animated. It was like he had no guard up around the kids: he would ruffle the hair of the guys and tease the girls and the kids all seemed to adore him and want to be like him. After his lecture about prejudice, even though it was just a sentence or two, it seemed to do the trick. I heard not a word of teasing about race among these children. At least for now. At least with this group. And sometimes that was all you could hope for.

I had come to the realization that his lecture, in part, was an apology to me for what he said when we met. We still needed to talk about a lot of things, however, like our beliefs, our politics, ourselves. But knowing that he had the ability to instruct kids to set aside their beliefs was a start to me opening up to him. I wondered if he could set aside his own beliefs? I wondered if I could? I wanted to have some conversations with him about these things, and while he wasn't hard to talk to, he was never chatty. I needed to come up with a way to get him talking.

The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to know more about him. I didn't know anything about his history. Yes, I had figured out some of it, like he had no siblings because of his mom's injury, but I had no idea where he went to school, what he liked to do other than take care of his ranch, and why the hell he was such a kinky bastard. We were on this sexual hiatus because I wanted to learn more about him and I was going to take full advantage of it.

Truthfully, though, I was scared. What if it really was just about sex? What if we really did get on each other's nerves and had nothing in common underneath the mutual attraction?

It would hurt to discover that there was nowhere to go.

And realizing that it would hurt meant that I really did like him.

And I wasn't sure what I thought about that.

While Will had not tried to get into my pants, he seemed to give zero fucks about public displays of affection. Whenever I was near him, he was touching me, either with his arm around my shoulders, holding my hand, or tracing a finger down my back or arms. It was comforting and I really liked it.

No kissing, though. He hadn't kissed me since I asked him to knock off the sex. I didn't tell him 'no kissing,' and I wasn't opposed to it, but I wanted to see how long we would hold out.

Still, I missed his mouth on mine.

I missed other parts of him too.

And then it was Friday, and the kids went home to Northern California, dusty, wearing tie dyed shirts, and boisterously singing "Row Row Row Your Boat" in a round on the bus ride home.

As we walked back to the bunkhouse, I talked with Janine and Stephanie about how much the kids had bonded during that week. We were going to miss them. Once again, the female wranglers were getting out of town, just for tonight this time, so I was going to be by myself in the ranch house, which now felt very quiet without the noise of the kids.

After I watched them pack up and leave in their cars, I went into the kitchen and made myself a snack of hummus and pita chips. Looking at my vegan food supplies, I realized that I was going to have to make a trip to a health food store to restock some of my favorites. I also noted that the bottle of tequila I had brought with me had remained unopened.

That gave me an idea for tonight.

After I ate and cleaned up the kitchen, I decided to check in with Happy, my horse, and I wandered over to the barn. Claudio was there, mucking out stalls and I started talking to him, asking him about himself and his family.

"When did you come here?" I asked.

He talked slowly, in his thick, Austrian accent. "I come here for school and then I start to work for Mister Will. And then I don't want to leave. At first I come to California. I rent red convertible Mustang. I try the surfing. But no, I am not the surfer. Here, with the horses, I belong."

"I understand," I said. "I feel like I belong here too."

Will walked in the barn, hung up a bridle and reins, in the tack room, and then came over to me. Claudio excused himself. Will put a foot up on a hay bale next to me, boxing me in by Happy's stall, and asked, "What do you wanna do tonight?"

"Get you drunk and see if I can get you to answer questions," I immediately responded.

He chuckled. "So you're gonna hide your true agenda."

I pushed his broad chest in protest, as a joke. He didn't move, just looked down at me, his brown eyes warm. I responded, "Nope. But I got a bottle of tequila and it has our names on it."

He groaned. "Shit. Tequila. You sure that's a good idea?"

"Yes!" I clapped my hands. "I know! We'll go on a picnic. There has to be a good spot for a picnic, right? We can watch the sunset and drink and talk."

"Sounds terrific," Will muttered, not sounding like he believed it at all.

"It's all settled," I said. "I'll talk to Cookie and pack up something."

Will shook his head like he couldn't believe me, but he also looked amused.

This was good. Hopefully I could get him talking. But I wasn't sure that I wanted to find out what he was going to say.