Chapter 5

In spite of all the worrying Anita had been doing about what Tina had been up to, when I first saw her again I could see no signs at all of hard living. Her face still appeared young and innocent to me, with nary a sign of drug use or excessive drinking. The way Anita had been talking about Tina, and the crowd she was running with, you would have expected to see some visual manifestation from all the excesses being ascribed to her.

When she stepped out of Rob's Yukon I could see that she still liked to dress provocatively though. The short black skirt she was wearing ended about three inches under where her pussy had to be. That was after she pulled it down, following her exit from the passenger seat. Her top was a flimsy satiny looking thing, transparent enough that anyone could see that she had on a black bra beneath the blouse material.

Tina's hair was longer than it had been the last time I'd seen her, and, I had to admit, she looked even more attractive than I'd remembered. She managed to give a nod in my direction before Anita got out of the big SUV and the sisters started rooting around in the back for Tina's clothes and other personal belongings. While they were starting to gather up Tina's things for the trip upstairs, Theresa and Rob came outside and the five of us soon made short work of getting everything carried into the house.

"You never told me that Anita's sister was so great looking, Kyle. You can see some resemblance between her and Anita, but not that much except for hair and skin color, and, I guess their noses are kind of shaped the same. I can understand why Theresa has been worried about her coming out here to live."

Rob was gushing all this to me while the two of us were gathering up some cardboard boxes filled with something heavy, preparing to cart them up the stairs. He kept his voice down, even though the three girls had already gone inside the house, loaded down with clothes on hangers.

"She's good looking, and she knows it. Wait until you spend some time with her and see what her personality is like before you start having fantasies about her."

"Too late for that. I'm already fantasizing about her and Theresa making out on our bed, with me in the room watching." I looked over at Rob's face, half believing that he really was having a fantasy right then.

"You better not let Theresa know what you're thinking then. I'm not so sure she'd welcome such stiff competition."

"For me, or for Tina?"

"Keep it up, and you'll soon find out how good a sense of humor your girlfriend has."

After we got everything delivered up to the room where Tina was going to be sleeping, I went back outside and did a changeover on one of the sets of irrigation hoses. This reminded me that I needed to see about getting some quotes for the extra irrigation equipment I'd soon be needing.

Anita wanted to start planting the new trees out on the Geary property we now owned. We were planting one male "Peters" plant as every fifth tree in every fifth row. The female plants produced the pistachio nuts, but we needed male plants to spread the pollen. Pollination in pistachios is done with wind, not bees, so the female plants had to be physically close to some male ones. This was what Anita had decided would be the optimal mix for the new acreage we were planting.

It would be at least seven years before these new plants would start producing nuts that we could sell. Until that time, they'd be nothing more than a direct expense to us. This was one of the main reasons why so few farmers or orchardist's decided to farm pistachios. You had to take a very long term approach, and have some deep pockets to be able to afford to plant new trees like we were going to do. This year we'd plant about forty new acres of trees. Next year we'd plant the rest.

Rob was already talking about us buying up another piece of land, while the real estate market was doing so poorly. His point was that we could get it cheaply enough now, while prices are depressed, and have it ready for when we'd want to do more expanding later.

As I'd feared, Rob's obvious fascination with Tina's looks quickly became a source of trouble. It was Maria who was the first to take offense, on Theresa's behalf, with something Rob had said in the kitchen. Rob later claimed that Maria had misunderstood what it was he'd actually said to Tina. Adding fuel to the fire, Tina confirmed Maria's version of what had been said.

Apparently, when she'd first come into the kitchen for lunch, Tina had looked at the table that now had seven place settings and chairs around it, instead of six. Seeing this, Tina asked where she was supposed to sit? Rob used that old line about her always having a place to sit as long as he had a face. Rob's impulse control has never been too strong anyway, and I had personally been hearing him repeat that line to girls since he was about sixteen years old. Theresa tried to defuse Maria's anger by telling her it had just been a joke. From the look she gave Rob though, it was obvious that Theresa wasn't too happy with him, or with how he was acting around Tina since her arrival at the farm.

In Rob's defense, I'd have to say that he had always maintained, even in Theresa's presence, that the two of them were simply friends who took care of each other's needs, not a pair of romantic lovers. I'm sure that might have been true on Rob's part, but I could tell that Theresa was hoping for a lot more than that to develop between them. If not right away, then at least at some later point.

She had just turned twenty five the month before, and was conscious of the fact that she was one of the few Latina girls she knew who hadn't ever been married, or, at least, had a child or two by the time she'd reached her current age. Marriage and motherhood was a cultural imperative for first generation Mexican American women living in rural economic environments. Maybe it was different in the cities, but out where we were, that was the norm.

Tina didn't help things any when she started telling Theresa that Anita had already told her that both Rob and I were off limits to her. From listening to her telling Theresa that, someone could easily get the idea that Tina thought all she had to do was snap her fingers, and Rob and I would leave our girl friends for her at the first opportunity. She was probably right about Rob, but I knew she was wrong about me. I saw Tina being here at the farm as nothing but big trouble just waiting to happen.

For the past few months, Anita and I had slept together every night. More than slept with each other too. We had sex together nearly every one of those nights, and usually, more than once. The first night Tina was living with us again, she and Anita went into Tina's bedroom at bedtime and I didn't even get so much as a good night kiss. In the morning the first I saw of her was when she came out of our bathroom, already showered and dressed for the day. By the time I came down for breakfast later that morning, I'd already worked up some anger and resentment over how things were turning out now that Tina was there.

If Anita had come to me and explained how worried she was about Tina having some time to get herself settled in, it might have been different. She never came to me, or even offered me any explanation for why she was doing things differently than she had told me she would do them.

When she was first explaining Tina's coming out to live with us, she'd made it sound like we'd have our normal times together, morning and night, but that she'd go into Tina's room and spend the night there. Only the bed that she actually slept in would change. Our close physical relationship wasn't going to be affected at all, according to what she had promised.

I said and did nothing for the first four nights of this, all essentially repeats of what had taken place that first night since Tina had arrived. On the fifth morning I was waiting for Anita when she came out of our bathroom. By then, I'd definitely worked up a full head of steam.

"I think you and Tina should move your things over to the trailer sometime today."

I could see that Anita was shocked by what I'd just told her. I moved around her, careful not to touch her, as I went into the bathroom and shut the door behind me. Fifteen minutes later, when I came downstairs for breakfast, the seats where Anita and Tina usually sat were empty. Theresa and her mother were looking at me with an expression that told me they thought I'd overreacted. Rob was busy eating, and Lupe said nothing as he got up from his seat and took his plate and empty coffee cup over to the sink for rinsing.

I sat down to a fresh plate of chorizo and eggs, cooked just the way I liked them. I began covering them with half a cup of pico de gallo sauce, before adding a few shakes of salt and pepper to the concoction. That done, I buttered a flour tortilla, grabbed my fork, and dug right in.

"Anita told us that you were kicking her and Tina out of the house, Kyle. They both lit out of here in Anita's black scrap heap. I didn't hear any yelling, so you'll just have to fill me in on what it was that caused you to do that."

Rob spoke in a normal tone of voice, like we were discussing some routine matter. I noticed that Lupe had paused where he was, having almost walked out of the kitchen before Rob started talking to me. Maria and Theresa were both looking at me as well.

"Nothing much happened. As soon as it became apparent that Anita only had time enough to get Tina settled in, and not for anything else, I told her that the two of them needed to move out to the empty rooms in the trailer. My bedroom is for me and for whoever I might choose to invite up there to be with me. The way this thing with Tina's moving out here has worked out, I don't have anyone I want living up there with me anymore. I would say it was more a case of me accepting the new reality about how things really are now."

"Your choice, I guess, but you just might have lost us the brains of this outfit because you were feeling a little bit neglected. You can't know what Anita might be going through. I've seen how jumpy she's been around Tina. Theresa told me that Tina keeps changing her mind about whether or not she wants to stay out here on the farm. Anita is trying her hardest to settle her down."

"I could have known, but only if she'd taken the time to fill me in on what's been happening. I was told I'd have one situation, but I ended up with a completely different one. Anita should have at least given me some explanation of why things were different than she said they'd be. If she had come to me, I might not have been as upset. As for her being the brains of this outfit, I guess I'd have to agree with you there. If she doesn't come back in a week or so, we'll have to start looking for someone else who knows how to keep things running like she did."

I finished my breakfast and carried everything over to the sink. So far, Lupe, Maria, and Theresa hadn't spoken a single word to me. They'd listened to what I'd told Rob, so I was fairly certain word would get back to Anita about what was said. At the point I was at, I didn't much care how things turned out between the two of us. I hadn't done anything wrong to her, and I didn't deserve to just be ignored by her, no matter how worried she might be about her sister. She was the one at fault here, not me.

Anita came back to the farm about two hours later. She borrowed Rob's truck and loaded all of Tina's stuff in it. When she was done loading, she took off towards town with it. This time she was back in about an hour, parked Rob's truck, and then started moving all her own stuff over to the trailer. No one was helping her move it all, and it took her a good two hours before she seemed satisfied that she had everything.

I'd spent all morning and part of the afternoon grafting new branches on the root stock and seeing to watering all the two gallon cans the rootstock was sitting in while waiting to be re-planted. A few of the earlier grafts hadn't taken, so I pulled out the dead cultivar plugs and regrafted new ones in their place. I spent a lot of my time watching Anita moving all her things out of the house. After she was finished with her move, she came out to where I was and started yelling at me.

"Tina's moved back to my aunt's house. I hope you're satisfied." She was crying while she was yelling. Now that she was closer, I could tell that she'd been crying for some time before she came over to confront me.

"Her choice, not mine. She could have moved out to the trailer with you. None of this would have had to happen if you'd lived up to how you said it was going to be. I'm not the one who didn't do what he said he'd do."

"You don't get any pussy for four days, and you just couldn't take it any more?"

"I practically don't see the woman who's supposed to love me, and I'm totally ignored most of this time, like I either didn't exist, or wasn't important anyway. If you think back to how much time we've spent together since you brought Tina out here, you'd see that I'm right."

"What I see is that my sister is right back where she was before I finally convinced her to move back here to the farm. If you'd have been patient, I could have convinced her she was much better off out here with me."

"You might be right, but I'd already exhausted all my patience by this morning."

"You need to learn more patience then."

"Maybe, but you need to learn to not take on more than you can handle. You made promises you weren't able to keep, and that's what caused the problem. I hope you aren't expecting me to apologize, because nothing that happened has changed how I felt this morning. You aren't helping things by trying to shift the blame for this to me."

"Keep this up, and I swear I'll quit this damn job, and leave you out here alone to try to run this farm."

"Keep talking like that, and I'll fire your ass and go find someone else to take your place."

"Take my place on the farm, or in your bedroom?"

"Get back to work, or else get off my property, Anita. I'm done listening to you sniveling about a problem you brought upon yourself."

I got up and walked away from her. She really had me angry now. All she'd needed to do was leave things alone until our raw feelings had a chance to scab over a bit. I could tell that we each believed the other was at fault. I wasn't about to change my mind, or to try to see things her way. This time, I was the one who got in his truck and left the farm.

I had heard about some irrigation equipment that had come back on a defaulted loan to an agricultural financing company that had a branch office over in Barstow. I figured now was as good a time as any to drive over there and take a look at it.

It took me only a half an hour or so to see that I had no use for anything I saw laying out in the fenced yard behind the financing office. I went back inside to thank the man who was running the office.

"Didn't find what you were looking for?"

"No. Most of that stuff should be thrown away. I didn't even recognize some of the couplers on the ends of those hoses. How old is that equipment?"

"Hard to tell with some of it. Just part of the collateral we take when we make or re-do a loan. If you have a few minutes, I'd like to show you some pictures of some newer equipment we just took back over at our Phelan office. We have records to prove it isn't even two years old yet. I could make you a pretty good deal on it if you have a way to drive over there and pick it all up for me."

I looked at about thirty pictures he had to show me. It was a lot of pipe and hoses, and the lot even included a four wheeler that had been specially rigged up to pull the pipe and hoses around. The agent for the finance company started out asking me to give him twelve thousand for all of it. I told him that was too rich for my blood.

I was interested, because I knew that much equipment would easily run more than fifty thousand when new. Used irrigation equipment quickly lost its value though. My parents had made the mistake of buying all new equipment when they purchased the farm. What had cost them eighty five thousand was now worth about six thousand at the most.

"Why don't you make me a counter offer then? Don't worry about offending me either, because I've got a pretty thick skin."

"If I have to run down there to pick it all up, I'd give you five for it. Delivered, I'd go as high as fifty five hundred, but no more than that. I'd have to do a lot of work converting the couplings over to match what I have now."