Chapter 14

I say I had just bought a ranch, but of course there was still the paperwork to do, and the loan for me to get, but Jake said he had faith in me to get my part done. His answer to a real estate contract was to scrawl on a piece of paper: "I, Jake Franklin Peters, sell my ranch, located eight miles west of Simfoo, California, to Thutmose Charles Robinson for $500,000.00, to be paid in one lump sum by the bank of his choosing." Then he drew four lines; two for us to sign on, and two for the date to be listed under each signature.

"I think there might be more to it than this," I said.

He waved a hand and said, "Whatever. You just go get that loan."

And that was the start of a new relationship in my life that would mean a hell of a lot to me as time went on. The banks weren't much interested in talking to me. Not when I was pulling in a salary that was under fifty thousand, and wanted to buy a ranch for half a million.

So Jake rented to me while I tried to figure something out.

That was easy. The house turned out to be a lot bigger than it looked. There were eight bedrooms and a huge kitchen, with a big living room that had been put on the back side of the house, rather than the front, where tradition puts most spaces with that name. It made sense, though, because a wide bank of tall windows comprised one full wall of the living room, which gave a view of the mountains, and also let the sun light the room all day. When it had been a working ranch, the family that ran it was large. The hands had lived in a bunkhouse that was still there, and still in reasonable shape, but hadn't been used in twenty years. It was easy to see why somebody had envisioned a bed and breakfast type operation in a house like that. I had the same thoughts, though I had no idea how that might work, in reality. It was more of a big fuzzy spot in my imagination than a real plan, or anything.

So, for now, Jake and I both had rooms on the main floor, and we mothballked the upper story, which meant the top of the staircase was sealed with a big sheet of ten mil plastic.

I had written home about events as my military career came to an end. Of course I didn't know what was going to happen job-wise when I wrote the emails, and I didn't have a cell phone at that point because it didn't seem to make any sense to have an Australian account if I was going to live in the U.S. I'd been too busy with the university and looking for a place to live to get a phone yet. So it wasn't until I took care of that little detail that I called my folks and actually told them where I was.

They were less than effusive that I had decided to settle so far from home, after being gone so long. But I knew they'd get over it, and I told them I could come for Thanksgiving, as things would be well settled by then. I asked for Phee's phone number, and Mom gave it to me.

She answered with a flat "Hello" that didn't sound all that welcoming. It turns out my phone account hadn't gotten completely established yet, so all that showed on her screen was "unknown caller." I responded with: "Hi, baby sister. How's it feel to have a big brother back in America to give you advice and guidance?"

She about deafened me, and I had to hold the phone away from my ear.

"Where are you?" she demanded. "Why haven't you called me? When did you get back? Where are you?"

She finally ran down.

"I'm in Simfoo, California, and I have a job, and I'm trying to buy a ranch," I said.

There was a singular lack of enthusiasm in her voice when next she spoke.

"Where the fuck is Simfoo, California? I thought when you got out of the military you'd come home."

"Where are you right now?" I asked.

"The library," she said.

"And where is the library?"

"In the middle of fucking campus! What's wrong with you, Tut?"

"And is that the campus of some college in Brazelton that I just don't remember for some reason?"

"I'm going back home after college," she said, as if that should have been obvious. "All of us are."

"All of us?" I blinked. "Don't tell me you guys are all still making nefarious plans together."

"Of course we are!" she snapped. "We're family. We've been through too much together to drift apart and forget each other and lose something beautiful in the process."

"So," I said. "You're going to be a teacher, right?"

"Elementary ed," she said. "I do my student teaching this year."

"And they're saving a place for you at the elementary school in Brazleton?"

"Mr. Doolittle says there's every chance that something might open up."

"And I suppose the others have equally firm commitments for future employment."

There was a long silence, and then she said "You can just go back to Australia. Good bye!"

And she hung up on me.

The VA helped me get a loan. I had to use most of my savings as a down payment. Not that the VA demanded a down payment, but I had to get the price lower to qualify for the loan. It probably wasn't the wisest acquisition of property that had ever been done. Jake had gone through two wooden, painted for sale signs before he got the plastic one that would last forever. It was unlikely that I'd be able to sell any quicker, whenever I was ready to move on and go somewhere else.

But the lure of living in the wild was irresistible. I was used to being crammed in with everybody else, and having people all over the place. It was possible I hadn't been farther than fifty feet from a human being the entire time I was in the Corps. It was quiet, and peaceful, and beautiful. Jake and I sat on the porch, drinking coffee or beer and just stared at the mountains for hours.

Of course I didn't have lots of hours to do that with. While my sister might have spent the last three years being taught how to do lesson plans and all that, I didn't have that benefit. I could just read and write the language like a native, and that was what was most important to the university. There were half a dozen Chinese foreign exchange students at Marsden, and they ran the language study groups for American students, in exchange for part of their tuition. What I was in charge of was advanced studies. I also became the unofficial mascot for the Chinese foreign exchange students, but that's another story.

At any rate, I managed to get started with a group of surprisingly good college juniors, who applied themselves with a passion I had not expected. It was, in fact, a joy to teach them. I had received the recommendation that no English be allowed in class at all, with some skepticism. Chinese is not an easy language to grasp, and nuance makes it incredibly difficult to master. And we're only talking about the spoken language here. Writing Chinese is a whole other world. I was both surprised and gratified when the ban on English was only broken when it was absolutely necessary. They even drew pictures and pantomimed, before resorting to English.

So it was, on the twenty-second of September, when I was chattering away with my students, discussing Chinese politics as they applied toward the internet in China, when the door opened and a woman calmly walked in and sat down. I knew instantly who she was, though she didn't look at all like the woman I remembered so well.

Well, except for that neon pink hair.

The kids looked at her, and she gazed back. The conversation had stopped. I could understand that. Frankie was a most interesting woman to look at. That hair was roughly six or eight inches long, and every strand of it stuck straight up into the air in tufts that were maybe an inch in diameter at her scalp, and which came to a point those six or eight inches later. I don't know what she had in it, but it made the hair stiff. To go with that look, her cheeks, eyebrows and eye shadow were all dark. She looked distinctly punk. Her lipstick was blood red, which you'd think would conflict with the hair, but it didn't.

"Neem Hah," she said, looking calmly at everyone else in the room.

I was astonished. She had just said, "How do you do?" in very passable Mandarin.

She grinned. "That's it," she said in English. "That's all I got."

Amanda Franklin spoke to her in Mandarin, reminding her that only Chinese was spoken in this class.

I told the class - in Mandarin, of course - that this visitor was there to see me, and asked them to excuse me for a moment.

I walked over to Frankie, examining her.

She had filled out. Instead of skinny, now she looked quite normal. She had on a ribbed shirt made of some kind of stretchy material, and it was obvious she wasn't wearing a bra, because her nipples threatened to tear through the material. The last time I'd seen them, her nipples had barely begun to protrude from the puffy areolas, which were just beginning to flatten out. These nipples were proud of themselves for having developed, and wanted to show that pride. She had designer jeans on, with extra wide belt loops, and a black belt that was two inches wide and festooned with silver metal circles. What astonished me was that she was wearing bright red stiletto heels. I'd never seen her in anything except tennis shoes in my life.

She didn't give me a chance to say anything. She just stood up, threw her arms around my neck, and transferred at least half of that blood red lipstick to my lips.

My class gave out a long "Ooooooo," in unison. There was also some tittering. When she finally gave me my lips back, I turned my head and barked, in Chinese, that they were exhibiting much less dignity than was required.

"What about you?" laughed Eugene Zipper. "I can't wait until we practice this custom."

"What did he say?" asked Frankie, who was still clinging to me as if I was the last man on Earth.

"He said he hoped you kiss him, too," I said in English.

That got more "Oooooos" from the class, and Eugene's cheeks got pink.

Damned if Frankie didn't let go of me and walk over to Eugene, swaying her hips in that walk that only women wearing heels can produce. She stood, looking down at his upturned face, which had a look of amazement on it as he sat in his chair. She bent over and, as he sat frozen, brushed her glossy lips over his, barely touching them.

Then she stood up with a smile and patted him on the head. "You're cute," she said. She turned to me. "I'm going to go get something to eat. I'm famished. When do you get finished?"

"In twenty minutes," said Eugene in English, a little too loudly. She turned her head toward him again.

"You're not that cute," she said, but she softened it with a smile. Again she swiveled her head to face me. "I'll see you in twenty minutes."

When she left, I was deluged with questions, quite a few of them in English. She had definitely made an impression on the kids. I realized she'd made an impression on me too, as I turned to make an adjustment to my pants.

Then I assigned the whole class a pop quiz, requiring them to prepare a written description - in Chinese, of course - of the woman they had just met.

She was leaning against a convertible that had its top down. I saw the sticker on the windshield that announced it was a rental. She was daintily eating one French fry at a time from a box I recognized as coming from one of the local burger joints. I walked up to her, looking her up and down again.

"You look good," I said.

"You look fantastic," she said. "I was so impressed. All those kids look so young, and there you are, strutting around in charge."

"I wasn't strutting," I said. "So ... where's everybody else?"

She gave me a level stare. "It's nice to know you remember something about us. They're all finishing college. They don't have time to run off and do something foolish."

"Is that what this is ... something foolish?"

"I'm absolutely positive of it," she said. "Are you going to show me this ranch that nobody knows anything about?"

I ignored the mild barb and said "It's not much yet. Jake and I need to do a lot of fixing up."

"Jake?"

"He's the previous owner," I said.

"And he's still going to help you fix things up?"

"He lives with me," I said. "He had no place to go, and he's good company, so I invited him to stay. I charge him ten dollars a month rent."

"You always were a sweetie," she said. "Why aren't we on our way yet? I want to see this ranch."

"You want to follow me?"

"Ride with me," she said. "I'll bring you back for your car."

"Fine by me," I said.

I had never driven with Frankie before. A couple of the girls had had cars, but I never had a need to be transported in any of them. So I had never seen any of them drive. Frankie, it turns out, drove like a maniac. She was consistently at least fifteen miles per hour over the speed limit, and she took curves - and there were a lot of them on the way to the ranch - much too fast. She'd gotten a sporty rental car and she used every bit of it. With the top down, it was hard to talk, so I just held on and yelled directions.

To read this story you need a Registration + Premier Membership
If you have an account, then please Log In or Register (Why register?)

Support the author's future writing by purchasing this book from Bookapy

Tumblr Sister

Lubrican

$4.75