94: Take This Job and...

"It's not fair!" Jennifer cried when Sam and I saw her. She was in the ER when we got there and it took a couple hours before they had her leg properly immobilized, x-rays, MRI, and God-knows what else. Mr. Pratt came into the waiting room where Sam and I were with Courtney and her parents and my parents. He looked at the three of us.

"I've been sent to tell you to go on in," he said.

"Art, come and take a load off," Bill said as we left.

Jennifer wailed again as Courtney and Sam went to her. "It's not fair! It's not fair! It's not fair!" She looked straight at me and the tears had nothing to do with her pain. "We just started fucking. It's not fair!" I rushed to her and gently kissed her. She had a neck brace on.

"Don't you worry, little Girl Scout. I still have four condoms left for you and I've ordered another gross," I laughed.

"Oh, god!" Anna moaned. "You have five minutes before the next wave. Don't let her move." She left the room and we heard her laughing in the hall.

"Is Jingo okay?" Jennifer asked.

"Yes. The only one who wanted to hurt him was your father. Three fair officials and the 4H horsemanship directors came before we left and were aghast at what was said. They assured us that nothing would happen to Jingo while he was on the fairgrounds and they were even going to post a security guard. I'm pretty sure your other hearthmates will be here soon if they can get past your father. That wasn't exactly the way I wanted to meet him," I laughed. "I told him that if he touched my horse I'd put him down. That was just before he threatened to sue me for everything I might ever hope to have."

"That's just how Daddy reacts to things. He's a lawyer and thinks a lawsuit is the answer to everything."

"Well, maybe he'll go after those kids who threw the firecracker. That pisses me off."

We chatted for a couple minutes and found out the neck brace was just a precaution while a specialist examined the x-rays. It seemed that the log had broken her fall as well as her leg. They had to wait for the swelling to go down some before they could pin it. My poor little Girl Scout was going to have a scar for her pain. She was getting pretty dopey, though, by the time Anna and Art came back. Jennifer quickly whispered to me asking for a dollar.

"Daddy, will you be my attorney of record in the matter that has happened today?" she held out the dollar. He took it.

"Good girl. Of course, I will. We'll get things started right away."

"As my attorney, I explicitly forbid you from taking any action against either the horse I was riding, its owner, or his family. Is it understood that failing to follow my instructions in this matter would result in having your eighteen-year-old daughter bring suit against you?" Jennifer grinned at her father. He slapped his head.

"Honey, I just want to have you taken care of. An animal that hurts you..."

"Daddy. He didn't hurt me. Those kids who threw a firecracker hurt me. Find them and go practice law or something. Now. I want you to meet my cónyuge, Brian Frost. Brian, this is my father, Arthur Pratt."

"I heard you use that word in the arena," Mr. Pratt said. "What does cónyuge mean?"

"He's my mate." Mr. Pratt choked.

"What? I thought you and Courtney were committed to a lifelong relationship. That's what you've been telling me," he said.

"Since we aren't getting married, who's to say we can't all be together?" Jennifer said. Mr. Pratt just shook his head. "And this is our novia, Samantha," Jennifer plunged on.

"Novia?"

"It roughly means fiancée."

"This is all your fault," he said to Anna.

"Yeah. Aren't you proud of me?"

When I finally got back to the fairgrounds, Sam and I decided to load the horses and take them back home. No one was riding rodeo, so there was no sense keeping the horses where they were exposed to any possible harm. Dad came with us and drove the truck. Courtney, of course, stayed with Jen in the hospital. She wasn't going to leave her for anything. Jen's father seemed to cool down and his wife, Teri, came to pick him up about the same time we left. Since we were all headed home, the rest of my girlfriends came home, too, leaving Sora's travel trailer at the fairgrounds to pick up on Friday.

We'd just dragged our sorry butts upstairs to get ready for bed when Dad called us all to the family room. He had the ten o'clock news on the television and the lead story was the injury at the fair. Jess had been filming the whole thing. I'd forgotten all about it. I never saw him after I called Jingo.

"This was not a tragic accident," the newscaster said, "but a deliberate malicious act directed at an innocent animal and resulting in the injury of a young woman. Our cameraman caught the perpetrators on film and WBBT has turned the film over to local police investigating the incident. In the recording you will see, the faces have been blurred because the people caught on film are minors. We are informed that the young woman, Jennifer Pratt, is in good condition at St. Joe Hospital with a broken leg and is being held for observation to be sure there is no concussion. Now with that introduction, and understanding that you will see Miss Pratt fall from her horse—a most frightening occurrence—we invite you to watch the tape as our cameraman, Jess Randolph, captured it." They played the tape right up to the point that I dropped out of the saddle and knelt next to Jennifer. No one else in the arena had even moved yet to reach her, though someone was shouting at the arena exit for paramedics.

"As tragic as this was, it was amazing to watch a young man gain immediate control of the spooked horse and ride to assist Miss Pratt before anyone else could respond. That young man, you will recognize as Chef Brian of The Homemakers' Hour Young Cooking, the seventeen year old boyfriend of Miss Pratt. He can ride to my rescue any day!"

"Oh my god!" Rose and Sam exclaimed at the same time.

"We were back getting Sam and Courtney ready to ride and didn't see anything that happened," Rose continued. "That was amazing. Poor Jennifer!"

"You should have seen Brian," Nicki said. "We were ... uh ... holding hands next to that cameraman. We'd just come into the arena when Jennifer was announced. We didn't even have a seat yet. All of a sudden there was no hand in mine and Brian is climbing over the railing to get on the horse. It was so fast I didn't even understand that Jennifer had fallen."

"How is Jingo?" Dad asked. "That was more than just being spooked."

"That right foreleg is hot again," I said. "I wrapped it with liniment as soon as we got him home. I should have done it at the fair, but didn't think of it in time."

"Let's keep an eye on him and make sure he's all right in the morning. Bucking around like that and then doing those hard stops can't have been good for him."

"Yeah. And put a guard out in case Jennifer's father comes looking for him," I said half in jest. "Uh ... Dad? Does he know about you guys and Anna?"

"I don't know, son, but I would guess we'll all find out soon."

Miss Polly: Brian, before we cover anything else on the show this morning, how is your girlfriend, Jennifer Pratt?

Me: She's resting. I stopped by the hospital on the way here this morning and her mom told me they were going to get a cast on that leg this morning. They have cleared her regarding any spinal injury, for which we are all grateful.

Miss P: What a terrible thing to have happen.

Me: We were told in the news reports that the pranksters were minors. Technically, since I'm seventeen, I am, too. But my parents raised me to respect other people and to care for animals who depend on us. I simply can't fathom how kids can even think that scaring an animal like that or teasing a dog or throwing a cat—all things that I've heard and read about—are okay. What kind of parents do these little monsters have?

Miss P: Brian, we all saw you ride to the rescue. Tell us first about the horse. Jingo?

Me: Jingo is a love. He's an extraordinarily well-trained trail horse from the Starbridge Dude Ranch. He came up lame a couple years ago and we were offered the opportunity to adopt him. We've cared for him and he's now hale and hearty. I loved going to the dude ranch, which is where I first met Jennifer. I've led Jingo around the corral and trails with inexperienced riders, handicapped kids, and people who were downright afraid of horses. There is no horse I would trust more than Jingo.

Miss P: Yet he looked like a rodeo bronco.

Me: I'm not saying you can't train a horse not to respond to that kind of stimulus, but that kind of training in itself is unnecessarily cruel. There's no reason for a horse to need to be prepared for that. If Jingo had encountered a rattlesnake on the trail, he would probably shy away, but he wouldn't go crazy and he'd always protect his rider if he could.

Miss P: He certainly responded to you.

Me: He knows my voice and all he wanted was someone to assure him that it was okay. When I slid off him next to Jennifer and ground tied him, I think he was genuinely concerned for her. That's what a great horse is like.

"So as I see it, you admitted on-air to your failure to train the horse properly," Arthur Pratt said across the dinner table.

"You obviously did not listen to what was said, then," I replied. I wasn't rising to the bait. Anna had called me aside as soon as she and Jennifer got home Friday afternoon and told me that Arthur and Teri were coming for dinner and that he was calmed down but his nature was to worry a bone to death rather than give up on a legal issue. She said that he wouldn't sue or cause problems but he was likely say things to try to make me respond. Well, I was going to not respond. "I indicated that kind of training would be considered cruel. Since I am basically opposed to animal cruelty, training him in that way would put me in the same class as the pranksters who startled him."

"But he could have been trained not to respond."

"Mr. Pratt, if I stood you against the barn wall and faced you with a gun, how many times would I have to shoot the gun next to your head to keep you from jumping?"

"That's entirely different. We are talking about a trainable animal."

"Are you saying you are not trainable? You are certainly an animal."

At that point everyone at the table broke up laughing. Even Teri nudged Arthur and told him to give it a rest. It was my folks with Anna, me with Courtney and Jennifer, and Teri and Arthur. I'd received several compliments on dinner, but I'd had six huge meatloaves in the freezer and pulled two of them out last night. By the time the potatoes were mashed—complete with my secret ingredients of cabbage and cream cheese—the meatloaf was ready to come out of the oven. It was a home-cooked comfort food meal and one of Jennifer's favorites.

"Dad, you've got to let up on my cónyuge. I'm not amused at the way my attorney is treating my mate," Jennifer said.

"You've adopted some new terms, Brian," Mom said. "What does it mean when one of your girlfriends claims she is your cónyuge?" Anna snorted in a way that reminded me of Jennifer when she was trying not to laugh. I think she put Mom up to asking the question. I looked at Jennifer and Courtney and they both nodded at me to go ahead.

"I'm certainly interested in this as well," Arthur said.

"Okay. It started with a dating agreement," I said. No sense getting into the deep end before I laid the groundwork. I explained the original dating agreement and how it evolved with its amendments and then told them all about how people had naturally sort of teamed up. I couldn't say coupled since three of the groups involved more than two people. "The thing is that we all consider ourselves part of a clan with different houses that we've chosen to call casa. Within a casa, all the members are hearthmates. But not all are committed to the casa long-term nor are we necessarily intimate. Cónyuge are people who have acknowledged a long-term intimate commitment to each other. Actually, Jennifer and Courtney would probably have been considered cónyuge with each other before either of them became so with me."

"So the three of you have a long-term intimate commitment with each other? You're having sex?" Arthur asked.

"The nature of our intimacy is no one's concern but ours."

"I think we should go on, though, Brian. We have our parents here. I wish Bill and Crystal were here, but we'll go through it all with them, too," Jennifer said. "Our casa has thirteen hearthmates. We are not all intimate with each other. For example, Rose is cónyuge with Brian, but she is just compañera with Courtney and me. A girlfriend. Samantha is novia to all three of us. She plans to acknowledge her long-term intimate commitment with each of us and become our cónyuge. Whitney will be acknowledged as cónyuge with Brian when she gets back in town—a relationship that has been long-standing—but to the rest of us, she is a hearthmate. Liz is our hearthmate and Brian's cónyuge. Elaine is novia to Brian. Then we have Donna, Rhonda, Sora, Cassie, and Nicki. They are all hearthmates. Donna and Sora are girlfriends or compañera who have not decided on a long-term commitment, even if they might have been intimate in different degrees."

"And you are Casa Frost?" Teri said. Apparently she was trying to tie everyone to me which seemed likely.

"No," I said. "They are Casa Frost." I pointed to my parents and Anna. "We are Casa del Fuego."

"It seems like you need to have some legal documents drawn up among you," Teri said. "Something that would indicate what protection and rights each—What did you call them?—hearthmate has within the casa and how the clan is organized."

There were six snorts at the table.

"You know, I hope we can be friends," I said. "I might actually need a lawyer someday."

"No doubt," Arthur responded.

"What am I going to do?" Jennifer asked at the breakfast table. Her father and Teri had driven back to Indianapolis after dinner last night and we parted wary friends. But Jennifer had realized something else and brought it to the family as she sat propped up in Dad's recliner with her right leg stuck straight out in front of her. "I can't go to college like this."

She and Courtney were planning to move into their dorm in Bloomington next week for orientation, but she was right. She couldn't move into a dorm. In fact, she was going to be in this cast for at least eight weeks and then would need physical therapy or another cast after that. She'd snapped the femur and they'd put a pin in it to make sure it would be strong enough after it was healed to support her. After she was able to switch from a wheelchair to crutches, she was still going to need physical therapy to strengthen her leg.

"I'm not going if she's not going," Courtney said firmly. "We talked about taking a year off to wait for Brian anyway. It just makes sense this way. I'll find out if I can keep working at the restaurant we've been waiting tables at. The only thing that's kept them from offering me a full-time job is knowing that I'd be leaving next week."

"I think we need to talk to your parents about that, Courtney," Anna said. "Your proposition hinges on too many things. First, that they'll agree. Second that you can get the job. Third that the Frosts are willing to let you stay here. Harry and Nona only signed on for the summer with all of us invading. As soon as we can move, we'll need to get Jennifer home where I can care for her without being a burden to anyone else."

"Nooo!" both girls cried.

"Mom? Dad? I understand that summer has its own kind of rules and you weren't counting on a house full this fall. Under the circumstances would it be a bad thing to have Anna, Jennifer, and Courtney stay through until we all leave for school?" I asked.

"I think we should have a private discussion with Anna," Dad said. "Even if we three agree to that arrangement, though, it doesn't mean that Courtney's whole plan will fly." The three parents left us in the family room where Jennifer was propped up in Dad's chair.

"I can tell already that Dad's afraid he won't get his chair back," I laughed.

"Oh no!" Jennifer squawked. "Get me out of here and on the sofa."

"Don't be silly, honey. I was just kidding. But I'm serious about this. I don't think you should delay starting school just so the rest of us will be there."

"Bri-an..." Courtney was near tears.

"Just listen a second, baby. I'm not trying to send you away. I'm only going to high school half days this year. In the afternoons I've enrolled in my first two required major courses at IUSB. It's great because the school district has to pay for it and I get dual credit. I took my required Freshman English Comp class in the evenings last year. With my AP German Language and Culture class last year and AP Calculus this year, I'll enter IU next year with 28 college credits already under my belt. That means that I'll be a freshman with sophomore standing. It's only going to take me three years to do college before I start my Masters' work. You two could do the same thing. You've already been accepted at IU. Just enroll at IUSB for two or three classes. You don't even need to make it a full load. But you will have begun. You can get your English Comp and at least one other class out of the way."

"That would work," Courtney said. "Jen, without you having to move and navigate a dormitory, we could make it work to start school here even with you in a wheelchair for a while."