Untrusting (Troubled) (36 page)

They’ll be joining us for
dinner.  We have to keep check on her even tho’ she has a buzzer, which
she doesn’t use, to call someone if she needs anything.  She’s tried to
get around by herself, but can’t quite get it done.

Maria goes to check on Yolanda to
find her on the way to the bathroom by herself.  Maria threatens her, in
Spanish, if she doesn’t start using the buzzer.  There’re enough people to
help her ‘til she’s stronger.  Yolanda says how nice everyone’s been and
she doesn’t want to inconvenience anyone too much.  Maria reminds her it’s
just for today, and it’s not an inconvenience on Christmas.  Yolanda
agrees to use the buzzer.  Maria tells Miss Lili Yolanda is doing well and
has agreed to use the buzzer.

Maria goes outside, bringing the
two smaller kids in for a rest from the sun.  She has them play in the
living room with some of their other toys.  I go in to check on them and
Penny says Santa brought her three dolls, a bike, a play kitchen and a baby
buggy.  Shay got leggo’s, marbles with a marble pad, a farm set and a
small toy box to keep some toys here.

Miss Lili opens the door for Steve
and Bob who are bringing in some pies and cookies.  They’re fresh out of
the oven in the garage.  We’re running out of space to put things, but the
guys turn left just after they enter the kitchen, into the pantry.  Everything’s
done so we, women, go into the living room to rest and enjoy a glass of iced
tea.  The buzzer goes off and Penny and Maria go to see what Yolanda
wants.

Maria comes back a few minutes
later.  Yolanda needed some medicine and wanted Penny to keep her
company.  She’s tired of being alone.  They were watching TV when she
left them.

We finish our tea then set up the
tables and set them.  Miss Lili hollers out the back door for Steve and
Bob to come take the ham and turkey out of the oven for her.  The meats
are left on the counter while Miss Lili starts the rue for the gravy.  I
takes the four of us to set the ham and turkey on their platters.  Then we
pour the juices from the foil in the pans into strainers over the gravy pans
while Miss Lili and Betty stir.  Miss Lili adds water to the ham gravy and
after tasting she puts a little water in the turkey gravy.  She can’t heft
the dressing out of the oven so I do it.  It’s a lot heavier than I
thought.

Miss Lili apologizes for being so
disorganized, it’s been years since she’s cook a full meal for such a large
group.  Maria goes into the pantry to find metal covers for the meats,
gravy boats, and extra meat platters and their metal covers.  She can’t
find them all so I go in to look.  The pantry is as much storage as a
pantry.  The woman could feed an army and not use all the pots and serving
dishes in here.  I find the platter covers and look for a way to reach
them.  Miss Lili tells me where the step stool is.  I find it and climb
up to get the covers down, but the stool tips and I start to fall when Steve
catches me.  “We need a new floor and stool.  Don’t be climbing
around in here, unless I’m here to catch ya.”  He kisses me and puts me
down then hands me the covers.  I thank him with another kiss that’s not
quite so much of a peck.

Claudia finds us, “For pity sake,
ya’ll are engaged and living together, you’d think sneaking off to the pantry
wasn’t necessary,” and she laughs.  She takes the covers into the kitchen
and we hear, “My goodness, maybe you two should join Steve and Sher in the
pantry,” then a roar of laughter.  We come out of the pantry to see she’s
talking about Miss Lili and Glen.

Steve hobbles over to put his arm
around Glen’s shoulders, “That’s okay, everyone should kiss the cook.”  He
leans over to kiss Miss Lili on the cheek.  Bob comes over to kiss Miss
Lili, too, then Glen’s son and son-in-law and Shay.  Then they go down the
line kissing all the women on the cheek, except the woman that belongs to them,
whom they kiss eagerly.  Shay, Bob and Maria are in a clench, like the
others.

Miss Lili breaks them up by saying,
“Dinner’s gettin’ cold.  Everyone grab a bowl or platter and put it on a
table.  Sher, get Yolanda and Penny so we can eat.”

Dinner was delicious and
plentiful.  We ate ‘til our ribs hurt.  We put the leftovers on the
dining room table, cleaned the dishes and put them away.  Then we all sat
around talking.  Two hours later is still too early for dessert so we take
a walk to admire the town’s decorations.  When we get back Mom and Dad are
waiting for us.  Penny had stayed with Yolanda and told them where we were
and they should wait.

Miss Lili checked her box while we
were out and there was a suggestion in it.  We asked her to wait ‘til
later to read it.  I’d forgotten the gifts for Miss Lili in the truck so I
went for them when I saw Mom and Dad and remembered them.  Miss Lili loves
her feathery slippers and Glen likes his belt buckle.

Steve and Bob have gone into the
pantry and brought out the pies and cookies.  The kids take the cookies
and everyone else has pie and cookies, once they can decide on what kinda pie
to have.  Before the evening is over we’ve all had a piece of each pie…and
several cookies.  Mom and Dad invite everyone out for a ride and a
barbecue tomorrow and they all accept.  He’ll hitch up the wagon for a
hayride for those who don’t ride.

We all leave around ten to meet at
the office to let the dogs out and check their water.  There’s lightening
so we put the shields down around the cat’s open area and go home.

At home we loosen our belts by
putting on pajamas and relaxing.  Steve talks about Apache and wants to go
out to see him so we do.  Izzie’s glad to see us and Apache seems to know
who he belongs to.  We check out the other horses and there are two new
horses in the barn.  There’s a Paint and a Chestnut horse.  We wonder
who the Chestnut is for, thinking the Paint is for Bob.  We give Izzie and
Apache a carrot and race to the house.

Steve gives me a few seconds lead
and still passes me, even hobbling in his walking boot, grabbing me with one
arm and running on to the house.  When he puts me down I chew him out,
“Steve if you injure your ankle again I’ll get a switch to ya.”

“Think you’re big enough? 
Think ya can run fast enough?”  Then he stops, “That might be
interesting.  You into masochism or bondage?”

“You wish.  Are you?”

“Never tried it.  Don’t know
that I want your hands tied, I like what they do to me and hurting ya is out of
the question.”  He’s come over to put his arms around me, “Guess there’s
no erotica in store for us, outside of the normal activities.  They’re
good enough, aren’t they?”

“For me, yeah.  What about
you?”

He kisses me then hugs me.  “I
thought I’d just answered that,” he whispers in my ear and kisses my neck.

I pull away slightly, “Mr.
Williams, are you trying to seduce me?”

He pulls me back, “Yeah.  Is
it workin’?”  I kiss him to let him know…its working!

In the morning, Mom wants me to go
shopping with her, waking us long before we’re ready.  I shower and we
meet her for coffee.  Dad’s already in the barn so Steve finishes his
coffee and joins him.  Mom and I leave, we have to get enough food to feed
the family.  We stop at the office and I meet Maria while she’s checking
on the guests.  She’s fed them and cleaned the litter boxes.  I hose
out the kennels so we’ll be finished sooner.  Then the three of us go
grocery shopping.

Mom and I take the food home and
start preparing the side dishes and the ribs for the barbecue.  We fix
lunch when we’re through and call the men in to eat.  Steve tells me he
rode Apache to help Dad check on the cattle and he rides smooth as glass. 
Mom and I clean up the kitchen as soon as lunch is over.  The men go into
Dad’s office and we don’t see them again ‘til Maria, Bob and Shay arrive.

Dad has us go out to the barn where
he gives the Paint to Bob and the Chestnut to Maria and Shay.  Shay goes
crazy over the horse and Bob has to scoop him up to sit on it.  Maria and
I leave the guys to the horses and go in the house to check on things and get a
glass of tea.  Mom follows us laughing at Bob, Shay and Steve’s reaction
to the horses.

Soon we hear the jangling of the
wagon being moved around and looked out to see Shay sitting in the seat
hollering “He-ah, he-ah, gettie up” to the men pulling the wagon by the
tongue.  The men were smiling and sweating, tugging on the wagon to get as
close to the hay bales as they could. Dad gets in the wagon and the guys hefted
the bales into it for him to situate.  Mom sends me out with iced tea for
them and the wagon’s almost ready for the hayride.

The rest of the family arrives
before the men get back to work.  So the other three men pitch in to finsh
getting the bales in the wagon.  They come in acting like they’ve had the
time of their lives.  We serve them iced tea and give them a chance to
cool off.  Then Mom says if we’re riding we’d better get goin’ or we won’t
eat ‘til after dark and a barbecue isn’t a lotta of fun with the bugs that are
year ‘round out here.

We get horses hitched up to the
wagon and horses saddled.  Glen drives the wagon and we ride beside it
with Dad, Steve and Bob next to the horses pulling the wagon, just in
case.  There are coolers of tea and lemonade in the wagon.  We take
the long way to the creek to accommodate the wagon.  Glen’s doing a great
job of handling the horses and Miss Lili looks like a pioneer woman riding on
the seat beside him with her wide brimmed hat and calico shirt and jeans. 
After the creek, we ride over to the pasture where Miss Lili asks Steve to loan
her his horse.  She gets on and rides, almost full gallop out to the
cattle, where she gathers a few of the calves up to herd them over to the water
trough, clearing the rest of the cattle away so they can drink.  Then she
rides back, gets help getting off, muttering “What bullies the older cattle
are.”  None of us can say anything because we’re dumb struck.  I’ll
have to remember to ask Miss Lili where she learned to ride like that.

Steve mounts and comes over to me,
“Wow.”

“I’ll say.  I guess you didn’t
know she could do that, either.”  I smile when Steve shakes his
head.  “Hmmm.  Guess there’s a lot we don’t know about her.”

Steve nods, “Maybe it’s time we
find out.”

Mom hollers, “We’d better get back,
if we’re gonna eat.”  We turn around and go a different way home, one
that’s a little shadier.  The men take over with the wagon, the hay, the
harnesses, the saddles and brushing down the horses and watering and feeding
them, or they try to.  The women wanted to help, they’ve never done this sorta
thing before.  We all get dirty, but we don’t care.  The kids loved
it all.  On the way back some of the kids rode double for a while and Mom
switched with Glen.  Claudia and Betty rode, a ways, with me and Maria,
too.  They loved the outing.

Dad and the rest of the men are out
starting the big grill, piling lots of mesquite logs in it and getting it
lit.  Maria and I take the cooler out, like Mom said to, to sit by the
men.  Before we get it settled good, Dad’s getting into it.  It’s
full of beer.  Maria and I shrug and walk away, we’ve been here before.

It takes four women to carry the
meat out.  Maria notices Shay and Penny are missing, but Bob tells her
they’re napping in my house.  He and Steve are taking turns checking on
them.  When Dad tells Mom the ribs are ready, we go to the kitchen to get
the side dishes, the ice cooler and drinks.  Everyone’s helping get supper
on the table, even the kids.  Three of the men are putting picnic tables
together.  Miss Lili is wiping them down and the rest of us are setting
them and putting food on them.

We have a great time and the food
is lip smacking good.  I don’t know where Mom got them in December, but
dessert is watermelon.  Of course, there has to be a watermelon seed
spitting contest.  Glen’s family knows about this activity, they do it in
Tennessee.  There’s quite a battle royal for family supremacy.  So
much so, we had to measure the distance.  Glen’s son, Robert, holds the
title of twenty five feet.  When asked what he did for a living he admits
to being an attorney.  “That explains it, you have more air than the rest
of us,” Bob says and slaps Robert on the shoulder.  We laugh when Robert
agrees.

We get everyone cleaned up from the
watermelon and it’s time for them to go.  The kids have to go to
bed.  They plan to leave by eight tomorrow morning.  Steve and I say
we’ll be in to see them off, but Mom and Dad say ‘bye and wish them a safe trip
home.  Everyone hugs them, tells them what a great time they had and how
glad they are to have met them.

Steve and I follow them into town
to take care of the boarders.  We didn’t get to them at five so we know
there’s work waiting for us.  Bob comes over after he drops Maria and Shay
off to help.  We’re just about through when Miss Lili and Glen come in
smiling.  Glen wants to be sure to thank us for getting the family
together and helping to entertain them.  He says his family can’t stop
talking about this afternoon and the whole visit.  They’ve even said how
nice it is to be part of our family.  He adds they weren’t too happy about
coming here at all.  Now they can’t wait to come back and he thinks its
all due to us and my parents.  I hug him and tell him I couldn’t be
happier they enjoyed themselves.  Then I tell him how much Mom, Dad and I
enjoyed them.

“We’ve got some talking to do,
later.  I want to know where you learned to ride like ya did” I say
looking at Miss Lili “and where ya learned to drive a team with a wagon…and
maybe a few other things.  It dawned on me, this afternoon, I don’t know
much about either of ya.”

“Don’t feel bad, I didn’t know she
could ride, much less like that.”  Steve says and Bob agrees.  They
say goodnight and we all split up to go home.

The next morning we all see them
off and we go our separate ways.  Steve and Bob are back to full duty but
they start this afternoon.  Maria and I are back to work, late, this
morning.  We have no appointments but a few of our boarders are picked
up.  We decide we’ll clean the clinic from top to bottom.  As we
start, we decide we need to paint, too.  At lunch we go to the hardware
store to get some interesting, for a clinic, paint chips.  We go back to
clean and take care of our remaining boarders.  When we rest between
cleaning chores, we look at the colors.  We can’t decide.

Miss Lili and Glen don’t come over
today.  I suppose they’re with Penny while Steve and Bob rest for
work.  The boys stop by on their way to work and they tell us the missing
grandparents have been out back deciding where they’re going to put their
house.  They’re looking at two places and as soon as they decide that,
they’ll decide where to put the pool.

They have one other thing to
discuss with us—our wedding date.  Miss Lili and Glen are anxious to know
when it is so they can plan the building and the pool around it.  Maria
wants an April wedding, because of the weather.  That’s funny, because I
think March will be cooler.  Steve likes mid to late March and Bob likes
early to mid April.  We get the calendar and decide on Saturday, March
29th.  Bob and Maria decide on Saturday , April 12th, two weeks
later.  The guys are happy, we’re stressed.  Three and three and a
half months to plan and get through two weddings isn’t going to be easy. 
We’ll start on them the day after New Years.

Now we have to choose paint colors
and get the clinic ready for the next year so we don’t have that to worry
about, too.  We decide we should ask the animals.  We take the paint
chips out to the “station” and watch the animal’s reactions to the
colors.  We decide on the calmer colors with accents of medium
colors.  The surgical room with remain white.  The waiting room will
be a two tone gray stripe.  The dog’s exam room will be sand with pale
green and the cat’s exam room will be the same colors reversed.  The med’s
room will be cream and the office will be blue stone, a pale gray with a hint
of blue.  The kennel room will have to wait ‘til the repairs are
finished.  We’ll get started on the painting tomorrow.

Miss Lili comes in and likes the
colors we’ve picked.  She suggests we keep the trim white, just to add
light.  But that’s not why she came to see us.  “Ya know that
suggestion that was in the box on Christmas.  I opened it this
morning.  It suggests a park area along the creek where it cuts through
town.  I can’t figure out exactly where that is.  Do you girls know
about it?”

Maria knows about it.  She’s
heard a lotta people go there when it’s hot.  She says they have to follow
the few trails through the brush to get to what they call a nice place to swim
and a little further down is a good place to fish, or so she’s heard. 
Miss Lili needs a guide to find the place.  I ask if she’s asked the guys
and she says they’re either asleep, with us, or at work these days.  But
then she’s been busy, too.  Anyway, they’ve been missing connections.

We’ll go over to the station as
soon as we check on the boarders and close, to talk to the boys.  She can
go with us then we’ll go home together.  The guys don’t know where this
place is, either.  So we go to the map of the area they keep on the wall. 
It’s about two blocks from the west end of the park, almost behind Miss Lili’s
house.  She wants to check it out then decide if it’s close to where they
want to build their house.  If it is then they missed the creek when they
were checking the site out.

I take Maria back to the office to
pick up her car and we go to Miss Lili’s to get Glen.  We get in Glen’s
golf cart and head to where the map said the creek is.  The site is
through the bushes to the creek.  Miss Lili and Glen look the space over
and decide it would make a great park. It would replace a city pool and it
would cost less to develop the park.  They’ll just move their building
site, it’s too close to the creek to be safe should it flood anyway.

I ask them to consider making it
closer to the house.  They’re not on their death bed, but they are older
and I’d like them closer to us, across the drive way, maybe.  They say
they’ll check on it.  Then they tell me they’re also going to build a
house for Bob and Maria in this same block.  They know Maria’s renting and
giving them a house will help them out.  Then they want to do some
updating on the main house.  The house that will belong to me and Steve,
but I’m the only one to know about this.  It’s a surprise for all of us
and they want it to stay that way.

On our way back to the house, they
remove the stakes they’d put in and we look around the grounds on the other
side of the house.  Miss Lili has a rose garden over there, so they decide
to have the house face the driveway so the rose garden is at the end of the
house.  The other house site is fine, the creek takes a turn away from
town because of the rise that’s there.

Glen has supper in the oven so we
go home to eat.  The guys come home to grab some of it to take back to the
station.  Now that they’re back to full duty they’re back on the same
shift.  Penny has dinner with Yolanda in their quarters.  Penny says
Yolanda is doing better, but Nancy says she’s not doing as well as she should
be.  She’s made an appointment for her this Friday.

Today Maria and I shop for paint,
changing our minds from the original colors.  The clerk at the paint store
helped us pick out brighter colors.  I hope we like them on the
walls.  The colors are on the cool side of the chart, but I’m not so
sure.  We get a pint of each color to try out.  After a few hours
with the patches we decide some are good, but some are disasters.  So we
ask Glen and Miss Lili.  They agree with us.  So we go back for
another look and bring more pints of paint back.  We try those to find
we’re back to the colors we’d picked originally.  So we buy the
paint.  We’ll start painting tomorrow.  We lost a few more boarders
today.  The rest will be here ‘til after the New Year.

Today we paint.  We start in
the surgical room then the office.  By the time we move everything and get
the two rooms painted its quitting time.  We come back after supper at
Miss Lili’s to move everything back into the rooms.  Shay stayed to play
with Penny while we finish.

Maria and I talk about our weddings
while we watch the boarders.  We both want small weddings, just
family.  Then we laugh, Maria’s family will fill a church and Bob’s is
almost as big.  Then you add Miss Lili’s must haves and Glen’s family and
that’s about five hundred guests.  I have my family of about twenty and
then Miss Lili’s must haves and Glen’s family and there’ll be about a hundred
and fifty.  Well, at least my wedding will be reasonably small.  Oh
well, time to go home.

We get the exam rooms painted in
the morning and move the furniture back into the rooms in the afternoon. 
We have one more room to paint then we’ll be finished.  It’s a good thing,
tomorrow’s Friday.  And Monday’s New Year’s Eve.

I notice the road’s been extended
when I go home today.  Miss Lili says the lack of employment at this time
of year will speed the park’s development up and according to the city planner
should only take a month or less.  They need a few decisions made before
it can be finished.  Do we want to put down cement pads or gravel under
the picnic tables?  The gravel will shift and the kids can carry it off
and the cement pads will add to the budget but will last a long time. 
Wood picnic tables will be cheaper and can be easily repaired or the cement
tables will last a long time and won’t be washed away if there’s a flood. 
The bridge to the other side will be a pedestrian bridge, but do we want grills
at each table?

“How big is this gonna be?” 
Miss Lili says they want to have about a dozen places for picnickers and two on
each side for fishing with fire pits and picnic tables.  “I would suggest
cement pads, wooden tables and grills, but ask the guys, they’re the fire
department.  They can tell how to build it for maximum fire safety.” 
Miss Lili agrees.