Chapter Six
Noah
I’ll be the first to admit I’m not the best person in the world at taking orders, and hearing that city girl boss me around really pissed me off. “Let’s go.” “Don’t slam my bags.” “Change the music.” I didn’t know people could be so miserable and snobbish. Not to mention the way she was dressed to come to a ranch. Don’t get me wrong, her clothing choices looked great on her—if she was staying in the city. But she’s not. And the fact that she refused to go for a ride—did she really think she’d be spending two full months on a ranch without riding a horse?
I walked into my house still shaking my head when Dad called my name, “Oh, good, you’re home! Do ya have your work clothes on?”
“Yeah, Pop, why?” I hollered back.
“We got stuff to get done before supper over at Sara’s!”
You’ve got to be kidding me. I just got away from princess, and I have to go back for dinner?
“You know, I’m not really feeling like going out again. It’s been a long day. Would it be alright if I just skipped dinner?”
Leave it to my mom’s hawk ears to hear that and swoop in. “No, it would not be alright, Noah Alexander Tucker! We are going as a family to help that Laci feel welcome! She just lost her parents, and I won’t have you making her feel worse! Now, get out there and help your daddy!” Sheesh. My mom may be small, but she is not one to be crossed.
In a matter of three hours, I had helped my dad clean out the gutters and repaint the porch before Mama commanded us to wash up and change into something “presentable.” I didn’t think there was anything wrong with going to dinner in my work clothes, but like I said, my mother is not someone you want to cross; so, I took a shower and put on my favorite pair of unripped jeans and the American Eagle t-shirt Jamie had given me for my birthday. That’ll have to be good enough for Princess Laci.
Anytime we went anywhere for dinner, Mama always insisted we take something along, lest we be “rude for expecting them to do all the cooking.” In good old Karen Tucker fashion, she baked an elaborate potato casserole that had no less than ten ingredients.
When we knocked on Sara’s door, she invited us in with a sweep of her arm. The first thing I smelled was freshly-baked bread. Honestly, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had homemade bread, especially on the circuit. The second thing I smelled was perfume as Princess Laci entered the dining room behind me. She may have been a pain in the ass, but she smelled better than homemade bread.
The food was as good as I expected. The conversation was equally as awkward as I’d expected, too. The first part of it was mainly small talk, things like how much snow New York had gotten the previous winter and what kinds of dogs were the smartest. When the small talk shifted to not-so-small talk, things really started to get weird.
My mom’s the one that kicked it off. “So, Laci, a young lady as gorgeous as you must have someone special back home?” I think Laci almost choked on her food, it wasn’t a question she was expecting. After turning all sorts of red, whether from bashfulness or lack of oxygen, I couldn’t tell, she sputtered out a reply.
“Ahem. No, Mrs. Tucker, I’m actually single. I’m an aspiring actress; I start work on a film in August, and I just really want to focus on my career right now.”
“But you do want to settle down?” God, my mom can be nosey.
“Yes, ma’am, I do. Eventually.”
“Well, you know, Noah here’s available. Aren’t you, dear?” she asked, winking at me. That’s when I choked on my food. When I finally swallowed the chicken that was stuck in my throat, I responded.
“Mama, you know city girls are too good for cowboys like me,” I sneered. Judging by the looks on everyone’s faces, I realized a little too late that my snarky reply might have been a bit harsh and probably out of line. A small part of me felt like a jerk for saying it, but then again, I’d ridden nearly an hour in the truck with her. I think my city girl evaluation was spot on. Besides, when girls dress the way she was to go to a ranch, I can’t rightfully say they’re the type of girls I want to get involved with.
“Noah Alexander! I raised you better than that!” my mom gasped.
“It’s okay, Mrs. Tucker.” Laci was boring a hole straight through me. “In my experience, bull riders like Noah here are only ever loyal to their horses and their mamas.” I don’t know if it was something in the tone of her voice or what, but instead of dirty looks and gasps of disgust, her comment earned a hearty laugh around the table. As far as I was concerned, what she said was much more offensive, but what do I know? Seems Princess Laci has delivery on her side as an actress, if nothing else.
Now, my dad being a pretty good bull rider in his day was probably on my side in this one because he seemed to be itching to change the subject. The subject he picked, however, was far worse. Far, far worse. “So, Laci, I’m sorry to hear about your parents.” Are you kidding me? The last thing you bring up when you want to have a pleasant night is someone’s recently deceased parents. Bravo, Hank Tucker. Here come the waterworks.
“Umm, thank you,” she murmured.
The Queen of Awkward (a.k.a. Karen Tucker) joined in and egged the conversation on.
“Are you holding up alright, dear?”
It was clear Laci didn’t want to talk about it, and something inside me suddenly wanted to shield her from the oncoming assault. I wanted nothing more than for the subject to be changed, but just as I started to speak up, I was shushed and scolded for “not allowing Laci the right to mourn.” I never said she couldn’t mourn, but this was hardly a dinner table conversation. Laci’s grandmother tried to help lighten things up a little bit, at least.
“I’ve always been a firm believer that everything happens for a reason, you know? Good times are wonderful, yes, but we wouldn’t be able to appreciate them for how good they are if we didn’t have bad times to compare them to. Obviously, this is a bad time. Nobody wants to lose loved ones, and I’m going to miss my little girl more than words can say; the thing is, we can’t just let ourselves be sad all the time. If there’s one person that I know would want us to have a New Orleans style funeral for her, it would be Lisa.”
I had no idea what that was and was genuinely interested. “What’s that?” I couldn’t help but ask, though, for Laci’s sake, I probably shouldn’t have.
“What, a New Orleans style funeral? Ain’t you ever hear of it? They play a slow march on the way to the burial site and, after the burial’s done, they play upbeat jazz to celebrate their life rather than mourn their death. I think it’s a downright genius concept. More people ought to do it. I tell you what, if I could’ve come up north for the funeral, I’d have made sure we did something like it.”
Thinking of death in terms like that would’ve helped make things easier for me, but apparently, it was the opposite for Laci. She slid her chair out with a screech, excused herself politely, and thumped up the stairs. I heard a door latch, and I didn’t see hide nor tail of her again that night. I just couldn’t comprehend that city girl. It seemed like she was running away from the positive light her grandma shined on the situation. Did she just want to be sad? Don’t get me wrong, it can’t be easy to suddenly be an orphan (not that I’d know), but you can’t run away from it, either.
When I expressed that to my mom on the way home that night, she used my full name again.
“Noah Alexander Tucker! How dare you say a thing like that! Everyone’s allowed to grieve in their own way, and her parents haven’t even been gone a week yet. She can take all the time she needs to feel better, and if that involves wallowing in her sadness for a while, then she should be allowed to do that without pig-nosed men getting on her case about it. I’m surprised at you.”
“You’re taking it the wrong way, Mama. I never said that she can’t feel sad or that she had to get over it right away. What I’m saying is, it just seems like she’s purposely trying to block out the positivity that her grandma’s trying to inject into the situation. I get it, everyone’s process to getting over something like that is different, and that’s fine, but I just think she should want to get better.”
“Do you really think she doesn’t want to get better, son? Think of it this way: when you’ve had a bad day, say you got bucked before your eight seconds at Nationals, do you want someone around saying, ‘It’s okay, it happened for a reason,’ or do you want someone who says, ‘That sucks, tell me about what happened?’ Probably the second one, I’d bet.”
I nodded, and she kept talking.
“So, this whole situation is like one big awful day for her. She got bucked back to back and her grandma’s telling her, ‘It’s okay, it happened for a reason,’ rather than what she wants to hear. She just needs to mourn. She needs someone to just let her feel how she feels, Noah.”
“Well, I wouldn’t want to get involved, anyway. I wasn’t kidding when I said that city girls act like they’re better than cowboys. I’ve encountered a bunch of girls who come across just like her in the beginning, and every single one of them has ended up being too prissy to get down and dirty from time to time. Then they stick their noses up in the air when it comes to doing anything that matters outside of their makeup. I’m sorry she lost her parents, but that doesn’t mean she has to look down her nose at me.”
Mama shook her head. “You have a lot to learn about women, sweetheart.”
Maybe I did, but I had no intentions of starting with Princess Laci.