Marie Got an Idea
FOR THE REST OF the week, the kids from Oakland rode horses, made crafts, took care of all of the different farm animals, and generally had a blast. After a rough start with the terrible campfire, the earthquake, and the overt racial slur, the group responded by bonding. I saw Emma talking with Truc several times at meals, James smiled at me once, and Enrique put his phone away in his duffle bag.
Both Maurice and Tricia came up to me and told me that they were going to do the program again next year. Success. Having no phones, no television, no distractions—except for friends to talk to and animals to take care of—really made it a place to put aside differences and make connections. I loved it. It felt like a perfect world. A utopia.
At the closing campfire Thursday night, the fire lit quickly, we roasted marshmallows, and everyone participated in singing my silly songs. And I even thought I saw Will join in from the back.
During the week, I noticed that while Will was a tough cowboy, he was also a kid-magnet. These children really looked up to him. Every time they saw him, they’d call out, "Will, Will!" and he’d walk over, all burly, and talk with them, his face smiling and animated. He had no guard up around the kids. He’d ruffle the hair of the guys and tease the girls and the kids all seemed to adore him and want to be like him. After his lecture about prejudice, even though it was just a sentence or two, it seemed to do the trick. I heard not a word of teasing about race among these children. At least for now. At least with this group. And sometimes that's all you could hope for.
I realized that his lecture, in part, was an apology to me for what he said when we met. We still needed to talk about a lot of things, however, like our beliefs, our politics, ourselves. But knowing that he had the ability to instruct kids to set aside their beliefs was a start to me opening up to him.
I wondered if he could set aside his own beliefs. I wondered if I could. I wanted to talk with him, and while he wasn't hard to talk to, he was never chatty. I needed to come up with a way to fix that.
But I was scared. What if it really was just about sex? What if we really did get on each other's nerves and had nothing in common underneath the mutual physical attraction?
It would hurt to discover that there was nowhere to go.
And realizing that it would hurt meant that I really did like him.
While Will had not tried to get into my pants this week, he gave zero fucks about public displays of affection. Whenever I was near him, he touched me, either with his arm around my shoulders, holding my hand, or tracing a finger down my back or arms. It felt comforting and I really liked it.
But he hadn't kissed me since I asked him to knock off the sex.
I missed his mouth on mine.
I missed other parts of him too.
Then it was Friday, and the kids went home to Northern California, dusty, wearing tie-dyed shirts, and boisterously singing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" in a round on the bus ride home.
After they left, I went into the kitchen and made myself a snack of hummus and pita chips. Looking at my vegan food supplies, I realized that I needed to make a trip to a health food store to restock some of my favorites. I also noted that the bottle of tequila I’d brought with me had remained unopened.
That gave me an idea for tonight.
After I ate, I walked over to the barn to check in with Happy the horse. One of the farm hands, Claudio, was mucking out the stalls.
"When did you come here?" I asked.
He talked slowly, in a thick, Austrian accent. "I come here for school and then I start to work for Mister Will. And then I don't want to leave. At first I come to California. I rent red convertible Mustang. I try the surfing. But no, I am not surfer. Here, with the horses, I belong."
"I understand," I said. "I feel like I belong here too."
Will walked in the barn, hung up a bridle and reins in the tack room, and then came over to me. Claudio excused himself. Will put a foot up on a hay bale next to me, boxing me in by Happy's stall, and asked, "What do you wanna do tonight?"
"Get you drunk and see if I can get you to answer questions," I immediately responded.
He chuckled. "So you're gonna hide your true agenda."
I pushed his broad chest in protest, as a joke. He didn't move, just looked down at me, his brown eyes mellow. I responded, "Nope. But I got a bottle of tequila and it has our names on it."
He groaned. "Shit. Tequila. You sure that's a good idea?"
"Yes!" I clapped my hands. "I know! We'll go on a picnic. There has to be a good spot for a picnic, right? We can watch the sunset and drink and talk."
"Sounds terrific," Will muttered, not sounding like he believed it at all.
"It's all settled," I said. "I'll talk to Cookie and pack up something."
Will shook his head like he couldn't believe me, but he also looked amused.
Good. Hopefully I could get him talking. But I wasn't sure that I wanted to find out what he was going to say.