mOther: Everyone Has a Boss
A story of rewilding
“My plans have changed for the day. Sorry.” Paul, ‘Dad,’ dropped Saturday morning in the lodge lobby.
Brian slurped down a strawberry yogurt packet, standing suddenly. The low-slung chair rocked audibly before the cold fireplace. “What’s up, man? I thought we were going to fix my truck?” Brian felt his heat rising.
Brian tried not shouting at Paul’s back. “I thought you were going to help me!”
The old man shrugged, one shoulder higher than the other, and walked into his office, shutting the door quietly behind him.
Brian did a double-take. What the…? Seren was outside… somewhere… inspecting the facility. She’d showed him the fridge, filled with yogurts and fruit. Try my granola! She produced a spoon from a drawer containing 25 spoons and forks. A half-hour before, Mel had been snoring so loudly in the second wing of the lodge, Brian could hear her from the bottom of the back staircase.
Now Brian swizzled, darting eyes around the lodge. No one was around. He dare not try ‘Dad’s’ door.
“What the actual fuck?”
He banged out the front doors to the driveway. Maybe Paul’s coolness was a silent message? Not unlike how Brian’s stepdad delivered the news: He’d already failed.
Outside was a perfectly beautiful morning. Crisp and cool, but robins chirped in pine trees. It smelled great. Behind Paul’s new pine fence, the hot spring surface rippled. Brian grudgingly noted Paul had finished the fence last evening, without Brian’s help.
Brian faced the highway. Paul or someone had placed three orange cones around Brian’s truck, but fat lot of good it would do if someone flew around the corner (like Brian had). Past the bend, a tiny town was viewable. He still needed a mechanic—might still have a chance of getting that restaurant job—if he could just arrive in Sun Valley before Monday at 9 am. He started walking.
***
Mel blinked blurrily. It was sooooo nice sleeping in. She stretched lazily in her new, upstairs bedroom outfitted with a double bed and cozy white duvet. Maybe real goose feathers in there. A small, stupidly cute, round window reflected light off the eastern-facing hillside. Not too bright to sleep through, not to dark to snooze forever. And she was at the end of the hall. Perfect.
She refreshed herself in a small, presumably shared, bathroom—once the others arrived—and eventually she wandered downstairs in her jammies. She could tell that kid Brian had already come and gone. An empty yogurt packet was left out. She nabbed it, rolling eyes.
“Hey Mel,” Seren sashayed in from the backdoor by the pool. “Make yourself at home, OK? Your desk is the table by the front door. I put the reservation book there. I’m gonna set up a phone and register, but I gotta find cords…”
“OK,” Mel agreed as Seren sashayed out the front door. Supposedly there was a storage shed out there… somewhere.
Mel yawned around the fireplace toward the kitchen, glancing through the office door. Dad studiously flipped pages in a catalog. She padded barefoot onto kitchen tile, noting a pan of granola on the counter. She opened the fridge.
A noise, a scent, or a vibe, coming at her so loud, it startled her! She nearly tossed her yogurt onto the ceiling!
“Hello?!” A hyper feminine, dusky voice called. Her heels clipped hardwood decisively.
“Shit,” Mel murmured. Her first customer, and she wasn’t ready! But she straightened her jammies, determined to use her best excuse.
Mel almost walked out when Dad opened his door. “In here, Karla.”
Mel sealed her lips, stopping breathing, and slunk into farthest corner, hoping the tall, buxom platinum walking by didn’t notice her.
“Paul!” The woman had a sharp voice. Mel’s senses were going wild. She was NOT into meeting this lady. “We need that laboratory sensor this weekend.”
“I found something. This should work.” His voice was low. He hesitated a moment. “I’ll have to drive to Boise today?”
Mel could practically hear the woman hiss. “Fine. You know how Bobby gets. He’s such a …perfectionist… Anyway, it just needs to be done.”
Mel couldn’t hear everything, but she sussed out that Seren would take over while Paul was away. Successfully—or else.
“She’ll be fine,” Paul drew calmly, jangling car keys.
Mel sank under a food dehydrator while this woman came into view. But tucked pink shirt turned, intuitively. Her ice blue eyes flashed at Mel.
She craned to call, “Hello there!” Sweetly, as if coercing a kitten, “And just who might you be?”
Mel tilted a water jug on its side and set it down fast. It gulped like a stream sucking air under a rock. “Hard at work, ma’am. That’s me. Just moving water jugs.”
The blond narrowed in, and Mel froze. She hesitated at the doorway to Seren’s kitchen. Mel decided to just walked over. Save Seren the indignity.
Up close, the blond was so pretty Mel had a hard time looking at her. Mel’s jaw almost dropped. How big this woman’s boobs were! E’s. Or, maybe F’s.
Mel squinted up. “I’m Mel. Have I met you before?” Mel held out a hand. A trophy wife from when Mel first started nannying? There was a certain familiarity to this mountain lion of a woman.
The lioness took Mel’s into her own soft, limp hand.
“You’ve seen ‘The Happiest Days of Our Lives,’ haven’t you? I played an important character. I’m an actor.” She grew an inch, her teeth sparkling like cold diamonds. “And I’m owner here. Together with my husband, Bobby. You can call me Karla.”
“I’m, um, the new front desk,” Mel stuttered. Soap operas terrified her. “Starting today.”
Mel glanced at her new desk, considering making a run to the makeshift table under a set of windows. She could take money through that window. Like a fast-food cashier.
Karla smirked, then nodded to Mel’s PJs. “Better get dressed, then, hun. Day’s a wasting.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
***
Brian’s feet grew hot and dry, but he preserved into town. He thanked his lucky stars. At the end of a row of boardwalk buildings, on a Parts and Hardware Store gleamed.
“Can I help ya?” The clerk didn’t raise his head from his count. A box stood open before him, box cutter in hand.
Brian glanced around. The place was stuffed. An ice cream counter in back. Stag heads graced the walls. A Colt pistol on brackets near the register. It wasn’t encased.
He gulped. “I gotta… fix my truck’s tire. Do you have a used tire I can buy? Maybe some… tools… I can borrow? I’m kinda stuck here until I can get help.”
The tip of the man’s head sharply pronounced his crew cut. His beady black eyes ran the length of Brian, stalling at Brian’s shoulder-length hair.
“Can’t help ya.”
Brian held out hands walking forward. “I can trade or work for you, mister. I just need a little help.”
“The answer’s no.” The man pulled himself up to full height. A voice called from the back. “Who’s out there, Bobby?” “Another one of those hippie kids. Don’t worry yourself, darlin’.”
The man eyed Brian, growling, “Get outta here, kid. Go back to that fucking love-in you came from. We don’t service your kind here.”
“What the hell man? I don’t live here! My truck just broke down here! What kinda place are you running…?”
The man stepped toward him, booming, “I said: Get the hell out!”
Brian backstepped to the door.
***
If only his face and mouth could trade places. Sweat dripped off his cheeks while his sandy tongue lagged.
The bar next to the Parts store gave him a water on the porch, but the bartender was hostile, and married, to Parts guy. Her grunt and cursory, ‘Leave the glass on the bench,’ was surly meant a blessing upon the wretched.
He got going. Whipped off his t-shirt and tied it around his head.
Ages later, a little burnt, he neared the coned truck. A crowd was forming around it. A tall blond woman gesticulated wildly. Paul, Seren, and Mel gaped. Shit. He didn’t have the energy to run.
“Hey!” Called Seren. “That’s him. Brian!”
“Is this wreck yours?” The blond woman called and pointed at him as he approached, head down.
She unzipped a duffle bag of a purse and produced a long, black mobile phone. She bit lips then extended the long antennae.
“Hello?” She turned to whomever answered the other end of the line. “We need a tow truck right now.”
Paul walked away. Shaking his head, he hooked fingers in belt loops and grimaced.
Brian drew up, panting, “Sorry about this, lady! Paul was going to help me today. I can’t afford no…”
Her eyes flared as she waved to his truck. “This won’t do! No one can get safely into the lodge! You’ve cost me a morning of visitors already.” She wagged a witchy French manicure at him, tucked the phone into her shoulder, and riffled for a credit card number.
Brian was incredulous, his hands open. “There’s no one here but us, lady!”
“Shush up.” She threw him a sharp look practically penetrating his chest wall. “Karla Whitehall, 512. 3984…” She walked toward the tree line. “Mel, you’re with me.”
Mel side-eyed Brian then followed Karla. Brian stood open-mouthed. What the hell just happened?
Seren and Paul held heads together, Paul murmuring, “Just let the people in… Tell her you’re fine. Don’t tally the register until I get back. OK?”
Mel was handing items out of the woman’s purse like tools to a mechanic. Karla clicked the phone shut, said a few words to Mel, who nodded, then tossed her hair confidently at Brian.
Karla sauntered over to Brian. “You need a job, right? We need more help.” She rolled eyes at Seren and Mel. “You can either work here, kid, and pay what you owe me, or I can keep your truck.”
“Ugh…” No words came to Brian’s desert of a mouth.
“Cute and quiet. Just how I like ‘em.” Karla sized him up and down as he stuttered. “You should say, ‘Thank you, ma’am.’”
He uttered, “Um… I don’t have any work skills.”
His eyes shifted to the mountain pass at the end of the valley. He itched to reach out and touch the mountain, behind which, Sun Valley nestled. A place where happy, wealthy folks tipped their staff, cute girls in sunglasses walked on sidewalks, and resources existed, oh God, resources like mechanics, grocery stores, and sane people. He should get the f- outta this place. But he couldn’t afford to leave his truck.
“You can wash dishes or dig trenches, or something. Unless you’d like to pay me now? The tow is $500. Satellite calls are $35. A morning of hot springers? $150, at least.”
“But!”
She shook her blond hair, more or less mouthing, ‘No arguments.’
His truck, sadly deflated off the road, rippled with some strange energy.
“I don’t have it. Listen, if you fix my truck, too, I’ll work here and pay off the whole thing.” She raised brows with something approximating satisfaction. He added too fast, “But I’m leaving this fall.”
She held out a soft hand, “Deal. Karla.”
He’d never understood women’s handshakes—limp—but she seemed as sincere as she could probably be. “Brian, but, um, if I’m gonna fit in here at Crazyville, maybe you should call me Starlight, or something.” He grinned.
She laughed wickedly, reappraising him. “Get to work then, Starlight. Tow truck will be two hours.”
“Two?”
“It’s a long ways, which is why it’s so expensive. There’s nothing cheap out here, honey.” She smiled softly and creepily at him.
Brian decided he’d never be caught alone with Karla.
Her smile turned toward the highway as a diesel chugged up to a stop. “Bobby!” She bounded up to the passenger side, cracked the door, and slid in, giving the man a big smooch on the cheek. “Everything’s taken care of. Let’s go.”
As the lodge owners drove off toward Sun Valley, Brian’s truck rippled pathetically in heat. Then it creaked.
“No!!!” Brian shouted, running over. Metal frame shuddering one time, the truck careened into the ditch, triggering its emergency horn. Beeeeeeeep!
Mel came up to Brian and stood next to him like a silent pine tree. “Sorry.”
Seren, taking a fast look back, jogged after her Dad toward the lodge. Paul, about ready to rip his hair out, cussed up a storm.
Subscribe to get extra content that’s extra juicy!!!
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Magical Western to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.