Tea Cups & Tiger Claws (20 page)

His dad looked up, saw
Mack’s red face, and then stood up straight. “Listen Mack, I’m not saying it’s not interesting—kinda like a circus act—but what’s gonna happen the first time one of those horses sees a stampede, or a mountain lion, or even a hat flying in the wind? The horse is going to panic and someone’s gonna get hurt. That’s all I’m saying.”

“How’s that any different from what our horses do? They spook all the time, at hats and handkerchiefs and sometimes nothing.”

“Yeah, but there’s a difference. Our horses spook and maybe start to bolt, but they come back quick because of the way they’ve been trained. They trust their riders.”

“That’s not trust! That’s fear!”

“Call it what you want. It works, that’s all I know. Why are you getting riled up anyway? He’s a horse whisperer...from California, if you know what I mean. When he’s not riding his pretty trick pony by the seashore, he’s probably stringing beads and making candles.”

“Gosh,” said
Mack, “If only he came from Montana, or Texas, and wore a cowboy hat, then everything would be ok, wouldn’t it?” With that frustrated, feeble response, he turned his back and stormed off, leaving behind his dumbfounded dad. Within the hour he’d said goodbye to his sobbing mother and wide-eyed brothers and had pointed his pickup toward California. He planned to find out for himself what was real and what wasn’t, and maybe even come back and show his dad a thing or two.

“So…
what did you find out?” asked Sarah, when Mack finished his story and grew quiet.

Mack
pulled into a parking spot, parked the truck, and said, “A thing or two, I guess. I also found out that my dad knows more than I ever gave him credit for.”

“Have you ever told him that?”

“Not really. We don’t talk much.”

~~~

Gay Nineties Pizza Parlor had beaten the system. In 1965 its permit had been approved as a nod to the flatlanders that the Town Council occasionally felt compelled to bestow. They let them have their pizza joint, on the outskirts of town, but hadn’t figured on the possibility that folks from the hill might take a liking to it as well, or that Rita Williams, the proprietor’s wife, would come up with a sausage, onion, and cashew pizza that would be the hit of the county. Unlike other restaurants in town, Gay’s, as it came to be called, regularly saw customers from up the hill and down dining side by side. Aunt Judith, who never ate there herself, often sent Mr. Theo down to pick up a Rita Special.

When
Sarah entered the restaurant and saw her cousin sitting with some friends, she smiled and waved. Veronica smiled and waved back. Then she saw Mack…with Sarah. The smile disappeared, she stared intently, and then she left the restaurant, walking right past them without saying a word.

“What’s that all about?” asked
Mack.

“Uh…I don’t think Veronica expected to see you and I here…together.”

“Oh. I see. Is she going to be ok?”

“Yeah. You may have to turn on some extra cowboy charm tomorrow, but I think she’ll be ok.”

Mack found them a table in a quiet corner where Sarah went to work trying to explain the Rita Special to a strict pepperoni pizza kind of guy. When the word “cashew” entered the conversation, he shook his head doubtfully, like he’d just heard blasphemy, and began a squeamish protest. By the end of the meal, though, he’d become a convert, as expected. Besides the philosophy of pizza, they continued their running conversation about the characters at the barn—the four legged kind, both dog and horse—and then they talked about anything and everything else that came to mind. Sarah admittedly did most the talking, but that didn’t change the fact that they had the easy, casual look of best friends.

And when
Sarah wasn’t talking, or listening, she was trying not to think about how much she liked him.

On the way back up the hill,
Mack reached over and took her hand into his, didn’t say a word, just held her hand. After a while Sarah said, “Did we just have a date?”

“That? Not that. Our first date’s going to be more special than that. You just wait and see. That was just the little thing before the thing.”

“‘The little thing before the thing.’ I’ve heard about those before,” said Sarah.

Mack
laughed. She liked making him laugh.

He kissed her that night, before she got into her car to drive home. She smiled all the way down the hill and couldn’t wait to tell
Mom all about her wonderful day.

Mo
m liked Mack because he worked hard and had manners. And because he didn’t come from a rich family in Prospect Park. She said money did things to people and that’s why she never cared for any of the boys Sarah had dated from school. They acted too sophisticated. She called them “penthouse bachelors with pimples.” And she especially didn’t like any of the boys Aunt Judith liked to tout. So she took a natural liking to Mack. Not that she stopped doing annoying things, like repeatedly asking if Mack believed in God and if he went to church. She was still Sarah’s mom, after all. Truth be told, annoyances and all, Mom had never stopped being Sarah’s most trusted confidante, especially when it came to  sensitive topics like Mack Brimwahl.

On this night, though, when
Sarah saw her mother waiting for her just inside the doorway, with red eyes and a sad face, Sarah knew they wouldn’t be having their usual “Sanka After-Dinner Coffee Hour.” Lately Mom hadn’t been feeling well, which had worried Sarah, but now she looked especially unwell. The first clue as to the reason for this came when Mom said, “Your Aunt Judith just called.”

“Oh, is that all?” said
Sarah. “I thought something serious had happened.”

“She’s going to fire
Mack Brimwahl.”

“Fire….For what?”

“For taking liberties, as she put it, and for not knowing his place. She said that Veronica saw you and Mack out on a date.”

“We had a pizza after work. That’s it. And what business is it of hers anyway?”

“I tried talking to her, but she’s still going to fire him. Maybe you should go see her in the morning.”

Sarah
had her speech ready the next morning when she drove up the hill and found her aunt waiting for her in the sitting room. She looked almost as bad as Mom had the night before, only instead of sickly, she looked mad, and tired, like she’d stayed up all night cursing Sarah’s name. It didn’t matter. Sarah loved Mack and she said it straight to her aunt’s face. She loved him, knew it with all her heart, and would give up everything for him. “Even life itself!” she said with a flourish.

“You love him!” shrieked Aunt Judith. “Well!  What are we going to do about that? I guess that means
it’s ok to throw your life away!”

Sarah
had never seen her aunt like this before and quickly realized that she had better stay calm, or the conversation might blow up in her face. She took a deep breath and said…nothing, because Aunt Judith hadn’t finished her tirade on love.

“And here I thought you loved Paul Anka! Or was it Ricky Nelson? No, he was last week. But that’s alright because now you love
Mack Brim…Brim…Brimwacker, or whatever his name is. And as long as we’re talking about love, how do you feel about living in a one bedroom fleabag and driving around in a clunky old truck, because that’s exactly the kind of life your prince charming loves! Along with his cheap beer and sheep dogs and baked beans! And six little babies sucking on thumbs and running around in dirty diapers!” That’s when Sarah wondered if Aunt Judith had hit the liquor cabinet a little early.

Despite
Sarah’s pledge of composure, Aunt Judith eventually brought her to tears, almost to hysterics. The final straw came when Aunt Judith said that if Sarah didn’t obey her wishes, she’d go out and fire Mack that very minute, and then she’d attach a black mark to his name so big, and so ugly, that he’d never find a decent job in California ever again. And then she’d sell the horses, close up the barn, and send all the dogs, except Rufus, to the pound.

Aunt Judith never lost arguments.

Some weeks later, when Sarah’s eyes stopped looking red, Aunt Judith called her back into the sitting room. She stroked Sarah’s head, kissed her cheek, and held her hand. She wanted to talk some more about love, quietly and calmly this time. She said that there’s a place for love, but that women constantly make the mistake of putting love where it doesn’t belong, ahead of wealth and power and family name. And then, instead of admitting their mistake, these women make up stories about racing hearts and romantic fireworks. They walk down the aisle with duds and then drone on for the rest of their lives about blissful love. The truth of the matter, Aunt Judith assured Sarah, was that love might very well be like fireworks, but she must always remember that fireworks fade away while a good name, from a prestigious family, sparkles forever.

A little over a year later, between
Sarah’s freshman and sophomore year in college, Aunt Judith introduced her to Grant Wynnthorpe, oldest son of U.S. Senator Jordon Wynnthorpe, and the most handsome young man Sarah had ever seen.

~~~

Mack knew he didn’t fit in with the big muckety-mucks on the hill. He didn’t even fit in with little muckety-mucks down the hill. And since he’d never inherit a million dollars or swap his cowboy boots for platform shoes, which happened to be in style at the time, or his blue jeans for velvet trousers, also in style, the chances of him ever blending in didn’t look good. At first he didn’t mind. The way he saw it, if a guy worked hard, made an effort to be friendly, and dealt squarely with people, sooner or later he’d make a place for himself. He might look like corn chips next to caviar, but he’d make a place.

And if
Mack needed a reason to make it in Prospect Park, he didn’t have to look any further than Sarah Evans. From the beginning, when he saw how she took care of her aunt and cousin, and the suspicious way she kept tabs on him, he had an idea she might be special. Six months later he knew that “special” didn’t do her justice. There she was, the niece of Judith Newfield, which amounted to royalty in those parts, the granddaughter of a duchess, surrounded by a whole lot of highfalutin nonsense, and it didn’t touch her. He’d seen some arrogance on the hill, and phoniness, and a few people who probably slept with their money, or at least kissed it goodnight, but with Sarah he saw a beautiful young lady who didn’t seem to know the difference between a baron and a bricklayer…or a horse trainer, for that matter. Sometimes he even wondered how much she cared for all that society stuff because whenever they had a big to-do up at the house she seemed to end up at the barn with her horses and dogs. Before coming to Sunny Slope Manor, he’d never seen a woman in a ball gown toss a flake of hay to a horse. He liked it.

He liked her way with horses too.
Of course she had a weakness for rescues and ragtag misfits. She knew how to take abused, untrusting horses that spooked when a fly looked at them, and turn them into comfortable, if not confident, members of a special herd that trusted her as its unrivaled alpha. She didn’t practice horse whispering by design, but definitely had an instinctive touch for the basic principles: bonding and trust.

Just like the dumb farmer who grows the biggest potatoes,
Mack had stumbled onto the real deal. And, truth be told, the outside of Sarah Evans looked every bit as good as the inside. And it didn’t matter what she happened to be doing. Tall like a fashion model, and with the slim figure of a serious rider, she could be standing ankle deep in slop, mucking a stall, and still turn heads…in the rain. Her auburn hair, which she wore to just below the shoulders, had just the right body to it: full enough to complement her friendly, innocent face, and playful enough to sometimes fall forward to tickle her attractive mouth and delicate nose. And when it came to her big hazel eyes, he had to be especially careful. No sneaky glances or sideways looks for those eyes, just uninhibited, inviting contact. Mack had gotten lost in them more than once. Embarrassingly lost. But the thing he liked best was her smile. She didn’t wear it all the time like a political candidate, or on cue, like a game show host. Mostly she smiled because she liked people. She smiled at the mere sight of her mother, cousin, or aunt. She greeted friends and neighbors with a smile of genuine fondness. She even had a smile for a certain cowboy. He felt especially partial to that one.

And then it stopped. One day he got tears and sadness instead of a smile. It happened the day after their first kiss, when
Sarah made an unexpected morning visit as Mack stood at the tack house workbench repairing a saddle. One look and he knew she hadn’t come to joke about cashew pizza. Without ever looking into his eyes she said, “I’m sorry Mack. It’s not you. I’m sorry.” Then she burst into tears and ran out the door. Mack followed her to the parking area next to the stable where he saw Mrs. Newfield standing beside Sarah’s cream colored Chevy Impala. After Sarah got into the car, Mrs. Newfield held out her hand like a traffic cop and stopped Mack in his tracks. The car screeched away. Mrs. Newfield stared at him, like he’d stolen lunch money from a first grader. Then she said, “You can help make things better Mack, or I can fire you. It’s up to you.”

“I’m listening,” said
Mack, even though he had a good idea what she had to say.

“I didn’t invest eighteen years of my life turning
Sarah into a princess just to be swept off her feet by an employee who knows a few horse tricks. You’re a good kid Mack, but Sarah deserves better. And she’s going to get it. It’s been decided and there’s nothing you can do. All I need to know is if you’re going to stay or go. And I hope you stay, because I like you, and because it will make the whole thing easier for my niece if she knows she didn’t have anything to do with getting you fired. You have until this afternoon to decide.”