“What is it, baby? What’s the matter?”
I wiped the tears from my eyes with both hands, but more came pouring out to take their place. I said, “I’m fine. Look away. Just give me a minute.”
“It’s all right to be nervous. Everyone is at first.”
I was practically hyperventilating at that point. I gritted my teeth and dug my fingernails into the mattress. “Could we just sit here? Please? Could we just sit here until the time’s up?”
Livia wrapped a strand of hair around her finger and drew the curls out as straight as possible. She glanced nervously at the different walls, as if the place were equipped with hidden peepholes like something out of a campy movie from the last century. She said, “Your dad’s already paid up, baby. If I don’t deliver and word gets out, the boss’ll paint my ass black and blue without a second thought.”
“The lady from downstairs?”
“She just keeps an eye on things. The boss is a big guy with a bad temper. I can’t risk him finding out we didn’t fuck.”
My breathing had returned to normal, but still I couldn’t stop myself from crying. She leaned into me and pressed her naked breast against my back. I said, “I don’t know…I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” and right away she started to hum soothingly while running her soft fingertips down my spine. This wretched young girl, inelegant child of the whorehouse, had become my caretaker in a moment of pain and humiliation. I had gone searching for God, and instead I had found a caricature straight out of pulp erotica, the oppressed and motherly nymphet who could satisfy any number of secret fetishes from the most perverted end of the spectrum. She waited until I had finished bawling before reaching into my boxers and slipping the condom over me.
“That’s it, baby. You just lie back and let me do all the work. You know any girl here would count herself lucky to have a go with you. So smart, so sensitive, so strong. A real gentleman. Not like most of the riffraff we get in here.”
I closed my eyes again and felt her wet lips form a suction-tight seal over my neck. I was going to die young, of that I was certain, and in the end all I would ever know about sex would be derived from secondhand gossip and a few minutes of sweaty straddling with an obese harlot. So be it, I decided. It was easier to endure with my eyes closed, resting flat on my back, imagining that the weight I felt pressing down on me was really the supernatural presence I had been seeking all along.
I gave the widows my demands and returned to the Blossom Road to await their response. One week may have been an overly generous amount of time to let them mull it over, especially with Russert waiting to hear from me, but I suspected it might end up working to my advantage; the longer they had to think about it, the more time they had to sweat. The threat of losing everything (farm, money, and all) would be too much for most people to handle, and with five scared women facing down the threat of ruin, I figured it wouldn’t be long before internal divisions began to undercut the united front they had presented me with when I spoke to them. As it happened, only two days passed before one of them came to see me in secret. She appeared outside my door in the late afternoon, a gangly roughneck accompanying her for protection.
I cleared some empty jars off the easy chair and said, “Please have a seat. Hopefully we can get this thing squared away before it gets any more awkward for all of us. The moment I saw you, I had you pegged as a refined and savvy lady. I hope I’m right.”
Jennifer lowered herself onto the very front of the seat cushion and crossed one leg over the other. Her bodyguard looked all around the room for another chair that didn’t exist, then leaned his back against the wall with his narrow thighs abutting the air conditioner. Jennifer said, “All I’m interested in is seeing this mess resolved in the quickest way possible. That, and ensuring that my children aren’t cheated out of what’s rightfully theirs.”
“I understand completely. Before we begin, though, perhaps your associate wouldn’t mind waiting outside. We’re getting into some very delicate information here, after all.”
“You don’t have to worry about Dale. He’s been my foreman since your father first brought me to the valley years ago. I trust him as much as I trust anyone.”
“Fair enough. Would either of you care for a drink? I’m afraid all I have is local homebrew, but maybe I can place an order with the front desk.”
Jennifer said, “Thank you, no. I’m fine.”
Dale stepped forward and studied the empty jars with his hands in the pockets of his jeans. He said, “I wouldn’t mind a little pick-me-up now that you mention it. From the look of ‘em, I’d say you got these offa those Sarafian boys up near Minkler. Am I right?”
“I wouldn’t know. An associate of mine picked them up while passing through the area. But you’re welcome to have some, Dale, as an associate of a wife of my father.”
Dale nodded amicably and passed me one of the half-empty jars from the nightstand. I twisted the lid off and passed it back to him for the first lukewarm pull. We carried on like that for a little while, passing the jar back and forth like regular old hillbillies, until finally Jennifer got us back to the business at hand.
She said, “First of all, I want to say that I appreciate where you’re coming from, and why you felt compelled to take such extreme measures to get what you’re entitled to. There are times when taking the moderate, tactful route only invites others to take advantage of you. I realize that now from bitter experience.”
I nodded and set the jar back down on the nightstand. “You can imagine my surprise the day I discovered everything my father had ever earned was tied up in these five small farms in the valley, each one with a different Mrs. Temple at the helm. Now try to imagine what I felt, besides surprise, when I learned the five of you had invested his entire estate in some half-cocked cooperative venture.”
“That was Katie’s plan. The rest of us were just saps who let ourselves get talked into going along. And I was the biggest sap of all. For bankrolling the largest portion of the co-op, and coming away with a share no bigger than anyone else’s.”
“That hardly seems fair.”
Jennifer crossed her arms over her chest. She was wearing both concealer and eye shadow, but still she looked tired and dispirited. She said, “I have never been compensated appropriately for what I’ve put into that farm. And I don’t believe I ever will be. Meanwhile, a slut who carried your father’s name for all of five minutes gets to live off the fat of the land without paying a single dime. All because your father left her with nothing while we were running a three-year surplus in Madera. That’s the philosophy of the co-op in a nutshell. From each according to her abilities, to each according to her sob story.”
“Interesting. And yet I suppose you must have approved of what Katie and the others had planned. At least in the beginning.”
“Believe me, young man. You have no idea how intimidating it can be to face down four women at the same time when all of your futures are on the line. Men think they invented hostility the day Cain murdered his brother, but you can be certain the world today would be an even bleaker and more dangerous place if Eve had given birth to daughters.”
“I believe you. That is, I respect you and take you at your word, as a good stepson ought to, I suppose. As I said, I knew you were a class above the rest of them the moment we first met. I don’t even have to ask if you’re well-educated.”