“We’re doing it ourselves so that when it is all said and done, we will be able to look at this entire town as our own personal accomplishment. When our guests look around, we will be able to tell them everything about how the town was built, because we will have had a hand in it. Haven’t you ever done something just for the joy of doing it?”
“You mean like shopping?”
Jane closed her eyes and thought patient thoughts. “No child. I was referring to something more permanent.”
“Car shopping?”
“Young woman, I refuse to believe that the only thing you enjoy is spending your money on silly baubles.”
“That’s not true! It’s my dad’s money.”
Jane couldn’t bring herself to believe it. Her experiences with Michelle and Fredericka had shown her that there was potential in everyone, particularly in the people where you least expected to find it. And no person seemed ‘less likely’ than this young woman. Jane finished the area she was working on and put her brush down in some thinner. She still found the concept of physical labor to be strange, but she had come to enjoy it regardless.
“Does your father always solve your problems for you?”
“Pretty much. He’s a Senator.”
“Hmm. How quaint.” She sat back and massaged her temples. The fumes and the girl’s whining were giving her a headache.
“Are you okay?”
“Just a headache.”
“Do you get a lot of those? Freddie said even the sound of the engine gives you one.”
“She’s a dear soul. I’m just prone to headaches is all.”
Suddenly Laurie got up and pulled up a chair behind the older woman who was sitting on the floor. She placed her hands on either side of Jane’s head, pushed Jane’s hands aside and began rubbing her temples and massaging her scalp. It was one of the most soothing feelings Jane had ever experienced.
“Dear sweet child, wherever did you learn to do that? Now THAT is a highly useful skill!”
“Really? Amelia taught me how to do this.”
“Amelia?”
“She was my nanny when I was younger. She used to do this when I got headaches, or when I was crying about something. She started getting headaches too, so I did this for her. She was real smart. She was always saying that headaches may have been caused by stress, but the stress wasn’t always necessarily in the head. You sometimes have to work muscles in your back or arms or legs to get the pain to go away in your brain.”
Jane was impressed. It was simple, but quite accurate. “Tell me about yourself young one, and tell me about this Amelia woman. She sounds somewhat wise.”
“Oh, she was,” said Laurie cheerfully. The young woman seemed delighted to have someone to talk to who wasn’t primarily interested in insulting her. She was the daughter of a Senator who wasn’t around much, so far as Jane could discern. Almost all of the girl’s pleasant memories of her childhood revolved around Amelia. She was an older, Hispanic woman who was there for all the defining moments of Laurie’s life. From her first steps to getting chicken pox, and from her first scraped knee until she first had questions about the birds and the bees . . . through all of it Amelia was there, even when her parents were not. When Laurie took a small roll in her private high school’s senior play, Amelia had been the one there with a video camera and a smile. She apparently started having health problems a year ago and Laurie’s father had considered releasing her until Laurie threw a code-red tantrum. Laurie had a younger sister, so her father acquiesced and kept Amelia on. ‘Good for you child,’ thought Jane. ‘It may have been childish, but the goal was noble enough.’ Jane also noted that Laurie’s relationship with her father was one of rewards but no punishments. Anytime the young lady had wanted attention, her father or mother simply wrote her a check or bought her something pretty. No wonder the young woman valued such trivial things. To her, such items were the only affection her parents had ever really shown her. Whenever Laurie had gotten into trouble, her father used his influence to bail her out. Jane no longer found the girl irritating. She was a delightful soul who had simply never been given any incentive to actually achieve in anything.
“What about you?” asked Laurie, whose talented hands had worked down Jane’s neck and on to her shoulders. “You seem really smart. Why are you out here in the middle of nowhere?”
“Because I enjoy it here. I used to live in the city and play the role of socialite. I taught my college courses, wrote my books, and I considered myself to be the most sophisticated of ladies; far superior to those around me.”
“What happened?”
“My faucet broke.”
“Huh?”
“My faucet broke. I called my building supervisor and complained about the inconvenience, so he sent over his best man to fix it. Or should I say, his best woman.”
“Michelle?”
“Very perceptive, young one.” Laurie beamed at the compliment. “Yes, Michelle was working as a general handyman at the time. She came over and set about to work. Initially I thought she was nothing more than an over-muscled Neanderthal with fake breasts. But I watched her work and realized I didn’t even have the vaguest understanding of what she was doing, and that bothered me. I have undergraduate degrees in History, Philosophy and Psychology. I have master’s degrees in History and Psychology and a Ph. D. in History. But I didn’t know what a ‘washer’ was. To be perfectly frank, I was so mechanically inept that I might have made the same kind of mistake that you did with the jeep.”
Laurie blushed, but was glad she wasn’t alone in her mechanical confusion.
“One thing that disturbs me is not knowing how something works. So I learned from Michelle. I requested her specifically whenever I had a problem, and she amazed me with her knowledge of the practical arts. We became friends, then lovers.” Jane was encouraged that Laurie’s hands didn’t even flinch at the idea that she was giving a massage to a lesbian. “I realized that I had been living some sort of delusion; thinking I was better than everyone when in fact I wasn’t. True, I am better educated than either of my lovers, but this place would fall apart if it weren’t for Michelle. When I met Fredericka, she seemed headed down the path to self destruction, but I saw so much passion in her that I had to put her head back on track. She and I also became lovers. I introduced her to Michelle, and the two of them developed their own special relationship. We decided to move out here and undertake this project as a threesome. Like you, I came from a rich family, and I have developed something of a fortune on my own. But coming out here and learning to make something with my own two hands . . . something that lasted meant more to me than silver or gold. I still love expanding my mind and my horizons, but that doesn’t mean that I avoid getting my hands dirty from time to time. And my partners feel the same way. Laurie, I believe everyone has something to offer.”
“Not me,” she muttered.
“Really? Did you know that people all over the country would pay good money for you to do what you’re doing with your hands? And do you realize that sticking up for you nanny was a truly selfless act, even if done in a slightly unorthodox fashion?”
“You think so?”
“I know so. You just need to learn to start taking some risks and accepting responsibility for your actions.”
“You mean like the jeep?”
“Precisely. Take responsibility, and don’t have your father bail you out. I’m certain that you could work something out with Heather and . . .”
“No! I’m sorry, I mean . . . I can’t talk to her. Every time I do, she yells at me.”
“Why does she yell at you?”
“That’s just the way she is,” said Laurie.
Jane shot her a glance. “And?”
“And . . . and because I usually say something stupid whenever she’s around. I get what I’m gonna say all rehearsed in my head, but when I go talk to her, everything comes out stupid or doesn’t come out at all. I want to impress her, but I’m just too stupid . . .”
“Stop that young lady,” Jane said. “No not the thing with the hands. Keep doing that, if you don’t mind. You aren’t stupid. As I said earlier, you’ve never been rewarded for actually learning anything. And you never will as long as you let your father’s checkbook be the answer to all your woes.” Then something occurred to her. “You said that you rehearsed things in your head before going to talk to her. How often did you try?”
“All the time in our first semester. I wanted to see if she wanted to be my study partner or go to the movies or . . .” The list of ‘or’ statements continued to mount. Jane developed a bit of a smile.
“You know, you’ve spent a lot of time trying to get to know her. Might I ask why? Particularly if she’s so rude to you?”
Laurie’s hands stopped moving. “Wuh . . . what do you mean?”
Jane leaned her head over and kissed Laurie on the hand affectionately, then spun around on the ground. “I mean that young ladies don’t spend that much time trying to get to know someone in the face of that kind of rejection without a reason. Now, there are two primary reasons that I can think of off the top of my head. The first is social advancement, but since you are from the higher echelon of the social stratosphere, we can rule that out.” Laurie was visibly trembling now, and Jane knew she was onto something. “The other reason is that you are attracted to her.”
Laurie’s lip was trembling. She wanted to scream out in total denial, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to fool this woman. “I don’t get it,” she cried, and Jane took her in her arms. “She seems so much smarter and wilder and . . . and more everything. I didn’t even need to take this stupid trip. I don’t really need the money. I just thought I might be able to get her to like me if I could just spend some time with her, and all I’ve done is screw everything up!”