July 10th 2021

Chapter 191
Our Goals For Competition

Exceptionally, and very much to her disappointment, Melinda Friar was unable to have her day with her granddaughter. She'd been meant to come and get her, the usual plan had still been in place, right up until that morning, when she'd called Lucas to let him know. He was just getting ready to head out when he got that call, and it left him with a choice to make. Oh, without a doubt, Granny Lizzie would be as capable as she would be willing to look after her great granddaughter, and if she couldn't do it, then Lucas knew a couple of recently relocated grandparents who would drop absolutely everything at the chance of spending a day with their daughter's child.

Instead, out of purely earned fatherly privilege, Lucas decided to take Marianne with him to work. He was headed for a day at the ranch, and even though he might have to leave her with someone else now and again, he would have the freedom to keep her with him the rest of the time. And he loved to spend time with her anywhere, but when he got to bring her to Sullivan Stables…

Just driving up to the place, as the arch would come within view, Marianne would start to squeal and point out the window, calling for the horsies or ho'sies as it would sound. She'd repeat the word over and over and top it off with the sign for 'horse,' which she'd picked up from Dora.

She and Sam had been signing around baby Francesca from the day she was born, to start her learning it, and as they spent a lot of time around her, Marianne had become very curious in the past couple of months, imitating them and her parents whenever she saw them use the language. She wasn't exactly fluent, but she was getting better and better at expressing herself, which only encouraged her family to teach her more.

Lucas walked with Marianne's hand in his and it felt like taking a princess or a queen on a visit. Everyone they'd cross, those who worked here especially, would wave, and greet her by name, and she would wave back at once. If they were people that she knew really well, people she loved the most, she'd get all giddy and start hopping around.

"Maybe we should have brought your carriage, huh?" Lucas finally pulled her up into his arms. Unfortunately, they couldn't spend the whole day in greeting mode.

The most logical thing to do was for him to leave Marianne with someone available and supremely interested in seeing her. So, Lucas brought his daughter to Donna Devereaux and her dance studio. He hadn't even made it out the door that he could hear the woman suggest that they take things from where they'd left off. Before taking his daughter for her lesson of the day, Donna let Lucas know that Juliet wanted to see him, up at the house, and so he made a quick stop to let Dr. Alvarez know that he had arrived before making his way to his grandparents' old house. There he found a note stuck to the door, directing him toward Juliet's office, at the back of the house. She had another, in the 'main' building, where she would receive guests and clients, hold interviews… When she could however, she would work from her home office. Here, she would generally be found barefoot, humming along to the music on the radio.

"Oh, good morning!" Juliet smiled when she turned and found him there. "Can I get you something? Coffee? The kitchens just delivered some samples for the fall menu," she gestured toward her kitchen, which was just nearby.

"Maybe later," Lucas thanked her with a nod. Juliet turned down the music and motioned for him to approach her desk. When he did, he took in the various items sprawled over the surface. It immediately made him think of Maya whenever she had a big project coming up, either at school, or back when she used to work at the theater. From what he saw here, his impression was that this involved many things, from accommodations, to sponsors, to advertisement, to registrations, to receptions, to trophies… a competition.

"It'll take place in the spring," Juliet told him after confirming as much. "Now, normally, I would offer for you to take the lead all to yourself, but so long as you're still only with us part time…"

"No, I get it," Lucas promised. It was enough just to know that she trusted him to take his place. "I'll do everything I can to help."

"Figured as well," Juliet smiled. "Now go on and grab yourself something from the kitchen, you'll want it soon enough."

It was definitely a lot of moving pieces to coordinate, but then between the archives and the book, Lucas was getting to feel he had a solid handle on the business of the ranch.

"I remember being here when I was a kid, when they had one of these events," he told Juliet, a couple of hours later, as they walked together from the house.

"Last one we hosted this big was… 2010," Juliet recalled, and Lucas nodded. That would be the one. "It was the last event your grandmother took part in," she went on. Lucas nodded again, slower now. "Your mom and your uncle would come to me, saying how they had to stop her from getting on her knees or climbing up a ladder, she was so intent on getting this place shining before people started to turn up."

"Yeah," Lucas laughed. "They had me out here every day after school and all through the weekends, just so I could keep her occupied. Mostly I just helped with the cleaning, to compensate."

"Yes, you did!" Juliet laughed along as the memory came to her. For a few moments they were quiet, thinking of Marianne Sullivan.

"I remember my mother telling me about some of these competitions, when she was growing up, back when she used to compete herself."

"She was really something as a rider," Juliet smiled. "Like it was in her blood. It really was, wasn't it?" she gestured around them, at the place that the former Melinda Sullivan's parents had built. "She could have kept going, for years after she stopped."

"Yeah…" Lucas agreed.

He knew that she'd done her last competition just three years before he was born. His father would tell him stories of those events, too, not just his mother. He'd tell him about watching her out on her old horse, and it was clear to see that he'd been as in love with her then as he was today. When they'd started talking about building their family though, Melinda had made the choice to retire from competition. Riding was something she loved, but becoming a mother was something she'd dreamed of, and it had felt to her like the right choice to make.

To look at her now, no one would see her as someone who had ever even been on horseback, much less competitively. But then if they got her talking about it, if they saw her with a horse… suddenly it actually made a whole lot of sense. She'd continued to ride, occasionally and merely for her own enjoyment, and Lucas remembered the two of them and his father riding around out here when he was little, before his grandmother passed and he stopped coming. For years afterward, he wasn't sure if his mother still came, she never said, but he suspected she did. She didn't do it anymore. To his knowledge, she hadn't been on a horse in about a decade. But whenever she'd be out here, he would see it in her eyes. She hadn't forgotten a single part of it.

When they arrived at the studio, they found Donna sitting outside on the front steps, with Marianne asleep against her side. Donna had her arm around her and looked peacefully happy. She saw Lucas and Juliet approaching and signalled for them to be quiet, as though they would do anything to wake the small girl.

"All danced out?" Lucas asked.

"I sent you some videos," Donna tipped her head to him. "If she keeps this up, she's going to take my job someday," she declared with complete confidence in the twenty-two-month-old.

"She'll have learned from the best," Lucas nonetheless assured her, getting a blushing smile from the old woman even as he could swear that he caught a smirk out of Juliet at his side. He could have gone on and suggested they name the studio after her, but that would probably have finished her off on her transformation into a tomato.

It was nearly lunch time by then, so they took off toward the stables, Juliet, Donna, and Lucas with his sleeping pumpkin in arms. Here, they collected Dr. Alvarez to join them, and they made their way to the kitchens. Over a further sampling of the new menu, they went on discussing the competition. Lucas listened to his colleagues, all of them with memories of their own from those previous times when Sullivan Stables had hosted the event. It got Lucas thinking, and as they were still talking when he and Marianne were done eating, he took off with his daughter toward the archives.

"Well, if it isn't the star of the Devereaux School," John Carson greeted them with a grandfatherly smile when they walked through the door. Marianne's hand slipped right out of her father's as she ran over. "Oh, come here, now," Carson lifted her up and got some gentle face tapping from the girl's fingers for it. "I was out there before, the little munchkin showed me her big twirl, didn't you?" he looked at her. Marianne responded with a nod as she held her arms over her head and touched her hands together. When she did this and Carson followed up by slowly turning on the spot to make her 'twirl,' she laughed and clapped her hands approvingly.

"I wanted to come and find those pictures from my mom's old competitions," Lucas explained, trying not to sound like he was intruding on the moment. If Marianne Friar was part of this ranch, everyone's little friend, dance student, niece to Auntie This and Uncle That, then to John Carson she was as good as a granddaughter, and she merrily adopted him like another grandfather.

"Go on and sit, I'll bring it over," Carson nodded before passing Marianne back to her father.

Lucas and Maya had been taking their daughter to museums since she was a baby. In her near two years of life, it really felt as though she'd come to understand how certain places demanded quiet, if not silence. She didn't always succeed, but she did very well for someone so small. When she was brought up to the second floor of the archives, with its large tables, and cabinets, and drawers, it must have registered like a museum to her. She remained quietly sat in her father's lap as he held her, and they waited.

"Here you go, I'll be back with more," Carson told Lucas as he brought a stack of large albums and set them on the table.

"Thank you, John," Lucas nodded at him.

He didn't have to search hard for images of his young mother here. It was like they'd been saying, she'd been very good. She'd won many top prizes along the years she'd competed. There was no mistaking that smile.

"You know who that is?" Lucas pointed to one of the pictures, showing what would have to be a twelve-year-old Melinda Sullivan, surrounded by her mother and stepfather, holding a tall trophy.

"Annie!" Marianne pointed her finger, not at her grandmother but her great grandmother, her namesake. She knew her face from so many pictures now.

"Yes," Lucas smiled. "And him?"

"Pa!" she poked his hand. She couldn't say Jax, but often when she'd see pictures of the man, it would be with Michael Sullivan, who'd say 'that's my Pa.' So, that was what became of the name, for the man and for the dog of their household as well.

"And what about her?" Lucas pointed to the young girl again.

"Dunno, Daddy," she looked back at him.

"That's Granny Mel," he smiled, kissed the top of her head when she looked so stunned.

"Gamma?"

"That's right. And she would ride like a champion."

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners