Daniel hung around for a while longer, just talking and hanging out with me. We were talking about other things by then, like
which teachers were left that he remembered from his own time at high school. I was in the middle of giggling at his imitation
of Mr. Burke, the government teacher. He had it down to a science, the way he mimicked Mr. Burke's voice and mannerisms.
"Hey, there," came a soft voice at the open doorway of my bedroom. I looked to see Jill standing there. She'd changed from her
jeans to a pair of loose fitting pajama bottoms, and a t-shirt. Not a t-shirt that I would wear, but one that was a plain peach color, and
tied off to the side of her waist, still showing a peek of that flat belly of hers.
"Hey," Daniel said.
"I was lookin' for ya," Jill said. "I didn't think you'd still be up here-"
"Sorry," Daniel said, and gave an easy grin that included both Jill and I. "When we get to talkin' it's hard to rein us in."
I gave Daniel a perturbed look. What was he saying sorry for, exactly?
He didn't appear to take notice of that particular look I shot him. He stood up, and reached out to ruffle
a hand thru my hair. "Night, squirt. See ya in the morning."
I had reached up to smooth my curls back down. "Night," I said.
Jill was still pausing at the door, as Daniel passed by. "Go on," she told Daniel. "I want to have some girl talk with
your sister for a minute."
Daniel looked so happy it was like he found out that Kenny Rogers wanted him to go on tour with him, or something.
"Yeah, okay," he said. He flashed another grin towards me, and left.
"Okay if I come on in?" Jill asked me.
"Yeah. Sure," I said.
She came in, and instead of sitting down or anything, she meandered around the room, looking at my dolphin collection up on
the shelves near the ceiling.
"Dolphins, huh?" she asked.
"Uh huh."
"It's a real cute room," she said, then, pausing in the middle of the room, to turn and look at me, where I still sat, cross-legged
on the bed.
"Thanks."
"It's real small," she said, and my first thought was along the lines of, 'really? you think?'. But, I didn't say that. Of course I didn't.
"Yeah. It was either a small space of my own, or share a room with Guthrie growing up," I said.
"Are you serious?" she asked, widening her eyes.
I shrugged. "Kind of. We don't have an abundance of extra rooms around here."
"Ah," she said, in answer. She went, then, to pull the chair out from the desk, and turned it to face me, sitting
down as gracefully as if she thought the chair would buckle under her weight. Petite as she was, I thought she for sure had
no need to worry. Besides, that chair had held up many a McFadden male in its time.
"What's it like, havin' so many brothers?" she asked me.
Aw, gee. Now, there was a question I'd never been asked before. (Heavy sarcasm here). I've only been asked that like
a bajillion times in my life. Still, that wasn't Jill's fault. And, she probably was curious. I mean, it is unusual, having seven
brothers.
"It's a pretty good thing, most of the time," I said.
"Really?" she asked, as if she thought that couldn't be right. "I would think one or two, maybe would be alright. But, seven?
That's like overkill."
I studied her, trying to figure out if she was joking or what.
Finally, I settled for a flip answer. "Well, they were all here already by the time I was born, so..." I shrugged. "I didn't have much to
say about it. Besides, I wouldn't want to give any of them up."
"Right," she said, with a little smile.
"Daniel talks about you a lot, ya know," she said.
I waited, not sure how to answer that. This whole conversation was sort of weird, I thought. Everything she said seemed to
have a hidden meaning between it.
"He does?" I asked, after a couple of long moments.
"Yeah. Like a lot," she reiterated. "He talks about all of ya'll, and about this house, and about this ranch, and all of that."
I felt a prickling of unease. Of something being off.
"I guess he must miss home sometimes," I said.
"Oh, I'm sure," she said, sounding breezy. "Daniel's made for better things, though, than spendin' his life hauling hay to
hungry cattle."
"There's a lot more to ranching than that," I said, indignantly. Now, she had riled me.
"Oh, I'm sure," she said, again. "It's just-Daniel's so talented, ya know?"
I nearly said sarcastically, that gee no, I hadn't realized that Daniel was a talented musician. I mean, who the heck did she
think she was talking to?
I restrained myself, yet again, from sarcasm. (I really deserved some kudos for my restraint, I felt).
"He is," I said, instead. "He's very talented. But, I know for a fact that he loves ranching, too."
She nodded in response, apparently deciding not to continue with that thread of conversation.
"Daniel says you wanna be a veterinarian," she said next.
"Yeah. I do," I said.
"I just can't imagine-all those years at college," she said, and gave a mock shudder. "I barely finished high school. I just always
had other things that I'd rather have been doin', ya know?"
I was tired of this conversation. It was plenty enough for our first little dip into the conversational pool.
"I think everybody feels that way about school at times ," I said, and then I made a point of getting up and going to
stack my books and papers on my desk. "I need to brush my teeth and stuff, and be gettin' to bed," I said, when it didn't seem
as though Jill was taking my paper stacking as a cue to go.
"Oh. Okay," she said, and to my relief, she stood up, and went to the doorway. Pausing, only, to say, "It was real interestin',
chattin' with ya, Harlie. Daniel wants us to be good friends, you and I." She gave me a smile, and then said, "Good night."
"Good night," I said.
I'd brushed my teeth, and was curled up in bed, the light already off, when there was a light tap on the door. Just one rap.
"Yeah?" I said.
The door opened, and the hall light made my room half-lit up.
Daniel stepped inside. "I didn't know if you were asleep," he said.
"No, not yet," I said, sitting up.
Daniel came over to my bed, and sat down on the edge. "You have your talk with Jill?" he asked.
That's when I knew, really knew, for certain. And, I couldn't help the let-down feeling that came. I wished that I didn't have that
feeling of dread. But, I did.
"Yeah. We talked," I said.
"That's good," he said, sounding glad. "Well, I better let you get some sleep." He put a hand behind my neck, and pulled
me closer, kissing my forehead. "Night, squirt."
"Night, Daniel," I said.
7BF7B
The next morning at breakfast, Adam told me that Jake had called the night before, after I'd gone upstairs, and said that
the new tires I needed had come in.
"When you get back into town to go to Ivy's, take your truck on down to Jake's and leave it there. You can walk back
to the vet office, and then Jake ought to have the tires on by the time you're ready to come home," Adam said.
"Okay. I'll stop at the bank, and draw the money out of my savings," I said.
Adam nodded, and Crane spoke up and said that Ivy was coming over for supper, and that he would grill some hamburgers.
Hannah said she needed to take Isaac into town to get his immunizations, and so, as usual, there was lots of conversations
going on. Work started being discussed, and Brian asked Daniel if he could help with repairing the tractor.
Daniel said he would, and Jill had sat there, listening to everything going on, without really saying a lot.
"How about you, Clare?" she asked Clare. "You'll be around today, right?"
"No," Clare said. "Today I'm working at the doctor's office. So, I'll be seeing this little fella right here, when he comes for
those shots of his," she added, reaching out to tickle Isaac's belly, from where he sat on Brian's lap at the table.
"He'll be glad to have his Aunt Clare there with him," Hannah said.
I flicked a glance at Jill. It was just an accident, really. I wasn't trying to watch her, or anything. Anyway, she
had sort of a funny look on her face, I thought. She was watching Clare and Hannah and looked almost forlorn.
I looked at Hannah, and she seemed to sense the same thing in Jill.
"You're welcome to ride along to town with me when I go," she told Jill. "After we've finished with Scooter's doctor's
visit, I have some other errands in town to do. I thought I'd stop and visit Marie awhile, too, if Isaac's not feeling too
rough."
"Marie-I told you about her," Daniel spoke up to say to Jill. "She owns the café-you'll enjoy meetin' her."
"Alright," Jill said. She looked at Hannah and nodded. "Thank you, Hannah."
Jill seemed to me to be subdued, a bit. For the first time I wondered where she'd slept at. I hadn't thought about it
before. I was fairly certain that she and Daniel hadn't slept together the night before. I mean, I figured that they had before, but I knew
they wouldn't here, at our house. It wasn't something that would be approved of, mostly because it wouldn't be thought of to be
a good example for Guthrie and I. Which is really old-fashioned, but that's the McFaddens for you. Even when Clare had visited
overnights before she and Brian got married, they didn't sleep together at our house.
As I was getting around to leave for school, I caught Hannah alone for a moment, as she was packing Isaac's diaper bag
for the trip to the doctor.
I paused beside her, leaning against the kitchen counter.
"It's going to be time soon to take Isaac off of his bottle," she said, with a sigh. I wasn't sure whether the sigh was because
Isaac was growing up so fast, or because she thought it would be difficult to do the actual 'not giving' of his bottle.
"Why do they say that a baby should be off of the bottle by a year old?" I asked.
"Oh, several reasons. Overbite, and cavities," Hannah said.
"So, like the day Isaac turns one, at his birthday party, he can't have a bottle after that?" I asked. "That seems like
a mean trick to play on a little guy when it's his birthday."
Hannah half-smiled. "Maybe not that day, exactly," she said. "But, somewhere around that time."
"It must be a shock to a baby," I said.
"Well, you do it gradually," Hannah said. "You start giving him a sippy cup to drink out of sometimes, mixed in with still
using the bottle, too."
"Oh," I said.
"Yeah. And, of course we'll save all the bottles for Brian and Clare," she said.
"Brian's gonna look pretty funny drinking out of a baby bottle," I said, with a grin.
Hannah smiled at my humor. "Oh, you're a real firecracker today," she told me, reaching over to tap me on my nose.
After a moment or so of quiet, I said, "Are you glad to be spending the day with Jill?"
Hannah gave me a look, and said, "Shhh."
I lowered my voice. "I'm just asking," I defended.
"I'm sure it will be fine," she said.
I knew I only had a couple more minutes before I needed to set out for school, so I lowered my voice another notch,
and asked, "Where did Jill sleep last night?"
Hannah paused in her packing of the bottles in the diaper bag, to eye me, and said, "In the boy's bedroom." Boy's bedroom being the one
that Ford, Evan and Guthrie used. With Ford not home, and Evan at his own place, that left only Guthrie.
"Guthrie slept in the basement," Hannah added.
"And Daniel bunked in with Crane," I determined.
Hannah gave me a big-sisterly look. "What's your point, Harlie?"
I shrugged. "Guthrie and I aren't little kids anymore. And Isaac's too little to understand."
Adam had walked into the kitchen in time to hear my last two statements.
"You both still act like little kids sometimes," he said, and grinned. "And what is it that Isaac is too little to understand?"
Hannah gave me a raised eyebrow look, as if to say, 'you explain to him.'
"I was just asking where Jill slept at," I said, as Adam reached for an apple from the fruit bowl in the center of the table.
Adam paused, rubbing the apple on the leg of his jeans. "Uh huh," he said, dryly, giving me 'the eye'.
"I'm not saying that they should or anything," I added swiftly. "I'm just pointing out that Guthrie and I know how things are."
"Oh, is that so?" Adam asked, with a bit of a challenge in his tone. "Know all about things, do you?"
"Adam-" I said, in mild protest. "You know what I mean. If Jill's sleeping in the boy's room, and Daniel's bunking with Crane, and it's
that way because of it being a good example for Guthrie and I-I'm just saying, we're both old enough to know the true way
of things. Daniel and Jill probably shared a hotel room on the trip here."
"First of all," Adam said, "If they did, that's none of your business. Secondly, the way things are done around here, are the way things are
gonna stay being done. Even if you and Guthrie are so darn knowledgeable about the true way of things." He added that last part with
his eyebrow raised all the way.
"Okay, okay," I said, raising my hands in defeat. "I was just suggesting, that's all."
"Well, I think you should take your suggestions and hightail it to school," Adam said.
"Okay," I said, and gave him a sassy grin. I knew he wasn't really all that irritated at me. "Just trying to make things
easier on you all-"
"Uh huh. Well, we'll try to manage and keep bumbling along somehow," Adam said.
"Okay," I said, again. "Bye, Hannah."
"Goodbye, sweetie," Hannah said, and now she looked amused, after listening to Adam and I converse.
I passed by in front of Adam, still smiling at him. "Bye, Adam," I said.
"Goodbye, Sassy Pants," he said. And, then, though I shouldn't have been unprepared, I was, when he gave me
a swat that I felt, joking though he might have been.
"Ow," I said, in mild protest.
"Have a good day," Adam said, then. "Don't forget about your tires."
7B47B