Becoming the Storm
10 Matched Pair
I KNOW. No one forgets his birthday. I didn’t, really. It’s just that there were so many things going on! We’d started two tapings each Saturday the weekend after Labor Day. Half the time I couldn’t even remember my new producer’s name. It was the first time since The Homemakers’ Hour that I’d had a male producer. And he had his own ideas. He wanted splashier meals and had established a theme of ‘date night cooking’ for the entire fifteen episodes he’d be producing. As a result, my audiences and my guests were all couples.
It was pretty cool, but it really changed the feeling of the show. I couldn’t be nearly as flirtatious with my guest since half the time, it was teaching the guy how to cook for his girlfriend. I resolved that by having one of the triplets assist me in the kitchen during each show. Since it was just for the show, I didn’t care which of the three helped me on-camera and it gave me a better opportunity to get to know Debbie and Dorothy in a friendly but professional atmosphere.
We had a lot of episodes in the can already, so Hannah—still functioning as Executive Producer—decided to release the date night cooking episodes interspersed with the others as a kind of special feature. I’d given her some very warm loving after I heard that bit of news. Actually, before I heard it, too.
And then there was the village planning. And let’s not forget, I was a senior and was absolutely swamped with the toughest classes I’d ever had. I was taking sixteen credits, including two 400-level chemistry courses. I’d let Brenda talk me into taking Probability and Statistics with her, just so we could ‘continue to study together’ at least once a week. Brenda wasn’t overwhelmingly demanding, but every study session included some form of fucking. Unlike Rhiannon, she was not about to give up her sexual relationship with me. I wasn’t complaining. A side benefit was that I would end up with a minor in math.
Of course, Hannah and I were taking the Media Management course together. This was a different instructor. Professor Z was very different than Lonnie. He was not at all impressed with the fact that we produced popular television shows. This was a business class and was all about managing the business effectively. The fact that it was media-based was secondary. And finally, I’d let the triplets talk me into taking another public health class that promised to come in handy. It was called Quantity Food Purchasing and Production. I was surprised when Mary announced she was taking the class as well. This was no basket-weaving course. It was a full four credits and had a huge amount of practical work. I could see we were going to be doing some revising of the way we bought food for the casa and even the whole clan. Not to mention that we might be able to help out our new market, as well.
So, it was pretty easy to surprise me. With my twenty-first birthday on a Monday, the clan decided to have a party on Sunday. It was a welcome break from studying and planning, but it was hard to just relax and have fun for a while without worrying about everything. Of course, when Mom, Dad, Anna, John, Bea, and the Gordons all showed up Sunday afternoon, it was impossible not to just go with the flow. We had a big Sunday dinner followed by birthday cake in the studio. Everyone on the ranch took a break to join us for the celebration. It was pretty overwhelming just to have so many people congratulating me on my birthday. You could have blown me away with a light breeze when Jessica and Amy showed up. I realized they were filming this week, but it never occurred to me that they would come this way first.
“Well, I had an ulterior motive for coming,” Jessica said after she’d kissed me soundly.
“Please tell,” I answered, pulling her closer to me. She sighed.
“Not that,” she sighed. “I just can’t. But… If I meet the approval process, I’m buying a lot in the village. I need to think about a permanent home and… I just want to be near you.” I pulled her to me and she hugged me tightly.
“That makes this the happiest birthday ever, Jessica. It will be just like living next door to Heaven,” I said.
“You goof,” she laughed. “I do love you, Brian. No matter what.”
“Brian, I understand there is an unwritten rule about not buying people birthday and Christmas presents,” Theresa said when she came up to me. Ellie squirmed in her arms reaching for me.
“But you brought me a baby!” I said as I took the little girl. “Thank you!”
“There might even be another one if all goes well this winter,” she whispered. I grinned at her. “As I was saying… You should really write down these unwritten rules so those of us who are ignorant can be educated. No one in the clan remembered that rule until it was too late.”
“Oh. You didn’t go out and get something, did you?” I asked plaintively.
“Well, we all agreed that it wasn’t really for you. We’re simply letting you receive the gift on behalf of El Rancho del Corazón,” Larry said, joining us. Fickle little Ellie saw her Daddy and immediately squirmed until she was in his arms instead of mine.
“Come with us,” Theresa said as she led us all out the side door of the studio and headed toward the corral. There were six unfamiliar horses in the enclosure. When we got to the fence, Larry did a complex little whistle and two horses picked their heads up. They pulled away from the others who were eating hay and trotted toward the fence. They were beautiful. A perfectly matched pair of buckskin quarter horses. Just a little smaller than a normal quarter horse.
“With Jingo and Silk aging and with the restrictions we’ve put on them, we thought you and Hannah should be able to go on some of those longer rides you’ve talked about. So meet Toby and Tyler.”
“They look like twins,” I said as I looked around and reached for Hannah. She was right beside me with carrots in her hands. We fed the two geldings.
“That’s because they are,” Theresa continued. “The chance of a mare throwing twins is about one in 10,000. Identical twins like these are even rarer.”
“With them that rare, they must have cost a fortune!”
“You would think so, but the trait is not encouraged and the colts were gelded almost immediately. That was before anyone realized they were never going to grow tall like their father. They are just fourteen-one. Technically, that is under the official height breaking point for a horse. The AQHA refused to register them. But they are beautiful and well-trained saddle horses,” Larry said. “Should be perfect for you and La Madrina to ride and to teach all your children on.”
A couple other horses from the haymow had ambled toward us behind the twins. When they discovered carrots were being offered by nearly everyone in the clan, they picked up their pace and the last two broke away from the hay to join them all at the fence. I loved these two horses already. I hardly noticed the paint, the roan, and two bays that were having attention called to them.
“How are we ever going to tell them apart?” I asked.
“Brian! You with your twin-sense and triplet-sense can’t tell the difference?” Hannah said. She turned to the horse in front of her. “Ignore him, Toby. Sometimes he’s a little dense.”
“Wait! How do you know that’s Toby and not Tyler? Their blazes are even the same.”
“Silly,” Hannah said. “It’s engraved right here on his halter!”
Well, any thought of productivity for the rest of the day was shot. A bunch of us ran to our houses and got jeans and boots on. By the time we got back to the corral, Larry and Theresa had all sixteen of our horses tied to the rail and saddled. People who had already been in jeans instead of gis had taken on the responsibility of getting them groomed and ready. Theresa swung up on Snooker and I appreciated the strain on the seams of her jeans. I saw Mom and Anna with Eleanor and Matthew in their arms, as proud as any grandmother ever was.
Hannah and I mounted easily. At less than five feet tall, it was really different to mount Tyler than Jingo. I looked for the two old horses and saw that Rose and Judy, the smallest members of the clan, were on the two horses. You could tell that Jingo was a little confused that I was on a different horse and was dancing around under Rose.
“Jingo, old buddy,” I said as we rode next to him. “That’s my girlfriend on your back. Precious cargo. You settle down now.” Jingo looked back over his shoulder and shook his mane. But he calmed down. He still wasn’t too sure about the two little geldings, though. We might have to keep them separate until he got used to them being around. I was sure Larry had that handled.
Our ride was a calm and beautiful one. We rode out to the end of the property and Theresa cut back to lead the old horses and less experienced riders back to the barn while the six of us on new horses continued to follow Larry onto Del’s property. I could tell already that Del had been working in the woods to groom the trails. They were wide enough now to get a four-wheeler down. Del was committed to thinning the understory and making the forest all the way across Maribelle’s parents’ place a great riding area.
“Brian?” Hannah said as she rode next to me. I turned to look at her. “I love you.” I smiled. What could I say? I reached over to take her hand. “I know I get a little too wrapped up in our business and anxious over success, and audience schedules, and finances, and everything. I don’t just tell you often enough that I love you. I have from the night we went on our first date. I didn’t figure it out right away, but I was only thirteen. Now you’re twenty-one and I’ll be twenty-one next summer and I just needed to tell you that I love you. No matter what, I still love you.”
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