I really need a title for this. Anyone have any suggestions?
There’s probably more to scene 3 – at the moment I have it extending over the week that Sabrina’s visiting her family. But I didn’t want to post too much at once, and I have to figure out how to pack six days worth of stuff into my backpack, so I’m going to break it here.
When we left off, Sabrina and Johnny had made up after his disappearance, and Sabrina hopes the question of disappearing is gone for good. {insert evil laugh} Now we move forward a few weeks, to Christmas time, and Sabrina’s first trip home in three years.
Ten points to the person who catches the backstory conflict – I decided it wasn’t worth resolving in this draft, but it is there. :) And, as always, I’d love to hear your comments and ideas!
***
I sit in the waiting area of gate 34C at O’Hare International and fight the urge to bite my fingernails. Around me, holiday travelers whirl past like snowflakes. Maybe I’m just a ceramic figurine in a snow globe, and none of this is real.
The intercom calls for first class passengers and those needing extra time to board the airplane. I pick at my fingers and fidget in the only nice outfit I own. After the scolding I’d gotten from Nana for flying in jeans last time, I wasn’t about to show up at baggage claim in anything close to what I’d normally wear, no matter how uncomfortable I was.
I think I hear my group called to board and start to get up, then realize the announcement is for the next gate. Dueling boarding announcements. The idea amuses me. I glance around, but no one else is laughing.
It worries me, being away from Johnny for a whole week. I unzip my carry on bag a few inches, just enough to slip my fingers in and brush them across the Build-A-Bear he’d given me for Christmas. We exchanged gifts last night. Somehow, he’d gotten the shop employee to slip a necklace around the ballerina bear’s neck so that I could discover it while building the bear.
I imagine what Christmas morning could be like, if I were staying in Chicago with him. He’s going to his grandmother’s, he says. And I am headed off to Cheyenne, Wyoming, where my mother will fuss, my father will be indifferent, and my grandmother, aunts and uncle will declare that city life clearly isn’t agreeing with me and I should pack my bags and return to the ranch where I belong.
They call my group to board, for real this time, and I sigh as I get up. Three years away from Cheyenne, and I feel like it wasn’t nearly long enough.
*
“Good to see that you’re dressed properly this time.” I turn around to see my grandmother and mother standing behind the baggage claim barriers. Nana’s lips are a thin line as she looks me up and down. “That shirt doesn’t fit you well at all. We’ll have to take care of that while you’re here.”
“Oh, stop it, Mama, there will be plenty of time for that later!” My mother bustles around the edge of the barrier and wraps me up in a hug. “You’re far too thin, Sabrina, but it’s wonderful to see you again! I’ve got such a good week of meals planned, and of course the men brought Annie in from the pasture last night. She’s getting on in years, but I know she’ll be glad to see you again. This is going to be such a great Christmas, we’ve got Charlie home from his latest tour and of course Sally and Mike will be coming in with their little girl – born back in July, remember, I sent you some pictures – and your father bagged the most amazing turkey down by the creek, and oh, wait until you see it, they built this adorable little gazebo down there, and…”
I spot my bag on the carousel and dart in to grab it, and then we weave our way through the crowds of holiday travelers, my mother still talking a mile a minute.
*
The first chance I get, I escape the closeness of the main house and head down to the barn. Annie is tucked into the stall on the far end, just where Father said she would be. I stand at the door and chirrup softly. At first she makes no movement, just a swish of her grass tangled tail. Then she swings her head around. I smile and chirrup again. Annie whickers, and soon I am standing in the stall, her head pressed against my chest.
I missed this, when I first moved to Chicago. I still do. When I left, Annie was in her prime and we rode the local show circuit. I wonder whether I could take her back with me, board her somewhere in the city. The cost would be prohibitive, but when I think of having love and a warm body to touch and care for each day, it seems worth it.
We spend over an hour out there, Annie and me. I work over her coat with a curry comb, massaging out months encrusted mud and buffing her to a chestnut shine once again.
“Should have guessed I’d find you here.” My brother Charlie leans over the stall door, his cowboy hat worn at a rakish angle to show off his crew cut.
“Needed a bit of space,” I reply. Three hours here, and I’m already picking up the accent again.
“How many years you’ve lived in that city, and you can’t handle one overcrowded house?” I’m ready to bristle when I catch Charlie’s wink.
“Then why are you down here? Surely the barracks are tighter.” I lean down to grab a comb from the tack box and start in on Annie’s mane.
“None of the men in my unit talk endlessly about seed prices, pasture, or the weather,” Charlie says.
“And none of my friends in Chicago talk endlessly about food, menfolk or how I’m too thin and not dressed properly,” I respond.
“Aw, you know Nana’s never gonna change.”
“Doesn’t mean I need to spend the entire week listening to her.”
We stand for a moment, the comfortable silence broken only by Annie’s sigh of contentment as she shifts her weight from one side to another.
“So you like it then? Chicago?” Charlie asks.
“Well enough,” I say. I might have overstepped a tad saying I had friends back home.
“Better than here?”
“The only thing from here that I really miss is Annie,” I say.
“What, you don’t miss your dearest younger brother?” Charlie grins, and I catch a glimpse of the imp that had plagued me endlessly as a child, sneaking into my room to swipe my possessions and laughing at the wild goose chase he led me through to get them back again.
“You left at 16, same as me,” I point out.
“True enough. Funny how nothing’s changed since then. I remember being so jealous of you when you came back the first time, all big city girl and glamourous at 21. And now I’ve left and come back, and here’s Dad still talking stock prices, and Mom still slaving away in the kitchen, and Nana still without a filter between her brain and her mouth.”
I snort. “Best not let her hear you say that.”
“Hey, I’m not stupid.”
I’m tempted to fall into the literary retort I would have used when I was younger, but I bite my tongue. “You really thought I was glamourous?” I ask instead.
“A sight more so than anything else around here. I wasn’t the only one that thought so, neither. Had to take out the Lovett brothers when they started getting fresh about you.”
I remember the night Charlie had come home sporting several cuts and bruises, an impressive black eye and a torn shirt. “Why didn’t you ever say so? I thought you got grounded for fighting over that night.”
“I’d pretty much made up my mind to leave by then anyway. Split a week later.”
“I know, I got all the panicked calls asking if I’d smuggled you home in a suitcase.” Charlie laughs.
“I left them a note!”
“In your sock drawer.”
“I needed to get far enough away before they found it. Who was I to know it would take them three weeks?”
The crunching of feet on snow drifts through the open door at the end of the barn. Charlie and I both look toward it, and Uncle Mike’s head pokes through the space. “Dinner,” he says, and disappears again. Crunch, crunch, crunch.
“I’m still stuffed from the ‘snack’ when I got here,” I say.
“You can slip me some of your plate,” Charlie says. “And Rita still loves broccoli, I gave her mine last night.” I laugh at the image of Charlie slipping his veggies under the table to my parent’s geriatric mutt.
“Thanks for the tip,” I say, and give Annie one last rub before heading for the stall door. Charlie swings the door open as I pass through.
“Shall we?” he says, gesturing up the main aisle.
“Not like we can get out of it,” I respond, and we leave the warmth of the barn for the snow-strewn path up to the house.
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