About Edna-Louise's Alpha Centauri

by Frankie Alabama
28 pages / 11650 words
ISBN: 978-1-60370-160-0, 1-60370-160-5
Available file types - html. lit, pdf, prc

When city girl Robbie Slater shows up her small western Colorado town, Louise figures she ought to be neighborly and lend the California greenhorn a hand. Louise, or Edna as those closest to her name her, is good at the kind of hard work it takes to work a farm or ranch, something Robbie isn't really suited to.

Robbie is stronger than she looks, though, and her appeal is undeniable. Louise is unable to resist, and she and Robbie start seeing each other. Trouble is, Louise is married, Robbie already has a girlfriend, and neither one of them is sure how much they're willing to give up to be together. Can they work it out and convince their friends and family they're right for each other?

Sample

I was with Dave the first time I saw Robbie Slater, but it was me who pointed her out––not him. She was getting out of a car in front of the Chicken Abortionist Cafe. I was driving the pickup and Dave was riding along, listening to an old cassette of Chris LeDoux, his right arm out the window so that the smoke from his cigarette wouldn’t bother me. 

"Hey, Edna, would ya look at that," Dave said, pointing with his Winston. The woman was attractive but noticeably short, maybe five-two at the most, her blonde head barely coming above the top of the car, which was new, German, and very expensive. "Helluva car. You know what those cost?"

I had to smile. While I had noticed the woman, he had been looking at the Mercedes. "More than a new truck," I said. After twelve years of marriage I knew where Dave Johnston’s priorities lay.

"I could get a new two-ton, all set up, for the price of that." There was palpable distain in his voice, the kind he reserved for people who wasted money on things that weren’t useful.

"You notice her haircut?" I asked.

"Who?"

"That woman. The one with the car." I pulled the old Dodge into one of the diagonal spaces in front of the Anthracite, Colorado post office.

"California yuppie special," Dave said, surprising me yet again. "Looked like it was cut with sheep shears." Dave got out, stretched his tall, lean frame and flicked the cigarette into a puddle in the gutter. He came around and I handed him some letters to take inside. We had been trying to avoid leaving mail in our box on the road after some newcomer’s kids had been caught stealing some. Identity theft or something. We now had all of our serious mail sent to the post office box and dropped our outgoing bills and stuff off there as well.

Hairboy, our Border Collie, whined at me from the pickup bed through the cab’s back sliding window. Seeing Dave through the windows in conversation with a couple other ranchers in the lobby, I got out, splashed some water into Hair’s bowl and rubbed his back through his thick mat of fur. A minute later the woman from the Mercedes walked by––then stopped and turned. She looked at me and at the side of the pickup where the Double Bar J Ranch – Custom Farming sign was painted. Her face was striking with large eyes and full lips. The short blonde hair was spiky and did look a little like a rough job, but I assumed that it was the fashion­­­­­­––somewhere.

"Morning," I said and touched the bill of my cap.

"Good morning," she said. Her voice had a kind of haughty little girl quality to it, which contrasted with a petite, but ripe, body. "You are in the practical farming business? You help others… isn’t that what custom farming is?"

"Yup," I said. "You need something along those lines done?" Another pickup, with another dog in the bed, pulled into the next space. Hairboy and the newcomer exchanged friendly barks.

"Hey, Eva, " I greeted the new arrival, a tall deeply tanned woman in her mid-forties, as she got out of her truck. Eva managed a good size ranch, The Singing Angel, twenty miles east of Anthracite.

"Hi, Edna, heck of a nice morning," Eva said and went into the post office. She ignored the woman on the sidewalk.

"Well, yes, I do need some farming help. I’m Robbie Rose-Slater by the way."

"Mrs. Roseslater, good to meet you." I put out a hand and after a moment she took it and tentatively squeezed it.

"It’s Rose-Slater. It’s hyphenated." Her head came to about the level of my chin.

"Oh," I said "I’m Louise­­­––Johnston. Not hyphenated." I grinned to show that I was just trying to be funny.

"That woman called you Edna," Robbie said.

"So she did. But people who don’t know me really well, Mrs. Slater, call me by my middle name, Louise." She didn’t take it the way I thought she would. She laughed. She took a card from a pocket on her skirt and gave it to me.

"I’m Robbie, just Robbie. I just moved here eleven days ago from San Francisco," she said. "I have purchased a large farm here without thinking about it much. Or enough. I know a little about horses, how to ride, saddle and unsaddle, but I don’t know anything about farming. How much would you charge to teach me… help me until I can do it on my own?"

It was my turn to laugh. "How much are you offering?"