Galataea of the Poconos

Galataea of the Poconos

Copyright 2015 Fred Pruitt

Published by Fred Pruitt at Smashwords

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Table of Contents

#Prologue: One Snowy Night

#Chapter 1: Allen

#Chapter 2: Cazzie

#Chapter 3: Ben Jonson

#Chapter 4: Lonnie

#Chapter 5: Tuesday

#Chapter 6: Grand Opening

#Chapter 7: Saint Paul

#Chapter 8: A Night at the Movies

#Chapter 9: Safe Haven

#Chapter 10: The Apprentice

#Chapter 11: Holidays

#Chapter 12: Sweet 16

#Chapter 13: Gail

#Chapter 14: Johnny

#Chapter 15: Keri Brennan

#Chapter 16: Snowed In

#Chapter 17: The Record

#Chapter 18: Roughing It

#Chapter 19: The Farm Show

#Chapter 20: The Horse Farm Incident

#Chapter 21: Dinner with the 'Rents

#Chapter 22: Ocean City

#Epilogue: Another Snowy Night

#About the Author

#Other books by this author

Prologue: One Snowy Night

The snow was still coming down, seemingly from all directions, a regular blizzard. There was frost thickly crystallized on the inside of Allen's bedroom window. He scraped some of it away with the end of his wooden ruler to see how bad it was outside. If he hadn't known the road was there he wouldn't have been able to find it. He couldn't even see the outline of the old garage foundation next door. Occasionally the whole house would shake with a gust of wind.

They were fighting again downstairs. There was nothing unusual in that. They fought almost every day, rain or shine or drifting snow. If they weren't fighting they were going to bed to make up, almost as loudly as they fought.

They probably wouldn't make up tonight. They had been drinking rum, cruising with Captain Morgan. Rum always made them both mean. His mother's voice was already rising in pitch. Soon it would be a screech. She would start throwing things. One or the other would start it and they would be fighting, his mother's fists pummeling his father, his father finally slapping or punching her, knocking her down. Then they would go at it in earnest. At least with the weather so bad the cops wouldn't be there.

Linda was already asleep, on her side of the room, despite the fact that Allen had the lamp on to read by. She was making pleasant noises in her sleep. She had a new boyfriend. He guessed she was dreaming about him. She was already hoping she wasn't pregnant. She was almost sixteen, four years older than Allen.

Allen had his blanket draped around him like a tent, trying to conserve his body heat. His head was exposed, along with one arm that held his natural science textbook open. The room was so cold he could see his breath when he exhaled. The way it was snowing there would be no school tomorrow, which meant no test. That would give him an extra day to study when he wasn't shoveling. And he could get a start on reading for his English literature class. They were studying MacBeth.

His ears were cold.

There was the sound of breaking crockery from downstairs, followed by more shouting.

Please, God, the boy prayed. Don't let me be like them.

Chapter 1: Allen

So what do you think? Allen Peterson asked, waving his hand grandly as they surveyed the dilapidated horse farm in the Poconos.

Y'want my honest opinion, boss? Johnny Guzman asked, appalled. Or should I be polite? There were actually still paddocks to be made out, long lengths of gray and probably rotting rail fencing. Otherwise it didn't look like much. The stables would leak like a colander. He could smell the mold and mildew from where they stood, and they weren't standing close.

You're going to tell me this fine piece of property's a dump? Allen suggested. What do you think, Mayra?

Johnny's sister looked almost as dubious as Johnny. I'm not sure what the word I'm looking for is in English, she said politely.

"In Spanish it's 'feo,'" Johnny supplied.

"'Ugly?' This property? Allen laughed. So it needs a little work. The YK needed a little work, too."

The general manager — and lately 49 percent owner, with Mayra — of the YK Ranch reluctantly conceded that it had. There was, in fact, still lots of work to be done. But it had been livable when Allen had acquired it from Mr. Borden after rooting out all its hidden liabilities and purchasing them at steep discounts. He had then discounted the sale price by the face value of the liabilities, which Johnny considered downright witty of him, since Borden was trying to unload the place and then leave the buyer to discover the liabilities the hard way. Johnny had a lot of confidence in Allen's business sense, but this place was stretching his faith to the limit.

A year from now Lenore Farms is going to look like something out of a storybook, Allen assured him.

A year from now you'll still be shoveling poop left over from the Civil War, Johnny told him. Maybe the Mexican War! You know you could set this idea aside and come back to live on the YK? You could take the ranch house. The foreman's place is plenty good enough for Mayra and the kids and me!

It's a nice proposition, Allen admitted, surveying the weed-filled lawn and the scraggly bushes. I like Mineral Wells. We should be turning a decent profit there by next year. You'll be fine running things. But I grew up in Pennsylvania. I like the Poconos. It's home. I know where everything is. You've never seen it in the autumn!

I guess I'll have to come visit, Johnny answered politely, giving in as he had known he would.

You'll be welcome, Allen told them. My new house may be my last. I want to make my home here. You wouldn't like it if you had to live permanently outside of Texas.

Johnny looked appropriately horrified at the idea. In his mind the world held only two locales: Texas and Everyplace Else. Break-even at a dozen horses? he mused, looking around, looking even more doubtful. More like fourteen or fifteen? For what you paid for the place? It's not gonna leave room for a lot of profit. How many hands?

One and a half.

The half bein' you?

When I can do it.

You can't. Johnny hopped up on the grayed paddock fencing and bounced. It didn't break under him, to his evident surprise. He pushed his hat back on his head. You can't do it with less than two for seven-day coverage. Neither of 'em'll be you.

Allen started to rebut, but Johnny lifted a hand and kept on talking: One for front desk and one for shovel work. You can't do the ordering and keep the books and do the scheduling when you're shoveling and cuttin' the grass and that sort of thing. You'll probably need three, two and a half at your absolute leanest. You won't be one of them, either. You, of all people, should have that worked out already. You do it in your head for everything else, so I shouldn't have to draw you a picture! You're spread too thin already. When you're not in New York you'll be in Fort Worth or Saint Paul or Monterey.

That's why they made conference calling, Allen said, not very convincingly. I can be in Fort Worth or Saint Paul or both while I'm sitting by my swimming pool. Two and a half hands maximum, if I can find someone to give riding lessons and find potential riders. That's another profit stream entirely.

Johnny climbed down and they walked back around to the other side of the building. He found a bit of wild grown timothy grass and pulled a stalk, to nibble at the sweet inner tip. The building stinks, he observed, giving both a professional opinion after due consideration and what his nose told him. He tossed the remainder of the piece of grass to be carried a few feet by the breeze. See there? The north and east walls? There in the loft? They're about half rotted. More'n half. You can't keep hay in there.

I saw that before I bought the place. It brought the price down some. That's the direction the wind comes in the winter. You and I can fix 'er up. A month, month and a half at the outside, a few shingles, some repairs here and there, a fresh coat of paint...

Pine planking? Johnny asked. The building's exterior was vertical pine boards, its latest coat of paint now weathered to grayish pink.

T-11's cheaper, Allen decided. It won't be obvious except to you and me when it's been hung.

We'll be rehanging it in ten years. Pine planks'll last as long as the good 'uns here've lasted.

Ten years from now the building will be up and running and prosperous, or it'll be a project we tried to make work and failed at. Repairs are critical, materials aren't.

So when do you close on this eyesore? Johnny finally asked, giving in to the inevitable.

Johnny! Mayra scolded.

This little sixty-some acres of Eden, then, Johnny corrected, deferring to his little sister with a courtly bow.

Closing is next week. You guys can look over some numbers with me tonight. Then you can take Mayra and the kids to a ball game in Philly tomorrow, while I put together something more like a real business plan. And then I have to drive over to New Jersey to go to a funeral, so you'll be on your own for a few days longer.

You're sure Nick can handle it back home? Johnny asked. They were grooming Nick Catlett to move into the foreman slot that Johnny had been holding down, while Johnny transformed into a full-fledged general manager.

This is his chance to show us that he can do it, Allen stated. I'll be surprised if he can't.

Me, too, Johnny agreed. Neither mentioned the fact that Nick heartily disliked Allen. He and Mayra were used to his ways. Nick — and the rest of the crew — only ever saw his business face. Okay, he said finally. See if you can't line up a couple kids to help with the work. You and me and maybe Mayra sometimes working on it, we should have the place storybook pretty and ready for horses in three or four weeks. How about that sheep ranch? Did you buy into that?

Bought him out and we're leasing part of it back. He needed the cash...

Boss, you gotta start thinking with your wallet, not your heart!

You know I always do my thinking with my head. It's a nice piece of land, Johnny, and it was a fire sale price for around here. I've got a good feeling about that piece.

Allen was totally unaware of the contradiction in what he had just said.

—00—

Gail told herself that it didn't always rain at funerals; it just felt like it did. But today it was actually raining. It was a dreary, soaking, funereal rain, coming from a sky that made noontime New Jersey look like evening. The weather was doing a good job of reflecting her mood.

Gail's father had suffered his first stroke fifteen years previous, a ministroke, nothing serious. He had barely noticed it until he ran over a bush in the driveway; his coordination had been thrown off, but not that badly. He had stopped driving for awhile, until the symptoms had mostly passed. He barely noticed those that remained: occasionally forgetting a word, or momentary confusion. They had become more pronounced with his second stroke, when the right side of his face sagged. By the time her brother Carlin had brought his college roommate home for the weekend the first time, her Dad had had his third stroke and he was frankly disabled.

And now he was gone. Not just like that, but finally, after struggling and suffering for years, at the last reduced to the indignity of almost complete helplessness. In the depths of aphasia he hadn't even been able to say he wanted to go, but no one who knew him could doubt it.

Gail leaned against Allen and he comforted her as well as he could, one arm around her shoulders, the other around Miggles, her step-mother, her best friend. Their best friend, hers and Allen's.

Can we go home now? Gail asked when the ghastly ceremony was finally over. Her father, the strong and forceful man she had adored when she had been a little red-haired girl, had been formally released to Eternity. She felt dead herself, on the inside.

I'll go bring the car around, Allen offered. Stay under the awning.

Gail shook her head. I'll walk with you. I might as well get soaked if you are. I need to be moving around. You wait here, Miggs.

I'll walk with you, Miggles said. Her eyes were red and puffy. It was chill, and she had had to wipe her nose almost as often as her eyes. Normally elegant, even beautiful — she had been Joseph Wengert's second wife, half his age when they married — she somehow looked bedraggled despite her tasteful black dress.

Or perhaps it was merely that she was devastated.

Allen had brought his Mercury and driven alone in the funeral procession, somewhere toward the tail. He had been relegated there by Aunt Teresa and Uncle Robert; he wasn't family, despite his closeness to Joseph Wengert, his wife, and his children. Yet the snub had rolled off his back. Allen wasn't like other men. He met snubs and even insult with an impassive stare. That stare reflected a core of strength far out of the reach of petty natures like Uncle Robert or Aunt Teresa.

Men, Gail thought to herself, reflect their personalities in their cars—except for a few men like Allen. He hadn't bought the car to impress anyone. He had bought the Mercury for commuting to New Jersey and New York because it was comfortable and reliable. He had an SUV at home that still had Texas plates. It had 250,000 miles on it and looked like a work truck. Both vehicles were tools, prized for utilitarian purposes, not aesthetics and certainly not as status symbols.

He insisted Miggles sit in front, with him, while Gail took the back seat. They took their place in the line of cars leaving he cemetery, moving slowly, a few feet at a time.

You're sure you want to go home? Allen asked. You're sure you don't want to go to Louie's with everyone else? The wake would be held at Louie's dining establishment, which Gail hated.

I've already given my apologies to Robert and Teresa, Miggles said. I simply can't do it. They won't miss me, and if we did go we'd crimp the conversation. We'll hear from the people who actually sympathize with us.

Gail's uncle and aunt weren't fond of Miggles, and she lacked Allen's imperviousness. Robert and Teresa preferred to remember the bad old days when Joseph and Adele had first married, rather than the fact that she had come to love her husband deeply. She had cared for him when he became ill, waiting on him hand and foot, without complaint. Robert was the one who had made the reference to the Polka Saloon with regard to Adele. Gail had had to Google it when she got home. Next time she saw her uncle she had wordlessly slapped him and left. She hadn't spoken to him since, and she had referred to and addressed her step-mother as Miggles ever since.

Have you decided what you're going to do, Miggs? Allen asked as he navigated the Hunterdon County roads back to the Wengert residence outside Annandale.

Not yet, she replied. Maybe I'll go visit some of the places Joe and I always wanted to go. He always loved Berlin and Vienna...

What about the business? Allen asked practically.

That's the only thing holding me here. If Gail can take it over...

I can't, Miggs, Gail responded regretfully. A., I have my own business that I'm thinking seriously of unloading, and B., Robert and Teresa like me just about as much as they like you. Maybe less, because I'm blood. They could stand for you running things because Dad brought you in after Stroke Two and you had things in hand by the time Stroke Three came. When they discovered you weren't just a figurehead it was too late to elbow you out. Best thing would be for Allen to come back. He's a neutral party

I can't do it, Gail. You know that.

Better than most, Gail responded. Allen had worked for Miggles for two summers, his freshman and his sophomore year. He had regretfully turned down a third summer and an eventual permanent position to work on his senior year project at Princeton. It had made him, Gail, and Carlin each a modest-sized fortune when they had been bought out a three years after he graduated. Gail believed he had grown his portion way out of the modest category just with his New York operation. He had a talent for money. She was happy he did because they had been doing projects together since that first one. She had made money on all of them. Her own marketing firm had actually become a distraction from the side projects she had been doing with Allen.

So what do you suggest, Allen? Gail asked. Find a way to give Miggles a year's sabbatical.

Hire a decent CEO and retire to the board, he advised Miggles. Marian Correa's available, I think. If not, find somebody like her, somebody with the mean streak it takes to deal with Uncle Bob and Aunt Terry. Give Gail your proxy and let her deal with the usual stuff. She can go to a board meeting now and then. By the time you've been gone for six months you'll hardly think about it, and if you do you can send her an email.

—00—

It stopped raining in the afternoon. The sun came out but it was a weak and chilly sunshine. It was supposed to rain again that evening. The weak sunshine was only a brief respite.

Allen was sitting on the picnic table under the little gazebo. Gail hesitated to join him. She thought he might be on his cell phone with someone. She knew he was having a bit of trouble managing his people in New York by remote control. It was nothing serious, the sort of thing he routinely handled, usually by firing someone and hiring a replacement.

But he was just sitting, his elbows on his knees, staring at the wet grass. He didn't even notice her approach, which was unusual for him.

Hey, he greeted her when she joined him.

Hey yourself. Doing anything?

Being grumpy, he admitted. Feeling sorry for Miggles.

I hope she goes to Vienna, Gail said, seating herself on the table beside him. Or to Berlin. Or both.

She barely ate anything at dinner, he said.

She needs time, Gail sighed. She's got a lot of guilt and I'm not sure it'll ever be expiated in her mind. I called Marian. She's interested.

Do you think you'll be able to persuade Robert and Teresa?

I called Jason and Rick. They're already persuaded. We don't need Robert and Teresa. Jason Powell's and Richard Rains' proxies gave Gail and Miggles a majority bloc, along with the sliver held by Peterson Holdings, Inc. Marian had a good reputation, having pulled a Fortune 500 company out of serious doldrums when she was chief financial officer. We talked about the package we can offer her.

I hope you can make it work.

We will. The incentive's there.

They sat for awhile in silence, just feeling comfortable with each other. Carlin and Allen had been together through four years at Princeton. Gail thought of herself as the sister Allen should have had, of Miggles as the mother he should have had, even of her father as the father he should have had. Carlin had found the horse farm deal in Pennsylvania that Allen was about to get off the ground to entice him back east.

There was a brief spatter of rain, followed by a pause of a few minutes. Then came the heavy rain that would keep up through the night. Gail shivered a little in the wind. She wished she had worn a heavy shirt instead of her thin blouse. She was glad she had changed into slacks.

Allen? she asked at last, out of the blue. Would you marry me?

Eh? He hesitated uncomfortably. You're proposing? I thought you tried marriage and found it wasn't to your taste?

I wasn't proposing, she replied. Though actually we'd make a complementary couple. We're both what Carlin thinks of as 'cold-blooded and ruthless.' We're both too smart for our own good, as Dad would have put it. And neither of us has any interest in the opposite sex.

I don't feel cold-blooded. I just do what needs to be done: replace minus returns with plus returns. And I'm not interested in boys, either, Allen pointed out.

Nor I in girls. What I was asking was whether you think I'll ever make somebody a wife.

You mean you're feeling the urge to reproduce?

I don't think it's that. Remember I once predicted you'd end up a rich old man with nobody to love him?

I still stand by my response: Better that than a poor old man with no one to love him. You've never been poor.

You're right, she admitted. My next meal's always been there. I think I'm afraid of becoming a rich old lady with no one to love her. I can see myself owning two dozen cats, with my oh, so fashionable condo reeking of poop while I tromp around in my designer house dress and my worn-out Gucci slippers. Dad's gone. Miggles — I guess we should go back to calling her Adele now — wants to go off and be by herself and mourn. Carlin lives in Pennsylvania. You've been mostly living in Texas. Allen, I feel really alone.

I'm only a phone call away. Carlin's that close, too. For that matter unless they don't allow phones in the nunnery so will be Miggles. And we're not your only friends.

You'd be surprised. The four of us, plus Melanie, we're the circle. Everybody else can be nice, but not... you know.

Yeah, he admitted, nodding. I know what you mean. We work on the same wavelength. No one else laughs at our jokes. I'm not sure they even realize they're jokes. I'm not sure what I'd do without you to occasionally unload on.

Or to shore things up for you in Saint Paul or Monterey.

Something's wrong in Monterey?

Just an example, she laughed, poking him in the ribs. She scooted closer to him. We'd better go back inside, she added. Either that at you'll have to share your body heat with me.

First a proposal, then a proposition?

"I'd do anything for you, Allen. Even that. Yuck."

In that case we should head for the house. Want to race?

No, she turned him down. You always win.

—00—

So you haven't told me, Johnny stated as he and Allen finished bolting the steel scaffolding together. The funeral didn't go well? He gave it an experimental shake and the structure refused to fall either down or over.

Funerals never go well, by definition, Allen growled, adding a yowch! as he somehow managed to pinch his left hand hard enough to draw blood before they had nailed their first shingle. You always end up with somebody dead and buried.

Some funerals go better than others, Johnny suggested, adding another anchor to the side of the building just to make sure. He wasn't fond of heights, ladders, or scaffolding, all of which were involved in this stage of the project. Allen and he would take turns risking their lives on them. Now, take my cousin Mandos's funeral...

I talked to Mando last week. How long has he been dead?

He's not! That's why the funeral went so well!

This one went worse than most, Allen interrupted before Johnny could properly begin his tale. At least for the live participants. Poor Joe Wengert took ten years to die. He was an invalid for most of it, and bedridden. He just kept getting worse, one stroke after another. That's a crappy way to go, Johnny. He kicked the scaffold, either to emphasize his point or to see for himself if it would collapse.

No kidding!

He left behind a brother and sister who have about half the talent he had between them. They've been waiting like a pair of vultures to force the Widow Wengert out of the family business and grab the controls of the money machine. They weren't happy when they found themselves outvoted. The grieving widow, the beautiful daughter, and Doc Carlin are all on the board. Miggles is chairwoman. She's the widow. Joe's will leaves everything to her and the two kids. They'd get it anyway but the will avoids probate and has a bunch of other provisions that show Joe was expecting all this maneuvering and feuding and fighting. The brother and sister are still looking for some way to take the lot of us to court.

Putting the 'fun' in funeral, are they? Johnny grinned. You're involved in the stock mess, naturally?

Just barely, Allen partially denied. I'm just a minor stockholder and Gail has my proxy. He scrambled up the scaffold with his crowbar in hand.

You be careful up there! Johnny warned as the thing ominously refused to shake. My uncle Enrique fell off a scaffold and broke his neck!

Yeah? What was he doing at the time? Allen straight-manned.

Bein' hanged.

Allen laughed and set to work tearing out the corner of the barn roof that was rotted. Presently Johnny received a shower of badly curled asphalt shingles, followed by decayed tar paper, followed in turn by rotted wood studded with rusted nails.

Gail's the beautiful daughter? Johnny asked, filling the wheelbarrow. "How beautiful is she?

Don't get your Latin lover's heart all a-flutter, Allen warned. She is, in fact, beautiful. She's a strawberry blonde, big blue eyes, nice features if you don't mind a freckle or two.

I got nothin' against freckles, Johnny replied, shoving the wheelbarrow toward their temporary dump site. Kinda like 'em, in fact.

... and she's got a nice figure. She's always well-dressed, has good manners, and she's very elegant. She was married once; it lasted about three months. She doesn't like men, at least not that way. Nor does she like women, not that way.

"Hijo! She sounds like a cold fish! What a waste!"

There was another shower of rotted roof components. She's one of my best friends, Allen explained. "She's a lot like I