Chapter 2

With that brief remark Sheila gave up her future with Andy. Yet what possible happiness could she have with him, knowing her parents were in want because her father had not been like Andy, careful, saving?

She returned from her shattered dream to find he was arguing the point. He had children but he had no intention of sacrificing them. Each had all he could handle raising his own young ones. She was the only one unmarried. Did she feel she made enough to keep them as well as herself?

Sheila hadn't any answers. She knew that even with Andy teaching her how to be saving, she made barely enough to live on. A few dollars ahead, and a trip to the dentist wiped that out. The little she'd saved for clothing wouldn't pay more than one month's rent for her, parents, provided they'd move to the city. Nor could she see her restless father spending twenty-four hours a day in a small apartment.

"Good." She stood up. "Now that you've got it out of your system, we can start whittling it down to a size you can handle."

Perversely, he had a better appetite than she. He had temporarily shifted his fears, his defeat, and she was adjusting her shoulders to the burden.

She led him to talk of her brother and sisters. They wrote to her only on holidays, believing a letter to their parents sufficed. Each had moved far from the west coast, which to Sheila symbolically placed distance between their new lives and the old one. And all of them, she realized as her father proudly recounted the possessions they were accumulating, were using their incomes to the last penny.

He spoke of pediatricians, oral surgeons, psychiatric treatment for little Marian, who'd felt rejected when her small brother attracted her father's interest.

"Sometimes," he mused, "I wonder how my generation ever reached maturity." And Sheila forbore saying that a large percentage hadn't.

Once he broke off to finger the Chinese lilies, reduced to sitting in a narrow vase that would fit on the window ledge. "Pretty things. Remind me of some we had up home. Not that they look like them. Just unexpected, popping up sometimes on the road. Nearly dumped a log load once, swerving."

"What were they, Dad?"

"Blessed if I know. Be nice to have time to learn such, like getting introduced, formal."

Sheila went about washing the dishes.

Norris managed to sit more or less quietly until the wrestling matches were over; then he became restless. "Think I'll go out and look at your neighborhood, get the kinks out of me. Mind? Anything you want me to bring back?"

She shooed him off, then sank into a chair to ponder her problem unhappily.

Andy called and, on hearing her voice, asked what had happened.

"It's Dad, Andy. He can't find work because of his age, and it's having a bad effect on him."

There was a long silence; then Andy asked, "Think he'd take some man-to-man talk from me?"

"I don't know," she admitted honestly. "You must seem awfully young to him, and your life has been so different. Maybe if the subject is introduced casually-"

"Diplomatically," he corrected. "But, Andy, what could you possibly offer?"

"Assurance a man isn't shelved because of his age."

This from Andy, who'd sighed with relief when old Mr. Boone had conveniently died, thus clearing the office of anyone older than its manager.

He out-lined his plans. Instead of seeing them that evening, he'd call for them early. His mother wanted them to come down to the family home for the day.

"She said it would give our fathers a chance to become acquainted. Dad's a great guy," he confided; "he'll set your father straight."

"Andy," she wailed, "Dad will just up and die if he thinks I've discussed him with you."

"Now calm down. He'll never know. See you at seven-thirty."

Unhappily Sheila turned from the telephone. She couldn't refuse the invitation, yet she wasn't at all happy about accepting it. She had visited Andy's home once, a brief call on a Sunday afternoon. Mrs. Carter had treated her exactly as had Andrew the day she'd applied for a job: with cool, analytical, though friendly scrutiny.

Now she reminded herself that just as Andy had hired her, so had his mother given her approval of one Sheila Norris as a future daughter-in-law.

Her reluctance to go was nothing compared to her father's. Nate refused at first politely, then with rancor. All he needed at a time like this, he informed her, was to have someone tell him what he should have done twenty years ago.

Sheila, furiously washing dishes while her father watched a television crime play that all but split her ears with gunfire, wondered what women had done before the day of television.

Then when he turned it off in the middle and stood in the doorway, giving her a crooked grin, she understood why her mother had put up with him.

"Sorry, Sheila. I'll go. Do penance. I've been scorning pipsqueaks who socked their money instead of living. Now I'm having to admit they could have been right. Isn't easy."

"As a penitent, you're a complete flop. And you should be. You take in too much territory. You didn't create business conditions and you're not the only big earner who's finding things tough these days. But I will appreciate your going. I'd have had a difficult time explaining your refusal."

It wasn't too bad. True, her father nearly wore out the car floor as Andrew kept up an even pace along a freeway holding up everything unable to pass. And true, his shoulders tightened as Andy discussed business in general, in tones of optimism.

Then she forgot the two men. The Carter home was coming into view, and she wanted to study it in its winter dress. She wanted to imagine herself living there and liking it.

It was a neat little house and looked, she imagined, much the same as it had when it was purchased at the time of the Senior Carters' marriage, thirty years ago: white with a green trim. Paths were out-lined with green board liners, trees symmetrically pruned, shrubbery boxed.

Sheila doubted if there had been much change in the interior. But it was comfortable, and what more could an older couple ask than comfort?

Enviously Sheila followed Mrs. Carter as she prepared dinner. There was the large freezer filled with enough home-grown and home-prepared food to carry them more than three months, should papa be unable to work. The equally large canning closet was well stocked.

"Mother's umbrellas," Andy teased. "The trouble is we're always eating last year's food because we never catch up to what she has stored away."

Dinner was just a little tasteless. Sheila would have added seasoning, but Mrs. Carter had her own ideas about "good plain food for good plain people."

She also had good sound ideas of how to live; ideas Nate would scoff at when they were alone. Now she told of the years of saving which had allowed them to look forward to a secure future.

Sheila wondered a little at her father. He was a little too quiet during the early part of the visit, but after dinner, while she helped with the dishes, he went on a tour of the garden with Mr. Carter. When he returned his old jauntiness was back.

Andrew, having deposited his laundry and picked up the fresh lot waiting for him, seemed willing enough to leave. But on the return trip, he had Sheila sit with him and talked of future trips when they would "run down home during the fruit season."

Happily she nodded. They'd have a home, and there would be a canning closet, perhaps a freezer, and she would prepare enough food to last them three months if Andy was unable to work. Ridiculous thought. She couldn't imagine Andrew Carter not working. But it would be fun to have a larder stocked with all kinds of delectable food. And if her folks had lean days, there would be food to share with them. Imagine all of this and a man like Andy, too.

Yet she was glad when he didn't suggest coming up to the apartment. He imagined she and her father had things to discuss. He'd see her at the office the next day.

Dutifully he kissed her while Nate watched, and then walked away.

"Well, Dad?" she asked proudly.

Norris shook his head. "Poor fellow hasn't a chance. Got himself born in the wrong family. Has never and will never live."

"Bull"

"Like that food his mother puts up. It's last year's, Sheila. They're so busy looking out for the future they get nothing out of the now."

Dutifully she set her lips.

She waited until they were in the smelly little apartment, their topcoats off, then turned. "All right; what happened when you and Mr. Carter went out to look at the garden?"

"We had quite a time. He took me to his mountain cabin."

"His what?"

"That's what he called it. A six-by-eighteen room built onto the back of the garage. The door was padlocked. It's the one place his wife isn't allowed.

"In there he has shelves of books on adventure. The walls are plastered with colored cutouts of far away places. That little six-by-eighteen room is where he does his living, vicariously."

Sheila sank into a chair. "You mean that seeing another man having to live in dreams so downgraded security that you-"

"Nope, don't mean that at all. If he hasn't the gumption to stand up to his woman, he doesn't deserve anything better."

"But you came back looking so happy."

"I am. Here, read this."

Out of his pocket he drew a small magazine, creased to a certain page and held it out to her. "Free land, Sheila, for the homesteading of it, and in our own state."

For a moment hope flared like a beacon lighting not only her parents' future but her own. She read the article, then silently rose and put on the coffeepot.

"Let's have it," barked her father.

"In this day and age, with everyone grabbing, why is this land free? What's the matter with it? I'd say no water."

Nate Norris straddled a chair, resting his arms on the back. "A lot of it is desert; agreed. The principal lack is enterprise. Your generation is afraid of hardship. You want paved roads, water out of a faucet, everything cut and dried before you pick it up in a package. Like old man Carter, you do your adventuring before a television set or in a back room locked away from reality. You forget our people were pioneers."

She hadn't forgotten; she'd been brought up on pioneer stories. In fact, her parents had done a modern version of pioneering in their early married days. They had been married in 1950. With only chance jobs, they'd made a down payment on a logged off acre, lived in a makeshift tent until they could wreck an old building that had been given them, and rebuilt it into a compact little cottage, thirty years ago.

"Sorry, Dad. I seem cursed with a practical streak. I think of you and Mother living miles from anyone, grubbing out an existence. Suppose one of you was hurt-"

When she turned from pouring the coffee she saw that the old grey look of defeat was back. Nate's shoulders were slumped over, the light gone from his eyes.

"You may be right," he agreed.

Welma chose that moment to breeze in. "Storm brewing on the Pacific, so my family came home. Hey, folks, looks like a storm brewing here. Shall I stay and ride with the gale, or-"

"Stay," Nate and Sheila said in unison.

"Sheila is being practical," her father explained.

"Price or thought tags?" asked Welma. "You know, Mr. Norris, our little Sheila has developed an analytical neurosis. Face her with a decision and she chews it up until you can't recognize it."

"Then I'll tell you, and you give me a quick answer. Here." He handed her the article. "Read and reply."

Welma read, then lifted her head, her eyes shining. "What a lark!"

"But, Welma, suppose they couldn't find water?"

"Look, sweetie, are you trying to tell me your father isn't smart enough to find a hundred and sixty acre plot, in several million acres of land, with water? And not too far from roads? I'd say this land is available because our people have lost their vision."

Defensively, Sheila wheeled on her. "Can you imagine living for days in sizzling heat and no shade? Or with snow to the eaves and no fuel? Or running out of food, or-"

"Wait a minute." Welma held out her hand. "A thought is trying to work through, something someone told me. I'd better double check tomorrow. Can you stay over another day, Mr. Norris?"

"I can take a late bus. Can't give me an inkling, can you?"

She did, later. She knew a couple who had a mining claim in the Norrises' home state. It was not far from the coast, so the weather would be comparatively mild. There were roads, providing access to forestry throughout the general area. There were windfalls to supply wood for the man with a good saw and muscle power. Of course farming was out.

When she named the area, Nate straightened. He'd hunted and fished in those mountains as a young man. Beautiful country. With water, he told Sheila.

"And income?" she asked unhappily.

"What income have I got here? I've been trying to find any kind of a job for four months. I'd be back in my home country. I'd find something."

"There might be income too," Welma mused. "Oh, not much. A few dollars now and then; enough to buy flour to make bread to go with the fish you might catch."

The next day Andy Carter broke a rule he'd laid down months before, when he'd first decided to find out what manner of girl this was who disturbed his calm plan of progress. He invited Sheila out to lunch.

"I'm worried, Sheila," he confessed. "Dad was up to something yesterday, but I don't know what. Mother wormed some of it out of him. Do you know what he advised your father to do?"

"He didn't advise; he merely showed him an article on homesteading. Dad liked the idea."

As she went on, a new Andy Carter appeared across the table, a light Sheila had never seen flashed in his eyes. Then as she presented her arguments against the venture the light died and commendation took its place.

"I like the way you analyzed that, Sheila. I'll bet you've saved your parents a lot of future misery. At first the project sounds like one endless hunting trip. I've noticed hunters who live for the open season, who enjoy coming home and talking about their adventure more than they enjoy roughing it."

He said he'd made a number of calls the past two days, to talk to men he knew about jobs for Nate Norris. He'd had no luck at all.

"It should be some comfort to your father to know he is not an isolated case, but one of hundreds of thousands."

It might be thin comfort, Sheila agreed, but it didn't pay rent or provide food; she wondered if Andy could realize what having nothing meant. She held one sharp memory. The flood had been dramatic. People on highlands had hurried to aid the stricken families.

Usually help was rushed to any disaster area. But it was the long, lean stretches with dwindling supplies that broke the spirit; the moment when the last oats in a bag, purchased from a feed store for bulk, had given out and there was nothing to replace them; when they were in a strange state where they were not eligible for relief.

Sheila stiffened her shoulders. She would prefer even last year's food as a daily diet, a drab, uninteresting cottage.

"Sheila," the lunch over, Andy leaned toward her, "I drew a hundred from savings this morning when I went to the bank. Could you slip that to your father to sort of tide him over?"

Eyes filled with tears, she shook her head.

"I love you for it, Andy, but Dad would know I could never save that much on my salary, and I doubt if he'd even take it from me. But I do thank you for both of us."

Suddenly, she felt very close to Andy. For so long they had been seeing one another, and they had become quite serious, but it wasn't until that moment that she felt really close to him. She knew his intentions were good, and now she wanted to show him how much she appreciated him.

"Andy, do you think we could ... well ... we could go somewhere where we could, you know ... be alone?"

Andy stared at her dumbstruck. "Why, I don't know. I guess so. But why?"

"Oh, Andy, sometimes I don't know about you. Come on. Let's go to your apartment and I'll show you."

Laughing, they both walked quickly out to his car. Within minutes they were in his living room, giggling and playing, eventually flopping down on his couch.

Andy wasted no time diving right in. They were still in a happy mood, and as they undressed one another, they smiled contentedly. But as more and more of their bodies were bared, their laughter changed to sighs.

Where they once giggled their pleasure, they now gasped and groaned.

Andy leaned over and dropped his head against Sheila's firm breasts. He licked and sucked ravenously at her nipples, running his tongue up and down and all around her smooth tit-flesh.

"Yes, Andy, that's so good," she sighed, pulling him closer, trying to get him to caress more and more of her creamy breasts.

Then Andy pushed her back down onto the couch. She lay on her back with her legs spread wide, revealing the hairy patch of her pubic bush and the pink edges of her labia.

Panting with delight, Andy moved his tongue down her belly until he reached her navel, lingering there for a moment while he enjoyed feeling her squirm beneath him. Then he eased his tongue between her cuntlips, teasing her hard clit with the end of his tongue while blowing gently across her curly bush.

Thrilling sensations of passion coursed through Sheila's loins as she gave in to Andy's desires. The more he worked at her moist pussy, the hotter she became, until she was hunching up off the couch violently.

Andy understood that he had just about done everything he could to arouse Sheila. And now he wanted nothing more than to thrust his rock-hard penis deep into the depths of her vagina.

Sheila could feel the muscles of Andy's legs quiver and stiffen between her thighs. She knew what he wanted desperately, and she spread her legs as wide as she could to accommodate him.

"Go ahead," she murmured. "Put it in me now, Andy. I want it ... please ... please."

He moved over her, twitching all over, his cock bouncing against her thigh. She felt it pushing up against her cunt-hair, poking around for the best angle of entry. Then she could feel his red-hot prick-tip shoving gently against her swollen labia. He shoved his hips forward suddenly and sent his penis sinking deeply into her depths. Groaning ecstatically, he removed his shaft just halfway and then thrust it back in again, filling her to the limit with his hard man-meat.

"Oooohh, yes," Sheila moaned. She wanted to tell Andy how nice it felt, that she was already responding to the steady in and out thrusting of his penis, but he was too wrapped up in his passion to hear her.

So Sheila had to content herself with extracting as much pleasure from their fucking as she could, trying to equal the intensity of his desire, trying to reach a climax just as powerful as the one he was heading toward.

Gradually, Sheila began to feel the knot of orgasm tightening in her belly. Her vaginal muscles were spasming wildly as the heat flashing through her belly began to spread all over her body. Her tits were swollen, her belly was flushed and her head was dizzy with sexual heat.

And then her vaginal muscles began clenching so tightly that each time he thrust into her, she grabbed his penis when it slammed forward and released it when he withdrew.

He was taking her higher and higher toward bliss. They gyrated sensuously, grinding and wallowing on the couch, caught in the fierce intensity of their sexual emotions. Harder and harder they thrashed, threatening to break something in the wake of their struggle toward climax.

Then Andy let loose a long, grumbling sigh, signaling his release. As he spasmed inside her, Sheila came, also.

To Sheila, the rest of the day sped by in a haze of delight. She was practically engaged to a man who could draw a hundred dollars from his savings to help her parents. Once she'd married him, they'd never be down to the last oats in the feed store bag. They would be secure.

When she reached the apartment Welma and her father were almost too busy talking to greet her. When Nate did look up, he shouted, "Gal, quit your job. You're joining the new gold rush. We're all heading for the hills!"

"But, Dad, I-" She stopped, then added, "And Andy?"

"Come look," Welma ordered her, and propelled her into the bedroom. There she took Sheila by the shoulders and shook her.

"I know what you're thinking. Andy won't wait. You feel you're running out on love. Well, listen, Sheila. Romance is where you find it. If it's real, it's like gold: it can't be lost by waiting."

"Why should I go with them?"

"Because of your mother. Your Dad may have to be away from the claim for days. Do you want her to wait there, alone?"

There was no argument against that. And it would mean leaving Andy.