The Beef Princess of Practical County

by Michelle Houts

  “Let's see these bovine beasts,” she said as she marched to the barn. Always on a mission, that was Carol Ann. Her straight, dark hair was just long enough to tuck behind her ears when she wasn't wearing a trademark headband.

  My family loved Carol Ann. She was great with Frannie. She had the patience that I never seemed to be able to find when I needed it. At least once a month she made Frannie laugh orange pop out her nose. Most of the other girls at school would have been disgusted, but not Carol Ann. She had half a dozen brothers and sisters, all younger, and she'd seen things worse than orange pop come out of places worse than noses.

  “You need something clever, something with panache,” Carol Ann said with determination as she patted the calf's soft, fuzzy neck.

  “I don't even know what panache is.”

  I turned away and fiddled with the feed sack so she wouldn't see me roll my eyes at her big word. It would never ever occur to me to use half the words that came out of Carol Ann's mouth. I wondered if she could hear my eyes rolling in the way my voice sounded. If anyone could hear an eye-roll, it would be Carol Ann Cuthbert.

  “How about Socrates? Or maybe something presidential like William? Or Walker? Or George? No, those names sound too stuffy. How about Ronald, like in Reagan?”

  “Carol Ann! Ronald is my brother's name. I can't name my steer after my brother.”

  “Oh, yeah, that wouldn't be good.”

  For someone with a whole lot of brains, Carol Ann could be so absentminded sometimes.

  “Oh, forget it,” I said, wanting to move the conversation on to something else. “That calf will name himself sooner or later.”

  “You're right,” Carol Ann agreed.

  Carol Ann was everything you'd ever want in a friend. Honest, down-to-earth, tell-it-like-it-is people like her were hard to come by. She made me laugh, but she said I was the funny one. She was dreadfully brainy, which made us dreadfully different, but that didn't bother me most of the time. Together, Carol Ann and I had survived elementary school and were ready to tackle seventh grade at Nowhere Middle School with gusto. Carol Ann would have used a different word, like vehemence.

  Oh, and another thing. I should have known better than to ask for her assistance in naming the calf. Carol Ann's dog has a white house with his name, Phydeaux, spelled out neatly in black letters over the door. Almost no one else gets it.

  One of my favorite places on the Ryan family farm was the front porch. Our farmhouse had a porch that wrapped its way around three sides, making room for plenty of rockers, gliders, and, Frannie's favorite, the long porch swing with the flowered cushion that was just perfect for her. And Eugene. And Esmerelda Emily.

  It was after supper on Sunday evening, and Mom and Dad had just settled into their own favorite chairs on the porch when a shiny red pickup came flying up the lane, sending dust from the gravel drive in all directions.

  Dad stood up and let out a sigh.

  “Looks like we've got company.”

  Sure enough, the calves had been in the barn for less than two days before the Darlings arrived to check out their competition. There was no mistaking the candy-apple-red crew-cab truck with dualies and enough chrome to be blinding, even in the fading sunlight.

  Three girls piled out of the truck and made a beeline for the barn while Mr. Darling headed up the porch steps to chat with my parents. I would have to deal with the Darling girls myself.

  When I got to the barn, the sisters were already examining my new calves, whispering and pointing, especially to the smaller one.

  Precious, the oldest and a senior at Nowhere High, was the first to speak, as usual.

  “Nice calves, Libby,” she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “But where are your fair calves?”

  Now, when Mr. and Mrs. Jim Darling named their first daughter Precious everyone in town wanted to puke. I, of course, was not yet born, but I felt the exact same way once I was old enough to appreciate Precious Darling's lack of ability to live up to her name.

  I never did understand how someone could give their kids names like Angel or Grace. Tell me, why would anyone do that? Isn't that just tempting fate, if there is such a thing? What happens when a kid named Angel has to go to the principal's office twice a week, or Grace constantly trips over her own two feet?

  Well, it was no different with Precious, because she was anything but. Sure, she was pretty. Perfect teeth, long blond hair that she shook behind her like she was in a shampoo commercial. Indestructible hot-pink salon nails. She was gorgeous. Okay, Ronnie used to say she was “drop-dead gorgeous,” but her biggest flaw was that she knew it. And she wanted to be sure everyone else did, too.

  Standing there in the barn in her yellow sundress and flip-flops, Precious looked out of place. It was really hard to imagine her taking care of her own steer on the Darling farm.

  “Hello,” I said to all three of them. “These are my fair calves.”

  Like she didn't already know that. Please.

  “Oh, really?” Precious eyeballed Piggy and his still-unnamed companion. “They're pretty scrawny, aren't they? And dirty.”

  Immediately I began to wish I'd talked Granddad into a different calf. I also wished I had cleaned them up a little, but Dad firmly believed they needed a few days to adjust to their new surroundings before we started working with them.

  “Well, they just came in from the pasture,” I tried to explain.

  “Our calves came from the auction barn,” Lil piped up. “They were already clean when we got them.”

  Yes, two years after Precious Darling was born there came another Darling baby girl. Lil. Not Lilly, not Lillian. Just Lil. The lady who typed the birth certificate nearly refused. Okay, I wasn't born yet then, either, but that was what everyone always said. Lil Darling was a carbon copy of Precious. She spent her life walking like her sister, talking like her sister, dressing like her sister, and usually going out with the guys her sister dumped. They were two of a kind, except that Precious was clearly in charge and Lil rarely had a thought of her own.

  “What brings you three all the way out here?” I asked no one in particular. I was really trying to avoid making eye contact with the youngest Darling daughter, the one who was my age and was fiddling uncomfortably with her blue cotton sundress.

  Her name? Ohma. No joke. The third Darling girl was named Ohma Darling. And I can tell you (this time from personal experience, because I was born in the same hospital, on the very same day) Ohma was without a doubt the least darling Darling of all.

  When Ohma Darling was no more than two years old, it became obvious that she wasn't made from the same mold as her sisters. For starters, she never grew the thick, flowing, golden locks that her sisters managed to acquire. Her frizzy brown mop was unmanageable even short.

  By the time Ohma started kindergarten at Nowhere Elementary, it was becoming more and more obvious that she wasn't going to have her sisters’ petite build, either. She was a foot taller than the rest of our class and she was already wearing the same dresses Lil and Precious had worn in the third grade.

  Ohma was definitely a different Darling. Maybe the most striking difference was her odd personality. While her sisters were chattery and giggly, Ohma said very little that wasn't an echo of what her older sisters said. And she almost never smiled. In fact, she wore a constant scowl.

  “What do you think we're doing here?” Lil huffed. “We heard about your new calves.”

  “Yeah,” grumbled Ohma. “We heard about your new calves.”

  How they even knew I had picked out my calves was beyond me. But life is like that in a small town. Word gets around. If you're sick, folks know all about it. If someone buys a new truck, some farm ground, or even a pair of jeans from Wal-Mart, someone somewhere in Practical County is talking about it.

  “Yeah, they really don't look much like champions to me,” Precious added, twirling her hair with a finger. “But then again, your brother, Ronnie, never had a champion steer, did he?”

 
; Like you'd know a champion steer if you saw one, I thought. Every steer Ronnie ever showed was way better than anything that the Darlings had brought to the fair, and his room was filled with ribbons to prove it. I was steaming, but I didn't want Precious and her sisters to know it.

  Calmly, I said, “Well, there's a lot of time between now and next summer's fair.”

  Stick with the facts. Granddad's advice came in handy. When you're up against someone with a lot of opinions, just stick with the facts.

  Right then it didn't seem to matter much what the facts were, the Darlings were moving on, having seen what they came to see. I noticed that Precious was headed right for a clump of fresh manure.

  “Be careful where you step,” I warned, but it was too late.

  “Eww!” Precious squealed as one flip-flop landed squarely in the pile and brown manure oozed around her bare toes. “Oh, nasty! Libby Ryan! You did that on purpose.”

  Right. I put that manure there just in case the Darling sisters happened to drop by unannounced.

  “There's a water pump right by the door,” I told her.

  “Your barn is gross, Libby,” Lil snapped. She was dressed exactly like her older sister, only her dress and flip-flops were lavender. “You should get one of those fork thingies and clean that up.”

  Lil's suggestion made me furious, knowing that she had spent little, if any, time with a pitchfork in her hands. Obviously, she didn't even know what it was called.

  I left the small mess on the barn floor. It was a tiny bit satisfying just knowing how much the Darling girls wanted it gone. Precious had returned, hopping on one foot and shaking a water-soaked flip-flop in the air.

  Having apparently seen enough of the inside of our barn, Precious waved a perfectly manicured hand and announced, “Okay, well, we're going now.”

  Lil, who had been busy shooing flies away from her face, snapped quickly to attention at her sister's command.

  “Yes, we are going now.”

  Ohma grunted in agreement and started for the barnyard.

  “Your calves are”—Precious hesitated, searching for a word—“okay.”

  That might have been the end of it if Lil had been able to hold her tongue.

  “Yeah, they're okay. But just wait until you see our calves. This year we—”

  She never got a chance to finish. Precious grabbed her sister by the elbow and yanked her out of the barn, hushing her all the way to their truck.

  * * *

  Later, I mulled over the events of the evening. Why were the Darlings so interested in seeing my calves? When Ronnie showed cattle, the Darlings never paid much attention to his animals. Dad said it was likely the girls’ father who had prompted the visit. Mr. Jim Darling wanted two things in life: sons and a Grand Champion steer. Well, he hadn't gotten the sons, but he had never given up on the Grand Champion steer. Trouble was, he'd never have one if his daughters didn't learn to work a whole lot harder on their livestock projects.

  It would probably seem odd that the Darling girls showed steers in the first place, except that showing was practically a requirement of farm kids in Practical County. Those girls weren't exactly the types to get their hands dirty doing anything, but year after year, Precious and Lil loaded their fancy livestock trailer with some pretty scruffy-looking steers. They never were much of a threat to Ronnie. Just because their father made them show didn't mean they liked it, and it sure didn't mean they were any good at it.

  The Darling girls did share one claim to fame (besides their terribly original names). What they lacked in steer-raising skills, they made up for in the Practical County Beef Princess pageant. Yes, they were the perennial princesses of beef. For the past four years, the coveted title of Beef Princess had gone to a Darling. Precious held a county record for beef royalty, having won the title three years in a row. After beating her older sister in what turned out to be a knock-down, drag-out competition last year, Lil was this year's reigning Princess. And Ohma would have been a shoo-in as her successor if it weren't for Ohma's obvious lack of queenlike qualities. No doubt, when it came to rep-resenting roast, the Darling daughters reigned.

  But who could even begin to speculate whether the Darlings could dominate the Beef Princess pageant next summer? And what was it that Precious didn't want Lil to say about their own calves? Surely they didn't believe they had calves any better than those raised at Ryansmeade. Judging from their odd behavior in the barn, I began to wonder if they weren't planning something entirely different.

  “How are Porky and his friend?” Mom asked me, the phone propped between her ear and her shoulder as she stirred something on the stove. Only her eyes lifted when I walked into the kitchen. If she had lifted her head, the phone would have slipped into boiling whatever.

  “Piggy, Mom,” I corrected. “His name is Piggy.”

  The kitchen was the center of activity in our house. It had an enormous oak table with long wooden benches on each side, big enough for a family twice the size of ours. When we didn't fill it with dinner guests—Granddad was a nightly regular—one end remained covered with home-work, land maps, or blueprints from Mom's latest real estate sale.

  Mom was into paint. Red Scarf Red in the bathroom. Summer Sky Blue in the laundry room. Dad said she got too many ideas from selling new houses in Nowhere, but every few years she painted a different room and last summer it had been the kitchen's turn. The result was Fresh Pear Green on the walls, with sunny yellow curtains and place mats. With the old white cupboards and the worn hardwood floor, even Dad had to admit the lively combination made the kitchen a fun place to hang out.

  “Yes, I'm here, Roger,” Mom said into the phone. It was Roger, her boss, and I knew it wouldn't be a quick conversation. Mom glanced up at me again and gave me the we-can-talk-later look. The trouble with we-can-talk-later was that later usually came when there was a client on the line, a fax coming in, or Frannie dramatically making a demand that was far more urgent than anything I could possibly have to say.

  The calves had been at the farm less than a week, and it was obvious that Mom's interest in them was going to be pretty much limited to trying to remember their names and snapping photos of us with them while saying things like “Can't you make Porky look this way?”

  That was just Mom. Busy Mom. She was short, like me, with light brown, curly hair and energy to burn. Mom was always on the go. She had her real estate work, she had her volunteer work at the food pantry, she had the house, the laundry, and heaven knows she had Frannie. What she didn't have was much time for whatever was happening in the barn.

  No, it really didn't surprise me one bit that this calf thing would be a Dad thing, not a Mom thing. And that was okay with me. I'd been waiting for my turn to share some of Dad's time. Ronnie usually did all the Dad things, and Mom took care of us girls. But the day after Ronnie had gone off to college at the end of the summer, I heard Dad tell Mom that he was heading to a livestock auction over in Rochester.

  “Sure wish Ronnie could go,” he had said. “It ought to be a good sale.”

  He'd never taken me to one of the auctions. I stepped into the room.

  “I'll go,” I offered.

  “No, Libby, I don't think so.” He shook his head. “You'd just be bored, kiddo.”

  I was trying to think of reasons why he should take me, but he was in a hurry. I'd missed my chance. Maybe with my calves I could prove to him that I could do all the things he used to do with Ronnie.

  Mom continued to talk into the phone while silently shooing Frannie away as if she were an oversized fly. And what a colorful oversized fly Frannie was that day! Finger paint to her elbows, she was following Mom around the kitchen, asking if blue and red would still make purple if you also added green. Judging from the purplish black paint on her arms, it was a question Frannie already knew the answer to. Mom made the not-now face while nodding and giving an occasional “ummm-hmmm” into the phone.

  I nearly made it to the garage door, and I would have succeeded in
escaping completely if I hadn't committed one fatal mistake. I looked once more in Mom's direction.

  I should have known better. She caught me with that desperate help-your-sister-pleeeeease look. I was nailed.

  I turned to Frannie and put on my helpful-big-sister smile.

  “That is an extraordinary color you're using, Fran. Would you like me to help you wash your hands?”

  “Excuse me….” She inhaled as she said it, like a pitcher winding up for a fastball.

  I knew I should have bolted for the door when I had the chance.

  She put her hands on her hips, paint and all, and stated, “You are not in this con-per-sation!”

  She whirled away from me as Mom made her escape into the living room still ummm-hmmming into the cordless phone.

  “Frannie, if you'll just let me help—”

  “We don't want you. We want Mom.”

  “We?”

  “Yes, we. Can't you see Eugene standing right there be-side you?”

  I looked at the empty space around me.

  “Frannie, listen, you're going to have to—”

  “Ahhhh!”

  “Stop screaming, Frannie.”

  “But Esmerelda Emily just about touched you with green paint all over her hands!”

  Okay, that was it. One obnoxious four-year-old was enough, but these grandchildren she'd invented were driving me nuts!

  “Fine, then,” I told her. “You and your grandchildren will just have to wait for Mom. But don't touch anything with those messy hands. Any of you!”

  “We won't,” Frannie answered as she climbed up on the wooden bench, grasping the edge of the table with two plump purple hands.

  I had done my part to the best of my ability, considering whom I was dealing with, and I headed out through the garage, across the barnyard, and into the barn. Like the front porch on the house, the barn was one of my favorite places on the farm. Granddad always said a man can judge a farm by its barn. A sturdy, well-kept barn meant a good farmer lived and worked there, he said, and for the most part, his observation held true. White with a black hip roof, our barn has stood unchanged for more than seventy years.