Fifty Acres and a Poodle

by Jeanne Marie Laskas

  “Oh,” I say. “Well, wow.”

  But what about a gazebo instead? Um. Think. Okay, I need to think. I think of our wedding day. I think of myself standing here in some amazing satin wedding gown. I think of a bright and sunny afternoon, the sky painted on like a coat of latex. Flowers everywhere. People are scattered in clumps, chatting, sipping champagne, and enjoying the fresh air. And then suddenly—cue the mule—a big dopey mule comes clippity-clopping up the driveway. The mule has flowers in his hair. Her hair? Or, no. The mule has his or her hair done up in a big topknot, sort of like the way I wore mine when my sisters and I played circus and I got to be the clown.

  And there’s Alex. He is surprised! He is holding his stomach laughing. People are standing around, laughing and pointing and having a good time. And then Alex looks at me, he has his eyes all scrunched up, like, “What? What is this for? Why is this animal here?” And I say, um. Okay, what do I say? Um.

  I say: “Don’t look a gift mule in the mouth.”

  Because I don’t know what the hell else to say. Because the mule, the mule doesn’t mean anything. The mule is a four-legged creature of nonsense. The mule is this entire farm adventure in animal form. Equine form. Ungulate form. An adventure we never planned at all, never understood, walked into without the slightest clue what we were doing. An adventure with existential origins of the most absurd variety. An adventure that began as a dream, a dream born of Green Acres.

  I’m imagining Alex. Alex with his new mule. He’s looking at the mule, and he can’t stop laughing. He grabs me, hugs me, and we spin around and go tra-la-la into the future.

  Yes, this is it. This is the way it must go. I need a mule.

  “But I don’t need the mule until September thirteenth,” I say to Billy. “Where am I supposed to hide the mule until then?”

  “I can keep it,” he says. “It can stay at my place with Levi.” Levi is Billy’s horse, which lives in a small barn in his backyard. “Me and Tom can take care of it,” he says. “But I really think you should get the horse, too. The mule would be lonely. The mule wouldn’t do good. And you got plenty of room in that new barn of yours. Compared to where these animals is living, that barn of yours looks like a Holiday Inn.”

  Fine. Play the pathetic orphan card. Billy knows me better than I realized.

  “Well …,”I say, knowing that my next word is going to be: “Okay!” But really, shouldn’t I ask Alex what he thinks about this? I mean, isn’t a mule and a horse sort of a family decision? When you are part of a couple, do you get to make pet decisions without consulting your partner? Um. And shouldn’t I try out these animals? How do you try out a mule and a horse? Um. I look at my folder labeled “Wedding” expanding every day with more and more unmade decisions, more and more things to do. I really don’t have time to go mule shopping. And anyway, I trust Billy. Billy hasn’t steered me wrong yet.

  “Okay,” I say to him. “Bring on Sassy and Cricket, too.”

  “All right,” he says. “I’ll drive them up tonight.”

  “Okay,” I say. “Thanks.”

  I hang up. I look at Bob.

  “Bob, I just bought a mule and a horse,” I say.

  He lifts his head, looks my way, and closes his eyes.

  Bob never thinks anything is a big deal. Bob gives me permission. This is another thing I love about Bob.

  THE NEXT MORNING, LINE ONE AGAIN. “THEY’RE here,” Billy says. They got in after midnight. He says they had some … mishaps.

  “Mishaps?”

  “Just the unloading part,” he says. “What happened?”

  “Well, it was kind of dark out, so I couldn’t see too much. Mostly I heard it.”

  “Oh?”

  He says they opened the trailer door and nudged the mule out. The mule took its first step out of that trailer and got spooked.

  “Spooked?” I say.

  “Mules are spooky,” he says.

  “Spooky,” I say.

  “Nervous like.”

  “Uh-huh. So how did you know it got spooked?”

  “’Cause it went runnin’. It went runnin’ right up to the electric fence. But it didn’t stop.” “Didn’t stop?”

  “It got zapped,” he says. “That spooked it more. It started yellin’ hee-haw, hee-haw. You never heard such a hollerin’. That got the horse’s attention.”

  “What did the horse do?”

  “It got spooked,” he says.

  “Spooked.”

  “Horses are spooky,” he says.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “The horse went running after the mule. That got Levi’s attention.”

  “Oh?”

  “Horses stick together. Horses, you know, horses are pack animals. Levi followed the others.”

  “Where did they go?”

  “Well now, we couldn’t see too much. It was so dark. But we found them up on the highway.”

  “The highway?”

  “Route 40. It was late. There weren’t a lot of cars. That was in our favor.”

  “So you were all running down the highway?”

  “Well, Tom got his motorcycle. And Homer, he got his four-wheeler.”

  “Homer?”

  “My neighbor. You never met Homer? Oh, Homer and I go way back. I met Homer when—”

  “Let’s come back to Homer later. What about the horses?”

  “Well, we had some other neighbors helping, too. You know, a couple of other motorcycles. And we was hopin’ the horses would keep on the hard road, because some of them cycles aren’t made for off-road.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Well, we couldn’t see much, like I said. You know, there wasn’t hardly no moon last night. I got on the back of Tom’s motorcycle. He drove. And I got the lasso, and pretty soon we had Levi.”

  “Had him?”

  “Lassoed him.”

  “Right.”

  “I calmed him down. Me and Levi, we’re a team. I said to him, I said ‘Levi, we gotta get the other two.’ So I saddled Levi. And Tom went all the way up to Beallsville, you know, where the traffic light is? And Homer, he was aside me on his four-wheeler. And we went one way and Tom came the other, and pretty soon, well, it was in Joe Crowley’s yard we finally rounded them up.”

  “Joe Crowley?”

  “The one with the pool?” he says.

  “There’s a Joe Crowley with a pool?” I say.

  “You don’t know Joe?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Well, we rounded them up there. They didn’t go in the pool. Because there was a fence around it.”

  “Of course.”

  “So anyway, they’re here,” he says.

  “Is everybody okay?”

  “A little tired,” Billy says. He does not seem upset or even excited by this drama.

  “It’s all part of life with horses,” he says.

  Life with horses, I think.

  “Well, come on over and see what you bought,” he says.

  “Oh,” I say. “Are you sure they’re … ready?”

  “Ready?” he asks.

  Well, I don’t know what I mean, either.

  “Should I bring anything for them?” (Like maybe a Valium?)

  “Carrots would be good,” he says.

  I hang up and head out to the kitchen.

  Alex and Riva are having bagels, reading the paper. Hmm. I sure would like to tell them all that I have just learned. I feel quite alone here. And to complicate matters, now I have to figure out how to get carrots out of the fridge, and what to say as I grab my keys and head out. Hmm. Well, I don’t want to lie.

  “Good morning!” I say to them, as I surreptitiously grab a dish towel. I babble about having a craving for … melon, knowing that we have no melon. I babble and babble as I kneel in front of the fridge, pretending I’m looking for melon. Smooth as a thief, I grab a bag of carrots and wrap the dish towel around it.

  “No melon!” I say, swinging around, and taking a giant step toward the do
or, where we keep a basket for onions and potatoes. I quickly dump the carrots in the onion basket. Whew. One step done.

  “No melon!” I say. It occurs to me that these two have barely even registered the fact that I am in the room.

  “Hello?” I say. “Good morning!” They look up from their newspapers.

  “Hi, baby,” Alex says. “I have a horrible headache.”

  I go over and give him a smooch. Riva gets aspirin.

  “So I’m going to go out and get some melon,” I say. “You guys need anything?”

  “Melon?” Alex says.

  “I have a … craving,” I say. Thump. I feel a most horrible thump in my gut. Just like that. A big fat lie. This is terrible.

  In one swift motion I turn, grab the carrots, and head out the door.

  Whew. Okay. I’m a little disturbed by the fact that I am still good at this. I haven’t had to exercise these skills since I was a teenager.

  I jump in the car and head over to Billy’s. It is not quite registering in my mind or in my heart that I am now the owner of a horse and a mule.

  I pull up to Billy’s. Wow. Lots more excavation equipment in the yard. He must have gone on a buying spree. I can’t even locate the pump that President Lincoln drank out of. It must be hidden behind a bulldozer or something.

  I see Levi. I know Levi. A big galoot of a horse. A sweet horse.

  And then …

  My first glimpse of her is Cricket at full gallop. My God! She is a movie star horse. Her hair is blowing in the wind. She is slender, with long legs; she is a chestnut mare that could easily pose for the cover of a horse magazine. She is the horse every kid who ever went through a horse stage dreams of. I remember my horse stage. I remember asking my mom for one. I remember her laughing, saying how cute that was, how silly. I wondered how come my brother, the oldest, wasn’t laughed at when he wanted bees. He got six hives full.

  “Hey,” Billy says.

  “Well, wow!” I say.

  “Yeah, she’s a looker.”

  “And the mule?” I ask.

  “Probably hiding in the barn. Wait here. Oh, and here’s Cricket’s papers.”

  He hands me a blue certificate, very official-looking, from the American Saddlebred Horse Association. It details Cricket’s entire family tree. Her real name is Santana’s Premier Starlet, and she is the daughter of Star’s Red Flower, the granddaughter of Go Red Flower, the great-granddaughter of Flower of The Sea. Wow. That is some impressive-sounding lineage. I reach into my bag of carrots, pull one out, and hand it to her.

  Cricket sniffs. She’s a little wary. She sniffs again. Finally, her lips open, rubber lips, nimble as fingers. The lips grab the carrot. She chews, a deep, low crunching rumble echoing through her big horse mouth. I reach out and touch her nose. A velvet nose. A most wonderful nose. Okay, I am definitely becoming a horse person.

  Tom comes out of the house, limping. “So how do you like your damn mule,” he says.

  “Sorry about that,” I say. “Actually I haven’t met the mule yet—”

  Heeee-haaawwww heeee-haawww!!!!!

  My God! The noise is coming from the barn on the other side of the driveway.

  “You’re about to meet your damn mule,” Tom says.

  “Giddy-ya!” Billy yells. “Hyaaa!”

  The creature emerges.

  Oh, dear.

  Okay, not a movie star. Definitely not a movie star mule. This is more, well, a daytime talk-show mule, a guest with bad hair. Her bangs are cut short, way short. She has bulging brown eyes. I mean, really sticking-out eyes. She looks like a crazy child just let out of the asylum. She is short. And fat. Is a mule supposed to be this fat?

  “Hello … Sassafras,” I say, as she waddles toward me.

  I am standing here with my arm extended, holding a carrot for her. She is not impressed. She turns away. She plods over to a tree and stands there, her backside facing me.

  “Well, then,” I say.

  “She’s upset,” Billy says. He says she’s a little miffed about the events of last night. Plus, the six long hours she spent in the horse trailer to get here from West Virginia.

  “Of course,” I say.

  He approaches Sassy slowly, slowly, and eventually catches her by her halter. “Easy, girl,” he says, and in one gentle leap he climbs on her bare back.

  Sassy goes down on her front knees.

  We all get a good laugh out of that one. “That is some mule!” Billy says, climbing off and walking away.

  Tom gets a saddle out of the barn, and a blanket, and all kinds of strappy leather horse things. God, it looks complicated. But Tom saddles Cricket up in no time. He climbs on her, nudges her with his feet, makes a kissing noise. “Let’s go, girl.” He rides her down the driveway. She is obedient and calm, and her gait is smooth and breezy like a runway model’s.

  Sassy watches. Sassy seems upset to see Cricket heading off.

  Heeee-haaawwww heeee-haawww!!!!!

  Oh, dear. Sassy keeps hee-hawing and hee-hawing, like, “Where in the hee-haw are you going without me, Cricket!” She runs toward Cricket. She does not run through the electric fence this time. No, she learned that lesson last night. This time she gets on her knees and tries to slither under it.

  Billy cracks up. Oh, Billy has never seen anything this funny in his entire life. He runs and retrieves her. “That is some mule!” he calls back to me. The mule seems to have brightened Billy’s mood considerably. “Oh, Alex is going to love this mule!” he says.

  “Right-o,” I say.

  NINETEEN

  AND SO THIS IS THE WAY THE SUMMER PROGRESSES. I step out on Alex a few times a week to go give carrots to my tall, stately, incredibly beautiful chestnut mare, which he does not know I own, and his goofy, bug-eyed hee-hawing fat little mule, which he does not yet know he owns.

  I have a sneaking suspicion that I am not doing this bride thing right.

  But the big news is, I found a wedding dress. An ivory satin ball gown with a basque waist, tulip sleeves, a Sabrina neckline, and a triple crinoline—all of which I point out by way of showing off that I am becoming quite fluent in bride lingo.

  Nancy was with me when I found the dress—on our second trip to Wedding World. I didn’t actually intend ever to go back to Wedding World, after that first clumsy visit, but Nancy and I were driving by, and somehow that aqua blue building and that extreme pink WEDDING WORLD sucked us back in. Nancy found her dress—long-sleeve satin bodice, basque waist, tulle skirt, pearl brocade—right after I found mine. We stood in that dressing room, looking at each other, cracking up. “Brides!” We high-fived each other. We unzipped each other. We helped each other figure out how to get those giant dresses back on their hangers. We went out to the register and clicked our MasterCards on the counter, waiting for the big-haired lady to complete our orders. It was weird to stand there and pay your entry fee into the bridal kingdom. Nancy said she never imagined it this way; she imagined her mother with her; she imagined herself doing this at twenty-five, not forty. I said that I never allowed myself to imagine this at all.

  It’s late August. The wedding is only a few weeks away. The fields still need to be mowed. There’s still a ton of ex-barn rubble all over the yard. Alex and I have agreed that, yes, the farm is a bit rough for a satin ball gown and 150 gussied-up people. We’ve decided to have the first part of the wedding, the fancy ceremony and a reception, up at the Century Inn, in their beautiful backyard gazebo. And then we’ll have another party back here at the farm. Cue the mule.

  I took Riva over to Billy’s to meet the mule one night. She let out a lot of heavy sighs. She believes, first of all, that I should scale back considerably on my animal parenting. She does not quite see the appeal of the mule, especially since the mule has the habit of turning her backside to people. Only in my most private moments am I able to admit that I am far more in love with the idea of this mule than with this mule. And really, if the mule were for me, I wouldn’t mind. I can probably fall in love wit
h any animal. But this is supposed to be Alex’s mule. And I have to admit that I wish it were, well, a better mule. Only I don’t know what a better mule would be.

  I found a violinist who does an awesome bluesy “Amazing Grace.” I found a priest to officiate at the ceremony. I have decided on an actual wedding party: my two sisters, my sister-in-law, and Amy. My brother, Peter, and Amy’s husband, Andy. It’s a way of blending the family. A symbolic merging that feels right. Alex and I are starting to choose prayers and poems. We have chosen flowers, and flowers, and more flowers to cover the gazebo up at the inn. We have chosen a spread of hors d’oeuvres and bottomless bottles of champagne. I’ve ordered 150 butterfly larvae in little white boxes that are due to hatch on September 13 at precisely noon. (Uh-huh.) Everybody will get a box, and open it, and the butterfly will fly out, symbolizing, um, well, symbolizing that I am going a little hog-wild with these wedding plans. I have ordered a horse and wagon to take Alex and me from the Century Inn back to the farm.

  Cue the mule.

  I am embracing the complications of this wedding. I wonder if I am making it complicated enough. Complexity, in my mind, has come to equate with joy. The wedding is becoming a way of communicating. A way of shouting to the world: I am happy! And the more complicated I make it, the more happy you’ll see I am.

  Some of the complications are not of my own making. All of Washington County is now in an official drought emergency, putting a real dent in my gardening plans, such as they are. The tractor broke, some big piston problem, and UPS went on strike, so the parts are not getting delivered to the tractor store. We need the parts. We need the tractor. We need to mow this place, which looks hairy, shaggy brown.

  And what about a garden? It kills me that I am going to host this party at our new farm and there won’t be any flowerbeds. I’m a gardener! I used to be such a gardener. But when in the world was I supposed to start a garden? And to tell you the truth, I am a little garden-shy at this point. I think about the South Side garden, which is not really a garden anymore at all. How can I keep up with that place when I’ve got fifty acres to care for here? I think back to the hours and hours I spent hoeing and tilling and weeding and worrying and obsessing over that one-quarter-acre plot. In that garden, I knew what to do. In that garden, I had a plan. The space was defined by a fence, and the flowers all had rooms they belonged in.