Rain Shadow (5 page)

“Don’t be dramatic. He’s a little coarse in some ways. But he’s a very good agent.” Her mother adjusted the rear view mirror and applied lipstick in one smooth motion. “He’s quite good at selling commercial property; has lots of connections in Bellingham. Just did a nice deal for us.”

Taylor adjusted the seatbelt and considered the information. Despite being sharp, focused, and completely in control, her mother had almost no ability to sense an undercurrent in a person. This was probably the reason she’d married a gay man and why she remained single for the last twenty years. It wasn’t for lack of male interest. She simply ignored any and all advances, as if she knew somehow that her instincts in that department couldn’t be trusted. 

“While we’re discussing appearances,” Ann looked meaningfully at Taylor, “destroy your lungs on your own time, please. No smoking around clients, in or directly outside the office, or in the car with Steve.”

“When am I supposed to have a smoke?” Taylor wished she’d been born fifty years earlier when smoking was in its glory days, before it became akin to pulling out a dead rat and gnawing on it.

“You’ll figure something out.”

The Lexus pulled into the parking lot behind Holy Grounds and Taylor opened the door.

“Thanks for lunch, Mom.”

As she got out of the car her independence evaporated. She wished, irrationally, that she could return to Seattle with her mother, not drive thirty minutes to a strange house she inhabited alone. She hesitated, then impulsively grabbed Minnie and kissed the dog on the head.

“We’ll talk soon. Remember to call me with any questions.”

As she closed the door Taylor watched her mother pat her legs. Minnie leapt to her lap.

Before she could unlock the car door, Taylor noticed a scrap of paper folded and shoved under one
windshield wiper. She opened it and read
:
You’re hired. That is, if you can handle it. AND if you don’t smoke on the job. Come in Monday at eight. Melissa

So much for that “stack” of applications Melissa had referenced. Taylor smirked as she read the note.  An official new beginning: job and profession, all in one day. Not to mention an Italian meal instead of frozen pie and Corona. She should be happy.



Chapter 5

“T

he list of today’s duties is on the white board.” Liz jerked her head, indicating something beyond the door that led to the animals in back. “I’ll be along in a few minutes. For now, start cleaning out Rain’s paddock.”

There will be lots of cleaning up of crap
.
Obviously Liz wanted to get her started o
n
tha
t
first thing. Taylor walked past the rows of kennels, toward the paddock at the limits of the property. She pondered her decision to volunteer: random, that’s what it was. But she’d committed herself and it did provide something to do on a Sunday besides worry. Outside of working on an Olympic gold medal for anxiety, her current list of activities included drinking beer and watching old ladies weed around the grave stones across the street. That, or catching up on the Canadian news that appeared daily on one of the three channels she could count on getting.

Rain rumbled a greeting as Taylor approached. She pushed the wheelbarrow inside the enclosure and surveyed the paddock as the mare watched. Despite a three-sided shelter, it was big enough to ride in, if you didn’t mind going around and around in circles. A few scattered patches of grass remained in the corners and along the sides of the fencing, but they were nipped so close to the ground the vegetation was as brown as the earth. Rain ambled this way and that while Taylor worked, delicately plucking up stray stalks of hay with nimble lips. After filling the wheelbarrow, Taylor approached the horse and laid a hand on her back. Rain nuzzled her and sighed.

“I know how you feel.” Taylor traced the horse’s odd marking with a finger and sighed along with her. “I could use a friend, too.”

The loneliness and anxiety she’d been fighting to keep at bay swelled inside. Without thinking she laid her head on the horse’s back and breathed in the deep earthy smell. She could hear Rain’s heartbeat, steady and regular.

Up close, the rust-colored marking blurred to red. It reminded Taylor
of blood. She wondered, as she continued to trace the edges of hair, did suffering have a physical shape in a person’s body, like a tumor? Did it take up space, or leave a vacuum? A loss might leave a specific shape on a person’s soul, as surely as Rain’s patch of reddish hair, the horse’s skin dictating the pattern of hair and its hue, year after year. Regardless of what she’d been told at the clinic about cells and what constituted life, deep inside Taylor felt the shape of her loss. 

In the stillness, Taylor could hear only the muffled thump of the horse’s heartbeat and the gentle swish of her tail. She had an overwhelming desire to slip onto the mare’s back and simply be supported there for awhile.

“I wish I could be like you, girl. Just move on and forget it. You don’t feel sorry for yourself. I bet you never think about your eye, or how you lost it.”

Taylor imagined Rain before the loss of her eye, how beautiful her face must have been—deep, dreamy eyes surrounded by dark skin that edged the pale coat. Stunning. The mare turned toward her but from Taylor’s vantage point all she could see was a mass of scars and emptiness. She imagined the gentle creature following her owner trustingly into the mountains. Had she sensed what was going to happen? Been afraid? Had she known she’d fallen out of favor and would be discarded like yesterday’s trash? A sob caught in her throat. Rain nudged her hip and Taylor swallowed the lump back down.

“Can I just sit on you for awhile?” Taylor moved to Rain’s good side and looked deep into the mare’s remaining eye. She didn’t want to force herself on the horse. Rain stood quietly, waiting.

Taylor laid her arms over the mare’s back and leaned into her, testing the response. Rain waited. Without
thinking further, Taylor jumped once, twice, three times and threw herself over the horse’s back. Shimmying her body this way and that she jerked an elbow back, jabbing the mare in the flanks. Rain shifted her weight as if trying to help. Grabbing a chunk of mane hair, Taylor finally pulled herself upright.

“It’s been a long time since I rode, Sweetie. I’m sorry.”

Taylor tried to relax and find some sense of balance. It occurred to her suddenly that there was no lead rope or rein connecting her to the horse. Rain could walk—or for God’s sak
e
ru
n
— and she couldn’t do a thing about it. That might be tricky to explain to Liz. Or her mother when she didn’t show up for work
:
I got a concussion when I fell off a one-eyed horse I shouldn’t have been riding.

It would be smart to slide off. Pronto. Instead, Taylor continued to sit on the horse, absorbing the mare’s peaceful demeanor and earthy smell. Instead of lowering her head to graze, Rain remained standing with neck upright as if she sensed any movement might throw her rider off balance. Taylor stroked the crest of her neck.

“You enjoying yourself?”

Taylor startled and Rain tensed, swinging her neck so she could see Liz leaning against the paddock gate. Taylor immediately slid to the ground and brushed at the seat of her jeans.

“I … ”

“Nobody’s ridden that horse. W
e
believe
d
her to be broke based on
her behavior, but no one has tried her out. Was planning on getting to that myself, later.” Liz’s voice was even but Taylor sensed her disap
proval.

“It’s been a long time since I rode … something just made me want to get on her back.”

Liz stared hard at Taylor, her mouth twitching. “Am I going to have to worry about monitoring your sudden impulses?”

Taylor opened and shut her mouth.

Liz didn’t wait for a reply. “Because I really don’t have time for that. Someone’s coming to look at Rain this afternoon—possible new home. At least I can tell them she tolerates a bareback rider.”

Taylor’s heart beat faster. “Someone might adopt her?”

“This is a temporary shelter, not a petting zoo.” Liz raised bushy eyebrows and Taylor noticed they almost met in the middle, like fuzzy caterpillars. “Animals need a permanent home, their own person to love.”

Taylor felt her throat tighten. She moved back to the mare’s side and brushed her fingers down Rain’s face.

“You’ll make sure it’s a good home?”

Liz looked at her strangely. “Tha
t
i
s
my job. Now, if you don’t mind, break time is over. Finish whatever you were doing here and come back inside. I need help clipping dog nails.”



Chapter 6

T

aylor shuffled to the kitchen of her tiny house and pulled a bag
out of the cabinet. She studied the back label: “Bold, intense flavor
with caramel undertones.” Sounded like the description on one of her father’s expensive wine bottles, not an introduction to coffee beans. Coffee had never been a favorite beverage. She could not remember a time when her mother drank it and her father kept only instant in the house. Once in awhile he made a cup and it looked about as appealing as dish water. Melissa had nearly dropped of a heart attack when Taylor expressed her lack of coffee affinity on her first day at Holy Grounds.

“Coffee is th
e
onl
y
drink.” Melissa narrowed heavily painted eyes, the lashes layered with mascara, and studied Taylor as if she were an alien. “Do you have any sense for the sacred history of coffee?”

Taylor simply stared at the tiny diamond twinkling at the side of Melissa’s nose ring
.
Historian/barista/goth chick
.
Her dad would love this girl.

“In the 15
th
century, monks in Yemen discovered that drinking coffee helped them stay awake during extended prayer. Other mystics noted they experienced new vitality by drinking coffee and in England it was believed coffee helped expel fumes from the brain.”

Melissa sounded like she was reading from an encyclopedia. Taylor watched her adjust a headband that restrained a thick mane of jet black hair so dark she expected Melissa’s scalp was dyed, too.

“Brewing coffee, like cultivating grapes, is an art form. One translation of the word is ‘wine of the bean.’ Bellingham has more places to buy coffee, per capita, tha
n
Seattl
e
. We pride ourselves on loving this particular wine.” Melissa slid a small grinder off the shelf behind the
espresso machine. “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear you say you don’t like coffee.
We’re fixing that, pronto.”

A few minutes later, Melissa filled a narrow cobalt mug with inky fluid and pushed it at Taylor.

“Do you have cream … and sugar?”

“Do I have cream and sugar.”

Melissa’s tone was dead pan. She sighed in exasperation and gestured around the tiny space. Every shelf and cupboard was devoted to coffee accompaniments: syrups, cream of several kinds, sugar—raw, white, and organic, as well as sugar substitutes in a rainbow of colored packets. Taylor knew from the two minute tour that a small freezer was stuffed with ice cream for milk shakes. “Of course I have cream and sugar. But you don’t get any. As a coffee virgin you need to first develop an appreciation for the straight-up real thing.”

Somebody takes their job way too seriously.

Taylor looked for a hint of a smile on the girl’s face, but Melissa only waited, hands on her hips. She took a sip of the beverage and choked.

“I’m not trying to grow hair on my chest, all right! I can’t drink this crap.”

“You’ll get used to it.” Melissa smirked and shook her head. “It’s kind of like switching to thong underwear when you’re used to briefs. Seems sorta radical at first, but eventually you’ll wonder how you used anything else.”

“Excuse me? You’re comparing coffee drinking to underwear? We’re not going to get personal, are we?” Taylor wrinkled her nose.

“With you? God, no.” Melissa looked disgusted. “But put that down for now. We’ve got customers. Time for you to watch and learn.”

For the next two hours Taylor watched Melissa expertly froth milk and draw narrow jets of espresso, dark as chocolate, from twin spouts on the machine. She eventually made her first mocha and a hazelnut latte which Melissa sipped with disdain. “Too sweet. The coffee always rules.”

“Is that Latte Law or something? Will I get stoned for non-compliance?”

“Boy, you are a smart ass.” Melissa stared hard at Taylor seeming to cast, once again, her own brand of curse

“Takes one to know one.”

Unexpectedly, Melissa laughed out loud. “Actually, it’s known as Melissa’s Law. I’m the best barista at Holy Grounds. Wait and see. Nobody knows the bean like me.” A smile crinkled the edges of her mouth.