At First Sight

What had started as a three-week vacation to visit his father and help his mother with the farm had turned into six months and a city council position. Graham had started avoiding the increasingly insistent calls from his job, because he didn’t know what to say. His father was still playing sick and his mother’s eyes lit up every time she saw Graham walk into the house. The guilt was unbearable, but Graham had vowed to return to Tokyo after planting season ended. There were only three weeks remaining in the season, and given the long hours he and the workers had been putting in over the last month, Graham figured the farm was ahead of schedule.

“We have to get Max Sibley’s girls to see what a great place Sibleyville is, or they could sell the land right from under us.”

Graham snapped out of his brooding at the mention of the Sibleys. He hadn’t been able to get Quinn and Kendra Sibley out of his thoughts since leaving their property an hour ago. There definitely weren’t women like those two in this small town. The women were gorgeous and sophisticated, like the women he dated in Tokyo.

He had to admit there was no one like the other Sibley sister either. She had looked nothing like Quinn or Kendra. She had been thicker than the other women, more curvy than Kendra and less silicone-assisted than Quinn. Her thick brown hair had hung in limp waves to her shoulders.

Also, unlike her sisters, she had looked at him as if he were evil personified. Graham vowed to stay away from her. Bringing his attention back to the meeting at hand, he demanded more sharply then he intended, “What are you talking about, Robbins? The town owns the land.” Robbins glared at him. The two men had a mutual distrust and dislike for each other.

As six pairs of shocked eyes swung to him, Graham grimaced. He had forgotten his rule of not speaking at the meetings.

“We had a small problem in the seventies, Graham,” Velma Spears explained, her oversized eyeglasses obscuring half of her wrinkled, kind face. Velma told every citizen who came to speak at city council meeting that their speech was “lovely.” And she meant it.

“Small problem.” Boyd Robbins snorted at Velma’s understatement. “We had some real issues in this town. If you haven’t noticed, Forbes, this ain’t Tokyo—”

“I’ve noticed,” Graham muttered, dryly.

Boyd’s red face grew even more red. Boyd had been in the military for thirty years and it showed in his ramrod-straight posture, buzz-cut graying brown hair and constantly clenched jaw. He was in his late fifties, but after a lifetime in the sun, he looked closer to seventy. His skin was constantly a shade of red or maroon, and just looking at Graham sometimes made him turn purple.

“Boyd means that when we fall on our hard times, we can’t rely on tourist dollars or exports to hold us until times get better,” Angus Affleck, Graham’s father’s best friend, chimed in from the seat on Graham’s right. “The seventies were tough for all small towns. A lot of people left for big cities like San Francisco and L.A. We almost had to shut down the local elementary school. And without residents, we didn’t have a tax base or a consumer base. Main Street was almost shut down, not to mention the problems we had selling our crops. We needed help, and Max helped us.”

“He bailed out an entire town?” Graham asked, surprised.

“At a steep price,” Boyd said, his voice echoing in the small room because of his close proximity to the microphone on the table. As if he needed it. “He wanted the deeds to all the stores on Main Street.”

“He let us keep our ranches, Boyd,” Velma said, softly.

“Because he knew we’d stuff his lawyers down his throat, if he tried that,” Paul Robbins, Boyd’s brother and loyal supporter, chimed in from his seat on Graham’s left.

“Although his bank damn near owns half the ranches in town anyway,” Boyd grumbled.

“He made a lot of improvements to Main Street. We wouldn’t have the clock tower or the movie theatre without Max,” Velma continued, her voice becoming more insistent.

“Some people think throwing around money will buy them respect. Max Sibley was a rat.” Boyd’s face had gotten so red, he looked on the verge of imploding.

“From what I understand of those Sibley girls, they’re just as bad as Max,” Paul said, taking over for his brother, who was too overcome with anger to continue. “One of them is even an actor on one of those soap operas.”

“Diamond Valley,” Angus offered, cheerfully. Graham looked over in surprise at the grizzled rancher and part-time sheriff of the town, whose skin was like well-worn leather after decades in the sun.

“I don’t care about the name of her stupid show,” Paul snapped, sending Angus an annoyed glance. “The point is, she’s an actress, and we all know what those people are like. We don’t want an actress in charge of the future of this town, nor the other ones. One is a stockbroker in New York—”

“I bet she had something to do with Enron,” Boyd interrupted, suspiciously.

Paul continued, “And the other one works at some Black museum… Oh, excuse me, Graham, African-American museum.”

Graham ignored the dig and concentrated on the Sibley sisters. Judging from Kendra’s conservative dark suit, tight enough to display that she worked out on a consistent basis and could probably kick a grown man’s ass, Kendra was the stockbroker. Quinn’s almost luminous glow obviously meant that she was the actress. That left the mute one as the museum worker. It figured.

“A bunch of liberals,” Boyd summarized his brother’s lecture. “We’re looking at our town being controlled by a bunch of female liberals. What are they even doing here? Those girls live in the lap of luxury all of their lives and now they willingly move into a shack that hasn’t been inhabited by anything more than raccoons and snakes in over fifteen years? By any means necessary, we have got to get those girls to give us back our town before they cause irreparable damage.”

“On that cheerful note, how about we conclude this meeting for the night and go our separate ways to think about how we’re going to swindle the Sibley sisters?” Graham said.

“I second that,” Angus said, smiling proudly at him.

“Wait, we’re not finished—” Boyd started.

“All in favor say ‘aye,’” Graham said. A murmur of “ayes” followed his statement, besides Paul’s tentative “no.” Graham pounded the mayor’s gavel and announced, “This meeting is adjourned. Until next week, folks.”

He stood, took a few moments to make certain that Velma had a ride home, avoided Angus’s attempt to get his attention, ignored Boyd’s poisonous glares and slipped out of the claustrophobic town hall.

He breathed in the fresh night air as he strolled towards his truck parked in one of the marked spots on Main Street. The nights in Sibleyville were like nowhere else that Graham had ever been, and he had been all over the world as an executive with the conglomerate, Shoeford Industries. There was something about the mixture of dirt, mountains, green trees and water that combined to make Sibleyville smell…smell like something comforting and inviting.

Graham stopped his thoughts. He was standing on Main Street in a town that had one stoplight, one movie theatre and where the big social event of the year was David Markham’s Fourth of July hoedown. There was nothing in Sibleyville that made him want to stay. Graham could not survive in this environment, after having spent the last fifteen years living in major cities around the world. He needed excitement, luxury, glamour. And not even Boyd could lie and say that Sibleyville had that.

“I’m sick of you railroading me in city council meetings, young man,” came Boyd’s angry voice behind him.

Graham inwardly groaned. He remembered his grandmother’s old phrase: Speak of the devil, and he’ll appear.

Graham turned to face Boyd. Graham was tall at six foot two, but Boyd was probably stronger and showed no signs of allowing age to slow him down.

Graham nodded a greeting to Boyd’s wife, Alma, who cowered behind him. As large and intimidating as her husband was, she was small and petite. Graham tried not to think about it, but he still wondered how they… Well, they had two big sons, so they must have figured out a way.

“Good evening, Alma,” Graham said, smiling politely.

Alma smiled shyly in response.

Boyd grumbled, then said, abruptly, “I got your number. I know what you’re doing.”

“What am I doing?” Graham asked, curiously.

“You’re trying to bring your big-city ideas here. This isn’t New York City,” Boyd informed him, while drawing out “New York City” as if he was saying “Sodom and Gomorrah.” “You think you’re so special because you have a few stamps on your passport. I’ve been to all of those places, too, with the service, and there’s no place like Sibleyville, U.S.A.”

“I’m not trying to do anything, Boyd. I just don’t think threatening the Sibley sisters is going to make them hand back the keys of the town. They either will or won’t, but it’s their decision to make.”

Boyd’s eyes narrowed then he poked a gnarled finger in Graham’s face and warned, “I’m watching you. You get in the way of this town’s progress, and I’ll rip you a new one.”

Boyd stomped off towards his town car. Alma smiled apologetically at Graham then raced after Boyd. Graham shook his head in disbelief then laughed. He had spent the last ten years working and living in almost every major city around the world, and the only time he had been threatened with bodily harm was by the mayor of Sibleyville.

Chapter 4

For one glorious moment when Charlie woke up, she thought she was back in her apartment in Los Angeles. She smiled and stretched her arms over her head. She couldn’t wait to walk to the deli down the street. She loved the tuna sandwiches there, and the canolis. Delicious cream bursting from the delicate shell, all covered in gooey chocolate. Her mouth watered just thinking about it.

Then she felt her sweat-soaked nightgown plastered against her skin. Something else was wrong…. That smell. Usually, she got the ocean breeze, but now all she smelled was dust and…and fresh, country air. Country. Charlie gasped and opened her eyes. The first thing she saw was a large brown water stain at the corner of the white ceiling. And then she heard the sound of glass breaking followed by Kendra shrilly berating Quinn.

Charlie placed an arm over her eyes, as it all came rushing back. The long drive to Sibleyville, Kendra and Quinn and—even worse—the gorgeous cowboy. It hadn’t been a nightmare. Charlie seriously contemplated remaining in her bed for the rest of the two weeks, but she suddenly noticed the bedspring poking into her back and rolled out. Her feet hit the hardwood floor and the dust that lay on the floor like a carpet billowed around her.

Charlie glanced around the bedroom that she had been given by default last night. Quinn and Kendra had both claimed larger—and coincidentally cleaner—bedrooms upstairs. Charlie had been stuck with the only bedroom on the ground floor. It had one squeaking bed, an antique dresser with a cracked mirror and a window that was covered with a faded, daisy-covered sheet. She shuddered in disgust at the filth in the room. The night before, she had willed herself not to notice the dirt and had simply unrolled a sleeping bag on top of the bed and climbed in. But, now, in the sunlight that streamed unimpeded through the sheet, she saw everything. Goosebumps raised on her skin. She could not believe that she had slept in this room. It was disgusting.

Charlie heard more screaming in the kitchen. She slipped her bare feet into her tennis shoes and stood up from the bed, groaning at the protesting ache in her back. She wiped the sleep from her eyes then shuffled down the hallway into the living room.

She could hear chaos behind the door to the kitchen. Since she couldn’t avoid her sisters forever, Charlie took a deep breath and pushed open the swinging kitchen door.

Black smoke was curling out of the brand-new silver toaster on the counter that Charlie had brought from home. Quinn stood in a sheer white minidress with her arms crossed, glaring at Kendra, who wore skin-tight, black workout pants and a black sports bra. Both of her sisters looked showered and refreshed, and Charlie reminded herself to check their bathroom first.

“What in the world is going on?” Her sisters turned to her and both began speaking at once. Charlie instantly held up her hands for silence. Surprisingly, Quinn and Kendra both fell silent. “First, I need coffee. And, second, I need to find the closest Wal-Mart so we can start disinfecting this place.”

“Wal-Mart?” Kendra gasped in horror at the same time that Quinn whispered in dismay, “Disinfecting?”

“If we’re lucky,” Charlie muttered. “There may not be a Wal-Mart around here, which is great for the local small businesses, but very bad for us.”

Charlie shuffled to the coffeemaker that she had also brought from home. Kendra wordlessly handed her a coffee cup with the name of her alma mater, Harvard, emblazoned on the side. Charlie smiled gratefully then filled the mug with the steaming liquid. She usually liberally sprinkled sugar into her coffee, but since she knew neither of her sisters would think to pack something as caloric as sugar, she just gulped it down and cringed.

“You’re not actually expecting us to clean this place, are you, Charlie?” Quinn asked, nervously. “We don’t have the skills for this—”

“Skills,” Kendra snorted. “We’re just cleaning, Quinn, not launching a space shuttle.”

“But, there could be rodents or something,” Quinn said, with wide eyes. She rubbed the back of her neck, as if brushing something off her skin. “Can’t we hire someone to do this?”

“I hate to admit this, but I actually agree with Bimbette here,” Kendra said to Charlie. Ignoring Quinn’s glare, she continued, “We need this entire house cleaned from top to bottom, and I’d rather not get buried alive if it collapses, so we need to have someone secure the frame and foundation. And then I need to contact the office—”

Charlie interrupted her, “We’re not allowed to use our personal bank accounts, call friends or boyfriends, or to work—”

Kendra’s eyes turned cold, and Charlie fought to hold her gaze. Kendra could be intimidating when she wanted to be, and she usually wanted to be. “You don’t seriously expect us to live by the draconian conditions of the will?”

“We agreed,” Charlie replied, simply.

“I can’t disappear from my job for two weeks, Charlie,” Kendra snarled.

“Then you shouldn’t have agreed to come,” Charlie said, quietly. She focused on the dust bunnies in the corners of the room and said, “If we’re going to live here for the next two weeks, we need to clean this house. We also need food, besides coffee.”

“I should have known you would be Ms. Rules,” Kendra said in a tone that told Charlie she was not complimenting her.

“Stop being a baby, Kendra,” Quinn finally chimed in. “Charlie’s right. We agreed to do this Grandpa’s way. And that means no cleaning ladies, no Internet and no contact with our real lives. No one in our lives or in this town is supposed to know the reason we’re here. And, considering the fact that this town benefits if we fail, we should definitely stick to the strict-confidence policy.”

Charlie stared at Quinn surprised. She had never heard Quinn sound so forceful or serious. Then Quinn added, with a giggle, “Besides, how will I be able to ask the cowboy to show me his barn if I’m stuck out here?”

Charlie choked on her coffee, but neither woman noticed as they squared off like two old-time cowboys.

“He’s mine, Quinn. I saw him first,” Kendra retorted angrily.

“Whoever saw him first won’t matter once I work the Quinn Sibley magic on him,” Quinn challenged.

Kendra laughed, while Charlie finally was able to swallow unimpeded. Kendra crossed the kitchen to stand in front of Quinn.

“Are you actually considering going head-to-head with me on the cowboy?” Kendra asked Quinn, one finely arched eyebrow raised in disbelief.

“If you’re not too scared to go head-to-head with me,” Quinn responded, mirroring Kendra’s expression.

Kendra shook her head, obviously amused. “Well, this should add some excitement to our time here. You’re on, Quinn. We both go for the cowboy and he decides.”

“He has a name,” Charlie blurted out, before she could stop herself. Her sisters turned to her and Charlie averted her gaze when she saw their identical curious expressions. She poured herself another cup of coffee, hoping her sisters didn’t notice her trembling hands. “I just… You’re both being childish. He’s not some toy or a— He’s a person.”

Kendra tilted her head to one side and studied Charlie. “You can try for Graham, too, Charlie,” she finally said, placing emphasis on his name.

Charlie felt her face burn in embarrassment, while Quinn grinned and bobbed her head excitedly. Charlie had spent most of the previous sleepless night dreaming about Graham. She still wanted to tie him to a bed and just look at him for an hour, but now it seemed gross that that Kendra and Quinn obviously had the same feelings.

Charlie squared her shoulders and said, “I won’t try for him, like he’s some kind of…of carnival prize.”

Kendra shrugged then said, “All right, but I don’t want to hear your mouth. There was nothing in Max’s will about not trying to make things a little exciting around here. Give me a few minutes and we’ll head into town and find something to clean the house with.”

Quinn looked down at her spotless white dress then back at Charlie. “I’m going to get really dirty today, aren’t I?”

Charlie ignored Quinn and looked down at her nightgown. She needed to shower, brush her teeth and get dressed, but then there was her refusal to share the shower with the fungus growing at the bottom.

“You’re right, Quinn. We’re going to get really dirty, so there’s hardly any use changing clothes,” Charlie said, with a relieved sigh.

She had been saved once more.

It was one of those perfect summer days that only exist in Smalltown, U.S.A. Cloudless blue skies, birds chirping in the distance, children running down the sidewalks and young men standing at the town water fountain watching young women walk past. If Graham wasn’t dead-set on leaving all of it as soon as possible, he would be appreciating this scene right now.

Instead, Graham ignored the scene around him and steered his truck to a stop in front of the town’s all-purpose store. One thing that Graham could admit to feeling grateful about was that there was always convenient parking downtown. He got out of the truck then slapped on a pair of headphones. The soothing sound of a cultured voice speaking Japanese filled his ears.

His Japanese had gotten rusty in the six months he had spent in Sibleyville. He had never been that good to begin with, but if there was one thing Graham could say about Sibleyville, the small-town afforded him plenty of time to practice, when he wasn’t working.

“Afternoon, Graham,” Velma called out from the entrance of her clothing boutique.

“Konnichiwa,” Graham greeted in return, with a slight bow.

“Ogenki-desu-ka?” Velma returned.

Graham stopped in mid-stride, took off the headphones and gaped at the older woman. Velma speaking Japanese was about as likely as…as Graham speaking Japanese.

Velma winked at him then turned back into her boutique. Graham laughed to himself and shook his head.

“Don’t you have anything better to do, besides stand in the middle of the street, grinning like a fool?”

Graham grinned at the sound of Wyatt Granger’s voice. Graham had known Wyatt almost as long as he had known himself. Their families had been the only black people in Sibleyville, when the two had been growing up. And it had remained that way until the arrival of the Sibley sisters, who had increased the African-American population in town by a full thirty percent.

“What are you doing out and about? Business slow as usual at the funeral home?” Graham asked then winced when he noticed Wyatt’s honey-brown skin turn a light shade of gray at the mention of anything related to his family’s funeral parlor.

The Grangers had been Sibleyville’s only morticians for the last three generations, and Graham had a feeling that Wyatt would have put an end to the family business if he could have. But Wyatt’s father had died five years ago, and his mother had never recovered from her husband’s death, which had left Wyatt to continue the family business.

“No one has died in Sibleyville since Ted Gravis. Business is slow,” Wyatt replied.

“I hear Ron Walker had a severe case of heartburn last night,” Charlie said then winced again when Wyatt narrowed his eyes at him. “I’m just trying to help you out.”

“That’s real funny, Graham,” Wyatt responded dryly.

“I just don’t want you to pass out again when someone asks you about the embalming process.”

Wyatt’s jaw twitched before he protested through clenched teeth, “I did not pass out. I told you, I just hadn’t had a lot to eat that night and my blood sugar was low and then the heat—”

Graham patted Wyatt on the shoulder and said, somberly, “Your secret is safe with me, Wyatt.”

“What secret?”

Graham hid his smile and changed the subject, “Do you want to grab some lunch? I’m supposed to be getting wood to fix a fence on the east end, but a man has to eat, right?”

Wyatt smiled instantly and said, “It’s Thursday, and you know what that means, right?”

“No.”

“Pot roast at Annie’s.” Wyatt’s wide grin made Graham shake his head with regret.

He didn’t know which was more pathetic: the fact that he was probably just as excited as Wyatt was at the idea of forking down some of the delicious pot roast at the diner in town, or that this time last year, he had been eating in some of the best restaurants in Tokyo, ordering caviar, champagne and other delicacies.

“Pot roast, it is,” Graham said, with a resigned sigh.

The two men started the short walk towards the diner on the other end of Main Street.

Graham nodded in greeting at other residents they passed on the sidewalk, while Wyatt was glad to shake everyone’s hand and have boring conversations about the weather and the predictions for the fall harvest. A few minutes later, the two men settled in their regular corner booth at Annie’s, where the eponymous Annie was taking orders from another table. Annie’s husband stood over the grill visible through the open window behind the counter.

“I heard you met the Sibley sisters,” Wyatt said, while passing Graham one of the plastic menus on the table. “What are they like? No one around here has seen them yet.”

“I just met them. Did a carrier pigeon spread the word?” Wyatt shrugged, noncommitally. “Hey, what do you expect? This is Sibleyville. So, tell me about them. Please let one—at least one—be somewhat decent-looking. The pickings around here have gotten pretty slim since the Hodgkin girls moved back to Oregon.”

“The Hodgkin girls are forty-three and forty-four years old, respectively,” Graham deadpanned.

Wyatt shrugged again. “I take what I can get.”

Graham rolled his eyes in exasperation. “Why do you stay, Wyatt?”

“It’s my home.” Graham stared speechlessly at Wyatt: to him it was really that simple. To Graham, nothing was that simple. “So, you haven’t told me about the Sibley sisters, which must mean they’re as ugly as a pimple on a horse’s butt.”

“Not quite,” Graham said, smiling.

In fact, there was nothing remotely ugly about any of the sisters. Quinn had marvelous breasts that would make a grown man weep, Kendra had a body that could make a grown man beg and then… Well, and then there was the third sister. Whatever her name was—he couldn’t even remember now. She had… Graham couldn’t really remember what she had because he had been so transfixed by Quinn’s breasts and Kendra’s rock-hard body.

“You’re smiling,” Wyatt noted. “That’s a good thing. Please tell me that’s a good thing.”