Jill nodded toward the mushroom booth. “What’s with her?”
“I don’t know,” Ross admitted, “but—”
“A lot of crazy things have been happening around here lately. Believe me, I know.”
The girl was still chanting. “Dick suck mushroom! Pickaninny pie!”
Ross tried to ignore her. “Why? What’s happened to you?” he asked.
“Nothing much,” Jill said. “I was attacked by Puka, the golden retriever I adopted at birth and who has never so much as growled at a squirrel. Right after he bit me on the leg, he ran away, and he hasn’t come back since. Although I have a new friend: a snake took up residence on my front stoop this morning. I had to sneak out the back door to get out of the house. I’m just hoping it’s gone by the time I get home. Oh, and my friend Jenny called me up last night and told me she hated me. She wouldn’t tell me why, and she won’t answer the phone when I call, or return any of my texts.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah.”
“My tale of woe is not quite as bad, but I was pecked by a chicken.” He was tempted to mention that black flying thing but decided against it.
“And that crazy mushroom woman screamed at you after her daughter said racist obscenities.”
“That, too.”
“It’s a weird world,” Jill said.
A customer strolled over, wanting to buy one of the refrigerator cookies, and she excused herself to help the man. Had Ross walked away, that might have been the end of the conversation, but she was attractive, and she seemed nice, and he noticed that she wasn’t wearing a ring.
Pathetic.
It was pathetic, but it kept him there. He motioned toward her cookies after the customer left. “Those look amazing,” he said.
“Thank you.”
“Can you actually make a living with this? I mean here? In Magdalena?”
“Oh no. I have to have a day job.”
“Which is?”
She shook her head. “You’ll laugh.”
He laughed. “No I won’t.”
“You just did,” she pointed out.
“Sorry. But I wasn’t laughing at your job. I was laughing at the idea that you thought I would laugh at your job... Never mind. Forget it. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t—”
“I’m a telemarketer.”
“Hmm.”
“I guess that’s better than laughing.”
“No, I’m just surprised. You don’t look like a telemarketer.”
“What does one look like?”
“I don’t know. Older. Grotesquely overweight.”
Jill laughed.
“You definitely have the voice for it, though.” Ross looked around. “Where do you work? Do you commute every day? Because I don’t see any calling center here in town.”
“I work out of my home.”
“I didn’t know they did that.”
She shrugged. “It’s another way to save money: no brick-and-mortar. There are five of us in my unit. We all log in to a central exchange where we’re monitored, and everything we need shows up on the screen.” She smiled wanly. “It’s not something I’m proud of.”
“What do you sell?”
“Do you really care?” She looked at him skeptically.
“No,” he admitted.
A woman with her young son in tow walked up and bought two cookies. Ross bought a cookie, too, a TV set. He wanted to talk to Jill more, but some friends of hers came over to chat, and he waved goodbye as he excused himself.
He ate the cookie on the way back to the ranch. It was delicious.
That evening, Lita called and said they’d be back on Saturday. She sounded worried, and he asked what was wrong, but it turned out to be nothing. She was just concerned about her horse, and he reassured her that all of the animals were fine.
“Do you think you could take him out for a run?” she asked. “He needs daily exercise.”
“That’s not going to happen,” he told her. “Besides, you’ll be back in a few days.”
Now her tone sounded amused rather than worried. “Are you afraid of my horse? Are you afraid of Mickey?”
“I don’t know how to ride a horse,” he said defensively. “I don’t know how to put on a saddle or any of that.”
“You’re afraid,” she teased.
“Fine. I’m afraid.”
Lita laughed. “I’m glad I called. You cheer me up.”
“I’m happy my cowardice amuses you.”
She hadn’t talked to Dave about it yet, had only been toying with the idea in her own mind, but Lita told Ross that once they received their money, they might be able to pay him for the chores he did around the ranch, hire him on as an official ranch hand. He didn’t want to argue with her over the phone, so he didn’t respond to her suggestion, but there was no way that was going to happen. He felt like enough of a freeloader already, even with the chores, and the charity of payment was more than he could put up with, no matter how awful his financial state.