My second series of weekly blogs is a fictionalized description of six closely linked and austere lives that come to recognize disillusionment with feeling happier and more fulfilled in their workplace than they do in their own homes. Each personality will come to terms with their feelings of guilt about whether or not they have earned the right to dip a toe into the pleasure pool for pleasure's sake alone. We will witness the large emotional stakes they wager on such an unanticipated adventure. Above all else these stories will be about reinvention, feature endearing characters and the promise of provocative endings.
The original idea for this story was to use the production of perfect olive oil as a metaphor for finding balance in life. First, I could draw upon all the memories of my father, uncles and all the gumbahs in the olive processing business that filled my world growing up. Second, I had a strong sense of the protagonist being a young woman who'd been tucked away in a French convent since adolescence, resulting in what I deemed to be a compelling virginal innocence. All I knew was that she was going to California to be reunited with her father and that she had one goal in mind on this trip. At age eighteen she wanted to have her first sexual experience.
On what turned out to be Sarah Kay's last day at the ranch, it was two o'clock in the morning before she was certain her father was asleep. She looked out her bedroom window into the backyard as she slipped on her jeans. She saw a faint light burning inside the caboose and wondered if Chuck (he of "pure pleasure is no longer my cultural paradigm" fame) really was waiting for her. She also saw that the greenhouse had a light on and that there was the movement of a shadow inside.
When she got to the backyard she peeked through the greenhouse glass and saw Squint pruning his bonsai olive trees. She tapped on the glass.
Squint was about to light his ganja pipe but politely asked if she would mind, "Not at all. Go right ahead," she said. Minutes later Squint was talking philosophically about the calming power that olive trees, even his bonsais, have always exerted on humankind. "I think of the olive as a central component of an idyllic ideal. Like wheat leading to bread, like grapes leading to wine, like the honeycomb, olives signify something of nature and human cultivation. The olive and its oil are surrounded by an aura of myth and romance. Like you, Sarah Kay, olives came as an immigrant from the old world to the new world. Its journey and your journey seem like a chance of a lifetime."
She asked, "Does that come from your head or your heart?" He pointed to his heart. Then, out of the blue he asked, "Will you have a romance with Senor Risconi tonight?"
"How do you know about that," she asked.
"When you rejected the advances of my nephew Cesar, it was then I knew," he offered. "Be on your way. The sun rise is not long from now. Enjoy the love you feel." She gave him a hug and left for the caboose.
She found Chuck waiting for her on the porch. When he stepped out of the darkness she immediately slipped into his arms before he could object. There were no words spoken. They kissed.
Suddenly her father's voice yelled, "Get away from her, you son-of-a-bitch." Jesse leaped onto the porch of the caboose, shoved Sarah Kay aside and punched Chuck hard in the nose that landed him square on his ass. "I thought you and I had an understanding."
"We do. I just... She just... We do - we do."
"Good. Sarah Kay, get him a wash cloth and see if you can stop that bloody nose and then get in the house." With that, feeling quite self-satisfied, he walked back to the house and went back to bed and fell contentedly to sleep.
What awoke him was Chuck's DeHavilland float plane as it slowly flew over the house rocking the wings as a sign of goodbye. The plane then turned and headed east into the rising sun. Jesse instinctively knew his daughter was on board. He smiled and spoke aloud the poem, "Don't be like most people who instead of searching for happiness, rather, they live avoiding the risk of unhappiness. Don't allow the fear of pain to be stronger then the delight of life you feel."
THE END
Copyright 2010 G.Leo Maselli
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