Tessie D

Angel and I went out on Saturday night to a Mexican resturant on the outskirts of town. The restaurant was in a remodeled old house so that the floors buckled and the popcorn ceiling hung low. Still, Angel said it was one of his favorite spots as we pulled into the gravel parking lot in the adjacent side lot.

A young girl with dark brown hair in a high ponytail who looked like she must’ve turned 16 just the day before, sat us at one of the ten tables in what must’ve been the house’s living room back in the day. She brought us a basket of chips and two unsweet iced teas in large red plastic cups.

After we ordered and were waiting for our food, Angel sat back in the booth.

“I love this place. It’s so unpretencious. It doesn’t pretend to be something more than it is or something it’s not,” he said looking toward what used to be the living room’s front window. “It reminds me a lot of you: simple, quiet, unassuming but wholesome and good.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond. He meant the words as a compliment, and I wanted to believe them. It struck me as odd how we can see ourselves one way and then someone can describe us as entirely different.

He leaned over the table and reached out his hand. I put my hand in his.

“I always knew that I would woman who would be happy and content living on a farm, managing the business without formal dinners and country club memberships. She’s want a simple life: tending to the animals, living out in the country in a farmhouse, raising children. I want to spend my life with a woman like you who appreciates my interests and is more than a Barbie doll, playing dress up in fancy clothes and expensive jewelry.”

“Angel, I…” My voice trailed off.

This vision for the future seemed like a fantasy. But, Angel hasn’t lived on a farm and has only worked for the Owens for five months. He doesn’t know that it’s know that the reality is not nearly as idyllic as he painted it. He doesn’t know that about well water and how it will turn his clothes rusty orange without an expensive water filter and conditioner. Or, that the well will freeze in the winter no matter how well insulated the well house might be or how many portable heaters he puts in there. Or, that houses need septic tanks and propaine gas to heat the water. Or, that trash has to be sorted and burned in large barrels away from the house on windless days so that the pasture doesn’t catch fire. Or, that an entire herd of cattle can die quickly from black leg. Or, that it might not rain for weeks at a time when its needed most, burning up the costal grass in the field. Or, that it might rain too much, getting the tractor stuck in the mud and needing an expensive tow. Or, that the grasshoppers will arrive in early July and decimate the vegetable crops before the end of the month. Or, how lonely and isolating living miles from the nearest neighbor. Or, expensive it can be to drive ten miles just to buy a gallon of milk. He doesn’t know any of that.

He continued, “I always knew I’d find a good, beautiful, Christian girl like you with the kind of morals and values that make you stand apart from everyone else and the women who sleep around and aren’t responsible.”

The waitress came back to the table with our meals and set them down in front of us. I stared at my plate, not feeling especially hungry.

Of course, I don’t tell him any of that. This life, this woman that he describes doesn’t really exist. He’s fantaszing about an ideal life with a fictional woman. Something from a Romantic poem. No home, no farm, no person could live up to those standars. I suppose he’ll learn… or we’ll learn… all of it eventually. And, at least we’ll have each other to lean on.