Chapter 13

Having Will back in the States, although still far off in Mississippi, gave Jennifer’s life a different tone for the next few months. Much of it reflected the fact that she didn’t have to worry about him quite as much as when he had been in the Persian Gulf. Her relief only got deeper over the period as the exultation over what had been thought to be a quick victory became frustration with the feeling that the result of the war had been the opening of an unfathomable can of worms that threatened to drag on for years.

She was still worried that he might be sent back to the powder keg for more duty that would put her right back on edge. At least if it happened both of them were sure it wouldn’t be soon, and with the end of his enlistment in sight there was a good chance it wouldn’t happen at all.

Jennifer had been very impressed at Will’s announcement that he was prepared to get out of the Air Force to stay close to her. It was something that was totally unexpected; up until then he had seemed committed to staying in the service until he could retire, still a decade off. That change in plans told her that he was more committed to her than ever, and while he still wanted to end up on the Bar H Bar he was willing to bend his position to allow her to help him do it. He still clearly wanted to stay in the Air Force until he could retire, but not if it dragged them apart. It would be years before they could know how that would work out, but it gave a great deal of promise for the future.

Since he was willing to give up that part of his career plans for her, it slowly started to dawn on her that she had to give up some of her career plans for him. She had thought about the idea of continuing to work for Lambdatron by some sort of telepresence, and the technology certainly existed for her to do it, but up until now it had not been much more than a vague idea. Now, it seemed likely that at some point in the future she’d have to do it. Instead of her snug but not very homey little condo little more than a mile from the office, she’d be living in the middle of his family’s ranch over four hundred miles from the company offices. That time could be as near as a year and a half in the future or it could be ten years, but it seemed likely to happen somewhere in that time.

Living on the ranch would not be easy, especially if she were going to continue with her work at Lambdatron at a distance. The road into the ranch proper was reportedly rough, but passable; she’d never driven it but had always flown into the place. There was no electrical service and no phones – there wasn’t even a cell tower within range and as far as she knew there were no plans to erect one. Many of the conveniences that were readily available in suburban Phoenix were unheard of in the middle of the Nevada desert.

Many of those problems could be solved. Magic Carpet or a larger plane capable of handling rough fields could take care of many of the access problems. Electric lines could be replaced by solar panels, wind generators, and possibly a backup generator; satellite phones and Internet could handle the communications issues. Granted, they would be expensive, but less so than running electric lines and fiber-optic cables out to the ranch. There were some interesting technological issues that would have to be solved, but at Lambdatron she was in a good place to see what solutions were possible, and perhaps to break a few paradigms by solving them.

While there was no point in getting started on the move now since it could be years before it would be made, that didn’t mean she shouldn’t have plans ready for when it would become necessary.

In the next week after dropping Will off back at Keesler, she sat down with Stan and laid the whole problem out in front of him. “It won’t be as good as having you stay here,” he told her to summarize what had been a long conversation, “but it’ll be better than losing you entirely.”

“I’ll still be here a lot,” she countered. “It’s less than three hours to get down here in Magic Carpet, and it would be even less if I were to get a faster plane that could haul more of a load. So if there was a real need for me to be physically present, I could do it. The thing is that this is going to take some time to work out the details of how we’re going to do it, so we might as well start working in that direction now.”

It was a while before Jennifer was able to sit down with Norma and bring her up to date on the new direction her life appeared to be taking, but one weekday afternoon in early September the two sat down in Norma’s kitchen to get caught up. Jennifer had known, of course, that Norma had been working an extended shift at the Redlite in August, with the idea of only being back home in time to send both of her kids off to school. Her nest was emptying out and she knew it; Stephanie would be in her second year at Northern Arizona while Jeff was starting his senior year in high school.

“So how did it go up north?” Jennifer asked as she settled into a kitchen chair with a cup of coffee in her hand.

“Actually, pretty slow,” Norma replied unenthusiastically. “I didn’t get a lot of action, and twice I went a couple of days without getting picked out of a lineup. I would have been better off to stay home and work on my dissertation while I was trying to get the kids ready for school.”

“It happens like that sometimes. I hit dry spells once in a while.”

“Never that dry,” Norma shook her head. “I mean, if I didn’t have anything better to do I suppose it would have been all right, but I did have other things to do. At least I got several good interviews out of it, so it wasn’t a total waste of time. Right now I don’t know if I’ll go back up there to work again or what. Maybe I’ll tell George and Shirley to just have me come up for a weekend if it looks like they’re going to be busy and need the extra help.”

“That might be one way to do it. So how is the dissertation going?”

“That’s slower than I would like, too. I’m trying to pull together my thoughts and plans for the project parallel to working on the dissertation, so that’s slowing both of them down. However, if I did them one after the other it would probably still take about the same total amount of time, so at least working on plans gives me a break from having to digest all the academic garbage. Either way, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s another year before we can get it going.”

“Somehow, I’m not surprised,” Jennifer replied. “You’re trying to do an awful lot, and when your plate gets full it sometimes takes longer than you expect. Look, I might as well be up front about it. I’m probably going to be able to help you get it going, and can help with some of the organizational stuff, but it looks like I’m probably not going to be a lot of help with actual operations.”

“I wasn’t expecting a lot of help from you anyway, but I take it something happened.”

“It hasn’t happened yet, but it looks like it could happen.” Jennifer went on to explain about the prospects of Will getting out of the Air Force if his next assignment wasn’t nearby. “If that happens, we could be moving up to the ranch as soon as a year and a half from now.”

“What do you think the chances of that are?”

“I don’t know,” Jennifer shook her head. “Looking at it realistically, if perhaps a little cynically, Keesler is the closest to home that the Air Force has ever assigned Will. Given that he’s on a stateside assignment now, we have to assume his next one will be overseas, and probably the Persian Gulf again. That means he’ll be getting out, and we could find ourselves moving up to the ranch pretty quickly after that.”

“I don’t know much about how the Air Force does things like that, but it would seem that you’ve got a pretty good theory, considering that what I know about it mostly comes from hearing Air Force people bullshitting in the lounge up north. What happens if they do assign him around here, say to Luke?”

“Essentially the same thing, just three years further in the future. The odds would really be against him getting yet another stateside assignment after that, and the chance of getting another one around here would be close to zip.”

“That sounds pretty logical to me. Well, I’m not going to worry about it very much since I didn’t expect that you’d have much of anything to do with the day-to-day operations of Hearts of Gold. I was just figuring that you were going to be the face of the project, not the body. Besides, it’s still a year and a half, and we can get a lot done in that time so long as we go ahead and do it. It’ll still be mostly preparation, and that can go on while I’m working on my dissertation and jumping through all the other academic hoops.”

“I’ll help with it as much as I can,” Jennifer sighed. “Don’t get me wrong. I feel pretty strongly about what we’re trying to accomplish and I want to see it be a success. At the same time, I don’t see how I’m going to be able to put as much effort into it as I would like, especially if I’m living on an isolated ranch in Nevada.”

“I wouldn’t worry too much about that. I think you’re going to be plenty of help, even if it’s not hands-on help. Are you still serious about using your dividends from the Redlite to help fund the project?”

“Within reason. Let’s face it, the money is going to be coming in and I’d just as soon not have to pay any more taxes on it than necessary. I hope it’ll be enough to get things going.”

“It should be. If the numbers you gave me a while back are correct, we’ll have a pretty good reserve to start out with. That ought to give us a chance to develop some other fund sources so we aren’t totally dependent on you.”

“How are you coming on incorporating, and getting tax-exempt status?”

“That’s one of those things I really need to get around to doing.”

Jennifer shook her head. “It would be nice if you could have the tax-exempt status in place by the end of the year so I don’t have to pay taxes on my Redlite dividends. I don’t know much about what it takes to get the tax-exempt status, except that I know it isn’t done overnight and it involves a hell of a pile of paperwork.”

“All right, I’ll get that on my priority list of things to do. I assume you have no objections to being on the board of directors?”

“Of course not. Have you got anyone else in mind?”

“I suppose I can get Charlie on the board, just to fill out a spot if needed, but in the long run I’d like to come up with a bigger name or two. Do you think your guy at where you work might be interested?”

“Stan? It’s not impossible, but I’d have to ask him. He’s always a little hard to figure out. If we decide to more or less keep this operation in the Phoenix area, we can probably get by with someone local, but if we expand it might not work so well.”

Norma shook her head. “To tell you the truth, I haven’t thought much further than Phoenix, at least for now. If this works successfully as a pilot program, we might want to expand into other cities, and I think Vegas probably would be next on the list. But I haven’t thought much about how we would go about it since I’ve mostly been focused on getting it to work at all. I think it has to be a success here before we want to try to apply it elsewhere. I don’t want to bite off more than I can chew, and sometimes I wonder if we can really do that much. There’s just so much to do before we can get going, and some things have to come before other things.”

“Like getting your doctorate before we start to make this public, I take it?”

“That’s one of those things, and I don’t see it happening much before next spring,” Norma replied. “It could take longer than that, but I want to have it before we start operations for real and let people know the program exists. My having a doctorate will lend credibility to the program just like having Learjet Jenn involved will send the message that we really know how things work, not just going on academic theories. You haven’t made any progress with your reporter friend, have you?”

“No,” Jennifer shook her head. “I do know she’s back in the sandbox but I don’t think she’ll be there forever. When she gets back I suppose we’ll just have to see. You know, it’s a little strange when I stop and think about it.”

“What?”

“Ever since the hijacking I would have been just as happy if people were to forget about Learjet Jenn, but if we’re going to use her fame as a boost to this program, I sort of hope that people don’t forget about her.”

“I can see why you would think that. Learjet Jenn hasn’t been in the news for over a year now, and in another year she’ll have a lot lower profile. I’m sure part of you would appreciate that, but her effectiveness will diminish if we let her stay below the horizon for too long.”

Jennifer sat and thought about it for a moment before replying, “You’re probably right. If Brenda doesn’t get back and get interested in this in the next few months, maybe I’d better go on some talk shows or something. I still get invitations right along. I just couldn’t break the news of what we’re working on yet.”

“Oh, you could go partway. Maybe you could spread the word about the book you suggested.”

Jennifer almost replied, “What book?” but held her tongue until she realized what Norma was talking about – the idea she’d had about a short and simple guide for girls who thought they might like to go into the business. “I haven’t really done anything with that,” she admitted. “I could write a pretty good guide of how to be a house hooker, but I don’t know much about the other forms of the business, other than the stories I’ve heard.”

“I suppose I could ghostwrite the thing, but to be honest I have enough else going on in my life right now that I really don’t want to take on that project, too. I really need to concentrate on my dissertation. I could help you with it, and I’ll bet I could introduce you to some other people who could help. There’s actually a fair collection of pamphlets and articles and such that cover that ground, and I have a few here I could loan you. The trick is to get the information into the hands of the girls who need it, and that’s where Learjet Jenn comes in.”

“That really is the point of it, isn’t it?” Jennifer conceded.

“Right. It needs to be short, it needs to be simple and aimed at girls who don’t have a high reading level. Dos and don’ts, lots of bullet points, with a message that says, ‘You really shouldn’t do this, but if you do, here’s how to do it right.’”

“Well, I suppose I could take a swing at it. If nothing else, it’d give me something to do on the weekends when I don’t go to see Will. At least I could mess with it enough to find out the things I don’t know and need to know, and maybe I could get your help with them.”

“If you could even do part of it, that’s a part that I don’t have to do,” Norma replied. “But speaking of Will, how much have you told him about this?”

“Most of it,” Jennifer smiled. “He knew I was working on the idea with you while he was still in the Gulf, but we couldn’t get into a lot of detail. We did spend a couple of evenings up at the cabin talking about it, and he has a few ideas. You have to remember that Will isn’t like most guys since he pretty much grew up around the business. His grandmother, his mother, and his sister have all been in the business, were successful with it, and have gone on with their lives after they were done with it – well, not that Shirley is exactly done with it, of course.”

“She sure is the exception to the rule,” Norma smirked. “So he doesn’t have any problems with you working in the business?”

“He never has, and I was doing it when I met him. That’s one of the things that impressed me about the guy from the beginning, and that is he understands the business and has never had any problems with me doing it. It was my decision to get out of it for his sake, not his wanting me to. In fact, he’s sort of like Charlie. He wouldn’t have had any problems if I were to spend a weekend up north to take some of the edge off while he was in the Gulf. He even suggested that I do it, but I didn’t want to for his sake.”

“So what does he think about the project?”

“He thinks like we do, in that that we probably can’t change anything in the greater view of things, but that we can probably save a few girls, and that will make it worth the effort. He said one time, ‘There ain’t nothin’ worth doin’ that it don’t pay to try.’ I really agree with him on that. What’s more, I think he’s going to be a big help in the whole thing, but I can’t say how just yet.”

Norma shook her head. “I’ve met him briefly a time or two up north when he came in to visit Shirley, but I don’t know him very well. Not meaning to sound critical, but he sure didn’t seem to be the kind of guy you’d wind up marrying.”

“I have to be honest and say that it surprised me, too, even though we were the best of friends for a dozen years before we got serious with each other. Most of the time Will sounds like a dumb Nevada cowboy, but he’s not dumb in the slightest and he has a little different perspective on things than the rest of us. He can turn off the Nevada cowboy anytime he wants to, but most of the time he doesn’t want to. I think it’s because he doesn’t want to put on airs, or maybe he prefers that people underestimate him. But he’d really rather be a Nevada cowboy than he would be anything else, and unless something goes wrong in a major way he’s going to accomplish his dream.”

“It still seems a little strange that you’d give up all you have to go live in the middle of nowhere with him.”

“There’s an old song that goes, ‘I’d rather be with him in his world than be without him in mine.’”

“I don’t know,” Norma shook her head. “Living like that would get awful dull for me. I suppose it would be all right if you liked it, but I don’t think I would.”

Jennifer was quiet for a few moments and she pondered the thought. “I suppose if I were living out there cooking meals and tending cattle like Will’s mother does it would get pretty dull for me, too. But at the moment, I’m planning on continuing to work at my engineering job on a part-time basis, either by flying down here from time to time or working over the Internet. I’m hoping that will put some edge on the dull and boring.”

Even as she said it she wondered just how true it was. While she wanted to be with Will more than anything else, it seemed like living out at the Bar H Bar, even in a new and modern house, might get a little overwhelming, and it seemed like it could be worse if there were a couple of small children involved. She knew that Will wanted to have a family, if for no more reason than to have someone to pass the ranch along to decades in the future, but she wasn’t sure how badly she wanted to have children. It wasn’t as if a decision had to be made right away, but it would have to be made soon. She was thirty-three now, and while it was not too late for her to be thinking about children, that time was not far in the future. If Will wound up staying in the Air Force until he could retire, it would have to be a done deal by that time.

“I don’t know,” she added. “Obviously there will be a few problems that have to be sorted out along the way, but I think Will and I can work them out.”

“Well, I hope you’re right. Charlie and I have hit a few bumps in the road in our lives too, but we’ve been able to make it through all right so far. This project is going to make a big change for us, and I hope we’ll be able to handle the changes it’s going to bring to us.”

“I’m hoping the same thing.”

Jennifer and Norma spent a lot of time talking that afternoon, mostly about the project, of course. But in the back of her mind, Jennifer couldn’t help but wonder how well it was going to work for her to be living up at the Bar H Bar. She would be giving up or cutting back on many things she enjoyed about her life, and the prospect was a little scary to comprehend. But whatever troubles seemed to lie in the future, her prospective new life seemed to be more promising than the one she led now, or that she had led a couple of years before.

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