Chapter 15

Jennifer and Will didn’t spend all of their Christmas holiday holed up in the cabin, no matter how much they might have liked to. They were able to leave the world outside the door on their anniversary, but it was the only time they managed it.

Unlike their previous visits there together, they had to spend quite a bit of time at the main ranch. Part of it was getting familiar with the proposed site for their new home, and having the two of them there looking at it together brought some modifications to the ideas they had been kicking around for months. Both of them admitted that the site wasn’t as nice as that at the cabin, which had special meaning to them, but that it would do considering that the house might be under construction in another year if it turned out that Will would be leaving the Air Force.

Will’s father Duane had the ranch work more or less under control for that time of year, but Will wanted to go out and do something just to remind himself that he hadn’t forgotten how, so he spent a couple of coolish days out on horseback looking after the stock. Jennifer was with him most of the time, but she also spent some time in the kitchen with her mother-in-law Ellen, helping to get things ready for their Christmas dinner. It was good to talk to Ellen again; she was a big, almost brawny woman who spent a lot of time outside doing ranch work, a far cry from her younger days when she’d also been a house hooker from time to time. Like Shirley, she had tales of what the life had been like in the bad old days.

The Hoffman house still only had a limited amount of electricity provided by a wind generator. In the years since Jennifer had first been there they’d switched over from wood to propane heat, mostly because burnable wood was getting hard to find close to the main ranch buildings. The house that Will and Jennifer were planning would be a considerable step into the modern era by comparison.

On the afternoon of Christmas Eve, Jennifer fired up Magic Carpet and flew down to the Redlite Ranch to pick up Shirley. As expected, things were very slow, with only a handful of girls in residence and them not doing much business. The two of them were soon in the air heading back to the ranch. Along the way Shirley quizzed Jennifer about how Norma’s project was coming along. Jennifer had to admit that not much was happening at the moment since Norma was concentrating on her doctorate, but things would probably perk up once she had it complete.

The shadows were getting long when Jennifer landed the little Cessna back at the Bar H Bar, to find that several relatives had arrived in the interim. Jennifer knew them all, and had for many years, although she hadn’t seen any of them since the wedding the year before. Everyone sat up late getting caught up on everyone else; Jennifer had plenty of reason to enjoy the closeness of the family she had married into.

Jennifer and Will had planned to drive a pickup back to the cabin to spend the night, but it got late. They wanted to be back early since they wanted to enjoy some of the young children of Will’s relatives tearing into their Christmas presents, so they spent the night in sleeping bags on foam pads in the middle of the living room floor instead.

As expected, the kids had a ball with their Christmas presents and Jennifer had fun watching them, realizing that in a few years she might be watching her own kids doing the same thing.

Later in the day the Christmas dinner was expansive, as it always seemed to be in the Hoffman house; afterwards people were still in a mood to sit around and catch up on things. However, as the sun got low Jennifer and Will got back in Magic Carpet and flew back to the cabin, which was now cold since they hadn’t planned on being gone overnight. But no matter; the fire was soon built up in the stove, while the two of them got into bed under some warm covers with the idea of getting a good nap to recover from the heavy meal, although in the event things got rather intimate along the way.

The next morning Jennifer got back into the little Cessna, flew back to the main ranch buildings, picked up Shirley and took her back to the Redlite. “You know,” Shirley said as the desert flowed by under them, “it’s always good to get together with the family back at the ranch, and I spent a lot of my life living there. But if the truth be known, I’d really rather be at the Redlite. It’s a little more comfortable, and I feel like I’m doing something useful. It’s come a little at a time, but I guess I must not be much of a rancher anymore.”

“You’ll always be one to me,” Jennifer smiled.

“Maybe so, but still at the Redlite I’m doing what I want to do and having some fun along the way. I’ve spent an awful lot of time at the Bar H Bar, but it could really get lonely and boring at the same time, too. At the Redlite I at least get to be around people and good times, and I always missed that out at the ranch. I’m planning on more or less staying at the Redlite for a while yet, doing what I’m doing now, but Lord knows what’s going to happen when I can’t do it any longer. Jennifer, I know you want to be out on the ranch with Will, but I can’t help but wonder if it’s not going to be a little boring and isolated for you.”

“It’s a concern,” Jennifer admitted. “But with telephones and Internet and flying down to Phoenix every now and then, I don’t think I’m going to be anywhere near as isolated as you were.”

“I hope you’re right. That stuff is bound to make it easier on you, but it’s going to be an even bigger change for you than it is for me. And, to tell you the truth, I’m not sure just how well Will is going to be able to make the transition back. Let’s face it, he’s been gone from there for ten years except for the odd visit, and while he has a vision of what he wants his life to be, the time away has bound to have changed him. He may have more trouble actually living the life than he expects to have.”

“Maybe I’m just idealizing Will,” Jennifer sighed, “but somehow I don’t think it’s going to be that big a problem.”

“I hope you’re right because I don’t know what’s going to happen if you’re wrong. I just hope the two of you will be able to make it work.”

On her way back to the Bar H Bar after dropping Shirley off, Jennifer thought a lot about what her long-time friend had said. She really didn’t have much doubt that Will would drop right back into ranch life like he’d never been away, but what if he didn’t? Maybe he really couldn’t go home again like that, no matter how much he thought he could.

After all, it was a huge leap of faith for her to think that she could live on the Bar H Bar as a ranch wife, even with the connections that she expected to have to the outside world. Could she adapt to it? While she thought she loved Will enough to manage it, it still seemed like a daunting prospect. When the time came she knew she’d have to give it a try and make the best of it, but what would happen if she failed? It wasn’t something she wanted to think about.

Perhaps it was something she ought to talk over with Will, even though she was reluctant to do it, for some reason she couldn’t put her finger on. If she raised the issue, would it show a lack of faith in him? Did he have doubts about going back to the ranch himself? In fact, had he stayed in the Air Force for the last few years to have an excuse to avoid it? It seemed possible, even though it might not have been something he would have admitted to himself.

As it turned out she didn’t raise the issue with Will for the rest of their all too short visit to the ranch and the cabin, mostly because she couldn’t think of a way to do it subtly enough to probe his thinking and still make it seem pretty innocent. Perhaps she was just thinking negative thoughts anyway reflecting her own doubts about wanting to move up there on a permanent basis. She wanted to be with him, and if that was what he wanted to do she felt she had to support him, but still, it made her wonder.

They only stayed at the cabin a couple more days, since Will had to be back at Keesler. Early one morning they loaded Will’s things into Magic Carpet and took off for Phoenix. When they got there, they exchanged the little Cessna for Skyhook and headed toward Biloxi. For some reason they didn’t talk much along the way, perhaps because they had talked themselves out for a while.

It wasn’t until Jennifer shut the engines down at the fuel pumps that Will said, “Well, Miz Hoffman, I guess that’s gonna have to hold me for a while. I wish I didn’t have to come back here at all, but I guess I can put up with it for a while longer. It sure will be nice to be able to be with you all the time, but I guess we’re going to have to wait on that for a while, too.”

“I’m going to miss you, Will. I always miss you when you’re not with me, but I guess we’re going to have to be grownups and live with it. It’ll be over with soon enough.”

“Yeah, and it’ll sure be a different life when we’re livin’ on the ranch. I’ll tell you what, as much as I like it there, it’s gonna seem a little strange to be there all the time.”

“We’ll work it out,” she smiled and kissed him before they got out of their seats and got off the plane.

There was time for a small can of soda and a snack from a machine after the Learjet had been fueled, but soon Jennifer was back in the air again bound for Phoenix. As the little white business jet hurtled homeward through the afternoon sky, she couldn’t help but wonder if Will had hinted at some misgivings about moving back to the ranch himself. If he did have them, it wasn’t something he was going to admit to easily.

Because of the dates of Will’s leave and the way the holidays worked, Jennifer had a four-day weekend over New Year’s. She didn’t have much to do on the weekend and it was tempting to fly back to Biloxi to be with Will, who would have some days off as well. But since she’d just spent several days with him it seemed a little bit foolish, not to mention expensive in jet fuel. Even so, she gave it some consideration, but Skyhook’s schedule made it out of the question; Mike had to fly a charter to Washington right in the middle of it and she didn’t feel like flying Songbird that far.

Facing four days at home with little to do meant that she had the time to work on her book, which she’d been working on off and on for months. It was currently titled Learjet Jenn’s Guide to Having Sex for Money, and she wasn’t totally happy with it, but right at the moment she didn’t have any better ideas. It was not a long book, and she didn’t want it to be long and intimidating, just honest and up-front.

There were several areas Jennifer knew she didn’t know much about, but she’d been able to pick out most of them and get good advice, some of it from Norma or the women she was in contact with. Some of it had been developed after a weekday trip to the Redlite and some interviews there back in the fall, since there were women there who had been in other parts of the business besides Nevada brothels. Even George had been able to supply a few pearls of wisdom.

Up until now the book was in small pieces, scattered among several folders. Some parts of it were pretty well worked out, and some parts of it still obviously needed work. But in that four-day period, Jennifer was able to pull things together and make one continuous document out of it. It would need some illustrations, but there was a woman who was a regular at the Redlite who was also trying to break into commercial art, and she offered to do it for practice and to help out with the project.

While no one was more aware than Jennifer that the book still needed work, she thought that it was heading in the right direction. The book was short, and deliberately kept simple. As Norma had suggested, it had several bullet-point lists of dos and don’ts, with the hard facts brought out in simple statements rather than complicated sentences. Still, it felt like she’d passed a milestone.

Since Norma was very busy with her dissertation at that point, Jennifer decided to not bother her with the book right then. There would be plenty of time to do it later.

Several days afterward, Jon and Tanisha invited her over for dinner and to play with the kids. This was not an uncommon thing in the last few months, since Jennifer hadn’t made a secret of the fact that there was a good chance that she’d be having kids in the not too far distant future and could stand to have a little practice. Tanisha, Jon, and Nanci were always willing to have someone take the load off their hands for a bit.

While Jon and Tanisha were aware of Nanci’s history as an unwilling streetwalker, it was by common consent something that remained mostly unmentioned around their house, at least if they were present. Jennifer and Nanci were rarely alone together but they could be a little more honest about it with each other even though it wasn’t something that Nanci was comfortable remembering.

However, Nanci was the best example they knew of the kind of recovery that Jennifer and Norma hoped to encourage. While her getting out of the life and turning to Jesus wasn’t exactly how they envisioned the program to operate, there was no doubt that it had worked in her case. Nanci was sympathetic to the goals of the program, and when she’d learned that Jennifer was working on the book she’d offered to look it over and see if she had any words of wisdom that might help.

On this particular occasion, when the two of them managed to be by themselves for a few minutes, Jennifer told Nanci, “I finally got the rough draft of the book done last weekend. Would you still like to look it over? You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“Sure, I’d be glad to,” Nanci replied. “I’ve got a few days before I have to get serious about classes again, and I’d be glad to have something to do besides burp Billy and keep Barbie out of everything. Can you e-mail me the draft? I’ll see if I can find a few suggestions.”

Jennifer sent the draft to Nanci when she got back to her condo that evening, then turned her mind back to the project she was working on at Lambdatron. Several days went by when Jennifer only occasionally wondered what Nanci thought of the piece, but when Nanci sent the revised draft back to her about a week and a half later Jennifer was dismayed. She had always been a good student and not a bad writer, but she had never, ever, gotten a paper back from a teacher or professor that had been ripped to shreds a tenth of the way Nanci had torn into the book.

The whole thing was a mass of red marks from one end to the other, and there were lots of comments. As Jennifer paged through the document she could see that this wasn’t tearing up, it was constructive criticism. For instance in only about the third line, where Jennifer had written that being a prostitute could ruin a girl’s self-esteem, Nanci had changed it to read that it “can make you not feel good about yourself.” Remember, Nanci’s comment read, a lot of the girls you are aiming this toward may not have successfully made it as far as eighth grade. They may not understand the word “self-esteem”, but they will understand not feeling good about themselves. Keep it as simple as possible.

With that realization in mind Jennifer paged through the document, and realized that many of Nanci’s changes were made with the same thought in mind: keep it simple. Nanci’s changes made the document more direct and harder-hitting.

That wasn’t all. There were plenty of comments that said things like, This may be common wisdom in a Nevada brothel, but it’s pure baloney on the street, or I’ve been there and I know better. But there were also comments that said things like Don’t beat around the bush on this, or This is correct but needs to be made stronger. At least Jennifer was relieved that Nanci hadn’t found very many misspellings.

Interestingly, even though Nanci was a pre-seminary student and Jennifer knew that she was considering becoming a minister, there were no religious connotations made that she could recognize, and as a preacher’s daughter Jennifer would have been able to recognize them.

Nanci’s final comment was Not bad overall but needs work, some of which I’ve pointed out. Let me look at your revision, and maybe we need to talk about some things.

There was obviously a lot of work needed to rewrite the whole thing, but Jennifer realized that Nanci knew just exactly what she was talking about and that she was dead right. The view of a young girl on the street was considerably different from the view of a girl who worked at the Redlite Ranch. Presumably, or at least hopefully, Norma realized that but it was something of a shock of reality to Jennifer.

There was nothing to do but to get going on the rewrite, but with the comforting realization that she had a collaborator who knew what the real world of the street was like. Her involvement could not help but make the book more likely to accomplish what she intended.

Though Nanci’s guidance had given Jennifer a much clearer idea of what she wanted to accomplish with the book, the actual work on it continued on in fits and starts, mostly because Jennifer, Norma, and Nanci all had other things going on in their lives.

Lambdatron got into a busy period right about then, with several things happening at once, and there was no choice but to work extra hours to deal with them. That shoved a number of things onto the back burner for Jennifer. What with everything, she didn’t make it to Mississippi as often as she would like, usually only every two or three weekends. It was always a nice break to get away to be with Will, even though the visits had to be brief.

There were other things that demanded her attention as well, and one of them was Skyhook Aviation. Early in the spring Skyhook had to go into Hernando Aviation for its annual inspection, which was detailed and therefore expensive. It could be even more expensive if they found something seriously wrong with the plane, though so far Jennifer had mostly had good luck with the aging Learjet.

Still, Jennifer was a little worried when Stewart Dozier, the manager at the company, called up and told her that he wanted to talk to both her and her chief pilot, Mike Hanneman, to make sure they were all on the same page. At the least, that sounded expensive.

“We’ve found a few little things, but nothing way out of line,” Stew said when the three of them were together in his office. “But I think I need to warn you that there’s trouble off on the horizon. Those are still good engines and they don’t age the way a piston engine does, but they’re starting to get to be a little high time. Considering the amount you use the plane, sometime in the next few years you’re probably going to have to think in terms of an engine replacement. I’d say that’s going to come in the next five years at the outside and it could be considerably less.”

“How much is it going to cost?” she asked. “I prefer to keep the engines in good shape. I learned that lesson when I threw a rod in my Mooney years ago.”

“I don’t know for sure,” Stew replied. “Part of the problem is that those are very old engines. Hell, they’re almost as old as I am. That’s not to say that they’re not good engines, but they’re not modern engines and that means that they’re burning considerably more fuel, and are considerably noisier. A new set of engines could cost you perhaps as much as the plane is worth. There are rebuilds available and there are used engines to be found, but they might not be as good as the ones you have in it now. Now, if an engine curls up and dies on you, that might be something to consider. So, really, I can’t give you a simple number since it will vary from day to day depending on the market.”

“So what do you think I ought to do?”

“I don’t know what to tell you. In the short run, at least for a year or two, you’re probably all right. In the long run, you might want to think about replacing the whole airplane. Once again, it’s older than you are and almost as old as I am. Granted, it’s fairly cheap for a jet, but the operational costs are going to be higher than newer birds.”

“It’s old, but it’s not a bad bird,” Mike said thoughtfully. “You’re right that it burns a lot of fuel it doesn’t need to, the panel and avionics are right out of the stone age, it’s noisy as hell, and it’s very cramped in the cabin, not that newer birds are all that much better.”

“I don’t know,” Jennifer replied. “It strikes me that nothing needs to be done in a rush, though.”

“True,” Dozier nodded. “Of course, I know what you paid for that plane when you got it over five years ago, and it was peanuts compared to what it’s worth today. You could easily get a million out of it as it sits right now, and maybe more. Quite a bit more if it had newer engines. Sell it at a good price and throw another million or so into the kitty, and you could have, oh, an earlier Cessna Citation that’s twenty years newer and less expensive to operate.”

“I don’t know if we could justify a more expensive jet,” Jennifer said flatly. “I wouldn’t have this one if I hadn’t gotten the deal of the century when I bought it. Since I don’t have to make payments on it I can get along with a higher operational cost.”

“Well, it’s something to think about, and who knows what happens when the right deal comes along. Hell, you know that from owning the thing in the first place. But it’s something you might want to consider if the right deal does come along.”

“I guess all I can say is that I’ll run some numbers,” she conceded, mostly because she wasn’t really anxious to pursue the idea. After all, it had been Skyhook that had given her the nickname of Learjet Jenn, and she wasn’t sure if that made it more valuable to her, or less. That was a point that needed serious thought. “After all, who knows what’s going to happen a year or two up the road?”

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