Twinkle, Twinkle My Wishing Star

"You don't have to worry about me, John. I'll behave," said Henry. "I'll keep my mouth shut and my eyes to myself. Trust me."

John drove up to Paul's farm and continued up the dirt road to the farmhouse. Paul was standing on the porch watching their approach with his thumbs tucked in his overalls. Scaring off crows before they drove up, Paul's scattergun rested by his chair. Just as they pulled up, Audrey came out of the house carrying a basketful of clean, wet laundry to hang out on the clothesline. With her arms full, unable to prevent her sudden exposure of skin, the wind played peek-a-boo with the hem of her half unbuttoned housecoat to expose her long, shapely legs, her firm white thighs, and her white cotton panty clad crotch. As if a laser beam targeting, before shooting an eager beaver that had been blocking the flow of his water with sudden dams, Paul watched Henry staring at all that his wife was so innocently and inadvertently showing.

"Avert your eyes, Henry. Avert your eyes, God damn you, son," said John. "Don't let Paul see you staring at Audrey's panty clad pussy, you damn fool."

"Wow, you weren't kidding, John. She really is beautiful. If she looks this good now in a housecoat, I can only imagine what she'd look like with her hair, makeup, and--"

"Hush up, you damn fool. Paul is watching you," said John waving a hello to Paul from a distance. "Hi ya, Paul. How are you? I have some new--"

"Don't even bother getting out of the car, John. I have all that I need. I'll get whatever I don't have, when I go to town later this week."

"This is Henry, Paul, my boss's nephew," said John stopping the car in front of Paul and talking to him out his open window. "He'll be taking over my route, when I retire next month."

"Good health to you and good luck with your retirement, John," said Paul walking to the car and shaking his hand through the open window with John, while ignoring Henry. "I won't be needing any more farm tools," said Paul.

"Listen, Paul, Henry meant no offense by looking at your woman. He's just a dumb kid," whispered John getting out of the car and putting a hand on Paul's shoulder, while walking him over in direction of the barn.

"It's not that, John. I decided to sell the farm."

* * * * *

With the day of love quickly approaching, Audrey dreaded Valentine's Day. Sad, weary, and depressed, she hadn't even yet bought her husband a Valentine's Day card. Just as she had grown to finally fall out of love with her husband, it was obvious to her now that he didn't love her. The sad reality about their strained relationship, especially in the way that he now ignored her, was that he never loved her. Always at odds with one another, with him being from the country and her having grown up in the city, they were as different had they been born in two foreign countries and spoke two different languages. More concerned about his farm animals than about her, no doubt, wanting a farmhand with benefits, he lusted over her but he didn't love her.

Tired of the pretense, after putting out a big Thanksgiving Day feed for his family and friends, she suffered through another lousy Christmas. She feigned surprise, when she opened his uninspired gifts that he bought for the house, his house, a coffeemaker, a toaster, and an iron, instead of something personal, pretty, and/or sexy for her. Determined to leave, she didn't want to celebrate another insensitively hurtful holiday with him. With her bags already packed, she thought she'd be out of his life long before last year's thaw. Only, when his hired hand suddenly quit, she stayed to help him with the farm and now here it is nearly spring again and nearly another year has passed.

She didn't want her life to copy his deceased wife's empty life. Tied down to the farm with milking cows, feeding chickens, and slopping pigs, her only downtime was canning preserves and making quilts to sell to the tourists at the Christmas fair. Knowing no other life, having no dreams or desires of her own, when she discovered that she was unable to have children, Paul's wife died an old, broken woman at only 30-years-old, when she fell from the hayloft and broke her neck. Not ever daring to say a word to Paul, she wondered if his wife committed suicide.

Audrey's been threatening to leave him from the beginning, since he didn't come home from drinking at the bar and after she found out that he cheated on her with Becky, that tramp in town. Willing to give him whatever he wants and needs in bed, too tired from all that he has to do to work the farm, he seldom lays with her anymore. It seems that he'd rather be out in the barn checking on the animals than in bed and making love to her. Sometimes, when one of the animals falls sick, keeping them company, as if he's their surrogate mother, he sleeps out in the barn with them.

She's been planning on leaving him, since she realized this wasn't the life she wanted to have, a relationship with a man who doesn't love her. She'd stay for love, but not for indifference and she believed, other than the help she gave him with the farm, that he didn't care if she stayed or left. Besides, born and raised in the city, living life on the farm, as if living life on another planet, she never considered herself a country girl. She just fell for a man, who was a country boy and a farmer.

Always with footlights in her eyes, she wanted to be famous. With the sound of music in her heart, she wanted to be a singer. Always moving to the beat of any song, she wanted to be a dancer. Creative in thought, so different from all of her boring business type friends, she wanted to be an actress. Now, stuck living here on a farm, instead of milking cows and feeding chickens, she wanted to be a star. Forsaking stage lights for star lights, forsaking her hopes of a career in entertainment for a lifetime of love, just as her destiny turned one way, her life twisted in another direction.

"Twinkle, twinkle little star," she said making her secret wishes again on a star she picked out and that magically appeared each night in the same place in the sky through the barn's tattered roof, whenever she was out in the barn. "I wish upon a star tonight, grant me my wish to improve my plight."

Only, her wish for fame and fortune never came. Definitely, without a doubt, if by the beautiful scenery and the plentiful wildlife, this was God's country. Unfortunately, God was busy doing other things than to help her get her start with a singing, dancing, and acting career. With no clubs to hop, people to meet, and things to do, she was bored. So pitch black and silent at night, except for the singing crickets, croaking frogs, and hooting owls, unless the carnival, the farm show, or the circus came to town to light up the night's sky with an aurora borealis of wonderment, there were no Broadway lights and no music out here, just chores.

From sunup to sundown, chores, chores, and more chores was her day. Milking cows, feeding chickens, sloping pigs, and baling hay, and now with the planting season looming, she'd imagined she'd be stuck here for at least another year or longer, while reaping the crops, unless and until he hired a new farmhand. Feeling so sad and so lonely, with not even a girlfriend close enough by to visit, she stopped singing. Depressed, she stopped dancing. Having not even been to a movie in years, swearing off even watching the upcoming Oscars, she realized now that she'll never be an actress. Confronting her reality, she stopped pretending she was ever going to be a singer, a dancer, or a star in a movie or an actress in a Broadway play.

Then, a few weeks before Valentine's Day, her husband surprised her with a bus ticket to the capitol to try out for American Idol. She couldn't believe that he believed in her enough to do that for her. Realizing her destiny or not, either way finally able to confront a chance to experience her dream, she couldn't believe that he realized she needed to make an effort in pursuing her vision. She couldn't believe that she thought he didn't love her. For him to do this for her, enough of a change for him to change his life by giving her a chance to have her life, no doubt, he loved her enough to make her dream come true.

"Oh, my God! American Idol? Are you serious?"

"I want you to follow your dream," he said, as if apologizing to her, before showing his happiness for her.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you," she said throwing her arms around his neck and kissing him.

"I'm selling the farm," he said. "I bought another bus ticket for me and I'm willing to go with you, that is, if you'll still have me. Now that you've followed my dirt road to nowhere, I'd like to follow your star filled road to Hollywood, for a while, to see where they may take us."

"Yes, Paul, I'll have you. I love you."

"I love you, too, Audrey. Happy Valentine's Day."

"Happy Valentine's Day, Paul."

The End

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