To Be Wanted

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JakeRivers
JakeRivers
1,057 Followers

Then she smiled, a radiant smile that transformed her face. She had been, maybe cute, but now she was stunningly beautiful!

"What's your name? Are you a doctor too?"

I felt like I really had just stepped off an alien spaceship.

"Well, yes. I'm a doctor. I'm also an intern, but they tell me that I'm a doctor too."

She sat there, waiting.

"Oh! Yeah! Um, I'm Caleb, Caleb Townsend. Cal really, well, some people call me Caleb. But, really, everyone calls me Cal."

The thought passed through my mind, "I guess I'm growing horns; she was looking at me kind of funny."

"Well, Caleb, Cal really, you are the one that found me, right?" she asked, with a slight frown, as if she was puzzling over something.

"Well, yeah, I guess I did."

Continuing to frown, she continued, "So you saved my life right?"

"Unh, yeah, I guess I did, come to think about it."

"So what are you going to do with me?"

I nervously looked around, possibly my fellow aliens could help me out here.

"Unh..."

This time a little sternly, but with the big smile twitching up the corners of her lips, "Don't you know that when you save someone's life you are responsible for them? In a way, you 'own' them!"

Okay... "Are you feeling okay, Jessica? Do you want me to get the doctor?"

"I thought you were a doctor?"

Well, she had me there!

This time, almost crying, her eyes a little damp, "Look, Caleb, really Cal, I did something very, very stupid. I hate myself now thinking what it would do to my Aunt Bea. You read the note; I know you did. If you hadn't I'm sure there would be police in here talking to me. It would be in the papers, and God knows, I might try it again."

A little shyly she continued, "You know more about me than anyone in the world. My fiancéconvenientlyforgot about our Valentine's date so he could go to a party with another woman. Haven't you ever had a bad day before?"

"Well, yeah, one time at the dorm in Boulder, I mixed the whites with the non-whites in the washer..."

Overriding me, she continued, "Am I ugly?"

Well, that one I could answer. There was a small mirror on the nightstand. I picked it up and held it in front of her face.

"Look in the mirror. What do you see? Okay, keep looking. If I were a frog would you kiss me just to see if I turned into a prince?"

With that she turned on that big smile.

"Does that look ugly to you, Jesse? Can I call you Jesse?"

She was looking at the mirror, turning the smile on and off, looking somewhat awed.

"Hey, Jesse! I have to do my rounds now or they will have me cleaning bedpans."

She didn't hear a word. She kept looking in the mirror, smiling, turning it off. Showing more confusion now than awe. I beat a hasty retreat.

Aaron talked to her that afternoon. I went down and had some coffee with him afterwards.

"Okay, Cal, this is much more serious that I thought."

Damn... I thought, that sounds like maybe twelve syllable diagnosis, at least.

"She has three things wrong with her."

This was sounding bad.

"She's lonely. She has very low self-esteem. She needs love."

Already prepped to hear some archaic diagnosis from some ancient medical tome, I responded, "Wow, that's incred... what? She needs love?"

"Don't you need it too, Cal?"

Unh, oh! That's hitting below the belt.

"Caleb, what's my favorite Beatle's song?"

Shit, I was back with the aliens again. "Ummm, maybe, 'Yellow Submarine'?"

"Okay, Cal, you buy the dinner the next time we go out. I don't suppose you have ever heard me humming, 'All You Need is Love,' have you?"

Okay, that's what he was doing! "Oh, yeah, I see what you're saying."

I finally understood what the "generation gap" meant.

Jessica's aunt and uncle came to see her the next afternoon. They understood that she had decided to drive to Durango to visit friends and had gotten sleepy and stopped, but actually did fall asleep. They never thought to ask why she was going out I-70 instead of south on I25 to Pueblo and west to Durango.

JESSICA

I was confused. I was horrified that I had put my heart and my soul into that note and a man, this doctor had read it.

My thoughts were jumbled. Wow! I don't know what I was thinking of. Doctor Spaulding thought I was mostly depressed and he talked to me about self-esteem. We talked about what I had accomplished in school and what I had to offer in the job with the oil company. Then he asked me the shocker; he wanted to know if I wished I was married to Gerald and was living with him! When he asked that I thought about a big, slimy snake.

And I kept wondering about what Cal - I couldn't think of him as Doctor Caleb - had done with the mirror. I couldn't believe the difference! What shook me up a little though, was whenever I smiled at Cal he smiled back. Which made me smile. It felt strange.

I couldn't stop worrying about that note and that Cal had read it. It bothered me. Not that I had written the note but that he had read it. No one had seen the depths of my pain, my innermost secrets. I was both excited about it and ashamed at the same time. I felt the need to clear the air. I couldn't get him to talk seriously. Like the last time, right before I left the hospital.

I was trying to broach the subject of the note so we could talk about it. I thought he was ready but then he asked if he could see my toe. It was healing and had only a loose bandage over it. I pulled my foot out from under the sheet and held it up. He lifted the bandage and looked really serious.

"Damn, Jesse. What are you going to do if you have to count past nineteen?"

I had to laugh at that... but then I started crying hysterically! Life was just too much for me all of a sudden and I wished that Cal had not found me. Cal looked stunned as he tried to comfort me but it was too much! I yelled at him to leave me alone!

Later Aaron came in and talked to me; I was calm then.

"Jessica, I'm concerned about these mood swings of yours. Do you understand what I'm talking about?"

I thought for a minute; frowning in concentration.

"Can I tell you the truth, Doctor Spaulding?"

He smiled at me, somewhat wryly. "Yes, Jessica, that would be nice!"

I looked at him, confused for a minute and then realized he was teasing me.

"Doctor, I've never been happy in my life! I've never been loved by anyone, except maybe my aunt. I've been lonely; I've been sad. I didn't want to live anymore... I couldn't take it! Cal made me laugh yesterday; it felt so good. Then he had me look into a mirror and see how a smile transformed me, made me a different person.

"I felt for a moment, like... like Cinderella! But I know that's a fairy tale. He either just wants to take advantage of me, like all other men have tried, or this is just a whim of his... and... and he will wind up laughing at me like everyone else!"

Embarrassed, I started crying again. I couldn't help it. I was just so frustrated with life.

"Jessica, please call me Aaron. When you call me Doctor, or Doctor Spaulding, you make me feel like an old damned fossil! Do I look that old and desiccated?"

I had to smile a little. I really liked this kind man.

"Okay, Aaron. No, you don't look like an old fossil! What's wrong with me? Why has life been so hard for me?"

"Dear girl! Have you ever heard of Toledo steel? Well not many have. Toledo is a town of moderate size somewhat west of Madrid in Spain. Hundreds of years ago they developed a secret process of making steel for sword blades that was unsurpassed in the world. An appropriate selection of raw materials, their proper proportion in the blade and the forging of the steel at a temperature of over 1400º for the exact interval of time required, resulted in the most perfect sword ever built in the world.

"Life is like that sometimes. We are tempered into the finest that life can offer by the trials we face. The sorrows and sadness you have had, the trial by fire if you will, have made you a strong person ready for happiness and the best that life can offer. But you have to be open to it."

"God knows, you have no reason to trust anyone and even less to trust men. But there are good men around and Caleb is one of the best! He comes from a family long established in western Colorado. He is part of a strong loving family. He is a country boy but has shown remarkable ability in school in becoming a doctor. You and Cal are two of the smartest people I have had the pleasure to know.

"I don't know what his intentions are, but I know he is a man that cares, and he will never do anything to hurt you! You have every right to be skeptical of men but please, dear girl, trust me and trust Caleb."

Aaron gave me a lot to think about – a lot to confuse me. Cal stopped by later and almost seemed afraid of me! I felt bad about that and I asked him to sit down and tell me about his life growing up. I was a little surprised that he did. He was a little hesitant at first but then really opened up. I could relate to his growing up on a ranch and told him a little about my childhood, nothing deep, just about the ranch and how beautiful the country around Durango was. I said this a bit wistfully, not realizing how much I missed it.

I was released the next day and was suddenly thrust into the mayhem of moving to Grand Junction and starting a new job. I had about a month to get things sorted out in Denver – bank accounts and such – before I would move. I also had to attend a three-day orientation class at the home office here, plus fill out all the personnel forms.

Cal took me to lunch at a wonderful Mexican place. The food was really good. I was feeling a little down when I went, but Cal made me laugh and I felt better. That night looking in the mirror, I told myself, "You could get used to him, couldn't you girl?"


We called back and forth a few times and went to the Denver Zoo one Sunday. That was fun too. I seemed to be having fewer and fewer bad days – I wonder if Cal had anything to do with it.

The last time I saw him before I moved out to Grand Junction was when he stopped by to help me load a van I rented for the trip. When he stood by my window as I started up, it seemed like his eyes were a little misty. I know mine were! I would miss him much more than he knew.

Finally I finished the long drive across the state and was ready to go to work. The company, West Slope Oil, was a full-scale trial between several oil companies and the federal government... sort of a pilot project. I was amazed at the respect I was shown; it turned out the environmental aspects were given the highest priorities and everyone really stepped forward to help me out.

They put me up in a hotel for two weeks while I looked for a place to stay. The offer was that they would pay half of my housing for the first year, knowing that even though I was going to be making some good money, I still had some student loans to pay off. I looked at apartments and condominiums, but I didn't feel comfortable with the crowded parking lots and the buildings so close together.

After searching for two weeks, I was having breakfast at a great little mom and pop kind of place, ham steaks, three eggs, a mountain of hash browns, homemade biscuits, you get the idea. I got to chatting with the waitress and she mentioned her parents were trying to sell their small ranch just before De Beque, about thirty-five miles back up I-70 towards Denver. She said they were having problems finding anyone interested and that they would consider a lease to buy.

I went out to look at the property and to talk with her parents. I fell in love with the place immediately. It was about eighty acres strung out along a creek that entered into the Colorado River from the north. The road was a dead-end that died at the ranch house. There were a couple of barns, three corrals, and a nicely maintained, but small log cabin. It was about fifty years old but was really clean. There was one big room that was the living room, dining room and kitchen. At the back of the house was a bathroom in the middle with a bedroom on each side, each of which had a door into the bathroom.

The couple was retiring and had bought a small house in Grand Junction. They had raised horses for most of their lives and still had a half dozen left along with ten miniature horses they had been breeding and selling as pets. They almost begged me to take the place and to take care of the horses. They said if I would take care of the animals they would split with me 50-50 any money made. One barn was full of hay and they had several kids from the local 4-H that would come out and help with the animals.

It was heaven for me! The company gave me a four-wheel drive truck, since I would be spending a lot of time in the backcountry. I moved in a couple of weeks later and felt a wonderful satisfaction as I sat on the front porch of an evening with a mug of tea and looked out at my little slice of heaven. I was happy for the first time in my life ... but still lonely. I did call Cal and told him about the place I'd found. He thought he knew the place but he wasn't sure. It was nice to talk to him and it helped the loneliness some.

The job was working out great! The company was using a new process of extracting oil from the shale, "in-situ." Instead of a physical extraction and processing of the shale, the shale was heated underground and the oil then extracted. To make the extraction process effective, the shale around the area to be worked had to be frozen. If we could show the combined heating/freezing technologies worked, we could put oil on the market for $30 a barrel!

My job was to make sure that in freezing the surrounding ground water that no pollution occurred. It was a strong technical challenge and expertise had to be developed on the fly. I was pleased that I was accepted as an equal member of the team and everyone accepted my credentials and my expertise.

I had been raised in the social climate of the West Slope of Colorado and I knew what the men were like. I had learned the hard way to let them know that I wouldn't take any crap from them. Of course men made advances but every time I was tempted, I remembered Cal and what he had done for me. I hadn't seen him since I moved to Grand Junction several months ago. He had asked me to call his parents and meet them but I kept putting it off.

Finally I ran out of excuses and called them and they invited me to their ranch in Rifle for a Sunday dinner. I drove to their ranch, about thirty miles to Rifle from De Beque and then a dozen or so miles north on Government Road. They had about three hundred acres in the valley and a couple thousand more in the hills to the east of the valley. It was a huge operation, and the house was an amazing, really old, three-story brick house.

They were extremely nice and their daughter Jan was there with her husband and their new baby. They let me hold the baby and as it squirmed around in my unfamiliar grasp, I knew what I had been missing in my life and what I wanted more than anything in the world.

Cal's older brother Jacob was also there; I guess he was the ranch manager. He was somewhat older than Cal and Jan and had three kids around ten to thirteen or so.

Everyone was curious about me and I didn't know what Caleb had told them, other than I was his "friend." I didn't say too much, just kept nodding and talking only when asked a question. I had a great time – they were such a wonderful and close family. They kidded each other a lot, and kept teasing me, but it was all done with real laughter, the kind that can't be faked.

They seemed to accept me as part of the family, but I think they were just wonderful western folks. They did invite me to come for the big Fourth of July party they had every year. They weren't sure if Cal would be there.

I felt closer to Jan than anyone else; we seemed to hit it off. The men were going river rafting the next week: down the Green to the Colorado, going around the huge cliff at the junction and on down to Dinosaur National Monument. They said they did another trip in the fall, just before school started and everyone that could went – by that time the waters were lower and slower... and safer!

I invited Jan to come out to my place while they were gone and she made the drive. While the baby was taking a nap she looked through my closet. It was okay with me - I knew all women were curious about that stuff.

Of course I had bought a bunch of new clothes but Jan got after me... all I had bought were jeans, short sleeve flannel shirts and engineer type boots. After that she kind of adopted me; she kept taking me shopping and making me buy more feminine clothes that would fit in my budget. She also made me get something other than plain functional underwear, took me to a beauty parlor and made me get my haircut short for the summer in a more casual style, and in general made me over.

I didn't mind; I had never had a sister and enjoyed being with her. She taught me a lot about what being a woman meant. She asked me somewhat forthrightly what I thought of Caleb. I blushed and froze up... and started crying. Everything came back to me in a crushing flash - what I had tried to do and why. Jan put her arm around me and let me cry it out. In the end I told her all of it. I had never talked to a woman about my life and it was such a relief to get it all out.

I told her about my childhood, my experiences with boys and later men, particularly with Gerry and what he had done. I blushed again when I told her what Cal had done for me. I confessed my feelings about him, realizing they were deeper than I had let myself think. I admitted to Jan that I was scared of what I felt. Jan just hugged me and didn't say anything.

A couple of weeks later we had lunch in Grand Junction. It was a lot of fun; I was learning how to relax with other people. Then, out of the blue, my life changed.

"Jesse, you do remember about the Fourth of July barbeque at the ranch next Saturday, right?

Actually I had forgot about it! Cal had called a week earlier and asked me to come. He said it was looking like he wouldn't be able to make it but he wasn't giving up hope.

"Anyway, Cal called me last night and said he was going to make it after all. He finishes his residency this week. He has to go back after the holiday to wrap some stuff up and then he will move out here! An old friend of our dad's has a family practice but wants to retire. Cal will work with him for a year and then take the practice over. The whole family is really excited to have him back with us."

"What do you think about it, Jesse?"

"WhatdidI think about it?" I asked myself.

CAL

I saw Jesse a half-dozen times after she left the hospital. The first time I took her to lunch at the Mexican place by the railroad tracks. We got there early like I was wont to do. That meant that we had to help sort the pinto beans, an honored tradition for regulars. That was always worth a Tiny. I grabbed a water glass for Jesse and filled it with half the beer. It was fun, picking the rocks and detritus out of the beans. We talked about nothing and everything, laughing a lot.

I was amazed that she put away three of the fiery Chile Rellenos and a Tiny of her own. I felt really comfortable with her, but whenever I touched on more personal topics she backed off. I told her the funny and weird things that happen to interns and she laughed a lot. It was good just to see her laugh and have fun. I was worried about my feelings.

And I did have feelings; I couldn't deny that. But Jessica was so skittish I didn't know how to express my growing attraction. I couldn't believe that other men hadn't recognized the jewel that she was. I had to learn to take it slow with her.

JakeRivers
JakeRivers
1,057 Followers