Four Men and a Young Lady

In the grandest house in the most affluent neighborhood of Cynthiana, a young woman heard the distinct sniffle of her Grandmother crying. She hated to hear the octogenarian lady weep, so Susan flew into Gran’s room and gently inquired what was the problem. The elderly lady explained to Susan how her family had been rich and powerful in the county (and Kentucky for that matter) and that when her late husband Marshall (Pa to Susan) had been alive and Mayor of the town “things got done !” This fact made Susan wince, because she had been christianed Marshall, too, and possessed no power or prestige. She was just the little baby of the family whom everyone forgot existed. Gran muttered out the words, “Look! Look what I’ve been reduced to,” and her voice drifted away. Then, after a moment’s pause, she added, “I called four men who work for me this morning and was put off by all of them.” Susan quickly grabbed the little notebook on the settee and asked who she called. “Don’t worry about it, honey.” Susan pushed a bit harder. Gran Sniffled again and replied, It’s okay.” Frustrated, She demanded to know who had been called! She made a list: the tenant farmer, the electrician, the plumber, and the preacher.

Susan made quick work of finding the numbers, took a deep breath, and sat down at antique phone table, and thought today is the day a nobody debutant becomes a force to be reckoned with, and she called Lee Baxter the tenant farmer.

Lee’s wife answered and called Lee to the phone. Susan had caught him at lunch, lucky her. Eye roll. Lee was confused if Marshall Bell’s granddaughter was on the phone and it wasn’t Thea or Allison who was it? This is Susan, the firm voice replied. Lee had to think hard, a challenge for him she knew. Oh, this had to be Susie!

“Is this little Susie,” he asked.

She replied that’s what her close friends called her.

“What can I do you for?”

Susan replied that her Grandmother needed to go over some invoices for the farm with him and talk about what Susan’s aunt (Mother’s sister) had described to her about the crops.

Weeell, I’m sorry but I just can’t fit it in today. I got to set up some irrigation…

She cut him short. Susan told of how she mastered her Graduate Botany classes and had been with her aunt to see the corn. How Gran’s corn stalks had yellow patches but his didn’t. And, of how Gran had just purchased nitrate for the corn which the pale yellow patched corn had obviously seen little of if any yet his corn was the picture of health.

“I’m gettin’ in my truck now and will be at your Grandmother’s in fifteen minutes, she heard on the other end of the line.

One down three to go, she nervously thought.The next one was a bit more tricky, and she knew it. Hmm go with catch more flies with sugar or get that damn chandelier you’ve been working on for six months up here. Wayne was the slowest electrician in town, but he was, also the best probably, because he took his good, sweet time fixing things. Susan had told her Mom that she believed Wayne’ s goal every day was to turn one screw on one piece he was working on- in super slow motion.

Susan decided exactly how to handle the electrician, sugar, then, if need be,the sheleighly was coming down on his noggin. The phone rang at Wayne’s house and rang and rang and rang. Don’t they have an answering machine? Finally, he grouchingly, groggily answered the phone.

“Yeah,” he belched out.”

“Wayne, this is Susan Bell Mayor Bell’s granddaughter.

“Yeah,” She heard water flowing. No, the noise wasn’t water flowing, it was a waterfall. He had finally finished the koi pond for his wife, Jean!! No. He was pissing. They

This is another very rough draft of an unfinished story. Construction, please, excuse the mess!