This will be a series of interconnected stories, each focusing on a major player, before they're all drawn together for the finale. Some of the story is loosely based on two couples, one I knew slightly, and one I knew in our community but never really interacted with, different circles and so forth. The rest is just pure dribble from my mind. I see five, maybe six chapters.
................................
Rose sang along to the song from almost thirty years ago that was playing on the oldies station she favored. It was from the year she was eighteen, just on the cusp of adulthood. In fact, she remembered hearing it as she and Charley made love for the very first time. Her smile widened, they were both eighteen, ready to take on the world. And, if truth be told, there was very little love involved that summer, but a lot of lust. They screwed everywhere they could find a flat surface, and privacy. One of her favorite remembrances from that summer after high school was of her and Charley, naked on a quilt spread over hay bales in the loft of one of his uncle's barns. They were bathed in the light of a full moon shining in the open hay doors, the light softening their features, as they enjoyed their third coupling of the night. They later cuddled, quilt wrapped around them, while he pointed out a fox slinking across a meadow, and they listened to an owl, probably upset because they had invaded his home.
But after every summer comes autumn, and they both went off to college, him to a state university to get his degree in agribusiness, and her, to a college three states away, on full scholarship, to earn a degree in accounting.
They hooked up briefly their first summer back, but then she took internships every summer until she graduated, only then coming home because the best job offer she had came from the largest local bank.
Despite living in the same community, they really didn't cross paths again for two years, when he used her bank to leverage a business deal. There was little discussion over what direction his career would take, his family owned four of the largest farms in the area, held in a complicated trust. They also had a large feed, seed, and fertilizer store, for large commercial farms, where he ended up being assistant manager .
When his father died from a massive heart attack a year later, Charley was his only heir, and besides the stake in the family business, he was the beneficiary of a very large life insurance policy, and the liquid assets of his father.
When the deal was done, Charley had no stake in the farm operation any longer, but the feed store and a small, two hundred acre section that was part of the original holdings his great grandfather three times over bought over two hundred years before were completely his, plus a good nest egg, which he immediately spent, buying another store eighty miles away, and adding a franchised hardware store to both locations, cracking the retail market.
His skill and education stood him good stead, and his yearly profits were easily three times what he would have earned off the farms by the fourth year. There was a little grumbling from the cousins, but all had signed off on the deal, so they had no recourse but to accept it.
Rose had been appointed his coordinator for the bank, and they renewed their friendship over the following months. Working lunches turned into working dinners, which turned into breakfasts after spending the night together.
No one was surprised when eighteen months later, in a country Baptist church his family had attended for seven generations, on a warm April afternoon, Rose Chaney became Mrs. Charley Barton.
After a honeymoon at a clothing optional resort, they came home with a lot of memories and no tan line. Charley then gave Rose her wedding present, the seed money to open her own office, with his businesses as the very first clients. It included a postnupt that excluded him from all profits earned. There had been a similar clause in the paperwork when he bought the stores, added by his family to make sure if something happened or he wanted to sell it, the family could buy it back without complication should he ever marry and divorce. Charley had no reason to object at the time, as it was before he and Rose were serious. It was at his insistence that her clause was included.
Now, all those years later, Rose had eight offices in two states, and traveled one week a month to the different branches. She was no longer an accountant, but a CEO and administrator. Charley owned four stores now, and his annual income was just over seven figures, and her net was about half that annually.
That was big money by anyone's standards, especially in this rural community, where the county seat held only forty thousand people, and there was only one more town, a hamlet of just over six thousand,just a few miles from her house.
She laughed as the song ended, now they were considered the 'redneck elite' of their community, well off without the snobbery that came with money. They belonged to a country club, but never became the country club type.
She wheeled in to the driveway of their four bedroom home, sighing because they hadn't been able to fill them with children. There had been a complication during the birth of their daughter, and she could no longer bear children. Instead, they lavished their love on their only child, while at the same time making sure she grew in to a sensible, responsible adult. She had just graduated college, and now the home was a true empty nest.
Her heels clacked as she walked through the stone foyer, shoes were her one big indulgence since they became wealthy. Rose reckoned she had sixty pairs of just heels, and her annual shopping trip was coming up. Every year she went to Atlanta, Charlotte, and twice Miami, to update her wardrobe, which mainly meant new shoes. She always took her mother and daughter, who was more enthusiastic about it now than when she was younger. Charley tended to dress in LL Bean and the clothes his hardware stores sold, but he had a closet of very nice suits for when the need arose. He was only fifteen pounds heavier now than when they married, and she was actually smaller, thanks to her time with personal trainers. Yes, she thought, as she walked to the kitchen, they were rich, still attractive, had a great kid, life was just perfect.
Thursday was takeout night, and her nose told her tonight was Chinese, her favorite. Next would be Italian, Barbeque, a burger from the small diner in the next town, fish, or something from whatever new place had just opened up. Rose thought it odd the food was still boxed, and Charley was sitting on the patio, watching the sunset. Grabbing a couple of plates, she loaded them, carrying them out to the table, noting he already had a glass and a pitcher of sweet tea.
She grabbed another glass and utensils, and settled down beside him, somewhat surprised he hadn't kissed her, and totally puzzled when she leaned over and he turned, so she caught his cheek.
Instantly concerned, because that was so unlike him, she asked how his day went.
Still staring out over the fields, he answered.
"It was pretty boring in the morning, but I had an interesting lunch date."
Rose smiled. Everyone wanted something from Charley, from the fourteen year old girl in the FFA who wanted him to address her group, to the eighty year old retired librarian who wanted him to donate enough money to put his name on the building, to vendors, and retail customers. He usually treated them to lunch as they talked. Normally pretty steady, he did have occasional moments of weakness, like when one precocious ten year old told him he ought to donate the equipment, seeds, and the time from someone who knew what they were doing to make a school garden.
He was so impressed, he leased the field adjacent to the school, and divided it until every class had a plot. Then he sent over the tillers and tools to work the spot, with two retired farmers to run the project, doing only what the children couldn't, then showing how on the rest. Each class had to vote on what to plant, when to plant it, and each student had to spend at least one hour a week tending it. All harvest went to the school cafeteria, where once a week or more a meal was prepared using vegetables the children had raised. In a move unusual for someone who sold farm chemicals and fertilizers, he would only allow them to use organic materials. The program had started ten years ago, and the girl who suggested it was now working with the retired farmers teaching, as part of her college requirements. Her schooling was completely paid by Charley, including living expenses. There was no pretense, no disguised scholarships, just a blunt "I believe in you" followed by financial arrangements. In return she had to work for him for four years after graduating. She called him Uncle Charley now, and would literally kill for him.
Charley wasn't a saint for all his compassion. He was known to abrupt to people who annoyed him, and he had no use for someone who tried to cheat in a business dealing, or manipulate personal relationships. Slow to anger, when he reached that stage he tended to be ruthless both in public and personal matters. And as he never forgot a kindness, he never forgot a slight.
Somebody must have gotten out of line at lunch, she thought, as she relaxed. Woe be unto them, as their preacher was fond of saying.
"Was she a pretty young thing, or some grumpy old fart with his hand out?"
"Quite attractive, actually, Amanda Peterson."
Rose felt a little chill, both over who he had lunch with and his tone of voice. He was speaking very softly, his angry voice, she knew from experience. He got up, walking to the end of the patio, looking at the small lake he had built and stocked.
"What did you talk about, dear?"
"Sex."
"Sex? Why in the world would a twenty-four year old woman talk to you about sex?"
He turned, looking her dead in the eye. Her heart leaped to her throat, and with an air of fatalism she listened.
"Well, it seems she and Bobby are going to have an open marriage. From what I gather it was his idea, and he'd spent weeks getting her to agree with it. She just wanted to know, since you were going to be his first partner, and since we were so understanding and happy with our own open marriage, if I would be her first too, because she thought I'd be gentle with her."
