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“Daydreaming again?” Isaac says as he walks into his bedroom. I’m picking up after him again; I do it more for Neil. I just feel bad for him, because for sure one of the cleaners will complain about Isaac’s room. I know that I would if I was paid to clean up after him.
“Yeah, I’m dreaming that you’ll learn to pick up after yourself for once!”
“You do work here, right?”
He’s deadly serious as he folds his arms and stares at me. I don’t know what planet this man comes from? When does ranch hand involve cleaning up to the owners' grandson?
“Neil pays me a good wage to look after the ranch. Not clean up after you!”
Sometimes he makes it unbearable to be around him, I’ve been biting my tongue, but if he carries on this way, then I’ll have to forget to try to be nice to him. We can keep our distance especially because I don’t live in the main house anymore.
“I want to go riding this morning,” Isaac says offhandedly.
“You aren’t going to the office today?”
That’s what he said to me yesterday when I suggested that we ride today. I wonder what changed his mind?
“Maybe this afternoon. Now, I feel like riding!”
“Sorry, I’ve got laundry to do this morning,” I’m shaking my head. I’m not going to jump every time he wants to do something. If he wants to spend the morning riding around the ranch instead of taking care of the company, that’s his business.
“Have it your way,” Isaac says stalking out of the room like a little boy that’s been told that he’s not going to be taken out for ice-cream.
What did I see in him? I think shaking my head as he walks out of the bedroom. Okay, he is handsome and has a decent body, but that isn’t enough to build a friendship on and certainly not enough to building a relationship.
I fantasized about having sex with him when he first moved back to the ranch, but my initial attraction to him is slowly and surely fading. It’s a shame too because I enjoy the time we spent together riding and swimming. I’ve even come to enjoy him giving me pool lessons, but I still can’t make a decent shot to save my life.
Isaac storms out of the room, and I do the same. I’m going to let Gloria, the cleaner or Harriet the maid see his room. Let them sort it out. Neil said to keep Isaac company, not be his slave.
***
I head to the laundry room, wondering if maybe I was too harsh on Isaac? He’s a grown man, but he has the tendency to act like a big kid. I can’t get over the way he switches when we’re on the ranch and then it dawns on me.
When we’re not on the ranch, he’s not drinking. That’s the real Isaac and then as soon as we get back he hits the bottle like a duck to water, and that’s when the horrible side. The part that I hate starts to reveal like an onion, the more layers you peel, the more it makes you cry. He says nasty things and even at one time demanded that I fucking clean his boots because he thought that Ron, the other hand who cleans the boots had stolen his last pair. He insisted on me cleaning them and then we discovered that Isaac had taken them up to his room. God, he gets paranoid when he drinks.
I didn’t even notice that Neil’s poking his head into the laundry room.
“Hey, Olivia, I see Isaac’s not going to work this morning?”
“No, he said he didn’t have any appointments until this afternoon, and he felt like taking Buckskin out for a ride,” I explain, but I have a feeling that Neil already knows the answer to his question.
Neil slowly shakes his head. “That’s his problems. He does only what he has to do! He doesn’t put enough of himself into running the business. Not like before. He hasn’t even asked me who I put in his place while he’s here. It’s as if he’s not interested in it anymore. Maybe I should just think about putting him in rehab and forget about him going back to the office.”
Neil takes a deep breath, “Sorry to unload on you like this; I don’t know what’s got into him. I’ve hidden all the drink in the ranch. And I think that he’s got someone buying him some, because sometimes at night it’s clear that he’s drunk.”
“At least we’re on the same page about that.”
“You’ve noticed it too?”
I nod my head because I feel as if I should have spoken to Neil sooner, but Isaac’s only been here three days. It’s not as if he was going to change over night.
“An old saying comes to mind, and it seems to apply to him.”
“What saying is that?” I ask thinking that maybe I can be of more use to Neil and try and get Isaac away from his bad habit or disease as they call it.
“You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.”
We both smile and laugh, just at the irony of him thinking of an old saying about Isaac drinking.
