Calving Signs – part 1

Terri watched the cows.
During her final descent the black and brown specks of distant cows grew into gross mooing things. Terri watched the big, dumb animals amble around, chewing on grass.
She thudded her head against the plastic windowpane.
There were no bovines back at College. It was dead center in urban blight. She had picked it partly for that reason.
And now she was going back… to cows.
* * *
Her Mom didn’t meet her at the gate.
Terri collected three heavy bags and walked out of the terminal. At the taxi stand she picked a large yellow van, the driver congealed in the seat. When he hauled himself up to get her bags the chair rippled and bubbled behind him.
In a battered College t-shirt and grey cotton pants she looked like a refugee from a slumber party. If she had any curves, they were lurking in depths.
Terri climbed into a leather backseat that smelled like cheap cigarette smoke, and checked herself in the rear-view mirror.
Her only positive features were two blue eyes and a healthy, rosy complexion. Terri had been born with a wholesome, wide-eyed look that screamed “country girl.”
Which was why she usually dusted on bone-white makeup and pulled her ash-blonde hair back into a tight braid. The girl looking back at her resembled a consumptive mortician. But at least it wasn’t fresh off the ranch.
“Where to?” the Driver said.
“Calving,” Terri said. “It’s about a half-hour southwest on…”
“Yeah, I know,” the driver said. He accelerated.
Terri raised an eyebrow. No one had EVER heard of Calving. That was one of its virtues.
“You know where it is?”
“Lots of people going out that way. They’re building something out there,” the driver searched his memory. “A factory. That’s it. Big factory. Right outside of town.”
“Of what?” Probably a slaughterhouse. They had been talking about one for a long time. People in Calving talked about cows whenever the weather wasn’t interesting.
“No… hold on. It’s coming. It was something weird. Baby food! It’s a baby food factory.”
Baby food? She would’ve expected weapons defense or chip manufacture before baby food.
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, organic baby food or something. Big factory. Real big. Lots of lawyers and financial types going to Calving. You from there?”
“No,” Terri lied, reflexively.
An hour later they reached the outskirts of town. It used to be a nondescript freeway exit, with a bolted-on town marker underneath the highway sign. Now the road was two lanes wide, with new pavement, and a brand new sign read “Welcome to Calving!”
The factory stood on the right side of town. It was three stories tall, with beige walls and few windows. Two smokestacks were already churning black tatters of smoke into the air. More specks—people this time—swarmed over construction equipment.
A large chain link fence separated the property from the road.
At the next turn they stopped at a red light, up against the side of the road.
Terri came face to face with a cow.
It had sidled up to the edge of a fence and stuck its dumb wet eyes over the side of the road. The fat animal pawed at the ground. It was pregnant—large sides ballooned out with a calf.
It mooed at her.
* * *
Downtown was the same. City Hall, library, barbershop, Mike’s Diner, barbershop. And then the Cathedral, a huge, oversized pile of white stone overshadowing the rest of the town.
“This driveway,” Terri instructed, five minutes later. On both sides were dead pastureland with bleached-wood fences.
They had reached the House.
Terri remembered for the first time to check her pockets. Then her wallet. Nothing.
“Wait right here,” she told the man, and dashed inside. Terri barely had time to register new things: the lawn was mowed, the ivy had been cut back, the faded paint had been refreshed.
Her Mom was in the living room, drinking a glass of wine. A big glass. They looked at each other, and her Mom opened her mouth—
“I need seventy dollars in cash,” Terri said, quickly. “For the cabbie. He’s waiting outside.”
Her Mom stopped, sighed, and pulled a bill out of her purse. Terri dashed back outside. A fifty-two dollar fare with a three-buck tip meant a fifteen dollar profit. The driver didn’t bother to take her bags out.
Terri went back inside. Her Mom was just refilling her glass.
They looked at each other.
“So,” she said, to her daughter. “My college dropout returns home.”
“That’s me,” Terri said, and stomped upstairs.
* * *
The old house was too large for just a Mom and a Daughter.