D. R. Graham - To All the Cowboys I’ve Loved Before

I chuckle at how her word choice sounds. I can’t help it. BJ turns in his seat to face her. “What did you call it?”

“Bucking. Isn’t that what you call it?”

“I call it a lot of things, darlin’. What do you call it, Chuckie?”

“Dirty rodeo, entering the chute, eight seconds of glory, backing the rig up, or bareback bucking works, too. No matter what you call it, I’m the best at it. I ride ‘em like a pro.”

Idiots. I should have known better than to invite Della along with them. It’s going to be a long hour of juvenile jokes and sexual innuendos.

“They’re talking about sex, aren’t they?”

“Yes,” I say, “We call it bareback bronc riding.”

Since I’m the only one giving her a straight answer she turns in her seat to face me. “Are the horses wild?”

“Not in the true sense of the word, no. They’re bred for bucking and raised in a pasture, but they have to be gentled enough to be trailered and loaded into the chute. Usually they’re geldings or mares.”

“What’s a gelding?”

Chuck raises his hand to ask a question. “Is balls a swear word?”

I shake my head to ignore him, then answer her, “A gelding is a castrated horse.”

Her face winces as if she can feel the pain. “And what happens if you all hang on for eight seconds? How do you decide who gets to win?”

“Judges score each ride. They look at your form and style—how well the horse bucks and how well you spur. If you don’t mark his shoulders out with your spurs before his front legs hit the ground, or if you touch the horse with your free hand, you get disqualified. If the horse stumbles they might give you a re-ride.”

“So, if today is the final round, which one of you is in the lead after last night?”

“BJ has the highest score right now. But we all have a chance to win it today.”

“Good job, Bailey.” She leans forward to pat his shoulder. “What’s the best score you can get?”

He turns, still smiling from the compliment. “It’s scored out of one hundred. Posting in the eighties is really good. If we post something in the nineties you should cheer your butt off.”

“All right.” She sits back to relax and adjusts the hat. “I’ll do a back flip and land in the splits if any of you score in the nineties.”

The boys go silent in the front seat, no doubt imagining her doing bareback bucking acrobatics in her summer dress.

There is no way someone as uncoordinated as Della could do a back flip. She obviously said it to pull their chains, which makes me smile. “Just make sure you don’t really blow out your knee when you do cheer.”

She laughs and shoves my shoulder playfully. “I wish you hadn’t noticed that.”

Chuck’s eyes meet mine in the rearview mirror for a second, then he glances at BJ. They probably think it’s only a matter of time before I end up handing over my rodeo winnings to them. It would be worth it, but what they don’t realize is a girl like Della would never give it up that easy. I’d have to work damn hard to even have a shot with her.

Chuck turns up the music and BJ is focused on his phone, probably sexting. So, after driving in silence for a while Della turns to me. “What do you plan to do with your MBA?”

“Run the family cattle ranch. My thesis is on sustainable farming practices, so I’ll probably get involved with speculative investments in that industry. What do you want to do with your engineering degree?”

“My main interest is water sustainability and regulation. I’d like to work on systems and infrastructure to make sure the world’s water supply is protected and accessible.”

As she passionately describes why she chose her field of study and enthusiastically shares her future ideas about ground water and aquatic ecosystems, a bunch of childhood memories that I haven’t thought about in a long time flood my mind. Specifically, things about my mom. And the reminder of her takes me off guard. When Della stops to check my reaction, I don’t know quite what to say.

In response to my speechlessness Della shifts uncomfortably in her seat, then blurts out, “We would die without water.” As soon as the words leave her mouth she hits her forehead with the heel of her hand. “Sorry. I don’t know why I said that. It’s not a competition. Farming is important, too. We would also die without food, obviously. I wasn’t trying to sound like my career with water will be more important than your career in sustainable farming. They are both cool, or important, or whatever.”

She makes brief eye contact, probably completely confused by the fact that I’m borderline choked up about the unexpected reminder of my mom.

“Sorry.” She fidgets with the strap of her purse and stares down at her hands. “I don’t know why I jumped to assume that you disapproved. And it really doesn’t matter if you do. You’re entitled to your own opinions.” She inhales sharply and then sighs as if she’s disappointed in herself for getting defensive. “I guess I’m used to justifying my reasons with my dad and it accidently spewed out. Just ignore me.”

I study her expression as she turns her focus to the passing scenery out the window. It’s weird, right? What are the chances I’d meet someone who has the exact same passion as my mom? It could be a fluke. Or it might be significant. Why does it feel like a big deal? It’s not. It’s just a random coincidence.

“Hey.” I reach across the cab and touch her elbow to get her attention. “The reason it took me a long time to react isn’t because I was judging your goals. The opposite in fact. I was thrown off for a minute because my mom was a water protector. It brought up some memories of her as you talked about it. It’s a good thing.”

“Really?” Della smiles at the commonality. “That’s really cool. What type of water protection activities was she involved in?”

“She was in charge of community education initiatives for water conservation in Three Rivers. She was also involved in a lot of national advocacy projects and even a few protests.”

“So, I would have liked her?”

“Absolutely.” I smile to myself as I check off all the qualities in Della that my mom would have liked. She would have loved her—actually—and not only because of the save-the-water ideals.

She spins in her seat to face me. “Sorry I misread your silence and jumped into defense mode.”

“I get it. I had to defend my choice to pursue an MBA with my dad.”

“Really? Why didn’t he agree with it?”

“He runs the ranch on a high school education. My grandfather before him ran it on a seventh-grade education. He would have preferred if I skipped the MBA and offered an extra set of hands on the ranch all these years instead.”

Her eyes track over my face as she decodes my expression. “If you don’t need the degree, then why was it important to you to do it?”

Got to hand it to her. She has a way of cutting to the core. My real reason for getting an MBA isn’t something I’ve ever talked about with anyone before. My dad likely knows on some level because he’s experienced discrimination and racism his whole life, too. But his understanding of my motivation to gain legitimacy is unspoken, as is most of our relationship. “Let’s just say you and I both have something to prove to people who don’t believe we can do whatever we set our minds to.”

She smiles and lifts her hand to give me a high five. “Cheers to proving the doubters wrong.”

“Cheers to that.”

“Hell yeah,” Chuckie pipes in from the front. “Fuck the doubters.”

“Language,” both BJ and I say at the same time.

“Sorry. Screw the doubters. Poo on the doubters. Doubters are dumb.” He throws up his hand to give up. “It loses its impact without the curse word. Sorry, Della, sometimes the F word is the only word that can adequately express how I feel about something. It’s just a word. I personally find the word cellophane offensive, but I ain’t gonna ask people to stop using it.”