Sarah couldn’t ask Big Jim for the money.Cattle ranching always ran on a razor’s edge, barely profitable, with so many variables threatening the bottom line: weather, rainfall, the health of the livestock, the viability of the farm equipment.In recent years, many of the local ranches had opened their homes to city slickers, calling their propertyguest ranches.In this way, they were able to hang onto their birthright land and had made much-needed income by unnecessarily moving cattle from pasture to pasture just so they could be called cattle drives.
Jim would never do that.
Over the years, she’d tried to give him money.He wouldn’t hear of it and promptly returned her checks.Jim was proud.
Leaning her chin on an elbow, Sarah skimmed the remaining emails and found one from her former manager, Patrick.When she’d quit the modeling life, Patrick had been beyond upset.He’d begged, cajoled, and screamed for her to keep working, but she had deaf ears.“I’m done, Patrick,” she’d told him that last day in his New York studio.“Sorry.You’ve got other models working for you.Concentrate on them.”
“Darling!”he’d exclaimed, flipping one of the jaunty scarves he always wore tied around his neck.“Those other girls aren’tyou!They aren’t the one, the only, the incomparable Super Sarah Lang.You’re at the height of your popularity, the prime of your adult life.To give it up now is nothing short of madness.”
“Then I’m completely mad.”Slinging her designer handbag over her shoulder, she’d walked out, wooden and numb.The grief had been fresh then, new and devastating.All she wanted to do was go home.
Now, Sarah wondered what Patrick could want.With trepidation, she opened the email.
Dear One,
As you asked, I’ve left you alone these long months and haven’t contacted you or bothered you in any way.But the time has come.Darling, since your abrupt departure from the catwalks and photo studios, your popularity has grown tenfold.As they say, with absence, the heart grows fonder.Everyone is asking,Where is Sarah Lang?Even I do not know, although rumors have it around New York and Hollywood that you’ve squirreled yourself away in some log cabin in the hinterlands.After knowing you so long and your love of all fine things, I find this difficult to understand.But`a chacun son!To each, his own.
You should know that Chanel has contacted me about designing a handbag just for you.They want to produce it in leather, several colors, and call itThe Sarah.Darling, remember how it was always your dream to have a top designer make a handbag with your input and name?Here it is, an opportunity for your dream to come true!
In the same twenty-four hours, both Versace and Ralph Lauren phoned me to beg for you to represent their next spring clothing presentations.There have been many other offers.Your cup runneth over.
Dear, I hope this note finds you happier than when I last saw you.Please, please come back to us.Remember, we are your family.Call me.
Patrick
Slowly, Sarah closed the laptop and drummed her fingers on the top.She had always wanted a designer to name a bag after her.It had been a goal for which she’d striven yet never attained.Now, here it was being handed to her on a brocaded pillow.Yet now it seemed like a shallow goal.A bag with her name.Who cared?
Suddenly, her cell phone chirruped.Pulling it from her bag, she looked at the screen and saw it was her agent, Patrick, who’d just emailed.She smiled to herself.Patrick was too affable, too filled with boundless enthusiasm for life to not like.
“Darling!”Patrick exclaimed when she answered.“I’ve just emailed you, but as soon as I clicked the Send button, I knew Ihadto speak with you.”
“Hi, Patrick.I just got your email.”
“Oh, perfect.Then you know how everyone is clamoring for your return.”He lowered his voice.“A Chanel bag called The Sarah.I want to swoon.Aren’t you thrilled?”
“I have mixed feelings,” she told him honestly.“I really don’t want to model any longer.”
“Why?”Patrick nearly screamed in her ear.“What’s not to love about fame, wealth, travel, adoration?I don’t understand you.Help me, Sarah.Help me to see inside your beautiful head.”
“I’ve come to like the quiet life, Pat.It’s peaceful.”
“Of course you’re still mourning our dear Mira,” he said.Patrick was one of the few who knew the truth about her.
“Yes,” she whispered.“I am.”
“I need you back in New York,” Patrick said.“Your legion of fans needs you.Theworldneeds you.”
Sarah smiled.How dramatic, how veryPatrickof him.Yet she also thought again about the money she could earn, and the good she could do with it back in Mountain Wood.“I have to go now.I’ve missed you.Don’t worry, in the next few days or weeks I’ll be in touch.”
Reluctantly, he let her go, but not before she repeated her promise to call him soon.
The money she could earn if she went back to modeling would be staggering.In very little time she could earn more than enough to realize her new, more meaningful dream of opening her feed barn and still be able to help her fellow townspeople.
Patrick’s offers were tempting and the answer to her problems.Her heartrate sped up.The ten pounds of extra weight she’d gained could be shed within weeks.She’d simply go back to the gym workouts she hated and cut her meal portions to the old one third.No big deal.She didn’t have to like it, but she could do it.
She could become a supermodel again.
