Head Over Boots For You // Jenlisa

2: Year-long Cleanse

Jennie

Jennie's footsteps were quiet on the cabin's hardwood floor, as she shuffled groggily across the planks in thick wool socks. She knew it was April, and April back home meant spring, with warmer temperatures and a transition away from sweaters and fleece and wool socks. But here, Jennie was still wrapped in every warm article of clothing that she had brought. And she was still cold.

"Morning," she yawned, or attempted to yawn, shambling into the kitchen.

Evidently, the entire cattle herd decided to birth their calves all at once after Jennie had arrived, which meant long days of supervising the process and longer nights watching those cows that didn't adhere to a silly thing called daylight to give birth. Night after night, she was awoken by Lisa shaking her arm to tell her there was another problematic birth.

Over the past three days, she couldn't have gotten more than six hours of sleep. And it was beginning to show.

Jennie barely noticed that Lisa and Irene had ignored her morning greeting. She dropped unceremoniously down into the empty chair at the kitchen table.

"No more baby cows today," Jennie mumbled to herself as she poured herself a cup of coffee from a thermos. "Tell them to wait until tomorrow."

Lisa glanced up at her from the pile of papers on the table, her usual annoyance simmering. "We had our last birth a few hours ago. I took care of it."

Jennie frowned at the news. "Why didn't you wake me? I thought you wanted me to supervise all of the births, since I'm so good at it and all."

(No one was more surprised about that fact than Jennie.)

Lisa looked away from her back to the papers. "I was going to wake you, but you looked tired."

"No shit. I've barely gotten any sleep for days. And neither have you." When Lisa didn't respond, Jennie sighed and softened her approach. "I want to carry my own weight around here, you know."

Irene perked up at that. "You already are. Calf survival is at 100% so far. You guys can expect to lose a few over the season, but we're miles ahead of where we were last year." Irene leaned toward Lisa, smirking. "This is where I say 'I told you so'.'"

Jennie watched Lisa's reaction carefully, but if she was ashamed at all for underestimating Jennie, she didn't let anything show. But then Lisa rose abruptly from the table, and Jennie thought that was all the tell she needed.

"We need supplies, Jennie," Lisa said as she took a set of keys from the hook on the wall and tossed them on the table in front of Jennie. "Vaccinations, insecticide, dewormer. I've already placed the order in town, but you'll need to pick them up."

Jennie frowned into her cup of coffee and grumbled. "I woke up at 6am just to drive to town?"

Insolence was not the way to impress Lisa, judging by how she folded her arms and glared down at her. Jennie tried not to notice how the move accentuated the muscles of her forearms revealed by her rolled-up flannel sleeves. She really hadn't gotten enough sleep if she was checking out her asshole of an employer.

"We need them as soon as possible, so we can administer them as soon as possible," Lisa explained in that obnoxiously steady tone of hers. "Having a 100% birthing rate with 50% disease mortality because we didn't vaccinate them quickly enough would be unacceptable."

Lisa could be positively didactic, and it drove Jennie crazy. "Obviously. Just let me have some breakfast first and I'll head out."

Jennie rose to the refrigerator, feeling Lisa's eyes burning a hole into the back of her head but not caring. She opened the door and sighed. "For real? You guys finished off the eggs and the milk? Guess I'm going grocery shopping, too."