It was around 3:30 when Jack and Rose crossed back into the United States. As they made their way back north toward Masline, they decided to take a detour through the mountains to the small mountain town of Julian. It had been a long, stressful day for both of them, so they didn’t feel like going home just yet.
They wandered around the little town for about two hours, leaving the car parked on one of the main streets. Julian was the sort of town that was easy to explore on foot, so they wandered around shops, museums, and the streets, enjoying the cool air. Rose was more interested in the various shops than Jack was, but he humored her, following her around and looking for whatever might be interesting.
Jack was quiet and introspective most of the day, listening quietly as Rose commented on what she saw. His mind was elsewhere, thinking about his visit to Fabrizio’s grave that afternoon. Rose tried to draw him into a conversation, but his mind was on other things.
They finally stopped at a small restaurant for dinner. After they were seated and had ordered their food, Rose looked across the table at Jack. "What’s on your mind?" she asked, toying with her glass of water.
He shrugged. "I was just thinking about today. It was good to see the de Rosas again, but..."
"But you still miss Fabrizio."
"We’d been best friends for two years, ever since he slipped across the border and we wound up working side by side in a lettuce field in Arizona."
"A lettuce field?"
"Yeah. The farm owners hire people to pick the crops, usually at very low wages."
Rose frowned. "How low?"
"Sometimes we were lucky to eat. Some of the owners didn’t want to hire me because I’m an American, and they thought I would demand more money than they wanted to pay, or rat on them for hiring illegal immigrants, or for the poor conditions or sub-legal pay."
"It sounds like you needed a union."
"We did, but I didn’t raise too much of a fuss. I needed the work, though there were times when disagreements would come up. There were a couple of employers, one in Arizona and one in California, who thought that they could get away with not paying people. Some of the illegal immigrants would have put up with it, because they were afraid of being deported, but I’m an American, so I don’t have such worries. I could complain all I wanted without fear of getting into trouble."
"Some people say that illegal immigrants are taking jobs away from Americans."
"Ha. Like migrant farm work...do you know how hard it is to find Americans who want to do that?"
"They’d probably have to raise wages. Poor farmers." Rose’s voice was sarcastic. Then she corrected herself. “I’m guessing it was the big agribusinesses that abused people the most, not the little guys.”
“Mostly, yeah. Some were better than others. Of course, the small farms didn’t need to hire as many people, so the employees there weren’t so nameless and faceless to the owners. Most of the small farms, though, couldn’t afford to pay people a lot, even if they wanted to, because they were under so much pressure and competition from agribusiness. The agribusinesses could afford to pay more, but they didn’t. The people in charge of them said they couldn’t pay people more because that would raise the price of food in the stores—never mind the fact that if so much of it weren’t wasted, there would be enough that prices wouldn’t need to be raised. A lot of the waste was deliberate in order to keep prices high and wages low. Mustn’t cut into the profits just so the workers can live. After all, they’re just immigrants. Why should anyone care about them?"
"Ah, but you’re forgetting that Fabrizio also worked for Sunpeak."
"Yeah, he took away a sweatshop job that nobody wanted. Poor things."
Rose laughed. "I don’t think anyone suffered because they couldn’t get a job at Sunpeak. How many people were they lacking—about five hundred?"
"About that. They were so desperate for workers that they were hiring people that weren’t qualified. When you’re missing one or two people, you can be picky. When you’re missing five hundred, and even the temporary workers refuse to come anywhere near you, you have to take what you can get. Hardly anyone stayed for more than a month or two."
"According to the records—which Cal had me shred—there was about a ninety-seven percent turnover rate."
"Something like that. And that was just the workers. About half of the management quit every year, and they had a hard time finding new people. I remember there was this one lead that had been told when he was hired that he wouldn’t have to work on his days off. After he started work, they told him that he did, and that only the company mattered, not him."
Rose rolled her eyes, not surprised in the slightest. "What did he say?"
"Basically, he told the supervisors exactly where they could stick their job and walked out." He smiled at the memory. "The whole room started clapping and cheering."
She laughed. "I bet that made the supervisors happy."
"They threatened to fire us if we didn’t stop. Of course, if they did, they wouldn’t have anyone to do the work. Still, they tried all kinds of things. They even made us sign a contract saying that we would not work for a competing business, or accept gifts associated with the company."
"Who would want to give gifts to Sunpeak?"
He laughed. "I wasn’t surprised when they got into trouble over their finances. I was just surprised that Cal wasn’t convicted of embezzlement."
"If he was guilty, he did a good job of hiding it. Cal may be a vicious bastard, but he isn’t stupid."
The waitress brought them their soup and they ate for a moment in silence before Jack went on. "There was also a statement in this contract that we couldn’t date co-workers. They were so vague about it that it could have been construed that if you happened to meet a co-worker in Walmart and talked to them, you might be in trouble."
"I guess that falling in love with the CEO’s fiancée was definitely off-limits."
"Well, Cal certainly thought so. He did his best to put an end to things."
"Justice prevailed, for once."
"The sad thing was, a lot of people just signed the thing without even looking at it. They could have been signing their lives away, and they wouldn’t have even noticed."
"Did you look it over first?"
"Uh-huh. And then they wanted the papers back, and didn’t give us copies even though they said they would. There was something really wrong there."
"Did anyone question it?"
He nodded. "Two of the women who worked at the same table as me were trying to pick it apart, bit by bit. They questioned everything, and then a few other people started questioning it, too. If more people had questioned it, or refused to sign it, we might not have had to deal with it."
Rose shook her head. "It’s sad how so many people are so apathetic. The world could be a much better place if people didn’t simply accept things."
"You don’t simply accept things."
"I did, sometimes. I accepted the engagement to Cal, even though I knew it was a mistake from the start." She looked down at her bowl of soup.
"But you eventually got out of it."
"Yes, after things had hit rock bottom."
"Sometimes that’s what it takes. Sometimes things have to get really bad before you can take the necessary steps to get out of them."
"I wish I’d learned that lesson sooner."
"Me, too." His hand wandered absently to the scars on the back of his head. "But I don’t think either of us is ever going to forget."
"Probably not." They were silent for a moment. "I’m not sorry that Cal is in prison. We’re safe from him now."
"For a while, at least. Hopefully we’ll know when he finally gets out. I don’t want to be anywhere near when he does."
"Neither do I. I don’t trust him."
"I wonder why." He changed the subject. "It’s strange. Sometimes I still expect to see Fabrizio walk in the door after work, grumbling about how stupid Sunpeak is, or see him and Helga together, or see him talking to the neighbors across the street, even though I know he’s gone." He paused. "It seems a little more real, now that I’ve seen his grave."
"Maybe you needed a chance to say good-bye."
"Maybe." He sighed. "It all seems like such a waste. He had so much going for him, and then, all of a sudden, everything’s gone. He’ll never get to be an American citizen or see his son. He tried so hard, but what was the use?"
"He did the best he could in life. That’s all any of us can do. He was your best friend and Helga’s husband. In a few months, Helga will have their baby." She shook her head. "Sometimes I feel the same way about Trudy. I expect to see her someplace or have her call, even though I know she won’t. It’s kind of hard to say good-bye."
"It is. That earthquake changed the lives of a lot of people."
"Including us."
He nodded, pushing his soup bowl aside as the waitress set their dinners on the table. After she had left, Rose continued.
"I guess that we’ll eventually move on. Sometimes disasters happen, and those who survive—like us—have to keep going, even if it’s sometimes hard."
*****
It was past seven when they left, heading for home. They made their way down the mountain roads in silence, each lost in their own thoughts. About halfway down, Jack pulled over at a lookout point and they got out of the car to walk around.
Rose glanced at Jack curiously. He seemed oddly nervous. She wondered what he was thinking about. They walked over to the safety railing at the edge of the cliff and looked out across the valleys.
It was almost completely dark, and they could see the bright glitter of lights from the cities in the valley, sparkling through the night like a thousand colorful stars. Overhead, the real stars twinkled brightly in the sky, through the vast, endless reaches of space.
A shooting star flashed overhead. Rose nudged Jack’s arm, pointing to it.
"A shooting star! Aren’t we supposed to wish on it?"
He smiled. "My dad used to say that every time you saw a shooting star, it was a soul going to heaven."
"I like that." They were silent for a moment.
"What would you wish for?" Jack asked her, turning his attention from the sky to Rose’s face.
"I don’t know," Rose told him honestly. "I have everything I could want. What about you?"
He didn’t answer. Looking back out at the cities, he turned to her. "Rose...there’s been something I’ve been wanting to ask you..."
"What is it?"
"I...we’ve known each other for quite a while now...we’ve been together for quite a while..." He trailed off.
"And?"
He ran a hand through his hair nervously, then looked at her again. "Rose, will you marry me?" The words came out in a rush.
Rose’s eyes widened. "I—I—" she stammered, not sure what to say. Images flashed through her mind, memories of the good times they had spent together, of the way they had leaned on each other when times got rough. But other thoughts were there, too—memories of her engagement to Cal, memories of some of the awful things she and Jack had said and done to each other when he was sick. Though things had worked out between them, she was still uneasy about the prospect of taking such a big step.
"Jack, I—" She stopped. She loved him with a depth that she had never known was possible, but she knew that there were things they had to work out before she could make such a commitment. She wanted to be with him, wanted to spend her life with him, but she had to be sure that they were doing the right thing.
"I don’t know," she told him, pleading with her eyes for him to understand. She did love him, but the prospect of marriage frightened her. She had been through too much, seen too much, to just jump into something so serious.
"Will you at least think about it?"
Rose nodded, relieved. "I’ll think about it."