Her dad always said A little dirt never hurt anybody. He was wrong.There's one worker, a foreman, who might offer comfort and support, but when Andrea finally trusts him, things get even more complicated.
Fans of In Five Years, Reminders of Him, and Regretting You, are devouring Kirsten Fullmer’s imaginative, gritty, coming-of-age romance.
Nick and Rooster’s conversation lagged as they both paused to watch Andy and Buck approach. The afternoon had grown warm, the hottest so far, and the men waved at dust and bugs that crawled and bit, making them miserable.
Buck stopped and bobbed a nod at the two foremen. “Men.”
“Sir,” both mumbled in reply.
Buck grunted, then headed on past the men with Andy at his heels. As she hustled pass Rooster, her eyes met his and she couldn’t help but notice the intensity there.
She tripped over a rut and ran several steps ahead to regain her balance. Stopping to readjust the stake bag on her shoulder, she waved away a sweat bee. “Go ahead, Andy, trip and fall at his feet,” she muttered under her breath.
Two steps later she lurched to a halt and dropped the bag to clutch at her underarm where something, more than likely the sweat bee, stung her with a vengeance.
Shouting curses, she danced and twisted in a circle, yanking at her safety vest and shirt and grabbing at her sports bra in an attempt the stop the burning sting. Finally, she ripped one arm out of her shirt and vest. Shoving her fingers up under the tight sweaty bra, she scooped out the bee and jumped back as its body fell to the dirt.
She stomped on the bee and kinked her neck, trying to examine her armpit area, but then she remembered where she was. She froze with one hand still up the side of her bra. Her head came up, only to find every man on the right-of-way, numbering well over thirty, staring at her in amazement.
“Need a hand?” Nick called out with a grin.
“It was a bee—” she started, then with a snort of disgust, she yanked her hand from her bra. Hefting the heavy bag, she realized her shirt and safety vest were still bunched up around one side of her neck, leaving her arm and her stomach half exposed. Three more cuss words escaped as she dropped the bag and fumbled back into her clothing, with all eyes watching her every move.
The sting continued to burn as she grabbed the stake bag and stomped past Buck, with her cheeks red and hot.
“What was that all about?” the old man asked as she passed.
Ignoring him, Andy continued up the right-of-way.
***
Rooster smoothed his fingers down his beard trying to hide a laugh as he watched Andy and Buck retreat. Nick hooted by his side, cackling with the other hands as they regaled Andy tearing off her shirt. Rooster’s hand dropped and he frowned, wondering how bad the sting was. He’d had a sweat bee trapped in his pants once, and it was a pain he still remembered.
My latest book, Love on the Line, is the story of Andy, a woman who chooses to work building a pipeline in the rugged mountains of West Virginia. Why did I write about this? I wrote it partly because I was inspired by the experiences of my own daughter who entertained me with many of her personal experiences as a pipeliner. But I also wrote it because I too chose to work in a male dominated field back in the day. Some of the struggles of women in these fields are upsetting, but many are inspiring and funny, thus perfect material for the kind of books I love to write. Just because not many women choose to do it, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done, right?
More than any time in recorded history, women are choosing to work in male dominated fields. Every day you come across a woman truck driver, firefighter, or pharmacist. And even though it’s become commonplace, many fields stick with their traditional titles such as policeman, draftsman, and even garbage man. Given this plus the infamous glass ceiling, why would a woman choose to spend their entire career fighting an uphill battle? There are a million reasons, but overwhelmingly, the answer I find is “because I want to” or “because the job appealed to me,” or “My dad and grandpa did it, why shouldn’t I?”
When was the idea planted for women to take the jobs they wanted, even if they were traditionally considered only suitable for men? Some would say with Eve, but both folklore and history are filled with women who not only worked at the jobs they pleased, they ruled societies: Joan of Ark and Cleopatra, to name a few. In Victorian times, women who wrote were forced to use a male pen name or work without recognition. But the women of my grandmother’s generation were forced to work at jobs considered appropriate only for men during world war II. They worked everywhere from factories to the fields. Sadly, after a taste of the liberation a paycheck affords a person, these women were expected to quietly step back into the kitchen once the men came home.
My mother’s generation, were blessed with not only their mother’s experiences, but all manner of modern conveniences which allowed them to clean and cook and generally care for their families in a fraction of the time it took their mothers. Many of these women took it upon themselves to “have it all” and step out into the working world, and not just as nurses and schoolteachers. Their bravery gave the women of my generation the encouragement and conviction that we too could plan a career. However, we quickly learned that we couldn’t be super mom and have a demanding and time consuming career without a shift in attitude, and this shift had to come from the men. The change had to happen not just because of the aforesaid glass ceiling on the job, but because we needed help at home.
Do I think only women who work have value, and somehow women who don’t work away from home are lesser somehow? Of course not! In my lifetime I have been a stay at home mom, a sick in bed mom, a full time student mom, an employed full time mom, and a retired mom. All of those words we put on women are pointless when you realize that we are in this together, and we should be supportive and understanding, no matter what roll you chose.
So, take a moment this summer to grab a copy of Love on the Line. Then curl up in a corner with a cup of coffee and prepare yourself for a heartwarming story filled with feminine strength, challenge, bravery, friendship, and romance.
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