by Cody Ryder
I hadn’t thought about Dakota Heart in years, not since college. I’d mentioned him to Alicia, but never the extreme details about our relationship—how he was the first person I’d ever kissed, and the first person I’d ever done anything more than kissing with.
I laughed to myself as I remembered how we used to come to this very middle school and sneak into the playground late at night on the weekends to smoke weed, make out, and do other naughty things together. We’d had so many new experiences together, like taking his beat up old Volvo after school and driving two hours up to Pomona to watch a concert without his dad or my parents knowing where we were going. Meeting at Denny’s at three in the morning because we wanted a late night snack. Staying up all night cuddling on his couch playing PS2.
We never said it to each other, for what reason I’m not sure, but I considered Dakota to be my first love. Maybe it was a puppy love, just an innocent thing, but it was love just the same.
I lost track of him after high school. He had no desire to go to university or leave San Diego, and so we amicably agreed that we would both go our separate ways. Somehow, I wasn’t too sad about it. I guess I’d always known that we wouldn’t be forever.
The Heart Lifespring Gardens booth had a large spread of vegetables out on display—vividly orange carrots, big heads of lettuce, bundles of bright red radishes, cucumbers, squash, yellow, orange and red tomatoes...it was a huge bounty of the freshest looking produce I’d ever seen. A wooden sign hung on the canopy that said “Heirloom, organic, GMO free, grown right in Powlton!”
“I didn’t know there were farms in Powlton,” I said. At the back of the booth, a van sat parked with its back door open and a man was on all fours inside, his booted feet sticking out as he wrangled with a box of purple kale.
“Not farmland,” the man called over his shoulder. “I operate a permaculture farm out of my property. Just a regular house.”
A tingle of surprise washed through my body. No way. It was just too much of a coincidence, but I knew I wasn’t mistaken. It’d been over ten years since I’d last seen him, but his voice hadn’t changed that much. Heart Lifespring Gardens…I could hardly believe it, but it had to be him.
“Dakota?” I asked, my voice pitched with disbelief.
The man stopped tugging on the box and looked over his shoulder at me. He wore a straw hat, and his face was still tucked in shadow in the van. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.” He shuffled backwards out of the van and into the light.
My mouth dropped open. It was him. And although his voice hadn’t changed much, his appearance sure had. The Dakota from high school was skinny, with long brown hair that hung loosely over his face. He always wore skinny black jeans with t-shirts of his favorite bands—a real indie hipster kid. The Dakota I saw in front of me was bulked up, his face grizzled with a thin stubble and dark from being out in the sun. A hat hid his hair, but I could tell that it was neatly cropped. Instead of the Hot Topic getup I remembered, he wore a worn out plaid button up shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his thick biceps, and a pair of dirt stained jeans. He looked…well, he looked like a farmer.
“Roy? Roy Winterfield, it is you! Wow, man!” He tugged off the pair of gardening gloves he was wearing and tossed them into the van, and then hurried out from his booth and greeted me with a big hug. It’s amazing how much can come back to you just from smelling something. Dakota’s scent overtook me in the brief moment that his arms wrapped around me, and a surge of memories and excitement quickly zapped through me.
“You’ve beefed up,” I observed, squeezing his bicep and tapping him on the chest with the back of my hand.
He laughed. Dakota’s voice had a soft edge to it, like everything he said was caught on a wisp of smoke. I always loved hearing him laugh because of it—it was a gentle, kind and calming laugh. Hearing it again, I remembered how good it used to make me feel. “Yeah. I started working out a lot after high school, and especially when I started my farm. And look at you. You’ve toned up too.”
“Free gym at school,” I said. “Couldn’t resist.”
“You look great.”
I smiled and scratched the back of my head. “Thanks. You do too. Man. It really has been a while, hasn’t it?”
“Only about eleven years. You’re back in town visiting?”
I shifted awkwardly. “Moved back home, actually.”
“Oh, you’ve got a place in San Diego now?”
I stuffed my hands into my pockets. Talking about my situation definitely didn’t fill me with confidence. “No, I uh, I’m back at my parent’s house.”
Dakota looked surprised. “Oh. Is everything alright? I never imagined you would come back here. You were so set on making it work in San Francisco, I remember.”
“Well, it’s a long story,” I said. If it had been anyone else, I would’ve ended the conversation there, but being Dakota, well, I felt at ease about letting him in. Actually, I wanted him to know. “But in short – my fiancée and I split up.”
“Oh, man. I’m sorry, Roy.”
“Thanks. I’m working through it. Hey, uh, you need a hand with that box?”
He grinned. “Yes, I do.”
We went into the van, and I helped him lug out the big milk crate stuffed to the brim with kale. “Since when were you interested in farming?” I asked. “You were always into different things, but I never would’ve expected this.”
“It’s a long story too,” he said. “In short, I inherited the house and developed Heart Lifespring Gardens there to pay for my living costs.”
“You inherited the house? Your dad’s house?”
“Yeah, about three years after high school. I’d already started work on the farm with him at that point. He passed away. Leukemia.”
My heart dropped. Mr. Heart and I had always gotten along really well. He was a highly successful sound engineer and a musician, and he would always tell us amusing stories about the clients he worked with and their crazy rock star demands. He was a fun-loving guy, upbeat even though he’d lost his wife in a car accident when Dakota was in elementary school. To have both parents taken away at an early age…it was terrible.
“Oh my God,” I said quietly. “I’m sorry, Dakota. I wish I had known. I wish I could’ve been around for you.”
He shook his head. He was smiling softly to reassure me. “It’s okay, Roy. That wasn’t your responsibility. Remember what we said to each other before you left?”
I thought back to the last time we saw each other—it was at an In-N-Out burger, the night before I moved up to San Francisco. We’d spent the time together just like any other night, sitting closely side by side in one of the booths, my arm draped around his shoulder as we laughed and chatted about funny shit we’d seen on the internet, and gave middle fingers to the old people who stared at us. We sat in his car outside of my house until three in the morning, holding hands and cuddling in the back seat. I remembered that well, and I remembered what we said.
“We agreed that we’d move forward with our lives and not look back. That was so long ago, but in a way it feels like it was just yesterday.”
“But a lot has changed,” he smiled.
We walked back out to the front of his stand.
“What do you think about catching up sometime, huh Roy? I’d love to show you the house.”
“We do have a lot to catch up on.”
Over Dakota’s shoulder, I saw my parents walking to the stand, and I waved to them. “Mom, dad, over here.” Dakota turned around and grinned.
“Do you guys remember Dakota?” I asked. “From high school?”
“Well I’ll be damned,” my dad said, surprised. “Your old friend? Jeez, it’s been what? Ten years?”
“Eleven, Joe,” my mom said. “And they weren’t just friends, remember? Dakota was Roy’s first boyfriend.”
My dad nodded. “Oh, that’s right. Back in your experimental days, huh son?”
“Joe,” mom hissed.
“Mr. and Mr
s. Winterfield, very nice to see you again,” Dakota said, shaking their hands.
“Heart Lifespring Gardens,” my dad said, reading the sign above the stand. “This is your place, Dakota?”
“Yup, that’s right. All grown at home in the back yard.”
“Is that right? How’s your father doing?”
I winced, but Dakota only smiled kindly. “He passed away, several years ago.”
Mom gasped. “Oh my God, I’m sorry to hear that.”
He nodded. “Before he got sick, my father and I worked on landscaping the house together. We planned it to be his retirement project, but it turned out to be his memorial project. I see it as him being with me, in all the food I grow.”
“That’s wonderful,” my dad said. “I only met the man a couple times, but he really was a great guy. A character.”
Mom put her hand on Dakota’s arm. “We’re actually looking to buy some veggies today. Maybe you can help us?”
“I certainly can, I’d be happy to.”
Dakota helped my mom pick out some vegetables for the breakfast tomorrow, giving her some insider knowledge on which he felt were the best of the harvest. Before long, her cloth shopping bags were filled to the brim with all sorts of colorful vegetables, much more that she would’ve needed for a simple breakfast, but she was drawn in by Dakota’s enthusiasm and knowledge of his offerings.
“How much do I owe you?” she asked.
“Let’s call it a starter sample pack,” Dakota smiled. “On the house.”
“Oh, no,” dad said, getting out his wallet. “We can’t take all this for free.”
Dakota stuffed his hands into his pockets. “You can, really. Please, from me. It’s nothing.”
Before helping my parents carry the groceries back to the car, I asked Dakota if he wouldn’t mind my company for the rest of the day. I really ought to have been getting home to get back on the job hunt, but meeting Dakota here like this had given me something that I hadn’t had in what felt like forever—a pleasant distraction. For just that short period talking to him, my mind had been completely free of the weighty negative thoughts and pangs of anxiety that occasionally would creep up on me. I felt good, and it’d been a long time since I could honestly say that I felt good.
Mom had been partially right—it wasn’t that I needed to see new people, but seeing an old friendly face, especially one that brought back as pleasant memories as his did, was definitely what I needed.
“I’ll get a ride home from Dakota,” I told her as I saw them off.
“Okay. See you later.” She could tell that my mood had improved and I saw that she was pleased about it.
It’s interesting how that works. I’d cared deeply for Dakota, loved him, and yet the memories were never bitter. After we went our separate ways, there was no depression and crisis. Maybe it had to do with that time in my life—having known it wouldn’t be forever—or maybe it had to do with the mutual understanding we’d shared about letting things go.
“If you don’t mind helping me out,” he said.
“Not at all. And hey, I’ve got—” I rummaged through the plastic bag I was holding and pulled out the container of hummus. “—this hummus. You want to try it?”
“You got that from Dimitri’s booth, huh? Really good stuff. I’ve got something perfect to go with it.” We went around behind his booth, and from the van he pulled out a second folding lawn chair to match the one already sitting out. Then he picked out a bright bunch of carrots, placed them on a cutting board, flicked out a folding knife from his pocket and chopped them up into sticks. He put a pile of the sticks on a tray for samples, and then another bunch into a paper bowl, which he placed onto an overturned milk crate sitting next to the lawn chairs.
“Let’s eat,” he said, sitting down. He looked as his watch. “Wow, it’s already this late? I haven’t had lunch yet and it’s already almost time to close up shop.”
We tore into the hummus dip, which went awesomely with the crunchy carrot sticks. Dakota’s neighbor was a fruit smoothie vendor, and they brought over two strawberry smoothies for us in exchange for some of Dakota’s kale.
Dakota raised an eyebrow at me. “What is it?”
I couldn’t stop looking at him. “Sorry,” I said, grinning. “Just the farmer thing, Dakota. It’s hella tripping me out.”
“‘Hella.’ Hah. You’re so NorCal now. Speak for yourself, Roy. I’m not used to seeing you so…melancholic.”
“I’m not melancholic.” I sighed. “Okay, yeah, I guess I am.”
He gave me a thin, lopsided smile—the very same that I remember used to give me butterflies before we’d even started talking to each other. I felt just the tiniest little titter in my stomach.
He dipped a carrot into the hummus and held it up in front of him, examining it before he popped it into his mouth. “It’s been eleven years. Lots have changed for the both of us, right?”
“Yeah. So much that I don’t even know where to begin.”
“Start with the melancholy. Because I know you want to fill me in on that the most.”
He was right, of course. “Okay. You asked for it. It’s still a long story.”
“You’d better start, then.”
I’d only meant to give him the rundown, not wanting to bore him with all the details, but I found myself just opening up about everything about the past the eight months. Things just felt, well, normal. Talking to him was so natural, just simply speaking to him encouraged me to say more, to open up.
“And so she’s backpacking through South America,” he repeated.
“Yup. She left to go on her adventure.”
“Well, Roy. I am really sorry that all piled on you at once, it really does suck. But did you ever think that maybe she did you a favor?”
“A favor?”
He held up a finger. “Give me a moment. Hello, how are you?” A lady had walked up to the stand and was browsing the vegetables.
“These are all grown locally, in a permaculture food forest in my back yard,” Dakota explained to her. “All organic, of course.”
“In your backyard? My word, that sounds like an awful lot of work!”
“Initially, sure. It took five years of hard work to transform the property and get all the crops going, but per week these days I only do about two hours of tending. Everything takes care of itself.”
“Two hours!” the lady exclaimed. “It takes me longer to weed my own lawn.”
Dakota laughed. “I know, it sounds unbelievable. Here.” From under the table, he fished out a small flier. “If you’re interested, I give tours every month of the garden. You can see how it’s done.”
“Oh, okay. Thank you.”
He rang the lady up for some tomatoes and two big heads of lettuce, and then came back to sit down next to me. “Sorry. Yeah. A favor. She could’ve had this little life crisis after you were married, after you had kids, which if you ask me, would be worse. She at least had the insight to be able to do that. And! She gave you the opportunity to reexamine your own life.”
“I’d never thought about it that way before,” I said. It was true. I’d spent a lot of painful nights thinking about what our lives would’ve been like together if only she’d held on, if only we could’ve worked it out together like we had with all of the other difficulties we’d been through. Up till this very moment, I’d been stuck in the line of thinking that Alicia and I were meant to be together, that there was some trip up, some mistake along the way that could’ve been fixed so that none of this ever happened. I’d never really thought that maybe it would’ve happened no matter what.
“Your face just changed,” Dakota said with a laugh. “I guess I’m still able to read your expressions, even though it’s been so long. What just happened?”
“I feel…different,” I said. “I’d really never thought about it that way before. I think…I’d gotten so used to thinking this was it, that with her I had finally reached my perfect life, that nothing could or
would need to change… But I think that’s not true. I think, like her, I’ve got something to discover about myself yet.”
Expectations.
I really needed to closely examine all the expectations I’d formed about, well, almost everything, because it was apparent nothing was as set in stone as I’d believed them to be. Alicia and I hadn’t been meant to get married. Alicia and I were meant to be together, sure, but only as a stepping-stone for the next phase in my life.
Strange and amazing how one little event, one benign little conversation could create such change. I suddenly felt like a large amount of weight had lifted of my shoulders, like a haze had cleared from my mind. For the first time in a while, I was thinking straight. I had a fresh perspective.
