Watermelon Summer

by Anna Hess

  "Maybe a rudder," Arvil murmured, but motioned for Jacob to keep on talking.

  "The way I see it, the ball's in her court," Jacob continued. "I don't want to ask her out and make things awkward for the community if she isn't interested. She doesn't treat me any differently than she does Kat, so I've been trying to follow her lead."

  "Ah, the folly of youth," Arvil said, pretending to be exasperated with Jacob's density. "You didn't notice the doe eyes Forsythia has been sending your way all afternoon? I'll tell you what, you ask her to go with you to the used bookstore in town, and if she says no, I'll make sure she thinks you were only asking her to tag along as a friend. Her birthday is a week from Thursday, you know...."

  Jacob hadn't known, but as I skipped back toward the farmhouse, I felt like Arvil had already given me the best birthday present ever.

  The days before my birthday seemed to expand into eons. But even though I was impatient, I still drifted along in a haze of excited contentment. Every once in a while, I'd forget about Arvil's and Jacob's conversation, then it would jolt back into my memory—Jacob liked me! The warmth of that knowledge filled me right down to my toes.

  "Earth to Thia," Kat sang, waving a hand in front of my eyes. "People are going to start showing up any minute. Do you mind taking the sign to tape to the mailbox so they don't get lost?"

  While the rest of us had been working on the garden, Kat had been planning an event to suck in her city friends, and today was the big day. Along with the idea, Kat had also come up with a flier to plaster the communities closer by, but I doubted we'd see many local participants. Below a line drawing of a tomato plant and above the necessary contact information, Kat's flier had proclaimed:

  Permablitz!

  Calling all volunteers to learn about permaculture while bringing an intentional community back to life!

  Bring your gloves your shovels and your enthusiasm, then stay for a potluck supper!

  Jacob had started rolling his eyes before I'd even finished reading, and I could tell why. As much as I loved her, Kat's big-city ways sometimes seemed even more obvious than my own. In her old stomping grounds in Knoxville, words like "permablitz" probably attracted positive attention, but around here, I suspected folks' initial reaction might be to assume the word was German for something decidedly nefarious.

  "Hmm, the potluck is a good idea," I said while trying to think of a way to completely rewrite the flier (and add some non-exclamation-point punctuation) without hurting Kat's feelings. Jacob had no such compunction.

  "What are we talking about here?" he asked. "I thought we were going to invite people interested in Greensun to come and help us expand the garden."

  "That's what I wrote!" Kat exclaimed, clearly stung by Jacob's bluntness. "Whatever. You do it," she added, thrusting the flier into Jacob's hands.

  And Jacob did it, focusing on the food and calling the event an open house instead of a permablitz. But upon further reflection, the two of us had opted not to invite our next-door neighbors, figuring Kat's Knoxville cronies might be too much for their rural mores to handle.

  Which was probably a good thing, since even the cars turning into our driveway as I attached the sign to the mailbox were out of the ordinary for rural Kentucky. Some of the vehicles were shiny hybrids while others were hand-painted with eye-catching designs. The last car to turn down our drive, though, looked more like something Jacob would drive—an old clunker whose exhaust pipe was tied up with wire. And that's how I met Carol.

  "You're Forsythia," the thirty-something woman said as she popped out of her car. Unlike the younger people who were already heading down the hill in a laughing, pushing gaggle, this woman could have walked into the local hardware store without raising eyebrows. And when she told me her name, a big smile lit up my face. Carol was the daughter of the kind lady at the Viking Festival who had taken me under her wing, and that relationship alone was enough to tell me this stranger was good people.

  "Mom mentioned the big brouhaha surrounding Greensun, and when I saw the event you all were planning, I decided to come check it out," Carol explained. "Here, do you mind carrying some of this...?" Out of the back seat came a cooler and a basket, both brimful of goodies, which lowered my blood pressure right there. I hadn't noticed many food items in the other participants' hands, which would have been problematic since the only thing we'd put together as hosts was hotdogs, buns, and condiments. I'd thought the word "potluck" on the flier would bring in enough sides to round the meal out, and now, thanks to Carol, it had.

  With the help of another latecomer, we hauled all the food down the hill and surveyed the permablitz. Kat was in her element, handing out tools and tasks as fast as she could, while Jacob was making sure the least experienced didn't hurt themselves with their shovels. We'd decided to put in a fall garden for a CSA (which Kat had explained was a sort of weekly basket of in-season produce delivered to select customers), and were also laying down sheets of cardboard to start new garden areas for perennials without plowing. Some people were being sent out into the woods in search of half-rotten wood to bury in and enrich the soil, others were raking leaves to use as mulch, and a few had been put on food duty, starting the charcoal grill and keeping Lucy away from the incipient feast. It looked like someone had overturned an anthill, but like the queen was still firmly in charge.

  "Carol!" Kat called over the crowd and motioned us over. "I'm so glad you came!" Once we were within arm's reach, Carol was engulfed in an enthusiastic hug—clearly my sister and Susan's daughter were friends from way back.

  "And she brought food," I added, hefting my end of the cooler to demonstrate. "Once we drop this off, what do you want us to do?"

  "Well, I know Carol probably wants to get her hands dirty," Kat answered, "But what would be really handy is if you two could spend some time talking about Greensun's paperwork. Did you know Carol's a lawyer who takes the coal companies down a peg?"

  As Carol explained while the two of us filled plastic seed-starting flats with potting soil, she worked with an environmental non-profit that served as a sort of private watchdog for the local coal industry. "So I'm not really the right sort of lawyer to ask about how to make Greensun official, but I did assemble some books and papers once I read your father's letter." She pulled enough literature out of her backpack to provide the recommended reading for a college-level course, and set it aside. "I figured once you read all that, you can ask me any questions you have at the meeting." Meaning I had two weeks to consume Carol's offerings—farewell fiction!

  Then, probably noticing how overwhelmed I seemed, she threw me a lifeline. "I've put my card in there too, so you can email me later if you get stuck." Carol smiled, and the project suddenly appeared more feasible with an expert on board. "Look," she added, "I could talk your ear off with my suggestions now, but I'd rather not watch your eyes glaze over. Instead, why don't you tell me how you're enjoying Greensun?"

  According to Kat, the permablitz was an astounding success. Granted, half the participants ran out of steam after about an hour and ended up playing Calvinball in the yard, a shovel handle broke, and two rakes went missing. But people had fun, the fall garden was halfway planted...and Drew moved in.

  At first, I thought the guy draped around Kat on the couch the next morning was the cob-building attendee, but it turned out cob was old news. Drew was old news too, since he'd been Kat's ex until the two saw each other with new eyes during the permablitz and hooked back up. And now he was living at Greensun.

  "Who's that?" Jacob whispered from the doorway when he came to pick me up for another neighbor meet-and-greet the next morning. I'd retreated to my tent pretty early the previous evening, but not before beer bottles made the rounds. From the pile of empties on the porch this morning, it seemed like they'd gone around several more times after I left, which might be why I hadn't seen Drew open his eyes even though it was nearly noon.

  "I don't think we should wake him up," I replied quietly, grabbing my backpack and hu
stling Jacob out the door. "He's Kat's friend, Drew," I elaborated once we were walking up the hill. "She asked me if he could stay here for a while. It sounds like Drew got kicked out of his apartment a couple of weeks ago and has been couch-surfing ever since."

  Jacob raised an eyebrow, and inwardly I agreed with him. I wasn't so sure I felt comfortable having random guys move in, but I also wasn't sure that I had any say in the matter. Yes, Kat had asked my permission, but only an affirmative answer would turn away arguments and I'd started to fear the wrath of Kat.

  "I remember talking to Drew a bit yesterday," Jacob said after a while, as his van was coming into sight through the trees. "He seemed pretty harmless." I'd become astute enough in deciphering Jacobese that I could read the words between his lines. Jacob hardly ever said anything bad about anyone, but now he was insinuating that Drew was harmless, but not good for much either. From my limited experience with Kat's new flame, I had to agree.

  "He's a warm body, though," I said, trying to look at the bright side of the situation. "We need four community members, and he makes four. So we're 20% of the way to our goal, right?" Four members down, only $30,000, a solid income, by-laws, and neighbor buy-in to go.

  "Well, I can't say as I'm too thrilled you're joining up with them hippies, Jacob," said Mrs. Anderson. "You know they're all commies."

  Despite our neighbor's words, I figured we were making serious headway on this second of nine neighbor visits. Mrs. Anderson had invited us into a kitchen decorated with colorful ceramic mushrooms that opened into flour and sugar bins, dish towels printed with milk cows, and chickens dressed up as salt and pepper shakers. She'd offered us homemade cookies, which were twice as good as the low-sugar, whole-wheat version my mother mailed me (although only a tenth as healthful, I'm sure). And even our neighbor's complaint wasn't terribly heated, although I wasn't sure I understood what she was talking about.

  "You mean communists?" I asked in confusion.

  Mrs. Anderson nodded her head in agreement. I couldn't seem to tear my eyes away from her lipstick, which was a striking shade of orange, and her brow, where the hairs above her eyes had been plucked and replaced with two solid black lines straight from a makeup pencil. "That's right, sugar, commies," she agreed. "Holding a blitzkrieg, or whatever they called it. Right out in the open too! I wouldn't be surprised if they're terrorists. Here, have some more iced tea."

  Mrs. Anderson topped off my glass before I could prevent it, meaning Jacob and I were in for at least another half hour of chatting before we could tear ourselves away. When we did finally leave, though, I had one neighbor's promise that if anyone asked, she would say we had her approval...as long as we steered clear of lightning warfare. Plus, she said she'd sign up for our CSA if we could keep the prices below grocery store levels, so we were making progress on multiple fronts. Onward and upward!

  As we hit the rest of the neighbors' houses in quick succession, I soon realized my job was to smile silently and look wholesome. Jacob knew each neighbor, at least in passing, and he was able to turn on the charm and win each person over to his side in relatively short order.

  But even though I enjoyed meeting our neighbors and seeing Jacob in action, I have to admit that by the end of the day I was slightly traumatized by the experience, or rather, by the poverty most of these people lived in. Even though I'd now spent three weeks at Greensun, the bare-bones living there felt more like camping than like doing without, even when the oven's burner blew out with a pop and we were stuck using the stove top only. In contrast, our neighbors weren't having an adventure; they were living with the day-to-day reality of hard work, bad teeth, and absent sons and daughters, that last of which tended to flee to the big cities as soon as they could.

  "But they all have big-screen TVs!" I exclaimed to Jacob after the third such visit. "I don't understand why you'd buy a television if you can't afford to go to the dentist." Jacob shrugged, so I answered the question myself. "To escape, right? If you don't feel like you have any hope of a better life, at least you can watch one on TV. Is that why your Mamaw wants you to go to college, so you have access to more opportunities?"

  Jacob glanced at me out of the corner of his eye but kept his attention on the road. I'd finally determined he was just as safe of a driver as me (and possibly much safer) after the first week or so of working together, and now I was happy to let him stay behind the wheel. "When my mamaw was a kid, they didn't even have electricity," Jacob told me, in a bit of a non sequitur. "No well pump, nothing. They carried water every day for drinking, washing up, laundry, you name it. I wouldn't be surprised if there were still people in these hills who live that way, and there's nothing romantic about it."

  "But you don't want to leave," I said, my words almost a question. I remembered how adamant Jacob had been when talking to his grandmother on the topic, but now he seemed to be wavering. And I needed him not to waver—I needed him to tell me it was worth staying in Appalachia and finding a better life here. I needed him to tell me that it was possible for me too.

  But Jacob's reply was disappointing. "I want to think I can stay. If you stick to the bare necessities, life here is a lot cheaper than anywhere else in the U.S., and I'd lose so much by leaving. I feel like there's a way to bring in money from outside our area and help pull everyone up around me. But at the same time, I've been telling Davey he needs to keep his grades up and be willing to relocate where the work is. So I don't know what I think."

  As I digested Jacob's words, I realized that, unfortunately, I did know what he thought. He might be willing to chase a crazy dream for himself, but someone like Jacob stuck with reality when looking out for loved ones. The person I'd begun to think of as the cure for Appalachia's ailments thought Greensun and all it stood for was a pipe dream.

  Mom likes to say that when it rains it pours, and it seemed like the storm clouds started to blow in after Jacob's declaration. The first pattering of metaphorical raindrops on our rooftop came from Drew, who was quickly shaping up to be the bane of my existence. Kat's boyfriend always seemed to be asleep while we were working, he ate like a horse, and he didn't chip in either time or money toward the common good.

  More signs of the impending storm came soon behind. After a week of trying to work around Drew's voracious appetite, our kitchen was feeling empty since the dried goods my bio-dad had stocked were just about gone. My wallet was feeling empty too and our garden wasn't producing yet, so I actually started considering Jacob's suggestion that we apply for a kill permit from the game warden to get that pesky, garden nibbler...and turn the deer into steaks. At about the same time, I realized I was beginning to look forward to the Greensun meeting rather than dreading it—at least someone else would be in charge of feeding the masses for a weekend.

  But, as Dad would have pointed out, every cloud has a silver lining. I'd been complaining about Drew's appetite and lack of work ethic for a week when Jacob decided to take matters into his own hands and call a community meeting. And since Drew always made himself scarce when the rest of us went out to work in the garden, we had no problem meeting without him. (Drew's absence was the silver lining, in case you couldn't tell.)

  "We need to talk," Jacob greeted Kat as she strolled up to join us in the pumpkin patch. From the look on her face, I got the feeling that my sister knew what was on Jacob's mind, but in her typical fashion, Kat wasn't going to make it any easier on us. She just raised her eyebrows, leaned on the handle of her hoe, and waited. "So talk," she said, after we'd all stared at each other in silence for a long minute.

  "It's about Drew," I started, but paused, not knowing how to bring up my complaints without setting off Kat's lightning temper. It also seemed a little unfair to say anything at all since Kat clearly didn't like my boyfriend any more than I liked hers. (Not that Jacob was my boyfriend, but he'd promised Arvil he'd ask me on a date soon, right?) Yet, despite her feelings, Kat had been kind enough to keep her opinion about Jacob to herself after her first few warnings were ignored, so it
seemed catty for me to pick at Drew's behavior. All of these thoughts spun through my head in a matter of seconds, and my words petered out before I could launch into my request—that Kat whip her boyfriend into shape or ask him to leave.

  "We figured it was time to vote on whether or not Drew can join the community," Jacob said, taking the floor when it became clear that my courage had fizzled. The two of us had talked through our line of attack previously but had been unable to agree on the best solution to the Drew problem. Jacob thought we should just vote Drew off the farm, removing the canker once and for all, while I'd thought it was kinder to lay our complaints at Kat's feet and give her an opportunity to repair the situation. Always a gentleman, Jacob had ceded to me the first stab at the issue, but since I appeared to be too timid to carry out my plan, it looked like Jacob's solution would carry the day...assuming Kat was willing to listen to reason.

  "Since when do we vote people in or out?" my sister responded, startled enough by Jacob's words to speak without thinking. Seconds later, though, Kat had gathered her composure and gone on the offensive. "I don't recall voting on you either," she continued, her words sharing the unspoken addendum—she'd be just as happy to vote Jacob out of our community if we ganged up on Drew.

  I was glad Kat was looking at Jacob since her tone was enough to send me scurrying for cover, at least figuratively. But unlike me, Jacob wasn't cowed. "And I didn't vote on you," he tossed right back.

  As the words of my two closest Greensun friends grew more heated, I couldn't help averting my eyes to the deer-scaring sculptures. This drama was just what I'd been afraid of, and why I'd put off speaking to Kat all week. Sure, Drew was a pain, but it seemed much more painful to be bringing discord to a spot that had filled us all with such joy not long ago. So I backpedaled.