Shake It Off

by Suzanne Nelson

  Worry prickled at me. “What do you mean, more than dirt?”

  Wren didn’t respond, and soon we stepped into the milking barn, where Luke was waiting for us—along with Gabe. When Gabe caught my eye, my adrenaline went haywire. He was looking way cuter than any boy should at five a.m. It flustered me so much that I almost tripped walking over to him.

  Gabe smiled in amusement. “Not a morning person, huh?”

  “This is not morning,” I protested. “The moon’s still out!”

  “My favorite time of day,” he said.

  We would have to agree to disagree.

  The barn was old but relatively clean, with only a slight tangy scent of milk to it. I thought I’d find manure all over, but not here—I supposed everything had to be kept as clean as possible to keep the fresh milk untainted.

  The cows were lined up in two rows on a slightly elevated platform. Wren and Luke moved among them, prepping each of them with iodine disinfectant before attaching the tubes that would pump the milk from the cows into waiting sterile canisters.

  “That is wrong on so many levels.” I grimaced, watching the suctioning tubes. When I tried to avert my eyes, my gaze fell on an Iowa Beef Council sign hanging on the barn wall that read: EAT BEEF. THE WEST WASN’T WON ON SALAD.

  “Eeew.” The last bite of my breakfast sandwich lodged in my throat. “You eat your cows?”

  “It’s the ciiiiircle of farm life!” Luke sang theatrically until Wren swatted him.

  Both of my cousins moved confidently around the cows, reaching underneath them without as much as a single flinch. Personally, I thought they were way too close to those hooves for comfort.

  “Milking doesn’t hurt the cows at all,” Wren was saying to me. She ducked under one to attach the milker. “It mimics a calf nursing, and …” She straightened, giving the cow an affectionate pat as the milking machine quietly hummed to life. “It gives us all the cheese, milk, and ice cream for the creamery.”

  I closed my eyes, wishing I could click ruby heels together like Dorothy and be magically transported back to Chicago. I opened my eyes expectantly but—no such luck.

  What I did see was Gabe holding a guitar and moving toward the line of cows. My knees weakened. Give a boy a guitar, and his cuteness increases tenfold. Everyone knows that.

  Gabe sat down on an overturned bucket with the guitar on his knee. “Okay, who needs a serenade this morning?”

  Wren gave him one of her rare smiles and motioned to the two cows closest to him. “Matilda and Betsy. Matilda’s being her usual moody self and won’t let anyone near her but you.”

  “Come on.” I looked at Wren and whispered, “He’s not seriously going to play for the cows?”

  “Sure,” Wren said. “The music makes them milk better.”

  I stared, full of skepticism, as Gabe began strumming his guitar and talking to one of the cows. Betsy? Matilda? Who knew? He was talking to her softly, as if she were a child who needed soothing. Somehow, his gentleness was endearing, even if he was playing for a cow.

  “You must really love these cows, don’t you?” I asked Gabe when he was done playing.

  “Absolutely.” He smiled. “I wouldn’t be working here if I didn’t. My dad’s a doctor, and he wanted me to help him out at his office this summer. But there was no way I was cooping myself inside a stuffy office when I had the chance to be here instead.” He held out a pair of gloves and the blue canister of iodine solution toward me. “Are you ready to try? I can help if you need it.”

  “Not a chance.” I waved away the gloves. “This is why I buy milk from a store. So I don’t have to deal with … this.” I gestured at the cows.

  “Right. It’s so much easier not to think about where it all comes from.”

  I stiffened. “Well, it’s way more appetizing to live in denial.”

  He laughed. “You’re going to be a tough sell on farm life, aren’t you?” When I rolled my eyes, he gestured for me to follow him out of the barn. “Luke and Wren can finish up in here,” he said. “Maybe you’ll do better with the goats. They’re real characters. They’ll crack you up.” He grabbed a shovel from the side of the barn and motioned for me to do the same. “Come on. I’ll help you muck out their pen.”

  Before I had a chance to ask what he meant, Gabe was through the gate and wading through the sea of bleating goats. With my reservations growing by the second, I followed. As soon as I stepped inside the pen, the goats mobbed me, nibbling and nuzzling. One tawny goat with creepy light blue eyes pawed me with its front hooves like an overexcited puppy. I thought I might fall over.

  “Get down!” I tried to shoo it away, but didn’t want to touch it. “Off!”

  “That’s Tulip,” Gabe said. “She’s usually shy with new people. She likes you.”

  “Yeah, well. The feeling’s not mutual.”

  I looked at Gabe, and saw that he seemed perfectly at ease around the goats. With his broad shoulders, rolled-up sleeves, and dust-coated jeans and boots, he had the rugged farm-boy look down. He interacted with the goats calmly and thoughtfully, whispering in their ears and stroking their sides.

  And then … there was me.

  I finally realized I would have to touch them eventually and pushed Tulip away, trying to ease around her. Undeterred, she followed me, bleating in a plaintive tone that definitely meant “pet me.”

  “Let’s just get this mucking thing over with so I can get out of here before she hooves me to death.”

  Gabe smirked, clearly underestimating the goats. “So you want to look for goat pellets, scoop them up, and toss them in this bin here.” He pointed to the little brown pellets—hundreds of them—littering the ground.

  “That’s not what I think it is. Is it?”

  “Oh, it’s goat manure, all right.” A completely aggravating smile spread across his face.

  I stared at the piles on the ground and was hit full force by the injustice of it all. Back in Chicago, Leila was probably still fast asleep. And what was I doing? Cleaning up goat droppings. It was too much.

  “How’s it going out here?” Wren asked from the fence railing.

  “I am not a human pooper scooper.” I propped my shovel against the gate. “I’m not cleaning that.”

  Gabe looked up from his own work, on the verge of a grin, as if he thought I was joking. When he saw I wasn’t, he whistled under his breath, then glanced toward Wren. “The immersion therapy’s not working,” he declared.

  “You think this is a joke?” I glared at him.

  He shook his head, but he was still smiling. “Luke and I have to get the tractor ready for the hayrides.” He maneuvered among the goats smoothly and, as he passed Wren on his way out, mumbled something that sounded like, “Good luck.”

  “Why don’t you go change into your creamery uniform?” Wren said to me. “I’ll finish up here.” Her voice was clipped as she picked up my shovel. “The creamery opens at eleven, but we have a lot of prep work to do beforehand. I’ll meet you over there in fifteen minutes. I think you’ll have an easier time in there.”

  “Thank god,” I muttered, picking my way through the goats huddled around my legs. Tulip gave my shirt a firm tug from behind, as if begging me to stay. “Sorry, Tulip, but you picked the wrong girl.”

  Fifteen minutes was enough time to change and call my parents. If they had any love for me at all, they’d turn the car around and come back for me. The sooner, the better.

  * * *

  I was still fuming from my phone confab with Mom and Dad when I got to the creamery, hours after I was supposed to. Of course they’d told me that I was stuck here for the summer (groan), and I better start getting used to it (double groan). Now I threw open the door to the creamery and stomped inside, looking for Wren.

  I’d taken slightly longer than fifteen minutes—it was already almost lunchtime. There were a few customers scattered about the dining room, chatting over their burgers and milkshakes. There were also a lot of empty booths. And no wonder
. With its clichéd red-and-white-checkered tablecloths, bland country-themed art, and the sort of vinyl-covered metal chairs you’d find in bingo halls and church basements, the creamery was nothing much to look at.

  One group of girls about my age was sitting in the booth closest to the sales counter, chatting easily with Wren as she worked the register; they were obviously her friends. When they caught sight of me, they exchanged knowing looks with Wren, and I wondered what, exactly, she’d told them about me. But then, in classic Wren fashion, she answered the question for me.

  “You’re late,” she said when I reached the sales counter. “We’ve been open for a half hour already. Summer lunchtime is our busiest rush.”

  Riiiight. That was what had her and her friends in a huff. “Well, it looks like you had it covered,” I responded, not wanting to admit that the reason I was late was the nap I’d taken back at the house. (Again, four-forty-five wake up. I was entitled, wasn’t I?)

  I turned my attention to the menu displayed behind the counter. I expected to see several kinds of burgers, maybe a vegan or salmon burger option, and a salad menu. But there were only two food choices:

  BURGER BASKET WITH FRIES

  BURGER BASKET WITH ONION RINGS

  Below that was the shake menu; I imagined all sorts of outlandish shakes like the ones I loved back home, but again, I was disappointed:

  MILKSHAKES: VANILLA, CHOCOLATE, OR STRAWBERRY

  “That’s it?” I said. “You don’t have any other kinds of shakes?”

  Wren laughed. “We’re not a five-star gourmet restaurant. We’re just a farm, and Mom and Dad like to keep things simple. There’s always so much to do around here, we don’t have time for fancy.”

  “That’s so boring. You could do a lot more with shakes. There’s this place in Chicago that my friends and I go to where they add all these crazy toppings, and—”

  “Our customers are happy with how things are,” Wren said abruptly as she snapped shut the register.

  Her friends stood up to leave then, and she waved to them with a “See you guys later.” Then she turned back to me. “This isn’t Chicago. Not everything has to be trendy.”

  “It does if you want anybody to notice.”

  She gestured to her baggy cargoes and oversized creamery shirt. “Then, I guess I’m not ‘on trend,’ either. Oh well.” Her tone was lightly sarcastic, but there was defensiveness to it, too, as if I’d just insulted her.

  “I didn’t mean you. I was talking about the creamery …”

  “It’s fine.” She waved a dismissive hand. “I could give a goat pellet whether anybody thinks I’m trendy.”

  Aunt Beth poked her head out of the kitchen and saved us from our awkward silence. “How’s everything going? Having a good day so far, Bria? I’ll bet you’re a pro at farm chores already.” Her brown eyes lit with hopefulness.

  “Not quite,” I murmured.

  “Don’t you worry, honey. You’ll get the hang of it.” She clapped her hands definitively. “In the meantime, we’ll give you a job in here that’s nice and easy, okay?”

  I opened my mouth to say I didn’t want another job at all, but the words were lost in the sound of screeching brakes. Through the windows I could see a yellow bus pulling into the parking lot.

  “Oh boy,” Aunt Beth said. “Swarm of summer campers on the horizon.” Then she disappeared back into the kitchen.

  “We’re about to get really busy,” Wren warned. “Look. It’s obvious you don’t want to be here, but I’m going to need your help. I can’t deliver food trays and cover the cash register. Can you handle making shakes and carrying trays to tables? I’ll show you how to use our shake machine. It’s pretty simple.”

  “Anything’s got to be better than mucking” was my reluctant response.

  But an hour later, nothing was better. The camp kids had mobbed the tables, and I’d been on my feet nonstop, rushing to and from the kitchen window to pick up and deliver burger baskets. I could feel blisters forming on my heels and toes in Wren’s unfamiliar boots. There were mottled grease stains on my creamery shirt, and a chocolate stain on my skirt from where I’d spilled a shake earlier. I never knew waiting tables could be this hard. People ordered fries when they meant onion rings, or vice versa, or they complained about how long the food was taking, and then told me it was my fault.

  “This is the most thankless job ever,” I complained as I limped past the sales counter to grab another food tray.

  Wren shot me a look. “Five minutes ago you said you didn’t want to help Mom with cooking in the kitchen, either. If you can’t even—” Her voice caught as something grabbed her attention behind me. “Oh no. Mr. and Mrs. Lester are here.”

  I turned to see a ruddy-complexioned elderly man and rosy-faced woman easing themselves into a booth.

  “So?”

  “He’s the biggest grouch on the planet,” Wren whispered. “He’s super picky about how we make his burger.” She headed for the kitchen. “I have to warn Mom so she gets it right. Can you make two plain vanilla shakes for me? Bring them out to him right away.”

  “Fine.” I heaved a sigh and stepped over to the shake machine as she disappeared into the kitchen.

  “Plain vanilla,” I muttered. “Again.” I’d only made a dozen of these humdrum shakes in the last hour. I rolled my eyes, and my gaze fell on the rack of candy bars and gum that sat beside the self-service coffee machine.

  Suddenly, inspiration struck, and I smiled. I’d surprise the socks off this stuffy Mr. Lester. That’s what I’d do. I’d show him what a real shake was.

  I grabbed a Snickers, a Sugar Daddy, and a bag of M&M’s from the candy rack and set to work. I dumped the M&M’s into the large metal tumbler atop six scoops of vanilla ice cream and a hefty splash of milk. I stuck the tumbler under the silver agitator, letting the contraption blend the ingredients together into a thick, smooth, and rainbow-colored base. I poured the shake into two shake glasses and, for the “cherry on top,” skewered the Snickers and Sugar Daddy onto straws. Then, with a sense that I was doing Iowa a favor with this little taste of Chicago, I whisked the shakes to the Lesters’ table.

  I smiled as I set the shakes down in front of them, and then stood back waiting for the compliments I was sure would come. I expected “Oohs” and “Aaahs,” or a “How delightful!” Instead, Mrs. Lester brought her hands to her chest, as if she were feeling faint. Mr. Lester scowled.

  “This is not what we ordered,” he growled.

  “No. It’s better.” My smile didn’t waver. “I thought you’d like to try something new.”

  He scrutinized the shake from all angles, his scowl deepening. “What are all of those colors?”

  “M&M’s,” I said proudly.

  He narrowed his eyes at me. “I hate M&M’s.” He waved his hand at the shake. “I don’t want it.”

  My smile tightened and my face heated. This was not how I’d imagined this going. Not at all. “Don’t you want to at least try it? You might like it.”

  He tapped his weathered palms on the tabletop. “Young lady, I have lived a very long time. I am done trying new things. I know what I like, and I want what I like.” He peered around me toward the kitchen. “Where is Beth? Does she know about this … this sugar monstrosity of yours?” he blustered, his cheeks reddening. “You’re new here, and I’m going to make an official complaint—”

  “That won’t be necessary, Mr. Lester.” Suddenly, Wren was there, steering me away from the table while smiling widely at Mr. Lester. “I’m so sorry for the confusion. We’ll get you a fresh shake right away. On the house.” Then she whispered to me, “Plain, Bria, okay? And then just try to get the rest of the orders to the right people. Go.”

  Cheeks burning, I stomped back to the shake machine to make one more order of vanilla shakes (grrrrrr). As I spun around with the shakes on a tray, I suddenly slammed into a teenage girl, dumping the entirety of both shakes right down her front.

  “Oh my god!” she shrieked
. “Look what you did!” She stared down at the milkshake avalanche oozing down her Camp Faraday T-shirt. “I have an hour bus ride back to camp, and now I have to sit in this!”

  Every ounce of frustration that had been building in me over the last few hours spilled over as I stared into her fuming face. “Well, maybe you should watch where you’re going!”

  “Bria!” Aunt Beth’s voice sounded firmly in my ear. “Take a five-minute break. I’ll meet you in the kitchen.”

  One look at her grave face was all it took for me to know I had no choice. As she offered apologies and a free creamery T-shirt to the shake-sodden girl, I stomped toward the kitchen.

  A minute later, Aunt Beth blew through the swinging doors. “That was a doozy of a spill,” she said.

  “Thanks to her klutziness,” I snapped.

  “Bria, we are in a customer service business, and—”

  “I know what you’re going to say. The customer’s always right. Yada yada yada.” I shifted from one blistered foot to the other, wincing in pain. “I don’t care! All they do is complain! The food’s either too cold or too hot. It takes me too long to bring it. They wanted mustard and not ketchup. They’re never happy!”

  Aunt Beth put her hand on her hip. “We’re here to serve people the food they want. I thought you’d enjoy working with the customers. You didn’t want to help in the kitchen.”

  “I don’t.” I dropped my serving tray on the counter with a loud clatter. “I don’t want to do any of it.”

  Aunt Beth’s lips thinned, and I dropped my eyes, feeling a stab of guilt. I loved my aunt, and part of me couldn’t believe I’d just said that.

  “Oh, honey, that’s not really you talking.”

  “Who else would it be?” I blurted.

  Aunt Beth only shook her head, clucking her tongue. “Now that that’s out of your system, maybe we can move past it—”

  Wren stuck her head around the kitchen doorway. She furrowed her eyebrows at me, and I wondered how much she’d overheard from the other side of the door. “Mom,” she said. “The Vulture and his CheeseCo minions are here.”