The Rural Diaries

by Hilarie Burton

  * * *

  Jeff headed back to LA, and the producers asked whether I’d come back as well, but my heart wasn’t in it. I couldn’t stand the fact that things had gone sideways with Bisou while I was gone. This farm? The shop? I had made a commitment to them. So while Jeff wrapped up the season, I put on my hardware-store pants and got back to work.

  Samuel’s had no idea what hit it. I painted everything. I painted the bathroom pink and made it very feminine, because I find that it’s harder to leave things dirty if they’re super girly looking. One of the high school kid employees took one look and quibbled, “What the hell is this?”

  “It’s a little reminder to put the seat down,” I teased. John laughed.

  We needed a better display for our coffee. Andy and Phoebe and Julie had scoured every roaster in the city. It was important to us that we use a New York company, and it had to have the best coffee ever. They settled on Toby’s Estate, and the Toby’s people were wonderful, coming up to the shop to train our staff on how to make the perfect cup of coffee. Mechanics fixed all of our equipment, so we were firing on all pistons. Now we needed that coffee set up in a way that felt special. Naturally, I headed straight over to Hoffman’s Barn Sale to see John’s folks.

  “Whatcha looking for today?” Roger asked.

  “Oh hell, I don’t ever really know until I see it. You got any tables?”

  Sure enough, Roger had two pedestal tables, perfect for the sitting area toward the front of the shop. And then I found a perfect 1950s enamel-top table with curvy chrome legs and a cream-colored enamel with delicate red scrolling details. I loved the idea of our coffee looking like it was set up in Grandma’s house. We wanted our customers to feel at home, and even with our new, brighter color scheme, the design fell in line with the original rustic environment Ira had cultivated. “I’ll take ’em all!”

  I painted the pedestal tables our vintage blue color, and Gus helped me add touches of cream and red. Just as spring was blooming, Samuel’s was waking up with bursts of color.

  The shelf that runs along the top of the store with Ira’s collected memorabilia was always a feast for the eyes. We wanted to add some of our own things to the collection. Andy offered his old tin Welcome Back, Kotter and Dukes of Hazzard lunchboxes. One day Kim Curthoys from the liquor store across the street came in with her old lunchboxes. “I’d like to add this to the collection and be part of it,” she told us.

  Just like that, Samuel’s became a quilt that we all added on to. People were willing to try new things to help. We had our morning coffee people and our afternoon coffee people, so a caterer in town started making wraps and sandwiches, allowing us to capture the lunch crowd. We enlisted someone else to make fresh juices. Donna, our retired postmaster, began baking a couple dozen cookies every week. She’s so talented that when we started promoting her cookies, we needed hundreds and hundreds of them. So she went from baking as a retirement hobby to a full-time gig. My favorite are her artist cookie packs. They have two cookie sections: one with cookies covered in white royal icing with the black outline of a shape to color (I love the butterflies), and the other with cookies having a rectangle of the same royal icing but with dollops of food coloring that act like watercolor paints. We sold the cookies with little paintbrushes that you could dip in water and use to decorate your own cookie. The kids loved it.

  I soon got a crash course in local rules and protocol. The building manager, Bill, had done a gorgeous job of painting the shop with our new cheerful color scheme. But out front sat a beleaguered bench, unpainted for years and a bit rickety, like a shipwreck parked in front of our plate-glass window. I picked up a pint of our red color, tightened all the bench’s bolts, and set about putting lipstick on that pig. Everyone walking by commented on how nice Samuel’s was looking. The happy red bench was literally the cherry on top.

  The next day when I came into the shop, John said, “Hil, there’s an issue.”

  It turns out you can’t paint just whatever you want, whenever you want to. The town claimed the bench was their property. “But they weren’t taking care of it!” I argued.

  “They’re going to send the mayor over to take a look at everything. See what we can and can’t do.”

  The mayor? I freaked out. Was I in a lot of trouble?

  Heath, the mayor at the time, came over the next day. “It looks great!” he said, surveying all the work we’d done.

  “I’m sorry about the bench,” I offered up. “I had no idea it was the town’s responsibility and not ours. It was just in such bad shape. But if you guys want to put a new bench there . . .” I didn’t even finish.

  “The bench is fine,” Heath said. “You’re doing a good thing. Let me know if you need any help.”

  Huh. That was easy. Too easy. But it prompted a crash course in local protocol. I learned that every sign has to be approved, you can’t place new seating on the sidewalks, nighttime lighting must be uncolored light and must come from a historically appropriate fixture. And on and on. I knew I was bound to mess up again, but at least I had the mayor on my team. So next time, when I inadvertently planted flowers where I shouldn’t have, the town gently told me to ease up, and let it slide.

  Planting those flowers, I made a new friend, Mari Bird, an interior designer who had been very good friends with Ira. After he passed, Janice moved her antique shop, which had been next door to Samuel’s, to another location, and Mari took over the next-door space and opened a beautiful boutique that sells resort wear. We planted flowers outside the shops together, and Mari would come over and keep me company while I painted Samuel’s. As Mari and I started sprucing up our storefronts, we watched as a couple doors down another business got a fresh paint job. The beautification bug was contagious.

  Another beautification project of mine didn’t go so well. We have a tiny median between the side of our building and the driveway that leads into the CVS parking lot, so I asked the CVS manager whether it would be okay to put in a garden and some benches so our customers could sit outside when the weather was nice. “Sure, do whatever you want,” he said. “We don’t maintain it.” But no sooner had I started digging than the owners of the property sent us a cease-and-desist letter. I offered to buy this piece of land from them, or even rent it. They refused every offer point blank. Then, I discovered that twenty years back, Ira had opposed the building of the CVS because he believed in the mom-and-pop way of doing things. In fact, a little pharmacy in town had ended up going out of business once CVS opened.

  You win some, you lose some.

  I gave up and went to see Pam and Roger at Hoffman’s Barn Sale, where I found a big old door and hung pots with colorful flowers cascading out of its windows. If we mounted it to the side of our building, then technically it wasn’t on the median and I could skirt around the cease and desist. As I was painting and gardening, a small group of old men watched me from across the street where they sat perched in front of Bread Alone. They didn’t say anything to me, just looked on, I imagine a little skeptically. Then one afternoon when I was almost done, they wandered over and a bearded man told me, “Looks good, kid.”

  When I was done I hung a little sign that reads: THE IRA GUTNER MEMORIAL GARDEN.

  12

  Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.

  —Truman Capote, “Self-Portrait”

  By the summer of 2015, Samuel’s Sweet Shop had found its footing, Gus was thriving, and Jeff and I had found a home, a community, and a way of life that nurtured and sustained us. I wanted to bring another child into this beautiful life we’d carved out.

  As a woman, you fight in all these ways: to be treated with respect, to have your body be your own, to make decisions about who can touch you and when and when to have sex and with whom. And then, when you feel like you’ve fought those battles and won—maybe a little more scarred, but also a little more sure and happy and able to enjoy your body instead of being afraid it will be turned into a vulnerability—it fails
you.

  A full year after Jeff had announced to the pack of guys in Durango that we were trying to get pregnant, I was spending hundreds of dollars on ovulation tests. I hated those little fucking purple and blue boxes. I was peeing on sticks, tracking my ovulation, checking discharge, even looking at moon cycles. I was reading stuff online—and online can be an awful, dark place. I talked to doctors, and Jeff and I started considering doing fertility treatments.

  The show in LA hadn’t been picked up for another year, which was unfortunate, but also a relief to me. Jeff got a job on The Good Wife, which meant he was in New York City, only a short train ride away.

  The summer was idyllic, with Jeremy and Addie Sisto coming back out to visit. We held an epic softball game in the acreage by the house, with the Rudds and Andy and Phoebe and all the kids. Fun fact: Julie Rudd is a serious softball player who does not believe in dumbing the game down for kids. She’s hands-down the scariest pitcher I’ve ever faced.

  Summer turned into fall, and you guessed it, I still wasn’t pregnant. So I turned everything up to eleven. I had my fertility down to a science. I would pee on a stick, see that I was ovulating, drop Gus off at school, drive to the city to meet up with Jeff, and push myself on that poor man. Then I’d drive home and pick Gus up from school.

  It wasn’t very romantic, and understandably, Jeff became resistant to the whole situation. He felt like cattle and retreated. For my part, I felt like I’d earned the right to have another baby. I’d been asking for years, and he had agreed the previous year. I was the one who stayed home and took care of the farm and the shop and Gus while he was off working. And it was my body. The least he could do was put out.

  We had a hellacious fight in the fall. Jeff was laid up in bed in the city, sick with a cold that had knocked him on his ass. I figured I could kill two birds with one stone. “Well I’m ovulating today, so I’m making you some honey chicken soup and driving it down to you.” Gus was at school, so I had exactly the right amount of time to drive down to our rental apartment, feed the man, take advantage of my fertility window, and drive back in time for pickup.

  “Dammit Hilarie, I’m sick,” he growled. “I’ll be home in a few days!”

  How the hell did he not understand that in a few days it would be too late? I cried big fat ugly tears. At that point, we were just irritating the shit out of each other. There was no romance; the whole thing had become a science experiment. Jeff wanted me to wine and dine him. He wanted to go on a date. He is a narrative-oriented person, and the narrative of peeing on a stick and rushing to have sex was not attractive to him. He wanted another beautiful story, like how we had lucked into Gus’s pregnancy. He’d feel used and wouldn’t respond to me, and then I’d feel hurt and rejected. It was a vicious, unhappy cycle.

  Every single month that went by felt like a tiny funeral.

  I channeled my energy into the farm. One morning Jeff brought in the mail and noticed the Best Made Company catalogue (the go-to source for hip lumberjacks). But that month’s cover wasn’t a leather-faced Sam Elliott type in flannel. It was a gorgeous blond mastodon-looking cow with horns the size of a Buick.

  “Look at that thing!” Jeff said. “I fucking love it!”

  Twenty minutes later, I’d found a listing on Craigslist for two Highland cattle in a neighboring state. And two days after that, they were being unloaded in our back pasture.

  “This is Alice,” the young man said as a silver behemoth slow-walked her way out of the bright-red trailer. “She’s gonna give birth in the spring. Don’t worry. These are the sturdiest animals on the planet.” We had heard stories from Ed about a whole herd of Highland cattle that had escaped their fence one day and lived for years in the wild woods of Pleasant Valley.

  The Fun of Failure

  You have to have fun in the failures, especially when you’re reinventing yourself and trying new things. Your failures become your most memorable stories.

  I once read a gardening book that suggested planting morning glories next to sunflowers so their pretty tendrils could grow up the sunflower stalks. Instead, the evil morning glories consumed my entire garden. It was a lost year. You couldn’t even open the gate. In response, I took a scorched-earth approach, wading into the garden bed with a machete and eventually torching the worst-afflicted part.

  On another occasion, I planted the zucchini and yellow squash too close together. The leaves have tiny prickers on them, so you couldn’t go into the squash patch without being attacked. Spacing instructions are important.

  But it is my Tinkertown fajita fiasco that I remember most fondly. During our New Mexico courtship in the land of enchantment, Jeff and I happened upon the Tinkertown Museum. Above the large entry archway made of random scraps of wheel axles, blue lettering declared, LIVE LIFE AS THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS.

  I felt like Alice in Wonderland, stepping into a strange and magical world. I put 25 cents into Esmerelda, the fortune teller, and then we checked out the crazy collection of wedding cake toppers, antique tools, hand-carved figures, and elaborate scenes of old Western towns and the circus. Ross Ward had made them and created this whole menagerie. We wound our way through this glorious mishmash of Americana. Pursuit of happiness in the land of enchantment.

  That week, Jeff decided to make me his special, delicious pinwheel steak. It’s thin steak wrapped up with some other stuff—the recipe is a total mystery to me. A few nights later, I was determined to show Jeffrey what I could do with leftovers; I wanted to prove that I wasn’t pretentious or high maintenance. I seasoned the leftover pinwheel beef, sliced up a pile of yellow peppers and onions and sautéed them, then toasted fresh tortillas over the gas burner, flipping them with tongs to make sure they charred just so. Fajitas.

  “Smells good,” he called out. I served up his plate before fixing my own. Jeff was multiple bites in before I’d begun.

  Then I spat out my first bite, yelling, “Don’t eat this! It’s horrible!” I’d seasoned the meat not knowing that Jeff had soaked it in teriyaki sauce for a full day. The combination tasted like salt and mud.

  But Jeff insisted it was good and finished his plate. “They’re fine! Just a little bit . . . Tinkertown.” Who needs Engagement Chicken?

  Poor fella had the worst case of heartburn that night. But failure, and the response I got, made it okay to try things and fail. I felt safe.

  * * *

  Behind Alice marched a shy, red-haired cow. “Now this is Hilary,” the farmer said. “She got her name cuz we were giving one of my wife’s relatives hell. She’s got the best temperament.” And nothing was truer. That sweet girl let Jeff come right up over and scratch the top of her big shaggy head. It felt powerful to be standing next to these massive creatures. Even though these cattle are largely raised for their meat, I couldn’t imagine ever eating one of these majestic animals. You’re safe with us, ladies, I thought. We name our critters, and once you get a name, you’re a pet, and once you’re a pet, you can’t get eaten. By us, at least. I can’t make any promises for the foxes and coyotes.

  “We can’t call her Hilary,” Jeff said later that night.

  “Too confusing for you?” I laughed.

  “Gus, what are we naming our new lady cow?” Jeff asked.

  “And Peggy!” Gus shouted.

  Gus was in a big Hamilton phase and knew all the words to the songs. In the song that introduces the Schuyler sisters, the women sing their names, “Angelica! Eliza!” and then the youngest says in a nasally childish voice, “And Peggy!” Gus thought the girl’s name literally was And Peggy. So our cow became And Peggy.

  Jeffrey is so hands-on with the animals, and all of Ed’s beautiful baby cows that graze here and get fat all spring and summer end up being like puppy dogs; they’re so friendly and outgoing. They like apples and scratches and their sticky sweet-smelling grain at the end of the day.

  At the end of summer Ed takes them to the big Dutchess County Fair in town. They always win the beauty pageant awards, like Ms. Con
geniality. Ed Junior handles everything while the cattle are on our land. He’s on a tractor all day and sometimes doesn’t bother wearing a shirt. It’s routine for him to show up with manure all over his pants to check the animals.

  Even after Ed’s cows were loaded into their barn for the winter, Ed Junior still came by every other day to check Alice. One day he came over looking real nice. He was wearing khakis and a button-down shirt and his hair was combed. Jeff and I privately were atwitter trying to figure out what the occasion was. Church? A date? He was standing at the fence looking at Alice to see whether she had started “bagging up”—that’s when the udder swells right before a cow gives birth. It looks about as pleasant as it sounds. Then Bandit, the Puerto Rican jungle dog, came up, raised a leg, and pissed all over Junior’s pants. Now Bandit might be a jungle dog with few manners, but he had never done that to anyone before. I was mortified.

  I ran into the house and got paper towels and was trying to wipe the piss off of Junior’s leg while I muttered apologies. He just said, “Hilarie, understand that I work on a dairy farm; I get pissed on every single day.”

  He laughed. I laughed. Bandit ran in circles. It’s true: farm life isn’t always pretty, even for us gentleman farmers.

  * * *

  Around this time, an incident with my favorite chicken, Red, crushed me. One of the facts of farm life is death, be it eating the animals you’ve raised or losing animals to illness or predators. I accept that, for the most part. However, the chickens have such personalities, and Red was so friendly and beautiful. She was from the first batch of chicks we had gotten on Gus’s fourth birthday.

  Halloween came and went, and the pumpkins were getting soft and mushy. I’ve learned there’s nothing chickens like more than eating the inside of a pumpkin. Jeffrey was chopping wood over in his woodshed, and all the chickens were up in the front yard, pecking at bugs.