by Lynne Hugo
Brandon had sighed, made the call, gone to see the farmer, and gotten the job. Now, suddenly, he had no weekends, a sunburn, and was hauling, digging, cleaning, even mowing some lady’s grass while his employer plowed her field. She’d been nice, though. Told him to take a break when he finished the front before he did the back.
“I’m not sure I’m supposed to do that, but thank you, ma’am.”
“Nonsense. I insist. What’s your name?”
“Brandon McNally, ma’am. Thank you. I’ll just sit in the shade a minute.”
“You have beautiful blue eyes, Brandon. May I ask how old you are?”
“Almost seventeen.”
He’d felt terrible then, because her eyes got all watery and he had no idea if he’d done something, but he didn’t see what it could have been. She went into her house, then a minute later came back out with a glass of lemonade and a cinnamon roll. It scared him that he’d lose his job, not that Mr. Pelley had said not to talk to a customer or take anything—it hadn’t been mentioned one way or the other—but Brandon thought it might look like he’d asked for it.
“Ma’am, I shouldn’t—” he said as she approached him, holding them out. Overhead the arms of an old sugar maple. His back rested on the thick trunk, his rear on the bump of a root. Tired as any grown man from work and thinking what’s okay to do.
The lady, she was maybe his grandmother’s age, walked through the brilliance of the day into the staggered circle of shade where Brandon sat. She wasn’t fat like his grandmother or dressed in fancy pants and a matching print shirt with a lot of jewelry. She had some of the same turkey wattles under her arms and chin, but not so many as his grandmother, and her teeth weren’t all yellow when she smiled at him. She looked plain, hair stuck behind her ears, and she wasn’t covered in eye shadow and lipstick like his mother and grandmother. Not too wrinkled up, but when she handed him the glass, he saw her nails were dirty and her hands rough like Mr. Pelley’s.
“Nonsense. I know what boys like. You’re doing a fine job, and I appreciate it. I know how long Al will take, and you’ll finish the yard before he’s back. Maybe you’d do me the favor of spreading some compost then? Just till Al is done, I mean.”
“I’d be happy to do that. Thank you very much for the lemonade. And the roll, too.” He sat where she’d come up to him beneath the tree, holding one in each hand, not wanting to eat or drink while she was talking, afraid he would be called on to answer. I was supposed to stand up when she came out, he thought.
“You’re a good boy. Do you like to read?”
“Yes, ma’am, actually, I do.”
“That’s a fine thing. Read any of the classics?”
“A few. My English teacher last year was suggesting American ones.”
“Very good. I have quite a library of them. I hope you’re planning on college.”
Her eyebrows went up while he tried to think what to answer. She said she had all those books so he guessed what she wanted to hear. It was true anyway. “Well, I’d like to.”
“I used to be a teacher,” she said. “You can look at my books, and if you want to borrow any of them, you may. College is extremely important. You go ahead and drink that now, and just bring the glass to the back door when you’re done. I’ll be grateful for your help with the compost.”
She was a nice lady. He spread the compost for her when he finished mowing the lawn. It was no big deal, and he liked the chickens pecking around in the back. The lady had come out to show him what to do, and she’d talked to the chickens like they understood. The chickens had names after characters in a novel, she said, and Brandon thought that was cool. While he worked, she asked him if he liked animals and he said yes, a lot, he loved animals. But when she asked if he had any, he had to think about what to say. The truth was that he’d asked his mother for a dog every year since forever, and she’d always said, “No, we don’t have a yard and I’m allergic to cats so don’t ask for one of those, either.” Then one day she’d said, “Well, I guess if we do move in with Larry, since he’s got a house and a yard—as long as you do all the work—would that make up for changing schools again?” and in the paper, Brandon found a free dog that needed a home and was already housebroken and everything, but then Larry said, No way and no stupid discussion about it. Brandon decided to just tell the lady that no animals were allowed where he lived. She said she was sorry about that and he could come see hers if he ever wanted to. Then she said the thing again about how he could borrow some books, especially since he wanted to go to college. Her eyes looked sort of wet again and he hoped he wasn’t doing the compost wrong, but she said he was doing a fine job. He didn’t borrow any books, though. He didn’t think Mr. Pelley would like that since he’d said that if Brandon had to pee he should go behind the barn, and he wasn’t sure how easy it would be to return them anyway.
He didn’t tell Mr. Pelley he’d done the compost. He thought Mr. Pelley might charge her extra, and Brandon didn’t want that. She was a nice lady.
25
Louisa
You need to know about the rest of the summer, and how The Plan moved on. The clover rose, first a pale haze and then an emerald blanket. When he planted the corn, I had Al leave a whole section of that same field empty for the winter food source for the deer. I’d plant those root crops myself in August. He was going to have to come back to turn it over again because the ground would harden over the summer. All the physical work I’d done had strengthened me, and the arthritis in my left knee was bothering me less. But then it always bothered me less in the summer, so maybe I was foolish to feel such hope.
This next may seem crazy to you. I don’t care, I’ll tell it anyway. I set up tin cans on long branches I stuck in the ground and took target practice with them. Often. It passed the weeks while I waited until it was time to start putting the rest of The Plan to work.
At first I got a little panicked because I was plain terrible, nothing like I used to be when Harold taught me to shoot, I don’t know why. I guess he wanted the company when he practiced, but what he said was that a farm woman needed to know, living out where we did. But back then, I had a really good eye and The Plan—because I’d started to refine it—required that I have not just a really good eye but a spectacular one.
So I went to Dr. Rollins, the optometrist over in Tucker City, and found out I need glasses for driving as well as reading now, which explains why they paint the street signs in such faint letters these days. Bifocals. First they cost me two months’ worth of groceries and put me behind in the bills, then they were impossible to get used to. I kept looking through the wrong part at the wrong time and thinking I was having a stroke. It reminded me of the time Harold got himself a cell phone so I could call him out in the field. He put it in his shirt pocket where he’d hear it if it rang. He had no idea he’d accidentally set it to vibrate instead of ring. Don’t you know the first time I did call him, he had such a sudden strange feeling in his chest that he zigged and zagged the tractor all crazy, certain he was having a heart attack. Started slapping all over his chest for his cell phone so he could call an ambulance, thinking he’d been pretty smart to get one after all. When he finally pulled the phone out of his pocket, it was amazing how that heart attack just quit and he felt fine. Oh, how we laughed about it, once he got over the embarrassment and told me. The memories come like that, like tender, sweet crumbs left after pie.
Revenge is even more expensive than glasses. Such a mistake I made not attending to the harvest when Harold died; that money would have been some cushion instead of the loss of plowing it under. “Stop worrying, Beth,” I had to say, seeing her fidget as we talked it over. Amy agreed, and in a flurry of white flew up to where Jo was, on the couch, while Beth continued to pace around the living room carpet.
We’d put in a good day, and stopped for tea as the sun started to slide toward the treetops. The vegetables were coming in bountifully thanks to a long sunny spell, which the squash and tomatoes and green bea
ns particularly loved. “We’ll blanch and freeze vegetables for the winter, and we have our Social Security, unless, of course, that damn idiot Congress messes with it. Stupid talk about cuts again. Don’t they know it’s a trust fund of money we earned? But I can only take on Larry Ellis right now. Revenge is worth every cent.” The girls had to agree with me. Except for Beth, who off and on got nervous, always thinking maybe there could be flaws in The Plan I just wasn’t seeing, especially now that she knew my eyes had gone bad, even clucking that maybe I was just a batty old lady wearing worn-out pink house slippers with chicken poop on the left toe. I wondered how long that had been there, went to the sink, and cleaned my slipper off. Damn bifocals.
“I don’t want to wear the new garden shoes in the house!” I said. “They’re heavy with that waterproofing, and you know Gary took my old sneakers so I wouldn’t wear them anymore. I am not batty. So I need some other shoes. Big deal. You’re just having an anxiety attack, Beth. Be quiet or out you go.”
Marvelle crossed the kitchen counter and sniffed the sponge I’d used to clean the poop off my slipper. Then she just stood there twitching her tail and staring me down.
“What?” I said. “What? Oh. Okay, you have a point. I’ll put bleach on the sponge right now to sterilize it. Will that make you happy?”
Marvelle got that uppity look and sauntered away.
So June and then all of July passed: planting, target shooting, talking to CarolSue, gathering vegetables from the garden, freezing and canning vegetables from the garden. After the clover, the corn rose, silver and rippled like waves in morning sun. The girls pecked in the yard, flapping up onto my chair or the clothesline or the roof of the coop now and then if something startled them, but usually just doing their stiff-legged bobbing along the ground, their coos soothing and peaceful. Marvelle slept in the shade or made her stealthy way about the property, pretending she could still hunt when she wasn’t criticizing me or being bossy. By mid-August, the heat nearly undid me, especially on canning days, the heat from the stove at six and seven in the morning cheating me of the few hours in the day that were bearable. But I knew the deer were coming. Their scat was between the corn rows, and I saw what they were already eating. Good. I hoped they knew they were safe. I stopped the target shooting, not wanting to alarm them. They came closer then, and as daylight shortened, I saw them more often.
Here’s what you should know, though. I’d adjusted to my glasses. The hours and days of practice had steadied my hand again. I’d made the targets smaller and smaller. I almost never missed the mark anymore. I wasn’t going to kill him, but he wasn’t going to take any more trophies. Not ever again. I hadn’t decided on whether it would be a knee or a hand. Whichever was the cleanest shot at the time, I guessed. Not that CarolSue knew any of this. CarolSue would never approve this version. No, The Plan she liked was a tame and impermanent iteration. When I considered how I’d lure Larry Ellis to hunt illegally, to poach from my land—which is abundant with deer because I’ve done everything to make it so—and having him arrested and charged, could I be sure he’d never take another trophy? Would he truly lose forever what he most loves? Would he know the meaning of grief?
I thought not.
And if I wasn’t sure, what was the point of The Plan?
August was important for another reason, as you might remember. I called Al to come back and turn over the section of field I’d left fallow again. I told him I wanted it finely disked, too, but of course, I didn’t say why, which I know topped off his opinion that I’d gone totally loony. It wasn’t easy planting the root crops for the deer myself—so maybe I was a little loony—but I did it. The section still looked bare when I was finished, but I knew the secrets the earth and my heart held, and I was glad. All I needed now was rain, time, and luck.
26
Larry
“So, we’re gonna go. I wanna join. The money’ll even out because the dinner and drinks are way less for members, and I can find out where other guys are gonna set up,” Larry said to LuAnn. “Stupid dicks can’t keep their mouths shut. Works for me.” He rolled onto his side, asking and not asking, his hand snaking under her short nightie. She slapped it away, wet her forefinger—provocative, provocative on purpose, he thought—and used it to turn a page of her magazine.
“I thought you always wanted to avoid those places,” she said. “Where guys are hunting.”
He sighed. “That’s the point. If I know, I can avoid ’em. Most of ’em are lousy anyway. Bag one buck every ten years and think they’re the Great White Hunter.”
“When actually only you are.” She flipped through the pages, stopped at one, and held it in his direction. “Would this look good on me?”
“Damn right. Sexy.”
“Oh, I wasn’t sure.”
“Sure of what?”
“About the color. It’s cobalt blue, and I usually wear—what are you talking about?”
“Come on, baby. You can buy any color dress you want, how about that? It’s next Friday. They all take their women, and I don’t want to look stupid. Last time I went as Chuck’s guest, I had to sit with him and his wife like a third wheel.” He heard himself and stopped abruptly. He wasn’t a man who’d beg for anything. He could be nice, or he could make her sorry. Her choice.
“Isn’t it fifth wheel? You’re obsessed with this stuff.”
“What? Fifth . . . ?” But he decided it wasn’t worth it to pursue what she was talking about. It had taken him the better part of a year to figure out that he could just let her asides float over like bubbles, whatever she meant not having to burst on his head, but he had it now. “So what. You’re obsessed with shoes.” He gentled his voice, nuzzled into her neck. She smelled faintly sweaty with an overlay of hair spray, or maybe it was cologne. When he’d first known her, she’d had hair that was sort of blond-and-brown striped. Now it was all blond. She said the sun did it, that it was natural. He didn’t know about that, but her boobs were natural, he was pretty sure about that. “And me. You’re obsessed with me,” he said. Really what he thought was that she was obsessed with her son. LuAnn was crazy about the kid. She called that natural, too. He thought she was worse that way since the accident but maybe it was his imagination. She blamed the deer, not him, though. He was giving her time to come back to her senses. He did like her, the kid wouldn’t be around forever, and he didn’t like being alone. He’d had enough of that.
“In your wet dreams,” she said now, but turned her head toward his and let the magazine fall to the bed. He slid his hand up her nightie again and she didn’t slap it away. Not that he would have let that stop him.
“If I go with you, which I really don’t want to do, even you said the chicken was all greasy when you went and the Lodge was a bunch of losers. If I do it, will you do something with Brandon again on Saturday? His father isn’t going to do—”
“That asshole.”
“So, will you?”
“I suppose.”
“You have to put more effort in. He’s a teenager.” Her hand went into his boxers. “I did pay your bond. And pay for the lawyer. You never would have gotten off without him.”
“God, LuAnn, how long am I gonna be payin’ you back for that?” He laughed. “I told him to wash my truck last week. I even said he could vacuum it.” Squeezed a boob. Definitely real, he was ninety percent sure.
“Oh yes, an irresistible offer of a nonstop fun time. True bonding. Hey, I can stop if you want. I mean if you really don’t want to meet effort with effort,” she said, pulling off his boxers and working him harder with her hand.
“Believe me, I can meet effort with effort. That thing you’re wearing is cute but get it off.”
He swung a leg over both of hers. In the mood for a power position first. “So you’ll go. . . .” He didn’t wait for an answer. She wasn’t the one in charge and she never would be.
27
Louisa
Have you ever noticed how elastic time is, stretching impossibly a
nd then rushing to snap tight? More weeks passed. I walked the sections of my land in the mornings, leaving a written trail for wildlife and aliens about the affection of Jesus—but the shoes are comfortable—looking for signs and yes, yes, they were there. I saw the deer themselves, too, once a whole herd on the edge of one of my fields at dusk. There looked to be twelve, maybe fifteen, that time. More often I’d catch a glimpse of two or three, yearlings in tow, sometimes startled up out of their day beds. There was a buck, maybe more; I wasn’t ever close enough to know if it was the same one I was seeing. Even with my glasses, I can’t count the points on a rack at a distance or distinguish one set of antlers from another, and if you’re thinking I should be competent at that, well, give it a try yourself. So, I just called him my buck and reminded him to stay on my land where he was safe, where they all were safe.
It was time for Phase II. “I can’t chicken out now,” I muttered to Amy, who clucked a protest and headed out of the kitchen. “Okay, I’m sorry,” I called after her. “I know that expression is offensive. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.” I’d been about to call Gus and set The Plan in action after waiting so long, but had put the phone back into the cradle on the wall before dialing. Now I just stood there and stared at the yellow-and-peach print, tiny watering cans holding daisies, on the old wallpaper. Tired and fading. But I couldn’t be. Not yet, not now.
I turned away from the wall. Even sweet Beth glared at me from where she sat on the counter. Marvelle was disgusted, though not by my having insulted chickens. (It’s use of the term scaredy-cat that pushes her over the edge.) Hesitation always irritates her. I suppose it doesn’t serve well when you’re catching mice. Or a drunk driver who killed your grandson and your husband. “All right. I see your point. Both of you. All of you. This is no time to back down. I still wish CarolSue were here. But we can’t think about that, can we? She’d never go for this. But we’ll have a bit of tea and then I’ll do it.”
