by Donna Ball
“I know you will, sweetheart.”
“I wish I had time to talk to them but—”
“I know, you’ve got to run. Have a wonderful time.”
“I’ll call you!” Lori sang.
“I love you,” returned Cici, but the line was already dead.
Cici let the screen door squeak shut behind her as she went out onto the porch and took her place in the rocker next to Lindsay. The last light of day had faded to a deep purple twilight, silhouetting the poplar leaves in stark black against the sky. Crickets trilled in and out. Their rockers thumped softly on the freshly painted boards of the porch. On cue, as it had been for the past ten evenings just as the last daylight left the sky, there was the distant whine of a bottle rocket, a muffled pop, and an umbrella of red, green, and gold light cascaded against the eastern sky.
“Ooh, nice,” observed Bridget, rocking.
“Umm,” agreed Lindsay, passing Cici a cool glass of chardonnay. “How’s Lori?”
“Terrific.” Cici took a significant swallow of wine. “She’s going to a party with Hugh Grant.”
“No kidding!”
“There’s going to be nothing but wild sex and free drugs.”
“At a Hollywood party?” exclaimed Bridget, feigning shock. “Surely not!”
And Lindsay added, “Thank God we never had anything like that when we were in college.”
“She’s wearing a swimsuit”—Cici pointed out with great deliberation—“that’s held together at the bottom with three strands of Swarovski crystals.”
Lindsay and Bridget sipped their wine in silence for a moment. Then Bridget said, “Guess she won’t be doing any actual swimming, then.”
“It won’t matter,” Lindsay said, “since the swimming pool is probably filled with champagne.”
Cici sighed. “My daughter is going to a pool party with Hugh Grant. I’m sitting in a sweat pit with a thirty foot hole in the backyard and a ceiling that’s falling down. What’s wrong with this picture?”
“It’s a little cooler tonight,” Bridget offered.
“And the fireworks are nice,” Lindsay said. They watched as a red flare spiraled upward and exploded into a canopy that covered half the night sky. Everyone made an appreciative sound for that one. “Actually, I think I like this better than having them all on the Fourth of July.”
Farley, having finally obtained his fireworks, had decided to prolong the pleasure as long as possible by setting off a few each night from his backyard. The residents of Ladybug Farm had front row seats for every show.
“She wanted me to thank you for the book, Bridge,” Cici said, “and she loved the CD, Lindsay. She’s going to send notes.”
“She always writes such sweet notes,” Bridget said.
“She’s a good girl,” Lindsay added.
And Cici admitted, “I know.” She sipped her wine and appreciated the spectacle of another light show, this one red, white, and blue, blossoming against the sky. “Would you go back to being twenty if you could?”
Lindsay said, “For Hugh Grant? You bet your sweet booty. Of course,” she added thoughtfully, “he might be disappointed. After all, I wouldn’t be nearly as good-looking as I am today.”
Bridget chuckled. “You couldn’t pay me to go back. Lord preserve me from ever being that stupid again.”
“It all seemed so simple then,” Cici agreed. “Remember? You made a plan, you mapped out your life, and you figured all you had to do was sit back and watch it unfold. Your job was done.”
“Hmm.” Lindsay sipped her wine. “I was going to study at the Sorbonne.”
Bridget said, “I was going to go to Africa and build irrigation systems. But first I was going to marry a priest.” When the other two looked at her she explained with a wistful sigh, “I was wild about The Thornbirds back then. I must have read it twenty times.”
Lindsay lifted her eyebrows. “It was a book?” She rocked back thoughtfully. “What do you know about that?”
Cici said, “When I first started working, right out of college, I was actually refused an apartment because I was a single woman. They wouldn’t even let me fill out an application.”
Bridget sipped her wine, and seemed a little embarrassed as she reported, “When Jim and I were first married and things were tight, you know, I applied for a job as a secretary at a glass factory. The manager wouldn’t hire me until he got my husband’s permission.”
“Jesus,” Lindsay said.
“You should have slapped his face and walked out,” Cici said.
“You should have taken the apartment manager to court,” Bridget said.
Both of them just smiled, sadly, reminiscing.
“Hell no,” Lindsay said after a moment. “You couldn’t pay me to go back.”
In the distance there was a fanfare series of pops, accompanied by a lively explosion of red and white sparks near the horizon line. They appreciated the show while it lasted.
The startled crickets, silent during the fireworks, started chirping again. Cici said, “Well, I guess that’s it for the night.”
“I wonder how many more fireworks he has left?”
“Maybe he should save some for New Year’s.”
Bridget changed the subject. “I have a theory about the garden thief,” she said.
Cici and Lindsay looked at her with interest. The nanny cam, cleverly set up in a tree to record everything that happened during the night, was unfortunately not equipped with night vision. So when two more stalks of corn had gone missing, a review of twelve hours’ worth of tape had shown nothing but foggy darkness.
“If you’ll notice,” elucidated Bridget, leaning forward a little to capture their attention, “all the thefts occur on the hedge side of the garden.”
“I wouldn’t exactly call that tangle of blackberry vines and honeysuckle a hedge,” Lindsay objected.
“But it’s always the same row,” Bridget insisted. “Right there, next to cover. I think whatever—or whoever—it is, is sneaking through the hedge at night and pulling stuff out of the ground, then hiding back in the hedge before anyone can catch him.”
There was nothing but the sound of rocking chairs and crickets for a while. Lindsay and Cici sipped their wine. Cici said, “I don’t know, Bridge. Sounds pretty weird to me.”
“You still don’t have a motive,” pointed out Lindsay.
“I’m working on it,” Bridget pronounced darkly.
A ladybug dive-bombed into Cici’s wineglass. She plucked it out absently and flicked it away. She said, “It’s going to take the rest of the summer to get the air-conditioning installed.”
“Wouldn’t be so bad if we could take a shower.”
“We can take a shower,” Bridget pointed out, with an obvious effort to remain positive. “We just can’t use more than five gallons of water doing it.”
“We haven’t even gotten the estimate on what digging the new drain field is going to cost.”
“Whatever it is,” Lindsay said, “it’s more than we can afford.”
They were silent for a while, rocking, listening to the crickets.
“I guess,” Bridget said in a moment, “this is the best part about not being twenty anymore. We know that plans hardly ever work out the way you planned them.”
Lindsay raised her glass in the dark. “Here’s to not looking back.”
Cici rocked forward and raised her glass as well. “Here’s to Hugh Grant,” she said.
“And here’s to catching the hedgerow garden thief and prosecuting his sorry ass to within an inch of his life,” added Lindsay.
Bridget raised her glass as well. “I’ll drink to that.”
They drank, and sat back and listened to the crickets until it was time for bed.
12
On Farming
Lindsay came downstairs a little after seven, as she always did, yawning and belting her short pink terry robe around her waist as she made her way to the kitchen. She stepped over tools and neat piles
of materials, as she always did, and said, “Morning, Sam. Morning, Deke. Morning, Farley” as she always did, and made her way to the coffeepot, as she always did. “Morning, Bridge.”
The kitchen was redolent of cinnamon and butter, with warm base notes of fresh ground coffee, as it always was. Privately, Lindsay thought Bridget was spoiling the workmen by providing them with coffee and sticky buns each morning—and no doubt prolonging their stay—but being Bridget, she could hardly be expected to do anything less. Besides, Lindsay enjoyed the sticky buns as much as the men did.
A chorus of “Morning, Miss Lindsay,” “Morning, ma’am,” and “Good morning, Linds” greeted her, just as it always did. She poured her coffee, added cold milk, drank a generous portion, and noticed for the first time that everyone was standing at the window in the breakfast room that overlooked the front porch, staring out. She said, coming over to them, “What are you looking at?”
No one answered. They just kept looking. And that was her first hint that this was not a morning just like any other.
“Oh my God,” she said, staring through the window. “Cici’s going to have a fit.”
Just then Cici entered the kitchen in her robe and slippers. “Morning, Bridge. Morning Lindsay,” she said.
Neither woman could quite tear their eyes from the window. “Good morning, Cici.”
“Morning, Farley. Morning—” And she stopped, staring as they stared. “Oh my God. What is that?”
“They’re sheep, ma’am,” replied Sam politely.
“But—they’re on my porch!”
“Yes’m,” he agreed with a thoughtful nod of his head. “They surely do appear to be.”
“But I just painted that porch! Look what they’re doing! They’ve ruined the paint! There’s mud everywhere! They’re eating the wicker! Oh, my God, there are a hundred of them!”
“Twenty-five,” corrected Farley, but Cici was already gone.
She flew out of the kitchen and into the front room, banging her ankle against a pile of two-by-fours and half hopping, half limping to the bank of windows that overlooked the freshly painted front porch. The flow of sheep covered the wraparound porch, from breakfast area to rocking chairs, and spilled down the steps into the front lawn, a big, muddy, ragged, wooly mass of grumbling, shifting, baaing life. They seemed to be wedged between the rail and the wall, as though, having made their way up there, they couldn’t figure out how to get off.
“Shoo!” Cici cried, banging on the windowpane. “Get out of here!”
Not a single sheep even looked up.
“Problem is,” Farley explained mildly, following her, “sheep don’t know how to back up.”
Cici tossed him a half-frantic, half-incredulous look, and flung open the door. “Get!” she demanded to the sheep, clapping her hands. “Go on, get out of here! Scat!”
Lindsay and Bridget crowded around her at the door. Sam and Deke followed with slightly less enthusiasm, coffee cups in one hand and sticky buns in the other.
“Reckon we could get a rope around the neck of the lead sheep,” suggested Sam. “Pull him over the rail. The others might follow.”
Deke shook his head. “Gonna have to take the railing off.”
Farley said, “I could go home and get a dog.”
Cici looked from one of them to the other with an expression that was, for the moment, completely unreadable. Then she turned and plunged into the fray. Grabbing a handful of wool, she jerked and hauled and tugged and pulled, crying, “Scat! Go! Scoot!” until the shifting mass of dirty sheep fur began to rumble with agitation, swaying from side to side, plunging and bleating. Lindsay and Bridget set aside their coffee cups, and, with an exchanged looked of resignation, waded into the sea of sheep. Following Cici’s lead, they each grabbed a sheep and began to tug and shout until suddenly one of the sheep broke free and sprang, as though on steel coils, up and over the railing. A mass riot followed. Bridget lost her balance and sat down hard on the floor, hands over her head, squealing incoherently. Lindsay yelped as she took a hard hit in the shin. Cici stumbled backward, gasping, as sheep began to jump over the railing, spindly black-stocking legs flailing, just like in a cartoon.
“Jesus!” exclaimed Lindsay, rubbing her shin as she limped inside the doorway. “I thought sheep were supposed to be peaceful!”
“They’re killers!” screeched Bridget, hands over head. “They’re killer sheep!”
Sheep continued to pour over the railing, splintering boards, leaping over each other, landing splay-legged on the lawn and trotting off, baahing hysterically, in sundry directions.
“Stupid critters,” acknowledged Sam, sagely.
Deke said, “What’re you going to do with them now?”
Cici looked in dismay at the ruined porch, and the shaggy muddy creatures who were now making ruin of their lawn. “The garden,” she managed.
“Oh my God, the garden!” Bridget struggled to her feet. “We’ve got to keep them out of the garden!”
“What you need is a dog,” volunteered Farley.
Lindsay caught Bridget’s hand and pulled her down the steps toward the garden. “Get the dog!” she cried.
For the next twenty minutes the women formed a human fence in front of the vegetable garden, shouting and flapping towels at the sheep who ventured too close while Sam and Deke, catching on to the urgency of the situation, eventually put down their coffee cups and stood ready to haul the particularly obstinate sheep to the back of the flock. By the time Farley roared up with a bedraggled, dirty, black-patched dog balancing in the back of his pickup truck, they were filthy, sweaty, and hoarse with shouting, and the sea of sheep was still surging.
Farley slammed the door of the truck and unlatched the back gate. He said, “Ya’ll better stand back.”
The three women looked at each other dubiously. Then they looked at the tomato plants, spilling over their cages with fat red and yellow fruit, the thick coils of bean vines splayed along long wires, the dark green corn stalks towering over their heads, bright yellow squash ready to be plucked. They said as one, “No!”
The word was barely spoken before the dog slunk out of the truck and, with belly close to the ground and eyes locked on the flock, he froze in place. In the blink of an eye he darted to the left, and the sheep shuffled and bunched. He flowed to the right, and the flock swayed. The women watched, almost as mesmerized as the sheep, as the dog crouched, head down and eyes fixed on the sheep. He took one step forward. And another. And suddenly all hell broke loose.
The flock charged. Hooves and muddy wool and divets of earth flew everywhere. Bridget screamed and ducked as a sheep flew over her head. Lindsay ended up sprawled on her back. Cici dove for cover between two rows of corn. She could hear Sam and Deke yelling their astonishment and cheering the dog on. And as suddenly as it had begun, it was over.
The ladies got slowly to their feet, brushing mud off their knees and rubbing bruises, looking cautiously around. The sheep were miraculously on the other side of the hedgerow, behind the fence, munching grass as though nothing had ever happened. The dog had retreated to the shadow of Farley’s truck, where he sat at attention, his gaze fixed upon the sheep. Sam returned from his examination of the hedgerow and pronounced, “Right here’s your problem. Hole in the fence.”
Farley said, “I’ll fix it for you. Ten dollar.”
Cici’s voice was filled with wonder. “How in the world did you train that dog to do that? You didn’t even give him a command.”
Farley just looked at her, expressionless. “Didn’t train ’im. He just knows.”
Bridget said, “Do sheep eat radishes? And tomato and cucumber plants?”
The three men just stared at her.
Lindsay said, rubbing a bruised hip, “Whose sheep are they, anyway?”
Farley replied, “Yourn.”
It was several beats before Cici could manage, “What?”
And Bridget parrotted, “Ours?”
“Came with the farm,” conf
irmed Farley. “I been keeping an eye on ’em, over the winter you know. Put out some hay. Won’t charge you none. They ain’t much trouble. Need shearin’.”
“So that’s what that clause in the sales contract about ‘outbuildings and livestock’ meant,” mused Lindsay.
“Sheep?” Cici’s voice was close to a screech. “How in the world are we supposed to take care of sheep?”
“Sheep!” cried Bridget, delighted. “We have sheep!”
Farley said thoughtfully, “You can have the dog.”
Bridget whirled from her enraptured survey of the sheep in the meadow, her eyes growing even wider. “Are you serious? You’d really let us have that incredible dog?”
“Ten dollar,” said Farley.
“Oh good God,” said Lindsay, sotto voce, “she’s out of control.”
Cici said, “Bridget, I think we should talk about this.”
“You can’t have sheep without a sheepdog” was Bridget’s reply. And to Farley, “What’s his name?”
Farley thought about that for a moment. “Dog,” he decided.
Bridget blinked, but her smile didn’t waver. “Well, we’ll worry about a name later.” She approached the dog, hand extended. “Come here, you sweet thing. You want to live here? Are you going to be my sweet dog?”
Cici said, “Bridget, be careful.”
And Lindsay, “I wouldn’t—”
There was a ferocious sound, a blur of fur, and Bridget jumped back with a cry, cradling her bleeding hand.
Farley said, “He don’t much like people.”
Cici said, “I’ll get the first-aid kit.”
Lindsay rushed to Bridget, giving the dog wide berth. “Are you okay?”
Farley repeated firmly, “Ten dollar.”
And Bridget said, “I’ll get my purse.”
The good news was that the dog did not have rabies. The bad news was, at least as far as Cici and Lindsay were concerned, that he did not run away. Every morning the dog would spring over the fence as though his paws were filled with helium, herd the sheep into a tight little bunch and move them, with his spooky eyes and creeping gait, from one side of the meadow to the other. He would then retire to a place under the front porch, where the wary passerby might or might not be warned by a rumbling growl before he sprang from the shadows to rip at cuffs and sneakers. Shortly before sundown he would sally forth once again, sail over the fence, and repeat the exercise, moving the sheep to a part of the meadow that he had apparently predetermined after twelve long hours of precise mathematical calculations. It was, they all had to admit, amazing to watch.
