Flower Power

by Nicolette Dane

  “I don’t see why not,” said Alex. “They all like you. And like I said, they miss you and your help around the homestead. Penny is obviously going to be pretty preoccupied for a while with her baby, so you could take on a lot of her tasks. I think your chances are pretty good.”

  “I’m excited,” Taryn said. “Thank you, Alex.”

  “Yeah, no problem,” Alex said happily. “It would be great to have you out here.”

  “You know, Penny told me some time ago that I should follow my coincidences,” said Taryn. “And now with her being out of commission for a while as she has her baby and recovers, it’s a nice coincidence that I would be able to fill her role on the farm.”

  “It’s not a coincidence,” said Alex. “There are no coincidences.”

  “That again,” Taryn said with a short laugh. “I don’t know, Alex.”

  “Okay,” Alex responded with a singsongy lilt.

  “Come on,” protested Taryn.

  “Just ponder it a little bit more,” said Alex. “You think that all of these threads that have woven themselves together for you happened to get that way by coincidence? Things have worked out just so, the puzzle pieces happen to fit, and as you move further and further in this direction, every piece you pick up fits exactly where you need it to. Taryn, when you start walking your path, the clouds will part and the sun will shine. That is no coincidence. That’s the universe telling you something. When you fight against it, things are hard. When you go with the flow, things are easy.”

  Taryn paused and considered Alex’s words. It all seemed so outlandish to her, but she couldn’t deny the harmony that was developing in her life. Before, she was an anxious wreck, full of stress and worry and pain. But those feelings were subsiding as she continued down this new path. She felt lighter, more in tune with herself, and more confident in a different way. Not a facade of confidence as she had once portrayed. For the first time in a long time, Taryn was feeling earnestly happy. Maybe a little faith was in order. Maybe the universe was trying to tell her something.

  “Okay,” said Taryn after another moment. “I’m going to ponder it.”

  “Good,” said Alex. “And I’ll bring your request up with the others and we’ll see how it goes.”

  “I’ll see you this weekend,” Taryn said. “Hopefully you’ll have good news for me.”

  “I’m confident I will,” Alex replied. She was smiling on her end of the phone, and Taryn was smiling on hers.

  “See you then, Alex,” she said.

  “Until then, sweetie,” said Alex. “Goodbye.”

  “Goodbye.”

  Taryn hung up the phone, and she slipped it down onto her desk. Relaxing back into her desk chair, hands behind her head, she was still smiling. Her face radiated with happiness.

  With a revived sense of satisfaction and excitement, Taryn came trouncing across the yard to the side of the farmhouse. She was dressed casually in sneakers, jeans, and a t-shirt, a backpack on her back with a pair of sandals hanging from one of the loops. A smile was plastered across her face. The sun was high in the sky, the air was humid, but it felt amazing to be outdoors in the summer down at Verdant Bloom Farms.

  Taryn confidently approached the greenhouse, where she knew her girlfriend would be. Upon entering the little glass room, the women spotted each other and grinned happily. They rushed to each other, they embraced, and they kissed. Taryn took a deep breath, taking in the familiar scents, the fragrance of the housed flowers and the earthy aroma of soil. It felt so revitalizing. It felt like home.

  “You’re here,” beamed Alex, kissing Taryn once again.

  “Here I am,” Taryn replied happily.

  “It’s just been over a week,” said Alex. “But it seems like you’ve been gone forever.”

  “I mean, it’s been under a week since we last saw each other,” Taryn said with a laugh.

  “I know,” agreed Alex. “But people have missed you around here. And I have, too. Speaking of that…”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’ve got to finish my work here,” Alex said, motioning toward her work bench. “But you should go see Dev.”

  “Okay,” said Taryn, raising an eyebrow. “Where is he?”

  “Head over to the new shipping container,” said Alex. “He’s been working on that all week.”

  “All right,” Taryn said, her lips curling into a smile. “I’ll do that.”

  “I’ll see you in just a bit,” said Alex. She leaned in and planted a sweet kiss on Taryn’s lips.

  “See you in a few,” said Taryn. She stood there smiling at her lover for just another moment in silence, before turning away, exiting the greenhouse, and heading out toward the container buildout.

  As she approached the faded orange shipping container, a vast blue sky riding high behind it, Taryn’s eyes grew large. In such a short time, it had changed its face. There was a window installed on one half of its main side, with a sliding glass door just to the right of it. In front, there was a wooden deck built on the ground. Next to the container there was a running gas generator with a cord trailing all the way up into the steel rectangle, leading in through the open sliding door.

  Taryn walked closer, and she peeked her head inside. There was Dev, with a power drill in his hand, affixing a slab of drywall to wooden studs he had built into the interior. Most of the drywall, especially around the windows, had already been installed. When Dev saw Taryn, he grinned and finished his drilling. Then he set the drill down onto the platform on a ladder and came her way.

  “Pretty cool, right?” said Dev. “We’re flying through this.”

  “I can’t believe it,” mused Taryn. “You did it this fast?”

  “Yeah, I got to get it done,” Dev replied. “I’ve got a baby arriving soon, and plenty of other stuff to do around here. There’s no time for dilly-dallying.”

  “Right,” replied Taryn with a surreptitious smile, looking around at Dev’s work.

  “So did Alex tell you?” Dev asked after a moment.

  “Tell me what?”

  “We voted that you could join the cooperative if you wanted,” said Dev. “Totally cool with us if you want to buy in and join up. It’s hard to run this place with just seven people. Well, with my new kid eight. But we won’t be putting that little nugget to work anytime soon.”

  “She didn’t tell me,” said Taryn, her smile growing bigger. “That’s exciting news. That’s really awesome.”

  “Oh, maybe I shouldn’t have told you then,” said Dev, his face conveying regret. “Maybe she wanted to be the one to break it to you.”

  “No, it’s fine!” Taryn said. “If she gets excited about telling me, I’ll pretend it’s my first time hearing it.” Dev laughed.

  “You don’t have to do that,” he said. “I actually don’t think Alex will mind that much.”

  “Well, regardless, it’s great,” Taryn asserted. “I think this is the move I’m meant to make. I’m really looking forward to it.”

  “So you want this shipping container, then… right?” Dev asked.

  “Wait, really?” said Taryn.

  “Sure,” said Dev. “I mean, you need a space of your own. You don’t want to live in the house or anything. That’s a communal space. You definitely need your own four walls like everybody else.”

  “I just mean,” Taryn continued. “I didn’t think it would happen so fast, or that I would get this container. I thought maybe we’d order another or something, and this one would be rented out or whatever you guys planned.”

  “Naw,” said Dev. “It’s cool. We can put that plan on the back burner for a minute. It’s more important to get you your own spot.”

  “Wow,” said Taryn. Considering how sweet all of her new friends had been, a tear came to Taryn’s eye. She stepped forward and she hugged Dev tightly. “Thank you.”

  “You got it,” replied Dev, hugging her and giving her a pat on the back. “This thing should be done in like a week or so, and then you can deco
rate it however you want before you move in.”

  “That’s amazing,” said Taryn. She was in awe. “I’ll pay you for it as soon as you want. For the container, the materials, all that. Just tell me what it cost and I’m on it.”

  “Don’t worry about it right now,” said Dev. “We’ll work it all out.”

  “Thank you, Dev,” Taryn said, hugging Dev once again. “This is really cool.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said warmly.

  Later on that night, after a group dinner filled with congratulations and welcomes for the farm’s newest member, Taryn and Alex chilled out together in Alex’s bed. Taryn laid out on her stomach across the bed, while Alex sat crosslegged up against the pillows. Alex was sipping from a mug of tea, while Taryn cradled a half-full glass of Dev’s homemade beer in her hands.

  “I’m just so overwhelmed by all this,” admitted Taryn. “I don’t think I’ve ever experienced such open and giving people. That you guys would accept me so easily into your fold, it really makes me feel good. It makes me feel loved.”

  “You are loved,” said Alex happily. She wiggled her toes and pressed them against Taryn’s shoulder. Taryn grinned and grabbed at Alex’s pinky toe, giving it a lighthearted yank. Alex laughed and pulled her foot away.

  “I’m grateful for that,” said Taryn. “It just feels so different than what I’m used to. Positivity goes a long way.” She smiled to herself, thankful for what her life was becoming, and took a sip of her beer.

  “I’m grateful that you’re here,” Alex said, her face beaming and lit up. “I feel like our connection is really important. Really meaningful.”

  “I do, too,” agreed Taryn. “This just feels right.”

  “It is right,” said Alex. The women both smiled happily at one another.

  “You know, we didn’t really talk about this at dinner,” said Taryn. “But I was wondering if you could give me any insight. What does it mean to buy in to the cooperative? I mean, what does it cost?”

  “It’s not all that much,” said Alex. “Justine is going to figure it out, she takes care of most of our bookkeeping. But I can’t imagine it’s more than twenty thousand dollars or so to become an equal member. So for you, that’s nothing.”

  “That really doesn’t seem like much,” agreed Taryn. She became lost in thought for a moment, pondering some things she had been considering before. “You know,” she continued. “I’ve been doing a little bit of research. And it looks like the farm land next door to Verdant Bloom is for sale.”

  “Right,” said Alex. “That’s Mr. Brooks’ farm. He’s too old to keep on, and he’s selling off his land. He offered it too us before it hit the market, but we couldn’t afford to buy it.”

  “Well, I was thinking maybe I could buy it,” said Taryn. “Maybe that could be my contribution to the cooperative. My member fee, or whatever.”

  “Whoa, really?” said Alex. “Taryn, that’s insane. That’s a lot of money. He’s selling like twenty acres.”

  “Do you think everybody would want it?” asked Taryn. “Do you think it would be a nice gesture?”

  “Yeah,” Alex replied with confusion and shock. “Of course everybody here would want to have that land and extend our farm. Taryn, that’s really too much.”

  “I’m going to call a friend of mine tomorrow,” asserted Taryn. “She’s a real estate agent, and I’m going to see what I would have to do to get that land in the name of the co-op.”

  “It’s so generous,” said Alex. “I can’t believe you would do something like that. I mean, I can—you’re a good person, I know that—it’s just… it’s crazy!” She laughed and shook her head.

  “You guys have all been so good to me,” said Taryn. “Better than almost anybody else in my life. I hardly knew you all, and you welcomed me into your home and gave me some space to work on myself. I don’t know if I can ever repay something like that. It’s like you and the rest of the them have given me my life back.

  Alex set her mug down on the nightstand and then she crawled along the bed down toward Taryn. Without another word, Alex instigated a kiss with her lover, the two women happily engaging one another in passion and happiness. For Taryn, all of her worries and stresses melted away when she was with Alex. This relationship, and her growing relationship with the others, was giving Taryn a new lease on life.

  And that was something money could never buy.

  The days were moving fast for Taryn. Between working on the farm, trying to sort out what to do with the life she was leaving behind, solidify a real estate deal for the neighboring farmland, and figure out her new home, her life had become a whirlwind of excitement. In the past, this kind of excitement would be stressful and cause anxiety in her. But each step she made in building this new life for herself only brought greater happiness and fulfillment. It really seemed as though Taryn had finally found her place in the world.

  Taryn was working in the kitchen, chopping vegetables and preparing a roast for dinner. She worked off of a few recipe cards that Penny had left for her, following her instructions to a tee. Taryn wasn’t the greatest chef, but she was eager to learn and to get better. From chopping wood and putting in fence posts, to making dinner for eight and hanging laundry out to dry, Taryn had fallen into some idyllic and simple life that made her feel immensely rewarded and calm. It felt, for the first time in as long as she could remember, that the things she did mattered to somebody.

  As she prepared the food, there was a frantic knock at the farmhouse side door. Taryn, confused by the sudden interruption, wiped her hands on a dish towel and then ambled to the door to answer it.

  “Hi,” she said with a quizzical expression. Standing there was a rushed looking blonde woman, probably about Taryn’s age. She had on a backpack and had a duffel bag hanging from each hand.

  “Penny,” said the woman. “Where’s Penny?”

  “Penny?” replied Taryn. “She’s in her home out back. Can I help you?”

  “I’m her doula,” said the woman. “Harriet. I got her call. Let’s go!” Harriet reached out and offered Taryn one of her duffel bags, which she took without question.

  “What?” said Taryn, looking at the bag for a moment. “Is Penny…?”

  “She’s having the baby right now,” said Harriet. “Let’s go.”

  “I have to turn off the oven,” Taryn said frantically. She spun around for a moment, feeling lost. Eventually she found her bearings, she switched off the oven leaving the uncooked roast on the stovetop, and she raced out of the house with Harriet. The women ran together out toward Penny and Dev’s container home.

  When they reached Penny’s place, they walked in together without knocking. Penny was standing there in the main room, watching as a garden hose ran water into a small inflatable pool. Penny was hunched over, just wearing a loose ankle length skirt with paisley designs and a black sports bra. Her belly was large and protruding, and she held her back to brace herself.

  “Where’s Dev?” asked Harriet as she came in, her tone changing immediately from harried and frantic to relaxed and kind. She approached Penny and supported her.

  “He’s on his way back,” said Penny. “He went to grab a few things.”

  “Okay,” said Harriet. Then she looked to Taryn. “Sweetie, what did you say your name was?”

  “Taryn,” she replied, watching the scene unfold as though she were audience to a movie.

  “Taryn, would you go back up to the house and wait for Shirley to arrive?” asked Harriet. “And when she gets here, will you lead her down?”

  “Taryn, grab the golf cart from Lucas and drive my mom down,” Penny said through a painful groan. “I don’t want her to trip and twist her ankle.”

  “Yes, of course,” said Taryn. “I’ll do that.”

  “Thank you,” Penny said. She tried to smile at Taryn, but it was obvious that the contractions were getting to her.

  After another jog back up toward the house, and finding the golf cart parked in the barn,
Taryn turned the key and drove the cart out to the driveway. She sat in it, her heart racing, as she watched the road and waited for a car to pull up. The excitement was palpable. There was some kind of weird energy permeating the homestead at that moment, some spark of exhilaration that Taryn couldn’t quite put to words. She waited there, her head spinning, focusing in on her task. It felt as though time had slowed down.

  “What are you doing?” asked a voice. Taryn shook out of her dream state and looked in the direction of the voice. It was a smiling Alex.

  “Alex,” said Taryn. “Oh my God. Penny’s having her baby!”

  “What!” Alex called in disbelief. “Right now?”

  “Right now,” Taryn replied. “I’m waiting for her mom to arrive and then I’m to take her down to Penny and Dev’s place.”

  “I’ll see you down there!” Alex said. Without another word, she broke off from Taryn and bolted in the direction of Penny’s house. Taryn watched her run for a moment, before returning her eyes to the road, anxiously awaiting a car to pull up.

  Once Shirley, Penny’s mother, arrived, she and Taryn made their introductions and then Taryn drove her down to the two built out shipping containers that made up Penny and Dev’s home. Shirley was a kind looking woman, very close in appearance to her daughter, with grey hair back in a bun and an excited smile. She was, after all, about to deliver her grandchild. When they reached their destination, they found Alex waiting for them. She jumped forward and she helped Shirley out of the golf cart, then lead her to the door and opened it to let her in.

  Taryn followed, but just as she arrived at the door, looking inside to see the image of a naked Penny sitting in the inflatable pool, a shirtless Dev behind her, Harriet by her side, and Shirley running in to get prepared, Alex closed the door and stepped outside.

  “Oh,” mused Taryn. She broke again from her entrancement. “I was going to go in.”

  “Yeah, not really our place,” Alex replied with a short laugh. “We should give them their privacy.”

  “Totally,” agreed Taryn. She held her head. “Wow. That was such a rush.”