An April Love Story: A Cooney Classic Romance

by Caroline B. Cooney

  But we were outdoors, and it was the end of April, and the apple trees on the hill were pink and white with bloom against an emerald green meadow, and a few dozen yards away from me, Lucas was painting the board fence.

  From their side of the wire-lined boards, the goats, geese, chickens, cow—yes, we got a cow—watched with great interest. From my side, I watched with greater interest. I loved seeing Lucas bend, reach, and stretch, dipping the brush, or wiping his hands on a rag I’d found for him. My rag, I’d think, going maudlin over an old torn blouse with paint daubs on it.

  “Yes, Mother?”

  “You’re different.” She said it firmly, nodding to herself as if this were a prize at the fair. “A lot of the things we hoped for when we came here have happened to you. You’re more thoughtful. Slower. Easier to live with. Do you—do you feel different?”

  “Yes, I guess I do.”

  “Is it a better feeling, or a worse one?”

  “I don’t know, Mother. I really don’t.” I wanted to add that having a crush on Lucas was certainly complicating the issue.

  “Do you like the farm at least a little now?” she said wistfully.

  It was so difficult to know how to answer when she or my father asked me things like that. I couldn’t bring myself to hurt their feelings with my real feelings. Anyway, I hardly ever knew what my real feelings were.

  The farm was not home for me. Home still meant a warm yellow apartment on the eleventh floor, with a view of a sprawling city, and all that the word “city” implies.

  Yet nothing tugged at my heart more than the sight of our orchard in bloom, or my own newborn ducklings taking their first walk. Nothing except Lucas, that is.

  I felt as if the farm had taught me a thousand lessons that my parents had been right in guessing I needed to learn.

  But I had learned them.

  I’d gotten straight A’s, in fact, and now I deserved to graduate. To go back to the city (by now, I’d have settled for any city) where I belonged.

  Yet Lucas was here, accepting his responsibilities, for at least another year, and I was settled at Valley High. And when the scenery included Lucas peeling off his shirt again because the sun was so hot, I had to admit that there was no place I’d rather be than right here, making soap, watching him.

  For a moment I considered pulling off my shirt. That should attract a little attention of the non-sisterly variety.

  “Yes,” I said to my mother, laughing at myself, “I guess I like it here.”

  She hugged herself with delight. (She couldn’t hug me because I was pouring the lye.)

  We talked about the farm, or rather, she talked and I listened. Lyrically she told me of all the things that made her so happy. Me, for instance. Seeing me smile so much. The chores like soapmaking. Cheesemaking. Seeing the trees in bloom. Having the companionship that only very hard work and good results can bring between people. “Is it spring?” said my mother. “Or the farm? Or school? Or what?”

  “What do you mean?” I said

  “Making you smile so often. Every time I glance your way, you seem to have this private little pleasure about something.”

  I added a few small sticks to the fire under the soap kettle.

  I checked the lye.

  I stared at my feet.

  Finally I said, “Well, I have this crush on this boy.”

  “Marnie, how nice! April and young love. It’s perfect. Who is he?”

  I couldn’t go into details. She would know there weren’t too many intellectual, yet agriculturally knowledgeable, six-foot, eighteen-year-old blonds around. “He’s super,” I said.

  She giggled. “I remember when I fell in love for the first time. It was with my best friend’s date and I was never able to tell a single soul. I pined for that boy for months.”

  “Did you like being in love?”

  “I’m in love right now, Marnie. With your father and this farm.”

  That was how she was going to be. I went back to the soap.

  “But you mean the first parts of love, don’t you? I guess the answer would be yes and no. Being in love is awfully time-consuming.”

  “I’ve noticed.”

  “Sometimes it seems as if life doesn’t contain anything but that boy, and sometimes you feel as if anybody but you would handle the situation more intelligently. But it’s a dizzy, swooping sort of thing, to be in love. Like a barn swallow, I’ve always thought.”

  We talked about love and crushes and kisses. She looked so young and happy, and so sort of romantic, in the kind of clothing she had started wearing once we moved to the farm, that it was like watching someone on TV, not at all like glancing over at my mother. We talked about her, though, not about me. I could tell Mother was dying to know more about my feelings, but didn’t want to press me. Finally I said, “He doesn’t know I’m alive.”

  Her face fell. “Marnie, how awful. I remember the plight well. How are you going to show him that you are alive?”

  It was such a relief to see that she really understood and cared! I have an ally, I thought. “I don’t know,” I said. “It’s definitely a problem.”

  “What matters to him? Clothing? Ballgames? Cars?”

  “No, I don’t think any of that appeals to him much.”

  “I like him already,” said Mother, and we giggled the way Susannah and I used to giggle. Mother was biting her lips with pleasure.

  “You’re really enjoying this,” I teased her.

  “I love remembering the nice parts of growing up,” she said. “There are a lot of small happy things, like having a crush.”

  “There’s nothing small about it. And lots of times it isn’t very happy, either.”

  We went back to the soap.

  Lucas finished the portion of fence he was doing and moved over to the animals’ side to paint. The goats nuzzled him with great interest, wanting to drink out of the paint can and lick his brush. One of the kids chewed happily on Lucas’ trouser leg and the chickens skittered between his feet to see what everybody was so interested in. Lucas muttered and jerked and swung his legs gently at all of them to scatter them and they moved over an inch or so and started right in again on his legs.

  I felt a certain envy. How come goats could nuzzle Lucas and I couldn’t even talk to him?

  “I’m trying to think how to solve your problem,” said my mother. “This is the age of feminism, so maybe you could ask him for a date.”

  I could see myself leaning over the wet fence, shoving the nanny goat out of range, and asking Lucas if he wanted to go to the movies with me. I, who had no ticket money, no gas money, no driver’s license, no time, and probably wasn’t the girl he’d want to go with anyway.

  “I could give you a little money,” said my mother. “I always keep a bit hoarded away.”

  The use of money to achieve happiness is absolutely forbidden in our two families these days. I was really touched that she would think my crush important enough to be willing to break the rules and spend the precious money for it. How strange, I thought. Back in the city none of us would have thought twice about ten dollars here or twenty dollars there. Now it’s a gift. A sacrifice.

  “I do care, Marnie,” said my mother softly. “And I remember how it feels.”

  “I can’t drive,” I said, shrugging off the idea. Actually I was afraid to ask Lucas. If he went with me—and he probably would—it would just be to get off the farm. It wouldn’t be for the pleasure of my company.

  “I know!” said Mother excitedly. “Lucas could invite a date, too, and the four of you could double, and he would do the driving.”

  I blushed.

  I couldn’t stop myself from looking at Lucas, and blushing harder, looking away and then blushing again.

  “Oh,” said my mother. “Oh.” She bit her lip again and began laughing very softly.

  “It isn’t funny!” I whispered furiously.

  “Oh, no, honey, I agree, it isn’t funny at all. I’m not laughing, if you kno
w what I mean, I’m just kind of, well, I’m—”

  “Laughing,” I said sulkily.

  “Because I love you. Because I love Lucas.”

  We made soap. It was my turn to stir. You have to stir at a distance to keep the lye fumes from reaching your nose and after a while your wrists ache and you risk getting careless.

  We tested the mix for thickness. We still have trouble guessing when it’s cooked enough. Our last soap batch separated. “I think it’s right,” said my mother dubiously. We added the coloring—Aunt Ellen had made a pink extract from boiled tulip blossoms—and the thick, dark tan soap turned a vague ruddy color. “Oh, well,” said Mother. “Get ready.”

  We took our triple-folded potholders, turned the huge pot very carefully, and began to fill the rack of molds. We’re both nervous that we’re going to burn ourselves and we pour without breathing, so every time we tilt the pot back we gasp a little. When it was done we set the pot on gravel and stepped back, as relieved as if we’d just lived through major surgery.

  “I think you’re right, dear,” said my mother.

  “That we should just buy it?”

  “Nonsense. That you’re just part of the general endurance test here at the farm for Lucas. We do have a problem with Lucas, Marnie. How are we going to make him see a girl instead of the other half of a chore?”

  “Oh, Mother, I try to help him with something and he says, ‘No, thanks, Marnie, I can do it myself.’ I try to help with something else and he says, ‘Oh, did you want to do that? Great, then you do it and I’ll go somewhere else and do something else.’”

  Mother frowned. “How about school?”

  “We don’t have any classes together. Or even lunch. We sat together on the bus exactly once. He always sits with the boys and I always sit with Connie.”

  “Hmmmm. It doesn’t sound too promising, does it? How do you feel about the direct approach? A little heart-to-heart talk with Lucas so he’ll know how you feel?”

  “Ugh.”

  “Why not?”

  “Mother, I don’t want to instruct him! I don’t want to outline a romance for him. I want him to want it.”

  “True. Well, then, I guess the first thing is to get you two off together where you don’t have a chore to share or animals or apples to worry about. Or school to interfere.” She frowned even more deeply, but it wasn’t an angry frown. It was an I’m-giving-this-a-lot-of-thought frown. “He really is cute, isn’t he?” she said, looking at the paint brush going back and forth over the white boards.

  I agreed.

  “I know, Marnie! We need some supplies from that store in Boone, the one that specializes in odd homesteading gear. Now, Boone is two hours away, which is four hours stuck in seats next to each other. Furthermore, there’s lots to do in Boone. Restaurants. Movies. Hanging Rock Park. That little mountain railroad amusement park. I’ll make up your shopping list, but you two can spend the whole day and evening there. You’d be having fun together, not just working side by side. And maybe you could take his hand and maybe he would realize you didn’t need his hand, you just liked his hand.”

  “Yeah. The hand I put a nail through.”

  Mother exploded with giggles. “It’ll be something to tell your grandchildren about, Marnie. See that dent in Grampa’s hand?”

  “Mother, I haven’t even dated him and you have grandchildren here.”

  “I like to plan ahead.”

  We both giggled, like junior high girls in the back row when the teacher isn’t looking. Lucas glanced up for a moment, saw nothing particularly amusing, and went back to his painting.

  “You may not think farm life is ideal,” said my mother, “but just look what it did for Lucas.”

  “I look, Mother,” I said. “Believe me, I look.”

  Chapter XI

  LUCAS BRAKED HARD AND took in his breath sharply. “Marnie,” he said suddenly, reaching across the open space between our seats in the VW bus, and grabbing my hand. “Marnie, what is that?”

  For a second I was actually scared. I looked around fearfully and then I burst out laughing. “Don’t be afraid, son,” I said robustly. “It’s called a stoplight. I know you’ve never seen anything like it before, but it isn’t vicious.” I kept hanging onto his hand. What do you know, Mother was right that handholding would be step one!

  “I wasn’t sure,” said Lucas. “The way it was blinking at me, way up on that wire, I thought it might leap, or attack us, or something.”

  Several cars behind us honked. “The natives are restless,” I said.

  “Perhaps I should move on, then.”

  The light had been green for some time.

  “I usually require two hands to drive and change gears, Marnie.”

  I blushed, dropping his right hand. Lucas found a space, in a parking lot behind a row of stores. We hopped out, locked up the bus, and stood marveling at the handsome asphalt. “Look at the way those white lines so neatly divide the place up into little car cubicles,” said Lucas.

  “Ah, civilization.” I stooped to pick up somebody’s litter. “I love you.”

  “Look at that,” said Lucas. “Feast your eyes, Marnie. A neon sign.”

  “Urban blight,” I observed. “City decay. Revolting.”

  “And I love it,” said Lucas. “It’s actually noisy here. Horns honking instead of geese.”

  “And that,” I said, “that over there is something I’ve yearned for for thirteen months.” I took his hand again and pulled him my way.

  “What? I don’t see anything.”

  “A traffic jam.”

  Lucas grinned. “Beats strawberry jam any day.”

  We stood on that corner, holding hands and laughing like fools for at least fifteen minutes. I am sure any passerby must have thought we were high on some vile, mind-bending drug. It would have been quite difficult to explain that a mere trip into a little country city (stretching my previous definition of city) had given us both a good fit of giggles.

  “Do you see that criminal over there?” said Lucas, whispering and nudging me.

  “No, where?”

  “That woman with the three innocent little children.”

  “What’s she doing to them?”

  “She’s buying them soda pop. And potato chips laced with preservatives! And sin of sins, Twinkies.”

  “Lucas, I have a confession to make.”

  “Confess, confess.”

  “I am being overcome by a deep, overwhelming need for a Twinkie.”

  “I just happen to have some money with me. May I offer the lady a Twinkie?”

  We marched into the store and stood gazing at the racks of junk food. “I feel a twinge of guilt coming on,” said Lucas. “My mother saying, we gave you our hard-earned money so you could betray our standards like this?”

  “Is it just a twinge?” I said. “With determination, you can overcome a mere twinge.”

  So he bought two packs of Twinkies and we strolled down the main drag of Boone, happily chewing.

  “Marnie, I have made a discovery,” said Lucas.

  “Please be so good as to reveal it.”

  Lucas stood over a trash basket, chained to the sidewalk—I could imagine our parents’ reactions to a society where even the trash baskets would be stolen—and dropped in his second Twinkie. “Your sweet rolls are a lot better,” he said. “Spoiled me.”

  I couldn’t even say thank you. Getting a compliment from Lucas wrapped Scotch tape around my tongue, like old times. Don’t let me freeze up, God. Please, I prayed, let me still be able to talk to him.

  I spotted a sign with an arrow pointing to the college campus. I hadn’t known Boone was a college town. I wondered if Lucas did; if thinking about college might ruin our day for us.

  We went into a handcrafts shop to check out their wares, but there wasn’t much there we didn’t already have or couldn’t make ourselves.

  Next door was a ski apparel store, having a half-price, end-of-season sale. Even at that there
was nothing we could afford. And, as Lucas pointed out, shiny, emerald-green ski vests didn’t seem right for mucking out the stable.

  We found a bookstore where Lucas wandered longingly up and down the aisles. I was amazed when he chose a book on carpentry instead of some of the new fiction. “I’m just not that interested in fiction right now,” he explained. “I have so much more to learn about all the skills we need to make a success of that old orchard.”

  “Carpentry to make a success of the orchard? You going to build your own trees?”

  “Well, no. Actually I want to make a special bed for myself, with built-in drawers and shelves and ledges. You don’t know how I envy you having that nifty loft. I have that dark little closet at the back of the house and I have to share it with Mason jars. As soon as I figure out how to build my bed, I’m going to enclose the side porch and build in storage there so I can get that kitchen junk out of my room.”

  “You ought to paint your room. It’s that dreary tan right now.”

  “I’m not good with colors. What do you think I should use?”

  “It’s so dark in there. I’d take a bright white enamel and one glossy trim color. Maybe a slick navy blue.”

  “Sounds good. I’ll do that.”

  We had reached the store where our supplies could be purchased. It was a sort of general farm store, featuring everything from fireboxes to horse collars—old-fashioned things that mechanically equipped farmers don’t have much need for. Much to our surprise, we found ourselves wandering around in there with more eagerness than we’d felt in any of the other stores. We were greatly taken with the tools that made jobs easier or quicker. “Look at this,” I exclaimed. “A strawberry huller. A bean slicer. A corn kernel cutter. A cherry stoner.”

  “We don’t have a cherry tree.”

  “Don’t say it so loud. Your father will hear you and immediately plant a dozen.”

  Lucas and I found lamp wicks, a set of funnels, poultry shears, a chimney-cleaning brush, and a boot jack, crossing them off the list. We added grafting wax, a soil test kit, a manure fork which would be much easier to handle than the heavy old pitchfork we’d been using, and a new axe handle. I bought three pounds of coffee as my special splurge and Lucas chose a maximum-minimum thermometer.