"What is this?" he asked.
I stared at the building and the hard-packed earth surrounding it. Save for text messages promising to follow up soon, I hadn't heard from Barry in a full month. Our last real conversation was right here, when he was seeing the site for himself. It was classic Barry.
"When we're done, it will put this town on the farm-to-cup tourism map with a craft distillery and dining venue. It's progress." I tipped my chin toward the building. "That's what I'm hoping it is." When I saw the contractor's truck rumble down the road, I stepped out of the car and waved for Nate. "You're welcome to come along. It might not be much entertainment, but it's gotta be better than kicking rocks."
He jogged around the back side of the car to join me. At the entrance to the cider house, he flattened his hand on the door, saying, "Hold up. It would really help my ability to process all of this if you could tell me when you're going to start hiding the knives and locking up the cough syrup."
Through his windshield, I watched the general contractor plow a glazed donut. I glanced back at Nate. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think anything would stop you if you were determined to start using again. Not me, not the sheriff, not a lock on the medicine cabinet." He dropped his gaze, banded his arms over his chest. "I'm running one business by myself while trying to get a second off the ground. I don't have the time to babysit you and even if I did, that shit sounds boring as hell. If you think I'm reporting back to Sheriff Lau or your probation officer or anyone else, you've miscalculated the time I have on my hands."
Nate hesitated before saying, "I don't know anything about bartending."
The contractor popped another donut in his mouth. Jelly, this time. "What do you know about?"
"Books. Poetry." He lifted his shoulders, dropped them with a sigh. "The treatment facility I was at this summer had a gardening program. It was nice. Everyone tended their own piece of land."
Considering this, I shifted toward the ocean. Nate did the same. "And you learned something? From the gardens?"
"I learned that flowers and fruit are the last stages in a plant's life cycle," he answered. "That tons of growth takes place underground, where no one sees it. And that it might look like nothing is happening for so long that people wonder whether it's unhealthy or the soil isn't draining well or it doesn't belong in this climate, but that plant is busy gathering the strength to bloom. That's what I learned."
The contractor slammed his truck door shut and wiped his paws on the seat of his jeans. I raised a hand, waving him toward us. To Nate, I said, "I'll teach you what you need to know about mixing drinks and pulling pints. The rest of it is listening while someone tells you how their garden grows." I clapped him on the back. "If you stick around, that is."
Chapter Ten
Brooke
Covenants: The conditions agreed to in the process of financing debt, intended to protect the lender’s interests.
November
Annette: Let's go to the Galley tonight.
Brooke: This isn't a good night for me.
Annette: Tomorrow?
Brooke: Maybe not.
Annette: Come on…I realize it's not the swankiest spot, but we get to drink liquor and annoy JJ. That sounds like a great outing to me and we haven't been there in ages. Like, full months.
Brooke: I need to keep a handle on things around here.
Annette: Is everything all right?
Brooke: Yeah.
Brooke: No.
Brooke: I don't know.
Annette: It's okay, sweetie. We don't have to go out. I can bring some snacks and wine over.
Brooke: That works. Thank you for dealing with all my quirks.
Annette: Don't mention it. You deal with mine.
* * *
December
Annette: I regret to inform you that I am dead.
Annette: I've died.
Annette: Remember me fondly.
Brooke: This is fascinating for me because I'm usually the one coming out with outrageous comments and you're the one saying, Uh huh. Okay. Care to unpack that for me?
Annette: Please don't enjoy my death.
Brooke: Let's start with this. Why are you dead and how did you die?
Annette: Allow me to set the scene.
Brooke: Should I pour a glass of wine for this?
Annette: It's not even 9 a.m. yet, so maybe not.
Brooke: Seems like an arbitrary reason, but okay. Set the scene.
Annette: It's early this morning. Before Jackson's alarm goes off. We're having sex and things are good. As far as pre-dawn sex goes, it's real nice.
Brooke: I don't even remember what pre-dawn sex is like.
Annette: Oh, honey.
Brooke: Ignore me. Carry on. Seriously, I need to find out how you died.
Annette: Like I said, real nice pre-dawn sex…until a sound emerges from my body.
Annette: It was a deep squelching sound. A cross between a deflating windbag and aggressively stirring macaroni and cheese.
Annette: And it might've been fine if it happened just once. But much in the way aftershocks follow an earthquake, there were several smaller but equally noticeable squelches.
Brooke: Some might call that a queef.
Annette: No. A queef is too dainty for this noise. This was aggressive. Like a vaginal cannon blast. I don't know how he stayed inside me.
Brooke: What did you do?
Annette: I died. Right there on the bed.
Brooke: How did Jackson handle it? Did he say anything?
Annette: He paused for a second and then said, Okay, back to business.
Brooke: I love him so much. Are you certain we can't negotiate a sister-wife agreement?
Annette: We are reserving a room for you in the new house, but I don't see any polyamory in our future.
Annette: Not unless Jackson is down at the station, rethinking his life choices on account of the noise violations from my downstairs.
Brooke: What was his expression? Did he look shocked or concerned or amused? He couldn't have been that mortified since he kept going.
Annette: I couldn't see his expression.
Brooke: Ah. All right.
Brooke: Well, so what? It was a queef. A super loud one. Given that you two live together, I'm sure there are other unpleasant things he's witnessed.
Annette: It's easier to keep up the charade than you might think.
Brooke: There's one bathroom at your place. There's no room for charades when you share a bathroom.
Annette: You're forgetting that my shop is a three-minute walk from the house and there's a perfectly private bathroom there.
Brooke: Oh my god, Annette. You're leading a double life. You can't marry this man if you've led him to believe you don't poop. It's deceptive and wrong. I won't let it happen.
Annette: It's irrelevant because I'm dead.
Brooke: You're not dead. You just don't like living through a moment where Jackson thinks you're anything but a delicate little lady who doesn't poop.
Brooke: We can look at this a few different ways.
Annette: Which is why I love you.
Brooke: First, certain positions can be noisier. That has nothing to do with you or him or anything other than the acrobatics.
Annette: It's never happened in that position before.
Brooke: Which brings me to my second point. Maybe Jackson has a really big dick and it just…you know…forces a lot of air in there.
Annette: It's his fault?
Brooke: Why the fuck not?
Brooke: But why does it have to be anyone's fault? All kinds of horrible things happen during sex.
Annette: Examples, please.
Brooke: I've done all of these things during sex: cut myself on a guy's gnarly toenail and bled all over his sheets, punched a guy in the nose, forgotten about a tampon, elbowed a guy in the eye, started my period, puked in a guy's lap because his dick smelled like a sewer, and peed the bed.
Annette: Yo
u peed the bed?
Brooke: I know, I know. I was young and I didn't know how to get up and go to the bathroom in the morning without waking the guy.
Annette: So…you peed the bed?!?
Brooke: No, I stayed in bed and held it. But then he woke up and wanted to have sex. Again, I was young. Like, 21. And I figured it was fine, I'd pee later.
Annette: But that wasn't how it worked out, huh?
Brooke: Nope. In the middle of sex, peed the bed. I told him it was some special girly juice from him being super good at sex.
Annette: Did he believe that?
Brooke: Sadly, yes.
Annette: That toenail story was disgusting.
Brooke: You don't even know. I insisted on getting a tetanus shot.
Annette: The most awful thing to happen to me during sex was this morning.
Brooke: You see? It wasn't that bad.
Annette: You say that but I'm still convinced it was pretty bad. It was explosive. Vagina cannon, I tell you.
Brooke: Perhaps you have a wide-set vagina. That, coupled with the really big dick and the position, could set the stage for a vagina cannon moment.
Annette: We're just going to blame Jackson, okay?
Brooke: Remember you're having good morning sex and I'm not, okay?
* * *
January
Annette: I want to redecorate the back room at the shop. It's really dreary and boring in there.
Brooke: You're just noticing this now?
Annette: Actually, yes. I've never used it as more than a place to store boxes because I handled business stuff in my apartment.
Brooke: If you tell me that Jackson keeps you on your back too much to handle your paperwork, I'm going to die.
Brooke: Not on the spot, but soon.
Annette: Helpful clarification.
Brooke: I'll wander into the woods and wait for the elements to claim me. That would be better than hearing about the sex life you won't share with me.
Annette: Sometimes I have trouble determining whether you're being serious…
Brooke: You're doing fine.
Annette: You do realize you're hot as fuck, right?
Brooke: What does that have to do with anything?
Annette: You're going to argue with me on this, but you're a good person too. You're a little psycho, but you're kindhearted about it.
Brooke: Are you…are you hitting on me?
Brooke: Although I have yet to act on it, I've always considered myself a Kinsey 2 or 3 but I thought you were MUCH closer to a 0 than this conversation suggests.
Annette: What?
Brooke: I love you, I really, really do, but I don't think I want our relationship to change and there are times when I really need some dick in my life.
Brooke: And this is one of those times.
Annette: What are we talking about?
Brooke: You were putting the moves on me.
Annette: I was not.
Annette: I was gently reminding you that you can get a sex life of your own and stop trying to insert yourself into mine.
Brooke: I'm definitely looking for some insertion.
Annette: ANYWAY.
Annette: If I mentioned to a few people that you're looking, you'd have a line at your door in 10 minutes.
Brooke: omfg stop.
Brooke: Talk about ugly storage rooms. Please.
Annette: Let me forage for you.
Brooke: I love you but oh my god no.
Annette: You don't trust me to find someone you'd like?
Brooke: If I needed to cover up a crime, you'd be the first person I call.
Annette: My fiancé, the sheriff, would have some…concerns…about that.
Brooke: I'd want you to clear my browser history, reset my phone, and discreetly dispose of my vibrators if I died suddenly.
Annette: And I'd want the same.
Brooke: I'd trust you to give me an at-home Brazilian wax.
Annette: That's special.
Brooke: But I don't want you matchmaking for me, dearie.
Annette: And why is that?
Brooke: Because you believe in love and relationships and knowing the person's name before you have sex with them.
Annette: You deserve that, you know.
Brooke: I recognize what you're doing. You're giving me all the shit I gave you.
Annette: You are the smart one in this relationship.
Brooke: But the difference between me giving you shit then and what you're doing now is you had a man carrying your panties with him as a good luck charm, and I am not the subject of anyone's obsession.
Annette: That did not occur.
Brooke: Mmmm agree to disagree. Let's get back to the storage room before I have to deal with the fallout over Dad rejecting whatever his caregivers made for dinner because all of his triggers seem to be food-related. Please.
Annette: I don't like bringing work home. I'd rather do it at the shop, but the back room is depressing. It needs some warmth and motivation.
Brooke: In my old office, in New York, I had a huge reproduction of a Georgia O'Keefe painting framed behind my desk. A complicated red flower. Actually huge. At least 5 feet wide, probably 8 feet tall.
Brooke: People (and by people, I mean men) would stare at it. As per male usual, they never knew what they were seeing.
Annette: Pussy power much?
Brooke: My workplace was filled with men who used their penises to activate touch screens. Men who insulted each other with stories of fucking each other's wives and mothers. Men who loved a good rape joke.
Brooke: You bet your ass I decorated with pussy power.
Annette: Where is it now? I'm not sure I have the wall space for a giant red vagina painting, but I like the idea.
Brooke: It's in a storage facility outside Manhattan.
Brooke: Along with the remains of my hold on reality.
Chapter Eleven
JJ
Collateral: assets which can be repossessed in the event of loan default.
There were a lot of things I didn't know about starting a business. It was no skin off my back to learn, as I'd been doing that since taking over the Galley from my aunt and uncle years ago. But there was a substantial difference between figuring out the food and beverage business as I went and banging my head into walls because it was better than making sense of building codes and licensing permit paperwork.
That was how I found myself chucking a binder at Sheriff Lau's head.
"Whoa there," he called, swerving in the doorway to avoid the offending binder. It hit the wall and thumped the floor. "Should I take that personally?"
I leaned back in my chair, regarding him as he stood before my desk. "Give it a try and don't tell me how it works out for you."
Finding no humor in my suggestion, he went on staring at me with a cool, flat expression I was certain he received with his badge and uniform. "Can I borrow a moment of your time?"
"Only if you intend on returning it." He offered more of that cool flatness in response and I wished I had another binder to throw simply for the purpose of snapping him out of it. "What do you need, sheriff?"
He settled into a chair, saying, "I've heard from several different people that you know how to stop Audee Netishen from shooting the deer and moose he lures onto his property."
"It's always something with that old fucker," I muttered. "I bet he's telling you it's legit because he's not hunting outside the state's season and bag limits, but protecting his home."
The sheriff nodded. "That's correct."
"And I bet he also has a peck or two of apples piled up on his property."
Another nod. "Also correct."
"He does that," I said, reaching for my glass of water. "He hires high school kids to harvest his apple trees every autumn, but then he leaves them in his damn barn three or four months. Because he's a crazy old fucker, he carts them all out in December and January, leaves a peck right in front of his house, and bags some dee
r from the comfort of his recliner. His wife sells the jerky at one of those big farmers markets up in Orono."
"Sounds like a lot of work," he said.
"Sounds like you don't know much about hunting," I replied. "I don't have an interest, but I grew up with it and I can tell you it's much easier to cart some apples out from a barn than it is to get geared up and sit in the woods all day."
"And that's how you know the magic word to getting Netishen in line?"
I barked out a laugh. "We used to be neighbors. My family lived next door to the Netishens for twenty years. My father planned his entire year around the season. He loved hunting, but he was a lot like you, sheriff. By the book." I paused, ran my tongue over my teeth. "He worked as a game warden until the day he died. Every time he saw Audee dragging those apples out of his barn, he told him he'd permanently lose his hunting license if he bagged so much as a goose. They had the same conversation two or three times each winter."
"That's all it takes?" the sheriff asked. "A warning?"
With as much patience as I could muster, I gestured at his sheriff's garb, saying, "From a game warden. Guys like Audee know the system better than the state does and they know you"—I pointed at his badge—"aren't pulling his license. Call the Augusta office and fill them in. They'll send a warden down."
He bobbed his head as he took in this information. "There are moments when I forget I'm still a newcomer here." He glanced up at me with the barest of smirks. "But then I'm sent here to get a history lesson and a shove in the right direction."
"No one in this town will give you a simple answer when the complicated one makes more sense to them," I said, laughing. "Give it a few years, you'll be doing it too."
"I suppose I should thank you for that lesson as well," he said.
"That one is on the house," I replied.
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