by Beth Neff
Cassie realizes with a start that the group has moved forward and she hurries to catch up. She stands just a little bit apart so that there is no chance someone will feel like they have to move away from her. Grace is still talking about the history of the place, and Cassie notices that Lauren is absorbed with fingering a loose thread on that stolen sweater. Cassie almost smiles to herself at the thought that she and Lauren have something in common. Cassie has stolen something, too.
It’s a book. Stolen—or at least not taken back—from the Davis Township Library. Cassie knows it was checked out in Gordon’s name, knows he will get in trouble when it is not returned. She imagines he will probably have to pay for it, doesn’t know what else the punishment might be. She is pretty sure people don’t go to jail for failing to return a library book. She sees Gordon differently now and doesn’t care even if he has to go to jail. They will not let him pick a farm instead.
Cassie doesn’t know what Gram liked so much about the book on Greece. She never figured out if it was the sounds of particular words or just the last kind of memory that was still available to her when all the other parts of her brain had fizzled out. Though Cassie had the entire book memorized, eventually the only section Gram would let Cassie read was the one about Corfu. Cassie can recite it easily. The beautiful island of Corfu is large enough to contain something for everyone, small enough to be seen in its entirety in just a few wonderful days. . . . Gram always wanted to hear about the Cavalieri Hotel with its “English-style wood-paneled bar” and the Hotel Bella Venezia with “small but tastefully furnished rooms replete with telephones and televisions.” Gram didn’t have a television herself, and it amuses Cassie to imagine traveling to Corfu to watch one. There had been a television, but when the lines got too wavy, Gordon took it away and never replaced it.
She won’t think of Gordon, fights away the sudden sick feeling in her stomach, the spinning sensation in her head. She realizes that her hands are on her abdomen, probing the skin and muscle there, checking for the emptiness the way an older woman might check her breasts for lumps, and she drops them away quickly to her sides. She forces her body to turn toward the group, her expression to appear attentive while she recites in her head, Just outside of Corfu town is the location of the island’s former capital, set on a hilly peak that affords a view of two neighboring islets. . . .
LAUREN CAN’T SLEEP. Or she would be able to sleep if the women weren’t talking right below her open window on the porch. The only voice she can hear is Ellie’s, rising and falling with the same kind of frenzied excitement as the disgusting sparrow that was caught in one of the greenhouses today, swooping over their heads and then fluttering desperately against the windows from the inside. Grace had to herd them all out and then drive the thing toward the door with a broom.
It’s not really a decision, more of a force, that pulls Lauren out of her bed and down the stairs. She creeps into the living room and crouches beside one of the tall windows, finds that, with the light on out there and the darkness in here, she is virtually invisible while she can see and hear everything outside.
They are talking about Jenna. Well, Ellie is talking about Jenna. Grace isn’t saying a word while Ellie paces back and forth in front of her. Ellie sounds like she is describing the discovery of a winning lottery ticket, but Grace is just sitting there. Lauren can’t quite see her face but can tell she is looking down at her lap where her hands are fidgeting with what looks like a ball of string.
“I thought they’d balk with the sign-ups, I really did,” Ellie is saying. “Jenna especially, but it really could have been any of them. Well, you know how I’ve debated over that, didn’t want it to be too complicated but also make the girls feel like they can choose, you know? Concentrate where they feel most comfortable. I should have left the stickers out though. Just the different colors of markers are good enough. Isn’t it funny how they each actually ended up with colors that sort of fit them?”
Grace doesn’t answer and Lauren thinks she just might gag. Funny. Ha-ha. More like ridiculous. Ellie had drawn lines on poster board to make a grid and headed each column with different tasks for the garden and the household. Some things were already scheduled, like when they’d have to be harvesting for market and for the membership program they run, meal preparation, and their group sessions, but some things could be filled in at random, like weeding or just a general garden shift to do whatever you were told to do. It made Lauren feel like she was in kindergarten and yet, because it was all so silly, it seemed stupid to object. Plus, she has no intention of doing all that work, whether she signs up on the stupid chart or not. Nobody is going to make her slave out there in the hot sun all day.
“And did you notice how none of them held back?” Ellie is saying. “Well, there was a little straggling at first but they were just like little ducklings following you in a line through the greenhouses and around the fields. And did you see their faces at the river? I don’t think any of them has ever seen anything like that, the rapids and the swimming hole and the swing and all. They were so quiet. I think they were just mesmerized.”
Lauren has to choke back a laugh. The woman is completely nuts. She personally felt like a goddamn idiot following along in that little line, acting like they were tourists at some tacky roadside attraction. While Ellie was seeing the perfect sunlit May day and the free labor they were going to get for their stupid farm, Lauren was seeing dirt and bugs and heat and envisioning how in the hell she is going to get out of this.
“The first day,” Lauren hears Ellie exclaim. “It’s only the first day!” Saying it like that’s good thing, like there’s actually anything to look forward to in this godforsaken place, a prison parading as a farm.
Then Ellie is standing right in front of Grace, who is still not looking up at her, talking so quietly that Lauren has to lean closer to hear. “You know, you don’t always have to predict the worst, Grace. We’ve gotten this far and nothing awful has happened, and there’s no reason why it should. What harm can it possibly do to think that it might turn out good, that we’re actually going to make it work?”
Grace still doesn’t say anything for awhile and then finally looks at Ellie, who has knelt down in front of her and put her hands on Grace’s knees. Her voice sounds tired, maybe a little angry.
“Obviously we’re going to make it work. We’re doing it, aren’t we? I agreed to do it. But the deal is, you have to remember that my priority, and your priority for me, has got to be the farm. Look, Ellie. We’ve already said everything there is to say about it. I said I understood that it needs to be integrated so I’m going to try to do that, but you can’t expect me to get involved in the ‘therapeutic progress,’ as you call it. That’s your department. You seem to be willing to give up our personal lives for this in a big way, and I don’t think there’s much more I can give up. We’ve talked this all the way through, and I’m not interested in rehashing it.”
“I didn’t mean to rehash. I do understand that this isn’t so much your baby, but I still think there’s a good chance that you may get more out of it than you realize. That it could be a really good experience for you, too.”
“Whatever, Ellie. What you really want to do is remind me that I said I’d do it. I get it, okay? You don’t need me to keep agreeing with you over and over again. Let’s just do what we have to do and see how it turns out. You plan out all your stuff and I’ll plan out mine and, hopefully, we’ll meet somewhere in the middle.”
Lauren can hear in Ellie’s voice that she’s choking up, maybe even crying a little. “Why do you have to put it that way? You’re the one who thinks we have to give up our personal lives, who thinks we have to be so . . . closeted. I don’t think we have anything to hide. I think it’s a good thing for the girls to see women like us making a go of it, working together, loving each other, supporting each other. It seems like you’re making it so it has to be either you or me but n
ot both, my project or yours but not both, the rest of the world against you. There’s nobody out there trying to mess up your life now, Grace.”
Lauren has almost pressed her face against the screen to hear what Grace is going to say in response when she sees a movement just off the edge of the porch, and there is Donna climbing the stairs, holding one end of what looks like a leash and, at the other end . . . a cat? Lauren moves back a bit into the shadows until Donna has had a chance to seat herself on the swing just outside the window. She debates going back up to her room but is afraid she’d be heard, still wants to know what else they might talk about. Right now, they are talking about the stupid cat, and Donna is saying something about which one of the barn cats is the mother and why she chose this particular one to bring inside and train to be a house cat. The others actually seem interested in what she is talking about.
Lauren is almost giddy with everything she has heard, with the adrenaline of successful thievery, no matter its nature. So much has been explained now, the mystery of so many of the day’s weird little exchanges resolved.
It had actually started out pretty well. In fact, the peach coffee cake that Donna had made for breakfast smelled so good, like something an old-timey grandmother would make, that Lauren had even had to try some. The table was laid so pretty, reminded Lauren of her mother’s parties when she hired that Anna Maria to cater, everything sparkling, the sun prisming through the juice glasses. Ellie had looked downright radiant, her hair still wet from the shower, wearing crisp khaki shorts and a lemony yellow polo shirt, her eyes bright, though Lauren still thinks she’d look better with a little makeup. Lauren had noticed Grace watching her, too, seeming a bit dazzled, the same expression Lauren has noticed on her dad’s face in her parents’ wedding pictures, something like pride. Ellie was much more relaxed than she had been last night, confident, funny, even.
She told the girls as soon as everyone was seated at the breakfast table, “The first thing you need to know is that we didn’t start this program because we think the farm is a good place to send people for punishment.” She even got a few smirks with that one.
She went on, “You were invited to come here because we don’t think mistakes should exclude you from the best possible future.” That was the second time she’d mentioned mistakes, and Lauren wonders if that’s going to be some kind of theme, rectifying mistakes, maybe even some religious thing going on, though she admits she doesn’t see the typical signs of religious fervor. Ellie explained that the farm was a lot of work and that all of them would be expected to help out; in fact, by being here, they were committed to help, but that was because working together to accomplish a goal is how people learn compassion, both for themselves and for others.
“We believe in food around here, in case you haven’t noticed or guessed,” she’d said, smiling with that kind of quirky half-grin that Lauren has already noticed is her way of showing that she’s not taking herself too seriously. “Even if you don’t fall in love with farming or cooking or anything related to food while you’re here, we hope you’ll at least learn what that love might feel like.” Thinking it over now, Lauren realizes that is the religion, this food thing. She’s certain that’s what it is, when people think their way is best and try to force it on you, start talking about stuff like love. Whatever this is all about, Lauren knows she’ll be able to resist getting caught up in it.
It was all downhill from there. At first, it seemed like Grace was the one in charge. She led them all outside and showed them all the different vegetable beds, talked about how they put things in different places every year, a rotation, and all the good reasons to do that, though Lauren drifted off during that part. Grace went on for a while about the history of the place, how it had belonged to her grandparents, how she’d quit a graduate program to come back and help run it when her grandma died and, within two months, her grandfather had had the first of his strokes. It was boring, and Lauren couldn’t see how any of that had anything to do with the work they were going to have to do.
Then Grace spent a whole lot of time, long enough that Lauren’s legs started to get tired and she would have sat down if there had been any place to sit but right on the ground, explaining about the CSA. Community Supported Agriculture—Lauren remembers that part. Pretty much, it was about how they get their money, how they have these people pay for the food before they get it, buy a membership and then get this basket full of whatever is ready that week all summer long. The main part she heard, though, is that, if they’re going to keep those baskets filled, and also sell extra stuff at the farmers market each week, they all have to pitch in.
And that wasn’t even all of it. Then they had to hear about what it means to be organic, how the farm is like nature, a system all dependent on the health of the soil. They’d all had to kneel down and supposedly touch the soil, hold a chunk of it in their hands. Lauren had knelt like the rest of them, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to touch that dirt any more than absolutely necessary. It was bad enough how it clung to the sides of her flip-flops and got inside, making the bottoms of her feet brown.
They’d looked in the greenhouses next, all hot and steamy from the sun and packed with all these different kinds of plants, floor to ceiling, some of them on these shelves that Grace could raise and lower with this rope thingy she’d invented. Lauren had just been wondering how the plants turned into food when Sarah asked if all of them were going to have to be moved to the garden. Lauren doesn’t know how she knew that, figures Sarah was probably just trying to get on Grace’s good side, but the answer was yes. The greenhouse is just a temporary place for them, where they can be coddled while they are still babies, Grace had told them. Nobody said a word for quite a while after that, like the sheer immensity of the undertaking, the amount of hard work headed their way, had just dawned on them.
Then Donna had been out feeding the kitchen scraps to the chickens and so Ellie had asked her to tell about the chicken tractor, a pen with rollers they keep the chickens in, and how they move it from place to place to add the waste and fertility to all the fields and get weeding help from the chickens besides, plus healthy chickens and eggs with all the greens they get to eat. Lauren actually got a little sick to her stomach then, tried to imagine how these disgusting creatures with that floppy red skin around their faces and those creepy yellow feet scratching around in the dirt could actually become something someone wanted to eat. She decided that the animals they use to get chicken at the grocery store or for KFC must be a completely different kind of bird.
They were supposed to walk around the other side of the house to the marsh, but Ellie said it was getting pretty late and maybe they should just have their lunch. Grace seemed like she didn’t agree, was already headed in the other direction when Ellie said that, so, for just a second, it was kind of a standoff but then Grace gave in and just followed along, though not right up with the group. From that point on, Ellie was the one in charge, leading them back to the river, handing out sandwiches, passing around the chips, filling cups from the thermos Donna had left sitting in the shade along with the picnic basket containing their lunches.
While they were eating, Ellie told about when she first moved here to the farm herself, how she didn’t know the name of a single bird or tree, or have any idea where most of the food she ate came from. It seemed like she was trying to tell them how anybody can adapt, that any city kid can just come out here and become a farmer, and it really pissed Lauren off. It was like she wanted them to believe that pretty soon they’d be all excited about callouses on their hands and heat stroke.
Then Ellie told them how, after she got used to things here, she could barely stop herself from sneaking back to the river to swing into the cool water from the rope swing, even when she could see the million things there were to do. God, what a joke. As if anybody couldn’t figure out in the first ten seconds of knowing her that Ellie wasn’t the type of person to ever really
break the rules, wouldn’t inconvenience someone or avoid her duties for all the tea in China, as Lauren’s grandma used to say. She was trying to make them believe that she could possibly have a single thing in common with juvenile criminals who have been pulled off the streets for things like drugs and prostitution. It was completely transparent and, in fact, Lauren can’t imagine why she would want to, and is going to do everything she can think of to prevent anyone from confusing her with the rest of them.
She also can’t imagine why Ellie doesn’t realize that they can all see her for exactly what she is: a person who wants to be at the center of attention. She just has this program, Lauren is certain, so she can be some kind of hero, have all these girls who will love her and shower her with affection and tell her how she saved their lives. And, wouldn’t you know it, that was exactly when they started talking about the group sessions Ellie was planning for a couple of days each week. Lauren hates therapists, psychologists, the whole concept of counseling, has ever since she was a kid and her parents made her go “talk to someone” about what they called her “social problems.” It’s clear that Ellie is just another one, right out of the same mold as all the others, just as self-absorbed and manipulative, but maybe even more dangerous, a woman, Lauren realizes now as she lurks in the living room, who likes girls.
Okay. This is starting to make sense. Ellie doesn’t exactly fit the bill, but Grace does. She’s certainly masculine enough—the big muscles, the short hair, the way she walks with her feet apart, wears clothes that hide instead of define her figure. Today, back at the river, she’d sat off from the rest of them on a big tree stump while the girls and Ellie arranged themselves along the length of the prone trunk that Grace said came down in a storm last fall. Lauren noticed how closely Grace was watching Jenna. Lauren herself couldn’t help but see how the girl wolfed down her food, like she didn’t want to get caught eating. When she was done, Jenna had sat there perfectly still, almost like a statue, watching every bird and following every dragonfly with her eyes, studying the ripples in the water so intently that Lauren wanted to look too, see whatever Jenna was seeing there. Grace tried to look like she was busy eating, but her eyes kept coming back to Jenna. It totally gave Lauren the creeps, like Grace was some kind of Peeping Tom or something, her gaze trying to invade the invisible wall that girls like Jenna always erect around themselves.