Getting Somewhere

by Beth Neff

  “You mean, could I live on my own?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No. I used to think I was already, but it wasn’t the real world.”

  When Jenna doesn’t say anything, she goes on. “I feel like I should know more about that as I get older. Instead, it seems like all I learn is how little I actually know.”

  Jenna is nodding, looks so pained that Cassie is instantly convinced she has said something hurtful or that what she has said makes no sense at all. But then Jenna says, “Yeah, I know.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why do you think that is?”

  “I guess maybe it’s because now we know it doesn’t have to be the way it’s been for us. We just haven’t learned yet how to make it different.”

  Cassie thinks that’s exactly it, and feels, for the first time, a tiny spark of hope.

  FRIDAY, JULY 6

  “SO, IT WAS ALL JUST A LIE, IS THAT IT? YOU NEVER intended for any of us to go along to town in the first place.”

  “No, Lauren. That is not at all what I’m saying.” Ellie sighs deeply and shuts her eyes for a moment, but, when she opens them, she is still avoiding Lauren’s glare.

  “What I meant was that I realize we mentioned that earlier, and if it’s something that’s important to you, we will definitely revisit the issue.”

  “What exactly does ‘revisit the issue’ mean? Is that just another way of blowing us off, pretending like you’re considering our interests when you’re really just thinking about your own?”

  Jenna just wants Lauren to shut up, mostly because she knows that, at least in part, what Lauren is saying is true. They were promised trips to town, and no one has gone yet. Jenna can hardly stand the thought that she has wondered the same thing, though she never would have asked. She wouldn’t be at all surprised if the reason they’ve given up on the idea is because of Lauren herself. It would really be up to Grace, and Grace certainly wouldn’t want to spend a single unnecessary moment with Lauren. Come to think of it, Lauren does about everything she can to avoid Grace. So, what is this sudden interest in going to the CSA pick-up? It’s not as if Lauren could actually be interested in helping.

  Apparently Ellie’s thoughts are along similar lines because she says, “Okay, Lauren. I promise I’ll talk to Grace about it. She’s the one who will have to make the final decision. And if she agrees to take someone next Tuesday, I promise you’ll be the first to go. But now is definitely not the time to be worrying about this. Can you get back to work, please?”

  When Jenna looks up again, Lauren hasn’t moved, is still staring at Ellie with a disbelieving sneer on her face.

  Jenna thinks that Lauren must be the most insensitive person on the face of the Earth to be asking about this right now. The packing shed is too crowded and they are way too busy to be thinking about anything but getting produce ready for market. The baskets for the CSA were full to overflowing earlier this week, and they will have a full load for the farmers market tomorrow as well. Grace came home from the market last week with orders for bushels of both beans and shell peas and has spent a good portion of the morning carefully selecting tomatoes from the plants she has been coddling in the greenhouse since February, knowing they will earn top price ahead of the main season like this. In addition to that, they’ve had carrots and beets to pull and wash, the next patch of green onions is ready, new potatoes have been dug but still need to be cleaned, and Grace wants to have a good supply of salad mix, their best seller and most reliable income source, to take with her in the morning.

  It seems to Jenna like Ellie still has hope for Lauren, thinks her kindness will penetrate the girl’s thick skull and that she’ll realize that she is the planet’s most gifted pain in the ass and want to change. The rest of them try their best just to have nothing to do with her. It’s when there is work to do, especially when they are all in and out of the packing shed on market or CSA days, that Jenna thinks the best chance for some peace would be a simple gag. But while Jenna sometimes fantasizes about wringing Lauren’s neck—and the thought actually makes her laugh because of a story Donna told about how her grandfather used to kill chickens that way, and Lauren has a little of that scrawny poultry look herself—Lauren’s very existence mostly just fails to register on Jenna’s radar.

  Jenna lives, instead, in the world of the garden.

  She is mesmerized by the garden’s denseness, how the rowdy growth energizes the fields like a room full of happy toddlers, a contagious sense of joyous abandon. In fact, there is a moment, stepping out of the house in the morning, when the garden is a like a fairy tale, sprung in three dimensions from the binding of the world.

  Jenna would never have thought there was room in her brain for all the things she now knows. It feels to her like how it would be to learn a new language. And the translator, the master, of course, is Grace. Jenna is nearly stunned each time she walks away from a conversation with Grace and realizes she has participated, might have even contributed something. To be in the garden, to talk about the garden, is to be in Grace’s world, to be close to her, to share something with her, maybe even to understand something about her.

  Jenna is feeling a little guilty about how much she would like to go to the market. It suddenly strikes Jenna that Ellie never gets to go to the market or to the pick-ups either. She wonders if she misses it, if she wishes she could, would want to spend some time alone with Grace doing something they probably did together before the girls were here. Jenna glances up at Ellie, studies her back for a moment where she stands just outside the shed door washing carrots in the big tub. She notices Ellie looking up, and then there is Lauren, coming in from the garden, though she’s only been back out there for about twenty minutes.

  Lauren drops her barely half-filled bucket of shelling peas by the table where Grace is now working, having brought in her tomatoes to pack carefully in boxes for the trip to the market. Lauren casually serves herself a drink from the thermos and stands sipping it as if there is nothing more to do. Jenna knows that Lauren is supposed to be helping Cassie in the garden and that Cassie has already filled one five-gallon bucket and has started on her second because Grace reported that to Ellie just a couple of minutes ago when she came in. While Lauren lingers over her cup of water, Grace dumps the pea pods onto the end of the table covered with newspaper and begins to sort Lauren’s picking. Jenna can tell by the stiffness in her shoulders, the jerky movements of her arms, that Grace is not happy. She watches as Grace turns to Lauren, holding a pea pod in each hand.

  “Come here,” she says gruffly.

  Lauren takes a few hesitant steps toward Grace and stops a good ten feet away.

  “This,” says Grace, holding one pea forward, “is a ripe pea. This”—holding the other one forward—“is not. Can you see that it isn’t filled out, that the peas inside haven’t even begun to swell? You can tell with your fingers that there isn’t anything inside yet. Not only can’t we sell this to people now, it is taking away from what we’ll have later.”

  She takes two steps toward Lauren and holds the peas out in front of her, looking, Jenna thinks, like she is tempted to shake them in Lauren’s face.

  “Feel these.”

  Lauren takes her time walking over to the table to set her cup down and turns back to Grace, holding out her hands, her hips cocked in the posture she would have if her fists were planted on them. Both Sarah and Jenna have stopped packing salad into bags and are watching closely. Ellie is bent over the washtub with her back to them, but Jenna can see that she’s not washing carrots anymore, has stopped to listen.

  Grace’s voice is struggling to sound more gentle now, but she barely succeeds at removing the punch from her words.

  “Can you tell the difference?”

  Lauren nods, shrugs, noncommittal. “I guess.”

  “Can you try to pick j
ust the ripe ones now?”

  “Well, I think Cassie’s about done anyway.”

  “Why don’t you go back out there and see.” It’s not a question.

  Jenna heard Grace say earlier that she is counting on two bushels, one for the order and one to bag up in one-pound packages for the market. With Cassie’s full bucket plus a bit and Lauren’s half, they don’t have even quite one yet, though they’ve been out there for nearly two hours.

  Grace is clearly seething as she steps back to the table and begins to sort again. She is not facing Lauren when she says with poorly concealed irritation, “I know it’s time-consuming, but we have to get it done. We’ve all been working all day. We’re all hot and tired. We’ve all taken our turns in the garden. Now it’s your turn.”

  Lauren hasn’t moved. “Can I trade with someone?”

  Grace still doesn’t turn. “No. We’ll make sure you don’t have to do it the next time.”

  Lauren snatches her cup from the table with enough force to splatter the remaining water across the peas and onto Grace’s leg, grabs her bucket with a clatter and swings it to her side, just barely missing Donna as she comes through the door with two mounded buckets of slender green beans. She glances briefly at Lauren brushing past her, stumbles a bit to get out of her way, but keeps the beans balanced by lifting each of her arms.

  “Hey, I got a good bushel here, and there’s lots more out there. Want me to keep going?”

  Grace slowly turns from the table and Jenna sees Donna stop cold, able to tell by Grace’s face that something has happened.

  Donna sets her buckets down by the table where Grace is standing and says, “What’s going on?”

  Grace shakes her head. “Don’t worry about it. Okay, these are great but that’s about half of what we need.”

  Donna looks startled, is just puffing up with a retort, when Sarah speaks up. “We’re going to be done here in a minute. Do you want one of us to help with that?”

  The three women have all turned and are looking at Sarah. Jenna turns to her as well and can see instantly that Sarah looks terrible. Her face is flushed and her hair is damp, plastered to her neck. Though the rest may be too far away to notice, Jenna can see that Sarah’s hands are shaking and that she is leaning a little on the table as if she is unable to stand without help. Her eyes are glassy, and she seems to be having a little trouble keeping them open, blinking as if her vision is blurry.

  Donna is the first there, one hand resting on both of Sarah’s, on the half-filled bag lying deflated on the table, the other on the girl’s forehead, and Jenna feels a slight catch in her throat, some intrinsic response to the maternal gesture. Donna is steering Sarah around the table, her arm draped gently around her waist, and Grace and Ellie are watching, solemn and concerned. Sarah is shaking her head, mumbling something only Donna can hear. Jenna has stepped back as if they need wide berth to move through the shed, down the path to the house, watching after them in silent attention, wishing a little she’d been the first to notice, to speak up.

  Ellie and Grace look at each other and Grace sighs, shakes her head slightly, and turns away. While Ellie and Jenna watch, wait, Grace methodically dumps Donna’s beans into a bushel basket, takes an empty bucket in each hand, and walks out through the door without uttering a word. Ellie joins Jenna at the table and helps her finish the last of the salad so they can put the tender greens into the walk-in cooler before they wilt. Within minutes, they, too, have selected empty buckets and are headed out to the field.

  “ARE YOU CONGESTED? Your nose running? I don’t think I’ve heard you coughing.”

  Sarah wipes under her nose with her finger as if there might actually be some moisture there. “Um, I don’t know. I guess maybe it’s just a fever or something.”

  Sarah is lying on her bed with a cool cloth draped over her forehead, and Donna standing beside her, peering at the fine print on a bottle of ibuprofen. She sets the bottle down on the bedside stand and turns to Sarah.

  “Well, your eyes are certainly glassy and you’ve got the shakes, don’t you?”

  Sarah nods noncommittally.

  “I’ll go get you a glass of water so you can take that ibuprofen. Here. Let’s get that filthy shirt off first. Do you mind if I pick something out from your drawer?” Donna walks around the bed and reaches for the dresser, looks back at Sarah with her eyebrows raised.

  “Um, I’m okay. It’s not that dirty.”

  “C’mon, Sarah. It’s damp. I don’t think that’s good for you. Do you want to pick for yourself?”

  Sarah thinks. Okay, let her pick. She’ll have to turn her back and maybe Sarah can just pull up the sheet.

  “Go ahead.”

  Donna turns away to open the drawer and Sarah pulls her tank top over her head, tries to scurry under the sheet. Something gets caught though, and Sarah frantically shifts her foot but not in time. When Donna turns back around, Sarah is still struggling with the sheet and looks up to see the bland smile on Donna’s face disappear, her eyes go wide with horror. “Oh my god,” she whispers under her breath, as if Sarah is the one who needs to be protected from what she is seeing. Donna takes a step closer to the bed, mutters again. “Oh. My. God.”

  Sarah looks down at herself. The cuts look even redder than usual, glowing bright against the white skin of her belly. Sarah frowns, realizes they might be a bit puffy, too, and there is something oozing out of one or two of them. She’s just about ready to wipe at it with her discarded shirt when Donna says, “No! Don’t . . . don’t wipe with that. I’ll get something.”

  Sarah lies back against her pillow, listens as Donna hurries downstairs, can vaguely hear her rustling around in the kitchen and then in the downstairs bathroom. Sarah’s mind is blank, distant, as if she is watching someone she barely knows from a perch somewhere near the ceiling. When Donna returns, she has brought a tube of triple antibiotic ointment, a large bottle of hydroden peroxide, a roll of gauze and white first-aid tape, and an amber pill bottle with a few tablets rattling in the bottom. She sets the bowl she used to carry the items on the edge of the bed and goes out to the hall for a minute, coming back with another washcloth and a matching towel she has retrieved from the wall closet at the top of the stairs.

  Sarah is keeping her eyes closed, but she can’t stop the tears that have started to leak from the corners. She collapses into Donna’s embrace, her own arms folded against her chest, sobs quietly, periodically saying, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

  Donna is methodically patting Sarah’s back, doesn’t say anything. Eventually, Sarah backs up to see Donna’s face, is relieved that there is no anger there. Sympathy, maybe pity, but no anger. When Sarah falls back to the pillow, she turns her face to the window, and Donna immediately sets to work, pouring hydrogen peroxide onto the washcloth and daubing at the crusty sores on Sarah’s stomach, applying a bit more pressure to the angry red ones, the places blistered with pus. She spreads the antibiotic ointment over the entire area, then folds a piece of gauze over it, securing the edges with tape. Donna goes to the bathroom and returns with a glass of water, which she sets on the floor beside her bowl, then taps out two pills from each of the bottles, one analgesic and the other, Sarah guesses, antibiotic.

  “We’re just going to have to keep an eye on this. I don’t know if it’s the infection that’s making you sick or something else. Obviously, you have a fever, which would mean a pretty severe infection so, even though it’s weird to say, I’m kind of hoping you have the flu or something. I know you don’t want to go to the hospital, and I don’t want you to either. I’m thinking we can give this one more day. If you’re not better, I mean really better, by Sunday morning, we’re going to have to do something else like call a doctor. If you want me to call her right now, I will. Do you want me to?”

  Sarah shakes her head. “I don’t want to call the doctor.”

&nb
sp; “Okay. I didn’t figure you did. Either way, we had to get this cleaned up, try to lower the fever. If you start feeling worse, though, you have to promise you’ll say something. Will you?”

  Sarah is nodding slightly. “Yes.”

  “This is probably a stupid question but why didn’t you tell someone?”

  Sarah is quiet for a while. She’s not sure if Donna means tell someone she’s sick or about the cutting. She just mutters, “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know why you are doing it, or you don’t know why you didn’t tell someone when it got bad?”

  Donna is talking about the cutting. “I don’t know. Both. Neither.”

  “I guess maybe you’re not used to having someone to tell, huh?”

  Sarah turns toward Donna. “I guess not.”

  “But now you do. Do you know that?”

  Sarah starts to cry again, but she is nodding.

  “Do you mind if I lie down here with you?”

  Sarah’s eyes are big but she is shaking her head no. She scoots her body over, turns to the middle, and Donna lies beside her, lifts her arm above Sarah’s head until the girl has moved her head onto Donna’s shoulder, and pulls her arm tight around her.

  “Can you talk about it?”

  Sarah is quiet for a long time, worries that her tears are trickling down Donna’s arm, making a wet spot on her shirt.

  Finally, Sarah says, “I don’t really understand it myself. It’s stupid, I know, but it’s like being here makes me scared, more scared than I was even on the street. And I like it, that’s the thing. I like you guys and I like the farm. I mean, I think I actually love the farm, and something about that makes me really scared. Like, if I like it too much, everything before won’t be real, my friends and the street will just get erased and I’ll lose everything that’s me.”

  Sarah studies her hands for a moment and then lifts her eyes to Donna’s face. “You probably think I’m ridiculous but sometimes it feels just like at the Center when I was still coming down, like it actually feels like real falling and I have to stop it before I hit the bottom. I just think maybe I don’t belong here like maybe it would be great for someone else but not for me. I just need . . . I don’t know”—and her laugh comes out as a half cry—“what do I need?”