Down on Love

by Jayne Denker

  “Er . . .”

  “It’s a pie,” she said bluntly, almost belligerently.

  “I can see that. To what do I owe the honor of baked goods?”

  “Sera and Jaz wanted to say thanks for fixing the sink. It’s apple. Out of season, but we didn’t have any other fruit to make filling with in the house. If you like a different kind, I can—”

  “Okay, whoa,” he interrupted her rambling, taking the pie from her. Even though George was in a weird, agitated state, he was really glad to see her again so soon. “You made this? Excellent. Thank you. I love apple pie.” He smiled at her. “And I don’t care about what’s in season if it’s dessert. I’ll definitely enjoy it, I swear.”

  George put on what looked like a forced smile, did that familiar move of putting her wrist to her forehead, and turned away again. “I’ve also got your dinnerware here—”

  “I can’t believe Sera finished it already. Just leave it,” he rushed to add, as she reached into the van to haul out the first of several boxes. “I’ll have the guys get it. Come on inside.”

  “I—I should get back—” Then she stopped, looking up at the house and around at the land. “Wow. Things sure look different around here.”

  “That was the idea.”

  “What idea?”

  “Come on. I’ll show you.”

  Casey led George up the back steps and into the house. While he put the pie in the kitchen, she hovered in the hallway.

  “You know, I’ve never seen the inside of your house before.”

  “It’s a ridiculous place, isn’t it? We never needed this much room—not for just me and my parents—but there was no talking my dad out of it once he saw it. It’s always been pretty run-down—we never could manage to keep it up, it needed so much work. It was beat up to begin with, when we moved in—do you remember that?”

  “Sort of.”

  “I’ve been working on it, and it’s looking a lot better than it used to, trust me. But it’s not perfect yet.”

  She wandered down the hall toward the front of the house, looking around curiously. “So this is going to be a tearoom?”

  Casey laughed. “I can never get it through Jaz’s skull that it’s not going to be a tearoom.”

  “Yeah, you don’t look like the tea-sipping type.”

  She entered an empty, half-painted sitting room. Casey leaned in the doorway. “What type do I look like?”

  She shrugged. “Rare meat?”

  “Well, it just so happens I like a good cup of oolong while I’m snacking on shanks of bloody beef.”

  “Mm. I was picturing bison. I hear Earl Grey pairs well with it. Who stole all your furniture?”

  “Yeah, the place is pretty empty at the moment. My parents decided to move to Florida a few years ago, and they wanted to travel light. They had a huge estate sale and got rid of everything they couldn’t fit into a small U-Haul. It was no big loss; our furniture was never all that nice to begin with. I’m planning on getting different stuff pretty soon.”

  “So what is your plan, then, if this place isn’t going to be a tearoom?”

  She walked past him, across the hall, into another room. He watched her go, admiring the view, and had to work hard to keep his voice casual.

  “A meeting center. For parties, conferences. Someday I’d like to turn this huge pile of bricks into an inn, but I have to get what you could call ‘phase one’ up and running first, see if the initial plans work out.”

  “Oh yeah. Jaz said something about it becoming an inn next year.”

  “That’s . . . optimistic. But someday.”

  “What about the farm?”

  “It still exists. Just . . . in a different form.”

  “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “I’ll show you, then. There’s more to see outside than inside, anyway.”

  Casey couldn’t wait to show off his new and improved Bowen farm. The house was a burden he had to force himself to spend time on, when what he really wanted to do was be working outside. He didn’t get nearly as much time to muck around in the dirt as he wanted.

  On their way outside, Casey brought George up to date. He knew she would remember the battered, messy version of the property his parents had bought when he was a teenager—an old house and a haphazard, neglected farm the Bowens thought they could rescue. They were proud they’d purchased the place before the previous owner sold the property to a developer who would have torn down the house and put an apartment complex on the land or carved it up into one- and five-acre lots with a custom home on each. The problem was they were city folk, and even though they’d gotten it into their heads that they wanted to do something “meaningful” and “productive” with their lives, they didn’t have the first clue about how to run a farm. Casey had been firmly against the whole idea, but his parents weren’t about to listen to a fifteen-year-old.

  So they moved in and his parents subscribed to a lot of farming journals, but it didn’t take them long to realize Casey had been right—they had no idea how to run a farm. No amount of research had prepared them for the Green Acres existence they had plunged themselves and Casey into. And the whole experience went downhill pretty rapidly.

  Casey escaped the frustrations of farm life by immersing himself in high school—sports, studies, his friends—although he did his daily chores without complaining much. His parents had enough problems without his causing trouble. When it was time for college, he went eagerly, feeling only slightly guilty about leaving his parents short on help. He did what he could when he came back for the summers, but he saw the writing on the wall long before his parents did: sell or go bankrupt. But still they hung on, and Casey knew he had to get out and stay out, or spiral down with them and their losing battle.

  “So wait,” George said, panting beside him as he led her toward the largest of three barns on the property. He heard her labored breathing and slowed his long strides to make it a leisurely stroll instead of a power walk. “You were gone for a long time too?”

  He nodded, sneaking a glance at her. “I can’t really give you grief for leaving town, because after I graduated from college, I did the same thing. Didn’t come back for years. I majored in finance, got a job in New York, even got transferred to the London office.”

  George made an impressed noise.

  “And then, after a bunch of years doing that, I realized I was missing something.”

  “Which was . . . ?”

  He laughed a little. “Marsden, if you can believe it. My friends. My family. Everything familiar. Everything I loved. I realized having piles of cash and doing all sorts of high-profile wheeling and dealing wasn’t a replacement for any of that.”

  “Bullshit.”

  He laughed again, louder. “I had this great place in Chelsea, ate out every night, nonstop clubbing, went to Paris for weekends away . . . but I was lonely, Goose.”

  “You were an idiot.”

  “I know it looks that way—”

  “You built a life out there—outside of this place. A good one, from the sound of it.” She paused. “And didn’t you . . . you know . . . have—”

  “Girlfriends? A love life?”

  “Yeah, that.”

  He shrugged. “Well, I was hardly a monk. But I never felt strongly enough about any of my girlfriends to want to build a life with . . . Well, obviously, right? Because here I am. When I thought about moving back to Marsden, it just . . . made sense. The idea of living here again really appealed to me. And I could solve my parents’ problems so easily at the same time.”

  “By buying the farm from them and taking over.”

  Casey didn’t want to make it sound like he’d bailed out his parents with one saintly monetary miracle. He’d spent enough time away from the farm, selfishly living his own comfortable life while his parents struggled, that he didn’t feel he’d earned any sort of savior label, and he wasn’t going to make it sound like he deserved one.

  Instead, he said, “Yeah
, but I didn’t want to be stuck with it, either. I was going to sell it off to developers like the old guy we bought it from.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “Would you believe I actually got attached to the place? Surprised even myself. I spent some time here, really examining it, and I realized I wanted to keep it. And the idea of making a home here in Marsden was suddenly really appealing. It happens to some of us. Not everybody, of course,” he added, with a wink at her. She smirked but said nothing, so he went on, “Still, I knew I couldn’t keep running the farm the way my parents had. It wasn’t working. So I banished Mom and Dad to retirement in Florida. I only allow them to come back up north for Christmas—”

  “You do not.”

  He gave her a sly grin. “No, not really. They’re there by choice, I swear. Frankly, they’re relieved they don’t have to deal with the place anymore.”

  “So they’re relaxing in some condo in Miami—”

  “Jupiter, actually.”

  George laughed. “Seriously? From Mars to Jupiter?”

  Casey’s stomach flipped. He made a mental note to pick up some antacids if he was going to spend much more time around this woman. “You remember that.”

  “‘Welcome to Mars.’ I always preferred the sign that way. Almost made a motion at a town council meeting to change the town name officially.”

  “You did not.”

  “Finish your story.”

  “Right.” He stopped outside the barn doors. “Well, I decided if it couldn’t compete as a traditional farm—God knows we’ve got enough cornfields and herds of dairy cows in this state—then it would have to be nontraditional. So over there are the pumpkin fields.” He pointed off in the distance, where low tendrils were creeping over brown dirt. “And over there are the Christmas trees.” He pointed in another direction, to fields full of lonely little sticks jutting up forlornly in rows. “Well, not this year. But eventually.”

  “Tearoom—”

  “Meeting center.”

  “Sorry. Meeting center. Future inn. Pumpkin farm. Christmas tree farm. And just how do all these things fit together?”

  “What’s our greatest asset around here, Goose?”

  “Artists.”

  “Art buyers,” he corrected.

  “Oh,” she said, smiling. “You’re going into the tourist trade.”

  “Agritainment.”

  “Sounds like a disease.”

  “It’s a good thing. The filthy rich will always be with us. I’m just here to relieve them of their burden of too much cash. And show them a good time in return.”

  “Wait a minute—I haven’t heard this part of the plan,” an overwhelmingly loud voice shouted from behind them. “Who’re you showing a good time? Is there something you want to tell me, Case?”

  George spun around. “Oh my God. Big D?” she cried.

  “George Down!” the big guy, Darryl Sykes, boomed, extending his arms. “I heard you were in town. Gimme some sugar!”

  She hugged him tightly, and he lifted her off her feet. “It’s so good to see you! What are you doing here?”

  “Are you kidding? The lord of the manor over here begged me to work for him.”

  Casey put on a smile. “Somebody’s got to keep this guy on the right side of the law.”

  “Spent three years bossing me around on the basketball court, now he’s bossing me around in the farm fields. It figures, right? But don’t let any pesky job titles fool you—I manage his ass.”

  George gave him another hug. “I’ve missed you.”

  Huh—that was something George reserved for Darryl but not him, Casey noted. First a hug, now this. She’d never hugged him, never once said she missed him . . . Then he pushed the thoughts away. He was being ridiculous.

  “I’ve missed you too, little girl. Why haven’t you ever come back to visit?”

  “You’ve gotta ask?”

  Darryl laughed. “I guess not. I love your sister, but she can be—”

  “Prickly.”

  “As a porcupine trying to mate with a cactus. So how’s the whole being-back-home thing going?”

  “I love my niece?”

  Darryl’s laugh was loud enough to rattle the old barn’s windows. “And what are you doing with this delinquent today?”

  “I got put to work, making deliveries for Sera.”

  “Good for you. Whatever keeps you around here is okay by me.”

  “Aw, you’re a sweetheart.”

  Casey felt compelled to interrupt the love fest. “So, D. Did you get the tractor running yet?”

  Darryl jerked a thumb at Casey. “See what I mean? Lord of the manor.” To Casey, he said, “Yes, sir, sir. Tractor’s working just fine. I took care of it. I’ve got most of the crew working on the hay bale mountain. Some of the guys are putting in the new fence posts at the petting zoo.”

  “What about the playground equipment?”

  “Still waiting on the slide to come in.”

  “So this sounds like it’s going to be way bigger than just a pumpkin patch,” George said.

  “We are going to put the Rykerson farm to shame, little sister. They are going to take their overpriced, half-rotted pumpkins and just crawl under a rock by next year.”

  “There’s room for everybody, D,” Casey reprimanded his friend.

  Darryl ignored him. “Pumpkins, gourds, food, drink, tractor rides, corn maze, games, you name it. Families’ll be able to come—and spend money—all day. Did Casey tell you about his plans for the gallery?”

  “What gallery?” George turned to Casey.

  “We’re turning the smallest barn into Marsden’s newest, hottest art gallery. I’m hoping Sera will be the first to mount an exhibition this fall.”

  “For the grand opening,” Darryl added.

  George blinked. “Wow. You weren’t kidding when you said this place was going to be different.”

  “It’s a lot of hard work, but I think we can pull it off.”

  “This guy never rests,” Big D said to George.

  “I’ve heard.”

  “It’s got to get done,” Casey insisted.

  “Yeah, but you’ve also got to relax.” To George, Darryl said, “Which he never does. Take tonight, for example.”

  “What’s tonight?” George asked.

  “Happy hour.”

  “It’s Thursday.”

  “We can’t wait till Friday! Besides, this tyrant works us six days a week, so Thursday, Friday—no difference. Anyway, he’s got a standing invitation. But you think this guy ever shows up, enjoys a little down time with his hardworking employees? Not even once.”

  “I’ve got things to do.”

  “You’ve always got things to do. You’re a lost cause. But you’ll come out with us, won’t you, little sister?”

  “Me? Uh . . .”

  “Come on! Or are you an old fart like this guy?”

  “I have to take care of Amelia. I don’t get nights off.”

  “Not even one night? For old time’s sake, so we can catch up?”

  George beamed. Even though she directed it at Darryl, Casey felt his insides twist again. “I’ll make it happen,” she said.

  “See? You’re easy. Not that way. I mean easier to convince. So—six o’clock?”

  “Sure. Where? The wine bar? The tapas place?”

  Darryl barked a laugh. “Are you kidding? Honey, no. We’re townies. We’re going to Beers.”

  Chapter 11

  When George pulled open the heavy wooden door of the downmarket bar on a short side street off Main, nervous flutters threatened to overwhelm her. Even though the inside of Beers was nothing out of the ordinary, George felt a strange, perverse thrill when she finally stepped inside. She’d always wanted to go to this place when she was in high school, but she’d never dared try. Sera and her friends were practically regulars, but then Sera was a completely different type of person—more balls-out brazen in everything than George was, by a long shot—so George ha
d contented herself with merely hearing her sister and her friends talk about sneaking in and what they’d gotten away with the night before. And envying their fearlessness.

  The door shut behind her, and she stood still while her eyes adjusted to the dimness. A bit of early-evening light found its way through the large front window; in the darkness at the back, the clack of billiard balls punctuated the seventies’ country-rock tunes coming out of the jukebox. The round wooden tables were dark, thick, and heavy, as were the chairs; the bar boasted a huge copper sink that gleamed in the dim lamps hanging from the ceiling.

  It wasn’t difficult to find the crowd from the farm; all George had to do was follow the sound of Darryl’s laugh. She wiggled through a couple of knots of people, saying hello to a few who recognized her, and found Darryl, along with several other men and women, at a couple of tables near the back. A sweaty pitcher sat in the middle of the table, and judging by the volume of their chatter, it likely wasn’t their first one of the evening.

  “George!” Darryl boomed, just as loud as he had that afternoon. He lurched to his feet and pulled a chair over. “You sit next to me, girlie. I’m going to keep my eye on you.”

  She hung her purse on the back of the chair and smiled at the others as she sat down. She recognized a few of them from school, and she scrambled to come up with their names.

  Darryl rescued her. “You remember these troublemakers, don’t you? Elliot, and Jill, and Nestor.”

  “Right. Hi . . . again.”

  Darryl went on introducing her to people she should have remembered, while Elliot poured her a beer. She had very vague recollections of the first three. Elliot and Nestor had graduated before her. She was pretty sure they’d been in Casey, Sera, and Darryl’s class, two years ahead of her. Jill had been in her year, but they ran with different crowds.

  “So, George. You became a blogger, huh?” Jill said with a smile, leaning forward and resting her elbows on the table.

  This was still freaking George out—all this face-to-face interest. She wasn’t quite sure how to handle it, especially when all her old friends and neighbors, people she’d known for decades, suddenly looked at her like she was an exotic critter in a zoo—with fascination and a bit of trepidation, like they’d never seen her before and couldn’t quite make out who or what she was supposed to be.