by M. E. Kerr
“Besides,” Bella Hanna continued, “you can’t make any money farming anymore. That’s what I heard.”
Evie spoke up then, said, “You can still make a small fortune in farming. Trouble is you have to start with a large one.”
My father burst out laughing at that. Then everyone did.
After dinner we were all stuffed, and my father said we should walk out back and see the sky. It was filled with lakes of fire, and everybody was looking up and exclaiming. Pete and Gracie, our yellow Labs, were dancing off toward the fields that were lying fallow now.
Off in the distance a car was coming down our road, a fancy one: You could see the sinking sun making it glisten, and it had the roar of a good motor that ran better fast than slow.
We all began watching its approach … all but Evie.
Evie was like a horse that way. A horse never reacts to anything new coming. A cow will throw up its head and stare, and maybe moo and shuffle its feet, but all you see a horse do is prick its ears forward.
I wondered why Evie didn’t even look in the direction of the car. I’d never seen a car that color: black cherry it was—a sleek, sexy Porsche.
Mom said, “Who is this?”
The only strange cars that ever came our way belonged to Jehovah’s Witnesses, chimney sweeps, and land assessors.
When it got closer, I recognized the long blond hair.
She had on dark glasses, and she gave everyone a wave.
“Patsy Duff!” my mother said. “What’s she doing here?”
Then Evie turned around and said, “She’s here to interview me.”
“Who’s Patsy Duff?” Bella Hanna said, and you could see she was real impressed … with the car, and with the girl getting out of it.
Doug told Bella she was just a friend, as though Patsy Duff came over to our place any old time.
Mom looked at Evie and asked her, “What are you talking about?”
“I forgot to tell you. She called last night to see if she could interview me for her school paper. She wants to do an article about a farmwoman.”
“You mean a farm person,” my father said.
He was straightening his tie as Patsy slammed the car door and started toward us. She had that effect on you: She looked so good you started worrying about how you looked.
I wished I hadn’t been stubborn and refused to wear a tie, or my best jacket. I was in a seedy old brown suit because I hadn’t wanted to go out of my way for Doug’s Tri Delt.
Neither had Evie bothered to dress up. But her white shirt, open at the collar, was clean, and she had on a good belt with a big silver buckle. Jeans and the boots she called her shitkickers.
“Hi, everybody!” Patsy called out. She was wearing a leather skirt and a suede jacket, carrying a notebook, and grinning. “Ready, Evie?”
“Sure thing,” Evie called back.
5
BY DECEMBER WE STILL didn’t know any details of Patsy Duff’s interview with Evie. She taped it in Evie’s room, and we didn’t even see Patsy leave because our relatives were still there, and so was Bella Hanna.
We heard the Porsche start up, heard two little honks of good-bye; then Evie took a flashlight out into the fields to bring in the hand-powered posthole digger she’d been using to fix a fence.
We were surprised when we read the interview in The Appleman Arrow, the school paper Patsy sent to Evie at the beginning of December.
Patsy D.
What are you dreams for the future?
Evie B.
I think of having plans, not dreams, but if I was the sort who had dreams, I’d wish we could buy out the Atlee land next to us. They’re C.S.&F. farmers, with the emphasis on the F. lately. He’s out of here at the first frost.
Patsy D.
What’s a C.S.&F. farmer?
Evie B.
That stands for corn, soybeans, and Florida. They go to Florida every winter, and now the son over there is studying medicine. I think their place will be up for grabs sometime in the future.
Patsy D.
So you never think of leaving Duffton, or this farm?
Evie B.
Well, I am thinking seriously of entering ag school over at Columbia. I have a lot to learn.
Patsy D.
You sound real smart to me.
Evie B.
(Laughing hard) Yeah, but you’re easy to impress, aren’t you, because what do you know about all this? I bet you never even milked a cow.
My mother said to Evie, “How about letting your father and me in on your plans?”
“You’re in on them now,” said Evie.
“When are you making this big move, Evie?”
“I figure next fall. Dad and I’ve been talking about it.”
Mom sighed. “So that’s really why he had that interview with the Rayborn Company last month…. Well, if you do it, we’ll have to hire extra help.”
“I can do more than I’m doing now, too,” I said, figuring I’d do anything in the short run that’d keep me off the farm in the long run.
But we would need to hire help. That was the expensive part of Evie going to college, not college itself. The university didn’t cost Missouri residents that much, but Evie did the work of two men.
Then everything changed.
One night Will Atlee came over and told my father he wanted to talk. He said he thought my mother and Evie might like to hear what he had to say, too.
I took Toni Atlee for a sunset walk around our place.
I told her that she was probably the only one in the world who could maybe change my mind about farming.
“If I had someone like you, I could almost see doing it,” I lied. No way would I ever farm, not even for Toni.
She was this five-foot-three brunette with a body that ripped right through you, and a smart mouth. We were sitting in my father’s pickup by that time, the motor on for warmth, listening to KKRG, watching a ball of red sneak down through these wispy smoke-blue clouds. She had on something that smelled like lilies.
“What a lot of bull crap, Parr!” she said. “You’re no farmer! You just want my bod. And I don’t even like farming—don’t you know anything?”
“Me want your bod? Me? I’m trying to plan my future and you’re turning it into some kind of sexual fantasy!”
“That arm of yours is creeping around my neck, Parr. How does that figure in your future plans?”
My hand landed on her shoulder.
She pushed it away and sat forward. “What a great sunset, Parr!”
“What if I said I was going to study to be a lawyer, probably settle in Kansas City, probably make several hundred thou a year?”
“How about settling in Miami? I’m used to warm winters.”
We were laughing. I was reaching out to touch her and she was pushing my hand away.
“Okay, Miami,” I said.
She grabbed my hand and held it. “We’re not farmers, Parr. And anyway, I’m moving, Parr. That’s what Daddy’s inside talking about to your daddy.”
“You don’t mean you’re moving for good?”
She turned her head and looked at me. I loved her eyes, and her smile. “Would I do this if I wasn’t?” she said, and she leaned into me and kissed me.
She whispered, “I’d never do that if I was going to stay here in Duffton. It’d only start your motor going.”
“What do you think my motor’s doing now, standing still?”
“Turn it off,” she said. She straightened up and pulled down the door handle, and we were over before we even started.
Mr. Atlee had a deal with my father that made it seem like all our dreams were coming true.
We’d get a hundred of his acres for a song (the rest was going full price to the neighbor on his other side) if we’d run everything for him for five years on a fifty-fifty split of profits. There were all sorts of other conditions, things they’d work out with lawyers, but it was better than a good deal. Even I was excited.
Atlee land in exchange for Atlee daughter.
Everyone in the house was celebrating. My father had opened a bottle of Seven Crowns they were pouring into Seven-Up. Even Evie was having a drink. Evie was giving up something for what we were getting. With the Atlee acres to work, there was no way she’d get to college that next fall.
Evie and my mother stayed in the kitchen having a nightcap after my father went to bed. I was right around the corner, watching TV.
“I’d rather be here, anyway,” Evie said. “I think I was just saying all that because that’s Patty’s world: boarding school, college—she’ll probably pledge a sorority like Anna Banana.”
“I was a sorority girl too, don’t forget. And my sorority was one of the big three, unlike Bella Hanna’s.” My mother was slurring a little. She wasn’t used to drinking liquor. She said, “If you’d gone to Missouri, you’d automatically be a Pi Phi, Evie. You’d be a legacy.”
“Yeah, well, they’d be tickled to see me clumping up their front sidewalk, wouldn’t they?” said Evie.
“Evie, honey, you could be every bit as pretty as any one of those Pi Phis … if you’d just let me help you with your clothes, if you’d just change your hair, style it—you could still wear it short. You could—”
Evie cut her off. “I’m the way I am.”
“Honey, you look so tough when you smoke that way. If you have to smoke, hold the cigarette between your fingers.”
There was probably a Camel cigarette dangling from her lips. Evie usually smoked no hands. No one else in our family smoked.
“Some people like me the way I am,” Evie said.
“But you don’t like him,” said Mom.
“I’m not talking about Cord Whittle!”
After Mom went up to bed, I asked Evie why she called Patsy Duff “Patty.”
“I like Patty better,” she said. Then she said she’d written something new, and did I want to hear it?
It was called “Asian Journey.”
So what if we’ve never traveled together,
Your blond hair blown by some runway wind,
My hand under your arm as another excuse to touch you in public,
To touch you anywhere.
Your eyes reflecting my smile, my dead serious expression, our amazement at everything in China.
So what if we’ve never been anywhere together,
Just seen each other once or twice,
Just talked together on the telephone.
“What’s it mean?” I said. “You’ve never been to China.”
“That’s the point. It’s all in the imagination.”
“Is it supposed to be about Patsy Duff?”
“It’s all in the imagination,” said Evie. “It’s not about anyone.”
I figured she was bombed or she wouldn’t have read it to me.
But maybe something was going on with her that was just bursting to come out.
6
NEAR CHRISTMAS WE ALWAYS got a bunch of calendars sent to us. They came from the bank, the mortician, real estate firms, feed companies—I found about five of them in the mailbox one December afternoon after I got off the school bus.
I flipped through the mail going up our driveway; the calendars were most of it, a few bills, and a postcard I thought might be from Doug.
It said:
Here for the weekend with Margaret Leighton, whose father owns this place.
Wish you were her.
P.
P.S. See you soon!
It took me a few seconds to realize it wasn’t from my brother. It was addressed to Evie. On the front was a picture of a Mississippi steamboat that was really a restaurant called Leighton’s, in St. Louis.
It also took me a while to register the fact it didn’t say Wish you were here but Wish you were her.
I thought about it while I let myself into the house and shouted out to Mom I was home. She was in the kitchen, where she always was when I got home from school. I stuck the postcard in my English lit book and left it on the stairs with my gym bag.
“Looks like snow outside,” Mom said.
“About time, isn’t it?” I dropped the bills and the calendars on the kitchen table, and she sat down and riffled through everything.
I poured myself some milk and took some cookies from the jar.
“We’re having company for dinner,” she said.
“How come?”
“I asked Cord Whittle over.”
“How come?”
“Well, he might be interested in helping out with the Atlee place.”
“That’s way next spring.”
“And it’s Friday. I have a lamb roast in. Anyone you’d like to invite over?”
“She’s in Miami,” I said. “Since when do we have dinner parties on Friday night?”
“I’m celebrating,” Mom said. “I got Evie to go to Garden Hairstyles for a cut.”
“How did you do that?”
“I won a bet!” Mom laughed. “Remember she bet me that sinkhole out in the far pasture was safe? She bet me whatever I wanted her to do for me that I couldn’t push a hoe down it, and I bet her a week’s washing chores I could. Then we forgot about it…. Melvin’s back foot went through it this morning.”
“What’s Cord Whittle got to do with it?”
“Nothing.”
“Does Evie know he’s invited?”
My mother shrugged. “Evie doesn’t have to know every little thing I plan.”
“Stop trying to fix them up, Mom,” I said.
“Cord’s willing.”
“You know darn well Evie’s not.”
“Last year this time I knew darn well the Atlees farmed next door to us, and now …” Mom raised her eyebrow and gave me a look.
I went up to change before I headed down to the barn to feed the hogs.
I stopped off in Evie’s room to leave the postcard on her desk.
Usually we left all the mail on the kitchen table, but I didn’t feel like doing that. I wasn’t sure if I was sparing Mom or Evie.
Both, probably.
7
“DON’T COMB IT BACK, Evie!” my mother said. “It’s supposed to fall foward.”
“It tickles my forehead.”
“Your forehead will get used to it.”
“I like it, Evie,” Dad said. “No fooling.” I liked her new hairstyle too, but it was Dad’s saying he liked it that made Evie stick her comb in the back pocket of her jeans and give up trying to slick the cut back the way she always wore it.
“Before Cord gets here,” said Mom, “run upstairs and put on my white turtleneck sweater. I ironed it for you and hung it in the bathroom.”
“How long am I supposed to pay off this bet?” Evie asked. “I got the haircut, now you’re dragging Cord Whittle over here, and next you’re telling me what to wear.”
“Nobody has to drag Cord over here,” said my mother, who was putting candlesticks on the table, on top of the white tablecloth. We were using our good china, too.
“He’s coming of his own accord,” Dad said, chuckling at his own joke.
Evie was taking it all in stride, which surprised me some until she followed me upstairs just before I went in to take a shower.
“Did you get the mail, Parr?”
“Don’t I always?”
“Did anyone see that postcard besides you?”
“How do you know I saw it?”
“Because you don’t usually give me room service.”
“Nobody else saw it,” I said.
She grinned at me. “Lucky thing you’re a snoop.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Lucky thing.”
She said, “Thanks, Parr. Hand me Mom’s sweater before you get it wet.”
It was the postcard that had put her in the good mood.
By the time Cord arrived, it was starting to snow lightly. He had a dusting of it on his brown hair when he came inside. He smelled of after-s
have, and his hazel eyes were dancing around, as though he imagined it was Evie’s idea he’d eat dinner with us.
Under his parka he had on a tan corduroy jacket and a white shirt and bolo tie with a silver clasp. Brown trousers and boots.
He was a good-looking guy. He’d put on some weight. All the dropout farmers did after a while. He had a bottle of preserves his mother’d put up that he gave to Mom, and he had a small stack of old National Geographics for Dad. My father loved looking through travel magazines. The only thing he watched on TV besides sports and the farm reports was PBS specials about places like Africa and Australia. Nobody in our family had ever been outside the United States.
Evie came downstairs in her jeans and Mom’s sweater, sporting her new haircut, and Cord said, “Your hair’s changed.”
“Nothing else has, though,” Evie said. I suppose that was her way of warning him not to get his hopes up.
Mom lighted the candles, and we all sat down to eat Elijah, who’d been our last lamb. He’d been in the freezer since summer, when even Evie’d protested his necessary murder. Elijah, we all swore, could smile and was more like a household pet than something you end up eating with mint jelly.
I was always bored out of my gourd with what Cord and Evie talked about. My mother was off somewhere in her head, and I was chewing away on Elijah and telling myself this was more proof I wasn’t cut out for farming, because farming was really a lot about killing, even when you kept the livestock to a minimum—you still had to slaughter some poor thing or send it out to someone else to slit its throat.
I’d tune in and out of the conversation.
Cord would be saying he’d spent the whole afternoon adjusting the idle and the transmission on his IH, while Evie’d agree they were all troublesome, she’d only have a Deere.
“Evie can fix anything, though,” my father’d pipe up.
“Not this sucker, not even Evie.”
“Wanna bet?” from Evie.
Then the three of them began talking about putting in some other kind of crop on the Atlee acreage, and Evie made her usual complaint about how ugly soybeans always looked. She preferred corn. She’d even heard you could make good money growing flowers.