Melinda wasn’t sure if the event was really that pretentious or Cassie was just trying to be kind, downplaying the glamorous circles she moved in while Melinda fed sheep and pulled weeds at Horace’s. Susan laughed at Cassie’s scathing critiques of some of the other women’s dresses, but Melinda could barely work up a smile. Everything happening in Minneapolis seemed worlds away.
She glanced down at her roughened hands and scuffed sneakers, then over at the thriving garden and Hobo lounging on the sidewalk.
“Melinda, are you OK?” Cassie reached over and grasped her hand.
“I don’t know,” she sighed. “I don’t know what I’m doing here, sometimes. I’m living in the middle of a cornfield, I never seem to get all the dust out of my hair or the dirt out from under my fingernails. I can hardly remember what it’s like to get up in the morning and put on stylish clothes,” she gestured at her tee shirt and knit shorts, “and go to work in an office filled with computers instead of lumber and nails and, well, milk and eggs.”
“You sell eggs at Prosper Hardware?” Cassie blurted out, then darted her eyes over to the chicken coop.
“Yeah,” Melinda said, trying not to sniffle. Was she really going to cry about this? “But not from Horace’s girls. The kind that come on a truck.”
Then she started laughing. “Listen to me. What has happened to my life? What am I doing out here?”
Susan came around the picnic table and squeezed in next to Melinda, wrapped her arm around her friend. “You, my dear, are helping your family. You’re giving an elderly man the peace of mind he needs to spend time with his brother before it’s too late. And you’re saving that sweet dog over there from total heartbreak.”
“Look, anyone would feel turned inside out in your shoes.” Cassie set down her cup and leaned in. “And those …” she glanced under the picnic table, “well, never mind. I know this has been hard for you. You loved your job, and you were good at it. It’s been a terrible loss, one that will take time to get over.” Melinda could only nod, as the tears were now rolling down her cheeks.
“I wouldn’t last one night out here by myself,” Cassie went on. “And you’ve made it, what, six weeks? You’ve kept this place going, look around at all you’ve done.”
“I just get so overwhelmed sometimes. The store is interesting, but it’s more challenging than I expected. And the other night there was a terrible thunderstorm, so much lightning and wind. The power was out for nearly an hour. I hurried down to the basement with a flashlight and just sat there, alone in the dark, worrying about the animals and if they were safe.”
“Well, I don’t know much about sheep,” Cassie gestured over at the ewes enjoying a few more nibbles of grass before sunset. “But they seem smart enough to me.”
Melinda wiped her eyes and gave Cassie an incredulous look.
“OK, maybe they aren’t that smart,” Cassie hurried on, “but they know to go inside the barn when it rains, right? And the chickens, they’ve got their own cute house over there. And you said there’s a little door on the barn for Hobo, right? And I can tell he is a very smart dog.” Hobo thumped his tail, thanking Cassie for her compliment.
“I’m just so glad to see both of you.” Melinda took a deep breath and sat up straighter. “Everyone has been so kind, and it’s good to be close to my family again. But until you drove in the yard, I hadn’t realized how lonely I’ve been sometimes.”
Cassie got up, motioning for Susan and Melinda to join her. “I know you said not to wear these open-toed sandals and I’m already wishing I hadn’t, as the mosquitoes are starting to attack. But I’m feeling reckless tonight.”
She started off past the back corner of the house and Melinda and Susan followed, exchanging wary glances.
“I think we need to have a look around out here,” Cassie said cheerfully as she gazed up at the house. “This place needs more than what we can do in a weekend with some paint, but you’re being here allows this old house to still feel like a home.”
“Cassie’s right.” Susan rubbed Melinda’s back. “You’ve done wonders by just being here. And you must be such a blessing to Frank and Miriam, and the whole town, too. It takes a lot to keep a locally owned business going these days.”
“OK, OK, I’m not sure I’ve single-handedly saved the great city of Prosper from economic ruin. But, well, I’ve had many people tell me they’re glad I’m here.”
“And this garden over here looks wonderful.” Cassie marched over to the plot and stretched out her arms. “Just look at this, it’s huge. Those tomato plants are growing right out of their cages. These carrot tops look, well, fresh and green. And those things in the third row, next to that fence …”
“Green beans.” Susan rolled her eyes at Cassie. “Those are beans.”
“Well, yes, the beans look … healthy.” Cassie grinned. “I’m not much of a gardener, obviously, but even I can tell you’re working miracles here. All this green stuff would be brown if you weren’t here to water and weed and, well, whatever else it is you have to do.”
“That pretty much covers it. Lots of weeding. And bug patrol.”
“Bug patrol?” Cassie took a step back from the garden’s edge.
“The green hornworms on the tomatoes are the worst,” Melinda told her. “Kevin said Horace squishes them between his fingers and feeds them to the chickens.” Cassie’s eyes widened in disgust. “But I can’t deal with that. I’ve been swatting them into a little bucket of lawnmower gas and when they’re dead, I throw them over the fence there. Mabel, my neighbor, suggested that.”
“Sounds kind of dangerous.” Susan crossed her arms. “Flammable materials and all that. You’re making some interesting friends out here.”
Soft shadows were beginning to gather around the edges of the yard. The hens, who earlier were clucking and scratching in the dirt, started to settle on their roosts in the chicken house. One dove called from the windbreak, and an answering “cooo, cooo” came from the evergreens on the north side of the yard.
“Speaking of new friends,” Susan said as they turned back toward the house. “I’ve brought something that should help us meet up with those two cats you were telling us about. Let’s go in and I’ll show you.”
A cool blast of air greeted the friends as they came in through the kitchen door. Melinda was relieved the cranky old air conditioner rumbled on, especially since she had guests. Susan unzipped her duffel bag and started to rummage inside.
“I took Penny in for her checkup the other day and told the vet about your cats.” Susan lifted out a tiny glass jar. “He said if anything could bring them around, it would be this.”
“Is that what I think it is?” Cassie snatched the jar and held it up to the light. “Are you serious, Susan?”
“Baby food!” Melinda rolled the jar over to see the cherub-faced newborn on the label. “Chicken and gravy, huh? I can’t imagine the cats turning this down.”
“Dr. Baxter said this is what rescue groups use to win over ferals. You offer it on a spoon, and the smell is so tempting that most of the kitties eventually set their fear aside for a taste. It takes time, but they associate the treat with the person offering it, and that’s how you win their trust.”
“I’d love to get closer to them. I can verify both are males, but that’s about it. They take off the second they see me coming. Unless I have their food bucket.”
“How did they get here, do you know?” Cassie looked out toward the barn, as if the cats might appear. “What did Kevin say?”
“I don’t think he knew. He was shocked when I told him they were here.” Melinda took the jar from Cassie and carefully set it on the dining room hutch, as if it held diamonds instead of chicken and cornstarch. “Horace left an open bag of cat food on the grain room floor and a note on the shelf, saying the cats just showed up one day. And,” she paused dramatically, “that they don’t seem to want names.”
“Horace sounds like a character.” Susan reached back in her duffel for her pajamas and to
othbrush. “How’s he doing?”
“Kevin says he is happy to be with Wilbur again, and he seems to like the nursing home.” She shrugged, hoping Kevin’s assessment was accurate. “But then, he expects to come home eventually.”
“Well, he sure will be in for a surprise when he does come back,” Cassie said. “We can do a lot with a few gallons of paint.” She glanced around the dining room at the bluebirds darting along its walls. “Although I can’t imagine he’s a fan of this wallpaper. It doesn’t exactly say ‘old bachelor farmer.’”
Susan shook her head. “I suppose that Horace and Wilbur’s mother found it fashionable back in the day. I’d say it’s at least fifty years old.”
“It was a challenge to pick paint colors that would somehow compliment these twirly birds.” Melinda shook a finger at her friends’ expectant faces. “But that’s a surprise for tomorrow. I’m beat.”
“I think it’s time to turn in,” Cassie yawned. “I suspect you country folks get up early?”
“Seven is fine. I’ll be up before that and have the chores done and the coffee on. This rustic B&B only has two rooms available. I’ll leave it to you ladies to fight over the accommodations.”
Cassie snapped up the handle on her designer carry-on and rolled it toward Horace’s bedroom. “I hear this one has a private bath.”
“I’d love to snoop around more upstairs, so Wilbur’s old room suits me just fine.” Susan gathered her duffel and purse, then paused to admire the living room’s fireplace and bookcases before turning for the stairs. “This house is amazing, Melinda, truly it is.”
CHAPTER 17
A brief thunderstorm rolled through just before dawn, washing away the heat and humidity. Melinda was greeted by a refreshingly cool breeze when she went out to the barn for morning chores, the sun’s rays already bending across the fields and glinting off the raindrops still clinging to the oak trees’ leaves.
“It’s perfect painting weather, isn’t it?” she said to Hobo as she washed out his water bowl at the garden hydrant. The house’s windows could be opened and fans stationed around the first floor, reducing the paint fumes and allowing the walls to dry faster. “We couldn’t have asked for a better day.”
The chicken coop was cool inside, still full of shadows at this early hour. She shooed the ladies away long enough to snatch up six eggs and carefully arrange them in the bucket on her arm. Scrambled eggs would be perfect with the cinnamon streusel coffee cake she was about to pop in the oven.
Susan was sitting at the kitchen table, lost in thought, and dressed for the day in a ragged-hem tee shirt and worn shorts. A faded headband held her strawberry-blond hair off her face. Melinda knew Susan well enough to know she was hatching some sort of plan.
“You know, why don’t we try to at least scrub down these kitchen cabinets today? I know we don’t have the time to paint them, even though they desperately need it.”
“I was thinking that very thing yesterday.” Melinda reached for a large crockery bowl and began dumping in flour for the coffee cake. “The new wall paint will make the cabinets look worse if we don’t. We’ll see how far we get.”
“Cassie’s in the shower.” Susan had already started the coffee pot and now motioned for where to find the mugs. “Want me to start scrambling those eggs? It must be heavenly to walk outside and help yourself like that.”
“It is, except a couple of the hens get broody and don’t want me to take their ‘babies’ sometimes. I thought it was best to gather the eggs myself this morning, despite Cassie’s interest doing it herself.” Susan nodded in agreement. “There are some regular egg buyers, and I’ve been trying to keep up with their orders. Kevin said I can just keep the money, but I’m saving it for Horace.”
“This is a sweet deal you’ve got here.” Susan gestured around the kitchen with a fork in her hand, then began whipping the eggs with a little milk. “This kitchen can’t decide which decade it wants to be from, but it’s charming. That paint you picked out will really make a difference.” She gave Melinda a sly look.
“You’ll just have to wait until after breakfast. I’m starving, and our master painter hasn’t yet arrived.”
Cassie was proof of the old saying to not judge a book by its cover. Back in college, long before the designer handbags and luxury vehicles, she worked summers as a painter for a Twin Cities house restoration company. Melinda had gratefully put Cassie in charge of purchasing the right cleansers to scrub the farmhouse’s plaster walls and choosing the best painter’s tape to protect the substantial oak built-ins and woodwork.
That had left her with the exciting-yet-daunting task of choosing the paint. Kevin suggested she aim for neutrals, but told her to pick whatever she thought would look best.
She finally settled on a warm white for the kitchen, so soft it was the color of melted vanilla ice cream. Hopefully that shade would magnify the light coming in the south windows, and provide a better backdrop to the pale-green cabinets than the drab brown now on the walls. The bluebirds in the dining room guided her choice for the adjacent living room, and it took several samples brushed on the plaster to get the color just right. There, the brown would be replaced by a pale gray with sky-blue undertones.
“These are the perfect shades!” Cassie exclaimed when Melinda pried the lids off the first two paint cans. “And I’m glad both have the primer built in. Do you have enough so the kitchen can get two coats?”
Melinda nodded. Susan gave her a high five. “I can’t wait to get started. It’s going to be beautiful.”
With the paint colors no longer a mystery, the friends lingered over third cups of coffee and second helpings of streusel coffeecake. Melinda felt her spirits soar as she looked around the kitchen, her doubts from last night long gone. How much better the house would look with just a few simple changes.
“We’d better get started,” Cassie finally said, breaking up the chatter and laughter. “Let’s tackle the living room first. With all this beautiful woodwork, it might take us longer to prep and tape the walls than roll on the paint.”
Susan quickly washed the breakfast dishes while Melinda and Cassie lifted the sofa, Horace’s chair and the television stand away from the living room’s walls and draped plastic drop cloths over the furniture and across the oak floors. Melinda wrangled a wooden stepladder up from the basement and Susan took down the faded curtains and removed the rods, flooding the downstairs of the house with even more light.
“Ladies, we’ve got our work cut out for us here,” Cassie said as she filled buckets with hot water in the kitchen, adding cleanser to two of them. “Melinda, how about you man the rinse sponge while Susan and I start scrubbing this grime off. I bet there’s layers of fireplace smoke and country dirt on these tired brown walls. No wonder Horace chose that color.”
Cassie was right. The room seemed to come alive as the years of residue were wiped away. Melinda opened all the downstairs windows, including those in Horace’s room. The green-growing breeze coming in off the fields soon mingled with the nose-tickling scent of the cleanser.
“Smells like a fresh start in here, if you ask me,” Susan told Melinda as she swapped out a water bucket filled with murky suds.
They took a quick coffee break as the living room walls began to dry. Cassie suggested they tape off and paint the living room before lunch, as it would take all afternoon to scrub the spacious kitchen’s walls and cabinets, then give the dull walls their first coat of the cream paint. That would leave time tomorrow to paint the kitchen again before Cassie and Susan left for Minneapolis.
The kitchen cabinets were coated with a greasy film that gave the women sore forearms by the end of the day, but the scrubbing revealed the once-drab doors and drawers to be a cheerful celery green.
The living room was, as Susan called it, “a revelation.” The soft blue-gray paint brought out the reddish undertones in the dark oak woodwork, and there was no longer a jarring color difference between the living and dining rooms.
&n
bsp; “I don’t even want to hang those ugly old curtains back up in here.” Melinda gestured at the red-and-blue checkered panels now draped across Horace’s dresser. “Maybe a nice, subtle stripe in blues and greens would complement both rooms …”
“That’s always how it goes.” Susan folded her arms and admired their handiwork. “One project leads to another. But now, even the bluebirds look more at home.”
Melinda had planned to treat her friends to steak dinners in Mason City, but they were all too tired to get cleaned up and drive more than half an hour just to eat. After only sandwiches and chips for lunch, they were starving. Instead, Cassie defrosted some chicken in Horace’s grumbling microwave while Melinda brought out the round charcoal grill hiding in the garage. She would have to baste the chicken often with Italian dressing, as there was no time for a marinade, but hoped the result would be nearly the same. She cut up carrots and potatoes and onions, making foil packets to put on the grill, while Susan chopped up a salad with lettuce and early veggies from the garden.
The potato packets made a pile of peelings that Cassie was about to toss in the garbage can, but Melinda waved her away. “The sheep love those, it’s their favorite treat. I’ll take them out later.”
“I’ll do it.” Cassie’s face lit up. “We haven’t had much time to see the animals up close. They won’t bite, right?”
“Of course not. Just toss the peels and they’ll come running.”
“She’s really getting into this country thing,” Susan said as the back porch’s storm door banged shut. “She told me earlier today that she could almost see herself out on a farm, living the simple life.”
Melinda shook her head. “I doubt Jim wants to give up his law practice to become an organic farmer. But I guess a girl can hope.”
Only a few minutes later, a muffled yelp and three frantic barks drifted in through the kitchen windows. Melinda rushed out to the back porch and spotted Hobo with his paws up on the pasture fence and the ewes clustered inside. But no Cassie.
Growing Season Page 17