The Opposite of Never

by Mary Kathleen Mehuron

  “Argh. It’s a waste of time. Sometimes I see a house online I love. Then I call the realtor, only to find out it’s already sold. I think sometimes it’s a big scam. You know, they put a perfect house out there as a come-on. You can’t believe how many afternoons I’ve spent searching through realtors’ listings that aren’t even close to what I’ m looking for.”

  He briefly reached out and touched her shoulder as they walked. “What are you looking for?”

  “I want a big living space so I can still host family holidays. A room big enough for overstuffed couches to be arranged in a U-shape, and a dining area that can seat ten, maybe twelve people. The house should be small, no bigger than two thousand square feet finished. I’m also looking for unfinished flexible space in the basement area with nine-foot ceilings. If you sink a foundation into a rising hillside, one full wall gets daylight. That’s what I want downstairs, a wall of glass to make it feel more like a ground floor than a basement.”

  He scratched his chin. “I can see your problem. What you want is pretty specific. For me, it was like having a second career finding the house I’m living in now.”

  They discussed the pros and cons of every town in the area. As they hiked along, she described to him the shortcomings of each home she had looked at, but they continued to enjoy the sunshine and the good company. When they reached the top of the trail and began their descent, Georgia stopped and marveled at the sunshine that had risen higher across the water. She could see Kenny’s dock on the far shore across the pond and his front porch sitting high on the hill.

  “You have the perfect location, Kenny. Does it ever get old? What a great spot. I would love to find something here on Mill-house Pond, but all the homes have huge acreage.”

  He gathered his thoughts and said, “Maybe somebody would sell you a lot . . . Wait!” Kenny stopped dead still. “Georgia, can you see the small field to the left of my driveway? How at the far end of the flat space, the land rises quickly? See how it steps up and then levels off again? Can you imagine the house you just described to me, its foundation embedded into that hill. You’d have a waterfront view and be able to watch the sunset from your front porch. There would still be plenty of meadow left for a nice yard.”

  “Kenny, are you serious? It’s a thrilling idea, but why would you want to subdivide?”

  He stopped and faced her. “Georgia, I have to confess I’ve been worried about money. I’m a careful planner, but I wasn’t counting on the baby coming along. It’s a triple whammy—all the medical bills from Sharon’s long illness, the hit I took by retiring early to be with Zelda—although I still think it was a good decision at the time—and now a child. My child is trying to raise a child? Geesh.”

  He reached out and snapped a dry twig off a nearby tree and proceeded to break it into sections. They started down the hill again with Georgia in the lead. She could hear him perfectly when he said, “Then, there was the cost of extended rehab, and I paid for Zelda’s new teeth completely out of pocket. When I think about selling the lot, some obvious advantages jump out at me. It would reduce my tax burden and provide a lump sum of money I could put into investments. We could share some maintenance costs like the well, and if we shared the driveway, the snowplowing. I wouldn’t have to keep the field mowed down because it would be your front lawn and your responsibility.”

  She still worried that he was trying to help her out of her dilemma. “Those are all solid points that you make. I’d have never thought of those particular details.”

  “I’ve always been good at thinking creatively. And I’ll tell you another thing I’m going to look into—signing the forest above my house over to the Vermont Land Trust. Again, it would ease my tax burden. I’ll probably have it logged first and put that money in the bank.”

  They stood shoulder to shoulder by the water’s edge, imagining her little home in the site across the way. Georgia could hear the waves lapping, and smell the water’s scent on the breeze. The vista, as so often happened out here on Millhouse Pond, was unexpectedly clear with a golden cast. She fell into a daydream in which she brought a load of wash out to her new side yard where she had erected a clothes line. As she pinned up the garments, the music of the birds and the aromas of the warming morning air brought tears to her eyes. But she snapped out of her reverie and thought, This is too good to be true. Maybe Kenny will change his mind. It could be the spirit of the moment.

  “Kenny, sleep on this tonight. If you are still willing to consider it tomorrow, let’s walk your land together and try to predict the impact of building my house on it.”

  She looked up at his home perched above the lake and added, “It sure looks like there are plenty of trees for screening. We would definitely be able to maintain seclusion, although in the winter, it might be different. I never noticed how many maple trees you have up there. It’s a regular sugar bush. Have you ever thought about collecting sap?”

  “If you build your house, you can show me how. Listen, just as an exploratory measure, I am going to go down to the town clerk’s office this afternoon and meet with the zoning administrator. This piece of land is on the waterfront, so you’d be held to all the wetlands restrictions. That much I know for certain. I want to find out what they are and pick their brains about anything else we should be considering. Let me find out what they’d recommend for a project like this.”

  “Okay. In the meantime, I’m going to research other pieces of property that are for sale across the state. Let me see if I can find recent transactions that are comparable to this. We can get a sense of the amount of money that I should offer you.”

  “Georgia, why wait until tomorrow? How about you come back to walk the land this afternoon? Four o’clock? We can have a glass of wine, watch the sunset, and compare notes.”

  “I have classes today at two and three. I couldn’t get here until four fifteen at the earliest.”

  “Four fifteen then. Let’s synchronize our watches.”

  Georgia burst out laughing, bent over, and put her hands on her knees. “Do they even have that expression anymore? I bet my kids wouldn’t have any idea what it means.”

  “Good thing we have each other.” Kenny’s statement was heartfelt and it hung in the air awhile in the comfortable silence between them. A feeling of tenderness warmed Georgia, but she quickly decided not to read too deeply into what he said.

  He’s just excited about this project and he’s getting carried away. I’m thrilled by the notion of it, too.

  For the first time since she’d realized she would have to sell her home and move, Georgia was optimistic about the possibilities of change.

  Fifteen

  “To wish was to hope, and to hope was to expect.”

  —Jane Austen

  Four fifteen in the afternoon proved to be a magic time that day in Moorestown. Spencer and Zelda journeyed forth with their horses packed up and their hopes high. Zelda set the tone of the trip when she insisted Spencer watch her as she coaxed his horse Tom to back out of the pasture gate, just as he had taught her to do.

  Spencer slapped his thigh in delight, but joked in an accusatory voice, “Show-off!”

  “Wait until you see the dinner I’m going to make,” Zelda shouted back over her shoulder as she trotted up across the dusty-green, high grass and toward the woods beyond it. She hoped that over time she would prove to be a good campfire cook, as catering for their customers would be additional revenue for them—and she always loved to prepare meals, especially for the people she loved most. Although she would be reluctant to admit it to anyone, Zelda already thought of Spencer as an important part of her life.

  She had purchased a tiny outdoor camping stove that ran off mixed butane and propane. The fuel was stored in a refillable cylinder that screwed onto the appliance. It was a good tool for boiling, pan-frying, and sautéing, but she intended to finish her meats over a bed of hot embers. In her pack, she had included a small mesh grill for this purpose. In order to get the fire hot en
ough to burn down to a charring glow, the minute they decided where to stop for the night she would get a blaze going. It took hours for gathered wood to cook down to red coals.

  Zelda had to slow her horse where the forest hardwoods began, and Spencer quickly caught up to her. Since they were forced to walk the horses more slowly and let them pick their way across the uneven terrain, it was a good time to make conversation.

  “I know the deciduous trees are concentrated more toward the base of our mountains,” she said. “Look right here, there are sugar maples, some yellow birch, and even a few beech trees. See how the trees change to conifers, mostly white pines at the higher elevations. I don’t know why it happens.”

  Spencer replied, “It’s called altitudinal zonation.”

  “Now who’s showing off?”

  “From what I’ve read, it’s a natural layering of ecosystems that occurs at different elevations. Temperature, humidity, soil composition, and the amount of sunlight change as you go higher. All these things support different plants and determine the animals that can live there. Remind me to show you an old picture we have of this hill. It was taken a hundred years ago, when these woods were completely clearcut.”

  Zelda said, “We learned about that in school. It happened in a lot of places in Vermont. I have a good memory for random facts in history. Did you know the white pine was included on the Great Seal of Vermont, designed by Ira Allen in 1778?”

  “I did not. I was always better at math and science.”

  Zelda shot a deliberately coy and flirtatious sideways look at Spencer. “Maybe, between the two of us, we have all the bases covered.”

  He reached out and took her hand for a few moments, but it was a long reach, and finally he squeezed it and let go. “It’s going to get cold tonight, so we’ll have to snuggle in, but the big advantage to a night like this is that it will be good stargazing. We can make a game out of who sees a shooting star first and keep score of how many. It’s possible we might even be graced by the northern lights if we climb up onto a peak.”

  Spencer shifted the reins higher in his hand. “Zelda, we have to remember nights like this will require different equipment for our customers. We haven’t really talked about the gear we need for the business. You and I will be happy we have down sleeping bags tonight, but summer-weight bags are so much cheaper to buy. Are we going to provide equipment for our clients? Do they bring their own? How do you think that it should work?”

  Zelda hesitated before she joked about her days on the streets, “Well, as you know I have had my share of experiences . . . ahem . . . sleeping outdoors.” Although it was black humor, they both cracked up at her reference to her homeless days. “All kidding aside, seriously, I don’t think we want to get involved with having to maintain sleeping bags. People can be very careless with others people’s belongings. Then, there are problems with lice and bedbugs.”

  Spencer lurched back in his saddle at the thought of it. “Gross. I hear it’s nearly impossible to get rid of bedbugs.”

  “Exactly. Why take the chance? Many of our clients will be traveling from cities where such things are common and can bring the problem with them. What makes more sense to me is to make up a list of equipment they’ll need on our website. If they forget something, they can buy from us. With a big markup, of course. And another thing we could offer is they could purchase the entire list as a package.”

  Spencer’s expression and the nod of his head reflected the fact that he was impressed with her head for business. “What kind of markup are you talking about?”

  “Twenty percent,” Zelda told him coolly. Listening to her, you would think that she did this sort of thing every day of her life. It was obvious why Zelda had become the top salesperson at the jewelry store where she used to work. She was innately shrewd, and in any kind of negotiation, she became competitive. Winning was much more important to her than compromising just to make a sale. Her attitude implied that her products were prestigious, and she was convincing.

  Spencer let out a whistle. After listening to her opinion, he found himself wondering if he was undervaluing his dairy products. “What about the cheese end?”

  Zelda peered over at him and caught his eye, her face determined. “Fifty percent.”

  He nearly slid off one side of the horse he was so surprised. “Fifty percent markup! That’s crazy money.”

  “We’re going for high-end customers, Spencer. They won’t blink an eye at that price. Your cheese is always going to be made in small batches with the highest quality milk. I say we pitch it to a select audience: our horse people, our website, and some of the especially nice farmers’ markets.”

  Zelda carefully watched Spencer’s face. She could almost see the wheels in his mind turning. They rode on in a state of deep contemplation and wandered up toward the pine grove that Armand Boudoin had recommended they visit. Both found themselves taking deep, relaxed breaths as they absorbed the scenery with all five senses. Zelda and Spencer were comfortable and content with each other, the warmth of the sun, and the almost perfumed bouquet that rose from warming wildflowers. Spencer broke the long silence. “I think we should try to showcase this trail to our clients. It’s spectacular as far as I’m concerned.”

  The path was flanked with golden water rushing down fast-moving streams. It leapt over piles of rounded stones, and roared around every twist and turn they traveled. Its sound was mesmerizing, and the slight mist it cast off cooled Zelda and Spencer’s faces and gave an almost magical glow to the fading afternoon light. Zelda closed her eyes for a few seconds and held her face up toward the sky. “Spencer, this may seem like a weird thing to say but I have never felt so clean. Or calm. Hey, do you know what time it is?”

  He turned around to admire the sight of her riding behind him on the trail. “It’s not weird. I know exactly what you mean . . . quarter to five.”

  “Should we camp here in the white pines tonight?”

  “I’d like to, if that’s all right with you. We still need to explore and find the best spot. Let’s tie the horses up ahead and investigate on foot for a while.”

  After they tethered the horses, they hiked a circuit about fifty feet around their makeshift hitching post. Spencer and Zelda expanded their search by pushing out in concentric circles that they widened by thirty feet or so each time. They were rewarded when they came upon a small cliff of perhaps nine or ten feet that sat above a wide bubbling stream. Abutting the cliff was a deep pool formed by a turn in the water’s flow. The water was the bluish cast of teal and looked fresh and inviting.

  “That color makes me want to tear off my clothes and dive in. I feel like it’s beckoning to me,” Zelda said enthusiastically.

  “Feel free, but that’s pure snowmelt right there. It’s so cold you’d probably come up screaming. If you want to swim, we should wait until late morning tomorrow when the sun will be the warmest.”

  “Oh, well, still this looks like a nice place to camp.”

  “Yep. Let’s go get the horses and walk them in here. If we used this as a future permanent site, we’d have to cut a trail into it. And Zelda? I think I would lose my mind if this place got littered with cans and cigarette butts. You know what just popped into my head? We should work on some kind of curriculum that will teach our clients the proper way to pack out when they’re camping.”

  Spencer set up the tent while Zelda started her campfire. She was looking forward to cooking for him, and he was happy to be able to provide shelter for her. They may not have known it, but their trip was already satisfying a growing instinct inside each of them to take good care of the other. Within the hour, the fire pit was crackling, their temporary home erected, and the horses unsaddled for the night and drinking out of the stream. Like a scene from an old cowboy movie, Spencer used the saddles and a bedroll to make a spot for them to stretch out and lounge on.

  They leaned up against the saddles and held hands while they relaxed and looked around their campsite. When they turne
d to each other to embrace, their kiss was as natural as the bed of pine needles their blanket rested on. Infused with pine scent, the roar of a nearby waterfall, and the toasty taste of each other, the two young people quickly became aroused.

  Spencer pulled back, but kept his arm around her. “I haven’t asked you many questions about the baby.” Zelda felt disconcerted and blushed, but Spencer’s concern led in a surprising direction. “I don’t know how this is supposed to work when a woman is pregnant. Did they tell you what to do so both you and the baby are safe?”

  Zelda assumed he was talking about sex, and she was mortified. She didn’t know how to talk about something so personal. Spencer put his finger under her chin and lifted her face so she had to look him in the eye.

  “If we can’t talk about this, then we aren’t ready to do it.”

  Zelda knew he was right. She answered him truthfully but with difficulty. “Larry was gone so quickly, I told my doctor I’m not sexually active anymore. That was the truth. So I don’t know what’s safe and what isn’t.”

  “I’d like to go to your doctor with you.”

  “Really?”

  “Of course, I want to make sure I’m not hurting the little thing. I’m not even sure . . . I know you can’t get pregnant because you already are, but is there a reason we should use a condom? I think maybe we should make a list of all of our questions.”

  “That sounds so grown up. So reasonable . . . so unlike me.” They both chuckled. He kissed her again deeply and her heart fluttered wildly.

  “Zelda, I think everything will work out fine, even with my mom, if we put our best foot forward. Let’s try to make some smart decisions. We should simmer down right now and simply enjoy this time together. We can still have fun and it can be . . . you know . . . romantic without going too far. Let’s promise to wait. Once we get the green light and know what we’re doing, we can decide when and where we want our first time to be.”