by Leesa Dean
“I’m glad you’re here,” Michelle says. “After dinner I caught myself talking to the eggplants. What am I, nuts?”
She talks nonstop while Amy attempts to get organized, though it’s nearly impossible without proper lighting. By the time she’s arranged her clothes in a pile, she knows where Michelle’s from, that she’s studying anthropology at UBC, and that she lived in Africa for eight months.
“So what’s your story?” Michelle asks.
“I’m from Toronto.”
“And?”
“I don’t know. That’s it, I guess.” Amy fakes a yawn.
“Oh geez,” Michelle says. “You’re exhausted and here I am, talking your ear off. What time is it in Toronto? Like, midnight?”
“Closer to one.”
Amy takes off her pants and adds them to the pile. She’ll sleep in her T-shirt, the one she wore when she hugged her boyfriend goodbye at the airport.
“I’ve been getting up at six to do yoga with Paul,” Michelle says. “Do you want me to wake you up tomorrow?”
“I’m not much of a morning person,” Amy responds.
“Oh. I’ll try and be quiet, then.”
Amy lies on her stomach and tries to get comfortable. Instead of Matt’s scent, the pillow emits a musty cabin smell. It feels strange to be in bed without him, even if their relationship has been strained since the spring. He didn’t want her to go away, but she didn’t give him a choice.
“There’s one more thing you should know about me,” Michelle says. God, Amy thinks. Here we go. Michelle’s words come slow, then fast. “I often have to pee in the night. I keep a bucket in here because the barn’s so far up the hill. Of course, if that would bother you, I could go outside. Really, that’s probably what I should do.”
“It’s fine,” Amy says. “I’m sure I’ll sleep through it.”
“You probably think I’m weird. People have said that my whole life.”
“No,” Amy lies. “I don’t think you’re weird.”
Michelle is quiet after that but Amy doesn’t fall asleep immediately. The night sounds are so different from what she’s used to—at home, there is traffic and raccoons on the neighbour’s garage, their tiny claws scratching the shingles. There is also Matt, a night owl surfing the internet, clicking the mouse and rolling his chair on the hardwood floor. Here, the windup clock ticks and she wonders if she’ll ever get used to it. Somewhere in the distance is the clink of a chain and a low howl. The neighbourhood dogs all join in, one at a time, yipping like miserable wolves under a sliver moon.
A BRASSY CLANG reverberates through the cabin early the next morning. Amy covers her ears but Michelle snoozes through the racket. When Amy can no longer stand it, she reaches over Michelle and turns off the alarm.
“Sorry,” Michelle says, woken by the silence.
“Next time,” Amy says, “I’ll throw it out the window.”
In Toronto, three hours ahead, she’d be stepping off the streetcar at Queen and Dufferin for work if she hadn’t quit her job. Amy rolls over and closes her eyes. She hears Michelle leave and falls back asleep, promising herself she’ll wake up in fifteen minutes. By the time she actually gets out of bed, Michelle’s already done her yoga, eaten breakfast, and started weeding the onion patch. A men’s work shirt hangs loose from her body and there’s a batik scarf twisted around her head. When she leans forward, the shirt lifts to expose a string of glass beads around her waist. They catch the sun and flash.
“Howdy, pardner,” Michelle says.
Amy gives her a two-fingered wave before heading to the main barn, which is also Paul’s pottery workshop with a full kitchen and bathroom. After a long shower, she stands in the kitchen, wondering what she’s supposed to eat. There’s a bag of organic bread on the counter. She takes a slice and looks for a toaster, but can’t find one so she sets the oven’s burner to high. She threads a fork through the bread and hovers the slice above the glowing element, feeling the heat on her hand.
Can I do this? She wonders as she eats the dry toast on the veranda, overlooking the weed-strangled field. Paul, wearing a hippie skirt of some kind, is standing beside Michelle. Amy knows his type. In Toronto, his habitat would be Kensington Market or any park with a drum circle. He stands there for quite a while, long enough for Amy to finish her toast and drink a glass of water. Michelle sits at his feet the whole time like a faithful devotee.
Amy is in the kitchen washing dishes when Paul comes, wanting to show her around the farm.
“Sharon used to do all this,” he tells her as they walk to a greenhouse up the hill. Amy hadn’t noticed it the night before. A pout forms on Paul’s lips, and for a moment, she actually feels sorry for him. “She’s left before,” he says, “but this time she took the dog.”
He unhooks the padlock and motions for Amy to enter. She is almost entirely expecting a grow-op, but instead she is faced with multiple layers of what looks like grass.
“Catnip?” Amy guesses. It’s the first thing that came to mind.
Paul laughs for a long time. She notices the lines around his eyes and thinks he might be older than she thought. Maybe fifty?
“It’s wheatgrass,” he tells her. He takes a tray that’s ready to be harvested and flips it to show her the intricate maze of roots. “It only took eight days to become this complex.” He puts the tray back on the shelf and adjusts the spray gun. He pulls the trigger and walks slowly along the rows, misting the wheatgrass.
“Sharon told me you’re in a choir?” he asks.
Amy scans her memory, trying to remember when she would have mentioned it. “I used to be. Why?”
“She used to sing in here every morning, but I can’t carry a tune. The wheatgrass grows faster if it’s exposed to music.”
Amy feels laughter brewing and suppresses it. “You’re serious?”
“Very. Sharon started last year and the plants have been ready to harvest a day earlier on average.”
Amy shrugs. “I can try. Do I have to sing anything particular? Do the plants have a preferred genre?”
“I have no idea. Just sing whatever you want; if the plants don’t grow, try something else.”
He gives her a pat on the back before leaving, which she finds patronizing. Even though she has no audience but the wheatgrass, she feels self-conscious. She opens the greenhouse door to make sure Paul is nowhere near and sees him on the veranda, drinking coffee. Does he do anything besides hang out? she wonders.
Instead of singing, she lies on the ground and closes her eyes. She’s still jet-lagged, exhausted from all the changes in her life. She falls asleep for the rest of the morning, lulled by the earthy smell of roots and fresh grass. No one comes to check on her.
THAT NIGHT, MICHELLE cooks dinner for Amy. She’s like a mad witch doctor, simmering canned tomatoes and eggplants in a cauldron with too many spices. She cooks in bare feet, and when she walks back and forth to the sink Amy can see her filthy heels. Michelle spoons the concoction into bowls, likely made by Paul, and they eat on the stoop, facing the fields. The meal’s not terrible, but it’s not great, either.
“Paul told me you’re the new plant singer,” Michelle says, spooning food into her mouth. A clump of rice lands on her shirt. She brushes it away, leaving a turmeric stain.
“I suppose I am,” Amy responds.
“Well? Aren’t you excited? It’s quite an honour!”
“I think it’s dumb,” Amy admits.
Michelle shoots her a look. “Don’t let Paul hear you say that,” she says, her voice low.
Amy raises her hands in the air in mock surrender and wonders if Michelle would jump off a cliff if Paul asked her to. Probably.
“I’m entitled to my own opinion, aren’t I?”
“Sure,” Michelle says, “but you just got here. Maybe it’s a bit early to judge?”
She’s right, Amy thinks. Instead, she says, “No, I’m pretty sure if you ask me in a month, I’ll still think the wheatgrass singing is dumb.”
“I’m going to write a letter,” Michelle announces. She dips a ridiculous, oversized feather pen into a vial of brown ink. As she writes, a strand of hair detours a little too close to the candle. Amy imagines her engulfed in flames, a comet of smoke burning through the night. The chamber pot is in the same place as the night before—Michelle forgot to empty it in the morning. If she catches on fire, Amy thinks, I’ll douse her with it.
“Got a fella back home?” Michelle asks.
“Um, yeah,” Amy says.
“You don’t sound so sure.”
“It just took me a bit to remember what ‘fella’ means. Pretty sure no one’s used that word in fifty years.”
Michelle ignores the sarcasm and says, “My boyfriend—husband, actually—lives in Ghana.”
Amy raises her eyebrows. “You’re married?”
“Sure am.”
“Where’s your ring?”
“That’s not the custom.” Michelle rolls onto her back and lifts her shirt to expose the string of beads around her waist. “They’re from Mensah’s sisters. To welcome me to the family.”
“Isn’t that nice. Ever considered he might be using you?”
“I assure you, he’s not.”
“I’m just saying I’ve heard stories.”
“Well, whatever you’ve heard does not apply to me and Mensah.”
“You might want to watch yourself,” Amy says. “Just in case.”
Michelle returns to her world of ink and paper, slightly ruffled. As Amy listens to the cadence of pen strokes, she considers writing to Matt. It could be a ritual, the two of them writing letters to their faraway men by candlelight. But how would she start the letter? Dear Matt? Hey babe? No. Neither seemed right. She promised she’d write, and she did intend to, but not yet. Not until she knew what to say.
IT DOESN’T TAKE long for Amy to fall into a rhythm—wake up at six, snooze for half an hour, consider not getting out of bed at all; collect eggs from the chicken coop on the way to the barn, cook one and eat it with toast, slow-roasted over the burner; boil water for tea but ice it once steeped; sing to the wheatgrass; get a bucket and tools from the shed; find the solar radio and tune into CBC; pick a field to weed—sometimes with Michelle, sometimes far from Michelle, depending on how she’s feeling.
They usually break for lunch at noon. Most of the time, Paul joins them and bores them with stories about his past life as a beach bum in Nicaragua and Thailand. He shows them scars on his legs and back from a shark attack he survived. As the weather heats up, he spends more time standing around shirtless, lord of his fields. Amy finds it annoying, but Michelle loves it.
Today, it’s just Amy and Michelle because Paul has gone to Penticton to float the river channel. After their morning yoga, Michelle helped him make sandwiches and load up his truck. Amy saw her contributing some of their shared food to his picnic lunch.
“You shouldn’t give him food,” she scolds. “He can afford his own.”
Michelle ignores the comment and eats her salad. Afterwards, she coerces Amy into Ghanaian lessons. For the first month Amy refused, but Michelle finally wore her down.
“Wezon,” she says, bowing to Amy.
“Wezon,” Amy responds.
“Eti sen?”
“Ya,” Amy responds.
“Eh ya,” Michelle corrects.
“Whatever. Same thing.”
Michelle ignores the comment and says, “I’ve got one for you. Listen. Aᶑu wu kplim a? Now repeat.”
“Too complex,” Amy says. “Keep it simple or I quit.”
“Want to know what it means?”
“No, not really.”
“It means ‘Will you dance with me?’”
“That’s random,” Amy says.
“Hey, it might come in handy someday! In Ghana, a man offered me forty cows and an acre of land to marry him. That is a very good offer!”
“Wow,” Amy says. “Sounds like everyone there wanted a piece of you.”
Michelle hesitates before responding. “I was popular there. In Canada, men never really looked at me. This one guy in high school even said I looked like a stork, with my twiggy legs and puffed stomach. Can you imagine?”
Oh my, you are pathetic, Amy catches herself thinking. She tries to shoo away the thought, to be compassionate the way she’d like to be. But her disdain lingers, persistent like the weeds choking the fields and the dirt living under her nails.
WHILE ON THE farm, Amy is supposed to figure out what to do with her life after the summer. She’s narrowed the choices to either continuing her studies or going on a long trip, probably to Europe or Mexico. Part of the decision will be influenced by whether or not she decides to stay with Matt. Every time she tries to come up with a plan, though, her thoughts circle back to what happened in the spring.
In February, Matt and his ex-girlfriend hooked up while Amy was out of town. She agonized over it for weeks, plagued by images of the former couple in rapture, imagining the things they might have done to each other. Finally, Amy decided she would have to cheat on Matt if their relationship was to survive. On March 21st, one of Amy’s friends was having a party. It was the kind of party Matt wouldn’t go to. Amy decided she’d wear a dress Matt liked so that afterwards, she could tell him she wore it when she fucked someone else. It just happened, she’d tell him. We were drunk. It’s exactly what Matt had said about his ex-girlfriend.
At the party, Amy drank fast and talked to all the men, moving on if they had girlfriends or seemed disinterested. The plan was not going well. Some had girlfriends and others were put off by her forwardness. Just when she thought nothing would happen, she sensed a man giving her a vibe. His salt-and-pepper hair made him look older than he was. The man approached Amy and asked why he’d never seen her around.
“I’ve been around,” she said. “Guess you weren’t paying attention.” She feigned interest as he poured her drinks and talked about the local art scene and a recent trip to Germany. Later, he said he had to leave but invited her back to his place.
His car was silver and he kept it clean. There was no evidence of daily life—no coffee cups or parking stubs, nothing in the back seat. German industrial techno vibrated through the speakers and the man kept talking about his trip and all the galleries in Berlin. Amy felt nauseated from all the drinks and thought she might be sick. At the corner of Bloor and Bathurst, she asked the man to stop so she could use the bathroom.
It was busy inside the Pizza Pizza. A group of teenagers shoved each other as they waited for their order, and some of the tables were occupied by tired-looking homeless people. Amy walked down the hall to the women’s washroom. In the mirror, she saw a disappointing version of herself. Suddenly, she felt exhausted and wanted to go home. She debated whether to tell the man she’d changed her mind or just stay in the bathroom until he realized he’d been ditched.
Before she could decide, there was a knock at the door. “Just a minute,” Amy said. She washed her hands. There was no paper towel so she wiped her palms on her dress. When she opened the door, the man from the party came in and locked the door behind him.
“No,” she said, pushing him away.
“Shut up,” he said.
He turned her around so she was facing the mirror. Her wrists were so skinny he could hold them behind her back with just one hand. He reached up her dress and pulled her panties to the side. She kept her eyes down so she wouldn’t have to see any of it. The counter was cold and wet against her cheek when he pushed her face into it and she thought, This is what you get.
A LETTER FROM Matt arrives at the end of June. Hey babe, it says, things just aren’t the same aroun
d here. The city is restless, it’s hot, everyone at the Ship is like, we miss Amy! I keep saying, yeah, tell me about it! His efforts to pretend everything is normal are heartbreaking. She reads the letter twice and thinks about where she can go to be alone, with no chance of running into Michelle or Paul. On her way to the greenhouse, she passes Michelle, sitting straight-backed in the onion patch. She waves Amy over. Amy sighs and settles in beside her, bum in the dirt, surprised by how her willingness to get her regular clothes dirty grows over time.
“I miss Mensah,” she says. “We still haven’t heard from immigration. I don’t know how much longer I can wait.”
“Matt sent me a letter,” Amy tells her. “He asked why I never call. I don’t know what to say.” Michelle knows the first part of what happened in March, but not the rest.
“In Ghana, they would tell you atadi bia ha no le eme. You can find a worm, even in a ripe pepper.”
“I don’t get it.”
“No matter how bad a situation is, one must cope.”
“Oh yeah? Those Africans. Always looking on the bright side.”
“You know what else they say? Aᶑu wu kplim a!”
Michelle kicks off her shoes and begins to dance through the onion patch over to the eggplants. Oh-ey-yay-ah! she sings, thrusting her hands in front of her chest like she’s doing push-ups. Amy watches her move through the crops and remembers how she and Matt used to play old records and dance in the living room together. I got you babe, he’d sing, hand firm as he twirled her. She thinks of how she’d left the taxi the night of the party and saw him through the living room window, still awake. He called her name when he heard the door open. When she didn’t answer, he came to the hallway where he found her on the floor. He tried to pry her hands from her face but stopped when she said no. He stayed with her, talking and then not talking, until he convinced her to come to bed. He put one of his T-shirts over her dress and tucked her in. All night, he would not let her go.