by Amy Stinnett
“I know it’s not the point, but we could go to a movie sometime. It’s small, but the Emmett theater has something decent on every few weeks. We could go to Boise, too. There’s an IMAX, and there’s The Flix, if you want to see something artsy.”
I thought about sitting close to her in a darkened movie theater, and I almost swooned. That’s a thing, right, swooning? I told her that would be great. Liv and I had gone to The Flix, and I thought it was really quirky and cool.
We talked more about my parents and her parents. Her mom was also a librarian, but she died of pancreatic cancer in 2010, the year Jodie got her degree. There was a lot of medical debt, and her dad borrowed against their farm. It will have to be sold when he dies, which, of course, he won’t ever do (she is adamant about this), but they would need to in order to pay off all the debt. She started working at the library as an assistant when she was in high school, and she returned each year to run the summer reading program. She has been there full time since 2011, when she took over her mother’s position. She is going back for her master’s once she has enough money saved up. She would have to do some online classes and move to a place where the college had a program and live there for a year or two, just until she could finish up. She thought she might move to Boise, Portland, or even Salt Lake for the right position, somewhere close enough to come home frequently. Until then, she was enjoying spending time with her friends and her dad. I asked her what she would do with my dad’s farm if she were me, and she said she wouldn’t touch that question with a ten-foot pole, which kind of reminded me of my mom. She said, of course, she would put horses on it, if she could afford them.
We talked long into the night, and when I asked her about when she had to leave, she asked if I minded if she slept on the couch. She would go home in the morning. She didn’t work on Sundays, and she had called her dad earlier, so everything was cool. We talked a little more, and I thought back to earlier in the morning, when Elliot and I had found that the well pump was broken, and it felt like days ago. I gave Jodie a pillow and a couple of blankets, and I went to bed. It was so comforting to have someone else in the house, even if that turncoat Frodo chose to sleep with Jodie instead. And even if I tripped and banged my toe on the way to bed. The giggle from the living room made my stinging toe worth it.
February 28, 2013
I finally finished my last entry; I wanted to get everything down. Jodie helped me clear the driveway the next morning (there were about two inches of snow that fell the night before), and then she went home. I am having so much fun spending time with her.
Elliot came over later, and we made sure the goats had water that wasn’t frozen. He came back on Monday and found a spare pump that used to run a landscaping pond, one of my dad’s many scavenging finds, and he figured out a way to pump the water out of the hole in the center of the driveway, so we don’t have to use water from the house. Especially with the snow lately, that would make a huge mess. Elliot showed me this cool trick, where you fill a soda bottle with saltwater and it keeps the water in the bucket from freezing. It’s like magic! But the buckets still get filthy. And the area where we rinse them out is so slick, I actually slid to the ground yesterday and landed square on my butt. Dragging myself up off the ground, I had a flashback to my “bucket brigade” days. I remember pulling the handle close to my chin so it wouldn’t bang against the ground. It couldn’t have been half full. The next moment the bucket floated skyward out of my hands, and my dad was hoisting me into the air and up across his shoulder. I remember giggling with peals of laughter upon becoming airborne. Today, though, with my swollen tailbone, I am hobbling around like I’m seventy.
Bill came over this morning to share a couple bits of information. He told the agent I wasn’t currently ready to sell, and another one of her client’s, somebody local, overheard her talking about it. This other person actually owns a lot of land around here, and they really want the property for the hay crop. They thought they might fix up the house for a mother-in-law cabin or for one of their kids when they get older. They aren’t really interested in the goats but are considering the chickens. I love these people shopping around my dad’s farm like a dollar store, and it isn’t even on the market. Anyway, Bill said their offer would be much better than the last one, and he had to bring it to me. They would want to get in as soon as spring weather starts, maybe before so they could lay out all their plans. I would have to be out of here in not much over a month, so I would need to get rolling on it almost immediately.
He asked me a few questions about my job, or jobs. The Boise radio job is actually picking up. They are using me more than Nate thought, and I got a referral to a real estate office that is trying to dominate the market across the valley. I use a different skill set there, working with their online listings and imbedding MLS info onto their site. My job in Seattle has stayed about the same, and they let me know about a mandatory meeting happening at the end of next week. I may have to Skype it, but I will try to make it if I can. I have to check with Mom to see if she has any miles I can borrow.
In other news, Bill spoke with his friend at the credit union, and they would be willing to extend me a small business loan in order to get the pump fixed. If I sold the house, I would need to ask for an advance payment in order to clear the loan prior to the sale. If I can get an estimate next week, he said he would help me get it all set up either late next week or early the following week. I didn’t know what else to do, so I called and got the repairman scheduled to come out next Tuesday.
March 1, 2013
I’ve been to the library a few times to work this week and seen Jodie there. We went to a drive-in restaurant and ate in the car. The food was terrible, but we talked for a couple of hours before she had to get home. I keep thinking how different she is than Ton-Ton, than anyone I know really. Still it feels so comfortable to be around her. We haven’t broached anything romantic AT ALL. I still think she is straight, but even if she is nothing more than a friend, it’s terrific. We click on so many levels. I melt sometimes when I look at her.
I called my mom, and she said she did not have any miles left on her plan. She cashed them in on a hotel room when they took Harvey’s daughter and granddaughter to Disneyland last month (did she tell me about that?). But the good news is Harvey has a couple of buddy passes I can use (he is a mechanic for one of the airlines), so it looks like next week, after I deal with the whole water pump situation, I will be heading to Seattle for a day or two, then home to Sacramento for a few days, before coming back here. Elliot says kidding will start while I am gone but he can stay over and keep an eye on things. Also, mom says there might be a surprise for me, when I get home. Oh, goddess, I can’t take any more surprises. I do, however, have to figure out what to do with Frodo while I’m gone. Elliot will be around, but it’s still too cold to put the dog outside, and Pork Chop says he isn’t welcome at Elliot’s. I might hit up Jodie.
One of Elliot’s egg customers stopped by the other day and asked him about the farm. I guess word is getting around. He met the guy at the front gate, and I could see the man holding his arms out and pointing around the property. Crap, could they just lay off for a while?
I left Bill a message about finding the right buyer for the place. I would like to find someone who would follow the same arrangement with Elliot, if possible. Despite what he says, I think Elliot would have a hard time adjusting. I found out his place is only about a half-acre, and the other mobile homes were used as his Dad’s workshop, and the other one is where his cousin, now dead used to live.
March 5, 2013
Today was an odd day, all the way around. The pump guy came, and it’s not as bad as everybody thought. It will be about $3,000 to fix it, though, which is bad enough. Bill came over in the afternoon, and he drove me into New Plymouth, to the credit union office, to sign papers for the loan. He co-signed, so now I have to pay it off out of the money I get from the farm.
Before we left New Plymouth, Bill and I s
topped at a restaurant and had lunch. I looked around at the Western memorabilia and tried to imagine a place like it in my old neighborhood near U-Dub and almost laughed out loud. And the closest thing Sacramento has to offer looks like a palace in comparison. The guy who took our order was under 60, unlike most of the locals, and the food was okay. Gravy, gravy, gravy.
We sipped our iced teas and talked for a while. I hadn’t actually thought about the fact I would get money from the sale, maybe enough to make a dent in my student loans. Bill thinks it would sell for close to $400,000, maybe more, before some expenses were paid out. That kind of blew my mind, but then he told me something even more bazaar. Some years, the farm earns more than enough to pay off my student loans and to pay for graduate school! I had no idea. I don’t even know what to do with that information.
When we got back to the farm, Bill didn’t get out of the car but seemed like he wanted to tell me something. After a moment, I thought I had read him wrong and started to get out. He motioned for me to wait.
“I just want you to know. If you’ve heard any rumors, they’re probably not true.”
I told him I hadn’t heard anything.
“I just want you to know nothing ever happened between your dad and me, even if your mom thinks it did. He was like a dad to me, that’s all. We were all really close back then, and I may have gotten confused about some things, but he and I worked it all out. I miss your mom a lot, even now. And they didn’t break up because of me. I left long before that happened.”
I stared at the dashboard. A couple of goats were shoving each other around out in the field.
“And it wasn’t my idea to name you after me. That was your mom’s.”
?!
“But look. I resolved my feelings over the years. There is no way I could have anything but love for both of them. How could I after all they did for me? Anyway, seeing you brings a lot of it back, both the good and the bad, but I want you to know that if you want to stay, I will do anything I can to help you succeed. If you sell, I’ll do anything there, too, of course. Anyway, I want to have you up to the house to meet my wife and kids, after you get back from your trip. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Dumbfounded, I got out and waved goodbye.
I changed my clothes and caught up with Elliot, who was pulling some hay off a tarped stack and dragging it over to the buck pen. “Elliot? What do you know about Billie and my parents?”
“Ah, no, ain’t gonna talk ‘bout nobody else’s business. You better talk to your momma on that one.”
Man!
I was just finishing up collecting eggs when Liv and Nate showed up. They agreed to take Frodo for the week. I am really unsure what’s going to happen to Frodo if I sell, since he has become increasingly spoiled. Jodie even gave him a chicken strip the other day. Goddess knows what will happen after Liv has him for a few days. He’ll start snubbing his nose up to tap water, in favor of coconut water. Liv and Nate and I went into Emmett for dinner and ate at a nice little Mexican restaurant, Nate’s treat. He said he is really happy with my work, and I thanked him for the referral he gave me. He said there were a couple of other people he might float my card to if I had time to work for them. I told him I’d know more after my meeting. They have made a couple of offers on houses that didn’t work out, but they have an offer pending on a place now, and hopefully, they will know by the end of the week.
I waved goodbye to them and Frodo, who could see me through the bars of his little kennel in the back, if he cared to, and then I went inside and prepared for my adventure tomorrow, trying to get a standby seat on a plane headed for SEATAC. I searched through my clothes for items that weren’t ripped or stained and found a few things. My poor hiking boots looked like garbage in the mud room. I had scraped off the dirt and bird crap but never fully cleaned them, and I was too tired to do it now.
I shoved my backpack next to the back door, turned the TV on, and fell asleep watching City Slickers for about the thirtieth time. I keep wondering if I’ll figure out my one thing, like the cowboy in the movie talked about. One thing. Is it possible to do that?
March 6, 2013
I got up at 3 a.m. so that I could get to the airport with time to spare. I know it’s overkill, but I wanted to be there two hours early to increase the chances of getting on the early flight. The house was quiet, no roosters crowing or dogs barking. I brushed my good shoes off one last time, grabbed my bag, and headed out the door. As I waited for the car to warm up, I saw little bird legs moving inside the chicken run. I thought about my little grey hen from my first real day on the farm. It turns out she was still alive and kicking, and not one of the handful of birds that have died this year. She’s almost like a pet. When the weather gets warmer, I want to go out and sit with the birds. Anyway, it was so peaceful that I almost fell back to sleep.
As I drove past the wooded area, I saw the short path that leads to my dad’s tree which towers over the nearby smaller trees. I have only been out there once since the first day I came to the farm. I should visit it more often, but the weird thing is, I feel like my dad is everywhere on this place, not just where we put his ashes. I cranked the stereo as I drove away. How fitting, the local station played “Big Ol’ Jet Airliner” as I hurled my little car towards the Boise airport.
I know I should be jaded by this point in my life, but I am still floored by the views from the plane, the Space Needle against that azure Seattle skyline, and my first glimpse of the big purple “W” on the stadium. I was overcome with a flood of good memories, times that weren’t that long ago but might as well have been a decade. I left Seattle on January 3rd, but it was when I graduated from UW last June that things really started shifting. I stayed in town, taking the internship/assistant position, while Liv and some of our friends scattered to places across the country. I felt like I was just waiting for the next phase (graduate school) to kick in, so falling into a relationship with Ton-Ton seemed like no big deal.
She and I moved in together after we met at a bar on Capitol Hill and started hanging out. We talked a lot about movies and music, and we just seemed to fit, without a lot of drama or work. I guess I got lonely without my “crew” there to hang out with. Anyway, it didn’t seem like that big a deal, but I guess it meant more to me than I thought. When Ton-Ton came home and told me she was going to marry that guy, I just about lost it. It was a few days before Christmas, and I had no plans for going home. I spent the next couple of weeks crashing on a couple of friends’ couches until I got the call about my dad.
Anyway, my travel went off virtually without a hitch. I took the bus from the airport, texted a few people to let them know I was in town, made a few stops, and met my friend, Camela (pronounced like Pamela), at the HUB after she finished her last class of the day. She’s graduating this year and still lives in Kelsey, so after the long day, it was nice to go back to her room, catch up, and crash early since we both had early morning meetings.
Camela’s room is on the third floor. I snuggled up on her couch, listening to the thuds and bass lines coming from neighboring apartments, and stared at the cobalt sky through her window. About two a.m., some guy walked through the courtyard and yelled, “Hey! Screevo!” at the top of his lungs, for no apparent reason that I could tell. I felt like I was home again.
March 7, 2013
I went into the office for our annual meeting this morning. Last year’s meeting was held a couple of weeks later, and I was lucky enough to have come on board, at least in a small way until I finished my year at UW, just before the meeting. I loved the building where their office is. They share a converted Victorian house, a block over from the Queen Anne Public Library, with another environmental non-profit that lobbies for better air quality in the Pacific Northwest. My boss, Alma, met me at the door with a hug and a cup of coffee.
“My goddess, Billie, it feels like you’ve been gone a hundred years!”
“I know, me, too.” I sipped the coffee and reached across the conf
erence table for a sky blue doughnut with purple sprinkles.
Alma moved on to greet others coming in, getting everybody ready for the meeting, while her assistant went about laying info packets and swag in front of each chair at the table. Alma came back to me to introduce me to a few people I had not met and a couple that started late last year she wasn’t sure of how our timelines matched up. All-in-all, there were about fifteen of us, and a few more on speaker phone.
The glossy cover page had a snow-covered mountain under a royal blue sky, and superimposed over it, was a drilling well with fracking tunnels coming out underneath, and one more layer with the “no” symbol over the top of everything. Strangely, what it reminded me of was the mountains near the farm, Squaw Butte, and even the Boise National Forest, where I went skiing with Liv and Nate. Alma opened the meeting with a quote from John Muir. We flipped through the packets, as Alma went over the progress of the past year; all the legislative battles and town ordinances, new and continuing partnerships, funding sources, and plans for 2014-2015. We had a quick question and answer session before taking a break and separating into our work teams. I sat at the table, still staring at the cover of the packet.
“How long are you in town for?” I looked up to find Alma smiling down at me.
“Just a few days. I have to go see my mom in Sacramento, then it’s back to the farm.”
“Oh, yeah, you did inherit a farm. That is so cool. Sad to hear about your dad.” She slid into the chair next to me. “So, what are you going to do, lease it or stay or… I don’t know?”
“Well, I have plans to sell it. Everything should be wrapped up by June, July at the latest.” The words sounded strange coming out of my mouth, like a baby falling overboard a ship.
“And then you’re coming back to Seattle?”