by Nicki Elson
The truck turned onto a long, gravel drive and rolled past a spent cornfield and rows of something low and clumpy that appeared to still be in season. Lyssa was surprised at how quickly Indiana’s metropolitan terrain had given way to farm country. When she’d spoken to L.T. Bell a week earlier to set up the meeting, the woman had said she’d arrange for lodging and airport transportation. After being met at the airport by a pickup truck instead of a town car, Lyssa was a little nervous about what kind of hotel awaited them.
The truck came to a stop at the side of a large, white farmhouse. Joe pushed on the horn a couple of times, and soon a middle-aged woman in overalls appeared at the screen door. She stepped onto the square of cement that served as a stoop and waved, prompting Hayden to open the passenger door and Lyssa to slide out behind him.
“Ms. Bell?” Lyssa asked, reaching out to take the approaching woman’s extended hand.
“It’s Lula around here.”
“Nice to meet you, Lula,” Hayden said, taking his turn with her hand while Joe pulled their suitcases from the back of the truck.
Lula’s long, mostly gray hair was tied back loosely in a pink chiffon bow that contrasted with her rustic overalls and long-sleeved T-shirt. She wore no make-up on her lined and freckled face and looked every bit the farm woman, save for the pink bow. She examined the two city slickers’ attire and asked, “You got anything more farm-friendly in those bags?”
Hayden and Lyssa exchanged quick glances before Lyssa answered for them. “Sure, yeah, we’ve got jeans.”
“Good. I’ll show you to your rooms, and you can change before we get started.” Lula led them through the side door into a kitchen and past a swinging door into a large living room with a staircase immediately to the right. Nodding to Hayden, she said, “Your room is up those stairs, first door to the left.” She then led Lyssa through the large room and down a short hall to a bedroom at the back of the house.
“Thank you,” Lyssa said, hoisting her suitcase onto the high, full-sized bed. “It’s very nice of you to put us up in your own home.”
Lula’s mouth widened into a smile. “I don’t live here. This is my office.” She shut the door, leaving Lyssa confused. Everything she’d seen so far had been purely domestic. There was definitely nothing office-like about the yellowing lace curtains in this bedroom or the patterned quilt on the overstuffed bed. The hairs on her arm prickled as she thought about what a great premise this would make for a horror flick—a girl and a guy lured to a remote farmhouse under false pretenses…a psychotic farm woman…
Did a cloud pass, or had the house darkened of its own volition? Changing into jeans, a T-shirt, and a Sherpa-lined hoodie at record speed, Lyssa rushed back to the bottom of the staircase, anxious to see Hayden—preferably without an ax jutting from his bloodied forehead.
He didn’t keep her waiting long and soon came skipping down the stairs. “This place is great, isn’t it?” His eyes danced as he finished buttoning the cuff of his neatly pressed plaid shirt.
Lyssa kept her voice low. “Yeah, great. But…she doesn’t live here. She said it’s her office.”
Hayden nodded, emitting a quick, “Hmm,” as if this information was merely interesting rather than disturbing.
The screen door in the kitchen creaked, and Lyssa jumped when Lula barked, “You two ready? I’ll show you around while we talk.” They followed the sound of her voice into the kitchen. After scanning them, their hostess grabbed a worn denim jacket off a hook by the side door and handed it to Hayden. “You can wear this.”
He looked at the coat doubtfully, seeming particularly wary of the long smudge of brown along one sleeve. He put it on anyway, and Lyssa bit back a smile at seeing his farmer-chic look smothered by farmer-genuine.
On the way to the red barn near the house, Lula explained that this farm had been in her family for generations. “Nobody’s lived here full time since my grandparents.”
“And it’s your office now?” Hayden asked.
“That’s what I call it. It’s a great place to think.” She opened up the barn doors and nodded toward the building’s single occupant—a black and white cow. “This is Cheryl.” She bent and lifted a handful of hay, holding it up to the cow’s slobbery mouth. “I suppose you’ve got a whole slew of questions for me. Pull up a bale and shoot.”
The consultants sat down on nearby rectangular bundles of straw and asked Lula to explain the inconsistency in style across her portfolios and the wide fluctuation in the number of holdings.
She answered, “I look to buy stocks I think will go up in value. Period. It doesn’t matter if they’re large or small companies or what industry they’re in. Sometimes I find a lot of companies to invest in; sometimes I don’t.”
“Aren’t you concerned about the risks of putting your eggs into too few baskets?” Hayden asked.
“There aren’t any chickens around here, Mister King.” Lula winked. During their follow-up questions, she shied away from the specifics of her investment process, saying there’d be time to get into all of that later, so they moved on to ask about her client list. She didn’t have any corporate clients.
“What makes you interested in diving into the institutional game now?” Lyssa asked.
“I’m not sure I am.” The investor leaned her elbow over Cheryl’s gate.
“What makes you want to consider it?” Lyssa revised, shifting on her bale to reposition a stiff shaft of straw that’d gotten too friendly.
“I suppose the challenge has always appealed to me. It’s the big tent at the circus, but I’m not keen on jumping through all the corporate hoops. This wild card pool you explained when you called last week could be the perfect segue for me—if Delicious Hawaii will truly let me do my thing and not try to confine me to one ring. Now, would you say it’s fair for me to ask you two a few questions?”
Lyssa smiled. “Sure.”
Sliding her eyes to Hayden, Lula asked, “What kind of women do you date?”
The unexpected question caused Lyssa to let out a derisive chuckle. Lula’s gaze flicked to her. “Why do you laugh?”
“I’m sorry. That slipped out. No reason.” Lyssa shook her head.
“There’s always a reason,” Lula said. “What’s yours?”
“Go on,” Hayden said, laying his palms flat on the back of his bale and leaning on them. “Please explain to both of us what you find so funny about the women I date.”
Lyssa looked back and forth between her companions. This was a very strange turn in the conversation, but everything about the visit had been peculiar so far, so why not? “There’s nothing funny about the women—they’re gorgeous, intelligent, career-driven…did I already say gorgeous? I only laughed because I’d been teasing Hayden about the quantity of them.”
“Do you date a lot of women?” Lula asked him.
“I haven’t settled on just one yet. So yes, it’s not incorrect to say I date a lot of women.”
“He could probably fill up all these empty stalls with them,” Lyssa added, gesturing around the barn’s interior.
“What about you?” Lula asked. “What kind of men do you date?”
Hayden sat up straight. “Ah, there’s the real question. You see, she doesn’t date men.”
“Women?” Lula asked.
“No,” Lyssa said, resisting the urge to shoot a murderous glare at her partner. “I’m taking a break from dating right now.”
“A break?” Hayden asked. “So you’ve come down from the permanent boycott you expressed on the plane?”
Lyssa looked at him sideways, sneering. “It’s likely to be a very, very long break.”
He held her gaze, and something deep in his blue eyes sparked. She could see he liked getting under her skin. The hot flush that pricked across her chest was undeniable proof that she liked that he liked it. Luckily, her sweatshirt was zipped all the way up, so she could keep this bit of information to herself.
It took Lyssa a moment to tear her eyes from Hayden’
s, and when she did, she saw that Lula had shifted to lean her back against Cheryl’s gate while she crossed both arms in front of her. A muted smile played across her unpainted lips as she watched the consultants bicker.
“How does this relate to investing?” Lyssa asked. She assumed the woman intended to work their dating preferences into some sort of analogy.
“It doesn’t.” The investor pushed herself away from the gate, brushing hay from her jeans and walking past them to exit the barn. She gestured for them to follow and led them to an old, rusted pickup truck, which they all piled into.
“What would you like to know about Delicious Hawaii?” Hayden asked after he’d slammed the passenger door shut.
“We’ll get to that.” Lula drove them into a dry, open field. As they bumped along, Lyssa wanted to resume her own line of questioning but was afraid a sharp jolt might cause her to bite her tongue if she opened her mouth. The truck finally slowed and stopped in front of what looked like a small cemetery surrounded by a low, wrought iron gate.
“This is the family plot,” Lula explained, her pink chiffon bobbing behind her head in the mild wind that kicked up. Crunchy leaves skittered between low headstones as she swung open the entry. Walking up to an oblong stone, Lula kissed her fingertips and touched it.
Lyssa came to stand by her side while Hayden stayed back a few feet, folding his denim-clad arms across his chest and planting his feet shoulder-width apart. He’d had his fun in the barn and was back in business mode.
“This is my granddad,” their hostess continued. “Even as a youngster, I was never much interested in the things girls were supposed to be interested in. Instead of running off to pick flowers or play with Grandma’s dolls during visits to the farm, I’d sit on the porch with him. He talked a lot, but he also listened, and together we solved a lot of the world’s great mysteries.” She chuckled.
It occurred to Lyssa that her earlier horror-film fears should’ve been heightened now that they were sitting in a remote cemetery, but Lula’s weapon of choice didn’t seem to be axes or anything of the sort. No, she apparently planned to string them along to death. A quick glance at Hayden’s tightening jaw told Lyssa her partner was thinking along the same lines.
“One thing Granddad continually impressed upon me was that everything comes down to the individual. People want to blame what they call society for humankind’s problems, but society is made up of individuals, and they’re the ones who direct it. Sometimes they don’t realize until too late where they’ve let things get to, and by then they’ve given up too much power to political and corporate forces. But all’s not lost. It’s simply time for the individuals to turn the societal tides bit by bit. Unfortunately, patience isn’t something we humans are known for.”
It certainly wasn’t Hayden’s strongpoint at the moment. Lula kept her thoughtful gaze on her granddad’s memorial, so she couldn’t see Hayden’s twitching eye or the WTF look he leveled at Lyssa. When their host’s silence lingered, he ventured, “Your granddad sounds like a very wise man. Was he the one who got you interested in investments?”
Lula turned and looked at him. “Not really.” Then she walked to the truck without another word.
Back at the house, Lula led them into the kitchen, saying, “Time to start dinner.”
Lyssa noticed Hayden’s clenching and unclenching fists. As much as she enjoyed seeing that even Mr. Cool could get rankled, she didn’t want him to combust, so she spoke up. “Lula, it’s been lovely getting the tour of your family farm, but surely you realize that the purpose of our visit is to get a deeper understanding of your investment process.”
Lula smiled at Lyssa’s frankness. “I do. You know the saying about kindergarten teaching you everything you need to know? It’s bullshit. At least when it comes to investing. Everything I ever needed to know, I learned on the farm. Here, I’ll show you.” She hoisted a full paper bag onto the long country table and pulled out an unshucked ear of corn. “When you look at this, your mind tells you what’s inside—a cob filled with plump, yellow kernels, right? But you won’t actually know what’s in there until you peel off the external layers.”
She nodded toward the benches that ran along either side of the table, indicating that her two visitors should take a seat. They did, and some of the tension in Hayden’s features relaxed now that they were finally talking investments again. Unless, of course, Lula was only speaking literally of corn. It was too soon to tell.
The farm woman/investor handed them each a leafy ear and set Lyssa’s mind at ease when she talked specifically about peeling back the various layers of a public corporation’s external appearance. She encouraged Lyssa and Hayden to play along, and they shucked alongside her as she explained her evaluation methods. Peeling back the last leaf and snapping off the stem, she threw the leaves into an empty bag. “Once you dig through all that, you throw it away. It’s what on the inside that matters. Sometimes it’s very surprising what you find.” Half the kernels on her cob were pale and shriveled.
She continued her analogy with the corn silk and brought over a large, silver bowl for the healthy ears. Then she left, saying she needed to go pick up dinner, and instructed them to finish husking the rest because they’d be having the late-season sweetcorn as a side dish.
After she’d disappeared into the twilight and they heard her truck start up, Hayden said, “Why do I feel like I’ve been Mister Miyagi’d?”
“Mister who’d?”
“Mister Miyagi, from The Karate Kid.”
“Oh yeah, I’ve heard of him, but what does he have to do with this?”
“Heard of him? Bates, have you never seen The Karate Kid?”
“I’m pretty sure it came out before I was even born.”
“What difference does that make? It’s a classic.”
“Whatever. What does it have to do with shucking corn?”
“It has to do with Lula Bell getting us to do all her work under the pretense of teaching us.”
“You think what she said was a load of crap?”
“No. I think she was being legit, but it still doesn’t give us enough to recommend her for the wild card pool. It’s getting too late to dig any deeper tonight, but we’re going to have to play hardball with her tomorrow morning. She’s obviously got something good going on, and we’ve got to peel off enough of her layers to make sure what’s underneath is healthy.”
“Aha, so I see Mister Miyagi’s lessons are sinking in.”
He grinned for the first time since they’d been in the barn, then he gazed longingly at one of the ears of corn. “If she doesn’t make it back soon, I’m going to start gnawing on these things raw. I’m starving.”
“They only have to boil for ten minutes. I’m sure she won’t mind if we get started without her.” Lyssa jumped up and found a large pot, filled it with salty water, and turned on the heat while Hayden went over all the ears to free them of the last remaining silken threads.
He carried the bowl over and leaned on the counter, watching Lyssa grab each ear with a set of tongs and lower it into the water.
When they were all in, he said, “Weren’t you supposed to let the water boil first?”
“Was I?” She scrunched her face.
“I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
Lyssa stared at the pot, willing it to start boiling, and debated whether or not to remove all the ears until it did.
“While we wait, why don’t you tell me more about Operation No More Men?”
Her face warmed, and it wasn’t from any steam rising from the pot. “What do you want to know?”
“First of all—why?”
She shrugged. “Real men always disappoint me.”
“So you’re going to date fake men?” Hayden sucked in a sudden gasp, and Lyssa’s eyes snapped to him. “Andre Agassi! You think you’re going to replace men with him?”
Eyes back on the pot, she cursed inwardly, Boil, damn you!
“Oh man, this is rich. What did that pr
ogrammer do to you? Or more likely, what did he not do right with you?”
She narrowed her eyes and turned back toward him. “I thought you were going to leave this aspect alone.”
“I left it alone while you were still dating him. Now he’s free game. So come on, if he’d been properly peeling your layers, there’s no way you’d think real men could be replaced by the likes of Agassi.”
Instead of responding, Lyssa studied him. Beneath his bravado, she detected something else. His impossibly blue eyes bored into her, seeking something. Before she could figure out what it was, he shook off his intensity.
One corner of his lip curled into a devilish smirk. “Do you actually picture Andre Agassi when you’re…”
Bubbles rose to the surface of the water, and Lyssa adjusted the temperature to keep it from boiling over. “Very funny,” she deadpanned.
“Well then, who do you picture?” He gave her shoulder a slight, flirtatious nudge with his.
Her eyes flicked toward the door. “I don’t think we should be having this conversation.”
“I’ll stop as soon as she gets back. Promise. Come on, tell me.”
She blew out a long sigh, wishing he’d drop it but not seeing any harm in answering. “Sometimes it’s a faceless guy but mostly fictional characters.”
“Like…”
“Like Han Solo, Mal Reynolds. Doctor Who.”
“Which Doctor?”
“Mostly the tenth. Sometimes the ninth.”
“How very nerdy of you.”
“Hey, there had to be some benefits to my boyfriend forcing sci-fi on me.”
“You never fantasize about real guys?” One of Hayden’s eyebrows arched in a challenge.
“Every once in a while Larry Potash pays me an imaginary visit.”
“The news guy on channel nine?” The incredulous pitch of Hayden’s voice made her break out into a fit of giggles.
“What? He’s sexy.”