by Janet Spaeth
Entertainment venues: Chasing the cats that chase
the chickens that chase the earthworms.
Selling price: Make an offer. If we take it, that’s the selling price.
If we don’t take it, that’s not it.
Livvy Moore leaned back in her chair and studied the advertisement again. It was charming, certainly a change from the usual text she wrote: “Move-in ready. 3 BRs, 2 bth, full bsmt.” But there was something else about this ad.
Maybe, just maybe, this was what she’d been waiting for. This could be it.
In fact, this had to be it. Why else would a newspaper from some small town in North Dakota have blown up against the tire of her car in downtown Boston? Neat freak that she was, she had tossed it into her car, intending to recycle it when she got to work. A broken-down panel truck had backed traffic up for blocks, and she was stuck with nothing to read … nothing except this newspaper, with this intriguing offer.
It had to be divinely given. Her ideas of God and Jesus and the whole church thing were vague and fuzzy and lovely, but she was willing to give credit where credit was due. God was in charge of the wind, right? God had put the newspaper right where she’d see it, knowing she’d feel compelled to recycle it.
She ran her fingers through her hair, knowing that it didn’t do her hairstyle any good but beyond caring. Right now she had more important things to think about.
She loved Boston, she truly did. The hustle and bustle that had attracted her, though, was wearing her down. Her job paid well, but she never seemed to have the time to take advantage of the generous salary and do what she wanted, which was to travel. At the moment, her knowledge of the world was limited to what she saw on her regular drive to and from work, or what she viewed on the Travel Channel before she fell asleep each night.
There had to be more. China. Egypt. Zanzibar. Even North Dakota.
“Olivia, I need you to look over these bids again,” her boss said, walking in without knocking. “They’re too high for my taste. We can’t offer that kind of money for those properties, and don’t give me any of your sob stories about somebody’s widow or ancient granny. We’re not in the charity business, you know. I want them by tomorrow at the open of business, so I hope you don’t have plans for the evening.” He stopped to frown, obviously pretending that he cared.
“Actually,” she said, lifting her chin, “I do have plans.” From deep inside herself, she’d found a backbone. She’d never told Mr. Evans no before.
“You can cancel them, I’m sure.”
Somewhere in the distance, she was sure she heard the soft swish of swords being drawn. “No, I really can’t.”
He lowered the papers and stared at her over his half glasses. That look had slain dragons, but it hadn’t dealt with a woman holding an ad for Sunshine, North Dakota.
“Excuse me?”
A garden. The vision of a garden snapped into place. A garden with peas and corn and carrots, and a white-painted fence surrounding it. She wanted to feel the rich warmth of dirt on her fingers, and to hear the sharp ping of a hammer hitting a nail.
That was not going to happen in Evans Real Estate Management, unless she counted watering the skinny philodendron that trailed sadly along the edge of her desk as gardening, and smacking the broken heel of her shoe back into place as construction.
She stood up, folded the newspaper, and placed it in her bag. “I’m giving my notice.”
He shook his head as if he didn’t understand. “Notice? Notice of what?”
“I’m leaving.”
He laughed, a cold humorless sound that was the cement in the fragile wall of her decision. “Do you have another position? You know we have a non-compete agreement. It had better not be another real estate management company you’re going to.”
“I’m leaving Massachusetts entirely,” she said, reaching for her coat.
“You’re going to New York, aren’t you?” His eyes narrowed.
“No I’m not. I am going to North Dakota.”
“North Dakota? Are you out of your mind? Why, there’s nothing there except buffalo and snow.”
“I like buffalo and snow.” Snow she’d seen, but the closest she’d come to a buffalo was seeing one on an old nickel—and on Animal Planet.
He leaned against her desk and studied her. “You’re serious. You’re going.”
“I am.”
“You’ll regret it.”
“Not as much as I’d regret staying.”
Occasionally one is presented with the opportunity to make a grand exit, and this was it, Livvy knew. With great style and panache, she swept out of the room and down the hall to the elevator, quite aware that he had followed her out a few steps and then stopped, his icy glare at her back.
Once she was in the elevator, she pushed the Stop button, leaned against the cold brass railing, and shook like an aspen leaf.
What had she done? What had she done?
Hayden Greenwood threw the last piece of lumber onto the pile, swiped the Cooter’s Hardware hat from his head, and mopped at the sweat that dripped from his forehead. He’d never perspired like this in his life, but then, he’d never had to do so much hard labor before.
He looked around him and sighed.
Apparently Gramps had never seen a slab of wood he didn’t like, judging from the contents of the small blue building behind the café. Possibly the kindest thing to do—for him, anyway—would be to burn this thing to the ground, but he knew his grandfather would never allow that. So here he was, on a perfectly good June day when he could be out fishing, emptying yet another storeroom.
As near as he could figure, whenever Gramps ran out of storage space at the Sunshine Resort, he’d simply built another shed. They dotted the swathe of cleared land behind the café, some red, some yellow, some blue. Hayden had a suspicion that the purpose of this storehouse of lumber was, yes, to build more sheds.
“Grub!” Gramps ambled over to Hayden. His body was bent from years of working hard and falling harder. His back was twisted from the time he had a small accident with a blowtorch and a gas canister, when he’d ended up several feet away from where he’d begun. His left arm crooked at an awkward angle, the souvenir of an accident with a saw. His legs bowed as if he’d spent his life on horseback, when, in fact, Hayden knew that Gramps’s stance was due to the beat-up cowboy boots he’d worn for at least twenty years, patched and repatched until little was left of the original shoes. No human could walk in them normally.
“Grub, you’re not throwing anything away, are you?”
Only Gramps could get away with the childhood nickname. Anyone else trying to use the hated moniker got a quick poke in the stomach, at least when they were kids. Now that he was a grown-up, he hadn’t had to enforce the no-Grub rule, but on the other hand, he didn’t really have anyone to fight with.
Plus his fighting days were over. It was like the Bible said. You get to be a man, you put away childish things. And to his way of thinking, that included punching people who called him Grub.
“No, Gramps, I’m not throwing anything away. See these boards? They all came from inside this shed.”
The elderly man peered at the stack with eyes that were bleary with age. “I recollect there were more.”
“And there are.” With Gramps, Hayden always managed to find a well of patience that he didn’t really have with the rest of the world. “I’m not finished yet.”
“Good thing we’re selling this place.” Gramps looked away and sniffed. He wiped the back of his hand across his nose before turning back to Hayden. “Too much work for an old codger like me, and not enough to keep the young blood like you here.”
It was the end of an era. The Closed sign had been hanging on the canteen door for almost two years. The bait shop now held boxes of half-empty BB canisters and rusted fish hooks, left over from the Sunshine Resort’s heyday.
There hadn’t been much else to the resort. As long as the kids had a place to buy taffy and ice
cream during the day and a cleared area for bonfires and marshmallow roasts at night, and the grown-ups had a pier to fish on and a jetty to launch their boats from, all had been good. There was no stress at the Sunshine Resort, not until the lure of places that included shopping as a recreation edged nearer. At the back of his closet, Hayden still had a T-shirt, once orange but now faded to a soft coral, emblazoned with the words: AT THE END OF THE DAY, THERE’s SUNSHINE.
His parents had died when he was ten, and Gramps and Gran had taken him into their hearts and home and provided everything the grieving boy had needed. He could never thank them enough.
He glanced at his grandfather, who seemed tinier than ever before, and his heart contracted painfully. Gramps’s health had been steadily failing since Gran had died two years earlier, and he knew it wouldn’t be long until God would call the old man home.
Hayden wanted to savor every moment with Gramps.
He cleared his throat. There was only one thing to do.
“Let’s go fishing.”
Livvy moved the monitor of her computer so the last rays of the early summer sunlight didn’t glare on it.
“Mom, it’s all taken care of,” she said to the screen.
“Can’t you wait until your father and I can come and help you?” her mother said. “August would be good.”
Livvy sighed. Her parents were in Sweden, teaching at a school there, and through the magic of a computer program, they were able to talk. They could even see each other’s image as they did it.
It was a mixed blessing. Her father was quiet, the kind of man who listened and absorbed everything, and spoke rarely. Her mother made up for any of his silences. “It’ll be fine. I’ll be fine,” Livvy assured her.
Mrs. Moore shook her head vigorously, the image flickering as the computer tried to keep up with the rapid motion. “Livvy, I can’t think this is a good idea.
You’ve got a good job—”
“Had a good job,” she interrupted.
“Had a good job,” her mother continued. “Livvy, that reminds me. What did you do with the things from your office? If you just walked out—”
“What things from my office?”
“You know, like photos and mementos.”
Livvy’s laugh was cold. “Photos and mementos were not allowed. We could have one plant, which was replaced regularly because there wasn’t enough light to keep anything alive. No, when I left, I think I left some pens, and maybe a sweater and my planner. Nothing too big.”
Her mother persisted. “Your apartment is nice. What’s going to happen with that? Don’t you have a lease?”
Livvy smiled. “Not anymore. The apartment was re-rented by the end of the day. I just have to be out in two weeks.”
“What about your furniture?”
“I’m putting some of it in storage. The rest I’ve donated to that thrift shop down the street. They even came and got it. You know the one—the sales support the homeless shelters.”
“Do you see the irony in that?” Mrs. Moore frowned. “Homeless. You could be homeless.”
“But I’m not, Mom. I will have a home, in North Dakota.”
“Did you call, to see if it was available?”
“I’m waiting to hear.”
Her mother sprang on the words, like a triumphant duck nabbing a fat beetle. “Waiting? Waiting for what? They haven’t called you back?”
This was the problem with the visual part of this computer chat program. Her mother could see her expression, so Livvy faked a hearty smile. “It was an address.”
“An address?”
Don’t ask me any more questions, Livvy pleaded silently. If her mother found out it was a post office box number, she’d never hear the end of it.
“So how do you know—” Mrs. Moore began, but Livvy broke into the sentence.
“Mom, if this makes you feel better, I have enough in my savings to stay in a motel for months. I will not be homeless.”
“So you’re driving out there—you have your car insurance up to date?”
“Mom! I’m twenty-five years old! I know about car insurance.”
Actually she had sold her car. It was good in the city, but it wasn’t the kind of thing she’d want to drive across the country. Instead, in her purse right now were airplane tickets to North Dakota.
“Oh Livvy,” her mother said, “you know your dad and I want the best for you, but we think you’re being hasty. Please think this through.”
“I know, Mom. I know.”
“Be careful,” her mother advised. “You know how we worry.”
“I do.”
Mercifully her mother’s phone rang, and the conversation ended. Livvy turned off her computer and leaned back in her chair.
Had she convinced her mother that she was in control of this situation? More importantly, had she convinced herself?
It would have been so easy to stay in Boston, living this life that was split between two spots: behind her desk helping people fulfill their hearts’ desires of a home, and in front of her television, vicariously dreaming of what was out in the world, just waiting for her, for someday….
It was time to move away from the desk and the television, and to stretch, to explore, to find herself.
This may not have been the most conventional way, but it would work.
She had it all set up. Everything was ready. She just had to go.
It was the one thing Livvy hadn’t thought of when throwing things together for her hurried flight to North Dakota—how to get to Sunshine from the last airport.
She was so tired. The only flight—make that the only flights—she could get with such short notice had hippity-hopped her all over the southern and midwestern United States. She’d always wanted to travel, but this was ridiculous. She’d been to Charleston, Baton Rouge, Oklahoma City, Indianapolis, over to Kansas City, up to Detroit, to Minneapolis, then to Bismarck, and finally a puddle jumper had brought her here, to Obsidian. It was so tiny it didn’t even have a dot on the map.
Or a car rental agency.
But thanks to a young lad at the airport, who saw an enterprising way to make some money, she was seated behind the wheel of a pickup truck, rattling her way toward Sunshine.
She turned on the radio and smiled. The teenager had some priorities. The truck had satellite radio.
She hit a bump and the book on the seat beside her slid onto the floor. She’d bought it in the Indianapolis airport—or maybe it was Detroit—and read it eagerly. The Complete Guide to Home Construction and Repair. She’d had some doubts about how thoroughly the topic could be covered in 249 pages, but it had been enlightening.
Something alongside the road moved, and she slowed to a stop. A family of deer watched her curiously, and she spoke to them from inside the truck. “You’re wondering what I’m doing here, aren’t you? Well, so am I.”
She wasn’t the kind of person to be impetuous, but here she was, on a gravel road in North Dakota. Just two weeks ago, she’d been sitting in traffic in Boston, reaching for that stray newspaper. If it hadn’t blown up against her car, if she hadn’t picked it up, if she hadn’t been stuck in traffic, if she hadn’t lost her temper with Mr. Evans … It was an amazing chain of sequences.
She got out of the truck and stretched. The deer took one last look at her and bounded away, and she was alone, except for the warbling melody of a bird.
Along the western horizon, jagged peaks sprouted up. The colors were wild. Russet and brick with terra cotta and cinnamon. The Badlands.
Beside their wonder, under a sky that was the purest blue she’d ever seen, she felt suddenly a part of it all. A tiny part, but a part nevertheless.
Praying hadn’t been something she’d done a lot of lately, unless she counted urging God to let her car start on a cold morning, or pleading with Him to let there not be a long line at the drive-up coffee place.
Now though, when it was just her, the deer, and the Badlands, it became important to recognize God’s
handiwork and to put herself in His mighty hands.
“God, I don’t know what I’m doing here, but I’m going to need some help. You’ve put me here for some reason, I’m sure, and I want to thank You for choosing such a spectacular setting.” She paused. “Amen.”
She got back into the truck, and after several noisy tries, got it to start.
This was an amazing trip. Here she was, Livvy Moore, in North Dakota, on a gravel road in a pickup truck with a gun rack in the back, headed for a place she’d been drawn to by the sheer appeal of a windblown ad.
Amazing.
“Ready for a break?” Hayden stopped sorting through the lumber pile and stood up, his back protesting vehemently.
“Yup.” Gramps pulled his straw hat off, ran his hand over his nearly bald head, and stuck the hat back on again.
The two of them had tackled yet another outbuilding. This one held smaller pieces of wood, salvaged apparently from the old boathouse.
“Look, Gramps.” Hayden handed him a sign that was in the heap. BUDDY SYSTEM SWIM—
“Remember that? You had the buddy system rule over at the swimming beach.”
“Save it,” his grandfather said, taking the sign and laying it aside. “We’ll fix it and use it again.”
“But there’s no swimming beach anymore. Remember, Gramps?”
Gramps frowned a bit, and the veil came over his eyes that Hayden was seeing much too frequently. His grandfather got confused more and more, and details didn’t stay with him.
Hayden put his arm around his grandfather’s shoulders, trying to ignore the clutch of fear that assailed him whenever he felt how thin his grandfather had become. Under the red flannel shirt he could feel every angle of the old man’s bones.
“Let’s go inside and have a root beer,” he said gently, guiding Gramps back to the house.
Once inside the cool kitchen, he uncapped two brown bottles of root beer. “Just like the old days, right, Gramps?” he asked as they took deep sips of the icy sweet drink. “Remember how we used to come into the canteen and buy root beer and those candy ropes? We’d eat them until we were sick.”
Gramps laughed, his gaze bright and snappy again. “Everyone was covered with sand and the flies came in because you kids couldn’t remember to shut the screen door.”