Barnstorm (8 page)

Dinner with Gerty highlighted the end of each day. Not only was she the best cook Trip had ever known, her no-nonsense attitude toward life was refreshing. She had a way of abusing Trip about his Band-Aids and clumsiness without him feeling abused. Hands folded for a short, mealtime grace, Gerty noticed that Trip was down to only two Band-Aids. He was making progress.

The golden roasted chicken dominated the center of the kitchen table. The oval serving platter was rimmed with glazed carrots, redskin potatoes, and onions. Sprigs of parsley provided a touch of green. Trip bit his lower lip as he braced himself for the coming accusation. He was a murderer. Thunderbolt was no more. He snuck a peek at Gerty’s prizewinning rooster laid out before him.

Gerty started her dinner prayer, “And dear Lord, we thank you for our many blessings. Please remember those less fortunate. And grant us the wisdom to discern the difference between a common laying hen and a two-time champion rooster.”

Sneaking another peek, Trip was caught. Making eye contact with the person offering a prayer is one of the more awkward moments in life. Particularly when guilty of murdering a member of the prayor’s family. Trip closed his eyes, but he knew he’d been busted.

Trip didn’t see Gerty give one of her patented grins as she continued, “And dear Lord, grant us the humility to forgive such a tasty addition to our dinner tonight. Amen.”

Trip offered a timid, “Amen. Sorry.”

The expected accusation and abuse didn’t come. Passing the serving platter to each other, they enjoyed a friendly dinner. Smiles. Laughter. Gerty held up a drumstick and shook it at Trip. They both laughed. They listened intently to each other. Gerty had forty-plus years on Trip. Yet, she enjoyed his conversation and valued his input on how to improve her farm. In return, he recognized Gerty’s wisdom and patiently listened as she wove her stories from her early childhood to her college years to how she compromised her goals to become a farm wife. Not really a compromise when the joys of being a stay-at-home mom are considered.

“Any plans, Buzz? Dreams?” she asked.

“Nothing high flying. The usual.”

Shaking her head, she disagreed, “There’s something special in your future. You’ve got more on the ball than you might think.”

Trip pulled his small, spiral pad from his shirt pocket. “I’m making lists. Getting more organized. Still a bit klutzy around machines.”

“You seem pretty good with a hatchet.”

“Sorry.”

“Just don’t turn on Bessie,” Gerty chuckled. “I can help with all that mechanical stuff. How’s the cobbler?”

“Best peach cobbler I’ve ever had.”

“It takes good peaches and a bit of lemon zest. Just like life.

Can’t be all sweetness. Takes a tad of bitter or sour to balance the sugar.”

Trip started to clear the table. Gerty waved him off as she limped to the Hoosier and fetched a windup alarm clock.

“I’ll do the dishes,” she insisted. “You’ve had a rough day. You better get some rest. Big day tomorrow.”

Gerty placed the alarm clock on the kitchen table in front of Trip. “You are going to need this. We just ate your morning wake-up call.”

They shared a good laugh. His confidence was bolstered more and more each day. As he helped clear the dishes with Gerty, a quick flashback of his frustrations at the Sky Gypsy Café gave him pause. Liar Flyer teasing seemed so distant now. It wasn’t a mother or grandmother thing. Gerty didn’t fit those roles for Trip. She was genuine. Rough-and-tumble, sometimes a bit blunt. But kind and understanding.

Trip felt a little guilty that he hadn’t been honest with Gerty. Rattled and confused when she first called him ‘Buzz,’ it was easier to let it slide. After all, she was holding a pump-action shotgun. Who thinks straight under those circumstances? With each passing day it was getting harder and harder to come clean.

“Come on, buddy,” Gerty sniped. “You going to stand there holding that plate all night?” Trip snapped out of his short brain flutter and helped dry the dishes.

“Go, go, I’ve got this,” she insisted as she pushed Trip through the kitchen, and out the screen door.

Trip handed Gerty his dish towel and thanked her again for a fabulous dinner. Off the porch, he sauntered across the barnyard.

Entering his barn bunkroom, he longed for the model airplanes in his hanger room. His new bunkroom was stark, plain.

No airplane posters, model airplanes hanging from the ceiling. Trip wandered around the small room as he took off his shirt and hung it on a simple nail on the wall. He kicked off his shoes, they landed, on target, in a corner.

He closed his eyes and imaged touching a model plane swinging from fishing line nailed to the ceiling. He might have been a farmhand, but his heart still yearned to soar above the clouds. Barefooted, he now wore only pants and a T-shirt. He dropped his pants, revealing airplane boxers. Pants at his ankles, Trip looked around as if he were missing something. He looked at the small nightstand beside the twin bed. Empty.

With a knock to the side of his head he said, “Alarm clock.”

Trip had left the alarm clock on the kitchen table. He turned, looked in the direction of the farmhouse. Pulling his pants up, he walked back across the barnyard, barefooted.

The side-porch light was on. Gerty was no longer in the kitchen. Dishes done, the kitchen was tidy and neat. Trip opened the screen door and entered. Three steps to the table, he picked up the alarm clock. As he turned to leave the kitchen, he tilted his head. Hearing a faint sniffle sound, he tiptoed through the kitchen to the base of the second-floor stairs. He looked up a dimly-lit stairway to the dark, upstairs hallway.

Barefooted, with a hand on the wall to balance his ascent, he creaked his way to the second-floor hallway. It was dark, except for light coming from a partially-open bedroom door. Closer now. The sniffle sound was coming from this first bedroom on his right.

Through the ajar door, Trip saw Gerty sitting on the edge of a bed. She held a picture of a young Marine in full-dress uniform. Every military family has this picture. American flag in the background, dress hat pulled tightly down on the recruit’s eyebrows, frozen, stern look that communicates if I crack the slightest smile in this picture, my drill sergeant will skin me alive.

Gerty did not see Trip. She clutched the picture to her chest, quietly sighed, exhaled deeply. Trip eyed two frames of medals on the dresser top. He knew he was intruding on a private, personal moment. He quietly turned and eased down the stairs into the kitchen and glanced back up the darkened stairs. Alarm clock retrieved, he turned out the kitchen light.

As he crossed the barnyard, he looked up at the crescent moon and identified the Big Dipper. As any farmer will confirm, one hasn’t seen the Milky Way until viewed from the solitude of a farm. Trip looked back at the farmhouse as the solitary light on the second floor was extinguished. Gerty was alone with her thoughts, memories.

Trip entered his barn bunkroom to the sound of crickets and bull frogs. It had been one of the best days of his life.

Trip enjoyed his jaunts to Hillsboro with Gerty. Thursday was farmers’ market day–his favorite. Seeing Gerty work the crowd, she seemed to know everyone, one would think she should run for mayor. Today was Tuesday, no farmers’ market today. A few errands, odds and ends. It would be quick.

Nothing eventful about the ride to town, except Gerty huffed and puffed about the white paint blob on the hood of her classic black pickup truck. As though she needed a conversation starter, she had come to enjoy the attention and re-telling the story. Trip heard her tell it five times at last Thursday’s farmers’ market.

She rounded the courthouse square and angle-parked in front of the bank, almost clipping the back bumper of an old, gray Ford Crown Vic. Gerty momentarily lost her level-headed demeanor as she exited the truck and slammed her door, as if on a mission. Trip was taken aback as Gerty spat tobacco juice on the Crown Vic’s passenger-side window. As the brown goo oozed its way down the window, she wiped the back of her hand across her mouth satisfied–mission accomplished.

As if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred, Gerty said, “Mosey around town a bit, I’ve got a little business here at the bank.”

Trip turned on his heels to kill some time. Briefly brushing the shoulder of a professorial, bearded man, he apologized for his clumsiness, “Sorry.”

The older, distinguished looking gentleman smiled and responded, “Good morning.”

As Trip meandered down Main Street, he didn’t notice the man stop in front of his Ford Crown Vic and sigh, “What the heck?” The fresh tobacco ooze had not gone unnoticed. Hands on hips, the man looked up and down the street, puzzled that someone would be this uncouth.

Trip’s stroll around town didn’t take long. He peeked in the window of a jewelry shop. Pearls, rings, watches. Price tags convinced him to keep moving. He settled in front of a ladies dress shop. Palms on the display window revealed he still had some Band-Aids, but only on two fingers. Eyeing the floral-print dress on a rather stiff, headless mannequin, he checked his list in his shirt pocket.

☁ ☁ ☁

While Trip was summoning the courage to enter the ladies dress shop, Gerty met with Mel Smith at the bank. Seated at his desk, Mel consoled Gerty and patted the back of her hand.

“I know you’re good for it, Gerty.”

“I’ve let Lester down.”

“You’re too hard on yourself. Business has changed. The day of the handshake between old friends is over.”

“Not blaming you, Mel, it’s that jerk Robinson.”

As if on cue, a loud knock on the door was followed by Robinson, barging into Mel’s office. He totally ignored Gerty and spoke gruffly to the deposed bank Branch Manager, “You about done? In a hurry here.”

“Mr. Robinson, say hello to Gertrude Murphy.”

“Stop in to pay your mortgage?” Robinson inquired.

Hardly missing a beat, Gerty retorted, “Struck oil this morning. Mr. Smith here is helping me with the Exxon Mobil billion-dollar lease.”

Pulling a chair close, getting in Gerty’s face, Robinson smirked, “Cute. I don’t know you or frankly care. What say I buy your lousy little farm?”

“It’s not for sale.”

“Two hundred fifty thousand dollars,” Robinson offered.

Shocked, Mel exclaimed, “It’s worth twice that!”

Coldly, as if he couldn’t have cared less, Robinson said, “Three hundred thousand. Final offer.”

Gerty rose, shuffled to the door and turned to Robinson, “Good day, Mr. Robinson.”

A quick nod to Mel, Gerty said, “And a howdy to Martha, Mel.”

☁ ☁ ☁

Trip had finished checking his spiral notebook list and had almost summoned enough courage to enter the ladies dress shop. Bank secretary Dorothy walked up behind him.

“Good morning,” Dorothy said. “Need a new dress?”

His shy-button pushed, Trip responded, “Uh, not for me.”

“Blue one matches your eyes.”

“It’s not for me,” Trip insisted.

As Dorothy strolled away, she suggested, “Ask for Helen, she’s helpful.”

Success with his daily farm chores had boosted Trip’s confidence. Even his skinny-dipping and honeybee adventures with Maggie could be listed in the ‘I’m improving’ category. Gerty was becoming a mentor, a confidant. Trip was logging bonus points in his relationships with women. He might even be better prepared for another go-‘round with Deb at the Sky Gypsy Café.

This young Dorothy was different. Gerty, Maggie, and Deb were all older than he. Dorothy was a contemporary–his age. She had stood close enough to hear his pulse quicken, see the goose bumps rise on the back of his arm. He almost forgot why he was standing in front of a ladies dress shop.

Shaking off this awkward encounter with Dorothy, he opened the door to the dress shop. A tiny bell above the door announced his presence–he would have preferred to slither in quietly. Nervously trying to be invisible behind some dress racks, he backed up and bumped into a large, open-stock display bin. He reached behind him and steadied himself against the wooden display bin. Fingertips touching a soft, cotton garment, he brought it forward. A few blinks confirmed that he was in trouble. He was holding a 44DD bra.

Shake as he might, the brassiere quicksand was sucking him deeper into the abyss. The back eyehook got stuck under one of his last remaining finger Band-Aids. Flip, flop, he couldn’t free himself. Trip waved his arms like a helicopter with a half-broken rotor. A gray-haired, grandmother customer noticed his predicament and snickered.

The bra had landed atop his head, two large cups perched, like antlers. He looked like a moose, trapped in a Victoria Secret commercial. An older-woman store clerk approached from behind and startled him.

“May I help you, son?” the store clerk asked.

During his skinny-dipping escapade, Trip sought temporary refuge in the cold pond mud bottom, eight feet under water. There was no such refuge opportunity in this ladies dress shop. Six feet under would have been welcomed about now. He struggled to extricate himself from his 44DD predicament. The store clerk patiently assisted him and now held the bra.

“I’m looking for Helen,” Trip whispered.

“You’ve found her,” the store clerk smiled. “May I help you?”

Timidly, not yet fully recovered, Trip asked, “Do you know Mrs. Murphy?”

“Everybody knows Gerty. Sure hope she can keep her farm. Don’t know what she’d do without that farm.”

A bit more comfortable, Trip continued, “Her birthday is coming up. Thought I might get her a little something.”

Holding the bra at eye level, Helen observed, “Well, son, you might be in the right church, but, this little something is definitely the wrong pew.”

Flinging the bra over her shoulder into the open stock bin, Helen asked, “You sure you want to buy an old lady something quite this, shall we say, personal?”

Still thinking he would be more comfortable, buck-naked in the farm pond, Trip gave up. He turned to exit the store. He stopped mid-step, and crept back to Helen.

He could not make eye contact, but he had returned to face his fears. “Gerty’s been really nice to me, and I thought.”

“Well now, aren’t you sweet? You must be her new hired hand. I’ve heard ‘bout you.”

Raising his eyes to meet Helen’s, his words came a little easier, “I just thought. . .”

“Yes?”

“Uh, would that dress in the display window be something she would wear?”

“That floral print? Yes. We sell lots of that style to ladies just like Gerty.”

“Do you happen to know her dress size?” Trip asked.

“Well, I can tell you that it’s not 44DD.”

Trip blushed as Helen knew her feeble attempt at humor had been ill-placed. “Sorry, not a problem,” Helen apologized. She pulled two dresses off a nearby rack and walked up behind another customer. “Excuse me Ethel, a little help here please?”

Ethel, the same age as Gerty, slowly turned around. She held a blouse in her right hand. Her left arm was in a sling. “Sure, what’cha need, Helen?”

“Whoa, what’s with the sling?” Helen asked.

“Took a tumble in the garden yesterday,” Ethel said. “I’ll be okay in a week or so.”

“Turn ‘round a second here Ethel, need to check a dress size. You and Gerty are ‘bout the same size.”

“Humph, same size?” Ethel protested. “I’m much more sleek and trim than Gerty.”

Holding the dresses up to Ethel’s back, Helen said, “Get over it Ethel. Gerty won homecoming queen fair and square.”

Returning her attention to Trip, Helen said, “This one, young feller.”

Trip’s purchase was wrapped in plain brown paper. Nothing fancy. With a spring in his step, he was back to the pickup truck, hiding his new treasure behind his seat. He’d like to cross paths again with the gal who recommended Helen. A short grin faded quickly as he thought the odds of seeing her again were remote.