Laugh (28 page)

Nina didn’t make excuses to get off the phone, didn’t listen for her mother’s voice to get sad or disapproving. She just listened and talked. Listened to her mother’s complaints about her father, how he worked too hard, and realized that she worked just the way her father did.

Wondered if Sam would ever complain like her mother did, with affection and pride.

She listened and talked until it was getting too late for her mother, who got silly, punchy from sugar and from working hard all day.

Nina too.

When they hung up, they were both laughing.

Nina left Sam in her bed because sometime around one in the morning a storm blew in.

It hadn’t been clear from the weather reports if it was a sure thing, but listening to Adam on the phone. give his report, it was sure enough to trash the pepper field.

“No fucking way,” Adam said. “We’ll see when this all dries up what we’re left with, but we can’t push through this to harvest today.”

“Is it even going to be worth it?”

“No idea. What I just looked at in cold storage pretty much looked like shit, anyway.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“Tay’s already going back through the growing data to see if she can pinpoint how we could have pulled it off.”

“You told Tay?”

“Well, yeah. She’s your farm manager.”

“She’s recovering from major surgery.”

“You think she’s happy sitting in that room all fucking day, worried about what we’re doing?”

“
Dios
, no, but do you think she’s happier knowing a whole crop’s trashed?”

“She’s a farmer.”

“Yeah.”

“Shit happens.”

“I know.”

“Sometimes all at the same time.”

“I get that.”

“Maybe. I think maybe you do, but Tay’s got that fucking down. I swear to Christ, this parcel has a memory.”

“All fields have a memory.”

“Yeah, but this one is a grudge-holding fucking bastard. I hate this field.”

“Well, I’m not feeling it right now, either. It shares that access road with Isaiah Hershberger, and he bought hay last year and complained about it. Maybe he’d want it for hay.”

“Want me to talk to him and see?”

Nina picked out a hazelnut from the granola Rachel had made, and looked at the piles of work at her desk. She could barely get out of bed this morning because her body ached so much from working and directing that harvest. She’d left Sam in her bed and a note on the bathroom mirror, because he was so deeply asleep she had put her ear to his chest to establish proof of life.

The idea of sloshing through that pepper field was hateful.

“I don’t know.” She didn’t. Her body ached, and her heart was sore, and she missed Tay, and she
didn’t know.
“Call Shipley’s and have it surveyed?”

“That a question?”

Nina squeezed the phone. Tried to breathe. “I don’t know.”

She heard Adam sigh out a long breath. “You want me to talk to Vadnais?”

Nina didn’t want this. Another decision. Another way she’d find herself in a future she’d hadn’t planned. It suddenly felt like this stupid pepper field and Tay were all tied together, that she should have known … 
everything.

“When Tay was going over the growing reports, how’d she seem?”

“Like Tay. She was pissed because the hospital has crappy cell reception and she really wanted to call the senior hands and hear it all from them.”

“Get on your waders and take a bunch of pictures, and bag up a sample of the best. Get the weight on what we’ve got. Then bring all that to Tay and”—Nina blew out a breath of her own—“let her handle it.” It was all she could do, all she could think of.

Or she couldn’t think. Her heart felt like it was beating too fast.

Adam laughed. “That sounds perfect, actually. She’ll be pissed we’re gonna bag this field, but she’ll get it. She’ll just wish she could get out here herself and harvest a few of her own bushels.”

“Jesus, don’t let her do that.”

“If I could, I fucking would. I miss her out here like I’d miss my own fucking limbs. I don’t know what the hell’s been wrong with me all these years, just stringing her along like I’m some kind of goddamned rolling stone when I’ve worked the same fields, in one way or another, in the same state, lived out at the same place, for fifteen years.”

Nina let herself listen to Adam’s voice. She could hear in it his relief that they’d made it this far with Tay. She wondered if it was his love for Tay or his position in the operation that was granting him this optimism, and if it was permanent. Or maybe it was just a cover.

“We’ve wondered.”

“Well, I’m glad you didn’t talk her out of sticking with me.”

“We tried.”

“Oh, I know you did. Tay doesn’t really listen to anyone but herself, though.”

“So, Adam?”

“Yeah, what should I do today?”

She wanted him to
tell
her.

“Well, speaking of wasting the last fifteen years of my life, if I’m going to be hip deep in peppers, why don’t you plan my wedding?”

“What’s the latest estimate?” She could do this. This she could do.

“Let’s say the end of the month and see if that John Lake guy’s flexible.”

“Got it. What’re your colors?”

Adam snorted. “Right now? Mud. You think you can do some arrangements up like that? Mud brown?”

“For you guys, anything.”

“Same goes, Boss. Call you later.”

Nina hung up and leaned back in her chair.

Thought about fields with long memories.

Made more calls.

She couldn’t be alone right now, not in anything.

Not anymore.

* * *

“You’re sure he’s okay back there?” said Sarah.

Nina downshifted a little, realizing she was pretty much flying over the gravel roads and that probably wasn’t comfortable for a city kid hanging on to the tool box bolted into the back of the trailer of Big Green.

“Sure,” said Lacey.

“Because it’s not really comfortable up here.”

This again from Sarah, who was squeezed between Lacey and Rachel. Rachel had to sit sideways and lean her back against Nina’s side to make room for the floor-mounted gearshift. She had her long legs draped over Sarah’s and Lacey’s laps.

“Why is my brother here anyway? I thought this was supposed to be some kind of lady trip with weddings and shit.”

“He was with me when Nina called and wanted to go.” Lacey was answering email on her phone. Nina would be glad when they hit the coverage hole and Lacey would have to put that thing away.

“What was he doing with you?”

“Hanging out?”

“At the clinic?”

“Yeah.”

It got quiet and Nina looked over and Sarah caught her eye. Sarah looked like she wanted to laugh, but was playing it cool. She was here because Rachel had asked her. Their whole circle was getting bigger.

“So, were you like, babysitting him or something?”

“Oh, fuck you, Sarah.”

Nina felt Rachel’s shoulders shake with laughter.

“It’s just kind of weird that a twenty-two-year-old guy with his days free would want to spend them at a half-open medical clinic.”

“He’s helping.”

“Who—you? Who helps you? Do you let people help you?”

“It’s like all the bitch you ever were was concentrated in your hip, and when it broke, it was released.”

“Snap,” said Sarah. She was quiet for a long minute.

“He’s helping his brother out, okay? Sam’s been … busy.”

Nina gripped the wheel.
Shit.
Busy with her, was the thing.

The cab of the truck got quiet.

“That came out wrong,” Lacey said. “I know I have this rep as the line leader with a trophy stuck up her ass, but I do like it when the people I’ve loved all my life are happy.”

“It’s okay,” Nina said. “I tried to talk to him about the clinic.”

“I’m sure. But if you’ve tried to talk to Sam and nothing happens, there really isn’t a good reason to try some more, unless you like the sound of your own voice.”

“There should be a list,” Sarah said, “of all the things anyone has ever tried to talk to Sam about, and we should laminate it, and then make him carry it in his wallet. That way, he can just hand it to people and save them the trouble.”

Nina downshifted again, but did it a little more aggressively than she meant. She vaguely heard PJ yell
Hey!
from the trailer bed.

“You know that he loves you, right?” This was all Nina could think to say.

“I do, but with Sam, it’s one kind of love or nothing.”

“When’s the last time,” Nina said, and tried to keep her voice level, “that Sam has offered you nothing?”

Nina felt Rachel’s hand on her leg, and she took a deep breath. Big Green’s air-conditioning was working fine, for once, but Nina rolled down the window a little on her side just to feel the air and listen to the
wind.

“Lacey’s probably right,” Sarah finally said, “about the bitch thing. You’d never know it right now, but Sam and I were always close. I know him. I do. I’m giving you a hard time about Sam because I can’t just rib him about his girl.”

“He’s a good guy,” Lacey said. “He’s a great doctor, though he never gives himself credit for that. I’d never do this with anyone but Sam. In some ways, he seems like the worst choice in the entire world, but no one else would have the respect for me he does, or trust me as much. No one else would bring his passion to the table. And if he hasn’t been around a lot lately, it’s just because he freaked, and then, you know, found someone. That’s all a good thing. One day, I’m sure, I’ll freak, too, and he’ll be there for me, because that’s just Sam.”

“I just think he’s a fine piece of ass,” Rachel said.

Nina laughed, and grabbed Rachel’s hand, because she always knew just what Nina needed, which right now was not to have to say anything.

Nina stopped in front of John Lake’s farmhouse-without-a-farm, and he was already waiting for them on the porch.

PJ jumped down from the trailer bed, somehow free of dust, his curls only a little windblown, and grabbed John into a hug.

Lacey slid out from the truck and stopped, staring at them.

“Huh.”

“Look at all the pretties,” Rachel said. “A long-stemmed man bouquet.”

John and PJ
were
pretty, both lanky and long-limbed, exuding easy confidence and a lot of hair and sunglasses and flapping cuffs.

“You think they’ll agree to play for Tay’s wedding?” Sarah asked.

“John’s a nice guy, and PJ already agreed.”

Nina looked at Lacey, who was staring at PJ and John talking with their arms around the other’s shoulders. “You know John Lake?” Lacey said.

“Yeah. These are my fields. We have agreements on use and stuff like that. You’re a fan?”

“Fuck, yes.” Lacey had her fingertips to her lips. Sarah was watching Lacey, leaning on her cane, with her eyes narrowed.

“The thoughts broadcasting out of your head are making me uncomfortable. That’s my brother.”

“Huh?”

“Your eyeballs are darting back and forth between them.”

Lacey pressed the heels of her hands over her eyes. “God.”

“That’s what I thought. You’re such a perv.”

“It’s just that I work so fucking
hard
, Sare.”

“That’s what she said,” Nina said, before she had even thought about it.

Then Nina was laughing with these women, laughing at themselves, looking at boys.

It was good.

Having Rachel here, who had gotten close to Sarah after they worked on the menus. Lacey, who’d known everyone.

She pressed her hand against her heart and looked out over her fields. The corn she’d taken Sam to see weeks ago was mostly harvested, and now you could see the later crops, tall, in the fields behind them.

She’d done this.

Sarah came over, working her cane through the mud of the yard. “So this is all yours?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s really fucking awesome.”

“I was just thinking that, actually.”

“I was just thinking that it doesn’t surprise me, really, that Sam’s into all of this.”

“No?”

“He’s always been happier playing outside. He likes to work. He likes, most of all, to feel useful.”

Nina looked at Sarah, a petite woman with dark hair, beautiful like PJ was beautiful, in a way that made it hard to accept that you actually knew this person.

“All he wants to do is have lunch with you.”

Sarah smiled. “I know. I will. I haven’t had the best year. Losing Dad, my accident. Leaving my apartment. I’m living with my childhood babysitter. Everything is awkward, like I’m going through some kind of second puberty.”

“You’re like Sam. You like to work, too. Be useful.”

“I do. In a different way. I like to feel like I’m doing something no one else would do, because they wouldn’t think it was important, until they, you know, saw it. Then suddenly, it’s really important.”

“Art?”

“Yeah. Or something like it. I don’t know.” Sarah looked back at the fields and adjusted herself. Nina noticed for the first time that one of Sarah’s eyes was blue and the other was gray.

Middle sister.

“You’ll do something for this? I don’t know if we need invitations, exactly, I’m not sure. But your menus, the things Rachel has shown me from your press, they’re so beautiful.”

“Thanks. Of course. Maybe … recipe cards? Like, I know that sounds kind of weird, for a wedding. But
I mean something on heavy stock—I could use a plate with a botanical illustration, maybe? With a favorite recipe of Adam’s, and of Tay’s. It would look beautiful, I promise. And would be kind of a favor, too? People would use it and remember them. I don’t know. Maybe not?”

“Oh, Sarah.”

“Something else?”

“No. That’s perfect. Completely perfect.”

“Oh. Okay. Thanks.”

“I’ll have Rachel email you the recipes, is that okay?”

“That works.”

“And you’ll send me the bill.”

“No. No way. It’s my wedding present.”

“But you’ve just barely met Tay.”

Sarah cleared her throat. “It’s been a hard year. Friends have been a little scarce. It’s been nice to meet Rachel, reconnect with Lacey. Meet their friends. You know Lacey and I, when we were girls, used to be BFFs?”