Vintage Ladybug Farm (28 page)

For another moment he stared at the keys in disbelief and then an expression of sheer, incredulous delight washed over his face. “Are you kidding me? No way!”

Cici and Bridget burst into applause and laughter. “I’m kicking in the first year’s insurance,” Cici said, and Bridget stepped forward and slipped a gas card into his shirt pocket, giving him a quick, fierce hug.

“This ought to keep you on the road for a few months, anyway,” she said.

The wonder in his eyes grew as he looked from one to the other of them. “You did this? For me?”

“Well,” said Lindsay, trying very hard to pull a sober face, “it seemed like a practical thing for you to have. After all, we’re going to be way too busy with the vineyard to be running back and forth to see you when you go away to college, so this way you can drive home on breaks. And, of course, when you’re home, it sure will save wear and tear on our vehicles for you to have your own. So really, I guess the car is mostly for us.”

But as she spoke the happiness in his eyes visibly faded by slow and reluctant degrees. He swallowed hard and looked down at the keys in his hand. “You shouldn’t have done this.”

Lindsay smiled. “Don’t say that until you’ve checked it out. It hardly cost anything, and it wasn’t even running until yesterday. It needs a lot of work. But I thought you could do that over the summer and use the money you’ve saved for parts. If you like it, that is,” she added, a little anxiously.

Noah said, “Really. You shouldn’t have.” He held out the keys to her.

Cici said, “Noah?”

Bridget added, confused, “You can paint it if you don’t like the color.”

Even Dominic looked puzzled.

Noah looked from one to the other of them with a mixture of mounting dread and growing resolve, and by the time his eyes reached Lindsay, he had the look of a man who was about to cross a trestle in front of a speeding train. He said, “I don’t need a car to go to college because I’m not going to college.” He drew a breath. “I’m joining the Marines.”

The silence that followed was absolute. The birds didn’t chirp. The chickens didn’t cluck. The sheep didn’t baa. There was just stillness.

And then Lindsay gave a soft, incredulous exclamation of laughter and a single shake of her head. “I don’t think so. We talked about this. You’re going to college. You have scholarship offers. And don’t think I don’t know you have acceptance letters because—”

“No.” He spoke over her firmly. His hand bunched into a fist around the keys. “We didn’t talk about it. You talked about it. You decided. Well, now I’ve decided. I’m joining the Marines.”

Lindsay looked quickly around the circle of her friends for support, and there might have been just the tiniest flicker of panic in her eyes. Cici spoke up for her.

“Noah, maybe we could all go inside and talk about this. It’s a big decision, and I’m sure we’d all like to hear your thoughts …”

He said flatly, “Nothing to talk about. It’s done. I report for basic in two weeks.”

Bridget gasped softly. Lindsay didn’t move.

Noah held out the car keys to Lindsay again. She didn’t appear to see them. She said in a stunned voice, “But … your dream—of being an artist, of studying in a real university—”

Noah tossed back his head in a brief and helpless gesture of exasperation. “That wasn’t my dream,” he burst out. “That was yours! Look, I like to draw, okay? I like thinking up things and painting about them. But I’m never going to do it for a living. And I’m never going to stand up in front of a classroom and teach other people how to do it or wear a suit and tie to work and draw cartoon characters for ad agencies because that’s not who I am. Don’t you get it? That’s who you
want
me to be and I’m not going to spend the rest of my life living out your dream for you!”

Lindsay reeled backward as though she’d been slapped. But the color in her cheeks and the flare of her nostrils was from anger, and she shot back, “So you think the way to fix that is to go out and play soldier?”

“For crying out loud, I’ve spent my whole life in this one stinking little county! I’ve never even been out of the state. This is a chance for me to see the world, to find out who I am and what I’m made of—”

“All you’re going to see of the world is the back side of some African desert where people plant bombs on the side of the road and shoot at anything that moves!
That
’s how you’re going to find yourself?” She looked at him in outrageous disdain. “The fact that you would even say that tells me you’re not mature enough to make the decision.”

“You told me I was.” His cheeks were starting to stain red. “You told me the decision was mine.”

Lindsay threw up her hands, palms out, and held them there firmly. “This discussion is over. It’s not going to happen. I raised you to be an artist, not a warrior. You’re not joining the Marines. Over. End of conversation.”

“You didn’t raise me to be anything!” he exploded back at her. “You gave me a place to stay and three squares and okay, I get it, but I don’t owe you my life for that, okay? It’s my life! And you can just go to hell because it’s already done!”

Bridget said, shocked, “Noah!”

He tossed the keys into the dirt at Lindsay’s feet and turned and strode away.

Lindsay cried, “Then undo it, do you hear me? Do you know why they send eighteen-year-old boys to war? Because they’re too stupid not to go, that’s why! Noah!”

He threw up his hands and didn’t stop walking.

“Noah, come back here! We’re not finished!”

She lunged after him, but Dominic caught her arm. When she tore her arm away, he stepped in front of her and took her shoulders. His expression was grim. “Lindsay Sue,” he said, “you know I’ve got more respect for you than any woman I know, but you need to hush, and you need to hush right now. Because if you don’t, you’re going to lose that boy forever.”

Lindsay looked up at him, stricken, and he released her shoulders cautiously. “I’ll talk to him,” he said.

Lindsay raised a trembling hand to her lips as she watched him go. “He’s just a boy,” she said, and her voice was low and tight and strained with the effort of keeping it steady. “He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He doesn’t know anything but here. He was supposed to go to college. All these years, that’s all we worked for … He was supposed to go to college!” She drew a breath that sounded like a stifled sob. “He can’t make it out there on his own, any more than … any more than that stupid deer can. He can’t do this!”

Bridget reached for her, but Lindsay turned and ran into the house, letting the screen door slam behind her. She caught herself against the newel post at the bottom of the stairs, and then her knees buckled beneath her. She sank to the floor, holding onto the stair rail, weeping.

Cici and Bridget dropped down beside her on the floor and unfolded their wings of love over her. They held her and rocked her and didn’t say a word.

~*~

Dominic came into the barn just as Noah threw a feed bucket against the wall. He stood and watched until the clatter died down, then moved forward. Noah turned on him with eyes that were defiant and wary.

“First off,” Dominic said mildly, holding his gaze, “if you ever speak to the woman I love like that again, it’s going to be between you and me, and it won’t be pretty. Are we clear?”

Noah jerked his gaze away, jaw tightening.

“I said, are we clear?” His voice was like steel.

Noah swallowed and darted a quick glance at Dominic. “Yeah,” he muttered.

Dominic relaxed his shoulders and leaned back against one of the stalls. “Second, if you think a uniform is all it takes to make a man, you’re even more of a boy than your mother thinks you are.” He ignored the angry look Noah shot him and absently plucked a broken straw from the spider web in which it was caught against a post. “And she is your mother, not only legally, but because she’s earned it. She’s earned a lot of things from you, not the least of which is respect.” He twirled the straw in his fingers for a moment, then let it float to the floor. “Anyway, I happen to think she’s wrong about you. I think you’re more of a man than she gives you credit for, but it’s not running off and joining the Marines that’s going to prove it to her—or to anybody else, for that matter. It’s what you do when you leave this barn.”

Noah looked at him for a moment, allowing a small amount of puzzlement to seep into his gaze, and Dominic’s held steady. He said, “Isn’t it?”

Noah scowled and looked away.

“So,” Dominic said after a moment. “Two weeks, eh?”

Noah nodded cautiously.

Dominic gave a small, smothered chuckle and a shake of his head. “Parris Island, the paradise of the South. A vacation experience you’ll never forget.”

Noah looked at him cautiously. “You were in the Corps?”

“Semper Fi.”

Noah studied him for a moment. “You’re not going to try to talk me out of it?”

“It’s not my place. Besides, son, if you’ve signed those papers, you’re government property now. Like you said, it’s done.”

Noah said, relaxing a little, “It’s what I want. Those women—and I’m not saying anything against them—they can’t understand that. “

Dominic nodded.

He gave an uncomfortable shrug. “You know I didn’t come from much. But my great grandpa was a hero in World War II, and I guess ever since I found that out, it’s made me think a little different about myself.” He darted a quick glance toward Dominic. “Maybe I’d like my kids to think different about themselves someday, too.”

He was silent for a moment. “So I studied on it, and the more I thought about it, the more I couldn’t see myself going to some fancy college and hanging out in art museums and when it was done, then what? All that money, when nobody around here has any to spare, and when it’s done, you’ve got nothing. The only reason those colleges even wanted me was because I had a good story. You know, orphaned and uneducated and all that. It didn’t seem like any of it had anything to do with
me
,
or who I wanted to be.

“And then last summer, when I worked in Washington at Derrick’s gallery, it all started to make a little more sense to me. The people that came in there, they weren’t the kind of people I wanted to be, or even hang out with. I mean it was fun and all, and I learned a lot, but mostly what I learned was that the world was so much bigger than I ever thought it was. And there were important things to do in it I never thought about before.”

Dominic just listened.

“And then I met this solider over Christmas, and we talked a lot. I guess that kind of stayed in my mind. But I knew how much my mom wanted me to go to college, and it’s hard to disappoint somebody you …” He shrugged uncomfortably. “You know, care about. But when the recruiter came to school on Career Day a couple of months back, I took home the papers and studied them and got on the computer and studied more, then I went in to talk to them. It just felt right.” He straightened his shoulders. “I’m sorry I hurt her. But I’m not sorry I signed up.”

Dominic was thoughtful for a moment. “That might be something she’d like to hear.”

Noah was silent for a long time. And then he glanced at Dominic. “You were really in the Marines?”

Dominic gave a rueful smile and pushed away from the wall. “I was. And let me tell you, boy, you sure picked a hell of a way to see the world.” He started to leave the barn and then looked back. “Act like a man,” he told him.

In a moment, Noah nodded.

~*~

Sunset. Lindsay stood alone at the edge of the vineyard, watching the breeze ruffle the pale undersides of the leaves, tasting the evening that crept into the air. A crow cawed overhead, and the shadows on the hillside lay still and purple. Dominic came up beside her and just stood there silently for a while, his hands clasped loosely behind his back.

He said, gazing over the vineyard, “I didn’t talk him out of it. I wouldn’t have if I could have. The boy wants to serve his country. It’s his right. And if you want to hate me for that, it’s your right.”

Her makeup was worn off, her hair had come down from its pins, and her eyes were tired of crying. She still wore the ruffled blouse and flared skirt from the suit that she’d worn to graduation, but she was barefoot. The breeze caught her skirt and tangled it briefly around her legs. She reached into her pocket and took out a wrinkled paper.

“Noah’s personal essay for college,” she said, looking down at it. “The one he never would let me read. He gave it to me this afternoon. We had a talk.” The smile that ghosted her lips was fleeting and filled with an achingly tender combination of pride and sorrow. “Do you know he got into every college he applied to?”

Dominic said, “They’ll still want him in three years.”

She glanced at him, then back at the paper. “The essay is all about us and this place and the life we’ve built here …” She smiled quietly to herself and the glance she gave him was on the border of being shy. “About me. I guess he was embarrassed to show it to me. Boys can be silly like that.”

“Yes,” agreed Dominic gently, “they can.”

She looked back down at the paper. “The last part is, ‘I don’t know where my life will take me. I don’t guess anyone does. But the one thing I do know is that, because of them, I’ll always be able to find my way home.’”