In just over a month, Heather had managed to bring more weekly money into the farm than I’d been able to do in the past year. “But it’s not like I wasn’t getting there,” I explained to Billy as we milked on Monday morning while Heather slept in since I was heading straight to the Busy Bean from the farm.
“Getting there don’t pay bills,” Billy said, and irritation flared within me.
“Right, but I’d diversified the produce already and added the new cheese varieties. It was just a matter of finding the buyers.”
“Which that girl of yours did,” Billy pointed out.
I sighed. He was right. She deserved the credit. Why was it so hard for me to admit?
“She tell you any more about the land trust?” Billy asked as we prepped the next two girls for milking.
I had to pause before I could answer because one of the goats I had on the platform was Annalee, and almost as if she could sense us talking about her new favorite human, she decided to join the conversation, calling out loudly in an admonishing tone.
“That right?” I asked her, placing the bowl of feed in front of her as the milking machine began to pump.
She looked at me and let out one more bleat before turning to her food.
“Haven’t heard much. I guess she sent the paperwork in and is waiting to hear. It’ll be fine either way.” I knew it was a Hail Mary, and without it, there was a good chance we would not be fine.
Billy stopped what he was doing and narrowed his watery eyes at me. “No, it won’t.”
“Sure, it will. We were fine before.”
“That’s why you’re working at the crazy coffee?”
“Busy Bean. And no, I’m working there to give us a little cushion while I turn the rest of the operation around.”
Billy sighed, and I knew he was right, but it was hard to admit someone else had accomplished what I’d been struggling to do for so long. That maybe she’d even saved us in a way—she’d definitely bought us a bit more time by bringing in an infusion of cash to the farm. And if the Land Trust really did want to buy the development rights? Well, depending on what they paid, that could put us in the black again.
“Well, you better skedaddle,” Billy said, looking down at his watch. “You said you had an early shift, and by my watch, it’s early now.”
I did have an early shift. Audrey and Zara usually worked around my schedule at the farm, but today they’d both had things to do early this morning, and I’d agreed to open for them.
As I prepped the Busy Bean for opening, my stomach growling at the scents coming from the kitchen as Roderick baked bread, muffins, cookies, and something that smelled like garlic and heaven, I realized I felt better than I had in a long time. Hopeful, even. At the same time as I felt this relieved sense of hope roll through me, I recognized that I’d been switching wildly back and forth. I was veering between determination to stand apart from Heather, to not rely on her, and acknowledging that my need for her actually made me happy. I couldn’t make sense of it, and for the time being, decided to live in the moment.
I used the menu chalk to scratch a new saying in an empty spot on the beam near the front door and felt myself settling inside in a way I wasn’t sure I ever had.
Was it Heather? Her actions here, or her presence in my life, at my house? Was it the feeling of connection, of understanding, I was beginning to recognize?
The morning passed quickly, regulars taking their places on the scattered furniture like extras filling in the set of a sitcom, and the line moving steadily past the counter as I pulled coffees and served up little plates of baked goods. Roderick helped during the busiest times, but I’d become adept at multi-tasking.
“Dude,” Roderick said, turning to me with a wide smile once the rush had died down. “Did I just hear you making cheerful small talk with Mrs. Browning?”
“I just complimented her hat, that’s all.”
“That’s cheerful small talk, friend.”
It was. And it was a skill I’d never possessed before coming to work at the Bean or before a certain bubbly blonde had come into my life. “Just being friendly,” I said, beginning to be uncomfortable under his attention.
“And what about this? ‘I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I ended up where I needed to be'?” He gave me a quizzical head tilt.
“Douglas Adams.”
“Hitchhiker’s Guide?”
“Close. Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul.”
“Interesting.” Roderick leaned one hip on the counter as he narrowed his gaze at me, and it felt like he was seeing far more than I would have shown him if asked. “Mason, I daresay you seem happy.”
Was I happy? Had I not been happy before? I wasn’t sure I felt happier—just more awake, alive. It was almost like I’d been hibernating for a long time. “Maybe.” I shrugged and turned to empty grounds and start fresh coffee for the lunch crowd.
I was preparing to head home—Audrey had come in to relieve me just before lunchtime—when Heather stepped through the door of the coffee shop. Though I tried to push down my reaction, I swore I felt my heart lift inside my chest at the sight of her.
Her hair was a tousled knot on top of her head, and she wore jeans with tall brown boots and a T-shirt that clung to her lithe frame in a way that my body took notice of immediately.
“Hello,” she said, her cheery smile lighting the space as she moved toward the counter.
I had just removed my apron but moved to wait on her. “Hi.” I felt strangely shy here, seeing her in town, out of our usual routine. “Can I get you something?”
“I wondered if you’d have time for lunch,” she said, and while part of me jumped at the invitation, something hesitant in her voice suggested her motivation for visiting me might not be her desire for a spontaneous meal together.
“Sure,” I said.
“You staying here?” Audrey asked. “The goat cheese and onion pizza Roddy made with the cheese from your farm is insane.”
“Let’s go sit on the deck at Speakeasy,” Heather said. “Though I can smell the pizza,” she told Audrey. “Is that the honey drizzle?”
Audrey nodded. “I’m so glad you brought that stuff in.” She shot me a look. “No idea why Mason was keeping it a secret. I think I’m addicted to it.”
“I wasn’t keeping it a secret,” I said. I just hadn’t thought to offer it to my employers, but now I realized I just didn’t have a marketing mindset. Not like Heather seemed to.
“Can you spare him?” Heather asked Audrey.
“He’s off now anyway. Go enjoy the sunshine,” she said, patting my arm as I turned to join Heather on the other side of the counter.
We headed out into the warm street, a light breeze wafting by as we wordlessly agreed to walk, heading for the little path through the woods just beyond the Gin Mill.
There was an unfamiliar urge in me, pressing me to take her hand, to pull her closer, but I fought it, shoving my hands deep in the pockets of my jeans instead.
It was warmer in the trees, the summer day making the woods feel close and private, like a world apart from the relative business of the streets of Colebury.
“How was work?” Heather asked, turning her head to look up at me with the shining blue eyes I’d started to see behind my own lids at night.
“Good, actually,” I said, surprising myself. Working at the Busy Bean had been a means to an end, but today I’d enjoyed the rhythm of working side by side with Roderick and the quieter moments where I got to appreciate some of the efficiencies I’d suggested Audrey and Zara adopt too. “It’s something different than the farm, a different rhythm. But still a rhythm, you know?”
“You like your routines, huh?”
It wasn’t a dig, just an observation. “I do. I guess I like to know what happens next.”
“That’s security, I suppose.”
It was. “Kind of the opposite of my childhood,” I said as we slowed our pace a bit, ambling between the narrow trunks. I didn’t usually talk about my parents, about the terror I’d felt as a kid, wondering what would happen to Amelia and me after we’d lost them. After I’d let them die in that fire. “We had a lot of uncertainty right after the . . .” I still couldn’t easily discuss the way I’d failed my parents. Guilt climbed my throat and stole the words.
“It must have been terrifying, especially as a kid. You didn’t know for sure that your family here would come get you?”
I sighed. “We were kids. I mean, I was fourteen, but I was self-absorbed and selfish. I kind of forgot we had family out here. We didn’t see them often, and I had no reason to assume Billy would come get us.”
“But he did.”
“Yeah.” I tried not to think about the two weeks my sister and I had lived in a foster home, waiting for Billy to arrive. We’d known it was temporary, and the family that took us in was nice enough. But all I really remembered was my sister’s constant tears, my own guilt, and the dogged fear of the future. Of not knowing if things would be all right.
We were quiet as we exited the woods and entered Speakeasy, following the hostess to the same table on the deck we’d had before.
After we’d each ordered an iced tea, Heather leaned in a little, and I could almost feel her words coming before she spoke. “I talked to Morgan back at the office.”
My own visceral reaction to her words surprised me. I had an urge to spring up and run away, not to hear that she was done here, that she was going to go back to DC. I pushed down the sudden insanity I felt and swallowed hard, keeping my voice neutral. “How are things there?”
“Well, I’d spoken to him a week or so ago, and he’d assured me that things with the senator had died down, even in the city. He’d also said he didn’t need me back right away.”
Relief rolled through my limbs, cool and refreshing. He’d told her not to come back.
“But today he said it’d be best if I got back as soon as possible. I guess the senator who replaced Andrews is seeking to overturn some of the progress we made over the last year within the urban schools, and Morgan needs me to come strategize how we’ll gain support in other places now that our ally is in prison. There’s another conservative we might be able to win over, but I need to be there.”
My blood stopped moving through my veins. I nodded, but my mind wasn’t on her words. I was hung up on the idea of her leaving, of being suddenly flung backward into the life I’d hidden in before she arrived. It was a terrifying feeling, and I hated how weak it felt to admit I was afraid—afraid that if she left, I’d never find this kind of calm happiness again. I didn’t know what these feelings I had were exactly, but I knew they related to Heather, and I knew I wasn’t ready for her to leave.
“Sounds like they need you,” I managed as Heather sipped her tea.
She nodded, and her eyes stayed fixed on my face, like she was waiting for me to say more.
“You sure it’s safe to go back though? It sounded like the senator’s supporters were pretty die-hard. You feel okay about returning?”
Heather sat back in her chair and gazed around her, taking a deep breath and then meeting my eyes again. “I have to, right? That’s my life. That’s where I live. This has all been . . .” She trailed off, holding my gaze. “I mean, Mason . . .” She sighed, and I found myself hanging on her words. Would she tell me how she felt about the way things had changed between us?
“Mason, you have to know how grateful I am for this time, for the chance to escape and hide out for a while. And to meet you.”
I waited, wanting to hear something from her that would confirm my own feelings, solidify my idea that there might be something real between us despite my best efforts to avoid just such an entanglement.
But she fell silent.
“You could stay,” I said, surprising myself.
Her eyebrows shot up as she met my eyes again.
“They need a teacher at Amelia’s school, right?”
“Yes, but . . . I mean, why would I stay?”
Her words were like a dagger. Was she asking me to give her a reason? Or telling me she didn’t feel the same? My defenses rose. “You like it here, don’t you?”
She let out a laugh, but it was a dry resigned sound. “I like Disney World too, but I’ve always known that visits there were temporary. This has been a break. Like a vacation. I need to step back into the responsibilities I have in my life. I can’t keep hiding.”
My stomach churned uncomfortably, and I pushed away the burger I’d only begun to eat. “So when will you go?”
“Morgan wanted me back as soon as possible. I guess I’ll go tomorrow? I just need to rent a car.”
“Right.” The afternoon seemed to darken around us, the river suddenly too loud as it rolled over the rocks and swept around the bank just off the edge of the deck. “We can do that now.”
“I mean,” Heather’s eyes widened in surprise. “We can finish lunch.”
“Sure,” I said, though I knew I couldn’t eat another bite. I watched her pick at her burger and paid the check as soon as the server came by again.
The walk back through the woods was silent, and where they’d felt close and intimate before, the overhanging branches and dark trunks now felt ominous, dangerous, and the close warmth of the day felt sticky and oppressive.
Heather wouldn’t let me take her to the gas station on the edge of town that rented cars, but I gave her directions, and then I headed to the elementary school to work on the greenhouse. I didn’t want to be home when she came back, didn’t want to watch her pack her things tonight or hear her saying goodbye to my dog.
I didn’t want her to leave.
But it was for the best, I told myself as I tried to hide in the hard work of moving earth and pulling plastic sheeting over the roof, securing it down the walls of the structure.
Losing people was a pain I already knew too well. Better that Heather go now, when I really didn’t even know her, than wait until something inside me shifted and her loss might break something critical I could never fix.
This pain, I told myself, was just surprise. It was only the alarm of being caught off guard. Heather would leave the next day, and I would finally get back to my regular life, quiet and controlled and alone.