Chapter 4 #4
Mere’s eyes soften, and she claps a gentle hand on Will’s shoulder.
Her tone very kind, she says, “I’m going to forgive you for what an insulting question that is, Will, because I understand why you’re asking it.
Yes , I’m happy—I spent a year convincing my dad to give up the reins, you know.
When I graduated, I came back here for the summer; I was supposed to meet Sandy back in Columbus in the fall, after he finished—oh, I don’t remember now, some internship or summer trip, or something.
Anyway, after a couple weeks here, I realized I had about a million and one things I wanted to change, and I started getting after it, and one thing turned to another and I realized: I liked doing it.
I didn’t care about fashion, but I did care about this place, and keeping good food affordable and accessible for the people around here.
” She shrugs, and adds, her eyes sparkling, “And, you know, it made August blow his lid, which didn’t hurt. ”
Will can’t help but laugh; August, Meredith’s oldest brother, had been a terror for rules and restrictions, always insisting he was in charge in any situation.
The thought of Meredith pulling rank on him in the family store is truly hysterical, and she tells Will several entertaining stories to that effect, then updates him on the various Gunderson siblings, all still alive and in various states of wellness and wealth.
By the time she wraps this up, it’s lunchtime, and Will accepts when she invites him to join her, a recently returned Todd, and the rest of the kids for lunch.
Sandy, her husband, stops in too; he’s a skinny, cheerful guy with shaggy light brown hair who gives off an outdoorsy energy Will can’t quite quantify.
Still, he likes the man a lot, and Meredith’s kids are funny and interesting and a credit to her.
All in all, he doesn’t get around to asking about Casey until the very end of the visit, when Will looks down at his watch and realizes, to his shock, that it’s nearly two in the afternoon.
He apologizes for overstaying his welcome, though Mere waves this away as nonsense, and then, hesitantly, he says, “Listen, before I go—I’m, uh, dealing with the farm?
My da—uh, my father left it to me? And, you know, I don’t think I want to…
keep it, or…live here. There. No offense,” he adds, hastily, holding up his hands. “Glenriver’s great, just?—”
“No, I get it,” Meredith says, though her voice is sad.
“For what it’s worth it’s—this town is a different place than it was then.
We’ve all put a lot of work into it. And the farm has changed a lot , in ways I think would honestly surprise you.
But…I get it. If I were you, I don’t think I’d want to live here after all that, either. ”
Will swallows, looks away. But his voice is calm when he says, “I assume you know about the Nimbletainment thing? With the Shiver?”
“Oh, yeah,” Meredith says, and Will notices her face go slightly guarded. Even her , he notes, and after all this talk. Why? “Probably nobody in town who doesn’t. You’re planning on selling, yeah? No shame in it—a lot of folks are, if it all goes through.”
“Are they?” Will says, slightly confused.
But, not wanting to seem like he’s dodging her question, he adds, “And, I mean, yeah, I think so. It seems like the simplest solution for everyone, and it sounds like the town is behind it? But…I don’t know, something feels…
well… off , I guess. And then when I went to the orchard, I met, uh… Do you know Casey Reeves?”
Meredith flushes slightly, though her tone is light enough when she says, “Ha. I think you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone in this town who doesn’t.
You’d think he was some kind of movie star, the way people talk about him.
” When Will, without entirely meaning to, raises a curious eyebrow at her, her flush deepens, and she says, “ I don’t know any of the gossip, obviously.
Sandy and I don’t partake in that kind of thing; it’s rude to say something behind someone’s back you wouldn’t say to their face.
And, anyway, Casey…” She pauses, a moment of uncharacteristic hesitation playing around her mouth, before she says, “Casey’s—a friend.
We haven’t seen him that much lately, but that’s not his fault.
He’s our friend.” Her eyes softening slightly, she adds, “He’s done a lot of good for the farm, and for Glenriver.
And your dad liked him a lot; you know he wasn’t exactly the softest touch. ”
“Hmm,” Will says, trying not to sound bitter and, he suspects, failing. “Well, as far as I can tell everyone likes Casey Reeves, so. I guess even Bill wasn’t immune to his charms.” Just me , he adds, in the privacy of own mind. One more way I don’t quite fit here.
“My man CASE,” Todd bellows, abruptly, from the next room.
Proving Will’s point, he gets up off the couch and lopes over to them, grinning, and holds out his phone.
“That dude’s the best. He runs these youth wilderness camps in the summer, so dope, it’s like kayaking and fishing and all sorts of stuff.
Anyway, I toasted three phones on his watch and then he got me this sick cover.
He said it’s the one people in the military use. ”
“He said your phone needed military-grade protection to survive you,” Mere says, rolling her eyes and laughing on it a little.
But Will’s brow furrows as he looks at the case on Todd’s phone, which appears to be quite expensive. “What, he—bought that for you? Out of the goodness of his heart?” Seems a little at odds with the snarling man Will met yesterday.
“He said it was an act of mercy for my phone,” Todd says, grinning. “Casey’s cool, man. He gets it.” Then he lopes off again, out of the room and down the stairs, off to parts unknown.
“From the mouth of babes,” Mere says with a sigh.
She gives Will a slightly awkward little shrug.
“The truth is, Casey’s great, and I think he did a lot for your dad.
But the whole thing with the festival—the rest of us know which way the wind is blowing, you know?
One way or another, in a situation like this, the house always wins, so we might as well get our cut before it’s too late.
But Casey… He’s not from around here. He wants everyone to band together and let idealism win the day and that’s not how it goes, you know? ”
“I’m not sure I do,” Will admits, but before he can ask any more questions, Todd’s calling, “MA! The meat guy’s here! He’s got meat questions! I’m vegan suddenly!”
“You ate a roast beef sandwich an hour ago!” Mere calls down the stairs after him.
“Stop disrespecting my dietary choices, Mom ,” Todd howls back, and things descend, from there, into mild chaos.
Will chooses this moment to make his escape, saying a quick goodbye to Meredith and cutting out the back, striding with purpose back up the hill to his rental car even as he tells himself he doesn’t know where he’s going.
He keeps telling himself that as he pulls onto the road, and down the winding, residential streets, houses spaced far apart and decorated with various flags and hangings.
Some of them, he’s noticed, are queer flags, and it warms his heart, even as he tells himself he’s not taking a familiar route at all.
It’s only when he pulls into the parking lot of the farm that Will lets himself admit that this is where he was headed the whole time.