31. Mike
MIKE
“ T ell me about tomatoes,” Sylvia invites.
She showed up at seven, just as promised, after taking Sierra to the bus and making sure Una had a good dinner.
Best of all, she walked in the door of the house, backed me into the wall and kissed me like she’d eat me alive.
Sylvia’s happy the way she is when she’s had a good day sketching and I love when she’s happy.
It’s only reasonable to celebrate that with her.
I’ve been thinking about her all weekend, but have barely seen her since that kiss on Friday. Texting and calls are inadequate, but we’ll get used to it. I worked full-out on the greenhouse this weekend, getting it set up – which means I caught glimpses of Sylvia both days.
Was there a kiss on the stairs? More than one? I’ll never tell.
First, I laid the brick floor Saturday morning before it got too hot, then took a break to pick up planters, growth medium and seeds.
The greenhouse has officially become the local pet project thanks to Noah’s article.
I had call after call from local firms, offering me supplies and contributions.
I like the sense of community that’s resulting – we are all in competition in one way, but we’re neighbours, too, and pulling together on this just feels good.
After that, it was time for my game in Havelock with the guys and dinner there. I drove past the bistro on the way home, but they were still serving dinners. I headed home alone, knowing Sylvia will be tired when she’s done, and she’d want time with Sierra.
By the time I got to the greenhouse Sunday morning, Sierra was waiting for me and Sylvia was in her studio.
Sierra and I worked together Sunday morning on the planting and got all the seeds in before it was time for her bus.
I was instructed to send pictures the moment anything green breaks the soil as she darted out the door.
It won’t be long until school finishes and she’s here all the time.
But Sunday night is for Sylvia.
It’s dark by the time we come up for air, night pressing against the windows.
Sylvia’s wearing one of my T-shirts and it’s ridiculously huge on her.
Her hair is in a messy bun and she’s barefoot in my kitchen.
I can’t believe my luck having her here and I keep looking at her to make sure she’s not an illusion.
Actually, I have other reasons to keep looking at her.
She’s every fantasy come true. I’m only wearing a pair of shorts as we rummage for something to eat in my woefully understocked kitchen.
“There aren’t any tomatoes here,” I reply. “Although I could probably go over and get some.”
“That’s not what I meant.” She’s examining the carton of eggs from the fridge, frowning at the expiration date. “Is this July of this year or last? ”
I grin. “I just bought them. Avoid the chocolate, though. It’s been in there so long it should be carbon-dated.”
“Omelettes it is,” she says, grabbing a piece of cheese. I’m glad I went grocery shopping in Havelock because there’s milk and bread for toast, too. She puts the last piece of butter in the pan, but we’ll survive.
“What about tomatoes?” I ask when I’m whisking the eggs.
“I wondered why you ended up doing this, that’s all. Tell me your favourite parts.”
“I like the greenhouses and the challenges of growing under glass. I like the scale of it and the feel of it.”
“They are huge.” She nods out the window at number one, glowing faintly with its night illumination. I can see the tomato plants from here, in silhouette inside.
“I like how it’s all mathematical, the balance of water and light, the way the plants respond to even incremental changes. I like controlling the variables.”
“Fewer things to fix,” she teases and I grin.
“There is that.”
“And you like buying bees.” She’s laughing at me, but I don’t mind.
“You know, I do. And I love watching them at work.”
She takes the bowl from me and pours the eggs into the pan with an expertise I can’t match. I watch her lift the pan and spin the liquid egg around, then put it back on the burner. “And you like taking care of your workers.”
“I do.” I lean against the counter to watch her. “I respect that they make a hard choice to do what they think is best for their families. I don’t want them to feel like a cog in the wheel. They’re people, fathers and brothers and sons.”
She casts me a smile. “Like you.”
“Yeah. I guess.”
“But why tomatoes? ’
“They were the first crop to be financially feasible in these greenhouses. Plus, I think a lot of the farmers here, like my dad, grew up raising tomatoes outside. It’s a crop they understood, although everything shakes out differently in the greenhouse.”
“You’d never train them in the field to grow like that.”
“Or prune so much. No. Although they are training fruit trees to grow more vertically in some local orchards.”
“Science and nature in harmony?”
“Something like that.” Just math. Plain old math. I got a thrill when that apple farmer told me that the line of espaliered trees was calculated to be at the best angle for maximum sunlight on the fruit, given our latitude.
“And what about the future?”
I heave a sigh, my gaze trailing to the greenhouses. “It seems that I’ll have a place here as long as I want it.”
“Don’t you?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes I wonder whether I made the right choice.”
“Really? Why?” She’s added a bit of cheese, and I watch as she folds the omelette over itself. At her nod, I push down the button on the toaster.
I frown. “Okay, Dad was an innovator. He jumped into this early and did really well. He expanded quickly and it was a success long before I finished school. I was able to refine some processes and improve yields, but what we do is not that different from the way he started out.”
“Bigger.”
I nod. “But the same varieties. The same rhythm of the year.”
“I’m going to guess that the world out there has changed while things stayed consistent here.”
“Exactly. Lots more competition. That cocktail tomato variety we call ‘old faithful’ is grown much more extensively, which means the price per kilo has dropped. I want to try new hybrids but Dad likes to stick to the tried-and-true.”
“You brought Merrie those pretty cluster tomatoes.”
I almost laugh. “Those are a story.”
“Tell me.”
“A friend in Europe recommended the variety, said people were wild for it. No one was growing it here but it was only a matter of time before someone did.”
“You wanted to be first,” she says with approval and I nod.
“But the grower who starts our seedlings would only import the seed if I made a hefty minimum plant order. Enough to fill greenhouse seven with plants.”
“Wow.”
“Wow.” I agree. “I went for it, based on that recommendation, and they’re fabulous.
” The toast pops and I miss the butter. I don’t want to sound critical of Dad, not out loud, though in my thoughts, he’s been unfair.
“In between the purchase agreement and the first harvest, though, Dad decided he was still in charge. He was very unhappy with the bill from the seedling growers.”
“Is there a happy ending?”
“Kind of. The biggest grocery chain in the country bought an exclusive on the entire harvest, at a premium.”
“Nice! So, your dad is on your side now.”
I laugh again. “Not hardly.”
“He doesn’t change his mind easily,” she says quietly and something in her voice makes me look up.
“No.”
I wait and she shrugs. “He’s never changed his mind about me.”
He hasn’t but I don’t want to say it.
She slides the omelette onto a plate and I feel her waiting for me to continue .
“The thing is that I feel like my place is here, but then, it’s not.
Dad and I can’t talk reasonably about anything.
He won’t hire an operations manager, and he second-guesses every choice I make.
He comes at me with some accusation or criticism and before I know it, we’re arguing as if I’m six and need to ask permission to leave the room. ”
“Maybe you need to change how you interact.”
I shake my head. “He’s set in his ways and I don’t think well on my feet. Neither of those things are going to change.”
“But no one does well when they feel attacked.” I look up and she nods. “You do. I can hear it in your voice.”
I have to cede that. “What would I do change things?”
“Break the rhythm. Instead of waiting for him to appear unexpectedly, make an appointment with him. Prepare your arguments and present them without emotion.”
“Arguments about what?”
“About how you’d run the place if you were in charge. You must have ideas.”
“I have dozens of them.”
She shrugs and smiles at me. “Then take a chance on making them happen.” Her eyes twinkle. “Carpe diem and all that. What would make this your ideal job? What would make you excited about the possibilities?”
“Big changes.”
We sit down and dig in. The omelette is perfectly cooked and ideal for this hour of the night. “Make a list,” she says. “Put them in order. Tell your dad.” Sylvia makes it sound so easy.
I wonder if it could be.
There’s a lot to think about there and I realize I’ve been quiet too long. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“What’s your five-year plan?”
Sylvia is nibbling at her toast and thinking, and I like that she’s determined to provide a good answer. “Well, getting Sierra through high school and off to university or college is job one.”
“Granted. You know you can count on me to help with that.”
Sylvia smiles. “Big fan of higher education?”
“Absolutely. She’s smart. I don’t want anything to hold her back.”
Sylvia continues. “And I’m hoping that Merrie and I can make the diner work.”
“You and me both.”
“Surviving the winter will be the challenge.”
“Absolutely. Maybe we can find Rafe a place to stay in town.”
She puts down her fork. “That’s a really good idea. He makes so much difference with his posts. If he stops for the winter, that might be fatal.”
“Take your own advice,” I say. “Turn it around. If he keeps up his posts all winter, it might be enough to make the difference.”
“Yes.” She smiles at me.
“So, we need to find him a place. He can’t count on driving because there will be snow at some point.”
“And we don’t want him in a ditch somewhere.” She fixes me with a look. “Do you have an idea? You seem to know a lot of what’s going on locally.”
“I do have an idea but I want to know your five-year plan first.”
She smiles. “Playing hard to get, are you?”
“I am not hard for you to get,” I say firmly and she reaches under the table to give me a caress.
“I’d say otherwise,” she murmurs .
“Eat your eggs,” I order, trying to sound stern and failing. “You’ll need your strength.”
We share a kiss then, one that threatens to make both of us forget to clean our plates.
“I guess the right answer is that my five-year plan is to keep painting.”
“The right answer is to tell me what you need to make that happen.”
“Nothing really. Time. Space. Una’s recovery. The café’s success.”
“Nothing really,” I echo, shaking my head, and she smiles. I finish my share of the omelette and take a chance. “What about art school?”
She catches her breath, then continues as if it didn’t matter. “You know what happened to that plan.”
“But that was then. What about now?”
“I’m not going to ditch everything and go back to college.”
“Why not?”
“I’m too old.”
I snort. “If it’s what you want, you should make it happen. What do you want?”
Sylvia sits back then and I realize that I’m not the only one who has had their assumptions shaken up a bit tonight. “I like working in the café, though, and I like living here. I don’t think I’d want to go full-time and I don’t want to move, but I would appreciate some instruction.”
“Classes are usually in the fall and winter. Winter is when the café is likely to be quietest.”
Her eyes light as she watches me. “And you have a scheme.”
“A suggestion, no more and no less.”
“Go on.”
“An online course, that you can follow at your own pace. ”
“Oh! That’s worth looking up,” she says with a smile. “What else?”
“One of the guys was talking about a weekly life drawing class in Havelock. The art teacher from the high school organizes it once a week, partly to keep her own skills up. Participants chip in to cover the model’s fee.”
“Mike!” Her eyes are alight. “Can you find out more for me?”
“I’d be glad to. Carson probably knows more.”
“And now your scheme for Rafe, because I know you have one.”
“It’s just an idea. Cole is holed up in that hotel all on his own. I expect he has a pension, but he still might need some extra funds. What if he rented a room out to Rafe?”
“The place must need work, but maybe having a tenant would encourage Cole to get around to it.”
“Cole might welcome some company, too.” I shrug, recalling my few interactions with a very prickly veteran. “Or not.”
“I barely remember him from high school. I don’t think I’ve even seen him since I got back to town.”
“He’s pretty reclusive.” I think about it for a moment. “Didn’t Willow know him a bit better than most?”
“I’ll ask her.” Sylvia props her chin on her hand to study me, her eyes gleaming. “Enough of a restorative break?”
I lean on the table so we’re nose to nose. “Depends what you have in mind.”
I watch her smile. First, her lips curve, then her eyes light. “I want to be wicked,” she whispers and one more time, she sends a jolt right to my toes.
“I think you need to elaborate on that,” I murmur, and she laughs before she comes around the table.
She’s in my lap, straddling me in the chair, her lips against my ear, and her definition of wickedness gives me some excellent ideas.
It’s easy to stand up and carry her off to the bedroom, not to care about the dishes or the time.
There’s nothing in my world but Sylvia.
I have a feeling it’s always going to be that way, and I like that just fine.