Chapter 9
Pete
I was not expecting to see Zoe here today. It throws me for a loop at first, because, while I was prepared to lead a group of kids around and be uncomfortable for a couple of hours, just to make Aunt Arley feel good, since this is something she and my uncle did every year, and she hated to give it up, even though she’s slowed down a lot over the last couple of years. But, I wasn’t prepared to be uncomfortable because Zoe is in the group.
I have to say, I’m not as uncomfortable as I might have thought I would have been. Especially since we talked last night.
In fact, she smiles at me, and I find myself giving her a little grin back. I think again about talking to her last night while she was in her booth, and learning a little bit about her. Finding out that she had always been able to do voices, and that other people found her voice just as appealing as I did.
That was kind of nice.
Then the kids start moving around, and I start to feel the way I usually do when there are children close to me. Like, I have no idea what to do. I’m the kind of person who likes to be in control of situations. And, with children, there is no control. You might be able to corral them for a while, but you can’t depend on them listening to you or obeying. At least in my estimation you can’t.
“And, we don’t have Holsteins, the black and white cows that are in most picture books and toys, anymore. Those are dairy cows, and we sold them.” Aunt Arley has finished with her explanation of everything that goes on at the farm, and she looks around the group. “Are there any questions?”
The kids who were starting to wander off got herded back into the group by the librarian, Verity. She and Zoe seem to be friends.
I’m not sure who the other lady is, but I assume that the kid who’s plastered to her side is hers. And that’s how she got roped into this.
“Are we going to get a tractor ride?” One of the kids says, and Verity smiles benignly and looks at Aunt Arley.
“I believe Pete has the tractor and wagon hooked up, and he’s got some haybales in it. And he’s going to take you on a ride around the farm.”
That’s true, I plan to, but I don’t say anything, because what is there to say to that, and just stand there. I feel dumb, but I know this is making my aunt feel good, so I try to convince myself that I’m having fun. Unsuccessfully.
“All right then, kids, if you don’t have any other questions, what should we do first?” Verity says to Aunt Arley.
“Pete has not fed the goats yet today, and I thought the children might enjoy doing that. They can all stick their hand in that bucket.”
She points to the bucket I’m holding. She asked me to bring it out first, so we could do the goats before we left for the ride.
“You can get a handful of feet. Try not to drop it on the ground, because whenever you drop they can’t eat today.”
I’ve seldom hear Aunt Arley be this nice. And I don’t mean that unkindly. She’s definitely in her element. All the kids come along, grab a handful of feed from the bucket, and follow in a single file line as Verity leads them to the goat pen.
Goats are not my favorite animal on the farm. I do understand how some people really love them. They are adorable when they’re babies, and they definitely don’t kick as hard as cows do.
Billy goats smell, and goats can sometimes be a little tricky to raise, because they’re susceptible to so many things, including worms. Aunt Arley’s goats are healthy, but I know for a while she struggled to get them to gain weight.
I am busy watching the bucket, trying to make sure that the children are able to get a handful of feet out. The goats will burn through that fast, and I’ll throw the rest of it in when they’re all done. I don’t notice that Zoe has waited until the end, until I look up and she is the only one left standing there.
“Hey. I wasn’t expecting to see you here today,”
She speaks in that voice that sends shivers right down my spine.
The way she talks should be illegal.
“Same. When I said I was busy today, and you said you were, it never occurred to me that we were going to be busy doing the same thing.”
“Yeah, I should have ask you what you were doing.” She seemed to pause for a moment, realizing that we couldn’t have ridden together, and it wouldn’t really have mattered if I had known if she was coming or not. It wasn’t like I was going to dress up for her anything, and I’m sure it is the same with her. We are friends, tentative friends, maybe. After a rocky start. But, I would rather have a tentative friend than a definite enemy, and I feel like we were probably more in that latter category up until yesterday.
“Have you ever fed goats?” I ask, since, after all, this is the farm tour.
“No?” she says, wrinkling up her nose a little bit.
“You live in a small town. You mean, you’ve really never fed a goat before?”
“Maybe I have on a school field trip, but I don’t remember.”
“I think you’d remember if you did it. Here, grab a handful of feed. You can do it if the kids can.”
“All right,” she says, putting her hand in and scooping some feed up. I notice her long, slender fingers. Her nails are not polished, but neatly trimmed.
“So what else do you do besides voice acting and taking kids on field trips?” I say as we walk behind the last child over toward the goat pen.
“I also waitress at the diner in town. They close at two, so I know I’m not going to be working in the afternoons. That means I can volunteer to read stories after school at the library, and do tutoring, and also have time for my voice acting in the evening.”
“You’re pretty busy. That’s a lot of different jobs.”
“This isn’t really a job. This is me volunteering and giving back to the community. It’s rewarding.”
“I guess I would prefer to give back to the community in a way that didn’t involve children,” I say, and then I think I probably shouldn’t have. She probably loves kids.
“I didn’t used to be very comfortable around children. I have a niece, and I adore her, but it took me a little while to be comfortable hanging out with her. I’m much happier now that she’s older. Little kids are... Hard to relate to.”
“I think I could relate to twelve-year-old boys pretty well, but other than that, I probably am not very good.” I wonder if she’s heard what books I borrowed from the library. If Calvin and Leo did, it’s almost a given that Zoe would have. After all, she’s friends with the librarian. But, maybe they don’t talk about that. I almost hope not. I... I’m a little bit embarrassed. I could tell her that the only reason that I did it was because I was trying to avoid her, and at this point in our relationship, I think she’d find it funny.
I’m not entirely sure though, so I don’t try.
We get to the goats, and there are still some children waiting to give them a handful.
I see Buttercup in the back. She’s a younger goat, and the other ones pick on her a bit. I know this probably isn’t a popular thing to say, but animals have hierarchies. Have you ever heard of a pecking order? It’s a thing. There is a pecking order in the chicken coop. There is a chicken who’s at the top, and there are chickens at the bottom. The chicken at the bottom typically doesn’t have a whole lot of feathers. It’s a sad fact of life, but it’s absolutely true. The stronger and more bold animals bully the weaker ones.
“Buttercup is one of my favorites, although goats are not my favorite animal,” I say to her in a low voice. After all, I don’t want all the kids to hear that I don’t really like goats. That kinda defeats the purpose of the farm field trip, right?
“Buttercup. Is that her back there?” She points to Buttercup who is standing in the back.
“Yeah. If we go over to the side, we might be able to get her to come over,” I say.
She motions to a couple of kids who are beside her, and they all go around the side.
Buttercup gets several handfuls of feed, while the other, bigger goats are occupied getting most of it from the kids at the front of the pen.
I don’t really get a chance to talk to Zoe again. I don’t want to take her away from the children. This is about them, and if she and I are whispering in the back all the time, we’re not really doing our jobs. As much as I could and would like to do that.
I like her a lot better than I thought I was going to. And it’s not just her voice. It’s...she seems nice. And she’s definitely funny.
I watch her with the kids, and even though she told me that she is uncomfortable with them, she’s good with them. Maybe it’s just a matter of practicing. I suppose lots of dads started out with no idea how to hold a baby, and eventually they get competent at it. If I ever have children, I’m sure I would learn how to take care of them. I suppose it would become natural. Maybe I’d even start to enjoy it.
I’ve never really thought like that. And I’m not sure what’s changed my thinking. Maybe just Zoe admitting that she wasn’t comfortable, but she is doing it anyway.
Not that I didn’t do things that I don’t like to do. Pretty much most of my day is made up of doing things I don’t like to do, like giving traffic tickets and responding to domestic disputes, and posing as a truant officer, trying to figure out why some parents aren’t making their kids go to school, and that usually isn’t a good situation.
Regardless, for some reason, overall, I would still say I love what I do. I just don’t always like it, I guess.
I love being on the farm though. In another life, I could have been a farmer. But anymore, it’s really hard to make a living on a farm. You almost have to have another job, and do the farming on the side.
I wonder how Zoe feels about farming.
That is an odd thought, and I kind of want to figure out why I even thought that. Just seems really out of line for me.
Regardless, I don’t have time, because soon all the kids have fed the goats, the geese, the ducks, and the pigs, and are piling into the tractor for the tractor ride.
My favorite part of farming is the equipment. I like animals, but I love running equipment. I’ve always loved riding in the tractor with my pap, and then with my uncle, and once I was old enough to drive myself, that was pretty much heaven for me. I did help milk cows until they sold them, but that was never as much fun. But, anytime I can get out on the tractor, even when it is freezing outside, I am all in.
Taking the kids for a wagon ride is my idea of a good time. Especially since I am sitting on the tractor, and don’t have to deal with the children at all.
I take them the whole way around the farm, show them the hay fields, where I baled hay last week. Bales are still sitting in the field. That’s what I would have been doing today, hauling bales in, and stacking them next to the barn. I’ll cover them with a tarp when I’m done, to try to keep them from getting any more wet. But, we don’t have enough room to put them all inside. Still, if I leave the bales of hay in the field, it’ll kill the grass underneath the bales. So it’s important to get them out. Some people let them sit alongside the field, but I find that even though I have less time in the summer, I’d rather do the work of bringing them into the barn, that way they’re there when I need to feed in the winter.
After the tractor ride, it’s been about two hours and I think the kids are ready to go home. Aunt Arley has made some refreshments, and the lady that accompanied the librarian and Zoe has everything set out on the table with my aunt.
The kids go running over, scarf the food down, and then run over to the barn where they try to pet the goats and play on the hay bales.
Zoe looks like she’s ready for a nap, as she tries to keep up with the kids, making sure that no one gets hurt, while allowing them a little bit of freedom to explore.
I think maybe we’ve deprived our kids a lot of that in our modern society. They’re not able to go have plain old fun, it’s always structured. I guess I might be partial to unstructured freedom to explore and play, since it’s how I grew up, and I feel like it’s a good thing. But, for better or for worse, it’s probably a thing of the past.
Zoe and Verity, along with the other lady, have the kids rounded up, and are shooing them into the bus.
I normally would just get in the tractor and drive away, but I mosey over to where Zoe is, grabbing a cookie from the table, as my aunt clears it off.
On my way back, I’ll carry everything into the house, but she’ll get it all packed up so all I have to do is pick the stuff up and carry it.
“It is nice to have you help,” I say, as the last kid gets on the bus and Verity says something to the entire load as the bus driver starts the motor.
“It was nice to be here. It was a pleasant surprise to see you.”
I don’t point out that it wasn’t too long ago that she would never have said that. She gives a little self-conscious smile, as though she was thinking it, too.
“I guess I’ll see you on Monday night?”
“After nine,” she says.
“That’s right.” I start my new job on Monday. I kind of forgot about it.
“Nice to see you,” I say, feeling a little bit lame. I already told her it was pleasant. Now I say nice. I seem to be the king of understatement, since obviously I’m hanging around talking to her.
“Same. I hope you have a good Lord’s Day,” she says, and I smile. I like the way she says that. Lord’s day. I know she doesn’t go to my church, but to the somewhat of a rival church across the street. The churches do some things together, but I think there was a split sometime in the last hundred years, and the rival faction from my church went over and built hers.
Regardless, a Christian is a Christian as long as they are down with the basic beliefs. And, I’m not going to split hairs. It is hard enough to find someone who believes the way I do, and there I am, having thoughts about Zoe that I don’t normally have about anyone.
“Enjoy the rest of your day farming,” she says as she puts up a hand and sets one foot on the bus step. “Thanks a lot. I know the kids had a good time and I did too.”
“Come back anytime,” I say, hoping she knows I mean her, and not the busload of kids that are with her. Although, they weren’t that terrible. As long as Zoe was there, I guess I could try to handle a busload of kids again. I wouldn’t want them without her. But I definitely want to see her. I can’t wait until Monday.