Chapter 2 - Olivia
A s much as Olivia wanted to bury her face in a bowl of ice cream before crawling into bed after her mortifying date with Ethan, she had one more errand.
She made a quick stop at home before heading to her parents' house. After turning her silver Prius right at the large metal sign that read Olsen Farm , she drove slowly up the quarter-mile-long driveway to avoid kicking up gravel with her car tires, one of her dad's biggest pet peeves.
Her parents’ square, two-story house was surrounded by huge sheds, shops, barns, and other buildings that littered their property, not to mention the various mud-caked tractors, trucks and other farm equipment. Beyond the buildings, her dad had cultivated endless rows of wheat, still short and green this early in the growing season.
Stepping out of her car, Olivia opened the rear driver's side door for her dog, Ms. Darcy, a four-year-old Blue Heeler and Border Collie mix. Ms. Darcy, whom Olivia had nicknamed Missy, hopped off the backseat and landed with a soft thump before sprinting to the house’s side entrance.
Olivia followed and knocked before letting herself in. Ms. Darcy wove around Olivia’s legs, running straight to Olivia’s mom, Gail, who was perched on a bar stool at the beige Formica kitchen counter. Her mom’s hand paused, holding a page of the cookbook she was looking through. She glanced up with her kind hazel eyes and smiled at Olivia as she reached down to scratch Ms. Darcy behind the ears.
“Hey, sweetie girl!”
“Hey, Mom, thanks again for taking Missy. You have no idea how helpful this is. The market is going to be way too hot for her tomorrow, and if I left her home alone all day, she’d probably eat a chair or something.”
“Oh, no problem. Taking care of two dogs is like having two kids. If you have one, you might as well have another so they can entertain each other.”
Ms. Darcy gave Olivia’s mom one last lick on the hand before prancing over to Jackie Onassis, her parents’ thirteen-year-old chocolate lab, who was showing her age and didn't have a ton of patience for Ms. Darcy’s boundless youthful energy.
Ms. Darcy sidled up to Jackie O’s bed and did a play-bow, but Jackie looked the other way. In a pout, Ms. Darcy lay down on the carpet next to Jackie and sighed.
Chuckling, Olivia’s mom glanced at the clock on the white oven that had been part of the kitchen since Olivia was in middle school. “Aren't you home early? I thought you said you had a date.”
“Oh, well, let's just say I severely underestimated our age gap. ”
“What are you talking about? You graduated high school together.”
“Uhm, nope. Ethan is like eight years younger than me, Mom.”
“Hold the phone. I thought you were meeting Aiden.”
Hold the phone? “Wait, how did you know Aiden was in town?”
“Carolyn told me ages ago he was moving to Saint Paul to do a Medical Fellowship. I think she said it was in Pediatric Emergency Medicine. I guess it’s quite prestigious. She’s thrilled about it. I’m sure I told you.”
Carolyn Westcott and Olivia’s mom had become good friends over the last few years through their volunteer work. This fact had not eluded Olivia when she’d agreed to go on a date with Ethan, and yet, she’d made her bed, so to speak.
“No, Mom, you didn't.” Olivia didn’t bother to hide her irritation. “And thanks to you, I had a near miss with Aiden catching me on a date with Ethan. Do you know how humiliating that would have been?” Olivia groaned.
Olivia's mom clenched her lips between her teeth, but a loud snort trumpeted through her nose. Her laughter burst out of her like someone letting go of an untied balloon, loudly and wildly.
“Oh my god, Mom. This is not funny.”
“It's a little funny,” she squeaked. “Why did you go on a date with a high schooler? Isn't that illegal?” More shoulder-shaking laughter rolled through her.
“Great, let me know when you're done,” Olivia grumbled.
Olivia's dad, Bill, walked into the kitchen. “What's so funny?”
“Nothing,” Olivia and her mom said in unison.
Her mom straightened and wiped her round cheeks, which were pink and wet from her laughter. She was fair-skinned with red hair that was now mixed with light golden gray strands. Olivia had inherited her fair Irish complexion from her mom’s side and her height and fast metabolism from her dad’s Scandinavian roots.
Sensing he'd missed the joke, her dad moved on. “So-ah, you selling at the farmers market tomorrow, then?” His elongated O’s made him sound like a parody of the Minnesotan farmer he was.
Olivia had hoped to be in and out before her dad could start up his ongoing campaign to convince her she should drop all of her dreams of becoming Gresham's first small-scale local produce and flower farmer in favor of taking over the family's commercial farm. This dream of his would not only allow him to retire without the “tragedy” of selling off the farm, but he’d also be able to hold his head high in front of his farmer friends.
“Yup. I’ll be selling at the market. Just like last Saturday and the one before that.” Maybe her tone was a little snotty, and it would likely provoke her dad, but she was so tired of having this conversation.
She’d explained a dozen times that her Community Supported Agriculture business was fairly common in Seattle, and she thought it had a lot of potential to take off in Gresham. Her CSA gave her customers a share of her farm, which meant they received a box of freshly harvested seasonal produce each week. In addition to the CSA, Olivia sold excess produce a la carte at the Saturday farmers market in order to distribute as much of her small crop as she could.
“Mom says you're still looking for subscribers to that service of yours. Gettin’ kinda late in the season, isn't it? What are you doing with all the extra produce? You can’t possibly be selling it all at the market. ”
“I’m donating it to the food bank.”
“Hmmm, that’s not a very profitable business model.”
Here we go again. “Dad, I told you, I’m not all that worried about money right now.”
“Yah, but Olivia, you can't pay the bills with potatoes. If you could, I'd be growing potatoes.” He chuckled softly, and Olivia fought the urge to roll her eyes.
“Fine.” She placed her hands on the counter, deciding to be honest with her dad about her finances–even though it felt like breaking one of the most sacred rules of Midwestern civility. “I didn't want to make this a thing, but here's the deal. I could basically retire at this point if I never leave Gresham. With all of the stock grants I got from working in tech, I achieved the four percent rule as soon as I sold my townhouse.”
“The what now?”
“The four percent rule. It means if you can live off four percent of your total investments each year, you can retire. And with the cost of living so much lower here, it doesn’t take as much to get by.”
The furrow between her dad’s brows deepened, and his jaw went slack. Olivia wasn’t sure if he was stunned because she was sitting on a decent nest egg or that she’d foiled his surefire plan to get her to take over the farm.
After a beat, he sounded perplexed as he said, “Good Lord, Olivia. Man was made to work, not to sit back and make money off other people’s hard work.”
“Well, it’s a good thing I’m a woman then. And I am working! I’ve started a business.”
His face reddened in frustration .
“We don’t need you to start a new business. We need you to take over this one. You think you own the moral high ground here because you’re growing local produce? How many families are you feeding with your vegetables and flowers, Olivia? Twenty? We grow enough wheat to feed half this state. Where’s the shame in that?”
“There’s no shame in it, Dad. It’s just not what I want to do. You know who taught me to love growing food? You did. Every summer when you asked me to help you in our garden and showed me how delicious freshly harvested veggies and fruit taste.”
This seemed to settle him a bit. He sat on a stool next to her mom.
“Plus, we've talked about this a million times. Why don't you give the business to Philip? He already knows the farm inside out.”
Philip was Olivia’s cousin, but growing up, he’d been more like a big brother to her and her sister, Grace, as well as a surrogate son to their parents. He'd been working on the farm since he was twelve, and he knew the ropes better than anyone. He also had a knack for putting up with her dad, which was no easy feat.
“Look, Philip is a good, hard-working man. He's great with day-to-day fieldwork and brilliant at fixing anything.”
Olivia raised her eyebrows. She did not see the problem.
“But,” her dad continued, “he doesn't have the business experience to run an operation this large. The farm is four times the size it was when you left for college. We’ve got three employees and millions of dollars’ worth of equipment in those buildings out there. I need someone who can keep it all in their head and see the big picture.”
“Can't you just hire a bookkeeper?”
“If you worked with me on this, you'd understand why that isn't a solution. It’s like what Father Justin said at church last week…”
Olivia’s mom stepped in. “Okay, Bill, you've made your point. Let's give it a rest now.”
She turned to Olivia, giving her a look that told her to back off from the conversation.
“Yeah, I should get going,” Olivia said, taking her mom’s cue. “Thanks again for watching Missy. I really appreciate it.”
She walked over and gave Ms. Darcy a kiss on the head before hugging her parents.
When she was back in her car, driving toward the Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia in her freezer, she thought about her narrow escape from her date with Ethan.
After buying her farmhouse, she’d headed straight to Hank’s, where she ran into Ethan. He’d introduced himself as Hank’s assistant manager and offered his help. It turned out he knew his stuff. He’d been working there since he was fourteen and could explain the purpose of every tool in the store. Over the next few months, she began relying on Ethan’s advice as much as YouTube to answer her DIY questions.
Sure, their conversations had gotten a little flirty, but he was so young, not to mention Aiden’s little brother, she assumed it had been nothing more than a little fun for both of them.
Why, god, why had she let Ethan wear her down? And why did Aiden have to move back to Minnesota? Maybe she should throw in the towel and head back to Seattle before things got more awkward.
Then, in a moment or clarity, she rolled down the window to let the fresh air blow some sense back into her. She was a grown-ass woman. She was not going to let Aiden, someone she hadn’t seen in thirteen years, have this much power over her.