21. Veronica Eden
Veronica Eden
Bo
"You, crazy rooster," Falon's voice carries over the yard, and I laugh despite myself. She and that rooster have issues. He is like a ticking time bomb; you never knew when he would go off. He crowed at three in the morning just as easily as one in the afternoon.
"No, I already gave you worms, don't argue with me, Frank." She continues to berate the bird. My best guess was that she'd given the chickens, and yes, Frank too, some mealworms and scraps from the kitchen, and he was still following her, looking for more.
This morning, she and I split the chores.
She had some ordering to do, the farrier was coming, and a meeting with Rusty and Dane to restructure a few of the cattle rotations.
This left the pharmacy for Rick's new boot (he broke the old one), Carl's for a sprinkler head, and the garden center for another pot for the front yard.
Falon bought some lemongrass and wanted it in a pot by the door to deter the mosquitoes.
When I leave the house, she is watering the horses and still telling Frank, "No.”
"Oh, Bo. Do you mind returning Pearl's and Mrs. Winslow's pie plate?
Oh, and could you also swing by the post office?
Ed's closing early today so he can meet Miss Olivia for lunch.
He mentioned he had a package on hold for us," Falon calls while pushing two of the horses away so she could get hay in their trough.
She is so tiny and so feisty. She is the opposite of the common blonde stereotype.
Three things, well, six now. It should have been an hour, max. Now, maybe two, leaving time for conversation. Everwood loved to talk, or more so, pry, without openly prying.
Falon had the farrier coming out for Matrix, so she'd be tied up most of the morning.
I kiss the top of her head on my way out and head into town with Rowdy in the passenger seat and the windows down.
In Montana, June could go either way. I've seen snow, two inches thick, and hot one-hundred-degree weather all within the same week.
Montana was like that; no matter the weather app, weather forecaster, or website, none were ever really right. I loved that.
I drop the dishes off first. Mrs. Winslow answers the door in her housecoat and a pair of reading glasses pushed up on her forehead, and when she sees it is not Falon and me, her expression shifts about three degrees toward disappointment.
"She's tied up with the farrier this morning," I say before she can ask.
"Mm." She takes the pie plate and looks at me over her glasses. "Are you eating enough?"
"It's nine-thirty."
"My point stands." She hands me a wrapped piece of something from the counter just inside the door. I don't ask what it is, I just take it. I eat whatever it is in the truck. It is good. Lemon something.
Next is Carl's, which is surprisingly quick, even with his story of the coyote making a home under his porch.
He'd tried three different methods to relocate it, and, according to Carl, the coyote had developed opinions about each one.
I commiserate for six minutes and get out with the sprinkler head and my dignity mostly intact.
Ed at the post office is disappointed when the package turns out to be a pair of mucking boots that Falon had ordered.
He'd been expecting some new fishing lures and was rather let down.
He cheers up when I mention Stan Ottman has a new batch of trout in his north pond, which may or may not have been true but seemed like the right thing to say.
Four errands down, two disappointed, fifty-fifty. Not bad.
I still have the garden center, and the pharmacy is left. I am still in awe that Rick had somehow managed to break his walking boot. I was betting he was in the cow pen again, exactly where the doctor told him not to be. Rick Williams and the doctor's orders had a complicated relationship.
The garden center is easy. Gerald has the lemongrass already potted and waiting, because Falon had called ahead, because of course she had. She had called ahead to half the places in Everwood before I'd even started the truck. She'd probably sent a full briefing packet if he'd asked for one.
"Tell her the big pot was my idea," Gerald says as he loads it into the truck bed. "She'll argue, but it's a better size."
"I'll tell her."
"She won't believe you."
"I know."
He is right on both counts.
The pharmacy is my last stop. Dawson has Rick's new boot liner ready, along with a small lecture about Rick's activity restrictions, which I accept on Rick's behalf and planned to deliver in edited form.
The unedited version would have started an argument, and Rick Williams arguing with medical advice is not a problem I need on a Tuesday morning.
I am heading back to the truck when I hear someone call my name.
"Bo Gates? It can't be."
I turn around, looking at the people on the street. No one jumps out at me, so I pull open the truck door.
"Bo," she says again. I turn, and there she is. Standing outside Jordan’s garage with a camera bag over one shoulder and a coffee cup in her other hand, I can't place her for a second.
Brown hair, shoulder-length, curled waves.
She is smiling like she expects me to know her, which I clearly should, and then it clicks.
"Oh, now don't go on pretending you don't know me." The woman has a thick southern drawl.
"Veronica Eden." I should have known by the accent. She'd moved here from Georgia when we were in the eleventh grade. I'd dated her for a month or two our senior year, then she’d gone off to college back in Georgia, so we broke it off. Well, I broke it off.
"In the flesh." She crosses the sidewalk toward me.
She isn't dressed like she belongs here in Everwood on a Tuesday morning.
More like a meeting with a CEO than coffee from Ethel's.
She walks up to me and hugs me like we are old friends.
But as I remember it, she and I didn't exactly part on talking terms. She has on more makeup than a painting trowel, but that had always been Veronica.
Even in high school, she'd shown up to the county fair looking like she was headed to a gala. "I wasn't sure you'd remember me."
I almost didn't, but I am not going to tell her that. "How could I forget? What are you doing back in Everwood? I thought you went back to Georgia?"
"I did, but I'm back for a photography project." She holds up the camera bag. "Landscapes, mostly. Montana light in summer is something else. I'm here for a week or two." She tilts her head. "You're back too?"
"Been back since April."
"Staying?"
I think about Falon at the kitchen table with her binders. The chandelier in the entryway. Rowdy's bed was wedged between the couch and the wall. The fence line we'd finished together last week. Frank the rooster is currently being argued into submission somewhere back at the ranch.
"Yeah," I say. "Staying."
Veronica smiles. It is a nice smile. Genuinely warm. "That's good. Everwood's a good place to stay." She glances at Rowdy, who is watching her from the passenger seat with polite disinterest. "Yours?"
"His name's Rowdy."
"He doesn't look very rowdy."
"That's what everyone says." Rowdy blinks at her and looks away, which is much less enthusiasm than he offers most people. Unless you were Falon. For Falon, he'd do anything for kisses. But then again, so would I, I thought to myself.
Veronica shifts her camera bag to her other shoulder and says, "I don't suppose you'd want to grab dinner sometime this week? Catch up. I don't know many people in town anymore, and you're the first familiar face I've seen."
I look at her. The same people are in Everwood now as they were back then.
There are a few fresh faces, but if she just came from Ethel's, then she most likely saw half the town, and chances are they know exactly who she is.
I am half tempted to look back and see if they have their faces pressed against the window.
She is being friendly and polite, which is more than I could say for the last time I’d seen her. And by the look on my face, she must be thinking the same thing.
“Shall we let bygones be bygones? Or are you still stuck in the past?” Her accent is broader than it had been in high school.
Normally, I would have taken her up on the offer, but now I had absolutely no interest.
I’m not cold-hearted, but when you have the real thing at home, then second best isn’t really a choice.
Veronica places her hand on my arm and squeezes to get my attention.
She threads her arm through mine and tries to tug me along with her.
She really hasn’t changed a bit. She is just as forward now as she was back then.
“Thanks for the offer, but I’m headed the other way. I’m going to the pharmacy.”
“So, you’re not even going to take a girl up on dinner?” She smiles, but when I see the time on the old clock tower, I groan.
“No, sorry. I don’t want to cut this short, but I’ve got a few more errands to get done, and I’m on a time crunch. I have a bet on the line.” I’d bet Falon that I could get the errands done before she finished her meeting with Rusty and Dane.
“Well, are you too busy to give a girl a ride to the Inn?” She moves in closer, and I took a step back.
“Let me get these two errands ironed out first, then I’ll take you,” I say, pulling out of her reach. “Do you want to wait in the truck, or would you like to wait here?” She pulls a sour face, then puts her hands up to block the sun.
“It’s a little warm out. Mind if I wait in the truck? You’ll put the air on, right?” she asks in her sweetest Georgian drawl. I nod, and she furrows her eyebrows.
“You’re really making a girl work for it, aren't ya?” she says as I open the truck door for her.
“I'm not making you work for anything, Veronica,” I say, closing her door, then walking back around to mine to start the truck.