Chapter 6
Chapter Six
JOSH
Despite every effort to juggle my work and home lives, my week somehow goes from bad to worse. On pretty much every front and according to every metric, nothing is going my way.
At Climax Parks and Rec, except for a short meeting followed by a brief chat with the art teacher when I happened to meet her in line at Happy Endings bookstore and coffee shop, I haven’t been able to pin down a single team leader. On top of that, Eli keeps inventing reasons to visit the center, so Leia is furious with me.
Worse, my daughter Mabel has been super unhappy at the day camp I found for her, hoping to give my parents a break. According to my mom, Mabel goes directly from the car to her room at the end of every day and won’t tell any of us what she’s upset about. I’ve left messages for the camp director, but they haven't returned my calls.
The only bright spot has been Playgroup. It’s such a great program, I’ve started to look into ways to keep it around. It may serve a small population, but every caregiver and child in the group seems to benefit from it. Percy clearly loves the opportunity to play with kids his age and has fallen head over heels for Avery.
Almost as hard as I have. From her toddler-taming abilities to her sunny approach to each and every problem, I just want to bask in her warmth every second of the day.
But that way lies madness. Or at least a broken heart or three.
With my track record, the possibility that things would go well are zero to none. So I can’t risk even asking her on a date—because when I screw up, which I inevitably will—my kids will be hurt all over again.
With all this circling the drain in my brain, I do my best to focus on my job, since I finally have an appointment scheduled with another CPR lead this morning. Carl Conrad is the man Leia warned me the most about, but he’s the only person I’ve been able to pin down.
When I arrive at the center for our meeting, I take the long way around the building so I can avoid the Playgroup room, repeating the mantra Stay away from Avery the entire way. But when I knock on the Facilities Manager’s office door, I hear Avery’s laughter on the other side.
Shit.
“Come in,” a gruff male voice calls.
As I reach for the door, it swings open. Thrown off balance, I stumble forward. When I grasp Avery by the upper arms to keep us both from falling, a memory of a dream I had early this morning flashes through my mind. One so filthy, even a microsecond of replay has my hips moving toward her like I’m packing a heat seeking missile.
“Oh, it’s you,” she says in a strangled tone that makes me wonder if she can tell what’s going on behind my zipper.
“You who?” the gruff voice barks.
“I-I’m sorry,” I stammer, releasing my grip on her and pressing into the doorframe to let her pass.
“You-you’re fine,” she stammers back before escaping past me.
I grip the door handle hard, only allowing myself three seconds to watch her swaying hips as she walks away, but even that has me in need of a cold shower. When I face the man I’m supposed to be meeting, however, the disapproving look on his face does the trick.
Leaning across his desk, Carl Conrad asks, “What are your intentions with Miss Avery?”
“I’m-uh, my… intentions?”
He stands, and it’s like Paul Bunyan rising before me. When Leia had described the facilities manager, I’d pictured an older man. But this guy is not only young, he’s jacked. Despite his grumpy expression, I’m sure the ladies find the piercing forest green eyes and shoulders barely contained by his uniform shirt to be insanely attractive.
“You’d better not be thinking of messing around with her.”
“I would never, um, mess around with her.” There’s no way I’d win if it came to a battle with this guy, so I guess it’s better to know now. “Are you two… together?”
“No,” he scowls, all How could you even say that? “She’s like a sister to me. And she’s been hurt. I don’t want to see her hurt again. You get me?”
Each phrase he growls out is punctuated by a jab of his finger in my direction, so my hands fly up in the air in defense. “I got you. I have no plans to mess around with Avery. She’s my kid’s teacher.” When he narrows his eyes, I add, “In the playgroup.”
He grunts like he doesn’t believe me. I decide it’s best to pivot, even though it looks like I’ve already lost the support of the one person Leia told me I really had to win over. “So, as you’ve likely gathered, I’m Josh Harmon from Trede. Thanks so much for making time to meet with me.”
He crosses his arms, tucking his hands in his pits, which makes his biceps bulge. “Not like I had a choice.”
Common refrain around here. “Still, I appreciate it.”
“And what is this meeting for exactly?”
“I’m here to listen.”
“To what?”
I don’t have to shrink my body in order to cede status to this giant, but I do need to make him feel valued. “Your ideas. Your concerns. Anything you want to tell me about CPR. We at Trede have resources put aside for improvements, from programming to the facility, and since you’re in charge of the facility…” I trail off and sweep a hand around his cramped office.
“Hmmph.” He drops into his chair. “You really want to hear what I’ve got to say?”
He hasn’t invited me, but I take the seat opposite him anyway. “Leia says you know more about what this place needs than anybody.”
He narrows his eyes at me. “How long you got?”
I pull out my tablet and stylus and prepare to take notes, giving myself a teeny-tiny mental high five. “As long as it takes.”
By the end of the week, both Mabel and I could really use some fun, so when I hear a coworker raving about their experience strawberry picking at a place called Bedd Fellows Farm, I decide to take the kids. When my mom begs off Saturday morning, saying that she and my dad have made a pickleball date, I push away the worry that I won’t be able to handle the kids on my own.
Mabel likes to know the plan ahead of any new experience, so I do a bit of research. As I study the farm’s basic website, I wonder if I know the Bedd family. My freshman year roommate’s last name was Bedd, and he grew up on a farm.
Sam and I only lived together one year. He went home most weekends, and I rushed a fraternity, so we didn’t socialize much, but I always liked the guy. Thinking it would be nice to reconnect, I’m actually hoping I get to see him. Once we arrive, however, the kids and I get caught up in the activities. The kids pet the adorable calf and taste the strawberry milk, and we buy a jar of local honey for my mom. I’m admiring a hand-knitted sweater, picturing it hugging Avery’s curves, when Mabel asks, “Where are the strawberries, Daddy?”
Looking around the barn, I notice a sign over a door and point to it. “Can you read that?”
“Strawberry picking this way,” she reads, loudly and without hesitation, before making a beeline for the door. It takes me a moment to scoop up Percy, so by the time I find her, she’s chatting with a redhead standing behind a table piled with buckets.
“You pay for the bucket, Daddy,” Mabel explains. “If you save it and use it again next time, you pay less.”
She frowns, turning back to the woman behind the table. “But why do we have to pay for the bucket if we already have it?”
The woman seems a little stumped by Mabel’s logic, so I jump in. “We’re really paying for the strawberries, sweetie. They’re incentivizing returning to pick again and avoiding waste by giving us a discount the next time.”
“Ohhh,” Mabel says.
“Exactly,” the woman says before turning a relieved smile my way. “I’m Molly, by the way.”
After I introduce myself and Percy, we decide to pay for one large bucket. As Molly swipes my card, a man steps up to say something quietly in her ear. A blush reddens her pale skin from chest to hairline, and she swats at him playfully. When he straightens, a taller, broader version of my old roommate grins at me.
“This might sound weird,” I ask, “but… do you happen to have a brother named Sam who went to Cornell?”
“Sure do.” The man hooks a thumb over his shoulder. “If you take the pony cart to the upper fields, he’s driving.”
Mabel gasps. “I wanna go on the pony cart!”
I shrug. “I guess that’s what we’re doing, then.”
The couple shows us where to wait, but when the cart comes down the lane, Mabel’s eyes grow wide. “That’s a big pony.”
“Pretty sure that’s a full-on horse.” I squeeze her shoulder. “You still want to ride?”
When she nods vigorously, I turn my gaze back to the incoming cart. The man driving is backlit, so I shade my eyes with my free palm. “Sam Bedd? Is that you?”
The driver tips his head to the side, and he pulls on the reins to stop the horse. “Josh Harmon? What the fuuu—” He clears his throat, obviously noticing the kids at my side. “What the fork are you doing here? I thought you lived in the city.”
Before I can explain, Mabel looks him right in the eye to say, “Our mom died, so we live with our grandma and grandpa now. Daddy lives there too.”
“I’m really sorry to hear that,” Sam says to her before mouthing to me Really sorry.
Telling people about Lisa is never easy, but I’m especially protective of Mabel’s experience. I just nod, like I’m okay with her feelings so you can be too . “Mabel is… processing.”
I’m just gearing myself up to answer the inevitable follow-up questions when a dog’s head pops up behind Sam. A very large German Shepherd, with a mouth full of very big teeth, but Mabel doesn’t flinch. “Is that your dog?”
“He is,” Sam says with a grin. “His name’s Gomer. Do you want to say hi?”
Only then does my girl hesitate. “He’s big.”
Sam nods as he glances over at his dog. “He is, but he especially loves little girls.”
Percy suddenly decides that he’s had enough of being carried and demands to be put down. Figuring it’d be best to let him run around a little before getting on the wagon, I deposit him on the ground and follow close behind to make sure he doesn’t start stomping on or pulling up strawberry plants.
When I check over my shoulder, Sam and Mabel and the dog seem to be getting along, but when Gomer gets closer to Mabel, I scoop up Percy and fly him back to the cart just in time to turn Mabel’s lips away from Gomer’s tongue. “Let’s keep this kiss rated G, okay?”
Mabel giggles in response to the dog’s slobber, but we’ve got limited time before Percy needs a nap, so I ask, “Can we catch a ride?”
“That’s what I’m here for,” Sam says, guiding us to the back of his cart, where we climb onto the hay bales lining its sides.
“Can Gomer sit by me?” Mabel asks Sam.
After I give Sam a thumbs up, Gomer hops in and settles at Mabel’s feet, without a command from his master. Like he knows exactly what she needs. Once we’re all in, Sam returns to the driver’s seat, clucking to the horse quietly as we turn in a slow circle before heading up the hill.
As the horse lumbers along, the kids squeal at every bump in the road. There are a lot of them, but they seem to be having a blast. My arms curled around them, the sun warm on my face, the scents of dog and hay and all the farm things in my nostrils, something unwinds deep inside my chest. The three of us have had some major bumps to negotiate over the past couple of years but on this perfect summer day, all feels right in our world.
When the wagon creaks to a stop and the kids and Gomer scramble to their feet, I hop up to make sure everyone gets down safely. Sam hands each kid a small bucket and while Percy fills his with dirt, Mabel listens carefully to Sam’s instructions and then proceeds to pick, murmuring Take only the most perfect strawberries .
Sam returns to stand next to me, Gomer sitting quietly at his side. “I really am sorry for your loss. That’s tough.”
Everything I feel about losing Lisa seems like the wrong thing to feel. Namely, I don’t miss her, and I feel more guilty than sad about her death. But people don’t want to hear any of that, so I say what’s expected. “Thanks. My parents have been great, but it’s obviously hard on the kids.”
Sam doesn’t press for more. Instead, he fills me in on his own career and life changes until his walkie-talkie squawks. He lifts it, saying, “Duty calls. Or rather, my brother’s girlfriend. I need to go pick up another family. You guys want to head back down?”
I’m not ready to leave the peace of this moment, so I tell him we’ll catch a ride back on his next trip. And then I plop down in the dirt with my son.