Chapter 11
Zoey
‘Let me guess: you don’t head this side of the river much.’
‘I’ve been to Seattle,’ said Zoey, folding her arms in indignation.
‘Ah yes, Seattle, just a three-hour jaunt up the road.’
‘I’m not a snob,’ protested Zoey. ‘I’m not one of those people who bang on about Bridge and Tunnel people.’
‘I’d hope not, because this is Portland, not New York City.’ Nick pulled off the interstate and headed down a dusty stretch of narrow highway. ‘Actually, my sisters live in Seattle. They’re talking about coming down for a visit in a couple of weeks.’
Nick had mentioned his sisters before: there was one who was a lawyer and one who was chronically undecided career-wise.
He spoke warmly of them, and Zoey got the sense that he was close with his family.
That he was close with everyone, really.
Which seemed odd, given that he lived by himself on a farm in the middle of nowhere.
Well, not nowhere. In the middle of lots of trees.
Cars flashed their lights in greeting as Nick trundled down the highway, and he did the index-finger steering-wheel wave.
This wasn’t so bad, thought Zoey. Maybe there was something to be said for the countryside.
No wait, that hand-painted sign up on a half-uprooted tree stump that, to paraphrase in an extremely euphemistic manner, warned that city ways weren’t welcome here, was saying plenty.
Ainsley definitely hadn’t been consulted on this particular sign.
‘It gets very not-Portland very fast,’ said Nick. ‘But you find your people.’
‘Are you sure?’ whispered Zoey, pointing to another sign, which was even worse than the first one.
‘Uh-huh. You have to. Last turn: here we go.’
They pulled up at a lengthy unsealed driveway. Nick jumped out to unlock a pair of massive, rusted gates, pulled the truck forward, then hopped out again to close them.
‘That seems really inefficient,’ said Zoey, as he climbed back in.
‘Wait until you see all the holes in the fences. Something’s been getting in at night, and I have no idea what. All right, buckle up.’
It was an apt warning: the truck jostled and bumped like an ancient clothes dryer being used as a rock tumbler. Zoey’s innards resembled a can of Fanta being shaken up.
Finally, Nick pulled up in front of a charming yellow craftsman house with a wide front porch and a tiny upstairs window poking out of the roofline. ‘This is it.’
Zoey clasped her hand to her chest. ‘You have a red front door!’
All of the vintage illustrated kids’ books she’d pored over for her master’s came flooding back to her. A red door was up there with puffed sleeves in terms of whimsical aesthetic things she coveted.
‘That’s the bit that did it for you?’ Nick cracked the driver’s- side door, and Alice went bounding over his lap and off into the hydrangeas that burst in massive pink and blue pom-poms all around the house.
‘A red front door with stained glass,’ added Zoey. ‘Okay, now I’m understanding this whole hermit-in-the-woods thing. A giant Doug fir of your own! And best of all: no people.’
‘Just plenty of mushrooms, if you want to check those out?’
Zoey nodded, and he led her over to the greenhouse.
‘Plenty of mushrooms and moles.’ He nudged a divot with the toe of his work boots.
‘I have a soft spot for moles,’ admitted Zoey. ‘I grew up on The Animals of Farthing Wood.’
Nick put a hand over his heart. ‘Poor Mole. Life is short.’
Zoey wiped away a pretend tear. ‘Tragic. Almost tore me up as much as the ending of David the Gnome.’
‘I still haven’t recovered from that. Swift!’ Nick pointed out a fox tattoo on his forearm, which had little gnomes riding on its back. ‘Vintage kids’ media is brutal. So much death.’
‘So much,’ agreed Zoey. ‘I read The Plague Dogs in third grade thinking it was going to be a cute book about puppies. Scarred for life.’
‘Yep, one of the great lessons of childhood is that cute animal books are rarely cute. And also, never try to catch a falling knife.’
‘Do I want to know?’
Nick held out a hand to show a silvery scar on his little finger. ‘Cheese knife, intent on turning me into Jarlsberg.’
‘But did you die?’ teased Zoey.
‘It was an educational moment about how much blood a little finger can hold.’ Nick pushed open the greenhouse door; earthy, humid air swept over her, teasing her hair into an instant bouffant. She felt like she’d been dumped into the damp days of fall.
‘It feels like a butterfly house.’ She reached out a hand, half expecting a huge monarch butterfly to land on her fingertips. ‘But cooler.’
‘They’re not so big on heat, but they love the humidity. Especially the ones over there in the grow room – that has its own special climate control to encourage fruiting. But keeping rot and pests out is a whole thing.’
Zoey nodded, thinking of the moss and lichen that greened the cottage roof and smothered the decorative garden boulders.
‘Nothing worse than when your harvest has been blighted with mould,’ he said, leaning in for a closer look at some champignons.
‘How do you know if that’s happened?’
‘You’ll see it. And smell it, too – sometimes it has this sort of fermented, rotten-apple smell. But it depends on the type of rot. And the variety of mushroom.’
‘I’ll keep an eye out for it,’ said Zoey. ‘Well, a nostril. Although the smell could easily just be Terriffany’s home-made kombucha.’
‘The hazards of life as The Smoothie Maven,’ said Nick ruefully.
Zoey sighed theatrically. ‘I definitely didn’t think this career through.’
Happily chatting away about his favourite mushrooms, Nick walked her through the rooms in the greenhouse, showing how he propagated the spores – each variety had its own preferred substrate.
‘What about the mushrooms from the Brain Freeze blend?’ she asked. ‘The cordyceps ones?’
Nick nodded. ‘They actually don’t grow in here. Well, they could – I just haven’t figured out the perfect conditions for them yet. But they seem to be pretty happy doing their thing out by the lightning-strike zone.’
‘Wait,’ said Zoey, clapping her hands to her cheeks, ‘I get lightning mushrooms?’
‘I didn’t tell you about this?’
‘You mentioned they grew wild, but you didn’t talk about the whole lightning thing. Remind me to text Terriffany. She’ll love it. Whole new marketing worlds have just opened up.’
Nick chuckled. ‘She’s got a bright future ahead as the founder of a subscription-based drink product that claims to extend the human lifespan.’
‘I can’t wait to read her biography in five years,’ said Zoey wryly. ‘Sitting behind the counter of The Smoothie Maven, reading my work-experience kid’s hagiography.’
‘That’s where you see yourself in five years, huh?’
Zoey raised an eyebrow. This wasn’t a question she’d heard outside of her school’s career counselling office. ‘Are you interviewing me for an assistant mushroom-grower’s job?’
Nick brushed some dirt away from one of his batches of mushrooms. ‘I could be. I think you’d make a good one. You’d have to live on-site, of course. For logistical purposes.’
‘Would housing be included? And healthcare? And access to a 401K?’
‘I would have to consult with HR. And she’s outside, because she’s not meant to be in the greenhouse.’ He pushed open the door, leading Zoey back outside.
Zoey laughed as Alice came running up, tail lunging back and forth. ‘She does seem like the brains of the operation.’
‘I’m just the good looks.’
‘That you are,’ said Zoey primly. All right, so he wasn’t just the brawn. But he could sweat a little bit.
‘Ready to make this dinner thing happen?’ asked Nick. ‘I’ll show you the cordyceps in their natural environment after.’
Zoey was about to offer her effusive agreement when an explosion rocked the house.
‘Holy fucking what the fuck!’ shouted Zoey, dropping to her knees and cradling her head in her hands. Was she dead? What had happened? Had the mushrooms imploded? Had Mount St Helens erupted again?
‘You’re okay, babe.’ Nick stooped to help her up, his rough hands scraping gently against the softer skin of her own.
‘That would be Bozo,’ he explained, as he dusted her down.
‘He has many passions. The biggest one is Tannerite, which is an explosive that’s apparently legal in this great state so long as you’re on your own property. ’
‘Where exactly is his property?’ Zoey squinted around the immediate surrounds, trying to figure out how far Nick’s farm extended.
Other than the charming farmhouse, there was a barn overrun with ivy, the greenhouse, and some sort of shed structure that looked as though it had been through a recent battle.
Beyond those, as far as she could see, stretched tall, grassy fields dotted with daisies and ringed with wild blackberries – the sort of fields that Zoey’s inner six-year-old wanted to roll about in, but that her current thirty-one-year-old self knew were filled with bugs.
Beyond these were a wall of enormous Doug firs that reached impossibly tall fingers to the sky, trying to grab at the clouds.
Tiny birds raced all over, and a bunny twitched its nose at her before disappearing into the flowers. A woodpecker attacked a power pole with a rat-a-tat that wasn’t much quieter than the Tannerite.
‘Bozo’s back beyond the trees,’ said Nick. ‘Well, until he manages to blow through them. He keeps bee boxes when he’s not blowing stuff up. Want to try some of his honey? I have some in the house.’
Zoey bit her lip. This all sounded so lovely. Sounded so … domestic. But in a good way: a way that didn’t involve relinquishing her coveted Ms status or giving up her bank account.
Inside, the house was small and cosy: hardwood flooring from a local mill, exposed wood throughout, and ornate light fixtures that Nick assured her were original.
The furniture was thoughtfully mismatched, all sturdy pieces scarred with age or textured with brass, tin, tile.
They’d been collected over time, rather than purchased all at once during a Wayfair 40-per-cent-off sale.
The aroma of freshly ground coffee filled the air.