Chapter 9 #2
“Well, look whose work ethic is catching up to her dreaming,” Marlowe says.
She gets a text and looks down at her phone.
“Things look good here, Georgiana. I’m surprised.
” Her eyes flit up, but she’s already turning to leave.
“Be sure to thank Rusty for me. We couldn’t have set this up without him. ”
And then her heels are clicking back down the metal stairs, and she’s gone, and I’m watching the space where she was.
She came all the way to Sugar Maple on a Sunday morning and she looked at everything I’ve built here … and she was surprised. She attributed it all to a VP she spoke to on the phone once, but she didn’t have a single bad thing to say.
She didn’t dislike anything she saw. She didn’t have anything to criticize.
I’m fully aware that waking so early and working straight through the week every week will wear me out completely, but Marlowe was borderline impressed.
Gratitude, excitement, and relief all swirl in me. It’s salt water to a woman dying of thirst—toxic, but I’m thirsty enough that I drain every last ounce.
It’s okay, though. Once she sees how well I manage the farm, she’ll be fully, thoroughly impressed, right? And maybe she’ll finally agree to hire more help! Or let me start making decisions for the company that should theoretically one day be mine!
Or maybe she’ll simply give me a hug and tell me she’s proud of me.
If I could choose anything, that’s the one I’d pick.
***
On my first day working at the farm store in Sugar Maple Farms, my sweet old friends, the Chicks, find me before they drive to Mullet Ridge for the baseball game. They’re all wearing Mudflaps caps, which is plain adorable.
Chick Parkinson wants his usual. Chick Allen wants his usual. Chick Hanks wants to know if I’ve been “watching our boys.”
“I caught Thursday’s game,” I say, sliding Chick Parkinson his Americano.
“Six innings,” Chick Hanks says with a nod. “Two hits. No runs.”
“Great, wasn’t it?” I ask. “I was there.”
All three of them look at me, and I try not to blush. I shouldn’t have said anything.
“You were, were you?” Chick Parkinson asks. “We didn’t see you.”
“Oh, I got tickets for my niece.”
“Good ones?” Chick Hanks asks.
“Uh, fourth row, behind home plate.”
The Chicks pass a look among themselves like they’re playing “Button, Button, Who’s Got the Button.”
“You can’t afford those tickets,” Chick Allen says. “But I know a player who’s been stopping by your shop a lot lately.”
“Leave the gossip to your wife,” Chick Hanks mutters.
I wipe down the steam wand, trying not to smile. “He’s a regular at the shop.”
“Mm-hmm,” says Chick Allen, in exactly the tone Lulabelle used two nights ago.
Chick Parkinson sets his cup down on the window ledge. “That boy’s going to be the best knuckleballer since Wakefield,” he says, “if he ever gets out of his own way.”
“I think he’s working on it,” I say before I can stop myself.
All three of them look at me.
Then Chick Allen drops a dollar into my tip jar. “Let’s hope,” he says before they all head to his car for the game.
***
I chat with Alma when I get home and watch the last few minutes of the Mudflaps game on TV before going upstairs to my cramped apartment to work on homework. But my mind wanders …
And stops on Logan’s question about The Giving Tree.
I told Logan that the Tree gets to give, and he said something obvious that I’ve never considered.
Is that enough?
I don’t have an answer. The question irritates me like a stone in my shoe until a text comes in that makes me forget the stone completely.
Logan
I took the Shel Silverstein collection.
You should know: I’m coming for that kid.
Okay, that sounds sinister. I mean metaphorically.
I read it once and bite back a smile.
Georgie
You should know I’m not mounting a defense but can’t wait to hear your thoughts.
But FWIW: the Tree was “happy.”
I return to my textbook and don’t hear back from Logan for several minutes..
Logan
Not really, though.
It says so. In the text. That I’m reading right now.
The boy cut it down, Georgie.
He
Cut
It
Down.
It’s not dead, but surviving isn’t “happy.”
Georgie
I concede your point, but I still think there’s more there.
Logan
It’s okay. I can wait for you to come around.
I laugh, and we send a few more texts about the story until I ask him about the game.
Logan
Not our best game. But I wasn’t playing, so I can’t take credit for the loss.
I try to take credit for all wins, though. Even if I didn’t play.
I laugh and stand up to check the fridge. There are still tamales from Alma’s drop-off a couple of days ago. I heat one up and then send off another text.
Georgie
That’s a bold strategy. How’s it working?
Logan
I have no idea, but credit usually flows toward the most confident guy in the room, so I’ll fake it till I take it.
Georgie
I should try that with Marlowe.
I stare at my text. That was way, way more than I meant to give. I wait, the phone warm in my hand.
Logan
Marlowe’s your stepmom, right? Does that happen a lot?
Georgie
I shouldn’t have said anything. It was just a bad joke.
Logan
I know something about those kind of jokes. I think Freud would call them slips, but *I* never would.
I can’t quite smile, and even though Alma’s tamales are the best in the state, when I take the first bite, it tastes like cardboard.
Georgie
Families are tricky, that’s all.
Logan
I get it. Honestly. You don’t have to explain a thing.
Georgie
Your family sounds pretty great. I bet you miss them.
Logan
I do. Being on my own this season has been harder than I care to admit.
Georgie
I’m sorry. As an only child, I can only imagine what that’s like to go from having built-in company your whole life to being alone.
Logan
It’s been easier lately.
Georgie
Why is that?
Because you’re nearing the end of the season?
Logan
I’ve become friends with this really cool girl I met in a coffee shop.
And her niece thinks I’m awesome.
Georgie
I think the girl at the coffee shop thinks you’re awesome, too.
Logan
True. I have it on good authority that I’m the girl’s favorite player.
Georgie
You’re not supposed to know that.
Logan
Lulabelle told me during Spring Training. A guy doesn’t forget something like that.
Georgie
I think I’d like you better if you did.
Only kidding!
I like you just fine.
Logan
I wouldn’t mind if you liked me more than fine.
Georgie
:)
Logan
<))
I wish I didn’t have to leave tomorrow.
The road series hasn’t even started yet and it already feels longer than usual.
Thanks a lot for that, by the way.
I clutch the phone in my hands and put my feet up in my chair, trying not to squeal out loud, because even if I’m all alone, that feels too open. Too big.
No one has ever told me that my absence would be felt. Not since my mom. The simplicity of it is almost more than I can process. I’m so accustomed to reading between the lines that reading sentences with nothing between them feels almost brazen.
Georgie
I’ll be cheering for you every game.
Logan
Now I feel like I owe you two sideways ice cream cones.
One like this: <))
And a real one.
When I’m back.
After we go out for dinner.
Georgie
I’d like that.
Logan
It’s a date.
I read through our exchange long after we’ve both stopped texting. As I move to my tiny table next to the window and write a paper for my supply chain management class, I return to his messages like a butterfly flitting back to its favorite flower.
At one point, I find myself staring down at the quiet parking lot below.
I crack my window, letting some of the mild night air into my apartment.
I lean slightly to see my library in the northwest corner of the lot, with its powder blue paint gone soft gray in the dark, the brass hinge catching the faintest edge of the streetlamp.
Our conversations have gone so deep, but if a single poem can keep us riveted for days, we’ll never run out of things to talk about. There’ll always be some new thought to explore, some new question to try to answer, some new viewpoint to discover.
Forever.
I like that idea more than I should.
I don’t stop myself from liking it, though. I take a sip of my hot chocolate and look at the little library in the dark and let myself want something.
Just for tonight.
Just a little.