Chapter 35
It had been an odd week, that was for sure and for certain.
After spending a rough twenty-four hours feeling sorry for herself after her father’s rather rough lecture about Kyle, Winter, and her lack of prospects, she’d spent many long hours in the barn making hen swings.
Ben and Lukas had been amazing. They’d helped her gather suitable branches and spare pieces of wood together and bought her lots of rope, and even a good pair of gloves so the rough rope wouldn’t give her splinters as she worked with it.
In addition, a cute woman friend of Ben’s named Sydney came over with her computer.
She spent two hours helping Daisy name her swings.
They now had a name, Bird Benches, which Daisy thought was rather silly.
Sydney also took tons of pictures of all the hens resting on their swings, wrote up lots of cute notes about the fun the hens were having, and then discussed how much to charge for the items, both for the item and then shipping and handling.
Daisy felt a bit like a child playing dress-up. No matter what Lukas, Ben, and now Sydney had to say, she still didn’t believe that anyone would want to spend so much money on such a silly item.
However, if she’d learned anything over the last few months, it was that even the best-laid plans could fall apart. She continued to tell herself that the worst thing that could happen with her Bird Benches was that no one would want to buy one.
Plus, at the very least, the whole enterprise was helping to keep her mind off of Kyle and Winter. That counted for a lot.
All that was why she’d been cautious but agreeable when Ben suggested she, he, and Lukas all spend the night in Sydney’s parents’ vacation home in Millersburg.
Her parents had a lake house on Buckhorn Lake and there were tons of bedrooms. The most important part, was that the house had excellent internet and a large desktop computer.
Her swings were going to go on sale on the websites of a number of very large online retail stores, and Ben wanted them all to see how they did.
Unfortunately, their parents weren’t supportive at all. Daed even went so far as to try to tell Lukas that the farm wouldn’t be all right if he wasn’t going to be there at five the following morning. Lukas, to his credit, only said that he disagreed.
It was only when they were driving over to Sydney’s house—after a really tasty stop for tacos in Sugarcreek—that Daisy’s stomach began to churn. “Are you sure the perches have been for sale for six hours already?”
“Yep,” Ben said.
“Do you think anyone will have bought one yet?”
“Yep,” he said again.
“Ugh.”
Lukas, who was riding in the passenger seat, turned around to face her. “Daisy, remember what you told Sydney when she came over?”
She didn’t have to guess what he was referring to. “I remember. That the worst thing that happens would be that I don’t try.”
“Exactly. That means that you already have something to celebrate. You tried something new.”
“And, the three of us went out to eat and now we’re going to spend the night in a fancy lake house,” Ben pointed out. “I, for one, am going to sit on the back deck of the house and look at the lake all evening.”
“That will be nice, but I wish we would’ve brought some ice cream or something. Do you think we can stop, Ben?”
“We can, but I think Sydney is pretty anxious for us to get there. Let’s get settled in, and then if we need something at the store, we’ll go. Sydney might want something special for breakfast.”
“I could make biscuits for everyone in the morning. If she has baking powder …”
“See, that’s just what we were talking about. We’ve got time.”
“All right.” She leaned back and tried to relax.
Looked out the window. Tried to concentrate on the moment and not let all her doubts begin to get the best of her.
Getting herself in a dither about the possibility of living at home as an old maid with nothing to do but talk to cows and sew uneven hems wasn’t going to help anything.
“Okay, here we are,” Ben said after another fifteen minutes.
Lukas whistled low. “These houses are nicer than I thought they were going to be.”
“What did you know about this area?” she asked.
“I’ve got a couple of buddies who do remodeling work. They’d had some jobs here. To be honest, I thought they were exaggerating about how big some of these places were. I reckon I owe them an apology.”
“Help me look for the address, Daisy,” Ben called out. “12257.”
She noticed that none of the addresses were on the same place in every house. Ben drove slowly as they all called out the numbers as they saw them.
“12253!” she called out.
“And, here is 12255,” Lukas added, just as Ben rolled to a stop in front of a light gray, three-story house that looked vaguely like it belonged on a Swiss mountaintop instead of next to a lake in the middle of Ohio.
“Ah, finally,” Ben said. “12257. This is the place. I wonder where … Oh, I guess we just park on the side of the road.” He parked, set the parking brake, and they all got out.
Daisy was so glad that she had a doctor’s appointment scheduled in just one week.
She couldn’t wait to get her dirty brace off once and for all and stop hobbling around.
At least she wasn’t using the crutch much anymore.
If she just had to cross the room or walk down the hall she was able to do it fairly easily now.
She sure needed help today, though. There were several steps to climb up until they reached the front door.
Inside was cool, slick tile, which took her a moment to get her balance on.
When she realized that she was going to need to climb a staircase to put her tote bag in the guest room, she groaned to herself.
Sydney noticed. “Please sit down, Daisy. Or, if you need to freshen up, the bathroom is right through there,” she explained as she pointed to a door on the left down the hall.
“Danke. You’re right. I’ll just get cleaned up and then sit in one place. I sure don’t want to slip and break something else.”
“You sure don’t, especially since I do believe we’re going to have a busy night.”
Daisy noticed that Sydney exchanged a grin with Ben. She wondered what that was all about. After heading down the hallway, Ben called out to her. “Meet us at the kitchen table, Daisy. Sydney put the computer on it so we could all gather around and see the screen.”
As she hobbled over to join them, she felt butterflies flutter in her stomach yet again. Don’t worry about sales, she kept telling herself. If you don’t sell any of your swings, then you aren’t any worse off than you were this morning.
“Daisy, come take this chair,” Ben said. “We want you to have the best seat.”
“That ain’t necessary,” she protested, but she sat down anyway.
When they were all settled, Lukas said, “Sydney, the suspense is killing me. Stop beating around the bush and tell us what you’ve found out. Has anyone bought one of Daisy’s swings?”
“Let’s see.” Her smile grew as she leaned forward and clicked the mouse a couple of times. “Here’s the first site. It’s the biggest and I had high hopes for your launch day.”
Daisy looked at the ad that Sydney had made. There were the pictures of Henrietta on the swing, looking happy as a clam.
When Sydney pressed on an icon, more graphics came up, showing measurements, and the swing with and without a chicken on it.
“Obviously, here is your ad, and you can see that it turned out really well.”
“It does look nice.” Daisy smiled at her.
Sydney paused, “To be honest, Daisy, I had low expectations for your launch day. We didn’t pay much for any ads, and your item probably won’t be of interest to most visitors to this site.”
“I understand.” She smiled. “Well, I guess we did all we could do, right? I mean, I was just reminding myself that I should focus on the fact that I hadn’t sold any swings this morning but I was still having a good day.”
Sydney treated her to an encouraging smile. “I think that’s a great way of looking at things, Daisy, but you actually have sold some swings.” She clicked the mouse again.
“I have? Well, isn’t that something. How many?” She secretly hoped for five. That was a handful.
“Ben, you want to do the honors?”
He swallowed. “Well, now.” He took a deep breath. “I … well, yeah. I guess I could.”
Daisy turned to him in confusion. What was going on? Ben looked amused and … maybe flabbergasted? “Ben, tell me how many swings people ordered!”
“So far today, you’ve sold five hundred eighty-three.”
“Eighty-four,” Lukas corrected. “There goes another one.”
“What?”
He reached for her hand. “You heard right, little sister. “You’ve sold almost six hundred swings on this site alone.”
“Are you serious?” Her hands started shaking.
“Oh, yeah.” Ben wrapped his arms around her. “Daisy, your Bird Benches are selling like hotcakes! You’ve sold hundreds.”
She had hundreds of orders. Hundreds. “But … but I’ve only made twelve.”
Sydney frowned. “You’re going to need to make a whole lot more.”
“I sure am. I don’t know how, though.”
“You’re going to need some help.”
Daisy nodded. “It would seem so.”
All business, Sydney clicked on the mouse again.
Another retail site appeared on the screen.
“Let’s look at the other two places where I put your item up for sale.
These aren’t as big, but sometimes items have better sales here because more of the customers are actually looking to buy items for their chickens. ”
Perching on the edge of her seat, Daisy watched Sydney scroll through the screens, then finally get to the order information.
“Three hundred seventy here.”
She was feeling weak. “That many?”
“Now for the final site … give me a second,” she mumbled as she clicked and moved the mouse. “Ah, here we go. Two hundred ninety here.”
“You’ve sold over a thousand Bird Benches!” Ben beamed as he gave her a hug. “What do you think of that?”
“I don’t even know.” Warily, she glanced at Lukas, who had been sitting relatively silent. “What do you think?”
When he turned to her, there were tears in his eyes. “I think that I’ve been proud of you all my life, but this? Well, this moment makes me exceptionally proud, D. This is wonderful. Better than wonderful. Wunnerbaar!”
She laughed before worry claimed her again. “What do you think Mamm and Daed are going to say?”
Lukas shrugged. “I know what they should say, and that is that they are very proud of you.”
“But you aren’t sure that they will be?”
“I know they love you and that might be enough for now, D. The truth is that you made a swing for our hens, a lot of people want to buy them, and I have a feeling that you’ll have more orders tomorrow. We’re going to be busy.”
Panic was setting in. “What if I can’t make all of them?”
“You will,” Ben said. “How long did it take you to make those twelve swings?”
“I don’t know. Maybe an hour?”
“I’ll help you, and I know Ben will, too. And maybe Kyle will as well. We’ll all work together.”
“But if there are more and more orders …”
“We’ll see if more friends could help. Or even hire someone to give us a hand.”
“I don’t know how many people can work in the barn, though,” Daisy said.
“Then we’ll have to make sure you have a workspace in the center of Walden,” Sydney replied. “That way the UPS driver can stop by there all the time.”
Office space? Pickups and deliveries. “This is all way beyond my expectations.”
Ben got to his feet, pulled her into his arms, and spun her in a circle. “The best things are, D. We need to celebrate.”
“We should go get an ice cream cone.”
“I hope you don’t mind, but the three of us decided to order you a cake.” With a flourish, Sydney opened up the box that Daisy hadn’t noticed until that minute.
Inside was a beautiful white cake with yellow daisies all over it. In the center, written in green icing were the words, CONGRATULATIONS DAISY!
“When did you say you ordered this?” Daisy asked.
“A couple of days ago,” Ben said.
“But that doesn’t make sense. A couple of days ago, we had no idea if we would sell a single swing.”
“That is true,” Lukas said. “But we still had something to celebrate.”
Daisy shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“We got you a cake because you tried something new, D,” Ben said. “You took a chance and looked forward instead of back. That’s worth celebrating, don’t you think?”
Feeling speechless, Daisy nodded. And stared at the cake some more.
It was beautiful. And special.
It was everything. Oh, not because she’d finally done something that could become a career.
Though that was gratifying, it was that she was surrounded by love and support.
She had a feeling that her brothers would have taken her to this lake house for the evening even if Sydney had hinted that not a single Bird Bench had been sold.
This moment reminded her about what was important, and about what she could control.
In fact, there was very little that seemed to be in her hands.
Not her leg, not her relationship with Kyle, not even with the way her parents seemed to view her.
The only thing that she could completely control was the way she viewed herself, and she was pleased with herself.
No, she wasn’t perfect, but she didn’t need to be. All she needed to be was Daisy Lapp. That was enough.
She burst into tears.