2. Becca
TWO
BECCA
A cold, wet nose streaks across my palm, and hysteria breaks out in my Farm Trekkers school group.
“It’s a wolf!” a kid screams.
“Can we pet him?” a little boy asks.
“I don’t want to pet the wolf!”
I laugh and pat my dog’s head, who headbutts my thigh. “Everybody, this is T-Bone. Say hi to T-Bone!”
A chorus of tiny voices come back at me and T-Bone’s icy blue eyes fix on me while I scratch her chin. “Hi, T-Bone!”
“T-Bone is a Siberian husky, and they look very close to wolves. Everybody can have a turn petting her if they want. If she comes asking for pets, you can give them to her. But in the meantime, let me tell you about my chickens.”
Twelve preschoolers stand in the space between the barn and the coop, full of bright eyes, snotty noses, and mismatched clothes. It’s one of the first cool mornings to hint at fall, a break from the summer’s sweltering humidity. I pick up my egg apron and hold it up before tying it around my waist.
“Does anybody know what this is for?”
“Water balloons?” comes one guess.
I point at that kid. “That is an excellent idea. I could carry a ton of little water balloons in this thing. Any other ideas?”
“For the eggs!” a kid shouts.
“That’s right! I collect the eggs from my girls every morning, and I put them into these pockets until I’m ready to pack them in their cartons.”
I open the gate to the coop and pluck Susanna off the ground, then put her on my hip with her claws in my hand. “Has anybody ever seen a chicken who looks like Miss Susanna here? What’s different about her?”
Hands shoot up in the group, and the satisfaction of what my life has become warms me again. No more long-haul trucking, no more partying.
Well. Less partying. I still won’t turn down a good time if invited. I just don’t seek it out like I used to.
I’m not the one acting as the party concierge, the one making sure everyone forgets their worries for a while.
I barely have time for partying. This farm gives me no chance to rest. It took a while to get used to the coop’s rhythm, and now it’s a different pressure.
Instead of making sure everyone around me is having a good time, I now have to make sure everything is alive and reaching its full potential.
Everywhere I look on this farm, I see wasted opportunity.
My guesthouse isn’t going to build itself. Once it’s built, I’ll make money on that.
I need more in the bank to be able to confidently fill this old barn with horses—hell, even a mule would be a start.
With horses, I could stop paying a fortune to have pony rides at my weekend festivals.
My fall festivals are off to a good start, but every single one is a gamble.
I make all the arrangements, but if the weather’s shit, I end up taking a very expensive bath.
I’m only one person. At least that’s what I tell myself every time I feel like hiding in my bed. I’ve done more than most people could, and mostly on my own since I broke up with Stone.
Hosting these kids’ programs at my farm, I get a taste of what I got from party life: helping people embrace everything life has to offer. These kids discover something new, and the money’s not bad for two hours of my time.
And how could I resist these faces full of wonder? Every kid deserves to have their curiosity indulged like this.
Presently, the kids ooh and ahh over my chickens with the thick thighs, and the green eggs that the Ameraucanas lay.
“Who’s ready for a hike? Let’s go to the woods!”
Twelve pairs of boots tromp behind me as we head for my well-groomed woods entrance. “Hands in, everybody! I don’t want anybody getting poison ivy.”
We arrive at a collection of split logs that I arranged in a circle with the help of my friends Jake, Darcy, and Darcy’s Aunt Maggie and Uncle Bill. I don’t know where I’d be without all of them.
I guide the kids through what I call my bird circle, where we all sit still and point to any birds we see or hear.
I talk about the different birds that are migrating through here this time of year.
I can tell from their delighted faces that this is going to be another set of rave reviews for Becca’s Peckers Farm Trekkers.
But when it comes time for my log slide, I remember why liability insurance exists. It’s genius, really. I found a hollowed out log, sanded it down, covered the middle in a slick lacquer, and there you have it: log slide.
One of the little girls is wearing a fluffy dress, which is now dusted with dirt from the dry trail. Guess it’s better than mud.
Miss Kristen is helping the girl up onto the log when her foot slips, bringing the little girl down to the dirt. The girl’s ankle twists and I wince. Not only is that gonna hurt, but my good reputation, which already hangs by a thread, is now screwed.
Consider the log slide closed for the foreseeable future.
“Ankles do funny things sometimes,” I say to the little girl sitting on my porch swing.
Ellie. Ellie looks familiar, but is she the Ellie?
The Ellie whose mom is my ex-best friend?
Traces of her smile feel like CJ’s, at least what I remember of it.
I put all our pictures together away years ago.
It’s too painful to look, to wonder how different life would be if she hadn’t shut me out.
Miss Kristen is getting the rest of the class loaded up on the school bus for snacktime and the ride back to the preschool in Paint.
She speedwalks my way with her phone pressed to her ear.
“Can Ellie wait with you? Her dad is already on his way here and he didn’t answer when I just tried to redirect him.
I need to get the class back to school for dismissal. ”
This is . . . a predicament. I’m fine hanging out with this little cutie, but isn’t it kind of weird? Isn’t there some rule about leaving no child behind?
“Yeah, once you start out Creek Road, cell signal usually drops. You can’t wait another few minutes?”
She lowers her voice. “Ellie’s dad is hot but he’s kind of intense. I don’t want him to be mad at me. And then the lady who owns the preschool is already on me all the time for being late.”
Kristen was a couple years below me in school, surely not long out of college now. I’m not shocked she’s got the hots for her students’ parents, nor that she’s struggling to hold together a proper adult life. Can’t say I was much better a few years ago. “I ain’t scared of nobody’s daddy.”
“So you can wait with her?” she asks, voice full of hope.
This part is not my problem, but if it means Miss Kristen will bring her class back again sometime and forget the ankle twist mishap, I need to be as flexible as possible. “Sure. I can handle him.”
“Thank youuuu,” Kristen says, sandwiching my hand between her two. “I promise, any future programs you have, we’ll be out here again.”
Mission accomplished. Public relations crisis averted.
“No problem, hun. Get those kids back to town. Me and Miss Ellie will be fine.”
Ellie sits at my side, an ice pack on her ankle and T-Bone at her feet while she sings him some song.
I can handle this. I love kids.
Just as the rest of her class pulls away in the school bus, a pickup truck comes hauling ass into my drive.
“Daddy!” Ellie jumps up, seemingly forgetting her ankle injury. She’s unaffected as she runs toward the truck.
“Ellie, sweetie—”
My words turn to sticky syrup in my throat as her daddy parks and turns off his truck. My stomach feels like I’ve been out for a long night at the bar when his boots hit the gravel.
Long legs, coveralls, Carhartt jacket, backwards hat, and a blonde scruff beard finished in a scowl.
I am double fucked with a cherry on top.