22. The Veronica Problem
The Veronica Problem
Falon
Ijump again as Frank lets out another crow to let me know he is still there, as if I’d forgotten. He’d been following me for twenty minutes.
I'd given him and the girls a special treat this morning.
Worms, scratch, and scraps from the kitchen.
Consisting of corn on the cob, strawberries, a head of cabbage I got just for them, some chicken stock with soft carrots and peas from dinner three nights ago.
I spoiled them, and he was complaining. Frank was a rooster with a grudge, and his whole purpose for this morning was to make sure I couldn't take three steps without him underfoot.
"I don't have anything else," I tell him, gently shooing him with my foot.
He blinks at me.
"I'm serious. I gave you everything I had." Of course, that wasn’t entirely true. I brought out some good carrots for the horses and Muddy. They got shod yesterday and did so well. Not one nibble, and this time, Muddy didn’t even try to eat the gloves out of Rainbird’s back pocket.
That was a total win for me and deserved some carrots.
It wasn’t my fault Frank disagreed with me.
He makes a clucking sound, and I wince. “Do you kiss your mother with that beak?” I ask, shooing him away again.
"Frank. I have horses to water. Go find a bug or something." I wave my hand at him. He takes one step sideways and resumes following me at exactly the same distance. He is like a very loud, very time-impaired shadow.
From the guest house porch, I hear Bo laugh.
"Not a word," I call out.
"I didn't say anything."
"You were thinking it."
"I was thinking, good morning." He comes across the yard with his coffee, and I am pretty sure he is smiling behind the mug. He has that expression he gets when he finds something funny and is trying to hide it, which mostly meant he was failing.
"He does this every time," I say. "Every single time. I give him worms, and he acts as if I owe him more. It's extortion. He's extorting me."
“Can you blame him? You gave him worms." Bo bites his lip to keep from laughing.
"He's committed to making my life difficult. Which is apparently a full-time job." I turn back to the hose, and Frank immediately plants himself on the faucet post. "Go away, Frank."
Frank does not go away.
Bo, wisely, says nothing.
I get the horses watered, which involves pushing Mischief's nose out of the way three times because she has developed a habit of playing with the hose.
Annabelle is fine. She is always fine. She is the horse equivalent of serenity.
She is calm, and I appreciate that every day Mischief got into, well, mischief.
Bo and I had already split the chores this morning.
Bo had the town run. His goal was to return Pearl and Mrs. Winslow’s dishes to them, pick up Dad's boot from the pharmacy, the sprinkler head from Carl's, the lemongrass pot from Gerald's, and the post office before Ed closed up to take Miss Olivia to lunch.
I had the horses, the farrier for Matrix, and a rotation meeting with Rusty and Dane that I was already quietly dreading, not because I didn't like them but because I knew exactly how long it was going to take, and I had several orders to make afterward.
Bo leaves, laughing all the way to his truck, and I make a beeline for my parents' house. Bo and I had a bet. He thought that he would get the town errands done before I finished with Rusty and Dane. I am determined not to let that happen.
When I jump the last fence between the properties because it is faster than driving around, I see Rainbird's truck pull up the drive. Rainbird is the best farrier in the county. He lives in the mountains, on like two hundred acres, and doesn’t own a television.
I don’t watch TV much, but I wasn’t going to get rid of it. What if I wanted to watch a movie?
Now, Matrix was a different story. He wasn’t a fan of anyone, including my dad, touching his feet. He was a work-in-progress. Milly shod him last time because Rainbird was on vacation. I take a deep breath and prepare myself for what was about to come.
Matrix comes barreling around the corner of the barn at full drama, with a lead rope hanging from his halter, because Matrix did not do anything unless he was all in. He was three years old and had the energy of a category five hurricane and the attention span of a goldfish.
"Matrix." I grab his lead rope before he can make it past me, and his body flings around. Now, he and I have an agreement. See, I was the boss and wouldn’t put up with any of his antics, and in the meantime, I wouldn’t tell my dad that he got as many carrots as it took to get the job done without any bloodshed.
"Easy." I coo, rubbing his neck. “I thought we talked about this yesterday,” I speak calmly.
He tosses his head and looks at me.
"Don't."
He looks at the truck.
"Matrix, I promise you, it is a truck. You have seen trucks. You live on a ranch. There are trucks here every day."
He snorts.
"I know. Eyes on me." I put my hand on his nose, and he finally, reluctantly, shifts his attention back to me. Rainbird has been watching this exchange with practiced patience. He’d seen many horses with many personalities, and he waits until Matrix calms down before he approaches.
The entire thing takes forty-five minutes, from calm down to shoes on.
Matrix was a good boy, for the most part.
He only nipped at Rainbird once. He did try to eat Rainbird's hat at one point, but I wasn't going to count that against him; it was a straw hat.
And he did a full-body shudder after each hoof, but he stood still and let it happen, which was honestly a win.
"He's coming along," Rainbird says, which is a tally mark in favor of Matrix.
"He really is," I say, kissing his nose. Matrix’s nose, not Rainbird’s.
By the time Rainbird's truck pulls out of the drive, I have hay in my hair, a smudge of something on my jeans, and a genuine appreciation for farriers.
Fifteen minutes later, I text Rusty, and he and Dane are just pulling into Ethel’s for lunch.
I hate to rain on their lunch, but I bribe them by promising to pay for their food plus dessert.
I mean, what is lunch without a brownie or slice of pie?
By the time I pull up, Rusty and Dane are already seated, and I am touched they had ordered me lunch.
They’d asked Ether for my usual, and sure enough, a grilled turkey and cheese on wheat with curly fries and a Dr. Pepper was ready when I got there.
Had I become that predictable? Oh, who cared?
I loved my foodies. Rusty was on his second coffee.
Dane had ordered the special. I slide into the booth, and we get to work.
The rotation meeting was one of those things that looked simple on paper but proved more complex in practice.
Rusty had thoughts about the timing of the north pasture.
Then he had connected thoughts. Then he had thoughts that were adjacent to the connected thoughts.
I followed the thread because I'd learned to follow Rusty's threads.
They always went somewhere, you just had to trust the process.
Dane waited.
That was his whole strategy. Wait. Listen. And when Rusty had finished talking himself in a full circle, Dane would say three or four sentences that were obvious in hindsight.
"What if we move the south herd up two weeks and let the north pasture rest through the heat?" Dane says when Rusty finally took a breath.
Rusty points at him. "That's what I was saying."
It wasn't what Rusty was saying. It was what Rusty was circling.
"That works," I say, writing it down. "That's what we'll do."
Rusty looks satisfied. Dane nods once and goes back to his fries.
I love these two.
Esther is refilling my soda when I notice her.
She is at the bar. Brown hair in careful waves. Well-dressed; considerably better than Everwood’s working crowd. More makeup than I've seen outside of a prom night in a while. She is talking to Lila in a southern accent, laughing at something, and has a camera bag over the back of her stool.
I know I knew her.
Mae Hutchins, seated at the table next to ours, leans over in what Mae considered a discreet manner. Mae's discreet manner was more of an announcement than a whisper.
"That's Veronica Eden," Mae says, lowering her voice to a volume that carried six feet in every direction. "Moved here from Georgia in high school. Left after graduation." She pauses for effect. "Dated Bo Gates for a bit their senior year."
I look at my plate, heart hammering in my chest. Half the diner heard that, and Rusty and Dane look at her, then back at me. I force a smile and shrug.
I remember her now. She was very into Bo during their senior year. She’d asked him to go back to Georgia with her when she left for college.
"Sweet enough, girl," Mae adds. "Always did wear too much makeup and too forward than a girl had any right to be."
"Mm," I say, moving my chair a little so I’d keep my back to the bar. The last thing I want is for her to see that her being here bothers me.
Rusty has a follow-up thought about the fence line on the east side, the one Bo and I just fixed last week.
Then another one. Then Dane has a four-sentence thought that technically resolves it but opens two more questions, and we are there until eleven-forty-five before I finally pay the bill and head for the truck.
I am thinking about the supplier quotes I still need to review when I pass the inn.
Bo's truck is parked out front.
Which is fine. I’m not his keeper, but then, I see the passenger door open.
Veronica leans over and kisses Bo on the cheek. Then smiles knowingly and sashays her hips on her way into the inn.
She kissed him. My brain stuttered. Yes, it was on the cheek, but still. She was so casual and natural. Like it was nothing for her to do it.