Chapter 6
CHAPTER 6
ETHAN
“S
o you’re all set, you’re safe and secure from here to… where are you coming from again?” he asked. It was a trick that Mr.Bennett had taught him, supposedly for marketing but Ethan suspected Mr.Bennett just liked knowing how far and wide people might have known about his tree farm.
“Colorado City,” the man said, watching in appreciation as Ethan deftly cut the twine with his utility knife and tucked the blade in his pocket. “I know that it would have been faster or cheaper to just go down to the store and buy a tree, or like my wife says, just get one of those?—”
“Sir, we don’t say the P-word around here,” Ethan said in hushed, conspiratorial tones. “It hurts the trees’ feelings.”
The man laughed, and looked around. “I guess it would. Anyway, I convinced her to let me take the boys out for one real tree, and you folks had the best reviews in the area. Figure I’ll swing by McDonalds on the way home, make it a treat for the boys, and that’ll be a Dad Memory I can keep.”
Ethan nodded, and looked inside the cab of the truck, where the two boys the man was talking about were busily chatting with each other. “Then I won’t delay you any longer. Thanks for coming by, and I hope to see you next year.”
The man left, and Ethan brushed off his jeans. The past week had been amazing, and with Christmas just around the corner, he couldn’t be happier. While he and Laura hadn’t shared another kiss, she’d been out to the farm every day, helping him and talking with customers.
Watching her around them was like watching a flower bloom. She opened up, the beautiful but severe woman he’d first seen slowly becoming the sweet, kind woman that Mr.Bennett had talked about so often.
When he’d met her, Ethan had wondered if perhaps age or sentimentality had been catching up with the old man there at the end of his life, because the Laura who’d come out on that first day, overdressed and looking like the only thing she wanted to do was blow up everything before getting on the nearest flight out of Denver heading east.
How wrong he’d been. He was glad. Sure, she still overdressed, the woman was clearly used to indoor central heating and air conditioning keeping her world a perfect seventy-three degrees year-round. But that wasn’t a bad thing, she could rock an oversized sweatshirt like it was nobody’s business.
Heading back to the shack, he opened the door and presented Laura with the three crisp twenties the man had paid with. “Here you go, and he said keep the change,” he told her.
She smiled, and took the money, tucking it into the cash box on the corner of the desk. “I’ll give the tip to you. Just don’t go blowing it all in one place.”
“Well, I was thinking of making that splurge and doing a Walmart run,” Ethan teased, and Laura laughed. “Or the dispensary next to Speedys.”
“Oh, heck no, you are not allowed to go shopping there, no matter if it’s legal around here or not!” Laura laughed. Leaning back, she let out a breath. “Would you think me horrible if I said that in law school, I was tempted?”
“Why would I think you horrible about that?” Ethan asked. “What caused you to look at it?”
“Stress, mostly,” she replied. “I went through law school like a hustler , Ethan. I’d wake up at five in the morning, hitting the pavement to get to the library as soon as they opened. Classes, and then as soon as those were done, back to the library, or off to the jobs I was working to try and not drown in student loan debt more than I was. That first year was the hardest, because you feel like you’re constantly behind the eight ball.”
“Why’s that?”
“The legal world is…” Laura started before shrugging. “It’s not always about who you know, but it certainly helps. If you want in at the big firms, your odds are about ten thousand percent better if your daddy’s a named partner somewhere, or a politician, or someone with clout in the legal world. Those types, the nepo babies, they can skate through law school, doing just enough to get their degree without worrying about landing a position with a good firm because the high-paying firms will actively recruit them. One example, I had a classmate, I won’t say her name, but her family owns a controlling interest in a very popular brand of soft drinks. You don’t think half a dozen firms were recruiting her as a first-year law student, hoping to get her to sign because they wanted to work through her to start handling the legal work for her family, or better yet, her family’s company? She could have been as dumb as a rock and they still would have hired her at seven figures a year.”
“I don’t think there’s a market for wheeling and dealing Christmas tree farm conglomerates.”
Laura laughed darkly, tossing her hair side to side. “Not at all. I had no connections, no clout, nothing but my grades and a desperate to network. And to network, you need to not be working thirty hours a week on the side putting together burritos and chicken bowls.”
“But you needed to eat, and so… stress,” Ethan said. “So you were tempted. What stopped you?”
“Truth?” she asked, and he nodded. “Two things. One, it wasn’t legal in the state at the time, and two, I couldn’t afford what the neighborhood dealer offered.” She sighed, shaking her head. “That must make me sound like a horrible person.”
Ethan came over, and took her hand. “You forget how I grew up. A system kid… I grew up around people finding release in substances, and to be honest, the sort of green they have in the dispensary was small potatoes. So I understand, Laura. Really. There come times when it feels like the whole world is trying to crush you into the ground, and that getting that next step up is harder than anything anyone’s ever faced. But you know what?”
“What?”
“You’re here now, you’re doing well… and you’re really, really beautiful.” Ethan leaned in. Laura smiled, and they kissed again, an electric feeling that Ethan found himself wishing for every night when he fell asleep in his bed. For the first time since moving in, his trailer didn’t feel like enough, and his bed felt thin, cold, and far too empty. “Want to get a drink after the lot closes?”
“Ethan…”
“Cocoa or coffee, I promise,” he said. “I’m not trying to get you drunk, Laura.”
She swallowed, and nodded. “Sure.”
Her phone rang, and he stood back up, giving her space as he looked out the window to see if a customer was coming. As he watched, he couldn’t help but listen in.
“Yes… yes, I’m the executor of the estate… thank you. I see… I see… well that’s certainly something interesting to talk about, what figure are we talking about, ballpark?”
Figure? Ballpark? Oh lord.
Laura continued though, and when she was done, he turned back around. “Who was that?”
“A developer,” Laura said. “They want to arrange to see the farm, they’re interested in buying it.”
“They… but…” Ethan closed his mouth for a second. “I see. And how much are they offering?”
Laura sat back in her chair, and looked at him evenly. “Ethan, come on. Your face is telling me something. Remember, I’m an attorney. What do you know?”
Ethan sighed, and rubbed at his head. “I know that last year, a developer tried to buy the Reynolds Iron ranch. You know the place?”
“Sure, my grandfather did business with Mr.Reynolds,” Laura said. “Is he still around?”
“He retired, and when he did, he was going to sell the place to a developer who wanted to turn his ranch into a subdivision,” Ethan said. “In the end his daughter took over the place, but… I kept hoping that those developers were going to stay away.”
“Why’s that?” Laura asked. “So the Rockaways could stay dirt poor and rougher than a wool blanket?”
“No, because the people here deserve a life too!” Ethan exclaimed. “Laura, you know what happens when the subdivision folks move in. In the city they call it, what, gentrification?”
“I know the word.”
“Good, then you know what happens when those developers come in. They buy up the property, build or renovate or whatever, and then you look around and you’re unable to afford rent in the very same house you were born. The folks around you, they don’t understand what makes the Rockaways special. They just see a crappy strip mall, a truck stop, a weed dispensary, and a bunch of rednecks who can’t seem to get out of their own way. You know that’s garbage, you were one of those rednecks!”
Laura nodded, and put her hands on the desk.
“You’re right, I was. I still am. And I know it’s impossible to keep the Rockaways static and unchanging. That’s just unfair, because it keeps the people who live here in that cycle of poverty. You’re right, I remember being dirt poor, wearing old clothes and worn out sneakers. I remember being laughed at and made fun of when I got to high school and things like that really started to matter. I remember the fist fights between the boys from North Pueblo and the boys from the Rockaways, and how the only place those two groups got along was on the sports teams. I also remember when our school won the state wrestling championship my junior year, and of the fourteen starters, ten were from the Rockaways. But you know who got the credit?”
“North Pueblo,” Ethan replied, and Laura nodded.
“When I got into law school, my grandfather told folks, and guess what? The Pueblo Post did a little blurb on it. You want to know where I was listed as being from?”
Ethan glowered. “North Pueblo.”
“Yeah, they couldn’t even take the time to check that my high school and my address weren’t the same thing,” Laura said. “Look, I know it’s complicated, Ethan. And I understand your feelings. But… I have to think about this still.”
Ethan swallowed, and without a word, left the shack to go out onto the lot. There he waited for customers, stomping his feet in the dirt as a light snow began to fall. Somehow, that hurt more than anything else. The snow was supposed to be beautiful, and pure, and everything Laura seemed to be.
But the snow could turn into mud and Laura… well, she was only thinking about her offers, and her money.
He turned, and looked at the trees nearest to him. They were so beautiful. Innocent, pure, he’d shaped all of them, taking the time to trim them over the years to make them what they were, a symbol of hope and togetherness.
The thought of them all being razed for some cookie-cutter development made his eyes sting. A truck was approaching, and as it parked, he fixed a smile on his face.
“Hey there, welcome to the tree farm,” he said. “What can I help you with?”
It wasn’t until after the customer was already out searching for their tree, saw in hand, that he realized he’d forgotten to call it the Bennett tree farm.
Somehow, that hurt all the more.