Page 61 of What I Should've Said

“Listen, um, what is happening right now?” I ask them.

Baaaaaa.

“Are you guys lost?”

Baaaaaa.

“Do you realize that I have no idea how to take care of sheep? I can barely take care of myself. I mean, I’m a twenty-six-year-old woman who has about a hundred dollars to her name and is living with her sister. If you need guidance, I’m not your gal.”

Unfortunately, my speech doesn’t achieve anything, and before I know it, another twenty-five minutes of playing red light, green light with a bunch of sheep on the freaking Happy Trail have passed by. Which means, if I want to be on time for work, this is now starting to cut into my shower time.

“Listen, I have to get to work, guys,” I tell them, but they’re not all that fussed about it. Hell, some of the sheep are busying themselves with munching on grass, occasionally glancing up to see my whereabouts. “It’s a complicated situation and I don’t know if you know who Bennett Bishop is, but let me tell you, he’s not going to want me to bring buddies along, you know? I’m supposed to be there to work. And after Friday night, things aren’t exactly easy peasy between us. The last thing I need to do is bring, like, a hundred sheep with me because they’re my new friends. Don’t get me wrong, you’re my friends. You guys are great. But I can’t do that, you know? I’m trying to keep my job, not lose it.”

Baaaaaa.

Eventually, I decide to phone a friend. My friend, besides these sheep, being my sister. It takes four rings twice over on two different calls for her to answer, but when she does, I don’t bother with pleasantries.

“I have a problem.”

“Okay?”

“I decided to go for a run this morning before work, and now I have about a hundred sheep following me.”

I expect shock. Maybe horror. But Josie doesn’t give me either. She’s all business, so much so, it makes me wonder if she’s in the sheep business.

“Are they marked?”

“What do you mean marked?”

“Farmers around here mark their sheep and cattle with paint. Usually, a little strip down their back or on one side.”

“Um…” I step closer to my new sheep pals and note a bright-orange strip of paint on their left sides. “Yes. Orange paint.”

“Tad Hanson’s sheep have latched on to you because he’s apparently incapable of keeping them in his pasture.”

“Latched on to me? What does that mean?”

“That means they’re lost like always, and you’re their temporary mother until you get them home.”

“Get them home?” I shout, and the sheep beside me lets out a bleating noise. “Josie! I’m supposed to be at work in, like, forty minutes!”

“Well, unless Bennett is okay with you bringing along sheep for the day, I’d say you better get your little ass moving toward Tad’s farm.”

“Like I even know where Tad’s farm is! I’ve spoken to Tad once in my life, and that’s only because you refused to come to the bar with me after dinner.” And for as chatty as he was on Friday night, he didn’t get around to telling me where he lived.

“Norah, you know I don’t go there, so just get over it.”

“Get over it?!” I protest on a shout. “I’m in it! I spend one night talking to Tad, and now his sheep are stage five clingers!”

“Where are you?”

“On the Happy Trail.”

“You’re not too far from Tad’s. And lucky for you, Bennett’s place and Tad’s farm are right next door to each other.”

I sigh. “That doesn’t feel lucky. I was planning on taking a shower and getting ready for work like a normal human being. Not putting in two hours of herding sheep before starting my day.”

Josie just laughs and gives me directions to Tad Hanson’s farm from where I’m at on the Happy Trail.

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