Page 55 of The Party Line

“Hey, where are you off to?” Jasper called from his front porch.

“To the strawberry fields.” I stopped to talk to him. “You look like you are feeling better.”

“I am, a little, so I guess them pills are helping, but I don’t want you or nobody else fussin’ over me,” he declared. “I’m out here to let the sunshine have a chance to work some magic.”

Sassy followed me out to the gate and whined when I wouldn’t let her go with me. “I’ll be back by noon to give you another dose, and I’ll even bring you some soup and sandwiches.”

Jasper threw up a palm. “I’ve got a can of bean-and-bacon soup that I’m going to heat up and some ice cream sandwiches for dessert. You just bring the pills and that sucking thing that opens up my lungs.”

I slipped through the gate and closed it behind me. “Will do. I’ve got my cell phone if you need me; just call. I won’t be far away.”

“Has Gina Lou moved in?” he asked.

“She’s workin’ on it right now.”

The buzz of conversations among dozens of men reached me before I rounded the last curve and made it to the strawberry fields. Everyone, including Connor, had a garbage bag tied to their belt and was bentover, carefully pulling plants out of the ground. They moved up and down the beds like bees, talking while they worked.

Everything went so quiet that I could hear the birds flapping their wings above me. Connor finally noticed me and raised up. “Hey, everyone, this is Lila Matthews, the new owner of this place.”

Those within hearing distance doffed their straw hats and nodded. The one closest to me shoved his hat back on his head and said, “Are you going to continue to lease this to Mr. Everett?”

“I haven’t decided,” I said, “but I’m here to work today. Whether I enjoy being outside will determine whether I want to be a strawberry farmer.” I laughed to kill the tension.

His frown furrowed his broad brow. “If you are the boss, why would you want to pull weeds?”

“Got to learn the business if I’m going to run it,” I replied.

He chuckled and went back to work.

“What are you really doing out here?” A wide smile broke across Connor’s face. “Did you come to tell me that you are making this whole crew sandwiches like you did when we were selling the berries to folks? If so, you are too late. We all brought sack lunches.”

“I’m really here to take my first class in strawberry growing,” I said. “Why are they pulling up the plants? Is that a pruning process?”

He removed his cowboy hat and fanned his sweaty face. “We are carefully pulling up weeds.Carefullybeing the key word. If there are any seeds on the weeds, they could get loose and propagate into more of the same. Grandpa likes to have the after-harvest job done in the first two weeks, or it’s too late to mow and we have to hand-prune all the plants. Are you serious about learning this business with me?”

“You’ve never done it before, either?” I asked.

“Not in the spring. I helped with it last fall, but the system is a little different this time of year. These guys all know what they’re doing, and they are teaching me—us, if you are serious,” he answered.

“Well, then show me what weeds look like and where the bags are, and I’ll try to keep up.”

He pulled a bag from a roll lying not far from him and handed it to me. “Anything that’s not a strawberry plant is a weed.”

I tied the bag to my belt loop and pulled my first weed. When I reached for my second one, Connor handed me a pair of gloves. “You’ll need these or else your hands will be ruined. Grandpa told me to bring extra in case I got a hole in one. Some of the weeds are real demons to pull up. Tell me again, why do you want to learn this business?”

“Richie mentioned wanting to buy the place as a hobby farm. Maybe that’s exactly what I need. Something to keep me busy part of the time but then giving me a chance to do something else when there’s no work here to be done. I have until January when your grandpa’s lease runs out to make my decision. And ...”

Connor raised his head and locked eyes with me. “And what else?”

“You’ll think I’m crazy, but I might make strawberry wine as a side business,” I blurted out.

“Sounds like a plan to me,” he said with a shrug. “There’s water bottles in that cooler over there under the pecan tree.”

I appreciated him more than ever when he didn’t laugh at me. “Do I hear abutwhen I told you about my new plan?”

“Yes, you did. But ...” He paused for a second. “Both of us may be ready to run for the hills after we pull weeds all day in this twenty acres. And the bad part is that we won’t be done. We’ll come back on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday to get the job finished. Thank goodness we have a big crew, or we’d be out here for weeks.”

“After we get all of it weeded, what happens?” I asked, figuring I would be spending Thursday in the bathtub, trying to soak the ache out of my back.

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