Page 28 of Grounded
A dandelion was growing between a crack in the concrete porch. Annie bent down and picked it.
Jake leaned back in his chair and thought for a few seconds.
“Naturally, she would like to see me go into business with her father. He was actually a friend of mine before I met Camille,” he said. “But she’s supportive. I think she’ll come around, especially after she spends some time here this summer.” He looked at his watch. “I better get home. Mom needs help moving some furniture. Wanna walk to the crossover?”
“Sure,” Annie said.
“Good. So you can tell me about this guy.”
Annie felt her chest tighten. “There’s not much to tell. I made a stupid mistake. Now that I’m away from him, I don’t even know how I fell for him in the first place. My same old pattern.”
“Sounds like it,” he said. She stopped suddenly, surprised he agreed with her.
“I don’t mean it that way,” he said, grinning and steeling himself for her punch in the arm. “I mean it is your same old pattern, but it’s because you pick guys you can walk away from.”
“I don’t exactly see you settled down either,” she said.
“No, but I’m getting close. Camille could be the one,” he said.
“Really,” she said. “It’s kind of weird to hear you say that.”
“I think it’s the first time I’ve said it, out loud anyway.”
They came to the entrance of the long tobacco barn and stopped at the open doors. “You better get her down here quick to make sure she knows what she’s getting into. Maybe arrange for some tobacco work, something to break her into farm life,” Annie said.
Jake laughed.
“I’m not sure I can see her doing that. A few of those tobacco worms would send her running into the house. Anyway, that’s history, so we’ll have to come up with something else.”
“Remember all those hot summers, breaking off the tops, row by row?” Annie asked, looking up at the barn.
“And the cold winters in the tobacco stripping room? You bet I do. I can still smell it.”
They were both thoughtful for a moment.
Annie noticed the barn was still in good shape, its long, slim openings on the sides closed now because there was no tobacco to air out. Inside, the tier poles crisscrossed up to the vaulted tin roof, where men balanced precariously when the tobacco was strung onto sticks and hung to dry. From man to man to man, they took the tobacco to the top first and through the assembly line, working their way down until the entire barn was filled with the sweet-smelling plants. Annie was usually on the wagon, handing the sticks loaded with green and yellow leaves to the next person in line. Jake was always with the men in the tiers, close to the top.
The barn had not been used for years since the tobacco buyout had ended the Depression-era subsidy. But for generations, Kentuckians had been dependent on the crop and lives were planned around its seasons just as a brown thread might be woven through a tapestry. It was part of Annie’s heritage, no matter her thoughts on the end product.
“Kind of sad for it to sit empty, but it was built for only one use,” Annie said, still lost in her thoughts.
“I’ve heard of some farmers doing innovative things with their barns, like goat dairies, farm-to-table restaurants and even lodges,” Jake said.
“It seems a waste sitting here empty, but I doubt my grandmother has the energy or money to try and make anything useful of hers. She needs to sell the farm and move to town.”
“Whoa, wait a minute. Then what would she do?”
“Well, same thing she does now, but on one story and with neighbors close by.”
“She has neighbors here. The house is big enough for a first-floor bedroom. What else?”
“She worries about it financially. You’ve seen the place, Jake! Everywhere you look something needs to be repaired or painted. In fact, she rented the stone house to a complete stranger because she offered two thousand in cash for the summer.”
“Sounds like a good business deal to me,” he said, grinning.
The banter was a game to him, and Annie refused to let him win quite yet. “It’s too much for her age.”
“She’s barely over seventy. That’s the new fifty,” he said.
