Page 68 of Grounded
She logged off and gathered up her pictures.
“Jake, don’t you think it’s possible to do a little farming on the side and still partner with my dad? Wouldn’t that be a way to do it all?” Annie recognized Camille’s voice and heard what sounded like a purse tossed onto the kitchen table.
“Sure, it’s a possibility. But if I go into business with your dad, it would be creating a new concept from scratch and you know how much time and energy that would take. The farming would get very little time. So it really comes down to a choice between the two, if I want to make a success of either one.”
“Why not save farming for later, when you want to slow down. Who says you can’t do both at different times in your life?”
“So you’re not too excited about this option,” he said.
“Oh, Jake,” her voice turned to syrup. Annie wanted to gag. “I understand hotels and I can help you. We would be a team. But I don’t understand farming. To be honest, when you talk about grasses and cows and chickens, my eyes glaze over.”
“I didn’t realize I was boring you,” he said. His voice had an edge.
She let out an exaggerated sigh. “You are so good with people. You know how to lead a company. Do you realize what a rare gift that is? Why would you want to throw away all your talent on this farming thing?”
Camille had stepped in it now, Annie thought. The silence before Jake’s response stretched and Annie could feel the tension thick as a hazy and humid July afternoon.
When he spoke, his voice was controlled. “This farming thing feeds people. Not processed junk from halfway across the world, but real, nutritious food that allows people to live healthy lives while also caring for the environment. I can’t think of many things more important than that.”
She sighed. “I’m sorry Jake. You’re so different here than back home. I guess I’m missing the old Jake. Maybe it’s not so bad. I do like horses,” she said with a lilt at the end of her sentence. Annie could imagine her dimpled face, upturned and waiting for a kiss to make it all better.
Annie hoped they wouldn’t launch into a make-up and make-out session. She wanted to get out of there as soon as possible without being seen!
“Let’s talk about this later. You need to do some more thinking and so do I. Right now, I need to return some phone calls.”
A cabinet door opened and then she heard running water. If Camille responded, Annie didn’t hear it, and soon the voices faded as they moved down the hall.
Annie slipped quietly out the front door and down the driveway to make sure she wasn’t seen from the back window. Annie wouldn’t tell her grandmother about hearing Jake and Camille argue. It was a private matter she shouldn’t have heard anyway, and her grandmother would remind her of that if she told her.
Annie had almost forgotten the pictures on her walk back and now they were crumpled. Once inside her grandmother’s kitchen, she smoothed them out on the kitchen table. The house filled the paper, giving her architectural details for the drawing. She craved her charcoals now, seeking the escape an hour or two of drawing would provide.
“Annie?” Beulah called from the kitchen. Annie was upstairs, changing into her work clothes.
“Coming!”
Annie pulled on her old tennis shoes and tied them, then pulled her hair back in a short ponytail. Her grandmother was seated at the kitchen table.
“Did you look at these pictures?”
“I glanced at them. I thought I could use them to finish my sketch.”
“You can almost see the license number on her car. If we had that, we could give it to Detective Harris. I’d like the comfort of knowing she’s not some criminal.”
“You’re right. I could enlarge that section or just walk back and write the numbers down.”
That afternoon, Annie intended to walk back to the stone house, but the threat of overnight showers forced her back into the garden to collect more ripe beans. The beans she had already picked had produced again, and now the new rows were bearing their first offerings.
With two full baskets between them, Annie and Beulah broke the beans, tossing the ends into a brown grocery bag and plunking the beans into a large metal pan. The sun cast long end-of-the-day shadows on the yard. Booger was stretched out on the millstone, and a barn cat sat on the smokehouse step and watched with curious eyes.
“Believe I’ll go to prayer meeting tonight,” Beulah said. “Evelyn said she could drive me into town if you want to stay here.”
“I’ll drive you tonight,” Annie said. “But I might go to Lindy’s church this Sunday if you don’t mind.”
“No, that’s fine. I wouldn’t mind visiting there myself one Sunday, but it would be the talk of town. I better wait for some special event when our church isn’t meeting.”
“Does Evelyn’s church meet on Wednesdays?”
“Not usually. When I talked to her earlier, she said Cam and Jake were going to dinner in Lexington. They had invited her, but she decided to give them a little time alone.”
