Growing Season Read online

  Bill slid his safety goggles down, then stopped and pushed them back up. He pulled two quarters from his pocket and handed them to Melinda. “Be sure to get a pop before you hit the road. On the house.”

  “I’ll do that.” She laughed and took the money. “And I’ll pay you back, Bill. Maybe in person.” He waved and replaced his goggles, and the saw screeched to life as she headed out the back entrance.

  Behind Prosper Hardware was a gravel drive where customers and suppliers could back up to the overhead door. A stretch of grass between the drive and the property line was the home of a towering oak that shaded the back of Prosper Hardware as well as the post office and the lawns across the gravel alley. The rusting pop machine at its base had somehow weathered the elements for more than four decades, the round nests that offered several flavors of refreshment still tucked behind the glass door.

  The unit was anchored to the tree with a crisscross of heavy log chains, a precaution that was more about keeping the cooler upright in strong winds than deterring thieves seeking a conversation piece for their man cave. A thick, black cord snaked across the drive to an outside electrical box near the store’s overhead door.

  “It’s still here,” she marveled, jingling the quarters in her palm. “But I thought it might be.”

  Grandpa Shrader had rolled the contraption out of Prosper Hardware’s back room the day the town’s last grocery store closed, saying folks needed a place to get refreshment any time, day or night. What started out as a joke became one of the quirky things Melinda loved about the town. Community leaders had lobbied for years to get a convenience store built within the city limits, or as least out on the junction with the state highway, but to no success.

  Uncle Frank kept the pop machine stocked with plastic bottles, since glass containers weren’t available these days. People were on the honor system to drop their coins in the slot, and proceeds were collected once a month and added to the petty-cash box in the safe upstairs.

  Bill was right about the price. It was still fifty cents. Melinda mulled her options with the same exuberance she had as a child. Regular cola? What about grape, or cherry? Orange, she decided. She’d just ignore how many calories were in this toothache-sweet stuff compared to the diet soda she normally drank.

  Her car was stifling inside. She set her orange soda in the cup holder and powered all the windows open to let out the heat, grateful she’d chosen a short-sleeved tee and a pair of cotton shorts out of her duffle bag that morning. She was about to crank on the air conditioning, then changed her mind. It was hot, but there’d be a strong breeze blowing through the car once she got out on the highway. How long had it been since she’d driven with the windows down?

  Guzzling her ice-cold soda, she passed the co-op and tracked the mile back to the stop sign at the state road. If she turned left, the highway would take her south and then west into Swanton. She sat at the intersection a moment, deferring to a semi and then a truck cruising past, and changed her plans.

  The visit to Prosper Hardware and the orange pop had her in a nostalgic mood. With her errand for Miriam complete, she had some time to herself before dinner. The county blacktop went straight west from this corner, coming into Swanton “the back way,” as everyone around there called it.

  “I’m in no hurry,” she shrugged, clicking off the left-turn signal and giving the hatchback a little gas. “It’s only a bit out of the way. Why not?”

  A few miles down the two-lane blacktop, she still hadn’t seen any other vehicles. Then she came over a small rise to find a tractor creeping along just ahead of her, its safety lights flashing as it towed a hay wagon. She slowed and fell in behind, taking a moment to admire the Queen Anne’s Lace nodding a greeting from the roadside ditches. Striped yellow gophers darted out of the grass onto the gravel shoulder of the blacktop, possibly surprised to see two vehicles making their way down this road at the same time. Stacked, billowing clouds lazily chased each other across the vibrant blue sky.

  Melinda took a deep breath. She felt her mind clear, then turn to Miriam’s proposal. What if she did come back, just for a few months? Her calendar was blank and she was free to do as she pleased. She could spend the summer out here if she wanted to. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to move in with her parents for such a short time. Maybe …

  There was something on the side of the road. “For rent” was painted in bright red letters on a scrap of whitewashed plywood, the sign pounded into the ground at the upcoming crossroads. A roughly drawn arrow pointed south.

  Crawling along behind the tractor, she had time to peer down the gravel road as she passed the intersection. The farm closest to the highway was at least a half mile away, its treeline just a green, leafy clump on the horizon.

  “Must be aways down the road.” She glanced in her rearview mirror, searched the other side of the sign for clues, but found only a repeat of what she’d seen before.

  She hoped the tractor would turn into the next farm yard, then thought it might choose a field driveway up ahead. When it didn’t, she settled back in her seat. There were places on this road where she could pass if the way was clear, but years of driving in congested city traffic made her a little nervous to pull out, even on a quiet blacktop like this one.

  Melinda had never lived in the country, but these rolling fields and gravel roads still held a special place in her heart. She had many happy memories of visiting the farm her dad grew up on just west of Swanton. Grandma and Grandpa Foster always had dairy cows, a few chickens, and several cats and a dog. She and her siblings couldn’t wait to run off to the back meadow or down to the creek. When they came into the house, Grandma Foster always had freshly baked cookies cooling on the kitchen counter.

  Despite her trip down memory lane, Melinda’s mind kept going back to the sign. “Who rents out a house around here, in the middle of nowhere?” she asked the radio, which was blasting classic George Strait.

  She tried to imagine what it might be like, this mysterious house down a rambling gravel road. Rent surely had to be cheap around here. What if ...

  “Wait a minute!” She slapped her palm on the steering wheel, pulling herself out of her reverie. “If I’m so curious about this place, does that mean I’m coming back? Even so, I’d be crazy to live out here alone. I’d never spent more than a few nights at Grandma and Grandpa Foster’s. Besides, I’ve got rent to pay in Minneapolis. Just forget about it.”

  The tractor slowed to a near stop, its right signals flashing in advance of the next crossroads. As the driver turned off the highway, he looked in Melinda’s direction and quickly lifted two fingers off the steering wheel.

  It took a second for her to remember what this was all about, then she hastily returned the salute. The “farmer wave” was part of rural life, a quick greeting to friends and strangers alike along the country roads and small-town streets.

  “People really are friendly around here,” she mused as the tractor chugged away down the gravel road, the hay wagon barely visible in a cloud of dust.

  She took another satisfying gulp of her orange soda, nodding along with the music. The way ahead was empty, no more farm machinery to slow her down. She should have stepped up her speed, but instead found herself watching for the next field drive, the next chance to turn back.

  “There’s plenty of time before Mom gets home from the hospital,” she told herself when one appeared. She pulled in, double-checked the vacant road and started back east. “This won’t take long, and it’s too nice of an afternoon to sit inside at home, anyway.”

  Soon the sign came into view, and she felt her pulse pick up. She’d never been down this road before, never strayed off this blacktop, even as a teenager. Her curiosity was just getting the better of her, that’s all. She’d see where this road went, what she could find, and then turn around and head for Swanton.

  The rattle and ping of the loose gravel startled her as it bounced up under the car. She slowed to fifteen miles an hour and aimed for the rough tra
ck pounded by the locals’ tires into the center of the road. Too late, she’d forgotten the other rule of gravel-road travel: Roll up the windows.

  “Crap!” The tan powder was settling on the charcoal-colored dash of the car, sifting through her hair and onto her scalp. She powered the windows up and started watching for another sign, taking care to drift right with the track each time the road met a rise that temporarily obstructed her view.

  She passed the farm she’d glimpsed from the highway, then another, but nothing. She hesitated when she came to an intersection, but there were no markers there, either. “Must be straight ahead, then? How far away is this place?”

  If she continued south, the road should eventually meet up with the state highway. But that had to be at least another five or six miles. And sometimes, gravel roads would abruptly end at a “T” intersection or begin to twist and meander. She wished she had GPS in her car.

  “I’ll go another mile or two, but then I’ve got to turn back. I have no idea where I’m going.”

  She spotted a breathtaking bed of peonies, their bowl-sized, vibrant pink blooms waving from the front of yet another immaculate farm yard. The gray house with cream trim was comfortable and square. She leaned forward, hoping. No sign. She rolled through another crossroads and soon, the road started to veer toward the right. A line of trees was visible ahead, a modest metal bridge marked with a yellow “curve” sign.

  “Great,” she muttered, “this is where I start to get lost.”

  But the waterway wasn’t much more than a gurgling brook, twisting here and there through a lush green pasture. To her relief, the road quickly swung back to the left past the bridge and straightened out, the sparse grove falling away to reveal a sweeping, emerald patchwork of fields ahead.

  There was another cluster of trees coming up on the right side, this one much larger, a dense wall of dark green. It had to be a windbreak, sheltering a farmstead from winter’s ferocious northwest winds. A small white square at the edge of the driveway morphed into a sign as she came closer. “This has to be it,” she said as she danced in her seat. “Finally!”

  But suddenly, she felt self-conscious. What was she doing out here, anyway? Was she really going to turn up the drive, knock on a stranger’s door and start nosing around?

  She slowed the car to a crawl as she neared the edge of the property, noticing the windbreak included an impressive stand of evergreens as well as deciduous trees. A cluster of lilac bushes, still in bloom, marked the northeast corner of the yard.

  And then, the house came into view.

  The scene was so charming that her heart nearly stopped. The two-story’s narrow, white wood siding was complimented by soft gray trim. Gray-green shingles clad a steep roof offset by large gables on the second floor, lending the house a cottage-like air. A screened-in front porch stretched across nearly the entire first floor. A towering maple tree in the front yard was surrounded by hostas and a neatly trimmed lawn. Another gracious tree, probably an oak, shaded the small stretch of grass between the south side of the house and the gravel drive.

  Melinda couldn’t quite bring herself to pull in, but she couldn’t wait to see more. She rolled past the “for rent” sign at the end of the driveway, aiming for a small stand of volunteer bushes at the far corner of the front pasture. They might block her car enough to let her get a better look without being noticed.

  The barn was across the drive from the house and otherwise surrounded by pasture. Like the rest of the outbuildings, it was painted a deep red with white trim. She noticed a sturdy building in the southwest corner of the yard that Grandpa Foster would have called a “machine shed.” It was smaller than the barn, one story with a steep-pitched roof and a sliding door across its front. To the north of that was another, smaller shed somewhat in disrepair, and then a cozy chicken house with a row of four-paned windows along its south side that looked out on a spacious wire-mesh run. A two-stall garage, painted white, stood under the yard light just west of the house.

  There looked to be a substantial garden plot behind the garage. An enclosed porch on the west side of the farm house probably led to the kitchen door. She now could see a bump-out on the south side of the house that hinted at a built-in buffet in what must be the dining room. “So it’s as cute inside as outside, then. Oh, this is wonderful.”

  There was a field drive just past the bushes, and she backed around and turned again to the north, determined to get a better look. She pulled as far over to the edge of the road as she dared, determined to keep her right-side tires out of the steep, grass-filled ditch, powered down the windows, and cut the engine.

  Magenta peonies nodded in the bright sun on the south side of the house. More mature trees dotted the yard, stretching their protective arms over the home and outbuildings. The refreshing breeze brushed her face and brought trilling notes of birdsong into the car, then an echo of the quiet swoosh of the leaves dancing on the trees. She closed her eyes and took a deep, calming breath.

  Maybe she could see herself in that garden, picking fresh cucumbers off the vine. Hanging her laundry on the clothesline to catch a sweet breeze. Or exploring the chicken coop, plucking still-warm eggs from the nests for her breakfast …

  Suddenly, she sensed she was being watched. The yard was still silent, but someone was most certainly home. She opened her eyes to find three curious sheep, the cream-colored kind with fuzzy ebony faces and legs, eyeing her over the pasture fence. One of them stomped a hoof and let out an indignant bellow.

  Before Melinda could introduce herself or apologize, a sharp, warning bark answered from somewhere behind the barn. Of course, every farm has a farm dog. He hadn’t shown himself yet but his yips were getting louder, which told her he was on the run to see who was trespassing on his property. She snatched her phone off the passenger seat and snapped a photo of the sign. This one had a phone number scrawled at the bottom.

  “What am I doing? I don’t belong out here.” She flipped the ignition and buzzed up the windows, then glanced back just in time to see a furious flash of brown and white tearing down the drive. How she hoped the farm’s owners hadn’t been watching her from the house! But Melinda found she was smiling as she neared the little bridge over the creek.

  CHAPTER 5

  Melinda pulled up to the curb in front of her parents’ house in Swanton, her mind still on the charming farmhouse and the “for rent” sign. Aunt Miriam’s offer was tempting enough on its own, but there was something about that acreage. She had made the rest of the drive into Swanton in a preoccupied daze, questions and details spinning through her mind. She was excited, yet skeptical. Maybe it was all too good to be true.

  “It’s just an old house down a gravel road,” she reminded herself as she gathered her tote and phone. “A house I know nothing about in the middle of nowhere.”

  Her father popped the front door open just as she came up the sidewalk. Roger was still in his golf “uniform” of pleated khaki shorts and a pale-blue polo shirt, his close-cropped hair a mix of sandy blond and gray.

  “Is Mom back yet? How’s Uncle Frank?” Melinda gave her dad a warm hug.

  “She just got home. Sounds like he had a good day, all considered.” He stepped back into the foyer of the 1950s brick ranch. “He’s back in his room at the hospital and his heart rate’s steady. Miriam’s beat, though. Says she still plans to spend tonight sleeping in the chair in Frank’s room, although the docs said she could go home. I heard you had a special errand. How’s the store?”

  “Same as ever. Not much changes at Prosper Hardware. Bill was cutting some lumber in the back and Esther Denner was running the register. Says she’s Frank and Miriam’s neighbor.”

  Diane was chopping vegetables in the kitchen. “Oh, yes, Esther,” she said with a wry grin. “Miriam said Esther jumped as the chance to run over and help out. Now that she’s retired from the school cafeteria, she’s got a lot of time on her hands.” Diane carefully slid the vegetables from the cutting board into a bowl
. “We’re having burgers and baked fries and salad, if you want to wash up and mix the dressing.”

  “I’d love my fries the way they should be,” Roger said, winking at his wife as he snatched a chunk of cucumber. “You know … fried. Should I get out the deep skillet?”

  “Sorry, dear.” Diane elbowed him out of her way as she stepped to the refrigerator. “We’re trying to stay healthy, remember? Real fries will have to wait for a special treat sometime when we eat out. How about you start the grill, instead?”

  “I’ll put my purse away and help.” Melinda turned down the hallway and into her former room, where her duffel bag was open on the floor, stacked with clothes she’d hurriedly grabbed the day before. Her parents had repainted, of course, but her old bed was still positioned along the long wall and the dresser remained tucked in the corner by the window. The room held good memories, but the thought of staying longer than a week or two made her claustrophobic. She was used to having her own space, her own routine. She scrolled through her phone and stared at the photo of the sign at end of the farm drive, the lilac bushes so beautiful in the background. One call, and so many questions could be answered. But the mouthwatering aroma of grilling burgers was drifting through the open window. It would have to wait until after dinner.

  Roger reached over and patted Melinda’s hand as they sat down to eat. “I hear you might come stay for a few weeks, help Miriam at the store until Frank’s back on his feet. Sure you’re up to the challenge?”

  “Really, Dad, how hard could it be? I can’t imagine the store’s that busy. And I did retail jobs in college, remember?”

  “Oh, you’d be surprised,” Diane brought the fries and salad to the table, took her seat. “You’re capable, honey, we both know that. But that store carries a little of everything, and customers expect the employees to be experts on all of it. You’d be selling everything from milk to dog food and drill bits.”