Mitch pulled into the gravel driveway that looped around back and parked by the kitchen entrance beside Eric Vickers’s battered Ford F150, where Eric was unloading huge baskets of his organically grown potatoes and carrots. Poochie Vickers’s buoyant farmer son was in his early forties, gangly, bonynosed and more than a little geeky. His Adam’s apple always seemed too busy, and his pants invariably fell a good three inches short of his mudcaked work shoes. A big Leatherman multipurpose knife hung in a sheath from his belt. The chunky, shapeless brown sweater he wore had been made by his FrenchCanadian wife, Danielle, using wool from their own sheep. Eric kept his blond hair short, his beard neatly trimmed. His ears he left alone, and the man had to have the lushest ear hair Mitch had ever seen. He looked as if he were part faun. And yet Eric’s ears were not his most notable feature. His eyes were. Eric’s blueeyed gaze was so intense, so lit with positive energy that it bordered on religious zeal. This was why many in Dorset fondly referred to him as the Green Market Messiah.
“You’re looking at the last of it, Mitch,” he declared as Mitch climbed out of his own truck. “Our root cellar is now officially, one hundred percent bare. But not to worry, because today’s the day. As soon as I get home, I’m planting my All Blues. The soil is reeally perfect today. And when the soil is perfect you do not argue with it. You get down on your knees and you dig. Ever eat a blue potato?”
“Uh, I’ve had blue tortilla chips. Do those count?”
“Those are made from corn, Mitch.”
“Okay, then I guess not.”
“You’ve got to try one. They’re my fastest sellers at the Union Square green market. The chef from Savoy grabs them up the second he sees them. God, I love this time of year!” Eric exulted, raising his face to the sun.
The two of them started toting their loads inside for Danielle to parcel out. Danielle was heating up a vat of her bean soup for the folks who were starting to trickle in. She’d also baked several loaves of whole wheat bread. Danielle Vickers shared her husband’s tireless devotion to their farm and their community, but she was much more reserved. Even a bit dour. At times, she almost seemed to have wandered in from an allnight Ingmar Bergman glumfest. Mitch had rarely seen her smile, although some of this was selfconsciousness-her teeth were exceptionally crooked. Danielle had grown up poor. Her father, an itinerant Sheetrocker, had worked only sporadically. Danielle had paid her own way through Bates College, up in Lewiston, Maine, by tending bar nights. It was at Bates that she’d met Eric. She was not particularly tall but she was strongly built. Also pretty shapely, though you had to look awfully hard. She dressed in oversized sweaters and baggy overalls that hid her figure. In fact, she almost went out of her way to look frumpy. Her strawberry blond hair was always in ropy braids or pigtails. And her unflattering wireframed glasses looked as if they’d been filled by an optician in Uzbekistan.
“How goes it, Danielle?” asked Mitch, setting his load down on the counter. Hyper Eric had already bounded back outside for another basket of potatoes.
“It goes, Mitch,” she replied, stifling a yawn. She looked beat. There were dark circles under her eyes. “We’re in the middle of lambing. Four of our ewes delivered last night, so I’m a little short on sleep. But, really, it’s fine.”
“Is the coal cellar unlocked?”
“I’ve already emptied out the freezers for you.”
The frozen baked goods that Mitch collected were stowed in two big freezers down in the dimly lit, intensely creepy cellar under the old church. The cellar was accessed from outside by raising a pair of Bilco metal doors. Like most Bilcos, they locked from the inside. Lem, the church custodian, locked and unlocked the doors for Mitch on Food Pantry days. Mitch didn’t know how Lem made it out of the cellar once they were locked, and he didn’t want to know.
Mitch raised the doors and headed down the steep cement stairs, his arms loaded down with bread. It was damp and cold down there, and reeked of mold.
Eric gave him a hand-grabbing two big bags from Mitch’s truck and very nearly beating Mitch down the stairs with them. Eric moved at a faster pace than most people, and possessed phenomenal energy.
“Mitch, can I get your take on something? It’s kind of personal.”
“Sure, what’s up?” Mitch said as he stuffed the “bagels” in the freezer.
Eric squatted there on the steps, swallowing uncomfortably. “Have you noticed Danielle acting strange lately? Preoccupied, maybe?”
“She does seem a bit down.”
“Has she been paying special attention to anyone?”
“I don’t think I’m following you, Eric.” Mitch often didn’t. The trick was not minding.
“The truth is, I think she’s had it with me. But I wanted to make sure before I said anything to her.” Eric gazed at Mitch intently. Very intently. “That’s why I’m asking you.”
Now Mitch got it. Eric wanted to know if he and Danielle were involved. He hadn’t come out and said it, but the impression was quite clear. “Eric, I’d be very surprised if she’s seeing anyone else. She’s devoted to you.”
Eric nodded, his Adam’s apple bobbing convulsively. “You think I’m being insanely jealous, don’t you? That shouldn’t come as a surprise, Mitch. Insanity runs in my family.” Eric jumped to his feet and said, “Sorry to bother you. I’m out of here.”
And he was. Jumped into his truck and sped off, leaving Mitch there to wonder what, if anything, was going on between the farmer and his wife.
When he was done down there, Mitch went up the outside stairs and lowered the Bilcos shut. Otherwise, squirrels would take up residence in the cellar. Then he grabbed the computer printouts from the front seat of his truck and went back inside. About two dozen people were gathered around the community tables, chatting as they had their soup. Seated at a table all by himself, hunched over his bowl, was Dorset’s Can Man.
The gaunt old Can Man rattled around town on an old bicycle with two supermarket grocery carts chained to its back end. Spoke to no one. Guzzled rum. Dressed in filthy old clothes. A few days earlier, Mitch had noticed him poring over the NBA box scores in the Hartford Courant while he slurped his soup. Apparently, the guy was a stat freak.
With the fantasy baseball draft fast approaching, Mitch thought he’d try to engage him. So he ambled over, sheaf of printouts in hand, and said, “I’ve got my eye on Mendoza. Let me know what you think of him, okay?”
In response, the old ascetic gazed up at Mitch with a look of sheer, eyepopping terror.
Never had Mitch inspired such fear in another human being. He felt as if he’d just turned into Freddy Krueger. “Or not,” he added hastily. “Entirely your choice.”
But he was too late. The old guy had already jumped to his feet, kicking over his chair, and fled the room, leaving his soup unfinished.
Chastened, Mitch helped Danielle bag up the Food Pantry donations and pass them out to the folks who were lined up waiting. In spite of her lack of sleep, Danielle worked tirelessly, the sleeves of her baggy sweater pushed up to her elbows. When they were done she helped herself to a Styrofoam cup of coffee from the urn and sat at one of the tables with it, chewing distractedly on the inside of her mouth. Danielle did seem preoccupied, Mitch observed. Behind those severe glasses, her eyes were crinkled with concern.
Mitch joined her. He and Danielle weren’t especially close, but they were both outsiders. It didn’t matter how long you lived in Dorset. Unless you were born and reared there, you were always an outsider. And outsiders gravitated toward each other. “Danielle, are you sure you’re okay?”
She made a face, as if she’d just smelled something bad. “It’s a hard time of year for us, Mitch. No cash coming in. We make our money at the green markets during growing season. Eric’s in New York City at Union Square two mornings a week, I do three more out here. Our customers are crazy for our organic produce and eggs. Our grassfed lamb, too. They can taste the difference, and they’re willing to pay for it.” Danielle paused, sighing wearily. “But the winters are hard. Sometimes, it all seems so impossible.”
“What you need is a good night’s sleep.”
“What we need is to get bigger. We need at least sixty more acres, Mitch. Twice as many sheep. We’re planting veggies when we should be investing in cheesemaking equipment. Sheep’s milk cheese is our only hope for the future,” she confessed, sipping her coffee. “Unfortunately, our credit line is maxed out, Poochie is famously tightfisted and Claudia is… well, Claudia. She has forty good acres of meadow out behind her cottage just sitting there. But will she let us use it? No, because that’s hers. Claudia hates everything about our farm. Our hairy, stinky sheep. Our noisy, stinky tractor. She’d like to see us go under. And at this rate we will. I just don’t know hhow much longer we can…” Danielle ducked her head, clutching the coffee cup in her chapped, workroughened hands.
