We stopped when we saw the sign for the farm. STINKY CHEESE FARM dribbled down it in red letters, and next to the words was painted a triangular block with lines all around it like Zoe puts around her suns.
“Is that supposed to be stink?” I said.
“Coming off the cheese? I think so.”
I peered down Stinky Cheese Farm Road. A short ways ahead, the forest ended and fields began. “C’mon. Let’s go.”
On the other side of the woods, the land was open and flat all the way to the mountains. Fences lined both sides of the road, and behind them were white cows with black splotches and wiggling ears. There were big ones and little ones, and the big ones had bulging pink balloons that hung down between their back legs.
Up ahead, the road circled around the field on the right to a barn and a small house. Both were gray, but they must have been white at some point because there were places where bits of paint still clung on. Everything—fences, house, and barn—drooped as if too worn out to stand up straight.
The road here was rocky, and weeds had completely taken over in places, so we got off our bikes and walked them.
“Something stinks, but not like cheese,” I said.
“I bet it’s worse in summer.”
“So what we’re smelling is…”
“Cow poop.”
“Great,” I said and tried to breathe only through my mouth.
On the other side of the fence, a calf with black patches around each eye bounced through the grass next to me. “The baby ones are kinda cute.”
Josh stopped. “Hey—is that him?”
Across the field, just in front of the barn, a guy in a black baseball cap was waving.
“Probably.” I waved back.
The guy put his hands up, palms out like he wanted us to stop, so we did.
“You think we’re going the wrong way?” I asked.
We watched as the guy then jogged over to a mud-splattered truck and got in.
“I guess he’s coming to get us,” Josh said.
“Makes sense. We are the customers.”
“He looks pretty young to be running the whole place, huh?” Josh said.
“Yeah, in my head, farmers are old, but I think that’s just because of the song.”
“The song?”
“You know, ‘Old MacDonald.’ Zoe used to make my mom sing it over and over.”
Josh and I watched the truck make its way toward us. I guess because the road was barely still road, he had to drive really slowly.
Finally, the truck pulled to a stop beside us. “Tris? Josh?” the driver said through the open window.
We both nodded.
“Cool. I’m Riley.” He grinned and tipped his baseball cap. The stinky cheese symbol from the sign was printed on it in neon yellow. Up close, Riley looked even less like Old MacDonald. What he looked like was the guy who taught me keyboards at Ricky’s School of Rock, right down to his thick black glasses, hoodie, and ponytail.
“I set up this whole tasting for you guys at the house. Jump in. We can throw those bikes in back,” he said. Then he got out and helped us load the bikes.
Since the truck had just one row of seats, we both sat up front right next to Riley.
“So you guys are into doughnuts, huh? I think that’s what that lady said.”
“You mean my mom?” I said.
“With the little girl.”
“My sister.”
“She was way into the cows, which was cool, but you can’t ride them,” Riley said, all serious like we might actually not already know this.
“She tried to ride them?” Josh asked, trying not to laugh.
“I kept telling her: no riding the cows. But she wouldn’t listen. I gave her some grain, you know. I said, ‘Here look, you can feed ’em, and they eat right out of your hand.’ But every time I turned around, she was trying to climb on.”
Now I knew what Mom had meant about the cows needing a Zoe break.
Just then, we hit a bump, and Josh went flying into Riley. “Sorry,” he said. Even with Riley driving super slowly, we were getting tossed all over the place. At least I could hold on to the door, but Josh was stuck in the middle with nothing to grab onto.
“No worries,” Riley said. “So, tell me about these doughnuts.”
“Well, we haven’t actually made any yet. It’s a long story,” I said. Riley didn’t need to know that this whole doughnut business had started with Mom and Dad making me do a project. That was just unprofessional. We were customers, and we were there to sample his products, and hopefully, make a deal. That was the only story Riley needed to know.
“You don’t have to explain it to me, man. I get it. It’s the dream, right? You just got to go for it. It can take a while to get there though, so don’t lose hope. You just keep at it.”
“Thanks. But I meant—”
“Like with me, all my life, my pops was like, this farm is going to be yours someday. And I was all like, ‘No. Thank. You.’ Getting up early is not for me. See, I was hard into the electronic music scene. I’d saved up and bought all my own gear. I had this sweet synthesizer. But all that equipment is super expensive. You need a computer and…”
What kind of business was Riley running? We didn’t need to hear his whole story any more than he needed to hear ours. Why wasn’t he talking about his products? Didn’t he know the ABCs of selling? Always be closing the deal. That’s the very first Selling Tip in Starting Your Own Business for Dummies.
“So I needed cash, and that’s how I ended up working at this fancy French restaurant in Boston. And they had a cheese guy. One guy, his whole job was just cheese. He’d buy all these cheeses, put them out on this cart, and when people finished their meal, he’d like wheel it out so they could pick their cheeses. And I was like, ‘Whaaaat?’
