I rolled over and pulled out my phone and texted Liv.
Me: Would I be crazy if I wanted to stay?
Liv: On the farm? Probably. In class, can I call you later?
I started thinking about heating up something from the freezer for dinner, when Frodo sat upright on my chest. He walked over and sniffed the door. A car door closed outside, boots crossed my back deck, and then someone’s knuckles knocked three taps on my back door. Frodo yipped.
I opened the back door, and there was Jodie, holding a giant bag of chili cheese fries and some frozen coffees.
“Changed my mind. It’s starting to snow like crazy. You want some food?”
I looked behind her at the beginnings of a small snow storm coming down. “Oh, thank god. I was about to cook or something. I think we are single-handedly keeping the convenience store open.”
We finished the fries and half a jar of pickles, watched City Slickers, and talked on and on. I told her how overwhelming everything has been since I got here, how it’s all I can do to hang on until the house sells, and how I can’t even think beyond what to do the next day. But then, what will I do with all the dogs, and what about Elliot?
Jodie listened very patiently to my whining. She may be a better listener than even Liv; Liv can be a little bossy. She said I probably needed time away from the place to regroup, and I tend to agree with her. She said she was wondering if I was reconsidering selling, and I had to admit I had thought about it but had no idea how I could run the place long term, even with Elliot’s help. I have really started missing Seattle, missing school, and some of my old friends. I miss walking a few blocks and going to a movie or a poetry reading, something.
“I know it’s not the point, but we could go to a movie sometime. It’s small, but the Emmett theater has something decent on every few weeks. We could go to Boise, too. There’s an IMAX, and there’s The Flix, if you want to see something artsy.”
I thought about sitting close to her in a darkened movie theater, and I almost swooned. That’s a thing, right, swooning? I told her that would be great. Liv and I had gone to The Flix, and I thought it was really quirky and cool.
We talked more about my parents and her parents. Her mom was also a librarian, but she died of pancreatic cancer in 2010, the year Jodie got her degree. There was a lot of medical debt, and her dad borrowed against their farm. It will have to be sold when he dies, which, of course, he won’t ever do (she is adamant about this), but they would need to in order to pay off all the debt. She started working at the library as an assistant when she was in high school, and she returned each year to run the summer reading program. She has been there full time since 2011, when she took over her mother’s position. She is going back for her master’s once she has enough money saved up. She would have to do some online classes and move to a place where the college had a program and live there for a year or two, just until she could finish up. She thought she might move to Boise, Portland, or even Salt Lake for the right position, somewhere close enough to come home frequently. Until then, she was enjoying spending time with her friends and her dad. I asked her what she would do with my dad’s farm if she were me, and she said she wouldn’t touch that question with a ten-foot pole, which kind of reminded me of my mom. She said, of course, she would put horses on it, if she could afford them.
We talked long into the night, and when I asked her about when she had to leave, she asked if I minded if she slept on the couch. She would go home in the morning. She didn’t work on Sundays, and she had called her dad earlier, so everything was cool. We talked a little more, and I thought back to earlier in the morning, when Elliot and I had found that the well pump was broken, and it felt like days ago. I gave Jodie a pillow and a couple of blankets, and I went to bed. It was so comforting to have someone else in the house, even if that turncoat Frodo chose to sleep with Jodie instead. And even if I tripped and banged my toe on the way to bed. The giggle from the living room made my stinging toe worth it.
February 28, 2013
I finally finished my last entry; I wanted to get everything down. Jodie helped me clear the driveway the next morning (there were about two inches of snow that fell the night before), and then she went home. I am having so much fun spending time with her.
Elliot came over later, and we made sure the goats had water that wasn’t frozen. He came back on Monday and found a spare pump that used to run a landscaping pond, one of my dad’s many scavenging finds, and he figured out a way to pump the water out of the hole in the center of the driveway, so we don’t have to use water from the house. Especially with the snow lately, that would make a huge mess. Elliot showed me this
