Sugar And Spice. Shirley Jump
cry. Instead, he straightened his shoulders and climbed back into the Porsche, with Cyrus right behind him.
Gus backtracked and headed for town and a used car lot, where he bought a secondhand pickup truck the owner said he could drive off the lot with the promise that one of his workers would drive the Porsche back to Moss Farms by midafternoon.
With Cyrus riding shotgun, Gus drove to Home Depot, where he loaded up the back of the truck with a new chain saw, hammers, nails, lumber, paint and anything else he thought he would possibly need. When he checked his loading sheet and was satisfied, he drove to the unemployment office and posted a notice for day workers paying five dollars over minium wage. All calls would go to his cell phone so as not to bother his father. The Fairfax Connection took his ad and promised to run it for a week. Again, he asked for day workers to run the Christmas store his mother had made an institution.
Gus made two more stops, one at a florist he remembered his mother liking. There he explained what he needed and was promised wholesale prices. The order, the nice lady said, would be delivered by the end of the week. His last stop was a gourmet shop, where he again explained his needs and was promised delivery in seven days.
On his way home, Gus pulled into a roadside stand where his mother used to buy fresh cider. Within thirty minutes, he signed a contract for a daily delivery of fresh cider, and for an extra hundred dollars the owner agreed to rent him a top-of-the-line cooler. His arms loaded down with vegetables, fresh apples, eggs and some frozen food, along with some dog food, he completed his shopping, and headed back to Moss Farms, feeling like he’d put in a hard morning’s work. He was on a roll and he knew it. It was the same kind of feeling he always got when he presented a finished set of blueprints to a client. He loved the feeling.
As he drove along in his new pickup truck, Gus wondered about the dressed-up prissy woman who wanted to buy trees from his father. Competition was a good thing, a healthy thing. Maybe he needed to come up with a jingle or something to be played on the radio. For sure he was going to need to do some advertising. Well, hell, he had a workforce back in California. He’d give them a call and let them run with it. Creative minds needed to be put to use. He made a mental note to order a fax machine.
“I’m paying my dues again, Mom,” he whispered.
“I know, son, I know,” came back the reply.
Gus almost ran off the road as he looked around, his eyes wild. Cyrus let his ears go flat against his head. He whined as he tried to get closer to Gus. I must be either overtired or overstimulated. He tried again. “Did you just talk to me, Mom? Or was I hearing things?”
The tinkling laugh he’d loved so much as a kid filled the car. “In a manner of speaking, Gussie. I told you I’d always be there for you when you needed me.”
“Where…where are you, Mom?”
“Right beside you where I’ve always been. You just haven’t needed me before. I’m so proud of you, coming back like this. Your father is a hard man, Gus. Be patient and things will work out.”
“He gave our tree to the White House. I went there and got a branch. I hated him for that, Mom.”
“I know. I saw you there. I don’t want you to hate your father. He has difficulty showing affection. He loves you.”
“Well, Mom, he has a hell of a way of showing it.” Gus wondered if he was losing his mind. Was he so desperate for family affection he was imagining all this? He asked.
He heard the tinkling laugh again. “No, you aren’t losing your mind. You’re opening your mind. It goes with the upcoming season, Gus. You really need to fix that sign,” Sara Moss said, as Gus pulled into the entrance of Moss Farms.
Gus stopped the truck. “I’m going to do it right now. I have everything in back of the truck. Mom, did you…what I mean is…?”
“I saw the plaque on your office building. That was so wonderful of you, Gus. I felt so proud of you. Go along now. Do what you have to do.”
Gus climbed out of the truck, looked around. Then he shook his head to clear his thoughts. Cyrus was still whining. “Will you come back, Mom?”
“Only if you need me. Remember now, be patient with your father.”
Gus didn’t know if he should laugh or cry. He looked at his watch. High noon. His shoulders straightened and his step was firm as he rummaged in the back of the new pickup for the tools he would need.
By one o’clock, Gus had the sign fixed with a new coat of paint. By two-thirty, he had the front steps fixed, sanded, and painted. He jacked up the front porch with a two-by-four and had it back in place by three-thirty. By five o’clock he had the kitchen cleaned to his satisfaction. At six o’clock he was washing bed linens for his bed and was in bed between the clean sheets and blankets by eight-thirty. And he hadn’t seen his father once since coming back from town. He was asleep the moment his head hit the pillow because he knew he had to get up at four, eat and head out to the fields, because that’s what a farmer did.
Chapter Four
Amy jerked awake when Cornelia stirred in her lap. At the same moment, the front door slammed shut.
Her mother was home.
Groggy from the short nap, Amy combed her hair with her fingers, tightened the velvet bow at the back of her head, then knuckled her eyes as she steeled herself for what she knew would probably be an unpleasant encounter with her mother. She waited at the top of the steps to see if her mother would call her name, acknowledge her presence in some way. Such a silly thought. Evidently Cornelia was of the same opinion as she hissed and snarled, circling Amy’s ankles. She bent down to pick up the unhappy cat and descended the steps. She called her mother’s name twice before she entered the kitchen.
Tillie Baran waved airily as she babbled into the cell phone clutched between her ear and her cheek. She was opening a container of yogurt and sprinkling something that looked like gravel over the top. A bottle of mineral water was clutched under one arm as she juggled everything and still managed to sound animated to whomever was on the other end of the phone. Amy thought it was an awesome performance.
She eyed her stick-thin mother. She was, as usual, dressed impeccably. There wasn’t a hair out of place. There never was.
Finally, the call ended. Amy reached for the cell phone and, in the blink of an eye, danced away and turned it off. “I need to talk to you, Mom. Without this stupid thing ringing off the hook.”
“Oh, honey, don’t do that. It’s my lifeline to the world. I have to charge the battery for at least thirty minutes.”
Amy wagged her finger. “No, no. Either we talk or I’m outta here. What’s it going to be, Mom? I sure hope you aren’t going to tell me this is one of your projects that you gave up on.”
“Good Lord, why would you say such a thing, Amy? Everything is ready to go for the Seniors. All you have to do is set things up and make it work. I’m depending on you to pull this off. I’m working on the New Year’s Gala the Rotary is sponsoring. I have so much to do and not enough hours in the day.” All this was said as Tillie shoveled the yogurt and gravel into her mouth. After every bite she swigged from her water bottle.
“What exactly is ready to go, Mom? By the way, did you see that study someone did about people who talk on cell phones all day the way you do?”
“I don’t believe I saw that, Amy?”
“You can get a brain tumor. Go to the library and look it up.”
For the first time in her life Tillie Baran was at a loss for words. “You can’t be serious.”
“I’m serious. Now, what’s there to set up?”
“The Christmas trees, of course. I ordered them. They will arrive on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. I told you I rented the Coleman property.”
“Mom, you rented a piece of land. A corner property