Wander and Roam (Wander #1) (2 page)

“You’re American?” I carefully make my way off the boat and onto the wooden dock.

A dimple appears as he smiles. “Most people call me Sage, but I’ll go by ‘American’ if you want.”

I peg him as a Midwesterner, just like me. “I’m Abby.”

Sage lifts my big suitcase out of the water taxi. “Do you have all your things?”

“It’s just the suitcase and backpack.”

He rests the suitcase on the grass then returns to the water taxi. “Susan wanted me to thank you for giving our new volunteer a ride. We’ll see you next Tuesday?”

The driver nods before revving away.

Tiny waves lap along the shore. After finding a sunny spot, I plop to the ground and stare out over the water. While this isn’t an ocean, the bay is one of the largest bodies of water I’ve ever seen. Well, except for Lake Erie, but the grossness factor of that pollution-ridden lake rules it out.

Sage sits next to me on the grass. “How did you find your way to such a remote Australian farm?”

His question reminds me why I started avoiding my friends and teachers at the university. People ask too many darn questions.

My silence doesn’t stop him. He asks, “Are you exploring, growing, or running?”

I stare at him.
How has he figured me out so quickly?

“Interesting, I wouldn’t have pegged you for a runner. The big question is what are you running from?” His eyes—brown, speckled with gold—meet mine.

“I don’t talk about my past.” I need to send our talk in a different direction quickly. I haven’t had a real conversation in so long, I’m rusty and out of practice. After a long pause, I decide to ask about the one thing we probably have in common, volunteering on this farm. “How did you end up WWOOFing?”

“I’m an explorer and a grower. The timing seemed right to live in a different country, learn how to farm, and practice.”

“Practice?” Practice what? My mind flutters from sports activities to musical instruments, but none seems to fit.

“I could talk for hours about practicing.” Sage shakes his longish curls, also brown streaked with gold. “I don’t want to bore you on your first day, though.”

“You mentioned Susan. How do you like working at her farm?” I have no idea what to expect while farming. Despite the number of farms in the Midwest, most of us, me included, live in the suburbs.

“I arrived two weeks ago. And I love every moment of farming.”

“So are you hoping to leave a better-rounded, worldlier person? Or will this just look good on some job application or graduate school resume?” I can’t believe how long we’ve been talking. This may be the longest conversation I’ve had in the past six months.

Sage takes a turn at the silent game. He stares down at the ground for a long moment before muttering, “I don’t want to talk about my future.”

I’m all too familiar with his reaction. We could make a good team. Me running from my past and him avoiding his future.

“Let’s make a deal. I promise to not ask about your past, if you don’t talk about my future.”

“What’s left?” I imagine an entire month of no conversations. While I’m not super outgoing, zero talking might be a bit extreme.

“The ‘now.’ We live in the ‘now.’” He watches me until I nod my approval.

Raising my water bottle, I toast, “To the present.”

“To the present,” he toasts back with a water bottle of his own.

“O
H GOOD,
you arrived safely.” The petite woman wears the biggest sunhat I have ever seen. Her black hair is twisted into two thick braids hanging past her waistline. “I’m Susan, your host.”

“Abby.” I hold out my hand. When she turns to greet me, I spot the baby tied to her back.

“And this cute little guy is Zachary.” Sage tickles one of the baby’s bare feet, and Zachary giggles in response.

The land flattens into a grassy plateau with trails leading up, down, and to the sides. In the distance, I spot a small house. Susan’s home, probably. The wild vegetation tames into cultivated garden beds to my far right.

“You must be exhausted after your trip. I’ll show you to your room.” Susan leads me to the uppermost trail. “You brought a
suitcase
?”

I grab its handle. The wheels are battered from the mile-long, rock-strewn trail. “Yeah, I didn’t pay close enough attention to that part of your email.”

“Thankfully, I sent Sage down to collect you.” Susan eyes the large suitcase.

‘Thankfully’ was the right word. Sage and I had taken turns pulling my monster of a bag up the rugged trail. As an Ohio girl, I’m used to the carefully sculpted and sometimes even paved trails forming the wilds of the suburbs, the metro parks. One Australian hike demonstrated just how manufactured nature was back home.

I glance down the steep slope leading back to the dock. The thick tree cover nearly blocks the view of the bay, with only brief glances of the blue water visible between the branches. Still exhausted from that climb, I’m not sure if I’m up for another.

“Ready?” Susan asks. “I can’t wait to show off where you’ll sleep.”

“Sounds good.” I can’t wait to finally have some privacy after my nearly twenty-four hour journey.

“There’s even a working bathroom up here. It took me the longest time to figure out how to manage that, but my contractor suggested connecting to our well system for water and installing a composting toilet.” She smiles and adds. “It’s all green.”

From her look of pride, that must be a fact that many organic farm volunteers care about. I’m here for a completely different reason. Escape.

For the next few minutes, we hike in silence. I can’t tug my giant suitcase, go uphill, and talk at the same time. Every few feet, I lower my bag to the ground and catch my breath. Finally, the trail levels off, and we’re able to make quicker progress.

She steps onto an even smaller footpath. The narrow path winds its way through exotic-looking shrubs and unusual flowers. “The guest cottage sits right off this trail.”

“Cottage” is definitely a euphemism. A wooden platform holds an enormous, round, tent-like structure. The wooden door stands out against the canvas material covering the sides. Small details, like the potted flowers upon the wooden deck, make it homey.

“I’m going to be living in a tent?” I slowly walk up the steps to the deck.

Susan laughs, and little Zachary mimics her peals. “Well, technically, it’s a yurt.”

How is that different from a tent?
I bite back my retort, though, not wanting to be rude.

She opens the door. “No need for a key. One of the benefits of living in nowhere.”

Sunlight streams through the plastic windows and the skylight, turning the hardwood floor golden. Two wooden futons sit on opposite sides of the room. Their vibrant orange slipcovers accentuate the yurt’s golden theme. Neatly folded sheets and blankets rest on the corner of one, while the other’s bedding is haphazardly thrown in a bunch.

“Men.” Susan sighs. “I asked Sage to make the guest yurt presentable.”

“Sage?” She couldn’t possibly mean…

“Both volunteers share the guest cottage. Didn’t I mention that?”

“Um…” Not a word. I would have remembered
that
. I made a terrible assumption, though, thinking free accommodations equaled private accommodations.

“No worries.” She waves her hand in the messy futon’s direction. “Sage is as easy-going as can be. He’ll make a great bunkmate.”

His personality hasn’t even crossed my mind. My worries center on how one look at Sage already triggered a letter-writing episode. If a short glance drives me to grab my pen, I can’t imagine what cohabitating will do. Probably lead to the world’s most epic writer’s cramp.

My purple envelopes aren’t limitless, after all.

Twenty minutes later, a knock sounds at the yurt door, followed by Sage’s voice. “Can I come in?”

“Sure.” I reach for the doorknob just as Sage peeks his head through. For a moment, we’re only a hand’s reach from one another. I step back so quickly, I nearly trip over my bag.

He props the door open with his body and holds up a bag of food. “I brought lunch. Thought you might be hungry after your long trip.”

“Thanks.” I glance around the yurt, but the room is too small to hold a table.

He points in the opposite direction of the bay. “I wouldn’t mind sharing my super-secret picnic spot with you.”

I’m so afraid of spending time with him—no, with anybody. Growing close to others only leads to pain in the long run.

“If you’re too tired, I can take a rain check.” He starts to separate the food.

Isolation has its downfalls, though. It led to being booted from school after I abandoned my classes. It led to my flight across the world so I could avoid the questions and concern of friends and family. Even Down Under, I’m unable to truly escape.

“Wait.” I wave away the food. “Being outside sounds nice after all those hours on the plane.”

Sage smiles. If he looked cute when he was serious, he’s even more adorable when he grins. “You won’t regret this,” he says.

I already do.

Sage backtracks down the hill then leads us along a winding path until we reach the orchards. We pass through rows of bushes, dotted with still-green blueberries and plump, pink raspberries. At the far end, a grove of trees is planted in neat, equidistant rows.

As we step into the trees, each row hangs thick with various fruits, some familiar and others unrecognizable. I gently stroke a low-growing peach before following Sage into a grassy patch in the middle of the orchard.

Sage sits on the grass then pats the spot next to him. “You might be in for a surprise,” he whispers.

“Surprise?”

“You’ll see.” He continues to speak in a quiet voice. “Susan makes a hot breakfast and dinner each day, served in the covered dining area near her home, and she packs sack lunches for me—well, I guess that’s us now.”

“Oh?” I examine the food he hands me. A sandwich stuffed with vegetables between two thick slabs of bread, a juicy peach, and homemade-looking granola bars.

“Susan’s been making all the meals vegetarian, on account of me, but she’d be happy to cook up some dead animal, if you prefer.”

I bite into my sandwich. The vegetable-only concoction doesn’t taste terrible, but some thick slices of turkey would only make it better. “I prefer.”

“Ah, you’re a carnie.” Sage sits back and watches me chew. I try to swallow my mouthful gracefully, but end up gulping awkwardly.

“Have you always been vegetarian?” I ask.

“What an esoteric question.” Sage leans closer. “My follow-up question would be, in what life? Currently, I’m about to meet my two-month anniversary of veganism. But I imagine some of my past selves rejected meat entirely.”

I stare at him. His expression is one of complete and total sincerity. “Do you actually believe that nonsense?”

Before he can answer, a deer-sized animal hops into the clearing. That’s right. Hops. Two powerful back legs send it bounding underneath one of the plum trees. “Loo—”

Sage presses his soft, warm finger to my lips. I alternate between focusing on the brown critter nibbling at the fallen fruit in the orchard and his closeness.