Watermelon Summer (11 page)

 

    And Jacob did smile at my overly appealing sister, but the
warmth didn't seem to reach his eyes.  "I'd better plow, then,
before the heat hits," he replied, stepping back up onto the tractor and
turning the key so the engine's rumble made future conversation
impossible.

 

 

 

    Kat didn't like to be rejected.  Never mind that
Jacob was my age, meaning he was seven years younger than her. 
And never mind that I'm pretty sure she'd hooked up with the
Viking-Festival guy at the cob-building workshop.  She was still
royally pissed off that Jacob had walked away from her flirty advance.

 

    "I think he's bad news," she told me as we walked
over the loose soil the tractor had churned up.  I was raking clods
flat and
planting pumpkin seeds and Kat was mostly hitting the soil angrily and
rather randomly with her tool.  "And, pumpkins?!  What kind of
way is
that to make money?  Now, a CSA would be another matter."

 

    While I was wracking my brain to remember what a CSA
was, Kat's rant continued.  "You probably don't realize how careful
we have to be about who we invite to join the new community," she said,
her tone  making it clear that she believed I'd behaved
idiotically.  This was my first true
experience with being a little sister, and I didn't like it.  I
made a mental note to apologize to my own little brother just in case
I'd ever treated him this way.

 

    "Greensun fell apart before because Dad was too lax
and let the wrong people in," Kat continued.  "We need to do a better job culling
the duds."  She peered into my face as if to see whether I
understood.  "This is a huge opportunity—Greensun is worth a
lot more than $30,000—and we need to be careful not to blow it."

 

    I'm not sure how I would have replied—maybe I
would have actually said what I was thinking for a change and asked Kat
who put her in charge of the Save Greensun campaign? 
Luckily, though, Jacob was done plowing, and he joined us just as my
mouth opened to let loose words I'd probably regret later.  "I
brought a watermelon and put it in the creek when I got here," he interjected.  "Does anyone want a slice?"

 

 

 

    One of Mom's favorite Stout-Kat tales involved a
watermelon-seed-spitting contest that Kat had won against a man four
times her size and age.  Another pertained to a watermelon-
eating
contest that Kat had again passed with flying colors.  So the
answer was—yes, Kat loved watermelon.  And, just like that, her
anger at Jacob dissipated into a sea of watermelon juice.

 

    "We need a game plan," Kat declared, once all three of us were
covered in sticky juice.  "Thia, you can keep notes."

 

    I'd been musing over how quickly Kat's moods came and
went, but mine seemed to be just as simple to affect.  Mom had
named me after a flowering bush, and even though "Forsythia" was a bit
of an odd moniker, I'd somehow never come up with a nickname that
stuck.  "Thia," though, felt just right, and the glow of a new nickname meant I didn't mind at all
being sent into the house after pen and paper.

 

    When I came back out, Jacob and Kat had already
filled our next week with projects.  We'd go to the courthouse to
figure out who all of the neighboring land belonged to, we'd plan a
gardening event and put a notice in the local paper in hopes of finding
at least one more community member, and we'd all buckle down to think
about business solutions.

 

    Kat was doing most of the talking, I was scribbling
furiously to keep up, and Jacob was generally just nodding along. 
However, it soon became evident that Jacob was biding his time until
Kat's momentum slowed enough that he could interject some
outside-the-box thinking.  "You're talking about a CSA or teaching
gardening classes, but that's not all that's farm-related," he said
quietly when Kat paused.  "Have you ever considered harnessing the
power of the internet?"

 

    And that's how we ended up huddled around one public
computer at the local library, figuring out blogs and social-networking
sites.  I was emailing back and forth with my stepfather, whose
experience was enough to at least set us off in the right
direction.  Kat was doing what she did best—coming up with
lofty flights of fancy that might or might not crash and burn.  And
Jacob was plugging along making something actually happen based on my
technical tips and Kat's dreamy advice.

 

    By the time Kat and I peeled off to return to the
farm and Jacob turned homeward, I felt like we'd made an astonishing
amount of progress.  Plus, it just felt good to be working together
with Jacob and Kat on something bigger than ourselves.  My eyes
were following Jacob's minivan as it turned out of the Greensun driveway when
Kat's words took me by surprise.

 

    "Be careful," she said, her voice firmer than it had
sounded all afternoon.  "I'm still not so sure about that kid."

 

    Despite myself, my mood deflated just a
little, but I still watched Jacob until he rolled out of sight.

 

 

 

    For the next couple of weeks, Jacob came over just
about every day, and I suddenly had two sets of wheels at my
disposal.  That made it much easier to find spots with cell-phone
reception so I could talk to my family, although I soon wondered why I'd craved that access so much.

 

    "It sounds like you're getting awfully engrossed in
this community-building project," Mom said one day while I sat on a
bench outside the courthouse.  Jacob was inside figuring out tax
maps and neighbor names, while Kat had walked down the street in search
of the perfect ice-cream cone.  I could hear meat sizzling in the
background through the phone, and I guessed that Mom was making a family
favorite—spaghetti with homemade sauce.  The scent of bay leaves
was nearly palpable and I could almost see the twinkle in Dad's eyes as
he poured in the
"secret ingredient"—a quarter cup of brown sugar.

 

    But I was glad I wasn't going to be sitting down to
dinner with the family because Mom was in a nit-picking mood. 
"Don't forget you're starting college in less than six weeks.  I
don't want this Greensun thing to stand in the way of your future," she warned.

 

   "Mom!"  I hated my own tone of voice, like a whiny
child, and struggled to sound more mature (with little success).  "This Greensun '
thing
' is important!  Maybe it
is
my future."

 

    The phone line went silent, and I cringed as I
thought back over what I'd said.  Mom had been forced to drop out
of college
multiple times, only finishing up as an adult after marrying Dad. 
As a result, a post-high-school education had always been a
non-negotiable part of my
brother's and my future, something we hadn't minded looking forward to
since we both enjoyed learning and knew our parents would foot the
bill.  Realizing my statement would have struck a nerve, I hastened
to soften my words.  "The community doesn't have to
stand in the way of college, Mom.  Only two people need to be
living at Greensun full time, and Kat and Jacob both seem
interested."  Well, except for the part where they couldn't stand
being in the same room with each other half the time, let alone in the
same house, but I didn't think Mom needed that much information.

 

    "So Jacob's still helping you?" Mom asked.  I'd
been hoping she'd change the subject, but now I heard a lecture
coming on worse than I would have gotten by insinuating I might skip
college.  And it seemed patently unfair given that Jacob and I had
never so much as held hands, let alone done anything more.  I
thought
he liked me, but there often wasn't room in our conversations for Jacob
to get a word in edgewise when Kat was talking.  For all I knew,
he had two or three girlfriends on the side.

 

    "Yes," I answered her.  Then, not wanting to
sound curt, I elaborated a bit.  "He generally does at least 60% of
the work.  Kat's great with big-picture stuff, but she tends to
get bogged down in the details."

 

    "Well, I'm glad she's there, anyway," Mom said. 
She sighed, and I could tell she wanted to say something else but was
holding her tongue.  Finally, unable to entirely let the subject
go, she finished.  "Just promise me you won't make any big
decisions because of a boy, okay, Forsythia?"

 

    I almost wanted to tell my mother that I was going by Thia now,
but I knew that wasn't what Mom wanted to hear.  "Okay," I replied, but I wasn't sure I was ready to stand by my promise.

 

 

 

    What I didn't tell Mom is that I was starting to
wonder if college was the right next step for me.  Living at
Greensun was turning into a fascinating adventure, and I was pretty sure
I was learning just as much by browsing Dad's library as I would have
in English 101.  Plus, as weird as I found parts of the Appalachian
culture—kids toting guns, for example—I felt more grounded here
than I'd ever been before.  I was literally growing my future when
I transplanted raspberries out of the impenetrable patch and lined them
up in easy-harvest rows.  And the power of working together in a
team was inspiring.  For the first time in my life, I felt like I
was really living, rather than observing the lives of people around me.

 

    On the other hand, Mom had a pretty solid point when
it came to the danger of throwing away your future for a boy.  Not
that she'd ever said so in my hearing, but I knew Mom's life had made a
sudden left turn when she'd gotten pregnant with me.  I'd also
seen how falling for a guy had clouded the eyes of girls at my school,
how they'd decide to drop dreams of Harvard then follow a boyfriend to
the state university instead, and I'd resolved not to date in high
school for that very reason.  Plus, I'd read Elizabeth Gilbert's
Committed
and
knew that the chances of a couple staying together if they hooked up
before they were 25 were pretty slim.  As a certified
over-achiever, it seemed to make sense to wait until the deck wasn't
stacked against me.