Watermelon Summer (14 page)

 

 

 

    "You're Forsythia," the thirty-something woman said
as she popped out of her car.  Unlike the younger people who were
already heading down the hill in a laughing, pushing gaggle, this woman
could have walked into the local hardware store without raising
eyebrows.  And when she told me her name, a big smile lit up my
face.  Carol was the daughter of the kind lady at the Viking
Festival who had taken me under her wing, and that relationship alone
was enough to tell me this stranger was good people.

 

    "Mom mentioned the big brouhaha surrounding Greensun,
and when I saw the event you all were planning, I decided to come check
it out," Carol explained.  "Here, do you mind carrying some of
this...?"  Out of the back seat came a cooler and a basket, both
brimful of goodies, which lowered my blood pressure right there.  I
hadn't noticed many food items in the other participants' hands, which
would have been problematic since the only thing we'd put together as
hosts was
hotdogs, buns, and condiments.  I'd thought the word "potluck" on
the flier would bring in enough sides to round the meal out, and now,
thanks to Carol, it had.

 

    With the help of another latecomer, we hauled all the
food
down the hill and surveyed the permablitz.  Kat was in her element,
handing out tools and tasks as fast as she could, while Jacob was
making sure the least experienced didn't hurt themselves with their
shovels.  We'd decided to put in a fall garden for a CSA (which Kat
had explained was a sort of weekly basket of in-season produce
delivered to select customers), and were also laying down sheets of
cardboard to start new garden areas for perennials without
plowing.  Some people were being sent out into the woods in search
of half-rotten wood to bury in and enrich the soil, others were raking
leaves to use as mulch, and a few had been put on food duty, starting
the charcoal grill and keeping Lucy away from the incipient feast. 
It looked like someone had overturned an anthill, but like the queen
was
still firmly in charge.

 

    "Carol!" Kat called over the crowd and motioned us
over.  "I'm so glad you came!"  Once we were within arm's
reach, Carol was engulfed in an enthusiastic hug—clearly my sister
and Susan's daughter were friends from way back.

 

    "And she brought food," I added, hefting my end of
the cooler to demonstrate.  "Once we drop this off, what do you
want us to do?"

 

    "Well, I know Carol probably wants to get her hands
dirty," Kat answered, "But what would be really handy is if you two
could spend some time talking about Greensun's paperwork.  Did you
know Carol's a lawyer who takes the coal companies down a peg?"

 

    As Carol explained while the two of us filled plastic
seed-starting flats with potting soil, she worked with an environmental
non-profit that served as a sort of private watchdog for the local coal
industry.  "So I'm not really the right sort of lawyer to ask
about how to make Greensun official, but I did assemble some books and
papers once I read your father's letter."  She pulled enough
literature out of her backpack to provide the recommended reading for a
college-level course, and set it aside.  "I figured once you read
all that, you can ask me any questions you have at the meeting." 
Meaning I had two weeks to consume Carol's offerings—farewell
fiction!

 

    Then, probably noticing how overwhelmed I seemed,
she threw me a lifeline.  "I've put my card in there too, so you
can email
me later if you get stuck."  Carol smiled, and the project suddenly
appeared more feasible with an expert on board.  "Look," she
added, "I could talk your ear off with my
suggestions now, but I'd rather not watch your eyes glaze over. 
Instead, why don't
you tell me how you're enjoying Greensun?"

 

 

 

    According to Kat, the permablitz was an astounding
success.  Granted, half the participants ran out of steam after
about an hour and ended up playing Calvinball in the yard, a shovel
handle broke, and two rakes went missing.  But people had fun,
the fall garden was halfway planted...and Drew moved in.

 

    At first, I thought the guy draped around Kat on the
couch the next morning was the cob-building attendee, but it turned out
cob was old news.  Drew was old news too, since he'd been Kat's ex
until the two saw each other with new eyes during the permablitz and
hooked back up.  And now he was living at Greensun.

 

    "Who's that?" Jacob whispered from the doorway when
he came to pick me up for another neighbor meet-and-greet the next
morning.  I'd retreated to my tent pretty early the previous
evening, but not before beer bottles made the rounds.  From the
pile of empties on the porch this morning, it seemed like they'd gone
around several more times after I left, which might be why I hadn't seen Drew open his
eyes even though it was nearly noon.

 

    "I don't think we should wake him up," I replied
quietly, grabbing my backpack and hustling Jacob out the door. 
"He's Kat's friend, Drew," I elaborated once we were walking up the
hill.  "She asked me if he could stay here for a while.  It
sounds like Drew got kicked out of his apartment a couple of weeks ago and
has been couch-surfing ever since."

 

    Jacob raised an eyebrow, and inwardly I agreed with
him.  I wasn't so sure I felt comfortable having random guys move
in, but I also wasn't sure that I had any say in the matter.  Yes,
Kat had asked my permission, but only an affirmative answer would turn away arguments and I'd started to fear the wrath of Kat.

 

    "I remember talking to Drew a bit yesterday," Jacob
said after a
while, as his van was coming into sight through the trees.  "He
seemed pretty harmless."  I'd become astute enough in deciphering
Jacobese that I could read the words between his lines.  Jacob
hardly ever said anything bad about
anyone, but now he was insinuating that Drew was
harmless, but not good for much either.  From my limited experience
with Kat's new flame, I had to agree.

 

    "He's a warm body, though," I said, trying to look at
the bright side of the situation.  "We need four community members, and he makes
four.  So we're 20% of the way to our goal, right?"  Four
members down, only $30,000, a solid income, by-laws, and neighbor buy-in
to go.

 

 

 

    "Well, I can't say as I'm too thrilled you're joining
up with them hippies, Jacob," said Mrs. Anderson.  "You know
they're all commies."

 

    Despite our neighbor's words, I figured we were
making serious headway on this second of nine neighbor visits. 
Mrs. Anderson had invited us into a kitchen decorated with colorful
ceramic mushrooms that opened into flour and sugar bins, dish towels
printed with milk cows, and chickens dressed up as salt and pepper
shakers.  She'd offered us homemade cookies, which were twice as
good as the low-sugar, whole-wheat version my mother mailed me (although only
a tenth as healthful, I'm sure).  And even our neighbor's complaint wasn't
terribly heated, although I wasn't sure I understood what she was
talking about.

 

    "You mean communists?" I asked in confusion.

 

    Mrs. Anderson nodded her head in agreement.  I
couldn't seem to tear my eyes away from her lipstick, which was a
striking shade of orange, and her brow, where the hairs above her eyes
had been plucked and replaced with two solid black lines straight from a
makeup pencil.  "That's right, sugar, commies," she agreed.  "Holding a
blitzkrieg, or whatever they called it.  Right out in the open
too!  I wouldn't be surprised if they're terrorists.  Here, have some more iced tea."

 

    Mrs. Anderson topped off my glass before I could prevent it,
meaning Jacob and I were in for at least another half hour of chatting
before we could tear ourselves away.  When we did finally leave,
though, I had one neighbor's promise that if anyone asked, she would
say we had her approval...as long as we steered clear of lightning
warfare.  Plus, she said she'd sign up for our CSA if we could keep
the prices below grocery store levels, so we were making progress on multiple fronts.  Onward and upward!

 

 

 

    As we hit the rest of the neighbors' houses in quick
succession, I soon realized my job was to smile silently and look
wholesome.  Jacob knew each neighbor, at least in passing, and he
was able to turn on the charm and win each person over to his
side in relatively short order.

 

    But even though I enjoyed meeting our neighbors and seeing Jacob in
action, I have to admit that by the end of the day I was slightly traumatized by the experience, or rather, by the
poverty most of these people lived in.  Even though I'd now spent three weeks at Greensun,
the bare-bones living there felt more like camping than like doing
without, even when the oven's burner blew out with a pop and we were stuck using
the stove top only.  In contrast, our neighbors weren't having an
adventure; they were living with the day-to-day reality of hard work,
bad teeth, and absent sons and daughters, that last of which tended to flee to the big
cities as soon as they could.

 

    "But they all have big-screen TVs!" I exclaimed to
Jacob after the third such visit.  "I don't understand why you'd
buy a television if you can't afford to go to the dentist."  Jacob
shrugged, so I answered the question myself.  "To escape,
right?  If you don't feel like you have any hope of a better life,
at least you can watch one on TV.  Is that why your Mamaw wants you
to go to college, so you have access to more opportunities?"

 

    Jacob glanced at me out of the corner of his eye but
kept his attention on the road.  I'd finally determined he was
just as safe of a driver as me (and possibly much safer) after the first
week or so of working together, and now I was happy to let him stay
behind the wheel.  "When my mamaw was a kid, they didn't even have
electricity," Jacob told me, in a bit of a non sequitur.  "No well
pump, nothing.  They carried water every day for drinking, washing
up, laundry, you name it.  I wouldn't be surprised if there were
still people in these hills who live that way, and there's nothing
romantic about it."