Watermelon Summer (17 page)

 

    As we walked, I realized I knew one thing for sure—I couldn't let this
feeling go.  We had to find a way to save Greensun.

 

 

 

    The fire was raging when Jacob and I returned
with two grocery bags full of pine cones.  As we drifted back
into the circle, the Exes had settled onto various buckets, logs,
and a few ancient chairs, far enough away from the fire not to bake,
but
close enough to enjoy the flickering colors.  Glen's poultry
had emerged from the log barn, and the peacock treated us to a
display of turquoise, indigo, and yellow feathers, while Lucy ran
studiously after sticks of all sizes but didn't manage to bring
any back.

 

    Although the pine cones were greeted with
appreciation, the Exes were quick to return to their tales of time
past.  Their reminiscences flowed in eddies, with
spurts of rapids as a common memory sucked various members into the
conversation.  I should have felt out of place due to the age
difference between myself and most of the Exes, but instead, Arvil
dragged me right into the
middle of the bantering mess of stories.  "...And then I yelled
across the raging torrent, 'Are you Forsythia Green?'..." he was
telling the crowd, and I couldn't help grinning along with everyone
else at the totally-true tall tale.

 

    "So that's why Glen isn't here?" Bill asked
when Arvil's story came to a dramatic conclusion.  "Surely he's out of the hospital by now."

 

    "You shouldn't sound so surprised," responded a women
whose name I'd missed.  "It's just like him to call
a meeting and not show up.  Remember the big sweet potato
harvest of 1994?  He planted what, a hundred plants?  Then
went
to a protest the weekend they had to be harvested."

 

    "Three hundred," Carol corrected.  "Mom was
so
mad at him, she could have spit when the time came to dig all those
potatoes.  But what she always forgets is that the sweet potatoes
were delicious, and as I recall, they were all we could afford to eat
most of that
winter, so I guess his vision paid off."  Susan just smiled at
her daughter's memory and didn't join either the Glen-bashing or
Glen-adoring camp.

 

    "He's really not coming?" Kitty chimed in next,
her disappointment clear.  No one, not even Arvil, seemed to have a
solid answer for Kitty's question, but this seemed like as good a time
as any to make our case.  Jacob caught my eye, I nodded at Kat, and
she stood up, drawing every eye toward her.

 

    "In the absence of Glen, I thought we should talk
about his letter," my sister said theatrically, whipping a sheet of
paper through the air.  I was pretty sure this wasn't actually
Glen's letter since Kat had asked me to remind her about the terms our
bio-dad's ultimatum just yesterday, and I'd had to hunt down my
bedraggled copy to answer her question.  But the prop looked good,
and Kat's actions firmly settled the attention of the group on her
shoulders.

 

    "Like Carol said," Kat continued, "Dad had a vision,
and now it's up to us to make that vision a reality.  Me and Thia
and Jacob have been working hard for the last few weeks to start
meeting Glen's requirements, the details of which my partners will tell
you more about in a minute.  But right now, I want each of you to
think long and hard about whether you're willing to let Greensun be sold
to strangers.  If everyone here chipped in $2,000, we'd have
enough to buy the land, and with a little help from each of you, we can
jump through the other hoops too.  Thia has already ponied up her
share—are you really going to let an eighteen-year-old outdo you?"

 

    I thought Kat's impassioned speech was perfect, but
the muttered commentary beside me lowered my expectations just as I
stood up to face the crowd in turn.  "Sometimes she sounds just like her
father," a woman whispered to her neighbor, and the commenter's tone
told me the resemblance wasn't a good thing.

 

 

 

    "...and Jacob's videos have been bringing in a lot of
visitors from Youtube," I said, coming to the end of my spiel. 
"Granted, we've only made $10 this month from ads on our site, and we
spent a bit more than that getting started, but there seems to be a lot
of interest and our readership is growing fast.  Between that and
the CSA, we're hopeful we'll be able to meet Glen's income requirements
by this time next year."

 

    "So what do you say?" asked Kat, picking up the
figurative baton as I dropped back down into my seat on the grass. 
I was glad to be out of the limelight and my sister was just as glad
to leap back into it.  "Who wants to join in the new-and-improved
Greensun?"

 

    In my daydreams, every Ex would have leaped to his or
her feet and clustered around Kat like the permablitz participants had,
asking what she wanted them to do first.  I knew reality wouldn't
be quite like that, but I wasn't prepared for the long, dead silence,
and the pitying glances a few of the Exes sent my way.

 

    Finally, the snarky whisperer spoke up with the words
that seemed to be on everyone's mind.  "Well, good luck, kids,"
she said, standing to leave the fire-lit circle.  "I hope you can
do it.  Hey, does anyone want another beer while I'm up?"

 

    And then people started offering critiques, but no
one seemed interested in joining our group or even in giving us useful
advice.  Storm's words seemed to sum up the consensus.  "Let's
be honest, who would want to live
here?" she asked rhetorically.  I'd thought Storm was the
crunchiest of the
Exes, with her and her son's hippie names, especially after I'd
overheard her talking about co-ops, homeschooling, and vegetable
gardens.  Surely Storm hadn't thrown all of Greensun's ideals
away?  But my
last hope made it clear that she was no longer interested in the
farm.  "No one wants to live without indoor plumbing," she
explained with a shrug.

 

    My stomach felt completely empty, despite the
three s'mores I'd wolfed down just a few minutes earlier. 
Looking
at each of the Exes in turn, I could tell Greensun was sunk—the
community had no advocate left among the people who had loved the farm
enough
to drive or fly hours to get here this weekend.  "I'm sorry,
honey," said Susan, reaching over to pat my shoulder
comfortingly.  "We loved it here once too, but Greensun was
never really meant to
be."

 

    And a few hours later, the Exes were gone.

 

 

 

    The one good thing about our failed attempt to rally
support at the Greensun meeting is that we suddenly had plenty of cash
for our projects.  As everyone was drifting away Sunday morning,
Arvil took me aside and handed me the exact same check I'd mailed in six
weeks prior, along with a few other checks and cash contributions from
the Exes.  Glen had never banked my offering, figuring it was a
stake in a project that might not become a reality, so now the money was
coming back to me.

 

    Jacob and my parents all thought I should just tear
up the check and start college $2,000 richer, but I'd gotten my teeth
into the Greensun project and wasn't willing to let it go.  "I'm
going to use the money to make our business grow," I'd said
stubbornly, and Kat had been quick to get on board with my plan. 
Greensun's household coffers were at an all-time low, and our wish list
had been getting longer and longer.  We needed to restock the
kitchen (especially since we'd yet to cross the bridge of evicting
Drew), the garden could use some basic supplies like a wheelbarrow and
tool replacements, and Kat was trying to talk us into trading in her car
(along with a chunk of the Greensun money) to upgrade to a pickup
truck.

 

    "This garden will really take off if we're able to
haul in extra biomass!" my sister enthused, although I also thought she
was getting sick of having to park on the road so she'd be able to roll
her current vehicle into a jump start if it was acting up.

 

    Of course, Jacob and Kat didn't see eye to eye on
possible expenditures.  "If we're going to use up a big chunk of
change, I think we'd be better off paying to get a phone line
installed," my boyfriend countered.  "There's only so much we can do with our
online business if we have to go to the library every time we want to
make updates."  Then, turning his attention to me, Jacob returned
to his original argument.  "But I still think you should just open a
bank account in your name and keep most of the money there.  It's
not safe to have that much cash lying around down here, and it's yours
anyway."

 

    "It's ours," I disagreed, but couldn't help shooting
Jacob a smile as I thought about our kiss the previous day. 
There'd been too many people around to find another quiet moment
together, but just looking at Jacob made my heart beat a little
faster.  "And you know the money's perfectly safe down here. 
No one who didn't know it was there could find it hidden behind all the
junk in the kitchen."

 

    So I made my first big mistake and put temptation in the way of our  budding community.

 

 

 

    In the terrible week that followed, Jacob told me
that you have to choose your memories. This is the one I want to keep
forever.

 

    "The dog days of summer," Kat groaned.  "Why doesn't this place have air conditioning?"

 

    The four of us (yes, even Drew) were lounging inside
the dim farmhouse, hiding from the heat.  Supposedly, we were having
a business meeting, but we were actually sweating too hard to think
straight.  Drew had been so quiet I thought he'd fallen asleep,
until he came up with a brilliant suggestion.

 

    "The river," he grunted.  It had started driving
me crazy lately that Drew was so lazy he refused to utter a sentence
when a phrase would do, but this was a brilliant phrase.

 

    "The river!" Kat enthused, picking up the idea and
running with it.  "We need iced tea and sunscreen and river
shoes...."