Page 17 of Grounded (May Hollow Trilogy #1)

Choke, gas, starter . Annie leaned down and pulled hard on the starter chord. It didn’t start. She pulled again. Nothing. Hands on her hips, Annie stood and tried to think of what to do next. Then she saw a black pickup ease up the drive and stop.

Betty and Joe Gibson got out and Annie met them between the garden and the drive. Betty waved excitedly while Joe trailed behind her.

“Law have mercy, our little Annie here at last!” Betty Gibson pulled Annie into her comfortable folds of flesh.

“It’s good to see you,” Annie said, trying hard to get her breath from Betty’s tight grip. When Betty released her, Annie turned to Joe, who tipped his hat. He was a wiry, little man, the polar opposite of his wife both in appearance and demeanor.

“Child, we are so glad you’re here! I declare, I could nearly pinch myself.”

“You still flying?” Joe asked.

“Not right now, but I’ll start back in a few months.”

“Oh law,” Betty said. “Joe, fetch those pies out of the car, please. I plumb forgot what I came for.”

Joe returned carrying two pie plates, each covered with a kitchen towel.

“Are those your Derby pies?” Annie asked, her mouth watering at the thought.

“Yes.” Betty grinned. “Except we can’t call them Derby pies anymore because of some trademark business. Now we call them Kentucky nut pies, but we all know what they are.” Her full lips outlined perfectly straight, white teeth, and her blue eyes grew big and she leaned in as if to tell a secret.

“We had a pie auction at church last Saturday night, and don’t you know my pies went for fifty dollars each?

Course, it was for the youth’s annual mission trip up in the mountains, so it was for a good cause, but I declare, I never heard tell of sellin’ a pie for fifty dollars.

Tickled me pink, I must admit.” Betty glanced up to the sky meekly. “Lord forgive me.”

“Come on in,” Annie said. “I’ve got some coffee on.”

“No, no, we have to go,” Betty said. “We’ve got to run to town for some groceries.”

“I’ll get your tiller started for you,” Joe said. “Sometimes it needs a little gas poured on the carburetor.”

In less than a minute, Joe had the motor roaring.

He turned it over to her and she yelled her “thanks” above the engine noise.

Annie waved and waited until they left before allowing the machine to inch forward by pulling the bar below the handle.

She settled it into the row she wanted to till, then pulled the lever to lower the tines.

Steadying the machine and trying to direct it in a straight line meant a strong hold on the handles.

Great for upper body conditioning, she thought, as she felt the muscles in her arms tighten.

As she guided the machine slowly down the row, black dirt was tossed like a salad behind the twirling tines. It looked so rich and loose, she regretted having to leave her footprints in the soil as she walked over the newly worked dirt.

She released the tines, moved out on the grass, turned and went back into the garden.

Release, turn, engage, forward, she thought.

It was almost rhythmic, like a familiar song she hadn’t heard in years.

Release, turn, engage, forward. It felt good to do something physical, something outside in the sunshine rather than closed up in a fuselage or a tiny apartment.

At the last turn, Annie saw a man walk around the corner of the house.

She felt slightly irritated. How did anyone get any work done with neighbors stopping by all the time?

She made the turn and ignored the approaching man behind her, determined to finish the row.

Before the next turn, she flicked the off switch and let the motor purr to a stop.

“Annie May, Beulah said I’d find you in the garden but I didn’t really believe it.”

“Jake!”

And without speaking another word, they embraced.

When they released each other, Annie suddenly felt self-conscious. She was sweaty and dirty after all. And Jake smelled so clean and looked so grown up with a day’s growth of beard and his T-shirt stretched over broad shoulders.

“You look great, like always,” he said.

Annie smiled back and noticed the tiny scar over his left eye, the one he had gotten playing baseball, and the familiar smile with the one front tooth that turned in slightly. She knew his features as if they were her own, and yet he seemed so different. The boy she had known was gone.

“I’m sure I’m a mess,” she said, pushing the hair off her face with the back of her hand. “I forgot how much hard work this is!”

“Hard on the body, but good for the soul,” he said, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Wanna take a break?”

She nodded and they moved to the old maple and sat down under its shade.

“I guess banking hasn’t been too good for the soul lately, what with the economy and all,” Annie said.

“Crazy. It’s unbelievable how much debt people took on, and the banks were right there feeding the addiction. You know what Fred always said: ‘Debt is bad, saving is good.’ ”

Jake waited for her to finish.

“ ‘Giving is fun, stuff is meaningless,’ ” she continued, laughing. “Remember that summer when he made us memorize it? We were helping him paint the fence, over and over.”

“It stuck with me. Simple wisdom is the best,” he said, fiddling with a small stick. “And what about you? Mom said you’re waiting to be rehired by the new airline. How long will you be here?”

“A couple of weeks at least, maybe more,” she said. “Although I won’t get rehired that fast. I have some things I need to work out as soon as I can, like where to live.”

“Sounds like you hit a little turbulence,” he said, his eyes on the stick he twirled through his fingers.

“Yeah,” Annie said. “I guess that’s a good way to put it.”

He tossed the stick and stood. “How about I give you a break and finish the last row? I need something to brag to Beulah about tonight when we go to dinner.”

Annie smiled back at him. “You don’t have to brag. She already thinks you hung the moon.”

“Misguided, but I’ll never set her straight!” he said.

Annie laughed, remembering how Beulah never acknowledged Jake’s mischievous side, a quality well known to the rest of them.

When they were twelve, Jake shot his .22 rifle into their chicken house and killed one of the chickens.

Annie was sure he was in for it from her grandmother, but Beulah had defended him completely, saying, “I was about ready for a fried chicken dinner, and it was a nice clean shot.”

Inside, Annie poured each of them a glass of sweet tea. She watched through the window as Jake finished the last row, handling the machine as if he had done it a hundred times.

The last time they were together was his father’s funeral. With hoards of people gathered, they had stolen some time during the meal at his home. But they were soon interrupted and then she had to go back to New York.

When her own grandfather had died, Jake was in Asia and unable to get home in time for the funeral. When he did come to pay his respects to Beulah, Annie had already gone back to work. There had been phone calls from time to time, just to keep in touch, but very little time together.

He turned the machine off, wheeled it into the storage shed, and strode toward her on the back porch. She handed him the glass of tea and they sat down on the metal chairs.

“What about you? Evelyn said you were deciding what to do next. Any ideas?”

“Lots of ideas. Camille’s dad—Camille is my girlfriend—wants me to go into the hotel business with him. But my real passion is farming. I want to spend the next few weeks exploring that option first.”

“You know firsthand how hard it is, Jake. Nobody can make a living anymore without a big operation.”

“That’s exactly the point. The land has to be managed in a way that makes it sustainable and not part of some big food machine.

” He ran his fingers through his hair, a sign of frustration Annie recognized from their childhood.

“Things have to change, and I want to be a part of it. As it turns out, there are some guys over in Rutherford who are thinking the same way. We’re meeting this week to talk. ”

“What does your girlfriend think of all this?”

A dandelion was growing between a crack in the concrete porch. Annie bent down and picked it.

Jake leaned back in his chair and thought for a few seconds.

“Naturally, she would like to see me go into business with her father. He was actually a friend of mine before I met Camille,” he said.

“But she’s supportive. I think she’ll come around, especially after she spends some time here this summer.

” He looked at his watch. “I better get home. Mom needs help moving some furniture. Wanna walk to the crossover?”

“Sure,” Annie said.

“Good. So you can tell me about this guy.”

Annie felt her chest tighten. “There’s not much to tell. I made a stupid mistake. Now that I’m away from him, I don’t even know how I fell for him in the first place. My same old pattern.”

“Sounds like it,” he said. She stopped suddenly, surprised he agreed with her.

“I don’t mean it that way,” he said, grinning and steeling himself for her punch in the arm. “I mean it is your same old pattern, but it’s because you pick guys you can walk away from.”

“I don’t exactly see you settled down either,” she said.

“No, but I’m getting close. Camille could be the one,” he said.

“Really,” she said. “It’s kind of weird to hear you say that.”

“I think it’s the first time I’ve said it, out loud anyway.”

They came to the entrance of the long tobacco barn and stopped at the open doors. “You better get her down here quick to make sure she knows what she’s getting into. Maybe arrange for some tobacco work, something to break her into farm life,” Annie said.

Jake laughed.

“I’m not sure I can see her doing that. A few of those tobacco worms would send her running into the house. Anyway, that’s history, so we’ll have to come up with something else.”

“Remember all those hot summers, breaking off the tops, row by row?” Annie asked, looking up at the barn.

“And the cold winters in the tobacco stripping room? You bet I do. I can still smell it.”

They were both thoughtful for a moment.

Annie noticed the barn was still in good shape, its long, slim openings on the sides closed now because there was no tobacco to air out.

Inside, the tier poles crisscrossed up to the vaulted tin roof, where men balanced precariously when the tobacco was strung onto sticks and hung to dry.

From man to man to man, they took the tobacco to the top first and through the assembly line, working their way down until the entire barn was filled with the sweet-smelling plants.

Annie was usually on the wagon, handing the sticks loaded with green and yellow leaves to the next person in line.

Jake was always with the men in the tiers, close to the top.

The barn had not been used for years since the tobacco buyout had ended the Depression-era subsidy.

But for generations, Kentuckians had been dependent on the crop and lives were planned around its seasons just as a brown thread might be woven through a tapestry.

It was part of Annie’s heritage, no matter her thoughts on the end product.

“Kind of sad for it to sit empty, but it was built for only one use,” Annie said, still lost in her thoughts.

“I’ve heard of some farmers doing innovative things with their barns, like goat dairies, farm-to-table restaurants and even lodges,” Jake said.

“It seems a waste sitting here empty, but I doubt my grandmother has the energy or money to try and make anything useful of hers. She needs to sell the farm and move to town.”

“Whoa, wait a minute. Then what would she do?”

“Well, same thing she does now, but on one story and with neighbors close by.”

“She has neighbors here. The house is big enough for a first-floor bedroom. What else?”

“She worries about it financially. You’ve seen the place, Jake! Everywhere you look something needs to be repaired or painted. In fact, she rented the stone house to a complete stranger because she offered two thousand in cash for the summer.”

“Sounds like a good business deal to me,” he said, grinning.

The banter was a game to him, and Annie refused to let him win quite yet. “It’s too much for her age.”

“She’s barely over seventy. That’s the new fifty,” he said.

Annie shoved him gently, both laughing as if they were kids all over again.

When they reached the rock fence separating the Wilder farm from the Campbell farm, Annie hung back. Stone steps built into the wall had allowed an easy climb over. Ivy grew over the steps now, and they were barely visible, but they had once been a worn gateway into each other’s world.

“See you tonight,” Jake said, climbing the wall steps and jumping off the other side.

Annie walked home alongside the rock fence, thinking back over their time together. Jake was like a brother to her, yet the years had pushed them apart. Being with him again reminded her of their easy relationship, of how he made her laugh and his positive view of life.

It was strange, this feeling of not missing someone until you were with them, then wondering how you had gotten along so many years without them.