Page 40 of Let’s Give ‘Em Pumpkin to Talk About
Twenty-Four
Day of the SPICE Pumpkin Weigh-off
Tonight he would make risotto, with plenty of butter, chunks of squash cooked in the same broth as the arborio rice, and fragrant sage complementing the sweet squash’s flavor.
He held his squashes up in the waning daylight, the slanted rays burnishing their skins.
There was something perfect about cooking a vegetable still warm from the sun, one that had never been jostled by a truck or subjected to refrigeration or grocery store handling.
Josh wished he could have won the weigh-off, of course.
It would have been good for his business; it would have been good for his ego.
And it would have given him a chance to whisk Sadie away to some dazzling and romantic locale before she left.
Part of him was saying he should simply let it all go.
She was going back to LA anyway, and being too effusive about his feelings was sure to push her away harder.
Another part of him said that he had nothing to lose. If she was leaving anyway, she might as well know how he felt. Because their kisses against the Agriculture Building at SPICE had to be as seared into her memory as they were into his.
If it wasn’t love, it was something so close as to be indistinguishable, this feeling of wanting to be everything to someone else, and letting her be everything to him.
Knowing it’s impossible to be everything and wishing for it anyway.
It was more than a crush; it was more than lust. It was the kind of magic that had been around since the dawn of time.
Did it need to be spoken in words? Wasn’t it obvious, a giant pumpkin in a patch of zucchini?
But he had an itch to mail a postcard to everyone he’d ever met, trying to capture how happy she made him, and how he’d devoted himself to her happiness in return, in case they couldn’t see it, or hadn’t noticed.
Sadie came into the kitchen, having showered the dust and sweat of the fairgrounds off her body. She wore a black lace-trimmed tank top and soft black shorts, leaving her arms and legs bare for his admiration.
“Do you have cardboard boxes you don’t need?” she asked.
“Maybe in the garage,” he said. “Why?”
“I’m going to ship some things back to LA.”
She was not going to let him continue living in this fantasy life where he had her forever.
It wasn’t exactly cruel, because she’d been clear all along, and he had been choosing to ignore the truth of her leaving.
“Could you please wait until tomorrow to start packing?” he asked. “Let’s have fun tonight.”
She looked at him with impatience.
“Are you in such a hurry to go?” he asked.
It sounded desperate and he wished he hadn’t said it.
It was mortifying, his naked neediness and insecurity.
He knew Sadie could see it. He was like a horrifying whirlpool, drawing everything in sight into it and hoping something would finally fill the void, stop the swirling, and she was over there on dry land, saying, Boy I’m glad I don’t need to go anywhere near that .
But she was curious enough to go for a little thrill ride, keeping herself tethered to shore the whole time.
“Not in a hurry, Josh. But it’s time. My whole life is back there.”
“Why not here? Or why not both?”
Her shoulders slumped. “How could I live here knowing that spending time around my parents would blow everything up? You’re too nice, and you’ll stay awake all night rather than turn on the television, or you’ll design robots to close cupboards after me. Me, around my family? Not so nice.”
He had really messed it up with the cupboards, hadn’t he?
Sadie continued. “My mother and I don’t talk.
My father and I get on each other’s nerves.
You know we once managed to get into a screaming fight about the way I consistently oversauced pasta?
He said if he’d wanted noodle soup, he would have asked for it.
Me leaving for college was the best thing that ever happened to our relationship. ”
“Have you ever thought that you might be a little less volatile now than when you were a teenager? And maybe your dad has mellowed a little?”
Sadie leveled him with her glare. “If anything, I’m more volatile, Josh.”
He had met her when she was screaming and throwing things, after all.
“And that’s not even getting into the whole thing with my mom. She wants to pretend I don’t exist, and that’s harder for her to do if we might bump into each other at the Gas ’n Go.”
“But what about Grace?”
“She knows I love her. I can love her from LA.”
“And what about me?”
There. He’d said it. If he had any hope of not being entirely swallowed by his feelings, he had to know they weren’t reciprocated.
Her eyes became glassy and her lower lip wobbled. Josh abandoned his dinner prep and scooped her into his arms.
“I wish I had a solution but I don’t,” she whispered into his shoulder. She pulled back. “It’s been amazing. But I can’t live my life walking on eggshells, looking over my shoulder. And you love it here and you should be here. I need to be where I love.”
“I think you could love it here, too. The Spinning Guild, the Growers Guild, the farmers market with Esther.”
“I want peace, Josh. I just want peace. And I let myself stray too far and I’m sorry. I never wanted to hurt you.”
“Then don’t.”
Josh wished he could take back the words.
Arguing about peace was pointless. He had thought solving his parents’ financial woes would have brought them the peace they needed, but it hadn’t.
And he thought settling down on a small farm would bring him peace, but he was still itching for what he knew money could never buy. She was standing right in front of him.
“Let’s make the best of the time we have left. Then we’ll have the memories of our little intermission.”
He relented. Deep down, he knew you couldn’t talk your way out of being broken up with. He’d never engineered a solution for that particular problem.
Sadie pulled back, keeping one hand on his shoulder. “Let me know when dinner is ready, yeah?”
He nodded and she left him alone.
Josh continued cooking, tossing the onions and squash together in a hot pan with butter to start the caramelization process. He ought to be writing down quantities, working on a new recipe for his customers, but he was going to cook from the heart tonight.
His therapist had been trying to help him recognize his patterns, like the way he overextended himself to feel like he was enough for a romantic partner.
This manifested in unfortunate ways, like his extravagant spending on dates during his tenure as a tech guy, or his extravagant spending (talk about a pattern) on sex toys for a woman who did not want what he offered.
Sadie had accused him of being the Giving Tree and it hit pretty hard.
There wasn’t anything he could give that could convince her to stay; he knew that.
But he would miss her so much. He’d become charmed by her tendency to leave a drawer open. It meant she was in his house as her whole self and not a polite ghost. He loved that with her body next to his and the ceiling fan set to full blast, he could sleep without television.
He emptied a cup of arborio rice into the pan with the onions and the squash and let it toast in the butter, the edges of each grain growing translucent as the nutty aroma filled the kitchen. He added chopped garlic and some spices and stirred.
“Sadie?” he called. He deglazed the pan with a glug of white wine from the bottle on the counter. He took a swig straight from the bottle to fortify himself.
“Ready so soon?” she asked.
She’d been in the bathroom off the kitchen, doing her makeup.
She looked so pretty, eyes lined with sharp black swoops, lips painted in a deep shade of red that was near black.
Her cheeks were blushed and apple round, looking like she’d come in from the cold.
She’d also changed into a black satin slip dress, tiny straps tracing lines as thin as tattoo ink over her shoulders.
Every contour of her body was visible, the swell of her small breasts, the divot over her belly where her navel was, the flare over her wide hips.
She certainly wasn’t wearing a bra and probably no underwear either.
Instead of dropping everything to run his hands over her body, he ladled a spoonful of simmering broth into the pan to start the risotto. The pan sizzled loudly.
“I love you,” he said when the sound subsided.
He was ready for it. For her to say I know , or I’m sure you think you do , something that would be dismissive and show him that he needed to try again, with someone attainable this time.
“I love you, too.” She exhaled shakily. He made a note of every beautiful thing in this moment so it would be indelible in his memory.
The aroma of the cooking food, the rustling leaves outside filling the silence between them, the shine on Sadie’s black cherry lips.
“Not too often that I’ve said that,” she added.
“Surely to Zach?” She bent over laughing at the mention of her high school hookup turned hog rancher. “Sorry,” he said, “leave it to me to ruin the moment. But I wanted to make sure you knew.”
She fiddled with the hem of her dress. He’d made her nervous with this heartfelt talk.
But it was better than his first ideas, which veered into his pesky problem-solving mode.
Telling her he loved her was far better than offering to sweep public spaces like an FBI agent so Sadie never had to run afoul of her mom.
Maybe a drone could do it? Or a robot companion.
Not proposing any of this was growth, right?
“I knew. I think I’ve known for a while. I still have to go back,” she said quietly.
“I know.”
He spooned more broth into the pan and continued stirring, agitating the starch from the rice grains to thicken the dish. “Can you grate the Parmesan for me?”
“Sure.” She pulled the hunk of cheese from the fridge and the grater from the drawer. She got to work while Josh watched her wistfully. He reached over to trace a finger down the column of her spine to where it disappeared inside the dress. She shivered and smiled.
“Remember when you painted me?” she asked.
As if he could ever forget that glorious mess they made of his bed. “Of course.”
He spooned more broth, continued stirring, the wooden spoon now glazed with the sauce that bound the risotto.
“It felt like you were painting words on my back, spelling something out.”
Josh smiled. She’d never mentioned it before.
“I was.”
“Do you remember what you were writing?”
Josh traced his finger on her upper back again, drawing a heart shape.
“I’m neither an artist nor a poet, I must say,” Josh said. “I drew a heart, and inside it…” he traced the words out again “…I wrote ‘BE MINE.’”
“Like a valentine,” she said.
“I’ve always wanted one.” He wasn’t saying it to add guilt to her decision to leave. He was being honest. Sadie may hiss at his earnestness, but he didn’t want to hold back from her.
“I’ve wanted one, too,” she admitted. Josh raised his eyebrows in surprise, and she quickly amended her statement. “Not a teddy bear and a rose or anything like that.”
“No, I should think vanquishing your enemies would do. Maybe a nice piece of jewelry. A poison ring or a necklace hiding a tiny dagger.”
“You get it.” She sauntered off, leaving him to continue cooking in silence and solitude.
The rice plumped with the ladlefuls of broth he added one by one.
When it was time to finish the dish, he tipped the bowl of Parmesan Sadie had grated for him into the pan, stirring it until it melted.
Once it had fully incorporated, he hit the dish with the final touches, freshly cracked pepper, flaky salt, sage, and a little lemon zest to brighten everything up.
Sadie had set the table, moving the bottle of white wine opened for cooking over to the table. Josh served up two dishes with dollops of risotto, grating a little more Parmesan over the top.
Sadie was a vision in that slip dress. The light from the taper candle she’d lit made the shiny fabric glow. She was like a sinuous shadow, pulling him toward her. He placed her plate before her and sat down opposite.
Wine had already been poured, a generous amount that looked like indulgence and promise.
“Here’s to the Sadie Fox squash,” he said.
“Here’s to my squash,” she repeated. “May it be a more successful crop than the giant pumpkins.”
Josh was so excited. This year’s crop of Squash 2.
0 was so abundant and beautiful, and he could hardly wait to share it, with his farmers market customers, with the local restaurants, and eventually, far and wide.
He didn’t want a silly game like Pinchy Boi to be his legacy.
He wanted it to be this squash, one that would be served at holiday meals for generations, one that would win ribbons at fairs and show gardeners the joy of growing their own food.
Even if he didn’t have Sadie after this growing season, he’d have the Sadie squash.
He raised the first forkful in another toast.
He took a bite.
It tasted awful.